The time of my life

Almost last thing I do before heading to airport! Was going to try some kind of clever summing up of the whole trip with my thoughts on Africa etc but am short of time and am yet to cultivate such thoughts so just news from the last stint of travels...last stop in Uganda was a trip up to Murchison Falls on Lake Albert in the North west - breathtakingly stunning views, an amazing safari game drive (during which a leopard RAN BESIDE OUR CAR!!! - esp exciting as they say there are incredibly few leopards at Murch now), boat trip up the Nile to the falls and a hike around them - apparently some jokers like to raft down them but I think more than a torn ligament would come from that! Then met up with a Tz friend and took the most hard-to-the-core bus journey from Kampala to Nakuru in Kenya - 17 hours over arguably the worst road in Africa. Lacking Valium, a copy of Harry Potter that they found was the only thing that got me through. A bit of a mission through the Rift Valley and we got to Lake Naivasha, with incredible views across and a beautiful campsite right on the shores. We'd planned a mountain biking day in Hells Gate NP but my knee was feeling a little dodgy, so instead took a boat out on the lake for the day and thoroughly chilled in the sunshine and peaceful scenery. Amazing meal last night (crayfish in garlic and white wine sauce followed by Amarula cheescake!! Tz people will know how good that is) and now in Nairobi, about to catch our shuttle bus to airport that we've winged for free through the Hilton hotel...out to partaaay tonight in Dubai during our 10 hour stopover and then I guess I'll be seeing you all soon! To finish, this trip has without a doubt been the best thing I've ever done, and the experiences and friends made along the way will last forever - or at least until I get round to the next african adventure!

It's the final countdown

Utterly BIZARRE that a week today i will find myself in heathrow..incredibly mixed feelings about the whole thing, and am seriously going to miss life as it currently is. But rather than tearful anticipation i need to update you all on recent events which have been immensely cool, mainly featuring antics on the Nile river with a raft and the best grade 5 rapids in the world! Spent a day in this little boat with a Russian, a Croat, a Ukranian, an Irish guy, an American, a Canadian and a serious Italian Stallion (going wild as opposed to mild over the rapids), flipping the boat as much as possible,getting caught up in whirlpool things, messing around, having lots of fun and wound up with a tear in a ligament in my knee! But all so very very worth it, as usual met amazing people, maxed out on the free food and alcofrolics and had a great weekend. Bujugali falls also very beautiful. Then found my way to Kampala by a string of interesting transport and went down to Entebbe yesterday to the very beautiful botanical gardens (saw lots of colobus monkeys including the cutest mama and baby!). Spent last night with the Bells (friends of Jeremy and Barbara) in their amazingly beautiful house on the hills surrounding Kampala - the novelty of good food and a comfy bed never wears off it seems!Off up to Murchison Falls in Northern Ug tomorrow (will try very hard not to get caught up in any violence..) for more safari etc..then to Kenya for a flying visit through the Rift Valley pre Nairobi!

Uganda

After much drama at the border where the nasty people terrified me and made me pay double the visa price just because they could, meaning i had $0 left, and a lovely ugandan lady adopting me and taking me to her home,feeding me and paying for my bus to kampala, and from there onto mbale (during the latter journey the bus broke down twice and i ended up travelling 2 hours with my huge hiker-sack on the back of a moped!) i met up with Richard Hide and went off exploring coffee farms on Mt elgon! honestly had no idea what a long process coffee-making was, and was so overwhelemed by the commitment of all te owmen in the village to the work (obviously the men do very little.) Hve very little internet time and can't really do justise to what an amazing experiece i had with these people and in the stunning surroundings. Next i went off to a small village a few hours away to meet an old school friend who's working for the NGO little big africa, building water tanks etc. I got to make bricks! Have definitely decided i am not cut out for hard physical labour! Really enjoyed being a part of village life again, although uganda style this time. And now have just returned form a trip to Sipi falls, highest in East africa which i absailed down, about 10m from the falls all the way..absolutely INCREDIBLE views! Hate having to rush these things so will update properly soon when i find a decent computer..until then 10 days till im home!

Rwanda continued

After a few days pretending to be a loaded ex-pat in kigali (which, incidently, all the ex-pats hate - well they seem to think Rwanda in general is the most disfunctional of places (clearly they havn't seen tz!) and are all kind of depressed to be there..bizarre as i thought it was brilliant!), i headed off to Gyiseni, in the northern most part of lake kivu. Pretty panoramic setting and at dusk you can see across the lake over to the hills of Congo..very nearly added that stamp to my passport as reports of Goma and the surrounding area were pretty positive, but luckily i didn't, seeing as last week 4 Gorrillas were killed by rebels pretty close to the volcano i was going to climb. Anway, managed to pull an AMAZING deal at the Kivu Sun 5* hotel,staying there for just $20!! Partied hard until dawn with my kigali pals and lots of Rwandans, after most incredible buffet in the world (sticky toffee pudding in rwanda?!). After that i found my way to Ruhengeri national park where Gorrillas play amongst the 7 volcanos. Seeing as gap year = uuuber budget i couldn't afford the $500 to spend an hour with those beasts, but instead did some volcano trekking - the top of Bisoke volcano is home to a vast crator lake with incredible views out across Rwanda. My legs are still ruined though, even 4 days later!

