Mbwira ibindi

Everything is the same and its all different

2014-09-26T14:15:00.004-07:00

My week in Kigali is quickly coming to an end. By now I've had a chance to visit with many people we befriended in 2011. Each time I met up with someone I would be told that it is not surprising to see me in Rwanda again, that I haven't changed a bit (well except for the former student who told me that my hips look bigger) and then I was asked when I am next coming back.

Early in the week I had dinner with Chantal who was our housekeeper. She is now in school studying hospitality while working 2 jobs. With Chantal, everything was the same and we shared some food a few stories before she had to moto off to school, I hope she successfully explained to her teacher that she was late because of me.

Today I met up with Patrice who was one of our guards. Patrice has just finished business school and passed the examination to be a public accountant. He was dressed in his finest because the public accounting association was going to recognize his achievement in the afternoon. Again with Patrice everything was the same only now, he has the skills and advanced certification to get a well-paying job and hopefully a permanent job

I've also caught up with some of the KHI faculty. They are the same but the institution is no longer Kigali Health Institute as it is now the University of Rwanda, College of Medical and Health Science. From what I can tell the name and organizational change has added many new layers of bureaucracy and has not been positive for the physio department. When I was a visiting professor there were 8-9 faculty, now there are 3! Spending a bit of time with Juvenal was a highlight but finding him was a trick. The faculty offices have been moved off of the campus to the new Kigali City Tower, an expensive high-rise in center city Kigali. On the visit I got to ride in my first Rwandan elevator in this very fancy, upscale and expensive office building that appears at least 1/2 empty. I can't imagine how they will fill the other 6 planned high-rise buildings that are going to surround Kigali City Tower. The noisy area where we used to pick up buses is now a quiet downtown street.

It may sound as if I've spent the entire week visiting old friends but that's not exactly the case. I've been working with our grant manager and our local grant coordinator on evaluating our progress and planning the next 8 months of activity. The evaluation piece meant that I got to visit with some clinics where I know physios including CHUK, King Faisel Hospital and Rwanda Military Hospital (formerly Kanombe). The hospitals look the same, the staff look the same but in each place there were small upgrades or building changes and other evidence that the Rwandan initiatives to improve infrastructure are ongoing.

I've visited some new areas of the city. The other night we took our local grant coordinator, a man named Bernard and his wife to Green Corner to eat the amazing slow-grilled fish. Good thing his wife arrived early to make the order because I've heard from some people that it can take 2-3 hours to get the fish. When it comes, you wash your hands and dig in. I was so stuffed I couldn't eat again until late the next day.

I've had much more luck with food on this trip. Not because Kigali is suddenly a gourmet city but because I know how to find things I like and how to avoid all else. Aside from brochette, mangos, avocado, maracuja and bananas this time there were some new spots at which to eat and some new foods. One afternoon while running between hospitals I grabbed a smoothie at the new Hero - quite delicious avocado, ginger, mango and coconut milk made to order by the "smoothie girls" in what looked very much like a Vitamix

The biggest transformations here have been to the roadways and buildings around the city. There are far more high rises, tarmac streets and traffic lights than previously. I think I may even have seen a crosswalk. Gratefully the very old tree at the top of our street across from Parliament still stands. In a city bent on changing an old tree is a miraculous find.

Where the streets have no name

2014-09-21T10:12:00.002-07:00

During the day (today included) much of my time is going to be working on activities related to the grant. Still, I've promised to show how Kigali has changed since our last visit. Just before departing I did a little Google map search and was surprised to see that all the streets had numbers. Its true, every street in the capital now has a street sign and is numbered. Too bad, according to the two drivers with whom I've spoken (Zaidu and Richard), almost nobody is using them as actual landmarks or for directions. They look great, very official and efficient. I guess if we still lived in that house "behind the yellow bar" we'd probably now say behind the yellow bar on KG 605 St.

Postscript return to Kigali

2014-09-20T00:49:00.001-07:00

One goal of a Fulbright award, at least according to the government, is to create lasting relationships and possibly professional opportunities between Americans and the world. In my case it seems to have worked. On returning home in 2011 I started working with Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO) to set up a site for US physical therapists to do some training work in Kigali. Along the way we applied for and received a USAID grant entitled the "Advancement of Rwandan Rehabilitation Services". Details on the grant were nicely described in this HVO press release:

Health Volunteers Overseas will work with the Kigali Health Institute (KHI), a nationally-funded institute in Kigali for students pursuing degrees in health professions, including physical and occupational therapy. The institute will be a key component of the Rwanda University of Medicine and Health Science, which will soon merge with the medical school, and public health school. In recent years, there has been a large infusion of funds and resources for the medical profession, but physical and occupational therapy will need further development in order to address the rehabilitation needs of the country, where those with disabilities number close to 523,000.

Continuing professional development is a crucial aspect of a vital health care force. HVO will partner with the Kigali Health Institute and the Association of Rwandan Physiotherapy (ARP) to develop a model of continuing education for rehabilitation providers to enhance their knowledge and skills. The abilities of these professionals will be developed to reach out to medical providers, community leaders and rehabilitation extenders to expand access to services for underserved populations.

To further the capacity of KHI and to develop a vital rehabilitation community, HVO will work with the institute and the national therapy association to develop their leadership capabilities and promote the role of rehabilitation within the medical community. With the commitment of the Rwandan government to its plan of action, Rwanda could potentially be a leader in regional rehabilitation care. HVO will work with KHI and the Ministry of Health to explore this possibility and assess if it could realistically serve as an East African Regional Rehabilitation Education Center.

So, here I am sitting in the Brussels airport celebrating my 52nd birthday with a return trip to Kigali for mid-grant evaluation and planning purposes. Wow, I'm going back, Ngiye Kigali and I'm back on the blog!

