I got a new journal in Rwanda so this'll be an update of the last week.

Day 63 (11/03/10)

Having spent two nights in the new triple bunk bed (1 bad due to mozzy net complications and 1 good due to fixing it), we were heading back into Kampala to get a bus to Kigali, Rwanda the next day. After finishing lessons and packing we found ourselves down on the main road waving at cars passing by, hoping for someone to stop and give us a lift. Eventually someone stopped and we were back on the now familiar road to Kampala. Just a few km outside of Kampala the driver asked for a contribution to petrol money. We gave him 1000/= each and continued on. Another km or two down the road and the car broke down. We thanked them, got out and caught a mutatu the rest of the way for 500/=. A taxi all the way from our village is 2500/= so we saved some money at least. We went to Backpackers and chilled there, going twice to the market down the road for food and sodas. Even though it was a Thursday, we weren't the only ones at Backpackers. Sophie, Emily, Caitlin, Rosie, Martha and Georgia were all there too. I went on the internet at backpackers and towards the end of the night started feeling quite homesick, missing my friends and the day to day normailty and simplicity of Melbourne life. Eventually, in the wee hours of the morning, we got to bed.

Day 64 (12/03/10)

5 hours sleep and off to the Jaguar bus park. We arrived before the girls (Emma and Heather, who were coming too) and got some mandas, African tea and a big carton of juice for the journey. The girls arrived and we boarded at 8.45, ready to leave at 9. The bus was pretty cramped, with the seats nowhere near wide enough, so when I sat next to Boz it was quite uncomfortable. We passed eager food and drink sellers who stand at the windows with what they have to offer. I got some 'meat on a stick' and we were back on the road. We passed the time by talking, listening to ipods, reading and playing scrabble (gotta love travel scrabble). I got very excited when we were approaching Kabale, mistaking it for Kigali, but eventually, after about 8 or 9 hours we got to the border. We filled in the departing Uganda forms, passed through no man's land where blackmarket currency exchange people pestered us to change money with them. I stupidly managed to get scammed for 20,000/= (about $15). We then entered Rwanda, filled in the Entry forms and were back on the bus. Another hour or so on the bus and we arrived in the busy bus/taxi park in Kigali. We went and bought our return tickets then caught bodas (or motos as they called them) to Nakumatt. For a neighbouring country, things were so different. It seemed odd to start the day in an English speaking country where they drive on the left and end the day in a French speaking country where they drive on the right. Bodas were much safer as well, as they always gave you a helmet and refused to have more than 1 passenger. After buying mini baguettes, cheese, branston pickle and salami, we made our way to the hostel we were staying at. While Molkie and Heather sorted our the rooms, we sat on a wall, eating our picnic dinner. We chilled at the hostel and got to bed reasonably early.

Day 65 (13/03/10)

We woke up and left the hostel by 8.15am, heading to Bourbon cafe, a 'top pick' in the East Africa lonely planet. It was really nice and we ended up going here 3 more times in the 24 hours we had left in Kigali. Emma, who'd been to Rwanda before, went off on a 3 hour journey to one of the genocide memorial churches where they had 50,000 preserved bodies, while Heather, who'd also been there before went back to the hostel and Molkie, Boz and I wandered to where we thought the post office was. It wasn't there anymore so we got moto's to the Genocide museum. The museum had a downstairs and an upstairs, and we walked through it in silence, reading about what happened and watching the various videos and interviews. It was really moving and I'll be honest, there were tears in a few of the rooms. The first was a room where it showed pictures of people who'd put there lives at risk to protect tutsi's. One man hid 400 tutsi's in and around his house. Another room where I got a bit emotional was a room full of photos of about 1200 victims that family members had given to the museum. In this room there was also a big screen of interviews from survivors who'd lost their families. Possibly the most hard-hitting part of the museum was a room about the children who died. It would show a picture of a child, give their name, age, favourite food etc then say the way they were killed, such as machete or club. There were kids as young as 3 months and old as 17 killed in such brutal ways. The final exhibit was about other genocides in the last century and how genocide can be prevented. It was interesting to learn about but kind of took the impact away from the Rwandan genocide. After the museum, Molkie and I moto'd to where the new post office was meant to be but found that it was shut on weekends so went to Nakumatt and found Boz. We went back to the hostel and chilled with Heather before Molkie, Heather and I walked to a nearby craft market then back to bourbon cafe. I bought my new journal. We went back to the hostel and Emma arrived shortly after. We went out for dinner at 8.30 then back to the hostel, where I had my first shave in over a month. Boz wanted to stay in the room but the rest of us went out. We were crossing the road via a roundabout with a fountain in the middle, but as we were walking around the fountain, I didn't notice a 6ft by 6ft pothole right in front of me and i stepped right into it, grazing my forearm and bashing my knee. I was a bit shaken up. "That's going in the journal," I said as I clambered out. We went to the restaurant/bar we'd been to earlier and danced/chilled there until 3am. Afterwards we went BACK to bourbon cafe, which was open 24 hours on weekends then back to the hostel.

