karina's blog

Galapagos

2011-12-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

Recently Jemma and I returned from two weeks in the Galapagos Islands, which was just amazing. We did an 8 day cruise and then stayed with a friend of Jemma's on Isabella Island for a few days. We went a bit crazy with photos of animals: this is just a select few! (Sea lions appear a few times, I think they were my favourite)

The hermanas

Pelican

Nasca boobies

Red-footed booby

A gull, probably a Galapagos Gull, that's how most things were named

Bartolome Island - note the sunken volcano crater

Turtle sandwich: it's difficult to get the full picture from this photo, but in this lagoon we found about seven male turtles swimming around waiting for their turn with the one female. 'Gang rape' is the term that came to mind.

Our boat, The Fragata. Great crew and the best chef in all Galapagos!

On many of the islands there was little to no plant life because they were just rocks. This one had beautiful red plants and many cactus.

Loads of iguanas... these are land iguanas.

Our boat was usually accompanied by frigate birds (these are the ones who puff up their necks, photo later.)

Fish market at Santa Cruz... note the pelicans and sea lion looking for scraps

Baby tortoises at the Charles Darwin centre

Giant tortoises at the centre, being kept for breeding purposes. This is where we saw Lonely George, the last surviving tortoise from one of the islands (can't remember which one). We also saw lots of these guys wandering around on Isabella island.

Jemma impersonating an iguana

Baby albatross - hilarious. And this was a really big bird! I think the adults have a wingspan of up to 3 metres... they were huge!

Red and green iguana

The coastline where the albatrosses were. This is what the young ones have to leap off when they learn to fly.

Blue-footed booby

Sea lions would often hang out on the back of the boat.

These red crabs were everywhere

A collection of underwater life

Salt flats

The 'post office'

Just one of the many spectacular sunsets as viewed from the boat

Sunset on the beach in Isabella

Flamingos in Isabella

Our guide, Manuel

A land iguana and a marine iguana together... quite unusual. Apparently they were originally the same species but evolved to be based on land or sea.

The aforementioned frigate bird, with his chest puffed up like a balloon.

2 weeks in Colombia

2011-11-29T10:15:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone

Just over two weeks ago I met up with Jemma at 1am at the airport in Bogota, Colombia! We checked out Bogota for a couple of days, but it was very cold and quiet, as it was a long weekend and everyone gets out of the city for those. We did wander around and get a bit of a feel for things though, as well as recover from jetlag (for me).

Bogota

After a couple of days we flew up to Santa Marta in the North, to do some beach sitting and enjoy the hot weather. Both of us were exhasted from having finished our degrees and the effort involved in packing everything up and getting to Colombia, so we spent a few days reading and sleeping... it was amazing. As well as Santa Marta we spent a few days in the backpacker hangout of Taganga. I had a few Spanish lessons so now I feel like I can understand a bit of Espanol, but I really can't speak any, I would be completely lost without Jemma, who is fluent!

After our week-ish of recovery we headed out on what turned out to be an amazing trip to Ciudad Perdida - The Lost City. It was a 5 day hike in the jungle to a pre-spanish city that was only 'rediscovered' in 1975 . The hike itself was really hard work, very steep hills (up and down, not straight up), muddy, SO HOT (I have never sweated so much in my life - or smelled as bad, as clothes just did not dry in the damp weather) and our guide Wilson enjoyed telling us about all the people who had injured themselves or worse on the trek from falling off the cliff or getting swept away on the river crossings. Having said that, we could not have asked for a better guide, he was appropriately cautious and had been running treks right from the start. Both Jemma and I felt that if we had fallen into the river he would have jumped in and rescued us, so I guess you can't ask for more than that!

Boots - end of day 1

The view - day 1

We were fed very well, and for two nights we slept in hammocks, two in beds. Jemma struggles with the hammock a bit because she has longer legs, so it turns out there is at least one minor advantage to having short legs. We were hiking with Wilson, and a group of 3 others, who were great. Along with us there were another 3 groups of 10-20 people each. So there were quite a few people staying in the campsites each night.

Hammock plus mosquito net

The actual city, when we got there, was amazing. Not all of it has been uncovered (it's an ongoing process) but it was a lot bigger than I was expecting. There was a lot of stone work for stairs, circles that huts sat on, and all leading up to the main altar at the top of the hill (now conveniently sized for a helicopter pad for those slackers who don't hike in).

Jemma sitting on her throne :)

The helicopter pad /altar area

The top of the city is also home to a military camp, due to the unfortunate abduction of a group of trekkers by guerillas in 2000 (I think) . There is seemingly no guerilla activity in this part (or indeed most parts) of Colombia anymore due to military activity and the shutting down of many of the coke labs which littered the area. The locals who grew and and manufactured the cocaine had to sell the product to the paramilitary leader of the area, who then onsold it for a (I imagine very large) profit. Even so, the locals made a large amount of money, and really didn't have any other feasible option for employment. The village we started in is now very poor, but Wilson told us that previously you could find luxury cars and frequent massive parties while coke production was in full swing. I asked if there had been any problems with drug use in the village itself, but Wilson told us that the local producers were not allowed to use the drugs themselves under any circumstances, as they would be kicked out of the village. So from their point of view, they are much worse off now than before.