KGL to BRU to IAD to BDL to 7B2

2011-07-02T04:16:00.000-07:00

July 4th weekend in Northampton (Florence) seems a perfect time to post this last blog for the trip, after all, this is also a holiday weekend in Rwanda with July 1st being Independence Day and July 4th Liberation Day. I delayed writing this last blog because of some "should thinking" that blocked my writerly instinct - the last blog should sum up everything; the last blog should be some type of introspective and insightful reflection; the last blog should bring closure. Luckily, I came to my senses and realized that just as I can't really respond to those people who see me on the streets now and ask, "how was it," I also can't write a blog that completely pulls it all together. Instead, I can welcome myself, Patricia, Saadya and Nava back to Northampton and give you a little insight into how we ended our journey and how we made the transition and reentry into our more typical lives.

Saadya and Patricia left Kigali first on June 8 so that Saadya could finish the school year with his classmates at Heritage and attend the middle school graduation ceremony. They opened the house, got the cars started again, stocked the refrigerator and brought the cats back. Turns out they also came back just in time to get Saadya registered and ready for the fall when he will enter Northampton High School. As we drove to the Kigali airport I watched them take one last look around the city and our neighborhood and tried to imagine how it would be for me two weeks later. They got one last Bourbon treat at the airport and then with a stamp in their passports they were on their way back. A day and a half later, I got up in the middle of the night and called my brother's mobile phone to hear that they had landed at Bradley with all of their luggage and were making their way home. Over the course of the next 2 weeks, thanks to Skype, we talked frequently and heard about some of the difficulties of their transition back to the US.

On departing, Patricia reminded me to make sure that Nava had a good time in her last two weeks while I finished up my work. Finishing, for me, meant giving and marking exams, writing reports and saying my good-byes. I was pretty busy but we still managed to get in a few more adventures:

One more trip to the Leico swimming pool with some friends

Leico swimming in the late afternoon

Nava and friends

One last safari (this time just a day trip) to Akagera to enjoy the unique East African wildlife

Hello big guy (don't be surprised by his size, he can move)

Lots of giraffe and zebra on this trip

Fun with her friends including 2 sleep-overs

Admittedly this photo is from Nava's birthday party in May but these silly girls were school-mates, pals and they all stayed awake to the wee hours at the sleepovers

Watched a lunar eclipse

Adventures and shopping in Kigali

I finally got to the wedding circle to get a photo and there was nobody there - still, here she is, the mother of Rwanda

Even President Kagame managed another drive-by to say good-bye

A good-bye party with my colleagues at KHI

A fabulous evening at Car Wash with the best chicken we had in Rwanda and loads of speeches

Finally the big day came, June 21 our departure from Kigali. In the morning I sold off our kitchen items to the highest bidder on Kigalilife and gave a number of items to our staff. Nava went to her last day of school while I packed, weighed and repacked our bags. Chantal cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. In the late afternoon, Elias and Joel came over and we sat on the back porch drinking a last Primus and chatting. Finally at 5pm our convoy was ready to roll. The toughest good-bye was house-staff: Sylivan, Christine and of course, Chantal. We didn't need 2 cars and an entourage but in the end Pepe and Zaidu came to drive us with the KHI car while Elias and Joel accompanied in his sometimes illegal car and Jeanne (the woman who brought me to KHI) was waiting at the airport. We waved, hugged, shook hands, hugged again and then passed through security, checked bags, did one last exit card and joined the crowd of mostly Muzungus leaving.

Nava in the waiting area

Good bye Kigali

A day and many hours later (and a short excursion into Brussels) we landed at Bradley to be met excitedly by Patricia and Saadya who had everything ready for our arrival. Over the next days we managed our jet lag, finished our last doses of malarone and slowly slowly realized that we are no longer in Rwanda and Northampton is just not Kigali. I returned to work where my colleagues had decorated my office in a jungle theme complete with monkeys and elephants.

At night, I often find myself waking up confused about which city I'm in and which house this is. I won't whitewash the experience and make Kigali or Rwanda a glossy wonderful place where everything worked perfectly and life was charmed. I will, however, go the bank early next week to open that new savings account targeted for our next trip.

Murabeho

2011-06-18T00:47:00.000-07:00

Kinyarwanda is a difficult language. I can just now begin to pick out a few words in a conversation, and can manage a dozen or so things that I would like to say. The language is spiced with a bit of both French and English and my ear is more used to the sounds and meanings. I've learned that there are any number of ways to greet people depending on the time of day, how well you know the person, and how long it's been since you last saw the person. Goodbye is similarly complicated and now that I must say it, I understand just how complicated it is, not linguistically, but practically and emotionally. Over the next few days I'll be saying "Murabeho" because that is the good-bye used when you won't be seeing a person for a while.

I'll tell you about a few of the people who make it hard to leave and who have touched me during my time here.

First of all, meet our house staff: Chantal, Nelson, Sylvan and Patrice (I don't have a photo of Patrice, works for us a couple of days each week and is also a student at a university studying business)

Chantal has been our housekeeper, cook, shopper, and resident comedian. She took care of us during our stay. She is tremendously kind, caring and often came to work or stayed to work later when she didn't have to. Chantal adores Nava and always threatens to keep her after we leave. Chantal is studying English right now and one day, we hope to help her get a college degree and a new line of work.

Chantal and Nava

Chantal a little more pensive than usual

Nelson is one of our guards, our gardener and the hardest working individual I've ever met. He never seemed to know how to rest when he was at our house. He really doesn't speak English but we had fun trying to communicate in a gibberish mix of English and Kinyarwanda. The other night, Nelson, Nava and I stayed up late to watch the lunar eclipse together and he taught us the words for moon and stars in Kinyarwanda.

Nelson

Sylvan, Christine and Diana

Sylvan does the majority of our night guard work and he is a handyman fixing our plumbing and lighting problems. He lives in the house on the back of our compound (really right on top of us) with his wife Christine and his newborn baby Diana (the little guard). Diana was born during our stay and this photo was taken on the day of her christening and naming.

