Holiday Week #3: Kigali & Parc National Des Volcans

I did promise that this one was coming! The remainder of our time in Kigali was spent being unusually cosmopolitan. Memorials aside, there's not a huge amount to do in Kigali for tourists, but we were more than happy to enjoy its fantastic restaurants, cafes and art galleries. The four of us were also staying with Alice's cousin, meaning we had some home comforts in a home for a few days and a lovely host. 

Rooftop Chinese restaurants are unheard of in Mbarara - not so in Kigali!

Inema Arts Centre, Kigali

Work by at Inema Arts Centre

A few hours outside Kigali is Parc National Des Volcans, home to mountain gorillas, three international borders and some of the most beautiful scenery I've seen in East Africa. Sadly, gorilla trekking permits are notoriously difficult to get, but I did get the chance to track endemic golden monkeys through the forests at the foot of a volcano that spans Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. No SLR to take close ups, so you'll have to play a bit of "Is It A Tail Or A Branch?" too, but they're fantastic to watch and a joy to spend an hour with.

Holiday Week #2: Kigali I

Quick warning: this post contains no pictures, nor investment work, nor anything cheery.
Our second stop on our holiday week was Kigali, and although lots of fun was had (coming in #3 soon!), we did take some time to visit a few memorials to Rwanda's genocide of 1994. It's a change of tone from the usual witterings that I usually post, and I'm not even sure I'm wittering any less in my attempts to find the right words, but it was a part of my time in East Africa that deserves more than to be swept aside in favour of my silly pink shoes. 

I can't say I'm comfortable with gift shops and bus parties and dubbing it "worth visiting" in a Lonely Planet style, but the Kigali Memorial Centre is an exceptionally poignant memorial to the events of 1994 and the thousands of victims buried at the site. It is very deliberately a memorial centre, and not a museum - the information centre indoors is joined by walls and gardens of remembrance, and a separate research archive, all with the intention of allowing people from all walks of life, with different experiences of the genocide, to remember the Hundred Days of Madness that ripped Rwanda apart twenty years ago.

Of any museum or war memorial I've visited across the years, the Centre was the most intensely personal - the exceptionally graphic images, mass graves and personal input of survivors and families make for a very visceral experience, for want of a better word . In and amongst boards of information, family photographs fill one room, silent but for a video of survivors recounting their stories. The rural church memorials we went to the following day have been left largely untouched for twenty years, still with blood stains on walls, bullet holes in rooves and piles of victims' clothing left on pews. One of the most interesting sections of the information centre was an exhibit looking at Rwanda's tragedy in the context of other genocides, and mass killings not recognised as genodical, of the twentieth century - whole chapters of brutal history still not acknowledged by modern governments and unbeknownst to the outside world.

Certainly some harrowing mornings in Kigali, but impossible to gloss over and - now - impossible to forget.

Holiday Week #1: Lake Bunyonyi

When I last posted, the students had just left for the end of term, and we had one week in school ourselves before heading off on a week's holiday of our own. My first stop was Lake Bunyonyi, around two hours further south from Mbarara. As it's one of the very few, if not the only, lakes in Uganda free from parasites, crocodiles and other things that might want to eat you, we spent most of our time swimming, canoeing, jumping off things into the water like five-year-olds and some slightly-more-age-appropriate sunbathing with our books. Lots of photos still to borrow from other people, and will update in due course!

I have no words. Only bruised thighs.

The view from our island log cabin

By the time we left, there was enough sunshine for a lovely sunset and some dreadful tan lines.

La Vie En Rose

It's been a while since I last posted, but it's been a successful week in Mbarara. This week's first, but least impressive, win was the pink trainers' running debut in Uganda! Perhaps I'll just say that my face was pretty much the same colour by the end of a pitifully short attempt, and leave it at that.

It's also been a week of triumph at the Commonwealth Games back at home - from what I've seen, Glasgow seems to be doing a great job of hosting the games, Uganda won their first gold medal of the games last night, and Glasgow's own Katie Archibald won her first Commonwealth medal almost a week ago. Very proud!

As far as our investment is concerned, our successful careers day on Wednesday definitely qualifies as a victory for Team Kakiika. Post-secondary opportunities is an area of particular focus for EPAfrica, and I'm sure I've written before about the obvious relevance to technical schools that are so geared towards vocational skills. At first, the link appeared to be simple and the task a simple one, but we've realised over the last weeks that the relationship between technical schools and careers is far more complex. It's not that our students aren't employable: it's that they're so instantly employable that there's little incentive to keep going and realise their potential. Technical schools are seen as schools for the lazy ones, or the poor ones, or the failures - not the kind that go on to do anything meaningful, or so they say. To a worrying number of pupils, it makes more sense to finish school, get a job and start earning peanuts than spend time and money pushing themselves to further study, enterprises or even university. Careers Day wasn't just an efficient choice, but a thoroughly worthwhile
one.

Our panel of speakers introduced themselves before breaking off into smaller workshops to discuss women in work, further education and how to finance studies, and returned for a seminar on entrepreneurship and the chance to for students to quiz our panel with their questions. We were, on the whole, absolutely delighted with the speakers' contributions, and have already had great feedback from students and lots of requests for photocopies of the careers materials in the library. The day ended with an afternoon of sports to celebrate the end of term, and some very happy - and equally knackered - players (and volunteers!).

Congratulations also go to the four Mbarara volunteers finishing university this year. Unfortunately, they will be missing their graduation ceremonies, and so we're taking this weekend to celebrate their graduations and one 21st birthday. We have spent today at Lake Mburo National Park, with gowns I made and tin foil hats, and will be having a proper ceremony with cake tomorrow.