Baale Landing Site

Masaka is the chief town in Masaka district, one of 111 districts in Uganda. The district has a population of about 800,000, of whom about 75,000 live in the town. The town is 140km South-West of Kampala, the capital. The district is divided into 22 sub-counties, the largest of which, Kyunamakaaka with a population about 50,000, is  where we have been working, initially in Kamuzinda Children’s Village, and more recently in Baale Landing Site and surrounding community.

Baale is a fishing village on the shores of Lake Victoria. It has a few brick-built houses, a couple of shops, and a pub, and a lot of wooden shacks. There is no quay or jetty, so the boats work from the beach – our header photo is of some fishermen wrestling a boat in on a windy day.

Although only about 40km from Masaka, it is a slow, two hour drive (if it is dry) from the town. From Masaka to Bukunda is a good-quality tarred road, but from Bukunda to Kititii is a sometimes-levelled dirt road, and beyond Kititii you are driving on sand.