Thursday 26th May.
Bill Gates bar.
We stopped just down the road at the Crossroads shopping center in Karen to stock up on food, use the ATM's, get more US$. Its a nice group of shops but Karen it is a rich, white, expat area- so the shops are expensive. I went to the pharmacy and got some antibiotics to try and kill whatever tummy bug I've been fighting. Felt weird to be able to walk into a pharmacy and ask for antibiotics over the counter. Much easier than the usual having to find a doctor with available appointments, get to the appointment, get a script, then get to the pharmacy to get the antibiotics.
We grabbed a coffee at the cafe and waited for Kate and Geoff who were at the Australian Embassy organising new passports because theirs got bad water damage at Victoria Falls. Felix was also off at the Sudanese Embassy gathering information on what we will have to do to get entry visas. Also, Fiona was organising her passport to go back to England to get an Ethiopian visa so that she can extend to Egypt instead of finishing in Nairobi.
Once everyone was back we continued on. We reached the camp in the afternoon and set up our tents. I cant remember the name of the camp, or more honestly, I never bothered to find out the name of the camp, but their claim to fame- and claim it they did on every blank piece of wall- was that Bill Gates had stayed there once. It did have the most amazing bar ever, which we spent most of the night in. To get to the bar you had to walk down this rabbit hole type tunnel which opens up into this massive cavern type place with a stream running through it and little bridges connecting all the separated areas of the bar. We positioned ourselves next to the huge fireplace, which was actually what held the entire bar up. We ordered lots of munchies like poppadoms and potato bhujies. Alex, Aileen and Andrea were on cook group and made a yummy veggie stew/soup thing. After dinner most of us went back down to the awesome bar to chill out. It thundered and pissed down with rain for most of the night and I left Alex, Jimmy, Benne, Lars in the cavernous bar around midnight to go warm up in bed.
Friday 27th May.
Chck chck boom.
We had a flat tire so stopped to fix that and stretch our legs on the side of the road. We crossed the dam wall over Lake Victoria which we were not allowed to take photos of because otherwise the security guards with AK47s would get mad. No argument, the camera was hidden away! I used to feel uncomfortable when a police officer would walk past me in the shops at home and I saw their gun, but I think its safe to say that after this I will be well and truly desensitized to this. It is common to see a security guard at the front of a shop, in a park, at a traffic light, or at an ATM with big shotguns or AK47s! I don't even flinch anymore! Crossing the dam wall we also had our first sighting of the great Nile River that we will be following all the way up to Cairo, Egypt.
We arrived at Red Chillie camp in Kampala, the capital of Uganda at 7pm, and after setting up our tent headed straight for the free wifi hot spot. That's right- Free! It was pretty slow uploading photos, but I managed to get over 20 up which I was happy with. Cook group made a soy mince pasta and we went to bed not too late.
Saturday 28th May.
Farewell Farron and Leigh (frowny face).
Just before lunch time we pulled over on the side of the road and sat there for ages. No one was sure what was happening, but we figured it was a police checkpoint or something. Moving again we drove not too much further down the road and pulled into a service station. It was here that we found out that the reason we had stopped before was because Leigh had received a call from home that a family member of hers was very suddenly and unexpectedly ill. The service station we had pulled into was just outside of Entebbe Airport and Farron and Leigh caught a taxi to the international terminal and booked two tickets to London. We waited at the service station and had lunch, looking over the U.N. air base, again with lots of men with big arse guns walking around. When FarronFarron had organised us a place to stay and organised a replacement driver to be there either late the same night or early the next morning.
Dropping us off at the hotel and making sure we were all settled and comfortable and camping paid for, Farron and Leigh were saying goodbye and were on their way back to the airport to get a plane to London not 3 hours after receiving the call from home. It must have been a terribly awful, stressful time for Leigh, but I suppose it was good that we were just leaving Kampala and close to an international airport and not somewhere hours or days away from the airport.
We upgraded to a room with a bed and nice ensuite and then we all gathered at the bar and digested what had happened. It was weird not having Farron and Leigh around, and we were all hoping that Leigh was ok. Receiving news like that from home is everybody's worst nightmare and it was horrible to see someone we care about having to go through that.
