A bazooka by any other name.....

The next day was spent at my couchsurfing host's cousin's place. My French was still very basic, but they were having the most hilarious conversations which I could still understand with my rudimentary French. The sexual innuendos were pretty obvious. They warned me of "bazookas" in Abidjan saying that my Kenyan sensibilities might not be mentally prepared for the heavy laden Mandingos from the West...Hilarious! Women the world over are as naughty as can be. 

In the evening I went to church with Esther - my host. She had choir practice and I wanted to listen in. Unfortunately the choir master didn't show up and practice was cancelled. We went back home. This was to be my last night at Esther's as I was moving into my apartment the next day.  I packed that night. I had already began to make some interesting observations in Abidjan - though everyone made and ate extremely oily food, people were generally slim. In my time in Abidjan I also saw that weaves prevailed. I can't remember seeing more than 5 women  with natural hair when I was there. In fact I remember people assuming that my dreadlocks were braids because people just did not have locs in Abidjan. Another thing I had also noticed was just how warm, kind and inviting Ivorians are. 

The next day, Esther took me to my new place. The pictures I had seen online were amazing but when we got to the building I was a bit shocked. The outside looked very sketchy and the building itself was very worn. My apartment was on the 2nd floor and on getting in I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was even more beautiful than what the online pics showed. It was just in a dodgy looking building, but the apartment itself was very pretty, huge, modern and tastefully designed.  I knew I would be quite happy living there. It dawned on me almost instantly that this would be the first time in my life living completely alone. At MIT I had been part of a co-ed fraternity. I had lived in a huge house with 40 roommates. Although I had my own room, that doesn't count as living alone. During all my internships in Germany I had lived with roommates or rented part of a house. As such I had never really lived alone. In Kenya I live with my mum and my sister in the house I grew up in. I realized I was going to have to put on my grown girl panties and figure out how to run a house. I was excited but slightly nervous, "What if I get lonely? Aaaaah, I will just throw lots of parties, but what if I end up feeling like Jay Gatsby, surrounded by lots of people but still alone? Oh well, I guess I will cross that river when I get to the bridge."

Thankfully I never ever got lonely in my time in Abidjan - I managed to make lots of friends. I also enjoyed my time alone in the house - reading a lot, writing a bit, learning every coupe decale song under the sun, watching Nigerian movies in French.....It was amazing:-)

After seeing the apartment, Esther took me to Sococe, the shopping mall to stock my house. At the supermarket we met her friend who on discovering I had just moved into a new place offered to buy lunch to have some sort of housewarming. We went back to mine with them and enjoyed a hearty meal of chicken and veggies. 

As soon as we were done with lunch, Esther's brother came for my first French lesson. Having not found an Alliance Francaise in Abidjan, I had decided to get a private tutor. Esther had told me her brother was really good in French and in teaching. I decided to take a chance on him and it was a great idea - he was a tough teacher and my French greatly improved in my 2 months in Abidjan. It also helped that he was Ivorian because the Ivorian French accent is different from a regular French accent. By working with him I was much better able to understand what was going on when I was in Abidjan than I would have been if I had a standard French teacher. He was such a nice guy. He told me that the amount I had offered to pay him was too much and said he would teach me for 40% of the price I had initially mentioned. I really appreciated his honesty. I had no idea how much to quote as it is very person and location specific. I had ~3 hours a day of French for 5 days a week at a great bargain. 

Of love and airports in Abidjan

Today's main errand was taking my new friend to the airport to pick up her boyfriend. From what I had gathered, they had met online - she's Ivorian, he's French and since then he had come to visit her thrice. I woke up at 10:30am to a delicious breakfast of mashed bananas and fish. After that I read a bit then we escorted the Aussie couchsurfer who was living with us to get a taxi. He was off to Yamoussoukro to see the largest basilica in the world - that is located in the middle of nowhere in Ivory Coast..More to follow on that in a few months, when I actually got there. 

African time prevails throughout the continent. Esther (my couchsurfing host and I) left our place at 1pm or so to meet Raissa (who we were taking to the airport to meet her beau.) We were to meet somewhere around 1:30pm - 2 hours later she arrived dressed to the nines. Thankfully we got to kill the time waiting for her, having some food and drinks. We also ran a few random errands including going to Western Union to pick up some cash that Esther's boyfriend in France had sent her. In my time in Abidjan I realized that quite a few women had a benefactor in France who ensured they had rent, new phones, new clothes etc. At Western Union, the girl behind the counter sold us some lipsticks. 

We finally got to the airport and waited a bit more for Raissa's boyfriend. When he finally arrived I noted that they had an age difference, but he seemed like a nice person. They were both clearly smitten and it was cute to watch. They could not keep their hands off each other. We had to take his trolley to give them some time to kiss and whisper sweet somethings to each other at the airport. After this we went to an icecream place where they continued to kiss each other endlessly. Finally the management at the place came and told them that if they did not stop with the PDA, we would get kicked out. The place was Lebanese owned and they felt that their behavior was offensive to their more conservative customers. I must say this was the first time I have almost been kicked out of an icecream joint. I felt badass, in a 15 year old type of way. We soon left the establishment as the two just could not stop eating face:-)

We went to Raissa's for dinner. She had made a feast - I pigged out on everything, except the escargots...I had already realized two nights before that eating snails was not my thing. We had salad, couscous, lamb etc. Esther and I finally went back home and slept by 10pm. 

Settling in - Abidjan, the early days

It's been a while since my first post on getting to Abidjan - (Abidjan debout) . People always ask me - "so why did you move to Abidjan alone for 2 months?" It is a short story actually. I took a 6 month sabbatical from work to recentre myself. My life had been out of balance for a while, and I needed a break to remind myself what made me happy. Of those 6 months, I spent 2 months backpacking in South America, 2 months learning French in Nairobi and 2 months living in Abidjan, learning French, making friends, dancing to coupe decale, writing....It was much needed. I came back with a new lease on life and reminded myself that at any point in life, we should have an internal barometer that lets you know what is building up inside you and that if need be one should be able to withdraw themselves from everyday life to really reflect on all the factors leading one to feel unhappy.  Living an examined life so to say.....

The 2 months in Abidjan were a perfect conclusion to the 6 months sabbatical. On the day after Abidjan debout, I woke up close to 10am.  My lovely couchsurfing host had made breakfast - I had an egg in a baguette. I spent a bit of time looking online for Alliance Francaise in Abidjan only to realize that for some unknown reason Abidjan has none. My host's friend showed up at her place a few hours later and he played the guitar for us. We listened to him for a few hours. These are the little joys of being on sabbatical - days when you follow the flow - no itinerary to stick to, no place to be, nothing due....just living life....and listening to the guitar. We had a yummy meal of fish and rice in the early afternoon.

