Pictures

The pictures are in no particular order, the uploading went a bit 'sideways'. Enjoy.




Food time is always a fun time for the children. Hardy bread and milk with sorghum.


Today was the day to give out goats to needy families. We gave away ten goats. (opps I just noticed that one of the goats is peeing in the picture)

In the past few months there has been a number of babies 'found' by the road side. This is one, he was very little. Fortunately a number of people have come forward to take them into their families. The school supports them with food and soap.

Ruhengeri has 100's of these bicycle taxi. We usually take them home from school every day. I think its about 8-10km ride and it cost 200 Francs. That's about 40 cents. They work very hard.


This is supposed to be a rest time, as you can see there is little rest happening here.


The kids are just amazing at the school. They are full of fun and always want to hold the hand of the white man.

This is one of the partially completed classrooms, Cathy is still raising funds to put a roof on the school. So, if you have a few thousand hanging around, it will get some children out of the rain.

My first African protest with my new friends Manwell, Kevin and Pacifique.
Arriving at the Rwanda border after a long journey.

Rwanda Continued

I went to my first African "protest" yesterday. The whole town marched in support of "Rose". She is a Rwandan politician that went to Europe and was promptly arrested for her supposed role in the 1994 genocide. Specifically she was arrested for shooting down the then president's plane. Rwandans say that she had nothing to do with this and is totally innocent. So, yesterday I had my 'FREE ROSE' banner on and marched with several thousand people. It was quite the experience. I went with my friend Cathy who lives here, she thought it was completely appropriate that I show support. There was also an American visitor that marched with us. We got a lot of attention. We were talked about on the radio and pictures were taken for the press. While travelling in most African countries you would run a mile to get away from such an event, but somehow it seemed different here. It was all very peaceful.

I've been spending my mornings at a pre-school that was started by Cathy. She is from B.C. and is married to a Rwandan. She is an amazing lady, the things that she has accomplished in her short time here is remarkable. The pre-school has about 130 children, ranging in age from 2-6. Cathy is also involved with other areas of education and community initiatives. Of the 130 Children, only the youngest get bread and milk enriched with sorghum. It would be great if she had the resources to feed all the children at her school. I am hoping that the Silokwethemba Project (www.silokwethemb.org) might be able to assist her in that. We will see what happens.

The school itself runs mostly outside. There is a school building being built, but still waiting for a roof. Cathy also provides some medical support for all the student's bumps, brusises and cuts, the occasional parent also shows up for medical support. Its an 'all-purpose' kind of school.

Rwanda has had a tragic history in the past 20 years. Its very complicated with many different parties involved. Here is what Wikipedia says....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda_genocide

The Long and Winding Road to........ Ruhengeri, Rwanda

It has been an interesting week. I left Arusha, Tanzania last Thursday making my way to Rwanda. Arusha and Kigali (capital of Rwanda) are relatively close, maybe 500-600 km 'as the crow flies'. Roads in western Tanzania are few and far between. So my journey began last Thursday with a 20 hour bus ride via Nairobi, Kenya. That brought me to the town of Mwanza on Lake Victoria, back in Tanzania. I arrived there on Friday. Mwanza is a nice town. I hoped to catch a bus to Benaco on Saturday, but none were available, so I spend an extra day in Mwanza and caught a bus to Benaco on Sunday. Benaco is the nearest border town in Tanzania to the Rwandan border. The bus ride from Mwanza was in itself an adventure. We had to take a short ferry ride across part of the lake, it was over very rough roads and my window kept opening. By the time I got to Benaco I was filthy, absolutely covered in dirt. I met up with two Swedish guys on the bus that were also going to Kigali, so we shared a taxi from Benaco to the Rwanda border. It costs us about $2 each. Immigration went very smoothly. African 'business men' can see a 'muzungu' "Swaili for white man" coming a mile away. We were approached by several people on the Rwandan side wanting to take us the 150 km to Kigali. We settled on a mini bus that said he would get us there in 3 hours. Almost six hours later we arrived in Kigali. Needless to say I was tired, also dirty and hungry. My new friends and I found a hotel and went for dinner. Funny thing is one of them was complaining that he didn't get to celebrate his birthday on the day before, also my birthday. So, we had a birthday dinner. I was getting closer and closer to Ruhengeri, which was my final destination in Rwanda. I said goodbye to the Swedes and headed to the bus station... again. This bus was great, it was a short two hour ride. So, after about 28 hours on a bus, a boat ride, two days stranded in Mwanza, a taxi ride, a 6 hour minibus ride, another night in Kigali and a final two hour bus ride.... I MADE IT. I get to live here for the next three or four weeks.

Rwanda is a stunningly beautiful country, first impressions are very good.

Seregenti continued....

Just a few more pictures from the Serengeti. Sorry for the little ones again.

I will have a whole new appreciation for the 'Lion King", Did you know that Simba is Swahili for Lion?

The Serengeti has 1000's of wildebeast. They migrate from parts of the Serengeti to the Maasi Mara in Kenya. They are constantly in search of grazing land and water. We got to see a part of this migration. There were wildebeast as far as the eye could see. It really was amazing.

Serengeti Safari

Finally I get to upload a few pictures, its costing $5 US a hour, which is about five times the normal amount, but its all good.....




Stone Town, Zanzibar


Paje, Eastern side of Zanzibar.
This place was out of my budget, but as you can see the view was well worth the $25 a night

Steps of a Mosque, there are many in Stone Town, one was directly across from where I stayed. Every moring the call to prayers was at 5:00, it was like the loud speaker was in my room.

One of the many alleys

Seregenti Safari

I couldn't resist this picture. Notice the background.....

