Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Boston and I found transportation back to the river, close to the point at which Matt
Power had died. In silence, we tramped north. In the distance, lush green hills began to
flank the eastern bank of the Nile. By midday, storm clouds were brewing in the distance,
and the first droplets of rain began to fall. Not one of us remarked on the irony; if Matt
Power had joined us scant days later, his life might not have ended here, so far away from
home.
By fall of night we had entered into Madi country. The Madi people, claiming to
have come from Nigeria, moved into new homelands in Uganda, via the Sudan, in the
mid-1800s - and seeing them in their villages, their skins so much darker than the
Ugandans of the south, their homes bedecked in bright orange and black paint depicting
simple pyramids, made me think how far we had come. We took refuge in a village where
the chief granted us permission to sleep in the empty store room of the district shop, and
listened to the bustle in the village square. This, the chief had told us, was the night mar-
ket: a place to which the Madi people came from near and far to buy and sell fish and other
commodities in the pitch black.
Soon after the market began, the heavens opened. The storm clouds we had seen during
the day had followed us down river, and now the rain came down in violent torrents. Tor-
rents that might have saved Matt Power's life.
Boston and I barely slept that night, but it was not just from listening to the rain hammer
down on the rooftop. I was lost in thoughts of home, and of a home to which Matt Power
would never return.
In the morning, we did the only thing we could to keep the terrible feeling of sadness at
bay: we continued north, soon to meet the border.
