Uraho!

Wow. A lot to cover since my last post. I apologize for the large gap in time, I was in a hotel in Kampala for 4 days, then spent a day traveling to Rwanda, then a few days in another hotel in Kigali with infrequent online access and I am now living in a house without internet. It looks like I will be typing most of my posts in Word and then uploading them when I can to my blog. SOOOOO here goes the story of my nomadic past week.

The brief stay in UGANDA

I meet up with my group in Kampala at the Bat Valley hotel, also known locally as Bativa. All 28 of us arrived sometime on the September 4^th and settled in to our rooms, doubles equipped with mosquito nets, an often non-functioning TV, and bucket shower. I was in a room with Jason, a student from Loyola in Chicago who just also happened to be a retired Marine. He had spent two tours in Iraq after joining the USMC post 9/11 and was returning to finish up his schooling. He is studying abroad next semester as well… in Vietnam. We had the first night off so we hung out in the hotel and got to know as much of the group as we could, amazing how hard 28 names can be to remember.

The next morning we began our SIT orientation, the essentials of surviving in large African metropoli. All the “don’ts”: drink the tap water, be scared by the big guns and soldiers, ride the motorcycles; and the “do’s”: lock your bags, take your malaria pills, have fun! These sessions also addressed the more serious side of things like dealing with the horrors we might hear about or see when looking into the genocide in Rwanda and the civil war in Uganda. We spent every morning discussing these issues and then we generally had to afternoons to ourselves to explore Kampala.

The first afternoon we had they put us into two matatus (taxi buses) and drove us to the center of Kampala. Our mission: Get home alive in 3 hours max. Daunting at first but in reality not that hard a charge. Many of us first went to change money, which makes you feel really good. The exchange rate is 2272 Ugandan Shillings to the dollar, cash money. Most of us then went and purchased Ugandan cell phones, a process that took 13 of us a good hour to accomplish, but I finally had a link to the outside world. Next mission, Internet. For about fifty cents I was able to get thirty minutes of Internet. Note well, you get what you pay for when you pay fifty cents at “God’s Will” Internet café in Kampala. I was able to send one email to my parents over a thirty-minute span and not for lack of trying.

Some observations about Kampala: First, the Ugandan people as a whole are the most friendly and helpful people I have ever encountered. I have heard many people say that they travel abroad and are struck by the rudeness of the locals somewhere or how some people always seem to be asking for something. In Kampala, every passerby offers a smile or a hello and if you look lost, someone offers guidance. It is very easy to find your way around the city if you have a landmark in mind and the confidence to ask a stranger where the heck it is. Second, the traffic is insane. Crossing the road is like a live game of Frogger except the trucks are overloaded matatus, and the cars are overloaded trucks and you add the extra element of overconfident motorcycles. Third, I have never seen so many firearms wielded so openly. Every third shop has a shotgun/ AK-47/ various assault rifle equipped security officer and soldiers roam the streets in packs. Apparently this is due to violence surrounding the upcoming elections as well as due to the bombings in Kampala at the end of the World Cup this summer. It succeeded in making me feel very comfortable while walking around while at the same time being scared senseless every time I grazed by an AK carrying Ugandan.

All right, enough frightening my mother. The next afternoon we went out with a Ugandan friend, Freddie to a bar that ended up being mostly mzungus, then we ended up at the National Theatre of Uganda for a “Jam-Session” with lots of Reggae influence. One in our number happened to be a singer and so after very little persuasion she talked her way in front of the mike and sang a song or two. We proceeded to embarrass ourselves by dancing with an obvious lack of rhythm. Post- dancing we decided to satiate our appetites with some Ugandan street food, Rolexes. Rolexes are chipati (East-African tortillas), egg, and tomato and also delicious.

The next few nights were spent in as our lack of sleep was catching up with us and a few in our number were falling ill, yours truly not excluded. On the 8^th, half of us arose at 5:15 a.m. and piled on a bus with all of our belongings. Our quest for Rwanda was at hand.

