Filed under: Uganda | Tags: Africa, Beauty, Irish, Kampala, Kisoro, One Love, Smiles
One Heart!
Let’s get together and feel all right
you should visit kampala, uganda someday …
really … it’s safe, the people are kind and embarrassingly beautiful inside and out … it’s clean and nice and zips along with an energy all its own … and the pace of that energy is utter freaking madness when it really gets going … safe, orderly … madness …
seriously … it’s a really cool place … the thing you will see most often is ‘the smile’ … seriously … next vacation … kampala … you will love it …
talking among westerners, one fairly common topic is how completely unlike expectations africa really is … and its true in a way that is impossible to appreciate … in the west we get SUCH a distorted view of this world … war and famine and disease and corruption and dictators … the kind of view that leads people to call me ‘brave’ and ‘adventurous’ … just for coming here …
really, nothing could be further from the truth … you learn this about 30 seconds after arriving and the more ‘real’ everything about this place becomes, the more utterly absurd the preconceptions seem …
through ethiopia, kenya, uganda, rwanda and even sudan … the number one most universal feature is the smile (and the kalishnikov, though they had M16’s in Kenya) … not pain or poverty or disease or suffering … but smiles … from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor …
it is not what you expect … it not what we are shown … and its tragic, because this world … from which we all came … is beautiful … simply … universally …
so seriously … next vacation … kampala …
utterly unrelated …
i believe, quite sincerely, that the irish are the greatest of all people … i got a handful of comments re: kampala brothel at 7am … and it must be known that i hold the irish 100% accountable … i was totally ready to leave “Bubbles O’Leary’s,” a strange little irish pub in kampala , at about 4am, but they would have none of that … and lets be honest … after riverdancing with 6 drunk irishmen … who was i to say no … and the ‘brothel’ was not really a brothel … it’s the all night bar that just happens to be 75% hot young women and 25% creepy old men … it should also be noted that uganda has a very unique ‘arrangement’ when it comes to such things … most of the girls are university students who offer their ’services’ in exchange for being taken out to nice dinners and bought occasional expensive gifts … it’s really not all that different than north american society except that the men tend to be a LOT older than the girls (***they have these billboards all over the place that say “Cross Generational Sex Stops WIth You – Say No To Sugar Daddies”***) … regardless … i did not partake … i did tell every girl who gave me the ‘eye’ that they were beautiful and that i loved them unconditionally … but i am strange like that …
i barely caught a 6:30am bus (the only bus to ever leave on time), a day late, out of kampala a couple days ago, and rode all day to the extreme south western edge of the county … the drive for the last 2 hours was hands down the most spectacular thing i have ever seen in my life … times 10 … i was, quite literally, hopping from one side of the bus to the other gawking like a stupid tourist … there are these hills … beautiful lush rolling hills with pristine lakes in their valleys … think ‘the hobbit’ … the ridges have small groupings of buildings, and all down the sides they are terraced in a vertical patchwork of agriculture that is breathtaking far beyond the powers of imagination or words or even pictures …
i arrived in kisoro and spent a few hours trying to shake off the tour guides who seemed to think that saving me $25 on a $625 gorilla trek made it ‘affordable’ … managed to, finally, and walking the streets after dark, wandered into the only store i saw with a light on inside … there i met eric … a local rasta who runs his own arts shop (while i, unlike the rasta, do not think the emperor of ethiopia was the reincarnation of JC, if there was one religion that i would say is doing it ‘right’ … rasta would be the one … peace and love … peace and love … peace and love .. and uganda is swimming with the love of the rasta man)
… within minutes we were talking like old friends … he has a unique combination of brilliance and boundless kindness that i have never before encountered … if you had asked me a couple days ago what my favorite possession was, i would likely have said my mp3 player … eric now owns my mp3 player … i am not sure why i felt compelled to give it to him … somehow i think it may serve him in a way it never could serve me … someday i hope i can offer him a job … in the meantime … i bought a sweet portable cassette player for $10 and am pumped, as they have cheap tapes everywhere here and now i can really start digging into the local beats … (part 1 = Lucky Dube … south african political reggae)
i camped out the night in kisoro (i have bought a tent and plan to now camp as often as possible, it being cheaper and more fun … though the cheap, light ‘kiddie’ tent i found is not what you would call ‘waterproof’ … and i barely fit … but who cares really) … and spent the next day wandering around that wonderland … kisoro was dian fossey’s jump off point for studying gorillas (gorillas in the mist) … and it lived up to its reputation … much to my dismay … the town is ringed by inactive volcanos … and is said to be one of the most beautiful in uganda … i don’t really know … i saw only mist … it still had its beauty though … as everything was damp and lush and alive … even the clothing worn by the people is like another world … vibrant and subdued all at once …
