Travel

What do you know – my Rwandian visa finally arrived!

I have relocated to a lower standard hotel room. It took them a couple of days to figure out that I was right when I said I wasn’t entitled to one of the block booked OLE rooms and was already booked independently.  It’s much the same as the other one, just slightly smaller. I still have a cupboard – now free standing instead of built in, a chest of drawers, but no computer desk. However I now have 9 coathangers instead of 2 and the fancy plumbed-in plug in the wash basin closes properly (unlike the previous room), making it easier to do some hand washing. There is no bathroom door – just the hinges where it used to be.

Continental breakfast seems to be invariably a thin omlette – sometimes cold by the time it arrives, bread toasted on one side, if at all, margarine spooned onto a dish, plus a small serving of fresh paw-paw, pineapple and a banana. Jam doesn’t seem to exist. There is tea and coffee, though sometimes they forget to put out the tea-bags, sometimes they forget the milk, and fetching them – or anything else that might be needed – typically takes about three to five minutes. Sometimes the milk is in a thermos flask and tastes like reconstituted milk, sometimes it is just a bowl of powdered milk alongside the sugar bowl. Although breakfast is included with the room, staff get agitated if you walk off without signing their book and giving your room number. Morning and afternoon tea, lunch and dinner are all included as part of the conference, the main meals typically consisting of a tasty mix of savoury rice, pasta, salads and a chunky meat casserole – presented in a serve-yourself style.

I’m giving the rest-rooms beside the restaurant section a big miss since the only ladies’ toilet doesn’t have a toilet seat. The whole hotel is a bizarre mix of quality fittings in some places and inadequate basics in others.

We’ve just finished the third day of the conference. Although there are officially 45 of us, in practice there are about 25 who seem to be attending all day, the others are locals involved in teaching and presumably have other commitments for most of the time. The core block of attendees come all corners of the globe – Ghana, Mexico, India, Uruguay, Nepal, Afghanistan, and USA are all represented, but by far the majority group is Rwandan.  They are very pleased that soon Kigali will have their first public library. Kofi, the guy from Ghana tells some of us that in his earlier days he would teach classes of 120. I forget how many students at the school, but 7000 rings a bell. The two guys from Nepal are fun. Jyoti used to work for the United Nations but now runs a private school near Kathmandu. I now have an open invitation to volunteer there for anything up to 3 months – no pay but free board an accomodation. Rabi, the other attendee from Nepal is a charismatic 35yo who despairs of the difficulty of improving in education in his homeland. He says that the teachers there are appointed via bribes, and once in the system stay there for life regardless of competence. In some areas they have XO computers ready to distribute to schools but government officials won’t let them distribute them. Tony is a retired 70’ish american

who is a total computer geek and technology wiz, frequently found in front of a little XO computer (the little green $100 laptops that are being distributed around the world), or rummaging around in a box of wires and fittings, who has apparently done a lot of work with OLE at Rishi valley in India. I’m the only crazy who came via the OLE internet website – the rest are all either OLE employees or connected with OLE in some way.  It’s an interesting and fun group.

Conference format is theoretically one person presenting their particular project, followed by a question session, and then discussion groups. In practice the question sessions usually go over time and the discussion groups don’t happen, and I know there are some here who prefer it that way. Regardless of country, many problems with education seem to be universal – difficulty controlling the quality of the teachers, resistence by strong teacher unions making changes difficult to implement, difficulty introducing computer technology effectively into the classroom, and in making the transition from ‘sage on the stage’ to ‘guide at the side’ style of teaching.

Today included a visit to a primary school and to high school. The primary school class was 8yo children, supposedly having great fun using Teacher Mates – gameboy style educational computer games.

As a demo of TeacherMate it was rather a flop, but the kids loved playing with our digital cameras.

xxx

At the secondary school the students were using the XO computers for a world geography session. Again, not really a dazzling demo of effective computer use, but very interesting seeing the class and talking to some of the teachers. All lessons are held in English – the quality of the english depends of the teacher’s english, which in most cases is such that you frequently need to rephrase a couple of times before you  are understood. There didn’t seem to be many textbooks.

Classes in Rwanda have 45 students, and students attend either the morning session or the afternoon session. Teachers start work at 7:20am and finish at 5:00 pm.  They earn $100 a month, which after tax (after the initial untaxed threshold tax is 20%) is just enough for basic living costs.  Rwanda is distributing 100,000 XO computers, one per child (ie 2 per class seat), and the detail of their plans for training staff, installing and maintaining the equipment, and developing a suitable curriculum is impressive. One of the biggest benefits of the computers is the ability to easily provide textbooks, reading materials and learning activities.  Apparently Microsoft heard that Rwanda was about to distribute computers with a non MS operating system and donated 600 computers, which by the sound of it are unlikely to find their way into the schools. Why confuse things with two different operating systems when they already have enough computers for every student?

