Our stories

Malawi against the December blues

Eastern Africa, Malawi, Stories, The journeyJan 13 20145 Comments

After Rwanda we drove to Tanzania. Our first experience with Tanzania was painted in black, white and fluorescent yellow: the Tanzanian traffic police. Where on Rwandan roads, we saw only a handful of officers, Tanzania had stationed two law enforcers every 30 kilometres. We got stopped everywhere and had to show driving license, insurance and a few times our fire extinguishers. Thanks again Egyptian customs for selling us a brand new one, it impressed the police every time. Apart from two speeding tickets, which we paid ‘without receipt’ to get a discount, we got through without problems. We had a bad conscience about choosing the corrupt way though, but we thought that when you drive 66 where you are allowed 50, there are hardly speed signs and you can’t really see where the village starts or ends, paying under the table is a bit more justifiable. We are still on the cheap, you know 🙂 But to avoid more corruption scenes, we have been driving strictly max 50 and 80 since then, as if we were two school kids yearning for a sticker.

We camped at Manyara National Park a couple of days (one of the excellent top-10 highlights of Africa list Tante G. sent us), did a game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater and drove up the Usambara Mountains. After that we went on to one of our absolute highlights of this journey: a week on Zanzibar including Christmas celebration.

Zanzibar has always been a separate state. It had been in the hands of Oman Arabs for several hundred years and was used for growing and trading spices and slaves between the African mainland and the Arabic world. The slaves came from all over Eastern Africa, even as far inland as Zambia, slaves were captured and transported through Malawi and Tanganyika to Zanzibar. Still today you see Arabic influences everywhere, giving the island a mysterious 1001 night atmosphere, unique in Africa. Only after Tanganyika gained independence from England in the 60s (the Germans had to give up their colony after WWI), Zanzibar and the mainland were combined and called the Republic of Tanzania.

Zanzibar was like a holiday within a holiday. And yes, I am aware of how decadent this sounds. Not only because Zanzibar looks like a perfect tropical island with sandfly-free white sandy beaches, palmtrees and turquoise clear water, but also because we didn’t have our home, the Bushi with us. It is comparable to when you have a day off and you’re at home: you always feel there are things to do. Groceries, laundry, ‘I should finally get this and that fixed’. The same with the bus: we had starting problems, the exhaustion pipe rattled again and the solar electricity didn’t work, again. This week we didn’t have to worry about that, we left the Bushi on the secure parking lot of the YWCA and took the ferry.

Conny almost had a fit when he went bolistic over the ferry ticket rules. First, when buying a ticket, locals had to stay in line at the counter, foreigners were invited into the ticket booth to register and get their ticket. Not a good feeling, to be given priority while all others had to wait. Second, foreigners can’t buy any other ticket than a VIP one, at several times the price of a local ticket, you can’t find any way to get on that ferry on the cheap. We discussed this with our ticket seller, complained, but he was clear about the rules: ‘you are a foreigner, you pay more, and if you don’t like it, don’t go on the ferry. Nobody forces you to.’ And the longer the discussion went on, the more mad Conny got about this inequality, about not being able to bargain, about having no choice. His face turned redder, the veins in his neck grew thicker and he started yelling ‘that this was discrimination! When you people come to Germany we don’t charge you more than locals! This is bullshit!’ and he paced up and down the small aisle behind the vendor chairs. It must have been a funny sight from the outside: three ticket sellers facing their window, ignoring the white man behind them raging in anger and yelling that ‘this wasn’t fair!’, next to him a coloured woman looking embarrassed at the ceiling and the ticket vendors remaining absolutely calm and stoic about the raging man behind them. It was very amusing but also a bit embarrassing theatre, so after 5 minutes I shoved Conny from the booth and bought our overpriced tickets. Embrace Africa.

Zanzibar was a delight and kitesurfers paradise. We stayed in a low budget backpackers lodge right at the beach where we met many great people from France, Slovenia, Portugal, Austria and Germany, some of them we celebrated Christmas with. And: we met our good friend Wouter from the NL again! Conny did a two day Kitesurfing course and was total begeistert, so the man found his new hobby. He already fantasized about buying a Volkswagen T5 in the future and driving to kite spots in Europe…perhaps also with Phillip and Matze…

We were in a village where, according to the Lonely Planet, it should have been backed with people. It wasn’t actually. High season had started but there were very little people and also the bars and restaurants complained about the quietness. This is something we also noticed from the moment we set foot in Egypt: it is quiet, there are only a few backpackers, even less overlanders. It is because of the crisis, turmoil or last years terrorists attacks in Kenya and Zanzibar? Probably a combination of factors.

After Zanzibar we headed for Malawi, where we hoped to find the best possible spot for celebrating New Year’s eve. We were really looking forward to a great night: to celebrate with friends we met along the way, to meet local Malawians and not go home before the sun had risen over. It just had to be epic. Why was this so important to us? Because we had felt quite homesick. It was December, and December is the time to spend with family, to enjoy the cosy Weihnachtsmarkt and the smell of Zimtsterne. In December we have our absolute highlight of the year: the skiing trip with friends, celebrating New Years in the Austrian snow. And we missed that. Here we were in Malawi, which was great, but despite many emails and some phonecalls, our friends and family felt far away. So we needed to dance our blues away and Nkhata Bay was our best bet.

