Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Maasai
For the past month, I've been living amongst the Maasai in Kenya. Our camp lies on the edge of Masai Mara Reserve and is surrounded by traditional Maasai bomas. Maasai warriors serve as our guards.
I find this tribe fascinating. The safari industry has made them a bit of an icon or attraction, but it is not for show. They maintain their culture. They remain herders by nature, moving every few years to new grazing land. They are not nomadic, but migratory; villages are typically deserted every 4-6 years. The Maasai tribe is organized into family clans, clustered in these small manyatta villages. Clans have chiefs and mzee elders who still take multiple wives. A Maasai elder may marry first at 17 or 18 years old, and three or four more times through the age of 60. As such, families are enormous, and manyattas typically form around one elder head-of-household. Wealth is indicated by the size of the herd; chiefs can have hers of thousands of cattle.
Within the household, women essentially do all the work. Children are the herders; from the age of 4 until adult passage, young boys lead goats and cattle to graze. The women work all day, gathering firewood, fetching water, cooking, etc. They even build the simple mud-caked huts themselves. The husband is usually employed and away from the home for weeks on end, often working somewhere in the safari industry. Once a man becomes an elder, he often spends the day resting, discussing politics with the rest of the wazee council, drinking tea and beer.
The Maasai are striking in appearance. They wrap themselves in traditional red or green blankets, with bare legs and hooped ears. They are rail-thin, with small heads, very dark and smooth-skinned. Men and women keep their heads shaved. They have piercing stares and fantastic smiles. Many of the women are beautiful.
They still practice their traditional ceremonial rites. Boys pass into adulthood through circumcision rite; marriages are weeklong celebrations. Maasai warriors are inducted in a special ceremony, after which they must withdraw from society to hunt and learn tactics. They select a bow or a spear, and many of them still earn their rights to return to society through killing a lion (although conservation agreements have shut this practice down in some areas). They have a devastating poison concoction for dipping their spearheads and arrowheads in - some infusion of roots and leaves and animal remains that can bring down an adult elephant after one shot. They also select a few young men to become medicine men. The Maasai warriors are traditionally most feared in Africa.
These are our guards, or askaris. They patrol around camp in silence. Often I am walking around and look left or right to find one of them a couple of feet away, just watching and smiling. They tend to pop out of nowhere like that. It is something special to watch them in action, when a stray buffalo or cat (they leave elephants alone) comes too close to camp. They run like the wind, then move silently through the bush to surround the animal and drive it out, rarely resorting to a fight. However, I'm told our 60-year-old senior askari (the one I piss off in a few paragraphs) can still bring down a lion from 100 yards with his bow. And their senses for picking out animals are incredible. Last week, staring over a vast valley in the Mara, my spotter Soombe located a pride of lions and a rhino from over a mile away. Both were invisible to my naked eye (even through binoculars), but he can see their contrast or locate them by watching the behavior or birds or other animals close by.
As much as any other people I've encountered, the Maasai have held to their traditional culture; they have forced a booming safari industry to respect and bend around their traditions, rather than compromising for the sake of wealth. But they continue to encourage development, and they realize that their business interests lie in wildlife conservation. I think they have struck a balance, using the industry to their advantage while maintaining their customs.
The Maasai have formed partnerships with safari camps that least their land. They are benefitting from conservation initiatives and their leaders serve as shareholders in these camps. They are using profit shares to build clinics and schools. While a few of the Maasai youth are leaving to attend universities and trading their red garments for clothes in our style, the culture remains essentially untainted by the outside world.
While I view these partnerships as innovative and effective, they are not without issue. The process of negoitating with the Maasai community is long and tedious, and very political. Camps agree to employ tribesmen in various roles, but there is a fine line of trust between both parties. The Maasai are fiercely protective of their land rights, and simple border disputes can drone on for months, or even edge on the point of conflict.
I learned this first-hand. Here I have a story to demonstrate. As part of one of our conservancy projects, I am doing a lot of gps-mapping and logging. A couple of weeks ago, reading off of old maps and data, I went out to put in a couple of border posts. We have been marking boundary points to keep herds from drifting into protected areas to graze. At one point, I put a new marker in at an area that was obviously grazing ground. Bad judgment call. Somehow, in the five minutes time it took me to walk back to camp, our askari (the senior one) whose land it was had heard all about it, and was at the office tent already - absolutely livid. We heard him lighting up the radio before we got there. When we arrived, he was waiting, spitting, kicking dirt, yelling to nobody in particular, had one of his arrows out, staring at me with the look of death. In that moment, I represented the second colonial era to him - the white man coming to steal more land. It was a piss fit, to be sure. So a group of us went out and pulled the stake. Sometimes we just have to choose battles here. Though it was in the correct point, it would have meant conflict and countless meetings with the surrounding community. After we pulled the stake, he was the happiest man around, smiling and laughing and thrilled to have his land back. Now, every morning, he walks up and shakes my hand with both of his, smiling a huge toothless smile.
