Rwanda – land of a thousands hills!

Before I start this update, I want to say that its quite a long one compared to the rest of the entry’s. But if you take the time to read it, I think you’ll gain an insight into Rwandan life and it’s history.

We arrived here in Kigali last Tuesday evening after a surprisingly uneventful and smooth ten hour bus journey.

The first thing that strikes you as you enter Rwanda is the beauty of the scenery. It certainly lives up to its nickname of “land of a thousand hills”. As far as the eye can see, there were ravines lush with banana trees and bamboo shoots which created canopy’s of foliage. We passed constant stream's of people, women in brightly coloured dresses, swaying gracefully under the large parcels balanced on their heads, often with small babies tucked into shawls slung across their backs. Men pedalled what looked in some cases to be handmade bicycles which were draped with all manner of vegetables or other everyday items. Gaggles of smiling boys in baggy torn cotton shorts drove cattle over the hills. Just like every country in Africa, the women carrying banana’s on their head makes for a superb photo. However, understandably they are not fond of foreigners taking their picture, so I’ll have to get into sniper camera mode some day. The bus route was dotted with neat villages of mud-brick cottages, and in the distance the hills were pebble dashed with hundreds of small wood fires which gave off white spirals of smoke. The beauty of this landscape masks the poverty that lies beneath it. It was a very scenic journey from Kampala to Kigali and well worth the time it took to get there.

We got ourselves settled into a small hotel which was as you can see from the photo below….an “all in one” type of a room! Still it’s clean and does the job!

Our home in Kigali!

The next morning we visited the British embassy(no Irish embassy in Kigali) and they recommended the orphans of Rwanda orphanage to us. So we went along to it and its alot more modern in structure than the place we volunteered in Kampala. The orphanage was set up as a result of the genocide in 1994. So there’s boys and girls here that were born as the genocide was taking place, but lost their parents. A high percentage of them are missing limbs and have horrendous physical scars from the massacre, and well as the obvious emotional scars. Its also an orphanage that takes in babies and kids that are found around the city(like sanyu babies home). It has good funding from what we can see and it provides a good home for those living there. We spend a few hours every day visiting and talking to the kids both young and old who stay there. Some of the stories would made you cringe. Really hard to believe what they people must have gone through. One thing we are not allowed in to the orphanage is any camera equipment, phones are electronic devices. We were told that no photo’s or video’s are allowed. We can understand the reasons why but we’re a little disappointed not the get a few photo’s to add to the blog.

Despite it’s natural beauty, it’s very hard to look at the country and not immediately associate it with the genocide of 94.
A UNICEF national trauma survey taken in 1995 states that;

• 99.9% of children witnessed violence
• 79.6% of children experienced death in the family
• 69.5% witnessed someone being killed or injured
• 57.7% of children witnessed killings or injuries with a machete
• 87.5% saw dead bodies or parts of bodies

Wednesday afternoon we went to visit the Kigali Genocide memorial center as part of a bus tour of the city. The memorial center is like an educational museum that not only covers the events that happened during the 1994 genocide, but also extensively covers genocides that has happened in the past with Jews, Armenians and Cambodians. There are many shocking exhibits in the museum, but the one that really punctures the soul is the memorial dedicated to the lost children of the genocide. Children were specifically targeted during the genocide to effectively wipe out the next generation of Tutsis. The memorial to the children shows pictures of the victims and underneath is their name, age they were killed, favourite food (i.e. pizza), and some specific personality trait (i.e. loves to play with his father, wants to be a doctor when he grows up), and then at the bottom is states the manner in which he/she was killed; (i.e. smashed against the wall, hacked by a machete while drinking it’s mothers milk, or clubbed to death while witnessing his mothers death). It was absolutely awful to read and see these pictures. What must it have been like for those to actually witness it?

250,000 victims of the genocide are buried here under the memorial center.

The memorial center also has short video clips of actual video footage taken during the genocide. It show’s men,women and children been hacked to death by machete’s, sticks and anything else that their murderers could use on them. Really disturbing video clips. The memorial building is built on top of a grave that hold’s the remains of exactly 258,000 victims of the genocide.

Its a deeply disturbing fact that after the holocaust happened the world said “never again”! However, as we know this “never again scenario” surfaced many times since. I visited Auschwitz on two separate occasions last year as I was always interested in the holocaust, and I’ve read many books on both Auschwitz and the Rwandan genocide. 6,000,000 Jews were exterminated in four years during that holocaust, but 1,000,000 Rwandans were exterminated in 100 days during the 1994 genocide! Hard to imagine that 10,000 per day were slaughtered in that short time.

Just to give a quick background about the genocide, I will share my understanding of it from the books I’ve read and what I’ve learned... During the Berlin Conference of 1885, the participating European countries concluded that Burundi and Rwanda would go to Germany, while Kenya and areas of Tanzania would go to the British. Germany sort of lost interest in it and handed the powers to Belgium. When the Belgians came to Rwanda, they noticed a stark difference in the people who lived there-- one group of people were short and stocky, while the other group of people were extremely tall. The Belgians used this as a way to classify the Rwandans into two ethnic groups, the Hutus (short) and the Tutsis (tall). The ethnic classification was then printed on their identification cards, which later ended up being a grave tool for the collaborators of the genocide to easily identify the Tutsis.

