Soroti
My adopted home town!
Here's a picture of the downtown area I pass through on the way to the office.
As far as I can tell, there's about 5 grocery stores, all with the exact same products but are the only places in town where the prices are fixed. There's a "movie theater" that looks really scary and I'm not sure if its a real movie theatre or just a room with a tv. I'm told that they play some of the soccer games there occaisionally. One of these days I'll work up enough nerve to go see a movie.
There's the Soroti Hotel which is the swanky hotel in town, the only cars you see in their parking lot are painted with big UN signs on the side.
The road leading into town:
There a good number of trucks who rumble through town, we are on the main drag to the Sudan border, and apparentely southern Sudan is going through a building boom now that the fighting has stopped and they are semi-autonomous. You also see lots of World Food Program trucks heading for the north of Uganda with food for the IDP camps.
The gas stations are all renovating because one of them did so and now the rest are playing catch-up. I have found that people here are very loyal to one brand of gas, you are either a Shell person, a Cal-Tex person, or a Total person and you rarely go to the other stations. I've only met Cal-Tex people.
There's one bank in town as far as I can tell, a Stanbic bank. They do have a 24 hour ATM, but its not connected to any international networks.
There are couple bars and fast food places in town, the fast food places tend to serve lots of fried foods, especially fried chicken and french fries. For real restaurants people seem to go to the guest houses and hotels.
I'll try to take more pictures around town!
Comments
cool pictures of the sky! except for the dirt roads, it looks some towns we saw in utah.
Posted by: donna | May 4, 2006 6:27 PM
It definitely has the look and feel of an old west town. Hopefully without the duels in the street and there isn't a horse to be found in the country (though I am told there are some on some rich American's farm near Kampala).
Posted by: Carl | May 4, 2006 7:48 PM
Hey, wait a minute!
That is my home town. I was born there. That ghostly Cinema place used to be called "Majestic" and it belonged to my fahter.
I love that place. Though people ther are very poor, they are honest, kind and friendly. I went to Pioneer School, a block or two from the main street, and later to Teso Cpllege Aloet, a few miles on Moroto road. I miss that place and would like to go back there to see it.
Soroti used to be a very nice place to live in until the wars brought its' development to a stand still. As the whole world grew, Soroti has stood still on the tracks of development. I will not tell you more than that.
Posted by: Paul | July 6, 2006 10:11 PM
Hey Carl,
Could you post more pictures of Soroti?
Posted by: Paul | July 6, 2006 10:41 PM
Hey Carl nice pictures of Soroti Town I grew up in that place studied at Pioneer School then left for School in Kampala. I have visited Soroti quite a few times since then. My relatives still live there.You must have seen the Protestant Church and the gardens,the Rock those used to be our favourite hang outs. There used to be a disco known as club2000 it used to happen there my man. Typical of most towns in that part of Uganda when the wars started our beloved town died out.I left Uganda and now working in an HIV/AIDS clinical trials organisation somewhere in the world.My dream has always been to go and work at home.Thanks for the pictures i would
appreciate more.
Posted by: Kenneth | October 19, 2006 2:33 PM