from kisoro to the rwanda border was about 15 minutes on the back of a motorbike … by far the most thrilling ride of my life as the road is not so much a road as a rocky dirt path with many hairpin turns and sharp descents … i spent about 1/2 the journey marveling at the beauty around me and the other half completely convinced that i was about to perish … something, i should note, i have totally come to terms with … its strange how when you are not afraid of death, everything superficial matters that much less …
i got to the border crossing … which was more of a series of small buildings in the middle of the bush … had a lovely farewell to uganda … and realized quite abruptly that …
Filed under: Uganda | Tags: Canada, Joni Mitchell, Lira, Masindi, Matatu, Murchison Falls, NGO's, VCT
Looking for the key to set me free
Oh the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling
And it undoes all the joy that could be
I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun
I want to be the one that you want to see
I want to knit you a sweater
Want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel better
I want to make you feel free
so i basically travelled 2 days out of my way for nothing … though i refuse to accept such non-sense … let’s turn this into a coherent thought shall we ???
i traveled about 6 hours over bumpy roads from Mbale to Lira … Lira is in the North, where many of the street kids i met had fled from, and you could still see a lot of the ghosts of war along the roadside …
uganda is impossibly beautiful, with lush greenery of a million shades stretching off into infinity … the green is punctuated along the roads by the dust, which is a vibrant red … it coats everything, especially those plants unlucky enough to be born at the side of the road … i think there must be a brilliant metaphor there … with the bloody red stoplight of progress chocking and obscuring the vibrant re-birth of self-sustaining life … but i am not poetic enough to capture it … c’est la vie …
i was unable to find a reasonably priced hotel with any vacancies … but i did find one of those ’special’ places frequented by long hall truckers for about $6.00/night … as far as i could tell, the distinction between ‘toilet’ and ’shower’ did not exist, and there was a big sign on the wall in my room instructing people not to use the sheets to clean their boots and to throw used condoms in the garbage and not on the floor … needless to say, i spent many hours just touching as many surfaces as i possibly could …
i peetered around lira for the the morning, trying desperately to find an ATM … they are generally a) out of network contact, b) out of money c) don’t accept my card or d) say i have canceled the transaction for no apparent reason … but did … and was soon on a nice short 4-hour bus ride to Masinidi … this bus ride was also much less crowded … the busses all say on the side how many passengers they carry … the bus from Mbale to Lira held 14 … i counted 26 people in the bus at one point … the bus from Lira to Masinidi held 29 … i am quite sure we broke 40, but due to the pile of people on top of me, i was unable to make an accurate count …
i was hoping to get to murchison falls … masinidi is the closest major center … and once inside the park, you can take a riverboat past hippos and crocs and elephants to the base of the falls … and then climb up them (the falls, not the elephants, though that would also be fun) … the falls themselves cram the entire nile through a 6m wide gap, which is apparently something spectacular … but then … i have no idea … b/c i have only seen the sign that says “Murchison Falls 84km” …
it would seem no public transport runs to the park … and all my attempts to hitch/scam/sell my body for a free ride have failed miserably … so it would cost me 150,000/ to get there ($90) and then even if i got there … the going rate for a night is between $75-150 US … which is just a touch over my $20 limit … so alas … i am left looking at a postcard, which shows the water smashing with great ferocity through the gorge … if i stare at the postcard and concentrate really hard … i imagine i can even hear them … but then somebody yells “hey … muzungu … how are you” .. and the magic is broken …
so i traveled 2 days to get here to take a riverboat up the nile and climb up a waterfall … and i can’t … which might disappoint me … except i am me … and i refuse to be disappointed … b/c really … what is the point of that ??? … i am in AFRICA!!! …
so i made the best of my day … i took a 3 hour walk in the morning (after my first hot shower in what felt like weeks and my longest sleep-in in months (8:30)) … its really funny the looks you get when you are a white person walking down back-roads where, quite obviously, a white person has no business whatsoever … then i just started hunting for NGO’s to visit, and managed to get meetings with TASO (HIV), Noref (Education), ActionAid (Poverty Reduction) and Build Africa (Farming) … all of which taught me things that i did not know before …
AND … i went through most of the VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing for HIV) process, just to understand it, and i am sure you will all be greatly relieved to learn that i do not, in fact, have HIV …
yet …
tomorrow i have one more NGO to meet, and then i should be on a 10:00 bus back to Kampala … where i plan to take full advantage of the weekend by drinking more than i should … and, if at all possible, visiting a community education newspaper … and maybe an art gallery …
peace and love …
p.s. everywhere i have been so far … they LOVE Celine Dion and Shania Twain … last night i was kept awake by a room full of middle aged Ugandan men singing “From This Moment” and then “My Heart Will Go On” … confirming my belief that Canadian women are, in fact, the greatest in the world … too bad about the men …
b.