Random note - I was musing last week about how much I miss music. This past weekend, James - one of my Maasai friends - somehow pirated three CD's for me. He gave me Jack Johnson, Matchbox 20, and George Strait. I could have cried in gratitude. One of the best-timed gifts I have ever received.
Peace & Love.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Rwanda Election & Paul Kagame
Elections are a buzz topic in American media. Most of you will remember the major election headlines from the past year: fraud and hopeless corruption in Afghanistan, fraud and paranoia in Iran, violence everywhere - common themes amongst the American-installed 'democratic process.'
But the Rwandan presidential election this week barely grazed any headline outside of Central Africa. I think it's much more deserving of our attention. Perhaps it went unreported because every person in world politics and world media expected Paul Kagame to be reelected in a landslide, and he was. Buw we must read between the lines here.
The Rwanda genocide in 1994 coincided with civil war, as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) army invaded Rwanda from Uganda in the north, in attempt to overthrow the sitting dictatorship. The RPF primarily consisted of Rwandan diaspora refugees - mostly Tutsis who had been driven out of their homeland by politically-empowered Hutus during the previous generation - and moderate Hutus who sought democracy in Rwanda. At the time, Paul Kagame was the commanding general of the RPF army. Under his command, the RPF prevailed and unseated the hardline government.
Following the brief civil war, the RPF installed an interim government and began to rebuild the country. Eventually they installed their own President, until Rwanda's first ever democratic election was organized in 2003. Kagame won this election easily and assumed the presidency. A presidential term in Rwanda lasts seven years, so the past two months have featured the campaign run-up to Election Day this week.
Today the RPF remains the dominant political party in Rwanda. In recent weeks, RPF propeganda has been everywhere; Paul Kagame is a sort of Mona Lisa, staring down at me wherever I turn. I have loved the political campaigning here. Sure, there are rallies and mini-flags and promisory speech tours, just like anywhere. But there are other strategies that are far more novel and less organized - trucks driving around with music and "Tora Paul Kagame RPF" blaring from a hotwired loudspeaker, with people in back dancing and throwing beads everywhere.
Here's a recent campaign scene: Thousanda of villagers walk to an electoin rally in a small village in northern Rwanda, loudspeaker trucks and campaign busses whiz by with RPF supporters hanging out and singing, wearing shirts with Kagame's face printed on the front. Sidebar - I got one of those shirts myself and wore it throughout my road trip. Fresh from another really and two hours late, the President arrives, driving himself, with wife in passenger seat and a small entrourage riding in back. There is security surrounding, but not suffocating. People can walk right up to greet him and shake his hand. He moves slowly through the crowd toward the podium, calmly delivers his speech. When he is finisehd, sodas are passed around and music plays, just like any other social occasion in Rwanda. The rally ends with President, Coke in hand, dancing together in a circle with his people. Rwanda is truly special. And this is all refreshing to the American who considers elections to be overly uptight, stiff-collared affairs.
In the end - as expected this week - Kagame was reelected, with 93% of the vote (down from 95% in 2003). 95% of the Rwandan population turned out to vote. Please stop to let that number sink in. In a nation where 90% of the people live in rural villages, surrounded by mountains, the vast majority without electricity or running water, with many still subsistence farming, where transport means walking or riding a bicycle, and always carrying a baby on back or basket on head - 95% of people found a way to vote. That number is why we should be paying attention to Rwanda. The progress in this nation is remarkable. In sixteen years since genocide and seven years since the establishment of formal democracy, Rwanda has established itself as the most stable and secure nation in Central Africa, and the most consistent economy of growth in all of Africa. Relic memories of the horrors still remain, but there is a grace and reconciliation amongst people here that I have never witnessed before - in America, in the church, in myself. Infrastructure is coming here, the children are being educated, and the people unify under the banner of healing and national development. They have formed their own government, in which over half of the representatives are women. They thirst for democracy - for a collective voice. And they have created their own, dancing and singing through each election season. We Americans were too preoccupied with Iraq, Israel, and Somalia in 1994 to step in and protect 800,000 people from a FAR (national military)-sponsored genocide. Something doesn't match up when we compare the current status of those nations to present-day Rwanda.
I also want to comment breifly on Kagame. Before I went to Rwanda, I really didn't know what to think of him. He is quiet, rather mysterious. He is Africa's darling in the Western political world - a champion of democracy and free-market development. But questions linger about his motives and connections leading to the invasion in 1994. In the media he is often criticized for holding a tight grip on national press in Rwanda, and for stamping out dissenting voices. So I was eager to get there and find out for myself what makes Kagame tick.
