The End of My Rwanderings

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on my time in Rwanda over the past few days as my departure creeps closer and closer. I’ve found myself taking notice of the little things I’m going to miss the most about this bizarre little corner of the world and I was reminded of a passage in We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch. When I read it four months ago the things he described were just abstract images in my mind – I didn’t feel any real connection to the words I was reading. Now, as I go back over the text, it’s all I can do to try to hold back an all consuming wave of nostalgia. Rwanda has become a second home for me and it is going to be impossibly hard to leave. SO, in order to prevent myself from drowning in that wave of nostalgia, I’ve been forcing myself to take notice of the little things I’m NOT going to miss so much about life in Rwanda. I’m including Gourevitch’s text below and then a little summary of the highlights of my Rwanderings over the past four months.

“When I got depressed in Rwanda, which was often, I liked to go driving. On the road, the country resolved itself in rugged glory, and you could imagine, as the scenes rushed past and the car filled with smells of earth and eucalyptus and charcoal, that the people and their landscape – the people in their landscape – were as they had always been, undisturbed. In the fields people tilled, in the markets they marketed, in schoolyards the girls in bright blue dresses and boys in khaki shorts and safari shirts played and squabbled like children anywhere. Across sweeping valleys, and through high mountain passes, the roadside presented the familiar African parade: brightly clad women with babies bound to their backs and enormous loads on their heads; strapping young men in jeans and Chicago Bulls T-shirts ambling along empty-handed – save, perhaps, for a small radio; elderly gents in suits weaving down red-dirt lanes on ancient bicycles; a girl chasing a chicken, a boy struggling to balance the bloody head of a goat on his shoulder; tiny tots in ragged smocks whacking cows out of your way with long sticks.
Life.
You knew, by the statistics, that most of the people you saw were Hutu, but you had no idea who was who; whether that girl who stared blankly at your oncoming car and at the last minute winked and broke into a wide grin, was a massacre survivor, or whether she was a killer, or both, or what. If you stopped to buy a cold drink and a brochette of grilled goat, or to ask directions, a small crowd gathered to stare and offer commentary, reminding you of your exoticism. If you drove around in the northwest, and pulled over to admire the volcanoes, peasants came out of their fields to express approval that you had no greater purpose, in that moment, than to regard their place with pleasure. If you traveled southwest through the Nyungwe rain forest preserve and got out to watch the colobus monkeys, people in passing minibuses waved and cheered.” P.178-9

I’m going to miss the sound of the bats cackling in the trees along the streets of Kiyovu… I won’t miss the occasional bat excrement that has found its way onto my feet now and then.

I’m going to miss the amazing smiles and waves of the children along the road… I won’t miss the kids yelling “Agachupa, agachupa… Muzungu, give me my money!”

I’m going to miss being called Ruchas (L’s and R’s are interchangeable here and K’s are pronounced as CH)… I won’t miss being called Muzungu as though it were my name.

I’m going to miss the smell (and taste) of freshly cut passion fruit… I won’t miss the smell of burning garbage that sometimes seeps into the house at night.

I’m going to miss the incredible bonds I’ve made with Joseph, Candida, Seraphine and Josee (I am so privileged to have had such amazing people looking after me for the past four months)… I’m not going to miss the incredibly stressful working relationship between me and Eugene.

I’m going to miss being surrounded by amazing artwork, handicrafts and fabrics on a daily basis (though I am bringing plenty home with me)… I won’t miss having to bargain down from the “special Muzungu price” of double what things should cost.

I’m going to miss the guys on the street that try to sell me two mismatched shoes that are different sizes or the “latest” edition of the Economist from 2005… I won’t miss having to say “Oya, sinshaka” about 10 times on my way to work.

I’m going to miss the lush greenery, the rolling hills and strikingly beautiful countryside … I won’t miss the nauseating bus rides on windy bumpy roads with incomprehensible music blaring in my ears.

I’m going to miss seeing the creatively decorated Matatus driving around town (T-Pain is definitely my favorite)… I’m not going to miss being cramped into a seat that is meant for 3 people but miraculously has the capacity for 7.

I’m going to miss the feeling of cruising downhill on a moto... I’m not going to miss walking in the street and suddenly feeling a gush of air past my face as a moto comes within millimeters of hitting me when the entire road is empty (I’m convinced they must get extra points for sideswiping a Muzungu).

I’m going to miss my morning yoga practice with Gail (not to mention how much I’ll miss Gail)… I’m not going to miss being shown up by Joseph on a daily basis!

I’M GOING TO MISS RWANDA.

The last 7 days...

4/20/2009
I fully shaved my head in the AM since I didn’t think the Mohawk would go over so well at the clinic… Mike left for Bujumbura pretty early but I’ve made arrangements to meet up with him in London next week so that should be fun. We’ve been fighting over a jumper that I found in the Red Chili in Kampala and I managed to keep hold of it so I’ll have to hide it deep in my suitcase before I get to London! Anyway, I went up to the clinic with Jessica to introduce her to everyone and then spent the rest of the day trying to figure out everything I need to get done in my last week in Rwanda :(

4/21/2009
I arranged to meet Innocent at Ivuka Art Studio this afternoon and bought two of his paintings. One is called “Happiness of Love” and the other is Untitled – they’re both amazing and I can’t wait to frame them and put them up in my new apartment (guess I have to find the new apartment first). From there I headed to the American Embassy to get pages added to my passport. It’s like a fortress on a hill in Kacyiru and they make you go through a security checkpoint twice which is kind of bizarre – what’s going to change from one metal detector to another? Getting the pages added was actually quite easy since I was the only person in the consular office (despite them having 6 windows and about 50 chairs set up… I can’t imagine they ever get that busy). Gail teaches yoga every Tuesday night at the embassy and since I was already there, I hung around until 6 and then got to go through security two more times! It was quite fun and despite the fact that I haven’t practiced in over two weeks, I was actually able to bind more postures than ever before! Pretty soon after we got home, a psychologist and her two students (Sandra, Amy & Erica) arrived but thankfully Sandra has been here before so my role as tour guide wasn’t necessary.

4/22/2009
Gail and I spent the morning together eating waffles at La Sierra (not as amazing the second time around considering the maple syrup was sadly watered down) and did some final crafts shopping – I bought 3 Imigongo paintings which are geometrical designs carved into wood and then painted with dried cow dung… here’s hoping I can get them through customs at Nairobi, London & New York!!! When we got back to the house, Lucy Q had arrived – she’s a lawyer in California that volunteers her time to deal with legal issues that WE-ACTx patients are having (mostly domestic and gender based violence cases). She moved into the bottom bunk in Gail’s room so Gail decided it would be more fun to move into Anita and my bedroom and share a bed with me instead – so we’ll be having a slumber party for the next few nights until I leave.

4/23/2009
I woke up this morning and was promptly presented with a gift from Joseph – an AMAZING t-shirt that he painted himself with a big picture of Africa on the front and a huge scene of the mountain gorillas on the back with a massive Rwandan flag. It also says "Lukas – Nomber 1" with two hearts on the front… I think it might be the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me and it is definitely going to be my most prized possession from Africa. I said my goodbyes at the clinic (purposefully avoiding contact with Eugene) and then we went out for salsa lessons at Pasadena (Amy & Philip who we met on the plane to Tanzania are the instructors). It was quite fun until my partner abandoned me (I promise I wasn’t THAT bad) and then I left to meet up with the Einstein crew that has been working in Kisoro and came to Rwanda to visit the gorillas this weekend. Pam, Brianne, Terry, Jen, Vic & Kevan were having dinner at Ice & Spice and I took them for drinks afterward to Republika. It was fun yet bizarre to see some familiar faces in Kigali!

4/24/2009
I had my last yoga practice with Gail, Joseph and Delphine this morning which I’m quite sad about. I also had to say goodbye to Josee and Seraphine (she came by so I could give her some clothes for her son and to say goodbye)… And so it begins – the long and painful process of leaving this place behind… Sara and Roy joined us for dinner at Republika – yet another goodbye and despite fully intending to have a big dance night out at Cadillac, we wound up coming home and going to bed early… lame-o!

4/25/2009
And so the packing begins! It’s my last Umuganda today and so there wasn’t much else to do with the morning… I think it’s going to be OK since I’m giving all of my clothes and shoes to Joseph (minus what I need for Nairobi and London). I have bought a LOT of stuff here though so it remains to be seen if my suitcase will actually close! A guy working for PIH is making a documentary about life in Rwanda (he and his friend are training 3 families in Rwinkwavu how to use digital cameras and they will be documenting their lives for the next three months). They want to try to market the film to American students wanting to do work abroad so they’re also interviewing 20-something westerners living in Rwanda which is where I fit in. Should be interesting to see where it goes but I figured it would be a good wrap-up of my time here to sit down and talk about my experiences. Afterward, we went to Heaven for a performance of “The Monument” by this Isoko theater troupe. It’s a play that has been performed in 6 translations (this one was in Kinyarwanda) and it tells the story of a young soldier in an unnamed country that has been convicted of war crimes committed during a genocide. Just as he is about to be executed, a woman offers him freedom… at a price. It was quite well done and despite some a-hole snoring next to me the whole time I really enjoyed it. From there we went to dinner with Katie and Carly at INDIAN KHAZANA!!!! They re-opened on my last night in Kigali and so I can now say I’ve dined at all three of their restaurants in East Africa… soooooo delicious! Yet again our plans to go to Car Wash and Cadillac were foiled by exhaustion so I guess I’ll have to save them for my next trip to Rwanda… Two more goodbyes tonight and more than I care to count tomorrow morning.

