The day after visiting Saa Nane Island I visited another island that was just a short ferry ride away from Mwanza, Ukerewe Island. I think that my day on Ukerewe is one of the highlights of my trip. I got to see genuine rural Africa and learn quite a bit about the traditional culture of the locals, the Wakarewe.

I spent my day biking around the island with a guide on a cultural tour. We stopped to see a few different sights, but the "sights" were really the least interesting part of the day. Just riding around the beautiful island, seeing the farms, rocky hills, and fabulous view of Lake Victoria with some of its many islands silhouetted in the background was fabulous.

Our first stop of the day was at the shamba (farm) of my guide Joseph's cousin. The family was very hospitable and took me out to see their cassava fields. They even pulled up a cassava plant for me so that I could taste it. I had never had raw cassava before and it was actually pretty tasty, which surprised me. I thought it tasted a little bit like coconut. (What I had was sweet cassava, there is also bitter cassava, but that is never eaten raw.) Joseph also pointed out a papaya tree and soon after I mentioned that I rather like papaya I was eating some. Our next stop was at a roadside to buy some coconuts and to see where the village market was held (but it was not a market day so this was not too exciting).

Our third stop was at the king's residence which was really rather disappointing: it was a European-style house and the king doesn't even live there; he is in Austria. The only interesting part was the commentary on the six traditional royal drums that were in the home. The drums were very important and there were six of them: the king's drum, the queen's drum, the drum of the king's maternal uncles, the king's bodyguards' drum, and the queens' bodyguards' drum. The drums were used by the relevant parties to inform people across the island that they needed to send someone to the king's home in order to receive a message. Only the king was allowed to beat his drum, but if someone else beat it, they would become the king, making it a very well-guarded item.

The culture of the Ukerewe is actually quite fascinating. The king had absolute power and owned everything and everyone on the island (although I was assured that the people liked this arrangement). He was succeeded by one of his sons, but not necessarily the oldest; the choice was up to the king. When a king died he was buried held in the lap of an unfortunate still-living servant as a sacrifice to the gods. Additionally, before burial his head was cut off and replaced with his father's head as a symbol that he was the rightful heir to the kingship. (The king's head would be smoked and saved for his successor's burial.) This was very important and kings often preferred to be referred to as the son of the king rather than the king in order to reinforce their right to rule.

The society was divided into clans, each with it own specific function. There were the servants of the king, bodyguards, priests, rainmakers, astromoners (who told the people when to plant and harvest), and even hippo hunters (Joseph's clan). Particularly fascinating to me was that the queens' bodyguards were all female because men were not allowed to get anywhere near them. For a man to see one of the queens while she was bathing was punishable by death. I would also be remiss if I did not mention here that the the king's burial was not the only occasion for human sacrifice. Sacrifices - usually goats - were often made to the various gods. If there was a large problem, however (such as no rain for a really long time), a human would be sacrificed instead.

Having biked through the island, eaten excellent food, and learned so much about the indigenous culture made for an excellent day. I did not want to leave Ukerewe, but I had to in order to catch my train that would take me from Mwanza to Dar. Had I know what the train ride would be like, I may well never have left.

I had figured that travelling second class would be fairly comfortable. The compartments have six people in them (not including children), which means things would be a bit crowded, but not too bad. And in fact, had it just been the six of us and the two kids in the compartment it wouldn't have been too bad. But all the women in my compartment brought luggage. Lots and lots and lots of luggage. There was no leg room because most of the floor was covered with luggage.

Being one of the two youngest people in our compartment, I got one of the top bunks (three to a side). I don't generally mind the top bunk, but there wasn't exactly a ladder. Getting up required climbing on at least one of the bottom bunks and the sink. In the morning I was rudely awoken by a light going on before six in the morning. I don't think it is fair to turn the light on before the sun is up. I apparently was not the only one who felt this way since the light was soon turned off. But after that it was difficult to sleep.

When I got up, things did not get much better. There was an elderly woman in the bottom bunk on my side of the compartment. She felt like spending the whole day sleeping and since the bottom bunk is also the seat, there was no where to sit. The bunks are too close together to sit up in, so I spent my day alternating between standing in the hall staring out the window and lying in my bunk reading my book. At leat the book was good. But no book is that good.

The difficultly of getting into my bunk increased as the day went on. At most of the train stops there were people outside selling things. You might think that the fact that there was absolutely no room in our compartment would keep the other women from buying large items such as baskets, stools, and rugs, but you would be wrong. By the end of the day to get to my bunk I had to climb on the bottom bunks over to the sink which, hopefully, did not have too much stuff on it to climb onto. Sometimes a stool had to be removed. Things got slightly better the next day when two of the women and the kids got off. And, finally, after 44 hours we arrived in Dar and I was free!

I spent the next six days mostly hanging out at Woody's house reading. It was wonderful. Except for the first night when he was at a wedding and I was too tired to do anything but sleep, we went out to eat at a nice restaurant. Indian, Thai, Chinese, seafood twice... It was a wonderful, well-needed break from travelling.

Alas, one can only spend so many days doing very little but reading and eating good food and it was soon time to move on. I soon found myself on another train on my way to Mbeya. This train ride was much better. I managed to get a first class ticket, so there were only four of us in the compartment. Additionally, two of my compartmentmates spoke English so I had people to talk to, none of them had excessive amounts of luggage, and the ride was only twenty-two hours.

I have spent the last couple days enjoying the cool air and mountain views of Mbeya. I had the opportunity to hike to Ngozi Lake, a crater lake that the locals believe has healing waters inhabited by a monstrous snake. I also got to visit a village and enjoy the countryside. Tomorrow, with any luck, I will finally reach Malawi.

On that note, according to my guidebook internet access is Malawi outside of the capital is prohibitively expensive. I suspect things have changed since my book was published, but if not the blog may not be updated and I may not be sending e-mails for a number of weeks. So don't worry if you don't hear from me for a while.