The little guard on duty

When we arrived in Kigali we were told by other expats that we would never survive without a car. Well, we did. I was lucky enough to have a driver from KHI who brought me to work and back every day. This is Pepe; I had more conversations about more things with him than almost any other Rwandan. He doesn't really speak English, I certainly can't say much more than good morning and how are you in Kinyarwanda, but we managed throughout the term with his and my limited French to communicate about life, politics, Rwanda, KHI, the genocide, music, sports - just about anything. I still owe him a brochette and a beer so I'll be back to visit him one day soon!

Pepe

I was lucky enough to teach all 3 years of physiotherapy students at KHI, here are a few photos of the fantastic and hard-working physio students.

A great group of 3rd year students

4th year students working in the clinic with me

Vyvienne is a senior lecturer in physiotherapy at KHI. She is an expat from Zimbabwe (Zim). I worked very closely with her on a number of research projects and in the research methods/biostats module teaching. Vyvienne has a great sense of humor and always gave me the inside scoop on all things KHI or Kigali. I'm quite positive that Vyvienne and I will be collaborating for a few years to come and I'm hopeful she'll make a visit stateside to share her incredible knowledge and skills in the area of CBR.

Vyvienne

Elias had the role of Acting Head of Department (HOD) while I was at KHI. Elias is a therapist from Tanzania (T-Zed). He had an incredible number of administrative headaches on a daily basis that I was happy to have left behind when I started this sabbatical/Fulbright. He is quick to remind me that starting at the end of June, his headaches in Kigali will be my headaches in Springfield. Speaking of having those headaches, Manu, a therapist from India is Deputy HOD soon to be HOD. I have great faith in Manu's ability to lead this department forward and wish him luck. He is just back from presenting at a conference in Baltimore on ergonomic issues, his passion in physiotherapy.

Manu

Elias

My office-mates were Jean Baptiste and Gerard both of whom got their initial physiotherapy training at KHI some years back in the diploma program. I'm still not sure how all three of us managed in the tight little space we called an office but they were always gracious to make space for me when I came to work.

Jean Baptiste

Gerard

Hey, who is that Muzungu guy? This is Joel, a recent DPT graduate from Arkansas who taught anatomy at KHI this past term and who is planning on starting a PhD program in the U.S. when he returns.

Joel

David

David is busy completing his PhD dissertation work while he is teaching at KHI. He and I did some clinical supervision together and I gave him some Stata tutoring. It doesn't show well here but David has a great smile and always brightened the day.

Maurice is also doing independent work toward a PhD, naturally when I consulted with him I spent my time encouraging him to consider multivariable approaches to his analysis. We'll see where that goes. Maurice is a great critical thinker and debater with strong and often valuable opinions about how the department should be run.

Maurice

Princy

Princy and Hetal are both from India. Hetal is actually Manu's wife. Hetal and Baptiste run the KHI Physiotherapy clinic. Princy often assists with department managing issues such as assigning clinical sites and setting up class schedules. I got to do clinical supervision at two different sites with Princy and Hetal.

Hetal

******************************

Sadly I'm missing photos of a few more of my colleagues, Juvenal and Nuhu with whom I worked in the clinic and on some research projects.

Finally, meet the woman who actually brought me to Rwanda...Jeanne Kagwiza. When I first inquired to KHI about doing a Fulbright it was Jeanne with whom I conversed back and forth over many months about the possibilities and needs. On my first day at KHI she came into the room where I was being introduced and excitedly walked up to me hugging me and shaking my hand and hugging me again in her excitement that I had arrived. Jeanne is the former HOD in physio at KHI. She was gone for a good part of my time at KHI as she is in the final stages of her PhD dissertation work. I did some consulting/advice giving for her about her dissertation and I'm quite sure that she and I will continue to work together though at a distance until I return here.

Jeanne

Who did I miss? Plenty of folks and to all of them, murakoze, asante sana, jambo and most importantly turongera - see you soon.

"Helping" the poor

2011-06-07T21:15:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago at breakfast Nava was talking about a classmate who was wandering around the school fair with a fistful of Rwandan Francs. I asked her what is father does and she responded "he helps the poor." Yikes, time for a short rant on the issue of aid and NGOs here in Rwanda. NGOs are supposed to care about the most vulnerable population - the poor.

Patricia and I are amazed at the luxury in which many Muzungus live here. They have huge mansions (with monthly rentals of $2000-$3500), drive large SUVs, fly to South Africa to shop, send their children to an expensive private school (so do we, ISK is the highest price school in Kigali, thanks Fulbright), take tennis lessons every day and live in a sheltered isolated expatriate community. Some of these wealthy Muzungus are here working for private companies but a large majority are spending the money of the NGOs who are "helping" the poor. Seeing their lives has certainly soured me on the ways in which NGOs spend their money. Worse, Muzungus drive up housing, food and commodities prices in the areas in which they do their work, how can that help the poor? As it currently appears now in Rwanda, I'm certainly not convinced the NGO model works.

Mercer tracks cost of living for expatriates around the world. This year, the highest cost of living is in Luanda, Angola. Surprised? Why Luanda? In an editorial on this finding that I read recently, the author noted that whenever the UN arrives en masse, the cost of living goes up and especially the cost of housing. I would argue that these efforts at helping are more often hurting and I will think twice and examine the motivations, goals and financial reports of any NGO before I donate in the future.

Joburg

2011-06-03T20:36:00.000-07:00

We gave Saadya the opportunity to take a weekend trip to a place that we could get to from Kigali on a non-stop flight. He picked Johannesburg (Joburg, Jozi, Egoli), the largest city in South Africa and, he picked our itinerary for the 2 day tour. First stop...Kigali airport where the national women's handball team from the Congo was also waiting for their flight back home after winning the IHF Africa challenge tournament held at the stadium this past week. It was great to see them hanging out in the waiting room with their medals.

