Tuesday, February 26, 2013

AF Kampala, Urganda


Kampala is a lovely city. I regret I did not have time to take any photos that showed the breathtaking sight of the city below from the hills above . I really enjoyed Kampala and found the people among the most pleasant and cultured of my African journeys.



 It has nice shopping centers with good restaurants. My favorite was Ranchers which is a chain, featuring a combination butcher shop and grill.



The shopping center had many such statues in its parking lots.



I am not sure how effective that warning side actually is.



This area is on the edge of the city, the start of the suburbs. My driver said Idi Amin built "white " apartments and "brown apartments", nothing to do with race, just the color of the buildings, to help the poor and middle class. He was able to so with the help of the Israelis who actually did the construction. The driver said the first two years of Amin's rule gave no hint of the horror to follow (1971- 1979).






Amin's rule was characterized by human rights abuse, political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings, nepotism, corruption, and gross economic mismanagement. The number of people killed as a result of his regime is estimated by international observers and human rights groups to range from 100,000 to 500,000.(Wikipedia)
He fled the country when he lost a war with Tanzania brought on by his trying to annex part of that country.




Local site on my journey to the martyrs shrine and to the source of the Nile.








Namugongo - Martyrs Shrine
On 3 June 1886, thirty-two young men, pages of the court of King Mwanga II of Buganda, were burned to death at Namugongo for their refusal to renounce Christianity. Some of the men were of the Anglican faith and others wee of the Catholic faith. They were rolled into individual mats, stacked atop each other and burned. Supposedly, they sang hymns until the very end.


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Twenty two of the Catholic Martyrs were canonized by Pope Paul VI on October 18, 1964 and are regarded as saints in the Catholic Church. (What happened to the other ten?)

A basilica has been built at the spot where the majority of them were burned to death. A church stands at the place where the Anglican martyrs met their death, about 2 miles (3.2 km) further east from the Catholic Basilica.








This is a manmade lake down from the church. You can see benches in the photo and they go all around the lake. Annually, on June 03, Christians from all parts of Uganda, East Africa and other parts of the world congregate at Namugongo to commemorate the lives of the Uganda Martyrs and their dedication to their religious beliefs. Crowds have been estimated in hundreds of thousands in some years
I knew of the 3 great pilgrimages of the West: pilgrimage to Jerusalem, pilgrimage to Rome and the pilgrimage to St. James tomb in Spain.
I learned that people from Kenya and Sudan walk hundreds of miles from their own countries in order to reach the shrine by June 3.

 


The main reason for my journey was to stand at the source of the Nile. I had read the stories of the great explorers who searched for the source of the Nile: Gordon, Livingston, Stanley, Burton and Spekes. They were a hardy lot. Dr. Livingston lost the use of his left arm in a lion attack. Richard Burton was speared in the head in an attack on his camp site. Their journeys were followed by the press in every country. In fact, the editor of the New York Herald paid Stanley to "find" Livingston on his search for the source of the Nile. His stories more than paid for his trip, enriched the Herald and made him (Stanley) famous ("Dr. Livingston, I presume" upon finally meeting him)





For centuries, the source of the mighty River Nile was shrouded in mystery in the dark heart of Africa. In Roman times, the phrase caput Nili quærere, “to search for the head of the Nile”,was used as a metaphor for any foolish or impossible endeavor, and many explorers tried and failed. (Wiki)

The Nile is an "international" river as its water resources are shared by ten countries Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya,  Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, and the Arab Republic of Egypt (Wiki)
 




Here I am standing at the source of the Nile or what many in the late 1800s believed was the true source.
The source of the Nile was considered to be Lake Victoria, (right behind where I am standing) but the lake has feeder rivers of considerable size, complicating the question of the true source ofthe Nile.

Scientists today believe the Nile starts in Rawanda but in an area of inaccessible jungle.
Lake Victoria was first sighted by Europeans in 1858 when the British explorer John Hanning Speke reached its southern shore while traveling with Richard Francis Burton to explore central Africa and locate the great lakes. Believing he had found the source of the Nile on seeing this "vast expanse of open water" for the first time, Speke named the lake after the then Queen of the United Kingdom



Supposedly the little island holds an underground spring that, combined with Lake Victoria behind it,  is the source of the Nile .




Henry Morton Stanley who confirmed Speke's discovery, circumnavigated Lake Victoria and reported  the great outflow at Ripon Falls on the Lake's northern shore. Spekes and Stanley spoke of the majesty of Ripon Falls and was sure the Nile started here. Today these steel girders mark the spot where the falls used to be! A dam was built up river that completely flooded the area and encompassed the falls.

Is nothing permanent?




This monument to Ghandi marks the spot where he wanted his ashes to be strewn.




As the monument states , he wanted his last act to be one that continued his quest for peace.





My guide and driver, Moses, to me, is a great man in his own right.  Moses  is one of the most impressive people I have met in all my journeys. He is a former hotelier who decided to start his own guide / driver business. He is soft spoken, respectful to all, almost saintly.