( All the photos above except the last two were unposed candid photos – they are remarkably photogenic people).

We had lunch at the highschool with the school staff. Sometimes you get unexpected answers to simple questions, and my question about whether there were many cows in the region was one of those questions. I’d been puzzling over the fact that I hadn’t seen many cows, yet the countryside looks as though it would be a prime area for dairy cattle. The answer…..there are cattle, but not many, because in the genocide it wasn’t just the people who were killed, but all the animals were killed and property destroyed as well. They were still trying to rebuild the herd numbers. “We, ourselves, still can’t understand how it happened. We still feel the pain, and those who have family members who committed the crimes still feel the shame.” He went on to say (his english was excellent) that 100,000 people were tried for crimes after the war. At first they were tried by the conventional trial system, but the process was taking so long that they realised they would have to develop a new trial system to make sure that everyone was properly tried, which they did. The new system was a combination of the legal system they started using  the combined with their original tribal justice system that was part of their heritage. He was very proud of the fact that people accepted that they had to put the past behind them to move on. He said again that they were still bewildered by what had happened, and added with feeling “…but this I do know. It would never have happened if we hadn’t been colonised.”

First impressions Uganda

Incredibly friendly people, and incredibly different way of living. Shops and houses are fairly basic rectangular blocks (once you get out of town there are some groups of round huts with thatched roofs). There are no paved footpaths, just wide dusty areas, making everything look dry and dusty. The shopping areas all seem more like huge markets, with goods such as double beds and armchairs on display in front of the shops. I don’t know what they do when it rains. I think they just get wet.

All those photos of Africa with people pedalling bicycles overloaded with anything from bananas (typically three large bunches to a bike) to timber are commonplace, along with carrying loads on their head.

The bikes are all just basic two wheelers – no fancy gears here. Many people simply walk along the road. Dress ranges from very attractive to the more bizarre with odd looking ultra high puffed sleeves in bright colours – typically bright yellow

Other than an agreed preference to drive on the left there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of road rules. The generally accepted technique seems to be to give a blast on the horm which is  signal for anything smaller ahead to get out of the way. Because of the numerous potholes (or maybe just because it feels good), straddling the centre line of a two way road is not uncommon – (to be fair, there was no oncoming traffic at the time.) People commonly travel in the back of open trucks, or even sitting on the top of a truck. This includes guards, police and whatever else they have in some sort of uniform.

Food is very cheap – for $3 you can buy a huge plate of stew and rice. Water is about $1.50 a bottle for 1.5 litres.

Murchison Falls.

It ended up there were two minivans headed from Red Chilli accomodation centre to Murchison Falls.  The six others in the van with me were great company, including two medical students who had taken up an option to do a three month prac work outside UK – they chose Zanzibar, and were now doing some travel after it. Everyone in the group had been travelling in Africa for a while, so it made it easier for me to start finding my way around in a different culture.

African time (at least in Uganda) is about it will take as long as it takes, and it will happen when it happens. Priorities are an afterthought if they exist at all. So our trip got off to a slowish start while a puncture was repaired. (There was a nail in the tyre). Then after lunch wait some more while the punctured tyre was replaced. (Fixing it while we were having lunch was appparently never considered.) Another delay later on while workmen worked on the single lane dirt road road to Murchison Falls, digging a big ditch (probably for a pipe) right across the road. We waited while enough of the ditch was filled in by the workmen with their shovels for the van to squeeze past the roadworks.

Not that it mattered in the long run as day 1 of the tour was basically getting to the campsite near Murchison Falls. There were groups of baboons along the way, but since our driver Isaac regards baboons as pests we didn’t slow down to look a them.

The campsite had permanent tents with comfy beds, though no power as the generators were turned off at night.  Each tent was provided with the alternative lighting of a kerosene lamp outside each tent.

Day 2
It rained quite heavily during the night, which resulted a in a couple of traffic jams the next day with vechiles bogged

on the one lane dirt track. Isaac seemed to be adept at making his way through the gluggy bits without getting bogged, though it did make for an exciting ride as the van slid around on its way through

Then we started seeing animals galore. Far more than I expected, and much closer than I expected. Impala, giraffes,

and two male

lions.  The lions were only about 15 metres from the road (and us).  We continued on a little further to see some hippos, and then quickly backtracked to find a lioness with three cubs that had been located by another group. (The guides pass information along to each other with mobile phones. ) Actually seeing the animals in the wild was a surprising buzz – it was over too soon.