On the way to the lake we had met Trish & Dan, a couple from New Orleans with whom we felt a connection immediately. They were backpacking around the world for one year and had comparable learnings, doubts, highlights and challenges that we faced on the journey. It was nice to talk to ‘equal souls’ on positive as well as negative things about travelling the way that we do.

Nkhata Bay turned out to be a good decision. All backpackers had checked in at the same place, a laid back hostel overlooking the lake. On the 31st, the hostel had organised a boat trip and 50 people squeezed, African style, onto a small boat. We drove to an island where people did snorkelling, playing with local kids and beachvolley. Well, we didn’t do any of the active things, we just got to know the large German-Austrian delegation that consisted of a few students and many NGO believers. You probably know our viewpoint on NGO work: not only do we believe that they aren’t the solutions, we also think it can even be counterproductive because it excuses the government of talking their responsibility of taking care of their people in need. (I’m aware that I state it unnuanced and overgeneralized, but I take this liberty just for the sake of keeping the story short. Happy to discuss further when we are home again). So often when we talk to NGO people there is this awkward moment. They ask what you do, you ask what they do, and sometimes I just can’t put on a appreciative face when they say ‘teaching teachers, but that’s only when they turn up, sometimes my classroom remains empty…’ , or ‘feeding abandoned street dogs’. And when they ask if I’ve ever considered volunteering, I have to be honest. And when I say that I don’t believe in effectiveness of NGOs and that I would never volunteer in Africa, there is this moment of silence, shock (on the other face) and a strange moment where the other silently decides if he/she still wants to talk to me or is walking away.

Everybody, Malawians and tourists, went to a local bar called Kaya Papaya on New Year’s eve. It was packed with people, they played Malawian pop music and there was a good mixture of black and white. The atmosphere was very jolly and everybody was looking for a good time. But soon we noticed something. The Malawian men were all very, very keen for contact and approached us at every occasion, slapping us on the back, saying ‘hey my friend, hey sister, how are you/where you from/etc etc. Great and nice to meet new people, but they were very persistent in ‘claiming’ you. I remember that we talked to Trish & Dan, asking ‘have you also been talking to so many Malawians?’ and they had. In fact, every tourist was approached very pro-actively. You couldn’t stand for one second alone or a new guy approached, sometimes even pushing away an other Malawian competing for contact. Soon we discovered why, when a young man from Malawi pulled the proverbial rabbit from the hat: ‘Hey my friends! You ok? So, what I wanted to ask…’ He paused, looked a bit insecure but decided to pop the question anyway, ‘can you buy me a beer?’ That’s what it was largely about! The whole night we saw Malawians asking tourists to buy them beers and they were determined: even when you said no twice, they had no problem in trying a third time. But eventually I think everybody drew their wallets at least once because at the end of the evening, many Malawians as well as tourists swaggered on their feet. Well, I guess also the marihuana also played a role: even though I’d lived in the ganja-walhalla Amsterdam (but never seen a coffeeshop from the inside), we didn’t have a clue that Malawi is famous for pot. Here ‘Bob Marley cigarettes’ were even cheaper then beer, so many people left the party rather red-eyed.

But don’t get me wrong, there were more Malawians just looking for a great time and NOT asking for stuff. In fact, we felt that the Malawians were very hospitable and enjoyable, fun people.

That morning, the sun was already up, we went home together with Trish & Dan and overlooked the crystal blue Lake Malawi before saying goodbye. We were silent for a few moments, I thought about our friends in the Austrian snow and about those celebrating in Amsterdam clubs or with friends at home, and had that bittersweet feeling of missing friends and family: bitter because you miss them, sweet because you feel how much you care for them. Conny looked at me, smiled, and said ‘this night couldn’t have been any better.’ And I agreed.

One chicken to go, please

Stories, Tanzania, The journeyJan 08 20146 Comments

It has been awhile since you have heard from us, but this blog writer took a short break over the holidays, so we have a lot of catching up to do! I hope everybody had a warm and loving Christmas and has celebrated a great New Year. Next story will be about our travels between Rwanda and Malawi, but since this story is still in the making, I’d like to share this little chicken story with you first.

Before our trekking in the Simien Mountains in Ethiopia four three months ago, we did some major grocery shopping. We got help from a local guy who directed us from shop to shop until we had checked almost all boxes of our shopping list. Don’t get me wrong, normally we do our grocery shopping without guide, but in Ethiopia it is very difficult to see what is sold being sold: there are no signs over the door and the little food that they sell is usually stored behind the counter, invisible to clueless windowshoppers. So we needed a personal shopper 🙂

We wanted to feed our trekkingparty (the security guy, the mule man and us) well, so we decided to get some chicken. ‘You want chicken? Let’s go get chicken’ and the boy lead the way through narrow and busy street. We stopped at the market where we saw women selling fruit, vegetables, goats and chickens, everything on blankets on the floor or from buckets on their heads. We looked around insecurely for a supermarket or at least a fridge, expecting to find some sealed boneless chicken or drumsticks. Our guy disappeared in the crowd and returned after two minutes. ‘You wanted chicken? Here’s your chicken!’ and he held a living chicken upside down and dangled it before our eyes. We looked helplessly at the dizzy animal. Without much hope we still tried: ‘not exactly what we had in mind, possible to buy any packed chicken somewhere?’ He didn’t understand us and scrutinised the feathers. ‘What is wrong this chicken?’