4/26/2009
My last morning in Kigali and it’s all feeling totally surreal. My clothes are still scattered around the room and I leave for the airport in less than 2 hours – I can’t bring myself to actually put them in the suitcase. I gave most of them to Joseph and we had a little fashion show with him before a tearful (yet giggly as always) goodbye as he left for church a few minutes ago. His facebook message to me last night says it all:

“my frind a like you know my love a love you have good naight so i am dont never for get you and i am lost frinds loving this house.”

I think my heart is literally breaking this morning…

Grunting Gorillas, Gorgeous Gisenyi, and Ghostly Goma

4/16/2009
Today I played tour guide for Jessica for hopefully the last time… the forex, getting phone, gorilla permit and bus tickets pretty much took up the morning. Jessica was kind enough to bring some hair dye with her and so was even kinder to help me use it. The “cinnaberry” color looked much more cinna on the box and much more berry on me… I totally have bright red hair. Oh well, it’s all coming off in a few days. Candida got in on the fun as well but sadly the color didn’t really take since her hair is already quite a dark black. Anyway, we caught the 2pm bus to Ruhengeri and made our way up to the Kinigi Guest House where we’re staying the night before going gorilla trekking tomorrow (Mike came along for the trip but isn’t going to be doing the trek sadly). After a beautiful sunset and some reading by the fire, we called it a night early in preparation for the hike tomorrow.

4/17/2009
We were up by 6am and headed out to the Volcanoes National Park where we were lucky enough to get assigned to the Susa Group of gorillas. It’s the largest habituated group of Mountain Gorillas that– in total the group has over 40 members – and it was the group originally studied by Dian Fossey. Gail, Anita, Jessica and I were teamed up with a South African couple and after a fight with our driver over the price of our car rental for the day (he wanted more money since we were going to see Susa which is the most rigorous hike and furthest away), we headed out to the trail head at the base of Mount Karisoke. We started our hike by 9:15am and despite knowing the severity of the hike ahead of us, I was still exhausted after the 3 hours of off-trail, uphill hiking it took us to locate the group. The exhaustion and pain from the stingy nettles melted away as soon as we saw the first gorilla. Our guide, Felix, was really kind and let us spend over an hour with them (the visits are usually strictly limited to 60minutes to avoid stressing the gorillas) and we even got to experience a display of dominance by one of the silverbacks… he came within about 2 inches of Jessica and I, stared us down and then grabbed some bamboo and went back to munch on it. It was a phenomenal experience that’s hard to put into words but I will say it was well worth the $500 and I would go again in a heartbeat. All in all it was 7 hours from the car park back to the car so it was a grueling yet exhilarating day. We picked up Mike at the guest house and then caught the bus to Gisenyi and checked into the Paradise Malihide Hotel just after dark. Katie’s boyfriend Mucho’s family owns the hotel so we were quickly shown to our rooms and dinner was waiting for us after we all had a much needed shower.

4/18/2009
After an amazing breakfast (second only to the Serena buffet at Ngorongoro), we spent the morning reading on the “beach” and did a little swimming in Lake Kivu. Gail, Mike and I decided to walk to Goma for the afternoon. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get permits to climb Mt. Nyragongo (the active volcano with a semi-permanent lava lake) but we still wanted to see some of the Democratic Republic of the Congo so we opted for a day trip. Gail’s French definitely helped us navigate the border crossing and there was surprisingly little hassle (aside from our visa money going directly into the immigration officer’s pocket but hey, it is the DRC)! We took motos around town and started to see the stark contrast between Gisenyi and Goma within about 10 feet of the border. Gail managed to change some money without even getting off the back of her moto, and then we headed to Le Chalet for lunch which was a bizarre experience since it felt like we had been magically transported back to Gisenyi – it was a gorgeous restaurant on the lake where we had some delicious pizza and white wine... who would have guessed you could have a posh lakeside lunch in Goma of all places! We left Le Chalet feeling a bit ridiculous and so we went in search of a real taste of Goma. We wound up at the old cathedral that had been completely swallowed by lava in the eruption of 2002. Basically everything in the area is built out of volcanic rock and the streets are just flattened lava flows. The border closes at 6pm sharp so we headed back with enough time to be sure we’d make it back to Rwanda and joined Anita and Jessica for dinner back at Paradise Malihide in Gisenyi. We got to see a traditional Intore dance and then over dinner we met the US State Department’s representative in Goma and his fiance who is actually a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. volunteering her time at Heal Africa Hospital in Goma. Rolley, a friend of Gail’s in Kigali, joined us for drinks after dinner and after a fairly amusing misunderstanding involving a request for napkins and the delivery of a martini instead, we headed to bed.

4/19/2009
It was a rainy morning so Anita, Mike and I snagged a ride back to Kigali with Rolley (Jessica and Gail went back early for the children’s program). Mike, Jessica, Anita and I had dinner at Papyrus and once we got back to the house, I shaved my hair into a Mohawk (see below for pictures).

Cinaberry Mohawk - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2144780&id=2600785&l=c4466462d9
Rwanderings Part 4 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2146552&id=2600785&l=ac859e949d

Safaris, and Beaches and Rivers, OH MY!

OK, it’s been a ridiculously long time since I’ve posted anything – sorry about that! I’ve been traveling all around East Africa (I’ve now officially been to every country in the East Africa Lonely Planet) so you’ll have to forgive me for my tardiness in updating the blog! It’s going to be yet another long one so I hope you’re in a comfy seat!

4/3/2009
So our flight on Rwandair to Kilimanjaro was originally scheduled for 6:00am. When we actually paid for the tickets, we were told the time had changed to 4:00pm. Two days later, Anita got a call saying the flight had been changed yet again to 2:00pm. Needless to say we were a bit skeptical about our time of departure when we went to check in at noon and of course, at 1:30pm an announcement was made that the flight had been delayed until 3:30pm… what a mess! Anyway, we got on our way by about 3:45pm and met a group of travelers (Amy, Philip & Cindy) that were heading to Arusha as well so we jumped in on their pre-arranged transportation and saved ourselves about $30. During the hour long drive, it became apparent that Tanzanians love speed bumps and car washes… who knew?!? As it turned out, Amy Philip & Cindy didn’t have a hotel booked so we directed them to the lovely (insert sarcasm here) Meru Inn where we had arranged accommodations and wound up with two rooms next to each other. We all went out for dinner at a Japanese restaurant Katie had recommended and had a lovely Hibachi meal. Our chef was really into practicing his English so with each dish he served, he made sure to tell us which sauce to use… the teriyaki chicken with Mustard SAUUUUCE was quite delicious.

4/4/2009
Our safari was supposed to be underway by 7am but instead Charmy showed up around 8… after profuse apologies we started our trip from Arusha to Lake Manyara. We passed several Maasai shepherds along the way and had an amazing view of the Rift Valley escarpment for most of the drive. We enjoyed some red bananas in Mto Wa Mbu (River of Mosquitos) which is (according to Charmy) the only place in Tanzania where members of all 120 tribes reside together. We got to Lake Manyara by mid-morning and immediately began our search for the elusive tree climbing lions (which unfortunately was unsuccessful). Charmy kept checking in on the ham radio to see if anyone else had spotted them… there was a lot of “Roger, Roger” going back and forth over the radio. He also told us all about the Impala mating habits and how the males are polygamous. Every once in a while he would also point out a “looser impala” that was a bachelor exiled from his group. We saw some monkeys with bright blue scrotums (not sure what the evolutionary advantage of that is) and then had our picnic lunch interrupted by the sound of what Charmy thought were lions nearby but actually turned out to be a herd of elephants. We headed out of the park mid-afternoon and made our way up to the Ngorongoro Crater rim, took some amazing pictures and then checked in at the Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge (normally $420 per night but because it was off-season, we got a night there for less than camping would have cost)! This is by far the nicest place I’ve ever staid in my life and Anita and I kept thinking someone had made a mistake and was going to kick us out at any moment. Instead, we got to enjoy an acrobatics show, a delicious buffet dinner (I ate so much that I was actually in pain after) and some yummy drinks before heading to bed in our suite overlooking the crater.

4/5/2009
After a delicious breakfast buffet at the Serena, we headed down into the crater at about 8am. We decided our guide’s name was good luck – Lucky Charm(y) – since we got to see all of the “big five” including lions mating on the side of the road for about an hour and a half… they go at it for about 20 seconds at a time, 5-6 times per hour and seemed to be enjoying the voyeurism of the whole thing. Anyone considering ever doing a safari should ABSOLUTELY include Ngorongoro on their itinerary – it was amazing. On our way back to Arusha, we had a run in with a spitting cobra in the road – Charmy tried to run it over since he said they kill a lot of people but missed and basically just pissed it off. We made it back to Arusha before dark and got to see the UN War Crimes Tribunal for Rwanda before checking back into the lovely Meru Inn and grabbing a quick Indian dinner before bed.

4/6/2009
We caught the Dar Express at 6am which was a miserably hot 8 hour bus to Dar es Salaam. The entertainment for the trip was a Kiswahili dubbed movie called “The Public Life of Jesus” – a “documentary???” from the gospel of Luke. At least they chose my version of the story… We got to Dar by around 3pm and jumped in a cab to take us to the ferry terminal so we could catch the last ferry of the day (4pm) to Zanzibar. Of course the ticket agent refused to sell me a ticket but thankfully Anita’s slightly darker skin helped her charm the other ticket agent into selling us two “standing only” tickets (we wound up getting seats in the air-conditioned compartment regardless). Unfortunately the ferry took almost 3 hours instead of the advertised hour and a half so we arrived in Stone Town after dark without anywhere to stay… After about 2 hours walking around trying to find an affordable place to stay (sadly the Serena wouldn’t bargain with us), we wound up at the Coco de Mer. A quick cold shower (it was disgustingly hot and humid) and a change of clothes and then we were out to a Swahili style dinner at Monsoon which was delicious… Zanzibar definitely lives up to its reputation as the spice capital of the world.

