Visiting Lugulu, Carey's Home for Three Years

On Monday we rented a car to go visit Lugulu, where Carey taught secondary school for three years with the Peace Corps.  Lugulu is in Western Kenya, near the border with Uganda.  A rental car here is even more expensive than in the U.S., but to use public transport we would have to take about 7 different matatus and would probably spend most of the day waiting.

Instead, we had a tiny red Toyota with tinted windows and lots of decals: “Hot Blooded,” “Phat Farm," "When I grow up I want to be a Hummer," "Don't Touch! Red Hot!" and others.

Our car, "the alien spaceship," parked on the road between Carey's house and the school.

Our trip was smooth.  We left our house shortly after 7.  The quality of the roads varies.   The main road to Uganda is a two lane road and sees a lot of truck traffic, and they really tear it up.  I’d see a red patch in the road ahead, and it could either be a little dirt on the road or a foot deep pothole.  On some of the hills there had been attempts at repairs that had turned into washboard asphalt.  Still, Carey remarked that the road is much better than when she had last traveled it.  Then it was hard to tell it was paved, and cars wove around the road and the shoulders to avoid potholes.

This is the main road to Uganda.  Some of these asphalt washboards are big!

We turned off the main road onto smaller and smaller roads as we approached Lugulu.  We stopped for  a drink in Butula where Uhuru and Apollo found a skinny cat on whom to lavish their affections.  Butula was the town where Carey would stash her bicycle when traveling from home because that was the nearest town with public transportation.  About 5km from Butula, we crested a hill and arrived in Lugulu around noon.

Lugulu A.C. Secondary School is right across the street from Carey’s old house.  We parked our car, which we had begun to refer to as our “alien spaceship.”  There was almost no vehicle traffic through Lugulu and our “landing” in Lugulu would cause a stir among the primary school children.

We first walked around the secondary school, which was on holiday.  We saw the library that Carey had constructed, which was now converted to a classroom.  There were many new buildings at the school.  We saw about a half dozen monkeys playing near the boys dorms; Carey hadn’t seen any there before.

New science lab at Lugulu AC High School

There was almost no one around the school, so we went across the street to Carey’s old house.  A teacher at the school was living there, and he invited us in.  Carey said the house looked pretty much the same, but that the walls were dirtier.

Inside Carey's house with current residents

Lugulu is known its boulders.  There is an enormous boulder on the grounds of the primary school.  Carey used to walk out the back of the high school and sit on top.  There was a new fence, so we had to enter the front gate of the primary school to reach the rock.  Four white folks climbing the rock outside the school proved much more interesting than lessons, and the entire school poured out to see what we were up to.  We met some of the teachers and apologized for interrupting their lessons.  Carey gave a short talk to all the students.

Students leave class to see what the mzungus are up to.

All the people that Carey is in touch with (both students and teachers) have moved on.  One of her roommates is a judge in a larger city.  Another has moved to Nairobi.  The former headmaster died.  A good friend moved to the Maldives and died of meningitis.  We met one of Carey’s former students on our way through Nairobi. 

Lugulu is way off the beaten track, and there are few white visitors.  Even in Iten, which has more mzungus, children rush out to greet us yelling “How are you?” as we pass.  So we were quite a curiosity in Lugulu.  We left the primary school, climbed into our alien spaceship, and drove off to find lunch.

.