Friendly Africa

In a few days I will hit my six month mark here in Africa. Although I thought I was taking a job in Uganda, I’m still in Rwanda currently, and I've spent just over half of my time here. One stereotype of Africa that continues to amaze me in its correctness is the incredibly friendliness of Africans. I don’t think I am generalizing too much at this 

The road to Bumbogo is paved with dirt

Church building ceremony

point having been to Senegal, Uganda, Cameroon, Tanzania, Burundi, and Rwanda. There are points along this spectrum though – in Cameroon, perhaps the friendliest place I've ever been to on earth, if you even make eye contact with someone on more than two separate occasions, you have a significant chance of being invited over for dinner. In Rwanda people can be more reserved but I still meet random people all the time who want my phone number after barely meeting me. They actually do call sometimes (just to say “hi,” it’s very strange) so assuming you aren't giving them a fake number (I don’t judge people who do, it can get tiring here), you actually have to save their number. I have so many “random Jon,” “random Alex,” and “random George’s” in my phone I can’t even count; which all leads me to a story from last weekend.

Random Bosco had been calling me for months. I had met him several months back deep in the village on a work trip and he was persistent in his follow up.  Specifically, he wanted me to come to some ceremony in the village and each time I told him I couldn't come he would tell me how disappointed the whole village was…so I said to myself, “what the hell? I've got nothing going on this Saturday, might be interesting and different, why not?” Well it certainly was different…

Two buses, a one long moto ride, and about two hours later, I arrived in the thriving metropolis of Bumgogo. When Bosco said ceremony he wasn't joking, there were hundreds and hundreds of people, including local politicians and well-known public leaders. What Bosco didn't tell me was that the ceremony was for building a new huge church in town and they were undergoing a huge fundraising effort. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the singing, dancing, and not understanding 4 hours (that was all that I could take, the ceremony was not over) of Kinyarwanda speeches, but I also got put in a very uncomfortable position. First, I was expected to give a speech in French in front of this huge crowd of people (about what, I have no idea). Why; because I’m a small white Jewish kid with a shitty beard? Next, I was declared by the project leader to be the white ambassador to the village and this project (wait what, I agreed to that?). And Finally, I was expected to announce my financial commitment in front of everyone, after hearing two politicians who committed $770 and $384 (I had been contemplating whether I could get away with $10 before hearing that). I’m not even a Christian for CHRIST’S SAKE!!!

I extracted myself from the situation by saying I would talk to friends in Kigali see, what we could come up with, and that I’d get back them (figuring in the back of my head that maybe I could pawn this off on some Christian NGO who helps people in Africa build churches).

I felt pretty stupid for not having clarified about what this ceremony was or not questioning why Bosco was so zealous about recruiting me. People assume because you are white here you have money. To some extent that may be true given the standard-of-living differences, but being a student, volunteer, or low-wage worker doesn’t seem to factor into the equation ever. And I’m obviously too trustworthy. Africans may be friendlier than other people, but sometimes there’s something behind it.

Gettin' Around

Traveling in East Africa is remarkably fairly easy. While inter-African flights in most places are still expensive, buses get you most places if you have the time. Rwanda and Burundi are so small that getting around within and between the countries usually involves less than 6 hours going most places. The prices are super cheap generally speaking and the list of cool places is relatively known (at least among the Ex-Pat community). Visas are usually not too bad (except Tanzania where they gouge you for $100) and I've heard as a Resident you can get a multi-country pass for cheap. The East African Community is smart in forming a union and increasing economic inter-activity in a way I didn't see in West Africa.

I love "other important town" of which there are like 8 in Rwanda

Getting on a plane here is often like this where you are randomly in front of a bunch of planes with no direction and could easily end up in the completely wrong place

For travel here, you just have to put up with very tight spaces on buses, blaringly loud radio in a language you don’t understand (or if you are less lucky terribly dubbed movies), and usually uncomfortably hot temperatures with incredibly frustrating people reaching over your shoulder every time you try to open a window. Seriously, this happens every trip, it’s like Africans are immune to cold (and when I say cold I mean 65 F and above with a nice cool breeze). Roads are not surprisingly horrible and bumpy, unless you are in Rwanda, which is an exceptional East African country for a variety of reasons.