Congo National Womens' Handball Team captain with trophy

Ready to fly the friendly skies

We arrived late afternoon and were met by our tour guide and host, Janet from Ekala Guest House who drove us directly to our first stop, the Carlton Centre, a 50-story building that may actually be the tallest building in Africa. From the top we got oriented to our surrounds and started to learn about Johannesburg and its history. I was surprised to see what appeared to be multiple small hills that looked like landfills as I had not realized just how important gold mining is/was in the city. The land dumps were dirt extracted during the gold mining process that are only now being cleaned and recycled with yet more gold extracted from the sand. No surprise, mining is an environmental disaster ruining land and water supplies (they use cyanide in the process). The Carlton Centre sits in downtown Joburg, an area that has been vacated by many businesses and residents due to high crime rates. The building itself is now about 40 years old and it is showing signs of aging. I could imagine it was once a "destination" back when it had an ice rink, movie theater and restaurants. Instead it now houses some stores and empty office blocks. After being on top of Africa we drove a bit more around Johannesburg and then returned to Ekala where we had our first of a few wonderful meals complete with fresh fruits from the farm.

Soccer City!

Joburg Skyline, Carlton Centre is on far right

In the evening, Saadya and I watched "Invictus." Saadya chose to watch it because his class at ISK was viewing it and he was pretty sure they would finish it while he was away. Although it was a Hollywood depiction, I enjoyed watching the movie more than I thought I would - possibly the Joburg effect?

Sunday our itinerary included the Cradle of Humankind where we visited the Sterkfontein Caves and Maropeng. This is the area that has an incredible wealth of paleontological finds and is the center of much archeological work. It is called the cradle because many people believe it is the site from which humans originated.

In the Sterkfontein Caves we saw where the famous pre-human skull known as “Mrs. Ples”, and an almost complete hominid skeleton called “Little Foot”, dated 2.3 and 4.17 million years old respectively were found.

Saadya deep in the earth looking for fossils

Statue of Robert Bloom and Mrs. Ples. Supposedly, if you rub her head you are bestowed wisdom and if you rub his nose you get wealth. Any guesses about what Saadya rubbed? I of course went straight for the head.

Area of archeologic work at the caves

The Maropeng museum was a nice touch and we dined there at the massive Sunday buffet (yes, this was an eating tour) with views over the hills outside of Johannesburg. Somewhat shocking to our eyes were the sight of fire (even right in the city) on the land. It is winter in South Africa and the dry season so there are often fires burning. At one point, we drove by a gas station with fire burning all around it and to our surprise, nobody was doing anything.

In the "Cradle"

Fires burning in and around Joburg

In the afternoon we went to the Apartheid Museum where we visited an exhibition about Mandela and were overwhelmed by the history and story of apartheid which, prior to going to the museum Saadya knew very little about.

Tickets to the museum are randomly stamped "white" or "non-white" with seperate entrances and displays

The museum is quite big and in 3 hours of time we barely made a dent but still felt overwhelmed. The evening saw us sitting down to yet another film, this time "Gorillas in the Mist" which Saadya had never seen and I saw with new eyes. We were not too surprised to find that our knowledge of the background for this film was much broader than before we lived in Rwanda.

Sunday, our last day on this quick jaunt we started the morning in Soweto not only seeing the township but visiting the sites and memorials that were related to the 1976 uprising. As we were leaving our parking spot we had a fortuitous celebrity spotting as Hugh Masakela was pulling in to go teach at the studio upstairs. Saadya, of course, said who? No, HUGH!

After Soweto we went to the Standard Bank building to visit the old gold mine that was found when they were digging to erect the foundation and to see the exhibit of work by Peter Clarke at the art gallery.

Saadya at the gold mine entrance

Our final stop before the airport was a visit to Constitution Hill which houses the old fort, the constitutional court and the prison known as Number Four that housed Gandhi, Sisulu, Mandela and many others. I've decided the next film on Saadya's list will be Gandhi and he is planning to read Mandela's autobiography which should keep him busy all summer.

We returned to Kigali with a few treats for Nava's birthday and ready to prepare for June and the end of our journeys.

THE POSTSCRIPT
Every blog post has a backstory (you may recall I've titled my blog Mbwira ibindi which means 'tell me more') and this one is no exception. In this case the backstory is twofold and related. First, there is the black/white divide that continues to this day, and to my eyes, pervades life in Joburg. Neighborhoods don't appear to be very integrated and certainly there continue to be disparities in health, education, work and other aspects of life. Second, there is the high crime rate and fear of crime that determines how many people and certainly how tourists live their lives around the city. Mbwira ibindi

Julia, Patricia and some gorillas in the mist

2011-05-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

Rwanda's number one tourist attraction is Mountain Gorilla tracking. For weeks now, Patricia has been urging me to amortize my resident visa (foreign residents pay only $250 for a permit, all other foreigners pay $500) and get a permit before the tourist season starts and go see the gorillas. It's not that I didn't want to see the gorillas but the logistics seemed tricky since children can't go and I really wanted to do the whole journey as a day trip. This week, we found out that there were still permits left so I went down to ORTPN and bought two! We then contacted Jacques to drive us, arranged for a sleepover for Nava and adult backup for Saadya who stayed in the house on his own (well, you're never really on your own with house staff around) and off we went on our last big Rwanda adventure to the Virunga Mountains to see Gorilla.
We arrived in Ruhengeri (still can't bring myself to call it Musanze) just after dark and a little shaken by the last bit of driving. Driving in the dark in Rwanda is really treacherous and we just narrowly missed hitting a crazy bicycle rider who was flying down a mountain into the oncoming traffic lane just clipping the car's sideview mirror. We stayed at Muhabura again (I've heard Dian Fossey stayed there) and after checking in we calmed ourselves down with wonderful brochette and beer.

Check in at the Kinigi Center for the tracking was 7:00am. We arrived bright and early though not necessarily chipper after yet another restless somewhat sleepless night in Rwanda. The day looked as though it would be sunny, clear and hot. Groups of eight were formed and we were introduced to our Guide/Tracker, a man named Francis who told us about our Group called Hirwa.

