Mutiro Hill
 "The Box", paragliding!

Photo: "The Box", natural harbour North of Mutiro Hill, my parasail take-off (background)

071003 14:30 NW 3, we head NE. In the middle of the gulf, at 1^o59'14"S 33^o09'12"E, we encounter a very special dhow. It was 20 cm long, a child's toy heading SW beam reach over port to the nearest land Ukerewe, roughly where we came from, 5 km to go.
18:00 We arrive in a natural harbour known by cargo dhow sailors as "The Box" (Sanduku). It is common to hear them say "Will we make it to The Box?", or: "Pity, we will pass The Box too early!". In The Box you have no waves and you are on one small anchor only which you drop at the beach. South of The Box is Mutiro hill, 350 m above lake level. I announce crew that we will have a delay of one day, because tomorrow late afternoon, the captain is going to fly from the hill with his parasail (my parasailing background). Nobody seems to regret it.

071004 Philemon gets advised to report to the village leaders. He returned to say the village leaders had understood our purpose of stay, but, unlike the leader of Doi's village, wanted to see the mzungu and the papers. We went. A 4 km walk. The village leaders turned out to be in meeting. Now, it is not unusual in such events that every leader gets one full day of speaking time, so it can last as many days as there are leaders, at least I read this somewhere (in Karen Blixen's Out of Africa, I now remember). Meanwhile, the village is supposed to bring food and drinks. I was not prepared, however, to spend the enormous time that would be needed to verify all this. We showed ourselves modestly in the open door of the corrugated iron shed. After ten minutes listening outside to one speaker, we actually witnessed a change of the word to another one! This, however, did not change my feeling that we might sit here for long. Of course, a mzungu makes himself laughable if he waits in such circumstances, so I agreed with Philemon that he would stay with Kos and the papers, and announce that they would have another chance to meet me when I would pass to climb the mountain with my parasail. I left slowly, to give them a chance to jump out and call me, but to my disappointment they did not. At least the desire to see me probably had nothing to do with money as it had in the Kahunda case.
In the morning I was warned against swimming at the lake side beach of the harbour. I thought of a sewage problem, but that would be a surprising type of worry for Africans. Later I hear that there are blood sucking spirits there. Since, first, I read Faust, and, second, chief Uganda diviner and witch doctor Budhagali, himself the spirit of a big Nile river rapid, is used to call me, after I got his first ever brand new mobile phone going, his brother, I had a swim there. Two meters from the beach depth starts to be over 2 m but nobody reports from down.
14:30 Still no Philemon. Still waiting near the meeting? I pack for flying and go. 500 m before the "meeting hall" I meet Philemon and Kos. The meeting had ended 10 minutes after my departure! Our papers had been checked and approved. There was permission to fly. All my fears in vain! Philemon had spent the rest of the time finding two uncles to greet and show our boat.  I greeted them and continued my way to the hill. After 2.5 hours and considerable effort I had mounted the 350 m - complaining to a wrinkled grandmother picking fruits there that I am getting old - , took off, had even some dynamic upwind to get above the hill, then departed for "The Box". Strong headwind at lower altitudes made me land at 2/3 of the way. The storming crowd was modest this time, only 3000 to my estimation. I successfully applied a new strategy: I appointed four "corner agents", nobody was allowed to enter in the rectangle between them. Even though I got seduced to appoint a charming three year old as one of my corner agents, it worked: it allowed me calmly to fold my sail.

Photo (from my point of take-off): "The Box" with our dhow

I mounted the rucksack, drank the rest of my water bottle, thanked the crowd, said goodbye and went off, followed, until the dhow, by 30 children. When I reached there, the shipwreck on land behind our stern was filled with people (boys only!!) curiously trying to peep inside our hold.

Photo: the shipwreck on land behind our stern was filled with people (boys only!!) curiously trying to peep inside our hold.