Bulago Island

I've just spent the weekend at Bulago Island, one of the Sesse Islands on Lake Victoria and stayed here I thought I would do just a short blog post and upload some photos!

 

Lake Victoria is the second largest fresh water lake in the world and the largest body of water in Africa; the same size as Switzerland.  The Sesse Islands consist of 84 separate islands, some large and densely inhabited, others small and deserted. Bulago Island is the nearest island to Kampala  (although it feels a world away from the chaotic city)- around 30km/ about 2 hours in our boat:

 

 

Our boat docked in Munyonyo harbour, Kampala

 

On the boat:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday evening sunset over Lake Victoria from the boat:

 

 



 

 

 

 

Heading to our weekend home

 

We had a really lovely weekend, relaxing, eating lots of fab food, swimming and exploring the island a little:



 

Our pool

View from the pool



 

Freaky spiders web near the pool in the evening!

 

 

 

Super cute Apollo the puppy by the pool!



Dining room



 Exploring the island:

 

 

 

 

There a small little beaches on the island. However, it is not really advisable to swim in the lake, partly due to the risk of bilharzia and of the crocodile that swims in the lake and strikes occasionally!

On top of a hill!

 

 

We saw quite a few spiders' webs on our walk. I walked straight into one of these. It wasn't a very pleasant experience!

 

 

 

 

Pineapple bay

 

Finally a few pics of our Saturday night BBQ & campfire: 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Since holidaying in Rwanda, I've been spending my time in and around Kampala. This a short blog post with a bit of an update on some of things I've been up to.

The rainy season is just coming to an end here and, although, in practice this means it rains briefly most nights and mornings (with the odd full day of rain) and then the sun shines again, I have found the walk to work through a significant amount of mud a little challenging - so much so that I considered buying a pair of wellies (not quite what I expected to be adding to my wardrobe living in Africa!).

We've also had two more public holidays recently. The 3rd June is Martyrs Day here. For those interested in the background; in late May 1886 an unknown number of men and women, suspected or known to have been baptised, were forced to march to an area of Kampala called Namugongo and imprisoned. On the 3rd of June those that refused to denounce their faith (at least 26) were massacred. Martyrs Day marks this and there were various celebrations and marches in Kampala (though I must admit I spent most of the day at a BBQ...)

Tomorrow (9th June) is Heroes Day, which is in honour of those  who sacrificed themselves to better the lives of the Ugandan people.  Many of the heroes officially recognised by the government are fallen soldiers who died during Uganda's civil war in the 1980s. The holiday is quite divisive with debate about what constitutes a hero and no widespread agreement as to which of that war's fallen should be honoured (the Ugandan opposition are boycotting tomorrow's celebrations apparently).

On this public holiday weekend, the annual LaBa Arts festival took place. You can see more info here. Yesterday the festival was held in Kisementi (a square of shops,bars and a new shopping mall) with various small exhibitions, stalls and performances (cultural dancing, a percussion band, breakdances, fashion parade etc). Here are a few pics:

I've generally been trying to check out Kampala's cultural scene a little. I also went to the opening of an exhibition by a famous Ugandan artist called Ronex (if you're interested in looking at his work, you can see it here) at a lovely little art gallery called Afriart. Last night I visited the National theatre for the first time and went to see the Kampala Amateur Dramatic Society's (KADS) production of Grease, which was fun. Here are a couple of pics!:

I'm also still going to my Luganda classes twice a week - and still finding it a bit of a tricky language to learn, though I am starting to understand snippets of conversations when I'm out and about. I find the pronunciation quite difficult, along with the lack of logic (our teacher will introduce a rule and for a moment it all seems clear, but then he'll introduce about 10 exemptions to that rule...). It's a really lovely class though and I'm also learning quite a bit about Ugandan culture and practices.

One class that particularly made my head spin was when we learnt about time. In Uganda, as we're on the equator, the sun sets and rises pretty much at the same time every day. So for Ugandans they start time at the hour at which the sun rises. So our 7am, is 1 in Uganda. Plus they use words rather than AM and PM. So, 2am in the UK is 08:00 Ez'omutumbi (translates as "the 8:00 when the sky is black"). Once you start adding minutes on to the hours, it gets more complicated. To say " The time is 6:45pm" (so 12:45 Ugandan) you say:

"Saawa kkuminabili n'eddakiika annamutaano ez'olweggulo"

Confused? So were we...

Much of the meaning of the words depends on tone and emphasis. Often the same word has more than one meaning and the meaning can be told by the emphasis in tone. For example, the word "okutta" means "to set free" and also means "to kill", which apparently was historically unfortunate for at least one man who was imprisoned by the King Of Buganda and set free (the King's men misinterpreted the tone and so the man was killed...). The word "amazzi" means "water" but also means "excrement", depending on the tone used (which obviously could be embarrassing if you used the wrong emphasis when ordering a bottle of water...)

