Photo: view from our hotel in Kigoma, Tanzania
Day 14 - Poverty of Burundi
I even found a dead cockroach by my suitcase when I had packed my suitcase and removed it. I swear it wasn’t there the night before…
Our program said we were to meet a professor at the university, but he or she had called in sick. We were also supposed to go to the national museum, but apparently there wasn’t time for that. The third thing in Butare also got cancelled, so basically we just slept there, and drove off straight after breakfast.
We headed to the Burundian border where we got off to get our visas. It was not really a visa, just a stamp… Unless you call a piece of white A4 that didn’t even go into the passport a visa.
We drove into Burundi, where you immediately noticed difference. People were poorer, you saw no schools, the roads were worse, even though they were cemented.
We drove into a small town where we were supposed to meet one of our leaders who had driven ahead of us. The whole town had stopped whatever they were doing and came to just stare at us. Some were trying to sell eggs or nuts, others just stared at the mazungus (white man in Swahili). Eventually, two of the leaders went along with our black driver through town to find some Burundian SIM cards, because no one had any signal, and those who had, trying to call a girl in the car that had driven ahead, didn’t get through.
Eventually our heroes got back to the bus (after which we had started feeling intimidated by the whole town starring at us and looking in through the windows, unsure whether they were looking for valuables or at our legs), telling us the first leader had met their Burundian friend here but then driven to another town.
So we drove further to another small town, where we met the rest of the group and the Burundian guy. He was extremely happy to see the other leader, and seemed happy to meet the rest as well, joking that maybe he could find a fiancée among us. He then got up front so he could help the driver find the way to the coffee farm.
At one place, we accidentally all got out of the bus, no idea why, amongst all the black people starring at us, then back into the bus. When we finally got to the village, we had to get out, while the one leader and the Burundian friend went to get a permit for the car and the bus. I really didn’t get it, and retrospectively, it made even less sense; I thought we were waiting to get a permit to drive further, and down to the coffee farm. But in fact the whole town was the coffee “farm”, and we walked the to the plants…
So in fact I have no idea why were waiting…but meanwhile some locals came to talk to us. One young man came to me and asked if he could have a conversation with me in English; that appeared to be his way of asking if I spoke English. Once he had established I did, and that it was fine, the first question he asked was ‘why you so beautiful?’
I hesitated a bit, thinking I heard him, but at the same time so confused that I couldn’t help saying ‘what??’ – after all, maybe he had meant it as a complimenting statement, rather than a question, but he repeated it.
‘I don’t know…’ I answered.
After he said something more, trying to explain, I said he looked quite handsome too – which he did.
‘Me? No, you see me? What I’m wearing?’ he asked.
‘But whether you are handsome or beautiful has nothing to do with your clothes, it’s your look,’ I explained to him.
We talked for a while, and he didn’t ask for anything, yet he mentioned many times how poor they were, they were cold (it was a bit cold up there to be honest, even for me who was wearing long sleeves), couldn’t travel or do anything… His biggest dream was to meet Enrique Iglesias. I like to believe that someday he might.
The guys also saw one of the girls on our team smoke and got really surprised, as if they’d never seen that before, but obviously heard about it.
‘She doesn’t have problems with her health???’ he asked, and looked after her, it was one of our guides.
‘Uhm…not that I know of – yet at least,’ I answered, finding it somewhat amusing that they assume health problems for any smoker during any time of a smoker’s life. He added that she looked exactly like Beyoncé, to which I could only say ‘whaaat…? You think so??? Naaah…’
I don’t know how long we waited for that ‘permit’, but for a very long time at least… When we finally got going, were walked for about 10 minutes down what seemed to be the main street of the village. The boy I had talked to disappeared, but a lot of the kids, and others started following us. Even the village’s sheriff had come to shake hands and greet us welcome.
