news from Bushara's bazungu

12 Days in Europe

2007-06-06T21:57:00.000+03:00

We made it to London...and headed off in different directions.... Bry went to stay with family friends, the Jones, in Eden Park. This is Bryony with Lorna. They had a super visit. From her Eden Park homebase, Bry visited her cousin and other friends in London...but having had her camera stolen, there are no photos :(

Em met up with her sister for some gallavanting around London...

...and then a couple of days hiking the Jurassic Coast from Weymouth to Abbotsbury. It was a very technical trip - note the shopping bags!

Then em headed to Paris to hang out with Kati for a few days

Bry and em reunited in London to meet up with Suzannah and Garreth for drinks.

Em saw Katie who, one of her flatmates when she lived in New Zealand

And finally....Bry and em leave from the Jones' for Heathrow. Bry is pondering just how we'll make it through three transfers with all this stuff...

Back to Uganda

2007-06-06T21:43:00.000+03:00

After flying to Windhoek from Angola where we visited Joe's Beerhouse and ate some of the animals we saw on safari (kudu and gemsbok - both tasty!), we took another 24hr bus to Johannesburg, where we spent a couple of days hanging out with Gill and her boyfriend Leon. Good food, good wine...good times!

We flew back to Kampala for a our last few days in Uganda... and yes, this is a normal amount of traffic and people for Kampala!

Our last chomo (roast goat on a stick sold through bus windows)

Truck full of matoke (plantain)

Transporting sugar cane by bicycle

Yup, the Cel Tel ad campain really is as amazing as we said it was!

Chomo vendors getting ready to sell to our arriving bus

And then we flew to London.....

4 Weeks in Angola

2007-06-02T19:19:00.001+03:00

WEEKEND IN NAMIBE

The drive from Lubango

The road down of the plateau

Visiting a rural clinic

The desert

the Welwitchia - a carnivorous plant that lives for 100s of years

The Beach

CAVANGO

The drive there...14 hours of crazy road!

At one stop, a boy came to the trucks dressed as a medicine man

Cavango

Steve's parents came for the hospital opening and received a warm welcome when they arrived. Steve's father was a doctor at the old hospital, which was destroyed during the civil war.

Going for a run - with Maddy (the dog) and a bunch of kids from the village

Camp - We played lots of 10,000 under Shelley and Peter's elaborate trailor set-up

Ruins of the old hospital

Opening the new hospital

The day began with a service at the outdoor church - we estimated over 2000 people were there!

People were climbing trees just to be able to see...

Dr. Foster cut the ribbon to open the new hospital

The hospital

Later in the day, Samaritan's Purse, who are part supporters of the hospital in Cavango, loaded up this truck to give away some of the boxes donated through Operation Christmas Child.

LUBANGO

Emily and Bryony headed for the OR

Chest x-ray of a boy who aspirated a nail

CEML Hospital

Lubango, near where Dr. Steve and Peggy Foster live

In the OR

Etosha Park, Namibia

2007-06-02T18:51:00.000+03:00

On our way to Namibia, we rented a spiffy car and spent a day driving around Etosha Park. Here's a sampling of what we saw:

Wildebeast, giraffe and zebra sharing a watering hole

Springbok

Elephant

Giraffe at sunset

Hyena

Guineafowl

The landscape in Etosha - amazing!

Giraffe drinking

Male Kudu

Wildebeeste

Gemsbok

Baby zebra

Giraffe

Zebra at a water hole

we made it....finally

2007-04-23T18:46:00.000+03:00

first of all...we feel as though you should be warned. This entry is going to be extremely wordy and devoid of pictures. Sorry sorry.

where to begin??

After gorilla tracking we headed to Kampala to try and figure out our next plans. In true Emily and Bryony fashion our plans consisted of, 'going to Angola'. How?? who knows. When?? wouldn't our parents like to know. But instead of making travel arrangements, we instead joined the boys and headed to Bussi 'island' ie. peninsula. Good times.

Back to reality. We spent several hours at numerous travel agents and airline offices. We found out that getting to Angola was going to be a) difficult and b) expensive. No matter.

6 days later we were on a Kenya Airways plane headed to Joburg, South Africa. Sweet. The plane departed from Entebbe at 5am, making a 3am check in time. How convenient. So, we spend our last night in Kampala with Tanessa and her housemate Lindsay and then took a cab to the airport. Needless to say, when we finally arrived in Joburg - it was a bit of a gongshow. We stumbled around the airport, changing money and trying to find a place to stay before we headed on a 24 hour bus ride to Namibia the following morning.

Diamond Smugglers hostel provided free transport from the airport - sold!! Nice place. Napped. Ate delicious BBQ for dinner. Slept. and were dropped off early the next morning to catch our bus.

Compared to any other bus we'd been on in Africa, Intercape was luxurious. But, 24 hours on a bus is trying at the best of times. Needless to say...when we finally arrived in Windhoek, Namibia at 6:30am the next morning, we were toasted.

But, we managed to read a map and find a hostel in walking distance from where the bus dropped us. Later we found out that walking around Windhoek with your luggage and guidebook open was a bad idea. Apparently muggings are quite common. No matter. We arrived safely at Chameleon City Backpackers.

The dorms were full, so we got a double room. Fancy hostel. Nice. Once we settled in, we headed in the direction of the Angolan Embassy to apply for visas. Unfortunately Angola recognizes Easter Monday and was closed. Hmm. Okay. I guess we'd return the next day.

Little did we know...we'd be in Windhoek for a week...with the privilege of visiting the Angolan Embassy daily.

Day 2 at the Angolan Embassy we were told that it wasn't even possible to apply for the visas - we had to apply from our country of residence. No problem, we'll just fly to Canada, get our visas and come back. Or not. We were so stunned that we couldn't think of what to say. Regroup.

To keep a long story short, after many visits to the embassy, a few visits with important people in the 'back room'´- furnished with pink pleather couches, paying three times the price of a visa and walking in with our letters of invitation by hand - since the fax never came through to the embassy....we FINALLY got our passports...and yes, they contained Angolan visas.

The week in Windhoek was unexciting. Namibia is very developed, so we were quite stunned by many things...especially our trip to the mall to watch a movie. Wow.

The same afternoon that we received our visas, we headed to Tsumeb on a bus. 5.5 hours later (we just love taking buses now...) we were dropped in a deserted residential neighbourhood, with no idea where the hostel, who wasn't answering their phone, was. No problem, we'll just follow the two random local guys who say they know where it is down the unlit streets....oh my.

Luckily for us we soon found ourselves at Mousebird Backpackers and they had an available room. Sweet. The next morning we went on a hunt for food...having missed dinner the night before. We ate a delicious breakfast at a hotel nearby since the hostel wasn't serving breakfast yet. we couldn't wait.

After breakfast we organized our own safari to nearbz Etosha Park. We headed off in our rented white VW Polo and promptly got lost. Darn, we're paying by the kilometre!! After being set straight by some locals we eventually found our way.

We spend a wonderful afternoon driving around the park. The scenery is stunning and the wildlife is abundant. We saw zebra, giraffe, kudu, elephant, springbok, wildebeeste, hyena, guinea fowl, gemsbok, jackals, antelope....amazing. We were especially happy to see a giraffe running and also to watch many giraffe drink awkwardly at various waterholes. Just before sunset we were lucky to come across three bull elephants right by the road. Incredible.

We camped the night and visited some waterholes the next morning before driving back to Tsumeb. We returned our car and arranged a taxi...of sorts to the Angolan border.

The taxi was a truck with a trailer, called by a random guy with a cell phone at the gas station. It picked up and dropped people off all the way to the border. Quite an efficient system. No trouble at the border. Thankful for a little Portuguese.

Once in Angola we caught another random taxi to take us to Ondjiva, about 40 minutes away - where we would fly the next morning. The taxi dropped us off at the 'SOS Tropical Motel'. Sweet. Actually, we were suitably impressed by the air conditioning, mini fridge and satellite TV that came in our room.

The following morning we found a taxi to the airport...in the rain. We booked our flights to Lubango, checked our baggage and sat waiting in the lounge for our plane. Which was late, of course. It finally arrived, but as we tried to board we were told we had to go through customs. For a domestic flight?!?!?! What?!?!? So we ran back to the customs booth, where the official proceeded to copy all the information from our passports by hand. Meanwhile, everybody else had boarded the plane and had shut the doors. Classic. But, all ended well and we made it on the flight. Sketchy plane. The take off felt like it was at about a 60 degree angle and the engines were SO loud and pulsating. Oh dear. We weren’t sure they’d be able to keep the airplane in the sky. Landing was also a little rough…and they seemed to have difficulty slowing down the plane. We were glad to get off.

Peggy Foster was there to meet us – we were thankful to have finally reached our destination…after many hours on a bus, many hours waiting for visas and several flights. So, we’re in Angola now.

After lunch the day we arrived we headed up to the hospital with Steve. Steve Foster is a general surgeon, who has lived and worked in Angola for the past 30 years; he has recently opened a hospital, which is where we will be spending most of our time shadowing him and two other doctors.

Mondays and Thursdays are consultation days, and Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are operating days. It keeps us busy! We’ve seen some interesting cases and have been learning a lot already from this experience.

An interesting case that we saw in these last couple days was a young boy, aged 6 who aspirated a 5 cm nail. That X-ray was a shock! It had been a few days before the boy came to the hospital, so by the time Steve was able to go looking for the nail, he ended up having to take out the lower left lobe of the boy’s lung. The boy’s family was happy to see the nail retrieved.

This past weekend we had the opportunity to travel to the coast with friends of the Fosters. We stayed in a beautiful old Portuguese house in Namibe and spent our days visiting a rural clinic, searching for the Welwitcha, a prehistoric plant in the desert, eating delicious fresh fish, relaxing on the beach and swimming in the ocean. Sweet.

This coming weekend we are headed to a small rural village called Kavango for the inauguration of a new clinic. There had been a bush hospital in Kavango which had been destroyed during the civil war. Most of the social and health infrastructure had been destroyed during the war which ended in February 2002, and is only now gradually being restored. It will take us about 12 hours to reach Kavango due to the terrible conditions of the roads. We are leaving at 4am Saturday morning so that we still have light to set up camp when we arrive. We will be there nearly a week, then back to Lubango for another week at the hospital.

The country’s internet provider is down, so we are not able to access internet often, except through a satellite connection. So, we probably won’t update again or writing any emails until we’re back in Uganda on May 15th.

Gorillas in the Mist

2007-04-05T21:15:00.000+03:00

So almost a month ago....we went gorilla tracking in Rwanda with Ryan, John and Carlin (John's friend from home). It was an incredible experience.

We hiked for 2 hours to find the Amahoro family group and were allowed one hour to watch the family. Most of the time we were literally no more than 2 metres away from the gorillas.

we'll let the photos tell the story...sorry that they are a little out of order...we hate blogger!! no time!!

mama with her baby - looks like an extremely hairy human baby

it's amazing how much their facial expressions resemble those of human beings

mama and baby again - check out that little hand!!

the trackers. em, ryan, john, bry, carlin

the dominant silverback, there was a second mature male who had lost a hand in a poacher's trap

concentrate....focus...they can't see me...

silverback again...this time you can actually see his silverback!

grooming.

up close and personal! when we first arrived one of the gorillas grabbed the guide!

yep. we were there. or maybe those are our stunt doubles

the trek to find the gorillas...stupid stinging nettles. board shorts were a bad choice.

Tomatoes are fattening?

2007-04-05T15:29:00.000+03:00

We decided to develop a nutrition workshop for the community agroforestry groups and HIV volunteers. We planned a teaching component where we discussed different food groups, barriers to having good nutrition, health problems associated with poor nutrition and foods that can help with these problems, a comparison of nutritional value in commonly eaten foods and brainstormed ways to have better nutrition with available resources. We then prepared lunch together, giving us an opportunity to share new recipes, emphasizing that people can add vegetables to anything! On the menu was, Spinach Stew with Roasted G-nuts (peanuts), Cabbage Stew, Fried Rice and Vegetarian Chili. The community provided the staples for the lunch, and LBDC brought vegetables and spices. The workshops were a lot of fun to run, people had some pretty interesting conceptions about certain vegetables. Tomatoes are fattening?! Spinach, a source of protein? G-nuts give you the runs? The information and new recipes were well received. Overall the workshops ran smoothly. The agroforestry staff attended the workshops that we ran and are now equipped to run them themselves. Our hope is that the HIV volunteers who attended the workshops will incorporate the information they learned into their HIV/AIDS education, and the agroforestry staff will continue to run the workshop in more communities.

brainstorming food groups and categorizing foods

picking stones out of the rice...

that's a giant pot of beans!

