Blogs from Africa - page 2720

Well, it's my last day in Cape Town. I've had a good few days here. It's a bit of a disappointing day today, not great weather but it's the first time I've been able to see the famous mist descending over the mountain. Went to Robben Island yesterday to see where Nelson Mandela et al had been incarcerated as political prisoners, it was an interesting place to visit. I'd envisaged it as being a purely prison island like Alcatraz for example but the island is quite vast and there's a small village there. The tour involved two sections, firstly a coach tour around the island to get an overview of the whole island and then a tour around the high security prison where the political prisoners were held away from the other criminals who were detained ... read more

Again I couldn’t sleep last night; my heart is so broken I cannot stop thinking about the children and the inability for them to get the food they need. All night I have been thinking of ideas to help raise support for the orphanages so we can get some self sustaining business going and support the children’s basic needs as well as their schooling. I know I am not individually able to do this, but with the grace of God and his almighty power, we can accomplish it. Our morning was typical and we had some extra relax time so Raveesh, Amy, Candace, Edwin and I took a tour (walk) down the road a ways. Most of our conversation was about change, concerning the best ways to prepare the children for life after the orphanage. It ... read more

Last weekend was another very tough weekend (large amount of sarcasm there)! We headed off on our postponed trip to the very idyllic Lamu island. The weekend involved much relaxing, eating, swimming and other such laziness, which I shall summarise for you: On Thursday morning we jumped on a matatu heading up to Malindi airport - from which we had a 25 minute flight to Manda Island (just next to Lamu) and then quick boat ride across to Lamu. An encounter at Malindi airport deserves mentioning, however, and serves as the title for my blog this week. While we were waiting for the plane, a white man in his 60s or 70s struck up a conversation with us. He proceeded to tell us that he had been living in Africa for the last 30-odd years, ... read more

So, besides ranting about Kampala, I completely forgot to mention the NGO that I visited yesterday. So, three of us went to HURINET which is Human Rights Network but, we mostly talked to the project director of UCICC- Uganda Coalition on the International Criminal Court. It was super interesting. We discussed his work, which is basically providing information, which is supposed to be neutral, about the ICC most speciically its role in the conflict in NUganda, which is what we have been studying for the past week and a half. The course material is so interesting, I mean devastating but extremely complex. Just a little explanation: Uganda is made up of what was a bunch of different clans/kingdoms before the British drew arbitrary lines and made all of these different cultures and people members of one ... read more

Sorry this entry was lost in the Travel Blog Crash.. But at least we can still enjoy the pictures ~Julie... read more