Backpacking Trip: Tanzania and Rwanda Part 2

We were shocked when we arrived in Kigali, a beautiful, modern, and extremely clean city. When we first got there our main concern was finding a place to stay so that we could get rid of our dirty backpacks and look a little less out of place. We tried talking to people to find out where a cheap place to stay was and everyone, trying to be as helpful as possible, kept leading us to expensive hotels that were way out of our price range. We thought they just misunderstood what we meant by cheap, but after doing some research at an internet cafÈ, we found that the only hostel that exists in the city is one that is run by the Catholic Church. We were really surprised by this considering the fact that every other town and city we had been to had numerous options in terms of cheap hostels and places to stay for backpackers. After discussing with some locals, we learned that the reason why there are no hostels or guesthouses is because not many tourists actually stay in Kigali. Although Rwanda is a rather popular tourist destination, the main reason why people go to the country is to see the endangered grey guerillas that live in the mountains and are expected to be extinct within the next ten years. Trips to see these guerillas can cost over $5,000 a day, so unfortunately it is not something that we checked out, however, it did explain why there were no cheap accommodations since most people just fly into Kigali and then head out for the guerilla lodges and most of them, even if they do stay in the capital, are definitely not staying at $3.50 a night hostels.
After renting out a room for the equivalent of $4 a night, we dropped off our bags and headed out to check out the city. We spoke with some of the men who worked at the hostel to find out where the best museums were. One of the major reasons we wanted to go to Kigali was to learn about and study the effects of genocide, however, we felt a little bit awkward straight up asking Rwandans where the Genocide Memorial Museum was. To our surprise, however, we found that most Rwandans are quite open to talking about what happened during the genocide and often brought the subject up on their own. The best part of our trip, besides going to the extremely powerful genocide museum, was just talking to people. Rwandans are the friendliest people I have ever met and the city was extremely safe. We were able to walk around at night by ourselves with no problems, as the police are an effective and ever-present force at all times.
Wes spoke with many people and about 10 of them discussed with us the 1994 genocide. All of them had fled the country during the time, mostly to the DRC or Tanzania. A general sadness always overtook the people when they spoke on this subject and one young guy even started to cry as he told us about how he had lost both of his parents to the ethnic cleansing. One of the most memorable parts of the trip for me was when we were in the genocide memorial museum and there was a dark room that had outfits taken from victims of the genocide hanging up on string. There were only about 5 different outfits, and one of them included a bloodied and tattered Cornell University shirt. This really struck home and made me quite emotional, thinking about all of the innocent lives that were taken and all of the families that had been destroyed. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to go to Kigali to speak to some of the victims of one of the worst atrocities of mankind first hand, however, none of the people I spoke with acted like victims. Everyone I met was upbeat, outgoing, and generally happy. We kept asking people how things could be so peaceful only 13 years after the genocide that killed millions and people just insisted that they are at peace now. We could not imagine how Hutus and Tutsis could live peaceably with each other after what happened, but that is exactly how life is there now. This trip sincerely sparked my interest in Rwanda and I intend to research possible study abroad programs there for a future semester. I strongly encourage anyone who has the means and interest to visit Kigali once in your life, it is a highly emotional experience, yet it will leave you both perplexed about how a horrible genocide could emerge among such peaceful people and refreshed by the way these people have responded and moved on with their lives.

