Hitting a Slice off the 8th Tee… Into the Heart of Darkness

                In the fall of 2009, fate landed me in northern Uganda, about 30 km from the Sudanese border.  Uganda had always seemed like a mysterious destination full of strange sights, exotic animals, and unspeakable tragedy.  I never expected golf.

                Northern Uganda was stunningly simple in its beauty. From the air, you could see green, rolling plains; rivers and roads,;and countless little villages of mud and grass huts.  The ground was actually red clay… Something I’m very familiar with in my home outside Atlanta.  If you added pine trees, it would look like Southwest Georgia.  But of all that beauty, the greatest surprise was the Ugandan People.  Although a bit apprehensive at first, the local people were extraordinarily warm and welcoming. 

             Being on the equator, I was obsessively curious about the Coriolis Effect.  As one of those great abstract theories I learned in school, I was intrigued by the concept.  In physics, the Coriolis Effect is a “deflection of moving objects when they are viewed from a rotating reference frame”… whatever that means.  Moving past my freshman physics class (which I passed with a triumphant ‘C’) to a more practical application, I wanted to see if the legend of the Coriolis Effect was true: That if toilets swirled clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, what happens directly on the equator? I was soon disappointed… No toilets.

                                  

               Probably my biggest hobby and greatest source of stress relief is running.  I’m not very fast, and my distance is far from… far, but I enjoy it.  I’ve always said that I’m a beer drinker with a running problem.  I enjoy running in new and different places.  I’ve run on five continents, and enjoyed some pretty unusual scenery.  I tried to squeeze in as many runs as I could, despite the rather austere conditions and busy schedule.  On an early morning run on the perimeter of our camp outside of Kitgum, two female colleagues ran by and one made a startled comment: “[Lance], you should run with a ‘buddy’ out here!  It could be dangerous!”  I ignored her advice.  Finally, after a few more days and a few more reminders, I was confronted by another member of the team back in the camp.  It went something like this:

 “Seriously [Lance], you need to run with someone out there!”

 I was getting annoyed… “Why? Seriously, what could possibly happen?”  A crowd started to gather.

Searching for something profound, he blurted “You could be eaten by a lion!”

A lion, I thought… I replied enthusiastically “Wow!  Actually, that would be pretty epic!”

               Both he and the crowd were stunned by my response.  I continued: “Back home, there’s a funeral home just up the street from me that’s like a mega-plex theater!  They can do like 24 funerals simultaneously!  It’s awesome!  I can see it now… in the first chapel is Old Lady Smith, died at age 89 in the rest home.  Next is Zippy, perished in a motorcycle wreck, then Al who had a heart attack watching Spiderman, then: ‘Lance… Eaten by lion in Africa’.  People would ditch the other funerals just to see mine!  I’d fill the big room!  And I know that you smartasses would probably hire a preacher that looks and dresses like Idi Amin, hang a fake lion’s tail out of my casket, and play ‘Hakuna Matada’ and ‘Circle of Life’ as hymns.  The actual getting-eaten-by-a-lion part would suck, but the funeral would be legendary!”

At that point, he just hung his head and walked away.  The crowd giggled, and I made it through the rest of the trip without a scratch let alone being eaten by anything.

 As our time wound down, we were preparing to move from northern Uganda back to Entebbe to prepare for our flight out.  The day before we left, the local community did a ‘cultural day’ for us complete with local dance groups and musicians.  It was an incredible day I will never forget.

We left early the next morning, and not long after reaching Entebbe we got the news: Our broken plane was stuck in Greece waiting for parts.  In my traveling life, I’ve noticed that aircraft, especially charter or military, tend to break down in interesting places like Greece, Germany, or Las Vegas.  Rarely do I hear about a plane breaking down in Albania, Armenia, or Hattiesburg, Mississippi.  This gave us some much-needed downtime, but no real timeline for departure. 

