Rafting, Soccer, and Third World Transportation

Greetings from Uganda! It was an adventure getting here. We took the overnight bus from Nairobi, and ride was much bumpier than any of our previous bus trips. After a 4 am border crossing and some more bumpy roads, we arrived in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. I'm here with some buddies from the university, and we are having a great time. Kampala reminds me a lot of Dar es Salaam with a bunch of markets and crazy minibuses (here they are called matatus rather than daladalas).

A sea of matatus in downtown Kampala

We took a side trip to Jinja, a small town on Lake Victoria at the source of the Nile. It's a pretty small place with lots of crafts, and it reminded me of some of the towns in the mountains of NC, only with less Floridians and more pineapples. We went rafting on the Nile, which was pretty intense. The rapids were quite a bit bigger than what we've got at NC; it rivaled the Gauley for sure, only you don't have to worry about getting stuck under rocks or fallen trees. The river is beautiful, and monitor lizards and all kinds of birds are always basking on the shore.

Fried grasshoppers for sale on the streets of Jinja

Although rafting was tons of fun, it was wierd being in such a touristy setting again. It was all foreigners. They pick you up in a big blue bus and shuttle you from your hostel in Kampala to your hostel in Jinja. You don't interact with people from Uganda at all, and it made me really uncomfortable at times. Nontheless, our hostel in Jinja did have an incredible panoramic view of the Nile, and the ride into Jinja town was breathtaking.

Kids we met on the shore of Lake Victoria. The little one with the butt hanging out was terrified of us...

Now we are back in Kampala, and it's been an exciting day. One major source of public transportation here are the bodabodas, i.e. motorcycles. This morning, Katie and I each took a bodaboda to the bus station and realized we were broke. We then proceeded to ride around the outskirts of Kampala stopping by five different banks (on the back of our respective motorcycles) before we found an ATM that would take our Visas. After that we were ready to swear off bodas altogether. Alas, after lunch we found ourselves sharing the backseat of another one on the way to a soccer game. We were waving a Ugandan flag on either side of the bike, attracting quite a fan crowd among other game-goers. I'm happy to say we arrived alive with our flags in tact.

Go Uganda!

The soccer game was a World Cup qualifying match between Uganda and Niger. It was pretty nuts. It was like a major football game at home, only here the entire country is rooting for the same team. People were decked out in red, black, and gold (the colors in the Ugandan flag) and had all kinds of ridiculous cheesy fan paraphernalia. Uganda won (1-0), and the whole city was celebrating.

Katie and I were trying to decide what to do with the days we have before we return to Dar (via plane, thankfully), and we decided to head to Rwanda. It's supposed to be beautiful ("the land of a thousand hills"). We leave tomorrow, and I can't wait! No overnight buses this time though.

A Tale of Two Cities

Well, school is over, and it ended pretty suddenly. I finished my exams on Friday, said goodbye to most of my friends, and hopped a bus for Kenya early Saturday morning. It was a 15 hour ride, though luckily I now know which bus companies have waterproof transport, so the ride was fairly comfortable. I got to see a lot of countryside that I haven't seen before. Past Arusha (near Mt. Kilimanjaro), the landscape changes from lush and green to dry open savanna, which is something I have not yet seen in Tanzania. It's Maasai land up there, and we saw a lot of pastoralists with their cattle herds.

Crossing the border to Kenya was much less eventful than crossing the border to Malawi. We took one bus the whole way and managed not to get ripped off. At one point along the ride I woke up and thought maybe I'd teleported to Europe. Suddenly we were in a city that is much more western and much more developed than Dar es Salaam. There are trash cans everywhere, so the city center is very clean. Women don't wear traditional dresses like they do in Dar, and the tall buildings are like those in a city at home. I haven't seen many foreigners, yet people still don't stop and stare at us because we are white. There are no street vendors like in Dar, and the daladalas (or matatus as they are called here) are totally pimped out with neon lights and everything. The best part is, it's actually chilly here! Overall the city is not nearly as scary or intimidating as I had expected (and for anyone concerned, there are no riots or instability of any kind going on anymore).