Later he asked why we had looked so anxious and hadn’t bought the chicken. Obviously the man had no idea that us city people only know chicken prepared by a butcher or packed from the supermarket. How should he have known that city people have no clue on how to slaughter a chicken, how to pluck it, what parts to remove and how to cook it, in the mountains, on a one pits campingaz?

When we were in Tanzania on a campsite at the foot of the Kilimanjaro, we met three great travellers from South Africa. They were some of the most hospitable people we have met on the way. They brought South Africa to live for us: countless stories about zebras grazing in their backyard, life in Pretoria, their travels through Africa and their love for South Africa. We could even speak some Dutch, because the Afrikaans that they spoke resembles a sort of old fashioned version of Dutch.

They had all grown up on a wildfarm or still lived there and were therefore very close to nature and animals. Or must I say, their meat. When I mentioned that I had never killed and prepared so much as a chicken, William looked at me in astonishment: ‘why not? It is so easy!’ Okay, challenge accepted, one is in Africa or one isn’t.

Next day Cornelius and I went to the market to get a chicken. The smell guided us to the livestock corner of the market: a heavy perfume mixed from animal dung, overripe fruit and dried fish. In the chicken sector, cages were piled up 2 meters high, every cage containing about 10 chickens. A women was plucking a chicken over a bucket of steaming hot water, the vendor was just slitting a roosters neck in one quick move and catching its blood in a cup. Either you could have your chicken killed and plucked, or you could take your animal home and do it yourself.

So the vendor handed us several chickens and roosters that we held by the legs and compared their weight. We didn’t know that when you hold a chicken upside down, it freezes, dead silent, doesn’t move anymore. Transportable, that means! You see many Africans walking around holding a chicken by the legs as if it is a fashionable handbag, or walking their pet, in a sort of morbid way. Eventually we chose a healthy looking, white feathered, heavy rooster and the vendor handed me our chicken. I paused for a second, thinking how we would take it home because we still had some more shopping to do and we were by local transportation. ‘Oh yes, sorry, here you are’ and the sales man put the chicken head down in a plastic bag.

It was a hot day and the poor animal was panting in the bag, its breath even formed a humid spot on the inside, like a child breathing on a window to draw a funny face in the foggy circle. We tried to keep the top open as much as possible, but there is only so much a chicken-buyer can do…

To make things worse, the streets were busy and at one point I had to step aside to avoid walking into someone, overlooking a streetlight. I heard a dull smack and the bag spun around: oh no! I had accidentally swung the bag against the pole, causing the chicken to hit its head. Folks, I’m definitely not proud of it, but I had the sensation of feeling deeply guilty but at the same time I couldn’t suppress a broad grin and I mumbled a ‘sorry, chick’ to the opening of the bag.

Back at the camp with instructions from William, we killed, plucked and cooked our chicken. It may sound a bit superficial, but it gave us a caveman feeling, a sense of pride being able to make our own food from a living animal. We felt very satisfied to know that if things turn for the worse and there is no more food in the stores (in a very unlikely apocalypse scenario), we can always ransack the chicken pit.

Carrying chickens in the hand or in a plastic bag, like this Coca Cola vendor does, is daily business in Africa.

A peek into our daily life

About us two, The car, The journeyDec 17 20134 Comments

About 4,5 months we have been on the road now, and these have been our first 4,5 months ‘living together’ in our house called Bushi. Some of you asked us how it is: how we live and how we organize things around here. Let’s give you a little peek into our daily small victories and major challenges that we face here, in African surroundings.

Living on 8 square meters

Sharing the small van has actually worked out better as expected, it seems that the sudden change from long-distance relationship to no-distance relationship hasn’t posed any problems. We asked each other in the beginning wheter we would have gone on this adventure when we didn’t have a strong believe that it would work out. We wouldn’t have, we were both convinced that we would return to the northern hemisphere as a happy camper couple. So far, we are still on track.

Needless to say, there are some minor details, starting with our sleeping arrangements. We are on a 1,15 m wide mattrass. Wide enough in itself, but it becomes fun when one of us has to go to the bathroom. How it works: we lie with our heads in driving direction, but to climb out, you have to climb backwards from the bed, via the front seats, to the middle of the car to the sliding side door. This requires some flexibility and I admire Herr H., the car pre-owner who is a bit closer to retirement age as we are, he also still did the climb every night. Respect.

So when you wake up at night you have to turn on your belly, pull your knees under you, get to your feet, then sit on your buttock and stretch your legs, slide forward, punt your feet on the drivers seat, turn around and slide down to the floor. And trying to do so without waking the other half.

Can imagine that for Cornelius, this is annoyance number 1. Why? Since my bladder is the size of a walnut, I have to go to the toilet twice every night. And when I open the zipper of the mosquito net, albeit with love & care, it makes noise. So he wakes up. Which is not the biggest problem. But sometimes I’m so groggy, that when I pull my feet under me and my butt is still hanging in the air, I lose my balance and tip over, landing with my full weight, butt first, on sleeping Conny. Meine Güte was that man screaming the first time that happend! Then again, that was indeed in one of the carb-heavy countries and perhaps my behind was also a bit carb-heavy.