Before the Belgians, the Hutu and Tutsis were different in socio-economic standards so it's not like the distinction between the groups didn't exist prior to the colonisation. However, the Belgians did favour the Tutsis, thereby offering more education and job opportunities to the Tutsis, strategically using this as a tool to mobilise and control the power they had in Rwanda. This was the start of resentment between the groups as the Hutus (who were the overwhelming majority of Rwandans) were placed second tier to the Tutsis. During the process of independence, the Belgians started to switch their favouritism to the Hutus, and started to give them more power, resources and opportunities. Once this happened, the power was held by the Hutus and thus they started to suppress the Tutsis in retaliation of the decades of suppression. Soon after, Tutsi guerrillas launched an attack and this was the initial start to the bloodshed between the two groups.

Tensions continued to be high between the Hutus and Tutsis, as the Tutsis felt that they had wrongly been discriminated against, but troubles reached an all-time peak when a plane carrying the Burundi and Rwandan presidents was shot down. Being that the Rwandan president at that time was a Hutu, road blocks popped up immediately after and the killings began instantly. Not only were the Hutu extremists (Interahamwe) killing the Tutsis, but normal, educated Hutus who never even committed a crime took part in the massacre, with neighbours killing neighbours, friends killing friends, and family killing family.

It wasn't like the Hutus immediately decided or one day woke up with this idea to massacre the Tutsis. The Interahamwe created a calculated plan to kill Tutsis by training Hutus on how to savagely butcher the Tutsis, creating a list of the Tutsis to target first, and by they hold these ceremonies every once in a while when they have recovered enough remains in the nearby villages creating a media campaign (mostly through radio and printed propaganda) that brainwashed the majority to look at the Tutsis as enemies, and that the only solution was to exterminate them, as well as Tutsi sympathisers, known as moderate Hutus.

It was such a brutal time in the world's history. It's shameful to accept that so many people turned a blind eye to it(i.e the UN), allowing nearly a million people to be massacred in a period of three months. Equally as shocking is that since the Hutus were now the favoured group by the colonisers, the French supplied the Rwandan government with a massive amount of weapons and money... and those weapons and funds were used during the massacre.

Camp Kigali where 10 Belgian blue berets were killed as part of a plan to get the Belgian army to pull out of Rwanda. The bullet holes are clearly visible.

So we plan on staying in Kigali for a week only. We originally planned on staying here until it was time to travel back to Tanzania and head home, but we are going to head back to Kampala and to Sanyu babies home for another week or so. The orphans of Rwanda orphanage has many good aid workers there and therefore doesn't need the extra pair of hands. We feel that Sanyu babies home would benefit more from our help. So we head back there on Wednesday.

Kigali as a city is very different from Kampala or anywhere else in Africa that we’ve been to. Its very, very clean for a start. Keadue, back home in County Leitrim wouldn't stand a chance against this place in terms of cleanliness! There’s very little street poverty around the city center, but poverty is definitely prevalent in general outside and in the surrounding areas. Slums are widespread and clearly visible from all parts of town. English is not common at all here. In fact it’s predominately French that’s spoken here, along with Kinyarwanda. So the language barrier can be difficult at times. I studied French from my leaving Cert, but that was 13 years ago :)!

Food here is very nice, but expensive compared to Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. Buffets are the norm in most places. The standard of the roads in the city are the best in Africa we were told. This is mainly due to the millions of dollars that the UN poured into Rwanda in the aftermath of the 94 genocide. Guilt money perhaps?!!

Our main mode of transport around the city is by way of motorbike…like in Uganda. But the major difference is that you must wear a helmet. You can’t get on one unless you wear one…which is great. You don’t get even get the option to use one in Uganda. This are more structured here. The day after we arrived I hopped onto the back of one to head into the city center and along the way a little 2/3 year old kid ran out from the side of the road. The driver wasn't looking at the road ahead of him and only for I screamed “watch out” I don’t think he would have avoided a collision! I nearly fainted with shock as the bike swerved around the child, but the driver was’nt bothered at all! Just another incident I’d say for these guys. He said that it was’nt his fault, that the mother should look after here children!

Hotel des Mille Collins(the hotel that inspired the movie “Hotel Rwanda”)

The atmosphere in Kigali is very strange. So far I can’t put my finger on it. The people are extremely honest and in most cases kind and helpful. One thing that is frowned upon almost everywhere here is people like me taking out a big SLR camera a going hell for leather snapping photo’s. The beauty of the land is spectacular with it’s rolling hills making it something that you’d see in a postcard. But beyond what I see, I am confused more by what I don't see. There seems to be no evidence of the past, aside from the memorials, purple flags and pink uniforms, and I wonder if it's a real sense of forgiveness and moving on, or if it's a mask to hide the tensions and reality of what they are feeling or thinking? Kigali was the epic center of the nightmare that was 1994. There are countless men here with legs missing(both legs missing in many cases) and other scars from 94, but apart from that and the memorial center, there’s very little to suggest that anything bad happened here. I don’t know is that a good or a bad thing, but its definitely a strange atmospheric city!

Ciao!

Not long left!

We’ve entered the final third of our African adventure, and have only another day left here in Kampala, before we make the eight hour journey south and across the border into Rwanda.
We go to Sanyu babies home tomorrow for the last time before we leave on Tuesday.

The three weeks that we’ve spent in Kampala have been magnificent. We met so many nice people of all nationalities including Irish. We’ve seen so many sites and activities, some which were amazing and others which were very hard to witness.

