Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Whirlwind international trip

Well Tom and I arrived back safely in Malava on Sunday after an amazing trip to Uganda and Rwanda. There's a ton to tell, but let me begin with these three points:
1) My dad was right about it always being helpful to have a handkerchief with you. In this case, it helped when it started raining inside of our bus.
2) If you're going to go to Rwanda, consider learning a few words in Kinyarwanda or at least French. Knowing English did us almost no good.
3) The best way to see a new city is from the back of a motorcycle.

So anyways, Tom and I left last Tuesday and crossed the boarder at Busia and got into Kampala around 8:30. We had no idea where to stay, so I asked the taxi man and he took us to "the place where all the mzungus like you go". He was right. Backpackers Hostel is this strange little hippy oasis for European indenpendant travelers. But the price was right, the food was good and the beer was cold. We spent a day in Kampala, wandering around the city, and then down to Entebbe for lunch on the lake. Kampala is a beautiful city. Uganda all around is better maintained than any city I've been in in Kenya.
Having seen what we wanted in Kampala, Thursday morning we got on a bus bound for Kigali. A ride that was said to be 8 hours ended up being around 10, but it was beautiful. I think Rwanda is the most beatuiful place I've ever been. Southern Uganda goes from these brillant green hills to these rolling mountains, over the boarder into Rwanda. We got there as it started to rain, so the mist was rolling in over the tops of the hills. The bottom of the valley was covered in neon green tea fields. I could have stared out the window forever. But just as it got dark, the hillsides became covered in lights. Kigali is a city sprawled out over the sides of the hills. It was so beautiful. We got off the bus however into what felt like pure chaos. It was raining hard and cold and it was so hard to find a cab, considering we didn't speak a language that the people around us spoke. I only knew the name of one hotel so when we finally took a cab there, we found it was $90 a night. We learned very quickly that Kigali is an expensive city. We obviously couldn't spend that kind of money, so we bargained them down to $50. They ended up having a wonderful chef with inexpensive food and good beer. I realized on this trip that Kenya got the short end of the stick from the East African brewing company. All the good beers are in Rwanda and Uganda.
Anyways, we spent all of Friday in Kigali. We were planning on going to the Parc du Volcans (?) on Saturday, but when we found out the boarder crossing into Uganda was only opened from 7 am to 7pm, we had to scrap it. I'm very disappointed we didn't make it, but Kigali alone was worth the trip. After securing bus tickets back to Kampala for the next day and checking into a less expensive hotel, we headed out to the genocide memorial. I have to say, I think it was one of the most intense experiences in my short life. Its amazingly well done. The outside of the museuam is a series of symbolic gardens and 15 mass graves where 300,000 of the genocide victims are buried. The memorial opened ten years after the genocide and people brought the reamins of their loved ones from all over the country to be buried there. I couldn't bring myself to photograph them, but I did take pictures of the beautiful gardens. The inside is set up in three sections. The first a a historical time line, going from colonialism to the aftermath. It was facinating...I learned so much I'd never known before, and I feel like I've read alot about it. The second section wa about other genocides from around the world- including Armenia, Namibia, the Holocaust and Serbia. It was interesting and well done and I was especially interested in the sections on Armenia and Nambia, which I knew little about. The final section is devoted to the children victims of the genocide. The rooms were filled with wall to ceiling photos of children who had been targeted and killed with plaques about their favorite things, their last words, what they saw and how they died. The Hutus specifically targeted children and women to ensure that the Tutsis couldn't continue into future generations. I practically ran through the whole exhibit- it was just too overwhelming. Kigal is a strange place to be after being at the memorial. Its like a haunted city. The president, Paul Kagame, has worked very hard to unite one Rwanda, but it still strange to look at Rwandas and wonder how the genocide affected their lives.
I could have spent a lot more time in Kigali, but we had a long journey back to Kenya, so we hopped on a bus back ot Kampala at 5:45 am, hoping to be back in Kampala by around 3 and make it back over the Kenya boarder before we found a place to stay. That did not happen. Firstly, the boarder crossing back into Uganda took like three hours. There were a bunch of other Americans on our bus (which is REALLY rare) so we chatted in line with a guy who had been on fellowship in Rwanda, working for the ministry of finance. There was also a group of college kids studying abroad in Kampala with the School of International Training. Finally we're back in Uganda, about half of the way back to Kampala and it starts pouring down rain. Then I feel it raining on me and sure enough, the window isn't sealed correctly. Sprinkles turn into pouring so I do my best to stuff the whole with a handkerchief, wringing it out every few minutes. Mean while, the hatch in the top of the bus isn't closed properly, so its pouring down on Tom and several other people as well. Tom rigged up my kikoi, which I had been using as a blanket, and it helped some, but mostly we just sat and got rained on. At least it was a break from the heat. So the 2:30 bus finally arrived in Kampala at 6, and we took motorcycles back to Backpackers for one final night. We got a bus going back to Busia in the morning- althought the bus did not end up going to Busia at all. The conductor took our money and let us ride all the way to Mbale, almost 100 kms out of the way, before making us get off the bus , putting us in a very overcrowded matatu and sending us to cross the boarder at Malaba instead of Busia. As luck would have it however, we happened to be crossing the boarder right as a guy from Austria working in Nairobi was crossing- in his own car. He and the girl- she was Slovenia- he was traveling with stopped and offered to give us a ride since they were going through Eldoret to get to Nairobi. They took us as far as Kaburgenia (about 20 kms north of Malava) and wouldn't take any gas money from us. It was luxurious after the crowded bus and matatu and they told us about the work they were doing in Nairobi (he works on water sanitation projects for the World Bank, she's working on her PhD in Art Anthropology). We finally arrives back in Malava on Sunday afternoon.
The next 4 weeks are crazy busy. Katie heads back to the states next Monday. We have a ton of meetings for the center, including planning for World Day for Disabled, a staff outing and an epilepsy clinic. Kate will be in Malava in less than a month and I'll be back on US soil five weeks from Thursday. Its all ending so quickly, I'm trying to savor the little time I have left.
Pictures from the Uganda/ Rwanda trip will go up today, so check the picasa page. Tom already posted his, so you can check out his blog as well.

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