Friday, December 4, 2009
Rwanda - Day 3
Photos of Uganda in 1966
One day, when you have a fast internet connection again, check out my
dad's photos of Murchison Falls and Kampala in 1966. You'll find them
under "African Slides East Africa"
http://picasaweb.google.com/
Saturday, November 28th 2009
Woke up today and Maggie and I went to a place called the “Blues Café” for breakfast. Then Maggie went looking for coats (we would need them at the summit of Bisoke volcano) and I went to an internet café and did some work for NYU.
We met back up at 1:00 and went to the tourism office to pay for our Bisoke trek - $150 – not too bad.
Maggie and I apparently weren’t thinking too clearly because we bought the trekking tickets before knowing if there was room at the Kiniji Guest House – the only reasonably priced lodge in the town (it cost $20 and the other lodges that catered to extravagantly rich people charged about $400 / night). The lady gave us the number for the lodge but it didn’t work. I called from my cell phone and my global cell phone and it didn’t work either time.
“Are you sure this is the right number?” I asked Peace.
She nodded.
Maggie and I decided we’d just go to Kiniji and hope they had room. The lady told us where to get buses to Kiniji and we left.
On the way to the bus depot we bought a Rwandan SIM card and airtime and called the lodge. They were completely booked. Our spirits sank.
“Can you refer us to another lodge?” Maggie asked.
They told her to call back in a half hour. Great.
We got VERY lost looking for the bus company, “Belvedere Bus.” It took us about an hour to find it. It was very frustrating everywhere we went people harassed us and tried to get us to take their bus – but we only trusted Belvedere because the woman at the tourism office was adamant we take them.
Finally we got to Belvedere at 2:23. The bus left at 2:30…good timing.
The bus wound through the verdant hills that were layered and tiered with farming trenches. Seperately the tiers were pragmatic means of creating farmable land – in aggregate they were a stunningly beautiful agricultural mosaic stretching as far as the eye could see. As we wound higher into the Rwandan mountains the mist of the mountains, clouds of the sky and haze of the distance morphed into one.
Our ears popped as we rose higher still. We stopped at a roadside mart along the way. Maggie got a ham and cheese sandwich.
She bit into it. “Mmm, its delicious. Have half.”
“No, its not that big and you are really enjoying it.”
She smiled. “It’s delicious and that’s why I want to share it with you.”
Aww isn’t she nice!?
The sandwich was good, but three months ago it would have made me ill. My stomach is pretty Africanized by now – I can eat basically anything and not get sick (knock on wood). It’s been almost 2 months since I’ve had stomach issues. Not bad (although I go through about a pound of Purell every day (that’s the trick I think)).
After 2 hours we arrived in Musenze. I thought Musenze was within walking distance of Kiniji. I walked to the bus driver, I pointed at my ticket and then down at the ground (basically asking if we were at the destination I was supposed to be at). He nodded.
Maggie persisted.
I walked over. “Maggie, we know we’re in the right town why are you still talking to the bus driver?”
“We need to take another bus to Kiniji.”
Oh. I didn’t know that.
There was a crowd gathered around us. Masenze was the real sticks. A woman wheeled over a crippled child in a wheelchair. The child supplicated softly, “Please give me money.”
I couldn’t in that situation. I walked away, but it was sad.
Again a group of people all working for different bus companies harassed Maggie and I. We finally found one going to Kiniji and bought tickets which cost 300 Francs (60 cents).
While we waited for the bus to leave we watched a young boy with a leg amputated at the hip running around on his hands and his one good leg. The boy was disturbingly dexterous and his body movement reminded me of something out of a poltergeist movie or something.
A child came to Maggie’s window selling an odd fruit that was ensconced in what appeared to be a flower bud.
“What is it?” Maggie asked.
The children, and nobody on the bus spoke a lick of English.
Finally a woman in front of us reached out the window, grabbed one of the buds, opened the leaves and popped a gumball-sized fruit in her mouth. Ahh, it was food.
Maggie bought it and we ate the strange fruit. It tasted like an orange-flavored strawberry and had the consitency and texture of a tomatoe. Delicious.
