Rhuengeri, Rwanda

We travel here to hike a volcano. This is more like it. Here the people stare- they dont smile... BUT when you smile their face breaks wide open with welcome. This is more of the Africa that I have the pleasure of coming to know over the past months. We climb the Volcano for 4 hours- but at the top is a beautiful crater lake. The other side of the crater is the Congo- so we bring an armed guard with us for "the animals". On the hike down- not only do I experience the inconvience of a dodgy tummy, but it begins to hale as I stop time and time again. The rain turns the mountain into a mudslide and we are covered by the time we emerge from the woods 4 hours later. My boda boda driver is waiting for me- an adorable boy named Laurent. He takes one look at me and shakes his head. Later when we get a flat tire- I draw a crowd of 20-30 people watching me try to scrape the mud from my shoes and body. Here a muzungu is fascinating. A man told me people like to see the muzungu tourist here because it means the security in the country is good. And it is. Its incredibly safe and pumped with forgien aid. We take long ice cold bucket showers when we get back .... just the thing for a hard days work. "I love Africa" Nikki says as a group of 5 men gather to watch us do our laundry. They have brought chairs for the occasion. Oh Africa.....

Kigale, Twanda

I woke up last night and realized that maybe I shouldnt have shared that bit about the banana ;) Yeah- it was funny at the time. So anyway- back to Rwanda. Went out in Kigale, Rwanda and it was a strange experience. The music was western, the clothing was minimal, the attitude was western. The club was the nicest we've been to. The boy outside the club tells me Rwanda is a bad country because there is no money- yet its the only place in Africa that Ive seen street lights, nicely paved roads, nice cars. I mean if you didnt look too closely you'd think you were in the states. No $- well that may be true for some. I have'nt seen a lot of the country but in Kigale there's a lot of money. There's a gloominess, a sulleness, a reserve... I can't quite put my finger on it. Then Nikki turns to me and says "the fact of the matter is that everyone here is either a victim or participated". Im looking around and Im remembering back to the morning when a young boy told me that all Americans are rich and the book in the bookstore that said "Millions- what our American neighbors are hiding" and I was struck by what it must be like to blame another country for your problems. Granted it is easier for me to get a loan- there are things that are easier for me. But- I get asked often to pay for people's schooling or car and I say- yes I would like those things too. The complaints are similar and it makes me sad that people here can't see how much they do have. America has it's own set of problems and that isn't witnessed by the rest of the world. That said- I know that I am priveledged. I just think that well- just because things are different here does'nt neccessarily mean disadvantage. I just feel like I would rather give money to a mother working in the feilds than to the random people that come up to me with their hand out. What if I stopped someone who looked wealthy on my way to work and said "hey give me some money".... it's equivilent.

Rwanda

We make friends with some Overlanders (people on tours in trucks) and they give us a lift to Kigale, Rawanda. This is cool for two reasons: one- it's free and two- we are traveling in style. The overland truck feels like traveling in an armoured tank- dealing with Africa is optional. We're are glad for the experience and glad to leave. We head first to the genocide memorial and it is effective. I cry through the whole thing. We sit outside in silence and put on our packs. When you look around this country you feel like you are looking at participants and victims and it's a bit haunting. People here stare and dont smile. More later..... computer dieing

Lake Bunyoni

To get to lake Bunyoni we hired a car from Bwindi. Much to our amusement we had a driver and his name was Jackson. Jackson annoyed us endlessly by asking us how he can catch a muzungu... which is a question we get asked like 5 times a day. "To catch a muzungu you must listen" we said " and have a boda boda, 5 goats, and an endless supply of chiapatis".... to this Jackson would always say "yes but how do you catch a muzungu" rendering him a lost cause. As annoying as he was- he let me drive and that was really fun till I backed the car into a hole. Not to worry- hakuna matata- me and some others just pushed it out again. If there is something I have learned in Africa- everything can be fixed, dont worry, just relax... if you dont know what to do just stand around and stare at your problem till something happens.
Our trip to Lake Bunyoni was a drive through the mountains- hence private transport- and it was beautiful. Farm land and jungle. At one point we looked at each other and realized we were really in the middle of nowhere. But 3 hours later we arrived at a town and asked Jackson to pull over so that we could take a picture of the farm land all over the mountains. When we got out we could hear "halo muzungu" echoing all over the mountains and when we squinted we could see little kids here and there jumping up and down and waiving, a mile away from us and each other. Lake Bunyoni was beautiful. We went and rented a canoe for a couple bucks and took it out to one of the islands. I turned out to be the only one who could steer the dug out canoe so I was dubbed Captian Jackie Sparrow for the day and my arms still hurt. Jackie, jessa, josey, justin- these are the names I respond to in Africa- mine is simply impossible. The way to paddle a dug out canoe is to go "slowly slowly" or else you do what is dubbed the "muzungu corkscrew" which we dabbled in for a few hours to begin with, going in circles and laughing. We even brought a local who proved to be useless at paddeling but at one point randomly blurted out that one could loose their virginity with a banana thus redeeming himself and becoming the butt of our jokes for the rest of the day. Oh Africa......