Filed under: Uganda | Tags: Americans, C.R.O., Development, Education, Inspiration, Leadership, Mbale, Newspapers, Rural Africa, Salem, Sipi Falls, Street Children
ok … t-10 minutes of internet time …
i am in Mbale now … its a busy, noisy little city just over the Kenyan border … i have had far too little time to explore the town itself, as i am staying in a smaller town about 10 minutes away …
i arrived there a couple days ago, after a crazy matatu ride from jinja … after i settled in, i immediately just started walking and was overjoyed to find myself back in the heart of rural africa … i made a young friend within minutes, who invited me to see his school …
as usual, my presence in the school-yard soon gathered a crowd of about 300 young children laughing hysterically at everything i said or did … the principal soon saw me and ’saved’ me and i had an incredible talk with 3 of the teachers about the challenges they face (starving children with no books, 90+ to a class, etc) … they invited me to see a cultural show with singing and dancing by schools all over the region, but i don’t think i will be around long enough to check it out (so sad) …
my young friend took me out the back of the school and on an little joy-walk though the backwoods of rural uganda … agriculture was his favorite subject, and he took great joy in telling me all kinds of random things about cassava and banana and rice and all the other food products being grown in the fields around our path …
the intelligence of some of these children never ceases to amaze me … i think the future of our species depends on harnessing these brilliant young children who are destined to work jobs not nearly befitting of their talents …
i met his family and many members of his village, and then returned to
—————
that is all i got out that day … it is now 2 days later … i am still in Mbale, and have learned more in the past 48 hours than i can even come to terms with …
i went back to Salem where i am staying … Salem is a guesthouse/conference center/tree nursery/craft-shop/hospital/herb plantation/children’s village/babies village/nursery school/………… i set up an appointment with the administrator for the following day, to tour the site and learn about the things that they do there …
i then spent the entirety of the following day (friday) sitting and waiting for no reason what so ever, as nobody ever came around to give me the tour … this prolly would have been frustrating, except thanks to vipassana, i am now utterly at peace with all things … so i sat and read ‘the art of war’ and started teaching myself to speak Kiswahili … good times …
the next day (saturday) … i took off in the mid-morning for Sipi Falls … i arrived there just after noon, met a group of 2 americans, an israeli and a german, and we spent 4 hours together hiking up and down mountainsides, through jungle, banana plantations and local ‘homesteads’ to a series of 3 breathtaking waterfalls … everything about the experience was magical, as each waterfall had it’s own unique beauty … the first was a 50m drop over a sheer cliff … and standing at the bottom, the force of the water hitting the rocks created enough wind to literally prevent you from standing up … the second was less dramatic, but standing on the very lip of the falls, you were given an awe-inspiring view of the valley, as cows walked by and people did laundry in the river around you … the third was like entering another world altogether … as the perpetual mist created a fairy tale land of absurd shaped rocks covered in the most lush greens conceivable … with a wet, green stone staircase leading through a tunnel of grass to a plateau with a 30m waterfall on one side, and the entirety of the valley on the other …
and the company was unbeatable … i have been thinking more and more about co-op, community owned newspapers over the past month or so (and actually think this will be the focus of my life’s work), so was overjoyed to find the israeli was a journalist volunteering for a community development newspaper/newletter in kampala … he has invited me to come and visit when i am back in town, and once again, it seems that the universe is creating the path in front of my feet … one of the americans has worked as the executive director for quite a handfull of not-for-profits in california, and had great advice on my future plans, both professionally and educationally …
after the hike, we found a crew of 10 american law students at the campsite … i officially take back everything bad i have ever said about americans … they were fun and intelligent and we took full advantage of saturday night in rural uganda, ending up in a random bar with a bicycle and bags of cane-liquor … good times …
i also met 3 quebecois who are working in the DRC, and besides being fantastic examples of human beings, they assuaged a lot of my fears about travelling to the DRC and a lot of my guilt about my feelings towards the dinka, as they shared much or my sentiment in their own situation …
(this is getting long … not sure why i suddenly feel compelled to dive into such detail about the people i have met)