What an exciting few days. After much negotiation with many safari companies in Moshi, I settled on one. I just got back to Arusha yesterday. I spent four days, three nights on safari at Lake Manyara, Ngorogoro Crater and the Serengeti. It was an amazing four days. I think the highlight was all the big cats, lots of lions, a few leopards and cheetahs.

The first day in the Seregenti we drove all day through just a portion of the park. The park itself is over 14,000 sq. km. It's huge. We stopped for the day at around 7:00. The camp ground where we put our tent was in the middle of the park. NO FENCES. During the night I could hear animals all around. The situation was so unreal, it didn't bother me that much and I actually slept. The next morning when we left camp, we were less than a km when we came upon two huge lions on the side of the road. The next night we spent on the 'rim' of the Ngorogoro crater, again lots of animals in the area. We could see buffalo and elephants from our site. The view out over the crater was amazing. The elevation of the rim is about 2400 metres. During breakfast the next morning the cook told us that an elephant has wrecked a tent the night before, fortunately there was no one in it. It was probably a good thing that I didn't know that the night before.

I will try to upload a few more picture in another post.

I am Canadian

Today I went to search for a new book. I just finished reading 'What is the What', it's about the Lost Boys of Sudan. Amazing read. I went to the library, asking where I can find a book store, the lady misunderstood and looked at me rather surprisingly and said in her broken English, 'we don't sell our books'. She pointed me up the street to a nearby store. It was more like a news stand, but the seller said he had many 'good' books inside. I thought I would take a look. He had one John Grisham book and one by another author and about ten German books. He was rather dismayed and a bit surprised to learn that I didn't read German.

I have been asked many times if I am American. For many Tanzanians anything in the west is American, that is partly true for many areas in Africa actually. Once they find out that I am Canadian, without fail the next question is..... Toronto?

I never did find a new book.

In the shadow of Kilimanjaro

Internet here can drive you absolutely crazy. I booked one hour to write on this blog, I now have 12 minutes left. I am just now getting on.

My two days on the eastern side of the island were amazing. I stayed in a small town called Paje. Cheap accommodation was impossible to find, so I had to cave in and pay $25 a night for a place on the beach. I know you're thinking, that's still pretty cheap but for the past month I had been paying $10 a night. It was worth it to stay on this beautiful beach. I met a great group of people there. We all ate and chatted late into the night. American politics and the presidential election was on every ones mind it seems. Even though there was only one American in the group.

I left Paje, Zanzibar two days ago. It was 48 hours of travel. Wednesday morning I got a ride to Stone Town from a great German couple I met at the hotel. I caught a late ferry, The Flying Horse to Dar es Salaam, it left at ten at night, getting me into Dar at 6:00 on Thursday morning. The trip itself didn't take that long, they anchor somewhere just off Zanzibar and spend the night. Ferry operators think it is too dangerous for people to show up in Dar in the middle of the night, so they delay the arrival until 6:00 am. Once in Dar I got a taxi to the Scandinavian Bus depot to catch a ride to Moshi. The bus was a 'luxury' bus, I use the term luxury loosely. The ride took ten hours and for a large portion of the trip there was a 'mixed cd' on the stereo, playing Micheal Bolton, Air Supply, Kenny Rogers and Celine Dion. It was on repeat for many hours. At some point in time it became a part of the noise.

Walking around Moshi was interesting. It was as if I had a t-shirt on saying, "I want to go on Safari". I was approached at least 15 times in the first hour on the street. The funny thing is I am looking for a safari. I guess they could tell by the look in my eyes. I have a few prospects for trips leaving in the next few days to the Serengeti. I have to decide today.

Moshi is the place that people come to if they want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. I had an interesting chat a few days ago with a Tanzanian about climbing Kilimanjaro, he said no Tanzanian would ever think about climbing it unless you were a guide. They think the foreigners are crazy to want to do it. I have to admit, crazy or not, if it wasn't so expensive and if I was prepared, I would definitely think about it.

Its pouring raining today here in Moshi.

I have had great intentions with posting pictures on here. I've tried about 5-6 times in different internet cafes, none of them have a connection fast enough to upload them. It will have to wait.

It's not the heat, it's the the humidity......

I arrived in Tanzania on Wednesday from Johannesburg. I could feel the humidity immediately after stepping off the plane. I landed in Dar es Salaam at about 9:00 on Wednesday, I was delayed leaving Johannesburg for over two hours.

It seems that you have to bargain for everything in Tanzania, I went outside the airport to get a taxi. The driver said that it was 25,000 schillings, about $20US, I said that was too much and immediately he cut it to 20,000. I was too tired to try to get him down any further. I stayed in "Dar" for just Thursday and left for Zanzibar on Friday. I was warned about 'touts' in everything I read about Tanzania. Touts are street people that are constantly trying to sell you something or to make a deal of some kind, most of which are suspect and sometimes illegal. All day Thursday I was constantly being bothered by touts. One wanted to be my 'guide', another wanted to take me to the ferry in his car even though it was only a km. So, I was happy to get to Zanzibar. There are still lots of touts but the charm of the place pays up for it. I use the term ' charm' loosely here. I'm staying in a hostel called the House of Abdulla, it is in the very historical Stone Town. Stone Town is a maze of alleys, streets that are about 7-8 feet wide. Only for people walking and mopeds. People hang out sitting in the alleys, chatting and socializing. Tomorrow I will get lost in the maze and try to find my way out. For people that know me and my sense of direction, ( or lack there of) I might be lost for a while.


Today I went on a tour of a spice farm, it was great. Seeing where all the spices that we use come from and smelling them. We also got to sample many different fruit. In the afternoon we spent about an hour at the beach, swimming in the Indian Ocean. It was beautiful.

I'm staying in Zanzibar for at least five more days. I'm heading to the eastern side of the island on Monday, then back to Dar on Wednesday before heading west to Moshi.