I stood in front of the crowd in the packed auditorium in lady clothes, but what I was presenting I was damn serious about … It was 20 February 2001, 19 days after I came up with the window concept, about a week since I shared it with my classmates at the Institute of Ethics and Development — and I felt I was ready to present it to the world!
As a whitey, the only full-time non-African student at Uganda Martyrs University, I was routinely called Mzungu (white person). But a real Mzungu was expected to come with some form of colonial guilt that I simply didn’t feel. My country of birth, Slovenia, was historically not a coloniser but one of the colonised. So I used the opportunity to rebrand myself the Slozungu.
My one-man Slozungu Show was a mixture of many things, including theatre (that is why the Institute head Deirdre Carabine lent me her dress) but the real point was to get people interested in Edirisa. I think I did it reasonably well — 20 years on the organisation still exists!
It has been built by hundreds of people, and my way to express gratitude to them all was to create the Story in Narrated Slides, a video meant to appreciate and update everyone at the time of our anniversary. But then a different (I hope better) idea popped up: why not integrate the gist of the presentation into the Weekly Companion?!
The second edition of the show therefore doesn’t only speak to our members but to all of those who have helped us reach this point… Because Gorilla Highlands may well be Edirisa at its best!
🎤 voice by:
Isabelle Masozera is a PR professional and event host who used to organise Gorilla Highlands Silverchef. A staunch believer in the potential of Rwanda and Africa, she resides in Kigali, Rwanda. [bio updated: 2026-03]
Jane Mulungi was first a director’s assistant in Uganda and then the founding director of Gorilla Highlands Ltd in Rwanda. In 2021 she started the next chapter of her life, in the United States of America. Click for Jane’s background story. [bio updated: 2026-03]
Jon “Oruhindu” Lee is the legendary narrator of Gorilla Highlands Experts videos and the former grammar guru of the organisations blogs. His English teacher and TV commentator careers prepared him for this role well, but he is also a tomato grower, volleyball coach and writer. When he isn’t visiting our region, he lives in Santa Barbara, California. [bio updated: 2026-03]
Julius “Survivor” Wetala is a coffee expert, green recovery activist and businessman. After pioneering coffee farmer visits in the Gorilla Highlands region, he is now both an organic agriculture community trainer in the north of Uganda and a family man in Mukono, central Uganda. [bio updated: 2026-03]
Pamela “Maggie” Kanyunyuzi was among the founding group of Edirisa (the mother organisation of Gorilla Highlands Experts), and one of its directors. A tourism professional, she now lives in Kampala, Uganda.[bio updated: 2026-03]
🖋️ text, 🎥 video and 🎤 voice by:
ML Rwebandira — formerly known as Miha Logar — is an adventure and cultural tourism expert, writer and multimedia producer who co-founded Gorilla Highlands Experts. His most recent publication is the Pocket Treasure. A national of both Uganda and Slovenia, ML resides with his son Lan in Musanze, Rwanda. Click for his personality-infused quarterly newsletters. [bio updated: 2026-05]
Comments
2 responses to “Weekly Companion — Edirisa Anniversary Edition”
At least 20 more years to come 🎉🎉
Well done, thank you.