Backpacking Trip: Tanzania and Rwanda Part 1

A couple of weeks ago my roommate and I took off a few days of classes to travel, the only problem was we couldn’t really decide where we wanted to go, or how we wanted to get there. The one thing we knew for sure, however, was that we somehow wanted to end up in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. A couple of things made our trip difficult—the fact that we’re not allowed to take night buses, the fact that we’re not allowed to take buses period to some areas in Kenya, and the fact that we are poor college students and cannot afford to fly everywhere we want to go. So basically, we packed our backpacks as lightly as possible and headed out on a 6am bus to Arusha, Tanzania hoping that we could catch a bus from there to either Lake Victoria or the Rwandan border. The bus got us in to Arusha around 2, and since we had already been there, we tried to find a bus that left that same day for somewhere else. Once we got off the bus we basically just started asking around and talking to people about where we could get buses to and how we could eventually end up in Rwanda. After discussing for about two hours with several people, we found out that we could take a bus to Mwanza, a city on Lake Victoria, and then commute from there to Rwanda, however, the bus to Mwanza takes all day and we would have to backtrack to Nairobi again to get there. The other option we were told was to take a 5am bus the next morning to a town in Tanzania called Kahama, situated a few hours away from the Rwandan border. Either way we traveled, however, the trip would take at the minimum one day, because we could not drive straight through the country to the border since there is a huge national game reserve in the middle of the country, the Serengeti, which costs a lot of money to drive through and would have involved us going with a tour group and taking time on a safari—something that we have already done before and weren’t interested in doing again. So we chose to spend the night in Arusha, at a $3.50 a night hostel, and departed the next morning for Kahama. The bus to Kahama was pretty painful, as it was largely overcrowded, hot, dusty, and the trip itself was really long. We were the only white people on the bus and were clearly some of the only tourists to ever make this trek. Although the ride was not fun at all, we were at least happy to see the beautiful Tanzanian landscape, as we traversed literally the entire country. We got into Kahama at around 4 and again relied on just talking with people to find our way to Rwanda. The one problem we ran into was the fact that not many people in the town spoke English, as apparently it is not really a tourist attraction. People were very confused by us; however, they were friendly and very helpful. After discussing with the one English speaker we found and after doing the best to negotiate using Kiswahili, we found that we could take a small truck to the border that would only take 3 hours. Since there were no trucks leaving that night, we started to roam around town for another hostel to stay in for the night. We found another equivalent of $3 a night room, dropped off our bags and walked around the town to see what it was like. We went to a little local place where we ate some tasty beef stew and curry and chatted with some people about the town. Kahama is a really small town that is not at all modern, yet the people there are quite interesting and friendly. Although we were only there for about 12 hours, we really enjoyed our stay. The next morning we left at around 5am for the Rwandan border. We packed into a 14-seat van, with about 18 other people, which made for a pretty uncomfortable, however, beautiful ride. The sunrise in the morning was the most beautiful one I have ever seen and the land we drove through was lush and green. After nearly three cramped hours, we ended up at the Rwandan border, along with only two other passengers. I overheard the other two passengers speaking French and decided to ask them if they two were going to Kigali. One of them was a Rwandan citizen returning home to Kigali and the other was a pastor from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who was just passing through the country. Both agreed to help us through customs and to help us get to our final destination. The border patrol station was the smallest I have ever seen. We were the only four people moving through the country and everyone was really lax that was working there. We were surprised by the fact that as United States citizens we did not have to pay any fee or obtain any visa to enter into Rwanda. After getting out stamp, we literally just walked into the country and no one was in sight. We entered through an area called Rusumo Falls, where we crossed a big bridge over a waterfall. When we got to the other side there were a few small buildings, one of which was a Bureau D’Echange where we were able to exchange our money into Rwandan francs. We paid our $3 bus ticket and waited around talking to people for about 30 minutes until the bus departed for the capital. The drive through the Rwandan countryside was one of the most beautiful. Again the land was extremely lush and green, consisting of huge rolling mountains and deep valleys. Rwanda was a Belgian colony, thus in addition to Rwandese and various mother tongues, most Rwandan people speak French (a very small number of people we found there spoke English). The people we were riding with in the small van were all extremely friendly and inquired about who we were and where we came from. Driving the countryside, it was so hard to imagine how a horrible genocide could have occurred just almost ten years ago in such a peaceful and beautiful place.

