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East African Tour

Clockwise around lake Victoria from Tanzania to Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and back to Tanzania.. here are some pictures:

east africa

Things I learned while traveling in East Africa:

I don't mind riding on buses that are moving. I hate sitting on them when they are standing still.

The Avocados may be cheap and big, but there not as good as California (Mexico) Haas avocados.

2 things to see when you go new places: sunsets/rises and lakes/bodies of water (including waterfalls)

Borders don't have to be nightmares. The East African Community made it surprisingly easy for me to travel between it's member nations. And borders are helpful (despite their intangibility) at keeping one apart from wars (in places like the Congo and Burundi for example).

Energy level affects one's perspective. I had the worst cold of my life in Rwanda. two weeks! no place to lie on the couch and watch tv either.. Normally people harassing me on the street doesn't bother me very much, but when I am tired I am much more susceptible to the frustrations of being the only person with white skin on an African street.

Gin/Waragi/Cane liquor sold is sold in plastic bags..

Malaria is scary. I think this is mostly because there are so many theories about it going around. Other diseases (and there are many) are scary too but you hear so many different things about malaria that it has its own mystique. The incubation period is 14 days to a year (I don't think this is really true, I think some guy cheated on his wife in southeast Asia got malaria while he was there, but told her he must have gotten it on their trip to Brazil or whatever..) No one (even doctors) ever tell me the same things about malaria; how prevalent it really is, how bad it is, what anopheles mosquitoes look like, whatever.. I am taking my Lariam.

I don't think I changed as a person very much on this trip, but I am getting old and I have wised up to a few things.

Islam

I figured I'd covered the other major monotheistic traditions..

I don't think you can call Tanzania a Muslim country, there isn't sharia or anything, but there are definitely a lot of Mosques and men walking around in kufis especially on the coast. One might think there would be a level of uncomfortabilty being a an American Jew and all (the embassy was bombed here btw), but most people seem tolerant even if I am the only person walking around in shorts. Reading Infidel surrounded by believers was a little awkward, but your English has to be pretty good to read over someone's shoulder. I wonder what Ayaan Hirsi Ali would have to say about a country like Tanzania; it seems like a pretty liberal form of Islam to me:

I think it would be difficult to be a conservative Muslim in a country like Tanzania. There are quite a few women walking around in hijabs, despite the heat, but they have to ride dalla-dallas like everyone else. While I may not be able to see anything but their eyes, I get a pretty good idea that there are women beneath all that cloth when I am squeezed between two of them in the back of truck.

Furthermore, the Call To Prayer is nothing compared to the orthodox chanting in Ethiopia. Sometimes the morning prayers wake you up a little early in the morning, but it's over before you know it. Just put your pillow over your head and go back to sleep.

Then there are the Rastas (we had them in Ethiopia too). They tend to congregate at the coast as well, most were raised in Muslim families and consider themselves Muslim. This apparent contradiction was explained to me on a beach in Zanzibar with the dubious rationale that, "Rastafarianism isn't really a religion." I guess in the Tanzanian sense this is true; I think the real reason for the dreads and the red,black, green and gold is so that mzungus can know who to buy bangi from.

Moderate Islam.

You can buy cigarette lighters with Osama's picture on them.. they are finally embracing capitalism now too.

The Last Supper

I'm not very Jewish. I don't go to temple. I am anti-Israel. I never set foot in a synagogue. My knowledge of Yiddish is very limited. I don't have many Jewish friends. Most of what I know about passover I learned from Charleton Heston.. I didn't even get BarMitzvahed. And I definitely didn't know that they had Jews in Uganda. But there are, and I don't mean Holocaust escapees selling bagels in Kampala, these guys are actual Ugandan Jews. The reason I know this is because about a week ago I spent Passover with them.

You might be wondering how such a unJewish person such as me ended up spending Pesach with black Jews in Uganda.. You have to blame my friend Shira for that one. I didn't really know what I was getting myself into, but it was definitely an interesting cultural experience.

