Southwestern Uganda - Amie standing outside the bus around 6:00am. We were waiting in a line of traffic for a few hours for an overturned truck to be cleared so we could make it to the border with Rwanda. Unfortunately, the accident caused a backlog at the border, which made for a hectic immigration experience. The buses will leave you if you take too long, and unfortunately we had to deal with an insane number of blatant 'queue jumpers.' Amie is usually the confrontational one, but I shocked even myself by raising quite a stink after like 10 guys in a row cut us at the front of the line on the Rwanda side. It started with my blocking the line with my body, escalated to me getting in their faces in French and yelling, 'back, back, back' as I gestured to the back of the line with my thumb, and culminated in Amie, me, and a Ugandan lady teaming up to cut all of them back! (After that move by us, the line pretty much disintegrated all together!)
Kigali, Rwanda - Overlooking Kigali, which is basically sprawled around hills overlooking a valley. It was an incredibly clean, orderly city with great roads, which I think can be partly attributed to all the reconstruction work following the genocide. I could hardly believe it's been 15 years since that was going on, and could hardly believe that it went on in these very streets. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to visit the genocide memorial this trip- perhaps next time.
Here's a few pics from my trip to Rwanda/DRC/Burundi. I went with a Amie, not only a great roommate but a great travel buddy as well!
Goma, DRC - Me standing in front of Lake Kivu in Goma. That's the UN compound behind me. It was a bit of a weird place- physically beautiful, but an odd mix of big NGO houses and vehicles, and incredibly poor people and evidence of the conflict that is still ongoing in many ways. Having just applied for a job with World Vision in Goma, I was trying to get a vibe for the place, and get a sense of whether I could see myself living there. While there, we stayed with a friend of a friend who works for Diane Fossey Gorilla fund, which was pretty cool! (This hilly border area between Uganda, DRC, and Rwanda is prime gorilla habitat). Sadly, that ubiquitous blue shirt I'm wearing in the photo was lost to me forever when I accidentally left it behind at the 'Sky Hotel' in Kigali :(
Bujumbura, Burundi - Here's a view from where I sat chillin' on the shores of Lake Tanganika in Bujumubura. You can see that I approve of the view! I liked Burundi- it was full of beautiful green hills and amazing produce (including strawberries!). There were also bakeries, and a more relaxed vibe than Kigali. I enjoyed dusting off my French as well!
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