4/7/2009
We jumped onto a spice tour for the day where we met a couple of British women (Una & Philippa) as well as a family that was staying at the Coco de Mer with us. We all decided to meet up for dinner in the evening (after sundowners at the Africa House Hotel) at Two Tables which is literally two tables set up in a family’s living room. Again the dinner was amazing and the experience of eating in the family’s home was really fun. Afterward we got some sugarcane juice at the night market and then went for a drink at the Serena with Una and Philippa.

4/8/2009
We had a late breakfast, did some brief internetting, changed some more money and bought a little gift for Gail before picking up a shared taxi at 1pm to head up north to the beach. We had intended to go to Nungwi but after talking to some Mormon missionaries (I’m assuming based on the fact that they were teaching in a bible school in Tanzania for 2 years), we were convinced that Kendwa Rocks is the place to be so we got out with them and bargained with the bitchy receptionist to bring down the price of a double room (with A/C thank goodness since it was SO hot and humid). We promptly both took showers which flooded the room since the drain wasn’t working… this got us upgraded to a suite since all the other rooms were occupied! We managed to fit in a little beach time before dinner and then took a nice walk along the beach under a full moon toward some music we heard in the distance. It turned out to be an all inclusive resort that promptly kicked us out when they saw us walk in from the beach after dark.

4/9/2009
We got up in time to enjoy the delicious free breakfast and joined a group of 20-somethings that turned out to be really fun. We spent the rest of the day with Mike, Luke, Teresa, Ulrikka and took a trip up to Nungwi just to check to be sure we weren’t missing out on anything… we definitely made the right choice since the beaches there were no where near as clean and it’s way more developed and touristy. We got some street food (brochette and samosa) which was clearly a mistake judging from the sounds my stomach is making now. We made it back in time to take some pictures of the gorgeous sunset and then spent the night playing drinking games.

4/10/2009
Well some combination of sun poisoning and the street food from yesterday has led to a terrible headache, diarrhea and crazy cramping… after avoiding breakfast, Anita and I got a cab to the Zanzibar airport with Mike who happened to be taking the same flight as us to Entebbe, Uganda. It had a layover in Dar es Salaam (literally the shortest flight I’ve ever been on – about 8 minutes) and then we headed on to Uganda. Mike had arranged for his friend Jean to pick him up from the airport and she was kind enough to give us a ride as well. We hadn’t made any accommodation arrangements so we went to the Red Chili Hostel in hopes of getting beds for the night but unfortunately they were totally booked for the night. We made reservations for the next night and then went across the street to El Gazelle which was the biggest shit hole I’ve ever seen in my life but we were pretty much out of options. They had three rooms with nothing but a bed in each and the “shower” consisted of a toilet with a bucket next to it. Dinner consisted of extra sandwiches and pound cake we snagged from the flight attendant on our plane and we went to bed pretty early.

4/11/2009
We survived the night and headed to Jinja in the morning with Mike’s friend Jean and her husband Chris. He is friends with the manager of Adrift which is the original rafting company that first charted the rapids on the source of the Nile. Unfortunately the rafting trip was fully booked for the day but we did get to go out on a speed boat and flip a couple of rafts while doing spins and tricks. It rained for a good part of the afternoon so we went and got lunch (whole Tilapia) at a nearby hotel and then returned to Adrift after the rain to go BUNGEE JUMPING!!! Probably wasn’t the best idea ever since my stomach was still quite unhappy but I went for it anyway and it was amazing. It was 44meter jump into the Nile River – a video is available upon request. We headed back to Kampala in time to check into our triple room at Red Chili and then meet up with two other friends of Mike’s (Danny and Martin) at Khana Khazana… I’ve now been to two of the three Khazanas in East Africa – fingers crossed that the one in Kigali will open before I leave and I can complete the trifecta. We were starving not only for good Indian food but good night life and Danny promised to show us all that Kampala has to offer (and remind us of all we’ve been missing out on in Kigali). We started the night out with drinks at Matteos, moved on to dancing at Iguana where YET AGAIN I was hounded by a couple of prostitutes… From there we went to Club Silk and then headed back to the hostel around 4:20am.

4/12/2009
We slept in until noon and then had a light lunch at Red Chili before heading over to Danny & Martin’s house for Easter dinner. The food was phenomenal and it was great to spend the afternoon/evening with a group of super friendly Ugandans.

4/13/2009
We arranged to go rafting today so Chris met us at the Red Chili and we took the 8am bus to Jinja. We were given the choice of “wild or mild” and of course went with wild. Our boat was Chris, Mike, Anita, Me, Patrick, Claire, Patrick & Angee as well as our guide Clarksey. We flipped our raft 5 times on 9 rapids and in the process I think I managed to drink about half of the Nile River… hello schisto!!! It was an awesome experience and I won’t try to do it justice by writing about it – you’ll just have to check out the pictures. We took the bus back to Kampala, grabbed a tiny dinner at Zone 7 (my stomach still wasn’t so happy and I’m sure the river water didn’t help) and then we went back to Danny’s house to relax until our bus back to Kigali.

4/14/2009
We caught the 1am Gaso Bus to Kigali and in a stark contrast to our last 8 hour bus ride, we were freezing cold the entire way. We spent about 2 hours getting through customs and made it back to Kigali by about 10am. It was great to see Gail again and she and I went for lunch at La Sierra and finally picked up the package from my dad at the post office (thank you very much despite the tardy arrival).

4/15/2009
Well Mike has decided to change his plane ticket back to London and join us in Rwanda for a few days. He arrived this morning at 10am (on the same Gaso bus we took yesterday) and I took him on the typical first day tour of Davindrah’s forex, and the UTC. We went out for trivia night at Torero Café with Katie and Carly and we actually won so we got a free round of drinks! Jessica, an MPH student interning for WE-ACTx, arrived at around 11pm tonight and so we headed back to the house early to welcome her.

Here's some pictures:
Tanzania - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2146251&id=2600785&l=d9a61bc80d
Zanzibar - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2146471&id=2600785&l=612f160014
Uganda - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2146549&id=2600785&l=e1c7703501

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

Slumcat Millionaire

I am about 2 weeks behind on blogging now so rather than write a 10 page post that few or none of you will actually read, I’m going to do my best to focus on the highlights. Work has been slow these past couple of weeks – just doing a lot of data entry and analysis so I’ll leave those parts out. I’m heading out to Kibogora (the rural town on Lake Kivu that I visited in my second week in Rwanda) tomorrow for 1 week so I’ll be out of touch for a while. I will post another update when I get back to Kigali though – I think it promises to be an interesting trip and a great lesson in grass roots public health capacity building.

3/9/09
Today I had my follow-up appointment with the urologist at King Faycel Hospital - Dr. Dania. She is a Cuban physician that has been practicing in Kigali for 2 years now and apparently I caught her in her last week here! After she struggled to speak in English for about 5 minutes, I quickly offered to speak in Spanish with her and her face totally lit up – I guess there aren’t too many opportunities for her to speak in her native tongue here in Rwanda. I had a great time actually being able to speak a foreign language (as opposed to my struggles with French and Kinyarwanda since I’ve been here) so it was a good experience for both of us. In the end all is well, I just need to get the stone analyzed when I get back to NY. From the hospital I headed over to Ivuka Arts Studio (www.ivukaarts.com) which is a space where about 15 young Rwandan artists paint and sell their work. They also have pieces on display at Heaven Restaurant and Torero Café – I saw several there I liked so I wanted to check out the studio. I know Innocent (one of the artists) through some mutual friends and so I especially wanted to check out his work. I didn’t bring any cash with me and Innocent wasn’t there so I’ll have to go back but I will definitely be coming home with a few paintings! From there I headed over to the Ecole Belge with Anita for our first “French lesson” which I put in quotes since it turned out to just be a meeting for payment and scheduling… I suppose we’ll have to keep using our French in 10 Minutes a Day book until our first lesson later this week. Since we suddenly had the evening free, Anita and I decided to head down to Republika for dinner and had a fun time telling each other our life stories.

3/10/09
The time has come - my finances have run dry… After a leisurely morning yoga practice with Gail, I headed to the bank and got a cash advance on my credit card – there are no international ATMs here in Kigali so it’s really the only option to get cash other than wire transfers or Western Union. Needless to say I got charged exorbitantly but hopefully I won’t have to do it again!