Day 66 (14/03/10)

After just 3 hours sleep, we got ready to leave. We all got packed and left the hostel, going back to the cafe for breakfast and my final coffee of Melbourne standards. I finished my breakfast and opened my bag to get my doxycycline (anti-malarial), when I realised my toiletries bag wasn't there. I limped as quick as my bruised knee would allow back to the hostel. Reception was closed as everyone was at church. I explained my problem to the guard, who spoke hardly any English and he went to get another man. Luckily, the man had the key and I found my toiletries bag, under the covers of the bed. I quickly took my doxy and rushed to get a moto to the bus park. I arrived just before 9 and we were off again, back to Uganda. I took lots of photos from the bus on the way back, and after passing through the border with no hastle (just a few questions about why we were going back to which we'd respond "We still haven't seen Murchison falls or the Seese islands", pretending to be tourists as we're only here on 3 month tourist visas, which are much cheaper than year long working visas but that we have to get a few times). Heather got off at her village, two hours before Kampala and we arrived in Kampala at 7.30pm. Emma agreed to let us stay at hers, so we walked through the busy Kampala streets to the New Taxi Park, where we caught a taxi to Bulenga. We bought chips and chipattis for dinner then walked down the pitch black path to Emma and Vic's. We got to bed at about 11.

Day 67 (15.03.10)

We woke early as Emma had to go to school. The rest of us chilled until about 9.30, when we walked to the main road and caught boda bodas to Garden City in Kampala. Now, Emma and Vic's project is the closest to Kampala but it still takes about half an hour. Luckily the boda drivers are village drivers so they don't know the prices to Kampala, so we got bodas from there house to GC for the same price as backpackers to GC (4000/= for two on one boda). Boz and I got 1 boda and Vic and Molkie got another. We went in different directions, and about half way there, our driver realised he had a flat tire, so he beckoned another boda over and we continued, still arriving before Molkie and Vic. We did all the usual Kampala things, internet cafe, western food for lunch and hanging around Garden City. Boz went back to the village, but Molkie, Vic and myself all had Sound of Music rehearsals so we hung around until then. Rehearsals went pretty well and we went for a cheapish dinner afterwards before heading back to the village. We were very lucky, as a bus type thing to Lugazi stopped and we went back to the village directly, instead of the usual taxi to mukono then taxi or hitch to the village. We wandered back to the house and went straight to bed.

Tuesday can't have been very interesting, as I can't actually remember what happened.

Day 69 (17/03/10)

I didn't start teaching until 11, so while the other 2 went to school, I went and got water. Two 20litre jerrycans are bloody heavy, especially lugging them as far as I've had to twice now. From the tap I have to walk over a football field, down a path past Lugazi Homeland college, the biggest school in the area, past a shop, around a bend, down a 100m path before getting to the hill that we have to go down to the stream below then back up the other side to our house. It takes a good 10-15 minutes. I got back and got some laundry done. I started at 8, did 2 shirts, 1 t-shirt, 1 pair of trousers, 1 singlet, 2 boxers and 1 pair of socks, which all together took about 2 hours, before having a quick wash and getting to school at about quarter to 11. I had porridge then went to teach a double P4 SST class. I then taught P5 science, before going back to the house again, as Molkie and I had another rehearsal in Kampala. Worst hitching yet! It took ages for anyone to stop for us and when they eventually did, they were just going to Mukono, so we went there then tried again. We got a ride from a young couple who only talked about how dangerous hitch hiking is. They told us they were going to Kampala, but we got to a town near Nambole stadium (15 minutes out of Kampala) and they decided they wanted to go to a restaurant, so we got out, gave up on hitching and got a taxi in the rest of the way. We went to the post office and posted some letters before going to an internet cafe (the one I'm at now in fact), where I managed to upload lots of photos. We then went to the rehearsal. On the way to Kampala I got meat on a stick from some roadside food sellers, and it seemed to disagree with my stomach as my stomach was aching the entire rehearsal. We got a taxi to Mukono after rehearsals then got in a people carrier posing as a taxi back to Kitega. We also got some bad news. Emily, one of the other volunteers, leaves on Sunday due to a number of illnesses she's been getting.

Not much exciting has happened since then. It's friday now. Molkie and I did a bit more laundry yesterday and we went and saw Paul's school where he's the headmaster, but apart from that, it's been pretty uneventful. Internet time is running out so I best be off.

Until next time! xx