Fat and fast!

2007-03-31T10:28:00.000+03:00

At the end of February a group of us headed north to Murchison Falls National Park. One of the highlights of the trip was startling a hippo out of a small pool of water causing it to run, to which Tanessa exclaimed, “It’s fat and fast!”

if you look closely you will see a leopard descending from the tree

The end is near....

2007-03-23T17:41:00.000+03:00

Hello everyone!

Just a super quick update to let you know that our internship is up... hard to believe, but we leave Bushara Island tomorrow morning. We're not ready to go....it's been a tough last couple of days wrapping things up and saying our goodbyes.

All the other ACTS interns are on the island at the moment for a debrief. So, tomorrow we head with John and Ryan to Rwanda to go gorilla trekking in the mountains. From there, we'll maybe head to Burundi for a couple of days, then back to Uganda around March 28th. We're eventually headed to Angola to stay with the Fosters, family friends of Bryony's, before coming back to Canada May 31st. Not sure how we're getting to Angola yet.... but we'll keep you posted!!

Now that we're on the move, our phone number may be changing... we'll have to get a new one whenever we're out of East Africa. We'll keep you up to date on that too. But, keep trying our Uganda number - we'll likely be using this one on and off until mid April.

Hope this finds you all well.... we'll get in a proper update and some photos soon!

Accomplish. Goals.

2007-03-11T17:35:00.000+03:00

Celtel, one of the cell phone companies here has a very...interesting ad campaign. They have slogans with punctuation that makes absolutely no sense. Like:

Take. A Second.

Go. Everywhere.

Say it. Your way.

Join. Our world.

Do. More.

Let's. Get started.

Stay. In touch.

Get. The Message.

More. For you.

You. Get the picture?

The week before the February off, we finally got around to checking out the other ACTS project sites. First stop - Kikagati. Because...it's a long road, to Kikagati. John K. Pattison is a self proclaimed "Adventure Scientist", working with BioSand water filters, and widows gardens. Joël is working to improve two water catchments in the area and conditions in a refugee camp. They're staying in a quaint apartment, in the trading centre about 10 minutes from the Tanzanian border. While there, we got the tour - we met the BioSand filter team and saw how the filters are constructed, we met Ezra - John and Joël's notorious landlord, we saw the recently leased widows gardens, saw Joël's catchments and attended the official opening of the widows gardens, which involved singing, dancing, speeches, drama and many photos. A trip to Kikagati wouldn't be complete without a trip to the river to see the hippos. If only we could describe the noise they make...we are perfecting our hippo call.

One of the water catchments

Opening of the widows gardens

hello hippo!

Tea time in the Kikagati apartment

From there we headed to Nyakigyera, the site of ACTS' most recent gravity flow water project. Ty and Ryan are the engineers working there, along side Jim and Joe, Canadian gravity flow system vets, and an experienced Ugandan construction team. We got the full tour, saw the water sources, pipe lines, sediment tanks, holding tanks and got a feel for some of the challenges they face designing and building the system. Katie and Laura were also there, initiating health and agriculture projects in the area. So, we attended a fuel efficient stove demonstration, and loaded a lot of bricks used for the stoves, on and off the truck.

Sediment tank - water passes through here before going to the holding tank allowing sendiment to settle.

Ty bleeding the pipe. (letting air out so the water will flow)

We were in the Congo...illegally!

2007-03-11T16:33:00.000+03:00

One weekend, we met up with John and Joel for a hike in the Virungas. You can see the Virunga Mountains in the distance from the road towards Kisoro.

Sabinyo - the mountain we decided to climb because the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda all meet at its third peak.

The first part of the climb was through re-claimed farmland. Then we entered bamboo forest, followed by acacia covered in Old Man's beard.

After a steep climb, we reached the first peak, where we stopped for lunch, and had our first glimpse into Rwanda. This is the view from the peak.

From there we went over a ridge to the second peak. This is looking towards the third peak - a series of verticle ladders to reach the top.

Our team at the top. We had a guide and two armed rangers...and good thing we did. Although in retrospect, they wouldn't have been able to fire a warning shot fast enough if the buffalo we met hadn't veered off into the forest. We surprised it sleeping on the trail and it woke up and headed straight for John and the first ranger...

Cheesiest photo ever....

We made it to the top. PG!!

Looking down... It was interesting to see the difference between the 3 countries - Rwanda was covered in houses, the Congo was almost pure jungle, and Uganda was somewhere in between.

The other two peaks we could have climbed - both have craters at the top. Another time perhaps...

Life on Bushara

2007-02-11T11:01:00.000+03:00

Woodpecker Cottage

sunrise

Catching tadpole in shower water, before heating on the stove.

Filling the shower bag

Hoisting the shower bag...man these captions are lame!

six pineapples = 2000 ugandan shillings or $1.25 cdn

mangoes, bananas, avocados, tomatoes $2.50 cdn

that thing in front? pumpkin - go figure!

we bleach then filter our water before transferring it to our drinking water...tank/holder?

water still tastes bad...like lake...mixed with bleach...mmm, so we drink a lot of tang

rice is available with or without rocks. at the start we were cheap and bought the rock variety, which involved about half an hour of 'sorting' before cooking...we now buy the marginallly more expensive kind...and eat rice more often!

before joel tried to fix our oven, we enjoyed baking. this involved a pole wedged between the oven and cupboard across the doorway to the kitchen to hold the gas knob in. temperature regulation? opening and closing the oven door...keeping a close watch on the thermometer.

mail wall! and yes, you too can be on it (again even)!! we were shocked to discover that mail takes less than two weeks from Canada!!

we live with many friends. bry kept finding these friends in bed...we thought maybe it was the same one, but no - five carcasses proved otherwise!

a nasty discovery one morning when bry went to put on her skirt. she wore the green one instead.

other friends?? wagtails. they come and go as they please - sometimes surprising us in the kitchen which results in a lot of sqeaking and flying at your head. happily they eat the centipedes we step on in the house.

laundry. ahhh - is that rain? run run run...madly taking laundry off the line. then we attempt to fit it all on this indoor contraption...where it never dries and drips onto the floor, causing hazardous puddles - sometimes we remember to wring it out periodically.

last thursday we ran out of gas. no big deal, we would pick more up in town the next day. only...Kabale had no gas - and still has no gas. luckily we are experienced wilderness campy people and took matters into our own hands in collecting this large pile of leaves (and wood...but mostly dry leaves)

desperate for a warm shower, we tried to get some of the wood burning and failed miserably due to the fact that it's rained almost everyday since November...and all the wood is wet. So we burned leaves! A little labour intensive, and a bit of a raging inferno, but hot showers were had. We've had cold ones since...

no gas has meant a lot of chocolate peanut butter

Going to town

We meet the restaurant staff at 8:30am and load up the boat with empty jerry cans, bottles and boxes.

Rosette (restaurant manager), Edith (office manager), Enos (maintenance manager)

the boat ride is about ten minutes to Rutindo, where we pick up the truck.

We go into town Mondays and Fridays, which are market days at Rutindo. People come in dugouts from all over the lake to buy and sell goods.

only 1000 shillings to get into town in the back of one of these

coming back from town, we unload everything at the dock - jerry cans of gas and milk, sodas, beer, boxes and bags of produce, meat, bread and other supplies. we then load up the truck with kids for the ride up to the parking lot

walking back to the boat. the kids speak rukiga to us, we speak english to them, we don't understand each other but it doesn't seem to matter.

Work

one of the best things about community visits is walking through banana groves - it's like 'honey i shrunk the kids'!

we're always amazed at the views of the lake from communities

sometimes we work from home. nice to avoid the two minute trek to the office...

our most recent project - testing out recipes for a nutrition workshop. Took advantage of a sunny day to prep outside!

No really, we actually do work

2007-02-11T10:57:00.000+03:00

So we started to notice that most of our blog entries are about our holidays, thought we’d try to remedy that. We may live on an island with a tourist camp, but most of the time we actually work here. Usually we think we even freak the tourists out a little, greeting the staff in Rukiga, walking past the ‘staff only’ sign into the kitchen, carrying paddles, flutterboards, picnic baskets of bananas and thermoses, wearing rashguards and board shorts, skirts and leg warmers…tonight was a new one, walking up to the restaurant with our pot of half-cooked dinner after we ran out of gas.

There’s no such thing as a typical work day, but we’ll try to give you an idea of some of the things we’ve been up to. Between running our second month of swim camps, January kept us busy with a number of different projects.

Bryony organized a second visit to the lake by TASO, an organization in town that offers free HIV/AIDS testing and counselling. This time, they went to a trading centre on the far side of the lake – close to Rwanda – giving her the opportunity to meet the pygmies, who make regular visits to the trading centre to sell bamboo, buy banana liquor, and dance up a storm. Some visits were made to communities with volunteer swim instructors who were trained last year to assess how their programs were going in their schools. Unfortunately, volunteerism isn’t valued here the same way it is at home and people are reluctant to offer their time without monetary gain. Therefore, the swim programs at the various schools are not running as intended by Stacy. Plan B. LBDC is going to hire a second instructor to teach consistent swimming lessons at schools on the opposite side of the lake from Norman. Interviews will be held in the upcoming weeks. There are similar issues with the HIV/AIDS education volunteers in communities, so LBDC is looking to hire a staff member to work in this area of their programming as well. Bryony is currently working at creating an assistance program for people living with HIV on the lake. One of the biggest challenges these people face is the cost of transport to receive care and counselling services in town. The assistance program would help people get into town for CD4 count tests and access anti-retroviral medications. The HIV/AIDS staff member would be a trained counsellor who could help people access funding confidentially as there is still a lot of stigma towards HIV.

Emily met with the community agroforestry groups that were started by Amanda last year to assess the program in each community. They did a seed multiplication program to introduce new varieties of beans and sweet potatoes, which went well. LBDC is hoping to expand the program into more communities. Organizing farmers into groups is an effective way to work with them and helps them to access support from outside organizations. LBDC has now helped one of the communities that participated in the program last year to join a government program that will allow them to access more resources than LBDC could provide. Ben, the agroforestry manager, has shown a lot of interest in learning how to write proposals, so we’ve been putting together a resource on writing funding proposals and Emily will work with Ben to write his first. The LBDC demonstration site for reverse slope terracing (RST), a technology whose terraces slope into the hill to conserve top soil and water, has had its first harvest, and results from the experiment to compare RST to the terraces more commonly used around the lake, are pending. The results look like they will be favourable, so Emily has been visiting other organizations working in the region to gauge interest in partnering with LBDC to try to get RST into communities. The terraces are very labour intensive to build, and thus prohibitively expensive for most people. But, as the results appear to be promising here, and Rwanda reports a 20% increase in production with RST, the results seem worth the effort.

What does a community visit involve? Well. First, there’s a paddle of varying length. This is followed by a trek up steep dirt paths to the road. If we’re lucky, it hasn’t rained, but it rains most days this time of year, and the paths are slick. Fun on the way up; even more fun on the way down. We’ve both ended up on our butts at least once, much to the amusement of our Ugandan counterparts. And then, there are the children, who follow you yelling, “How are you?” “Give me my money.” You can’t visit more than one community in a day, partly because it takes awhile to get most places, but also, once there, you can spend considerable amounts of time trying to find the people you’re meeting with, visiting people, stopping for obushera – the local fermented millet drink, which usually involves chatting with men from the village comparing Canada and Uganda…or even a haircut for your Ugandan counterpart. Community visit days are some of the days we enjoy most, exploring new places and usually getting an awesome view of the lake.

Other days we spend on the island, doing paperwork, computer work, and making phone calls. This involves bundling up, as both our house and the office are quite chilly, and a fair amount of raging, as the solar power cuts out at least once an hour on a rainy day…and we haven’t seen much sun since the end of November.