For what it's worth (and I hope more than when you started reading this post), here is my impression. Paul Kagame is brilliant, no doubt. In person, he is light skinned and rail thin and tall, very quiet and discerning, with eyes that emphasize he has seen more than you can imagine and from that experience he is staring right through your courtesies to the soul of your integrity. He leads the nation with conviction and a chip on his shoulder, from never owning a sense of belonging as a refugee child. He is passionate about education. He has a vision for Rwanda, but he is protective of Rwandan culture as well. I have come to believe that he is a remarkable leader, truly distinctive in Africa. He does hold a tight grip on freedom of speech and press. However, he his not simply seeking out dissenters who may challenge his reign of power. To my observation, his goverment has moved to silence (through deportation or imprisonment) those dissenting voices who are motivated to spread hardline ethnic rhetoric - using similar implicit tones and messages that led to chaos sixteen years ago. Kagame is not about to tolerate such divisive motives. Despite the progress in Rwanda, I think Paul Kagame knows the country is still fragile and healing. Did his army retaliate to murder many of the perpetrators of genocide before they stood trial? Probably. Has his government pillaged resources from the shadows of Eastern Congo? Strong possibility. But if Kagame distinguishes himself by actually leaving office as his is supposed to in seven years - not changing the rules or usurping power like leaders all around him have done - and elections go through peacefully, then Rwanda will have made it, largely because of his leadership, and he will be one of the best things to happen to Africa since Nelson Mandela.
I have seen the way Rwandans adore their president. They seem to need him. At, at least while he is at the healm, Rwandans take a collective ownership of their government in a way I have not seen before amongst Americans.
Random Story -- There was a herd of elephants about 100 feet outside of my tent tonight, ambling through the bush and breaking trees down as the went. I was fairly terrified. When an elephant is close, so close you can hear it breathing, the males make a rumbling noise that sounds like a growl and puts your hair on end. A couple of times, two young males got into a skirmish, roaring and trumpeting and stamping. Sleep was scarce.
Herds are on the move right now, all around the camp - elephant and zebra and wildebeest, with lions and leopards in tow. The elephants are the most dangerous, however, and the most destructive.
There was an elephant stampede yesterday. It was one of the most exciting things I've witnessed in Africa. It is almost an everyday occurrence to see an elephant here, but a stampede is much rarer. In the late afternoon, we were in camp and heard the approaching rumble of huge running feet, followed by the unmistakable trumpet of a large bull elephant. We heard Maasai herder boys yelping about a quarter mile away and set off to go see, blazing through bush and forest, with thorns reaching and cutting and mud sticking, until we reached a clearing and found the boys safe while about 40 elephants rumbled past, within 100 yards of us. It was a site to see. On the way back to camp, walking in a line through the tall grass, the Maasai behind me yelled suddently and held up his hand. Everyone wondered what he meant by it, until he pointed down as a Cobra slithered through the 15-foot gap separating me from him. I don't know what's more unnerving - shadowy gun silhouettes behind every twilighted corner in Congo, or knowing at any given moment there are at least 5 things within 100 yards of you that can kill, watching you come and go...
Peace & Love.
But the Rwandan presidential election this week barely grazed any headline outside of Central Africa. I think it's much more deserving of our attention. Perhaps it went unreported because every person in world politics and world media expected Paul Kagame to be reelected in a landslide, and he was. Buw we must read between the lines here.
The Rwanda genocide in 1994 coincided with civil war, as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) army invaded Rwanda from Uganda in the north, in attempt to overthrow the sitting dictatorship. The RPF primarily consisted of Rwandan diaspora refugees - mostly Tutsis who had been driven out of their homeland by politically-empowered Hutus during the previous generation - and moderate Hutus who sought democracy in Rwanda. At the time, Paul Kagame was the commanding general of the RPF army. Under his command, the RPF prevailed and unseated the hardline government.
Following the brief civil war, the RPF installed an interim government and began to rebuild the country. Eventually they installed their own President, until Rwanda's first ever democratic election was organized in 2003. Kagame won this election easily and assumed the presidency. A presidential term in Rwanda lasts seven years, so the past two months have featured the campaign run-up to Election Day this week.
Today the RPF remains the dominant political party in Rwanda. In recent weeks, RPF propeganda has been everywhere; Paul Kagame is a sort of Mona Lisa, staring down at me wherever I turn. I have loved the political campaigning here. Sure, there are rallies and mini-flags and promisory speech tours, just like anywhere. But there are other strategies that are far more novel and less organized - trucks driving around with music and "Tora Paul Kagame RPF" blaring from a hotwired loudspeaker, with people in back dancing and throwing beads everywhere.
Here's a recent campaign scene: Thousanda of villagers walk to an electoin rally in a small village in northern Rwanda, loudspeaker trucks and campaign busses whiz by with RPF supporters hanging out and singing, wearing shirts with Kagame's face printed on the front. Sidebar - I got one of those shirts myself and wore it throughout my road trip. Fresh from another really and two hours late, the President arrives, driving himself, with wife in passenger seat and a small entrourage riding in back. There is security surrounding, but not suffocating. People can walk right up to greet him and shake his hand. He moves slowly through the crowd toward the podium, calmly delivers his speech. When he is finisehd, sodas are passed around and music plays, just like any other social occasion in Rwanda. The rally ends with President, Coke in hand, dancing together in a circle with his people. Rwanda is truly special. And this is all refreshing to the American who considers elections to be overly uptight, stiff-collared affairs.
