Unfinished business...

Well, this is my last blog post...at least until my next adventure! I've been home for a week now trying to organize myself, my research, etc. Its hard to imagine the summer is almost over and my time in Africa flew by! I miss my kids and friends already...I missed them before I even left!

The last three days in Kampala with my friend Claudia were busy & relaxing at the same time! I did some serious damage shopping at the markets in the National Arts & Culture Centre- what can I say? I'm supporting the self-employed locals and their families! We drank a lot of Ugandan coffee, made friends with Don - our personal taxi driver who loves Dolly Parton, burned some African music CDs in what looks like somebody's shed, and watched 2 mechanics "fight" over a potential customer's car door. If you can visualize two men with their hands wrapped around a car door pulling, pushing and shoving the door around, trying to get it out of the other's hands while a crowd of bystanders cheered them on...well...thats exactly what was happening - the winner of course, getting the business of putting the door back on the client's car (talk about serious business survival tactics). Claudia and I decided to be brave (or stupid) and take a boda-boda ride through the city. This was not the same boda-boda ride you take on a bicycle in the villages- which we did, but rather it was on a motorbike. I can't even begin to explain the bumper to bumper traffic in Kampala and watching 100's of boda-boda drivers weave in and out of it. It was a pretty cool and scary experience and I'm just grateful that I still have my knee caps after slightly grazing another car in traffic!

We also had the opportunity to go to the "Monday Night Jam Session" at the cultural theatre (my students in Canada would recognize this theatre from the documentary I showed them in class called War Dance). Here, many local musicians come to jam every Monday night and people in the crowd get to join in on the fun as well. We had a lot of fun dancing and listening to the variety of music being performed! It was definitely a great way to end my time in Uganda!

I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to come back to Uganda, see the kids I've connected with last year,

meet new friends, spend time with "old" friends,


travel around Uganda, visit Rwanda, and establish connections with those who are involved in peace and conflict resolution...particularly through music!



People are asking me if I'm planning to go back again. All I can say is that I've left a piece of my heart there ever since I first visited in 2010. The people I have met have deeply touched my life in a way that is just indescribable, and God willing, I will go back again. I can't explain it, but I feel like its unfinished business for me...

The Land of 1000 Hills...

**WARNING: some of the genocide information discussed here is not suitable for children to read**

We made it to the Rwandan border and after filling out an exit Uganda card we walked across "no mans zone" to get into Rwanda- it was quite funny to cross the border with a herd of goats. After filling out my Rwandan entry card, the customs officer asked for our visas.
" We don't have one" we replied, "our book told us Canadians don't require one."
He just looked at us and sarcastically said "was it Lonely Planet East Africa? Because its wrong."
Oh-oh. I did ask the other girls if we needed one earlier on- should have looked into it myself- oh well, lesson learned. He let us pass eventually so it worked out anyways.

As we were surrounded by bus, matatu and special hire drivers trying to give us a muzungu deal, we bargained our way into a special hire car and set off for Kigali. Rwanda, "the land of a thousand hills" is unbelievably beautiful. I couldn't get over the gorgeous landscape. I would have felt even more immersed in African culture were it not for the Backstreet Boys songs our driver thought us "Americans" would enjoy. Nevertheless, the drive was fantastic and the city of Kigali is much nicer (and WAY cleaner) than Kampala. I found out that at the end of every month, the citizens do a mass cleaning up of the city. No wonder there is no litter on the ground and garbage cans are found everywhere (unlike Kampala- no offense my Ug friends! Luv ya's!)

Kigali reminds me of Toronto- but nicer! We only spent two days in Rwanda exploring the city, talking to locals and visiting the Kigali Memorial Centre as well as a memorial church in the village of Nyamata. Needless to say, these visits were very upsetting, disturbing and depressing- telling the story of the Rwandan genocide- that human beings could do this to one another is beyond imaginable. It has only been 17 years after the genocide and one could hardly tell that anything as horrific as the 1994 slaughter of over 1 million Tutsi's in 100 days ever happened. The memorial at Kigali is very informative as visitors are led through the before, during and aftermath story of the genocide. Rooms full of skulls, bones, clothes, weapons, and pictures of countless lost lives litter the memorial site. One floor is contributed to some of the children who died. Their remaining family members donated a picture of them and a short description of their child, indicating their age, personality and likes, and ending with the way that they died. There wasn't a dry eye in this area of the memorial.