Other than a day trip to Kampala and a walk through the local Entebbe Zoo, our days were taken up with an occasional run, a meeting, or a walk to a local restaurant for more goat.  By day three we were starting to get anxious.  I had eaten goat in every possible way.  Fried goat, curried goat, sautéed goat, stuffed goat, goat on a stick, goat on rice, goat au jus, you get the idea. Other than the occasional nightmare about being chased by a Troll, the goat was tasty and filling. 

On day four, my friend called me over to the big table in our meeting room.  “Hey Lance… Check this out!”  He pointed to a spot on a large aerial photo of the Entebbe area.  “Here’s where we are, right?” he said.  “Sure” I answered.  “And here’s the zoo, right?” he quizzed.  “Sure is!” I replied.  Then he pointed to a large area on the map “What does this look like to you?”  “Holy crap” I exclaimed “a golf course!”    Within 20 seconds, we had a foursome assembled and called the course for information.  Yes, they were open, and the fee is 30,000 Shillings (about $16 USD) to play, 30,000 Shillings to rent the clubs, and 3,000 for the Caddy.  We quickly put on whatever clothes we had that could remotely be considered golf attire (jeans and a collared shirt) and headed to the Entebbe Golf Club. With a pocket full of Shillings and a belly full of goat, we were on our way to something we would surely talk about for years… Playing golf in Uganda.

We walked the kilometer or so to the course and strolled into the pro shop with great anticipation… paid the 60,000 Shillings, picked out some worn but suitable clubs, and headed out to the course.  First, I met my assigned Caddy, Sebastian.  I have never used a Caddy before and was a little uneasy about someone else carrying my clubs for me.  Especially someone who appeared to weigh about ½ of what I did.  When approaching the 1^st tee box, I felt better about having a Caddy.  To the left was the ten foot chain link fence for the zoo and on the right was a lot of deep brush.  There were lions behind the single fence and Black Mamba’s in the bush… The Caddy was worth every Shilling.  I did not feel better that he could probably outrun me even carrying the clubs, thus potentially leaving me as an easy meal for the lions. 

Me... Fence... Lion...

 If my map reading skills were correct, the course was directly on the equator.  Even though it was October, it was quite hot and humid. Living in Atlanta, I’m somewhat of an expert on hot and humid.  We all teed off, and proceeded to play an entertaining, though sweaty, round of golf punctuated by many strange and interesting sights. 

Gallery on the 4th tee box

Around about the 4^th fairway, I was lining up my 5 iron when an old Datsun pickup zipped across the fairway about 50 yards in front of me.  Although I have poor distance vision, I could see the unmistakable image of AK’s in the hands of some of the passengers in the bed.  My conversation with Sebastian went something like this:

“Sebastian… Did you see that?”

“Yes Mister Lance, I saw that”

“What was that all about?  Were they rebels?”

 Scenes from ‘The Last King of Scotland’ danced in my head.

“Oh no Mister Lance, not rebels.” He was being very coy. 

 “If not rebels, then who were they?”  My Coriolis-like curiosity had the best of me.

After an uncomfortable pause, he replied “They work for the zoo.”

I had a bad feeling.  “What do they do for the zoo?”

He finally fessed up: “They are hunters brought in by the zoo to catch escaped animals.”

“They have automatic weapons… ” I said “What do you think escaped?”

“Probably a lion.  They get out sometimes because of the holes in the fence.”

I shouldn’t have asked.  I’ve played golf where I’ve been warned about alligators and rattlesnakes, but never lions.  We decided to only play nine holes.

...Into the heart of darkness

 After the round, we hit the clubhouse to cool off.  Legend is that the old Colonial Governor liked to hang out there, and we even sat in his chair.  We turned in our clubs, tipped the Caddy (quite well, deservedly so), and headed back to the hotel. 

Leaving Africa...

A few days later, we finally flew out.  We took off at dawn and the sun was just starting to rise when I glanced out the window of the aging 737.  I could see the golf course, then Kampala, and then banked over Lake Victoria.  Never in my life did I imagine that I would spend a few weeks in Uganda, let alone play golf there.  It is said that once you visit Africa it never leaves you.  I doubt it will ever leave me.