Finally, I particularly like that, as Luganda is a developing language, many of the words are borrowed. So the verb "to Skype" is "okuskypinga" and to use facebook is "okufacebookinga".  For clothing, a t-shirt is "t-saati", jeans are "jiini" and socks are "sokisi".

The class runs for another month. Apparently, we have an exam at the end. I'm really hoping there are lots of questions about borrowed words and not many about the time!

Finally, I spent a weekend in Jinja. Jinja is just a couple of hours drive from Kampala and is famous for being the source of Nile (and for various adventure sports...). I've been a couple of times and this time we stayed at a lovely place called Holland Park. Here are a few pics:

We stayed in some lovely cottages

 

Strange bug with a broken leg!

 

 

 

I'm still really enjoying being at Hands for Hope and have been busy. I'll do a separate post soon on some of the things we've been up to. 

The country of a thousand hills (part two - the country!)

This is my second post on my recent trip to Rwanda. After spending a couple of days exploring Kigali (see part one!), Becks and I took a six hour bus journey to Kamembe in the Rusizi district, in the south west of Rwanda. 

I had been told a few horror stories about people being a little ill on the bus, due to the hills and winding roads. Luckily there were no such incidents on our journey and it was fantastic to get a glimpse of the landscapes and wildlife, particularly the last couple of hours as we travelled through Nyungwe Forest National Park (and spotted quite a few monkeys!).

Becks has been living in Kamembe since last September and it was great to see where she's living and meet some of her fellow volunteers. On the first night, we all went out for dinner at a favourite dining venue, Hotel du Chutes, where I sampled their famous beef brochette (a beef kebab essentially, but nicer) and chips (everything I ordered in Rwanda seemed to come with chips!). 

Kamembe sits on the banks of Lake Kivu, on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Lake Kivu is incredibly stunning:

 

 

 

 

Half of Lake Kivu is in Rwanda and half is in the DRC. The island you can see on the following picture (taken from hotel veranda near to where Becks lives) is actually in the DRC:




From this veranda, we watched the night fishermen sail ourtonto the lake to start their night's work. As they sail out, they all sing a traditional song. When they come back in the morning, their wives wait for them on the shore and sing them home. They fish in groups of three boats attached together and the fishermen (bravely!) walk between the boats on thin pieces of wood.

The following day we went for a walk around the hills of Kamembe and saw from a distance the fish being sold at market:

A view of Kamembe

 

May 1st, Labour Day, is a public holiday in Rwanda (and Uganda) and we had been told about a procession taking place, followed by a football match with the army playing the district (essentially the local council workers). The timings of when this was all going to happen were a bit confused and we managed to get to the stadium towards the end of the match! In the final moments, the army scored, but the goal was disallowed, so the game ended in a no score draw.

 

 

The two teams pose for a photo at the end of the match.

Becks lives next door to a lovely family with lots of adults and children living in a one-roomed house, and she and her family do quite a lot to support the children. Before we left Kamembe, we spent a bit of time with the children; teaching them to sing "heads, shoulders, knees and toes" and blowing bubbles, which they absolutely loved:

After two days in Kamembe, we took a boat up the entire length of Lake Kivu. The boat trip took just over 8 hours:

The night fishermen about to head home

 

 

The boat only sails a couple of times a week and it seemed to be an occasion everywhere we stopped, with people from the local villages coming on to the banks to see the boat -

We didn't wait for latecomers; they had to catch up in this little boat and jump on from there!-

 

 

We made a little friend on the boat, who came and sat with us for several hours!

The first half of the boat trip was great, but as time went on, it got busier and busier and hotter and I was pleased when we arrived in our destination, Gisenyi!

Gisenyi is a small city in Rubavu district in the Western Province of Rwanda. The city is on the northern shore of lake Kivu and has several hotels and three sandy beaches, giving it a more of a seaside holiday resort feel. It also has the only brewery in Rwanda, which manufactures the local beers Primus and Mützig.

We stayed at Inzu Lodge, which is set in the hills with views over Lake Kivu and probably one of the nicest places I've stayed since coming to Africa. We met a couple here from the UK who were in the first week of a 13month trip around Africa and South America. They're going to be in Kampala this week and staying at my flat, so I'm looking forward to showing them round the local area here.



Our tent!

 

View from the tent.

The bar!

Inzu lodge at night

Walking into Gisenyi town

Gisenyi is also borders the DRC and we took a walk down to the border crossing:

Gisenyi beach

 

After two days in Gisenyi, I took the slightly shorter 3 hour bus journey to Kigali and then headed back to Uganda. It was really fantastic to travel around another East African country and to meet lots of people who are living and working there. Thanks Becks and all your friends for being such great hosts!