There were a fair amount of mzungus there, mostly Israeli but a bunch on Americans too. In reality there was quite a range of Juadism on display, many Israelis aren't religious and there were even some gentile junior-year-abroad (SIT) kids who were just there with their friends. This made me feel a little better about myself. Overall I felt about as out of place as I usualy do when I'm around real Jews on a high holiday; they were all using words I don't know mixed in with their regular conversations, and singing songs I didn't know the words to (or even the language). In fact with these things it's probably better I don't speak Hebrew, I would have felt more uncomfortable if I was more than passingly aware of the fact that all the throat clearing and babbling meant "O' God.." , "Master of the Universe.." etc.

There were some things that were different than your average American Seder (other than all the black people). They didn't give out yarmulkes at the door, not even the paper ones. There was no matzo-ball soup. There wasn't even any wine. Those last two really hurt. And many things were pretty similar to what I remember from their American counterparts; most people weren't listening to the rabbi, other people were just moving their lips during the songs too, and most of all we skipped 80% of the haggadah (just like home).

And that's how I ended up spending one of the holiest days of the year with the Jews of Uganda. Getting there was really the hardest part. I had to check out a VGIF site the day before, so I had split up with Shira and had to find my way there by myself. I got to the town of Mbale and asked a moto-taxi to take me to "Moses Synagogue", he said, "sure" we agreed on a price and of course he had no idea where we were going (in his defense, Jews are a few kilometers from town hidden away safe from the gentiles). Though he repeated "Moses Synagogue" like a pro, he didn't have a clue what I was talking about. I told him, "take me to the Jews". He had at least heard about them, and we headed off in their general direction. It turned out that he was an Evangelical Christian and he spent most of the ride trying to convert me.. He didn't have much luck with that, but after asking "Which way to the Jews?" to a half-dozen people, and a couple wrong turns later I was staring at a big star of David, and I knew I was in Abayudaya..

Overall it was definitely an interesting experience. The location was great, beautiful sunset views I ate some Matzo. I am Jewish after all.

The Rolex

As a traveller there is rarely much access to kitchen facilities or the financial incentive to use them. So to avoid paying mzungu prices for substandard food one needs to eat closer to what the local population eats (i.e. paying local prices for substandard food). Most people in the world however cannot afford to eat in restaurants, so there is an apparent dilemma.

Thankfully this restaurant problem is overcome by stepping out of the restaurants and into the street. If you don't want to pay the dollar or two it costs to sit down in a local restaurant you can eat while standing for half the price. Unfortunately street food is not always very conducive to vegetarianism, often greasy meat is one of its primary ingredients. In Uganda this problem is overcome by the ubiquity of chapatis. The chapati in East Africa is a little different than its Indian counterpart; they are bigger and appear to use less whole wheat flour (though I think they use some!) and are cooked on a hot iron with a little oil. They are delicious and cost less than 25cents.

In Uganda the chapati has even been improved on with the invention of the Rolex. A rolex is simply a fresh chapati rolled up with an omelet with a few vegetables thrown in (hot sauce, salt and ketchup to taste). A delicious and nutritious meal for less than 50cents. Some places even have avocado! Needless to say I am a big fan. The only shortcoming is that the griddles don't usually get fired up until after dark, and while they are an amazing late night snack, they would be a perfect breakfast as well..

Rwanda Recap

Rwanda has it together a little more than most of the countries I've been to. Kigali is reasonably cosmopolitan; cafes, nightlife, cheap internet.. it has it all. The rest of the country isn't quite caught up yet, but it is on it's way. The roads are excellent (paved and sans potholes), and they appear to enforce traffic laws. And the buses are great. They even run on a schedule! One time I got on a half-full bus and it departed when it was supposed to despite the fact that there was not only breathing room, but actual empty seats. Miraculous. If you are investing in East Africa, I recommend Rwanda.

It really isn't that backpacker friendly though. I didn't have a good guidebook, I may have missed out on some hidden gems, but overall I don't think I am the clientele that the country is looking for. They charge outrageous prices for national parks. Not just $500 to spend an hour with mountain gorillas, but 75 to go on a hike.. And I don't really have a problem with them taking money off wazungu, but it would be nice if there was some level of service provided and they weren't trying to nickel and dime you for extras the whole time. Once you got off the beaten track a little bit there isn't much to do or see. Kigali and Butare (a nice little university town) had a lot of white people running around (a lot of aide dollars are definitely flowing), but in the countryside I was usually the only mzungu. There was a lot of staring (not just kids). Rwanda does not have an overabundance of things a tourist might be interested in, and what little there is, is expensive.