But the one experience that we will take away from our time here and the one that will stand out the most, is our volunteering time spent in the orphanage. Its difficult to describe what’s its been like. Words or even photo’s wouldn’t justify my thoughts to the extent I’d like to express.
All I know is that after seeing so many poverty stricken, helpless, starving orphans both on the streets and in the orphanage, that I realise how lucky I’ve been in life.
It doesn’t bear thinking about how some of lives of the kids in the above photo’s will turn out. Some of them were so badly malnourished when they arrived in the orphanage that the damage done already both mentally and physically would hinder any chance of leading a normal life.

Last week a little six/eight month old baby boy was found near the orphanage, abandoned on the side of a road. Left to die and fend for himself the boys cries were thankfully heard by someone who brought him to Sanyu babies home. They called him Benjamine. This is him;

Another example is of a little girl called Martha. A similar story as Benjamine’s only that she was two years old when she was picked up and brought to the orphanage. She’s been there six months. She is so fragile, weak and small that would you hardly think she was two and a half years old. Her arms,legs,fingers are the size and skinnyness of a new born baby. Come dinner time and she’s in a league of her own. She wolfs down whatever’s in front of her and does so in such a cute manner that its hard not to smile. Here’s a few photo’s of Martha;

This are just two examples of thousands of cases like this throughout Kampala alone. Its hard to imagine what it must be like.

Just now as I type this in our apartment, we hear kids screaming outside. We look to see whats going on. About seven or eight street kids are there begging on the road, with one girl in particular crying. We don’t know why she is crying, but her dress is half ripped off her back and she has no shoes(like the rest of them). God only knows what she’s frantic about, in a part of the world where gang rape is not only common, but a sad harsh reality of street life for these poor unfortunate kids.

I’ve also include two photo’s below which I took of what the streets here in Kampala are like concerning poverty and kids begging. These two photo’s were taken discretely, because I wanted to remember what it’s like for these children who live here. I have other photo’s but they would not be appropriate for posting up on the internet in my view.

As I said earlier, words or photo’s don’t convey accurately the conditions here. You would have to experience it for yourself to really understand it. And even then you’d come home at night and wonder how unfair life is to some people.

So it’s off to Kigali in Rwanda next week for the last portion of our trip. We have to meet with the Irish embassey there when we arrive and sort out a placement with an orphange.

Genocide took place in Rwanda back in 1994 as ye all know. The effects of which are still very prevalent on the streets there we were told. We don’t know what to expect in Kigali but I presume it would be much the same as Kampala…maybe worse, who knows.

I’ve a few stories/observations from our three weeks here which include:

• Guinness and rats!
• The effects of Larium(anti-malaria drugs) on me.
• The locals and their obsession with T.V and football
• Rubber necks
• Ladies of the nights(as they saying goes over here)

But I’ve save them for another post in a few days.

So my next post will be from Rwanda hopefully. Not looking forward to the eights hours on the bus but that will be nothing compared to the mammoth journey that we will have to take to get back to Dar es Salaam on the east coast of Tanzania to catch our flights back home!! Horrible thought, but I’ll end with a quote about travelling abroad…..

”A man travels in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it”!

ciao!

Rwanda next week!

We are nearing the end of our stay here in Kampala. We plan to cross the border into Rwanda next Tuesday...all going to African plan of course!
I'm just in the process of typing up another update with a few more photo's, so I should have that up by tomorrow evening at the latest.
Hope ye all had a great Paddy's day! Photo's from the realboyle website look very well.

Paddy’s celebrations!

Happy St.Paddy’s day to everyone back home. I hope the day is good for the parade and that the guinness tastes even better!

We had our own celebrations for paddy’s day on Friday night last. We met a girl from Sligo who is working up in Northern Uganda as a volunteer and she informed us of the Irish embassy's paddy’s day celebrations here in Kampala. So the three of us went to the football game that was organised for Friday evening between the Irish and the English! This is an annual game that has been going on for the past five years and is sponsored by “bubbles O’Leary’s” Irish pub. The Irish won of course 1-0, but the game was anything but friendly, as you could imagine. A few heated moments and one of two Irish hotheads made the game all the more enjoyable to watch :)! Anyone could sit down on the Irish bench and play if they had shorts and trainers…both of which I didn't have with me unfortunately. It would have been a laugh to pull on a green O’Leary’s T-shirt! I forgot to even bring my camera so I don’t even have any photo’s.
So that night the three of us headed to O’Leary’s, where there was a ticket only party going on, complete with free Irish stew, an Irish band from Galway(that was flown especially over for the weekend) and free guinness!! There was Irish everywhere, was great to mingle and everyone was in great spirits. I decided that I’d drink guinness for the first time ever….I’ve tasted it before and hated it. So I necked three pints of it and it was lovely! Really liked it. But I left it at that, as I don’t fancy having anything that resembles a hangover here, especially with the heat. Plus I said that I would’nt go on a session until I get back home.
The craic was great in the pub, which had a big outside area as well as inside. The band were very good and played all the usual songs. You’d find it hard to believe that you were in Africa inside that pub as all the pub was exactly like an Irish pub. The furniture was shipped over from Ireland when the pub was been built, so it really did make for a good Irish atmosphere. We left at 1am but the party did’nt stop until the early hours we were told. There was also an official formal ball on the Saturday night as well as another party in the Irish ambassadors house in Kampala on Sunday, but we did’nt go to either of them as we would definitely had a mental hangover!