The church that we visited in Nyamata was for me, even more upsetting. Partly because everything was still preserved and therefore, so authentic in its presence which seemed to remain frozen in time. Inside and around this church, 10 000 people sought refuge from the Interahamwe (a Hutu youth militia). The Interahamwe used some sort of a bomb at the doorway of the church, broke through the gates (you can still see the cement blown in and the mangled iron gate) and they made sure that every single person who was not burning to death inside the church was slaughtered- by being hacked to death with machetes, or having their skulls crushed with spiked clubs, etc. In fact, the Interahamwe stayed there for two whole days to make sure that no one was left alive.

Walking into the church, I felt an overwhelming sadness come over me, I could barely walk through the church. I had to focus on what the guide was saying and try my best to detach myself from what I was seeing and hearing (if that makes any sense). Our guide retold the story of the gruesome fate of these people. Piles upon piles of clothes, ID cards, etc of the dead filled the small church. The worst part (and its hard to imagine there is a worse part) was the area where parents had put their young children behind a brick wall in the church because they thought they would have been better protected there. However, when the rebels found them, one by one, they picked the children up by their feet and swung them into the brick walls- their blood stains still scattered across the walls. There is a mass grave below the church and outside of the church housing all of the dead. Here, thousands of bones and skulls are on display. You can see how the people died by looking at their skulls: bullet holes, machete slashes, chunks of skull missing. The casket of one woman remains there. The story goes that she was the most brutalized of all the people in the church. Amost nine months with child, she was raped by 15 Interahamwe, then a long spiked club was stuck up inside of her and pushed through her body towards her head. Disgusting- my stomach still turns recalling this. I'm going to stop here...

The most disturbing thing I've ever seen...

Today, I saw something very disturbing while leaving Ruhija to go to Kabale and meet up with two other friends before heading into Rwanda. Passing through a bustling village with people walking alongside the winding mountain roads, I noticed what I thought was a dead cow in the middle of the road up ahead. As Suluman slowed down to avoid running over it, I realized it was a human body- a man lying in his own pool of blood. I can't get this image out of my mind. What's crazier is that everyone minded their own business and went about their daily routines as if he wasn't there. I asked Suluman where the police were and he said they were probably on their way or maybe they had not heard of it yet. He said that the man was probably drunk and was hit by a car last night. I wonder if these people are used to seeing things like this- I mean, he was just laying out there, couldn't someone cover him with a sheet or something? Maybe no one wants to deal with the police. According to some of my Ugandan friends, they all seem to agree that dealing with the police can cause more problems and headaches for you since the police tend to interrogate you for things unrelated to the situation or they assume your involved somehow. Sad...

Gorilla's in the Mist

Suluman, our driver from Matoke Tours picked me and Claudia up from the lake and took us even higher up into the Rwenzori mountains to Ruhija where we would track the Oruzogo family of gorillas in the rainforest of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. The drive alone was AWESOME (and scary- thank God for four wheel drive- teetering at the edge of cliffs while heading to our camp grounds was C-RAZY!)



The Gorilla Friends Lodge was so cool! We slept in a brand new (yay- no mold this time) tent with cots that were basically set up along the edge of the cliffs overlooking the rainforest- now that's a great view and a great way to have a coffee on your own private deck outside your tent in the morning!

Our guide, David, informed us of the newly habituated gorilla group we would be following- it has only been since june of this year that these gorillas have been exposed to "whites"... hmmm...should I be scared?