Luckily, he has 2 favorite ways of getting back to me, but he didn´t allow me to disclose them to you. So for those who are curious: you can stalk him for that individually via email. Hehe.

Apart from that, we have optimised space, know our way around the kitchen and storage, it really feels like home.

Toilet blues

To continue a bit in the toilet area: visiting African toilets can be an absolute lowlight. When we are on the road, we just do it ‘in the wild’. We mostly find a quiet spot for a quick pit stop, but sometimes when you just crouched, a bunch of kids comes running up to watch the muzungu show. In the beginning we tried our best to wrap it up, get back in the car and find a new spot, but after a while we figured ‘well, what the heck’ and have accepted the audience and lost some of our embarassment.

Also animals can be interesting. Animal-lover Cornelius made his pitstop in the wild one time. A herd of goats walked up and one of the animals seized the opportunity to quench its thirst: it walked up to Conny, lifted its head and started to drink from Connies pee. Conny, who felt his personal space invaded, made 2 steps to the side to disencourage the goat, but that animal was determined! It also shuffeled to the left and kept on drinking, enjoying the treat. Conny looked disturbed but surrendered to the goat, I cracked up laughing. It was a hilarious sight, Conny and the drinking goat.

Africans and Europeans understandings of what is clean, are miles apart. I had to pay for a public toilet one day. From the odeur 3 meters away, I got a sneak presmell of what was about to come, so I said to the toilet man ‘I’ll only pay if the toilet is clean, if not, I keep the coins in my pocket’. ‘OK, deal’, he said, ‘it is clean’. I’ll spare you the details, but upon coming out I had an honest vomit reflex. When the toilet man stuck out his hand for the money, I yelled ‘you call that clean?!’ He responded stoic, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, ‘yes, the toilet is clean, African clean! Now give me 100 Shilling’.

Nightwatch or nightmare?

Most guesthouses or campsites have a nightwatch to provide extra security. These are without exception older men, dressed in ragged clothes, often with thick jacket and hat. Not the nicest job, because mostly these men also have dayjobs and they have to stay awake all night. The nightwatches have a nasty habit of sneaking around very silently, you never see or hear them coming. They keep their flashlights switched off, only to be turned on when they suspect intrusion.

Often there is a significant distance between our car and the toilets. If we wake up in the middle of the night, we don´t feel like walking those 300 meters. So sometimes, when it is dark, we just make ourselves comfortable next to the bus and quickly hop back in, hoping to keep that sleepiness so that we fall asleep again immediately.

And this poses a problem. Sliding the door makes noise. When the nightwatch hears something, they tiptoe over to check it out. And just when you think it´s just you, the stars and the crickets: the nightmare dressed in black comes out of nowhere, turns on his flashlight and puts your privates in the spotlight. Add to that the fact that you are in your underwear: not the best way to get caught. So with an emberassed ‘I’m sorry, will never do it again sir’ you end it as soon as possible and pull back into the bus, heart still stumping and your face blushing.

Eating fine food

The food is mostly good. We try to eat as much local food as possible: beans, spinach, chapatti (savory pancake, exactly like roti), stew, rice and sweet potato. In Uganda and Rwanda buffets are popular: for 1,5 Euro you get one plate of your choice. First time we sat in a corner enjoying the sight: people get one plate, but pile their fries, beans, spaghetti, meat and sauce up to 15 cm high! They build a real kilimanjaro of food. But, still one plate.

When it comes to eating, it looks like people have serious catching up to. Yesterday our neighbour at the table had little money but big hunger: he ate 7 dry buns and 1 plain chapatti. It is good to see that basic food is cheap and even the poorest can afford something to eat.

Despite the good food, we sometime really enjoy some delicacies from home. In Uganda we found a dutch baker selling krentenbollen and pepernoten. In Kigali we discovered a German butchery and Cornelius was happy as a child in a candy store: he bought Leberwurst, Brot aus Sauerteig, Zimtschnecke, Schinken and for me a pack of Haribo Lakritz. (Amelie: Konfekt, genau die Gute, in Pink und mit Kokos!)

Behind the wheel

The driving is shared among us, altough I think it is 65% Cornelius and 35% me. Driving has become more easy after Ethiopia, because the roads are better and there are no million cows, donkeys and sheep crossing at will, so we usually move at a nice grandma pace of 70-80 km/h. We get pulled over by the police regularly, but after Kenya, they only want to check our papers. Yesterday we got pulled over by the police for speeding: we were driving 40 where 30 was allowed. They carried a lasergun showing 49 km/h, but we were 100% sure that we were driving 40 and we were also sure that they weren’t pointing that thing at us when coming around the bent, because they were chitchatting and not looking at us. So, this was not our speed. But still, we were 10 km/h too fast. So we told them our opinion firmly. The officer knodded and asked if we were carrying an extinguisher. Yes, we do! In fact, we have 2 (thanks to our currupt Egyption friends at customs). The officer was satisfied and after half an hour of smalltalk, he let us go through without a fine. Thank you Tanzania!