3/11/09
Despite being the start of the short wet season, I think March has actually been drier than January or February which is the short dry season supposedly. Anyway, today it rained for the first time in 3 days and so it became a lazy day at home. After some yoga practice in the morning, the biggest excitement of the day was Candida discovering a cockroach and crushing it with her bare foot while saying Ntakibazo which means “no problem.” Needless to say we were all a bit grossed out! Anita spent the day doing some creative writing and came up with the following rap based on Bernadette’s crush on me and dislike for Anita since we have the sneaking suspicion that she thinks Anita and I are a couple. I found this quite amusing:

Curve Jealousy
You fat she say
He’s gay I say
So it don’t really matter either way
I say

Stop dissing cuz u missing
The curves I’ve been greasing
French fries, chocolate pies
I eat what I like
And the boys come runnin
From all walks of life

Ur starving more than marvin
For love n’ ingestion
So bad your gaydar
Is off like repellent

So stop dissing cuz u missing
The curves I’ve been greasing
French fries, chocolate pies
I eat what I like
And the boys come runnin
From all walks of life

We shop with amafrancs
As we cash advance from the bank
And party like muzungus
Wearing shirts that say we ain’t
But he ain’t my boyfriend sweetie
Cuz he don’t swing that way

So stop dissing cuz u missing
The curves I’ve been greasing
French fries, chocolate pies
I eat what I like
And the boys come runnin
From all walks of life

3/12/09
I did some Ashtanga yoga practice on my own this morning and realized I need to start working on learning the sequence of the primary series since I’ve just been following Gail this whole time and not trying to learn it myself. I had a double exercise day since I went for a run this afternoon and then Anita and I went for our first real French lesson at the Belgian School. Our teacher turned out to be Congolese and has excellent French but his English isn’t really adequate for explanation when we don’t understand things. We debated what to do after the class and I think in the end we’re just going to keep using the French book we have and then get Gail to help us with pronunciation.

3/13/09
Anita has been feeling ill so she slept in this morning and so it was just Joseph and I for yoga practice this morning. Unfortunately about 15 minutes in we were interrupted by a man wanting to spray the house with insecticide – the result of Candida stepping on that cockroach a few days ago no doubt. We just kind of let him do his thing since we were practicing but upon finishing I went into my room to discover him spraying my MATTRESS with insecticide. Then we realized he had been spraying this stuff indiscriminately all over the house including onto our beds, bags, etc. We were all rather distraught at the prospect of organophosphate poisoning (Anita and I being the med-school nerds we are went through the list of symptoms with Gail). I was really annoyed since the guy kept saying ntakibazo (no problem) despite wearing a heavy duty mask… riiiiight, no problem for you since you won’t be sleeping on a mattress wet with organophosphates. Oh well, Josee got the picture and did her best to air out the house while we went to the Ineza sewing cooperative to take some pictures and video of Gail doing yoga with the women there. Anita and I also got some aprons made out of Primus fabric and we got some yoga mat bags made out of Changachanga (patchwork fabric) to encourage our new love for yoga! We also picked up our latest order of bagels.

3/14/09
After another morning yoga practice with Joseph, I jumped into reading Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy kidder. It’s the story of Paul Farmer’s life and documents the work he’s done through Partners In Health in Haiti and Peru. Since he’s currently living and working in Kigali (Rwanda is PIH’s new focus country) I figured it was appropriate to read here. There was one particular parallel in the book to an experience that I had in Burundi that I thought I would share with you all. Hopefully some of you remember the story I wrote about when the car I was in tried to get through a mob of Congolese people in Bujumbura after we visited the national park and encountered a road block. In all of the commotion the only thing I was able to pick up from everyone’s angry French was one man saying over and over again “tout homme est un homme.” It really hit home for me then, but now reading Paul Farmer’s story (part of which I’m including below) has reminded me just how much work there is to do in the world… time to get started!

Later on that night, a young woman arrived at the hospital, pregnant and in the throes of malaria. ‘She had very high parasitemia,’ Farmer remembered. ‘Bad malaria. She went into a coma, and you know – I didn’t know the details then, I do now because it’s my specialty – she needed a transfusion, and her sister was there. So there was no blood and the doctor told her sister to go to Port-au-Prince to get her some blood, but he said that she would need money. I had no money. I ran around the hospital, and I rounded up fifteen dollars. I gave her the money and she went away, but then she came back and she didn’t have enough for both a tap-tap and the blood. So meanwhile the patient started having respiratory distress and this pink stuff started coming out of her mouth. The nurses were saying, ‘It’s hopeless,’ and other people were saying, ‘We should do a cesarean delivery.’ I said, ‘There’s got to be some way to get her some blood.’ Her sister was beside herself. She was sobbing and crying. The woman had five kids. The sister said, ‘This is terrible. You can’t even get a blood transfusion if you’re poor.’ And she said, ‘We’re all human beings.’ The words – tout moun se moun – seemed like the answer to the question he’d asked himself earlier that day. Was being an American a sufficient identity unto itself? “She said that again and again,” he remembered. “We’re all human beings.”

After a nice visit from Katie this afternoon, Gail, Anita and I headed to Heaven Restaurant for their Saturday night movie special. It’s the first time I’ve been to Heaven (it’s a muzungu owned and managed restaurant which they seem to be a little to proud of so I’ve been a bit skeptical) but all in all it was actually a great evening... On our walk there (to see Slumdog Millionaire), we encountered a tiny little kitten in the middle of the road. It immediately started following us, meowing and jumping along the way until we arrived at Heaven. The manager took an immediate liking to him and her husband (the chef) picked him up and wouldn’t put him down. We were worried what would come of our new furry friend if we left him in the street and thankfully our worries were quelled when they agreed to adopt him. So, we thought the movie selection for the night was quite appropriate – it seems we made our own little slumcat a millionaire tonight!

3/15/09
We headed back to Heaven for brunch at this morning (mostly to catch up with Savannah, Crystal and Katie but partly to see the cat again – he has gotten a vet check up and has been appropriately named Moto since he purrs all the time). I ran into Felicia there (she’s in town from Bujumbura just for the day) and I had the most delicious meal since I’ve been in Rwanda – French toast, fresh fruit, mixed greens salad, gorgonzola quiche, etc. I went back to the buffet 5 times and the table was convinced I had a worm by the end of the meal.

When we got home Anita and I purchased plane tickets for our whirlwind tour of Tanzania and Uganda so I’m super excited about that. Here’s the itinerary so you can follow along from afar… and to make you a little jealous :)

April 3 – Fly from Kigali to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania and spend the night in Arusha.
April 4 – Head to Lake Manyara National Park in the morning with Good Earth Tours for a safari featuring tree-climbing lions and more! Spend the night at the Ngorongoro Serena Lodge (we were going to just camp on the crater rim but it turns out this five star resort is the same price as camping for one night in the low season).
April 5 – Descend into Ngorongoro Crater (called the eighth wonder of the world by enterprising safari operators) for a game drive exploring the short-grass plains of the crater floor. This extinct volcano covers 100 square miles and is home to lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants, buffaloes and more. Then head back to Arusha for the night.
April 6 – Bus ride from Arusha to Dar es Salaam, hopefully arriving in time to catch the 4pm ferry to Stone Town on Zanzibar Island and spend the night there.
April 7 – Exploring Stone Town, perhaps take a spice tour on the island. Overnight again in Stone Town.
April 8/9 – Head to the beach on Zanzibar for two nights of sun and relaxation!
April 10 – Head back to Stone Town to catch our flight from Zanzibar to Entebbe, Uganda. Spend the night in Entebbe.
April 11 – Explore Entebbe and head to Jinja for the night.
April 12 – Class 5 whitewater rafting on the source of the Nile River. Then head to Kampala for the night.
April 13 – Explore Kampala during the day before catching an overnight bus back to Kigali.

We get back to Kigali on the morning of April 14th and then plan to head up to Rhuengeri on April 16th (northern Rwanda) to spend the night in Volcanoes National Park before going gorilla trekking on April 17th. From there we’ll head to Gisenyi (a resort town on Lake Kivu) to spend the night. On April 18th we’ll cross over to Goma, DRC and climb Mt. Nyriagongo which is an active volcano. We’ll be camping overnight on the crater rim with a view of the glowing lava pit below. The morning of April 19th we’ll head back to Gisenyi and catch a bus back to Kigali. The Congo portion of this trip, however, is entirely dependent upon the security situation in North Kivu since up until about a month ago this was an active conflict zone… From what I’ve heard, though, things seem to be calming down in the area after Nkunda’s “arrest” at the end of January. We shall see…

3/16/09
After a calming yoga practice with Delphine and Josee this morning, I unfortunately had to meet with Eugene to sort out some logistics for my upcoming trip to Kibogora. Despite my frustrations with that meeting, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the package my Aunt Jacqueline and cousin Aminta sent finally made its way out of customs and into my PO Box. I pigged out on chocolate bars and then, feeling guilty, went for a run in afternoon before settling down for an evening of data entry galore.

3/17/09
After Yoga in the AM, I went with Anita to meet a friend of Crystal’s named Constance that has been looking for someone to travel to Zanzibar with. We had lunch with her to see if she’s interested in joining us (in the end I think she decided not to since we’re doing the safari beforehand). Then we stopped by Bourbon since our internet has been out for 2 days and Gail and I went and did some fabric shopping before she headed off to teach a yoga class at the US Embassy. I spent the evening writing cards to 12 lucky people who have been keeping in touch with me while I’m here so keep an eye out - you can expect those to arrive in about a month (unless they get confiscated by US customs since the cards are made from banana leaves).

3/18/09
Yoga this morning ended just in time for me to spend the rest of the day dealing with Rwandatel – our internet service provider. Three guys came and spent about 5 hours here trying to fix our connection which meant I had to hang around the house until they were done. Thankfully a dog decided to hang out outside our gate for the day so I had a good time playing with him. I spent the evening translating the forms used for prenatal care in Rwanda so that Lisa can figure out what information isn’t being collected that needs to be when I head out to Kibogora. I think the rainy season may finally be living up to its reputation since we had the hardest rain I’ve ever witnessed in my life for about an hour this afternoon.