We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting around, watching Andrea sort out some of her stuff as her trip was ending, and sitting in the nearby internet cafe trying to figure out what we needed for the Rwanda visas. We were going to have dinner at the local bar but instead decided to have the fried rice that cook group had made. Alex also had some of the cheese fondue that Marcus cooked up- all the way from Switzerland. After dinner we went back to the local bar, I ordered a bowl of chicken and sweet corn soup, which I was really excited about because its my favourite soup and I haven't seen it before in Africa. We stayed for a few drinks and then walked home to get some rest.
We found out when we got back that Felix had received word that our driver would be flying in at 11.30pm and that we would be leaving at 6am in the morning. Fell asleep thinking about Farron and Leigh and wishing them all the best.
Sunday 29th May.
Camping in a 'hotel' in Kibale.
We stopped for breakfast at a cafe and craft store at about 10am. 100% of the proceeds went to children orphans of aids, so naturally I had to buy some souvenirs and bought a few necklaces made of tightly wound paper. We both got a really yummy chicken and avocado wrap and a coffee.
We made good time, thanks to Darny's light speed driving, and got to Kibale in the afternoon. Kibale is a medium sized town with one main dirt road running through it. we pulled into the 'hotel' that we would be staying at. I'm still not convinced that it was actually a hotel. Sure it had rooms along a hallway, and the rooms had beds and bathroom in it, but that was the only thing this place had in common with a hotel. There was not much grass and not even much concreted area so those that wanted to upgrade to the skanky looking rooms did, some people put up tents on the small patch of grass, and the rest of us set up home inside the weird scout hall building outside of the main building. BJ set up his tent inside the hall, and the rest of us just put our mats and sleeping bags on the floor. There was no running water in this building, so the owner opened up a ground floor room in the main building so that we could use the bathroom in it. It was comfy enough, and definitely the most interesting place we have stayed in so far.
We went to the Little Hilton just around the corner for a few drinks and afternoon snack. It was an upstairs bar so we could watch Kibale and the afternoon go by. We went to an internet cafe down the road to try and sort out the Rwandan visas, everywhere we looked gave us different information. We found out that Australians are required to apply online 3 days prior to entering the country... uh oh. We applied online and printed out the receipts. All we could do was hope that it would be enough. We had decided to spend 2 nights in Rwanda as we were not doing the gorilla trek and Kibale was nice enough, but not somewhere interesting enough to spend 2 nights. I was on cook group, because our nights had been swapped, and we made hotdogs- cheap and easy!
Later on in the night Benne, Jimmy, Jan and Alex and I went to a local bar just across the alley from our 'hotel' where a local group was performing live. It was a small place with not very many people in it but it was cool music so we stayed for a few drinks and ended up dancing in front of the stage. I was getting ready to leave when much to my horror the guy with the microphone was walking our way. He was looking for someone to join him on stage and he was walking straight towards me. Instead of the ground swallowing me up like I wished it would, I found myself on stage with a microphone shoved in my face. I had no idea what the guy was singing and it appeared that it was my turn to sing the song, so I belted out a few lines of Waltzing Matilda. Embarrassment! It was fun though, and I lived through it. Not long after I finished my amazing performance we went back to the 'hotel' and got snuggled into our bed on the floor of the scout hall type place.
Monday 30th May.
Into beautiful Rwanda.
We got our taxi driver to drop us off at Hotel Des Milles Collines- of the Hotel Rwanda fame- as this was where we would be meeting Felix, Benne and Jimmy the next day. From there we walked the short distance into the main CBD area of Kigale. Kigale is a really busy, but really small city centered around a main roundabout, and almost everything was within walking distance. We changed some US$ into Rwandan Francs (600 francs = US$1) and struggled to get used to the third different currency and exchange rate in as many days. Then we wandered around town checking out different hotels looking for a good deal until we came across Auberge La Caverne, where we decided to stay.
Now might be a good time to mention that Rwanda is a french speaking country, and English is very limited so it was the biggest language barrier we have experience to date. They also drive on the other side of the road- so crossing the road was interesting (read: terrifying), and not something I ever got used to.
After having an afternoon nap and a nice hot shower we met Jan in the bar of Auberge La Caverne and made our way back up the hill. We found a really cool place called Bel Air which was on the second floor up some dark and dingy stairs. We sat on the balcony looking out at the main commercial street in Rwanda. We had a few drinks and ate some of the yummy samosas from the bar. After a while we decided to keep walking and explore the city a bit more, and ended up drinking and eating samosas at a lot of different places, and basically ate and drank our way back to our hotel by about 1am.