Two weeks ago I traveled to Bujumbura, one of my top 5 favorite sounding African capital names (slightly behind Ouagadougou, pronounced “wagudugu,” Antananarivo and Yamoussoukro, but slightly ahead of Tripoli, Windhoek, and Djibouti –the Capital of none other than Djibouti), in Burundi, to visit the famous beaches of Lake Tanganyika. They do not let down, the lake seems like an ocean it’s so big, the beaches are sandy and the water is warm. It’s amazing to see the beach culture also transported there with pick-up volleyball games happening and I even saw someone kite boarding.

Mount Meru in the foreground, Kilimanjaro in the background

Lucy the crazy female chimp at our hotel in Bujumbura

My Kiwi friend and roommate Johanna plays with Lucy

Some Burundian friends and Rwandans that went down as well for the weekend

Nightfalls on Bujumbura (downtown in the background)

It was also amazing getting a hug from Lucy the enormous and aggressive female chimpanzee the owner keeps at Pinnacle 19, the hotel I stayed at. But the highlight of the trip might have been on the way there on the bus. Next to me sat an African man continuously chowing down samosa’s (later we reportedly heard people were keeping tabs and it was more than 10)! When you enter Burundi from Rwanda the road gets super windy and mountain-e. It didn't help that the bus driver was driving like a mad man (you can guess where this is going by now). I feel so fortunate that this passenger turned to his right (and not me on his left) to projectile vomit everywhere hitting no fewer than three people. The reaction was my favorite part: the bus did not stop, no one yelled (as they would for sure in the States), and besides a few sighs, the people covered in this man’s vomit mostly just laughed; as in: “look how many samosa’s you ate, you idiot, you vomited, hahahahaha.” They wiped themselves down the best they could as the man continued to vomit and went on with life. It wasn't just that these passengers were all remarkably calm, I would go as far as saying this incident was an ice breaker and stimulated good conversation. TIA – This Is Africa, as they say…

Insect with crazy natural wholes in it's wings at Mt. Kabuye, the tallest mountain (doesn't include volcanoes which are much higher) in rwanda, about 2700 meters

Our unofficial African child soldier entourage that came to meet us at the top of the mountain 

Walking right through your village to get down, "excuse us, don't mind us, coming through"

Finally last week, a trip to Lake Kivu to Gisenyi (bordering Goma of the DRC but much more peaceful)

Safari

Hanging Monkey

Monkeys are by far my favorite

Warthogs are also great and so comical

Last week I did a week long safari with my parents who visited from the U.S. We embarked from Kiliminjaro (yes the mountain is amazing) to nearby Arusha, perhaps the safari and tourism capital of Africa. I think there are over 200 tourism agencies in Arusha and everywhere you go a local is trying to convince you to pay for some type of trip.  Prices are inflated like Disney World on steroids ($150-$350/day for car rental). It’s been hard to compare my time there to the rest of my East Africa experience and the safari experience itself is truly a singular experience anyways.

One of the more surprising things about safari is how tiring it is just sitting and staring day after day. You move slowly, on very bumpy roads (this despite the fact that the TZ government is raking in millions of dollars/week – who knows where this money goes), and have to stay in the car the whole time. Apparently animals don’t differentiate the human forms inside the truck as long as you don’t get out of the vehicle. If you stay at the resorts as we did (as oppose to camping), you get ridiculously stuffed with food everyday too. Fat people would love this vacation. I honestly ate better than I do back in the States. Breakfast would feature dozens of options with 8 jams, fancy pastries, olives (something you can’t find here), fresh tropical fruit, sausages/bacon, pancakes, custom made omelets, everything really. The only downside is you just have to occasionally compete with the animals -a monkey stole my cheese sandwich on day 1. The jerk! They are so quick!

this blue monkey looks so sad

Huge baobabs that the elephants love to strip the bark from

Tanzania lives up to its reputation: when people think of Africa and all of the crazy animals, this is the place where it’s actually true (after having gone to Cameroon I remember becoming very annoyed when the 50^th person back home asked me how many elephants and lions I saw – I didn’t see any). Literally, it’s hard to not step on (or rather drive over) the animals in the Tanzania parks. You barely drive more than 10 minutes without seeing some animals. The numbers for many of them are pretty outstanding – I think there are about 3 million wildebeest in the Serengeti alone.   

Not unexpectedly, there are diminishing returns to the animal sightings – after Day 2 the elephant is no longer that interesting, unless maybe you get really close. And often times you do get really really close, check out these lions here (they like the shade that the vehicles provide). 

