Kemondo and a trip to Bumbire

Saturday March 26th 2011
The electricity went off at 7.30, then it started raining. We received a text from Pastor Mugarura to say that he was on his way from Bumbire Island to meet us at Kemondo. Our boat wouldn’t leave till the afternoon and his boat wouldn’t arrive till nearly lunchtime. There is only one round trip a day. So after breakfast, we went on a tour of the German mission's orphanage and school once the rain had stopped.
There are eight orphans' houses; each one has a coloured strip of paint on the outside wall that gives the house its name. Pictured is the "White House" and a staff house in the background. They are built of rather nice-looking brickwork and roofed with corrugated iron. Each house has 2 mamas and up to 15 children: 2 rooms for boys and 2 for girls. The children help in normal household chores such as fetching water and helping cultivate the gardens. Some of the children aren't true orphans but have parents who are too poor to be able to care for them – this isn’t surprising given that fact that quite a few families have 6-8 children.
We were able to go inside one of the new houses being built. The lefthand photo show the inside of the house, upper right shows the outside kitchen (jiko) and storeroom, and the lower right shows Gayle outside the house.
The primary school takes boarders, and there are 3 dorms for boys and 2 for girls, a total of about 160 children. The plan is to start a secondary school on the site so that the children can continue to receive Christian education, which is a feature of the primary school, as well as all studies being done in English. As is usual in Tanzanian schools, you start with just a Form One intake, then as each new school year starts, you add on a new Form One and the older students progress through the system until they complete the 7 Primary classes. The school itself is built as a quadrangle of classrooms with a central covered walkway. Gayle has her own office which is quite a good size (lower RH picture).
The entrance to the block of classrooms is quite impressive (LH). There are sheds housing dairy cows (photo lower right) and goats. As usual, lots of chickens are running around!
Gayle is trying to grow her own veges but is finding it hard in the sandy soil, and unfortunately, burying her food scraps to enrich the soil attracts dogs who dig everything up, and her small fence keeps getting wrecked!
Pastor arrived at Kemondo at 11.30 so we walked to meet him, which took about half an hour. Unfortunately there was still no electricity, so we couldn't buy any cooked food, and had to contcnt ourselves with some sodas that we were given by a brother of one of pastor's church members.
Our boat, called the Pajero (RH pic), started loading at 1.15pm but didn't depart until 2.30. I managed to climb the ladder OK, Bruce was steadying it for me. Some women get carried to the boat and boosted up over the side in a rather undignified fashion!
It was quite a fast trip, we arrived at Rushongo (RH pic) in just under 3 hours after stopping off briefly at two other landing places, one on another island. The lake was very calm and it was hot and sunny, so we were glad of the awning over the boat. Our previous trips to Bumbire were on open boats - perhaps they put the awnings up when it's the rainy season. They are not the most comfortable of craft to travel in, the seats, if you get one, are rather hard and uncomfortable - just a rough plank - and the crew have a stereo system - on this boat even a TV showing videos - that is turned up extremely loudly, and it really beats on one's eardrums. Perhaps it's supposed to distract people from feeling sea-sick!
Once we arrived onshore, pastor took us on a bit of a tiki tour through the village, trying to find the chairman, until we were left outside a rickety shack, which turned out to be the chairman's office! On our two previous visits, we'd met the chairman up the hill in a much better type of building.
Shortly after our arrival, we were invited inside, and a youngish man greeted us in English, and told us his name. Pastor reappeared shortly afterwards, and we found out that the young man was, in fact, the chairman that we'd been seeking! It's always important in Tanzania to introduce visitors to the local official, who usually notes down your details. On one occasion we were taken to a neighbour who we were told was the 'balozi kumi kumi' - a representative for ten households. During Nyerere's time, these men were very important in maintaining order and keeping records of who went where and when, and for what purpose. These days, they are almost non-existent.
