Uganda: It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…

It’s been a while since I’ve last posted and a lot has happened.
went Uganda for a week and a half, I spent a weekend in Kibuye, school
has started up again and I saw Paul Kagame speak. Where to start…

As you may have heard, we didn’t have the best first day in Uganda.
We took a coach bus North from Nyagatare, crossed the border and
started off on the dirt road on the Ugandan side. It had been raining
all morning and the road had turned to mud. About 45 minutes over the
border the bus started fishtailing and we slid into the ditch. After
an hour of us standing around in the mud and the rain, they managed to
push the bus back onto the road. As we were filing back on, I made an
innocuous little joke about how long it would take us to go off the
road again. Turned out the answer was about 30 minutes.

Once again, we fishtailed and went into the ditch. This time,
however, the ditch was quite a bit deeper, and the bus tipped over,
the left side slamming into the embankment, leaving us slanted at
about a 45-degree angle. Oh, I forgot to mention that the woman next
to me had been vomiting into a plastic bag earlier, and now, as I
wedged myself against the seat in front of me, holding up both of the
women next to me, that bag of vomit was smacking my arm again and
again. Of course, the main door to the bus was stuck in the mud, so
we had to swing/crawl/climb our way up to the very front and out the
driver’s door, then leap into the mud/road below.

For some reason, until I exited the bus, I held onto some hope that we
could somehow right it and keep going, but I immediately saw that this
was not likely. That bus was not going anywhere. (I actually
wouldn’t be surprised if it is still stuck there.) This left us with
the wonderful option of finding our own way to Kampala, so myself and
a couple of others hopped back onto the bus to retrieve our bags. It
was at this point, when I was standing on the off kilter doorway that
I noticed the truck barreling down the road at us. As it tried to
swerve around the bus, it too lost control and from my vantage point I
couldn’t tell if it would hit the bus (i.e. right where I was
standing) or if it would hit the opposite side of the road (i.e. right
where about 30 people were standing). I fell backwards into the bus
with the door slamming shut on me, and the truck proceed to plow into
the opposite side of the road. Amazingly, no one was seriously hurt!
Everyone managed to leap back into the field behind them, and the 10
or so people that had been riding on top of the truck jumped off
before it head the ditch.

Anyway, with the news of the bus crash, the scene was soon mobbed by
alternate forms of transportation, and we were able to find a matatu
heading all the way to Kampala. It seemed like a good idea at the
time. It turned out to be 8 of the most miserable hours of my life,
as well as the worst bus ride I’ve ever taken, including the one that
had just ended by crashing into a ditch. The dirt parts of the road
were still a sea of mud, the paved sections could only loosely be
described as such, the driver was ridiculously erratic, and I was
sitting in a folding seat with no back support or legroom. There was
one rest stop (where I first tried a Mirinda Fruity (like a Fanta
Grape) which they don’t have here in Rwanda, much to my dismay) and we
finally pulled into the Kampala New Taxi Park after dark. We quickly
found a motel (the Taj Motel) that had been recommended by a VSO, got
a room and collapsed onto the bed. At least the excitement was over
for the night, right? Right? Wrong!

When our hunger finally got the better of our exhaustion (we hadn’t
eaten anything yet that day), we ventured downstairs to the motel
restaurant. Let me emphasize that – we went to the restaurant IN our
motel. We had a great meal of fried chicken and chips, and tried our
first Uganda beers (which are quite delicious, especially the Nile
Special) and decided we quite liked Kampala. Once our hunger and our
thirst were slated, we headed back up to the room, unlocked the door
(yes, the door was still locked!) and walked in. It took a second for
it to dawn on us that the room was not how we left it. The contents
of our bags were strewn all over the floor, obviously rifled through.
We had been robbed! All three of us had our cameras and iPods stolen,
and the other two lost a good chunk of money. My money, which I had
stupidly left on the bed, was untouched. I had thrown a brightly
coloured plaid shirt (my new fav!) over it, and in their haste, the
thieves hadn’t looked under it! I complained to the front desk, but
seeing as the door was locked when we returned, and the windows were
barred, it had to have been either the staff or that the staff had
been bribed for a key. Needless to say, they were a big help.
(Sarcasm! Yeah!) Being too late to find a new place to stay, we
barricaded the door and went to sleep, leaving early the next morning
for a backpackers’ hostel.

