Busing is Experiencing

Travel days often feel like days that don’t happen. You sleep, read, watch out your window and have your knees cramp-up. While the days don’t seem to show anything happening, there is really so much you learn through bus travel. With airplanes you just see things from 40,000 feet, but you don’t really get to understand what’s happening way down there. When you take a bus, you see the other passengers and begin to understand why people do what they do. Any of the travelers coming to from Kigali to Kampala are not just going for a day trip; it’s not your commuter traffic in the same way as the trip from Musanze to Kigali can be. It’s people attending weddings, conferences, graduations or in my case today a whole group of nuns filling up the front half of the bus. You see generosity, kindness, desperation, and even people’s very personal struggles for survival as you fly by their tiny roadside town- never to stop there, just to pass through. In my travelling, the morning started off right. While I fretted about not finding a moto at 4:30 am walking the street from Kimihurura toward the road to Nyabagogo (the bus stage), one passed by with a passenger, and must have noticed me walking strangely from my heavy duffle bag, helmet and purse. Luckily, after dropping the other passenger off, the moto driver circled around for me and this morning was definitely one where the 200 Franc overcharge was both unarguable and well worth the 33 cents. It was a driver I had a few déjà vu conversations with on passed rides, but I was just so elated that there was one within the city limits that I couldn’t help but say yes to his ride.

The traveling as I mentioned is usually just whizzing by the city, and at 4:30 the city still smelled the same, but had a very different audio soundtrack: such stillness, an occasional roster and/or goat bleating, but little else that early that it is serene and wonderful. On the bus we don’t tend to stop for more than gas or foodstuffs, and the noises that surround you are honking horns, people yelling muzungu, or merely the gravel knocking into other things. When we do stop the towns are often bustling, hence the need for people to get on and off of the bus. As the bus comes to a stop a swarm of people fly baskets and brochettes held high to your beckon call. Their prices aren’t always the best, but you can tell by their speed going from one bus to the next (hardly checking for oncoming traffic) that this is their livelihood. Without the stops, these people would not have money, none would come into the town, and none would be spent in and around it. When we think about development work, it often involves some miniature version of a stimulus package. Clearly we aren’t taking about the same package that the US needed, but we are talking about microgrants, microloans, Heifer’s give and animal- all of these projects are bringing outside capital to a village to either be traded and sold within or sent outside the community to be sold for hard capital. It’s hard to see how these economies can grow when they are so separated by their own poverty. A lack of money not only means you cannot get your community members to buy whatever you make or grow, but it means you also don’t have the means to get it to the place where people will buy it. Passing these towns, I can’t help but hope that each bus load of people brings enough money into a community that another child can go to school or at least to bed with a full tummy.

I tend not to buy much in transit since the bumps are prone to turning even the most strong of stomachs into queasy messes, but today after only a pair of passion fruits for breakfast, I was very excited when we reached Uganda in hopes of a rolex (egg and chipati rolled together) walking onto the bus for sale. First, we had to pass the border. Katunga is a relatively easy border crossing, and involved a lot less dust than the trek from Musanze directly. Crossing the border, I always get excited going into Uganda. Knowing I will get to see my homestay family and that I can surprise a few people with my Luganda tends to make my day. At the Ugandan immigration stations, there was one agent working very hard to explain the decentralized system of immigration in Uganda. Any Ugandan cannot just show up that the border they want to exit from to get a passport. Each region is assigned a passport giving city and office- this border was clearly not this individuals place or residence, so there wasn’t much the agent could do. He was pretty patient and then as usual apologetic that I had to wait so long. I didn’t mind since I clearly learned something and wasn’t going to be the last one back on the bus yet (a benefit to being at the front of the bus is that you don’t have to worry about being the last one back on since you’re the first one off).  The agent was so chipper and surprised I had a multi-entry visa and knew a little Luganda that he was almost besides himself telling me to keep coming back. Even gave me more than the number days I requested to stay saying anything less than 2 weeks was too short of a stay. Sometimes people know you and your plans better than you do. This was certainly a case of this- now I have until the 10^th of August to leave, and after arriving and sending out emails, it seems I may be here that long anyways! Little did either of us know!

The rest of the journey was uneventful with the exception of it getting progressively warmer as we drove nearer and nearer to the Equator. I woke up at least twice just because I was too warm! Certainly this is a weird feeling to me having been anything except too warm at night in Musanze these past few weeks! Walking off the bus, my knees felt a little wobbly from being in one position for so long- cowboy boots are bit unforgiving in that way, but Aunt Dale’s boots have the dirt of 4 countries on their soles now! Having been from the USA and gone to Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, they were definitely made for walking. And of course, that’s just what they’ll do. So getting off the bus, these poor boots of mine were hoping to hop a moto and go straight to Red Chilli Hideaway, but I wanted to find a moto drive that would be at least a little safer than most, and my judge of that is a helmet. Some moto (or boda boda) drivers have it on at all times on their bike others, have it bungee chorded to their non-functioning dash protecting a whole lot of nothing. Just preventing their bike from being impounded, rather than their heads.

Today, finding a ‘safer’ driver was near impossible and when I did finally find one, he didn’t know where Red Chilli was. Lovely. So I kept walking, and finally talked to a group large enough that a non-boda driver chimed in knowing where it was. As soon as the explanation was given, half the stage was offering me a ride there, but at 10,000 shillings I was not about to do that! Tops it should have been 5000 with the “muzngu tax.” As I found this out later, I was even gladder to have opted for the matatu at 1000 shillings. It took me into the suburb where Red Chilli was located and then a moto took me the rest of the way for another 1500- not quite bargaining, but in the midst of rush hour, to a place I had never been, I would say I didn’t do half bad. A slight bruise on my neck (from my duffle not an accident) later I was curled up in a chair with free wifi and a bottom bunk.  Much needed after the long day of travel and the chaos that was rush hour traffic- from ambulance sirens blaring to bodas speeding by on the sidewalks, I couldn’t believe how hectic it was for what must have been 4 o’clock or thereabouts.