We were all quite hungry, but they hadn’t had anything to eat in the towns we had stopped, nor in this village (surprise, surprise), so we had tiny bags (the size of a match box) of nuts, grilled bananas, and soda. I shared a soda with my roommate, and had a bag of nuts. I can safely say that I think I’ve lost more than gained weight during this trip…
Once we had eaten, our Burundian friend started translating somethings that a Burundian man said about the coffee plants. I really can’t say that it properly replaced the visit we were meant to do to the fairtrade coffee farm in Gisenyi…but sure, it was interesting – and short. He said some would only make around 200 USD per year. And apparently we were like in the only overpopulated village in the country. It was somewhat hard to believe, since all of Burundi is overpopulated – by far…
We didn’t even see anything else except for the plant, because the rinsing they just do themselves, and the toasting happens in the capital… So after the short speech, we went back to the bus. First we took a few more photos; a very young girl with a lady’s big handbag was looking awfully cute and disproportional to the bag. She’s the first girl who has been scared of me and hid behind her mum when I tried to approach her and show her the picture I had taken of her. The mum smiled genuinely but also seemed a bit scared. Other women, whom I had got permission to shoot outside their house, had posed smilingly and then shared a loud laugh when they saw their picture. It also wasn’t the first time I saw someone with a Santa hat… It’s some weird trend, I’m thinking Westerners sending Christmas presents to Africa…
We parted, continuing to Bujumbura.
Although we had seen Bujumbura from the mountains once approaching, even the capital city had very few signs of any rich people living there. It wasn’t lively and modern in the same way as Kigali. It just continued to look poor and rundown, but on a much bigger scale. We drove into our hotel, at which time I really could barely walk because of swollen mosquito bitten legs and pressure in the bites. My roommate had some aloe vera (or after sun lotion with aloe vera in it), tiger balm and a insect bite liquid thing… She also had lots of bites, so we both took a therapy with all three. Then we got ready for dinner.
We ate nearby a river (that we couldn’t see because of the dark), but my roommate was sure she spotted a crocodile down there. They seem to like fries there because we got that…with fish and meat.
I think we left relatively quickly, due to everyone being exhausted after all of the driving. Somehow, despite only having a few hours from Rwanda to the border, and two hours from the border to Bujumbura, we had driven from 9am till 5pm or something… Including the ‘coffee’ visit. So we went straight to sleep afterwards.
Day 15 - Christian radio, market and Burundian economy
We had an early appointment at a Burundian Christian radio station in the morning. It was close to the hotel so we walked. It was very interesting and a lot of representatives were present, including of course the radio manager himself, but also the program manager, and some of those in charge of specific programs. Except for the Christian messages, they also had programs about aids/HIV and help and support kind of programs. The aids/HIV was both aimed at its prevention, but also on how to deal with it, whether you got it yourself or someone you knew, what to do etc. Their other programs were also meant to help people; family planning, diseases and other. Some people got interpreted from French, others from Kinyburundian but two of them spoke very good English. They had an estimate of four million listeners every time they aired. That’s half of Burundi’s population……
We got a buffet lunch nearby, where, surprisingly, almost first time ever, the food for once was ready when we got there. It looked like there had just been a wedding there because of light blue and white decorations. Some of us got sodas that they had had to run out to buy, because they were out of them. They weren’t even cold when we got them.
We took a detour back to the hotel so we could take a look at the market, at which point at least I was told by a leader that it was a good idea to put cameras away. I regret having done that… I have very few pictures of Burundi and that would have been a great place to shoot some interesting photos. My friends who had their equally expensive cameras up were fine…and I honestly didn’t feel there was any huge threat there, despite the closely lined up people selling fruits and vegetables, both outside and inside. People called ‘mazungo’ after us, asking us to buy things from them. If I had had my own kitchen, I probably would have…but there wasn’t much use in buying fresh potatoes for example…
We went back to the hotel where our Burundian friend, who was an economy student, would give a presentation about the Burundian economy. Unfortunately, for us, he had written four pages about it, and read them to us. Thank goodness his English wasn’t great, because that way his reading speed wasn’t too fast (or even fast at all), but it seemed everyone were a bit disappointed. I understand him though, doing it in a ‘foreign’ language and such, but since our requirements are so low and informal, just a non-read speech would have been better.
We got half an hour and then we would all drive to the beach. We had been told Bujumbura would be hot, partially because we weren’t in the mountains anymore. It had indeed been really hot during the day so we thought we’d finally get that tan now. But when we got to the beach (after a rather long drive, a few U-turns and asking for directions), it was extremely windy at the beach and the sun had just gone behind a really big cloud. I had jacket with me or anything, so I was rather cold and there was no way I would bathe in the lake. While the other bathed, my roommate and I sat and solved a Danish crossword. We did that until it had got dark and had found a lamp we could sit nearby, when we finally, finally left and went to some restaurant.
