Glory, Glory Manchester United!

Denis Gathanju visits Old Trafford

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND

I have always dreamt of making the pilgrimage north. For those who know me, I am not overtly religious and when I talk of pilgrimage, it is not a religious one. For me, it was a different kind of pilgrimage that most people I know would dream of making.

As I packed my bags in Nairobi, I could hear my heart pound in my chest at the sheer thought of it. Boy, I was excited, but being the one I am, I always try to be cool and not show my excitement. From here, things started happening; for me, they happened so quickly, I did not have enough time to sit down and absorb everything. Within hours of flying out of Nairobi on Thursday night, I arrived in Amsterdam on Friday morning.

From Amsterdam, I fly into the English countryside city of Norwich and we drive south into the town of Colchester. Even though I had spent more than 10 hours on a plane from Nairobi to Norwich, I was alert and I could not get some sleep until after mid-night.

What lingered in my mind was the pilgrimage further north from Colchester. Saturday morning, I was up early. We agreed to skip our breakfast and drive north instead as we could have our breakfast on the road.

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Face-to-face with Genocide Demons

Denis Gathanju moved to tears while touring the Genocide Memorial

KIGALI, Rwanda.

The tiny central African nation of Rwanda has enjoyed phenomenal economic growth and political stability in a volatile portion of Africa where economic prosperity and political stability have been relegated to simple memories for an ageing generation and the current generation can only hear tales from a past that was.

But while the economic and political stability of this land of a thousand hills has been celebrated and hailed by all across the continent and the entire world, it remains an open secret when you look back. On a recent trip to Kigali, Rwanda, though on a tight schedule, my hosts were happy to take me around the city and show me new developments coming up here and infrastructural upgrades there.

A painful stopover

And as the sun was setting on this small city, we made a stopover. Seeing all the growth and development and the beaming faces of people in Kigali is enough to take you away from the realities of a dark chapter in Rwanda's history. As I was driven into a compound on the other side of the city, I knew something was different about this place. I tried to read the faces of my hosts in vain, they were plain blank. They suddenly turned from jovial, cheerful people into emotionless beings. And as they ushered me into the compound, I knew this was not your everyday place.

"Denis you have to see this," one of my hosts whispered to me.

 

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Kenya launches digital villages

Mundeku Village in western Kenya has all the hallmarks of a rural setting: narrow foot paths, unpaved roads, grass-thatched huts and houses, and acres upon acres of farmland. But that is where its remoteness ends. Thanks to the new digital center in the village, the local schoolchildren are able to learn new skills and get to interact with other students in other parts of the world via the internet. The teaching community in the village is also enlightened as they are able to learn of developments many miles away, while the farmers in the area can learn from what farmers in other parts of the world are doing to make their farms more productive.

The Mundeku Digital Village is the brainchild of Gibson Shiraku. "With this facility, the children of this area will become skilled in ICT [information and communication technology] and will not have to travel to Nairobi or other towns and cities to acquire such skills," says Shiraku.

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South African Spa Industry Matures

With stress levels progressively rising during the past few months as world economies shrink and jobs are lost in record numbers, spas have provided an oasis of comfort and relaxation for many throughout the world.

The situation has been no different in South Africa, as the continent’s largest economy bore the full brunt of the economic slowdown. But the spa industry in South Africa has remained strong and continues to show great growth potential as the nation draws closer to hosting the Fédération Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA) World Cup for soccer in June and July of 2010.

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Barbaigs mummify their tribal chiefs

Denis Gathanju befriends East Africa's most feared community

They are amongst the most feared communities in Tanzania. They proudly cling to the title of the only community feared by the combative Maasai community. Though they are some of the minority communities in Tanzania, numbering about 80,000, they are well known amongst many Tanzanians, popular, perhaps due to their war skills. Tales are regaled across Tanzania about this community's hostility to outsiders and thus, they have remained locked out to the rest of the world.

They resemble the Maasai people and, like the Maasai, hold dear to their rich cultural heritage that includes pastrolism, female genital mutilation amongst many. But the similarity between the two tribes goes only that far. They speak one of the most difficult dialects in East and Central Africa, a dialect that is somewhat close to Somali language, yet it also sounds like Amharic spoken in Ethiopia. But while all this is interesting, they hold yet another cultural secret that has remained unknown to the outside world for many years. This cultural tradition puts them at par with the traditions of the ancient Egyptians who mummifies their Pharaohs. While this East African community comes nowhere close to the ancient Egyptian civilization and the Egyptian Pharaohs, its draws a parallel to ancient Egypt in that they have mummified their tribal chiefs for centuries, and they still do.

So, who are these people? You might ask.

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