After our brief sit down in the office, we continued on our way to Pastor's house. That entails a half-hour climb up a steepish hill, and we really were not quite fit enough, and it was hot and we were carrying our packs - Bruce had the large one and I had one of the two small ones plus a new cooking stove and some tomatoes for mama! We needed a few stops on the way up, much to pastor's surprise, and were quite relieved to reach the high ground. One of the church elders, Daniel, joined us on the way and then we were relieved of some of our burdens. However, I continued carrying the tomatoes and cooker - a small clay one that you can place charcoal in or even twigs. Pastor had bought them in Rushonga.
Much of the hillside is in quite short grass, but at the top there is a rocky, treed section, then scattered smallholdings growing maize, bananas etc, as well as open grassland. The Mugaruras live part-way down another steep hillside in a narrow valley above a stream. It's hard work fetching water each day as the hillside is steep and the path slippery, especially after the frequent rains. The children do much of this work, carrying 10 litres at a time - quite a burden for the youngest, who's only about 7. I felt rather sorry for him.
We found out that the eldest, Julietta, has left home, so Rosemary, her sister, seemed rather subdued, probably due to missing her sister so much. She's now about 12 and in Standard 4, so still has 3 more years to go before she can go to secondary school! She's got rather behind because the family has been struggling financially.
The youngest, Meshaki, is actually one of their nephews. One of mama's sisters died four years ago, leaving 3 small children, one was only a baby, and I'm not sure whether that one survived. It was put onto cow's milk and was only about three months old. Each child had to be placed with a different member of the family, as no-one could afford to look after all of them as well as their own It is a real struggle for the average Tanzanian to be able to feed and clothe his/her children, let alone find even a small amount of money to pay for schooling. Meshaki now goes to chekechea (pre-school) and is due to start school some time this year..
The house is built of mud bricks and thatched with hillside grasses. The thatch had started to break down, and Pastor had tried to fix it, but as there were still some leaks, he placed heavy black polythene over some poles that he'd positioned on the bedroom walls. As there are no ceilings in these houses, you can do things like this. Unfortunately the plastic didn't quite extend all the way to the outside wall, and when it rained heavily, we had to move our bags that were placed up on a board near this wall to escape the drips. Sometimes the end of the bed got a bit wet, and you could even feel the odd drop or two on one's face!
Mama first served us chai with some of the bread that pastor had bought. Later on, before bed, we had a cooked meal of chicken, a very salty mchuzi (the soup-like juices from the meat) and rice. It was nice to get to bed, but I didn't sleep at all well: we were visited by mice and I had a migraine.

Traffic jams

Friday March 25th 2011
We ate the provided breakfast, which is quite nice – mango juice, fresh tropical fruits, then toast and jam. There is also tea and coffee. We then took our bags across the road and down the way to the minibus taxi park, trying to dissuade all the hopeful taxi drivers (of both cars and bodaboda (motorcycles) from giving us a lift. It was quite cool and cloudy so it was easy to carry our packs - and we were travelling light – we only had one large pack and two small ones. It was easy to find a minibus going to Kampala, so we climbed aboard and didn't have to wait long before it was full enough to set off.
The first part of the ride was fine, travelling through the lush countryside as far as Kampala, but once in the city, the traffic became totally chaotic. It wasn't nearly as bad four years earlier when we’d travelled through the city on a big bus! Instead of the usual 40-minute trip, it took an hour and a half!
This time there were solid lines of gridlocked minibus taxis - some were stationary waiting for passengers and others were trying to get somewhere! In places they were lined up 3 deep.
Once we had disembarked at the Old Taxi Park, we tried to remember where the Gateway buses leave from, but unfortunately all we could remember was that you have to go uphill. We chose a likely-looking street and tried asking some passers-by, but they couldn't help us. One group of three young men wanted to chat with us, but after a while, Bruce decided that one man's attentions to me were a bit over-the-top! He had first called me "sweetheart", then wouldn't let go of my hand - so Bruce said, "Leave my wife alone," - which caused a number of questions! Qualcel bus 60,000 sh!!! + 10,000 Mutukula to Bukoba on Gateway. Stuck ¾ hour petrol station, passed bus depot 1 hour after setting off, ½ hour to leave city – at noon!