Later on we went to the market to look for chargers (given I had left all my chargers on my bed in Nairobi). My host - Esther and her friend Raissa got mani-pedis at the open air market. At the market I started noticing some very distinct differences in daily life between Anglophone and Francophone countries (actually might be more of differences between East and West Africa.) The women working at the market were all very well dressed, most had weaves, false eyelashes, acrylic nails etc. I could not think of a single instance in Nairobi when I had gone to the market and bought onions from a woman with lipstick, daring cleavage showing, fitting skirts, nails done, fresh weave etc. I could not help but stare. This attention to detail when grooming was something I came to notice everywhere in my time in Abijdan. Everyone - despite their income group - was always really well dressed by my Kenyan standards. Everyone....I later learnt that getting an acrylic manicure at the market cost around USD 1, a pedicure USD 2 and on average my friends got their nails done weekly and their weaves changed every 2 weeks. 

I began to notice it too with my new found friends. Even when leaving the house to go to the dusty market, everyone tried on a few outfits. I thought of how I usually dressed in Nairobi when going to run errands in town - jeans, loose shirt, sneakers or flats....never anything to draw unnecessary attention to you - especially if I am javing into town. I wondered "If people dress this well to go to the market, what do they wear to weddings?"

After the town errands we went to Raissa's place and napped for 2 hours. I was quickly becoming very comfortable with my new friends - to the point of taking random naps at their places:-) Ivorians are really warm though - I was a complete stranger, but I was constantly being absorbed into people's plans. I loved that aspect. 

After our naps, Raissa made some delicious chicken and rice. We left her place, went to our place and I was fast asleep by midnight - smiling to myself - thinking of all the possibilities of what my time in Abidjan would be like. 

How I almost gave up the ghost, gorilla trekking in the mountains

Definitely longer blog posts coming up, but quick highlights on gorilla trekking a few months back in Bwindi impenetrable forest in Southern Uganda  - I would likely not have gone if I had known just how tough it was going to be:-)

I still remember a naive Thekenyanexplorer asking the guide in the beginning "How steep can it get?" Haaaaaa! Jokes! We spent the first hour hiking up a major steep path that can only be described as Mount Longonot. Turns out this was the path that was to eventually bring us into "the impenetrable forest." Yaaaaani, this was not even the real trek yet. Having panted my life away I imagined that the gorillas would be so kind as to avail themselves to a nearby part of the forest - you know.....kind of meet us halfway....Nothing....We then spent the next hour in the forest mostly uphill with some few blessed moments of going downhill (I might not have considered the downhill parts a blessing if I had realized that we would be using the same exact path going back i.e. this would be an uphill path on our way back.) After an hour of trudging through the forest (which was muddy and slippery as it had rained the previous night,) I imagined that we must be really close to the gorillas. One of my colleagues asked how much longer and the guard said "In the next hour, we will be with the gorillas." I almost flung myself on the ground and started crying. An hour?? I can barely put one foot in front of the other....Can I just stay here and wait for you guys? And photoshop myself into your pics with the gorillas?

Then our guide talked to the tracker again and he said that we would have to cut our way through the forest to get to where the gorillas were. Armed with a sickle, our guards started cutting down vegetation in the "impenetrable forest" to get us to the gorillas. Maybe it's just me, but I always thought forests have a ground - yes, the trees might be close together, but there will surely be a ground, right? No. We were walking on air, on trees, on fallen branches, over streams, on nothingness, on everything - I fell down a minimum of 5 times - once into a hole of my height, another time I slipped on a muddy rock and was just so glad that this was saving me some effort, that I just let myself slide down 5 or 6 more muddy rocks - like I was on a water slide at Splash or something - I could not even be bothered to stand up and would have gladly slid down the mountain if there was a way to...

Finally, oh, finally that sweet moment arrived - when we got to the gorillas. The family we were tracking was amazing - 26 in total, 3 silverbacks (the male leaders), 5 or so blackbacks (younger males), 10 or so females and the rest were babies. This sounds silly, but I didn't realize how huge gorillas are. The first one we met was 225 kgs, so human in action, just stunning. To think that there are only 840 mountain gorillas remaining in the world - all of them in Rwanda, Uganda and DRC - just amazing work that the parks have done in keeping this magnificent, beautiful creatures alive for future generations to enjoy. It was so exhilarating just standing in the middle of the forest with the largest primates known to man. 

There were some hilarious/frightening moments, with 2 of the silverbacks charging at us twice and having to be stopped by the trackers who are able to mimic their sounds. We also heard the screams of a gorilla baby and saw how quickly the silverbacks went to check what was happening. One of the silverbacks also started pounding his chest as he retreated from us - to make sure we knew who was boss. It was really out of the world.

The next day with my aching bones, I could genuinely say that it was worth every bit of physical pain to see the mountain gorillas. I thank the Kahungye gorilla family for letting us take a sneak peek into their lives, the great wardens and trackers for loving and caring for these treasures of the world, my travel companions for pushing me forward and encouraging me when all I wanted to do was give up during that journey. 

I encourage every one who can to go see the lovely mountain gorillas. East Africans, the deal is sweet for you - USD 90/person vs. USD 600 that foreigners pay:-)

My first time in Ghana - part 8 (the end)

Date: Early 2007
Context: Thekenyanexplorer went to Ghana with a team from uni on a 3 week trip to Ghana. Her team was focusing on some development work in energy and water. This is an email that was sent to her friends and family after the trip. The full story will be in a few separate consecutive blog entries.

KWAME NKRUMAH
    To our joy the Kwame Nkrumah memorial park was open. It was a really beautiful place with seven statues of horn blowers blowing water into the fountain. The memorial park is a bit controversial since Nkrumah is likened to God in many ways that some find sacreligious. The seven horn blowers representing the fact that God created for six days then rested on the seventh....just like Nkrumah. Kwame Nkrumah's mausoleum viewed from a distance looks like a tree. He is merely resting under a tree. Not dead. Many think of Nkrumah as immortal. Nkrumah's body is finally laying where it should be. He died in a hospital in Romania from prostate cancer. He was buried first in exile in Guinea where he was co-president after having been overthrown in Ghana, and could not be returned home. He was buried in a metal coffin for many years and this is taboo. According to custom he had to be buried in a wooden case so that his soul would eventually be able to escape after the coffin decomposes. Later on his body was allowed to be brought back into Ghana and be buried in his home town. It was finally dug up for the last time and buried in the now Kwame Nkrumah memorial park in Accra. 
    The museum was quite interesting and the guide was very informative. On the exterior of the museum there was Egyptian drawings, a tribute to Nkrumah's wife who was Egyptian. There are many pictures of Nkrumah with Fidel Castro, the very handsome Patrice Lumumba (Congo's first president- who was killed by the Belgians and supposedly by the CIA for his friendship with communist leaders and his great work in opposing colonialism. He was only seeking help from stronger nations after the US refused to support him.  It makes one wonder how much of a threat the CIA and Belgium thought Lumumba was for them not only to have killed and buried him under a tree, but then dug him up again to dissolve his body in sulphuric acid. The good are killed off young.
    The symbols on Nkrumah's monument are interesting. There is the lady with an egg showing that power is fleeting. There is the upward pointing sword depicting political power. The place left me pretty sad, but also hopeful in a strange way. Great people die or are killed, but great ideas can never be erased. Forwards ever, Backwards never.