My driving always comes with feedback. Conny is convinced that he is the most energy-efficient driver in the world, and that I’m on the other end of the spectrum. So, he’s teaching me: here left, shift gear, break, not with the brakes, with the gear box! Turn right, slow slow slow, not in 5 here, 3! etc. etc. On the one hand it annoys me a great deal, on the other hand diesel is our biggest expenditure so I see the economic side of it. But things turn a bit more tense when we drive into a big city where there is a lot going on: my driving gets a bit worse because the attention is shared between shifting gears, breaking on the gear box, dodging motorcycle taxis, avoiding tickets, and driving safely. Or not getting us killed in traffic, that means.

Conny starts to mumble when he doesn’t know the way exactly, I have difficulties to understand mumbling German, we’re both tired from the heat and driving…You’ll probably understand, this is an explosive mix and these are not our best moments.

But, despite all this, we have both managed to drive the first 15.000 kilometers without accidents, without one flat tyre, without one scratch so I guess we are careful enough.

Apart from all of the above, we are also spending considerable time on brainstorming on business ideas and are keeping our eyes open for smart marketing ideas that may be transferable to Europe. We have discussions about the future, about our personal development paths, about branches and companies we see ourselves in. We practice daily with the things we want to learn this year. for example Cornelius has become a master in bargaining, I am gradually becoming better and better in quick decision making, without having doubts and second thoughts afterwards. But there are still a few months of training necessary!

We have been enjoying our time here together, in our tiny home, a great deal. It is not despite of, but precisely because of things like police stopovers, not finding decent food and peeing in company that we have such a good time. We try to see humour in everything that experience. And when there are small annoyances, we smile and cheer each other up by repeating our life motto here: embrace Africa!

To you all at home: we wish you a great Adventszeit and we hope that those celebrating Sinterklaas had good poems. Here the Christmas songs have started, making us looking forward to the end of December, hopefully in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

A short history lesson on the Rwandan genocide

Genocide, Rwanda, The journeyDec 09 20139 Comments

It made Cornelius feel proud of his country: at the border, German citizens can enter the country without visa. All others have to buy one. Why? We are guessing it’s because the Germans were the first colonialists from 1895 to 1916, before the Belgians took over after WWI. The Germans never really intervened with local politics or structures, something that the citizens came to appreciate a great deal after having experienced Belgian rule. Cornelius pushed the 30 USD for my visa through the window of the immigration officer and after smoothly finalizing customs procedures, we enter Rwanda.

Rwanda is a very small country, smaller than Baden-Württemberg with a population of 11 million people. It’s called the country of mille collines, or 1000 mountains, also the name of the famous hotel in which the events filmed in ‘Hotel Rwanda’ took place. There is hardly any flat spot, which forced the Rwandans to
P1060779create terraces for agriculture everywhere. With countless shades of green, the terraces make beautiful landscapes and the climate is nice and cool. The roads are of good quality and the streets are spic and span. It is hard to imagine that 20 years ago, one of the most horrible genocides the world has ever witnessed, took place here.

Originally, there was no one Rwandan peoples. There were 18 tribes consisting of Hutu and Tutsi. It was not ethnicity that distinguished people from each other, but tribe. The Twa, a tribe that also lives in Uganda, Congo and Burundi, made up a small minority. Before Belgian rule, the Rwandans were said to live peaceful together. For centuries, the country had a feudal structure in which the Tutsi had dominated the Hutu. The Tutsi were an aristocratic minority that ruled, owned politics, that owned cattle and land. The Hutu lived and worked agriculturally on Tutsi land, paying part of their crops as taxes. Division between people was socio-economic, not ethnic. Both accepted the situation and there had indeed been peace and stability, but some say that already before the Belgians started interfering, the Hutu grew more and more dissatisfied with their elite landlords and their own inferior position.

In the 30s, the Belgians aimed to tighten their grip on the country, to increase their power. And like most colonial rulers, they follow a divide-and-conquer strategy: they categorized people along ethnic lines by giving them the label Hutu or Tutsi, regardless of tribe. How they made this very random distinction: people that owned more than 10 cows were named Tutsi, people with less cows were Hutu. People were forced to carry an identity paper with a large H or T stamped on it. The Belgians had always supported the Tutsi, using them as political allies, favoring them with high positions and resources. This, combined with the ethnic segregation and the identity cards increased tension between the two parties. Additionally, the Belgians saw the growing anti-Tutsi sentiment by the larger Hutu group as an opportunity and changed allegiance: they dropped the Tutsi and made the Hutu their ally, which further incited hatred between the groups.

In the early 60s, tensions climaxed for the first time and the country counted 4 waves of tens of thousands Tutsi massacred by the Hutu.

The country gained independence in ’62, leaving rule to the moderate prime minister Kayibanda. For awhile, the future of Rwanda looked hopeful until in ’73 the radical and fascist Habyarimana seized power. He built a very effective army, the Interahamwe, and fed the Hutu his divisive ideology on a daily basis: these cockroaches (the Tutsi), should be eliminated. The country should be cleansed, and everybody, every Hutu, should pick up a weapon and start the process today. In the period between independence and 1990, 700.000 Tutsi fled the country and tens of thousands were killed.