3/19/09
I was joined by Josee and Anita for yoga practice this morning and then headed up to the clinic for translation of one of the forms that was in Kinyarwanda, not French. Needless to say Eugene gave me a hard time about it so we’ll see if it actually gets translated. We then headed over to meet with Davindrah (my favorite money exchange guy) who, it turns out, is friends with Anita’s family in India. It looks like he may be able to hook us up with an account in the US that we can deposit money into and he'll just give it us here so I don’t have to resort to another cash advance to pay for our Tanzania/Uganda trip! I made it to the post office to mail the cards today (they required 6 stamps so I think even the envelopes will be a fun souvenir from Rwanda for you all). From there Anita and I took a matatu up to Kacyiru to see Joy (a seamstress that Katie recommended) to get some clothes and table cloths made from the fabric I bought. We grabbed a little snack at the Flamingo Chinese Restaurant and then I spent the evening on Skype trying to get through to everyone at Einstein to congratulate them on Match Day!!!! I am incredibly sad that Rachel and Jeff are moving to Michigan but couldn’t be happier for them and I can’t wait to lay claim to their second bedroom when I visit! As for everyone else I’m super excited to have a good crew of fellow Einsteiners staying in the city and I think next year will be a ton of fun (though more so for me since you’ll all be working your asses off).

3/20/09
Today Anita and I finally finished updating the Sosoma database and to celebrate we went to Ineza to pick up our aprons and yoga mat bags. From there we headed to Roy and Sara’s for a surprise birthday party that Sara planned for Roy. They have a gorgeous home and she had prepared delicious food and had plenty of duty free alcohol on hand so we spent the evening there enjoying the good company.

3/21/09
It’s Candida’s birthday today which unfortunately we didn’t know ahead of time so we’re planning on getting her something to give her tomorrow. We met up with Constance and visited the Mother Teresa Orphanage with her (she volunteers there a couple of times a week) and got to play with some kids for a couple of hours. When we were leaving I literally had to pry one of them off of my leg which was heart breaking but hopefully we can go back a few more times while before I leave. We did some grocery shopping for my trip on Monday and bought Candida some Lindt chocolate bars at Nakumatt. Then we went back to heaven tonight for their Saturday night movie special again and got to see Revolutionary Road. It was phenomenally acted but I must admit I was a little bit disappointed. We also got a status update on Moto and he seems to be doing quite well in his new home.

3/22/09
I’m heading to Kibogora tomorrow so I’m trying to get everything in order for the trip. I bought my tickets for the 6:30am bus and will be getting to Cyangugu around 12:30pm and then have to take a 1 hour moto ride to actually get to the village… Should be a fun filled day of travel. I’m only going to have sporadic internet access out there and so there won’t be any Skyping sadly. If there’s an emergency you should be able to reach me on my cell phone at 011-250-0750329933 or else you can send me an e-mail that I’ll probably be able to check every evening. Can’t wait to update you all on my adventures out west in about a week!

Kidney stones & Kibuye

3/3/09
I haven’t been keeping up with blogging and so to be honest I don’t really remember what happened on this day – so it probably isn’t worth writing about…

3/4/09
Today, on the other hand, is certainly worth writing about. Gail is doing twice weekly yoga sessions with Josee and Joseph and Anita & I have decided to join in. After an hour of practice early in the morning (which was really great by the way), I went to get ready to shower and started having some lower back pain on the right side. I assumed I had strained a muscle and didn’t think much of it until the intensity of the pain kept increasing to the point that I couldn’t find any comfortable position sitting or standing. I started to realize it wasn’t muscular and quickly took some ibuprofen – unfortunately the strongest pain killer I had available. I got Anita and told her I was in excruciating pain and then started walking around the house hyperventilating and screaming in pain – Josee and Candida clearly thought I was crazy. It was the weirdest sensation but I could NOT stay still for the life of me and felt like my insides were going to explode. Anita called for a car to take me to the hospital but instead about 5 people from the WE-ACTx clinic came to the house including one doctor who promptly checked my eyes for jaundice… after spending about 10 minutes trying to explain that I thought I had a kidney stone, not a gallstone, I just gave up because he kept checking for scleral icterus. Eugene, on the other hand, was convinced I had injured myself doing Yoga and was grilling Gail about what poses she had “made me” do. Basically it was a shit show for over an hour and all I really wanted was pain medication. By the time someone showed up with a vial of indomethacin, I had felt the pain clearly progress lower down and it was radiating into the groin and then all of a sudden, as quickly as it had come, the pain was gone. This pretty much confirmed my self-diagnosis since I assume that was the point that the stone passed from the ureter into the bladder. I think maybe now I should be an obstetrician since I think I can really sympathize with women in labor! I promptly went for an ultrasound which showed some mild hydronephrosis of the right kidney. After consulting with Mardge and a urologist I know at LIJ, I decided to hold off on getting an IVP since I’m skeptical of the contrast here and the radiation dosage of their ancient x-ray machine. I just started drinking loads of water (I think the cause of the stone is likely dehydration since I definitely don’t drink enough water here) and made a plan to see a Cuban urologist that’s working at the private hospital in Kigali in the morning. I’ve been straining my pee and actually caught the stone this evening – it’s only about 3mm… hard to believe something so small caused such excruciating pain!

3/5/09
Got up early to go to King Faycel Hospital to see the Cuban urologist and of course after waiting for over an hour found out she was in meetings all day outside of Kigali and would be in surgery all day Friday. So the ER physician talked to her on the phone and she agreed the IVP was unnecessary and just recommended taking ciprofloxacin (an antibiotic I conveniently already had since it’s the treatment for traveler’s diarrhea as well) until she could see me on Monday morning. So, that’s where I’m at now… still drinking constantly and hoping there are no more stones in the works that are waiting to pass. Mostly just to prove Eugene wrong I saved the stone to show him and hopefully I can have it analyzed to see what kind of stone it is (there are 4 kinds and if it’s not calcium oxalate then there’s likely a cause other than dehydration or diet that I’ll need to get checked out once I’m back in NY). Also to prove Eugene wrong, I jumped back on the Yoga bandwagon and had a really nice evening practice with Gail and Anita. It’s quite luxurious to have our own private yoga sessions – I think I’m going to have to start taking classes once I’m back home because I’m really enjoying it.

3/6/09
After another morning yoga practice with Josee and Joseph, I thankfully didn’t knock loose any more stones and Anita and I set off to run a bunch of errands. I finally managed to get a hold of the mailbox key and checked for letters/packages – have been expecting something from my aunt and cousin in Toronto but nothing yet sadly. I did get a nice note from my grandparents and from Eunice though – thanks! Anita and I looked into the cost of plane tickets for the trip were planning to Tanzania and Uganda and then set up French and Kinyarwanda lessons for this week – figured I might as well try to learn a couple new languages since there’s a good deal of downtime here now! After a good run this afternoon and a delicious dinner that Candida made, we decided to stay in and watch a movie on the LCD projector in the house (we watched Shooting Dogs which is a film about the Rwandan genocide that I highly recommend).

3/7/09
We had our second Kinyarwanda lesson with Diane today which has yet again convinced me that I will never even be vaguely conversational in this language but it’s fun to try to learn anyway. Gail joined us for the lesson and we threw a bit of French in the mix as well so there are a lot of words floating around in my head right now. Afterward we headed out to Nyamirambo to visit the Umuhuza Association which was started by one of the cleaning ladies at the WE-ACTx clinic (Emerithe). It’s a support group for HIV+ people and they meet every Saturday – she invited us today which was really sweet and it was great to see such a grassroots effort to fight against the stigmatization of HIV.

3/8/09
Gail and I headed out to the bus station to try to catch an early bus for a day trip to Kibuye (a town on Lake Kivu directly east of Kigali). We managed to get an 8am bus and arrived in Kibuye by around 10:30 after navigating some really windy roads a little too quickly. We took a nice walk up to Hotel Centre Bethanie which was recommended by the guidebook as a nice place to hang out by the lake and charter a boat. Oddly enough it turns out it’s not so much a hotel as it is a Presbyterian retreat center… It was in a beautiful setting though and we had a delicious crepe with concentrated marakuja juice before hiring a boat to take us out to Amahoro (Peace) Island. It was about a 20 minute boat ride in a rickety vessel called The Hummer that had “Don’t Worry” painted on the side that of course made us worry all the more… Thankfully the water was calm and we had some stylish bright orange lifejackets for the voyage. We got to Amahoro and spent the afternoon there swimming, having a feast of French fries (they tried to get me to order chicken but after seeing the chicken that would have been my lunch walk by I declined) and playing on the tree swing with the restaurant owner’s daughter Jennifer. The island is just inhabited by this one family that runs a pretty limited restaurant and has set up a volley ball net to try to attract tourists over from Kibuye. Gail and I had the place to ourselves and it was just a perfect afternoon. We made it back to the mainland by about 4:15 which was just enough time to walk briskly back to town and catch our 5pm bus back to Kigali. A delicious dinner of pizza and fish was waiting for us when we arrived home… all in all it really was a perfect day.

As a side note though, I think I need to get a t-shirt made that says “Ntabwo nitwa Muzungu” (my name is NOT Muzungu)… it’s bad enough in Kigali but when you leave the city, everyone just points and screams Muzungu or even worse addresses you as Muzungu when speaking to you as though it’s your name. Kind of annoying – and I think the shirt would be pretty amusing for most people here.


Photos from Kibuye:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2138678&id=2600785&l=f5f56

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.

The Rwanda Monologues

2/26/2009

“All at once, as it seemed, something we could have only imagined was upon us – and we could still only imagine it. This is what fascinates me most in existence: the peculiar necessity of imagining what is, in fact, real… The word ‘genocide’ and the images of the nameless and numberless dead left too much to the imagination.”