First impressions: Uganda = the suck! No camera, which sucked for the
rest of the trip not being able to document any of the cool things we
saw, plus I had some really good pictures on it already! Fortunately,
we ran into some VSOs who let us use theirs for a day, so there might
eventually be some photos of the trip popping up on here. The iPod
wasn’t as bad as a loss, but still not cool. It was extremely nice
for long bus rides and for working out, plus I really don’t look
forward to the 20 hour flight home without one! I had also been
planning on using it in class to play my students music and podcasts.
Alisha had just sent me some mini speakers to use with it and I was
going to start using it this term. So, small request…if any of you
have an iPod that you really don’t need anymore, consider sending it
my way! (Earbuds too?) But let me know first, incase someone beat
you too it. (Oh, and I’m getting a camera sent to me already, so
don’t worry about that!)

The rest of the trip went swimmingly, so I’ll skim through it. We cut
out a couple items due to cost, like white water rafting on the Nile,
and chimp tracking. We spent an amazing couple of days on the Ssese
Islands on Lake Victoria. Our camp (Hornbill) had monkeys, a pool
table, an amazing beach (that I didn’t swim in due to various
parasites that I can’t spell and don’t want) and plenty of beer. We
also checked out the Botanical Gardens in Entebbe, a holdover from the
colonial period. (It was actually very similar to the one I visited
in Ghana, both being created by the British to house plants from all
over the Empire.) It also had monkeys. In Jinja we saw the source of
the Nile and stuck our hands in it. By “source” I mean it is where
the Nile exits Lake Victoria and first takes on it’s name. I’ll say
this, I thought that since it is where the Nile starts, it wouldn’t be
all the big, but I was wrong. It’s freakin’ huge right from the
get-go! We ended the trip in Kabale, just North of the Rwandese
border, which is known (by the locals at least) as the Switzerland of
East Africa. Lots of mountains and lakes, quite pretty!

I’d have to say that one of the best parts of the trip was the food.
Uganda is a lot cheaper than Rwanda, and we ended up eating pretty
well. The fish (carnivorous Nile Perch, mostly) from Lake Victoria
and the Nile were amazing, and in Kampala and Jinja we gorged
ourselves on food we can’t get/can’t afford here in Rwanda: Chinese,
Indian, Thai, Mexican, American, Italian.

Overall, despite the bus crashes and the robbery, the trip was a lot
of fun, and was totally worth it. It did make me appreciate certain
things about Rwanda a lot more as well (not the food though). Kigali
is not a normal Africa city. It is safe, clean and not too crowded.
Kampala is exactly the opposite. It’s considered safe compared to
Nairobi, but it’s extremely dirty, and packed to the brim with people.
The roads are way worse than Rwanda and the motos (boda-bodas as they
are called there) are not regulated – no helmets and the drivers
usually try to cram two passengers on the back to make more money.
(This actually feels quite secure in practice, as you are wedged in
there so tight it’s much easier to keep your balance!).

To sum up: I recommend Uganda as a tourist destination. Just don’t
stay at the Taj Motel!

Hello everyone! I just wanted to post a quick note. I'll be in
Uganda for the next 10 days or so, visiting Kampala, game parks, the
Nile, Lake Victoria and who knows what else. Afterwards I'll be in
Kigali and Kibuye (on lake Kivu) for the rest of the holiday, then
back to work for term two. I'm pretty sure I'll have tons of stories
and hopefully pictures when i return.

Oh, and it's hard to believe, but I just passed the 3 month mark! Eep!

Miss you all!

Pictures

Science training: In Kigali at the start of the year, being trained to
teach biology and chemistry. It was quite useful! And yes, I know I have a flower in my hair. Isn’t it pretty?



SCIENCE!!!





Close up!

Exam week

Exam week is finally over. Who knew how exhausting it would be?
(Teachers, probably.) I supervised 8 different examination periods
and as of this writing, I’ve marked almost 200 exams. I’ve got about
another 130 to go. (When I said last week I had 140 exams to mark, I
was confused. That was just one class’ worth.) Whereas everything I
own is usually covered in chalk, now everything is getting ruined by
red ink. I’m also veering closer and closer to insanity. It probably
shouldn’t bother me so much that more than half of my students can’t
spell the words ‘holiday’ or ‘exam’ (or that I didn’t realize that
most of them didn’t know what ‘spell’ meant until the week before the
exams), but it does. There has also been some new information just
given to me by the head teacher about how I was supposed to structure the
exams and how many points I should have collected from the students
during the first term. Damn lot of good it does me when I find out on
the last day of exams. Oh well, I guess I know for next term.