3 thick pancakes with peanut butter, jam, bananas and icing sugar later, and i was back on my way to mbale … i decided to walk through the city, and as i topped one hill, suddenly found a sea of people in yet another amazing african market … as usual, i took the first opportunity i could find to wander down a random alley, and was promptly lost back among the buildings, surrounded by the beautiful and grotesque sights and smells of african cuisine …
i arrived at Salem and was immediately met by one of the Salem staff members, who gave me the most incredible tour of the facilities … first huge learning experience … though there is no way i could possibly encapsulate it here … it is amazing the incredible diversity of f**ked up situations faced by those just trying to make a positive impact in people’s lives …
after trying to digest some of what he told me … i was met by an american missionary who has been working in uganda for nearly a decade, who COMPLETELY overwhelmed me with information that i am still 10 years from appreciating (i.e. – many of africa’s poor live from hand to mouth, only able to make enough to meet their needs and never able to get past that … what they need is to save money so that they can invest in their futures … BUT … saving money in many rural communities is sacrilegious, as it means you are putting the needs of yourself ahead of the needs of community members who almost certainly have more pressing needs than your saving … what they need to do is save … but even if they could save, they can’t save … figure out how to overcome that, and you are my new hero) …
annnnnnd … then today …
when i arrived at Salem i was met by Uta, a german teacher who has been spending her summer vacation here for the past 11 years … she works for an org called CRO (Children’s Restoration Outreach), and over many meals we have talked and she has told me how much she loves this organization …
today i spent the day at C.R.O., and … wow … since Idi Amin took power, ugandans have suffered a lot, with one civil war replacing another, and then the kick in the face of HIV hindering any attempt at moving forward … this has produced an absurd number of street children … many without parents and forced to be the primary care-givers for their younger siblings … CRO works to rehabilitate these street children, preparing them for school, paying for school, feeding them, working with what is left of their families to create sustainable income and positive environments, etc, etc, etc … seriously some of the most impressive success stories i have heard …
they have taken children off the streets, and the oldest of these children are now graduating from university … from law school and med school … and many from social work … can you imagine a more effective social worker than a rehabilitated street youth who has overcome war and death and poverty and the loss of his/her family to graduate university and return to make a positive impact in their community ???
while i want the focus of my company to be in fair trade co-ops … i want the focus of my giving to be 100% focused on leadership, as i feel positive change can only come by empowering the best and brightest to overcome their situations and lead their people, by example, towards a brighter future …
i have been searching for something like C.R.O. … and the program graduates i met there totally blew my expectations out of the water …
one more piece of the puzzle has just fallen into place … and i am more excited than EVER to get back to canada and get to work … though i still have no clue where i should live when i come back …
i am sure the universe will provide … God has certainly been taking care of me so far …
i am heading to Lira tomorrow … it is in the north and the area has only recently been vacated by the rebels … it promises to be an experience like no other … sorry this was so long …
peace and love …
be happy …
sort of … i THINK i am in the rain-forrest now … but somehow it doesn’t seem as ‘jungle’ like as i was expecting … more of a really really dense forest … it is trippy to look deep into it and realize you can never see in more than 10 feet …
i am in Jinja now … i borrowed a ride with a tour company, planning to check out a couple things here and then head off right away to Mbale, but when I arrived, i found the patio to have the most amazing view overlooking a set of rapids on the nile, so i hung around for the day …
i have always said that i should never own a motorbike, as i am a thrill junkie and would almost certainly kill myself … this fact has been proven true many times over the past few days, as i have started to travel by ‘boda-boda’ (motorbike taxis) regularly … i LOVE it … something about being on the bike just reeks of freedom … that said … there is something wrong with me … when we are speeding down a pot-hole covered hill and a car suddenly starts to pull out, requiring an abrupt change in direction … i think the normal reaction would be to be grateful to be alive and want to get off the bike right away .. i am grateful to be alive .. but i want to do it AGAIN !!!
