Quarterly newsletter for Gorilla Highlands lovers
I only like Kampala on Sundays. This awesomely crazy city is much more relaxed, quieter and enjoyable on weekends. So being stuck alone in Uganda’s capital during the holiday season does come with a benefit: it feels like some kind of Sunday again and again and again!
But why? Why was I not on Lake Bunyonyi last night, entering 2026 with champagne and candles on the water? Surrounded by 18 Slovenian hikers, our team from all three countries, and many local partners — especially my buddies, the Batwa “Pygmies”? The way our tradition dictates?
We shall get to that soon enough …
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I spent 2025 refining what Gorilla Highlands stands for (click on the image above for the PDF) and decreasing the organisation’s dependency on me. Being able to pull out at any time was one of the yearly goals I set, and I’d say I’ve been quite successful at that.
The other side of the coin is that less of me calls for more of YOU. You, whose heart also beats for the Gorilla Highlands region shared by DR Congo, Rwanda and Uganda! (I do hope I haven’t been too annoying with all my invitations to get engaged, spanning a number of newsletter issues — the ultimate one is awaiting you in the next section …)
The absolute high point of the year for me was the Friendship Camp. To be at Edirisa at the end of August and watch Ugandan, Rwandan and Congolese youngsters mingle so excitedly was satisfying beyond words. Especially because I had very little to do with this activity happening!
This was our third Camp, and the upgrade in the quality of participants was staggering. So much IQ, experience, creativity… just wow! A lot of that has to do with the networks we are patiently weaving. For instance, in 2022 our Rwandan main man Misigaro Rebero went to an AIESEC meeting in Jinja, Uganda. There he befriended Sharon Oudejans from the Netherlands and Jonan Asingwire Kato from Uganda. These two heroes helped prepare the 2025 Camp and drummed up cool Ugandan participants. It was Jonan’s second Camp, while Sharon had never even been, imagine!
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As a lover of Congo, I was particularly struck by the eight Congolese present at the Camp. I certainly jumped at the opportunity to combine Moise Chirusha’s wedding in December with visiting some of them in Bukavu …
I know Moise because he knows Fred Way, an American expert who once upon a time volunteered on the Rwandan shores of Lake Kivu (and getting to Fred was courtesy of our guide Enock Musabyimana, if we take our networking tale a step further). Hearing that we lacked English-speaking Congolese, he immediately thought of Moise, a guy who started an English language school in Goma.
But Moise is generally a creator, so at the other end of Kivu he formed a choir six years ago, called “La voix des anges”. They were the music stars at his wedding, led by Samuel Mordekai. Moise loves including people with disabilities in his projects, and Samuel is not the only one empowered by the Angels’ Voice.
The following day we had Kupana mafiga, the let-the-newlyweds-cook-for-you ceremony, at Moise’s home. The bride’s relatives took hours to show up, and due to my pre-scheduled meet-up I missed the brunt of it. (I will forever be wondering how good Moise is at making ugali on a sigiri!) Still, my reward was a tour of their compound, the unique multi-storey structures Bukavu is famous for. Fascinating!
On a passenger motorcycle, rushing to the rest of the local Gorilla Highlands Experts gang, my eyes were feasting on the packed streets, surreal architecture, and astonishing vistas, and I felt more in love than ever.
Have the photos in this section piqued your interest? Our newly-merged website has much more about Bukavu, and my irrational passion for it. (I recommend Bullets & Love as a starting point, the piece I wrote a decade ago.)
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The Friendship Camp is part of the Illumineers program, and the team behind it has ambitious plans. If you want to hear them — and comment on them! — join us on Zoom this Saturday at 6pm Kigali time. You will also get an update on what is new in every country, what is the general strategy we are developing and what has been done to our website.
… In fact, maybe you want to circle most of your Saturdays? After a year of experimentation we are stepping into 2026 with four global teams that meet monthly on the same day and at the same time.
• first Saturday of the month: 🎯 Illumineers (youth program devoted to experiential learning and personal development for future leaders of the region)
• second Saturday of the month: 🎯 Media (campaigns to change global and local perceptions of the region and promoting GHE work)
• third Saturday of the month: 🎯 Edirisa (all matters concerning our Bunyonyi location)
• fourth Saturday of the month: 🎯 Committee (the leaders coordinating and talking organisational/legal stuff)
With the exception of 🎯 Committee, all these one-hour Zooms are open to anyone interested in what’s happening!
Seriously, you can just pop in, no questions asked and no prior preparation expected. But keep in mind that after some friendly chitchat each Zoom will begin exactly 5 minutes past the hour — if you try to join later, the admin may or may not let you in …
This is the link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81403483711?pwd=rfgrBSnJH6BL4PObAjdXmwbQbKz8qg.1
6pm Rwandan time currently translates to:
7pm in Uganda
5pm in most of Europe
4pm in the UK
11am on the US eastern coast
8am on the US western coast
… Do you perhaps wish to be involved more than once a month? The best way to stay totally informed is to get onto the mailing list of GHE News that will come out weekly now, every Friday. It’s brief and you can get it over WhatsApp or email, whatever you prefer — tell us via our Contact Us page.
On GHE News we announce all convos, topical discussions with a limited time span that take place on WhatsApp. You are free to join any, or none.
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Enough seduction! Enough suspense! Why am I in central Uganda and have, totally exhausted, slept into the new year?!
Not everything about my desire to delegate went right in 2025. And there was one project I desperately needed to make happen: our pocket booklet. Wanting to bring it back for years, in November I finally stopped trying to do it through others.
164 project hours later, I’m hoping the printing technician on Nasser Road resurrects, does the botched 16 pages again, and we get something we can be somewhat proud of. The Pocket Treasure in 5,000 presentable copies. We are launching it in Kigali in exactly one week … In the meantime I’m visiting accommodations, shops and other places where the booklet could be sold (it won’t be free anymore), and that’s one hell of a job.
But it does include meeting cool personalities! For example, on the Lake Victoria beach of Entebbe I ran into Dr Pascal Ngoga. Not a medical doctor, a doctor of political science! Not only a hotelier in Uganda, a former ambassador to Ethiopia and Israel where he represented Rwanda! You can probably guess that we clicked immediately.
When he heard about my pen name, ML Rwebandira, he was both amused and impressed. Dr Ngoga was the first person after Festo Karwemera to actually know the deeper meaning of my pseudonym. He even brought up the verb kwibandira that I had not heard before, and explained it as “clear a way or establish a trail through a difficult area”.
Yeah, that’s me. Karwemera figured my character out within a month, and gave me a Rukiga name that still resonates. Last year we marked 100th anniversary of his birth, so in Festo’s memory I decided to shorten Miha Logar to ML and put the focus on Rwebandira. I’m now making it permanent.
Will you follow your humble trailblazer, dear readers, towards peace and prosperity in the Gorilla Highlands region?
Courageous new year 2026!
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