When I realized that entering Tanzania overland from Rwanda was going to be difficult, amongst other things because visas are not issued at the border, and also considering the size of the country and costs involved in entering the Serengeti or Ngorongoro, I decided to deviate from my plan, took a flight to Dar es-Salaam and cut my stay short. After all, I wanted to attend a festival in Malawi in early November, and it felt like I’m running out of time. Seriously? Anyway, my plans changed, I planned on two weeks only in Tanzania. Air Rwanda was as impressive as Rwanda itself, and the flight was truly pleasant. On that note, I’ve come to love the airport announcement tinched in heavy Bantu r/l-mixups that wish you a “prresent frright” instead of a “pleasant flight”, that’s what it sounds like anyway.
The biggest surprise so far! But slowly … Coming in from Kabale in southern Uganda, already the border police gave me the sense of correctness that would prevail through the rest of my stay in Rwanda. Driving at 60km/h, the maximum speed in the country, and for once on the right side of the road again, our bus arrived towards evening at Kigali’s Nyabugogo bus station. Since my request to be picked up had apparently not been heard, I was left at the hustle and bustle of a big African bus station, where many a dodgy looking guy is seeking his fortune from a rather clueless mzungu. It was easy enough for me though to shake most of them off quite quickly, except for one who clung to my heels as I tried to negotiate the buses, taxis and touts at the various bus stops. Helped by a guy from an internet café, I took a cab and off we went towards Murugo hostel. On the way there, I was surprised by boda-boda drivers who were actually wearing a helmet, and indeed had a helmet for passengers as well (and would insist you wear it, as I later learnt)! And almost miraculously, coming from Uganda at least, there were lots of traffic lights, on major roads with countdowns for the green light, and on major roads the corners were equipped with LEDs on the curb. Just wow! Still, the layout of the town is rather difficult, even for a local taxi driver, since most roads are numbered, and the best thing to do is to know a landmark building nearby. I later learnt that the one relevant for my hostel was the Ministry of Agriculture, though no boda-boda (here called “moto”) or taxi driver knew it by this name, nor by its French version, but only as Minagri. The habit of abbreviating words may have been inherited from the French, though that language has been largely abandoned in official contexts in 2007, and relationships with France are complicated, to put it mildly.
Let me start by stating my conviction that as human beings we are all the same in as much as we share the same basics needs. I even believe that a conscious recognition of this fact could help solve our most urgent issues, political, economic and otherwise, on an inter-personal level. African ways of putting this: umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, Zulu for ‘a person is a person through other persons’, which is at the heart of the idea of ubuntu, in slightly different terms also present in Martin Buber’s I and Thou. A version more reflexive of the previous colonial situation is the Shona saying murungu munhuwo – ‘a white person (usually mzungu in East Africa) is a human too’. And yet as part of our existence, which is deeply shaped and coloured by our very personal experiences, we may easily forget about this and start setting our individual experience as “norm”, and thus create a default world view that construes everything beyond our own experience as “strange” or “other”. Continue reading →
Driving to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in the early morning hours (5:30) is like entering a magic world. Mist hangs in the valleys below as you proceed at an altitude of around 2300m. The name derives from the local Runyakitara language(s), and means something like ‘place of darkness’. This has been a forest forever, and it is as primeval as a forest can be in the 21st century.
For the impatient ones, here’s some Gorilla video caption. [switch to HD]
via Fort Portal, Queen Elizabeth National Park, and Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
From Mbale, where I was delayed because of my leg injury, I drove towards Jinja to meet my Göttingen colleague Katharina and her family. Some 10 km before I reached their place, and just as I was overtaking a truck, my car broke down. I barely managed to drive it onto the curb, with traffic coming up from in front, and a mad driver close up behind me. I was lucky, nothing happened. Except that I was stuck, had no clue where I was, and it was an hour or so before nightfall. Yes, I was quite worried. The prospect of being stationary in the dark, or even to leave the car behind with all my stuff in it to find somewhere to stay, was not exactly encouraging. I had to do something, stupidly, my phone still did not connect to local networks. The last sign I remembered seeing on the dashboard was the oil warning, so I tried to top up with oil I bought from a fuel station that I could see in the distance. That wasn’t it, so I hailed down two boda-boda drivers, and they fetched a mechanic.
You easily remember Oryema once you have seen a recent picture of him: blond dreads, and a hint of a blond tach. Now that’s something you don’t get to see often. I admit I am not a fan, unlike when it comes to his music. A true revelation for me, immediately reminiscent of Ayub Ogada, and thus it didn’t come as a surprise to me when I learnt that the two collaborated on some pieces.
I’m out of the bush, and hours later I get to Gulu, the most important town in northern Uganda. I have covered Gulu and its more recent history and contribution to literature elsewhere, so I shall skip it here. I liked the place, went out to a club, did my first photo tour around the market. It was here that my idea for a photo series was born – African Women at Work.
Gulu is also the town where Okot p’Bitek was born. A friend from Zambia (hey there!, you know who you are 😉 ) recently introduced me to his best-known book, The Song of Lawino (1966). It’s a wonderful lament of a wife about her all-too European husband. He, Ocol, will respond later, in The Song of Ocol (1970). Very interesting author and scholar – read more here and here in German.
It started with Collins at the Red Chilli Camp in Murchison Falls Park. Collins told me about his desire to make a movie about an underdog guy who after a lot of fighting leaves the forest, a victor. He has it all in his mind, perhaps unsurprisingly. For he immediately went on to present a lively, if at times horrifying account of his brother, who had joined the UPDF to fight Joseph Kony‘s Lord’s Resistance Army.
Touchdown in Entebbe. Welcome Africa. Full contact.
I’m lucky. Not only was I able to retrieve my mobile phone from the rented car which I dropped at 4:30 am at Berlin Tegel because my flight had been cancelled and I was put on a later one, late enough for the car rental to be open. No, I was also picked up comfortably at the airport by Suzan and her husband Simon, and taken to their house. I stayed for almost a week, and was perfectly entertained by the two, especially with a BBQ at which I met some amazing people – a fish farmer, a clothes designer, a nurse and psychotherapist, a special duties pilot. And of course my hosts. I had known Suzan for three years, but we’d never met in person, so that was exciting enough. And I liked being around them, hearing about their future plans and all.
