The ultimate beer run

The bus journey from Tanzania to Rwanda was long and to be honest quite scary in parts. We headed from Arusha to Mwanza on the Air Jordan bus (yes the clue was in the name!)along the main road, otherwise known as dirt track. To begin with it was fun, we spotted a giraffe out of the window and we bounced over the pot holes, but as the day went on the driver sped up and the road got worse and something happened which very rarely happens on an African bus...even the locals started looking panicked and shouted at the driver to slow down!! After a day of recovery in Mwanza we took Allis Sports bus (yes, yes, when will I learn!!) as close the the Rwandan boarder as he would take us. From there it was a nights stop over at a local truckers hang out in Rusumu falls before catching the early morning bus to Kigali.

Our two weeks in Rwanda was hard work. Much of the time was spent trying to work out how we could get from one place to another. This was made all the more difficult because the phone network rarely works, there are so many languages being spoken its hard to know how to ask someone and there is just no tourist infrastructure or information. That said, it was a beautiful country and very different to the picture I had in my mind of a broken country, ruined by the genocide of 1994 and impoverished. The government is trying to promote tourism with the line "A thousand hills and a thousand smiles" Well, it definitely has a thousand beautiful hills which are cultivated in a way which reminds you more of SE Asia than of the usual chaos which is African agriculture. Beneath the surface I think there is still someway to go before the thousand smiles completely rings true, but its certainly a country with hope which is clearly looking to the future and of all the African countries I've visited feels the most likely to attain its goals.

The genocide memorial in Kigali was truly amazing. They have managed to capture both the horrors of what happened whilst also providing historical context and warnings for the future. Over 1 million Rwandans were killed in the genocide, they were let down by their friends and family, notably by the church and by the International community. The UN evacuated ex-pats when the Presidents plane crashed along with Dignitaries of the Habyrimana regime; authors of the genocide - enough troops were used in the evacuation to have prevented the genocide which followed. Sometimes the worlds priorities just look a a little screwed up. 500,000 women were raped, often by HIV infected men which was used as a genocidal tool. ARV's have not been given to hardly any of these women who continue to suffer, although many of the perpetrators have received ARV's in Arusha. One quote particularly sticks to mind; "If you knew me and you really knew yourself you would not have killed me" Felleien Mtagengwa.

For some reason the only accommodation we seemed able to find was in convents and christian conference centres!! All very nice and clean but no beer! Having recently read the book Blood River and various others about the Congo and East/Central Africa I had learnt that for many Africans the old colonial boarders don't mean much and at some, people travel freely between countries and so the story of the ultimate beer run unfolds.... we were staying at Peace Guest House which of course did not sell beer...we had arrived late after a long journey and decided our only option was to buy some in the local town of Cyanguge. After a few minutes walking we hailed a local bus and within minutes the Congo boarder was in sight and our bus was heading straight for it. Fear hit me. For one horrible moment I thought the bus was going to cross right over and all we had with us was an empty bag and enough money for 4 bottles of Mutzig Beer!! Getting into the Congo might have been very easy, but I doubt very much getting back across would be anywhere near as simple. Fortunately at the last second the bus swerved right and came to a stop, you have never seen us get off a bus so fast! but the adventure wasn't over yet, the town was, well, nothing and certainly had no shops which sold beer....but we are not ones to give up, we spotted a hotel on the hill and headed purposefully avoiding the eyes of the boarder police. The hotel was padlocked shut but after a few yells up the hill it was opened and we finally were able to order our beer. You can imagine by the time we got back to the guest house we were definitely in need of a drink!!

We drank our beer that night looking across lake Kivu at the Congo, wondering what that broken of countries was really like. The view we had made it look peaceful and almost Tuscan with white washed houses sunk into the hillside. For now Congo would be an adventure too far... but that evening has left some ideas in my mind!



Audio version of the Ultimate beer run and other stories not to tell your Mum - coming to London soon!!

A game of two halves

After a dodgy start to the volunteer work in Dar es Salaam I moved to Arusha in the north of Tanzania and there could not be a bigger contrast. My time has been spent working with two organisations; Teaching computer skills to trainee teachers at a teacher training college and secondly with WEMA, a small Tanzanian NGO who work with women living or caring for those with HIV/AIDS - with very few resources they do a fantastic job and Dr Asteria, Founder and Managing Director has been an inspiration.

My time at WEMA has been spent helping with future planning, budgeting, fund raising and sorting out their marketing materials but my main role and probably the most satisfying has been working with their Micro-financing programme (an area which I've become facinated in for its ability to allow people to bring themeselves out of poverty). They currently have 52 women in the scheme each paying back a $25 small business loan. Visiting some of the businesses (selling fruit in the market, collecting firewood, small shop, baking and selling small cakes) has been truly eye opening and seeing what a difference just $25 can make to a woman's life and that of her family. Whilst there I also ran a Business Skills course for 20 women which was truly moving - and rather different from business skills sessions I've run with companies in the UK!!!

Saying goodbye to the women at WEMA was one of the most emotional days of my travels thus far, not only did they cook an amazing meal and bring me farewell gifts but also invited a female member of the Tanzanian government (and Board member of WEMA) to officially invite me to become a member of their Board of Directors. It was incredibly moving to witness their acceptance of me an outsider with only a couple of months working with them and it didn't take long into my acceptance speech before the tears were too much. WEMA is a Swahili word and means caring - well these people have certainly showed that, to each other, to me and to their community.

After a few days of Safari doing the "Northern Circuit" and seeing so many lions and so close to the truck...I've headed back to Zanzibar to relax and try to make sense of my experiences over the last few months - and what better place to relax than this paradise island..... not so much of a paradise when my Rucksack came flying off the top of the Dala Dala this morning on the way back to Stone Town causing a commotion, the sudden breaking and then the truck heading back in the opposite direction at break neck speed to recover said item!!! But, body and mind are now sufficiently relaxed to start what I suppose is the home leg.

The remaining journey:
Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Morocco, Spain, France and home sweet home :-)