Category: ML Personally
The quarterly newsletter (contact us to subscribe) and other personal thoughts by ML Rwebandira, formerly known as Miha Logar. An adventure/cultural tourism expert and a multimedia producer, ML co-founded Gorilla Highlands Experts and now resides in the unofficial capital of the region, Rwanda’s Musanze. Formal education: MA in Development Studies (Uganda Martryrs University) and BA in Journalism (University of Ljubljana).
Our Stories:
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1,000 More
After two weeks of rest and reflection we are returning to our good old publishing rhythm! The Daily Dose will be with you from Monday to Friday, but that is just a fraction of what we are up to for the rest of 2021! Allow me to pull you into the second chapter of Gorilla…
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Rwebandira’s 27 Hours of Your Sweet Memories
The end of this video gives me goosebumps. The words are spoken by Festo Karwemera, the Bakiga cultural warrior who passed away last year… Karwemera nicknamed me Rwebandira two decades ago, after knowing me for only a short time. Yet he couldn’t have been more prescient… He translated the name for me as a “trailblazer”…
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Too Good
Amused, bewildered or annoyed, this morning Uganda woke up to the new reality of social media taxes. Figuring out a way to pay those ridiculous daily 200 shillings (or circumvent the system) had to take priority over choosing a Sunday service outfit that your pastor may notice… This white Ugandan (OK, birders would probably call…
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Bullets & Love
“Does the morning gunfire help define the parameters of the Gorilla Highlands? Marcus’ audio on his post was impressive. I hope it all ends with a colourful memory,” Jon messaged me from California last Sunday. We were truly ending our Congo experience with a bang, unable to leave the country because of an armed conflict.…
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Thanks, 2016!
Here in the Gorilla Highlands we respect the old. No Omugurusi, Umusaza or Mzee should be mistreated, no newborn could possibly be more important than those who have seen it all. So the way everybody seems to be eager to beat 2016 off the stage to clear space for 2017 feels profoundly wrong. Secondly, as a…
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Blasio’s Flower
I don’t enjoy weddings. They take too much time and they are almost the same, wherever you go in Uganda. But when Blasio, Edirisa’s co-director, asked me to come to his first-born’s kwanjula, I felt I couldn’t say no. Also known as the introduction, this is the central part of the traditional wedding procedures. Busy…
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Missing Hippos
Out of the blue, three hippos appeared. They became the talk of Lake Bunyonyi, the lake so casually described as super-safe for swimming, with no bilharzia (more about that here), no crocodiles … and no hippos. Well, in 2013 they were very much there. For several days, until locals got tired of hippos eating their…
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Difficult Ugandan
Enya’s experience with the police made me think… Why do I behave like that really? 1. Because I feel Ugandan. When you are just a visitor, you tend to keep your head down and let locals do their things the local way. This is my country and I want it to be a great country.…