The rest of the evening involved a drink and some serious emailing, a skype call with mom, Scott and Thomas (one of my Ugandan homestay brothers). It was also the first time I have been surrounded by such a large number of muzngus (the place was swarming with them! While it is a little shame to pay for housing when you have family in town, I was glad to have given him this evening to himself, since he returned from some trip this past week tonight as well. After a yummy pizza (not to expensive either) I took a modified shower (aka out of the wall spout rather than the shower head which had no pressure) and then headed to bed mosquito net down and ready for some decent rest in some clean sheets. Welcome back to Kampala, land of mosquitos, music and crazy driving…oh, and note to self, you’ll always need more airtime!

Warm Fuzzies

Monday was an early morning and promised to be fun:  Akagera Part 2. Tumaini picked us up at 6:15 and then we headed off to the park. I was not sure it was worth seeing again, but O was it! Take two was even more unbelievable than the first! We saw dozens of baboons and vervets, 2 hippos up close out of the water, a 10 foot crocodile, and a few baby giraffes and zebras- all so close this time! I could not believe how close we got to things this trip. Even the warthogs were out playing in the mud and running around at the sight of us (we saw at least ten of them!)It was so fun to meet Natasha’s mom and spend the time with Sophia and Aileen as well. We bounced around a lot, saw some fabulous birds, and other than the elephant, saw just about everything! After reading the whole way there, the way back involved snacking on cheese and bread, a few Ankole cow traffic jams, and a really nice nap!

Yes the Hippo was that close!

 

Monday evening I needed to get back up to Musanze, because I had a Tuesday morning meeting at Nyarwondo for baseline surveys. The trip up felt fast as ever with people hurling quietly in their cloths, and stopping for brochettes and potatoes. Then about 2/3rds of the way to Musanze, our bus pulled over relatively unexpectedly as a police car went flying (and I’m talking-go off a cliff style flying- not literally, but still so fast!). I thought well that’s a the first police car I have seen and people weren’t looking backwards (toward were the car was going), but in instead were talking quickly and looking at where it came from- sure enough around the bend came another 3 or for police suvs, and then a string of suvs and another police car or two. My first thought was, who famous is visiting, and why are they driving so freaking fast?? Then I thought, Kagame would want to move pretty quickly if he was travelling around the country. I wouldn’t have thought going that fast was any safer than risking driving a bit slower, but apparently they know what is best…so after we started moving again I asked Aloys (who happened to be on the same bus with me, Sarah, Emily and Sasha). He said that certainly was “his excellency” zooming back to Kigali after an afternoon in Musanze. As for me, I was glad to be back in Musanze after such an intense weekend in Kigali!

Tuesday’s visits went very well! I began the morning with Aime and Isugi at Nyarwondo. This community has chosen a potato project since they lack the means to buy more land, this grant will help them rent land from others in order to make enough earnings to continually rent and farm as a community. They a very poor community, but there were also a few people within the group that were trying to talk down their own wealth even more than it already was. Aime and I caught one man in a blatant lie, and while I am not sure if a surveyor technically should be correcting, bad information doesn’t do anyone any good. The man said he had a bicycle, but no mattress and no radio. This might seem plausible, but usually the items purchased go in the other order. Rarely does one have the foresight buy a bike prior to owning a mattress. The bicycle can be used to help you earn income, but because of the price differential, often a mattress is more practical in the short-term. When Aime asked why he had answered untruthfully, he said something to the effect of, “you know with NGOs, they are more generous the needier you are.” Now this wouldn’t have been a surprising answer except that the communities we work with aren’t supposed to have had any past experience with NGOs! How did this man from a relatively rural area have it already in his mind how to game the system prior to ever being involved in it?

Bit disheartening, no? Especially because the model that Sasha and Eamon are developing is one they hope will attempt to avoid aid dependency, but if it is already engrained prior to our arrival, then can we truly come in with the expectations that communities will see our actions as such? Additionally, it means that they know how to bias our survey results and are purposefully going to be doing so- with or without us noticing. In that way, I am not sure the surveys that Dennis and I have been working on this summer will actually provide any value to donors or to Spark itself. I hope that I am wrong, but also believe that this probably has played into the way that most of our post-surveys have been answered. For our question of would you change the project you chose, many said yes, not because they didn’t like it, but because they would have asked for more. Many say the funding wasn’t sufficient to complete their project (even though they all got exactly what they asked for in their proposals), and it was successful- no it didn’t end their poverty overall, but it did make change in their lives. They have animals they couldn’t have afforded, protective structures for the animals, latrines they needed for sanitation purposes, and even some of them now can pay for medicines, school clothes, and health insurance that before was an unlikely, distant hope. The most significant change stories that Natasha has been collecting are definitely more useful ways of determining whether or not our work is- working. It is much easier to lie to a survey collector, but much harder to avoid detection when you are collecting stories to be read to the whole community for verification, and also because it is harder to maintain a storyline and details from an imaginary tale. I hope that there will be more success coming out of that part of our intern work.

I recognize the importance of numbers to donors; it gives them a way to narrow down the millions of causes and projects they see, but the problem is it forces NGOs to waste time and money collecting relatively useless information. And the numbers they see are then passed on the very bias of the communities knowing donors see the numbers. If it looks bad they won’t help, if it looks good then it’s a finished project- no more money needed there. The largest of NGOs get to avoid specific project rates and percentages in a way that foundation funded small NGOs have a hard time over coming. The pressure foundations place on numbers is understandable, but again, not necessarily telling of the work actually being done on the ground. Hopefully, time will show a better system for analyzing the successes and failures of aid work, and while I don’t expect it too soon, I also think everyone should be cautious of overly successful projects.

Seeing Nuggets hat I couldn't help but be silly and get a picture!