On a brighter note, I got limes at the market! (Or Consol got them
for me.) I actually asked for two or three, but I ended up with about
10. Any ideas about what I can do with them? I’ve been squeezing
them into my water, but I still have more than I need.

Interesting fact for the week: When talking about music, some genres
are easy to explain. Others, such as Folk, Indie and Country and
Western, are a little harder.

One week until I go to Kampala! Getting very excited! The trip might
also interfere with blogging so don’t worry if I don’t post for the
next 2 or three weeks.

Thanks!

Oh, and Steve, I’m pointedly ignoring your inane comments.

Why are there always bug stories?

It’s hard to believe I’ve been in Rwanda for almost three months. I
still have no idea what is going on (about school, and most things in
general) and I feel like an outsider. At the same time though, I’m
getting into a routine and things have been going pretty smoothly for
me lately. Classes have been good, the library is coming along quite
well, and I’ve been getting by pretty well in Nyakarambi. With exams
this coming week, and then a two-week holiday, that routine is going
to be pretty well messed up, but it’ll be a nice change as well,
especially if the Uganda trip happens.

I had a good St. Patrick’s Day, hanging out with the Irish VSO.
Funnily enough, when I talked to them, neither one remembered that it
even was St. Paddy’s Day. Of course, I had to “take the piss out of
them” to use the Irish slang. (It means I made fun of them.) We ended
up at the Ikarezi, a hotel/bar where we enjoyed some Primus/Mutzig
(neither were green, unfortunately) and a nice dinner of brochettes
and chips.

I’m back in Kigali for the second weekend in a row. I wouldn’t have
needed to, except when I went to the post office to pick up my
packages last Saturday (and apparently I have two waiting for me!), I
found out that it is only open during the week. I guess you can send
mail, but you can’t pick it up. Needless to say, I was extremely
disappointed, as the packages reportedly contain some books, DVDs
(including the first episode of this season of Lost!!!) and most
importantly: candy.

Another couple bug updates: My home has been invaded by June bug like
bugs the last couple of nights. Now, I don’t like June bugs back home
(as I’m quite certain one will fly into my ear eventually), but these
are quite a bit worse. They still aim for my head quite consistently,
but when they get into my house, they fly around the room flying into
everything. Being very loud, my evenings are often interrupted by a
“BBBZZZZZZZ THUD. BBBZZZZZZ THUD. BBBBBZZZZZZ THUD,” until I get up
and swat it out of the air with an English textbook.

The other bug incident was quite strange. Last Sunday, I woke up with
the crows as usual and I decided to stay in bed and read for a while.
So I untucked my mosquito netting, reached for my book and got a
handful of slug. Remember, this is Africa, so these aren’t your
everyday, garden-variety slugs; these things are several inches long.
The real question is how (and why) it got through my door, across the
room, up the table and onto the book. Also, it was gross.

Let’s hope I am able to post again, and that I haven’t been driven
insane by the 140-odd exams I have to grade next week…

Happy Birthday!

Post Haircut

I’d like to start off by saying Happy birthday Grandma! Hope you have
a great day, and that things are going well in St Thomas! Oh, and i
just saw two palm trees, so I suppose there are at least a couple here
in Rwanda.

Things are going well here in Nyakarambi. The first term is almost over;
in fact, I finished my classes this week. Next week is all review,
the week after is exams and the next one is for marking. After that,
I get two weeks holiday! I’m not sure what I’ll be doing for that,
but most likely traveling, possibly to Uganda.

During last couple days, we’ve been painting the library at my school.
I don’t mean just painting the walls white, or what have you, but
actually painting art/pictures onto the walls. It’s great! We got a
couple of VSO artists to come down, as well as a Rwandese artist from
Kigali. We also got the kids involved. We had about 10 students
working there yesterday, painting pictures of everything from cows and
pigs to microscopes and cells. It is going to look amazing when it’s
finished, and I’ll try to post some photos (if the internet lets me).