“Savor the flavor.” Maggie said. “You’ll never see this fruit again.”
How right she was – I cant even count the number of times I came across bizarre fruits on my travels that I’ve never seen again.
After a 30 minute trip we got to where we surmised was Kiniji. I turned to the man sitting next to me, wearing a suit and asked him if he knew where Kiniji Guesthouse was.
He smiled, a wide, toothy smile. “Yes, I will take you there.”
Hmm – okay – that works!
We made small talk as we walked. His name was Samuel and he was a preacher at a 7th Day Adventist Church in Masenze but lived in Kiniji.
As we walked we were inundated with children SCREAMING “Mzungu! Mzungu! MZUNGU!” I have to admit – in all my travels I’ve never seen kids get THAT excited. We were definitely not a common site in that town. There were less while people in Masenze and Kiniji than just about anywhere I’d been before. They kept demanding I take pictures of them and then show them the pictures. Cute.
Samuel led us off the main road and onto a dirt path that snaked between a thin forest of trees on either side. Maggie and I started getting nervous.
“You’re taking us to the Kiniji Guesthouse – right Samuel?”
He smiled and nodded. “Yes, this way.” He pointed at another shock of trees in the distance. “Just behind those trees.”
It was odd, but I think I have a good sense for people and I felt Samuel was a good guy. Plus he was dressed in a full suit and was a preacher…I mean if he was a robber it was an elaborate hoax.
Much to my surprise Samuel took us directly to the lodge (he took us a back way through the forest). Along the way we met his daughter.
Three boys – George, Claude and Fred started walking with me. We talked about their favorite English Premier League Team (Arsenal) and about their soccer team. When I got to the lodge they asked me to take their picture and email it to their school (I did).
When we checked in we met two Swiss guys, Flohan and Xavier that had tracked gorillas earlier in the day but were also climbing Bisoke the next day (same as us). They kindly offered to drive us from the campsite to the base of the mountain. They were nice guys so Maggie and I had dinner with them and Aaron – a guy from Quebec that was going to Medical School in Australia and doing an internship in a Rwandan hospital. Good conversation, good people – but the worst food I’ve had yet in Africa. All they had was fried fish and I literally couldn’t put the thing in my mouth. It was rancid. I ate a mini-banana and French fries. Yum.
We had a long day of travelling and sleep came quickly.
Rwanda Pictures - Day 2
Friday, November 27th 2009
2:44 AM – Maggie is asleep next to me. I just got off the phone with my family and I can’t sleep so I’m writing. We’re stopped in a small town and at almost 3:00 in the morning : in the foreground there are men running up to my window and tapping on it and proffering sticks of fried beed. These people area really tireless. In the background a man wearing a tan raincoat is dancing to reggaeton coming from one of the shops. He’s oblivious to the bus that just pulled up – content to mingle with the music and the dust and the darkness of the night.
The rest of the night I was captive to my imagination – thinking about all I’d experienced in Africa, about what Rwanda would be like, about not being with my family, about wondering if our stuff is going to get stolen. The countryside looks the same in the dark – all I feel are the bumps of the dirt road and all I see is dust being spewed from under the bus. Its 4:50 and we’ve been driving for a few hours now. There is a film of dust in the bus. I can taste it in my mouth.
The night capitulated to the inevitability of day and I was graced with the beauty of the Rwandan countryside awakening outside my window. I watched the sun come up through the early morning mist and haze, over the gently undulating landscape – it was bright and red and powerful.
I nudged Maggie awake.
“The sun is rising.”
She opened her eyes and smiled. It was one of the most beautiful sunrises I’ve ever witnessed.
We weren’t yet in Rwanda “The land of a 1,000 hills” but already the landscape was changing – it was breathtaking. Hills as far as the eye could see and then the hills reached up gently and kissed the awakening sky.
“How are you doing?” Maggie asked me, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“I’m okay. Havent slept a wink and my leg is killing me.” The leg where I tore my hamstring was on fire, absolutely throbbing. I don’t know what it is about certain bus (and even worse, matatu) seats but the angle of the seat was terrible and I was in pain.
“I can give you a Vicotin for the ride back.” She offered.