Eventually we found someone who reckoned he knew where the Bukoba buses leave from, but we were rather perturbed when he set off downhill. We followed a little reluctantly and ended up at a different bus depot where there was a bus due to depart to Bukoba about half an hour earlier than the Gateway bus would leave. I was rather surprised at the price charged for the tickets – the ticket-seller told us the fare would be 30,000 shillings – each! However, I assumed that the price was higher due to it being a different company and the steep rise in fuel costs. As it was getting rather late, and we weren't sure if we could find the Gateway depot in time, we decided to take the ride.
We were glad to be able to buy some water very cheaply from a lady who came onto the bus to sell her wares, and then it was time to set off. First the driver went to a petrol station and put just a few litres into the tank before setting off - only to find that he couldn't exit the petrol station because the traffic was so busy on the street that it was really hard to exit onto it. We were stuck behind several other vehicles and had to wait our turn. After a while, the driver got impatient and followed someone’s very silly advice to try another exit. So, after reversing from where we were, and manoeuvring to another exit, we found that it was totally jammed by 2 or 3 rows of stationary daladalas (minibus taxis), some waiting for fares! No-one would let us out, and eventually our driver caused some extra chaos by reversing back towards the pumps again, then returning to our first exit – as the vehicles that had been in front of us before had all managed to leave, and in fact, there were fresh vehicles queuing up there, waiting for the rare gaps in the traffic. By the time we were able to leave the petrol station, we’d spent 45 minutes there, and slowly completing a circuit of a block, we arrived outside the bus station again, a whole hour after we’d left! I was hoping that we wouldn’t re-enter it again to pick up more passengers! Fortunately we already had our quote and it was time to get going! Another half-hour later, we exited Kampala. It was great to be out in the countryside, the only disruptions to the traffic being the frequent judder bars at the entry and exit points of villages and towns, and the odd police check.
We made quite good time and reached Mutukula around 4pm. What a surprise it was when everyone started to disembark before the border post and started to climb on board a Gateway bus!!!!! The new conductor asked for another 10,000 Ush and I explained that I thought I'd already bought a ticket for the complete journey - oh no, that was just for the Qualcel bus! At least 10,000/= wasn't too much to part with, and it was a little amusing really!
We didn’t have to spend too long at the border, and were soon in Bukoba, very happy to be greeted by our friend Gayle Smith, together with an ex-student of ours, Hassan. She’s sponsoring him through school as his Muslim family disowned him when he became a Christian. Unfortunately he got a much lower grade than expected in the National Form Four exams, but was still able to get a scholarship for a school in the South East of Tanzania. We’d first met Gayle just a few months before we left Bukoba in 2007, when she came to start teaching at the school where we were working. She is now working at a different school.
We had time to buy an SIM card for our phone and a voucher before squeezing into a taxi with several other people. Gayle says it’s the usual way of getting to Kemondo now if you’re too late for the daladalas. But it isn’t very comfortable with 6-9 people in a car built for 5!
We were thrilled to be hailed by someone in the street near the taxi stand – our friend Aristides, one of the stone-cutters Bruce worked with at Harvest. He’d had an accident since we last saw him and had had his leg amputated below the knee late 2010 as an earlier operation had never healed properly and had left an infected wound. He’d managed to get an artificial leg and proudly showed it to us. More about that later!
Our taxi driver did a surprise detour on the way to Kemondo – to avoid a police check. He said the policemen is like Colonel Gaddafi!
Once at Gayle’s feeling rather weary after all our days of travel, we waited for tea. She makes a really yummy avocado dip. She’s sharing a house with a couple of other teachers at the mission school. We’d visited it briefly 4 years earlier.