Last weekend I finally got to go see more of the countryside. We had
a muzungu party in Kibungo with Worldteachers, VSOs and a guy from
some health organization. After that I headed up to Nygatare to visit
some other people in my program. Nygatare is in the north-east part
of the country, pretty much my counterpart in the north: the
volunteers there can see Uganda from their house. It’s a nice town,
larger than here, and much flatter. It looks like it’s trying to be
what you would think of as stereotypical Africa savannah. Apparently
they also have monkeys. As you can imagine, I was quite disappointed
that I didn’t see any.

I guess that’s about it for this week. I’m heading into Kigali for
the weekend (in desperate need of hitting the bank and buying some
anti-malarials), so hopefully everything is open when I need it!

So I got in a motorcycle accident…

The view from the library windows

Ok, so it’s not quite as bad as it sounds. My usual moto driver couldn’t make it to pick me up on Wednesday, so he sent another driver. Only problem was, I don’t think this guy had his license. As we rounded a bend in the road, he saw the police up ahead, stopping cars and checking licenses, so he pulled a u-turn, and we headed back to Nykarambi. At this point I was wondering if he was just going to hand me off to another driver, but instead he decided to take a different route that would allow us to bypass the cops. He pulls off the road onto a dirt path, and from here on out we are practically off-roading it. Eventually we are driving down a hill on what can only really be described as a goat path when the driver loses control and we go down. I mean that literally. He swerved a couple times then the motorcycle just fell over on top of us. Of course, I landed in the mud, so I was quite muddy for class. I also landed on my shoulder kind of hard. It’s a little sore, but it could have been worse! Anyway, it makes for a good story at least…
Other than that, things are going pretty well. Classes are doing fine, only one week left, plus a week of review, before exams. With a couple of my classes it seems like I really haven’t taught them enough to give them an exam, but I suppose I’ll come up with something. The library is also coming along. A whole bunch of books showed up this week (from where? I have no idea!) and it’s a bit crazy in there now. I’ve spent the last couple days moving cupboards around and trying to figure out where to put the books. We still have virtually no literature, but at least we now have some textbooks!
Lizard update: I had my first confirmed sighting of two little lizards on my ceiling at the same time. Now I have to come up with another name…
I had a request that I talk a little about the food I’ve been eating. I suppose it can be mostly summed up by saying: bananas. Also plantains. I am getting so sick of bananas and plantains. The food is great, don’t get me wrong, but when practically every meal includes either bananas or plantains, it gets a little tiresome.
Breakfast: usually bread with peanut butter. I finally bought some Tupperware in Kigali, so I’m no longer fighting with the ants over my bread. I also sometimes have a couple passion-fruit, or an omelet cooked onto a piece of very flat dough or a banana.
Lunch: the school provides lunch for the teachers. Until this week it was free, but the teachers were complaining about the quality/quantity of the food so now we are paying an extra 1500 RFW a month to improve it. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the food, until I realized that for many of the teachers, lunch is the only meal they eat. Usually lunch consists of rice, beans (sometimes with cabbage mixed in) and ugali (which I believe to be pounded cassava). Lately they’ve also begun serving – banana mash.
Supper: most of the time, Consol, my house-girl (the easiest way to describe her, but not really accurate) cooks supper. She is an amazing cook, and there can be quite a bit of variety. Often there is rice or chips (French fries for you North Americans), and some sort of ....casserole? stew? I’m not really sure what to call it. It’s often made of some combination of beans, cabbage, plantains, bananas, potatoes, peanuts, a spinach-like vegetable and tomatoes (usually just two or three of these per pot). A couple times a week we also have a sauce with a couple chunks of meat to get our protein. For dessert there is pineapple, passion-fruit or, you guessed it, bananas! (Also, some assorted candy that I got in a package from home.)
Going out to eat here in Nyakarambi doesn’t provide a lot of options. There are two places that have good food, and they really only have one thing on the menu: goat brochette (meat on a stick) with a plate of chips and sometimes a small salad (made of cabbage) with mayonnaise dressing. It’s pretty good, but last time I ordered it, they were out of chips, so they gave me…fried bananas.
In my free time I’ve been on a bit of a Canadian Indie music kick. I’ve been listening to old CBC Radio 3 podcasts (available on iTunes if you have Internet) as well as listening to all the Canadian music on my computer. The Arcade Fire, Immaculate Machine and Broken Social Scene help me get through the night.
Side note: while I was writing this blog, two swallows flew into my room and circled it, squawking, for about three minutes.