Tourism is a growing industry, and anyone who can gets a job on the trail as a guide. The government is also subsidising the cost of planting and growing cocoa plants, which take a few years before they reap a harvest. Even still, the village is now pretty poor.

After Ciudad Perdida we stopped off in Tyrona National Park; we arrived in the dark and had to negotiate a very muddy path in which we got very stuck (see below)... but woke up to a beautiful location the next day! (also below)

Currently we are in Medellin, and on the way here we stayed in Cartagena for a few days. It was a beautiful port city, and completely surrounded by walls to keep the pirates out, so alas we did not bump into Johnny Depp.

Thanks for reading, and more later (hopefully)

Hey, mister!

2010-06-28T23:49:00.000-07:00

I’ve now been in East Timor for one week, and am enjoying it immensely (of course). What am I doing here, you ask? I’m doing some ‘engineering’ work for a group called Friends of Ermera, which is a community group in the Casey Shire that is friends of the Ermera district in East Timor. Timor is the poorest country in Asia, and you can tell. There is hardly any food security, even things like chicken and eggs are imported from

Indonesia

. The roads are in shocking condition, and while driving between Dili and Gleno (the capital of the Ermera district where I am staying) we hardly ever get above third gear. They do have a very large coffee industry; at the moment it is harvesting time, and there are sheets covered in coffee beans spread out everywhere to dry in the sunshine.

So far I have been to see three schools/kindergartens who have either put in or are planning to submit proposals to Friends of Ermera for extensions, or fences. My job is to talk to the district administrators about what they want, where things can be built, and come up with a (basic) design. It’s really great, because I get to meet people in their local environment.

One of the schools visited in Madede village

Everyone greets everyone in Timor, here are some of the phrases thrown at me constantly:

Bondia (good morning)

Boatardi (good afternoon)

Bondia Senhora

Good morning, sister!

Good morning, teacher!

Hey, Mister! (an address for foreigners)

Where are you going? (an appropriate response to this is either going home, or going to the market)

Some of my new friends, Sandra, Effie and Adina - they love having their photo taken

Some of the braver children will try to strike up a conversation, and with the help of a phrasebook we have managed to share some things. I also met a young man the other day who had been to Canberra, and expressed to me that Canberra is like ‘heaven on earth!’

Welcome to Timor-Leste!

2010-06-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

Vietnam

2009-09-03T00:47:00.000-07:00

A few thoughts on Vietnam

Firstly, it took us quite a while to get there. Good old frequent flyer points meant Melbourne, Adelaide, Darwin, Ho Chi Minh.... and bad weather plus inexplicable delays meant Melbourne, lots of hours sitting in Adelaide, quick run through the back alleys of Darwin airport, 5 hours in a hotel in Singapore and arrival 9AM the next day to Ho Chi Minh! In the end Mum and Dad, who flew in from Ireland beat us there, but at least we all arrived safely, with our luggage. Oh, except Mum. haha.

Our hotel was the grand old Hotel Continental, and it was easy to imagine Thomas Fowler sitting back sipping his coffee or g+t, although no bombs, while we were there anyway.

The first thing that I imagine everyone notices about Vietnam is the traffic. It is mental. There are millions of motorbikes, which seem to abide by their own unwritten road rules. Crossing the roads was an exercise in faith, although I did discover that the key to crossing was to pretend you weren't watching the oncoming traffic and just walk (while utilising your peripheral vision just in case). If the bikes knew you saw them they would expect you to stop for them, otherwise they would have to go around you. It's quite an art form. After awhile I realised that they weren't actually driving that fast (compared to the country anyway) it was just a never ending stream of bikes on every single road you contemplated crossing.

Meekong delta:

Steamy, fruity, coconut candy, snake wine, actual snakes, boats, hats, good fooooood, friendly people.

This poor kid: he tried to put the snake on us, and we're all backing away going, "no... thank you anyway!" It's not personal, we're Australian. Don't like snakes.

Hanoi

We flew to Hanoi, seeing as how it's 30 hours by train or something silly like that, and had our first attempted scam pulled on us. Upon getting a taxi from the airport, the driver agrees to take us to Hotel Serenity, which we had booked, pulls up somewhere random and a man comes to the door of the taxi, big smile in place: "Welcome to Hotel Serenity! Actually hotel serenity is closed/out of electricity/ fully booked but come to the -insert hotel of choice- instead" At which point you're supposed to get out and say, oh what a nice man, lets go to his hotel and see what methods he's got to part us with our money. But luckily we had read about this scam in the lonely planet and just forcefully told the driver to take us to hotel serenity. now. Which turned out to be quite lovely in the end. Again, very nice people who went out of their way to help us enjoy our stay.

If I had thought Saigon was busy, the old quarter of Hanoi was something else entirely. Very narrow streets, people communally eating on the footpath, shops bursting at the seams with stuff, markets, cyclos, motorbikes, torrential rain... not easy to capture with a camera.

The next couple of days were spent at Halong Bay, one of the natural wonders of the world up there with the Great Barrier Reef. I have to say, I was more impressed with the mountains of Sapa in terms of natural beauty, but Halong had it's own charms. The most amazing thing was the floating villages... and the thought that there are children out there who have never stepped on dry land.

