Out of Africa: MCC in Uganda tour blog - 'Kings of the Jungle'

MCC Scorer Chris Mallaband reports back from MCC's tour of Uganda.

You can follow the tour's progress via Chris's blog on lords.org

Kings of the Jungle

26th February 2008: In a nine year first class career as an all-rounder with Sussex and Glamorgan, Keith Newell had many an opportunity to pick up a bat. However, never a live one. Well, not until this tour, anyway.

Having played four days of consecutive competitive cricket since their arrival, followed by a day coaching some Ugandan young cricketers and the Ugandan national disabled team, the players have just spent two days of R&R visiting the Ssese Islands, located in Lake Victoria, ahead of the next match with Uganda starting tomorrow.

The MCC tourists talk cricket with the Uganda disabled team The relative luxuries of the team hotel in Kampala were quickly just a memory, as, after a three hour ferry crossing, the players arrived at the Ssese Islands Beach Hotel – which is ostensibly a series of beach huts with a central building.

A beach on site? Yes. A bar? Yes. Good start.

Electricity? Let me come back to you on that. The chance to spend a night with a couple of lizards, a centipede and one or two other aspects of Ugandan wildlife? You bet. ‘Sandals’ this certainly wasn’t.

After a refreshing cuppa and some ground nuts on arrival, manager Steve Salisbury announced the room sharing combinations, and we headed off to make our huts our homes. They were arranged in blocks of four, and mine was next door to one being shared by Keith Newell, and the recently-arrived Dean Oosterwyk, a pace bowler from the University of Western Cape in Cape Town, who has joined the squad as a replacement for Alex Wharf, for whom a knee injury prevented him coming on tour.

I had barely dropped my rucksack on my bed and surveyed my room, before hearing a shout of “Yiiiikes!” in a broad South African accent from the next hut. I opened my door and asked what was going on.

“OK, we’ve got a bat in our bathroom,” replied Keith, displaying an admirable calmness for someone in a situation he’d not faced before too often in his life. Armed with a Debenhams carrier bag, he cornered the visitor, before managing to capture his prey and humanely release it back into its more natural habitat outside.

I returned to my room. What treats lay in store for me? I was soon to find out, as an adjustment to a curtain soon sent two small lizards scurrying across my wall. A trip to my own bathroom revealed no bat, but a couple of rather large and unusual looking insects carefully surveying my window.

Quick with ball and wit: Jonny Wightman Fast bowler Jonny Wightman popped in as he walked past. Seeing my anxiety, he offered typical sympathy:

“How’s Noah’s Ark, Chris?”

Furiously applying my insect repellent to any visible skin, I set off for the bar. When I arrived, Jonny had obviously spread the word that I had seemed a little nervous about getting so close to nature.

“How the room? We’ve got a zebra in ours...” asked David Adams with customary wit.

After dinner and some exchanging of bedroom wildlife anecdotes, there was time for a couple of drinks and then bed. My accommodation was a good 200 yard walk from the bar, and Keith, Dean, myself and umpire John Holder set off for our beds, guided by the light from John’s torch. The shimmering of the sea under a full moon provided the only other light, as we made our way down an undulating path to a cacophony of sounds coming from the vegetation around us.

We reached our huts. In through the door, I flicked my light switch. Nothing. Tried the other one on the wall. Nothing. Guided by the light from my mobile phone display, I moved to my bathroom. Hit the switch. Nothing again. Great.

Keith and Dean were in a similar boat next door. The welcome card from the hotel said (and I quote verbatim) 'all rooms are solar lit, use it sparelingly to avoid dissapointment.' Mmm. Well I’d not used it at all so far. And I was certainly disappointed.

Perhaps in some ways though, conducting my pre-bed preparations by Nokia-light was for the best. If I was sharing my abode with various arachnids and amphibians, I’d probably rather not know. Another application of repellent, mosquito net pulled down. Night.

Unforgetable

The morning dawned, and I had lived to tell the tale. A guided walk around the local area to be led by a local resident had been offered to us the previous evening, and nine of us took up the invitation after breakfast.

Thomson, our guide, proved to be a passionate orator, and highly knowledgeable about the island. We were shown an incredible array of birdlife – yellow weavers, hammer kops and a variety of wagtails amongst them – and some trees whose rooting systems were unlike anything any of us had seen before. We then headed into the jungle, a dense green canopy above us, rich vegetation around us, and the usual sound effects provided by the wildlife for whom the trees and bushes are home.

Thomson then took us onwards to his home village, nearby Lutoboka, for whose residents fishing is the principal income. This was certainly an eye opener. Facilities were basic, but the people warm and friendly, as we made our way around their thatched huts and passed the fires heating saucepans of boiling fruit and fish for today’s lunch. Mark Wagh, a keen photographer, managed to encourage a group of brothers and sisters to pose for a family photo. When he showed them the resultant image on the display of his digital camera, there were smiles all round, and laughs from the youngsters and their Mum. All the family waved goodbye to him cheerfully, a moment to share with the Western world for an indigenous people who scarcely even visit the Ugandan mainland.

Finally, we ventured into Kalangala, the main town on the island, to buy some much-needed bottles of Rwenzori water (so named after the mountain range in the west of Uganda), and for bananas and mangoes bought from the local fruit market. The bananas were superb, so much so that Bilal Shafayat consumed three in a row, whilst engaging with the local sellers in his usual warm style. We headed back to our hotel, enriched in many ways, and said farewell to Thomson – for now at least.

The evening meal was a barbecue on the beach, a bonfire burning brightly behind us. Thomson had offered us the chance of bringing a music and dance troupe down from his village to entertain us after we had eaten. We happily accepted, and were entertained for about 45 minutes by his near neighbours, who danced and played their bongo drums and maracas with typical Ugandan energy.

As he concluded their performance, Thomson said to us: “Wish you a pleasant journey back, and to wherever else you go. And don’t forget us.”

There is little danger of any of the MCC party doing that.

Or of forgetting the Ssese Island Beach Hotel.