“That would help.”
We arrived at the border 5 hours later – at around 10:30. Suddenly everyone started getting off the bus. Maggie and I had no idea what has happening.
I grabbed my bags and started to walk off.
“Leave your bags.” The conductor commanded in broken English.
I wasn’t comfortable with this. We were supposed to leave our bags on an empty bus?
We did as we were told and got off the bus. We were the last to get off and as soon as we got off it drove away.
WHAT?!
We watched as the bus with all our stuff drove down a street and past a slew of other trucks and buses.
Someone yelled that we needed to exit Uganda before entering Rwanda. Someone handed us a yellow piece of paper. We filled it out with our passport information and then waited in line for 15 minutes. We got checked out of Uganda and started walking on the no-mans-land street our bus had gone down that connects Uganda and Rwanda.
As soon as we passed the gate we were swarmed with money exchangers.
“I give you good rate!”
“I give you 730!”
“Mzungu! Change here.”
There had to be 60 or 70 of these guys. They were all over Maggie and I but we barged through.
Finally we got to the Rwanda border and there was a money exchange counter. I’ve done enough travelling to know that the border exchange rates are terrible, but Maggie and I made them compete against each other until we got a decent exchange rate. Oh yeah, they don’t like Uganda shillings so we had to use our spare USD. We drove the money changers from a rate of 760 to 775 and changed about $200 each. It was tough – they speak KiRwandan or French in Rwanda – we were just beginning to encounter the troubles we’d have with absolutely no common language between Rwandans and us.
Maggie and I hadn’t eaten since the night before so we got some chappati and mondazzi and then wandered around looking for our bus. We finally found it – but – they had taken everyone’s stuff out and laid it against the side if the bus.
This is funny – so Rwanda is apparently a super environmentally friendly country – they weren’t checking the bags for guns or drugs or something like that – they were checking them for plastic bags. Under NO circumstances can you bring plastic bags into Rwanda – they take this very seriously. So random.
The drive to Kigali was incredible – the bus weaved in between gigantic hills that had been terraced to make them agriculturally productive. The combination of all the terraced hillsides created a pituresque amalgam of manmade and natural beauty.
We got to Kigali at noon.
We didn’t speak French or KiRwandan.
We didn’t have a place to stay.
We didn’t have a map.
We didn’t have a schedule for what we were going to do (although we had a couple vague ideas).
We pulled out a Lonely Planet guide for East Africa. There was a Rwandan tourist office.
“Lets just go there.” I said. “They can help us figure stuff out and they probably speak English.”
As soon as I said that a man came over to us. “Where are you going?” He asked.
Maggie and are naturally guarded with anyone approaching us, but we needed help.
“We are trying to get to the tourism office.”
He smiled. “You can take a bus. Right this way.”
We followed him to a couple matatus.
“You can take any of these into the center of the city.”
We were waiting for the hammer to drop. For him to ask for money or tell us to give him something or give us a brochure for a hotel. Nothing. Just a wonderfully nice man. How pleasant. That was just the beginning of the wonderful demeanor of the people we met in Rwanda.
The matatu conductors were relentless, however, one of them grabbed my wrist so hard he turned me around as I was walking. I glowered at him. I don’t do well when people touch me. It’s a pet peeve.
Finally we got in a matatu and headed off for a section of town we didn’t know. Nobody spoke English. Finally a man got on that understood broken English and he said he was getting out at the same place we were.
We got off the matatu and still had no idea where the tourism office was.
We approached man with badly stained teeth and he spoke broken English and was very kind and showed us to the building.
The lady at the counter, “Peace” (what a cool name) told us about the different attractions Rwanda had to offer: gorilla hunting, volcano trekking, genocide sites, genocide museums, lakes…etcetera.
We had heard good things about the volcano treks and decided we wanted to do the two-day trek up Karisimbi mountain which is 14,783 feet high and located half in Rwanda and half in the DRC. To put that in perspective – Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa, is 19,931 feet - - so Karisimbi is no joke.