Weekend Trip to Tanzania

Three weekends ago, a small group of us decided to head south to check out neighboring Tanzania. We took a six hour bus ride to the second-largest city in Tanzania, Arusha, which is located in the Northern region, two hours outside of the Kenyan border. We always joke about how we never have any normal days here in Africa—how something crazy happens every day, and this trip was definitely no exception. While crossing into Tanzania, we came across a little problem at the border control. Before leaving, we had all asked around to make sure that there were no visa fees to enter Tanzania. Everyone we spoke to told us that since we are residents of Kenya and thus residents of the East African Community, we should not have to pay a visa fee—they were quite wrong. To our great surprise, we found out that a new law was passed in September, requiring all U.S. citizens to pay a fee of $100 to enter Tanzania. What is quite interesting, however, is the fact that America is in a group of its own, for the fee for citizens of all other non-African countries is $50. Considering the fact that none of us had any American dollars on us, we had a lot of negotiating to do. We were traveling with the US ambassador’s son, who called his dad from the border to make sure that we weren’t just being ripped off and that the fee was indeed $100. Once we found out that it was true, we knew we were in for some trouble. Since there were 6 of us, we were supposed to rally up $600. The fact that they do not accept credit or debit cards of any kind, nor do they have any ATM machines, made the situation quite tricky. After several minutes of serious negotiating with the border control, we were able to come to agreement in which we would pay the equivalent of $300 in Kenyan schillings on the way out and then would have to pay the remaining $300 on the way back through. Although it was a bit unnerving at the time, we all get a good laugh out of the whole situation. Only in Africa is entering one’s country up negotiation.

The drive through Tanzania was quite beautiful, as the country is quite mountainous. We got to see Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa from afar. Arusha turned out to be a pretty nice city, although much smaller than Nairobi. The people there were extremely friendly and spoke a clear Kiswahili. While there, we spent some time walking around and talking to the people, in addition to doing some shopping. The main reason we went there, however, was to visit a particular Boy’s Home that one of my friend’s older sister worked at for over a year. There are about 60 kids at the home, ranging from 4 years old to 23. The kids seemed to be treated well, although my friend says that there are problems of corruption and misallocation of resources throughout the management. It was obvious, however, that the boys do not get many visitors, and they were so happy to spend time and play with us, even though we were only able to be there for a few hours. Overall, the trip was pretty relaxing and was a nice opportunity to see another country.