At least one day a week, we’re in Kabale town to do our shopping, but also to visit organizations. Up until this past week, we took in an ACTS truck, a beat up white Toyota Hilux, with a squeaking clutch, clanking gear box and just enough power to make it up the mountain. It was great having access to a truck, as many of the people we visit have offices on the edges of town…until you get a flat. The Ugandans insist on changing it for you, despite having very little experience with cars. And how many people does it take to change a tire in Uganda? One driver to make sure the jack isn’t on the suspension, two Ugandans to actually use the tools, and about 15 onlookers to supervise…But now we have no truck so we won’t need to worry about that anymore….

All in all, we’re enjoying what we’re doing here. Funny how ACTS said we would hit our stride just before we left…and how true that’s proving to be. Things are really getting busy and we’re finally figuring out how things work – just in time to be wrapping things up. Currently, we’re trying to fit a few more days into the month of February…we’ll let you know how that goes.

Deepest Darkest Almost the Congo Africa

2007-02-06T22:33:00.000+03:00

Our long weekend in January got pushed back a few days due to the opening of Bushara’s new Conference Centre. It was a fun day, many distinguished guests attended including a representative of the British High Commission, who was repeatedly referred to as “His Majesty”. The day was complete with the cutting of the tape, dancing, many speeches and a delicious lunch.

Straight from the ceremony we raced the sun as we drove to Mbarara…our last time in our truck as it has been moved to a different “more important” project site. Apparently driving construction crews and materials every day warrants a truck more than two trips to town a week. Sigh. Unfortunately the sun won, and we discovered why we are not supposed to drive at night. Basically, Ugandans don’t know how to drive at night. Headlights? Optional. Highbeams?? Always. And hey…what’s that one headlighted thing driving down the middle of the road right towards us….AHHH! Don’t worry…we’re writing this blog entry aren’t we??

We reunited with the other interns, most of who were spending a quiet off at Canada House. Five days in Mbarara?? Tempting, but no. We, along with John and Joël hopped in a truck the next morning (which required push starting), and headed West.

Not too long into the drive, we reached Queen Elizabeth Park, where we were lucky enough to spot many animals by the road. Our first entertainment was a bunch of baboons who were enjoying bananas which had been thrown out of the tanker in front of us. We then spotted an elephant conveniently posed next to an acacia tree – just like you see in the documentaries. There were a few more elephants just down the road so John and Joël ran into the bush after them for the photo op. The photos of them running after the elephants were better than the photos that they got. Next we saw a herd of gazelle, a water buffalo and a waterbuck. We were quite pleased about this free safari. Too bad there weren’t any lions. We had lunch while on “Operation Detour”. Tasty.

We reached Kasese and our final destination was in sight – the Rwenzori Mountains, Africa’s tallest mountain range. Not much is open in Kasese on a Sunday afternoon, so guides would have to be found the next day.

So, it was off to find a place to camp. We had visions of ourselves camped in the middle of the African savannah, so we turned down a dirt road hoping to find a good spot past the agricultural land. Unfortunately for us this road led to a small village where we encountered a ditch crossing the road with a giant pipe in it. We took some photos to make it look like we meant to end up there…and then awkwardly turned the truck around as we were being gawked at by several villagers and what John specified to be a ‘fine specimen of a goat’.

Our second attempt at finding the perfect camping spot in the savannah turned out to be more successful. We hid our white truck behind some cactuses and set up camp. We enjoyed a camp fire under a full moon with gazelles prancing in the distance….and locals making animal noises. The sunrise the following morning was beautiful. Joël thought that he spotted some ostrich…which turned out to be locals on bicycles. Oops! We packed up and were on our way…well, not exactly – first we had to push start the truck. Tricky finding a slope in the savannah. Not so inconspicuous pushing a truck in circles. We finally got it started, but not before all entertaining visions of us pushing the truck all the way to Kasese… In Kasese we hired guides and porters and bought food – then headed to the mountains. Somehow we missed the trekking office and ended up at the park entrance, where we were told we needed to come back when we had porters and guides. So, we pushed started the truck again (with the help of the park official, who was suitably amused) and headed back to the trekking office. There we met our guides, Rauben and Johnson and had our packs weighed. And we were off for three days in the mountains!

The entire circuit is a seven day trek – too long for our off, but we were thankful for the three days we had. We got good weather, with just a bit of rain while we were hiking on the first day.

Day One
Started with a relatively relaxing hike through forests similar to Savegre Valley for those of you who have been there. Apparently elephants frequent the mountains – didn’t see any elephants, but saw some other rather convincing evidence. Elephant poo is gigantic!! Along the way, our guides inquired about our ages. They were shocked to find out that John was not 42, and even more shocked to find out that em was older than him. We’re pretty sure they thought we were a family of four.

Had an awkward lunch stop…we hadn’t packed a lunch or raingear in our day packs – not sure what the guides thought of us…Following lunch we started a steep climb in the rain up to the first ridge. Our guides wanted us to stay dry under a tree – we wanted to get to the first hut. So we pushed on…stunning views at the top, and soon we arrived at the first hut. Unfortunately our porters were not there, along with every article of warm dry clothing. So, we sat shivering fighting over the privilege of hogging the hot Nalgene full of tea. Our guides oriented us to the hut, pointing our where the chicken and toy were. Translation? Kitchen and latrine. We were getting pretty excited about the chicken – we thought we had to provide our own food. Eventually the porters arrived. We then tried to start cooking dinner. Too bad the people we spoke to about packing dishes, pots, and stove for us didn’t communicate with the porters. Oh dear. Our guides, “you don’t have plates?? a pot? do you need utensils too?”, they were probably thinking, “What did they bring? yahoos”. Anyways, thankfully our guides and porters shared what we needed. After a good meal of mashed potatoes and stew we headed to our sleeping bags to escape the cold. John retired to his book – an epic journey…about moles. Yes, we mocked him thoroughly. Night visits to the latrine turned out to be less of a nuisance due to the nearly full moon, silhouetting the peaks.

Day Two
We descended into a valley, crossed the river on a swinging wooden bridge and started up again. The terrain started to change as we got higher. Rocks covered in orange lichen, old man’s beard drooping from every tree and our first glimpse of snow covered mountains.

We enjoyed lunch beside a frigid mountain stream.

After lunch, the mud began. It was quite the game – jumping from one slippery log to another, thinking you were jumping onto solid ground, a rock or a log, only to discover yourself mid-calf in mud. Our guides did the whole thing in gumboots. Crazy. We reached the John Matte Hut early afternoon. Perfect timing for a quick dip in the river? Yes please. It was…refreshing…in a submerging yourself in ice water kind of way! John posed with his local Camrose, Alberta newspaper, hoping to win a photo contest. The Africans thought we were crazy. Joël went exploring while the rest of us attempted to warm up and passed a rainy afternoon watching the clouds roll through the mountains, sipping tea, reading and journaling.

It was a beautiful spot, and we were thankful to be the only ones at the hut. Just before dinner, our guides joined us for a trip up the path to the bog, where the vegetation changed again. Giant grass tussocks, and lobelias grew out of…waterlogged grasses. Beautiful.

Dinner was a three course meal – mainly because we only had one pot to cook with. It was even colder at John Matte, so straight to our sleeping bags once again! John with his mole book.

Day Three
Morning greeted us with frost on the grass. It was a cold night. Freezing if you will. Breakfast was hot porridge and the mother of all pineapples. Too bad the pineapple, nutella and peanut butter were all frozen. We shared the pineapple with the guides and porters, who were probably thinking, “we carried this pineapple all the way up here?!??!” Delicious.

And then began the long descent. Nice weather and speedier. We encountered several people (62 altogether) who were carrying lumber and supplies to build a new hut. Wow, what a job. We were sad to leave the National Park that afternoon, but hoped to return someday to do the whole circuit. Returned to the trekking office, sore knees, mud covered legs, blisters…ready to push start the truck once again. Apparently our guides were still in disbelief about em’s age, since they asked “this one drives?” Our whole team loaded into the back of the truck for a lift into town. The drive back through Queen Elizabeth Park was less eventful – just a warthog and a few gazelle. Boring. Kidding!

And now, back to work! February and March will be busy months. Hard to believe there are only two months remaining of our internships. Lots to do before we go. More on that later.

Swimming swimming in Lake Bunyonyi…

2007-01-14T17:56:00.000+03:00

December marked the beginning of school holidays which meant holiday swim camps could begin!! Here’s what we envisioned for the swim camps…

There would be registration, limiting the number of swimmers to 20. We would focus on non-swimmers and run 2 weeks of camp meaning 40 kids from one community. The first community we targeted was Burimba, which had a high proportion of non-swimmers. We selected this community for this reason and also because the teacher trained as a swim instructor was no longer teaching there. We planned to have 2 one hour swimming lessons each morning, with games, songs and morning tea to break up the lessons and enable the kids to warm up from the cold temperature of the lake.

Here’s what really happened…
We decided to visit the community before running the swim camps in the hopes of registering some children as well as to inform people about the swim camp. The best time to meet with a community is after the Sunday church service. So, off we went to yet another church service, which is all in Rukiga and where we are usually seated at the front of the church. Following the service, we made an announcement that was greeted with laughter. We are still unsure whether it was the idea of a swim camp…or whether there was something lost in translation…regardless – no one registered.

Therefore, we sent a letter to the headmaster of the Burimba primary school requesting that he select 20 non-swimmers to meet us at the swimming area on the first day of our ‘swim camp’. As an afterthought, we asked Norman (a local swim instructor employed by LBDC) to come along with us to the camps to help with translation. The first day of swim camp, we were greeted by 56 children wanting to learn to swim. The headmaster had brought some kids, who were incidentally not non-swimmers, and the rest of the crew gathered at the swim area as soon as they saw the two muzungu.

We tried to tell Norman that 56 kids was too many! We explained that we would return to Burimba to run another swim camp, and that if we limited the number of kids they would receive more attention and better instruction. Things don’t work like that here. Norman explained to us that if we turned kids away, they would not come back when we returned. Okay then, 56 kids it is. Sidenote: the number increased daily….

How do you teach 56 kids?? It took us a few days to figure out a good technique…and it wasn’t long before our ideas of songs, games etc. were thrown out the window. Although, we did try the ‘human knot’ on the first day…disaster. They could not understand why you would want to make a human puzzle..and then solve it…awkward. You should have seen the look on Norman’s face when we were explaining the rules to him…he was so confused…or more – perplexed, silly muzungu.

The technique we finally settled on was to divide the kids into four groups based on their swimming ability.

We would start teaching together, one of us staying mainly dry while the other did demonstrations, while Norman translated from land. (Sidenote: Without Norman, swim camp would have been a total bust – seeing as one of the few swimming related things we can say in Rukiga is “amaguru gananukire” – “legs straight”.) Once the person doing the demonstrations could no longer feel her hands…or feet…or was shivering uncontrollably, she would get out to warm up, while the other remained in the water and continued teaching and doing any necessary demonstrations. Once, she was too cold to go on…Norman would then get in the water and teach. This way we could maximize the number of children taught…and somewhat minimize the “freezing factor”. We still usually ended up very cold, but at least we had a towel to dry ourselves off and a warm fleece to put on, which is more than most of the kids had.

We were able to provide “tea”, which consisted of bread, bananas and hot tea. Unfortunately because we had intended on only having 20 children…there wasn’t enough to go around. This usually meant, 1/3 of a banana, one slice of bread and a few sips of tea per child, and tended to make “tea” a rather chaotic time. We were very happy once again to have Norman along, because he was able to organize and keep things fair with the distribution of the food.

While trying to warm up, we did sing some repeating songs with the children. We did the normal camp repertoire of “There was a great big moose”, “Let me see your funky chicken”, “The other day, I met a bear”, “Old heiram’s goat”. “Let me see your funky chicken” was a personal favourite among the kids…seeing as they then greeted us everyday as we approached in the dugout canoe with “ooh ah ah ah ooh” (the chorus).

We were very encouraged to have several older girls attend the swim camp. Culturally it is inappropriate for women to swim after they are married. Therefore, it’s important for girls and young women to learn to swim before this time. We were also encouraged by how much of the community came out to watch the lessons, as well as by how many kids went from being very afraid, to being comfortable in the water. There was also a fair bit of improvement in the strokes of the kids who were already able to swim. Some even listened to our much repeated advice “amaguru gananukire”. We were quite surprised by how challenging it was to teach swimming with so little Rukiga, it was hard to give feedback, instructions and corrections. It was also challenging teaching in a lake environment with a very small area of shallow water. The mud clouded the water, making it difficult for the kids to see what we were doing in our demonstrations.