In the meantime, Paul Kagame (the current president of Rwanda) had built his own opposition army in Uganda, working together with Museveni (the current president of Uganda) in ending the Idi Amin and Obote terror regimes there. He had trained and perfected his army and on 1 October 1990, his Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) marched up to Rwandas capital to overtrow the fascistic Hutu MRND party and conquer the Interahamwe army. This could have been effective, but France stepped in and provided the radical party with weapons, money and training to stop the RPF. Both Belgium and France kept on supporting the fascist regime and between 1990 and 1994, 8 smaller genocides took place.

Hutu president Habyarimana felt the pressure and softened his radical vision, he declared willingness to reunite the two groups and to share power. His fanatic rebels didn’t like this at all. When his plane was shot down, his own Interahamwe army were the alledged terrorists. And from that day, not even an hour after the plane crashed into the runway, the first roadblocks appeared. It was April 6, 1994, and the genocide started in full force.

In 100 days, the Hutu slaughtered 1 million Tutsi, moderate Hutu and Twa and hundreds of thousands in exile. I say here slaughtered, because that’s what is was: brutal killing. Tutsi were bludgeoned to death, burnt, buried alive, women raped and then killed, skulls split by machetes. There were stories of priests reporting hundreds of Tutsi hiding in their church, after which the church was set on fire, killing all refugees. Stories of women raped by HIV positive men but spared to die later of the disease. Stories of children having to kill their parents before being killed themselves.

The Hutu ignited a very effective propaganda machine: they used radio and village campaigns to motivate all Hutu citizens, to pick up a weapon, any weapon, and kill the Tutsi and moderate Hutu. This brainwash was very effective and almost all Hutu people old enough to play their morbid part, did so.

Before April, the highest UN commander in charge in Rwanda warned the UN headquarters that a genocide was coming, that he needed 5000 soldiers to prevent it. But he got a fax back from Kofi Annan that ‘they would not intervene before the Committee had formed an opinion’. Only when the genocide was at its end, the 5000 men landed in Uganda. Meanwhile, the international community watched and did nothing while 1 million people found death and 2 million turned into refugees.

What shocked us most, is not only the magnitude of the genocide, but foremost the role that normal, Hutu civilians played. Normal people, fathers, sons, truckdrivers, doctors, turned in or killed their neighbors, friends, employees, church members. And not only killed them, but butchered them in ways we couldn’t even imagine. In other genocides the evil was primarily done by the militia, rebels, armed professionals. Normal civilians may have played their part by looking away or not providing help, but here normal people turned into assassins. Why? What was the difference between this genocide and for example the holocaust in Germany or the erasing of the Armenians in the Ottoman empire? Were Rwandan people so different from the Germans or the Ottomans then? Was it the propaganda machine? Was it African tribal culture?

The Genocide Memorial Center also had a section on other genocides. ‘To put the Rwandan civil war in perspective’, they told us. What perspective? They showed explanations, pictures and personal stories of the genocides in Namibia, during WWII, in Armenia and in Bosnia. We were looking for lessons learned and essentials on how to prevent genocides. We scrutinized the text for similarities, differences and causes. We tried to find something on efforts done today to educate people, to see how it changed decision making at UN Headquarters. But we found nothing.

In fact, this addition without conclusions gave us a slight feeling that Rwanda tried to lift some heaviness from their history by showing that other countries did even worse. ‘See? There were 1,5 million Armenians killed. See? 6 million Jews.’ Maybe that’s what they meant by putting things in perspective.

The center was not so forgiving towards other countries. When Cornelius read sentences like ‘the German people killed…’ and ‘Germany still hasn’t compensated its warcrimes’, he felt a bit offended. The feeling of victory he had when entering the country vaporised then and there.

Today, Rwanda is all about forgetting the past and focus on a peaceful future of one Rwanda. This bears great similarity to the situation in South-Africa after Apartheid (I’m actually writing this on the day that Nelson Mandela passed away, a symbolic coincidence).

There are no Hutu and Tutsi anymore, there is only one peoples. It is said that 90% of all Hutu have blood on their hands, most of them are still alive and living safely and happily. In the aftermath of the civil war, around 100.000 people were brought to court, in my opinion a negligable figure when you compare that to the calculated 800.000 that committed war crimes. Intuitively, you think that the right thing to do is to have all criminals stand trial. On the other hand, how can you move forward as a country when almost half of your population would end up in jail? What would the economic impact be and what would it do to the national psyche?

I felt my eyes becoming wet when I read this quote from a girl that survived: ‘I’m apprehensive about the future, don’t know how I will survive. How can I live when my whole family is killed, I am all alone and I see the killers walking around every day, free, never having to face justice?’

For female readers only – or for those who understand black hair

Rwanda, The journeyDec 08 20138 Comments

If men do decide to read this post: you do so at your own risk, so don’t throw any accusations of being utterly superficial at me afterwards… I count on my female friends that they regard this story in the right context 🙂

So we are in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. There are interesting, impressive things to write about this country, and I will do so in the next post. But for now I would like to share this little pleasure with you: my visit to a black-hairdresser.