There are 780 gorillas in the entire park which includes the gorillas from the Virungas in the Congo and the Parc de Volcans in Rwanda. In Uganda's Bwindi park there are 340 gorillas, 10 families of which I believe are habituated, the others wild. Because their DNA is so similar to ours they can catch illness' from us very easily so people should not track them if they are unwell (its a good thing I was getting over my cold). Other than claudia amd myself, there was a guy, Keith from Germany, four people from Sweden and two from Austria that joined us on our rigorous trek throughout the mountainside rainforest. It was definitely not what I expected. I guess I had always envisioned the gorillas to be in a flatter area eating, grooming eachother, being lazy, etc. Yeah right. After about an hour and a half of hiking, getting tangled up in vines, slipping and sliding on the steep slopes, avoiding gorilla dung pointed out by the local trackers, macheti-ing our way through brush and avoiding stinging nettle, we came upon the Oruzogo group. The silverback charged at us twice (and I think the one Swedish girl almost pooped her pants) but there's no where to go on these slopes except DOWN, and its not like your supposed to run anyways! One of the blackbacked males however, was posing for our cameras. Since they are a newly habituated group of gorillas, they moved around a lot so we were chasing after them for an extra hour and a half after finding them. It was well worth it though!

Most memorable gorilla trackking moments: looking up overhead in the bushes and catching a gorilla just staring at me and observing me as the rest of the group was below me scrambling to take pics of the more visible gorillas; the growling noises the silverback made at us and our close proximity to the gorillas; and lastly I, along with Keith, were the only two to catch a gorilla beating his chest and signaling to the gorilla beside him to get moving. So awesome I'll never forget this experience!

Bird Lake

So we found a driver of a matatu (bus) that we paid to take us only to the lake. Passing Kabale and heading into the scenic mountains around Lake Bunyonyi was breathtaking and bloody scary! These narrow, dirt roads with potholes and falling rocks everywhere made my heart leap into my throat until we made it safely to the docking area where we proceeded to take a speed boat to our island resort- Byoona Amagara. It was well worth it! For the first time here in Uganda, we were able to spend two days doing absolutely nothing but eating, catching up on sleep and meeting fellow travellers from all parts of the world. Special shout out to my card playing San Francisco "hearts" buddy Clay, whose on an eight month travel trip around the world (I am the card champ and you know it! lol).

Lake Bunyonyi or "place of many birds" is a beautiful lake shaped by numerous mountainous peninsulas and of course, has a variety of birds that like to wake you up early in the morning. Why?! Why can't I sleep in just one day?! LOL!


I had an opportunity to stay in a geodome which is basically a private hut missing a wall that overlooks the lake. It was so cool to wake up in the morning staring out onto the water or looking at the cloudless, starry night sky-although it was NOT cool waking up to see a spider INSIDE my mosquito net (it was big Claudia!)



This place will be well missed but I'm looking forward to my gorilla trek in two days!!! draft 5:43:00 AM by Sandy Delete
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Goodnight, and don't let the bed bugs bite...literally!

Ok. I thought our shed was going to slide off the cliff last night during the heavy rainfall. Poor Claudia had to sleep on half her bunk bed since the tin roof was leaking. Heading back to Kampala today and resting a night at Red Chili is definitely needed, especially after my neck and collarbone was eaten alive by some insect while sleeping at Crow's Nest. I don't even want to think about what kind of bug did that to me. Freaks me right out. Its a good thing our expressionless driver James drove in the pouring rain WITHOUT windsheild wipers! When we asked him to put them on, he clicked them on once then shut them off again. O-Kaaaaaaaay...

Yay! We're alive and its pizza night tonight at Red Chili! Sooo gooooooooood!