Francis who could talk like a gorilla and knew everything about the members of Hirwa

The Gorilla groups or families are habituated to humans and are visited daily by the park rangers, trackers and tourists. There are 7 groups visited by the tourists and others that are visited only by rangers or researchers. Hirwa lives on Mount Sabyinyo a very majestic volcano. Francis told us about how we should behave around the gorillas and the rules of tracking:

Stay a distance of 22 feet from the gorillas (we ended up breaking that rule)

The boots to the gorilla is 22 feet, the distance we were supposed to be from the gorillas

Viewing time is one hour (we were with the gorillas for more than an hour)
Before we get to the gorillas we will set up a base camp and leave our backpacks since the packs may confuse the gorillas into thinking we have babies on our backs
Try not to make rapid movements that frighten the gorillas (OK, but what do you think we all did when the big silverback made rapid movements that frightened us and seemed ready to walk right over us?)

Francis also let us know that yesterday the Hirwa group was found just inside the park boundaries and that the visitors had an easy hour of observation as the group did not move for the entire time. This description did not sound like much of a mountain jungle adventure but we were ready for action. We drove up to the trailhead feeling grateful for Jacque's driving and his four wheel drive. From the trailhead we hiked up to the park boundary and then in at the point where trackers last saw the Hirwa. After an hour, the trackers who had gone ahead let Francis know that we should leave our packs and move forward to see the gorillas. Francis led the way making gorilla sounds and shortly thereafter we spotted the silverback in the bamboo.

Silverback in the bamboo

A couple of 4 year old gorillas were playing nearby and a mama gorilla was wandering in the area as well. After we had observed the gorillas for about 10 minutes the silverback decided it was time to get up and go and all the gorillas quickly took off up the mountain through the thick brush and bamboo.

Gorillas heading up the mountain

At first I thought that was the end of our gorilla viewing but Francis and the other trackers led the way up and up and up and up and across the volcano using machetes to bushwhack through the jungle. Along the way it started to rain (our raincoats were in the backpacks at our base camp) so now we were slipping and sliding through the jungle in search of the mountain gorilla. Our simple walk in the park turned into a strenuous climb up a treacherous volcanic mountainside. Patricia and I were lucky to be fit and altitude acclimated; our fellow travelers were most definitely not but they managed to make their way often with the help of porters or trackers.

After two hours of finding plenty of gorilla sign (stinky poops and discarded half eaten bamboo shoots) we came down into a gorge and were rewarded with an extended period of viewing of 8 of the Hwira group gorillas including the silverback.

Munching some bamboo shoot

Gorilla hanging on a tree in the MIST!

The upper right is a glimpse of the baby that was hanging onto this mama

Grooming

The silverback

The photos barely do justice to the scenery and the proximity of the gorillas. Patricia wanted to take one home because they do look big and cuddly. For me, there was one startling moment when the silverback walked through our group and almost on my foot after he was startled by a gun going off nearby (probably to scare off buffalo). As he trampled through with his incredible bulk he seemed a frightening figure, but in truth these are beautiful but big and peaceful vegetarians living on the sides of the volcanoes in the land of 1000 hills and I feel pretty lucky to have visited them (THANKS Patricia!).

Yes I'm working!

2011-05-22T07:29:00.000-07:00

This post is for the friend who after noticing that most of these blog posts document our travels and adventures, all of which sound exotic and exciting, asked "are you getting any work done or doing your Fulbright duty or just having the ultimate sabbatical safari?"

I've had a full teaching load this term at Kigali Health Institute. Courses are taught as modules and most of the faculty in the department teach 1-2 modules for a total of 10-20 credits. I was assigned and agreed to teach 3 modules for 23 credits, yes, KHI is getting their Fulbright's worth out of me.

From January until mid-March I taught the Biostatistics module to the 4th year students.
From mid-February until early April I taught the Clinical Epidemiology module to the 3rd year students.
From April until early May I taught an Orthopaedics I module to the 2nd year students.

The 2nd year physio students, all students are supposed to come to class in their lab coats

Teaching was a tricky experience. These students speak fluent Kinyarwanda, in secondary school their instruction was in French and a couple of years ago the language of instruction in secondary and higher education was changed to English. Now I think I have the easiest accent and many students agreed but it turns out my lecture style and joking manner were quite new to them. Very few lecturers use active learning techniques as the most common style of conducting a class is the straight lecture. Often students seemed not know what to make of my methods. I quickly discovered that the trick to successful teaching was to work with material on Monday, review it on Tuesday and start Wednesday with the same material as on Monday with something new added in.

Students do not have textbooks (faculty don't have many themselves) and they rely on published notes that faculty provide (from what I've seen that faculty plagiarize from elsewhere). I felt writing a full set of notes was too much pressure since these notes are essentially textbooks themselves and I couldn't write 3 texts while I was here. Luckily I brought some orthopedics materials to give out to the students and I provided them with the ubiquitous and ugly PowerPoint slide sets that helped me to organize the content.

In between teaching, I have been holding clinic hours Tuesday and Thursday morning at the KHI Kiyovu clinic. Prior to starting their own clinical experiences, the 4th year students would join me in seeing patients.

As of May all of the students are out on full-time clinical experiences. These experiences are SO, SO different from our approach to clinical education in the US. The students go out in groups of usually 6-10 depending on the clinic size. All the clinics are hospital based since all physio here is hospital based. The students are assigned patients and it appears to me that they are often seeing these patients with little supervision. Two days each week a KHI faculty member visits the clinic and the students see patients with the oversight or assistance of a faculty member. Thus far, I've visited Kigali based clinics including King Faisal Hospital, Kanombe Military Hospital, and the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali (CHUK). There are rumors flying about the future of Kanombe Hospital which is near the airport; for the curious, keep your eyes on the US military Africom which apparently may be a partner in the hospital's renovation.

The ultra-modern King Faisal Hospital which was recently accredited by some international group

The waiting area at Kanombe

The gym at CHUK

In the next two weeks I will be out in the provinces at Gatagara and Gahini. I'm not so sure how effective my clinical teaching has been, it's pretty clear that the style of orthopaedic treatment in the U.S. is pretty different from the style here. There is barely any patient documentation written and I've seen loads of use of massage, hot packs, infra-red and a few other modalities that I thought had disappeared with the dinosaurs.

