Hi everyone,
I have a crazy story for you about a situation that happened tonight. I had walked across the Nile river with 2 work colleagues and we had stopped on the bridge to take pictures of the river and to enjoy the view. We were stopped for about 2 minutes, if that. A soldier came up to me (with a rifle of course) and demanded my camera and said we had to follow him. He did not speak English very well. We ended up on the other side of the bridge down a trail. He brought us to a guy who spoke better English who said that we were not allowed to take pictures on the bridge or to stop on the bridge and we were being arrested and going to the barracks (jail) and then tomorrow we would have to meet with a judge to get out.
I told him that didn’t work for me. I had a training to do tomorrow and then I was leaving for the US tomorrow night. Jail was not in my plans. I could tell that both of these guys were serious and we were not going to get out of the situation without paying some money. There was no way I was going to jail. Luckily a high school student named Paul walked by and decided that he was going to help us. He spoke English very well and also Luganda (the local language). He explained to them that we were visitors and I pointed out that there are no signs on the bridge saying that you are not allowed to stop on the bridge or take pictures. After much discussion it was agreed that we would walk back to our hotel and get some money and then walk back across the bridge and pay the guy who would give me my camera back and let us go. He wanted our passports but I was not about to give that up. I paid him 20,000 shillings ($10) for our “get out of jail free card” and gave the student another 10,000 ($5) for helping us out.
We got out okay and laughed about it afterward, but there is always a crazy story or experience every time I come here.
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