In the end - as expected this week - Kagame was reelected, with 93% of the vote (down from 95% in 2003). 95% of the Rwandan population turned out to vote. Please stop to let that number sink in. In a nation where 90% of the people live in rural villages, surrounded by mountains, the vast majority without electricity or running water, with many still subsistence farming, where transport means walking or riding a bicycle, and always carrying a baby on back or basket on head - 95% of people found a way to vote. That number is why we should be paying attention to Rwanda. The progress in this nation is remarkable. In sixteen years since genocide and seven years since the establishment of formal democracy, Rwanda has established itself as the most stable and secure nation in Central Africa, and the most consistent economy of growth in all of Africa. Relic memories of the horrors still remain, but there is a grace and reconciliation amongst people here that I have never witnessed before - in America, in the church, in myself. Infrastructure is coming here, the children are being educated, and the people unify under the banner of healing and national development. They have formed their own government, in which over half of the representatives are women. They thirst for democracy - for a collective voice. And they have created their own, dancing and singing through each election season. We Americans were too preoccupied with Iraq, Israel, and Somalia in 1994 to step in and protect 800,000 people from a FAR (national military)-sponsored genocide. Something doesn't match up when we compare the current status of those nations to present-day Rwanda.
I also want to comment breifly on Kagame. Before I went to Rwanda, I really didn't know what to think of him. He is quiet, rather mysterious. He is Africa's darling in the Western political world - a champion of democracy and free-market development. But questions linger about his motives and connections leading to the invasion in 1994. In the media he is often criticized for holding a tight grip on national press in Rwanda, and for stamping out dissenting voices. So I was eager to get there and find out for myself what makes Kagame tick.
For what it's worth (and I hope more than when you started reading this post), here is my impression. Paul Kagame is brilliant, no doubt. In person, he is light skinned and rail thin and tall, very quiet and discerning, with eyes that emphasize he has seen more than you can imagine and from that experience he is staring right through your courtesies to the soul of your integrity. He leads the nation with conviction and a chip on his shoulder, from never owning a sense of belonging as a refugee child. He is passionate about education. He has a vision for Rwanda, but he is protective of Rwandan culture as well. I have come to believe that he is a remarkable leader, truly distinctive in Africa. He does hold a tight grip on freedom of speech and press. However, he his not simply seeking out dissenters who may challenge his reign of power. To my observation, his goverment has moved to silence (through deportation or imprisonment) those dissenting voices who are motivated to spread hardline ethnic rhetoric - using similar implicit tones and messages that led to chaos sixteen years ago. Kagame is not about to tolerate such divisive motives. Despite the progress in Rwanda, I think Paul Kagame knows the country is still fragile and healing. Did his army retaliate to murder many of the perpetrators of genocide before they stood trial? Probably. Has his government pillaged resources from the shadows of Eastern Congo? Strong possibility. But if Kagame distinguishes himself by actually leaving office as his is supposed to in seven years - not changing the rules or usurping power like leaders all around him have done - and elections go through peacefully, then Rwanda will have made it, largely because of his leadership, and he will be one of the best things to happen to Africa since Nelson Mandela.
I have seen the way Rwandans adore their president. They seem to need him. At, at least while he is at the healm, Rwandans take a collective ownership of their government in a way I have not seen before amongst Americans.
Random Story -- There was a herd of elephants about 100 feet outside of my tent tonight, ambling through the bush and breaking trees down as the went. I was fairly terrified. When an elephant is close, so close you can hear it breathing, the males make a rumbling noise that sounds like a growl and puts your hair on end. A couple of times, two young males got into a skirmish, roaring and trumpeting and stamping. Sleep was scarce.
Herds are on the move right now, all around the camp - elephant and zebra and wildebeest, with lions and leopards in tow. The elephants are the most dangerous, however, and the most destructive.
There was an elephant stampede yesterday. It was one of the most exciting things I've witnessed in Africa. It is almost an everyday occurrence to see an elephant here, but a stampede is much rarer. In the late afternoon, we were in camp and heard the approaching rumble of huge running feet, followed by the unmistakable trumpet of a large bull elephant. We heard Maasai herder boys yelping about a quarter mile away and set off to go see, blazing through bush and forest, with thorns reaching and cutting and mud sticking, until we reached a clearing and found the boys safe while about 40 elephants rumbled past, within 100 yards of us. It was a site to see. On the way back to camp, walking in a line through the tall grass, the Maasai behind me yelled suddently and held up his hand. Everyone wondered what he meant by it, until he pointed down as a Cobra slithered through the 15-foot gap separating me from him. I don't know what's more unnerving - shadowy gun silhouettes behind every twilighted corner in Congo, or knowing at any given moment there are at least 5 things within 100 yards of you that can kill, watching you come and go...
Peace & Love.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Road Trip
Here are quips from the road trip last week -- four days between Rwanda and Masai Mara in Kenya. I decided to go overland because I'd heard horror stories and adventure tales. Western Tanzania is absolutely desolate, with one real road out of hundreds of miles of bushland, and nobody drives after dark. So I pieced together enough taxis and minibuses to get myself over to Kenya, saved a lot of money, visited new tribes and towns, and met new people.
