The Pearl of Africa

Shortly after my friend Anna had left, my friend Benni came to visit for three weeks!

The first days of his stay we spent together in Bujumbura in my project so that he could get not only “acclimatized” but to know what my work and life here is about.

We had proper football training together with the boys from the street kids centre, and yet again the opposing team from the district was in the cart…!

Bend it like Benni !

Benni impressed our drummers with his gift for drumming so much that they made him carry and play a drum on his head – but in order to do that for a long time it takes more than just drumming skills!

Together with Benni I set out on my first journey outside of Burundi on the 6th of April. Our destination: Uganda!

The 16 hour bus ride took us from Bujumbura, via Rwanda to Kampala, the Ugandan capital – in this way we were able to get an impression of the interior of Burundi and of Rwanda, as well as the vast diversity of Uganda.

On our way to Kampala, we stopped for gas in a Ugandan city named “Massaka” where Benni and I directly were irritated by some funny green lights which appeared everywhere…

At first I thought it was some kind of electricity saving lamp, but as we drew closer, we realized it was a mechanism in order to catch grasshoppers (!) and which works as follows:
A corrugated iron is placed on a barrel/bin and is illuminated, the grasshoppers are irritated by the light and the smoke of the fires which are lit in front of the barrels, so that they jump against the corrugated iron and slide down into the barrel. The “grasshopper-hunters” gather them and clip their wings directly. When we asked what the use of all this is they told us that they fry and sell them…and in fact they taste just like chips!

In Kampala we were received by a Ugandan student named Rose, a real sweetheart, who devoted herself all the time we spent in Kampala to us!

Kampala is a crazy city! It is about ten times as big as Bujumbura, it’s very dirty, and the traffic is terrible. It is obviously more developed than Bujumbura, on the basis of shops, malls, advertisement, the way people dress or women carry their babies on the arms, not on their backs, and they are more used to seeing white people judged by the number of “MUZUNGU!!!”-shouts on the streets.
Of course we had to see the famous “Kasubi Tombs” which are set into the biggest straw hut in the world on a hill in Kampala. Some kings of the Bugandan Royal Family are buried there and it was interesting to learn about the Bugandan clans, and how they were/are organised and colonized.
Rose e.g. belongs to the “Heart Clan” whose members, she said, were fishers for the royal family and still are not allowed to eat the heart of any animal.

That's where the kings, who don't die, "disappear into"...

The two Bazungu-Tourists with Rose

Murchison Falls National Park

Sunrise on the Nile in Murchison Falls National Park

We also went on a three day Safari in Murchison Falls National Park, which is set a few hours northwest of Kampala, and in which Ernest Hemingway already went on his big game Safari. We fortunately had particularly good weather and therefore were able to see all those animals you normally only get to see on the discovery channel…

Those two guys (warthogs) were hanging around our campsite

In our Safari Van together with Angie and Patrick whom we met on tour

Antelopes

Baboons were likely to nick our belongings in the camp

Hippos and buffaloes

Murchison Waterfall

Benni and me

On Easter we went first to an awesome service, a mixture of traditional Christian but also traditional Ugandan songs, and afterwards we were invited to Rose’s aunt and uncle.

It was really nice to meet her kind family members, and to learn about their way of life and their customs.

Only a small part of Rose's family - her aunt on the right wearing a traditional robe

They prepared a banquet with a tremendous amount of traditional Ugandan dishes such as Pumpkin, sweet potato, “amatoke” (a mash of green bananas), yam (an eatable root), pork, chicken, beef, the famous G-Nut sauce (g-nut = ground nut = peanut!) and many more! It was so delicious!

The Easter meal

Rafting in Jinja
We also went on a whole day grade 5 rafting tour on the Nile – it was incredibly exciting to go with a raft through some of the fastest and biggest rapids in the world.
We flipped several times with our boat, but except for a proper sunburn on our thighs we weren’t hurt at all!

Our rafting team facing the challenge not to flip...

And then we flipped..!

A 50 year old crocodile in a crocodile farm at Lake Victoria

Lake Victoria

Walk the Line - the Equator

Rose cooking on a charcoal stove

Massaka
After 10 days in and out Kampala we left for visiting Rose’s dad and her brothers in Massaka where her family lives in a rural area on a farm (as her Dad is a forrester) without any electricity or running water.
The food was prepared on charcoal, we dined in candle light, slept in a garage on their farm and showered with a bucket of water! I really enjoyed the simple way of life there and the company of Rose and her Dad Edward, two very humbled and responsible people. A remark of Edward’s I’ll probably never forget:”I have nine children, and now I have to invest about everything that I earn in their future, because it’s my duty to secure that they’ll receive a decent education:”

Kabale and Lake Bunyonyi

From Massaka we continued our trip to Kabale, a small town close to Lake Bunyonyi, and our last destination within Uganda.
We slept a night over in Kabale and went the following day to Lake Bunyonyi, a comparatively small but deep crater lake, and supposedly the most beautiful one Uganda has to offer. We paddled with a canoe, which was only a hollow tree-trunk, from the mainland about 50 min to our hotel on one of the islands, where we spent two days of pure relaxation.

One-Tree-Canoes in Lake Bunyonyi

 

We safed the best for last

After 14 days adventurous days in Uganda we went back on the bus to Bujumbura and spent some few more days together in Bujumbura where I was able to show Benni the rest of my projects and some more tourist sites, of course.

It was great to see Benni after a whole year again and to go on this great trip together, and to share and exchange experiences!

There are some “thank yous” which are due for a very long time now:

*Thanks to my family for their constant support and their donations the children (special thanks to Susannah and Daniela!) for and of course for my Easter presents!
*A big thank you goes to my sister’s friend Alex and her company who donated so many crayons, water-colours, colouring pads, ballons, etc.!!!
*Thanks a lot to the dentist practice Jöns which donated about 25 kg of Toothpaste, and toothbrushes for our homes!!!
*Thanks a lot to all you people who donated for my painting project! I’ve already started with the boys in our street kids centre to plaster the walls before we’re going to paint properly (pics to follow soon)!
*Thanks a lot to the pupil participation and some of the teachers in my former school Sebastian-Münster-Gymnasium in Ingelheim who unexpectedly donated some money for the kids here! Yet I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it but I’ll let u know as soon as possible!

This absolute support from back home is priceless – it reassures me in my work and drives me each and every day to keep it up!

Lots of love

Claire