This set up was done by a student after I explained why modalities would be ineffective in this patient's case

Signage at King Faisal, can you say Physical Therapy?

Signage at CHUK now I'm really confused about how to say this in Kinyarwanda

4th years at King Faisal

In addition to teaching and clinic, I've been working with my Rwandan colleagues to assist them with their scholarly endeavors. I've worked on a number of different projects including one that will be presented in June at WCPT (I got last author credit). I'm right now drafting a manuscript for a special issue of the Journal of Physical Therapy Education about the issues with and potential for further research collaboration between US physios and those in developing countries based on my experiences. Aside from helping with my colleagues work, be on the lookout for 2 articles in which I am an author in July of this year (Phys Ther and JOSPT). The finishing work for these articles was completed while I was here. Oh yes, how could I forget, one last piece of scholarly work...that darned book continues to occupy my time. J&B, our publisher now has a website for it so I guess it might be published one day this year.

Adventure and work, I think these past few months we've tried to maintain a balance. If this post sounds like more than a person on sabbatical should be doing...think again...after all, I'm not the chair/program director while here, instead I'm just another faculty member doing her bit and enjoying it too.

Making news in Kigali

2011-05-18T23:03:00.000-07:00

I've found these news items that seem to include something about me. Who knows exactly what they are saying, they are all in Kinyarwanda but I believe they are all about my work as an instructor at KHI and my availability for consultation at the KHI clinic in Kiyovu.

KHI physio clinic story this one comes complete with pictures
Another story about my work in the clinic from the newspaper Izuba
Yet another story about my work in the clinic from a press release on TV/radio by ORINFOR
KHI PR information about me the KHI public relations blog

Enjoy the read!

In which we make an expotition into Uganda and see lions

2011-05-13T21:56:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we again hired Jacques, and drove from Kigali north to western Uganda and the Queen Elizabeth National Park. The border to Uganda is only 1.5 hours from here, we crossed at Gatuna in Rwanda entering into Katuna in Uganda. The frontier crossing was an adventure in itself. Jacques had to go into 4 different offices to get approval to bring the car through, the approval comes in the form of a white slip of paper about 1 inch by 1 inch on which someone wrote in hand, "gate pass." We had to stand in lines to do exit forms for Rwanda and then entry forms for Uganda which included getting photographed and fingerprinted and visa purchase. There was a mass of people, trucks and buses and seemingly very little organization in the whole operation. Before we arrived Saadya was wondering how they handle the switch from right hand side driving to left hand side driving and the answer is...with no clear instructions and often with the road being blocked as trucks and cars all try to make the switch in both directions simultaneously. The entire affair took us about an hour but with visas in hand we headed into Uganda.

The drive was long, we left Kigali around 9:00am and arrived into the outskirts of the park in the early evening as a big storm approached. At the entry to the park we were greeted by some vervet monkeys crossing the road. Further along, we found our first elephants.

Elephants and yes, a rainbow

Our initial plan had been to camp but with the storm looking menacing we enquired about lodgings at Mweya Safari Lodge, somehow we couldn't fork over the $600 per night for lodging (we are just not that type of safari family) and we made our way to the campsite setting up our tents by the light of the car. The campsites at the park were not as pretty as at Akagera and we were sad that we couldn't just travel into the park and set up camp anywhere. Our night's sleep, once again was serenaded by the sounds of hippos, hyenas and this time...lions!

On awakening we noticed the weavers in a bush near our tests and we had our first campsite visitors, marabou and warthogs.

Weaver with a nest

Good morning warthog, aren't you handsome today

Marabou from the backside at our campsite, from the front you see his black raincoat

Nava describes marabou as looking like guys in black raincoats who seem to be dressed for the wrong party. From seeing them at the tops of trees and up close, I'm now pretty sure that it is marabou who have the "Whacha wanna do" conversation in the movie Jungle Book and not vultures who appear much, much more intelligent. After packing up for the day we went to the park office to get our passes and camping permit. The grounds of the office were right in the wandering path of a group of mongoose who seemed to be hoping for a treat.

Banded Mongoose

While at the office, I bought Saadya a true safari hat, I think he looks great in it.

Saadya reading at the camp site in his new safari hat

Queen Elizabeth Park (QEP) has an incredible number of birds (more species than in the entire UK I read somewhere) and other animals. Our list of wildlife spotted increased on this trip and included elephant, banded mongoose, warthog, hippo, Nile crocodile, African buffalo, Ugandan kob, waterbuck, chimpanzees, black and white colobus and vervet monkeys, baron lizard, fruit bat, and many birds like the coucal, palm nut vulture, long crested eagle, fish eagle and Egyptian goose. The park is bordered to the west by the Rwenzhori Mountains and the Congo which make a beautiful back drop, and look very tempting as a hiking location. Lake George marks the north of the park and Lake Edward marks the south. We camped near the Kizinga channel that connects the two lakes.

Our first day we drove off to the track that runs through the crater area. These craters were formed by volcanic explosions and create a really beautiful landscape.

Crater in QEP

There is not much wildlife viewing up near the craters but on the way we did have to stop for an elephant Xing.

Elephant crossing

Safari girls

We lunched at the overpriced Mweya Lodge and then, in the afternoon we took the boat ride on the Kizinga channel which offered a different view of animals and many amazing shorebirds.

Elephants having an afternoon swim

Hippos

We returned to our campsite, as Nava was gathering wood and straw for our fire, we heard a noise and looked up to see an elephant approaching. Patricia quickly called Nava into the rain shelter and the elephant sauntered through the campsite disturbing only the brush but leaving our tentsite intact. That night we were awoken by a very loud hyena paying his visit to us, Jacques got up to look at him and told us in the morning that he was not only loud but pretty large.