Those who have know me quite some time, are aware of the struggle I have had with my hair all my life. The first 14 years my mom battled for me, armed with comb, scissors and coconut fat, later the hairdresser took over. I always went to the hairdresser unenthusiastically. Why? Because these parlours are the domain, the arena of bossy, big, know-it-all Surinamese women who never, ever let an opportunity pass to critisize. ‘Je haar is sooo drooog! Je moet meer vet zetten!’ while pulling it, showing the dry, hay-like top of my head to their colleagues. ‘You should have come ages and ages ago!’ shouting through the salon, while shaking their head in disapproal. The other clients looking from under their curl pins, seeming to think ‘I don’t understand that child either, how did her mother raise her?!’ When we could, my sister Pauline and I would go together, that way we felt a bit stronger somehow. And always when we left, we promised to do better this time.

It was only after I reached my thirties, that I was finally able to walk in there confident enough not to be bothered by getting the evil-hairdresser-eye. It gave me strength to say in my head ‘no, I don’t soak my hair in hair mayonnaise every weekend, and no, I don’t blow-dry it every day. So what?’ I know, this is a very personal and very sad fact about me, hehe.

4 Months of travelling got the better of my furry friends: it was dry as never before, it would only stand upright, despite the bright yellow ‘hair food’ fat I got at an Ethiopian supermarket. I even thought that the Rwandan women were looking at the spot over my forehead strangely, but that could have very well been a product of my own insecure imagination.

The women here have the typical African do: they weave (the ones with lots of money), they straight (the ones with some money) and they wear wigs (the ones without money). A fluffy do like mine? Nobody wears that.

So, time for the hairdresser. I walked into a salon and was greeted by a trendy looking fellow, asking what he could do for me. I wasn’t sure if he knew S-curl, the texturiser that I used to get every 2 months. But my hairguy knew the drill and needed no explanation whatsoever. ‘How long it will take? Only 30 minutes, madam’. 30 minutes?! In Amsterdam, you first have to wait 1 hour for your turn, than it takes another 2 to 3 hours before it is finished. I recognised his skill when he gently put a layer of vaseline on my forehead. (Extra explanation: the cream that is used is such a nasty chemical, that if you leave it in too long or when it drips on your forehead, it burns your skin. The vaseline is for protection, but the dodgy salons often skip that detail). In black hair land the starting touch of the Pros. I felt in afro-heaven.

Cornelius dropped in a few seconds to ask how much money he should get at the ATM to pay for me (like I said, heaven) and suddenly my neighbour, a beautiful Rwandan woman, said in fluent german: ‘sprichst Du Deutsch? Ich bin aus Augsburg’. Turned out she was married to a german guy she met in Edeka (sort of german Albert Heijn) while on holidays. She was getting a weave and judging by the expensive watch on her arm and the Louis Vuitton between her high heeled feet, she got the high quality real hair.

For those of you who don’t know what a weave is: it is wavy, long hairpieces that are stitched to your own hair, that remains fully covered. Sort of like a wig, but then without the risk of it flying away in stormy weather. Normally when black women straight their hair it is without curls, but it isn’t flexible. It is fixed, even when it is long, and when you turn your head, you hair does the same. Imagine that helmet of Darth Vader, but then in hair. Imagine removing the rubber band from your ponytail, and still the ponytail keeps its shape, it doesn’t fall on the shoulders.

You see a black woman with wavy long hair, the type of hair that dances in the wind? That is a weave. No black woman has hair like that. Beyonce? A weave. Tyra Banks? A weave. And my neighbour definitely had a beyonce-like hairpiece going on.

I asked her where she got the hair from. ‘Switzerland. They sell good hair there. 500 Euros, imported from India. In Augsburg they haven’t even heard of the weave so I have to go abroad’. I nodded understandingly. Real hair costs money, and you don’t want any cheap synthetic hair: Pauline explained that on Aruba, these women are called ‘Syn’thia’. Look at that Syn’thia over there’. Being a Syn’thia is something that every black woman wants to avoid.

Behind me, there were four girls detangling the rasta braids from a womans head. It surprised me to see that where normally the Africans aren’t the experts on doing things efficiently, here they worked together smoothly and within no time all her rasta braids were piled on the floor.

My hairguy worked through the steps without pausing. A nice difference to the salons with the Surinamese women: for them, going to the salon is mainly a social event and sometimes the hairdressers talk so much, are so caught up in their gossip that they forget to cut or put you under the hair dryer for another hour (although you just finished that first hour and not only is your hair dry, but also your mouth and eyes and your armpits are sweating from overheating).

Without any criticism or rolling eyes, the hairguy had me leaving the mall with shiny and wavy hair, only setting me back 17 Euros.

It was bliss to be among hair-equals for once, to be understood. This day in Kigali, Rwanda, was a very good day.

Meeting Carol and ‘her’ kids in Fort Portal

Fort Portal, HIV/Aids, UgandaNov 25 20132 Comments

‘Do you see that palace?’ from the car window we can see a round building on a hill overlooking the city. ‘It is the home of the queen of this kingdom here. Completely renovated. A few years ago the king was killed by his brother and the palace was destroyed completely. Its rebuilding was fully financed by Colonel Gaddafi’. We look surprised, we don’t understand. Why Gaddafi? We knew he had strong ties to the former Field Marshall and dictator Idi Amin, but why this local king? ‘Oh that’s easy’, Carol explains, ‘he was having an affair with the queen. But that’s not the whole story’, Carol continues.