Apparently, last time our leaders had been there, African children had been dancing and there had been like a party there with lots of people.
When we got there, we were the only ones, and it didn’t even look like a restaurant. It looked like a backyard where no one lived anymore… There were big speakers but it was as if they were about to get packed any day soon. There definitely weren’t any cute children dancing. We also had to wait for really long for our food to get there. Eventually they had told one of the leaders it was because we had ordered food for 20 people, when in fact there were 21 of us, with our Burundian friend.
Our food was fish/chicken/beef with fries – eaten in mostly darkness. Towards the end of the meal, the lights went out. The generator had broken (or was out of fuel). We still stayed a bit more so people could finish their drinks, and then we got our driver to put the bus on so we could see the way across the grass field to the bus. I went to sleep almost as soon as we got home.
Day 16 - AWEPA and Rumengo, the unknown town
We had an early appointment with a man from AWEPA, some organisation who works with keeping Africa on the agenda of the European Parliament and things like that. We sat in his small office with the first properly cold air condition we could remember from the trip.
I think people were both surprised, shocked and confused after talking to him. He had been a very nice black guy but many felt like he had had no idea what he was talking about - or in denial. One question had been if he had thought the civil war was completely over - or if it would return. He was 100% positive that period was over.
In asking why Rwanda had developed so much and Burundi hasn't, he answered that they had had peace since 1994 while they had only had peace since 5 years back. They needed time...
Perhaps the most 'funny' thing (at least to the woman in the group who literally laughs at everything - and really loud) was when we replied to a question that the parliament wasn't corrupted - at all. If they were, they'd had lived in much bigger houses. Secondly, 'everyone has two jobs'. He seemed to suggest that even the parliamentarians sold vegetables in the street market besides their political job... Admittedly there is some humour in trying to imagine that.
He also told us they had an ombudsman that everyone could go to, for example those whose houses disappeared during rainy seasons or who were taken after they had gone to Tanzania.
On our way back to the hotel I bought sort earrings as gifts, to yet undefined individuals. One pair I hoped to be able to put clips in though when I get home so I can use them myself.
My roommate and I also bought some more Pringles that we could have on the bus later on. Then we went to the hotel (the others had gone ahead of us) to pack and fill the bus and car.
We then, perhaps ironically, had lunch right by the ombudsman. Truly enough, a lot of people were waiting there. We got sandwiches with chips...which they have a lot of here.
We took directly off from the restaurant towards our next destination; Rumengo, or Rumonge as the name turned out to be when we got there. A woman in the group had googled the town in the morning to find something out about it and had found nothing but my blog, from the itinerary I wrote before leaving. Kind of funny, kind of weird, especially because it really wasn't that small - but as I said we found the real name when we got there. I don't know if anyone has googled it correctly since.
A small cute reptile greeted my roommate and me in my room and we got help from the boys to get it out, but it was too fast. Neither of us dislike them, but you just don't want it in your room while sleeping. It ended up running through a hole in the top corner of the bedroom.
We then said goodbye to our Burundian friend and headed to the beach. Perhaps this time we could get a tan.
A Dutch girl at the hotel doing research on violence in schools had said we had to drive - but only like five minutes to get there. I think she's got too African... We drove 20 minutes at least and got to 'Blue bay resort'. The sun was about to set behind some clouds and it wasn't super hot anymore. My roommate and I shared a coke. Others ordered, or at least tried to, white wine. Most people bathed. Again, I couldn't be bothered. Just all the diseases you read about from African lakes and not being able to take a shower straight afterwards etc...
Just when it was about to get completely dark, we went up to the resort's restaurant where we had all pre-ordered some food. First we got some bread and oil (ordered, of course. First they had thought we wanted that as dessert...) and then later the meals came one by one. I had ordered the risky meal of spaghetti carbonara, which would have been very good indeed, if I had liked vinegar - which I don't. I can't actually tell if it was vinegar or white wine or something but either way I didn't like it. The other girls who had ordered the same ate most of it though, or even ate up.