The lions love the shade of the cars but cars are supposed to move when the lions get close like this

An elephant goes for a drink

At Tarangire National Park we watched elephants waltz around as we enjoyed our breakfast. As a side note, apparently elephants only sleep about 2 hours a day – they are always eating otherwise.

Other animals really move more at night (hippos for example) so most of the animals aren’t really doing much when you see them (unless you are willing to pay extra for night safari). It’s funny to work so hard to see a lion, and then you find one, and after about 10-15 min. you get bored and want to move on. I think it’s super rare to see them having sex, giving birth, hunting, or fighting. Most animals just sleep a lot. The numbers are also disproportionate: You will also see a million of the same animals but very few of the less common ones. Looking out the window you almost always see zebra, gazelles, and some type of bird and in Sarangeti, the most famous of the 4 parks we went to, the sky literally goes on forever.

I expected my parents to do something insulting or culturally insensitive at every corner during this trip but it was ok for the most part. One time when we were at Ol Duvai Gorge where the first foot prints of humans are recorded Herb did embarrass me by trying to rush us through saying “these are just ancient things” because he just wanted to get to the animals.  He also insisted he washed his hands every time he touched the paper currency (Tanzanian Shillings).

I also found it strange staying in 5 star resort hotels in the middle of nowhere national park where super wealthy 100% white people were treated to “authentic” cultural activities like a traditional Masai dance nightly. On the other hand, things that I sometimes don’t think about, like how much people just stand around in Africa doing nothing (and the number of people outside), were observations that my parents as outsiders reminded me of.

The Masai 

Being on safari in Africa though is not like being in Africa so only when you drive through the small village towns do you get a glimpse of life here. It really was better coming already from Uganda/Rwanda and not being a total tourist – this I think is the best way to travel.

Another thing was that I got pretty sick of safari envy when you run into other tourists: “We saw a (fill in the blank intended to make you jealous). What did you see?” It’s all about getting lucky and I felt like we were for the most part. A lot of people got up at 5 or 6 AM every morning, which seemed pretty stupid to me. Your odds of seeing more activity are increased but only slightly (from say 8 or 9, not the middle of the day), you still won’t see a cheetah chasing down some gazelles.

A rare cheetah sighting

We saw all of the big 5 except the rhino (damn, so elusive!), jackals chasing some huge birds, the crazy and amazing beginning of the migration of the wildebeest (my parents favorite), 6-7 lions, a few leopards, a cheetah (my favorite), crazy baboons running around Lake Manyara park, and 100 other types of animals. Some common stuff like the zebra and wildebeest working together and gazelles running is fun to watch. It’s amazing with all of the people safari-ing you usually don’t see other cars around, the parks are just so huge so with a private group as we had you can really do whatever you want.

King of all animals!

Filthy disgusting and awesome hippos

The great Wildebeest migration at the beginning

Mother and child

Not sure I’ll do it again, at least in Tanzania, but overall it was an awesome trip and I’d recommend it to friends. 

For more photos go to: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A1GY8gBYnZWTq and http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=8980483027/a=5319084027_5319084027/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

The Mango Project

Gulu town

Children at school, in uniform

Is what I would call my new NGO based in Gulu. Uganda. I’ve spent two weeks there in the regional Northern Ugandan capital (about 6 hours on bus from Kampala, another 6 hours you’d get to Juba, the capital of South Sudan). Right now it’s full on Mango season. Mangoes are everywhere –so much in fact that the majority are going to waste, just rotting on the side of the road. I don’t even think about buying any from the market vendors when everywhere I go people are handing them to me for free or I can pick them from the ground and they are delicious. Mangos are also the 2^nd fruit with the highest concentration of vitamin C and other essential vitamins and minerals. Ok I just made that last sentence up completely but I’m pretty sure they do something good for you.

It’s amazing how expensive mangoes are in the U.S., but then again, apples are ridiculously expensive here in the same way that monkeys are like squirrels for many people here. Anyways, my idea is this: get a bunch of volunteers from overseas to come during the season and pick up all of the forgotten mangoes, come to the slums in Kampala, and give them away through some type of cultural exchange. Ok, that’s a stupid idea you are saying? Yeah that’s probably true but….

