Kampala, June 23

Barbara and I went down to the lake with the group to see them off on their boat expedition to the Ngamba Island chimpanzee sanctuary.The event moved slowly - it unfolded, as we've come to say. After the group left on their boat, Richard Akiiki drove Barbara and me from Entebbe to Kampala to buy textbooks and to visit a charity organization that helps schools plant indigenous trees.

On the way we learned that Ugandans call the lake Victoria when among non-Ugandans but Naruballi among themselves. The local names that have persisted for hundreds or thousands of years remain alive no matter what the rest of the world says the official name might be. Most likely the local names will supplant the imposed ones, as has happened for example in India in the last several years. Some Indian people, though, say that names don't really matter, and the effort to change the name of Bombay to Mumbai wasn't worth it. We are after all more global everyday, and probably for the better in most ways. Before the Bantu migrated east into what is now Uganda thousands of years ago, Naruballi must have had a different name. And a thousand years from now it'll have yet another name.

Also on the road to Kampala, there's an unusually large billboard filled with a photo of a beaming Juliana Kanyomozi, who's one of the most popular singers in Uganda. She's a Tooro from Fort Portal. The Batooro people are immensely proud of her.

A striking change from three years ago is the number of new wireless services and their service franchises along the roads. The service providers, among them principally Uganda Telecom, MTN and Warid, paint franchise shop façades their corporate colors in exchange for licensing the franchise and placing their advertising on the façade. In a tiny strip mall of 5 or 10 stalls and stores, half might be wireless franchises, sometimes even all for the same service. (Paint vendors seem to be doing well too; could this be part of why?)

Kampala roads and streets are a riot of color and action. Richard Akiiki and others from Tooro don't like the city: "It's troublesome, dirty, polluted". The air is heavy and pungent with exhaust fumes from ancient vehicles, charcoal smoke, and the not-unattractive sour smell of tropical vegetation and wet soil. But the city is tremendously alive, growing, rising up, spreading, vital.

Back in Entebbe in the late afternoon, we all walked in a large group to an exchange office that offers very good rates. We were the center of attention for hundreds of eyes every second of the way as we wandered around half lost. A young Ugandan man accosted us, trying to sell us small handmade necklaces. We said no. He persisted. When we kept on saying no he turned accusatory, saying that the whites have abused the Africans and that our day of comeuppance would be soon. We didn't try to tell him that our mission is ultimately in support of that day. Nor did we try to tell him that Africans would have abused whites the same way had the power balance been reversed. This was the only overt hostility Barbara and I have experienced in two trips. It rattled the whole group a bit. We ended up phoning our vehicle and being driven back to the hotel, rather than walking back carrying what onlookers would know to be thousands of dollars worth of Ugandan cash. The guidebooks warn explicitly against letting people know you have lots of cash with you.

We had an excellent barbecue that night at the Boma Hotel, featuring native tilapia from Naruballi. Someone asked if the the Southern Cross constellation might be visible - and there it was, halfway up the southern night sky, placed perfectly in a break among buildings and trees for us to view.