Kisoro, a small, rural town, is a few hundred miles from Kampala, Uganda's capitol city. On Tuesday morning I was in Kisoro and on Wednesday morning I needed to be in Kampala. From there I would catch the bus for my Christmas safari. Innocent, the young man from the Mgahina Community Campground, said there would be plenty of buses from the small southwestern town to the bustling metropolis. I got into Kisoro about 8:30am and went to the bus headquarters.

There was a huge charter bus sitting outside the office which seemed like a good sign. The one man leaning on the plywood desk at the Horizon Bus bureau raised his eyebrows when I walked through the door.

“I would like to take a bus to Kampala,” I stated.

He didn’t answer right away but looked beyond me, through the open door. Eventually he said,

“Bus left at 6. No more buses today.”

That presented some obstacles.

“No more buses? I need to be in Kampala tomorrow morning. Is there any way?”

Again, no response for a while. Then,

“That bus is for refugees to Mbarara. Talk to him,” and he pointed to a well dressed man eating breakfast and the restaurant next door.

Public buses and vans have a driver and a conductor. The driver, of course, drives. The conductor deals with money and watches for hitchhikers. The man by the desk directed me to the conductor for the refugee bus. He said he could take me to Mbarara and from there I could get a bus to Kampala.

“When will the bus leave?” I asked.

“In a while”

With that assurance I sat down for breakfast. About halfway through my Rolex, a rolled tortilla with eggs and avocado, the bus started to move.

“Is the bus leaving?” I frantically asked the person closest to me.

“No. It is turning around.”

Which was true, it was turning around. It just didn’t stop moving once it had completed its turn. A new set of obstacles.

Luckily, the conductor was still eating his breakfast. After he saw me quickly approach with a bewilderment oozing from wide eyes, he said that there was no problem. We could take a bodaboda, or small motorcycle used for public transit, to meet the bus.

In a few minutes we were both seated on mopeds heading down a dirt road. About 10-15 kilometers later, the bus came into view. It rested in a field surrounded by white tents with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees initials and symbol painted on the roofs. There were people, families, calmly waiting beside the bus. An American woman with a clipboard motioned people to move forward and she called out the numbers on their wrist bands. Other than that woman’s resonant voice, there were only whispers.

The conductor of the bus came to my bodaboda driver and slipped him an extra 500 shillings. The bodaboda driver then turned to me and pointed to the backseat of his moped.

“We go,” he said softly.

“Where?”

“Not far.”

The conductor would not miss an opportunity to charge for a seat on his bus so I knew there would be a space for me. As this bus was chartered for refugees, he probably didn't want the UNHCR folks to see the American backpacker bumming a ride, which explains why he wanted me out of sight. The bodaboda left the field and stopped a few hundred meters down the road where I waited on a grassy but exposed hillside for about an hour. Swipe, a boy of around 12, befriended me and we had a decent conversation until he asked for money and then left when his request yielded no donation.

Soon enough, but not before some worry began festering, the bus came lumbering down the road and slowed enough for me to jump through the creaking door. Jumping onto the moving bus was a bit awkward because of my huge backpack which I quickly unbuckled and set in one of the front seats. Once free of the load I looked up and met 80 eyes staring silently at me.

Kisoro is the first major town once across the southern Uganda/DR Congo border so it was pretty clear where these folks were coming from. They were refugees from a country ravaged by war and unaided by other nations. I was in the midst of a two week holiday and had a 35 pound bad that stood 3 feet high. In the luggage racks above their seats were a couple dozen duffle bags.

5.5 million people have died in Congo in the last 6 years. 5.5 million. The last time that many people have been killed in a conflict was during WWII. The rebels use rape and mutilations with escalating atrocity to inflict wounds that will last generations. There is too much malice, to much anguish for the lives of these people to seem possible.

They had almost no belongings. They had almost no words. Yet most striking about this small group of refuges was the singing. It began soon after the bus started climbing through Uganda’s cultivated mountainside. In a call and response style, one person would sing a line and the rest would answer. Started quietly, as if unsure if it would be permitted, would survive, their music spoke of hope and memories. Unbridled above the other singers, the men and women who sat with eyes closed or gazing toward the approaching East, rose the strong and pure voices of children.