More pics from Kenya

Some more photos below from my holiday travels in Kenya.  We made it to Kisumu, Nairobi (the capital), and coastal Kenya to Mombasa and Lamu.

 

These two photos are from Kisumu which sits at the northeastern edge of Lake Victoria.

Dowtown Nairobi above, the capital of Kenya.  Also a city of extremes with high rise office buildings looking out over huge slums.

The Mutsinzi Report -- The event that sparked the Rwandan Genocide

Confirming what many had suspected for years, the Mutsinzi Report, released this week, outlines in detail how extremist Hutu factions in Rwanda used surface to air missiles to take down the Rwandan president's (who was a more moderate Hutu) airplane in 1994. At the time, the death was blamed on the Tutsi rebels and was used as a justification for the ensuing genocide.

The president, at the time, was returning from Peace talks in Tanzania...peace talks that apparently weren't welcomed by the more extremist of Hutu factions. Check out this 5 minute video, recreating the event: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/the-spark-that-ignited-rwandas-inferno/

In Uganda related news, check out this article from the Independent. Ugandans are calling for both LRA and UPDF offenders should be tried for war crimes. Also interesting to note that the UNDP survey states that Ugandans think that religious institutions are the best groups to facilitate reconciliation. This largely supports the role that the Catholic Church played throughout the Peace Process in Juba with Archbishop John Baptiste Odama and social service organizations like Caritas.

Full article is here: http://independent.co.ug/index.php/column/insight/67-insight/2370-ugandans-want-lra-updf-offenders-tried-for-war-crimes-

New Year Travels

I’ve been away from this blog for some time now. Work with BOSCO-Uganda in Gulu is proceeding well. We are growing fast here in northern Uganda. We’re currently working on finalizing a substantial grant in partnership with Unicef that would allow us to almost double our ICT sites in Gulu, Amuru, Kitgum and Pader Districts of northern Uganda.

Over the holidays I had the chance to travel to Kenya for the first time. After passing through Kisumu, Nairobi, and then the coastal city of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean, we landed in Lamu, a small island off the northeast coast of Kenya, about 60 miles south of the Somalian border. The island is a throwback to the Swahili culture/ race as it was a landing spot for Arab traders who intermarried over time with Bantu Africans in the area, creating the Swahili culture.

The island remains largely untouched by modernization. The coral houses stand as they have over hundreds of years. By local accounts there is only one car on the island (but no real roads to drive it on), belonging to the local government official. The primary mode of transport is by donkey or dhow (a small wooden sailboat) and the island is only reached from the mainland by ferry. Actually, when I disembarked from the ferry with my luggage upon reaching Lamu, I asked for a taxi only to get the response, “We don’t have taxi, but we have donkey!”

Coincidentally, there is also a good article in today’s New York Times about Lamu. The Kenyan government (via Chinese contractors) wants to build the largest seaport in East Africa within miles of the island. Tourists and locals alike fear that this commercialization will destroy a delicate culture and ecosystem that has, up till now, remained free of many modern influences. Here’s the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/world/africa/12lamu.html

Enjoy some photos from my travels to Lamu below!