Some girls, including myself, had started getting tired, so my roommate and I got somewhat ‘worried’ we’d never get home, when some in our party ordered another bottle of wine, and more beer. So I asked when we’d leave, and the leader said we could go in 15 minutes.
We probably would have left in 15 minutes, if not because there was something weird with the bill, causing some disagreements (they had apparently doubled everything on the bill, and taken paid for the ‘side dishes’ that it said were included in the menu…) and arguments, leaving us there for another hour…
I was starting to get worried, after all it was Burundi, the unsafest place of all of those we’d go to. After a while, you just have to remember though that it’s a country that suffered from civil war, not the mafia…
Day 17 - The Tanzanian border
Admittedly a very dull day, as approximately 5 hours were spent on the road and one hour lost just by crossing the border to Tanzania. Nevertheless it might be worth telling you a bit about the obvious differences we passed.
When we were just about to leave our hotel in Rumonge, Rumengo, whatever, a waiter had come after our leader and said they needed 250 000 Burundian Franc for some fruit we hadn’t even asked for (but eaten). Even converting to Western price, that’s a ridiculous price for a plate of fruit. Our leader asked to talk to the hotel manager but the waiter said it was the manager who had charged the price. Our leader didn’t believe him so eventually we drove off.
Burundi's border had given us some trouble, as some people in the group hasn't saved a piece of white paper we had got upon entering. No one had told us to keep it but to me it had made sense to keep it because we hadn't got any visa and it had the price which we had paid on it along with our name. Others had saved it by luck out of lack of a bin. One guy managed to use someone else in the group's visa since they didn't seem to check it. One woman had to pay 40$ though. Apparently it had said so in the officer's papers, but others had thought it had sounded like corruption. I must admit that it all made sense to me to pay for 'another visa' in the sense, if you throw yours away, even if you weren't told to do.
After the emigration we drove on no man's land for about 45 minutes. We have no idea why the area was so huge...
Just after passing the sign "this is Tanzania" (aka the place where crap road finally becomes cemented road), we stopped for some extremely dry bread, pineapple and avocado.
We were quite high up in the mountains and could see down into the valleys where there were places looking like refugee camps - except they were houses. Very pretty, and very hot. I wouldn't actually have found it too hot though if not just because I didn't have any sunblock (what a waste of bringing it...I've used it like twice only...)
We drove the last meters to the Tanzanian immigration office where one of our guides, who speaks Swahili, ended up in the office chatting up the officer. They took all of our passports and we had to wait for quite some time before we got called up one by one to have our photos taken and fingerprints. Again, we only got stamps. We drove at least one and a half hour more, to Kigoma, where we are now. Our hotel is unusually white and clean despite the bathrooms being weird (shower first, then bathroom, with only an elevated floor to the toilet, and no shower curtains...so if the door stood open to water could flow into the room, plus the obvious fact that the water tank, situated right above the sink, leaks. So because of the high fall of the drops, they also squirt everywhere), but I believe the first rooms with air condition, there is a ceiling fan, a wardrobe with quite a lot of hangers and a small TV. The bed is also somewhat awkwardly small for two friends to share...
My roommate and I both took a shower (I meant to do it last night but because of yesterday's events at the restaurant we got home really late and I was cold and there was only cold water so that seemed like a bad idea) and then we went to the beach. Apparently it's the same lake as in Burundi and for once the sun was actually still there when we got to the beach and the afternoon temperature was perfect. I didn't bathe, but just put on my headphones and fell asleep. I woke up seeing my roommate right in front me trying to take a picture of me asleep / so I smiled. She didn't mind because apparently she has already caught one picture of me while asleep...
We ate at the beach. Ugali (the not-so-yummy-white-mass of...maize?) and some chicken (which really didn't taste like chicken, more like wild bird with meat that was really hard to get off of the bones) and very few beef grill sticks. My roommate, who's a vegetarian, got chips omelette. Yes, omelette with chips IN it.
I are the beef, tasted the chicken, had a tiny bit of ugali, and then couldn't force the chicken in. I ordered pancakes when we got to the hotel just to eat a bit more and then went to sleep.