All in all, the swim camp was a big success. At the end of the week we handed out swim certificates to the kids – you could tell that they were excited and proud to receive them. We hope that this will mean even more support for swimming lessons in the community in the future.

We will be running more swim camps throughout January – this week we are off to Buhumba. How many kids will we find there….or should we say…how many kids will find us? We are a little afraid by the fact that Buhumba Primary School has 800 students…oh my.

Are we there yet? A Christmas story.

2007-01-12T13:01:00.000+03:00

Lamu. A small island off the coast of

Kenya

. The guidebook made it sound like paradise. And it was….once we finally got there. We knew the trip to Lamu would be long…but nobody could have predicted the adventures that found us on the way there…and back. But we’ll start from the beginning.

Bushara Island

Our Christmas holidays began early on the morning of December 20^th. Laura and Jovenice had been visiting from Rubingo (another ACTS project site). Jovenice works with the Rubingo agriculture program, and had a great time visiting the Bwama nursery and trying some muzungu (white person) food – pasta was a particular favourite! The transformation from raw to cooked was unlike anything she’d seen before. The four of us were up before sunrise – a little sluggish, having stayed up late the night before visiting with Bryony’s friend Suzannah who was on the island for the night – and made it off Bushara by 7am.

In Kabale, we headed to the bus park and were chased – in our taxi – to the buses by the multitude of bus employees hired to convince us to take their bus. The bus drivers added their two cents by flashing their lights and honking their melodious horns. Bus selection is always a tricky thing, especially since no one can be trusted to tell the truth: “This bus, it leaves in 10 minutes! Only 10 minutes!” But will it leave? Not likely. Will it be 30 minutes? 2 hours? Who can say? After several nail-biting minutes of discussion, bartering, empty promises and several people trying to grab our bags from us and put them on buses, we made our choice. We loaded our bags on the bus and got on. Shortly after, the other bus began pulling away and we thought we had made the wrong choice. But no, the other bus was only pretending to leave, hoping to entice more people on. And then, we left!!! We were quite pleased with ourselves, having spent only a mere 10 minutes sitting around. And our bus was fast! And rarely stopped!

Kampala

8 hours later…. we arrived in Kampala. There, we met up with Katie, Tanessa, Melanie, and Joël who would all be travelling with us to Nairobi. While in Kampala, we decided to check out Garden City Mall, in hopes of seeing a movie on the big screen. No movies tempted us, but the mall itself was quite the experience. After three months away, we were quite stunned when confronted by the wealth and consumerism of this western-style mall.

Kampala to Nairobi

December 21^st, we caught a very civilized Akamba overnight bus to Nairobi. It was the nicest bus we’ve been on in Africa – fewer seats on the bus meant more leg room and less squishiness with the person beside you, and, it had…a scheduled departure time.

The trip was fairly uneventful in retrospect, though at the time, we were quite shocked when our bus decided to cross a median to pass a stand off where two vans were facing each other on the highway for reasons unknown. There were also moments on the unbelievably bumpy road linking the two capital cities when we thought the bus could have tipped over. Thankfully, it didn’t.

We were somewhat surprised to arrive in Nairobi at 6am, seeing as we thought we would arrive at 2am. No matter. We said a quick goodbye to Joël, who was continuing on to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, as he chased a bus down the street, which still had his luggage on it (he did meet up with it again eventually). We were met by a hostel employee who took us to the hostel we had booked, thinking we were arriving in the middle of the night. We left the others to sleep and shower, and went exploring. Nairobi is considerably more westernized than Kampala, and not as scary as we thought it would be.

We found a great café, the Java House, and had some real coffee, and then joined up with the others to head off to the Giraffe-a-rarium.

The Giraffe Centre is a sanctuary for endangered giraffes that is supported by a booming tourist attraction where people can feed giraffes at head-level from an elevated platform. Quite entertaining actually, and pretty fantastic to have the opportunity to be so close to a giraffe.

Nairobi to Mombasa

We were excited to board a train for this leg of the journey, a relic from British colonialism complete with quaint train station, real silver, and men in white jackets.
A brief scare at the station when they didn’t have our tickets because we’d booked through a tour provider, but all was well, and we were soon settled into our bunkers. Dinner was delicious, our bunks comfy, and barring a midnight flood in our compartment, the sleep was restful.

Mombasa to Lamu

We arrived in Mombasa 3 hours late the morning of December 23^rd.

Eileen, a friend of Bryony’s from University working in Kenya, met us at the station. We were now a party of 7.

Buses to Lamu were not to be found. Not surprising, considering the closeness to Christmas and lateness of our train. Therefore, we started looking for a matatu (minibus taxi) to take us to Lamu. We had rented matatus before as a group, and didn’t anticipate any problems, seeing as we’d heard from Kenyans on the train that the trip was a mere 4-5 hours.

After some intensive bartering, our newly-hired driver took us to our ride. And a sweet ride it was. The matatu was pink in colour, with sparkles, had a purple interior, fringe on the visors, was outfitted with black lights, and we’re pretty sure those were pimps that were stencilled on the outside. We thought we were on our way, until we pulled into a gas station where our three “drivers” (actual driver, conductor, and random other guy) tried to get more money out of us. Something about the wheels needing to be realigned and them wanting lunch provided. We stood our ground – we’d made a deal. And after threatening to find a different matatu, we were on our way again…only to make another stop, this time for the conductor’s license. Interestingly, he never actually drove.

Finally, we were on our way. For real this time. The trip was relatively uneventful until we got to Malindi, where we stopped briefly to pick up snacks, just a few stale cookies, as we thought Lamu was just around the corner. As it turned out, we were still many corners..and many police checks..away.

We sailed through most of the road blocks, except for one. This police check was more a congregation of army personnel. We were accosted on all sides by soldiers informing us that we could go no further without two armed guards, on account of “shifters”, who were to be employed by us for the low low price of $30US. There were several things about this situation that seemed…sketchy.. and were making it tricky to tell lies from fact. Why were other vehicles being waved on without armed guards? Why $30 US dollars, an amount many many times a daily wage? Why 2 armed guards and not 1? Why were they saying it was another 180 kms to Lamu when, surely, we had to be almost there? After being told they weren’t going to force us to take an armed guard, but not being allowed to continue without one, you could say we were quite frustrated. And by this point, Bryony had to pee. Quite badly in fact.

We finally agreed to one armed guard. So, man-with-a-gun hopped in, and we were off. Shortly after we were sure we should have been there an hour ago, we turned off the main road. The road to Lamu! The road…no words to describe it really. As we were flung around the back of the matatu, accumulating bruises, Bryony’s bladder threatening to burst on every impact, we kept thinking we would see the ocean…any minute now.

After an hour on this road, Bryony couldn’t handle it any longer. We pulled over and several of us hopped out to pee in the bushes. We were warned not to go too far…shifters, perhaps?...and also to watch for snakes. Thank you, man-with-a-gun.

Our hopes of arriving in daylight turned to hopes of arriving at dusk…and were eventually shattered as the stars came out and we were still bumping along in the pink matatu. At this point…we all secretly began to question whether this was in fact the road to Lamu. And then a hyena ran across the road…to which the man-with-a-gun commented, “this is lion and hyena country”. Awesome. Thirty seconds later…our matatu ground to a halt. There had been heavy rains which had left the road deeply rutted by heavy trucks. Our little low-slung matatu was not up to the task and had bottomed out…leaving us stuck…in “lion and hyena country”. Awesome. We offered to get out and push, but our team of three would have none of it. After much looking under the matatu with a flashlight…they had us disembark and attempted to free our matatu with a friendly truck and a crappy fraying rope – which broke. We were not surprised. Meanwhile, we hung out with man-with-a-gun who comfortingly informed us, that there would be no more boats heading to Lamu that night. We started envisioning ourselves – all 7, sleeping in our two 2-person tents on the dock, surrounded by shifters. Awesome.

At this point, we insisted on pushing…not surprisingly, the stuck matatu was no match for seven Canadian girls, and we managed to dislodge it in a matter of seconds.

On the road again. We received a phone call from the manager of the hotel we had booked on Lamu wondering whether we were still arriving that night. We hoped so. We asked how far we were from Lamu…and were informed a few kilometres – which we told the manager. We were almost there!! An hour later, there was still no sign of Lamu, and no reception for our cell phone to inform the hotel manager that we were in fact, more than a few kilometres away.

Finally, we arrived at a town with buses that appeared to have come from Mombasa. We must be close now! Unfortunately, our “team pink matatu”decided this was a good time to skip the last police check. Not too impressed by this decision, the police pulled us over and had a rather lengthy discussion with “team pink matatu”. After which, the driver approached a window and said, “We are all arrested”. ?!?!??! Why??? He informed us, “For arriving after dark” – unlikely the truth. After no avail of trying to get Melanie to pose as his wife…the driver told us the officers would like to speak with us. A few of us ventured out of the matatu and into the police compound. Insulted, the officers told us “If we had wanted to talk with you, we would have come to the matatu – we have legs.” Great, we’ve now irritated the police officers. So, we retired to the pink matatu, to wait with man-with-a-gun, who has turned out to be…no help whatsoever. We frantically tried to get in touch with the manager of the hotel again at this point…with no luck… As we began to picture spending Christmas in a Kenyan jail cell… “team pink matatu” miraculously returned - as far as we could tell, our actual driver had no license (why we stopped for conductor’s license when he never actually drove is still a mystery).

We were almost there – this time for real! We arrived at the ‘dock’, although there was no dock in sight. We grabbed our bags and paid “team pink matatu” – who to their credit did not request additional money, despite our suspicions that they used most of their profit to bribe their way out of the final police check. We asked man-with-a-gun to walk us to the dock, as many shady, possible shifters had appeared on the scene. As we walked between transport trucks, we began to wonder if man-with-a-gun was actually on our side…so we had our knifes at the ready – just in case. But we made it to the dock, and shortly after heard “Emily Anderson, party of 6?” from a boat pulling up. We were going to make it to Lamu that night afterall…we have never been happier to get into a boat.

Overcome with relief, we enjoyed the stars as we sped across the Indian Ocean to our final destination – Lamu. We were quite the sight upon arrival (which was 9:30pm) but as we had last eaten at 6am on the train, we were more focused on finding food than freshening up.

Lamu

We woke up on Christmas Eve, ready to explore and find out whether Lamu was worth all the hours of travel.

Final tally?? Bushara – Lamu: 15 minute boat, 30 minute taxi, 8 hour bus, 15 hour bus, 15 hour train, 8 hour matatu, 15 minute boat – total? 47 hours, not counting lay overs.

Our first full day on Lamu began with a walking tour – led by our self-appointed guide, Bagi. Lamu is an old Swahili town of winding narrow alleys and white-washed buildings with an abundance of cats and donkeys.

Yes, donkeys. Donkeys are inherently funny for several reasons: as if a healthy animal can make that sound – “hee-haww” doesn’t quite capture it, their ability to look completely dejected as they stare off into space, and the fact that a normal human being can walk three times as fast.

We became intimately acquainted with this last point when we hired seven donkeys to take us to the beach at the other end of the island. Never again. Donkeys are quite uncomfortable to ride, incredibly slow, and generally make you look like an idiot. Nevertheless, we enjoyed ourselves but politely declined the offer of a ride back to town.

The beach, though beautiful, proved to be somewhat of a bust since it started to rain shortly after our arrival. So we walked back to our hotel. Along with Eileen, we passed on Bagi’s “birthday party”, which seemed to be a regularly scheduled event whenever there were large groups of tourists – a way to make some extra cash on an over priced meal. Instead, we enjoyed a meal at one of the many restaurants along the waterfront serving fresh seafood and delicious fruit juices. The food was fantastic, although we experienced our first taste of “Lamu service” when we requested our bill and the waiter arrived with the menu, paper, and a pen - so that we could write our own. Interesting.

Christmas day we rented a dhow – a wooden sailboat, captained by our friend Bagi.

We sailed, went deep sea fishing (where half of us became seasick) and then landed at our own private beach on a neighbouring island where we swam and snorkelled while Bagi and the crew made a delicious lunch of fresh fish, coconut rice and curry.