Clearly, I digress…after the morning site visit, I went back to Musanze for lunch to then turn around and meet Aloys at Gahunga. It was the busiest ‘China bus’ I have been on since I arrived in Kigali. I had begun to worry that no bus would come as I waited by the side of the road, and it sounded like some of the others waiting had been there for a solid 15 minutes (generally that would mean one was about to turn the corner, but it didn’t. I waited… again patience is the most important thing to pack in visiting Africa… and finally one came with a familiar faced conductor (the money 

collector). I told him I was headed to GS 

Rugarama, hoped on and paid the 400 franc fair (inflated because of the lack of buses). As we drove along the bus became more and more crowded until there was literally no way to open the side doors without them hurting someone- which then meant everyone on the bus had to shuffle about when one person from the back needed to get off. This bus was worse than the Bethesda Ride On busses in rush hour, and yet it kept chugging along. We pasted a few schools and turn-offs to other communities before I hopped off- at the wrong spot. I got lucky in that I caught my mistake and ran back to the bus before it took off, and the sympathetic conductor (who now knows me by name – and possibly the muzngu who almost got left behind) chatted with me in French before we actually reached the right spot for me to hop out. Due to all the shuffling and the lateness of the bus I was shocked that I was only 5 minutes behind schedule when I got off and met Aloys! What an adventure almost gone wrong! If I’d have missed that bus, I wouldn’t have been able to get to Aloys (with my bag full of surveys) for at least another 15 minutes (by moto, since busses were MIA), and he is so good about being timely that I hate to be the one on ‘African time’ for meetings.

Pretty gift in hand with ladies of Nyarwondo

Turned out, the community was on Africa time (not too surprising), but Aloys and I made it just fine. The community was excited to see me again, and after we finished our surveys and were walking home, one of the community members said that she wanted to give me a gift. I hate to take what little a community has from it, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer, brought me into her home and gave be a wall hanging flat basket. It is beautiful with the words GRAND MERCI woven into the pattern. I took a picture, and need to get it printed before I return to Musanze so that I can deliver it to her (perhaps with another basket thanking her for her own generosity with no expectation of repayment.

Eamon, Sarah, Aloys and Claude preparing the surprise!

Tuesday was also a special day, because it was Isugi’s birthday! So the evening was set for celebrating. The interns were planning to make dinner for Isugi, but we decided pretty late in the day what we would actually make! Since one intern has a gluten allergy and another is vegetarian, it makes for a challenge being a chef- just about everything I know how to make includes one or the other of those elements. We settled on a veggie curry on rice dish. It smelled so good, when Eamon called and said that there would be a pre-dinner event at the facilitator house. There is apparently a tradition of surprising birthday girls (and boys) by dumping buckets of water on them! Easier said than done when you haven’t had water all week, and the only way to heat some is to boil it in tea kettle- making it too warm to toss on someone! So after splashing back and forth between two buckets for a while to cool it down, the surprise was set, we were all staged in the dark awaiting with the bucket and cameras at the ready. It was such a great success! She had no idea and while I would have smacked anyone attempting to dump a bucket of water on me, she was doing nothing but hugging everyone as soon as she got strength back in her knees! We all went back to our house to eat dinner after we had danced from about an hour, and it was just a really wonderful evening, ending a somewhat stressful morning with a happy ending!

Isugi post splash with Claude and Ernest

After yoga with Sophia and Petra

The next morning after getting tea, my focus became survey data entry, and I actually got through a full community before breaking for some brainstorming on how to teach logic models to our facilitators with Eamon. It’s been cool to be a sounding board for so many things- from curriculum development, monitoring and evaluation and now starting-up in Uganda. The mini meeting lasted until I had to dash out with Aileen to make it to our afternoon yoga session. With free classes and welcoming Rwandans, who could ever justify not attending the classes? Not me! It is also something that Aileen can do for the next 6 months that she is here and become good friends with the seamstresses of the cooperative. The sessions really are lovely, and I was so lucky to be able to go both Wednesday and Thursday of this week. I am definitely excited to see how it goes, and for her after we all leave, and it will be nice to see things grow through her ‘on the ground’ eyes and ears.

The fabulous girls and guys of Ubushobozi!

After the Thursday yoga, I was going to head back to Kampala late afternoon, but since the yoga ended-up going until 4, and I had a Skype call at 4:15, I decided the evening bus was probably my better bet. Was reasonable, but a bit worrisome when I arrived in Kigali at Nyabagogo to find the Kampala Coach ticket offices closed. The buses to Kampala from Kigali leave pretty early in the morning- 5:30 to be exact, so having a ticket the night before is somewhat of a necessity. It worked out alright, because a sweet stranger seeing my hopeless walk toward the entrance to the clearly closed Kampala Coach office took pity and showed me to the Jaguar offices which had remained open! What luck and what a nice man for pointing me in the right direction rather than me getting up at 4 am only to find the bus had been sold out. I bought my ticket feeling a bit more warm and fuzzy about the world (and not because my bag was so heavy that I was sweating, but due to the help he offered when he had no real incentive to get up and walk me to the Jaguar offices. Feeling really relieved, I hoped a moto back to Kimihurura and Hotel X to get a half night’s sleep before venturing back to Kampala on my own. 

Sadness, Fear and Hope for the Future

Just posted on FB by a Rwandan friend and felt fitting!

Not all of Rwanda’s tourist qualities are happy animal safaris, waterfalls and hiking volcanoes. This country is still healing, and the many memorials that dot the country are a testament to this very notion. I won’t go into the details of the genocide itself here, if you want to get a relatively comprehensive view, I recommend the book called We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow You Will be Killed with Your Family. As for our Sunday, Sophia and I planned to go on a relatively depressing adventure out to Murambi Memorial. This memorial is located within what would have been a technical school outside of Butare (Huye) by about 30 km. The school was a place that during the genocide many people had gone after pastors and others told them they would be safer there. The local government had promised protection to those a Murambi, but as most places of protection for Tutsis and Hutus that were Tutsi sympathizers; this was to be a broken promise. The trust of these internally displaced persons in their local leaders was strong, and their fear of the other alternatives was great. In that way, it seemed like a viable option- safety in numbers right?