I crossed out of Rwanda at Rusumo Falls. Here Rwanda's steep green hills give way to brown, rolling bushland. I hitched a minibus from Kigali to Rusumo, hopped off and walked across to Tanzania. There is a raging river and waterfall here that feeds into Lake Victoria downstream. Even at the height of dry season it is running swiftly. Like so many places in Rwanda, the beauty cannot be easily separated from the legacy that genocide left behind. As militias fled the RPF invasion in 1994 and carried out genocide as they went, they were backed into this corner of the country before crossing into Tanzania as refugees. Tens of thousands of bodies were dumped into the river here and turned up weeks and months later in Lake Victoria.
After crossing into Tanzania, I lugged myself and luggage up the hill to find the migration office and a taxi. It had turned unbelievably hot, it was the height of the afternoon, and it took about four tries, but I made it. My huge travel duffel - containing six months of livelihood and weighing in at about 60 pounds - was a constant pain in the ass, throughout the roadtrip. It will be a recurring character in this post. Anyway, I found a taxi at the top of the hill to take me to the nearest town, 30 min away, called Benako. They graciously gave me the front seat. We set off, drove about 100 yards, and stopped to add another passenger, drove another half mile and stopped again, and again, and again. After 15 minutes we'd gone about two miles and had 10 people in the car, a station wagon, with three people straddling luggage in the back. I ended up with a 3-year old boy in my lap while his mother held his twin brother behind me. As with almost every leg of this trip, I was constantly glancing to the rear to make sure my bag wasn't being rummaged through.
In Benako I found the last minibus to a town called Kahama, where there were rumored to be a few hotels and guesthouses, about four more hours. The van wasn't leaving until we found at least four other passengers, so I sat by and waited for a couple of hours. Benako is essentially an outpost of about twenty tin shacks in a row along the highway. I dropped my bag off in the parked van and strolled over to a cafe, where four men were sleeping away the afternoon in the shade. I went in and was thrilled to find Miller High Life on the shelf. Who knows where it came from. I cracked a High Life, sat out under the awning with the napping men, listening to African music float in from somewhere far off, enjoying the break in travel. If that's not a High Life moment, I don't know what is.
Made it to Kahama by 9 at night. On the way, we put 25 people in that 12 passenger van. I ended up on a lap, half standing and hanging out of a window for a full two hours. I found Kahama to be a bustling town - the only electricity I saw for a full day and a half. Even at night, the market was bustling. Apparently Kahama is the primary bus hub in Western Tanzania for travelers trying to get to places like Arusha, Dar, or Nairobi. So I found a guest house for about ten bucks and got a cold shower with it as well. I paid an Indian man named Mohammed about eight bucks for the next leg of the journey, leaving at 7 a.m. the following morning. He owns a bus company called Mombasa Raha - giant blue buses with Simba painted on the back and Genie (Aladdin) on the side -- at least that's what mine looked like. I grabbed a cheap, hardly cooked dinner and walked to the nearest bar, where every businessman in town saw fit to buy me a round. I meant to be in bed by 10, but got back to the room at 1, started to unpack for a shower, and discovered that my shaving cream had exploded in my bag. Amateur mistake. Fuming, after an hour of cleanup, with half my belongings laying around my room to dry, I collapsed in bed. Over my head somewhere, a loudspeaker was blaring hardline Islamic propeganda out into the night, following the final call to prayer a couple of hours before.
The next morning I woke and set off, lugging all my stuff yet again, walking to the town square to find my bus. It was chaos already, with people bustling about to load buses and sell goods and ask the white man for money or business advice. I saw no Simba buses, went to find Mohammed, and learned that I had unexpectedly crossed time zones the day before, and was an hour late. So I waited another two hours to grab a seat on Genie's next magic carpet. During this time I foiled an attempt by a 'porter' to steal my duffel and shoes. I handed my stuff over to load onto my bus, and just noticed them load it onto another bus running a circle route back to town in the evening, where it would be sitting for them to retrieve after I had hauled off to another part of the country. I got off the bus, yelled at them, and then actually paid them after they claimed it was a mistake and still demanded a tip for taking care of my luggage. I just wanted to leave, so I gave them what I had in my pocket (Rwanda currency-HA). I didn't want to start a scene amidst the Islamic-affiliated AK-47s that were all around.
Bus ride from Kahama to Mwanza - awful. Kept close eye on my bag the entire way. Bus felt like the rear axle was just welded straight to the frame. Every bump was a bone-jarring back injury waiting to happen. On the bright side, met an attractive pair of sisters from Mwanza who helped me transfer money, organize my next trip leg, and bought me lunch.
Caught bus from Mwanza to Musoma. On top were about fifty live chickens strapped down. The buss bumped and weaved so much that only about ten of them survived the journey.