Also very impressive was the food that our hosts managed to produce on a junk (boat). This masterpiece involves prawns, carrots and potato.

Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum in Hanoi deserves a mention, if only to marvel at the thousands of people who come every day to file past an embalmed corpse in a glass sarcophagus who has been there since 1975. Uncle Ho is credited with saving Vietnam from Colonialism, and many Vietnamese have an almost god-like respect for him. Apparently he said this: "All my life, I have served the Homeland, the revolution and the people with all my heart and strength. If I should now depart from this world, I would have nothing to regret, except not being able to serve longer and more. When I am gone, a grand funeral should be avoided in order not to waste the people's time and money." (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hochi.htm) Now I don't know what his funeral was like, but the mausoleum erected in his honour would surely make him turn in his grave. Or sarcophagus.

The three days two night spent in the mountain town of Sapa were probably my favourite of the whole trip. It is hard to do justice to the views in photos, but I took plenty anyway :) There were many cool things about Sapa... The minority group the black H'mong who use indigo to dye their traditional clothes, dogs that looked like dingos, rice paddies, VERY steep mountains and Buffalo (one that tried to eat Dad's pants, and one that left a massive hole full of poo for Jemma to stand in - funniest thing I'd seen in a awhile).
An unfortunate result of the Vietnamese penchant to eat anything that moves: The train to and from Sapa was an overnight trip, and remarkably way more exciting on the way than the way home. But that was nothing compared to the buses, as I will explain shortly.

Buses. After our last day in Hanoi, we split, with Mum and Dad flying to Hoi An, and Jemma and I getting the overnight bus to Hue. Firstly, the guy who was supposed to pick us up in a minibus to take us to the real deal was about 2 hours late, which meant we were the last people on. The buses have two aisles, and bunks the length of the bus, on a slight angle so that the person behind can fit their legs under your head. They were not wide. They had a very small rounded handle at about hip height to stop you falling out. The roof was about 60cm from our heads... in Jemma's case the air conditioning unit was about 60 cm from her face. There were local people sleeping on the floor. There was a very loud soundtrack to some Vietnamese movie involving dolphins and martial arts blaring loudly, and whenever the driver hit his horn, the poor girl next to me nearly levitated. And lets not mention the toilet. 12 or something hours later we arrived in Hue! It was an experience, and the second overnight bus we did was waaaaay better. I think we actually slept then.
Hue

Really hot. No beach.... lots of ancient history though, with the forbidden city and such. Quite a popular destination for Vietnamese tourists. First Vietnamese hostel experience... run by an Australian, surprise surprise. But it was good, we met some interesting people from various parts of the world.

Hoi An is famous for tailor made clothes, so we just had to do the done thing and get some too! It is quite a beautiful little city on a river, feels very French... what with all the bicycles around and no cars along the riverside.

This little old lady was selling whistles, she just sat quietly on the side of the road and blew her whistles surreptitiously whenever a tourist walked past. I was happy to buy a pig whistle from her, and she was happy to let me take her photo. All of the elderly people in Vietnam are industrious. Sometimes you feel like they shouldn't be doing the hard labour, but some of them don't seem to mind peddling their wares; they get to sit around and watch the world go by from their little spot on the road.

From Hoi An we took a day trip to My Son (pronounced me sun) ruins. They are of a similar vintage to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but discovered a lot earlier, and therefore not as well preserved. But interesting non the less. It is a bit hard to get your head around the age involved...well, for me anyway. Occupied from the 4th to the 13th century. ie 400BC to 1300AD (History is not my strong point. I hope I've got that right)
After picking up our clothes and hanging out at the beach a bit, off we headed to our real rest stop, Nha Trang. The party/beach capital. Very popular with locals and internationals alike, Nha Trang is kind of like the Gold Coast... without the theme parks. Highlights: a mud bath with locals who thought we were hilarious (sorry, no photos), getting a pedicure, watching Jemma having her hair cut and changing my mind, having a local rave about Top Gear Vietnam and insisting on forwarding through the episode to show me where he appeared in the background, a snorkeling trip with a floating bar and very cheap cocktails on the beach! Our final day in Saigon involved last minute shopping and getting utterly utterly drenched as a result of a typhoon halfway up Vietnam. I have never seen so much rain in all my life. The locals knew better than us, they all just packed up shop and watched it come down.

And there ends a thoroughly relaxing, eye opening and beautiful three weeks in Vietnam! (Aside from the not-so-cute customs dogs at the airport... but that's another story)

It's been awhile....

2009-06-05T19:23:00.000-07:00

Edirisa Smiles! It's been over a year since Jemma and I were in Uganda... and in the interest of maintaining interest in the very worthy chairitable cause of Edirisa Smiles, I am writing one more blog. (See Zemanta's "blogging for a cause" link below)

Can I just say, the wonderful invention of the internet allows me to read the Smiles blog every now and then, and see other volunteers' photos from the lake, but it's such a bittersweet privilege, as it feels so familiar yet sooooo different... the babies are getting bigger, and things are changing.

http://www.edirisa.org/smiles

Smiles does so much good work... educating children, working among the community and one of my personal favourites, teaching children to swim. If the loss of even one child can be prevented by the skills we were able to share, my time at the lake was not wasted!