Sophia and I weren’t sure quite what to expect at the memorial, if it would be open when we arrived or even how to get there. (A lot of things to not know for a one day trip, but since we knew how to get to Butare, we decided that was a good first step. So, a 2 hour bus ride later, we got off at a Kobil station in Butare and began to ask around. Sophia needed a bathroom, so we figured we would find that our first. In doing so, we also told the two helping us that we were trying to get to Murambi and weren’t sure about our next step. The girl we had come to talk to said that a moto would not be the way to go the 30 kms we had left to go, so she helped us to find the proper bus, and we continued on with a driver who knew where to boot us out (the end of this buses route as it turned out- Nyamagabe). The girl had not been to the memorial, but knew exactly where it was. She’d lost everyone, but her sister. When someone opens up like this, I always want to unleash a flood of questions, but I don’t. It is too hard for people to recount what happened; often there are no words for it anyways, so to ask would just to be creating a reliving of the most traumatic part of their lives. It’s been 18 years, but shattered so many lives and so much trust that rebuilding both of those things will take generations. The development that has occurred helps, but it is not everything.

When we got off the bus in Nyamagabe, Sophia and I bought tickets home before leaving the station to avoid being stuck out of Kigali for the night. Then, Sophia and I looked for motos to take us to the site. This turned out to be relatively challenging, but one of the bus park attendants helped us along. For some, they just had to get gas before they could take us, but one driver was visibly upset- even angry. For the first time I thought- I am a tourist, one who’s never experienced pain- how thoughtless could I be to go to the very town that people died in Murambi and expect that a moto driver (about the age to be a child during the genocide) would be willing to drive me to the memorial to see the bodies of their relatives? Or those that their relatives had killed? And how do the locals even feel about the memorial? Clearly those working there want to share the story, are willing to be there day in and day out to make sure people get what happened and hopefully help to avoid it happening again. To reassure people that peace is the sanest thing to keep, no matter the cost. His reaction triggered guilt in me for wanting to visit Murambi, to see the bodies being preserved with lime- 2,000 of them on stark display. How did the families feel about them not being buried? Are there even relatives left for those skeletons on display to speak for them? People did bad things, but how can people move on with the constant reminders of their families past? As I have said time and time again, Rwandans are incredible people- they keep going. On what? I am not sure, but I hope that it is faith that amends can be made and people can trust again. It could just as easily be survival instinct or hope for vengeance, but I think it is not true expect perhaps for a few individuals here and there. Overall, I think people want to trust, they are religious and want to love their neighbors as the Bible tells them to, and mostly they want to feel safe from themselves and from others.

As we arrived, the memorial was technically closing, but the director was there and allowed us to enter nonetheless. He said, ‘to have come so far, there is no way he could turn us away.’ I told him that the website was lacking hours or a number to call, so perhaps they will put one up for the future. The reminders of how fragile live is are all over Africa, but it is on display here. It shows starkly of not just our ability to starve to death during a drought, contract diseases, but to hurt each other. When we talk about war, we talk about causes, effects, and values- we talk about philosophy and what is right. We rarely focus on the humanity of killing, saving, dying, or being left behind. This memorial talked about all of these pieces. It reminds you of the true goodness people are capable of, and the truly vile things that good people can be made to do in fear. There is a saying that it is better to be feared than loved as a leader, and this visit made me question the effectiveness of my own preference for being loved. Fear creates monsters within people, it eats at them and forces a person’s love to be used against them with threats. Many Hutus joined the killing to avoid losing their own families, selfish- yes, love- yes, but fear is to me the defining characteristic that forced the hands of many that would never have imagined picking-up a machete or a grenade. A heartbreaking reality.

Murambi’s evacuees were attacked and more than 27000 were killed, only 20,000 bodies were recovered and 18,000 of those are buried within a mass tomb outside the school buildings, big gashes in the earth still exist where the bodies were initially exhumed. 2000 of the bodies are on display, babies, mothers, fathers, children, people. You can’t tell their ethnicity, they are all covered in white powder that is only contrasted by the occasional pair of panties or tuft of hair remaining. The bodies are in what would have been classrooms in Murambi. Open air rooms with tarps covering the unfinished or grenade open building sides. The bodies decompose even with the lime, and the memorial will be only pictures in the future, but currently those aren’t even formally allowed for fear that they will be shown to Rwandans who do not wish to see what we saw. Room after room of bashed in skulls, broken bones and contorted positions. It’s horrific really and brings out so much sadness in one that wasn’t there that I cannot even begin to imagine the emotions that would hit a Rwandan seeing it for the first time. The director said many only make it through the first few rooms. Sophia and I saw them all. To me these things are horrific, and you want to tear yourself away, but they couldn’t leave? And what they saw was far worse, so out of respect for those lost, how could one leave? To me it is unfathomable not to take in each and every body for who they could have been. Clenching rosaries or cradling a baby, to avoid any of the rooms is to avoid reality, to deny the very extent of the deaths.

I don’t want this experience to come across as a tourist must do. It is only for those who have an understanding of what happened. The story of the genocide portrayed at the memorials often ignores the realities of people who stood up for themselves and others, so to go without foreknowledge is to learn about rather than be able to experience all the detail. It’s overwhelming, but if you know more, then you can truly give live to the statistics, you can emotionally take in what 2,000 people looks like and imagine what that times 14 would be. Numbers turned into realities, into fathomable non-computer generated volumes. It leaves one speechless at first with nothing but the question, “how the hell did this hellish thing happen?” Beyond that, there are many people who have sought to answer it, and in the end I think there is no perfect answer, only an aligning of events, passions, fears and betrayals. It is important that the Rwandans themselves ended the killing, and all I can say now is that I pray they as a people never experience the horrors of war again. I hope Congo’s fighting stays in their own borders and that Rwanda continues to develop and generations begin to trust each other again.

When we arrived back to town, we needed some tea or something to get rid of our goose bumps and passing by a pair of older men playing Igisoro, we couldn’t help but chuckle- oh how the show must go on.  

Hellos and Good-byes

Thursday’s generally revolve around a site visit or survey, but this week Dennis and Aime went to finish up surveys at Shingiro and I got to take some time and go to yoga! Mind you I love yoga in pretty much any shape or form, so when the ladies of Jeanne’s coop invited me to join I was particularly excited! I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, because all I knew was that a volunteer had trained the guys and girls in how to go about practicing yoga. I was prepared for just about anything (figuring it couldn’t be bikram (or hot yoga) since the weather hasn’t been 96 up here anytime recently), though was classily running on Africa time- 10 minutes late.