Before the rebuilding started, Gaddafi, a cruel and paranoid man, wanted to make an offer (to whom? The gods, Allah, the spirits?). Goal: to be ‘granted’ a flawless project. Not much later, word on the street was that he had ordered to sacrifice four babies, their heads were to be given Gaddafi for good luck. ‘Yet this story was so horrifying, so diabolic, that no one really believed it’, said Carol, ‘neither did I, until the day I saw the picture in the newspaper’. So what happened: the killer had walked along the main road where a young mother was selling some food, her baby lying at her feet. In broad daylight, the assassin had snatched the baby and before the woman could react, he had chopped of the head with a machete. He tried to run off with the head, but in a few seconds, bystanders formed a crowd and cornered the man. There, right at the spot, the furious mob lynched the man.

The next day, the local newspaper published the photo of the lynched killer lying on the pavement, the decapitated baby a few feet away. ‘That’s where it happened, the bodies were lying just…there’. While driving, Carol is pointing a a spot at the side of the main street from Fort Portal to Kasusu. I felt as if I just swallowed a large stone. Carol shook her head slowly: ‘that’s just one of the many horrors that happened here, and are still happening every day around Uganda.’

We are in Fort Portal, a small town in the western region of Uganda. Because of the height, the air is cool, the landscape is lush and green, heavy clouds around the Rwenzori Mountains (5100 m high) form beautiful sky art. We love it here. Not only because the surroundings remind Cornelius of home in South Germany, but also because we getting to know the Ugandans better. And we are impressed to see their kindness, openness and most of all, resilience.

We are at the Youth Encouragement Services (YES) hostel, from where owner Carol runs several projects aiming to give children a chance at a good future. Or even a future at all. Carol is an American lady who has been here for 18 years and in that time she has facilitated schooling for dozens of kids and agricultural support for again dozens of families. Besides that, she runs an orphanage for HIV positive children.

It is very difficult for children that are born with HIV to survive here. Not only because they are malnourished and medication is not available or of bad quality, but also because of the social isolation. Often they are orphans and are in the care of their extended families who often don’t treat them well. Some families starve the children, since ‘they are going to die soon anyway’. The scarce food should therefore be given to healthy children. Sometimes the parents suffer from mental illnesses as a result of progressed Aids. People here believe that mental illnesses are the evil work of spirits, that people are possessed, or bewitched. And that this is transferrable, in the blood. So if one of the parents is aggressive or acting schizophrenic, they want to get rid of the child as well. And starvation, sending them away, or sometimes even killing them is their way to protect the family.

When Carol hears of children facing such a threat, she takes them into her rescue home. There they are well fed, treated and put on a list for adoption.

Carol drove us to the orphanage to show us around. The home had two large dorms, a kitchen, dining room, playgrounds, examination rooms and a sick bay. Sick bay? Aren’t they all sick? I thought naively. I didn’t really have an image of how HIV shows itself in children. Perhaps I expected them to lie around, coughing, looking miserable. But at the home we found a healthy looking, shy but active bunch of little ones. And yes, some had rashes on their heads and they were all small for their age, but apart from that, you couldn’t have guessed that they are on loads of pills everyday.

In the hostel we met 3 American couples who are here to adopt HIV positive kids from Carol’s home. One of the mothers told us that they already adopted their daughter 8 months ago, and found out that she had a brother here. He is not HIV positive, but in a very abusive situation. So they’re trying to adopt him too, but adoption has become very difficult. ‘There is a new judge here, who is convinced that Ugandan children should stay in Uganda’, Sheila explained. Carol added that another reason the government is now reluctant, is because they want to bring a halt to the child trafficking, selling them for organ donation. Through illegal ‘adoptions’ or just after snatching children from villages, children are brought to neighbouring countries where it is said that Western families come to save their own child.

Cornelius and I have many discussions about the effectiveness of NGOs. There are many shades of grey, but to put it simply, we are both not convinced that volunteering and NGOs are the right way to accelerate development in these countries. Except when situations are so acutely life-threatening for many people and the government or tribes are too busy waging wars at the costs of their own peoples (like in Rwanda or in Darfur). In fact, we believe that it is rather counterproductive, because it gives governments an excuse to neglect their responsibilities, as the Western countries are conveniently stepping in. Why should NGOs take care of their people in need, when the government has all resources, possibilities and political stability to do it themselves?

A local pastor answered that question clearly: ‘the governments are dedicated to different priorities, mostly their own priorities, thereby keeping their resources from the people who need it most. And that’s why other people should step in: to keep children from being neglected and killed everyday’.

Although our opinions haven’t really changed, I still have great admiration for people like Carol who dedicate their life to giving a few children a future, for families like the Americans who take on the risk, cost and hassle of adopting HIV positive children. For the volunteers who try to get the kids to believe that they do have a value and that they are not worthless.

Cornelius is getting restless and wants to move on, maybe because he fears that I will grow soft and start doing some volunteering, and drag him into it, haha 🙂 So tomorrow we pack and drive towards the crater lakes. Both looking forward to do some trekking in beautiful nature again.