Our second day of driving was a quest to find some lions. We had heard that people were seeing a pride not too far from us and drove off hopeful. After a couple of hours of driving, getting lost and looking we were almost ready to give up. The park ranger who we asked encouraged us to go to the "mating grounds" where he just saw 9 lions. We drove up there and noticed quite a bit of freshly killed kob but couldn't find the lions. We circled the mating grounds 2-3 times, and then, suddenly we spotted them resting under some trees and recovering from their feast. The kings and queens of the savannah. Seeing any of these animals in the wild is amazing but seeing a lion in the wild really left me totally awestruck.

Lion, he was panting and exhausted from the hard work of eating his Kob

After two nights in tents, we treated ourselves to an evening at a lodge driving up to the ridge in Kichwimba and staying at the Kingfisher Lodge. From the lodge we had views of the park and with binoculars could even see herds of elephant.

View from Kingfisher Lodge

We had dinner at the overlook and enjoyed a relaxing evening. In the morning, Patricia and Jacques set off to track chimpanzees in the Kyambura Gorge while Nava enjoyed the swimming pool and Saadya and I read.

Kingfisher Lodge had 3 pools and 2 cool water slides

From Patricia's report, they gorge was also beautiful and really different from any other terrain we saw. Although many people track and see nothing, they found the chimpanzees and were treated to quite a show including a teenage chimp showing off his swinging abilities. Doesn't matter your species, teenagers always steal the show.

In the afternoon we drove back to Kigali knowing that this was probably our last BIG family adventure of the trip, as we now enter the final month of our stay in Rwanda.

100 Days

2011-05-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

Mention Rwanda to anyone in the States and the only association they have is of the 1994 Genocide, usually because of viewing the film Hotel Rwanda. Prior to our departure, when I wanted to read about the country most of the books available were focused on the Genocide. It is recent history and it has scarred the lives of all who live here.

I've noted more than once that the beginning of April is marked here by Genocide Memorial Day. In truth it is a period of 100 days of commemoration marking the time from April 6 until July when hundreds of thousands of people were killed. We were not in Rwanda on April 6 and 7 (many ex-pats leave the country to allow the Rwandans a time to mourn) but these two days are marked by memorial marches and official ceremonies of commemoration. There is an official commission, the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide on which you can read more detail about how the 17th commemoration is being marked.

I could never do justice to writing about the Genocide, I won't even try. Here in Kigali we are surrounded by the survivors, the criminals and many returned refugees. Most Rwandans keep their stories to themselves. Every adjective you are thinking right now is appropriate to describe this event.

During early April, Patricia and I did visit the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. The centre has exhibits that describe the genocide and the history that led to it, exhibits on other genocides and it is also a mass burial site that is still active as even today and this month more bodies of victims are being found.

The memorial flame at the centre, it is lit on April 6 and stays lit for 100 days

One of the areas of the mass graves

Why is this night different?

2011-04-29T02:44:00.000-07:00

We returned from our sunny, care-free (well, somewhat) beach vacation in Zanzibar to the spring holiday season (Passover and Easter) and to a country in the middle of the annual mourning period commemorating the Genocide.

There were rumors floating around Kigali that a Chabad Rabbi would be arriving with Matzah and Kosher wine to conduct a seder. With only two days to go before Passover, it was finally confirmed that his trip was cancelled and we were on our own to figure out the matzah and seder. I made a couple of fruitless attempts to contact the Rabbi in Kinshasa (Chabad of Central Africa) to see if he would be our supplier before we decided to just go ahead and make our own. I posted on the local ex-pat list-serve inviting anyone interested to our seder and a few other seder invitations were posted by others as well. Nava, Saadya and I spent Sunday afternoon making matzah. As Nava rolled out here first matzah I noticed the shape quite by accident looked oddly familiar and...voila, we had out African Matzah in the shape of Africa!

Matzah by Nava

On Monday evening we sat down to our seder with two guests, Yaron, an Israeli who is an agricultural specialist here on a private contract working on a project to try to grow wheat and Wendy, an American who is here with "Save the Children" on a 6 month contract. Our seder table was beautifully set with kanga tablecloth from Zanzibar and a mouthwatering charoset that Patricia concocted from native produce (macadamia nuts, cashews, mango, apple and grape juice). There were a few items we couldn't find so we improvised a shank bone and maror. Saadya led the seder and did a great job. Nava was sad to find herself once again the youngest but managed the four questions without the benefit of LGA classroom practice. I had one paper copy of a Haggadah and some pdf files so you'll notice a computer on our table.

Looks like a seder table doesn't it?

Saadya led

Our seder

Our seder disasters were minimal, nobody spilled wine on a white tablecoth and there were no matzah balls to sink to the bottom of our stomachs. I did make a terrible pilau rice and have now been banned from all future rice making activities. Funnier than my rice, Yaron wanted to bring some mixed fruit for dessert but when we opened the can it turned out he had bought an industrial sized batch of mixed tropical fruit jam. Yep, this night was same, different, same.

Friday of that same week was a day-off as Good Friday is a national holiday in Rwanda. Nava and Patricia went to a Antja, Rob and Yana's house to color eggs. Antja and Rob are German and British respectively and are here as architects working on a library project, they arrived in Kigali at about the same time as us, coming from 11 years in Uganda. Their daughter Yana is in 2nd grade at ISK where Nava goes to school. We had to work very hard to get eggs that are whitish to take on the color since most eggs here are brown (with white yolks!) and I thought to buy food coloring from one of the Indian stores where I got a vivid red, green and yellow.

Dyed eggs in a Rwandan basket

Then on Sunday we joined this family and a couple of others for a brunch and egg hunt at their house.

Nava on the hunt for chocolate

The brunch was great, good food, nice social atmosphere and plenty of playmates. The big added bonus is that the yard at Antja's house has some trees that are producing piles of avocado, guava and pomegrantes as long as the local vervet monkeys stay away. Nava came home with both a bag of chocolate and a bag of avocadoes, Saadya, Patricia and I came home with full tummies and the good feeling of having some social ties.