Quite a contrast to Christmas in Canada. Very relaxing indeed.

We arrived back at Lamu just in time to catch the tail end of a traditional Swahili wedding tradition in which men in the wedding party…hit each other with sticks. Intriguing. We headed for dinner, back to the same restaurant for more tasty seafood. Unfortunately, the service was almost non-existent. It took an hour for the waiter to tell us that they didn’t actually have the ingredients for the juices we had ordered. The bananas were “coming. Soon.” Only, when the bananas arrived, they were oranges. So we changed our order to things they claimed they had, along with some water. Our food came and went, with no sign of juice, or water. Meanwhile, everyone else in the restaurant, most of whom had arrived after us, had all received juices. The juices never did appear….we finally quenched our thirst after going up and taking a bottle of water ourselves. Frustrated, we decided to head for one of the few restaurants that offered an alternative to instant coffee. With some real coffee and real ice cream, we ended Christmas 2006 in high spirits.

Boxing Day was, of course, spent shopping. We enjoyed exploring all the little shops down the various alleys.

A high point was visiting Slim Silversmith, who had beautiful silver jewellery, and pictures of Oprah and the Queen in his shop. Slim himself was quite the smooth talker, but we managed to strike a good deal. That evening, we enjoyed some more Lamu service….in which Katie’s appetizer arrived 20 minutes after everyone else’s main courses.

Our last day on Lamu was spent visiting a Swahili museum and relaxing on the beach. Lovely.

Lamu to Mombasa

December 28^th. We could not believe we were already packing up for the long journey home. Hadn’t we just arrived?!? After a most restful night lying awake listening to the soothing bray of donkeys, we scrambled to make it to the dock in time to catch a ferry to the mainland to catch our bus. Another bus. Oh joy.

We were positive that the large bus would make it to Mombasa faster than our little matatu. No such luck. We endured several unexpected and unappreciated long stops, for reasons unknown. We were crammed into narrow seats, the aisles packed with people, and with four kids playing “poke the muzungu” in the seats behind us. And oh my word, was it hot. So hot in fact that we bought some sketchy popsicles through the bus window. At this point, we didn’t care what kind of water was used…. luckily, no gut rot. Yet.

On the way, we received a text from John, who was on the train to Mombasa from Nairobi. The train had not moved for several hours, on account of flooding. They weren’t even close to half way there, and John was doubting if they would ever arrive, so suggested we start looking into buses to Nairobi, as that was the train we were supposed to be on that night. Just our luck….

Sure enough, upon arrival at the Mombasa train station, we were greeted with the news that the train was cancelled, and there wasn’t going to be another for four days. Oh my. So, Emily patiently but persistently fought for a full refund from the train people, Bryony and Katie headed off with a friendly taxi driver to check for space with every bus company, Tanessa went off with some random strangers to check out flights, and Laura went on a hunt for water. We were a well-oiled machine.

Things were not looking good. The train folk were having trouble getting a refund due to the fact that we had booked through a safari company, and Bry and Katie were discovering that all the buses were booked not only for that night, but for the next day as well. Just when we thought we were doomed to stay in stinky Mombasa for who knows how long, Bryony and Katie were victorious!! There were six spots remaining on…. “Exciting Coach”!! Yes, the name of the bus company sounded..odd..but we were assured it was “just like Akamba”, the company we had taken from Kampala to Nairobi. So, we decided to save a few bucks, and take the bus instead of flying. As they say, hindsight is 20/20…Exciting Coach was a bad choice.

Mombasa to Nairobi

After a lovely sojourn at the Blue Room, a delightful restaurant and internet café, we made our way to the Exciting Coach “offices”. Ok, smelly shack in the ghetto of Mombasa where it smelled like human feces. Mmm. Once there, we were assured that our bus, scheduled to leave at 9pm, would arrive “shortly”. 9pm came and went, and we started making bets as to when it would actually arrive. Sometime later, a very grotty looking puke green bus with the words “Video Coach” on the front pulled up. Thank goodness that wasn’t our bus. But wait! What’s that it says on the back? Exciting Coach! Oh no.

The fact that we had assigned seats meant nothing whatsoever as a mad shoving match began for the unmarked seats. When the dust settled, some of us found ourselves in the most uncomfortable seats on the bus (29 and 30), and others next to random Germans. Most of the seats were reclined at an awkward angle, and unimaginably uncomfortable, making sleep tricky at the best of times. Seats 29 and 30 were not reclined at all, sitting at a lovely 90 degree angle, with the reclined seats in front of them shoving nasty metal bars into your knees. Meanwhile, the seatless children who were sitting in the aisle next to seats 29 and 30 periodically fell asleep on your legs, or if you were lucky, as Bryony was, grabbed your inner thigh and held on for dear life as we were all tossed around mercilessly by the insane road linking Mombasa and Nairobi, which notably, are Kenya’s biggest port and capital cities.

Before too long, we found ourselves stopped in a traffic jam of unknown cause. We knew things were bad when the bus turned its engine off. After some waiting and speculating, we were eventually informed by a random stranger that there was a bus up ahead with 2 flat tires who had parked so as to block the road as protection from “bandits”. Safety in numbers you know. Are you serious?!? Once again, we found ourselves thwarted by crazy shifters….

2 hours later, we were moving!! And then not. What now?!? Our bus driver was not about to wait around and find out, as our bus lurched off the main road onto…well, we’re not sure. Whatever was beside the road. Let’s just say Exciting Coach was not an off-roading vehicle. Shortly after passing the exploded and flaming mac truck (the hold up), sitting next to a squashed bus, we started to run into some trouble with mud, as it had been raining heavily for the last few hours. Our driver did a formidable job, getting us out each time we thought we were stuck for good…until we were passing by a crowd of people lining the main road (presumably passengers from the squashed bus), when our tires were definitely spinning and we were finally defeated. Up until this point, we thought the offroading had been a surprisingly good idea. We now pictured ourselves doomed to join the squashed bus people lining the highway, passing the night waiting for our bus to be dug out. Mass chaos ensued, during which no one was really sure whether we were supposed to be on the bus or off it. Laura got off, mainly because she was in front of a pushy woman very eager to disembark. The rest of us enjoyed the excitement from our seats, Katie yelling “Come on Exciting Coach! You’re excited. Come on, big boy, you can do this!” out her window while other passengers pushed. To our surprise, Katie’s cheering worked. We were free!! We drove victoriously back onto the main road, Laura chasing behind, pillow in hand.

20 minutes later, we were stopped again, our engine steaming. Apparently, offroading was not so smart. Most of us fell asleep, only to wake up in daylight, still stopped with our “mechanics” at work, our bus in pieces. Would we ever arrive in Nairobi? Laura started asking how far it was, wondering if we could walk. More bets were made as to our estimated time of arrival. At this point, we had been on the bus for 10 hours of a 9 hour trip. 4 hours later, with stops every half hour or so to fill our radiator, we finally made it to Nairobi.

We asked many people directions, finally putting our faith in a woman who led us in what felt like circles, but finally got us back to our hostel. It was a euphoric arrival, followed by an afternoon of sleeping (horizontally!), much needed showering, and another visit to Java House.

Nairobi to Kampala

Months sooner than we would have liked, it was time to board our next bus. But Akamba! What luxury!! We spent the first 10 minutes, at least, pointing out all the differences between Akamba and exciting coach: leg room! wider seats! with padding! reclining seats! seat back pockets! even a cup holder! overhead compartments that actually contained things, thereby preventing them from falling on people’s heads! foot rests! It was almost heavenly…but then again, we were on another bus. The novelty soon wore off and we were ready to get off. Luckily, the only incident on this leg of the journey was a flat tire, quickly fixed. We even managed to sleep a bit.

Kampala

It was fantastic to be back in Uganda, away from crazy police checks and sticky heat. It was December 30^th by this point, and we hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since the 27^th, on Lamu. We got to our hostel and crashed. After a few hours sleep, we went to check out the Kampala Carnivore Restaurant. As the only bushmeat on the menu was over-priced zebra (which apparently tastes like horse – yum), we passed and went for the cow. We reunited with Tyler who had been with John and his family for Christmas, and with Bryony’s friend Suzannah. Many stories were shared.

We woke up on New Years Eve 50% sick. Bryony and Katie were sporting sexy voices and less sexy coughing, sneezing, and general snottiness. Emily had a variation of this that included a fever and dizziness. But, we headed to the mall anyway, hoping to catch James Bond with Tyler. Unfortunately, we missed James, but settled for Denzel Washington in one of the more horrible, but surprisingly entertaining action flicks we’ve seen. Then we did what everyone wants to do on New Year’s Eve – searched for an open clinic to get tested for malaria, a good safety precaution if you have a fever. Apparently, it’s not a good idea to get sick in Uganda on a public holiday, as all medical establishments, including hospitals, observe these holidays. So we settled for a home-test kit for malaria from an open pharmacy. Good news! Emily’s test was negative. There was now nothing standing in our way of a rocking new years… oh yeah. Except we were still sick and felt like death.

At this point, we were joined by Ryan and Joël, our two Kilimanjaro conquerors. More stories. And then the festivities began. Emily fell asleep. Darn it. So we had to go out. We headed to a party on the grounds of the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Kampala for some fireworks and live music…all of which was lipsynched (but still entertaining).

Of note: Tanessa and Katie getting up on stage and dancing during 2 of the acts, and the guys who were dancing dressed up as Saddam Husein, George W Bush, and Michael Jackson. An unlikely, but highly entertaining trio.

Kampala to Mbarara

Fittingly, we spent our first day of 2007 on a bus. We ended up split between buses, a toss-up as to which was better. Kibungo arrived first, but made us get off our already full bus and get on another before leaving, and then had us crammed in 6 over 3 seats, with chickens pecking our feet. Horizon sat around in the bus park for over an hour, but once on its way, was a relatively comfortable ride. Buses. Such a gamble.

Mbarara to Bushara

The next day, we decided to get tested for malaria in a clinic before heading back to Kabale. Double negative – we were both in the clear. Before we headed to the bus park, John arrived, the last of our crew to make it back from Christmas holidays. His stories may well have rivalled Exciting Coach, as he was stranded on the side of the highway trying to hire a matatu, along with the 300 other people from the train. Between the near-rioting and fights over matatus, it sounds like things got pretty nasty.

Jealous of the other interns who were all taking trucks back to their project sites, we headed to the bus park. There were no buses there heading to Kabale, but we were assured that a Horizon bus was arriving shortly. So, we sat and waited and drank a soda. An hour later, there was no sign of Horizon, so we got more proactive in our search for a bus, but were unsuccessful. You have to be careful who you trust in the bus park… at one point, we thought we had found a bus to Kabale, and the bus employee was ready to take our money and luggage, but on consultation with the bus company office, we found the bus was actually headed in the opposite direction, to Kampala. By 5pm, we realized we were not going to arrive at Bushara before dark, so decided to abandon our efforts and try again in the morning.

We were harassed endlessly until John and Joël came to pick us up. When asked for a smoke, Bryony replied that she didn’t smoke because it is bad for your health. As the man refused to believe her, he was rewarded with a talk on the dangers of smoking and heart disease. Unfortunately, this did not deter others from continuously asking us if we needed a bus, a matatu, a special hire, a husband..

The next day, we caught a bus…the worst Horizon bus we have ever taken, as we were crammed into narrow grotty red velvet seats with no leg room, jerry cans, tires and random other luggage wedged in around us.

We cannot begin to explain how happy and relieved we were to finally arrive on Bushara, early in the afternoon, January 3^rd. It was good to be home. The final tally:

47 hours to Lamu. Journey home? 30 minute ferry Lamu to mainland. 8 hour bus Mainland to Mombasa. 15 hour bus Mombasa to Nairobi. 15 hour bus Nairobi to Kampala. 5 hour bus Kampala to Mbarara. 2 hour bus Mbarara to Kabale. 30 minute taxi Kabale to Rutindo. 15 minute boat Rutindo to Bushara. Return total: 46 hours, 15 minutes, for a total round trip of…:93 hours and 15 minutes. That’s almost 4 full days, mostly spent on a bus. Suffice it to say, if we ever return to Lamu, we will be flying.

End of Month Report

2006-12-10T21:31:00.000+03:00

So here we find ourselves faced with our first bimonthly report. CIDA requires that we submit statistics....so we've started compiling a few.

