Blogs from Rwanda, Africa - page 13

Here in Uganda and Rwanda I have been thinking of how my friends would relate, adapt to, and perform in the different situations here. I came up with this list of people most likely and least likely for different things. I thought it was funny, so here it is. Not as heavy as my other blogs, but I thought some people would find this funny. Person most likely to commit a cultural faux pas. Most likely: Paul Sihelnik Least Likely: The Dude Person most likely to hate bucket showers. Definitely Celinda. Being from Hawaii she doesn't do well with cold water. Person most likey to enjoy the food. Most Likely: Frumkin Loser:....Me (a little disappointing, I know) Person most likely to become fluent in Luo (Gulu) or Kinyarwanda (Rwanda) Most Likely: Tie between The Dude and ... read more

Bonjour (or wiriwe in Kinyarwanda) from Kigali! I haven't written much in the past week because we were mostly in transit. We spent a few days in the city of Mbarara in western Uganda to prepare for Rwanda. Things are much different here and it important we are prepared. In Gulu, the Acholi openly discuss the most brutal details of the conflict. Everyone there has been effected by the LRA. Most people have a brutal story about losing a family member or even being forced to kill their own families. The people still speak of their memories without hesitation. The genocide is a taboo subject in Rwanda. If you bring it up you could end up with an informant in tears for the next half hour. Just today I rode to work with a woman who ... read more

Kudos to Rwanda Air for their inflight food and beverage service. A happy Heather got full meals on both our flights with them. Shame shame Air Canada. En route from Kili to Kigali we flew over the massive Lake Victoria. For the majority of a two hour flight we seemed to be above the lake. As we came in to land in Kigali we noticed a lot of shiny squares. A little more descending and we realized it was all of the aluminium roofs on the houses. We landed and got through customs with no issues and met our guide Hamadi. He gave us a city tour of Kigali, highlighting all of the new building that’s happening - buildings and roads. A huge portion of the city is either new or still being built, a lot ... read more

Jennifer is working for Manna Energy Limited, a company bringing clean water to Rwandan communities. The water is sent through gravity-fed gravel and sand filters to remove any large dirt particles. Although the water is clear at this point, it still contains some bacteria, so it passes through ultraviolet light to kill any remaining organisms. The ultraviolet lights are powered with solar panels. Since people are using solar power rather than boiling their water with firewood, the project reduces the demand for firewood which is very scarce and expensive. Manna is able to earn carbon credits as a result of saving Rwanda’s forests, and this is how we will generate income. The water treatment systems are scalable, so they can provide drinking water for 500-5000 people for free. One of Manna’s first water treatment systems was ... read more

Hi and greetings from Uganda. Yes we've left Asia and are now in Africa (a new continent for us both - despite Mr. K's assertions that he's been in Africa before.... in Morocco! Even the "real" Africans laugh at him when he explains that to them...). So since last we "blogged" (love it, we sound so technical!!) we spent 6 weeks in India and then flew to Rwanda (via Qatar and Kenya) and arrived in Uganda a few days ago. Our time in India was a little frenetic... we moved from city to city in the North seeing much of the sights and clocking up loads of rail miles (if only they were worth something we'd be millionaires!). Despite all the incredible sights we saw without doubt our best experiences were on the trains where we ... read more