It was an interesting place though. The countryside is beautiful, even more heavily cultivated than Ethiopia, nice, cool, green terraced hills, and the food was pretty good. The genocide of course was always in the back of my mind as well. I couldn't help but think about how old each person I met was 15 years ago. To their credit the country really does seem better off then their conflict free neighbor, Tanzania. But being within spitting distance of the D.R.C. the specter of conflict was still present (there really was a noticeably heavy amount of air traffic going in and out of Goma).

Then their was the French issue. I really felt like an ignorant tourist most of the time I was there. I couldn't speak a word of the local language (Kinyarwanda ), and if a person spoke a little of a colonizers language, they were usually francophone. They couldn't understand, I have white skin, but I couldn't speak French.. They are trying to move to English in the schools, but they are not there yet. Outside of Kigali and Butare, people spoke very little English. I realize, I, not them, am to blame for being mono-lingual.

Overall I think Rwanda would be a pleasant place to live (especially if you have a cushy USAID job), but it shouldn't be first on your East Africa list to visit (Uganda, where I am now is a backpacker paradise btw). The ATM situation is a good microcosm for the country as a whole. In every other country I've been to, ATMs that accept Mastercard and Visa are ubiquitous, even in small towns, and they have been my source of currency throughout my trip (love my Cambridge Savings Bank card that doesn't charge any ATM fees). However in Kigali (the most expensive place I've been) I had to get a cash advance (with the accompanying fee). After an extended search I am confident that there is not one ATM in Rwanda that accepts foreign cards. I can only assume this is because the government is trying to gouge credit card companies with some tariff or another. I understand their desire to make money off rich foreigners, but even I (registered green) think the free market could do some good towards this end.

The Obama Factor

Americans have long suffered from a (deservedly) negative image abroad. The fat, ignorant, loud American complaining about the lack of Wendy's in Paris is a tough caricature to overcome. However over the past eight years George W. Bush has successfully helped Americans get beyond this stereotype. The rest of the world became so focused on the destructive policies our government chose to pursue that they forgot all about their previous reasons to revile us.

During the course of previous travels, while not universally shunned, I definitely left the assumption of my Canadian citizenship uncorrected (People never wanted to offend Canadians by asking if they were American). As I have mentioned before, the Obama election and inauguration gets a lot of play in this part of the world. And one tangible effect of the Obama administration so far is that it's a lot easier to tell the truth about the color of my passport.

Especially during the election and around the inauguration pretty much every person's response to the "Where are you from?" reply was "Obama!" or "Obamaland", "Obamacountry" or some other corruption of the name of the hour. And the positive reactions are not just from locals. Even my fellow travelers (mostly European) were caught up in Obama fever. The fervor has died down a little, but I'll be in Kenya soon and I know they are proud of their native grandson..

Inevitably the question I get nowadays is, "How's he doing?" People even ask me this knowing full well that I haven't set foot in the good ol' U.S. of A. since September. I generally try to lower people's expectations and remind them that he is still a politician after all. However, amazingly despite all of the goodwill he is generating, very few people have told me they expect him to start handing out visas. The American presidency is a largely symbolic position, and in this respect President Obama is already an unequivocal success.

Now that I am headed home soon, he'll have to start working on the economy.

The Paper

I like to read the newspaper. I always felt bad for myself living in the Bay Area that there was no good paper. Especially given the relative literacy of San Francisco and Berkeley, the SF Chronicle is atrocious, and the Oakland Tribune and Contra Costa Times don't even qualify. I never liked reading on a computer screen, so my only saving grace was the fact that one can get the New York Times delivered anywhere in the country.

I have come to know a new level of unreadable while traveling in East Africa. There have been English language newspapers readily available in every country I have traveled in, and uniformly, they have been terrible. Not only are they full of grammar mistakes and misspellings (I realize the writers may not be native speakers, but they could still use a spellchecker), the content is unconscionable.