# of skirts chewed on by cow: 1

# of giant grasshoppers to land on Bryony: 16

# of giant grasshoppers received as gifts in town: 1

# of giant grasshoppers eaten: 11

# of batches of rice we've burnt: 2

# of batches of rice we haven't burnt: 3

# of rocks found in rice: approximately 125

# of centipedes stepped on in our house: 32

# of baby spiders, recently hatched from egg sac, found on Bryony's skirt: 70+

# of wipeouts in the mud: 4

# of different dugouts paddled: 11

# of times we almost got struck by lightning in a dugout canoe: 1

# of eggs received, accompanied by love letter: 12

# of people asking Emily to read to her from her book: 1

# of meals eaten with the Bishop: 3

# of chomo (roasted goat on a stick) eaten: 7 (bought through bus and truck windows)

# of boda trips: officially, 0; unofficially, 16

# of boda accidents: 1

# of class 5 rapids rafted: 4

# of bruises on Bryony's body as a result: so many.

# of times we've been on Ugandan television: 2

crazy things transported on boda bodas: 1 milk can, 4 jerry cans, many matresses, 1 giant piece of corrugated tin roofing, lumber, a giant log, some poles, 40 pineapples, 4 people, 5 huge bunches of plantains, a 2-burner stove, 1 single bed frame, and a 1m diameter satalite dish.

crazy things transported on peoples' heads: 20 litre jerry can, bundle of reeds, bundle of sticks, giant sac full of produce, 50 kg bag of cement, hiking pack, suitcase, pieces of bed frame, 6 matresses.

Nile? Yes please.

2006-12-01T13:44:00.000+03:00

Another month, another off.

It all started with a gathering of the interns from all the different projects at Canada House in Mbarara. Lucky for us, Graeme bought some grasshoppers in town. He had sampled some previously and loved them so much he wanted to learn how to prepare them – so we all got in on the action. We enclose the recipe below:

1) pull legs off grasshoppers

twist and break wings off – careful not to remove head

3) repeat steps 1 and 2 until you have the desired number of hoppers

4) feed mistakes to dog

5) place grasshoppers in frying pan with a very small amount of water – don’t add any oil

6) salt to taste

7) fry over high heat until ready – approx. 6 mintues

8) enjoy!

It was quite entertaining to watch everyone’s reactions to the preparation…and the eating. The flavour was surprisingly not bad, sort of like a potato chip but with a strange, yet distinctive aftertaste.

The bus

Upon arrival to the bus park, we were accosted on all sides by people wanting us to board their bus. With only a few people coming to blows, we managed to board a bus that was leaving shortly and that had a reasonable price. Buses are tricky things – there aren’t exactly any schedules, mostly they just sit around until every seat is filled. We were crammed into the very back of the bus, thankful to all have seats. Apart from a window pane landing in emily’s lap, it was a fairly uneventful ride. When driving through towns, the bus would occasionally stop at which point skewers of goat were offered at all the windows, along with drinks, pre-peeled bananas, yoghurt, g-nuts, chapattis and yep, more grasshoppers. Graeme bought more grasshoppers (this time already cooked), the rest of us went for goat on a stick – yum. Tasty. Four hours later we arrived in Kampala, much faster than we would have by car..as the buses here travel at break neck speed. Pleasantly surprised by our arrival time, we checked into the Adonai Guesthouse and then went into town on boda bodas.

Bodas are a great way to get around town; very convenient, very cheap, and although the weaving around cars can be scary at times, you never get caught in traffic. We made a visit to the craft market before returning to the Adonai for dinner. We shared a boda on the way home…it unfortunately broke down, but was quickly repaired ready to carry us behind many trucks with black exhaust and dirt kicking up all over the place. The result:

Jinja

The next morning we were on the bus bright and early headed to Jinja for a day of rafting. We stopped to pick up another rafter, who ended up being a Samaritan’s Purse intern from last year who was in Africa with Kyla. Small world.

Before our day of rafting began, John and Ryan bungee jumped. It looked pretty awesome –they made contact with the Nile.

After getting a brief introduction we split up into groups and met our guides. For ourselves (Katie, Laura, Graeme, Joel, 2 Israelis and us) Jeffrey was our man. It appeared Jeffrey was trained in Australia, as he was a Ugandan with an Aussie accent who used expressions like, “Wicked”, “Yo bro”, “Back on the job”, “Cool eh”.

We piled into our raft and had some brief introduction to paddling and tipping, and then we were into the rapids. We started out easy, but we soon encountered our first class 5. GONGSHOW. Graeme got some good air, and eventually everyone was chucked out of the capsized raft. Bry got the worst of it – being sucked under for an uncomfortable amount of time, during which her knee, ankle and wrist all encountered rocks, while her helmet came off. Good times! She was quite relieved to find breath at last and head intact as she was rescued by a kayaker.

Eventually our entire group was reunited in our raft, where we gave a ‘paddle high five’ “SWEET”! More rapids followed. it was awesome. Nothing can really compare to being shot into a wall of water. WICKED!

Lunch was on ‘lunch island’ and was delicious. It was also a rest for Bryony’s beat up body which was starting to swell – no worries mate. After lunch, it was ‘back on the job ’ under a clouded sky. The afternoon’s rapids were further apart, but Jeffrey kept us occupied and quite entertained with “the game”, which basically
consisted of splashing the other rafts. Most entertaining for us was the raft of burly American soldiers. They were quite put out that they could not a) splash us or b) catch us. Most frustrating for them, seeing as we were ‘mostly Canadians and mostly girls’, a point that we most maliciously reminded them of after each paddle high five.

Rapid highlights? Purposely going over a 3 metre high waterfall – and being the only raft in succeeding to do so. The other rafts attempted, but missed the waterfall and had to settle for some weak rapids – sorry John.

Ps. the Americans weren’t so happy. Our last set of rapids involved a portage on a very muddy and slippery trail…that set many of us, including em, sliding on our asses. Why the portage? Class 6 rapids. Wow. It was sad to run our final set, but it was a solid class 5 which succeeded in overturning our raft once again, Joel got quite the ride.

The bus was there to pick us up – along with tasty cold Nile beers for all. The bus ride was eventful as we passed through a circumcision “party”/parade. ouch, that would hurt.

Fast forward. During dinner we were approached by some reporters, wanting us to be “the new face of African CNN”. How could we pass up this offer? We were confused about why we should be the new face of an African network…seeing as we are not a) African or b) even appear African, but really we could not pass up the opportunity to dance at our first African club. Graeme, Ryan, Tanessa, Paul and us piled into a station wagon – shortly after Graeme had placed a piece of cactus in his breast pocket. See David – breast pockets do come in handy. When we first arrived, the club was not so hoppin’, but it soon picked up. We were pleasantly surprised to find that it was a nice club, nicer than some we’d been to in Canada. Fun times.

Other highlights from the off?

the woman who wouldn’t give John a muffin, despite them being the only food on display at the restaurant in Jinja.
the boda boda driver who tried to charge em extra after a) getting lost and b) skidding out and burning em’s leg
Ryan drawing Joel’s attention to the fact that Celine Dion was on the radio…and Joel’s flat response of, “I am so excited”
waiting two hours for the bus to leave Kampala, after being assured that it would leave in 30 minutes
our first medical experience in Uganda – getting em’s burn checked out

We’ve bored you long enough. It feels good to be back on our island. As for rafting? We’d do it again.

You have been lost.

2006-11-23T10:54:00.000+03:00

The title: a common expression used to greet someone who has not been seen in several days – or in our case, many weeks. Sorry it has been so long!

Where to begin. Well...

Rubingo

Business trip! Entirely on Patrick’s (LBDC General Manager) suggestion, we managed to make it to Rubingo, another ACTS project area on business. And, we were on time for a party!

LBDC has leased land to start up gardens for widows from communities around the lake who do not have enough land to support themselves and their children. Staff at Rubingo have been running a similar project there for several years now. So, we got in our truck with Ben, the Agroforestry Manager, and headed to Rubingo. An eventful drive due to many pot holes, speed bumps that left you airborn above 10 km/h and a slippery slope that defeated our truck until we finally managed to get the stubborn thing to go into 4 wheel drive. It was very informative, a great chance for both the Ugandan staff and Canadian interns to talk and share ideas. We also unexpectedly got to visit a local fish farm. We had originally planned to return to Kabale early the next morning, but Perez, one of the Rubingo staff had other ideas about where our truck should go, “we need two trucks tomorrow? God has provided a truck!”.

To the left: A visit to the fish ponds (visible in the centre of the photo)

That night, the interns at Rubingo threw a birthday party to celebrate all of the Rubingo staff birthdays for October, November and December. A favourite among the Ugandans that night was “pin the tail on the goat”; not so successful was charades – until the Ugandans started playing their own version, which had the Canadians completely confused. The night was a lot of fun, ending in true Ugandan style with speeches and a dance party.

Mugyera

Somehow on Saturday, we found ourselves seated facing the congregation in a massive church for a 6 hour long confirmation service…all in Rukiga, except for the speeches that we all had to give a the beginning of the service – which were then translated into Rukiga. The entire day was 10 hours start to finish, as we were invited to eat meals with the Bishop both before and after the service. Both meals included a large spread of food: matooke (mashed plantains), rice, posho (maize, flour, porridge type thing), hard boiled eggs, chicken, goat stew, ground nut (peanut) sauce, bread, avocado, roasted goat liver and kidney and tea.

After the service, we were surrounded by a large crowd of children, whose English consisted primarily of “how are you muzungu?” “I am fine”, mostly they just wanted to stare at us. We felt as though we were exotic animals at the zoo.

Rukiga Lessons

We thought it was about time that we got serious about Rukiga (pronounced ruchiga), the local language here. So, we hired a tutor named Grace. Our lessons, 3 hours each twice a week, have been quite amusing. We are pretty hopeless when it comes to learning this language…we’re having difficulty because there doesn’t seem to be too many rules.. nothing is the same twice – which has us thoroughly confused most of the time. We thought we’d share a few of our favourite sentences we learned:

Nkaza kuhinga kandi namubugeine omunyongorgwa (“I was digging and I met a worm”)

Nkiita enshohera ne engaro yangye (“I killed a housefly using my hand”)

Among the many crazy sentences, we learned some useful vocabulary…but our memory thus far hasn’t lent itself to Rukiga very well.

Our lessons are on the mainland, so we’ve enjoyed the paddle in a dugout canoe. We use the Bushara Island Camp dugouts, some that have proved quite stubborn….good times, we always have a good laugh as we adjust to the new shape of each canoe. The paddle to the mainland is gorgeous. Today, after our lesson, we got caught in the middle of a thunder storm out in the middle of the lake…. after seeing a fork of lightning, we hightailed it for shore…scary. It’s official, learning Rukiga almost killed us!

Pigs
The agroforestry program gave away 3 piglets this month (photo below - Ben, the Agroforestry Manager, is on the left), and there were 3 more born.

We love business trips!
Inspired by the success of our Rubingo trip, some of the other interns have been organizing business trips of their own to Bushara. Our first visitor was Ryan, who came from Nyakigyera to gather information for a water project proposal for Lake Bunyonyi. Water project...around a lake... genius... The lake is a good water source; however, several communities are located high in the hills, with a 2-3 hour walk, uphill, with a 20L jerrycan, to get water. Ryan surveyed these communities for the possibility of rainwater catchment tanks.

One of the best times and places to meet with a community is at a Sunday church service...so, that is where we found ourselves on Sunday. Fortunately, the service did not last 6 hours...and was followed by a rather amusing afternoon.

Highlights: see the Bufuka Orphan Care Dance Group perform again, this time with Patrick joining in and some goats watching the show; having our hair done by some kids; watching a goat give away; enjoying a Ugandan meal followed by our Rukiga dancing debut, much to the delight of the villagers. Ryan braved 2 giant mugs of obushera, a local drink made from fermented sorghum. We have not developed a taste for it yet.

Swimming Lessons
We presented a proposal for swim camps to be run during the school holidays in December and January to the LBDC managers, which was well received. So, we are into the planning stages, working to arrange meetings with the communities where we will be running the camps, trying to organize registration, planning the camp curriculum, and of course, practicing teaching.