The afternoon was the boat cruise up the Nile towards Murchison Falls, with crocodiles, water buffalo, birds, impala and of course more hippos. We drank our stubbies of Nile beer on the Nile River as close to the Murchison Falls as the boat could safely get.

Day 3
Walking around the falls. The falls aren’t particularly high, so it was relatively easy to view them from the top and the bottom. What makes them impressive is the volume of water, which throws up clouds of spray as it hits the wall of the narrow gorge on it way down to joining the Nile. Then returned to Kampala. On the way back we stopped for some unknown reason in what seemed to be a small village, where a group of about 20 children on the side of the street looked at as curiously.

We were parked behind a large truck with many people on board, and saw some sort of altercation. One guy seemed to be getting thrown off the truck. Others in his group started punching and kicking him. This continued even though the guy didn’t make any attempt to defend himself. Then a machete came out. By this time I was in ostrich mode – sitting in the van with my head down on my knees pretending that if I didn’t look nothing was happening and feeling terrible. Eventually the machete was put away, and the guy was tied up with a thick rope into a little ball with his knees tucked up under his chin. Then they picked up their bound human parcel, threw it back on the truck, and took off. Our driver Isaac saw some of it and then walked away. I asked him later what it was all about – he just shrugged and said he didn’t know.

After the truck went on its way the children (who saw the whole incident) resumed as though nothing had happened and gathered around looking at us looking at them. One of our group had balloons, which we blew up and gave away. They were very excited by them, though more interested in hanging on to them than playing with them.  Good fun.

The Bus Trip From Kampala (Uganda) to Kigali (Rwanda)

Friday night and still no visa for Rwanda, and in spite of my efforts to contact a bus company, still no booked bus seat for trip to Kigali. There was a brief moment of joy when I got a phone call at about 8:00 pm on my mobile with its Ugandan sim card and an african gentlemen calling from Rwanda told me my visa had been approved and been emailed to me, but it didn’t arrive. He said he would resend it, but it still never arrived.

I still had no idea how to get a bus to Kigali, and thought I would end up wasting Saturday to find out, and then travel Sunday. That would have meant getting to Kigali late Sunday, and missing the informal introductions part of the conference on Sunday afternoon and evening. Not the end of the world, but disappointing. Plan B was hatched by my co-travellers from the Murchison Falls safari. Two of them were catching a 5:30 am bus to Kabale, which is close to the border of Uganda and Rwanda. They had a taxi already booked to take them to the bus station. I could join them for the 6 hour Kampara-Kabale leg and it would probably be fairly easy to find a way to complete the trip from there (another 3 hours on top of the 6 hours to get to Kabale)

My phone alarm for the early start didn’t go off for some reason, although correctly set, so it was sheer luck that I woke with nine minutes to grab my prebacked bags and sprint to where the others were wating for the taxi at4:45am. The bus station was chaotic, and it turned out that the intended 5:30am bus wasn’t happening – Saturday was Uganda’s independence day, and the bus that would normally do that trip was booked for the day’s festivities. No-one had thought to mention that when the trip was being organised on Friday. Off in the taxi to another even more chaotic bus station and purchase tickets for 3 on a bus leaving at maybe 7:00am, maybe 7:30. No chance for the desired option of luxury class bus travel – our bus was going to be an un-airconditioned basic crowded coach. Maybe we could have a cup of coffee somewhere while waiting for the bus? “No – get on the bus and grab a seat, because there will not be enough seats for everyone on the bus. Vendors will come and sell things through the windows later.” So we sat and we watched and we waited, and bought more water and some things that were like large fried scones for breakfast from the window vendors.

There was plenty of activity around us, so the watching was actually quite interesting. A little after 7:30 and the news was that we had to change buses, as there was a problem with our bus. Sophie’s small backpack was stored in the rack above her seat, but simply disappeared before she could retrieve it. In the delay of trying to find it she missed out on a seat in the next bus, so we had two seats for the three of us. Sophie stood for a while in the bus stairwell. Someone asked her why she didn’t get on early enough to get a seat, and when she explained what had happened someone produced a small three legged stool for her with a small cushion on top and put it at the front of the bus right beside the driver (and us – we were right behind the driver)

And so we travelled and read and dozed (Sofie eventually upgraded to a seat beside us when some passengers got off) and watched the African version of countdown on a wonky TV, which seemed to be divided into four vertical panels, with the third panel completely white instead of displaying an image.

