Kigoma and Gombe Park

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Again, I am in Kigoma but even though its the biggest town in the west and a major trading center as it is positioned on the old central line railway (i saw some of the metal track boards with dates like 1911 and 1926, built by the british) travelblog seems to skip over it. We spent two nights in the fisherman's association office, explored the town one day and then walked the train tracks for 1 hour with our backpackers to the place where the boats leave from. Lots of strange things in this city. There is a feeling of an underlying conspiracy, many things are not quite right. THere are many UN and NGO organizations here, mostly working here becauser it is a major refugee center for refugees from the congo and burundi. though i cant see over the vast lake to the congo, i know it is there and i pray for a peaceful resolution of the conflict around the elections. i met several congolese. i have stopped saying that we are from israel and america and have taken an identity of new zealanders. met many burundis too and we saw the hutu and tutsi people, there is still clear animosity between them. we took the boat which packed in about 200 people, a deep though fairly short wooden handmade boat. lots and lots of cargo. lots and lots of babies. women handing over babies to strangers to hold. no protection from the sun for about 4 hours. i got very hot and dehydrated, but was happy when i drank at the gombe gates. then we found out that the hostel's price went up by 10 dolalrs and i put myself on a serious budget for this trip, so we argued and argued and argued to be able to camp for less than 30 dollars. really outrageous beuracracy at gombe, which was sad because it really brought our spirits down. we were able to convince them though that we are both residents and got the ex pat rate, which is more than fair at 40 dollars a day. when we realized the people would not let us camp, we ran out of the office down the beach to catch the last boat for the night. this is 5 seconds after the director of the park mentioned a village down the lake. when we arrived in the village, on faith that someone would let us camp or stay in their house or there would be a guesthouse, we met with the village/town's chiefs and respected men. they put us in an empty building with no beds, and the vilage did not have electricity of course, so we used gas lamps to see, and we slept there with a guy from the fisherman's association that was very nice to show us around town, but we told him strongly that we wanted to be by ourselves in gombe. i still havent figured him out. the men here always try to manipulate white women into feeling sorry for them or vice versa, lying to us about the state of the town so that we would feel like we needed his protection. but anyway, we woke at 5 and waited for the boat, got off at gombe, and had an amazing experience in the forest.

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