Before we could do Karisimbi we had to get more money (it cost $250 per person and we only exchanged $200 at the border). Rwanda is weird in this regard – it’s the only place I’ve ever been to that doesn’t have ATM machines. We set out from the tourism office looking for a bank when we were approached by a nice, well-spoken, genteel-looking boy (maybe 17 or 18).
“The guard told me you are looking for a bank.”
We nodded.
“I’d be happy to show you.” He smiled.
He took us to the bank where we were able to withdraw money through an incredibly complex and annoying process.
Afterwards we were walking out.
“Thanks (I forget his name now) – we really appreciate it.”
“Yes no problem.” He said. “But I do have one favor to ask of you. My parents were both killed in the genocide and tomorrow is the day the killer is set to go on trial – I want to go but I don’t have enough money for the bus trip. It costs 4,800 Francs ($10).”
Now here is a tough situation. The kid was really nice and helpful and well put together (he was wearing a designer scarf for Christ sakes!) and its true that everyone in Rwanda was touched by the genocide and it was believable that he lost his parents – but what are the chances that his parents killer was to be tried tomorrow?
I knew I was being had…but for $10 I didn’t think it was worth it to grill the guy about his story. What if he was telling the truth? Then I’d feel terrible.
Maggie and I gave him 5,000 Francs each.
“Good luck tomorrow.” I said. “I hope justice is served.”
“I hope so too.” He smiled.
We walked back to the tourism office with our money. “Oh, Karisimbi is on waitlist.” Peace said. “You can’t climb that until next Thursday.”
Wish she told us that before we withdraw an additional $500 from the bank. Oh well.
“Can we climb Bisoke?” I asked. Bisoke was the second tallest volcano, further in towards the Rwanda side. It was 12,172 feet – still pretty serious elevation but was only a one day trek.
“Yes. You can do that.”
Great. Maggie and I elected to make our way to Kiniji (where the volcanoes are) without a guide because guides were a lot of money and we’re pretty experienced at travelling around via public transportation.
With the rest of our day we decided to visit a genocide museum in an outer province of Kiniji. To say the museum was sickening is an understatement. The genocide that took place in Rwanda was possibly one of the most horrific incidents in ALL of humanity. I say this because over 1,000,000 people or 1/8th of Rwanda died in the massacre. And it wasn’t like the slaying of the Muslims in the Balkans, or the slaughter of non-Arians by Hitler – these people all killed EACH OTHER. Literally neighbors killing neighbors. Friends killing friends. Husbands killing wives. Brothers and sisters killing each other. I am not exaggerating. The fear was so pandemic and so deep that people didn’t trust others they had known for their whole lives. The pictures and the stories of how brutually people were slaughtered were unreal. After the memorial we walked outside to a mass burial grave that contained over 240,000 people.
240,000 people brutually murdered and buried beneath where we were walking. 240,000…its hard to understand.
It was a moving experience - this didn’t happen in the 1940’s when my grandfather was a young man. This happened in 1994 when I was 13 years old. I struggled to bridge the logical gap between the kindness of the Rwandan’s I’d met earlier in the day with the savagery of what took place not long ago in this small country.
Afterwards we took boda boda’s back to our hostel (which had NO running water). All I can say about Rwanda is that the aftermath of the genocide hangs above the city like a dense, heavy fog. EVERYONE…and I mean EVERYONE knew someone that died in the genocide. The city is quiet. You can’t talk about whether you are a hutu or a tutsi. What your religion is. What your political orientation is. The fabric of this country is indelibly scarred with the memory of what happened 15 years ago. It’s an imprint that will never leave Rwanda and its people.
Maggie and I ate dinner reflecting over all we’d seen.
“Maggie have you noticed how many amputees there are?” I asked.
She looked around. Almost at any instant you’d see someone with an arm or leg missing. They were everywhere. Often times during the genocide if you weren’t killed you were disformed. They hacked off arms and legs like they were nothing and today, 15 years later these poor souls were still walking around hopelessly disfigured.
Maggie and I watched as the light faded away from the city. Kigali became queit, almost ominous. There was no nightlife, no raucousness – just silence – as if the city was still penitential over the brutality of 15 years ago.
