We dragged ourselves out of bed at 5am for one of those ever-pleasant early-morning buses. We were told that we couldn’t buy tickets the day before so we needed to get there early to secure a seat. We crept out to the taxi we had ordered the night before, and zoomed to the bus station as the sun came up.

As we waited in the bus station, an older American gentleman in pleated khakis began talking to us about Africa. He taught African Studies at University of South Carolina, and since Dallas was an African Studies major at Madison, there were points of commonality. He asked us each in turn, in a patronizing professor-ish way, what we were up to, what we did before we left and what we were going to do when we returned. 

Having been out of school for a while, I was amused by the condescension with which he spoke, and leaned over to whisper to Beth, “See what you have to look forward to in law school?” She rolled her eyes, and we left Dallas to deal with the intellectual blather. The icing on the cake was the end of the conversation, when Dallas asked him for his name. I’ll change his name for the sake of anonymity, but this is pretty close… With his voice lowered, and in a perfect booming professor tone, he articulated in a slow, punctuated way, “My name is HAL Jac-ob-son.” For the next week, we all would imitate this introduction over and over again, finding endless amusement in his personification of The College Professor.

The bus ride was pretty posh, in a smaller “post” bus with red, velvet seating. We passed by rolling green fields, small towns, banana farms, and herds of steers with impressively massive horns. We arrived in Kabale and were greeted by the usual onslaught of willing taxi drivers. We had already emailed ahead to reserve space at Byoona Amagoro, the place we where were staying in Lake Bunyoni. They had arranged a car for us.

“We have someone coming for us,” Beth said to one particularly persistent tout.

“It is me, I am the one,” he claimed.

“Oh,” she responded, somewhat wary. “Who sent you?”

“I sent myself,” he said.

Right. Finally we found the right guy, Dennis, who collected our bags and zipped us away to the boat dock. As we were waiting for a few guys to put the engine together (that was in pieces balanced between cement blocks), we met another bizarre character. He lumbered up, hobbling on a large pole, and began harassing Dallas for a cigarette, which he offered up. He thanked him by bouncing up and down, laughing and trying to ‘dance,’ which looked rather perilous, given his noticeable impairment.

He then asked Dallas if he, by chance, wanted to beat a woman sitting nearby with his cane, swinging it back and forth in demonstration. “No, no,” Dallas said. “That wouldn’t be good.”

“No,” he agreed sullenly. “That would not be good. But if you wanted to (face lighting up and swinging his stick again), then you could.”

Beth and I were steering clear of this whole interaction, eating crackers, peanut butter, and Nutella with steady don’t-even-talk-to-me concentration. But this did not deter our new friend, who bounded over and shook our hands. He pointed to us and looked at Dallas in a questioning way. 

“We are all friends,” he said. Dallas speaks Swahili, so tried it out on crazy-man. “Rifiki (friends),” he reiterated. “We are all rifiki.”

Crazy-man’s face lit up in recognition. Strangely, amused and a bit shocked recognition. “Rifiki?” we thought he said… “You are all rifiki?”

“Yes, yes,” Beth, Dallas, and I said, all nodding in agreement. “All of us, rifiki.”

He began jumping up and down again, very excited. “Fiking, fiking, you all fiking!” he exclaimed. Another boat pulled up, and as we jumped on we all looked at each other as we registered what he was saying, all a bit mortified that we had just calmly told him that the three of us were… well, anyway, so much for trying to use Swahili.

We were powered across the placid lake by a quiet engine, passing smaller islands and kids paddling by in wooden dugout canoes. We arrived at one of the islands on Lake Bunyoni and carried our bags up a pathway to a large, covered, outdoor veranda, filled with comfy chairs, couches, and wooden tables. We sat down, taking in the view of the picture perfect lake and the green island just across the way. One of the managers came and introduced himself to us. 

“Hello,” he said. “I am God.”

“I’m sorry?” I said.

“God.”

Surely, we weren’t hearing this right. Seeing the confused looks on our faces he continued… “G-A-D”. Pronounced God.

God was the bomb. He had everything under control at all times. Unbelievably hospitable with the air of an old English butler, he took orders, organized tours and transport, settled bills, and supervised the staff. An American guy runs the place with his wife and two daughters, but when he’s not there, it’s all God. But the best thing about God; his name was pronounced God. All throughout the week, we took joy in asking each other… “Have you seen God?” or “Did God say we could use the boats?” or “Did you ask God if we could watch a movie tonight?”

After we met God, he showed us to our cabin. It was a cute, fairly spacious log cabin, with a perfect view of the lake, our own outdoor shower, and a large deck with tables and chairs. We were pretty smitten with Lake Bunyoni. 

Shortly after dropping off our bags, we headed back to the veranda to enjoy to view and take a closer look at the menu. We were stunned. Quesadillas, cheese stuffed eggplants, pastas, pizzas, tuna fish sandwiches, all for very reasonable prices! We all ordered our dinners and beers and feasted to our hearts’ content. Things shut down around 10, since there was no electricity, and we all had to clamber around by the light of lanterns. But that was ok by us. It had been a long day, and we were eager to get to sleep so we could begin lounging by Lake Bunyoni.