MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Winter Spring 2020

51 The workers found their groove within hours, developing skills from rock armouring and bench cutting to shaping berms and creating flow at an impressive pace. Three of the Karamojong guides for the event served as translators for the Tepeth locals, but much of my communication came nonverbally—hand gestures and sound effects to mimic what I envisioned, with my crews either nodding in agreement or looking at each other in smiling bewilderment. Trail building in the midday equatorial sun would have felt like punishment if we weren’t creating tangible rewards every step of the way. To me, the reward came from sharing a love of riding and trail building; while the workers enjoyed a job close to home where options were traditionally sparse. Climate change and industrialization has not been kind to Karamoja and the traditional Tepeth lifestyle is in jeopardy. Many communities have resorted to burning trees and selling the charcoal at markets to purchase food—and children are often forced by circumstance to tend their community’s goat and cattle herds or forage for whatever food they can find along the hillsides. Trail building became one of the first opportunities to earn money in a region where money is a relatively new concept. The 2018 tour drew close to 75 participants, mostly white expats who made the journey from Uganda’s capital city, Kampala. Riders of all ages and abilities found trails to match—from a four- hour guided ride to a simple ten-minute loop. Judging by the smiles of those who attended, the event succeeded in its efforts to provide people with a fun weekend full of unique riding and cultural discovery—and it put Karamoja on the map of Uganda’s small but loyal cycling scene. At 62 years old, Paul Sherwen unexpectedly died in his sleep, just six weeks after the 2018 Tour of Karamoja. His passing dealt a huge blow to the momentum and interest in the region as a cycling destination. I recall what he told me as we packed up camp on the last day of the Tour of Karamoja,“if we are going to make this a long-lasting event, it’s gotta be because of a very special relationship we have with the local Tepeth.” While Sherwen’s vision was admirable, it lacked one key element that I saw as a barrier to success: none of the locals had bikes of their own. And so the Karamoja Mountain Bike Association (KAMBA) came alive. I joined five locals I’d befriended during the tour to hold an official meeting and write a constitution with the simple mission statement to “Connect in Biking”. Seeing the success of mountain biking back home in North America and the promise shown in Karamoja, I felt that any successful bike community has to have people out riding the trails every day. To have proper influence, the guides and trail builders needed to unite; forming one voice to advocate for trail infrastructure and resources. The first order of business was to get the group access to bikes to use and share within the communities. Thanks to the generosity of the Sea to Sky mountain bike community, that objective was realized in late 2019. Upon returning home with my new Karamojong wardrobe and name, I put out a call for neglected bikes in good working order. We had enough money and material to send two shipping crates of bikes, spare parts and tools to my KAMBA friends. Since then the group, now six members strong, has been active in getting others to ride with the eventual goal of providing afterschool programs as an incentive for those who focus on their studies. Vicky Namukhula is a KAMBA founding member with a newfound passion for biking. “When I was a child, it was culturally believed that girls are born for marriage materials and housekeepers,” she explains. “For girls, it was very hard to go to school. Boys are the ones who inherit their father’s wealth.” Instead of choosing a path of servitude, Namukhula worked hard to save money and studied cooking for tourism. She now works at Kara Tunga guest house (who put me up during my stay) as head chef of Moroto’s first restaurants with “ mzungu ” food such as pizza and french fries along with the more standard posho (maize) and beef stew. “I got involved with KAMBA so that I can easily access a bike,” Namukhula says, “and to be an example to other girls who fear riding or are not allowed to ride bikes.” She is now a regular on the weekly rides that bring local kids out to gain access to the freedom and health benefits that bike riding provides. It’s an exciting new narrative for the locals of Karamoja, and this very article you are reading is now helping to move the story along. The 2019 Mountain Life Adventure Grant enabled KAMBA I agreed without giving much thought to the challenges of developing a trail network in under a week on foreign soil with a novice crew who did not speak English. CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM LEFT Tepeth community members perform a ritual bull sacrifice as part of the festivities during the Tour of Karamoja, which primarily took place around their villages. // Julius Lemukol guides a visitor from Canada between villages in the Karamoja savannah. STEVE ANDREWS. // The children of Karamoja have taken a keen interest in the new bikes that arrived last year. ISAAC EJOPU. // Isaac Ejopu (R) sharing one of the new KAMBA community bikes on their weekly community ride on Mount Moroto. STEVE ANDREWS