Motorcycle Diaries

3/23/09
After getting up at 5am, I caught a 6:30am bus on Impala Tours and survived the 6 hour ride to Cyangugu along winding pot-hole filled roads. I was met by my translator for the week, Abraham, and he and I took a 3 hour matatu to Kibogora which was quite interesting considering the fact that my bag was squeezed in with us... Xaverine, the founder of the Imbabazi Association, met us in “town” and then she came up with me to the Methodist mission (where I was staying) and we had a meeting for a few hours at my house to plan our activities for the week.

3/24/09
We arranged to have three motorcycles (with drivers) for the week and so Xaverine and Abraham came with a third moto to pick me up at 8am at the mission. We made a quick stop at Kibogora Health Center then took the 30 minute moto ride on the most ridiculously broken roads and mountain paths in order to visit to the Imbabazi Health Post. It was hard enough for me to make it – I can’t even imagine being a pregnant woman in labor and having to navigate that trip! Upon arriving I had a meeting with 60 Community Health Workers (CHW) to find out how many pregnant women are in each of their villages and to discuss our plans for bringing maternity services to Imbabazi with them. While I was meeting with the CHWs, one of the nurses brought over two recently orphaned children whose mothers had died in childbirth – this really drove home why this project is so important! After the meeting, I used the JHPIEGO site assessment tools and interviewed the nurses to get a sense of what materials and facilities Imbabazi already has and then headed back down to Kibogora perched precariously on the back of my moto...

3/25/09
This morning we had a 9am meeting with Dr. Damien, director of Kibogora Hospital. After that we were supposed to go with the Kibogora Titulaire to a few health posts under his jurisdiction to try to identify the other two sites that will be involved in the research study. Unfortunately, he had gotten into a moto accident and so we met with the Nyamasheke Titulaire instead and went to Shara Health Post. I managed to get a list of umudugudus (villages) in that catchment area and spent the afternoon estimating populations and number of pregnancies. I also started my cartography efforts this afternoon in order to give Lisa a sense of where everything is in relationship to Kibogora.

3/26/09
Today the Kibogora Titulaire was feeling better so he accompanied us on a trip to Kigoya and Kigarama Health Posts – both about 30 minutes from Kibogora via moto. My visit this week happened to coincide a national campaign dubbed “mother and child health week” and so I was able to see the vaccination and parasite treatment efforts first hand which was cool. I finished up my mapping in the evening and typed up a progress report from all the site visits to send back to Lisa, Marc and Kathy (using the wireless connection that requires sitting outside in one very specific spot).

3/27/09
I started my trip back to Kigali at 10am. After 2 hours in an overly stuffed (I think that’s redundant) matatu to the main road, I rode another 5 hours to Kigali. Gail and Anita were leaving at 5pm to go to Gisenyi and the idea of getting on another bus for another 3 hour ride made me feel sick so I opted out. Sadly that meant spending another night at home alone but I was exhausted and appreciated the quiet.

3/28/09
Umuganda today so just a lazy Saturday morning. I spent the day writing up trip report and perfecting my efforts at cartography. Susan (the importer for the goods made by the Ineza and Solidarity women’s cooperatives) arrived in afternoon. She and I had a nice dinner together and then called it an early night.

3/29/09
I showed Susan around town today and then went to visit Solidarity (a basket weaving cooperative) with her. Anita and Gail came back from Gisenyi in the evening and we had a nice reunion dinner.

3/30/09
I got back into my yoga practice this morning and then ran errands galore. Anita, Gail and I bought our gorilla permits today (going April 17th – YAY!!!) and finally paid for our plane tickets to Tanzania.

3/31/09
My relaxing morning yoga practice was unfortunately counteracted this morning when on my walk into town I was slapped in the face by some random man walking by me in the opposite direction. He ran off down the hill with me yelling after him WTF but I brushed it off. I guess it was just one of those days – I spent several hours in the Kenya Airways office trying to change my ticket home so I can have a few days instead of just an 8 hour layover in Nairobi and London. Then I got to wait in line for over an hour at the post office to find out if a package had come for me… not a fun afternoon!

4/1/09
Yoga again this morning, then I visited dancing pots with Gail to pick up some traditional Twa pottery for my sister. From there we went out to the Ineza sewing cooperative and then we headed over to Katie & Savannah’s for a lovely home cooked meal with Katie’s parents and some other friends. Quite a nice evening.

4/2/09
Today Gail and I took a trip out east to visit Partners In Health (PIH) in Rwinkwavu. A classmate of mine at Einstein – Alishya Mayfield – has been working with them in Rwanda for 2 years now so she took us around on a tour and told us a bit about what she’s been doing. While we were there a twelve year old boy and his mother came up to her – it was the first time she had seen him walk after she found him last year crawling on the floor of a rural clinic due to a congenital malformation of his wrists and ankles. She arranged for an orthopedic surgeon to see him and he’s now walking with the help of crutches… quite inspiring work! Now I’m procrastinating packing (our flight to Tanzania leaves tomorrow at 2pm) so I had better get cracking! I’ll be out of touch until April 14th but I promise there will be loads of pictures and updates about my time in Tanzania and Uganda when I get back.

Pictures from the last couple of weeks here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2138678&id=2600785&l=f5f56cb157