It turns out that Kabale is 20km from the border – the only way to get there is by taxi. Once at the border there is a bus to Kigali. In the general discussion with the taxi driver I learned that his four children go to private school, because the standard of teaching at the free public schools is not very good. In the schools all lessons are held in English – the problem apparently is that in the free schools the teachers themselves often don’t speak english very well.  Was school expensive? Yes very expensive – 400,000 shillings a year. (Remember the 700,000 I withdrew for the safari plus food and another night’s accomoodation when I first arrived in Uganda for my cheap 3 day safari?)

At the border I was directed to an office where I had to produce my passport and have it stamped – all without a hassle. I was
celebrating how easy it all was when I found I needed to produce my passport again for entering Rwanda. Moment
of truth and trepidation. “Where is my letter of introduction?” I produced the first one with the wrong dates on it. “Yes, that is
what I need. You pay me $60.”  I don’t think he even looked at the dates on it. The bus to Kibali was already at the bus station right beside the immigration office. The official put my passport and money down on the desk and looked after other customers. Eventually he passed my passport to another section. I waited and watched the bus anxiously. Eventually I asked when I would get my passport back, as I wanted to catch the bus. “You wait. Be patient” I waited
as patiently as I could, figuring that debating with officials is probably not a wise policy. I was still patient when the bus left. “No problem – you walk to next check point, it will be there.” I walked with a very insistent tout who wanted to help carry my bags. The bus wasn’t there. Back to the first checkpoint again, and directed to a derilect minibus (like a maxitaxi with four rows of seats in it) that is going to Kigali. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to squeeze 19 people onto a van, but it can be done, and apparently here it is considered normal. I was sitting alongside a window – I swear I could feel the sides of the minibus flexing and bulging as people moved around.  The ride cost 1.5 francs – there are 600 francs to the dollar.

So it was a crowded trip to Kigali, but through beautiful country. The early part of the trip was a wide dirt road that that tested the suspension of our overloaded van to the max, and probably a little beyond. After that it was paved highway on well made roads that could be Maleny/Montville. Very scenic countryside – lush green, lightly forrested, and very hilly.  Another taxi ride from the depot in Kigali and finally with considerable relief I checked into a basic but comfortable enough hotel room where the conference is being held. Made it!

Once in Kigali, apart from negroes being more common then caucasian, it could be any clean modern Australian town. While Uganda was cultural shock territory, here in Kigali I have difficulty remembering it is Africa and not home. There are paved footpaths, modern buildings and houses, lawns and gardens with hibiscus and other plants that we grow at home, and plastic bags are forbidden.

First day at Kigali

The good news is that the hotel has wifi and a huge satelite dish on the roof. The bad news is that although I can get the wifi connection, even with 4 bars out of 5 it doesn’t actually connect to the internet. Mostly I’m writing in anticipation of finding a connection that works later on. It is frustrating though not to have any way of letting people know I’ve safely arrived. My international SIM card says it’s out of money even though I’ve only made two short calls to what turned out to be wrong numbers. I can’t recharge it without going on the net, and I can’t get on the net, so all I can do is hope that internet connection improves.

My room has an ensuite, floor tiled with 15 inch offwhite tiles, a cupboard with two wire coathangers, a wall mounted TV and a very elegant computer desk, but no chair.  There is a two drawer chest of drawers which contains a Gideon’s bible in German, French and English, and two packets of condoms (four in each packet – what a night!).

Breakfast is supposed to be provided with the room, so at 7:30 I wandered out to see what I could find. There was an american looking gentleman I would guess in his early eighties sitting on the verandah with his laptop, so I asked if he had an internet connection. He said yes, and I said I couldn’t get on, would he mind helping me and went back to get my laptop. Returned to the verandah with the laptop and continue the introductions – yes he was here for the OLE conference, and it turned out his connection wasn’t good enough for email either. More smalltalk and we went down for breakfast together. The voice was vaguely familiar enough to have me checking my appalling memory for faces – I began to suspect that I was having breakfast with the guy who is the creator of OLE. Curiosity got the better of politeness – “are you the guy in the video?” “Yes I am.”  So we had a leisurely breakfast discussing all sorts of things from American politics and its current economy (well mostly I professed ignorance and listened for that one), Marx and Mandela, and what would be the ideal education system.  I don’t think I’ve ever had such an interesting breakfast.