BLOOD DIAMOND
    I had told all my group mates about blood diamond, and we decided to go watch it. We saw a place called the "movie theater." Turned out to be a bar that has a big screen and some benches. I found it so amusing, that there are really no movie theaters in Accra. This is a plus for Nairobi. 

CUPID'S ARROW
    I am smitten by a certain Ghanaian man. That is all I will say for now. I think I was given some juju. He is the sweetest human being I have met. For more details ask me. 

DEPARTURE AND AMSTERDAM
    Leaving Ghana was pretty sad. We had lunch at a vegan restaurant "Asasse Pa" then spent the rest of the afternoon shopping. I have grown so attached to the place and my new peaceful way of life. I love the people. People are really unbelievably nice, and I feel like I found a warm part of myself that I had sort of forgotten for a while. A part of me that makes me human. I feel like I have found a second home after Kenya. There were two blackouts at the airport. Was a bit amusing. We spent yesterday touring Amsterdam in the morning. It was fun. Amsterdam was really beautiful but cold. We arrived at 6am and tried finding a coffee shop to warm up with coffee before touring. Funny.....none were opened at 6am. At 8am we finally found one. I ordered an Irish coffee thinking this would be coffee with baileys. Turned out to be coffee with whisky (not the best morning drink if I may say so myself.) It warmed me up though 

My first time in Ghana - part 7

Date: Early 2007
Context: Thekenyanexplorer went to Ghana with a team from uni on a 3 week trip to Ghana. Her team was focusing on some development work in energy and water. This is an email that was sent to her friends and family after the trip. The full story will be in a few separate consecutive blog entries.

RETURN OF THE GRASSCUTTER    
    As I walk back to Pastor George's I pass a grasscutter on the middle of the road that has been slaughtered and is having its organs taken out one by one. As a meat eater it is very ironic of me to be saddened by this, but I was. It was enough of an experience to make me want to become a vegetarian. The man gutting it, dug his fingers dip inside its abdominal cavity and pulled out his bloody hands which he then took to the dog's nose. Pastor George said they do that to let the dogs be able to track them by looking for the scent of their blood. I am happy I am not a grasscutter.

DOWNTIME
    Today we woke up at 2:30am to drive out to Bui National Park. Each of us and our translators were going. We were 15 in total with the driver. We hopped onto the back of a pickup and began our three hour journey there. The ride there was unbelievably cold, and uncomfortable. The back of a pickup is only fun in warm weather and when you have leg space. We got to the park around 6am. Our first stop was the beautiful lake to see the hippos. It was exciting. Afterwards we got off the pickup and started walking around. This was when I lost respect for the park. No park worthy of being called a park can have people walking around. I instantly knew that the most dangerous animal they could possibly have in the park was a gazelle or some other herbivore. Kenya still beats Ghana in this arena. We have real wildlife. Can you imagine the only animal we saw was a grasscuttter. How annoying. The ride back home was hot and tortorous. It was now unbelievably hot. I cut myself on a jutting metal piece, and only began to bleed much later when we got home and drank lots of water. It was like being in the Sahara. 

BACK TO ACCRA
    Our host’s son in law picked us up, and drove us to Kumasi. In Kumasi I realized that there are more cabs than people. Cabbing is the normal mode of transportation. Shared taxis are more common than trotros/matatus. We hoped into a bus to take us to Accra. The first hour in the bus we had the luck of having a street preacher with us. He got up, and preached and preached and preached. Then he passed around a collection box, but he wasn't obnoxious about it. He didn't harass anyone or anything. He was a nice street preacher after all. After five and a half hours of riding in the bus, I really began to hate Ghanaian courtesy of dropping everyone off at their various locations. The bus would stop every 3 minutes or so. 

A NAME SO SWEET
    It was Friday night, and we had gotten back to Accra. We were staying again at the pink hostel, but this time it felt like the Ritz Carlton to us. Big bed, lights, shower, soap, toilet paper. We were now living large. Our Saturday plan was to go shopping for kente cloth and crafts, but our plans were cut short.

THE DEATH OF A CHIEF
    The Ga paramount chief had died six months earlier, and in Ga fashion he would be buried today. Everything in Accra was closed in respect for the Ga chief. The whole city wore mourning colors of black and red. None of the shops we planned on visiting would be open. We chose to go to the one open place- the ocean. Standing there at the gulf of guinea I felt so alive. So fulfilled. Accra is simply beautiful. It is like having Mombasa as our capital city.

My first time in Ghana - part 6

Date: Early 2007
Context: Thekenyanexplorer went to Ghana with a team from uni on a 3 week trip to Ghana. Her team was focusing on some development work in energy and water. This is an email that was sent to her friends and family after the trip. The full story will be in a few separate consecutive blog entries.

OF DREAMS AND CHILDREN
 The kids in New Longoro are so cute and sweet. I felt like I would leave Ghana with a few of them. One of my team-mates had a dream. She was pregnant, and gave birth to a black baby (note: she is white). It was quite funny. We asked her if the baby was mixed. She said the baby was black. I interpreted this to mean that she will probably adopt an African baby in the future. Strange that the kids in New Longoro don't scream when they see a camera flash. They calmly stand when pictures are taken. My new best friend is called Nico Nico and he is Pastor George's goat herder's son. He is 13, but could pass for 8. It is pretty sad that many of the children here are malnourished. Not due to lack of food, but due to lack of nurses to teach new mothers the importance of giving their children a balanced diet. There is quite a bit of marasmus and kwashiakor in the area. The most ironic thing is that the child with the most distended belly in the village is a fisherman's son. The kids here don't get enough protein even though peanuts are grown in the area (they are sold and not consumed by the families.) I keep on getting the strange feeling in Ghana that the government actually cares for the people. John Kufuor the current president seems to have a heart. There is a new school feeding program, and children in all primary schools get lunch. Enrolment in schools has gone up due to the feeding program, and I think it is a wonderful undertaking. 

THE GIRL WITH A WOODEN DOLL
    Today we taught the kids in the hall. They stood up to move to the other side of the room, and I saw a little wooden doll on the floor of the room. The little doll was dressed in the yellow school uniform that the rest of the girls had. I slowly walked to the doll, and picked it up. I wondered whose doll it was, and where it came from. Something about the doll made me feel really sad. All dolls are lifeless, but this one was dead. One of the boys walked up to me, and told me that the doll belongs to one of the young girls. He told me the doll looks just like her. I inquired why. He told me it was carved out for her after she lost her twin sister, and she went everywhere with her doll. Tears stung my eyes. I turned, and saw a limping girl come towards me. She looked just like the doll. I gave her her doll, and gave her a warm comforting touch on her wrist. I knew it was a cold comfort. I felt for her, but knew there was nothing I would be able to do to take away the sadness from her eyes. I was curious about her limp, her loss, her, but all I could do was sadly watch her limp away.

