Pakistani Picnic

2/27/09
After finally meeting with the doctor at Centre Ville to go over the last few kid’s charts for the Sosoma project, Anita and I met up with Katie and did some fabric shopping. We bought 6 yards of Primus fabric (Primus is the local beer and it’s just a funny fabric) and we plan to get a few items made from it at the tailor. We did a little shopping and then picked up our second round of bagels (got a dozen this time since they freeze so well). Feeling guilty about eating so many carbs, Anita convinced me to do a crazy workout from some exercise magazine she had and then I was so exhausted I just went straight to bed.

2/28/09
It’s Umuganda again so we’ve been stuck in the house all morning. Gail, the new yoga teacher, arrived from England this afternoon and she seems like she’ll be a fun new addition to the mix. She’s staying through the end of May so maybe I can even convince her to take me on as a student for the next 8 weeks??? The trip from London isn’t too bad so since she wasn’t feeling jet-lagged, Anita and I took her out to Torero for “Mardi Gras” night. I put that in quotations since it was really just a live band – no masks or beads or even vaguely Mardi Gras themed music. Oh well, we still enjoyed an overly sweet cocktail called Passionate Paul (passion fruit juice was the base) and had some good conversation.

3/1/09
We decided to take a day trip today to Butare and Gikongoro. Butare is supposed to be a 2 hour drive by bus from Kigali and it’s the site of the National Museum as well as the National University which is the site of the only medical school in Rwanda. Gikongoro is about 30 minutes further down the road and it’s the site of the Murambi Genocide Memorial which houses the preserved remains of about 50,000 victims of the genocide. So, we set off from the house at 7:30am with the intention of catching an 8:00 bus and making it to the museum by 10am. Sadly, we were caught in a torrential downpour on our way to the bus station and wound up spending over an hour huddled under the awning of a Rwandatel store with about 10 other people. We managed to make a break for it during a 5 minute reprieve in the rain and bought our tickets for the 10am bus. This turned out to be a tiny matatu instead of one of the nice big buses that typically makes the trip but we decided to take it anyway and after three (not two as advertised) cramped hours we made it to the museum by 1pm. Upon arriving there we were greeted by a delegation of Pakistani UN peacekeepers stationed in Bukavu, DRC. They had come over for the day just to see the museum and since we were the only other visitors to the museum that day, they invited us to join them for a picnic of delicious Pakistani food (perfect since Gail, Anita and I were all starving). We rushed through the museum exhibits (the highlight of which was a big thatched hut) and then joined them outside for some interesting conversation. They totally ignored the fact that Anita was also a medical student and kept calling me doctor in typical patriarchal fashion – they didn’t know what to do with Gail the unmarried yoga teacher. It was a fun experience and then we headed off to Gikongoro in another overcrowded matatu.

Once we were there I got to enjoy my first moto ride in Rwanda (make that in my entire life except a one block ride on the back of a Harley when I was like 6). I must say it was a fun experience despite the inherent risk but I wore my helmet and it was only 3km to the Murambi Genocide Memorial. Our guide once we got there was someone who had lost his entire family at Murambi and I can’t really imagine what it must be like for him to be there every day suffering through a constant reminder of all he had lost and the terror his family experienced. Add to that the ungodly smell and the juxtaposition of the gorgeous scenery with the tragedy inside and it was all just too difficult to reconcile.

I debated about whether or not to post pictures from this trip but in the end realized I don’t really have the words to describe the experience and I think it’s something everyone should bear witness to. So, since I think most of you won’t ever be coming to Rwanda, there are pictures posted here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2135841&id=2600785&l=ed8bc

We took a somber matatu ride back to Butare and thankfully managed to get tickets on the last bus back to Kigali at 6pm – none of us really had energy to see the university and so we just waited for the bus to leave, made it home by 9, ate a quick dinner and went to bed.

3/2/09
Today I got to play tour guide for Gail – I showed her around “downtown” Kigali – a task that takes all of about 30 minutes. I introduced her to everyone at the clinic, helped her change money and buy a SIM card. It’s funny to now be the resident “expert” on life in Kigali for new visitors to the house – it doesn’t seem all that long ago that Eunice and Lara were showing me the ropes. Other than that it was a quiet day and the big news is that I finally bought a trash can lid for our kitchen garbage so we can try to quell the fruit fly infestation we’ve been having lately. That and I got an email from Lisa – it looks like I’ll be heading back out to Kibogora on March 16th to spend two weeks there with the community health workers to set everything up for the maternal/child health project that she will be starting in May. More news on that trip once I get some more details.