This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” (link: http://www.zemanta.com/bloggingforacause/ ) campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

Europe

2008-06-10T12:14:00.000-07:00

OK, so now we’ve arrived in Ireland and basically finished the full-on backpacking part of our journey, but I’ll fill you in on what we have been up to in Europe (briefly).

Pre Uganda

Amsterdam We have now been in and out of Amsterdam a few times, by bus and plane, and we spent about 5 days there at different times. I didn’t really like it in winter because it was freezing and got dark at four o’clock…. But I can see how it would be lovely in summer or spring. The highlight was definitely Ann Frank’s house, no questions asked. It was strange to see the place that so much has been written about.

BerlinWe got an overnight bus to Berlin which at the time felt gruelling, but Ugandan buses were in a different league altogether (the benefit of hindsight I suppose). We stayed in a really nice hostel and met a few people, plus did a mammoth amount of walking and looking at museums. We also did a walking tour that was very interesting.
Probably the ‘best’ thing we did was go to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp half an hour outside Berlin. It was certainly the thing that will stick in my mind the most. It was especially good because it was the middle of winter and there were not many tourists, and although the air was cold it was a brilliantly sunny day. It was actually quite a beautiful place despite the appalling history.

Post Uganda

Hamburg

The biggest highlight for me was the smell of our clean clothes after the Laundromat… wonderful! The dock area was quite nice and various old buildings, churches etc.

Dusseldorf

Our first sight of the Rhine – it was a lot bigger and faster flowing than I was expecting, definitely puts the snowy to shame. There were lots of parties going on along the river banks, the German equivalent of beach parties I suppose.

Cologne Cologne is dominated by Germanys largest cathedral smack bang in the middle of the city. It was very impressive. Mostly just spent our time wandering around looking at various sites. (Sorry to be so vague about the last few places…. It feels like a very long time ago now)

Bonn I went on a pilgrimage to Beethoven’s birthplace on my own because Jemma was sick. It was really cool – but I did feel like the biggest fool taking photos of myself outside it (we have this ingenious gadget for taking photos of ourselves – it’s just a long stick that attaches to the camera like a tripod does)

Bruges We ended up here quite by accident, as Brussels was too expensive. Neither of us had heard of it or knew how to pronounce it, but it turned out to be the most beautiful city in my opinion (even beating Prague). Having said this, it was at it’s best on the Thursday night we first got there, before all the hoards of tourists arrived. Apparently there had just been a movie released (In Bruges, with Colin Farrel) which we knew nothing about having lived under a rock called Africa for the previous 2 months J Actually, I found this movie hilariously funny. I’m not sure if it was a combination of the Irish humour and the fact that we’d just been to Bruges, or if we were starved of movies. I’ll be interested to hear some Australian opinions. Lets just say, it was NOT what I was expecting.

Flanders Part of our visit to Bruges included a day trip to Flanders fields. I probably don’t need to say that this was an amazing experience. I know pretty much nothing about the First World War, and so the snippets of info we were given were very sobering. I did not know that farmers still fin tons and tons (literally) of metal in their fields each year from unexploded shells and every year at least one or two farmers actually die when they plough over unexploded shells. Unbelievable.
Blegium is also not compensated for help in removing all the debris and they have many years work of work lined up in dismantling bombs stockpiled in a nearby forest.

Nice We spent about 40 stressful minutes in Paris sprinting through train stations To catch our overnight train to Nice (which we made by less than a minute), and then about 4 days relaxing! The beach was weird, as in rocky (!) but the water was soooo blue. It was also strange to be sitting on a beach with zillions of people sunbathing but practically no one swimming. Like the good Australians we are we got in. Yes, the water was freezing, but not that bad!
While in Nice we went on a day trip to Monaco, Canne and other surrounding parts of the French Riviera. The wealth of Monaco was fairly disgusting, as was the tourists’ fascination with it (I suppose we can’t talk, we were on a bus tour of all these areas too…). For anyone who is a petrol head, we drove around the Monte-Carlo Grand Prix circuit. I got a very strange feeling as we went through the tunnel and realised that I had been on this road before…. Thanks to our cousins’ playstation!
I’m sure there is a name for the phenomenon that happens when you go to the cinema and watch a movie simply because it is the next one on, not because you particularly want to see it…. This happened to us with the Rolling Stones movie. It was on and it was in English, so we saw it, and I enjoyed it immensely. It might have been because we hadn’t seen a movie in months, but it really was enjoyable!

Basel This lovely little City is in Switzerland very close to the border of France and Germany. We had been sampling a fair bit of chocolate in various places and I have to report that the best stuff is Swiss. We also caught our first bit of Australian news for a while – Australia culling 200 kangaroos made it to the front page and pensioners stripping off in fed square made it to page 3.

Basel also had the best set of church stairs we have seen. As you can imagine, we have seen quite a few... but these were the most cramped, steepest by far. Fantastic.

Heidelberg Heidelberg is a really cool old city, the highlight certainly being the castle on the hill. It was mostly a ruin, but very very old. I love the (generally old) people who look after castles and run the tours – they are so enthusiastic about their jobs…. So entertaining.