My first time in Ghana - part 5

Date: Early 2007
Context: Thekenyanexplorer went to Ghana with a team from uni on a 3 week trip to Ghana. Her team was focusing on some development work in energy and water. This is an email that was sent to her friends and family after the trip. The full story will be in a few separate consecutive blog entries.

NEW LONGORO
 We moved on to our final destination. A village right on the border between Brong Ahafo region and the Northern region. A village basically separated from Ivory Coast only by a range of mountains. In New Longoro we would be staying with families so as to get the whole community experience rather than living isolated from the community. I ended up living with Pastor George. He was a sweet old man, and the main opinion leader in the community. He had made so many preparations for our arrival. We had been learning Twi in MIT, but in Accra people mostly speak Ga. In Ashanti region people speak Twi, and in New Longoro they speak Mu. We each had our own translator who would be living with us in the homes. His house was the poshest in the village. Granted we didn't have electricity, but he had his own water tank. He even had an indoor toilet even though you had to fetch water into the bucket to flush it. My first shower in New Longoro was a bit funny. The house had an outdoors bathing room, but it was definitely built for someone shorter than me. I went in with my bucket of water, and realized I could see people on the road pretty clearly. It was pretty strange having people say hi to you as they passed by the shower. It was equally funny when a goat would walk into the shower. My poor team-mate had a chicken watching her shower. Pastor George kept grass cutters, cows, bees, goats etc. I noticed that in Ghana all the goats are fat, and all the cows are really thin. Fresh milk is not available in Ghana. They use powder milk and evaporated milk. It was interesting noting some minor differences between African countries. 

SUNDAY SCHOOL
    Having Pastor George as our main host meant that Sunday would be a church sunday. It was pretty amusing considering only 20% of our group was remotely Christian. We were asked to give a sermon, and our professor gave a wonderful sermon on development. The pastor is a genius, and planned out what we should tell the folk before church. He said our sermon should involve talking to the people about sending children to school, good hygiene etc. It was interesting to see how much power the church holds in a community. One of my team-mates (a medical student) decided to deliver a sermon on the benefits of breast feeding, and Pastor George being a very practical hands on person decided that people learn best by example. He asked a lady in the back who was breast feeding her baby to come to the front. I thought it would be an awkward moment for the rest of the group, but it turned out none of us is faint of heart. I think my time in the village I saw more boob than I have even seen on Girls gone wild ads. 

A BUG'S LIFE
    I worry for my health considering that when we were in New Longoro we got bitten by tsetse flies, onco flies, mosquitoes, bees and other insects of unknown origin. So worst case scenario we braved getting sleeping sickness, river blindness, malaria etc. Let me not forget to mention my varucca/fungal infection growing on the sole of my foot. Quite adventorous I must say. I got it from going barefoot into the Black Volta (not really sure why that seemed like a good idea.)  In Ghana I noticed a strange habit. Before meals a bowl of warm soapy water is brought before you, and everyone washes their hands in the same bowl. We tried not to think too much about how many germs we might be sharing between us.

My first time in Ghana - part 4

Date: Early 2007
Context: Thekenyanexplorer went to Ghana with a team from uni on a 3 week trip to Ghana. Her team was focusing on some development work in energy and water. This is an email that was sent to her friends and family after the trip. The full story will be in a few separate consecutive blog entries.

LAND OF THE LEARNED
 One of the things that amazed me in Ghana was how well educated people are. Everyone we met seemed to have a Bachelors, Masters and perhaps even a Phd. It was plain to see that having a forward-looking first president like Kwame Nkrumah has given Ghana a head start on some other African nations. On Monday we went to a neighbouring town called Wenchi, and went to visit the district hospital. It was pretty well equipped, but had mostly Cuban doctors. The head of the hospital told us that brain drain has taken so many of Ghana's doctors and nurses that now they get doctors from Cuba. I spent the time in Ofuman testing water samples from the rivers, and testing plastic bottles versus plastic papers in solar water disinfection (SODIS.) It was pretty interesting work for me. Our host was a layman in the Methodist church and took us to visit the Bishop in Wenchi. Yet again he was a highly educated man with huge plans for the country. Ghana really felt like a forward moving nation to me. He was educated in Wheaton college, and we had some German tea at his place. It was really sad that in two weeks the Bishop's lovely house would burn to the ground due to an electrical fault. Luckily no one would be hurt, but all his earthly possessions would be no more.

INTO THE DEEP
 Our last days in Ofuman were spent working with agriculture students in the region showing them how to make charcoal from waste materials e.g. coconut husks, corn cobs, sugarcane bagasse. It was a really worthwhile experience considering what a big problem deforestation has become for developing nations. Our last night in Ofuman we had amazing tofu kebabs (I have a new found respect for tofu after having it Ghanaian style.) During one of the charcoal demonstrations one of the university students kept winking at me, and making me slightly confused during my presentation. Boys!!!! There are lots of grasscutters in Ghana, and they are eaten in quite a few places. I remember seeing one, and I totally freaked out. It is a huge huge rodent. It is fatter than two rabbits, but looks like a huge rat. I have not yet eaten a grasscutter to my knowledge. The night we left Ofuman the host family were having marriage negotiations with their daughter’s fiance’s  parents. He was a really cool computer engineer who was about to marry our host’s daughter- who  is only 26 but is an importer of agricultural materials and has her own store. Her fiancé loves her so much that he moved to the village to instead manage his soon to be father in law’s farm. He is a really nice guy with a habit of telling stories that are built up to sound like jokes, but never have a funny ending. We just called his sense of humor "special." This calm guy randomly decides to tell us how much he hates pedestrians on the road who don't move when they see a car approaching. He calmly tells us that he carries a cane in the car to hit people on the road who don't move off fast enough. We were all silent, and wondering whether to laugh or run. I still think he is a nice guy. Just probably suffers from suppressed rage. Every human being has their own mental disorder. 

My first time in Ghana - part 3

Date: Early 2007
Context: Thekenyanexplorer went to Ghana with a team from uni on a 3 week trip to Ghana. Her team was focusing on some development work in energy and water. This is an email that was sent to her friends and family after the trip. The full story will be in a few separate consecutive blog entries.

BRONG AHAFO
    After our mission in Kumasi was done we began our task into the deep lands. We took a trotro/matatu/ tiny minivan to our next destination. We would be living on a farm working on our projects with a famous farmer who is the uncle of one of the Ghanaians at MIT, and was the two time winner of Ghana's best National farmer award. He got two pickups for his brilliance in farming. He is no regular farmer. He is highly educated (having studied in Ghana and abroad.) He had his PHD and is a farmer by profession. His farm was definitely one of the most productive farms I have seen. He lives in Ofuman, and he is the town itself. 

