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Collected Emails No 3. | |
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Feburay 8th, 2004: Greetings from Burundi (continued) Also we went on road trips to the beautiful volcanoes and lakes, and to a church where 20,000 people were killed during the Genocide, with all the skeletons preserved on shelves as a terrible reminder. I was treated very well in Rwanda, and am grateful for the experience and for the hospitality I was shown. Once in the NGO/humanitarian community, transportation became much easier, from Kigali, I got a free ride to Cyangugu in the West of Rwanda with a Condom distributor called Prudence Plus, and it was a wonderful trip through amazing Rwandan scenery and very interesting conversation with the guy in the car, who, during the genocide, had been hiding in the ceiling of a house for three weeks, hearing people being killed downstairs, and hoping to survive. Later in reconciliation courts, he had to identify the killers and then forgive them...! Then the next day, another NGO called IRC are gave me a ride from Bukavu on the border, to Uvira, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, in Congo where my "Action Contre la Faim" (ACF) friends are stationed. Everyone in Uvira, and the border guards, made a big deal out of the probable fact that I may be the first tourist to visit Congo since the war! I spent a very enjoyable few days in the region, accompanying the ACF people on missions in the field. They do irrigation and fishery projects, and direct food aid for people, mainly children, suffering from malnutrition. More amazing viewpoints for me, inside humanitarian and NGO life. This part of Congo is beautiful, and the people are lovely. Apart from many Mai Mai soldiers (many of them young boys of 10 years old, carrying Kalashnikov machine guns) and a few hassles with them at road blocks, it did not feel unsafe to be in Congo. Although, a few hours after I left Bukavu, there was a gunfight there between the governor's militia and the government troops. This weekend, I came to Bujumbura across the border in Burundi with my ACF friends who often come here for the weekend. It is the capital of Burundi, and the closest thing to civilization, with hot water and food and wine to buy and take back. They have a house here, so I am still a lucky guest. And in another new African country!!! The city is on the shores of the lake, and as we drank an aperitif at a bar yesterday evening, we were looking out for crocodiles and hippos in the water where we sat watching the sunset. None appeared for us, though. Last night, at 2AM there was gunfire not so far away from the house, but we haven't heard yet what it was about. Otherwise it has been quiet here, too. Since arriving here, the trick has been to find a way of getting back to Tanzania (to Kigoma, on the shores of the same lake Tanganyika) before my Burundi transit visa runs out on Monday. There were some rumors of ferries sailing there, but it turns out they are running very rarely since the war. It looks like I will be taking a minibus overland to the border, but apparently it is relatively safe in the countryside at the moment. The next destination is Ruaha National Park in central Tanzania, to visit my niece, Rebecca, who is working there, and whom I have been promising to visit for the past two months! Then onwards and southwards... I am very happy to be travelling, and hope this message finds you all well and enjoying your lives as much as I am enjoying mine at the moment. ----------------------------------------- Final Africa Installment: Greetings from Cape Town! 3.4.04 Getting back into Tanzania from Burundi was another adventure. There were no ferries on Lake Tanganyika that week -- they were broken -- so I had to take a minibus south 250km toward the border. I waited three hours till the car was full (23 people in a tiny vehicle). During the wait, a crowd of 100 excited children, aged between 7 and 11, swarmed past me carrying stones and rocks in their hands. These weapons, and the gleeful expressions were unsettling, reminding me of Golding's "Lord of the Flies." I asked a local man what was going on. In French, he explained, "They are pupils from the local public school, which is closed due to a teachers' strike. The children are running from the police, after throwing rocks at the private school, which is still open, because they find it unfair that the other children can go to school while they cannot." When the minibus finally set off. I was sitting next to a lovely looking grandmother in the front seat, but she got motion sickness was throwing up into a red plastic bag much of the way. We travelled along beautiful lakeside roads, then into mountains, to reach Mabanda, which turned out to be 18km away from the border. I found a guy with a motocross bike to take me cross-country, bag on my back, to the border. I was holding on for dear life as we sped through a rainstorm on ... |
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