Tuesday 31st May.
Disclaimer: Sensitivity warning... Not happy writings below.
Sorting out our time issues we grabbed a beer in the very nice pool bar of hotel Rwanda and then- much to my horror- caught a motorbike taxi to the Genocide Memorial Museum. I. Hate. Motorbikes! By the time we got there, which was only about 5 minutes out of town but felt like a hour, my hands had cramped from holding on so tight.
Pulling myself together we went into the genocide museum.
It was heartbreaking. Horrible. Gut wrenching.
The brutality that was used was just unimaginable. Mothers were made to kill their own children, children were made to watch while their mother was brutally and repeatedly raped and their family tortured and murdered. Babies were burnt alive. Children were smashed against walls until dead. Others were buried alive. A lot of the violence was inflicted with blunt machetes, but pain and death were achieved by any means possible. Friends brutally killed friends, neighbours killed neighbours, families killed families.
In 100 days over a million people died, about 20% of the population. The world retreated and just sat back and watched it happen. The UN had 5,500 soldiers evacuate white people from the area and the sick thing is that it would have taken only 5,000 to stop the genocide had their man power been used properly. And to think this only happened in 1994. Such recent history.
The hardest part of the museum for me was the exhibit that had photos of some of the children that were killed and underneath the photo a description of the child, their favourite food, their favourite colour, their last spoken words, and how they were murdered. Some were bludgeoned to death, some burnt alive, some smashed against walls, some buried alive, some drowned in human waste. There are over 250,000 people buried in mass graves in the gardens of the memorial museum and fresh flowers are still placed there. A lot of people were never identified because there was no one alive to identify them.
There was a public radio station broadcasting during the genocide that openly promoted the killing of the Tutsi people by the Hutu people. In some instances there were priests that lured their congregation into their church, locked the doors and watched as the building was bulldozed, or while the people were raped, tortured and murdered over many days. When aide finally arrived it went straight to the many refugee camps, but none reached those left behind in the city. They were just left to die.
When we all met at the front of the museum, we sat there in silence for at least 15 minutes. We couldn't speak. It felt different walking down the street and mingling with the people that this happened to only 17 short years ago. Every single person here experienced the genocide in one way or another. They were either victims of violence and torture, lost family and friends, killed someone, or were child soldiers. There was no long term psychological help offered, and it is just now that the women who were purposely raped by a known HIV+ male are starting to suffer from the disease they were left with.
And yet, this is by far the friendliest country we have visited to date.
We caught motorbike taxis back into town and went to our hotel to have a quiet drink and took time to reflect on and digest all that we had learnt. We also discovered, after some confusion that we were meant to have put our clocks back and hour, not forward. So we were sitting there thinking it was 6pm, when in fact it was only 4pm. At night we went back to Bel Air and then found different places to drink.
Wednesday 1st June.
Hungover in Hotel Des Milles Collines (Hotel Rwanda).
We had no luck finding a taxi big enough to take all 5 of us, and in the end Felix, Jimmy and Jan jumped on motorbike taxis. I found the motorbike taxis hard to stomach the previous day and I wasn't horrendously hung over then. We decided to skip the churches and instead went to the internet cafe just down the hill. We bumped into Benne at the cafe and I got to chat with mum and dad on facebook which was really nice and we had a nice lunch.
We all met up again a few hours later at hotel Rwanda where we had organised a minivan taxi to pick us up and drive us over the border all the way to Lake Bunyonyi where everyone else was. We paid the US$25 each to get back into Uganda, and remembered to wind our clocks forward an hour, meaning that we arrived at Lake Bunyonyi just in time for an early dinner. We upgraded to a tent (I know what your thinking- but it was a nice, permanent structure kind of tent) with two king single beds, a light, and the most magical view of one of the deepest lakes in Africa. We also got the room, I mean tent, cheaper because they thought only Alex was staying in there. We had a few drinks (only lemonade for me) at the bar and caught up with everyone and heard their gorillas in the mist tales, then went to bed feeling tired from the emotional time in Rwanda but at the same time better for knowing more about it. It is such an unimaginable thing that happened, we must learn about it so that we can learn from it and prevent it from ever happening again. It also gives credit due to those that went through it, it just wouldn't be right if we ignored that it ever happened and didn't try to learn about it.
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