so yesterday i caught a bodaboda to jinja town and went to look at the source of the nile … really cool experience, drinking a nile beer, trying to fully appreciate the significance of this flow of water in the history or our species and our civilization … i have come to the conclusion that ‘the river’ is the ultimate metaphor for human life … though i have no intention of getting into that just now …
there is also a memoria to Gandhi on the banks … when he died, his ashes were spread all over the world, including at the source of the nile … they have a huge copper bust of his head, and i sat down in the enormous shadow of gandhi and wrote for half an hour in my journal about my life and my future … really was a profound day for me …
now i am just getting set to head to mbale to find this orphanage … should be a fun day …
peace and love
Filed under: Uganda | Tags: DRC, Genocide, Mbale, Nile River, White Water Rafting
and i ain’t got no worries, coz i ain’t in no hurry at all …
spent the day yesterday white water rafting the source of the nile river …
bloody amazing … apparently the 2nd or 3rd most intense commercial white water in the world including 3 grade 5 rapids and multiple grade 4’s … everytime i do anything remotely ‘extreme’ i have an overwhelming urge to just quit what i am doing and find one of these jobs …
you wake up in the morning … deal with some paperwork, then raft down a river all day … annnnnd … then you are done and party the night away … i don’t want to do it for EVER … but a few months every couple years would be the ultimate opportunity for … charging and reflection …
and i LOVE feeling like i might die … i mean … this is like most things … the thrills are short, lasting only for those few seconds you start to enter the rapids and all you can do is look at the wave towering 10+ feet over your head and say … “OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” … then there is about 20 seconds of pandemonium as you are basically in a giant washing maching, getting slammed from every side, unsure of which way is up and doing everything you can just to stay in the boat and HOPING the boat stays upright …
my camera is waterproof (after my last one became a casualty of the ocean in cuba) so i was snapping a few photos here and there … we were approaching a nice little grade 4 rapid, and Brad (our Kiwi guide) asked if i wanted to ‘ride the bull’ … i basically sat on the front of the raft with my legs dangling over the front, holding on with my left hand, with the camera rolling in my right … coolest video i have ever taken … obviously i fell in, and had to be pulled out, which really just made the video that much cooler … everyone else just thought i was a freakin nutbar … and lets be real, they were right …
i am going to spend another day or 2 in Kampala, then head to Mbale where there is an orphanage that seems to be doing some interesting things in income generation … i will hang out and volunteer there for a few days … then head to murchison falls … it is an area where a lot of NGO’s work, and where you can ride a riverboat up the nile to the base of the falls, and then climb the falls, which sounds fun …
then hopefully i can hang out with some NGO’s before coming back to kampala for a few days, then going south to Kisoro, where there is a microfinance enterprise i want to lean about, and you can go on day trips up to the tops of volcanoes for reasonable amounts of cash …
kisoro is a launch point for both Rwanda and the DRC … there is an active volcano you can hike up in the DRC, to watch the lava flow inside, which is apparently safe … if i can do this and the price isn’t too great … that is where i will be … something about the word ‘congo’ just gets my blood flowing faster … (nutbar)
otherwise i will wander down to kigali, rwanda and i think spend a couple weeks learning about the genocides, as interpersonal evil and aggression were the focus of my studies in university, and i have always been fascinated by the genocide in rwanda …
so that’s it … i am enjoying the backpacker life, though i look forward to leaving it behind as well … i have been drinking a bit too much the past little while, though have made some incredible friends …
peace and love …