Rwanda - Day 1
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Thursday November 26th, 2009
Today as I prepared for my trip to Rwanda I took out my money belt and looked at my passport and US money that I hadn’t seen in about 3 months. Now, I haven’t been away for THAT long BUT 3 months is far and away the longest I’ve lived outside the US (the previous record was a 2 week backpack through Europe). Anyways, I did SUCH a double take when I looked at the US money. The Ugandan money is very large and ornate and the US money looked like it was monopoly money. So weird. If that was a pseudo-shock I cant imagine what it’ll be like to be back in the developing world in 2 weeks. I can’t wait.
For thanksgiving we went to Tim Kreutters house. Tim Kreutter is the founder of a non-profit called “Cornerstone” which teaches vocational skills to out-of-school youth. He’s a white American but was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo (his parents were missionaries). He has a son and a daughter and a wife and although they are all white and were schooled in America – they are basically African. Very interesting family.
Anyways, the Kreutters always host a HUGE thanksgiving dinner for American expats in Uganda. There were probably about 30 people at the event. The Kreutters made us all pick numbers so we were seated randomly and I ended up sitting next to Evan, a guy from Atlanta who was visiting cornerstone in Uganda but was training to be a priest at a seminary somewhere in the US, Grace who was bizarrely from Jackson Heights Queens (for those of you who don’t know the geography of Long Island – Jackson Heights is 15 minutes from my house – small world). The food was good, conversation was interesting but nothing, I mean NOTHING, can replace being surrounded by people you love and are comfortable with. Most of the dinner I engaged in conversation but secretly wished I could transport myself back to NY and be with the family. Alas, I could not.
After dinner we went up on the Kreutter’s roof. Mr. Kreutter came around and told the girls that they needed to be careful. Tim told us that in the last two weeks 2 American girls were abducted outside of Iguana’s (very popular mzungu bar) by boda boda drivers. I don’t know the details of one girl, except for the the fact that she was raped. But the second girl was someone Tim Kreutter knew through a friend of a friend – apparently she got on a boda boda after a night at Iguana’s, the boda boda driver took her to an abandoned field where he and another man raped her, then they beat her until they thought she was dead (she wasn’t). Finally someone found her (I don’t know details) and when the police questioned her they thought she was making the story up. The poor girl had been gang-raped (with a decent chance of contracting AIDS) and beaten till the point the peretrators thought she was dead – and then the police didn’t believe her. Unbelievable. Finally the US Embassy got involved and started an investigation. Apparently the poor girl was only in Uganda for a 2 week Rotary rotation.
The two boda boda incidents were so serious that I got the following emails from the US Embassy:
Subject: URGENT: Warden Message - Security Notice
Warden Message - Security Notice
Kampala, Uganda
November 23, 2009
This notice is being sent to address the serious dangers associated with the use of public transportation in Uganda, specifically motorcycles for hire, commonly known as “boda bodas”.
Boda bodas are inherently dangerous at all hours of the day given the combination in Uganda of poor roads, poorly maintained vehicles, and erratic driving behavior. Boda boda customers and drivers are frequent victims of serious auto accidents. As a result, the Chief of Mission discourages their use by American citizens even in daylight hours.
Additionally, in the past two weeks, there have been two serious late-night attacks on private American citizens by boda boda operators. According to reports, one or more boda boda operators were “staged” at the same bar/restaurant in the Kisementi area of Kampala waiting to pick up passengers. In both attacks, the boda boda operators then took the female victims to secluded areas to sexually assault them. RSO Kampala is actively assisting the Ugandan Police to identify and bring to justice these perpetrators.
Effective immediately, due to the inherent danger and general criminal activity associated with riding boda bodas, U.S. Mission employees under Chief of Mission authority and their dependents are prohibited from riding boda-bodas after dark.
Additionally, U.S. citizens and their dependents should avoid arriving and departing alone from bars and restaurants anywhere in Kampala after dark. The two attacks reported above targeted females who were traveling alone after leaving bar/restaurants in the early morning hours.