Luckily for me, so was the rest of the class. I arrived and changed as some of the girls were lighting tea light candles at the front of the room.

There weren’t incents, but at the end of the practice one of the teachers went around doing massages while we laid there in corpse pose with a lovely scented oil. It was such a relief to finally get some exercise in that stretched me out, and boy did I feel it in my arms the next morning! The thing that most amazed me was that I felt so balanced by comparison to my counterparts in tree pose, and that the actions were so easy to follow as a group even across language and accent barriers. Rather than a soothing soundtrack, the sounds of children yelling and playing outside, a bicycle whizzing by, the fwap-fwap of clothes being de-wrinkled before their attachment to a clothesline and the crackle of a fire out behind the house all provided our au natural soundtrack. The deep vocal breathing we were taught in my first yoga class also came into play as I got to take in the sounds and smells of Rwanda from downward dog.

After the class finished, I met with Sasha about prepping for Uganda and finishing-up some more of the M&E for Rwanda. I definitely have bitten off a lot to chew, but am also very excited for the experience. The first week of August, I will be in Kampala and Mbale figuring out all of the steps needed in order to become a registered NGO in Uganda with legitimate staff and ideally, a place for them to live! With that, I came home from yoga and began my research of expats in Uganda, contacting all those I have met along the way and giving a heads up to my fabulous Baganda family that I would be visiting soon. What I thought would be relatively easy to locate via blogs, NGO databases, etc, has actually been far more fuzzy and challenging. It will clearly be important to be in Mbale with tons of business cards next week! Having said that, there were a few expat hubs and currently I am working through those in order to find possible housing. Time will tell if the website is of any use, but this week will include a few busy Skype days for calling Uganda and firming up plans.

View from City View Top

After a computer filled day, it was nice to have the team visit City View (the restaurant at the top of Equity Bank) in Musanze for a brochette and banana dinner. Sophia, Dennis, Eamon, Sarah and Emily all came. While Sophia and I were the only ones to eat, it was nice to have all of their company as the days Dennis would be around were getting pretty short. Since he was leaving Sunday, we tried to fit in a lot of his favorite places before he left. He wasn’t feeling terribly well (like Sarah and Emily) and so dinner was just not on the agenda for the three of them. We weren’t out too late, but with a day of travel ahead of us all, we weren’t too eager to stay up late anyhow. Friday was meant to be a morning travel to Kigali to get to work once we got there, but as happens so often- that wasn’t in the cards.

The intern team arrived at the bus station around noon after having a particularly lazy morning followed by getting a taxi to take most of the Sarah and Emily’s things to the bus with us to go to Kigali. We got to the station and found that the tickets were sold out until 2! While we often have to wait for the next but, 3 buses in between felt like a lot. I wasn’t sure why it was such a busy day at the bus station, but to kill time, the crew and I went to our little tea shop to watch Grey’s Anatomy, blog, eat omelets and drink up some tea. We passed the two hours in no time (especially when you consider arriving to the bus 30 minutes early in order to get half decent seats. We made our bus without a problem, though I think the tea shop owners may have gotten the impression I was leaving town for good with the girls’ large duffle bags, and you can only try to explain so much in multiple tenses is non-native languages. We were there for the better part of an hour and a half, and happened to run into Jackson (our Rwandese intern). He stayed for a bit to chat, but then had a bus to catch so had to run. We finished watching an episode, and then headed out for ours (which was only a half hour after his). Luckily, the bus ride was uneventful beyond trying the potatoes at a stop the bus makes about 45 minutes out of Kigali. I will definitely be getting off the bus more often at that stop!

The clothes are beautiful but so are the machines!

Kigali is always so warm. As soon as you step off the bus in Kigali with the same bags you got on with in Musanze you realize the temperature difference. On Saturday, however, the weather was relatively mild. We went to get groceries in town at the Nakumat and exchange money at the forex bureau (there are none officially in Musanze- only banks). Nakumat is the Africa equivalent of a Target Greatland or Costco, not in bulk. It has everything! From fresh bread and dishes to baby cribs, appliances and clothing, these stores are huge! They have just about everything- just about. Sadly, marshmallows are not one of those things. Our plan for a good by event for Dennis was a s’more making bonfire and good dinner out somewhere. Emily and Sarah were also planning a surprise for their family’s arrival next week and wanted to get supplies. It was a successful trip particularly, because water was so much cheaper there per bottle and I was running low on conditioner (surprising with the lack of showers taken)! We then made our way through some craft stores near the UTC building, because most of the girls had not been there yet. It was certainly fun to go with so many people, and because this was Dennis’ last weekend, he was buying up a storm! The Emily and Sarah were getting their igisoro fix, and I was just enjoying the experience. Shop-keepers love when you come back with even more friends, and that makes them more willing to bargain with you personally. This is true of the market as well, and so when we go to the market and flood the ladies with paper beads orders and dress requests- they love it!

getting in a little work in the morning!

Saturday also brought clothing pick-up at the market. Since you pay after the clothing is made, it is a little nerve wracking until you pick the newly sewn clothing up. I had purchased my fabrics up in Musanze, and brought them with me down south (mostly). When I got there, I found the bead lady that we visit (for her more interesting designs) and fabulously, the clothing was with her!  I was so excited to see what had been made and had my fingers crossed it all fit! I was in luck, because everything was fabulous. The dress looked wonderful, the PJ pants were just the right length and comfort, and the wrap-around skirt turned out fabulously after she added the whole for the tie! I couldn’t have been luckier- no adjustments were needed and I went off with all the new lovely pieces. I couldn’t have been more excited to start wearing them, so you can believe that the PJ pants were put on almost instantly upon reaching Hotel X.