Here’s a few photo’s from the Friday night. The plaque that you see in the photo’s is the one the Irish team got for beaten the Brits!

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So Saturday morning we decided that we would get the bus to Bujagali falls, which is a two hour bus journey away and stay the night there.
Bujagali falls is like a mini tourist resort and has bungee jumping, the worlds deadliest white water rafting and loads of quad biking adventures. From the photo’s below you can see a few grade 3 rapids in which you’d pass if you did the rafting. But there are loads of grade 5 rapids that are further down the river.

We wanted to do a full days quad biking, as that way we’d get to waste away a day and plus we’d get to visit loads and loads of small little villages and settlements that dotted the surrounding area. So Sunday morning we got kitted out and off we went. I’d a manual quad and Flor had an automatic. Our guide for the day was very friendly and we had a blast. We went to various town’s and villages and around every corner there were loads of kids running and waving at us. It was a very surreal experience with all these children running around the quads and shouting “how are youuuuuuuu”. Whenever we stopped for a break or photo’s, we were mobbed by the local children…who were fascinated with both our skin colour and our quads. I presumed that white people did not pass through their villiage that often.
The scenery was quite amazing to be honest, like something you’d see in a movie. Lush green fields with banana trees one side, pineapple and mango tree’s on the other and the brown copper coloured dusty road in the middle. A text book photo of Africa in my opinion. There was no better feeling that flying along those roads waving a the friendly locals and sensing the hot wind blow over the skin. A brilliant day and it lasted from 8am until 6pm! Needless to say the dust and dirt totally covered us from head to toe. Like pigs in shit as they say :)

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We also went for a short boat ride Saturday and visited the source of the River Nile. Its the spot where the water from Lake Victoria pours into the river Nile and begins its 6200km journey up through Uganda, Sudan and exits into the Mediterranean sea in Northern Egypt. There’s nothing spectacular about the source of the Nile, just a plague or two and a few shops etc. Worth a photo or two though to say you were there…

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So it was a busy weekend for a change, and a welcomed change it was!

Enjoy Paddy’s day all and I’ll have another update in a day or two.

Ciao

A home away from home!!

It was a busy past few days for us in Kampala. We found a flat for a few days so I’ll tell ye about the craic with that!…..

The title by the way “a home away from home” is the motto of almost every hotel, lodge, guesthouse and restaurant in Kampala. I don’t know if they realise this or not :)

So we got ourselves sorted with an apartment :)! Its a basic flat in the middle of the city center, but to us its like the Bellagio, compared to where we’ve stayed so far!
Its a great commodity to be able to go to a supermarket and cook for ourselves over here. Eating out takes it toll on the good old digestive system, so this change will be greatly welcomed.

We went to the tourist office here in Kampala during the week and told them our situation and that we wanted to rent an apartment for a week or ten days. So Thursday afternoon, I got a call to say come up to an estate agents office, that we were going to be showed an apartment.
So when we arrived the gentleman said that his colleague was going to come by and bring us to the apartment block. The man arrived and he was an old man of about 70+ and wore a brown suit and had a big gold cross hanging down from his neck. He was really nice and informed us that he “knows” the people who own this apartment blocks. At first we assumed that he was a priest. However, we’ve come to realise that people over here are only nice and friendly if they want something(well the 99% of people we’ve met anyways!), and that they are not always WHO they say they are either….
Anyways, as we are walking into the block of flats into the reception area, the man points up to the sign above the entrance which says “Makatumba Suites”. At reception, he introduces us to another man and informs him that we are volunteers in Kampala and asks him “does he have anything suitable for us”. I asked the man behind reception how much was the flat that he was going to show us, and he didn't respond…he just looked at the man who brought us there with an awkward glance! We both thought this was strange that he wouldn't tell us how much the flat was!
So up to the flat we go, while the old man waits at reception. The flat itself is basic and clean…which was more than we could have hoped for. While we were looking inside it the guys phone rang and he walked outside the apartment to take it. Immediately I knew what was going on!
So when he came back in two minutes later, I again asked him how much the flat was per night. $45 per night he quirked back. Our budget is $35 per night so I replied that that’s all we would pay. $40 he said was the lowest he could give it to us. So I said that we wouldn't be taking it. We returned back down to reception where the old man was waiting to see “if we got a nice flat sorted”! We told him that our budget was $35 per night and that we wouldn't pay anything over that. He asked the fella at reception would he “kindly speak with his employer” and see what could be done for us good people volunteering in his city! Nothing could be done the man replied.
So the old man said that he would try and find us something as we “are such good people”. He wrote down his telephone number and signed his name as “Dr.John Makatumba”!! Ring any bells? You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what this fella was at. He was pretending to be a little old man(which is was!) who went to church all day and had nothing else to do. But in actual fact he was the owner of this block of apartments who was trying to get as much money out of us Mzungu’s as possible. Does he really think that we are that brainless that we couldn't figure out from the big sign above the entrance gates and the reception fella not been able to give us a price while he was there and then signing his name as John Makatumba!