They are mostly full of opinion pieces, that either have nothing to say, are idiotic or offensive. I read an article that implied a women was raped because of what she was wearing. I read another op-ed saying the problem with Tanzanian schools is that the teachers are lazy, and they should be punished like their students. There was a regular section in one paper giving love advice, and the premise of the response to one lovelorn reader was that you can't be mad at your boyfriend for cheating, because men can't possibly only be with one woman (I only assume it was regular based on it's format, I would not waste the energy it takes to turn its pages again).

Despite the general dearth of reading material, I have given up on newspapers completely. Even when they are sitting on a table in a cafe I resist the urge to pick them up because I know I will be disappointed. I think they literally makes you stupider. Thank God for the internet, yes I do now read nytimes.com. I have even resorted to dated issues of The Economist, and the business section used to be my least favorite section, there isn't even sports in the back..

Thoughts about Food

As a vegetarian traveling in countries where vegetarianism (by choice) is not the norm, one does not expect to find much in the way of culinary excitement. Especially when you get off the beaten track a little bit. At the further detriment to my diet is my habit of 12hour bus journeys which pretty much limits both breakfast and lunch to meals one can buy through the bus window. In Tanzania when these days were more common, most of my protein came from peanuts, and carbs from biscuits (they call cookies, biscuits here [pronounced: 'bis-quit'] which makes them much easier to eat for breakfast). Plus the occasional banana, and of course a multi-vitamin every morning to balance it off. Dinners I am at least not usually in motion.

In Tanzania it was a lot of rice and beans, but that was fine, because I like rice and beans. When there was a little local spinach or some fresh chapatis I was pretty content. What makes all the difference is the hot sauce. And hot sauce is ubiquitous, but I've found it varies quite considerably by country. Despite the dozens of tribal and ethic groups within these haphazard borders created by spurious European conquistadors, it seems that pili-pili is truly unified nationally. In Tanzania the hot sauce was pretty mediocre, heavily processed, in ketchup looking containers, light colored, but quite adequate; it got the job done. In Malawi on the other hand, the hot sauce was exceptional. There is a local brand called Nali, made from "birdseye" peppers, that had a great flavor, they even have a garlic variety (pictured). Unfortunately in Rwanda the hot sauce is uniformly terrible. Even house-made stuff still has this distinct terrible taste, that is shared by all Rwandan hot sauce. It is hot, but the flavor is revolting. Fortunately, Rwandan food has other things going for it.

Rwanda like everywhere else I've been is pretty big on meat. I'm sure most Rwandans would choose to eat meat at every meal if they could afford it. However, another thing that seems to be very popular is buffets. I'm not sure if this is a Franco/Belgian thing left over from colonialism (the word sounds French to me, but it's hard to imagine Parisians digging into the steam tables like there counterparts here at the equator) or a homegrown institution, but they are widespread. And not only are they cheap, to be successful they have to have a lot of dishes, and that means vegetables! They aren't all the best quality, but after a strict rice and beans diet (which even I get tired of if it's more than once a day), the variety (if not the hot sauce) is the spice of lunch (sorry).

I am still refining me buffet dish selection process (these buffets are not to be confused with their American "all you can eat" cousins, you pay by the plate, so visual decision making is key), but suffice it to say that I am eating a far greater variety of plant species. And though I am still religiously taking my vitamins, Rwandan is of course the place that I got my first cold since Ethiopia..

Breakfast in Rwanda

The original plan was to travel all the way from Kigoma to Kigali in one day. While this journey is perhaps 100miles as the crow flies, and still only 300 by road, I knew this was an ambitious plan. When, just outside of Kigoma a truck spun out in the mud, blocking the road for a few hours I knew it wasn't going to happen. The rest of the trip went smoothly however, and I did make it to the (former refugee camp) town of Benako at the border just before sundown. I settled in at a derelict guesthouse (no running water) and went to bed.

I woke up early the next morning and went out to look for something to eat before I hit the road. After looking around, and asking a few people, I pulled up a bucket around an open fire with a small group of people where they were brewing coffee, and even had mandazi (soggy donut type things). The people were friendly, the breakfast was as good as expected, and soon enough I was on the back of a motorcycle headed towards Rusumo Falls (Tanzania/Rwanda border, [pictured]).