Before going back though, I met up with Meddy. Always such fun to hang-out with, we played igisoro the ‘right way’ for two hours with me losing each and every game (a sad record compared to my record with Dennis’ way of playing). I also got to meet Meddy’s younger brother, which was exciting, but he didn’t speak English to me, so I assume that he doesn’t know it. It’s sad not to be able to communicate with people that are so close to those you know well and include them in your conversations, but again that is just a part of traveling and a challenge to the education systems of Rwanda and the US. Language is an incredibly hard skill to master as you age, and students should be encouraged to learn more sooner. Meddy has been accepted to a school in Toronto for a computer science certificate program, and I hope that he is able to do it and be back near his lovely girlfriend soon!

Mood lighting at the snazzy Zaaffran restaurant

While I have not had any wild Saturday nights, I am pretty glad of that. Dinner was taken at an Indian restaurant near Kimihurura (and therefore Hotel X) called Zaaffran. Ordering at restaurants where the food is unfamiliar and the menu is huge has never been my strongest suit, so I was relieved when Sasha (our resident Indian foodie) stepped up to the describing of different dishes. After receiving some hot towels to clean our hands, we ended-up with naan, palak paneer, a black lentil dish, some chicken and goat, and a belated order recommended by a group of Indians across the room. We had heard a few sizzling plates go out to people, and curiosity got the better of Sasha. The dish was a stuffed paneer dish with peppers, onions and a few other things. All delicious and not too spicy, I loved it! Dennis tried Ugandan Waragi and knocked-back a martini (he must have been feeling those by the end), before settling down with some tonic to finish off the dinner.

Present wrappings find other uses all over the world!

Then it was home to the bonfire, and s’mores (curiosity of Aileen- a longer term intern for Spark that arrived last week). I was a bit sorry to finish off the marshmallows so soon, but perhaps she will get an address here to receive a care package in the future! There were of course the usual disagreements of burning them ‘mallows or golden browning them, but in the end they were all delicious and we each ate one to many without thinking twice! Then we told jokes, stories, and played a modified tri-round charades game. It was fun, and I am glad that we all had such a wonderful last evening with Dennis. I was definitely sad to see my travel buddy go the next morning, but glad that I could help pack and get the last couple of pictures out to him from my camera before he went. 

Had to have one last Igisoro game before departure...

Village Visits

Sunday evening consisted of dinner in and the arrival of Pili (our duck) and Dennis. Since the next ‘to-do’ on Dennis’ list was building our Musanze chicken coop, he headed off to the market to buy materials with our guard. They got back a bit after dark with lots of materials and began construction on the coop with the help of my head lamp (the only thing that I thought would keep the hammers and nails out of fingers). This was a three day endeavor, but before it was finished being constructed, chickens were running around our yard with the duck (who was super excited to have ‘friends’ finally!).

 Monday brought me out for breakfast to our favorite spot, because I needed to go to the printers in town for surveys (taking over for Dennis), but there was a printers right next to our tea place, so I decided to stop in and try it. An hour and a half later I left with my copies, and a bit worried that my USB had a virus. They had been rebooting (and reinstalling everything on the computer attached to the printer, and that meant that I was waiting until finally the gentleman who owned the place went to print next store and then came back to copy in his own shop. It was pretty funny and a test of patience, but in the end all was finished and I made it back to the house in time to meet the crew, but their plans had changed- all were already gone, so I needed to make my way to GS Rugarama on my own. Should have been relatively easy with a knowledgeable moto driver, but in a moment of ‘oh he needs the 75 cents more than I need to sit on a cramped matatu’ I decided a moto ride there would be nice. I should have gotten off instantly, when I realized we weren’t going the normal direction, but I thought maybe there is another way that I just don’t know. Nope, he had no idea- first he took me to a house, I gave him directions again, and he headed back to town (good start until he went past the road to cyanika again). I started getting really annoyed here, because he kept saying “yes- I know” and yet really clearly had no clue where he was going. I made him pull over before he wasted any more time and before I could just get off and walk away I called Aime thinking- this is just a Kinyarwanda-English miscommunication. Aime explained more about where I was going and how to get there. I finally felt reassured, though a little annoyed that it was going to be so much more than the 75 cents which I initially rationalized the ride. We headed off again and things went relatively smoothly, until Gahunga where he slows down and pulled over. At this point, I had been following the angle on the volcano nearby and knew we had at least another mile to go. It was almost 1:30 (my meeting time) and I couldn’t tell him to just keep driving- and without fail soon as I called Aime again the phone was out of airtime! Classic- so after getting off the bike and walking away, I hop scotched between little shops until someone finally had MTN airtime. Finally, we continued on and arrived- after Aime paid him more than he deserved or had said he would charge, we were off to our meeting. The kids of the village gave some comic relief, and so by the end of our visits, I was feeling much better and far less frustrated at my own decision to moto to them.

Our site was successful and the surveys were almost completed, but getting home was definitely a relief. It was a bit short lived though, because as soon as we got home we were running around trying to catch chickens. We’ve come up with names for a few of them Carly Rae Jepsom, Muzungu, Igi(soro), and Gus is the cock. There is only one left to be named, and we’ve had 3 eggs laid! The guard at our house bought them some sorghum to eat and with the water dispenser that Eamon bought, they were all set for a good night in our back kitchen (since the coop wasn’t ready yet). I was glad that the chickens were pretty quiet at night, but in return, we had a pack of howling dogs! C’est la vie et une bonne nuit!

On Wednesday, tea and printing went much more smoothly (since the computer’s printer had been reinstalled). I was in and out in no time and headed home to the latest chicken fiasco. Getting five chickens in a coop when they are convinced you are going to kill them is no easy endeavor. Dennis and I spent about an hour chasing the chickens around the yard devising different strategies for capturing them. These chickens flew and ran faster than either of us had expected! Luckily we had time to chase the chickens around before our afternoon surveying session, but it did take far longer than necessary! Our house girl must have thought Dennis and I were the funniest things kibitzing each other with the squawking of almost caught chickens going on for an hour or so while she did some needle point.