- We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch

Today was a hard day. After seven weeks in Rwanda I finally mustered up enough energy (read: emotional strength) to make the trip to the national genocide memorial in Kigali. It’s been a mere 10 minute drive away for the past 49 days and yet it has felt like an impossibly hard trip to make until today. I had finished about half of Philip Gourevitch’s book (quoted above) over the course of about a week in New York but upon arriving in Rwanda, it took me a solid month to finish the other half. After finishing, I put it away and have taken the past couple weeks away from it to try and process all the emotions it brought up. I finally went back to it earlier this week and looked over some of the pages I had marked and was particularly struck by the quotation above. I realized that really, even with all the emotions I’d experienced and conversations I’ve had with people here, I had still only imagined the events of 15 years ago. Suddenly I felt a tremendous guilt for not actively pursuing a more tangible experience earlier in my trip and made the decision to visit the memorial immediately.
Two hours, thousands of haunting images and several mass graves later, I left with the realization that the enormity of it all isn’t really comprehensible and I’m still just left with my imagination. But I’m also left with the faces and heart wrenching last words of 30 children killed in the genocide. And I’m left with a greater understanding of the historical context of not only the Rwandan genocide but others throughout history. So, overall I’m extremely grateful to the creators of the monument for their beautiful memorial to the victims of such {barely} imaginable violence and hatred. While the entire scope of what happened here may only ever be fully captured in one’s imagination, I am honored to have been witness to a few people’s personal stories and to have brought a touch of reality into what has all too easily and commonly been dismissed in history as a far off and intangible concept: genocide.

Please consider contributing to Ageis Trust, the organization that runs the Kigali Memorial Center. They are having a candle lighting ceremony for the 15th anniversary of the genocide this April.
http://www.candlesforrwanda.org/view/10/the-project.html

As a fitting complement to the visit to the genocide memorial this morning, I attended a performance of the “Rwanda Monologues” this evening at Torero Café. The performance was an adaptation of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” and was the first ever performance of any part of The Vagina Monologues in Rwanda (not to mention only the fourth ever production in all of Africa). As a part of the V-DAY 2009 campaign (the "V" stands for valentine, vagina and victory over violence), the proceeds of the performance benefit an organization called Achieving a Better Life which works to prevent gender-based violence in Rwanda.
The theme of V-DAY 2009 is “Stop Raping Our Greatest Resource: Power to the Women and Girls of Democratic Republic of the Congo.” Eve Ensler wrote a monologue called Baptized specifically for this cause after interviewing an eight year old girl, Noella, at Panzi Hospital in eastern DRC. After the interview, Eve tried to hug Noella and she squirmed away. Eve realized then that Noella probably hadn’t been hugged since she was raped by a group of Militia every day for two weeks straight. The rapes had given her a fistula so she was no longer continent. Eve hugged her anyway and held her on her lap and after that, there was no turning back…

Baptized
by Eve Ensler

Look out your window
The dead live everywhere
Think of your luxuries as corpses
Count the bodies

30 hacked children for a new play station

20 tortured women so you can text photos from the party

50 amputated men, waving their missing hands
as sweet Andrew mindlessly bounces his rubber ball

I hold an eight year old girl in my lap
Who had been raped by so many men
She had an extra hole inside her

When she accidentally peed on me
I was baptized

It isn’t over there

The Congo

It’s inside everything you touch and do

Or do not do.

Sosoma and such

2/23/09 – 2/24/09
The past couple of days have been full of frustration and annoyances so I’ve decided not to rehash all the details… Let’s just say that after bringing several quality assurance issues to everyone’s attention so that they could be addressed, it seems that Eugene (the WE-ACTx research coordinator) now has a grudge against me and is making it very difficult for me to actually accomplish anything further with the HPV study. So, I think I’ve done what I can in terms of setting everything up to run smoothly and now it’s time to shift focus.

2/25/2009
Today was the distribution day for the Sosoma nutritional supplement (it gets its name from the three principal ingredients - SOrgho, SOja, et MAis in French which is Sorghum, Soy and Corn) so I spent the afternoon handing out 8kg bags of the mixture along with 2kg bags of sugar to about 120 HIV+ kids and their families. The idea is for the Sosoma to supplement their diet so that they can take antiretroviral drugs without nausea and can avoid malnutrition. Unfortunately many of them continue to lose weight despite the supplement and so my task now is to identify these kids and do home visits to find out why they’re not doing well. I’ve also been in touch with Lisa back in NY and it looks like I will be going back to Kibogora for a week or two to work with the community health workers there in preparation for her maternal/child health program out there. Throw a few weekend trips around Rwanda plus a longer trip to Tanzania/Uganda into the mix and I think I’ll have enough stuff going on to fill the rest of my time here.

When in doubt, pitch it out!

2/21/09
So Diane came this morning and worked with Anita and I for about an hour and a half on Kinyarwanda. Her English pretty good so we got by and I think we’ll try to fit in a lesson with her once a week.
After she left we spent the day cleaning the house – this place has accumulated 4 years worth of people’s junk and we decided no one else was ever going to throw anything out so we made it our project for the day. There is something cathartic about throwing out other people’s junk – it also brought back surprisingly fond memories the days I used to clean out our house when I knew my father wouldn’t be home for a while. Four hours and three huge trash bags later, however, the nostalgia wore off and we left the rest for another day. Now comes the hard part – actually throwing this stuff out. Since I’ve been here I’ve noted that several items have somehow made their way back onto a shelf after being placed in the garbage so I think Josie, Seraphine and Joseph are reluctant to throw things out (understandably given the difficulty and expense of getting a lot of things in Rwanda). Considering that among the items we threw out were expired suppositories and empty ink cartridges for printers that no longer exist, hopefully we can manage to ensure they actually get thrown out. Now “thrown out” is a relative term here since there is no regular garbage collection and as far as I can tell most people just incinerate whatever garbage they create. So who knows what the ultimate fate of those suppositories will be – maybe they would have been better off gathering dust here for four more years! Anyway, we’ve decided to slowly divide the trash over the next few weeks and we’ll see what happens. One huge bonus of our mega cleanup though was the discovery of an electric-mosquito-killing-tennis-racquet-like contraption. We have a real fruit fly problem so I’ve been diligently zapping them which is disturbingly satisfying… I think of Eunice and feel guilty every time I zap something since I know she would have a conniption (she yelled at me every time I killed a mosquito even if it was about to bite me).
Anyway, after calling it quits on the clean up (all we have left is the bookshelf and two bedroom closets) I went for a run (which I’m now going to really try to incorporate into my daily routine) and then Anita and I joined Katie for dinner at Sun & Moon – a new pizza shop in Centre Ville. It still hasn’t ceased to amaze me how dead Kigali is at night and a Saturday night at that! I mean there certainly are hot spots and popular bars/clubs but overwhelmingly this city is NOT nocturnal – quite a switch from NY.

2/22/09
Well today has been my laziest day in Kigali thus far. I went for another run this morning and spent the rest of the day leisurely reading and doing a whole lotta nothin! Anita and I are planning several weekend trips to occupy ourselves and explore as much of Rwanda as possible so I don’t think I’ll have too many more quiet weekends in Kigali… probably a good thing since a little bit of boredom has started to set in this evening.

And then there were two...

2/15/09
We got up early enough today that I was able to see the sunrise – our back yard is really quite beautiful in the morning. We had agreed to leave at 6am but of course Fabreece runs on Rwandan time so he showed up just before 7. In the end it was fine though because it gave me a little time to chat with Mary before we left since she flew back to Chicago this afternoon. It was about a 2 and a half hour drive to Akagera and once we got there we paid the park fees and picked up our guide for the day. We started off seeing zebras and some antelope. Then our guide heard on his radio that the elephants (there’s a herd of about 100 in the park) had been spotted drinking at one of the lakes. So, we turned around and rushed down to the lake since Mary had told us the elephants were elusive (in the 5 times she’s been to Akagera she said she’s only seen them once). Unfortunately by the time we got there they had moved on. We did get to see some buffalo and baboons and then we finished off the day with a giraffe and some more zebras. All in all it was a fun experience but we were tired and hungry by the end of the day… not to mention dirty (the dirt roads had turned my hair red and it almost looked like I had a tan since there was a thin layer of dirt all over me). We all think Fabreece has a crush on Anita and since it hasn’t been reciprocated, he made a point to stop by his “girlfriend’s” house on our way home which was just annoying since we were all so tired. We made it home by about 6 though and after scarfing down some dinner, went to bed.

2/16/09
Today we started the pilot of the study at Nyacyonga – we set everything up and screened 5 women using both VIA and rapid HPV testing. There were definitely some kinks that need to be worked out – mislabeling of tubes, etc – and Eugene (the research coordinator for WE-ACTx) gave me attitude when I tried to address it with him so it was a frustrating day. I kind of feel like I’m expected to supervise everything but then ultimately I’m not really in a position of authority over anyone so it puts me in this vague middle ground where I identify things that need to be fixed but can’t do anything about it. I guess I should be used to it since that’s the basic job description of a medical student but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating. Oh well, tomorrow is another day! We watched a movie at home after dinner and had a quiet night to unwind.

