LITTLE ADVENTURE.
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Jabar Yunus.
Acknowledgement.
You- thank you for looking at this, keep going. You’ll like it I promise.
Aunty Edine - you’ve got the eye Jabar. Thanks a lot for making me realize the beauty of photography.
Mom- You bought a house near the longest river in the world. U made this adventure possible.
Myself- I thank myself for having an open mind. This kept me going.
Chapter One.
The only chapter
’what a view!’ I thought. I wished u could reach it. That morning I had left home assuring Etteby of bow I could come back with fish no matter what. ’It’s just a matter of talking to the fishermen nicely, and they would let me hook out at least one fish from the waters, ’ I said to her.
’Good luck, ’ she said in a doubtful voice.
’Thanks’ I said as I left.
Molex resort wasn't from home. It was just by the river side. A friend of mine worked there. The place had nice paintings around it.
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I met Lucas but he speaking on phone so I greeted him with a hand signal. I had come to sweet talk the fishermen for a ride and some fishing in the Nile but this view changed everything.
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I saw this island. I just wanted to reach it no matter what. But I could as well do some fishing on my way there.
At the shores of this island, I noticed someone in a boat. It was a boy. ’Could he hear me?’ I thought. I tried making some random noise and he turned his head towards me.
He could hear me.
’hey!’ I called out to him. But he didn't seem to be interested in whatever I had to say. All I needed was him to give me my first ride in a Ugandan local boat and I would finally call it an adventure.
’Gwe..ntwaalaako’ I called out to him in luganda as I waved my hands for him to see. But no. He was not ready to put a stranger on his boat to cross to an island in the middle of the world’s longest river.
Down I sat for a few moments. Contemplating, thinking of how I could convince him to float me over to the island on his boat. I needed to device a plan for him to accept my request.
So up I stood and shouted again. ’Gwe..ntwaalaako, ’ I requested. He shook his head no. ’nyinamu olwaasa.’ I added. And boom, he was ready to work. ’olwaasa’ is a Luganda slung used by mostly the youth in Uganda to mean a thousand shillings.
In a swift way I saw the boy turn around his boat ready for the task. I was just amazed by how fast he responded when I told him I had something to offer. Fast I moved away letting him know that I was going to get some changed money is could get what is just enough for him.
So I went back to the resort reception and asked Charles to give me some change.
’Charles, might you be having some change for this?’ I said as I showed him the note of 5000 Ugandan shillings.
There was a silence for about a second or two...as though he was trying to recall if he had some changed money on him.
’Yes.’ replied Charles as he got up from where he was seated towards the view of the river. Turning around to my direction and so do. Our backs facing the river, we move into the room that had the changed money.
’Would u keep this for me too’ I requested as I handed him my wallet for the fear that the bit who got excited over 1000ug shillings might just snatch it.
’it's ok don't worry, no one can steal it. Such characters are rear in our place here.’ so feel at ease with your staff with you.
’ok’ I agreed as I moved back to the river side...fast.
Surprisingly the boy was already there waiting, it didn't take him long to make it to where I was because of his expertise in rolling ’elyaato’. ’Elyaato’ is a Luganda word used in Uganda to mean boat.
I tried hard to make him tell me more about him but he seemed not to have much to say. I also tried to ask if u could catch at least one fish with him on his boat but in vain.
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Much younger than Musa, louder and balder was Musa's other companion. I small boy that seemed to know the answer to everything and a question for everything. He could make u feel almost like he was interviewing me. I remember him asking me what I had come to do the island the very first time we met. And for him everything had a price. He wasn't old enough to be that sharp about money. In the photo above, he is left of Musa. You cannot estimate his higher than 8 years. He was so little. At some point he even told me, ’Musa and I are the guardians of this island, so u have to pay us some money.’
I just gave him and continued taking photos of the place. He had too much to say that I had to just agree to whatever he said. I also noticed that Musa didn't like it but it just interested me. I recorded most what he spoke because at some point, he would talk and even lose his breath .
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Musa had to take me back and get to work. Surprisingly, the ’elyaato’ was not his so we had to go. An older fisherman had assigned him a task for a small payment. So then, I had to leave. The younger boy wanted to come along with us but Misa said, ’Gwe sigala oyogera nnyo’.
On my voyage back I asked if I could roll the boat the way he did but he didn't think so.
So I insisted, ’ let me just have a go...and that will be it, I promise.’
He let me do it and I even convinced him to take this pic of me.
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At first, felt like having fun but I just had no clue how to direct it to where I wanted it to go. All my effort to direct it was in vain. We were instead moving round and round and round. Like there was a black hole taking us.
Remember we were crossing the longest river in the world.
’Nga tugenda.’ Musa was scared the river was taking us.
I didn't waste time giving him his gadget for rolling the boat as I also picked mine for taking photos from him.
Be quickly started rolling the boat opposing the flow of the river but it was it was getting harder and harder. Since the river was flowing faster and faster.
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After the whole fight with the water, we were able to land just on the mainland just assurance from where he had picked me. Now I owed him one. But first I owed him 1000ug shillings.
He was so happy that I had stuck to my word.
I gave it to him and still couldn't believe that adventuring could almost cost nothing. And that motivated me to many other adventures.
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Sometimes in life we need to just give it a go, and keep going. Maybe we could find what life has really got for us out there.
Author - Jabar Yunus
JoPhotographer - Jabar Yunus.
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Will soom be available on ebooks, books, Amazon kindle and other libraries.
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