In the afternoon, Dennis and I met Aime and Aloys to head to Kanyendara for another round of baseline surveys. The bus ride went by quickly, and we got off only to hop onto motos. Some moto rides are smooth and enjoyable with their fabulous views, but others are not quite as pleasant. Some result in mostly bumping up and down just clinging to the plastic handle on the back of the moto so as not to fly off. I am certain walking the road was quicker on the way back from the community, but didn’t mind paying to get there when I saw the drivers giving rides to the village kids when they left the village. So generous and sweet that you can’t help but like the driver. The rest of the village’s kids went running off behind the moto, and were hollering so much you’d have thought that there was a free donation!

Kanyendara is one of the communities in the worst shape that I have seen since my arrival. There are snotty noses and dirty clothes in all of the poor villages, but at the same time not all villages look quite as desperate for help. From swollen bellies, patches of hair missing and they were biting off the outside of corn stalks to suck on the insides for as a snack. The children in communities often have different reactions to muzngus coming into their villages, and it’s interesting to me to compare and contrast them. In most of the villages, the children are exuberant upon your arrival, and want to play non-stop. Then when you try to get to work is where things change. Some kids understand that is when they sit at a distance and watch. For others, the kids look on and keep creeping toward you as you conduct surveys. For this community, the latter was the case, and the kids kept creeping closer until one of the adults caught sight of it and came toward them with a stick. None of the kids were hit, but just like with the sheep and goats the kids whacked to keep in line, the kids recoiled instantly. After about an hour of watching me as their only amusement, the kids took to other things. Some of the kids began a dodge ball meets tag game that involved the kids pelting each other with the tennis ball and then diving after it to be the next thrower rather than blow recipient. The kids all seemed to be having so much fun and yet all I could think was- ouch, but then again, that’s how I feel about paintball. Sounds like nothing but a good way to get welts!

Clearly the little ones were having fun, and no one was crying so I just kept watching as they tired of one game and moved onto the next. Over the kids playing was the beautiful volcano, Murhubura, and when they switched to soccer (with a ball made from tarp scraps) I couldn’t help but notices how much the volcanic nature of the region plays into their lives. Rather than goal posts, the kids used two volcanic rocks to mark the goal region. Not only does the rock make for a relatively dangerous goal post, it makes for poor harvests (due to a lack of soil) and an almost impossible task of digging pit latrines. There are almost no landslides (which are common in other parts of the country), but this little bit of security clearly comes with a cost. 

First impressions of communities are often similar, but in this community, the patchwork clothing and baby butts showing said a lot about just how desperate they were. Within 20 minutes, I had begun to register other things like the separation that I had seen among a few other communities of men and women. Not a few here and there in their friend groups, but specifically all men on one side and women on the other. They talked about the community service projects they do as a community (building schools and roads) and about the cooperatives they were part of. I don’t know how well this community works together, but there is a saying that was often repeated in our interviews that “working with others lets you learn from others.” Sentiments like this allow for more collaboration, and therefore more trust if honestly believed in.

As we finished up our interviews, the kid flicking soda pop tops at the wall finished to come say good by along with the many little ones. Then, Aime, Aloys, Dennis and I headed back to the main road on foot in order to hop in a matatu (apparently called a twegerane in Kinyarwanda or a squeeze when translated to English). This was highly humorous as I sat on top of Aime’s lap in order to fit some 20+ people into a van made for 14. Amazing the conditions, but luckily for us we didn’t just get left on the side of the road! Never know when the next car will be by, and if it’s squeezed too many people in already, then fitting another 4 isn’t easy! We got back to Musanze with a bit of time to spare before I met with Jeanne of the Ubushobozi cooperative. I wanted to hear more about her work and the direction she was hoping to take the coop- in addition to just getting to know a few more expats a little better!

Meeting the Relatives- Ugenda Group

 Any by relatives I mean primates, and Gorillas to be specific! Coming to Rwanda, I wasn’t sure if this was going to be worth it, but when another of the interns really wanted to go and found two tickets at the pre-June price (it went up 250 at the beginning of June), I decided I should not really say no. They are endangered after all, and Congo had to close their Volcanos national park due to guerillas (not gorillas). Seemed like it might not be an option next time I am here. Sophia and I came back to Musanze Sunday night so that we could be picked-up at 6:15am (one of my earlier mornings here). We got to the Fatima a few minutes late, but didn’t see a car anywhere out front- luckily Vicky (our driver) had just been inside checking the room list for us. They don’t get many people that aren’t tourists in hotels, so we gave him a surprise! Heading to the gorillas, Sophia and I still weren’t quite sure what to expect. We’d heard about stinging nettles, whacking through forest and feeling like the hike up to the gorillas might kill you. Beyond that, people would merely say it was a once in a life time, amazing experience. Really detailed, right?

So the drive was smooth to the Kinigi Volcanoes National Park Welcome Center, and upon our arrival we were offered tea and coffee while a group of local dancers performed some incredible pieces to drum beats and singing from the other dancers. I took a few pictures so that you could get a feel for some of the costuming which made the costumes of The Lion King on Broadway feel equally comparable. From bells around their ankles to animal hair manes and beaded decorations, the costumes were quite ornate. The dancers used drums, spears, shields, and baskets as they danced, but what really shown the most was the HUGE smiles on the faces of the dancers. They were also amazing at making eye contact in a way that made you feel they were specifically dancing for you! The performance went on until about 7:30 before we used the bathrooms and met our trekking groups.

Our team and John before the hike!