Day 18 - Mining in the villages of nowhere
Today was an interesting day. Long, but interesting. We were supposed to meet a guide at the hotel at 9, but like in Africa, nothing is on time and he didn’t get here until like half past. After that, even more time was spent on stopping in, what seemed to be downtown, to buy soda, water, juice and food that we could have for lunch. Just that stop took us about half an hour. If our leaders had just bought lunch food while waiting for the local guide, it could have saved us that time.
We then drove, quite far into the countryside, I have no idea in what direction. Eventually we also got off the cemented road onto really bad roads. It wasn’t even countryside anymore, but felt rather like we were headed to the middle of nowhere. There were no villages anymore either, just single houses here and there. Some of them looked weird, because they were made from proper bricks, and finely patterned, just like at home, but then had straw roofs.
The terrain got worse, roads dusty, sun stronger. We passed a couple of military groups, who apparently (while I was asleep – and listening to music) told us we couldn’t take any photos because it was military ground.
In the end we got to a small town by a river. One that would be guaranteed to have crocodiles in it. We thought that perhaps we were finally there but no; it was only to stop for lunch, and we had to take the ‘ferry’ across the river to get to the village we were supposed to get to, to meet the chief.
Once we had eaten samosa with whole eggs inside them, something that looked and was somewhat similar to Danish apple slices, and something to drink, we were ready perfectly in time for the ferry to cross back to the other side. Our bus, that we have named Rosa (because it says Rosa on the front and on the side) joined the ferry. Then we drove for another…at least half an hour, probably around 40 minutes. The terrain was awful and eventually we had to step out to walk the rest of the way.
The sun was burning. I was glad I had put sun block on in the morning but I wish I had had some more with me. If I hadn’t been wearing long pants to be ‘formal’ and walking in the middle of nowhere (palm trees and other plants and plains or very small mountains as far as the eye could see), I would have felt fine, but the walking made the sun all the hotter. On the way we saw a dead snake. An eye doctor in our group, who has got the name ‘oracle’, for knowing a lot of things, identified it as a ‘diamond head’, quoting it as ‘extremely dangerous’, although our local guide had also just said that it was very deadly. It was small, but just the confirmation of its danger gave chills (or as many chills as you can get in the burning sun).
After at least another half an hour walk we got to the village that we had been looking for. We got to speak to the chief, a considerably young, compared to the oldest men there, handsome man, ironically, or perhaps perfectly, wearing a FC Barcelona t-shirt sponsored by ‘Qatar Foundation’. Not the kind of ‘chief’ you had been expecting.
They brought us to a small straw house where there were benches, so that we could at least sit, and in the shadow, while we asked some questions with the help of the local guide for interpretation. The rest of the village followed, mostly kids but also some men and women who squeezed into the house once all of us had got inside. The rest of the kids stood outside the house looking through the un-tight straws.
Some of the interesting things were health. If someone got sick, they would have to carry the person to town on a board. 20 km. Walking. In the sun. That’s what I can truly say ‘holy shit’ to.
The other interesting part, and the reason we were there, were the mines they had. They had both silver and copper and the company that was there mining them had promised them shares or money from it, but had not stood by their words, so they had gone to court with it. I don’t know what the results were.
I also didn’t quite catch how far they had to go for water, but it seemed not too far, although it looked like there wasn’t any water not electricity within a radius of all of Tanzania for that matter. We were so far into nothing that I believe that even in the Sahara dessert, I’ve never been further away from civilization than today.
After the relatively short question session, our leader asked them to take us to the mine. They gladly did so. Even that walk took at least 15 more minutes in the sun, and was probably slowed down by all of the villagers still following us. A girl in a pink dress followed me everywhere I went. I’m not sure if it was because I said ‘jambo’ (hi in Swahili I believe) to some girls when we were in the straw house and maybe she was one of them. I also heard two men discuss where I was from. I obviously don’t speak Swahili but “China” and “Japan” do seem to be universal words. Later on I would also hear some boys take a bet at “Singapore”.
