Well we are off on safari tomorrow for a week to the Masao Mara and the Great Rift Valley lakes. To keep yourself amused click on the link below to see a load of photo's which Marte's pappa has cleverly put on to the web.

http://home.online.no/~finnoges/Marte/

Our travels are now fully underway and in true style we have managed to time it with the rainy season! Our first port of call was Kigali in Rwanda which we reached via a nine hour bus journey which flew by with the accompliment of Nigerian movies and hip hop videos of MTV. Nigeria may have a lot of problems but it has a 'thriving' movie industry and their movies are apparently loved by all. This is despite all three Nigerian films that I've been forced in to watching having quite literally the exact same storyline and the seemingly the same actors.

Kigali was a nice enough city but it was incredibly small. We walked round the centre roads in approximately six-a-half-minutes and generally there was not a lot happening. One of the bonuses of it being a former Belgian colony was that they did nice sandwiches and baguettes. The down side of colonialisation being the implementation of ID cards based on ethnicity, the division of society and eventually genocide. Got to take the rough with the smooth though I guess. We then moved on to Kibuye which was situated on the Congolese boarder on Lake Kivu which was rather beautiful with the sculptured hills providing a spectacular backdrop to the lake and Pete drinking 720 ml bottles of Primus beer. There was a bit of a lack of accomodation and we went for something a little pricier than we maybe would have like but it was top notch and had a nice balcony to have a few afternoon beers and contemplate the future. On one of the days we took a nice walk in to the small town and it was a really nice place. We thought that there would be a lot more tourists or travellers but we seemed to have the place to ourselves. Kibuye was such a peaceful and quiet place with dramatic scenery and it is hard to even try and contemplate that it was one of the places hit hardest by the genocide in '94. Of the 60 000 tutsis that ived in the province about 95 % of them were murdered. We walked by the local football ground and next to it was a barren piece of grass with a simple wall built in front of t with the sign '10 000 people were inhamaned and buried here'. We took a walk to the church which was perched on a ridge overlooking the town. It was a real classical looking church, simple structure with a large basic crucifix on top of the spire and huge oval stained glass windows. Only when you walk towards the entrance of the church you start to realise there in something very un-classical about the church. A few meters from the front door their is a small concrete and glass structure which houses a few skulls and bones of the 11 000 people which were slaughtered in the church. Local people had taken shelter in the church only for a drunk band of rebels to hurl grenades through the windows. They then spent the next few hours finishing off anyone still alive with their machettes. Some of the accounts I've read of the genocide are actually beyond my comprehension. How a person can inflict such pain on a fellow human is incredible. It's one thing putting a bullet ina a persons skull but to leave a person lying on the ground with no limbs of with their eyes missinf is quite simple f*cked up. And the problem still continues because the interhamwe are a continued source of trouble in the region. They are the main cause of problems in Rwanda. Only this week at PEDRRU there is a man who has an arm missing because he had it hacked off by rebels. For such a small country it continues to cause so many problems and many of the Congolese refugees who are intelligent caring people have a strong dislike for all things Rwandan.

After that we spent the ight in Kigali in a room without windows and a strong smell of a high street shop doorway. We then moved on to Ruhengeri for the mountain gorillas. Now this was seriously expensive hour of my life but there are only 70 ountian gorillas left in the world and with war in Congo there are only two places you can see them, Rwanda and Uganda. It was a pretty difficult and sweaty trek to go see them and was slowed down by Marte perfectly choosing this particular morning to feel sick. We had to keep stopping as Marte fought back the vomit but luckily for her the other people in our group were some very understanding Australians. We eventually got to the gorillas and it was all a bit surreal. Luckily for us the gorillas had all chosen to spend the morning in a nice open piece of jungle which made photos easy. There were two huge silver backs and the star of the show was an eight month old baby who seemed to pose for photos as it hung by one hand from a branch. It even got a bit carried away and stood up and beat its chest. We then went to look at a couple of what we thought were some docile females only for them to full on scream and charge at us. I have no shame in admiting that I was the first person to go and hide behind the ranger with the big knife. All in all it was a great experience although I thought the guides were a bit intrusive to the gorillas and the seven meter rule was often reduced to just a couple. This made for great photos but is not necessarily the best for the gorillas.