Anyways, to make a long story short…..I’m rambling again, we left the reception with his name and number. I told Flor that we would hear from Mr.Makatumba within 20 minutes! Sure enough ten minutes later the “doc” himself rings me and says that “he has talked the owner into giving us the apartment for $35 per night”!!!
One thing people in Africa hate is losing potential business. They will try and make a sale at any cost. So getting $35 per night was better than nothing Mr.Doc rightly calculated!
So we went back to reception and kindly thanked the little man for all his help and I also said to him to “thank the owner” for agreeing to the price!!
Hahaha….he didn't look too pleased I can tell you! He knew that we knew the story!!

So I’ve included a few photo’s below of our flat in which we’ll stay in for nine or ten days until we head off to Rwanda.
We initially had no cooker/oven, only two cooking rings(as you can see from the photo’s), but I went a asked that we have an oven….as us “volunteers need to eat”! We had one ten minutes later! :)

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Tomorrow I’ll fill ye in on the weekends craic, which included an early Paddy’s day celebration party.

Ciao!

Sanyu babies home

Here are a few photo’s from the orphanage we volunteer at here in Kampala.

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Already we have great memories of Kampala and the little one’s are a joy to be around. We really like it here in Kampala.

Comment feature added to blog!

Finally after eight weeks of trying, I've finally cracked how ye can leave comments on the blog. I had to give it a bit of a face lift though in order to do this. It was my own fault as initially when I set up the blog I messed around with the HTML code on the template. And as my buddy John MacHale would say to me "don't go playing with HTML unless you know what your at"! Good advice :)

Anyways, feel free to leave a comment, question, suggestion or sly remark on any of the entries. I'll try to answer any questions you have.

Ciao!

Our project in Kampala

“Every child has a name and a story; everyone has the right to health, learning and protection, the right to their full potential and the right to participate in the shaping of their world”

UN Press Summary, The State of the Worlds Children 2002.



So last Wednesday we got ourselves sorted with a volunteer project here in Kampala. We had two contacts arranged for volunteer work.....Sanyu babies home and compassion international(more about this later!)

Anyways we started in Sanyu babies home last Wednesday. This is an orphanage that cares for up to 50 abandoned and parent less babies. Their ages range from newborn to 4 years. The children are found in many varied places; from maternity wards, and hospitals; outside houses and, police stations; in taxis, and taxi parks; to rubbish dumps, pit latrines, and often just by the side of the road. We've seen this poor babies and children lying at the side of the roads, waiting and hoping to be picked up and fed.

When a child is brought into the orphanage, efforts are made to find their parents or extended family but in most cases this proves unsuccessful. The main objective of Sanyu Babies Home is to see the children resettled back into the community with relatives or with foster families. Some of the children at Sanyu are fostered and adopted into local and overseas families, the other children move onto other homes and orphanages as they get older.

So, volunteers are greatly welcomed by the orphanage as you can imagine. There are full time staff there who are qualified in certain areas. But you don't need to be qualified to feed, play with and wash children, so thats what we help do. Volunteers are allowed stay and help from 8am till 1pm monday to friday.

Our typical day starts with helping the staff bath and play with the 18 babies that are currently under the age of three. For a man who finds children alot of hard work, I've adapted very well over the course of the past 7 weeks. When you see a baby in a malnourished and neglected state laugh...it would melt your heart. Its tough to imagine how their life will manifest itself from this early age, with so little and no one to bear responsibility for them. They sit in the kindergarten area for a few hours every day and get fed, washed and if their are enough volunteers - played with individually. Their emancipated bones stick out like rocks on a barren hillside, but their smiles and play full happiness are amazing to witness.

After playtime, we help feed them. Their dinner is a small portion of mashed potatoes with some soup mixed through it and some sort of baby milk afterwards. They eat this at a speed that would make someone like me who eats very fast, look very slow. Their are usually alot of tantrums at this stage as a few hungry hands go robbing neighbours food when their own is finished!

When dinner is over, we help bath and change them before they are put to bed for an afternoon nap....which is around the 1pm time.

Its hard to imagine, but we do be mentally wrecked come time to go. We can only imagine how difficult it must be for the full timers who are there around the clock. Its emotional stuff to be honest and it takes alot out of you both physically and mentally. We have saturdays and sundays to ourselves.

We are staying in Kampala for three weeks in total and then we will move to Kigali in Rwanda to volunteer there.

Helping out at an orphanage like this is not only rewarding, but a real life experience. To see life through the eyes of an abandoned child is truly humbling and life affirming.

Regarding the other organisation that we had a contact for....Compassion international. This seemingly is a big enough worldwide group, although I never heard of them before or either did Florence. Needless to say, after our meeting with one of their representatives, I had heartburn in my ears!

We went and met with one of their officers at the Kampala office last Tuesday(day before we started in Sanyu babies home).

We told the man, who was called Jackson about what we wanted to do and and what we had done already in Tanzania. He said that they are a Christian organisation and that they run different projects throughout Kampala as well as the rest of Uganda.

To be "allowed" to participate as volunteers however, we had to answer a few personal questions....if we didn't mind!! We said fire ahead.

First question: what religion are we? Catholic I promptly answered.

Second question: Whats the name of your church? St.Josephs church....obviously not the answer he was looking for, as he looked at me suspiciously! Maybe the correct answer was the Roman Catholic church...I don't know.

Third question: Are we a couple? Yes I replied.

Fourth question: Are we married? No I said as I smiled politely. Obviously another incorrect answer as Jackson looked very displeased at this response.

