Hujambo!

Well I’m home from my East African tour now.  It feels good to be back in Tala after fifteen days of absence, especially since I estimate I’ve sat on five or six buses for a total of around fifty hours in the last two weeks.  I was happy to see that everything was still in order at the college when I returned.  My students are supposed to come to school next Monday, but they always take their time so I don’t know when I will actually have to start teaching.  It’s OK, this is Africa, everything is pole pole (slowly slowly)!

Our adventure started in Tanzania, where we visited the town of Arusha and then immediately hopped on a thirteen hour bus ride to the Lake Victoria port town of Mwanza.  Tanzanians don’t speak very much English so I had to rely on my elementary Swahili.  We had a good time exploring the town and especially seeing the ocean-like lake there.  The lake is 26,000 square miles in total, so it’s really like looking at the Pacific Ocean from the beach in San Diego.  I’ve never seen Lake Tahoe or that big one in Michigan, but I assume it must be a similar feeling as you’d get if you peered across those.  Buses going from Mwanza to Rwanda were few and far between so we spent a few extra days killing time in Mwanza. The bus ride to Rwanda was terrible of course, as western Tanzania is a remote wasteland with ridiculous dirt roads. It’s also just really far away from everything!
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Woo, long journey! I arrived in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali last night.  Holy crap, this place is clean, organized, and there are bananas everywhere.  Sureel and I entered through the Tanzanian border at Benaco and then walked across into Rwanda.  After some shady deals exchanging our Tanzanian money we bought some lunch and paid for a bus to Kigali (three or four hours).  We had been traveling for something like thirteen hours since the morning, and when I finally took a shower the water was brown from my dirty hair.

Last night we had dinner at our hotel and sat next to a Rwandan and a Ugandan.  We talked African politics for about an hour, had some laughs, and got some tips about Kigali.  The people here are very kind, honest, and like I said, this place is clean, organized, and beautiful.  Oh, it’s really freakin’ expensive too.  We had to visit several hotels before we found one with available rooms, and the prices range from like $30/per night to $70… Ahh!! I will hopefully get some pictures to capture the green hills surrounding the city.  Most of you know I hate to appear like a tourist :) Read more

What’s a teacher supposed to do when class is over, final exams have been marked, and final grades have been sent in?  Vacation!  So I’m off to Uganda with my friend Sureel by way of Tanzania and Rwanda starting on August 1st.  I have about three weeks before I have to start teaching again, so if I fanya haraka (do it fast) I can be back in ten or twelve days.  Half of the adventure is the journey, I know, but I do have a few specific stops in mind:

• Mwanza province in Tanzania to eat some fish and see Lake Victoria which, in addition to being the source of the Nile, is 26,000 square miles. Wow!
• The genocide museum in Rwanda.
• Lake Bunyonyi in Uganda (where the infamous Idi Amin had a house).

So don’t freak out if you call me in the next two weeks and my phone is “disconnected,” I’ll be back soon! Adios, amigos!

I visited Sureel in Kitui a few weeks ago but never got around to posting the pictures… I took a co-worker, Elizabeth, with me because she comes from there and promised to show me around.  We spent the weekend hanging out, cooking Indian food, and visiting this big rock called Nzambani rock.  The tribe in Kitui is the same tribe in Tala, the Kamba people, so it’s part of the Kamba “country,” or “Ukambani.”  Kitui’s a pretty modern town, though, with several banks, hoppin’ clubs, and lots of super markets.  It’s much, much bigger than Tala, but also much “deeper” into the country (about three hours from Tala).
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I was realizing the other day that my shoes have been so many places in the last four years. My one pair of Nike shoes has been in the United States, Mexico, Canada, India, Kenya, and Tanzania. Here are some of the highlights:

Randi and I were in India in December, 2006 - January, 2007 and we visited New Delhi to see some beautiful architecture in this old city. Pictured is one of the buildings at the site of the Qutub Minar, the tallest brick and stone minaret in the world. The inscriptions on the building I’m standing next to are all in Arabic, carved maybe 600 years ago. I can imagine Muslims in northern India standing at the top of the minaret singing “Allahu akbar!” to call pious Muslims for prayer. Delhi was a big, dirty city, but it is home to many relics of the old world.
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