2/17/09
Well unfortunately today was equally as frustrating as yesterday – we screened 30 women but it took almost the whole day and then we had to stay for 3 more hours for the lab techs to finish the HPV testing. So, the whole “screen and treat” purpose of this study was defeated since we had to send the women home and have them come back tomorrow. We also had the same issue with sample mislabeling and I have serious concerns about one of the nurses’ competence in VIA so overall I just felt really defeated by the end of the day. Add to that the fact that I felt kind of uncomfortable being the only person there to provide quality assurance since I’m far from a gynecologist! For example – I caught two VIA positive lesions that the nurses called negative but there were two others that I think were negative but couldn’t be 100% sure. I guess it’s always better to err on the side of overtreatment since cryotherapy is a fairly benign procedure. There was also a woman that I’m pretty sure had a recto-vaginal fistula that the nurses were ready to let go home but thankfully I convinced them to refer her to the local hospital.
I guess this is why we’re doing a pilot for the study though – to work out all of these kinks. I think we will have to set up a third exam room to ensure that the screening is finished by noon at the latest and that way the HPV testing will be done by 3pm and there will still be time to do cryotherapy on the women that need it. They are also going to be paying an MD to supervise at least 2 days/week so that will help with quality assurance. Thankfully I have a meeting with the pediatrician at the Icyuzuzo clinic tomorrow so I’ll get a break from Nyacyonga for the day and I can go back on Thursday less frustrated hopefully!

2/18/09
This morning I had a meeting with the doctor at Icyuzuzo clinic to identify the kids that are receiving antiretroviral therapy with nutritional supplementation but are still losing weight. The goal is to figure out if their malnutrition is being caused by psychosocial factors or by medical issues and then get them the appropriate support. I’ll also be doing a lot of data analysis for the Sosoma program and will be putting together an annual report for the donors who are funding the supplements. I’m pretty excited for this project since I’ll be doing home visits for those that we identify as at risk and I’ll finally be doing some work with kids!
After the meeting I met up with Felicia for lunch (she’s in town from Bujumbura to present a new protocol for pediatric HIV treatment that the Clinton Foundation is getting ready to roll out). She introduced me to a restaurant in town that has good take-away including some delicious samosas and burritos. Tonight is Alesha and Neeva’s last night in Rwanda so we’re headed down to Republika for a drink to unwind a bit.

2/19/09
Back to Nyacyonga this morning. They set up the third exam room yesterday and so things went a lot better today. They got through 20 patients before lunch and we were able to leave by 4pm which was good since Alesha and Neeva had to head to the airport at 6:30pm. Now it's just me and Anita until the new yoga teacher comes in March.

2/20/09
I met with Eugene this morning to discuss some of our communication issues and hopefully that will make things run more smoothly between us over the next few weeks. The biggest news of the day is that Anita and I ordered bagels and picked them up tonight. The whole process was quite bizarre – Felicia gave me a phone number to call, we placed an order for half a dozen bagels yesterday and were given an address to pick them up this evening. After knocking on the door we were led to a back room where we handed over some cash and they gave us the bagels. The whole thing felt a bit like a drug deal until we realized that it’s an orphanage that makes baked goods as a profit making venture so if they’re any good I think we’ll be ordering again. The bagel place is just down the road from Papyrus (a delicious restaurant) so Anita and I shared some homemade ravioli and then walked home and bought a bottle of wine along the way. There was another full meal waiting for us when we got home and now that everyone else is gone we invited Joseph in for dinner (he usually eats out in the guard house). He’s clearly a really talented artist and if language weren’t such a barrier I think he’d be really fun to talk to. SO, with that in mind, Anita and I are starting Kinyarwanda lessons tomorrow morning. We found an instructor to come to the house for $12/hour so we’ll see how it goes. It would just be really nice to be able to do more than stumble through a generic greeting. We’re thinking we may also look into some French lessons since Kinyarwanda is impossible and French would be equally useful here.

That’s it for now… we’ve got a quiet weekend coming up so I may post again tomorrow or Sunday. For now, I uploaded some more pictures from our trip to Akagera – check them out here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2135841&id=2600785&l=ed8bc

Will you be my Valentine?

Well it’s been over week since my last post so get ready for another novel… to those of you who actually read through all of these entries, thanks for your interest in my life! To those of you who don’t, I’m planning on doing some entries just about my observations about life here and what some of my experiences have meant to me instead of just a play by play of events so keep your eyes open for those – I think they’ll be more interesting.

2/5/09
I got a late start today which was nice since my flight wasn’t until 2pm. Rwandair Express is quite an interesting little operation – they don’t actually own any airplanes… they just charter out their flights to a bunch of private carriers so I had a nice little flight on a no-name aircraft. It was only 25 minutes though (compared to about an 8 hour drive) so I can’t complain. I got into Bujumbura and Mary was waiting for me which was a relief since the bank at the airport was closed - it was “National Unity Day” and I didn’t have any Burundian Francs to pay for a taxi with!
We got back to Jeff’s house where he generously offered for me to stay for the weekend. Jeff works for Heartland Alliance – the same organization that Mary and Sean work for – and has been on the ground in Bujumbura for about 7 months setting up their child soldier treatment program. I continue to be amazed with the outstanding international work Heartland is doing! I got a tour of the house including the amazing backyard with every kind of fruit tree you could imagine. His house really feels like a little walled off piece of paradise which is a bit bizarre considering it’s in the middle of a city that has been deep in conflict for decades.
Anyway, Mary and I spent the evening chatting about relationships and life accomplishments over a few glasses of wine. As I said I really think the work that she and her colleagues are doing is phenomenal and it’s had not to feel dwarfed by their achievements. Between Mary’s work with torture victims, Sean’s work with global HIV initiatives and LGBT grassroots organizations in some of the most oppressive nations in the world, Mardge’s activism at Cook County Hospital working for access to healthcare for a highly underserved community, Donna Rae’s work as an activist in the HIV/AIDS movement in the late 80’s and for human rights in Southeast Asia, and Kathy’s work in the Bronx (not to mention the work WE-ACTx is doing in Rwanda), I really feel like I couldn’t possibly have been surrounded by any more accomplished and heroic people. The stories they share and the knowledge and experience they bring to the table have been eye opening and have made me reexamine my own career aspirations and ideas of how to use medicine as a vehicle for social change. I know I am lucky to have met each and every one of them and I have no doubt that my interaction with them has changed my goals for the future (career and otherwise) - I can’t wait to see what opportunities await! It’s totally this kind of inspiration I was hoping to find during my time here and I feel really excited to jump back into school with some new perspectives.
So, after reaching all these conclusions, I went to bed feeling really good but was awoken at 2am either by the sound of Cher’s “Do you believe in life after love” blaring from a bar down the street or by the insect that was in bed with me and had bitten me about 10 times. That’s what I get for sleeping on a mattress on the floor I suppose! Thankfully I had earplugs and cortisone cream and was able to fall back to sleep eventually.

2/6/09
We started the morning off changing money (at a Forex Bureau called “change for peace” which I found rather ironic considering its war torn location). We went and got Mary’s visa extended and then checked out the craft market where I promptly spent all $50 that I changed. There are some good deals to be had on crafts in Bujumbura though so I’m pretty excited about what I got! We also ran into Neelah (the coordinator for the Human Rights Watch in Burundi) twice in the span of about two hours which tells you just how few westerners there are in Bujumbura. It’s really quite sad because the city is about the same size as Kigali and they have just as great if not a greater need for foreign aid yet there’s millions of dollars flowing through Rwanda and basically NO foreign investment in Burundi. We had dinner at a restaurant called BoraBora (which was right on the beach and had a strangely Caribbean feel) and it was with just about every NGO employee in Bujumbura as far as I could tell. I guess I’m exaggerating but everyone at dinner was an NGO employee - Catherine (from Catholic Relief Services), Felicia (from the Clinton Foundation), Michael (from Orphans of Rwanda) and then Jeff and Mary. Felicia has been working on the Clinton Foundation’s new pediatric HIV treatment protocol in Kigali for the past year so we had a great convo about that and she connected me with some good resources in Kigali including a random number to call to order bagels (every kind you could imagine including cinnamon rasin – now if only I could find cream cheese)! Michael was a friend of hers visiting from NY via Kigali and his organization provides full scholarships for graduate level education in Rwanda so yet again I was surrounded by amazing people doing amazing work!
I also got to enjoy an Amstel Bach for the first time which is a delicious beer that I highly recommend. I had enough of it that I slept pretty deeply but woke up in a half dream state to the sound of a large mob of screaming people. I fell back asleep immediately after dismissing it as a dream but found out in the morning that a man had been beaten pretty severely outside of the house – no doubt on his way home from the bar that was blasting Cher the night before. Apparently an off duty police officer was one of the attackers and the mob I heard was actually intervening on the man’s behalf. If the large pool of blood we found in the morning was any indication though I think perhaps they got there a little too late… Jeff assures me this is the first time anything like this has happened but I think it’s fairly indicative of the continuing safety issues after dark in Bujumbura.