We got to the mine…which was just like a small entrance into the ground, not even downwards but just inwards… We saw some of the copper rocks though in green and blue colours, very pretty – and heavy. Then we returned…
We were getting low on water and you could barely finish the water from the kids who wanted the bottles to play with. I finished my bottle of water and kids were almost snapping the bottle out of my hands. I had spotted the most beautiful, cute little girl, maybe around 9 years old, with extremely pretty African braids, carrying her little sister on her backs, so I was careful to make sure she got my bottle. After all she was the only kid in the village who had also carried a sister.
The little girl in the pink dress had started holding hands with a friend of mine and she tried to ask the girl what her name was.
‘What’s your name? Me, I’m Catherine, you?’ she asked very clearly, and pointed, first at herself, and then at the girl.
She repeated, ‘me, Catherine. You?’
‘Catherine,’ the girl said after her. I laughed a bit. At least she had learnt to say my friend’s name, we could probably teach her some more…but we knew neither her name, and I was sure she didn’t realize it was her name either.
Some of the kids followed us all the way to the bus, past that little stream we had needed to cross over the rocks and stuff. I had got black from…I don’t really know from what, and my hand, now occupied by the little girl in pink, was so sweaty that she, twice, took my hand with her other hand just so she could dry her hand in her dress. It’s really hard holding someone’s hand in that heat!
At one point, my roommate had given the rest of her fanta to a boy, and said he had to share it. The girl in pink stretched after him to also get some but he kept it to himself. Then I pointed to her that she should go after him and have a sip from the fanta, so she went after him. I felt proud to have given her a bit of a feminine self-boost. The boy still resisted but I told him ‘ah, ah, ah, you have to share!’ and pointed to all the others and gestured that they should all get something to drink. The girl in pink was the first to get some, and after that I saw that the others also got a sip. After that point, I felt I could walk on. Amazing how they understood my sign language.
The girl in pink caught up to me and took my hand again. She kind of jumped up and let go of my hand to run a bit faster when she spotted the dead snake we had seen, but then came back. The snake was a sign that the bus was nearby and within just two minutes or so, we were finally back.
I got onto the bus where I had left an almost full bottle of sprite that I drank of. Not just luke, but warm sprite, but the sugar was good. We waved good bye to the kids and drove off on the awful terrain. By the time we had passed the river by boat and I had fallen asleep a couple of times (and woken up equally many times by a bump in the road causing my head, or thankfully my headphones, to smash into the window), the sound of the shakings and the constant vibration from the road made you long for the cemented road like you can’t even imagine. I imagined I would close my eyes when going to sleep tonight and just continue to feel the vibrations.
It was truly nice to get back to the hotel. The first thing my roommate and I did, smartly, was to order dinner. Then we both took showers. She said I had turned black in the face as well which was partially true. Probably dirt…mixed with sweat…which therefore condenses into black things everywhere on your body. I’ve never got so dirty in such a short time, yet the roads weren’t even as dusty as they had been there by Lake Bunyonyi.
We were the first to get dinner, because everyone else didn’t want to take the risk that the dinner would arrive while they were in the showers – but quite far from it. My friend and I got our food 45 minutes after we ordered, which were wisely spent on those showers. Those who came later waited over an hour and had finished our leftovers due to hunger.
I washed all of my clothes I had worn today and should really clean my camera too… The water from the clothes was completely brownish, yet some stuff is not nearly white again… Now we start counting the things to enjoy when we get home: clean clothes.
Day 19 - Memories of Dr Livingstone
Another hot day in Tanzania. It’s not been too eventful. At least four were sick when we woke up this morning, including my roommate whom I had heard get back to bed at least twice last night, and a third time half an hour before my alarm. She had said the night before that she wasn’t feeling so well, so I asked her how she was.
She had barely slept, and been up a couple of times, having food come both back up and down. When I got up she asked me to get another toilet paper roll and some more water.
I went to breakfast – but not a single soul was out yet, so I decided to go to the reception to ask for the paper, also for myself should I need to go to the bathroom at all. On my way, the sun had recently risen, and so it was quite big, and glowing orange. Amazing. Both the sun – and that it was one of the very few times I didn’t have my camera…
After breakfast the few of us who weren’t sick went to a hospital in the town. We waited for a bit, but the doctor we were going to meet wasn’t there, and wouldn’t be there for another hour. So we decided to save some time and do the next thing on the agenda; see the Dr Livingstone memorial, the place where Stanley (whoever, I know very little of the story) had found Dr Livingstone after x many years. The town was called Ujiji, I think, although we were not in a town anymore by the time the bus stopped, and we decided to walk the rest of the way to prevent the bus from getting stuck in the ever so soft sand/dust roads.
