I returned to the UK in mid-February for a friend’s 40th, the penultimate snowfall of what had been, to all accounts, a dreadful winter, and the rueful acknowledgement that I should really be sensible and think about Doing Something to top up the “war chest” of my travel funds. But I’m a 1970 baby, and this is my generation’s year, so when I was reminded by a Delhi friend’s wife of my promise at his 39th last year to re-materialise in time for his 40th this year, it was a no-brainer. Happily, I postponed progressing the w-o-r-k thing for the time being, and hopped on a plane to Delhi for a week. With each trip I’ve made to India since I jettisoned the rat-race I have tried to explore another part of this vast, hypnotic, tantalising ... read more

As I wandered through to the kitchen for the first of the day’s essential injections of caffeine, a movement outside the front door caught my eye. The old doe was back, with her own joey and the adopted trio in close attendance, hopeful, as ever, that something edible might materialise from the humans’ den, their curiosity emphasised by the smudged nose- and paw-marks on the glass. From the shards of orange on the ground around them, I guessed that Keith had already obliged with a carrot or two. I went out to give the old girl a scratch. The orphaned trio kept their distance, still wary despite their habituation, but her own joey, head deep in her mother’s pouch to suckle, allowed me gently to stroke her too. I wondered if the old doe was carrying ... read more

Water, wildlife and wilderness: exploring the jewel of Africa I have to confess I didn’t get to know Uganda. We didn’t sit down and shoot the breeze. We didn’t travel long distances together, me and as many people as a matatu can hold, with a good few more squeezed in for luck, with or without attendant farm animals. We didn’t exchange life stories and aspirations. We didn’t sit at the side of the road and watch the world go by. And yet I spent two weeks here. To that extent, I feel as if I cheated. My base was a backpackers in Kampala. I went on backpacker trips. Wall-to-wall muzungus. Nice and isolated from the real Uganda and real Ugandans. OK, so I arrived from Rwanda and travelled on to Kenya by public transport, enjoying the ... read more

Life or death. It was as simple as that. In 1932, the Belgian colonial authorities confirmed the divisions they were already using to their advantage in the population of Ruanda-Urundi by differentiating the “haves” and the “have-nots”, the old “divide-and-conquer” chapter of colonial governance. The result, for each person, was irrevocably set out in his or her identity card, and this assessment would apply to his or her successors ad infinitum. The words “Hutu” and “Tutsi” derive from the names of the peoples who colonised this part of Africa, 1,000-1,600 and 300-700 years ago, respectively, the Bahutu people of the Bantu race and the Watutsi people of the Hamitic race. But, immediately prior to European colonisation towards the end of the nineteenth century, the terms appear to have been used more often as socio-economic delineations, cutting ... read more

I’m going to do something I haven’t done before. I’m going to take you with me on my travels. Yes, I thought you might like to join me as I take the bus from Huye (formerly Butare, Rwanda’s erstwhile colonial capital and still the country’s intellectual capital) in the south of the country, over the border and into Burundi, to spend a few days in its fabulously-named capital, Bujumbura. Since arriving in Rwanda three weeks’ ago, I’ve talked to a number of people who have confirmed that Burundi is now stable. All rebel groups have ceased fighting, and the road across the border to “Buj” is sufficiently and predictably safe for the New Yahoo Express bus company to have increased its daily service. We’re getting the 8 am from Huye, but it’s coming from Kigali, so ... read more