The Quest for RWANDA: “African Massage” and “Checking the tires”

Our group of twenty-eight had been divided into two groups of fourteen for the remainder of our trip. So thirteen of my new closest friends and I now were on the road to Rwanda. In Africa the roads are not always as bad as one might think, but that is not always the case. When the roads get rough, you simply laugh and refer to the experience as “African Massage.” Our vehicle of choice was a coach bus of sorts commonly referred to as a “Coaster.” Most of our crew chose to sleep for the first two hours and by then we had reached the first landmark of our twelve-hour journey, The Equator! I have been fortunate enough to cross the Equator in Ecuador so to do it again in Africa was great. Much less pomp around this one, just two markers on either side noting the feature and a few equator stores and cafés, compared to the whole “Mitad del Mundo” complex in Quito. Our Academic Director (AD) Stephanie was quick to hurry us out of there and keep trucking.

Necessary side note: In my everyday life I tend to consume large amounts of water, this hasn’t changed in Africa and I have quickly gained the reputation in my group for drinking at least eight bottles of water a day. This has its obvious drawbacks on a twelve-hour bus ride. Stephanie told us that if we ever needed to take a relief break on the drive, that we were to ask to “check the tires.” In Uganda, “checking the tires” by the side of the road is commonplace, Ugandans are a very open people. But in Rwanda, the culture is much more reserved and people look down on such actions, needless to say, bladders suffered.

A few stops were made in Uganda, mainly for lunch and a few relief breaks, and in 9 hours we were at the border with Rwanda. After a forty-five minute crossing, we were on the road (which in Rwanda is on the right as opposed to on the left in Uganda).

Rwanda is a majestic country. The first thing I was struck by was the abundance of green. Uganda was a country that certainly didn’t lack vegetation but everything in Rwanda is green and vibrant in the countryside. I was also amazed at use of the land. Every hill was covered in terraced fields and every valley floor was a farm. The Rwandan people here have made use of every part of the land. It is wonderful for their development and economy but it was kind of disappointing to see environmentally.

About two hours after crossing the border we reached Kigali, capital of Rwanda, and our home for the next month. We piled out of the van and into our hostel for the next two nights. I was feeling very under the weather, skipped out on dinner and slept for 12 hours. I arose feeling much better, and went off to our first Kinyarwanda class.

Fortunately our hostel happened to be a mere 200 meters from SIT Kigali Headquarters where all of our classes take place. We had our language class in the garage, which is nicer than it sounds. Our professor, Jean Pierre, is a highly energetic person who makes you want to do well in his class. Unfortunately, his class is insanely difficult. The grammar in Kinyarwanda is very simple from what I understand (which isn’t much). The vocabulary is absurd though. I am too used to European based languages at this point. Simple example: the word for “no” is “Oya,” pronounced “Oh-Yeah.” “Perhaps” is “birashoboka,”and “village” is “Umudugudu.” Oh! You want to know how to say 7656? “Ibihumbi birindwi na magana atandatu na mirongo itanu na gatandatu.” Easy right?

Reality

Through out the language learning we get some important bursts of reality though to remind us why we are here. On Friday we went to the Kigali Genocide memorial. It is a beautiful house set up on a hillside of Kigali. The outside is a series of memorial gardens and then three rows of mass graves. Over 250,000 genocide victims remains rest here, a staggering number as over 800,000 people are thought to have been killed in 1994. The inside gives a detailed history of the lead up to the genocide, the genocide and touched briefly on post-genocide reconciliation. Some people in our group thought it did not point enough fingers at those who could have done more to prevent the genocide, especially the French and the UN. I agree with their concern but at the same time, this is a memorial for the dead and not a political soapbox. There were many videos of survivors who told their stories of escape and of those they lost. They also had a room full of pictures of those who were killed. It is hard to imagine the individual victims when you are presented with a number as large as 800,000 but the museum did what it could to make the victims individuals. There was once section devoted to children killed that really brought that message home. It was a hallway with large pictures of the children and a plaque reading: the name of the child, age when they were killed, favorite food, last words, and cause of death. Truly brutal. I cannot comprehend how a grown man could willingly bludgeon to death a three-year-old child merely because she is of a supposedly different race from him. The most frustrating last words were “UNAMIR will save us.” The final hallway was a museum of genocides past: Armenians, Angolans, Serbians, Jews, and Vietnamese. Pretty horrible history the world has going on there.

Depressing end to things there, but I don't have the time to finish all of my thoughts yet but I have more to tell about my past few days. I head off to Butare early tomorrow but I will update you on that among other things in the next post!