LUNCH TIME
    Ok I would not do my trip to Ghana justice if I didn't talk about the food. Now I take a small break, and talk about the heavenly meals we ate there. Pineaples, Mangoes, Pawpaws, coconuts, Coconut rice, jolof rice, red-red (fried sweet plantains with beans cooked in red palm oil), banku (fermented flour that is used to make a sort of ugali that has a slightly tangy taste....yum yum), foofoo (pounded yam/cassava), palava/problem sauce (Morenga or spinach mixed with egusi (watermelon seeds) and fried in palm oil. Peanut sauce, gari - cassava that has been grated, dried then roasted and is sprinkled on food in a salt like manner to increase carbohydrate intake. All types of fish. I don't know what has become of me. I lost myself in Ghana and really started loving fish. Sole, tilapia, red snapper etc. It was amazingly good. 
       Our breakfast usually consisted of tea bread, sugar bread, Hausa coco (yummy fermented porridge with a hint of pepper), cocoa tea, tea tea or coffee tea. Ghanaians use tea to refer to any hot drink. Don't ask me why.  Sodas are called "Mineral." Yep English came by ship. 

BACK TO BUSINESS
    Huge lizards were a normal thing to see all over Ghana. Huge green lizards with red stripes. Apparently they are harmlesss. In Ofuman life was amazing. We were living in the village, but not really in the village as our host was much wealthier than the average villager. We had electricity, water, radio etc. Our host owns so much land, and took us for a tour the first night. He grew everything from Morenga (miracle tree) to cashews, to mangoes, cassava, cocoa, coconuts etc. He is a huge exporter. It was lovely taking a ride on the back of his pickup to see his farm, his lake, his cattle, sheep, goats, chickens etc. Riding in the back of the pickup in the setting sun made me long for years gone by when we would ride on the back of dad's pickup from Nairobi primary and would be flying on Uhuru highway. Being at one with the wind. I still believe that my favourite mode of transportation is on the back of a pickup.

My first time in Ghana - part 2

Date: Early 2007
Context: Thekenyanexplorer went to Ghana with a team from uni on a 3 week trip to Ghana. Her team was focusing on some development work in energy and water. This is an email that was sent to her friends and family after the trip. The full story will be in a few separate consecutive blog entries.

KUMASI BOUND
    We woke up at 6am to catch our 9am bus to Kumasi. There was a blackout, and I grabbed a shower in torch light. As soon as I had soaped myself the water ran out. I calmly dried myself and came to terms with the fact that for the rest of the day I would smell like a bar of soap. We took a cab to the train station, and it worried me that we were riding in slow traffic with our windows open. Later I was to find out that Accra is one of the safest capital cities in Africa. Pickpocketing is very unusual. In fact the guide book contrasted Accra to Nairobi. We got to the bus station at 7:30am forgetting to account for African timing of buses. The buses were running a little late. To be precise, the 5:30am bus left at 8am. The 7:30am bus left at 9am, and our 9am bus left at 11am. Luckily someone had brought some cards for a game called "apples to apples" and we killed some time playing that. I remember having to use a public toilet, and it cost me 7000 cedis (0.7 dollars.) The toilet was really clean and the cashier gave us toilet paper, and I started to wonder if Accra just might be slightly more advanced than Nairobi. The journey lasted five hours with a stop in a town somewhere in the middle. I tempted fate and had a meat pie at the stop. Luck was on my side, and I did not get a case of the bad diarrhoea or anything like that (excuse my french .) The scenery was beautiful and even though we were northwards bound the tropical climate of Ghana made all the towns look coastal. Everywhere I saw palm trees, coconut trees etc. The humidity got a bit less, but the heat was intense. 
    On the air conditioned bus we took I saw two video screens descend, and was very excited to realize that one of them worked. I was very pleased that they would be showing a Nigerian film. It was in true Nigerian counterfeit fashion. The beginning started with the whole beginning of 20th century fox films with roaring lion included. In place of the title "20th century fox" was "Dj productions." The movie even had an FBI warning to it about not pirating it. Heeeeee heeeeeee. So just as I am excited about watching "In love with a thief "(you have to love those self explanatory titles) the screen freezes, and thus ends our movie. Well they tried............
    We arrived at the Kwame Nkrumah university of Science and Technology (KNUST ) school of medicine guest house which would be our home for the few days in Kumasi. The campus was lovely. The hostels were beautiful, and the grounds were really well kept. Getting off the bus was a bit of a hassle because as soon as the cab people saw foreigners they rushed to try and get our luggage into their cabs. Everyone was trying to get us into their cabs. Our group consisted of two Ghanaians (a guy and a girl), a British Indian guy, a Chinese American girl, a Polish American girl and our female American Professor who was quite africanized. She had been in the peace corps for five years. Lived and worked in Botswana as the bee keeping regional officer and high school teacher. Has lived and worked in 47 different countries. Strict vegetarian. Now an MIT professor. Me (who fitted in quite well since everyone thought I was Ghanaian – Ashanti to be precise. Amidst excited shouts of Browni (the generic Ghanaian word for white person) we finally managed to get to our hostel with all our bags. I was quite surprised that even in the chaos no one had tried to steal any of our bags. Ghana is unbelievably safe. We took a walk and looked at the lovely grounds. There was a tree with many bats, and one of our hosts told us the famous bat story. Some of the locals eat bats, but they are pretty tricky to eat. Once they are in the stew they keep on soaking up all the soup, and one has to continuously squeeze the flesh to get back their soup. All the trees were covered in dust since it is Harmattan season, and the winds blowing from the Sahara bring lots of dust into the country.
    The next day we went to Suame Magazine which is Africa's largest jua kali area. Tens of thousands of local artisans work in the hot sun and one can find anything in Suame Magazine. Beds, car spare parts, heavy machinery etc. It is the largest artisan engineering cluster in Africa. We spent the day in one of the workshops getting parts for some of the agricultural machines we would be taking into the villages. 

My first time in Ghana - part 1

Date: Early 2007
Context: Thekenyanexplorer went to Ghana with a team from uni on a 3 week trip to Ghana. Her team was focusing on some development work in energy and water. This is an email that was sent to her friends and family after the trip. The full story will be in a few separate consecutive blog entries.
Well what can I say. I just got back from my three week developmental field work in Ghana. Ghana was amazing. It was what I could describe as a life changing experience for me. The country is wonderful. The people are amazing, and unbelievably nice. Just thinking back to my past three weeks makes me love my continent even more. Such a beautiful, albeit disturbed continent. Africa was once a utopia. Africa will once again be a utopia. A wealth of heritage, culture, music, dance, beauty, history, customs. It is indeed sad that currently our utopia is plagued by civil wars, political strife, famines, droughts, disease and poverty. In my opinion Africa is the most beautiful place in the world. 