Spardorf

The village of Spardorf is where Jemma lived for 10 weeks on exchange with Coti and her family. I really like her family and we had a fantastic week with them. The last night of the Erlangen beer festival was on our first night there – it’s the biggest festival after Oktoberfest in Munich, and accordingly was mad. We also went for a day trip to Nuremberg, walked in procession through the streets for Corpus Christi, cooked dinner for the family one night and went to Coti’s 4-way joint 18th party on our last night. It was great to stay in one place and with a family for a week, and everyone was so nice and welcoming.

Prague

Our last full-on backpacking city was Prague. We caught up with Louie from Uganda and his mate John, which was great…. Checked out the castle, went to an opera, lots of walking, got lost a couple of times… The streets in Prague are not straight, and they all converge on themselves and go around in circles. Plus they all have funny names. So it was quite difficult to navigate. That’s my excuse anyway. I quite enjoyed the changing of the guard at the castle; I don't know how they could be so serious.

I must say that both of us had almost had enough of sight seeing by the end of Prague, and were ready to see some familiar people in Ireland. So far everything has been wonderful, and it’s great to see all our family again! Thanks all for wading through the tirade of information!

Ugandan pick-up lines

2008-05-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

Before I launch into this, I must say, Ugandan men are quite rediculously attracted to white women. It's because of the status and money that we have in their community, but still! We couldn't walk down the street without getting at least one marriage proposal (well, maybe that's a slight exggeration). There were some lines that were quite memorable:

Location: Match and Mix bar

Ugandan (to Jemma): How much do you weigh?
Jemma: What?
Ugandan: How much do you weigh? I want to pick you up...

Location: Outside Edirisa

Streetkid 1: Give me a kiss
Me: no
Streetkid 1: Why not?
Me: You're far too young (he was about 12)
Streetkid 2: I want our two souls to become one...

Location: Kampala secondhand clothes market

Ugandan (to Jemma): hello wife!
Ugandan (to me, having had no luck with Jemma): hello wife!

Location: Internet cafe

Ugandan: How old are you?
Us: 18 and 20
Ugandan: Oh! So young to be finished school! Are you married?
Us: No, we're too young
Ugandan: 18's not too young to be married... I really want a white wife (hint hint)

Bride price is still a fairly common practice in the rural villages of Uganda. One man offered to buy Jemma from the local guys she was with for 2 million shillings (about 1000 US dollars, a LOT of money in Uganda!)

This last one requires additional information. For those of you who don't know, Jemma and I do not look alike. Most backpackers are extremely surprised to learn we are sisters, except this one guy...

Location: Edirisa bar

Ugandan: I thought you two were twins. She's the tall one and you're the fat one.

Yes, that was an attempted pick up line. Fat is good in Kabale. (To read another article about this issue see a colleague's articles... http://www.edirisa.org/studio/?p=89 )

Rwanda - really a long time ago now!

2008-05-07T04:17:00.000-07:00

The weekend after Easter, Jemma, myself and two fellow volunteers from the UK, Louie and Adam went to Rwanda. Where we were staying was very close to the border, so it was not as big a deal as it sounds, and Rwanda is very safe.... they even tend to drive on the side of the road they are supposed to! We got up at a ridiculously early hour to get there and it paid off, as it took only about half an hour to get across the border (sometimes you can stand in queues for hours). So eventually we arrived to find everything closed at 9 o'clock on a Saturday morning, as once a month all of Rwanda (or at least Kigali, the capital where we were) shuts down for the morning. So we just sort of wandered around and got a feel for the place.... traffic lights! shopping centres! lots of sealed roads! People speaking French!
By the time it got to lunchtime we were quite desperate for some food, and we ended up eating in a local cafe. This could have been a disaster (some local food is disgusting, like matooke - more later), but it was actually excellent. And so we discovered that the average Rwandan eats much nicer food than the average Ugandan. I think a huge plate of chips, rice, goat, greens and other stuff cost less than $1.
After our exotic lunch we headed to the main tourist destination in Kigali, the genocide memorial museum. This was, as you can imagine, both very interesting and very harrowing. The thing I found hard to deal with was the reactions of other Africans also seeing the museum.... there was a lot of grief and horror being openly expressed. And what can you think in a situation like that except please, never again.
The following day we headed out to a church site from the genocide that had been left as is.... only the bodies were removed and it was full of thousands of clothes. It is unbelievable to think that this only occurred just over 10 years ago. Which brings me to my next point. People have asked what Rwanda was like, if there is any evidence of the genocide.....
Kigali felt a bit too nice, like they have tried to cover up what happened with development and infrastructure. I suppose the money for that came from guilty-feeling countries who didn't do anything to help Rwanda at the time. I get the feeling that the genocide is never mentioned by local people, and everything is done to prevent differences between tribes of people being mentioned. For example, no one is ever referred to as a Hutu or Tutsi (even if they are.... and in Uganda people are identified by their tribe all the time). Another international that I met at one stage was telling me that it is easy to even inadvertently upset people about various things. For example, she offered a local that she know a biscuit, and he said 'no, those biscuits remind me of the genocide'. It turns out he hid in the back of a shop and had only this particular brand of biscuits to eat for a week. For course, I'm sure he was not offended by the question, but it seems that recent history is well and truly within memory for a lot of people.