Thats where our Rwandan escapade finishes. Unfortunately the country was quite expensive and whilst I really wanted to go chimp tracking it would have been another big expense too early on in the trip. In the end we decided to save the money and spend it on something else later on, apparently there could be the opportunity to swim with Manta Rays in Mzambique which would just about fulfil all by wildlife ambitions! Rwanda was an amazingly beautiful country and was about the most mountanous and green country I have ever been to. Even at the top of the steepest, most inhospitable mountain you would see a group of women preparing the land for potatoes. Once over the boarder in Uganda there was yet again a truely comedic/painful/lovely matatu ride. A journey which in the Lonely Planey was only meant to take two hours took nearly four and we must have beaten some kind of world record for people packed in to an beaten up Toyota minibus. The start of the journey saw us get caught in a tropical downpour with water streaming through various gaps in the minibus. But that was only the start of the fun and games. We kept on stopping to pick up yet more passengers and I was getting a bit confused to where they would all go. In the end a 16 person vehicle had 24 people in, including the conductor who was sat through the window with only his legs dangling in to the matatu. I literally could not move any part of my bottom half of my body and couldn't even get money to buy some corn through the window. I actually have bruises on my knees where they were jammed in to the seat in front. You had to laugh it got so ridiculous. The lovelyness was provided by the hills we wound around which I found very nice to look at where as Marte was more worried thinking about our impending death if we plummeted off the mountain road.

We spent a few nights in Kable which was nothing special although we spent an authentic African day watching cricket and football in a bar! And we have arrived back in Kampala to say goodbye to the people at PEDRRU and the city. Then its off to Kenya for some budget safari and then some beach time in Zanzibar. God I'm looking forward to Zanzibar.

Hope you are all well and feel free to comment below.

Well this is it I suppose. I thought that two months was a long time when we boarded the plane to come here but I can't believe how quick the time has gone. Whilst the poverty and the difficulties people have here as not surprised me I have been genuinly shocked by how much I have enjoyed this whole experience and I have been genuinely inspired by many of the people that I have met here. It is all too easy for a refugee to wait in line with their hands cupped waiting for the next donation of maize or the next handout of money. But these people have started from nothing and using nothing but their own intelligence, intiative and determination are starting to build an organisation to help their beleagured people. Next week the school we were working at will hopefully be granted status as a refugee school and be put in control of the refugees here. One man has worked for this for six years with no pay, sometimes having no money to buy food food for himself and his young family, turning down resettlement to the US, for this. To help the children who have had the same unfortunate fate as he. I cannot even begin to imagine that I will ever have this courage but I hope that a little bit of it rubs off on me.We went for lunch at one of the people connected at the school and had a long talk about all things African. The things fantastically wonderful that we never hear on the news and the courrupt desperation of the politics which we are all too familiar with. Listening to the two men talk about Congo I can not wait to go there. They said that when it rains in one part of Congo the soil is washed away to leave the ground glistening with gold. That any person can become rich in Congo, educated or not, if they have the willingness to dig the ground to find the minerals that litter the ground. Whilst this should be Congo's blessing this is unfortunately the countries downfall and is what the rebels are all fighting for now. There is no great political ideology being fought for, just simple human greed. Indeed one of the gentlemens brothers was shot dead by rebels at one of the many road blocks when they randomly opened fire on a civilian vehicle. His brother beld so heavily that his fellow passengers were forced to bury him by the side of the road. No one in his family knows where exactly. It is very strange to meet someone with such a story but the reality is many of the refugees could relay similar experiences.We finished our teaching at the school on Friday and the adult class the day before. The refugees and the people running the programmes have had many kind words for us which is very nice and slightly embarrasing for me as I have difficulty taking any credit. We are here for two months and it seems so little to what these people have done and go through on a daily basis. I have to say I had a very slight lump in my throat when the adult programme coordinator came in to my final class and got four people to speak about me. What they said made me feel very proud, a feeling which someone should always have in whatever they do. But even these people are inspirations to me. The adults who we taught were not academics they are more often than not just normal working class blokes and women who have the courage to start from the beginning to learn a new language to try and improve their lives.I don't think that I could make a career out of this though. To me there is a stink of frustration to the whole thing. You work your arse off, making all the sacrafices just because of an armies greed or because the whole system favours only a few. Surely it is best to try and change things from the top!?!One of the best parts of the experience is getting to meet a wide range of people. We now know the local shop keeper who we buy our water and sweets from, the tubby chapati maker who we buy our morning treat from in the early hours and even amongst the chaos of the hundreds of minibuses at the taxipark they know where we are going. It's so nice to fall in to a routine that still excites you a little everyday and holds a certain amount of novelty.Well the end is truely close. We have a few more things we are going to do to help PEDRRU. We are going to update the website. Also I mentioned previously about the family on which all the children have been born in refugee camps. Well one of the boys came to speak to us last night about his situation and he sounded so hopeless I offered to write a letter to the American embassy to try and remind them of their situation. We also might do a few grant applications and alike this week but it all depends on time. Then its Rwanda for gorillas, mountains, lakes and hopefully some R&R. I am actually quite tired from the whole experience and I could do with a rest. Oh thats lucky, I got five months of travelling to come!I've been rather clever and created this website where you can follow my remaining antics if you care. Above for all the people who donated money you will see the beginning of the toilet which is being dug with your generous donations.

Another experience done with. An accomplishment moved over the the things done list.

Pete