Bryony has been teaching with Norman since the end of October; after many lessons cancelled due to rain, Emily finally made it out last week. It is quite the experience. A lesson consists of canoeing to the community, then stripping down to our swimming outfits - which consist of board shorts and a rash guard - apparently very amusing. The lake drops off very quickly in most areas, so shallow areas big enough to teach are few and far between. So, the kids are taught in small groups. The kids wear their underwear, or nothing at all for the lessons.. good thing Bryony didn't go through with her idea to just "wear what the locals wear".. Lessons are quite chaotic, and usually attract quite the audience. Bazungu swimming = great entertainment. Lessons are complicated by the fact that we know very little Rukiga, so Norman has to translate instructions and feedback. Muzungu demonstrations of skills are typically met with gales of laughter. Typical duration of a lesson? Until we're so cold we can't feel our hands.

Widows Gardens
The widows have been mobilized! Tuesday, about 75 widows from various communities around the lake came to Bushara for a first meeting about the widows gardens being started by LBDC. LBDC has leased 55 plots of land on Bwama Island, where the agroforestry nursery is. The widows will each be assigned a piece of land, which they will be able to plant and harvest to supplement their incomes and diets. The widows will each be part of a community group which will collect fees to make group purchases and finance microloans, and eventually, take over the lease of the land after 5 years. The meeting was a success - the widows responded well to the ideas and will be meeting at Bwama next week. Although the meeting was entirely in Rukiga, it was interesting for us to see how community meetings function.

give a goat.

2006-11-11T19:44:00.000+03:00

everybody needs a goat...yep even you can purchase a goat. not to keep mind you. but what a fabulous christmas idea for those 'hard to buy for' on your list! buy a goat for a ugandan for christmas for someone else. get it?? probably not. okay...we'll explain better. you send ACTS 35 dollars canadian...ACTS gives us 50 000 ugandan shillings - we buy a goat for someone here who needs one. why a goat you may ask?? well...like we said, everyone needs a goat. seriously though - goats are easy to keep, cheap to feed, good to procreate and can really help a family by providing milk and eventually meat (once the original goat kicks the dust...and it's offspring continue providing milk for the family). This is a win win situation. We buy the goats from locals - and give them away to locals who are in need....thereby supporting this community on two fronts.

how can you participate in this project?? send us an email, letting us know how many goats you would like to purchase - after the goats are delivered we will email you a picture of the community who received your goat. send a cheque to acts for $35/goat...marking the cheque as 'goat- bushara'. they will send you a tax receipt. if you would like to pay by credit card, get in contact with ACTS at info@acts.ca - and they can tell you how to do that. good times.

ACTS
P.O. Box 1515
Comox, BC V9M 8A2

Rwanda

2006-11-03T17:31:00.002+03:00

...and the travelling begins. This past weekend, we and the other interns took a trip to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. The other interns came to pick us up, having hired a minibus - with leopard print seats! - and greeted us with cries of "Eh muzungu!" (hey white person!) out the window. It was a fun ride - lots of stories shared.

Everything was relatively smooth at the border, except for a random plain clothes, self-proclaimed "customs officer" who wanted to see all of our passports.. luckily, he didn't walk off with any!

Rwanda was beautiful. Very lush and green with flat valleys surrounded by cultivated hills - it is the land of the thousand hills.

Kigali as a city is very developed compared to Kampala, and very clean. When we arrived, we checked into the Castel Hotel. Nice and clean, but a little steep once we discovered some of it's hidden eccentricities... the water was turned off each night, em got stuck in the shower, our toilet didn't flush, and if you didn't show up for the complimentary breakfast promptly at 7, there wasn't any left. All this aside, it was a secure and safe hotel with a fantastic view. We just maybe could have done without the street party outside our window the first night..

A few shots of Kigali

Saturday, we woke up early to get a good start on the day, only to discover we were in fact up brutally early, as there was a time change. Who knew there was a time change between Uganda and Rwanda?!? To add insult to injury, it was a national holiday, so there was no one on the streets, and absolutely nothing open. It was quite a contrast to the bustling Kigali we had ventured into the night before.

We checked around to see if we could find a better deal on a hotel. We didn't. But we came across some interesting deals... the most amusing being a place that said they would charge us 50% more if we didn't take the rooms in "couples"....

We then headed off to find the Gisozi Genocide Memorial. It too was closed. It's alright. The 2 hour walk to find the place was good for us. Luckily, Joel was able to negotiate a special hire back to the hotel for us - speaking french to a translator, who then spoke to the driver. It was uphill on the way back, so who knows how long it would have taken by foot..

We decided it would be a good day to take it easy, so we visited the Hotel des Mille Collines (if anyone has seen Hotel Rwanda, this is where it happened) to relax beside the pool.

Mel, Ty, John, Graeme and Joel taking it easy at the Mille Collines.

On Sunday, we headed back to the Gisozi Memorial. It was impossible to wrap your head around what happened. There were mass graves c0ntaining the remains of 250 000 people, 50 to each coffin. There were wall plaques listing the names of people that died - entire families gone. There was also a very good display describing the genocide itself, events leading up to it and repercussions, as well as some powerful tributes to the people that died (particularly one to some of the children that were killed). It was sickening to hear what a huge role the colonists played in dividing Rwanda, and shocking to read about neighbours and friends turning on each other. There was also a display about other genocides from other parts of the world, created in the hope that we can learn from history and stop repeating it. The centre is hoping to eventually be the site of educational programs for school children about the tragedy of genocide.

Mass grave at Gisozi Memorial

From Gisozi, we headed out to a rural area to visit another memorial at a church where many people had been killed. During the genocide, many Tutsi took refuge in churches. In some cases, like this one, the church was attacked, and eventually the Interahamwe got in with grenades and killed everyone. In other cases, church leaders betrayed their own congregations. Inside the sanctuary were shelves containing the skulls and bones of the victims. It was unreal really. Most of the skulls were broken, suggesting the horrible ways in which these people had died. The hardest to see were the children's skulls. A separate building still contained the victims' clothes and belongings, it was in this building where the bodies were also burned. It was a quiet bus ride back into Kigali, as we all took time to reflect on what we had seen that day.

church memorial

Our last night in Kigali we all ate at the restaurant at the Mille Collines. It was tasty, but the general concensus was that "Ice and Spice", the little Indian food restaurant we'd eaten at the night before was better value for your franc (except for the 'chocolate ice cream' we had for dessert).

Our last morning...somehow we managed to miss the early bus back to Kabale. Having previously arranged to meet the restaurant staff from Bushara in Kabale early afternoon...we found ourselves in a bit of a bind..tight spot..time crunch...dilemma..pickle. So, we headed off to the mini-bus taxi park - on our first (don't read this mum and dad) motorcycle boda bodas (which were awesome ps.) We were pretty unsuccessful at bartering a decent rate to the border...had some guys try to rip us off (ie. pay for 15 people to get to the border), but eventually we ended up renting a Special Hire for a reasonable rate. And what a Special Hire it was! White hatch back...large JESUS letters across the windshield...horn that sounded like a siren...and a somewhat distracted driver.

John sitting in our very special Special Hire to the border....note how the rear view mirror is holding up the sun visor, and the writing on the windshield..

While John slept in the front seat...we were both in the back...somewhat fearing for our lives. (just kidding mum and dad) With only a few close encounters...we arrived safely.

John agreed to come back to Bushara with us for the night to look at our water filter...which seemed to have been malfunctioning. Sure enough, after his inspection - we were encouraged to get new filters.

And so ends our first "off".... more travels in a month!

Finally, some photos.

2006-11-03T17:09:00.000+03:00

Woodpecker Cottage - our new house.

Braving the cold in our house...yes, those are toques and fleeces! I thought we were in the tropics....

Em in the eucalyptus forest, on the aptly named Eucalyptus Trail

Bryony practicing for swimming lessons off one of Bushara's swim docks

The view from Pelican Dock, Bushara Island

Market day at Rutindo. This is where we land on the mainland to pick up the truck, load it up with bottles, chickens, people... and go into Kabale.

Getting to work

2006-10-26T18:16:00.000+03:00

And so it begins. We are alone on the island, there are no more orientation excuses...

it's hard for me to know where to start. Currently i'm doing a lot of research...aka a lot of reading. Based on Stacy's feedback, i've decided to focus on creating a solid HIV/AIDS education program in a couple of communities, rather than spreading myself to many different communities. Hopefully this will work well. As a start, I am working on an HIV/AIDS survey, which will hopefully help me get a better understanding of where they are at, and what sort of program to create.

as for me.. things are still a little bit up in the air, awaiting a time when Ben, the agroforestry manager, and i can sit down and discuss our ideas. the agroforestry program is involved in a whole bunch of projects - such as a reverse slope terracing demo plot, the tree nursery on Bwama Island, pig lottery, community agriculture groups, and most recently, widows gardens - so we need to figure out where i'm going to focus my energy. i'm starting out with a bit of work on the widows' garden project, an effort started by the last intern. just recently, LBDC was able to lease land for the gardens, so we will be selecting widows and creating gardening groups shortly.

in the meantime, i decided to head over to the agroforestry nursery on Bwama Island to meet the agroforestry program staff and find out a bit more about what goes on over there. today was day 1. mostly it rained. but when it wasn't raining, i got to meet and hang out with Mzee William, William, Dick, Dennis, Justice, Sam and Ben filling planting tubes with soil. it was actually harder than it sounds.

As em mentioned, part of the agroforestry program involves a pig lottery. Happily, today was a give-away day! So, Bryony paddled over to Bwama to witness. The pigs are so cute!! So we took about a million photos (we will not subject you to all of them!).

Shortly after the pigs were taken, a rather violent storm had us all running for shelter - a 5m square hut. There were 10 - or possibly more (it was kind of dark) - in there, for about an hour, with torrential downpour on the tin roof. In our house, we can't watch a movie while it's raining because we can't hear the laptop, at full volume, over the water on the roof.... good times!!

i eventually decided to leave the island...it was still raining - just not as much...i needed to get back to work. Despite the fact that it wasn't raining as hard...the wind was deceptively strong, and i had unfortunately picked the smallest, and tippiest canoe (which was quite nice to maneouvre on the way over when the lake was calm). oh dear. let's just say i'm glad i can canoe or else i would have had a nice swim back to Bushara. Nevertheless...i arrived quite wet, due to the fact that waves were coming over the shallow dug out canoe. darn it.

my trip home was in much nicer weather... however, when i went to head home, my canoe had been borrowed. no problem. except that i was borrowing one of the Bushara staff canoes, which had to be home by 4 so she could go home... So, i borrowed Dick's canoe, hoping to catch him before he left Bushara so he could leave in his own canoe. Dick's canoe was curvier and tippier than the other i had been paddling. avoiding the "muzungu cork screw" (as people here call the pattern made by many first-time dugout paddlers) was further complicated by the fact that i was trying to talk to Mzee on the way home, while staying keeping my canoe within conversation distance without running into him... and, I ended up meeting Dick part way to Bushara...and switching in the middle of the lake. stay tuned for more fun with dug outs.

Waiting for the boat..

2006-10-24T17:24:00.000+03:00

We've just gotten back from town, but are stranded on the mainland because of a storm. We can hear thunder, cows, and a lot of Rukiga we don't understand. So, we thought what better time to compose another blog entry.

Yesterday we were treated to our first true Ugandan meal. Norman cooked us a very tasty meal of rice and chicken. Norman is a teacher who has worked closely with Stacy this year as a swimming instructor. He also works with one of the orphan care groups in the area. He has taught this group of about 50 children traditional dances which they perform for tourists at Bushara. The children dance to one drum and their own singing, usually led by one of the older children. Amazing sound! The money collected from donations is used entirely by the orphans to buy things like mattresses, blankets and school supplies. We got to see them perform on Sunday - they were amazing! They varied in age from about 4-16. We hope to pick up a few moves. They have incredible rhythm.

This is the entire orphan group - Norman is in the blue shirt with his back to the camera.

This dance is kind of like a dance off.. with the girl calling other members of the group into the middle to dance off with her. It was awesome - some of them were quite creative..!

I think we're finally on the move....the boat is being loaded.