Bwindi Impenetrable Forest

The name lends itself to just about a million jokes but in all seriousness Bwindi is incredible. We took a 12 hour bus to get there and never even stood up once. At every stop people come on the bus to sell you fresh food anyway- we never noticed that we never got up which we realized means we are a little too used to Africa haha. So we took a truck through the mountains of Uganda to arrive at the Impenatrable Forest and it was stunning. Like many parts of the world - they farm landscape seemingly too steep to farm.. and people there dont see much muzungus- people just turned around to stare at us on the bus. In Bwindi it was different. A Gorilla permit cost us $400, so everyone there knows how much you paid and expect a cut for themselves. Despite this, we made a lot of nice friends in Bwindi and after a while they began to believe that we didnt have money pouring from our pockets. Seeing the Gorillas was nothing short of what it was famed by other travelers to see. There are 640 mountain gorillas in the world. I was 3 feet from one of them and he was looking me right in the eyes. We bushwacked through the rainforest following them for an hour. They are so human like. It was sweet to see how they took care of their young with such patience. Babies climbing everywhere, getting into all kinds of trouble, .. parents lounging, eating, scooping them back up. And when they travel the babies just hang on for the ride. I am so grateful to my family for pitching in for such an incredible Christmas present. You made me feel like a very lucky girl :)
In Bwindi we were impressed to see some really great programs that are actually working (this is not always the case). If you are looking for something nice to give your money to this season here are a couple of programs where the money is distributed responsibly:

Bwindi Orphan Development Center
http://sites.google.com/site/bwindiorphanage/

Bwindi Community Hospital
www.bwindihospital.com

Excerpts from my book:
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
Stories of a child soldier in Sierra Leone

From Rehab:
"Whenever I turned on the tap water, all I could see was blood gushing out. I would stare at it until it looked like water before drinking or taking a shower. Boys sometimes ran down the hall screaming "the rebels are coming". Other times, the younger boys sat by rocks weeping and telling us that the tocks were their dead family members. Then there were those instances when we would ambush the staff, tie them up, and interrogate them about the whereabouts of their squad, ammunition..... We were given school supplies and told to go to school between 10 and 2 but each time we were given supplies we would make campfires with them."

There are thousands of children soldiers around the world- but I was suprised to read that their are many in Uganda and 40,000 children commute in northern Uganda to larger villages so they wont be abducted at night and forced into serving.

New Years

Escaped to Kampala, Uganda- the capitol- for New Years and it did not disappoint. We met some of our muzungu friends from Jinja and went out. Nikki and I lost them- headed for somewhere more local and it was awesome. They shut down the street and had all the local artists perform till 6am. There were fireworks overhead and a snow machine snowing on us. They played the best oldschool, new hip-hop. Never in the states could you see your favorite artists performing all night. And they can dance.. Nikki and I danced all night long in a sea of Ugandans who just love to have a good time. No one was puking, no one was stumbling. Beer optional. It was impressive.

Jinja, Uganda

Uganda is a bit different. I hate to say this to all the lovers of Kenya but I think I like Uganda better. The people are friendlier, not so much prostitution, people don't hound you for money, and they even start with a fair price half the time.
Christmas- Nikki and I are staying on a Muzungu compound for our rafting excursion. It's well designed so that you never have to leave ;) However- we are addicted to local food and people. So we make some friends in town who invite us for Christmas. My christmas I spend cooking with 8 young women. They take us in like family and we work hard ;) Like I said Uganda is friendly. We go to church with them in a mud hut with beautiful fabric as the decorations. None of this strikes me as unusual anymore. In fact all I see is community and that feels very "Christmasy" to me despite the lack of familiar carols. Nikki hands me a dirty sock with rocks in it for christmas and an R Kelly Tshirt I had been eyeing for days. The rocks are for eating- like african vitamins- I wouldnt make this up. My christmas is complete. We go out dancing and it's packed. Its awesome. Territorial ugandans are fighting over women left and right and we are laughing and dancing. And then my whole family calls and I am so grateful that just like these Africans I am lucky to have my own community.
In the following days we recover entirely from Malaria but then eat pizza with telapia on it and get sick again haha.
We finally raft the nile which I call 'swim the nile' since we dump in every rapid causing me to yell at our guide "come on man, just give us one". And when 'the nervous nurses and dave' finally make it over our first rapid without flipping we are so excited that we are giving each other high-fives and missing half the time. Class 5 rapids - not a problem. But trying to kayak class 3s put me and nikki over the edge. I did it and with a huge smile. But I can say this "its no easy" and I was scared.