He told me he had eleven children, ranging in age from five to eighteen... Four were his biological kids and seven were nephew and nieces whose parents had died of AIDS. He said in the 90’s the AID disease was still little understood and it was only with better education and better medicine the disease was arrested. The education was in the form of “A-B-C “: abstinence, being faithful, using condoms.

He told a chilling story that the kids whose parents died of AIDs in the 90’s are now having babies of their own. Some are free of AIDS, like his kids; some don’t know they have the disease; some think the medicine that arrests the disease cures the disease. The number of people now affected has climbed recently from 6 to 8 % of the population, according to Moses









On our way back, Moses asked if we could stop at the boarding school where two of his kids study and are now seniors.





Here he is with his two kids:  Morris and Rhoda. Parents can only visit their childen the last Sunday of the month. How sad.

His  daughter calls the school “the prison”. It probably feels like that : she must study until 11 pm every night and then get up at 4 a.m. to start the day.































































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Monday, February 18, 2013

AF - Djibouti, Djibouti


I went to the downtown  Saturday  and took some photos but I did not feel very comfortable. I thought I might skip Sunday but decided not to be wimp and charged on. I got yelled at by a group of women for taking their picture but I was actually shooting the colorful stalls.



As I was taking this photo, apunk teenage crashed into me hard enough to jar my camera but I held on. He was horsing around with friends.



This lady was begging for food for herself and her child.  There were many others like her.



Colorful garb on the women and girls around town. 




Not everyone was yelling or pushing or begging. This shop keeper was lost in her work. 






I will never gets used to women covered in black from head to toe with only slits in the veil to look out through.



I took a photo from my cab of an interesting street scene. One huge guy came over to my taxi and glaring at me and in fluent English said " WTF, man (using the words and not the acronym), You can't take photos of people without their permission" For a second, I thought he looked angry enough to punch me but the light changed  just then and the taxi continued on (thank you god )




I still can't figure this one out. I asked the hotel clerk if there were any famous buildings to see and photo.  He wrote down "The Iprahim Building - Photo" The cabbie took me to this non descript building that had  sign "Photo" in the window of the ground floor. I thought the cabbie didn't understand. Back at the hotel, I showed this picture to the clerk . He said "Yes this is the builidng . Very old . Very Beautiful Maybe 1940"


I saw a few pizza places around town and hoped to find one on this popular square. The tout who came up to me  offered to exchnage money, be a guide, sell a watch told me khe knew a good place for pizza  - La Chaumiere.




The lovely waitress told me the nine page menu had everything under the sun: fish & chips, club sandwiuch, burgers , steak , curry  everything, of course ,except pizza,



The "non-pizza" restaurant


The competitor restaurant .





The other competitor. Planet Hollywood is everywhere.





The Menelik Square is the most popular place in town and the Menelik Hotel is famous.
In  the main square  however there is a feeding frenzy on the tourist. I think 5 guys came up to me within ten minutes. They were not very polite, except for one . They kind of bark commands  as opposed to making  requests at you : “Come, I’ll show you good photo spot” “Come I will exchange your money”




Seemed people were everywhere and you never knew who might come up to you. While most were arrogant and pushy, I remember ”Captain Ibrahim from Immigration “ for his polish and non- threatening mnner.

According to "the captain",  he saw me at airport Immigration when I landed and was lucky on his day off to meet me again . He told me he would be back to work the next day  and to ask for him if I had any problems at the airport . He was there to get medicine for his daughter and showed me the prescription paper and told me he needed just $10 to top off his money for the medicine  if I would be so kind. Unfortunately, I told him, my wallet was back in the hotel and the only money I had was taxi money to get back to the hotel.  He was smooth.




Building just off the square.

Funny, I checked Trip Advisor.com before I visit a country and usually find the reviews on the hotels, the restaurants and the "things to do " to be spot on.  This time, before going to Djibouti , I checked Trip Advisor and found this review which I thought at the time meanspirited:

"If you are in Djibouti , leave . If you are planning on going there, don’t”






Sunday, February 17, 2013

AF Nairobi - The City



The Nairobi  skyline. In the foreground is Uhuru ( Freedom) Park.




Nairobi is  different than most cities in Africa.



The tower seen to the left is a landmark sight in Nairobi, the way the Empire State building is for New York.



Why are all the best built structures bank buildings ?  It is a rhetorical question, of course.



Nairobi's signature building. It is actually a conference center.



The building in the very center is now a bank buiding but built in 1903 it is one of the oldest buildings here and once served as an army administration building during World War 1





City Hall




Parliament




 A Hindu temple, one of many,  serving the needs of the Indian community which controls the commerce of the city.





I actually think some just sit there.




This lady, on the other hand, did refuse to just sit there and is on her way to making a change.



The city "hoppa" gets you to and fro



I have seen this in a few cities : a marker of the dead center of the city.






A memorial to the Kenyans who fought in World Wars 1 & 2.





Another memorial to the vets of the World Wars.