Scouts at Bufuka

2008-05-01T04:16:00.001-07:00

Taken from: http://www.edirisa.org/?language=1&blog_archive=2008-02

On Saturday morning the hill next to Bufuka Primary School was turned into some sort of circus when a group of scouts and acrobats from Nyabikoni Secondary School came to visit us for a couple of hours. The scouts, all nicely dressed in their uniforms, did some parading and performed a couple of small, funny skits which made the watching kids giggle. But the giggling got even louder when during the traditional Bakiga dance some of our internationals tried their best to imitate the locals.Then later, closely watched by a number of teachers' and children's eyes, the acrobats started their show by somersaulting down the hill and almost hitting the audience. After that they definitely had everybody’s attention for the next numbers which included the building of a scarily unstable-looking human pyramid.
27. Feb. 2008

Can Puppets Talk Rukiga?

2008-05-01T04:08:00.000-07:00

Taken from: http://www.edirisa.org/?language=1&blog_archive=2008-03

Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CENMpRQGiJo

Saturday 8 March 2008 was an exciting day for the children of Kyabahinga and Bufuka primary schools who got to see a week of hard work come together in a puppet show. The show, entitled "Moreen and her friends", was performed by Smiles volunteers using marionette puppets made by the children during the week. The children also creativily painted scenery including a lake, forest, meadow, village, sunset and starry night. Marionette puppets were made from materials like cotton, string, and paper and decorated very nicely with markers. Finger puppets were also made with paper and ingeniously designed butterflies made with toilet paper rolls. The story of "Moreen and her friends" is about a girl called Moreen who can talk to animals. Of course all her friends laugh at her... but when she can help a scary dog who only wants his leg fixed everybody realises that understanding animals is a good talent to have.The narrator and butterflies spoke in both English and Rukiga, which was cause for much amusement hearing Bazungu speak "fluent" Rukiga.

The Story About Grand Mother

2008-05-01T03:50:00.000-07:00

I found this story really hilarious (for those of you who don't know, Mum's name is Esther), so i decided to write it down, word for word.

The Story About Grand Mother

My name is Turinawe Melon
P7
15 years old

Grandmother is called Esta
Every day Grandmother goes to dig
Everyday Grandmother go to party anywhere
Grandmother like party so much
She like party better than dog
But my Grandfather don't like party.
One day Grandmother go to party and Grandfather go to party
When my Grandfather gave meat
But my Grandmother don't gave meat
When my Grandmother start crying like baby all the people of that party is laughing.
My Grandmother very old she have 99 year old
But she like party like dogs
My Grandmother called Esta

Just brilliant. The aim of the exercise was for kids to write down a creative funny story... some of the stories were not funny at all, like people going to the market to buy food and losing the money and being really upset. But some were, like cows and insects and birds playing football.

Do some Yoga in the Water!

2008-05-01T03:44:00.000-07:00

Taken from: http://www.edirisa.org/?language=1&blog_entry=517

Although we are rapidly approaching the rainy season*, the sun without fail comes out at twenty past three each day for swimming lessons at three thirty. Each day we have one class from Bufuka Primary School, one week girls, the next week boys. P6 and P7 are quite good swimmers already and most of them can even leave the swimming platform and swim in the lake. There is a an artificial island 100 m out in the lake which they can swim to and practice diving off. For the other , swimming lessons are an exercise in becoming confident in shallow water - this means lots of games and encouragement.

Our people live very near the lake and use canoes regularly, however, most locals cannot swim, and are excessively afraid of water. Therefore it is extremely important to familiarise children with water so they don't irrationally fear the lake.The main challenge in teaching Bufuka Primary School how to swim is the language barrier. It is difficult to tell a child "Don't panic! I won't drop you!" when you don't speak a word of Rukiga. So swimming teachers have learnt the essential Rukiga words for swimming ...

- teera amaguru - kick with your legs,

- kola bati emikono yawe - do like this with your arms,

- guruka - jump,

- yiruka - run,

- ija hanu - come here,

- gyenda kuri - go away,

- and yoga - swim, which is of course not very useful if they don't know how to swim! :-)

* It is amazing how everybody talks about a new rainy season approaching - we have never noticed the previous ones going away! ;-)

24. Mar. 2008

Ledine - Turku - Bufuka - Kyabahinga

2008-05-01T03:41:00.000-07:00

Taken from: http://www.edirisa.org/blogger/media/workshop_photo_check.jpg

Over the past couple of weeks students at Bufuka and Kyabahinga have been responding to letters from children in Turku, Finland. The first classes were hearing about "our typical day" and commenting on the similarities and differences. Activities such as "watching television" and "playing on my computer" were practically incomprehensible to the Bufuka and Kyabahinga children who list football and helping at home as leisure activitiesLast week ten children from P4 (ten years old children) were selected to respond to individual letters from students in the equivalent class from Ledine, Slovenia. They wrote letters on topics such as: our school, what we learn in school, our village. The funniest thing for the students from Bufuka was learning that there are only 16 students in the entire school at Ledine. There are 601 students at Bufuka Primary School! :-) The other exciting part of the activity was seeing a picture of the Slovenian students and taking pictures to send in return.