2/7/09
We woke up at 6am to go to the Parc National de la Rusizi which is about 15km outside of Bujumbura. Two French journalists that Jeff met earlier in the week accompanied us since they had been previously but forgot their cameras. Unfortunately every Saturday morning in Burundi is a national service day – similar to Umuganda in Rwanda that I talked about in an earlier post but instead of the last Saturday of the month, they do it EVERY Saturday from 7-10am. We managed to make it to the park by 7am but almost plowed through a road block on our way there since Jeff wasn’t paying attention! The park was kind of limited but we were able to see a bunch of hippopotami as well as some pretty birds called weavers. It really only took about an hour and a half to hike through the whole park though so by the time we were finished it was about 8:45. Unfortunately the road blocks were up to 10:00 and so when we got in the car and attempted our trip back we encountered a mob of Congolese people who were stopped on their way into Burundi. When the soldiers started to let our car through, two men on bicycles loaded to the brim with goods cut in front of the car and blocked the way. At that point we were surrounded by about 50-100 people all laughing and pointing at the stupid muzungus that thought they could force their way through. Mary and I kind of took the viewpoint that we should just wait it out until 10 when the roads opened up – why should we have any more right to get through than everyone else? Jeff and the French journalists, however, felt that we should be able to get through and so after about 10 minutes of sitting there, the two French journalists got out to talk to the soldiers and I was sent out to protect them from the mob – a lot of good I would have been if things had gone badly! Anyway after a screaming match in French of which all I was able to pick up was “we are human beings too” they were able to convince the bicyclists to move aside. I felt like the whole situation was just wrong and it had the potential to be a real issue. On we went thouth, the privileged muzungus, and we stopped for brunch at the hotel club du lac which felt a bit like adding insult to injury. Mary and I debriefed afterwards and agreed the sense of entitlement was a bit disturbing especially considering these people made a conscious choice to come and work in Burundi ostensibly to make a difference for the very people they pushed their way through. AND we made a choice to squeeze in this leisure activity that morning – it’s not like we had an important meeting or something to go to. Over brunch we agreed to disagree but there was clearly a little tension… Mary and I decided to stay at the beach for a while and the three of them went back into town once 10am passed and the road blocks were down.
The beach was gorgeous with a misty view of the DRC across the lake and cute (but worm infested) dogs running around. We ran into Felicia and Michael there of course – yet again an indication of just how small the ex-pat community is there! On the way out of the resort we walked by a cage with two Chimpanzees inside which I must say was one of the saddest things I’ve seen in Africa (which is saying A LOT). We stopped by t2000 on the way home which is a dollar store full of crappy Chinese goods that is popular in Kigali and I didn’t realize is a chain! For dinner, Jeff, Mary and I met Felicia and Michael at Khanah Khazanah which is THE BEST Indian food I’ve ever had in my life and definitely ranks pretty high in the best food of any kind I’ve ever had. It’s a funny story but basically a very popular restaurant in Kigali called Indian Khazanah was shut down for tax evasion and the same family set up shop in Bujumbura instead. Fingers crossed - the owner promised they would reopen in Kigali in mid April so hopefully I’ll have the chance to go again before I leave!

2/8/09
I woke up early to take a walk down to the soccer fields and watch a troop of Burundian drummers that I had heard practices on Sunday mornings. I guess I got there a bit too early and ultimately headed back because the walk got a little sketchy. I went back at 10:30 with Jeff and Mary and after watching a bit of a soccer match, we saw a troop called Rukinzo Legacy practice for about an hour. Their leader was a magistrate named Posper who introduced himself and the troop to us afterwards. I was hot just watching them – I can’t imagine how hot they must have been. I treated myself to my first Diet Coke (aka coke light) since I’ve been here and we bought them all a round of Fantas. Sean came in the afternoon from Kigali and we went grocery shopping (including purchasing 18 cans of coke zero to feed his addiction) for his trip into the Congo this week. He’s going to Uvira tomorrow to work on establishing a former girl soldier treatment program in southeastern Congo.
We all had dinner at Felicia's – she made delicious eggplant parmesan and Jeff brought over some delicious couscous. All in all my culinary experiences in Burundi were quite impressive!

2/9/09
Mary and Jeff had actual work to do today so I entertained myself by walking down to the HUGE central market. I put my money in my shoe since I was forewarned that I would be the only muzungu and indeed I stuck out like a sore thumb. It was a great if not slightly claustrophobic experience and I’m glad I went but it was quite sad since amidst the endless stalls of fabrics and goods, I encountered about 10 amputee and otherwise sick children on display asking for money. I headed back to the house and then packed up my bag and Jeff gave me a ride to the airport.
Arriving in Kigali was actually a really nice experience – despite immediately recognizing just how sanitary and oppressive Kigali can feel compared to other cities in developing countries, I had a sense of homecoming. There are definitely good and bad things about the way things are done in Rwanda but I was really happy to realize that in a lot of ways I already felt at home in this city. There was even a rainbow over the airport when I landed which felt a bit over the top but I went with it and took a picture! I also got a nice welcome from everyone at the house and Donna Rae and Mardge were particularly happy to see me which was really nice. I think I’ve definitely made some lasting connections here!

2/10/09
Back to work this morning… apparently training on Friday went well but one of the machines from Qiagen was broken so things have been a bit delayed. We went out to Nyacyunga for another day of training only to discover power lines were down so we came back to town. I had a package to pick up (thank you again Mama) and so I took a Mutatu (local buses) out to Kaciyru to pick it up at the central post office (iposti in Kinyarwanda) which I am proud to say I figured out how to do all by myself! Anita, Neeva and Alesha came along too and we checked out Top Tower Hotel & Casino which Michael had told me he had fun gambling at. They’re only open at night so we’ll have to check that out another time… We also finally made it over to the Novotel to see the infamous pool where apparently a lot of ex-pats spend their Sundays (the other two hotels with pools are both under construction). We got a buffet lunch at Ma Collines and ran into Savannah & Meredith there – if you haven’t identified a trend yet there’s a lot of running into people here! I had a meeting in the afternoon with Bernadette who works for WE-ACTx to discuss what role I can play in a nutritional supplement program they have for children on anti-retroviral therapy. The cervical cancer study won’t be taking up all of my time after next week so hopefully this Sosoma project will be something else interesting to work on. I also bought Kinyarwanda phrasebook this afternoon since I’ve been lagging in my efforts to learn more words and Anita and I are going to look into possibly taking lessons.

2/11/09
Today was a pretty uneventful day. We went up to Nyacyunga for training in the morning, came back and had lunch at home where we discovered there was a meeting of all the grass roots organizations that work with WE-ACTx (there’s about 20+ of them so it was a full house)! I took a nice nap and after discovering there was no internet we watched Blood Diamond on Anita’s computer and then headed to bed early.

2/12/09
I met Michael (Felicia’s friend from Bujumbura) at the offices for his organization – Orphans Of Rwanda. It’s a scholarship program for graduate students in Rwanda and Michael and I discussed possibly starting an internship program with WE-ACTx for some of their nursing/lab tech students. Then I went to a store called Dancing Pots with Mardge & Donna Rae to check out some Twa (a pygmy people from central Africa) pottery. I also met with Eugene to finalize plans to start the pilot for the study on Monday and I helped Anita set up the machine for her study. Mardge also met with me to discuss another project I can work on while I’m here… they want to start screening all of their pediatric patients for depression and so I’ll be spearheading that along with the two trauma counselors. We had lunch at Ma Collines again with Merideth and when I got home, I discovered Josie had left me a rose from the garden in my room since the one Eunice gave me before I left was dried out… too cute! Mary arrived home from Burundi and it’s Donna Rae’s last night here so there’s more goodbyes coming up.

2/13/09
Said goodbye to Donna Rae this morning and I’ve promised to apply to the pediatrics program at UCSF if for no other reason than to go visit her if I get an interview. I met with one of the doctors for the Sosoma (pediatric HIV nutritional supplement) program in the morning... we were supposed to meet with two doctors but the one from Icyuzuzu called to say his brother had been electrocuted so he had to cancel. Things like this are said so casually here that I was strangely not surprised! Anita and I grabbed some coffee at Bourbon (where we ran into Katie) and then back at the clinic I narrowly escaped Bernadette asking me out for Valentines Day… she asked me casually about what I did usually at home for Valentines Day and thankfully I had to leave right before I could tell she was going to ask me to do something tomorrow. I felt bad but at least I avoided the awkwardness of having to make up an excuse why that wouldn’t be such a good idea.
I took a trip out to Remera (a neighborhood near the airport) to visit the Ineza sewing cooperative which is an income generating project for WE-ACTx patients. Two of Lara’s yoga clients (Roy & Sarah) and Meredith joined me. They make beautiful bags and aprons and such there… there will surely be a few gifts coming back to NY from there.
Afterwards we went to a debut concert at the Hill Top Hotel in Remera. It was a concert for a new artist named Eric Sendeli that Bertin (the coordinator of the WE-ACTx children’s program) invited us to. It was supposed to start by 5:00pm but in typical Rwandan fashion it didn’t start until 8pm. We got a few drinks and actually Savannah was randomly at the same concert so we just hung out with her for a while. Bertin gave us “VIP” tickets which basically meant that we had to sit in the front row but considering there were only about 40 people there it was a bit awkward. Despite best attempts to get drunk on uguagua (banana beer), the concert was still not very enjoyable and after about 2 hours of TERRIBLE lip syncing, Alesha and I decided to head home.

2/14/09
Today has been a pretty chill day. Mardge left at around noon. The weather was gorgeous so I sat out in the yard for a little while and then Alesha, Nevea and I took a walk into town so they could check out the craft market here. Candida made a delicious chocolate cake for Valentines Day and we’re heading out to Torero Café tonight to meet up with Amy and check out some live music they’re having there. It will hopefully be an early night since we’re getting up at 6am to drive out East to Akagera National Park which is a savanna reserve with all kinds of animals. Fabreece (one of the lab tech’s we’ve been training) arranged for us to rent a 4-wheel drive vehicle. Should be an interesting day!

Phew, that was long! But now for the most important part… I finally got around to uploading pictures so feel free to take a look – they’re on Facebook but if you don’t have an account then just use the links below. There are three albums so far:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2135819&id=2600785&l=0b683

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2135841&id=2600785&l=63c48

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2135955&id=2600785&l=54c60