Beautiful Bushara

2006-10-22T21:41:00.001+03:00

There's really no other way to describe it. The pictures don't do it justice. We're living on the tip of an island with an incredible view of the lake. It's small enough that we can see the communities all around, perched on steep green hills, which people trek daily carrying jerry cans of water. We've had to carry a bit of our own water, and let's just say the 30 second trek to our house leaves us winded and in pain..(we like to think it's the altitude - we're about 2500m above sea level). We were warned about Lake Bunyonyi being cooler than other areas of Uganda - just how cold, we were not prepared for. Wearing a skirt can be a bit of a stretch at times, as we often find ourselves in fleece and wool socks. We finally made it into the lake today - it is also quite cold.

Bushara Island is a tourist camp run by a local NGO called Lake Bunyonyi Development Company (LBDC). All profits go into community development. When we first arrived, we stayed in a safari tent and got the full tourist experience, complete with breakfast delivered to our tent, and hot water for our outdoor shower.

We are the only people actually living on the island, apart from restaurant staff, which means that the programs we are involved in will require us to travel to different communities - by dugout canoe!! In the background of this photo, you can see Bwama Island.
Everyone we've met so far has been fantastic - extremely warm and welcoming. Brad and Stacy, who lived here last year, have done an amazing job orientating us. We have learned a lot from them. We've been practicing our Rukiga with Evas, one of the camp staff who laughs a lot with us and loves the little Rukiga we've learned. We're hoping to set up lessons with a tutor so that we can get past greetings and "hello, my name is..". We took a tour of Bwama Island, the island next door to Bushara. Ben gave us a tour of the agroforestry nursery where Emily will be spending a lot of time, and we visited the primary and secondary schools there.

Kabale is the closest town. First impressions are pretty good - it has a wide variety of things, and we get to drive the truck on a kick ass switchback to get there. Running errands takes a lot of time.. 20 minute boat ride to our truck, 30 minute drive into town, and then many different stops for everything. We quite enjoy stopping at the bakery for bread, the market for fruits and vegetables, and Royal Supermarket for everything else food and toiletry related. Town visits will soon take even longer, as we will soon be sharing boat fees and gas with LBDC when they make town visits for restaurant supplies.

After a few days in the safari tent, we moved into our house, Woodpecker Cottage. Meal preparation has proven to be the biggest adjustment. We have no electricity, and therefore no refridgeration. Happily, we have a gas stove and oven (unlike some girls we met from the UK who are cooking over charcoal!). This luxury, however, has proven to be a bit challenging for us, particularly with regards to temperature regulation.. we may or may not have burned both meals we served to Brad and Stacy. Hopefully it will be a fast learning curve, or we may be eating a lot of french toast (the only meal we seem to have down). In all seriousness, though, we're looking forward to learning how to cook, as you have to make everything from scratch and not all ingredients are readily available.

Brad and Stacy are leaving on Tuesday - after that, the real test begins. We're looking forward to brainstorming and getting started on our respective programs this week. It will also be good to sit down with Patrick, the General Manager of LBDC, to discuss some of our ideas on Tuesday.

First impressions: great. We'll stay.

Ca boom?

2006-10-14T14:10:00.000+03:00

ca roule.
really, we should just let joel name all of our posts.
so we thought we should post a bit more because we probably won't be at a computer with internet again until the end of next week - on Monday, we leave Canada House and head to Rubingo (where Laura, Katie, Tanessa, Melanie and Graeme will be based). We'll be there a few days before heading down to Bushara Island on Wednesday with Valdean (an older woman who is volunteering there for 6 weeks). It will be nice to finally unpack and settle somewhere!

in the meantime though, we've been enjoying Mbarara. we successfully bought ground beef the other day (good thing there were pictures, or we're not sure what we would have gotten..ground beef doesn't seem to be a term that is used here..). we also quite unsuccessfully tried to haggle in the market...either we were getting good prices - or everybody has a set 'muzungu' price. we had to visit many stores and markets to try to find everything on our shopping list! we asked several people in the market how to prepare the beans that were being sold...all we got for an answer was 'yes yes, 400'...after getting the beans home we read up in a cookbook that they needed to be soaked for 8-12 hours prior to cooking...no beans for dinner that night! the curry prepared may or may not have been spread a little that night...good times. we also learned how to drive the white 4x4 toyotas we'll be using, and how to change a tire!

we have also been having language lessons in Runyankore-Rukiga (two dialects of more or less the same language - Rukiga is what will be spoken around Bushara). what a crazy language!! To give you a little taste... Naashemererwa kubareeba means "I'm happy to see you". Tinaayetagyereza means "I don't understand". not sure how fluent we'll be able to get, but we're going to try!! our taxi driver on our way into town today had a good laugh when we tried to pronounce the bakery where we wanted to be dropped off...he had a hearty chuckle...mmm - we tried!

hope you like the photos... sadly only one from Uganda. but we will get more up soon - we'll just have to wait a bit until the power is back on (it's been off every second day more or less... hopefully it will be back on again this afternoon - we ran out of water this morning and need the pumps to come back on to fill our storage tank!!).

murare gye!

Kasubi Tombs, Kampala

2006-10-14T13:50:00.000+03:00

finally a picture from Uganda!!
this was the gatehouse - there was a similar structure (but bigger!) where the king lived and was burried, and then a big courtyard surrounded by smaller buildings that served various functions, including housing his many wives.

thank you for seeing us off in Vancouver!!

2006-10-14T13:46:00.000+03:00

Stella, Bryony and Naomi at Vancouver airport. Naomi was in town for a conference...perfect timing!! Great to see you both!

after two hours...we finally found food in vancouver

2006-10-14T13:41:00.000+03:00

kyla do you recognize anyone in this picture??

it worked!!!

2006-10-14T13:34:00.000+03:00

this is the tin can that we took from comox to vancouver....even emily had to duck!

guess where we are??

2006-10-12T10:47:00.000+03:00

hello!!!!!

we arrived safely and soundly in Uganda, after way too much time on the plane...and sitting in airports- we were happy to drive into Kampala early Monday morning. how to describe kampala?? well...wow traffic...lots of people...constant shouts of "how are you muzungu?"....people taking pictures of us (we felt like a herd of safari animals...people pointing etc)...red streets - however people managed to stay impeccably well dressed and clean (showing up all of us)...never seen a 25 seater bus do so many impressive 3 point turns/backing out of tight spaces - they know their vehicles! giant ugly stork birds...and new cell phones for all

yes. it's true emily and bryony have officially embarked on their first ever co-ownership of a cell phone. give us a ring: 011 256 75 2682952. (it is free for us to receive incoming calls - check out our link to find good calling cards)

we are going to attempt to post some pictures...however they may not work!

we drove many hours...to arrive in Mbarara. we crossed the equator - where we stopped and witnessed a 'science experiment' - and yes, the water really does go down the drain in opposite directions on either side of the equator (and straight down when you are right on top of it - who knew?)

it will be another week or so before we reach our final destination of Bushara Island.

talk to you soon??

2006-10-06T19:34:00.000+03:00

We still have to say that tanessa has the best blog EVER!!!

And Katie and Tanessa are the most super fantabulous dessert makers EVER!!!

'we love kayak'

2006-10-06T08:35:00.000+03:00

enough said.

we were still sitting all day...but i would take a kayak over a chair any day. saw some wildlife: seagulls, bald eagle, seals...other random birds.

some memories made.

lunch at the spit.

cheese buns = good.

food followed by random games to help us warm up - 'salmon, mosquito, bear' (poor David and his salmon) and 'SPUD' (who's number 6??)!!!

finally a shot where you can see everyone...well almost! nicely done Katie.

Frank, Laura, Tyler, Justine, Nick, Emily, Graeme, Tanessa, Joel, Melanie, John, David, Katie, Bryony, Ryan

checking out the old shipwrecks.

tomorrow - last day for running around. lots of packing.

g'night.

the interns

2006-10-05T10:44:00.000+03:00

we would have included a photo of everybody...but the one photo that we took...well - it wasn't worth posting it. if you can't see the camera....the camera can't see you - anyways...

some phrases to describe each intern...so far:

John "Wilson": Mongolia to herd horses...Hardy Boy...quick dry...mefloquine mondays...
Laura: gives you the straight goods...sustainability...lacking internal compass...
Ryan: creative when it comes to rules...Mr. unpredictable Fix It... fire-retardent pants
Graeme "Little G": the bearded baby...the token yank...the glue...
Katie: quick to laugh...knows where stuff is...good at filling awkward silences (ie. "whoopsies")
Tyler: born to be an engineer...passport photo winner...Mr. I Won't Do It (ie. Dukarol...blog...)
Joel: quebecois...trekker (ie. trying to keep up with his Aunts)...Uganda and beyond (ie. Tibet)...cabbage farmer...'say, "we love kayak"'...
Melanie: the local...laundry room songster...van DJ...eternal optimist...
Tanessa "the chief": crazy energy ball...'making memories' - aka breaking the couch

questions? okay...so there are some inside jokes. sorry. that should be an indication that we are all getting along - which is good.

this is what the interns say about us...
bryony: free with her fists (Barnga)...cackle...85% goodness...part-time hilarious...
emily: machine gun laugh...distracted/crazy driver...surprisingly short...

we're kayaking tomorrow...ryan doesn't actually think that we need sleep for that...but we disagree. in the words of joel: bonne nuit.

WRITE TO US!!!! (please)

2006-10-02T07:57:00.000+03:00

our contact info in Uganda:

bryony and/or emily
c/o Bushara Island Camps
ACTS P.O. Box 794
Kabale, Uganda
AFRICA

orientation begins...

2006-10-02T07:07:00.000+03:00

After managing to fit everything into our bags...we called a cab and headed to the South Terminal Vancouver airport. Unfortunately for us we seemed to have summoned the slowest and least able to stay in his own lane cab driver ever...not only that but we also got lost. One hour fifteen later...we arrived. We flew Pacific Coastal Airlines to Comox - pretty small aircraft...small enough for us to figure out that one of the interns had missed the flight. We picked out the interns pretty quickly....not too inconspicuous. In half an hour we experienced more service than Air Canada provided from Toronto to Vancouver!

We settled into the Shantz Haus, the hostel we've taken over (11 interns/volunteers). Headed to Uganda with us are...Joel, Graham, Tyler, Tanessa, Ryan, John, Melanie, Katie, Valdean, Richard, Jenny, Laura. First impressions?? good. Should be a good time...well actually, everyone is going to different areas so we won't see much of each other...more on that later.

Orientation: Day 1
sweet mother. Following 12 hours of sitting (most of which was interesting and informative because the interns from last year were present and sharing of their experiences, a travel nurse also talked with us...shedding light on interesting diseases...most of which we hopefully had already been vaccinated against), we were ready for a bit of a walk...

bryony is taking a bit of a writing break to take her dukoral (oral cholera vaccine). so gross. 2 doses, which involve drinking something that is supposed to taste like rasberries.. but in reality tastes more like.... ok. bryony's back now (looking a bit green..).

day 2.
mefloquin with breakfast (let the delusions begin..).
church.
hiking Mt. Washington.
eating delicious food.

the end.

us at the top.

Joel, Bry, Em, Ty

(and yes, we actually climbed - the chair lift wasn't working)

calm before the storm

2006-09-28T22:35:00.000+03:00

So...here we are in Vancouver, 24 ish hours away from orientation. wow. it's been great to be in BC before orientation, it's given us a chance to rest a little and visit friends and family.

I arrived about a week ago and have been staying with my aunt, uncle, cousin and their cat... very fun. they have been super, taking me to their beautiful place on Denman Island (jellyfish, seals, bats), and I have enjoyed some good down time here in Coquitlam.

After a crazy last couple of days in Toronto, I arrived safely in BC and pretty much slept for 14 hours straight. hmm. feeling much better now.

Yesterday we made it out to the middle of nowhere BC (ie. Trinity Western), we were pretty sure that our friend Grace should have had a cow or pigs or chickens. she had a gnome village in her backyard instead. go grace! it was great to see her and catch up over a delicious lunch at a quaint little cafe in Fort Langley called Wendel's. unfortunately we missed Laura, but hope to see her Friday.

Last night, we were treated to our 'last supper' at Pacific Rim where we enjoyed various delicious foods that we cannot pronounce. thanks a. nancy and u. dave! worth mentioning...the scrumptious butternut squash soup. yum!!

to do today: rachel, rob, shop, rabies, pack.

hey bry - kudos to us, first ever africa blog!

got to be honest em...wasn't sure it was going to happen.