We left early this morning (again) for a nine hour drive to Lake Bunyonyi. Now this was an adventure in itself- truly an African experience as we broke down on the side of the road twice! The first breakdown occured near the equator marking of Musaka. The driver pulled the van onto the side of the road where there were small shops. No mechanic shops around that any of us could see but our driver saw something we didn't...old car parts thrown around on the ground in one spot which "clearly" indicated that it was where you get your vehicle fixed. An hour or so later, with a "new" belt in place and the air conditioner still not working, we headed off again towards Kabale hoping the car would take us that far. However, this was not meant to be as we started to smell smoke about 2 hours later and pulled over to the side of the road once again, in the middle of nowhere. Midday, with sun beating down on us we couldn't help but laugh at our dilemma. With no town in sight and with some youngsters from school hanging around to see why these muzungus were hanging out on the side of the road, our driver Thomas, flagged down a truck driver to take him to the next town so he could bring a mechanic back with him. Its times like this u wish Uganda had its own version of CAA. An hour later, our driver appeared with a mechanic and some tools on a boda-boda(a motorbike which is a common yet very unsafe way to travel around). Once again the timing belt was replaced but now the battery was dead too. I still can't wrap my brain around this but our driver flagged down another vehicle and removed their car battery into our van. Once the van started up(and remained running) they removed the battery and put it back into the good samaritans car. Apparently, sharing batteries is a common occurrence here, but how the car remains running with no battery in it, is still a puzzle to me. Finally, we were on the road again- behind schedule and arriving late to Mbarare where the car again broke down. We decided not to chance finding another driver until early morninng since driving through the mountains to the lake is very dangerous at night. Luckily, we found a relatively nice hotel to stay at...or so I thought! Close to midnight and exhausted, as I unpacked some of my things I saw a bed bug crawling around on my bed!!!! Seriously!!! I know what they look like and there was no way I was going to sleep there this night. However, since it was late and searching for another place to stay was out of the question with the rest of my travel partners, I switched rooms instead and spent the night covered from head to toe in my clothes on top of the bed sheets with my towel wrapped around my head leaving only a breathing hole for my nose. I even left the lights on in the room and lay like a mummy as if that would make a difference- but in my mind, at the time it did. It was torture but I made it through the night without suffocating and without a single bite. I do have to mention a common reaction among many Ugandans here when they don't know something or are surprised with something -for instance, when telling the hotel clerk there were bugs on my bed, or that there's no water in the rooms, etc, in a high pitched voice they would say "hmpf...are you sure?!" "Hmmm....sure?!" Its quite comical really. Needless to say though, the people here are really great and super friendly!

Sipi Falls

Today we set off for Sipi falls, Mt. Elgon, in the eastern part of Uganda. Stunning scenery! Our accomodations at Crows Nest Lodge is on top of the slopes of Mt. Elgon and while sleeping in a hut, shed, whatever it is, on the edge of rocky cliffs is definitely awesome..it can be a little sketchy at night, when you have to make your way to the latrine with flashlight in hand and dodge spiders waiting to attack you in the darkness of the night (don't laugh its true, I hate spiders.
Either way, the view here is incredible, with Sipi falls off in the distance you hear the falls clearly in the night while staring up at the starry night. I wish you could see our bunk beds - six people in a tiny room with mosquito nets so thick u get tangled in them! It worried me, however, when the employees of the lodge said that the nets weren't for mosquitos since the climate is colder up here in the mountains, but that the nets were for other bugs....hmmmm...



We spent the day hiking to all three parts of Sipi falls.
This five and a half hour hike I think was even better than the safari! We trekked on steep slopes, through villages and their farms of coffee bean trees, maize, cabbage, matooke, and beans high up in the hills. Absolutely fantastic!


I even explored some caves near the falls but freaked out when I heard some bats screeching. It didn't help that my friends were shining lights on them causing them to fly around our heads...HELLO PEOPLE! RABIES! (I passed on the rabies shots this year too! Ugh!)



Its interesting how we were all using hiking sticks, while the little children and their mothers carried massive bundles of beans on their heads and over their shoulders up the narrow terraces, barefooted nonetheless!

They put us to shame, we must look pathetic with our runners and bamboo shoot walking sticks, even having little kids escort us around some of the steeper parts... hey- it was pretty treacherous at some points!

I learned quite a bit about the people here, their land and sustainable farming. On the east side of Mt.Elgon are the Sabiny people who are of Ethiopian descent, and on the western slopes of the mountain are the Bagisu people, descendents of Cameroon. Our guide explained how Arabica coffee is the main commodity exported from this region and he explained the planting, harvesting, and processing of the coffee bean "business" here.



As I mentioned earlier, we had little kids help us near the end of the hike. Martin, my 10 year old little guide made sure he took my hand and helped me over some slippery rocks
and even when I almost took him out with my walking stick he apologized to ME as is the typical Ugandan way- he could have been 5 km away from me as I tripped and he would have still apologized to me.LOL.


Its pretty neat when you can get real close to the falls yourself. There are no barriers here as there are in Niagara Falls.