Safari III - Bunda to Mwanza to Kigali

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We headed due west for the next four days. Awakening in Bunda, we discovered that we were not pulling out until noon, so we decided to hire a guide and tackle a climb up the Balili Hills. Fourteen of us decided to attempt this, while four others, including Monica chose a stroll into town. The summit is around 6,000 feet, however there is no set path to follow and one needs a guide to find the white, spray painted arrows. The climb involves ascending a very rocky terrain and one has to use your hands and arms as much as your feet. The young pups in our group sped ahead but Yetta and I decided to stick together and set our own pace. Yetta has some type of nerve disorder where she loses feeling in her limbs. I simply happen to be older than the parents of most of our group. Yetta and I nicknamed ourselves Poly 1 and Poly 2. (poly-poly means slow in Swahili). We made it!! Only about fifteen minutes behind the pack. The guide chose to stay with Yetta and I for the descent - it proved to be not as strenuous as the climb but much trickier. One slip on these rocks could be catastrophic.

We then drove west for few hours before reaching the bustling city of Mwanza. We camped at a site called Tunza Lodge right on the beach of Lake Victoria. We spent the evening lounging in chairs on the sandy beach, enjoying drinks from a beach side bar. It was a pleasant night sleeping on the shore, with a cooling breeze off the lake and the gentle sounds of the waves lapping the banks. The only downer was that swimming in the lake was prohibited due to some kind of bacteria in the water. Many of the locals ignored this warning but we were more cautious. The next morning we packed up and headed to the ferry that would take us across the southern tip of Lake Victoria. It was a short ride and soon we had driven to a small, rural town called Nyakhanazi where we stayed in a simple guesthouse. It was a change to not be in a tent and actually sleeping on a real bed. We spent the evening being lead on a tour of this local village. Within minutes we had dozens of kids walking with us - they were absolutely fascinated with our white skin and different styles of clothing. The number grew to over a hundred as we paraded through this tiny village. It was little more than a shanty town, however no one appeared to be starving and the people were happy and content in nature. We gave the kids some toys - a basketball and balloons - and it was obvious that the kids looked upon us in an adoring fashion, almost worshipping us. A few of the younger ones in our group were totally taken with the attention, the admiration, and I could not help but see it in an historical context. I could clearly imagine the first missionaries stumbling upon villages like this back in the 18th and 19th centuries. How they mesmerized the local Africans with trinkets and gadgets and our superior technology. How their openness and friendship and fascination for us could easily be construed as inferiority. And how if we saw ourselves as superior, than certainly our God or gods must be superior. When one is actually here, it becomes so easy to see how we attempted to convert these people in order to gain control over them, to exploit them and their resources, to naturally make them feel inferior by pushing our God portrayed by a white Jesus upon them. I was reminded of Dorothy Allison's book, The Poisonwood Bible.



We left early the next day and drove to the border of Rwanda. It took a while to get through customs but eventually we made it to the capital Kigali. Rwanda appeared to be much different than Tanzania. The flat, somewhat barren and open savannahs had been replaced by green. lush hillsides. The messy and potholed dirt roads of Tanzania were replaced by modern highways. The local markets disappeared and were replaced by actual stores and shopping malls. We were now driving on the right side of the road and almost all signs and billboards were written in English, not Swahili. Rwandans are known for their business skills and tiny Rwanda actually does most of the trading for Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Uganda, with the western world. Where Tanzania proved to be mostly a third world country, Rwanda appeared to be first world in comparison. We stayed just one night in Rwanda, at the Rwandan Youth Hostel, before heading north to Uganda. Our one morning was spent touring Genocide Memorial.



The memorial was a very sobering experience. Monica and I were somewhat prepared emotionally, as we had visited a similar memorial in Cambodia. In brief, over 800,000 Rwandans were killed during a bloody civil war that lasted only a hundred days. To me, the key points that will stick with me include the history leading up to the genocide and the key roll of Canadian General Romeo Dallaire in focusing the world's attention on Rwanda and bringing the genocide to a halt. For over a hundred years, first the Germans and then the Belgiums had played a political game of divide and conquer with Rwanda. There are two main tribes in Rwanda - the Hutu and the Tutsi. The Hutu make up about 70% of the population and the Tutsi 30%. They had lived together in peace for centuries. However, the Germans and then the Belgiums decided to do what they called 'medical tests' on these people. Using barbaric techniques such as measuring skull size and forehead size, they determined that the Tutsi were superior to the Hutu. Hence, within the framework of government and education, Tutsis were placed in positions of power, given the best jobs and allowed into the highest level schools while the Hutus were ignored. When the King of Belgium died in 1960, Rwanda gained their independence. The removal of all but a small military contingent from France opened the door for much of the hidden envy and hatred to surface. The pot finally bubbled over in April of 1994 when the Hutus rose up and started slaughtering Tutsis. Most of this killing was done with machetes or pangas - neighbour killed neighbour as the most volatile of the Hutus called for a wiping out of all Tutsis. Romeo Dallaire was the head of UN force in Rwanda, the UNAMIR. He called for more troops to stifle the civil war and stop the killing. The initial response of the UN was just the opposite - they pulled troops thinking that the presence of foreign troops was actually fuelling the killing. Finally, they saw the error of their ways and sent Dallaire the 5,000 soldiers he claimed he needed to install peace in the region. Dallaire's book 'Shake Hands With The Devil', is a sobering read, describing a genocide that took place while the rest of the world sat in ignorance. Today, the Rwandan government is suing France for its roll in the genocide. Their troops sat by and watched much of the genocide take place and Rwanda claims they actually trained the forces that carried out much of the genocide. Finally, they initiated the plan Operation Turquoise, which set up a safe zone in a corner of Rwanda. This allowed many of those responsible for much of the genocide to escape into this zone and then across the borders into neighbouring countries. To this day, many have not been brought to justice.



Today the UN presence is all over Rwanda. From hospitals, to refugee camps and the like, they have helped not only to bring stability but also to raise Rwanda up to a position of economic power in East Africa. Later that day we drove north, crossing the border into Uganda and entering the town of Kisoro. For the first time we would be spending more than one night in the same location. While most of our group would be sleeping four to six to a room, Monica and I decided to upgrade and secure a room to ourselves. It was time to get ready for the gorillas.

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Photos

Gate of the genocide memorial
no pics allowed inside

Comments

[Karina]

Sobering histoty
The Poisonwood Bible is such a good read - by sheer coincidence I recommended it to our book group this evening. The film Hotel Rwanda gives some insight into that terrible and recent genocide. The Westvhas a lot to answer for