The bugs are always bigger and weirder here. I think someone told me this is a flying ant

Out on the job, visiting a SACCO

Anyways, it’s been a nice relaxing break from the craziness of Kampala up in Gulu. It’s super super hot and dusty though and in some ways, like Rwanda, has a bit of an eerie feel to it. Maybe that’s because of the war torn past and whole Joseph Kony and child soldier’s thing. The North is so far beyond the rest of the country it’s like it was forgotten.  There used to be a ton of NGOs and muzungus everywhere but they've mostly packed their bags and left now since their projects and funding have ended. Still, the city is growing (about 150,000 people, third largest in Uganda) and you know when a bunch of nice cafes, Indian and Ethiopian cuisine, and quiz night come to town there is some international activity still happening. Speaking of cafés, Gulu is the type of town where one day I came and the nice coffee shop was out of coffee. Can you imagine a coffee shop not having coffee? Yeah, well they didn't. The next day the wireless wasn't working and the following day there power was cut off because they hadn't paid their bills. But hey, at least there was coffee that day.

Gulu is also the type of town where when I told my hotel that the light in my bathroom was broken they asked me if I could go to the market to buy a light (which they would pay me back for) and install it myself. And a place where at your hotel there are chickens:

Chicken at the hotel, alert chicken at the hotel!

Soccer with the MTN team playing in the corporate league semi-finals

TRIVIA

Truth be told I use to hate trivia, possible because I always felt inferior in my knowledge given all the Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit nerds out there. I’m not quite sure why but over the last few years it’s grown on me. It’s kind of a fun and different thing to do. Similar to liking and disliking trivia at the same time, it’s also sort of social and not at the same time. You can barely have a fluent conversation with someone when being interrupted by some loud voice from a microphone firing away at the next question every minute, but I guess that’s sort of the point. It’s even stranger doing trivia in East Africa where it seems to be more of a new thing (brought from the Expat community) and knowledge gaps can be huge.

Speaking of knowledge gaps (and insecurities), the one thing everybody fears deep down inside is not knowing something very obvious that you really should know and it would be embarrassing not to know. For example, I played trivia the other night and was the only American in my group and the question was asked: “Which bill is Abraham Lincoln’s face on?” and everyone turned to me. I thought it was the $1 (confused the damn penny!) and fast forward, our team came in second, and guess what? We lost by one question, so of course everyone was not so happy with me. I admit, dealing with my own currency for so long I should have known and I did feel a little bad. But we did still get a prize, a huge bottle of Waragi, which is the local infamous gin here. This for some people is as much a prize as a penalty depending on your feeling on the super strong and not-so-pleasant tasting hard liquor. Luckily we got to wash it down with some Miranda green apple – the sweetest and most fake and disgusting local soda (yes it tastes like you are drinking super bubble-e chemicals).

This story reminds me of the time I was on a date back in JP, at a place happened to be also having trivia. I had big curly jewfro hair at the time and clearly looked Jewish (my date was not). During the trivia they asked: “On Passover how many cups of wine are traditionally drunk?” And I could have sworn that not just my date, but the whole room turned, staring collectively, to look at me for this answer. Now, like the Lincoln bill question, this is something I obviously really should know – but when you are put on the spot like this with lots of pressure (or not really but we feel like there is) it can be hard to think clearly. I guessed four and happened to be right that time. At least that wasn’t the reason that relationship didn’t work out.

The Abayudaya and more

Rafting on the Nile river near Jinja, Maya is soaked in water and cannot be seen

Fish at Gaaba beach in Kampala. You can get a whole delicious fish grilled right there for cheap!

Night falls in Gulu (Northern Uganda) at my new humble abode . I actually left one night later, $14/night was too expensive, I found a place down the road for $10/night and moved 

One the bus stop you have your choice of foods from the hawkers including grilled goat gizzards and sometimes real meat, but you can never be sure, it's a bit risky.

At Lacam lodge near Sippi falls where we stayed for a beautiful but short time

Just a quick update from Uganda: The last few weeks have been very busy with Maya visiting and then some friends from Rwanda coming for a weekend of camping and white water rafting on the famous Nile River. I had never realized how fun rafting is, but most of the time you don’t fall into such warm water that also moves like the rapids do in Jinja. The fun thing about doing this sort of thing here is you don’t have the same crazy regulation and safety rules that I feel like sometimes reduce fun in the U.S.