Most borders are hell, with overzealous immigration officers surrounded by disreputable towns. This border was thankfully a breeze (though if I wasn't American or a select group of other nationalities I would have been refused entry and would have had to go the nearest Rwandan embassy to arrange a visa [in Nairobi], a rare time when it paid to be from the good ol' USA, lots of other countries charge us 10times what others pay to reciprocate our generous immigration policies.) So I walk into Rwanda to await the next minibus headed towards Kigali. I had some time to wait so I walked around the Rwandan side of the border. It was immediately apparent that the standard of life was a bit higher on this side of the imaginary line. I stopped into a local restaurant for a 2nd breakfast (It was only 8 in the morning) and for less than $1.50, had an amazing breakfast of fresh chapatis, eggs, beans, and tea. Needless to say, this was a good sign of things to come in the land of a thousand hills.

Gombe

Gombe Stream National Park is where Jane Goodall's chimp research happened and is still happening. But it wasn't just the chimps that made it amazing.

Gombe is a tiny park squeezed into the shore of Lake Tanganyika. It's topography is more related to it's location between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria where Tanzania, the DR Congo, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda all converge, than the rest of Tanzania. It is basically a thin strip of mountains covered by temperate rainforest and the lake. It is beautiful. It is also very remote, about three days tortouous travel from Dar es Salaam (if you are not flying) and then a few hours in a boat from Kigoma (I was in Kigoma checking up on a VGIF site anyway). Since it is low season for tourists (rainy season), I had the place to myself. And I mean I was literally the only mzungu there.

The park only has the capacity to sleep about 25 visitors, but there wasn't another guest in sight. There were plenty of staff, researchers etc, but I was the only tourist. I had a private park for myself. I tracked chimps with only the researchers (and they really didn't seem to be doing too much research, more like sitting around and telling jokes) and had the good fortune to see a lot chimpanzees.

The pictures aren't the best (flash was not allow). But the best time was when I put the camera away anyway. I am trying to take more videos (if not upload them due to African bandwidths).

Here is a video clip of a baby chimp playing in a tree above me:

the Beach

The Beach, Gombe Stream National Park, Western Tanzania

Road Show

Here are some pictures from the last month and a half:

The Beach to the Jungle

Life on the Road

life on the road

The Art of Eating a Mango

Maybe I just haven't eaten enough mangoes in my life (I blame my mother), or maybe Tanzania just produces really good mangoes, but I have gained a lot of appreciation for this inimitable fruit. Considering the pretty much tropical locale, fruit really isn't that prevalent. Other than the mango, there is: papaya, bananas, pineapple passion fruit and maybe some hard local pears, oranges or apples, but that is it, and many places you'd be hard pressed to find any fruit at all. The one real exception to this dearth of fruit has been the mango, and alas it seems that their season is about over..

One of the reasons I have consumed so many mangoes is because there is no real juice culture here. In Ethiopia juice was very common (and thus cheap and good) so I didn't eat as much fruit. Here, juice is expensive ($2-3) and rarely sold fresh outside of tourist places, but the mangoes are (or were) available and exceptional.

There are two basic kinds of mango: the small green one's that are eaten unripe with salt and chili, and the big one's that get a little reddish when ripe (the regular ones you find at home). I like the regular ones. I like them a little bit under ripe like I like most fruit, for the firmness and tiny bit of tartness (I know many people consider this sacrilegious). The big ones look a little more intimidating than their small green counterpart, but they are really a good sized snack. The pit accounts for much of the size, which is the reason eating them is an art rather than a science.

There are many ways to eat a mango. The assymetrical ness is really what necessitates the creativity. One cannot (especially with the local, non-gmo big pitted variety) cut it half then in quarters or any other fraction very easily, you have to improvise. Some people peal the skin off methodically and to make sure they get all the fruit. This isn't always a good technique when you are sitting on the beach or in your hotel room due to the juiciness factor.

As any little boy can tell you, it is fun to cut things with a sharp knife and mangoes are no exception (and having been carrying my knife around for 5 months, it's nice to actually use it). The way it is served in restaurants here, the bigger (more fruit) half is cut off and then it is cut for easy eating with a fork or spoon. When I am eating my mangoes I like to slice into it and carve out sections. It is difficult to assess when you'll hit pit, so one must be ever vigilant and slice accordingly. No two mangoes are ever the same (like snowflakes) so every time you first pierce the peel you are engaging in a unique piece of performance art.