26. Mar. 2008

Paint Yourself

2008-05-01T03:37:00.000-07:00

From: http://www.edirisa.org/?language=1&blog_archive=2008-03

What would you do if somebody asked you to "paint yourself"? Well, starting to apply paint onto your face can be a valid response, and that's what our primary kids wanted to do. :-) Soon they better understood the workshop task and created a great collection of self-portraits.The workshop was a joint effort of our entire i-to-i volunteer team: Jemma, Karina (Australia), Ali (Wales), Louie, Sara, Elliot (England).

Kyabahinga goes camping

2008-05-01T03:28:00.000-07:00

From: http://www.edirisa.org/?language=1&blog_entry=523

Last weekend we took P7 from Kyabahinga primary school camping to Habukomi island. Most of these children have never been camping before and therefore the trip was an important and original experience. Trips of this variety offer children a break from their everyday lives and a chance to experience some independence away from home.At eleven o’clock Saturday morning we set off in canoes towards Habukomi. As you can see from the picture those children who are unable to swim were provided with lifejackets which were kindly donated by the 16-year-old Sean from Australia with the help of his school Killarney Heights High.After just under an hours canoe trek we arrived at the island and once lunch was finished we began setting up the tents. Despite having never erected tents before the children rose to the challenge and did an excellent job putting up their tents.This was the children’s home for the weekend, boys on the left, girls on the right and Douglas the teacher in the middle.

The main activity of the weekend was a treasure hunt around the island organized by Smiles volunteers. There were seven stations with a volunteer hidden at each who were responsible for setting a task for each team. Once the task has been successfully completed the teams were provided with a letter; after collecting all seven letters the teams then had to arrange them into an English word, ‘camping’. Once the children had worked out the puzzle they were given their ‘treasure’, sweets.

After the treasure hunt and several other activities, including tug of war between volunteers and pupils (the pupils won), preparations for the evening meal began. Whilst the children did an excellent job, the volunteers managed to burn and undercook (yes it is possible) the rice… sorry kids!

Thankfully there was also maize and cake to feed the troops.Our paddlers Patrick and Andrew built a very impressive fire to keep us all warm.The children tried, only partly successfully, to teach the volunteers some traditional Bakiga songs and dances. Despite the volunteers’ lack of skill good fun was had by all.

The next morning we asked the children to evaluate their camping experience. Some of the responses we received were:

“I am happy to go to Habukomi trip with white people to make many exercises, play football with Stefan and I am happy to sleep in the tent. Good night. Thank you sir/madam.” – David.

“I am very happy because I like these things 1- I play football with my friends 2- I slept in the tent. The bad thing was the rice was not good so we need to improve in cooking.” –Andrew.

“ I am very happy because I ate too much food at breakfast and for the games we were taught by them. I am not happy because I ate food with too much water.” – Doreen.

After a hearty breakfast we packed up our things and set off towards home.To complete the experience we allowed the children to canoe themselves back home, traveling in convoy until we reached our destination.We would like to thank the following people for making the trip possible: the residents of Habukomi Island, Douglas P7’s teacher, our paddlers- Andrew, Davis and Patrick and the Smiles team.

11. Apr. 2008

Hygiene Workshops

2008-05-01T03:24:00.000-07:00

This week the emphasis of our workshops was on personal hygiene. This is the first in a series of health and hygiene workshops that will be continued after the school holidays. Teaching children basic hygiene techniques is very important in the prevention of various illnesses as many can be easily avoided by simply washing effectively.We first showed the children pictures of different parasites, asked them to identify them and then asked them where they lived and how they could affect us. We then inquired how they could help prevent getting these parasites or, if this is not possible, how we can get rid of them. Explaining the illnesses that can be caused by bugs such as lice and fleas is particularly important as many of these diseases affect school children.We invited the children to label a diagram with the most important places on the body to wash. Once they had labelled these areas we went through and discussed how often each place should be washed and why. The lower classes were given basins, soap and towels and were practically shown how to wash effectively. For the upper classes Henna (Finland) described some natural alternatives to soaps, for example how to make a natural toothpaste out of salt water and eucalyptus.The workshop was devised and researched by Henna and was carried out throughout the week by various Smiles volunteers, Henna, Stefan, Karina, Jemma, Sara, Elliot and Ali and our translators Emmanuel and Dennis.

19. Apr. 2008

Bufuka 2008

2008-05-01T02:50:00.000-07:00

Taken from:
http://www.edirisa.org/?language=1&blog_entry=528

In the run up to the Olympics in Beijing, Bufuka held their very own Olympic games for the pupils of both Kyabahinga and Bufuka primary schools this week (there was even an Olympic torch). Splitting the classes into morning and afternoon sessions in order to make the number of children slightly more manageable, the children were then divided again into houses- red, blue, grey, brown, green, orange, black, pink, yellow and white, with an international volunteer representing each house.Each team then had to compete in ten events.

3-legged race:The children are split into pairs, their ankles are tied together and they must complete the track in the fastest time possible. In the event of uneven numbers the international volunteer must step into the breach and pretend to be a pupil.

