Full Frontal - Fort Portal

My sister and I decided, in a spontaneous way, to rocket up to Fort Portal, a western Ugandan town near the Congolese border, where, among other things, you can get access to Chimpanzees in their natural habitat. I’m a sucker for monkeys, so we went for it. Jameson, an old-boy at Anna’s school (and pronounced Jemsen around these parts), was very excited over our trip, because he had been insisting since I arrived that I MUST go to Fort Portal. He had gone on a school trip once, and I thought he wanted us to see the extensive cave networks, the chimps, or maybe the dense rain-forests. Not So. “Teacher David, you must go to Fort Portal because the women have seriously BIG breasts and don’t wear shirts.” I was sold. However, I’m going to have to have a talk with that boy, because I have not seen even a hint of that particular topographical feature while I was there.

I was amused however, on the way to Kibale National Park (pronounced Chibolay, the Ki always being Ch here, which makes me wonder what they think of Chick Boxing). We were headed up a road that made me want to rename the town Fort Pot-Hole when I saw a sign that read “Blood Bank” and then right underneath, “Canteen,” apparently catering to the East African Vampire population. I didn’t have time to pause for reflection.

Post Script:

On our return home, I discovered that apparently, Jameson's insistence on the merits of Fort Portal women was a hilarious misunderstanding. He insists that he was trying to tell us that the stalactites in the caves resemble women's breasts hanging down. I said, "what about the 'no shirts'?" He said "Yeah... breasts with no shirts." Fair enough. And he was totally correct, the caves are named after a mythical king who locked up his daughter in the caves and cut off her breasts to curb suitors. Even still she got pregnant, and then fed the child from the milky sediment dripping from the stalactites. What do you know. Here I was thinking poor Jameson was a pervert. Then again, I was the one who was disapointed.