RSO would like to remind the U.S. community that Kampala is a critical crime threat Post. It is imperative that American citizens use heightened security measures to avoid being victims of crime. Some of these countermeasures include not going out alone, avoiding poorly lit areas, consuming alcohol only in moderation, and having a solid plan to arrive home safely. It is especially important to remain “situationally aware” when consuming alcohol given past reports of drinks being “spiked” in order to induce unconsciousness as part of premeditated sexual assault or other criminal acts. Research indicates that the chances of being the victim of crime increase exponentially during evening hours.
WOW. When these embassy alerts pop up – you pay attention. I will tell you that, as always, its good to be an American citizen. The US Government REALLY has your back in the event something bad happens. Anyone with a US citizenship is lucky,
After we left Tim Kreutter’s house we (ironically) walked through the section of town where the two girls were abducted, but we were in a big group so it was okay. More often than not you are safe if you exercise caution – unfortunately a single woman (probably drunk) getting on a boda boda by herself at 2:00 in the morning is the definition of NOT being safe.
We took a special hire home and then Maggie and began packing for our overnight trip to Rwanda. We had tickets for a bus that departed Kampala at 1:00 in the morning arriving in Rwanda the following day at noon – a nice 12 hour trip. I was absolutely exhausted so I slept from 10:00 to 11:00 and then started packing. It was my first international trip in Africa, and the bus was leaving at 1:00 in the morning – yeah – I was definitely nervous.
Mad Max picked us up at 12:15 and drove us to the bus station. The depot wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting – I was thinking of New York’s Port Authority multiplied by a million…but they only let people with tickets in the bus terminal so there weren’t too many seedy characters hanging around (although there were a few).
We got on our bus immediately and asked the conductor where we could sit. Instantly we were dismayed – there were no seats together. Our worst fears of being stuck in the middle seat (the bus was configured with 3 seats the aisle and then 2 seats) of a 3 seater, but miraculously a man moved at the last minute freeing up a 2 seater for Maggie and I. Next problem – there was nowhere to stow our luggage.
“We can just put it under our feet.” Maggie said.
Umm – I wasn’t about to do that on a 12 hour bus trip.
We had to rearrange some bags (much to the chagrin of the other passengers) but finally were able to wedge out bags in the overhead bins.
Maggie and I patted ourselves on the back – phew!
The bus pulled out of the station and drove for 5 minutes, but then it stopped to pick up two people on the side of the road. They came onto the bus and, as luck would have it, came right up to us.
“Those are our seats!” They yelled at us, pointing at our seats.
Maggie and I were in no mood for this. “Well the conductor told us to sit here!” Maggie yelled.
“Get up!” They yelled back.
“We are NOT getting out of our seats until the conductor moves people out of our seats.” I exclaimed.
They yelled at us again but Maggie and I didn’t budge.
Finally the conductor walked back to calm things down. We explained that until he moved people out of our seats we weren’t budging. It was a scene.
Fortunately the conductor was able to move people out of our seats and we moved all the way in the back of the bus to our seats. PROBLEM – our bags were now in the front of the bus and we were all the way in the back. Thievery is RAMPANT on overnight buses – and Maggie and I were nervous as it was. To prepare myself for the trip both Maggie and I wore moneybelts (with our passports and major cash) underneath our shirts that were twisted until they were on our back (which was pressed against the seat the whole time), my smaller bills were in my right pocket, my cell in my left, my book and glasses and other stuff were in a bag that usually slings around my shoulder, but I wore it like a belt and left it zippered on my body. If someone tried to snatch it I’d be awoken instantly. On my bag in the front of the bus I had miniature locks to deter someone from fingering through my bag. Maggie and I kept all our more valuable things locked up. As we progressed into the night the conductor turned off the lights – I kept checking every 5 minutes to make sure no one was messing with our bags and then I realized that everything in my bag was just stuff. If it got stolen it got stolen – the only thing that really mattered was Maggie, me and our passports – everything else could go. It doesn’t matter. I relaxed and listened to Led Zeppelin as we drove through the sleepy African country side.
At 2:00 AM my family called me to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving. Dinner at the Kreutter’s was nice but speaking with my family and hearing my nephews on the phone was the highlight of my day.
There is no clear distinction between Thursday and Friday since I didn’t sleep on the bus – but lets call it a wrap there for Thursday.