Musoma is one of my favorite spots in Africa so far - a sleepy beach town on the shore of Lake Victoria. Breezy, clean air without any of the crowd and hastle of Mwanza. Ran out of money, slept out on beach. Met two brothers in town who helped me out immensely; I may still be there otherwise. They took me to exchange more currency and find the right taxi back out of town to the highway. They were the only two people I met all day who spoke English. On the spur of the moment, Africa continues to award spontaneity in travel. Every time I'm clueless, rescue shows up right in time.
Took taxi from Musoma to Kenya border at Sirini. My goal for the day was to make a town called Migori, where there was rumored to be a fantastic local market. I had no idea where to go at the border, but in the taxi I met a man named Donald. Donald spoke fantastic English, and it turned out he is a pastor from Migori - in the Anglican church. He had heard of Bishop John in Rwanda. He stuck by me for the rest of the day, helped me exchange currency again, pass through migration with ease and then find the right transport to reach Migori. He took me to the church house when we arrived and showed me to a spare bedroom. So I scored a free room for that night. I bought Donald a late lunch in gratitude, which came with the best passion fruit juice I've ever had. He arranged my transport for the next day, and then took me to a party. It turns out that his congregation's choir had just won the national competition in Kenya, and they were having a blowout to celebrate. There was food everywhere, and dancing of course. The choir sang as well, and it was the most beautiful singing I've ever heard - only 20 of them, might as well have been hundreds. I can't describe it. Singing and swaying and dancing as only Africans can. I exhausted myself with festivity, joined the pastors for tea and collapsed into bed.
The next morning, I bid them a bittersweet farewell - they had helped me so much in the 18 hours I knew them - and hopped the next taxi to Kisi'i. I met Moritz there, a Canadian who works in camp with me, and we made our way five more hours to Narok. That morning was fairly smooth. But, as I should have known, the last leg of the trip turned into a real adventure. We found an old 'bus' at Narok to the final destination - Oloolamutia, outside of Masai Mara. This 'bus' was essentially an iron box with seats, welded onto a flatbed truck. We packed in and strapped our luggage and potatoes onto the roof (next to live chickens again), and set off. The old bus couldn't go much more than 35 mph. The journey took about four hours, over rutted dirt roads full of washboards. The bus and windows vibrated so loudly that we might as well have been in a Normandy foxhole. My window sounded like an anti-aircraft gun, and my ears rang for a full day after that ride. Needless to say, the chickens died again. One of their heads flopped over the edge of the roof and bounced around on the other side of my window for the rest of the ride.
Random note - A hyena is going crazy about 100 ft outside my tent. Just beyond his howling, baboons are raising hell. It means there's a leopard somewhere close by.
Peace & Love.
I crossed out of Rwanda at Rusumo Falls. Here Rwanda's steep green hills give way to brown, rolling bushland. I hitched a minibus from Kigali to Rusumo, hopped off and walked across to Tanzania. There is a raging river and waterfall here that feeds into Lake Victoria downstream. Even at the height of dry season it is running swiftly. Like so many places in Rwanda, the beauty cannot be easily separated from the legacy that genocide left behind. As militias fled the RPF invasion in 1994 and carried out genocide as they went, they were backed into this corner of the country before crossing into Tanzania as refugees. Tens of thousands of bodies were dumped into the river here and turned up weeks and months later in Lake Victoria.
After crossing into Tanzania, I lugged myself and luggage up the hill to find the migration office and a taxi. It had turned unbelievably hot, it was the height of the afternoon, and it took about four tries, but I made it. My huge travel duffel - containing six months of livelihood and weighing in at about 60 pounds - was a constant pain in the ass, throughout the roadtrip. It will be a recurring character in this post. Anyway, I found a taxi at the top of the hill to take me to the nearest town, 30 min away, called Benako. They graciously gave me the front seat. We set off, drove about 100 yards, and stopped to add another passenger, drove another half mile and stopped again, and again, and again. After 15 minutes we'd gone about two miles and had 10 people in the car, a station wagon, with three people straddling luggage in the back. I ended up with a 3-year old boy in my lap while his mother held his twin brother behind me. As with almost every leg of this trip, I was constantly glancing to the rear to make sure my bag wasn't being rummaged through.
In Benako I found the last minibus to a town called Kahama, where there were rumored to be a few hotels and guesthouses, about four more hours. The van wasn't leaving until we found at least four other passengers, so I sat by and waited for a couple of hours. Benako is essentially an outpost of about twenty tin shacks in a row along the highway. I dropped my bag off in the parked van and strolled over to a cafe, where four men were sleeping away the afternoon in the shade. I went in and was thrilled to find Miller High Life on the shelf. Who knows where it came from. I cracked a High Life, sat out under the awning with the napping men, listening to African music float in from somewhere far off, enjoying the break in travel. If that's not a High Life moment, I don't know what is.