Since Sophia and I only made up two, and the groups were a Maximum of 8 tourists each, we were paired with a group of people our age that were travelling from Nairobi to Cape Town over the course of two months. They all clearly had fascinating stories, though we got to hear very few of them due to our discussions of the current situations taking over the conversation. We met our guide, John, here and headed back to our land cruisers for the trip to the starting point (apparently not the Kinigi Welcome Center). The road was good for about 10 minutes and then our driver Vicky turned around and said, “get ready for your massage! It’s free!”  That’s when we hit the non-tarmacked road. Now pictures don’t really do this justice, because a fuzzy one would just look out of focus (without the knowledge that it was due to being catapulted out of your seat) and the clear ones make the rocks we had to drive over seem- like pebbles. To really grasp the road we were on, I can only describe it as jagged (the kids along us could run faster than we could move), and our music’s beats were definitely mixed with the consistent scrapping of the bottom of the car. Along the road, kids were trying to sell little crayon drawings of gorillas on the back of used computer paper. There were so many of them, that I thought- we’ll then just need to start an art school out hear and sell things at the parking lot wherever we were headed! They were eating so much dust running behind us, I just kept thinking about their poor little 10 year old lungs- mine can hardly handle the fumes and dust on a regular day, and this was a whole level worse in terms of visibility. At one point, the kids were so close to the car waving, that when I stuck my hand out to wave back, we ended up doing high-fives instead! About 20 minutes along the road, people outside were waving at us to stop, and while we were not sure why, the instant we pulled over it was clear- a flat. Big surprise with all the big jagged volcanic rocks, but there we were, in nowhere with a flat and a huddle of poor village folks around us. Luckily, we were not the last in the caravan, so a lovely bird watching Canadian pair of ladies took us in. Their car was lower to the ground making the scraping sounds even more worrisome, but we made it to the starting spot with no further delays.

As we hopped out, we couldn’t see any of our other mates, and I thought, what if they left without us? Clearly that wasn’t happening, bathrooms were just around the office and everyone was using them. Sophia ran to use that, while I stayed and chatted with the guide, John, about our eventful drive over. When everyone got back, John handed out well loved wooden walking sticks. I really was kind of annoyed at having to carry it at first, thinking that it was just getting in the way, but it did fit well in my non-camera hand, and after we finished the flatter portion of our walking, the inclines started growing to upwards of 45 degree angles. Then, my stick and I became much better friends as it started being useful at keeping balance and propelling myself up some pretty sandy surfaces (where even sneakers couldn’t get much traction). First, we walked through fields of the local villagers (potato and paraffin flowers –which are used in organic pesticides). Then the steeper the landscape got, the more there was eucalyptus- not an indigenous species here, but very common in Rwanda because it grows quickly, is sturdy wood, and is great for making charcoals. Then, as we entered the forest itself, it was interesting to notice that the eucalyptus just disappeared. It was of course replaced by all manner of jungle-esque plants and gorgeous giant trunked trees (that I can’t recall the name of).

At the entrance to the forest/jungle, we got a warning style lecture, and picked up two guards with some good sized guns. We were told that was in case any buffalo or elephants charged us. Sadly, that didn’t happen (so we didn’t see any buffalo or elephants), which definitely would have made the experience all that more amazing (still have yet to see a wild elephant!). I am pretty sure it would only be tranquilizers, but then again- anything to protect the gorillas! As we headed into the park, our guide was radioing people in the field to find out where to go to get us to the specific group we were going to see, Ugenda. We knew there would be 2 silverbacks and some babies after our talk at the welcome center, but weren’t sure exactly who we would see. As we trekked up the incredibly steep mountainside, we passed gorilla poop and some of the stinging nettles that we had heard so much about. We also passed the “antidote” plant- which upon Sophia getting stung we tried and actually worked instantaneously!

I was in capris, and so began to be particularly careful walking along the path. I had no problem, but then we came to a spot with some other trackers and my guide looked at me really worried. He gave me a look and said something to the effect of, we would be sacrificing your legs if we actually let you go into the bush in those capris. I was just ready to tough it out and be careful, but he then says he has extra pants- not his size, mine! How lucky is that!?! I was not particularly believing it until he literally pulled out a pair of black colored ski-pants (might not be ski pants, but that’s what they looked like to me). I did my best tree pose and managed to get myself coordinated enough to put on the pants without getting my socks full of dirt (or my sneakers for that matter). All that yoga sure pays off! Once in the pants, I became even more grateful that our guide had them, because the trackers we met began hacking through nothing but stinging nettles to go find the gorillas!

Silverback Ugenda

As we trudged after the guide and tracker pangas (machetes) whacking away, we were beginning to anticipate actually getting to see the gorillas. We had been informed there was a rule of staying 7 meters away from the gorillas unless they came toward you. We came around a bend and there the gorillas were literally less than 3 away! And it was the Silverback named Ugenda (which is how the groups get their names- through the alpha silverback’s name). Ugenda is particularly large and much older than the other males in the group, and got his name because, “he liked to travel in his younger years.”

Sophia and I with Ugenda!

As we continued on through the jungle, we could hear (and sort of see) some of the babies up playing in the trees that surrounded us, while their mothers were being shy and eating their late lunches. This consisted almost entirely of stinging nettles, but also other leafy surrounds. Watching them eat was quite comparable to watching an ill-mannered child chewing with their mouth open, but was still fascinating in that it felt so human. Down to how we bring a fork to our mouths, it was no different, and the way I have seen children eating the inside of corn stalks or sugar cane involves the same holding of the foliage. Their movement was also quite interesting, and I am honestly surprised that our presence didn’t make more of an impact on their behaviors. They merely kept on eating and then hunkered down for a nap- with the whole group of us huddled around their nest area watching. They didn’t seem to be too phased by it, but then again, flash photography was prohibited, so that might have helped a bit.

After what felt like no more than 20 minutes, an hour had passed and it was time to move on away from the gorillas and back toward the bottom of the mountain (and surely the gift shops). Trekking will now only have one meaning- steep climb with awesome views and perhaps even enough to be winded! The Bisoke volcano and Ugenda group truly were incredible, and while it felt particularly cheesy to receive a certificate afterwards, it was also pretty nice. It was also a relief not to have to pay for the memento, because even post cards were exorbitantly expensive for what you got- 2 US dollars for a single post card! No sir! Sophia got a “Muzungus in the Mist” tee shirt, but I managed to escape unscathed by the overpriced tourist trap.

  

Vicky (our driver) was wonderful picking us up and playing great music on our way back to the certificate building. After wrapping things up, he drove out guide, John, back into Musanze and dropped us off to meet Greg, the ticket finder Sophia had met at Hotel Murabura. It was a lovely place, where tourism in Rwanda met with a Congolese mask market and a bamboo pod necklace making artist to draw you into being a tourist. It was a friendly end to to a wonderful experience, but left us feeling famished- so then it was off to lunch- COVERED in dirt!