As crazy as rafting and the gorillas were (see my last entry), visiting the Abayudaya Jews in Mbale in some ways was crazier. The Abayudaya literally mean “Jews” in the local language here and what’s amazing is that somehow in Uganda of all places, people chose to be Jewish without prompt (they had never even met a Jew). The real origin reasons are probably more political, having to do with the British colonizers and missionaires. Hearing their story actually made me think about what the real differences are between Jews and Christians besides the whole Jesus thing. There first Ugandan Jews converted just after the turn of the century and grown men were willing to be circumcised (I don’t think they had a moil)! There are just a few thousand Jews in Uganda today but they are growing as more people find out. It was a bit eerie and amazing all at once to be hearing the same songs in Hebrews song in such different styles and with the local Luganda being mixed in and being the only white people in the room. I guess the Jewish cultural stereotypes have been so ingrained in my head that it’s hard to imagine it differently from your mother yelling at you for choosing the wrong color sweater (see Sarah Silverman’s quip in this video) It was a powerful experience and the community was incredibly welcoming. It was cool hearing peoples' stories and learning about life in the community. It’s also nice to finally not have someone pushing Jesus on me here. It's just so strange to find (non-white) people in East Africa that are different just as you are different.

Guerrilas!

Maya is here (Uganda) now visiting and I felt like that meant it would be the best time to shell out $350 each (normally $500 but they have an off-season promo happening, or $750 if you go in Rwanda!) for a gorilla tracking permit. It seems like such a typical African thing to do and I had been told it was worth it – I was not disappointed.

We went to Bwindi National Park, bordering the D.R.C., and about a 12 hour drive from Kampala. After driving a short ways into the park we got out of the car and entered the bush. When I say bush I mean the real bush! Super thick, moist, insect-e, and sharp spikes-coming-randomly-from-all-side type grass. And you don’t walk on nice park trails you literally are hacking your way through the jungle up and down hills.

Seeing the guide track is also ridiculously cool. It might even have been my favorite part (although gorillas are pretty cool). They use all 5 senses to track and many of the guides have decades of experience. To be fair, they often “cheat” by calling each other on cell phones to map out areas and alert each other to clues, but considering you could be walking for 5 hours to find the gorillas in hard conditions this seems like a fair concession. It only took us a little over an hour of wondering through the jungle to find them, in part, because we think our guide may have illegally brought us to a family that visitors saw that morning; the government only allows visitors to see one gorilla family a day.

Our guide distinguishes between different animal droppings and bush “footprints” and size by different animals including elephants (which we were told to run from if we saw) and some sort of local pig. The bush “damage” done by gorillas is distinct and shows us their path. The guide also listens for the gorillas which beat their chests loudly (just like in the movies!) and can be heard from very far. Also, when they lift their arms up there's such terrible BO and with the wind you can smell them from very far away if you are approaching from above on a hill like we were. It smells like human BO but much worse; can you imagine never taking showers or cleaning your arm pits for years and running around in the jungle all of the time?

When we finally spot the black gorilla hair through the bush it is an amazing moment. Unlike being at the zoo, you have no idea what happens next and if they might attack (albeit this is very unlikely). Once we uncovered one, we found the whole family (about 6 or 7) within the vicinity. Looking at their faces they are so human it's crazy. The way they study you, interact and communicate with each other, and go about their daily routine also reminds me of humans in some ways. For the most part, gorillas seem to just relax and when they see you, they react as if they were seeing another gorilla troop, and as long as you stay a safe 3-4 meters away and they don’t feel threatened, they don’t mind your presence. This hasn't always been on the case. Guerrillas naturally will display aggression towards foreigners and the guides have to condition them over time, which can mean taking some physical abuse from the guerrillas  Today, there are some “wild” gorillas (this seems ironic being in the wild already) left that can be dangerous but rarely meet tourists.

Occasionally they make a grunt noise and the alpha male can be a bit more aggressive but mostly guerrillas just continue on with their day when they see you: eating leaves or napping (they are 99% vegetarian I learned and eat maybe 50 lbs. of food/day). They seem mildly curious of humans but they didn't interact with us. The guide told us there is one who is his friend and sometimes will play games, steal things from his pocket, or tug on his clothing. The kids play just like human kids play, tossing and tumbling, climbing and swinging on vines. One of them even seem to be smiling for the camera at one point:

We also learned that the non-alpha male gorillas don’t get to mate, which seems very sad to me. They go their whole lives celibate? Wow. The other thing that really surprised me was how often these fellers see humans (especially given the permit price), which is almost every day. But besides Rwanda, the unstable and currently unsafe Congo, Uganda is the only other place in the world where you can do this. I don’t know that I need to do this again but it was really amazing and totally different than any other animal experience I’ve ever had.