Made it to Kahama by 9 at night. On the way, we put 25 people in that 12 passenger van. I ended up on a lap, half standing and hanging out of a window for a full two hours. I found Kahama to be a bustling town - the only electricity I saw for a full day and a half. Even at night, the market was bustling. Apparently Kahama is the primary bus hub in Western Tanzania for travelers trying to get to places like Arusha, Dar, or Nairobi. So I found a guest house for about ten bucks and got a cold shower with it as well. I paid an Indian man named Mohammed about eight bucks for the next leg of the journey, leaving at 7 a.m. the following morning. He owns a bus company called Mombasa Raha - giant blue buses with Simba painted on the back and Genie (Aladdin) on the side -- at least that's what mine looked like. I grabbed a cheap, hardly cooked dinner and walked to the nearest bar, where every businessman in town saw fit to buy me a round. I meant to be in bed by 10, but got back to the room at 1, started to unpack for a shower, and discovered that my shaving cream had exploded in my bag. Amateur mistake. Fuming, after an hour of cleanup, with half my belongings laying around my room to dry, I collapsed in bed. Over my head somewhere, a loudspeaker was blaring hardline Islamic propeganda out into the night, following the final call to prayer a couple of hours before.
The next morning I woke and set off, lugging all my stuff yet again, walking to the town square to find my bus. It was chaos already, with people bustling about to load buses and sell goods and ask the white man for money or business advice. I saw no Simba buses, went to find Mohammed, and learned that I had unexpectedly crossed time zones the day before, and was an hour late. So I waited another two hours to grab a seat on Genie's next magic carpet. During this time I foiled an attempt by a 'porter' to steal my duffel and shoes. I handed my stuff over to load onto my bus, and just noticed them load it onto another bus running a circle route back to town in the evening, where it would be sitting for them to retrieve after I had hauled off to another part of the country. I got off the bus, yelled at them, and then actually paid them after they claimed it was a mistake and still demanded a tip for taking care of my luggage. I just wanted to leave, so I gave them what I had in my pocket (Rwanda currency-HA). I didn't want to start a scene amidst the Islamic-affiliated AK-47s that were all around.
Bus ride from Kahama to Mwanza - awful. Kept close eye on my bag the entire way. Bus felt like the rear axle was just welded straight to the frame. Every bump was a bone-jarring back injury waiting to happen. On the bright side, met an attractive pair of sisters from Mwanza who helped me transfer money, organize my next trip leg, and bought me lunch.
Caught bus from Mwanza to Musoma. On top were about fifty live chickens strapped down. The buss bumped and weaved so much that only about ten of them survived the journey.
Musoma is one of my favorite spots in Africa so far - a sleepy beach town on the shore of Lake Victoria. Breezy, clean air without any of the crowd and hastle of Mwanza. Ran out of money, slept out on beach. Met two brothers in town who helped me out immensely; I may still be there otherwise. They took me to exchange more currency and find the right taxi back out of town to the highway. They were the only two people I met all day who spoke English. On the spur of the moment, Africa continues to award spontaneity in travel. Every time I'm clueless, rescue shows up right in time.
Took taxi from Musoma to Kenya border at Sirini. My goal for the day was to make a town called Migori, where there was rumored to be a fantastic local market. I had no idea where to go at the border, but in the taxi I met a man named Donald. Donald spoke fantastic English, and it turned out he is a pastor from Migori - in the Anglican church. He had heard of Bishop John in Rwanda. He stuck by me for the rest of the day, helped me exchange currency again, pass through migration with ease and then find the right transport to reach Migori. He took me to the church house when we arrived and showed me to a spare bedroom. So I scored a free room for that night. I bought Donald a late lunch in gratitude, which came with the best passion fruit juice I've ever had. He arranged my transport for the next day, and then took me to a party. It turns out that his congregation's choir had just won the national competition in Kenya, and they were having a blowout to celebrate. There was food everywhere, and dancing of course. The choir sang as well, and it was the most beautiful singing I've ever heard - only 20 of them, might as well have been hundreds. I can't describe it. Singing and swaying and dancing as only Africans can. I exhausted myself with festivity, joined the pastors for tea and collapsed into bed.
The next morning, I bid them a bittersweet farewell - they had helped me so much in the 18 hours I knew them - and hopped the next taxi to Kisi'i. I met Moritz there, a Canadian who works in camp with me, and we made our way five more hours to Narok. That morning was fairly smooth. But, as I should have known, the last leg of the trip turned into a real adventure. We found an old 'bus' at Narok to the final destination - Oloolamutia, outside of Masai Mara. This 'bus' was essentially an iron box with seats, welded onto a flatbed truck. We packed in and strapped our luggage and potatoes onto the roof (next to live chickens again), and set off. The old bus couldn't go much more than 35 mph. The journey took about four hours, over rutted dirt roads full of washboards. The bus and windows vibrated so loudly that we might as well have been in a Normandy foxhole. My window sounded like an anti-aircraft gun, and my ears rang for a full day after that ride. Needless to say, the chickens died again. One of their heads flopped over the edge of the roof and bounced around on the other side of my window for the rest of the ride.
Random note - A hyena is going crazy about 100 ft outside my tent. Just beyond his howling, baboons are raising hell. It means there's a leopard somewhere close by.