We walked for a bit, although not nearly as much as yesterday, and got to a dead end where there was some water, and the few black people who were there continued into the tall grass on boats. Others were loading the grass onto motorbikes. We had the one leader with us who spoke Swahili, and the locals told him that Dr Livingstone had walked here (or Stanley), but that the memorial, the place where they had met, was a bit further, but that we could walk there. We looked into the tall grass (not ahead of us, but to the right, where there was no water), then decided amongst ourselves that we would just pretend this was the place they met, after all it is controversial and it has been discussed where they actually met. What we definitely could agree on either way was that they had walked where we were standing, and that was enough for us if we were to catch the doctor back at the hospital.
So we walked back, and drove back to the hospital. Our Swahili speaking leader went inside to find him while the rest waited outside. We waited outside for a long time. People had bought sodas from a shop on the hospital grounds and I had spotted a big bird with a really long neck that I had shot. While photographing the bird, a black man had said something, asked something, then asked in English if I was a nurse. I said I was just there with a group who were meant to meet a doctor and that we were (almost) all students. Then he went inside. Shortly after, but nevertheless after a total waiting time of at least half an hour (and at the point we had started making fun of whether perhaps they had taken our leader as a patient), he came out from the hospital. We tried to read his face and decided there were bad news.
The doctor still wasn’t here. There were three secretaries inside calling him but he kept saying he’d be there in half an hour, then he’d say in twenty minutes, then he’d say something else… In other words it was hopeless. No, in other words, this is Africa.
We headed back to the bus, deciding we could check back later after lunch and after going to the market, when a car drove in the gates. Most of the girls continued outside to the bus but our leader didn’t give up hope and went to talk to the person who came out of the car.
It wasn’t the person we were going to meet but he was willing to talk to us, and he was in fact higher up in the hierarchy than the doctor we were going to meet. This guy was the regional medical officer. We went into the building, which, disappointedly, to me at least, was only an office building. We sat in his air conditioned room while he told us about the various challenges they faced and prevalence of diseases. They had below average aids/HIV in the region, but above average maternal and child deaths. Their main challenges were infrastructure, and location. We’re almost as far away within Tanzania as possible from the capital, Dar es Salaam.
We also found out that 94% of the children are vaccinated, for free, against 11 diseases. To become ‘medical officers’, I think it was called, who were “qualified” to do surgery, they only needed two years of training… That came as a shock. But that’s just the only way to do it.
We then drove to the lunch place, right by a market that we could go to while waiting for the lunch that would, most definitely, not be on time. So I went to take a look. The space between the ‘stores’ were extremely small and 99% of the shops sold African patterned fabrics. I wanted to buy some, but what would I make out of it? They were probably quite heavy as well, because you could only buy whole pieces (6 meters)…and the vast amount of fabrics and shops of fabrics, and the different patterns were just too much to handle! So I ended up not buying anything and going back to the lunch place, where the food actually came shortly afterwards.
After that, some of us wanted to go to another market, where we had seen just piles of clothes, piles of shoes, piles of lots of different things. Since the majority wanted to do that, we got our driver to take us there.
We only ended up spending 40 minutes there, and again, I didn’t buy anything. Two girls had found a bunch of retro clothes though, and the market had been very local, people shouting ‘mazungo’ and calling after us.
We got home and have just had free time to go to the beach or relax and we will eat at the hotel tonight. We need the rest, because tomorrow we’re going for a 9-12 hour drive to Bukoba on terrible roads, starting at 7am… So I doubt I will blog about tomorrow. Fun!
Day 20 - 11 hours on the road
So there honestly isn’t much to tell…but I still wanted to say that today I’ve been in the middle of the Tanzanian savannah with a flat tyre…and our car hit a bird…or the bird hit us, depending on who tells the story. Ceiling open, (disgusting) feathers everywhere, but somehow the bird ended outside – thankfully. We also saw monkeys. Now I’m dizzy and will go to sleep. Lake Victoria and (hopefully) some shopping tomorrow!