Lamu Academic Trip

So I know that the last post was kind of a downer, but I just wanted to assure you all that I am fine and well. Hakuna matata. I believe our professor summed it up well for us after we found out about Kuell’s death, when she said “do not sulk, that is not what Kuell would have wanted you to do.” Although it has been hard dealing with Kuell’s death, in his honor we are not letting that get us down. I am again confident that Kuell is in a better place now and we have all vowed to make the best out of our days here, for that is what Kuell would have wished.
On a positive note, three weekends ago we went to the coast to the small island of Lamu, located in the Indian Ocean near the Somali border. This trip was like the Lake Turkana trip in that all 18 of us went as a class requirement with our American University professor, however, the experience was totally different. There is essentially no way to drive to Lamu from Nairobi so we took a tiny little plane that shuttled us to the coast, where we then took a sailboat to reach the island. The island itself is absolutely beautiful and many celebrities have been known to go there based on both its natural beauty and the fact that the area is very serene and has not yet become a large tourist destination. The population of Lamu is nearly 99% Muslim and there are only two cars on the entire island—both belonging to foreigners. Thus, the main form of transportation on the island is by donkeys and you cannot move more than five feet without almost stepping in donkey poop or getting run over by a donkey taxi.
Apart from being predominantly Muslim, the people at the coast are much different than those in Nairobi. Like in most coastal areas, the way of life is much slower. Both during the day and at night the people of Lamu are just generally hanging out. Although it is clouded by the tourist industry, the economy of Lamu is not great and many of the people are unemployed. From what I saw and learned from the friends that I met there, the main sources of employment come form tourism. The friends I met made their living by driving water taxis—sailboats, working at restaurants, and renting their donkeys out as taxis or providing them for tourists to ride (you can be sure that I did not partake in this at all, although others in the program did). The people in Lamu are also extremely friendly and love to talk to anyone who is willing to listen to them. It was actually a really great opportunity for us to use our Kiswahili there, as many of the people we met did not speak English. Furthermore, the Kiswahili spoken in Lamu is considered to be more pure, as it is not influenced by the shang, or slang that is spoken in Nairobi. Lamu is also much safer than Nairobi and we all thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to be able to walk around at night, for in Nairobi we are never allowed to walk around after the sun goes down due to the potential of serious crimes.
On our first day in Lamu, the people at our hotel greeted us with enormous coconuts, which had the tops cut off and a straw in them for us to drink the delicious fresh coconut juice. Although we were staying in the actual town of Lamu and not near the expensive tourist areas, our hotel was absolutely gorgeous. My friends and I made the mistake of volunteering to stay in the room for 6 people, not knowing that there was only one bathroom for 6 girls, however, it all worked out and we actually enjoyed all staying together. After checking into our hotel, we were free to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the day. Some of my friends and I decided to ask people where the nearest beach was. The beach that they showed us to was only about a 10 minute walk away, however, it was not at all what we were looking for. This beach was one that is used only by the locals and for that reason it is not maintained and cleaned. Although I would love to say that all of the shore in Lamu is gorgeous, I would be lying for this particular beach was quite disgusting. No joke, we literally saw an enormous dead goat and a dead cat to boot floating around in the water. Needless to say, we didn’t go in the water any further than our ankles. Although it was not aesthetically pleasing, we were glad to have gone to the beach because we wanted to see the true Lamu and not just the glamorous side that most tourists only see. From this experience, it was obvious that Lamu faces a lot of environmental problems, that include a lack of sufficient area to dispose of garbage and waste—and that is why much of it ends up in the ocean.
After spotting numerous dead animals in the ocean, we were turned off and headed back to the shore road, where we did a little shopping. We also stopped and had amazing fresh juice—which Lamu is known for having. That night we ate at a local seafood restaurant and had amazing lobster, crabs, and seafood curry. The nightlife in Lamu is not necessarily popping, but we tried it out anyways and had fun talking to people and viewing some of the local performances.
The next day our entire group was taken by sailboat to a remote beach, where we were the only people in site. We all lounged around and played games in the water and then had lunch prepared for us right on the beach. After lunch, we were taken to a separate island, where we got to see ancient Arab ruins. During colonial times, Middle Easterners occupied much of the coastal area and we got to see the remnants of their villages. We had a tour guide who taught us a lot about the Arab influence in Lamu and after seeing the ruins we set out for Lamu town again, singing reggae songs and watching the sunset on our sailboat home.
The third day we had the morning and early afternoon free before we had any group activities to do, so a few of my friends and I decided to take a water taxi to Shella beach—the wazungu, or white people’s beach, which turned out to be absolutely gorgeous. There were barely any people around except for the occasional white tourist. One of the most difficult things I witnessed in Lamu were the “beach boys”. I saw an extremely old white woman with a really young African man and after asking some of my friends there about it, they told me that she was 71 years old and he 25. Apparently this phenomenon is very common in the coast of Kenya, with Mombasa and Malindi known for being the worst. The whole situation was really disheartening as the friends I made told me that it happens all the time with younger boys initiating a largely sexual relationship with older white woman, in some cases in exchange for straight up money while in others, in the hopes of obtaining a visa.
After spending several relaxing hours on the beach, the entire group left for an hour-long boat ride to an even smaller island, one where tourism does not at all exist. The village elders showed us around their entirely Muslim village and showed us, with great pride, their school and children. The children performed dances and sang for us and were largely entertained by our attempts to join them. That night ended with some delectable Italian food, that was well worth the tourist price.
On our last afternoon in Lamu, we all did some serious damage in the shops. Lamu has really unique fabrics and jewelry, which clearly caused a lot of excitement in a group of 16 females. Following the shopping excursion, we went to the Lamu museum as a class requirement. The museum was surprisingly similar to an American museum and was actually quite informative and interesting. After hopping on a short 1.5-hour plane ride, we were back in Nairobi by 6 pm—sunburned, exhausted, and not really looking forward to going to classes the next day.