Kicking Blind:Blindfolded and spun around the children have one chance to try and score a goal.

Obstacle Course:Pairs must negotiate a slalom-like course in the quickest time possible…whilst in the wheelbarrow position.

High Jump (p4-p7) or Leap Frog (p1-p3):For the high jump pupils attempted to jump over the highest level of rope possible whilst the younger pupils simply jumped over each other, ‘leap frogging’ to the finish line.

Shooting Goals: With three balls pupils have to score the highest amount possible choosing between the easier one point target, the hardest five point target and the mid three point bin.

Running Race:Everyone vying to beat their opponents in a good old fashioned sprint.

Potato and Spoon Race:Delicately balancing a potato on the end of a spoon participants have to get around the course in the quickest possible time. If the potato falls off they must stop, put the potato back on the spoon before they continue running. No sneaky holding onto the potato with the tip of your thumb!

Sack Race:Within a sack participants must jump around the course in the fastest time possible.

Musical Chairs:Whilst the music is on the pupils could dance as much as they liked however when the music stops they must all get onto the chairs in the middle. Each time a chair is removed and all pupils must work together so that no one remains on the floor.

Canoe Race (for p4-p7 only) or Rest stop (p1-p3):Two canoes (with life jacket clad children in each) race around a marker and return.

Once all events had been completed and scores compiled the winners were announced. There were donuts for the winners in p1-3 and pens for the winning teams from p4-p7.Thank you to all those who helped with the Olympic games, they really do take a lot of planning and hard work… no wonder they only happen every four years!

25. Apr. 2008

PS i would like to add that my team, grey actually won one of the sessions! go grey, your doughnut was well earned... (even if everyone thought we cheated. me cheat? never!)

back to civilisation

2008-05-01T02:47:00.000-07:00

golly! we're back in germany and even though we both miss the lake something shocking it is nice to have awesome food, internet and a shower with adjustable temperature! i will now attempt to update you on what life has been like in africa... mostly using blogs written by other volunteers at the lake.... hehe! enjoy!

where to start...

2008-04-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

Hello friends!

OK, so now I've been in Uganda for 8 weeks, and only 2 to go. I can't believe it. It's ridiculous how quickly time goes here, especially considering the laid-back attitude towards time everybody has. Something that should take half an hour can sometimes take three hours... and although that should be frustrating, I've ended up accepting the inevitable and enjoying the feeling of never ever ever having to rush ANYTHING. Hopefully we make our flight back to Europe though, that's one time that might not be flexible.

I'm just rambling on using up the precious internet time I have at present. As you might have noticed, I have not sent many emails or updated this blog very often. That is because every time is sit in front of a computer here there is a ninety per cent chance that the power will go out, I lose network connection or the computer mysteriously breaks. I'm not exaggerating, Jemma will tell you it's true. But, I promise, once we get to Europe again and I have some extended time in front of a computer I will update you on all that has happened in this crazy country. In the meantime, if you desperately want to contact me, my phone works.

So for now, I hope you are all having a great year, I still miss you all but I'm having a great time. Everything has been so good, we are very blessed!

Love Karina

Uganda1

2008-02-27T06:24:00.000-08:00

hello everyone!
yes, i'm still alive... and i'm in Uganda! We have very little internet or electricity here, so you might not hear from me again for 9 weeks.... sorry, i'm not ignoring you! We're staying at a place called lake bunyonyi in rural uganda, and it is very beautiful. So far we are taking english workshops with primary school kids and also swimming lessons everyday. Both of these are challenging, especially the swimming lessons as, believe it or not, it is COLD here alot of the time. But the kids are beautiful, and the other volunteers and locals who work here are very friendly. The weather is very unpredictable... even worse than Melbourne weather. It goes from being very hot and sunny to pouring rain to hot and sunny again in a few hours. We are now coming into the rainy season, so it could rain all day every day for the whole time we are here.... hopefully not!!!
My favourite activity so far is riding into town (half an hour away) by boda boda.... motorbike. You can fit two people plus the driver on one , and because we live on a mountain, they just turn off the engine and coast down the hill! It will be even more fun when the roads are wet and slippery...hehe. The roads are pretty crazy, actually. They also drive on the left hand side, allegedly. But generally you just drive on whichever side of the road has less potholes.
A great thing that Ugandans do all the time is sing and dance. They don't use any instruments except a drum... but often classes will end with a dancing session, and of course the internationals MUST participate. Church is also a great experience, with singing and dancing breaking out at any old time!
Anyway.... i have to go.... have been very lucky to have electricity and internet at the moment; hopefully this posts ok.
Love you all and miss you lots!
Karina

Amsterdam

2008-02-06T05:28:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! Jemma and I have made it as far as Amsterdam and it is flipping freezing. But we've made it. Not sticking around for long, we're heading off to Berlin tonight on an overnight bus. Internet here is extremely patchy... it took us FIFTY minutes to send an email to Mum and Dad telling them we were still alive when our phones didn't work. Luckily Dad managed to do something magical to fix them. Hooray for Dad!

More soon... hopefully I'll have something more exciting to say than...'' been on a plane''