Banda
Second visit

Dominic's island Banda, two by one kilometres, is one of the nearest Sese islands, 35 km South of Entebbe, just across the equator. Dominic's compound is at the Southeast side. At the West side is a tolerated illegal squatters' village. At our first visit I already took the most essential pictures of his house and (the remains of) his dhow. This time I was more of a visitor to his low budget camp site, sharing meals and "talking shit", as is Dominic's preferred way to denote his preferred type of conversation. It is roughly the same as mine, I only failed the proper expression.

Map: Banda's environment

Dominic is English, born in Kenya, his parents came as settlers. Though he was not in England much, he retained an elite English pronunciation which fits, spoken with his firm dark broken voice, well to his status as inhabitant of the castle he built himself on the island. I have a continuous inclination to call him Baron, since I read some books featuring eccentric English nobles living with many dogs in a half open castles between snakes, bats and spider webs, and this is exactly what he does.

Photo: Dominic (I edited his shorts with some Photoshop) preparing clothes for mainland visit, four-head guard alert on pier end (left to right, as it should, D, C, B, A). Sunset, at the rear of the photographer, is enjoyed from the very top of the castle.

Photo: taken from the castle side: our dhow at sunset, two hippos, one in characteristic mouth spread, pay Banda Island an evening visit.

On the Camp Site compound, there are nine or ten stone structures that at least suggest what kind of house the builder had planned before his mind broke to another idea elsewhere. Some are roofed and dry, though may be not all wind proof everywhere: the castle, the dormitory, what is called the bar, but is the storehouse for drinks, two banda's for guests, and an absolutely marvelous toilet building in the making. There is already one real mzungu toilet flushed from a rain water tank, and the tourists are lucky: the rainy season extends to include December this year, quite unusual. The camp shower is a bucket hanging from a branch surrounded with a bamboo fence, draining over the forest ground to the lake. Next to some houses one finds solar panels connected with intricate wiring to half filled car batteries. Rain-safe rooms tend to be used to store wood and other building material, as well as furniture to be repaired or may be usable for new constructions. So what are the top priority jobs on the Island? First, to mount a banister at the castle stairs, such that the Baron can safely reach his bed on the third floor even after considerable enjoyment of some impressive self-rolled self-grown pure Pantagruelion cigars and his splendid home made banana liquor. Second: making a tackle construction such that the Baron can open and close the curtains of his castle bedroom lying on his bed. Third, finish a round chapel size toilet building featuring one toilet pot right in the middle mounted on a concrete podium, Fourth, a six meter long concrete (hence termite-proof) shore side dinner table covered with bicolor triangular tiles carefully hand cut in Kampala, allowing the playing of the game backgammon. Fifth, moving big stones in the vicinity of the castle to create a beginning of a terrace, Sixth, rake the path from the castle to the pier (see photo), where the laundry is done. Items one to six undergo some daily movements up and down in priority.
The whole ambiance simply begs for a guided compound tour with spicy details for the tourist. I made one, which was so immediately rejected that I thought it inevitable to publish it on the internet: A Summary Guide to Banda Island, (where the dormitory is called "Dream Pavilion", the castle "Lake Fly Tower", the bar: "Treasury", and the new toilet building "King Edward IV Relief Centre").
The little rainforest Banda sports extensive animal life: birds include cormorants, aigrettes, fish eagles, hornbills, parrots, pied wagtails, hammerheads, wild geese, African swallows (yes, the ones so neatly analyzed for carrying capacity in Monty Python's Holy Grail - by the way, Banda regularly hosts some pythons too) and chicken. Others: hippo's, monitor lizards (up to 1.5 m), cobra's, pythons as I said, lake flies, malaria mosquito's, tsetse flies, humans, good ants, bad ants, domesticated dogs and cats, and, with Christmas coming, some pigs, ducks and goats shall have a short lived enjoyment of stay here..
Nobody has a a name, not even Dominic, at times, so I restricted myself to calling the dogs, from top to bottom, A, B, C and D. With some success: even Dominic seems sometimes to see some use in the names.

Photo: the dhow was soon conference centre of the Banda African swallows.
They are like European swallows but have a metallic sky blue belly and,
according to normally reliable sources (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)
a slightly bigger carrying capacity.

Food!!! The food on Banda is absolutely delicious: Dom taught lovely recipes to staff (fluctuating from 2 to 5 men), with home grown pineapples and avocado's, your fish so fresh, it might even still move a little on your plate, home hand made pasta and lasagna, and the table features a "banana juice" (alc. perc. unknown but surely over 40) and The (The) Pepper Bottle, containing home made pepper, in both taste and strength the Pepper of Peppers, sprinkle more than three drops of this liquid, generally named "rocket fuel" from the one litre bottle on your food and you are dead. Plastic slippers dissolve in it, the rumour goes.

Photo: on Banda's Central Table: Dog brush, Pantagruelion box, the notorious Banda home grown"rocket fuel" from The Pepper Bottle and "banana juice"

Best of all: the average number of visitors is 1.7. All time in the world to get to know each other - which of course we beware of - scarcely illuminated to keep the lake flies away, during suppers under star infested heavens, listening to the waves, bird sounds, puffs of wind in your face from the bats passing by closely to catch your malaria mosquito, caressing the dogs after having chased them from your chair, and, though barely audible, the bass tones of Entebbe's MAD's on 35 km distance.
Business for Banda Camp Site was better before the Dutch built a ferry for Entebbe-Sese, dropping tourists far from Banda and nearby a beautiful beach endowed with a stiff competition of camp sites. Banda business revived for a few days when the Dutch had to seize the ferry in order to collect the last term of the payment. The money, which had disappeared in someone's pocket, came back out after a few days and the ferry is back in service.

An excellent ambiance to finish, after 2 years, my reading of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel. I wrote the web page (9p. A4 in print). But writing something good and easy to read straight in English was too difficult. It is in Dutch now, I will translate it.