Our tour group, Kuell is in the front.

R.I.P. Kuell, Forever in Our Hearts

On our way home from Lake Turkana, we were driving through an extremely remote area where the people live in caves and our truck was stopped by two men on the side of the road, one of them was armed. The man with the gun proceeded to put it up to the face of our driver and ordered him to stop the vehicle. After nearly 5 minutes of agitated and high-pressure negotiation, the driver, our tour guide, our two cooks, and our assistant program director Victor, were successfully able to convince the men to let us go. These two men were not interested in us at all—only our money. For most Kenyans, a white face means money and these impoverished Turkana were desperate enough to threateningly rob us. The men apparently demanded a million Kenyan shillings—an outrageous sum, which we were able to negotiate down to 50,000. Our professor gave all that she had, 30,000 shilling while the rest of us students were asked to give between 200-300 shillings, the equivalent of no more than 5 US dollars. Although it was one of the longest five minutes of our lives and although it was quite scary, we were all extremely thankful for the outcome. The whole situation could have been a lot worse and we were all counting our blessings that no one got hurt. We were all obviously shaken up by the incident but after reporting it to the police, we learned that this was the first ever-recorded robbery of tourists in the area. The company we were traveling with has been doing the same trip for over 20 years and nothing even remotely similar has ever happened to them. AU students on the same program went on the trip last semester and had no problems whatsoever. It was for this fluke reason that I initially chose not to write about the incident in my blog. I for one did not want people to worry about me—I will not be going back to Turkana and the circumstances are such that this incident could never happen in Nairobi. Additionally, I didn’t want to reinforce the stereotype that Africa is dangerous and unsafe, because this was just one remote, extremely unlucky and uncommon event. One of the purposes of this blog is to show that Africa is not all backwards, dangerous, and generally bad and that despite the poor reputations, both Africans and Africa have a lot to offer.
So why did I now decide to write about what happened? In an absolutely tragic event that occurred three weeks ago, Kuell, the cook who accompanied us on our Turkana trip, was shot and killed in a similarly located area of Turkana where our robbery occurred. Kuell was with a small group of 6 tourists returning from Turkana, when the truck passed a few people on the side of the road holding out an empty water container. The people did not appear to be armed, but when Kuell came out of the truck to give them water, he was shot in the chest and killed. The fact that Kuell voluntarily asked the driver to stop the car to give these people water shows the kind of person that he was. Kuell was an amazing man, who, even though he was born in Sudan and adopted in Kenya, loved all Kenyan people and was always charitable with them. Kuell was the kind of person who was always smiling and who was always engaging conversation with us. I remember going up to him after being robbed and giving him a huge hug—he made me feel safe. He was the first one out of the truck and the one that did the majority of the negotiating during our scare. Kuell was not only extremely brave, but he was protective and did all that was in his power to make sure that we were all safe. In addition to being an amazing cook, Kuell was extremely compassionate and a generally great friend, father, and husband. I grew quite close to him on our 8-day trip and that is why I decided to write about what happened. I do not know if these are two isolated events or if the two are somehow connected, but I do know that his death may have been prevented. After our incident, our professor went to the Gametrackers office and told them about the threat that we encountered. Following the robbery, our professor took the appropriate precautions to ensure that we were safe. We reported the incident to several police offices and from that point on we traveled back to Nairobi with two armed policemen in our vehicle. Our professor adamantly insisted that Gametrackers, if they still desired to continue running the Turkana trip, provide each departing vehicle with at least one armed policeman in order to ensure the safety of their employees and clients. Gametrackers did not listen to her and sent Kuell and the rest of his team to Turkana unarmed, putting them in clear danger and allowing for the murder of an innocent man. KJ, our professor, is now spending almost all of her energy in order to bring justice and deservingly punish Gametrackers, writing the embassies, the newspapers, and warning all people against traveling with their services.
I whole-heartedly support her efforts and hope that she will be able to make an impact. Me personally, I just wanted to write this posting in honor of Kuell. All I know is that by killing Kuell, those men have taken from us a great man, however, I am confident that Kuell is in a better place now. Kuell, you will never be forgotten, may you rest forever in peace.