Peace & Love.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Congo
During my final week in Rwanda, my friend Kevin and I decided to brave a trip into Congo to hike the infamous Nyiragono Volcano in a national park outside of Goma. Eight years ago, amidst a spiralling civil war and peacekeeping effort, Nyiragongo erupted and destroyed much of Goma, forcing millions residing in refugee camps to relocate yet again. The volcano remains active and continues to send smoke and steam out over the city from time to time.
I had really wanted to make this trip for weeks, but I was wary to go alone. If nothing else, I think a part of me wanted the Congo stamp in my Passport - basically akin to just tatooing 'Hardass' on the inside of your forearm. So I'm really grateful that Kevin came along, just in time.
Once in Goma, we met an acquaintance and caught a ride out of the city to the park. On the way, we passed the various UN compounds and headquarters for the near-impossible peacekeeping mandate in eastern Congo. Supply trucks are everywhere, in and out of the city. Those entering were often hauling large groups of villagers, sitting on top of supply loads and clutching their belongings. The refugee crisis here has essentially gone on uninterrupted since the diaspora following Rwandan genocide in 1994. Many people fled to settle in the jungles of the Kivu Province in Congo, but the conflict followed, and continues to be fueled by competing claims to the vast natural resources in the region. Villagers have moved in and out of refugee camps around Congo for over a decade, fleeing an ongoing and itinerant war.
We met up with our porters and guards at the park to begin our hike. Our group was armed throughout our time there, to protect the rebel militiamen who tend to encroach on park boundaries. Five hours later, we reached the clouded summit of Nyiragongo. At about 12,000 feet it was spitting rain, too foggy to see 20 yards ahead, and howling wind. We scrambled to put up a tent to block the wind, and we huddled inside to nap through the evening.
Throughout the afternoon, the crater had radiated heat and let out a constant, low rumble; but we could never see down through the fog. But by nightfall, we awoke to find the fog had cleared out, and directly below us churned a lake of lava. These are the pictures I posted below. We stood transfixed, watching it stir and spit and spew for several hours. The orange haze lit up the night sky above. It is one of the most incredible sights I have ever seen. We camped there that night (too cold to sleep really), right on the edge. One feel slightly less significant while standing over a bubbling volcano.
The coolest thing had to be the sound. The lava lake sounded just like the ocean, under constant motion and pressure - like large waves breaking over a reef.
Random note - lost 10 pounds in Rwanda. Year to date: 15. Welcome back to high school. This is despite the fact that I'm pretty sure every carb in the world has passed its way through my African diet.
Peace & Love.
I had really wanted to make this trip for weeks, but I was wary to go alone. If nothing else, I think a part of me wanted the Congo stamp in my Passport - basically akin to just tatooing 'Hardass' on the inside of your forearm. So I'm really grateful that Kevin came along, just in time.
Once in Goma, we met an acquaintance and caught a ride out of the city to the park. On the way, we passed the various UN compounds and headquarters for the near-impossible peacekeeping mandate in eastern Congo. Supply trucks are everywhere, in and out of the city. Those entering were often hauling large groups of villagers, sitting on top of supply loads and clutching their belongings. The refugee crisis here has essentially gone on uninterrupted since the diaspora following Rwandan genocide in 1994. Many people fled to settle in the jungles of the Kivu Province in Congo, but the conflict followed, and continues to be fueled by competing claims to the vast natural resources in the region. Villagers have moved in and out of refugee camps around Congo for over a decade, fleeing an ongoing and itinerant war.
We met up with our porters and guards at the park to begin our hike. Our group was armed throughout our time there, to protect the rebel militiamen who tend to encroach on park boundaries. Five hours later, we reached the clouded summit of Nyiragongo. At about 12,000 feet it was spitting rain, too foggy to see 20 yards ahead, and howling wind. We scrambled to put up a tent to block the wind, and we huddled inside to nap through the evening.
Throughout the afternoon, the crater had radiated heat and let out a constant, low rumble; but we could never see down through the fog. But by nightfall, we awoke to find the fog had cleared out, and directly below us churned a lake of lava. These are the pictures I posted below. We stood transfixed, watching it stir and spit and spew for several hours. The orange haze lit up the night sky above. It is one of the most incredible sights I have ever seen. We camped there that night (too cold to sleep really), right on the edge. One feel slightly less significant while standing over a bubbling volcano.
The coolest thing had to be the sound. The lava lake sounded just like the ocean, under constant motion and pressure - like large waves breaking over a reef.
Random note - lost 10 pounds in Rwanda. Year to date: 15. Welcome back to high school. This is despite the fact that I'm pretty sure every carb in the world has passed its way through my African diet.
Peace & Love.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Quick Update
Sorry I've been out of touch; I just wrapped up a four-day road trip by bus between Rwanda and Masai Mara, Kenya. I'm at Muthaiga now. It was quite an adventure. I will catch up with the Congo post soon, and in my head, I am about four posts behind. But I'm back within reach of internet now, and a few stories will follow very soon. I miss Rwanda already.
Peace & Love
Peace & Love
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