And of course then there was the Genocide Memorial back in Kigali..an incredibly fair and informative documentation of history. Throughout the exhibition are a series of short interviews on video with survivors who lost close family members which is pretty horrific - but for me by far the most harrowing part came at the very end : First of all you enter a dark circular space with 3 rooms coming off it each with a different Rwandese voice-over; the first room contains maybe 500 photographs hanging from strings of faces of people who were killed; the second, has preserved clothes that were found on disintegrating bodies; and the final room contains bones and skulls that have been unearthed. After that you go on into the children's room..asided from the many photos of young people all over the place, there are maybe 12 bill-board-things,each with an enlarged photo of a child and underneath, their name, age, favourite activity, favourite food and how they were killed ('beat around the head with a club', 'machette through the chest' etc). Absolutely horrendous. There is another large memorial in the city of Butare which apparently holds preserved bodies in the room they were killed in - really didn't think i could handle that one.

But it really seems to me that Rwanda is looking to the future in a big way - very firmly, the people maintain that 'The past is the past and the future is now'. It is unheard of to ask whether one is Hutu or Tutsi and 'PK' is doing lots (by the sounds of it) to try and being people together as far as possilbe - for example, whilst i was there, and on the last weekend of every month, 'Umuganda' takes place..a day when nobody works and everyone does some form of community serivce (most commonly cleaning up the streets).
A huge emphasis is put on understanding and learning from the tragic history of Rwanda, in the high hopes of creating a secure and stable environment fo rhte next generation.

Kigali, Rwanda

All this is really to say is i'm now in Rwanda safe and sound..amazing flight in (was not feeling the 40+ bus journey effort and infamous boarder crossing) over a totally different landscape to Tz..the ground is very ver red - people say its because so much blood has been spilled here, but to be honest that is a line used in Uganda,DRC..and from very first impressions, this country is well and truely back on its feet - for a starter, they have TRAFFIC LIGHTS!Now there's a sight never seen in Tanzania!

But all i relaly wanted to say here is i'm spending a few days with some lovely lovely French people in a beautiful house with amazing food, a BATH, and Desperate Housewives boxset! Am i still in Africa? More when i've actually seen some of this tiny little country.

Trying so hard to squeeze Victor and Felister into my backpack!!!

My days at Nk have finally drawn to a close!! And on what a high did they end. of teaching were simply brilliant,and for the first time really (although i've probably said it before,i now can truely believe it myself) i feel like i've made a significant difference to the level of English of some of my children, and really got them to value their education. So many fantastic moments, but to highlight the best...SPORTS DAY!!!! 150 children doing egg and spoon races, sack raches, wheelbarrow races, 3-legged races...they were the best behaved i've ever seen them and just had so much fun! Even the teachers looked on with amusement (quite an achievement!). That afternoon, our teachers held a small party for me and Lizzie (only remaining teachers at the primary school), Geapson (our legendary teacher) made a speech and we were presented with beautiful Kitenge fabric as a leaving giftie. Our little house was then stormed by all our classes (and token random children obviously) and mass reading/drawing/recorder club took place for the last time. And when it was time-to-go-home-time there were ALOT of tears all round..fond the whole thing very emotional and wound up with a bizarre paradox of feeling insanely guilty for leaving them and just returning to my comfortable Muzungu life back home, but also feeling pretty proud to have had such an effect on them that they value our teaching and friendship that much.

Lots of you will know by now that my last weekend of partaaaay-ing in Arusha ended terribly as me and Daisy were mugged on saturday night, loosing everything (money,phone,most importantly camera and all my photos). More devestated about the pictures than i can write but just in case you wonder why theres a lack of recent photographic evidence on here..

'Throw your heart away' - Bagamoyo
This is probably the most interesting place in Tanzania historically, as its the port from whcih the majority of the African slave trade routes were established. About an hour north of Dar es Salam (the unofficial capital), its a beautiful, very french/german/generally colonial looking town with meandering streets with vines growing up all the buildings and a white sand beach with plam trees..the sad part is that the 'ruins' are in fact really not that old but incredibly run down as there is just no money or real insentive to preserve them. The first Catholic cross planted in East Africa is located here, as is the first Catholic chuirch, established by French Missionaries (now accompanied by a very very small museum claiming that these missionaries basically put a stop to the slave trade single-handedly) and also the remains of the first Mosque,established in the 13th Century. The old German Boma ('British Overseas Managment Authority in English' - 'Enclosed area' in Kiswahili) is architecturally very impressive from the outside,but is so run down inside that it has received no tourism for the past 20 years and so much of the history has been lost. Equally the Old Fort (originally the Sultan of Zanzibar's home, then a prison, then a police station, then intened as a college but total lack of funds meant this was a no-go:info we got from a passing man who lives in the town) could be somethign really special but as it stands, has no infomation documenting its interesting past.

It seems to be a fairly common theme i'm picking up whilst spending more and more time living here that Tanzania's major problem all stems from the rocky education system - so so few young people are able to attend secondary school because of the cost, let alone university. With so little education it can be understood why so few people ask questions as to why potential tourism ploys like this arn't made more accessible. And for that matter, where all the money from American's back pockets spent on Kili and the Northern Safari Circuit doesn in fact end up, because it certainly isn't where it needs to be.

And mother, DMC stands for deep and meaningful conversations, standards are obviously slipping in my absence!