End of Interrogation!

We were told that we would be contacted the next day.......a phone call that we still haven't received, and do not wish to receive.

What a load of crap! We both knew exactly what this guy wanted to know. He wanted to make sure that we were of Christian/Catholic beliefs and hoping that we were married...before we would be considered to help out in any of their projects! I don't know if this has happened before, or is part of their policy over here, but its a complete disgrace.

So in order to give a helping hand to poor children and babies you MUST be a Christian believer?? It would be appropriate to also be married, because we are man and woman.....a couple...we must therefore be married? Ridiculous. 100% absolutely garbage. This man looked down at us because we were not married. Its not just me thinking this...Florence was there as well.

And also because I said St.Josephs church, which I don't think was the answer he was looking for, he probably thought that we were not Catholics...and just making it up because we wanted to help volunteer with them.

An absolute disgrace this is.

Sanyu babies home is also a Christian organisation. But were we interrogated when we arrived? No, we were welcomed with open arms and all that was expected of us was to sign in and out every day and give the babies as much help at we can...pure and simple. No questions about religion or marital status whatsoever!

And that's the way it should be full stop. I'm really baffled at the way we were treated, considering that we are volunteers, asking for no payment, and wanting to lend a helping hand in some of their projects. Maybe I should return to Jackson's office and demand why we were not contacted as promised by him.

Naturally religion should not come in the way of helping children out in third world countries. I'm not saying that this is the way in which "Compassion international" operate their business(well I hope not), but this man definitely did not entertain us after he found out we were not married, and he probably suspected wrongfully that we were not Catholics....which should be not big deal either. We were there to help and instead got interrogated. Good luck to that I say.

So I got that rant off my chest :)!

No other news really. We are going to head to a little town on saturday, which is about two hours away. Its called Jinja. Its more of an adventure town and is the source of the river Nile! So there's white water rafting, bungee jumps and quad biking trips all to be had there. The quad bikes are definitely getting a good doing. I love them. We went for a quad bike safari through the Sinai desert in Egypt two years ago and it was the brilliant craic. So looking forward to that.

Have a few funny observations about African life that I'll give its own update sometime soon.

So hope everyone is keeping well and thanks for everyone so far for the texts messages and words or support and wisdom :)

Chat with ye in a few days again.

Ciao!

A local tradition

I had this entry typed up from a few weeks ago while I was in Tanzania, but for some reason I forgot to publish it........

Its been said that if you get invited to the home of an Tanzanian(or indeed any African) that its both a great honour and experience to you and your host.We have been lucky enough to have gotten four different invites to such an occasion. We did our research and were prepared for the local traditions that awaited us.

Basically when you are lucky enough to get invited to spend an evening at someones home, its bad manners to refuse...especially if your a foreigner like us. The Locals take great pride in inviting you to their home and unless you've got a pretty darn good reason not to go...you accept and be happy about it.
Taking small gifts for the family is in order. Men like tobacco or other such items, while women prefer anything that keeps down their household expenses, be it sugar, coffee, soap or a few loaves of bread! Kids of course love sweets, but you give them to the mother or else you'll end up getting mauled in the stampede that follows.
Make sure you leave a big hole in your stomach before you arrive at the house, as the hosts will more than likely make a big play out of the fact that your not eating enough, even though you probably have eaten twice as much as they have.
Before eating, one of the women of the house appears with a bowl, soap and jug of hot water to wash your hands with. Food is eaten by hand from a communal bowl or plate...though you may be presented with a plate and cutlery, its best if you try and eat with your hands as the gesture will be valued!
When eating, you ONLY use your right hand! Eating with the left hand as we found out is bad manners and this is because the left hand is seen as a "dirty" hand...associated with going to the bathroom and the likes :)

Ugali is the local staple. It is generally made from maize and water which give it a porridge like consistency, or a dough like substance. Vegetables or meat is usually also served with it.
The traditional method of eating ugali as a main course (and the most common in the rural areas) is to roll a lump into a ball, and then dip it into a sauce or stew of vegetables or meat. Making a depression with the thumb allows the ugali to be used to scoop, and to wrap around pieces of meat to pick them up in the same way that flat bread is used in other cultures. Ugali can also be eaten with a spoon or a knife and fork....although as I said already this is frowned upon.

So we have had this experience four times so far in the five weeks we've been in Tanzania. The first time was in a little village outside Nairobi with Beatrice(see early post). When the Ugali was presented to us and we had washed our hands with the provided bowl of water we picked up the knife and fork and started to dig in! The host started laughing and she kindly informed us that we have to eat the food with our hands! I looked at Florence and we both thought the same thing....."good old paddy's from Ireland"!!
Anyways, we survived our first taste of Africa.

The other three invites came from the three female teachers at our school, who were more than eager to invite us to their house. When I say house I mean its a single shed about 8 foot square located somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Cooking was done outside on small little charcoal fires along with the washing. Inside the room, they have their bed, a small knee high table and two/three stools for guests/visitors. Clothes were in a ball at the end of the bed..presumably a makeshift wardrobe. And another table held everything and anything from food, butter, jam, hair brushes, pictures and other personal items. At first we were saddened that the conditions that they lived in were so basic in contrast to what we've been accustomed to in western society, but after a while we forgot about it and saw that they couldn't miss what they never had.
We have been very fortunate to have experienced such hospitality. I've heard from people who have been living and working in Tanzania for months, that they've never gotten invited to a locals house to eat. Even Tanzanian co-workers haven't invited them over to their house(yet).
We hope that we get many more invites before we go home as its a nice alternative to spending the evening at the hostel squatting mosquito's on the porch.

