Strange settlers
on Thea's Blog (Uganda), 03/Sep/2009 10:03, 34 days ago
Normal0falsefalsefalseMicrosoftInternetExplorer4st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;}ApparentlyFortPortal’s golf course (which, after the cows have been shooed off, is still occasionally used by locals) is likely to be the oldest inAfrica. The strange thing is that it was built in 1914 when there were literally six Europeans living here (some missionaries, a clutch of civil servants and the postman). One of them must have been a serious golfing fanatic. I’ve been learning a bit about some of the early European settlers from a little book compiled by a modern-day settler who has a tea estate nearFortPortal.FortPortalwas a serious backwater in the days of the Protectorate. But still a handful of Europeans– who all sound either eccentric, determined, desperate, criminal, adventurous, delusional or a combination of the above – found their way here from the turn of the century. There were no roads or electricity and the first houses they built from local materials kept blowing down in the wind. They grew coffee and then later tea when the bottom dropped out of the coffee market. One or two families somehow rode out the Amin period, and are still here running lodges and vanilla farms. On Sunday Esther and I had lunch at Ndali Lodge – a lovely, slightly crumbling place on the rim of a craterlake – owned by one such descendant. He’s got what must be the best collection of books on the history of the area, which amounts to about five. Problem is you have to be staying there (at a rate of 200 USD a night!) to borrow them. Next time I go, I might try and speak to him nicely.