New blood

A little more than a year has since Lucas, Francisco and I went to Kenya. We had an amazing experience and we shared some of those experiences with you. Now three IE students have the opportunity to visit East Africa. Miguel Cañamero, Álvaro Vidal and Jaime Rodríguez are the new IE Students in Africa. Now on Miguel will be posting about his experiences and will share pictures and videos.

Best of luck Miguel, Álvaro and Jaime!
Daniel

Musungu

What is this strange word? Probably none of you heard it before, I just heard it yesterday, and if it had not been for our friend Jotham’s help, we would still not know what this means.

This is a word well spread threw the population and is said repeatedly on the streets by young kids, as we pass by. The word means ‘white man’. For children of less fortunate areas here it is not usual to see our color of skin. It is incredible how lots of kids stay hypnotized, seeing us with their shining eyes, when we pass by. Several times little kids have walked towards us smiling and saluting us with great tenderness. When we return the smile and great them they even smile more. They also ask us: ‘How are you?’ we have answered back and realized these are the few words they know in English, as we have not obtained response. In the future we will try talk with them in Swahili, the local language, and teach them some more English. In the past two days we have already built a short list of words that we have learnt and will try by the end of these two months to get on with this language.

It is incredible to see how children here always smile and show love, sometimes having nothing to play with, but enjoying themselves with any little thing we may see as useless in our regular life.

We have been little in this country but we have already learnt a lot, and there are still lots to teach and more even to learn from this amazing country with amazing people!

Kampala has bodabodas

Hello again people,

It’s not common that we upload two articles in a day, but after seeing the photos of Kampala and Entebbe I felt inspired. I want to tell you a little about Kampala.

What can foreigner say about Kampala? From my point of view: IT RAINS A LOT! We stayed for two days and the sky was shooting water all the time, and when it wasn't raining it looks like it was going to rain. This have to be the reason why the city is so green and full of trees, at least in the place we were. The second thing a foreigner appreciate in Kampala is that there are a lot of 'bodabodas', you may ask yourself what the hell is a bodaboda. A bodaboda is a motorbike taxi that looks exactly like this:

So the idea is that they transform these bikes, usually of a Chinese brand, to fit two or three people. They add a sit to the small bike so the passenger can go behind the driver.

This is the how people that don’t have a car move around the city. Kampala, as Nairobi, also have ‘matatus’ but hey are not as popular as in the Kenyan capital. The idea of the bodabodas is that you walk from wherever you are to the well spread bodaboda stations. This "stations" are where the bodabodas of the area gather to pick up people and take them to their destinations. The size of these stations varies, from just 3 or 4 bodabodas up to 25 or more. A bodaboda stations looks exactly like this:

So when you want to go somewhere within the city you go to talk with the bodaboda-boys, as the locals call them, and tell him where you want to go. Before he takes you anywhere he will say how much he wants to charge you, this price can be discussed. After the price is established, he takes you to your destination and after you arrive you pay to him and he goes to another bodabora station.

Everyone tells you that riding a bodaboda is one of the experiences that Kampala has to offer to the tourists,
so we decided to try it out.

The first time we travel in a bodaboda was in the night. We were in one of the most crowded places of the city, it was kind of a street with an open market in it with hundreds of people walking, hundreds of cars in a traffic jam, some matatus making their way and hundreds of bodabodas just going everywhere, even in the sidewalk. Being in an African capital at the night is kind of scary but if you take care, don’t attract to much attention and don’t do anything stupid you are OK.

After walking a little we decided to take a bodaboda because we were far from Lucy’s house. We approach to one bodaboda station, we said our destination to one of the guys there and he said the price, which of course we bargain. Remember if you are a white guy and a tourist in Africa, ALWAYS bargain at least 50% of anything people wants to charge you. I will not lie, using bodabodas is dangerous. You know taxis are always in a hurry, well bodabodas are like taxis but in a bike and going in a hurry in a bike means going between cars, in the side walk or even the wrong way! Yes going in a bodaboda is dangerous, but as almost any dangerous thing, it is really fun! For people that take them for the first time at least. They are also really fast compared with going by car because they skip all the traffic jams, again, they broke quite a few transit rules, but if you want to get somewhere fast they are really useful.

OK guys, I just wanted to share with you this quick article about Kampala.

See you around guys

Kampala and Entebbe photos

Hello guys,

I just wanted to show you more photos of Uganda. This are from Kampala, the capital, and Entebbe. We are really thankful with our friend Lucy Ann and her family for letting us stay at their house for a few days and taking us to Entebbe, we had an amazing time there.

We don't actually have a to many photos of Kampala (actually only the first three where taken there) because we didn't stay in the city for to much. In Entebbe we stayed a hole day and we saw many animals that we didn't see in the Masai Mara.

Check the photos in picasa or in facebook.

Kampala and Entebbe

Rafting in the Nile - Photos

Hello guys,

Here are the photos of the rafting in the Nile. One of the most exiting experiences we had in Africa! Check them out in full resolution here:

Jinja

Photos Sipi Falls (Uganda)

Here are the photos of one of the most beautiful places we visited in Uganda!
Soon I will write about the experience, now you can see the photos:

Sipi Falls

Football 1

When working in slums you see many situations that shock you. The people that suffer the most in those cases are the kids. Kids are usually taken and taught the easy way of life, the gangster way. The way they do not have to work or respect others, as well as the path into constant drugs and alcohol.

East Lands center tries to keep them from entering that life through football, soccer as they call it. They organize every Saturday training sessions, as well as games on Sunday. You may think this is little but kids here spend long hours at school nurturing their minds and then going back home to continue with homework. Education is important in slum areas, as it is the way out of low class life. This is good so kids spend their time better instead of approaching these gangs.

I have been training every Saturday a group of around 50 kids. There are three age groups, the under 10, under 12 and under 15. The practice starts around 2:30 PM with a chat by Moses a university student that explains them concepts about life and education. I can say I barely understand what he says as he talks in Swahili, but he looks quite convincing and captures the attention of the kids.After an instructive talk, we head to the pitch. If you were in Europe you would not call it like that, you would call it a mud field. Here we train the kids for two hours dividing them according to their age. Nick and Morris help me while training, as kids do not understand well English, they help me in translation. I have learnt some words of the language but still have lots to go. Kids like playing games, to compete between them and they love when a muzungu plays with them so they comment with their friends at school. After practices the three coaches, me included, talk tactics and what we expect from them.

When I leave these kids behind I will miss them, as they are part of my family here.

Ni tarrudi