THE JOURNEY THAT ALMOST NEVER WAS
    So probably the beginning of my journey was not the best ever. After the Ghanaian embassy in DC held my passport for really long, and did not send it back in time, it looked like I would not be entering my promised land. As a desperate measure my professor still hoped to get me to board the plane, but that failed. Anyone with my suspect genes knows that it would be a snowy day in Khartoum when a Kenyan left the States without a passport (unless they are being deported.) Feeling slightly dejected I waved goodbye to the rest of my team and was pleased to find out I would be able to travel a few days later, and meet them. I travelled a few days after my group, and I was really excited and anxious to get to Accra. I remember sitting in the Amsterdam airport, and hearing on the loud speaker "Kenya airways flight no. blah blah to Nairobi will be boarding at gate abc." It made me really homesick to know that a plane to my home was leaving from the same airport I was in. It was however comforting to know that I would be in the continent although in the extreme Westerly point from Kenya. The Amsterdam airport was nostalgic. Many Africans seated at the gate. I remember a Ghanaian woman next to me who had a daughter and a young son who were fighting next to me. It brought back childhood memories of my sister and me. The girl slapped her little brother, and he came running to me in tears. I just lifted him up, and sat him on my lap. It was so odd not having to worry that the child's mother might mistake me for a creepy stranger trying to kidnap her baby. I realized I felt quite at home. I arrived at Accra the next evening, and the airport reminded me of JKIA (Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.) Many people. Many bags. Many screaming toddlers. It was refreshing.  My first suspicion that I was not in Nairobi was the fact that everyone including the customs officials was extremely nice to me. No one tried to get some "chai kidogo/bribe" from me. It took me a whole five minutes to get out of the airport since I made friends with a Sudanese guy as I got off the plane who turned out to work for the UN in Liberia. He took me through the diplomatic exits, and told them I was his co-worker. It was indeed the royal treatment. I kind of felt like Djimon Hounsou in Blood Diamond in the scene when he has to pretend to be a photographer. I got out of the airport, and was met by my team. There was a layer of mist in the atmosphere and I assumed we were in a glass encased room before I realized we were actually in the outdoors. Accra was amazingly humid. It is said you can look directly into the sun without hurting your eyes thanks to the layer of dust and humidity around you. We hopped into a cab, and went to the Pink Hostel that would be my abode for the night. My professor told us that we would be waking up at 6am to head off to our next destination- Kumasi in the Ashanti region.

Tango and hangovers

Having gone out the night before, I woke up at 3am. My new friend and me went for lunch at a place close to the hostel. We changed money in yet another sketchy way - Buenos Aires really was the place where you had to do really shady things to change your dollars on the black market - as the real rate in official changing places was 30% less than what you got on the black market. 

In the evening we went to a Tango show. They were the funniest marketers I have ever seen - the organizers of this show. We were not allowed to take any pics during the show. On your way into the show, you got to pose with the dancers and then buy the pic from them. As you attempted to get into the room for the show, you first had to pass through their shop where they had all sort of merchandise. 

The venue was amazing. As soon as we got in we realized that we looked like a lovely lesbian couple - the lights were dim, the setting was romantic and most people were in couples. It was a bit funny actually. The dancing was AMAZING - I don't know what muscles these people were using to be able to do some of the amazing things they did. 

After the show we went home, I packed and woke up the next day at 9:30am to make it to the airport for my flight back to Nairobi. Just like that 2 months of an amazing backpacking experience in South America was coming to an end. My flight was crazy long. I flew from Buenos Aires to Porto Allegre in Brazil to Rio to Dubai and finally to Nairobi. 

Of course my adventures were not to end there. I stayed in Nairobi one week, then moved to Abidjan for 2 months to learn French. Those are adventures you will read about soon - but next let's go back in time......to Ghana!

:-)

The World's most beautiful cemetery, Tibetans in Switzerland, Steak and more steak

We had lunch yet again at Don Julio - the amazing steak restaurant just down the road from my hostel. Delicious!

In the evening we attempted to go for a Tango show at Cafe Tortoni - Argentina's oldest cafe - having been established in 1858, but when we got there, the show was oversubscribed and we couldn't get in. I did however get a free history lesson from a Tibetan-Swiss guy with us. Apparently Switzerland has one of the largest Tibetan communities out of Tibet. In the 1960s, Red Cross resettled 300 Tibetans in Switzerland and an additional 150 orphans were adopted by Swiss families. 

The next day I finally made it to Recoleta cemetery, and I admit, it is the most beautiful cemetery I have ever been to. It was almost like visiting a museum - amazing sculptures, beautiful tombstones etc. It was the first time I had seen bodies buried above the ground. I always assumed that "six feet under" was the norm, but apparently in some places, people are buried at ground level. Most of the bodies were in mausoleums. 

I got to where Evita was buried and there were people crying at her grave. It was quite touching given she died in 1952. I recall asking someone who worked at the cemetery to direct me to her grave. He started hitting on me and I remember thinking "how inappropriate is this? Should you really be hitting on people at a cemetery?" The cemetery was huge - I walked around for hours and i'm not sure I got to see everything. Some of the mausoleums were in disarray - perhaps a wealthy family that no longer had money. In some, you could see bones falling out. Some were so touching because of the melodramatic sculptures - the wailing maidens were a fixture throughout. 

There was one mausoleum that had a sculpture of a woman and a dog. I wondered - was her dog buried here? Did she die of rabies that she contracted from the dog?

After the cemetery I went to a brewery down the road where I had a few beer samplers. In the evening I went for dinner with a friend and her friend. After that we partied the night away - highlights include meeting a long haired Chilean artist who played Mulatu Astatke - the godfather of Ethiojazz. It was a great day and night!

San Telmo, Hard rock cafe

We woke up with grand plans of going to Recoleta cemetery - "the most beautiful cemetery in the world." I know, I know, that is quite confusing - a beautiful cemetery? That was what everyone said, "You must go to Recoleta!" 

We walked an hour to get there and when we were a few minutes away, we decided to eat at Hard Rock cafe. We ended up spending an hour there, and by the time we got to the cemetery (5pm) they had closed. It was so funny, how we had sort of wasted the day - walked for an hour, eaten for a few hours and found the cemetery closed...:-) It's good none of us was on a tight schedule.

We ended up going out again that night, but it was not as much fun as the previous night - I think most of us were tired. 

The next day we went to San Telmo - the oldest neighborhood of Buenos Aires. It is characterized by colonial buildings, cafes, tango parlors and antique shops. Seeing artists and dancers on the streets is quite common. It was a Sunday and all the streets were lined with people selling all different types of unique items. I really need to apologize to the guys I went to San Telmo with. They mostly wanted to sight see and I mostly wanted to shop (as soon as I realized that there were great things to buy.)

One of my favourite sights was that of an old couple tangoing in the middle of the street. It was so beautiful. I remember wishing that in my old age, I would still be with the love of my life and still feel the love. I really find it so cute when I see acts of affection between old couples - cause you know they have gone through thick and thin, and it's so impressive if somehow even after all that, they have that puppy love.