I got some lovely photo's our our visits to each house and I look forward to putting them up online when I get a decent connection again that won't take hours to upload a small file.

ciao

First impressions of Kampala

Small fragile fingers, skinny malnourished bodies and cries of "please give sir". This is the harsh reality that's commonplace in most African countries, but its one that we have witnessed for ourselves first hand here in Kampala.

Kampala lies in stark contrast to everywhere else we've been to in Kenya and Tanzania. First off, its alot more modern. When I say modern I mean that it has shopping malls, cinemas, loads of restaurants, fancy gadget shops and all the other amenities that one would find in any typical European city.

And secondly, it has alot more street poverty. You may think that this is a contraction when I said that its modern. But the fact is that the streets of Kampala are filled with thousands of homeless kids. In Tanzania there was a level of poverty that didn't go below a certain stage of begging. But here in Kampala, when you witness men, women and children walking down some streets with not a stitch of clothing on them then you'll realise how much of a contrast Uganda already is compared to Tanzania. Such is the level of poverty here.

Its hard to describe in pictorial detail what conditions are like here for those who live on the streets. Kids as young as only a few months are sitting on the pavements with their hands cupped over their heads looking for money. There are others who are a little older and they come running up to every second person on the street begging for a few coins. This is hard to take. Its even harder to accept that you can't give them anything. Why? Because they would be in alot worse condition if they got money from someone as thugs and even some police officers would take the money off the kids. Some bent cops even beat the kids into giving them the money. Another harsh reality that even more difficult to understand.

When Idi Amin(Ugandan president) destroyed the country back in the 70's and 80's he left his mark. A mark that is still visible today on the streets in Uganda. The butcher of Uganda, as he was known ordered his followers to torture and murder anyone who opposed his leadership. Men, women and children who were unlucky to be captured for no apparent reason had one of two options: "Short sleeves or long sleeves"!
If they choose short sleeves then they would have their hands butchered off at the elbow, while the long sleeve option got them their hands chopped off at the wrist. The same scenario went for the "shorts or 3/4 lengths"...meaning chopped at the knee's or the ankles.
So on the streets, we've seen hundreds of poor people who are mutilated and deformed if you like as a result of that war back in Amin's period. These people would have been like they are today for the past 30 years or so. Resigned to begging from an early age because of the atrocities of their back then president.
It really is stomach turning to see these poor human beings with disfigured remains of arms and legs. It will no doubt be alot worse in Rwanda, with the genocide just a decade and a half ago.

So apart from the poverty, Kampala is really a nice place. The local mode of public transport is boda boda's, which are motorbikes. So we fly around the city on the back of these bikes and its not for the faint hearted. They are lunatics for drivers. But the reason why we use these instead of dala dala's(small mini buses like what they have in Tanzania) is because the traffic in Kampala is grid lock 24/7. So as you can imagine, two wheels are alot faster, cheaper but more dangerous than four wheels. Its like Beijing with bicycles...motorbikes are in their thousands here on the streets. Very funny to watch as there is no system on the streets for driving. Its everyone for themselves.

So over the weekend I'll post an update about the project that we are involved with.

Ciao

Uganda at long last!

Finally after 5 days of travel we reached Kampala in Uganda. The journey was one that would shatter the very foundations of one's religious beliefs! It was without a doubt a fascinating and laborious journey, and one that will have me NEVER again complain about public transport back home :)!

Here was our route from Arusha(Tanzania) to Kampala;

• Arusha to Dar es Salaam (10 hours by bus)
• Dar es Salaam to Dodoma (7 hours by bus)
• Dodoma to Mwanza (13 hours by bus)
• Mwanza to Bukoba (13 hours by overnight ferry)
• Bukoba to Kampala (7 hours by bus)

We left Arusha last Thursday morning after departing two hours late, and boarded what turned out to be a sauna of a bus. We were presently surprised when we saw that there was a toilet facility on the bus as we didn't know whether we'd be stopping many times for breaks along the way. This journey was heaven compared to the rest of the trip to be honest, and if anything we got our hopes up wayyyy to early regarding travel in Africa! We arrived into Dar es Salaam around 9pm Thursday night sticky, smelly but in otherwise high spirits! We had to catch the train the following day which would take us directly to Mwanza, taking a total of 40 hours (not including breakdowns!)
Well so we thought anyways! So we went straight to the station to get our tickets for the following mornings departure, but was told by the shed master...I mean station master...that the 1st class and 2nd class cabins were all sold out and that the only alternative option was to go in 3rd class or wait until Wednesday for the next train! Now, 1st and 2nd class cabins meant that you'd have your own private space with 1st class having just 2 beds and 2nd class having 6 beds. So what exactly was 3rd class I asked?! It was just sitting on the floor along with hundreds of others for 40+ hours! NO THANK YOU! We opted to bite the bullet and make the journey in stages by bus.
We later found out that the central line train from Dar es Salaam to Mwanza isn't exactly the best form of transport in Tanzania. We were told by one man who made a similar journey in a 1st class cabin that he had rats and a nest of cockroaches to contend with in his cabin for the whole journey!! He said that the rats eat a whole loaf of bread during the night on him(remember you had to bring your own food for the trip as it takes about two whole days if your lucky) and that he was more pissed off with that than anything else!!! He hit a rat with a shoe though on the second day and he didn't see it for the rest of the journey....not soooooo bad then! :)
He also told us that the train regularly breaks down along the way and that he was stopped in the middle of nowhere from 6pm one evening till 11am the following morning! The entire journey took him 61 hours!!! arrrrahhgggg!!!
So that made us wonder what exactly would 3rd class comfort have been like if we were insane enough to have gone for it?

