Arua, Uganda

After a fairly sleepless night, the plan today was to go out and begin surveying the traders in Arua, which due to its strategic location has benefited tremendously from the conflicts in The Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. As protocol requires, we went to the see the head of the Chamber of Commerce to get his permission to conduct our survey. He was quite happy to see us and happily signed the letter of introduction from our hosts at SSARP and the Yei Chamber of Commerce. However, he said that we would need to get the Mayor to sign it, and he would only be available after lunch, so we made our way back to the hotel to relax and catch-up on the paperwork that had built up the last few days.

During our time off, I found some liquified ice cream for breakfast, which was excellent in the morning heat! After lunch we made our way back to the Mayor’s office, who promptly refused to sign the letter because it was not addressed to him, and asked us to leave. We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get a letter from Yei, addressed specifically to the Mayor (and his four underlings). Once in possession of this, we finally got his (and the four other requisite) signatures and were able to proceed; unfortunately, we had lost most of the day, but out enthusiastic team still went out at 4:30pm to see what they could get. Two hours later, they came back with nine completed interviews, which was not bad given what had preceded us the day before.

While waiting for them to return, I went off and had a quick lunch at the Indian restaurant and then sat outside my hotel under a huge tree reading my book. Around dusk, two women appeared and spread some fine Congolese cloth on the ground that they were touting. Although I wasn’t interested in buying any, I did chat with them and learnt that they were refugees from the DRC. Oh, and their kids were absolutely delightful – one kept running off every time his mother talked to me or anyone else, and the other, a seven month old baby, just couldn’t stop smiling and laughing when I talked to her. I suspect she thought I was funny-looking, which wouldn’t be a first.

Given that I was not happy with my insect companions the previous night, I decided to go into my room and proceed to kill every bug that I could see or hear; I am pleased to say that I was successful, and had a very good night’s sleep. Too bad we had to wake up super-early for our 7:00am departure.