In the evening, we ended up going to this massive club called Club One. That was when I realized that I really really needed to sleep. I was drinking the equivalent of Vodka/Redbulls (but in this case Vodka/Speed - an energy drink found in Argentina.) Despite that I was falling asleep, standing up. I gave up and went home to sleep - my body was officially telling me that full days and full nights would have to come to an end soon.....Age slowly creeping in:-)

Steak, music and theater in Buenos Aires

Lunch at Don Julio was amazing - one of the top steak restaurants in Argentina and in the world. What was most impressive was the fair price for the meal. Sometimes I forget just how expensive Nairobi has become. Here I was eating the most delicious steak I have ever eaten, for USD 20 in this amazing restaurant in Buenos Aires, and it made me think of all the mediocre meals that one can eat in some Nairobi restaurants for more than that. There is a good reason why I went to Don Julio three times during my 1.5 week stay in Buenos Aires. 

In the evening a few of us congregated at the hostel lounge. My Scottish friend brought out his guitar, and the next thing I know was that we had started a little singing troupe - me as the lead singer, my Scottish friend as the lead guitarist and a few spectators. It was wonderful - we did a bit of Bob Marley, a bit of Lucky Dube, a bit of Madonna ("Don't cry for me Argentina") etc.

In the evening we went to an amazing gay theater/club. It was quite fascinating - something like moulin rouge - an interesting combination of theater, singing, popular club music. Our merry troupe left the club at 7:30am and went back to the hostel rooftop to watch the sunrise. It was a wonderful morning of laughter fits, fun conversations and selfies. 

Buenos Aires city tour part - The end

SKETCHY MONEY EXCHANGE ON THE STREETS

After the city tour I found myself in the company of Bex and Adam (my two British friends), Usher (a Scotsman), Hank (a polish guy) and his Argentinian girlfriend whose name escapes me now. We needed to change money and this was my first experience with the “blue dollar rate.” I had already been warned about the dollar situation in Argentina. There is the official dollar exchange rate and the “blue dollar rate.” When I was in Argentina the difference in rates between the two was quite high – almost 30%. As such I had carried as many dollars as I could from Brazil, Bolivia and Chile in order to benefit from 30% more cash when I changed the dollars in the back alleys of Buenos Aires. Today was the day of reckoning – the day for me to find that back alley and get my money. Together with my new friends we went to find one particular street that was said to have the best rates. On this street several people stood leaning on lamp-posts pretending to listen to their i-pods whispered as you passed them “Dollars, dollars!” With the one Argentinian in our midst we picked a person who looked legitimate (as legitimate as one can look selling dollars on the black market on the backstreets of Buenos Aires.) We negotiated with the young man and he took us to the building where the transfer was to take place. I was nervous as we got into the building “Do we really need to do this exchange in a building? Why can’t we just do it on the streets where one can’t murder us?” My friend, “Uuh, they don’t exchange on the streets. The cops will see us.” Anyway I am happy to report that we went into the building with US dollars and came out alive and well with Argentine pesos.

AFTER THE TOUR

We went to a steak restaurant down the road that turned out to have one of the worst steaks I’ve eaten in my life. Of course we were all upset – it’s Argentina – how can you serve us bad steak? We complained and were given a discount.

We heard about a bar called Gibraltar that was said to have a great happy hour. We searched and searched and an hour later we actually found it. We had a fun night out where we made so many new friends. I remember meeting two Argentinian girls who told me that Argentinians love tourists, and this is something I got to see during my stay there. People were so welcoming and helpful, especially when they knew you were from elsewhere. I did not sense any xenophobia in my time there- just lots of xenophilia.

Getting home the next morning after partying was quite a funny trial. My friend’s told me of getting on a bus that only accepted Argentinian coins and realizing they did not have any. In their inebriated sense, they tried stuffing British pennies into the machine. The irritated bus driver finally let them on free. For me I stayed out all night and trying to get home on the next morning – Easter morning – involved walking for hours as I couldn’t find a bus or subway. It was all worth it though:-).

Buenos Aires city tour part 3

ECONOMICS

If you’re wondering what happened in Buenos Aires to encourage the development of luxury buildings based on literature, the answer is simple – Money. The story of Buenos Aires and Argentina in general  is one of rags to riches back to rags.

In a nutshell early in the 20th century Argentina became the world’s 7th richest country but since then it has slowly declined with remaining among the top 15 world economies around the 1950s but now only being classified as just an upper middle-income country. Its greatest troubles are credited to high inflation (between 10-25% in 2013 depending on what source you trust (official Government figures of privately estimated statistics), political insecurity through most of the 1900s and lots of economic turmoil including unequal income distribution (which could explain all the strikes in Argentina.)

MADRES DE LA PLAZA DE MAYO (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo)

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is an association of Argentine mothers whose children disappeared during the military dictatorship, between 1976 and 1983. They came together while trying to learn what had happened to their children, and began to march in 1977 at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, in front of the Presidential palace in public defiance of the government's state terrorism intended to silence all opposition.

The military has admitted that over 9,000 of those kidnapped are still unaccounted for, but the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo say that the number of missing is closer to 30,000. Most are presumed dead. An estimated 500 of the missing are grandchildren born in concentration camps or prisons to pregnant 'disappeared' women; the babies were given in illegal adoptions to military families and others associated with the regime. Their mothers were generally believed killed. The numbers are hard to determine due to the secrecy surrounding the abductions.

EVITA

She was a legend and what most people know about her is that she was Argentina’s beloved first lady who died of cancer at the young age of 33. What most people don’t know about her is the reason she is still loved in the eyes of many in Argentina and beyond. In my time there I had her being described as an angel, a saint and after reading up a lot on her I see why the people loved and still love her.

Eva was born the last of 5 children in rural Argentina. She moved to Buenos Aires at the age of 15 to pursue a career as a stage, radio, and film actress. She met Colonel Juan Peron in 1944, two years before he became the President of Argentina. She was a proponent for labor rights, championed women’s suffrage in Argentina (resulting in women getting the right to vote in 1947.) She fought for the rights of the poor, the orphaned, the jobless. She fought for the rights of illegitimate children who were marginalized by Argentinian law. She herself was the result of a relationship between her very poor mother and a wealthy rancher who had a family of his own. She grew up stigmatized by the abandonment by her father who had returned to his legal wife and family. She grew up branded a “bastard.” At the age of 15 she ran off from her poverty stricken village with a musician to Buenos Aires to seek a better life. In Buenos Aires she suffered as she had little formal education and no connections. She eventually managed to rise up the ranks of media and have a stable income and an apartment of her own.

It was at this time that she met and fell in love with the future President of Argentina. They met during a fundraiser for an earthquake that had killed 10,000 people. He had organized to have a sort of artistic festival as the fundraiser and she was one of the artists in attendance.

This rise from rags to riches and all her charitable work and support for the downtrodden in Argentina coupled with her early death result in the love that Argentinians have for her. It would be a few days before I would see young Argentinians wail at her burial site in Recoleta cemetery – even though she had been dead for over half a century. 