Kenyatta Conference Center

Yesterday Katie was feeling pretty sick, so we went to a clinic. Once again you could really see the difference in development; you'd have to go to an expensive private clinic to get something like this in Dar, and there were even female doctors. I've been having some weird stomach thing off and on for a few weeks, so I decided to see the doctor as well. I'm glad I did because it turns out I've had some sort of persistent food poisoning for weeks. They also gave me treatment for a few other waterborne parasites just in case. Katie's results were 'inconclusive,' which is a bit ironic since she is the one who has been feeling sick. They gave her medicine for a few different things though, and she seems to be feeling a lot better.

View of Nairobi from the top of the conference center

We visited the National Archives which has a great collection of art from all over Africa. Today we went to the top of the Kenyatta Conference Center where we could see all of Nairobi. It is pretty clear that a lot more planning went into this city than into Dar; it even has it's own central park, which is our next stop for the day. Tonight we catch an overnight bus to Kampala, Uganda for another adventure.

Sweet giraffe panels from the National Archives

I was a little hesitant about coming to Nairobi, but I'm glad I did. It's been really interesting to see how different it is from Dar es Salaam, and it's been refreshing to be in a western city again. Granted we really only saw a small part of the city, but it was definitely the nice part. I've met some really friendly people, had a decent cup of coffee, and seen another side of Africa. Plus now my body will be free of any and all malicious bacteria!

Looking Back

Well my time here is almost over. I still have 5 weeks until I go home, but I’ll be finished with school on Friday! That’s crazy. I know that the good memories will stay with me forever, but I hope I don’t forget the bad ones, either. There were so many good things, but it was quite a challenge along the way.

Without doubt the toughest thing for me was standing out so obviously. People know that you are a foreigner, so you are automatically treated differently. Some people treat you better than their neighbor, and some are resentful. People here are generally very friendly, but when someone strikes up a conversation with you on the bus, it is hard to tell whether it’s someone just being friendly or if their intentions more along the lines of networking. So many people see foreigners and think “That’s my ticket out of Africa.” My friend Jacqueline admits it. She likes white people and only dates white men; she sees them as a way out of the system. Not that I blame her. I would not want to be roped into marrying a man who didn't see me as an equal. There are certain things that are expected of women here, and Jacqueline doesn’t want to be governed by those expectations. On one hand I say kudos to her—break free from the system! On the other hand, it’s hard for me to take our friendship seriously. She really doesn’t know much about me other than that I’m foreign, but she talks like we are best friends. It’s hard to tell what people’s intentions are here; some want to use you to climb the social or career ladder, some want to rob you, some want you to bring them to America, and some people are just genuinely being friendly. Unfortunately, this means that it can be quite hard to get past superficial friendships with people here and also unfortunately, it took me a long time to figure this out.

But it’s been an amazing experience. I’ve learned so much, like the fact that crossing cultural lines isn’t as easy as I once thought. I depend so much on the other foreign students here because we come from a similar culture and language. Language is crucial; that’s another barrier to getting to know people more than just superficially. I’ve gotten to know many of the foreign students much more than Tanzanians. The Tanzanians I have gotten to know are the ones that are generally better at English than others. That, or they are Kenyan, in which case English is not a problem whatsoever. I have a whole new respect for people doing things like the Peace Corps. I always thought that I was a super-independent person. Peace Corps? Cool, bring it on. Now I’m not so sure I have the patience, the drive, or the ability to entertain myself that something like that would take. I think I’d get too lonely.

I’ve also learned quite a bit about the hardships people face here. There is a really noticeable absence of middle class, so most people are living in poverty. It breaks my heart, and it is everywhere. I’m afraid I’ve become hardened to a lot of it; children begging on the street don’t pull my heart strings quite as much as they used to. I wish I could help everyone, but that is going to take some changes that are much much bigger than me, and I know that realistically, I won’t make much of a difference in the whole scheme of things. That sounds depressing, but I just mean that I am realizing what is reality versus what is me being an idealist.

My experience in Tanzania has been amazing. I’ve been exposed to people, places, and ideas that I would never be exposed to at home. I’ve learned so much, too. I thought I’d come home with a whole new direction in life; I thought that my ideas and values would be confirmed and I’d come back knowing what I want to do with my life. As convenient as that would have been, it’s not really the way it happened. I have truly learned a lot about myself, but I think I might be more jumbled than I was before. On the bright side, that means that my African adventure still won’t be over even when I get home.

Well, I have some pretty cool things planned for my last month here. I plan on going to Uganda for a couple weeks, and then my sister is coming to visit in June. I can’t wait! Traveling around will be quite different than living in Dar, but it should be a lot of fun. I’ll keep you posted.