Kaiso

Working at the NLRI HQ is fun, but I was anxious to get out and see first hand what NLRI did. Luckily enough, I was presented such an opportunity at the beginning of the week in the form of a field trip out to Lake Albert, where two NLRI stations are based.

The two stations we would be visiting were small fishing villages on the shores of the lake. The first of these, Kaiso, was about three-quarters of the way down the Eastern shore. After hiring a car, we set off with a cargo of fishing floats (for life jackets) and motor oil (for the motorboats). The journey passed uneventfully, but the landscape was still breathtaking: rolling hills and dense forests as we trundled along towards the end of the large escarpment that announces the beginning of the Albertine Rift.

After four or so hours of rather bumpy driving, we reached the edge of the escarpment; the sandstone ridge giving way to a magnificent plain, with the Blue Mountains of the Congo, shrouded in mist, separated from us by the slate grey waters of Lake Albert itself. In the distance Richard, our Ugandan driver and another NLRI employee, pointed out the camps and drilling station of Tullow Oil, an Irish oil company who are carrying out exploratory drilling in the area and who also work closely with NLRI through their CSR programme. We could also begin to make out the scattering of buildings close to the water that made up Kaiso. Once down onto the plain, we passed the final few kilometres relatively quickly, spotting a small troupe of baboons as they scampered nimbly across the dirt track.

Kaiso was a an eye-opener. For a start, there was only one brick building in the whole village, the rest were mud walls and reed-thatched roofs, with low doors and tiny windows that a man of my height would have struggled to get through even when bent double. Piles of small fry or mukeni lay drying in the sun, later to be scooped up along with the sand on which they lay and transported back to Kampala for use as chicken feed. Elsewhere, larger talapia and Nile Perch lay gutted on wooden racks, ready to be salted or smoked. As you can imagine, this gave a rather particular smell to the place that wasn't particularly easy to adjust to for a muzungu like me. The rather oppressive heat did not help matters much (apart from to give me mild sunburn).

The NLRI station was at the westernmost edge of the village, separated by a chainlink fence, with the lake to north. The station had a full staff of around 7 people, and in keeping with NLRI policy, all of whom were recruited from the local area - several of them Kaiso inhabitants themselves. Each station runs semi-autonomously, with support and guidance from NLRI headquarters and are expected to run projects directly with the local community.

Some time was spent gauging progress on the various initiatives and projects, before we loaded up and set off to our hostel back towards the escarpment. Later that evening, as we enjoyed a couple of cold beers, I looked out over the lake to see it filled with hundreds of lights from the wooden fishing boats - the nocturnal habits of the fishermen's prey mean that nighttime fishing, while much riskier than its diurnal opposite, is highly profitable. A magical view to say the least.