Lake Turkana: Days 5, 6, 7, & 8

After driving through the desert for about six hours, we finally reached our destination—Lake Turkana. Lake Turkana was one of the major filming sites for the Constant Gardner and the movie definitely represents the area well, and despite the fact that the movie refers to Lake Turkana as “hell on Earth”—it’s really not that bad. The area was definitely one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, the lake itself is enormous and when you look at it it appears as if it is an ocean because you cannot see the end of it or the other side. Surrounded by near desert, the Lake Turkana region is extremely hot and there is a serious lack of water supply for the people who live there. Due to this, we commonly had women and children chasing after our truck and instead of asking for sweets or money, these people merely requested water. Luckily we had packed enough so that we were able to provide a lot of people with jugs of drinking water. The first day we spent in Turkana we mainly just wandered around by ourselves and met some of the local Turkana people. Due to the hot climate, nearly none of the children wear clothing and many of the older men wear only small, thin pieces of cloth around their waist. For us, Turkana was one of the first places where we were actually able to show our knees and shoulders. In all other places that we visited, including Nairobi, we are unable to wear anything that reveals our knees or shoulders due to cultural norms and large Muslim populations. One of the hardest parts of being at Lake Turkana was the fact that we were surrounded by a beautiful lake, however, we were not able to go in it at all due to the large number of crocodiles that live in the water. One of the best parts of the day, however, was when we got to go to a swimming pool that was set up by a local women’s organization in order to help generate money for the village. That night, we slept in small straw huts right near the water and thankfully I’m not bothered by bugs, because we had to fend off rampant mosquitos, scorpions, and tarantulas.
The next morning we took an hour boat ride on the lake to visit a small El Mollo island village. The El Mollo are the smallest tribe in Kenya and due to fighting with other tribes and intermarriage, there are less than 200 El Mollo left. The lives of the El Mollo depend on fishing. We couldn’t walk more than five feet without seeing large piles of fish, left out to bake on the hot rocks and sun. The rocks at the village were so hot from the sun that the fish is commonly cooked just by being left on them during the day. The El Mollo people are also very religious and we got to visit all of the different shrines and learn about their different purposes. We also got to spend some time with the village children and sit in on one of their classes. The teacher and children both were so excited to show us their ability to count and read numbers in English, as most of the people in the Turkana area speak almost no English at all. That night we all went up to the large cliff above our campsite that overlooks the lake. As the sun was setting in the background, we got to watch one of the Turkana villages perform their ritual dances. The villagers were truly in their element and danced well past sunset. A few of my friends from the program and I stayed up late that night well most of the others went to bed. We stayed up talking to one of our Kenyan friends who came along on the trip and he convinced us to have our fortunes told by the village’s soothsayer. The man was quite old and may or may not have been drinking that night, however, it was definitely an experience, for the Turkana people truly believe in his ability to predict the future. The man used his two sandals in order to tell our fortune—our Kenyan friend who did the translating told us that he was able to see into the future based on the way that the sandals fell when he asked them particular questions. Although we didn’t all buy into what the man was saying, it was amusing and an educational look into the Turkana culture.
The last two days of the trip were both driving days on our hike back to Nairobi. The majority of the time was spent driving through barren areas where we saw no other cars at all, only the occasion pastoralist village. One of the most amazing sites we saw was a stop at the Great Rift Valley—the area that is believed to be the birthplace of mankind. Overall, the whole trip was both a lot of fun and highly educational. Before the trip, we all joked about how all of us were going to hate each other after spending 8 straight days with each other, yet it actually brought us all really close together. The trip was a great getaway from the chaos of living in Nairobi and we got to spend time with and learn about many of the different tribes in Kenya. By driving to Lake Turkana we were also able to see a vast, diverse area of the country—areas that most people, Kenyans included, never get to see.