Discovering a hidden paradise in Burundi

Longer blog posts will follow soon about my recent 8 day vacation in Burundi, but before that I really need to tell you all about the hidden paradise I found in Burundi - Tanganyika blue bay an amazing resort on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Rumonge, Burundi. I went to Rumonge, searching for answers, seeking solace after weeks of stress that saw me get diagnosed with fatigue by the doctor. The doctor pretty much recommended I take a break - from consulting, from book launches, from hectic travels etc. I decided there and then that I wanted to go off to somewhere remote by a lake, river or ocean and take the time for introspection. I could not have chosen a more amazing place for this than Tanganyika Blue bay. What did I love about the place? Everything.

1. The amazing beach - I had fallen in love with the location from the pictures on the website.  Usually one should not trust website pics as of course they are taken from the best angles, with the best lighting and with great cameras. In this case though, the actual beauty of the place even surpassed that of the pics on the website. As soon as I arrived after my long long flight (that's what I get for getting the cheapest ticket that has you stop in Addis, Kigali and finally Bujumbura..:-) I thought I would get to the location and pass out, but I was immediately mesmerized by the beauty of the lake and the beach. I found myself sitting on the pier, singing and writing poetry - that is how inspiring the sight was.

2. The exceptional service - Even before getting to Burundi, I was impressed by how prompt they were to reply to all my emails with information requests (I asked about everything - the weather, ease of changing money etc, and they were always so detailed and polite in their responses.) On arriving in Bujumbura, I was warmly welcomed at the airport by the lady who had helped with my booking. At the resort, I was warmly welcomed by the owner and his family. During my time at the resort, the staff gave me all I could have asked for and more. They would set my breakfast table right by the lake and under a tree. Next to me they would set up my day bed as they knew I enjoyed swimming after breakfast. When the skies turned grey, they invited me to the lovely VIP section which allowed me to have an outdoorsy feeling, but still remain dry. They let me and my friends use this section as much as we wanted during our stay. The waiters always recommended new places to set up the dinner table "Today's sunset is lovely. We can put your dinner table on the pier." I was so impressed by how much they paid attention to detail and went out of their way to spoil us. We never lacked for anything during the vacation. I give special thanks to the owner, his wife and his lovely family, Susan, Joseph, Celestin, Nestor and Joseline for making our stay at Tanganyika blue bay such an amazing experience. 

3. Rooms and the amazing outdoor spaces - I remember one morning I spent in the VIP lounge outside, lying on my wonderful day bed, watching it rain on the lake and marveling at the wild waves on the lake - as I was covered by my blanket in this lovely outdoor structure made of bamboo and fiber. It was beautiful! To be outdoors in the rain, napping and still dry - it was beautiful. While the rooms were basic, I really loved how they used a lot of local materials. I have always had an appreciation for lovely cottages, and this cottages were exactly that. They did not try to be excessively modern - a feature that I think can look inauthentic at times. They were cottages that felt like cottages - they were warm, inviting, comforting, familiar and so Burundian - bamboo decorations in the rooms, hard wood tables on the balcony with wooden chairs from where one could watch the beautiful view. All the rooms had amazing views. I never ever closed my curtains as I loved the feeling of waking up to a room filled with sunlight at 6:30am. This truly was paradise. The one improvement though that I would suggest for the rooms is additional lighting. The lighting was romantic - as I guess it was meant to be, but I remember the first night, struggling to find my black night dress in my suitcase - as the light was too dark in the room:-) Maybe the lighting should have two settings - honeymoon or solotravel....heeee heeeeee

4. Little knick-knacks  - The attention to detail at Tanganyika blue bay was amazing. I have already told you about the amazing VIP sections, but have I mentioned the trees right by the lakes that had sockets? Yep, you could lie on the beach and charge your phone....Where else have you seen that - and in the middle of nowhere for that matter. For wifi lovers, the location has wifi. For those who love watersports, the resort has jetskis, boats etc. It's the little things in life that make us so happy

5. and most importantly......The Food - I have never eaten amazing fish like the ones I ate at Tanganyika Blue Bay. Every day the waiters would recommend a different type of fish that was a fresh catch - straight from the lake to your plate. The chef would work some magic on the fish in the kitchen and  bring you really really delicious meals. The bread, the cheese, the fish, the fresh fruits, the fresh juice - they had it all. The resort had a garden where they planted a lot of the ingredients that made their way to your plate. I remember being welcomed with a glass of fresh tangerine juice - it was so yum that I took the whole jug....no shame in my game:-)

Thekenyanexplorer gives Tanganyika blue bay a rating of 9.5/10 - In short, grab your passport, pack your bags and go to Burundi - you will not regret it:-)

(Note: Thekenyanexplorer is saving her rating of 10/10 for heaven - in short, I give Tanganyika Blue bay a perfect score - for somewhere on earth:-)

Buenos Aires city tour part 2

CITY PLANNING

It was so cool to learn the streets were so well planned in Buenos Aires. All the streets start from an avenue called Avenida Rivadaria. From this place each block is 100m long and all streets have a logical naming norm and everything is regularly spaced. I find it interesting when a city is planned in a way that makes it easy to extend it and easy for people to navigate it. It’s hard not to compare with cities such as my very own – Nairobi – where planning is taking place after the fact leading to a lot of demolition and reorganization. When I complain about this to other Africans though, I am told that Nairobi is a success story. There are many other cities where you can have a house next to a bar next to a church next to an office (Addis is one example…I remember being so confused when I was there trying to understand where the residential and commercial areas were – everything was all together….)

We got to see lots of interesting buildings and monuments in Buenos Aires. “The thinker” an iconic sculpture by French Sculptor Auguste Rodin can be found in the city center of Buenos Aires. There are only 28 of them worldwide with most being in museums, but right in the city center, one can be found.

Another interesting building called “Palacio Barolo” is famously known as “Dante’s House” as it was constructed in accordance with the cosmology of Dante’s Divine comedy. Constructed in 1890 by an Immigrant Italian architect, the building has 22 floors, divided into three "sections". The basement and ground floor represent hell, floors 1-14 are the purgatory, and 15-22 represent heaven. The building is 100 meters tall, one meter for each section of the Divine Comedy. The lighthouse at the top of the building can be seen all the way in Montevideo, Uruguay.  When completed in 1923 it was the tallest building, not only in the city, but also in the whole of South America. It remained the city's tallest building until 1935 when, on completion, the Kavanagh Building in Buenos Aires acquired this distinction.

The world’s largest avenue used to be in Buenos Aires, but just recently has been replaced by a wider one in Manaos Brazil. Other sites we saw included Café Tortorni – Buenos Aires’ oldest and most famous coffee shop built in 1858.

There is a huge obelisk in Buenos Aires. It is most notable for a safe-sex campaign in the late 1900s that saw the obelisk covered in a giant condom.  We also saw quite a few places dedicated to Diego Maradona – who is likely the most loved Argentinian in Argentina after Evita. While world famous for his “hand of God” unpenalized foul that saw Argentina win the 1986 World Cup, in Argentina he is known as a demi-god. You can get into real trouble for saying that Argentina won that game unfairly.