Protestant Institute of Arts and Social Sciences (PIASS) and TUFS are the partner universities to exchange our students, and Japanese students also go to PIASS to study every year. This year, too, one student, Rei, went to PIASS and is now studying there. Thembo became close with him before leaving Japan and hangs out with him after he reached at PIASS. During Christmas holidays, Thembo took Rei to Uganda, his home country and wrote about the trip. You can also watch YouTube movies at the end of this page which Rei edited and posted on YouTube.
The following is Thembo's essay.
While in Japan at TUFS as an exchange student, I meet Rei Fukushima in the group which was organizing the Rwanda Online Study Tour headed by Chihiro Komashiro sensei. He was very interested in African affairs and by then, he was planning to go to my home university (PIASS) as an exchange student for one year. While at TUFS, he visited me in the International Residence dorm and our friendship began to flourish. After returning to Rwanda at the end of my exchange program from TUFS, Rei san also came to my home university for one year as an exchange student. He found when I had established a personal program that aims at supporting the Japanese students at my home university to cope with African cultures such as languages, social setting, where to do shopping, and provision of other basic information necessary for their stay in Rwanda and Africa at large.
So, when Rei san arrived at my home university, I was excited and ready to support or help him in whatever situation, if he wished to get my help. His coming to Rwanda made our friendship grow even stronger as we were together most of our time helping and learning from each other.
Rei san told me how he was interested in travelling within Africa especially countries neighbouring Rwanda where we were studying from. Thus we planned to visit my home country and in particular my family in Uganda for the Christmas holidays. We booked a flight on December 18, 2021, but due to the delay in receiving our PCR covid-19 test results, we missed our flight and finally flew on December 20, 2021. we left Kigali International Airport at 10:30 am and landed at the Entebbe International Airport at around 11:20 am. My brother doctor Joshua who stays near Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, had sent us a taxi to collect us from the airport up to his place where we stayed for three complete days.
While in Kampala, we visited places following Rei san's interest. We firstly visited Lake Victoria, one of the greatest lakes in Africa. At Lake Victoria, we visited the white sand beach located near the Entebbe International Airport, where we relaxed and enjoyed some fresh air and some Ugandan drinks.
At the source of River Nile.
The following day, we visited the source of River Nile, the world's longest river located in Jinja. At the source of the Nile, we had a one-hour boat cruise on which we could have a clear view of the source and the centre where the source separates and at the same time joins Lake Victoria. As we left-back, we once again passed through the famous Mabira thick forest, Uganda's largest national forest, and later had some sightseeing place in Kampala city which completely looked too busy as people were flocking in and out of the city due to Christmas moods. The whole city was chaotic and we didn't like to be in Kampala anymore. Anyway, Kampala is always like that in the Christmas season.
OnDecember 23, 2021, we planned to leave Kampala and leave for Kasese, my home district, and the land of tourist attraction sites. Unfortunately or fortunate for us, we managed to get the bus travelling at night and we reached Kasese in the morning. At that point, my brother doctor Dannis had come in his car to pick us up from the bus stop. While in Kasese, we stayed at his home for 5 days. His family was very excited to welcome us and his children to become close friends with Rei san. They could sleep together and always play together.
At the equator line and viewing wild animals in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
On the following day, with the support of my brother as our driver, we visited the famous equator line which divides the earth into the northern and the southern hemisphere. Thereafter, we continued to the 32-kilometre natural Kazinga Channel that links the famous Lake Edwards and Lake George. On our way back, we cruised through the famous Queen Elizabeth National Park with the purpose of seeing wild animals. Even though it had rained leading to the hiding of wild animals, we could see a family of hippopotamus, buffalos, wild pigs, crocodiles, elephants, deers, flamingoes and other birds. I could see Rei san excited to see wild animals in reality.
In addition to the above, we drove to the Katwa fishing site located on Lake Edward where my family have fishing, cotton farming and salt mining projects. There, we visited the famous Lake Katwe salt mining where I grew up mining salt, even though it had rained and the place had become muddy, we enjoyed its view and later left and visited the nearby temporary lake Munyanyange, where we visited a famous flamingo bird sport. Later we drove to town and bought some snacks, drinks and fried fish as we drove back home. It was a very nice and busy day...