Anyways, we ended up getting a bus(or what resembled a bus) from Dar to Dodoma the following morning. The journey was 7 hours and the bus had no toilet facility. It made one stop for food and a few stops for the toilet along the way. When I say toilet stops, I mean that the bus pulls over to the side of the dirt track and men go one direction and women the other....you get my drift!!
We got into Dodoma Friday evening and booked our ticket to Mwanza for the following morning. Mwanza was still another 12/13 hours away the shed master informed us and the bus was departing at 1oam.

So Carlo and Florence arrive bright and early at the station at 9pm.....better to be early than late is my motto! How wrong that motto is in Africa! The bus arrives at the station at 12am...a whole 2 freckin hours late. I wouldn't mind if the bus came from another destination or something but it was starting its journey from Dodoma!! No excuse or apology from anyone to us "patient" clients! So we found ourselves at the very back of another sauna bus. The following trip was a 13 hour bone breaking journey across the barren midlands of Tanzania, where there was no roads for about half of the trip....just dirt tracks. For the rest of the time the roads had 3 sets of speed ramps at every mile. And you would think that this would cause the driver to slow down abit....not at all! If anything he drove faster over them. So even if we desperately wanted some shut eye the chances of getting any were zero. We stopped once for food at a so called food station....which was closed. Luckily there was an opportunist type of guy who had ready cooked chips and chicken....stone cold and stuff into small bag plastic bags. We didn't care as we were so hungry. We dosed it with salt to try and mask abit of the taste :)
We arrived in Mwanza a little after 1am that night.....very cranky as well as cremated. We stepped off the bus and was immediately grabbed by about seven different taxi men, all wanting our business. It got a little hostile at one stage as they started fighting among themselves over "who saw us first". So we hoped into a taxi and told him to bring us to the lake view hotel, which we had booked in advance. The driver told us that he had to change a flat tyre first though! We red faces and steam escaping from our ears we patiently waited 15 minutes until he found the tools and changed the tyre.
When we arrive at the hotel, the whole place goes into darkness. Another power cut....which happens every second day without fail in Tanzania. So we had the option we were told for a room without a light for Tsh20000($10) or a room with a light for Tsh30000($15). We I asked how could they have lights when there was a power cut he promptly enlightened me that they had candles!! Candles that was gona cost us Tsh10000 for the privilege! No thanks....we had our torches and they did the job. The power did come back on half an hour later :)

The following day(Sunday) we went and booked our 1st class cabin ticket for the ferry, which would take us across lake Victoria to Bukoba. This journey would take 12 hours and it left at 8pm Sunday night. Interestingly, Lake Victoria is Africa's biggest freshwater lake and the second biggest in the world. It has an area of over 70,000km square which is roughly the same size as Ireland.....huge bloody lake.
We boarded the Mv Victoria ferry and were presently surprised that the cabin was clean, and had a sink with running water and lights that worked. Great....we'd be able to sleep through the journey we thought! WRONG again we were. The pressure cooking heat was immense and it got to the point where we thought we were in a steam room. That combined with the roar of the ships engines which were directly beneath us made sure we were getting no sleep. Apart from that the ferry trip was great and it served nice dinners and had soda's etc to buy....which was a nice surprise. But we had our own food as well just in case. We arrived into bukoba just as the sun was rising, and I got some amazing sunrise photo's. It was the typical Africa sunrise, a huge round ball of sun climbing slowly up the horizon. The trip had taken 13 hours but it was fine. At least we were able to leave our cabin and get fresh air anytime we wanted.

So then we had the final leg of our journey.....Bukoba to Kampala(crossing the border from Tanzania into Uganda). We decided to get the bus that day(Monday) rather than wait until the next day. The bus left Bukoba on time at 11am and we had seats right at the front of the bus.....sharing the third seat beside us was two live roosters who had been tied at the ankles by some farmer and thrown on the bus....obviously going somewhere to be killed. It actually went the whole way to Kampala with us. The roosters were also wrapped in plastic bags and after a while the poor things were wet with perspiration. We were dripping wet so I can only imagine how the roosters must have felt....wasn't nice to be honest. But no one batted an eyelid.
After 7 hours we finally arrived at Kampala bus station to the same situation as Mwanza....minus the flat tyre episode!

So here we are in Uganda after 5 long days of African travel. It was a surreal journey to be honest and while we are glad we did it...we ain't looking forward to the return journey!! Our flight home is from Dar es Salaam on the east coast of Tanzania end of April!

However, we heard a little saying; that if you can manage and survive travel in Africa then you can master travel anywhere else in the world. I'm inclined to think that this would make perfect sense.

So I'll post another update tomorrow or the day after with all the news from Kampala, along with details and photo's(hoping Internet connection allows me) of our new project.

Ciao.