Jambo, Pole-pole, Karibu (yes, that's nearly our full Kiswahili lexicon)

2011-04-20T09:58:00.000-07:00

As I was getting ready to write another posting I was thinking that those of you reading this are probably thinking that all we do is travel around East Africa, take holidays and go on adventures. This posting will reinforce that belief as we are just returned from a 9 day holiday in Zanzibar, but be forewarned, I promise a very dull posting quite soon about the ways in which we spend most of our days in Kigali (sleep, eat, work, go to school). Meanwhile, twende - let's go, I've got stories and over 300 photos to share!

About a month ago we decided to use the two week spring vacation period from Saadya and Nava's school to travel to a beach destination in East Africa. We debated the possibilities...Madagascar, Mombasa, Zanzibar...the costs, the multiple interests and decided to land in Zanzibar. Within a week we got just the right set of flights, the right lodgings, a Tanzanian visa and everything seemed to be smooth sailing. Then about a week before departure we started to get daily notices that our flights were being rearranged by an hour or two first forward in time then backward. Finally, the day before we were set to leave we were notified that our flight had been cancelled but we could be rerouted and would leave at - ouch, 3:00am (in essence gaining a day in Zanzibar). All of these flight changes gave us some worry about how travelling via Kenya Airways would be but we arrived timely though tired. In fact, the U.S. airlines could learn a thing or two from Kenya Airways. On our first flight from Kigali to Nairobi, since everyone was checked in, we left 1/2 hour early and on both of our flights we were served a small meal even though the flying time was no more than 1-1.5 hours; I'll never settle for a soda and a bag of nuts again! For Saadya, the trip offered the thrill of flying on 3 new airlines, Kenya Airways, Precision Air and Rwandair.

Yep, here he is, the pride of Africa on his way from Nairobi to Zanzibar

On getting off the plane we were immediately hit by the fact that we had entered a tropical climate. The long pants and sweaters we needed on leaving Kigali were about to be packed away for 9 days of heat, humidity and a bit of tropical rain. Our first big schvitz occurred while waiting to get through the visa/immigration line, not because we were nervous about the experience but because it was hot and slow, slow, slow. Having the visa in advance was not really helpful as we still needed to go through the form filling out, questioning, and fingerprinting process that marks both the entry and exit from Tanzania. Once out of the airport we were met by an arranged driver and whisked away to our first destination Mbweni Ruins Hotel. The hotel sits just south of Stonetown and incorporates the ruins of a school built in the late 1800's for freed slaves.

Ruins at Mbweni

Old Chapel from the ruins at Mbweni

The hotel also has a long pier that Saadya liked to sit on and read, a beautiful beach and a very nice pool for Nava and kayaks to explore the Mangroves.

View of the hotel from the end of the pier

Our first sunset at Mbweni

The location was perfect for our first explorations which included a trip to a spice farm, exploring Stonetown, and a trip to Jozani forest.

The spice farm trip happened on our first full day over the course of a rainy morning. The rain did not surprise us, April is the beginning of the rainy season in Zanzibar. The benefit of rainy season travel is that there are fewer tourists and prices for many places are lower. We hired a driver and ventured off to see how and where spices are grown on "The Spice Islands." The tour was great fun, our guide on the farm played a typical tourist game with us giving us hints as we moved from plant to plant or tree to tree so that we could guess what was in front of us. We saw, tasted and smelled nutmeg tree, cardomom, clove, ylang-ylang, peppercorn, vanilla, jackfruit, grapefruit, pineapple, cassava, cinnamon, starfruit and coconut as we wandered through the maze of palms, bushes and trees. Each of us was given a banana leaf cone to fill with treasures during our walk. The tour ended with one of the guides climbing a coconut tree and picking fresh coconut from which we drank the juice.

Nutmeg

Vanilla bean

Nava collecting spices

King of the spice tour

The coconut tree climber

Drinking fresh coconut juice

On our way back to Mbweni we stopped at the nearby Kidichi Persian Baths. The baths are a beutiful building that were constructed by Sultan Seyyid in about 1850 for one of his wives. During our 9 days in Zanzibar we made an effort to learn a bit of history. Its a complicated and fascinating history involving trade routes, slave trade and migrations of people to the islands from Portugal, Oman, Persia and the UK. We paid the caretaker to see the inside and were dismayed to see and hear about how the Tanzanian government, in an effort to make care easier, had whitewashed the building so the coloful Persian designs were gone and the stained glass from the ceiling was removed.

Kidichi

As we drove back to Mbweni our stomachs started making the I'm hungry sounds so our driver took us to a popular local eatery called Laakman's for our first taste of Zanzibar/Swahili food. I immediately fell in love with the pilau rice and on a later day found the delight of the spice rice. If I can learn to cook rice properly I now know which spices belong in it.

The following day we explored Stonetown, the large city of the main island of Unguja. In Stonetown we saw so many other Muzungu tourists that it was hard to believe we were there in the off season. Saadya was excited to tour the city since, as he often pointed out, it is a World Heritage Site. We visited all the typical tourist sites learning some important history and seeing the amazing mix of city market area, narrow alleys, mosques and architecture that is part Moorish, part Persian and part Indian.

Fish Market

Bananas in the market

Spices for sale

A Stonetown alley

We managed to avoid Freddy Mercury's house (yep, he was originally from Stonetown) and ended our day at the Mtoni palace ruins which was the palace of Sultan Said where Princess Salme was born. Your very own brief history of Zanzibar (and a recipe for Pilau Rice) can be found at ZanzibarNet. While we were travelling in Zanzibar, Patricia bought a copy of Memoirs of an Arabian Princess in its original German, read it and filled us in on much of the history.

As wonderful and exotic as Zanzibar, Stonetown and our travels were, we also got some insight into the politics and issues that boil underneath the whitewash that is presented to tourists. Our drivers told us of the problems of corruption and bribery, the government that makes promises but doesn't come through. We saw the poverty and the effects of the high rates of unemployment. We saw trash everywhere as the island has no sustainable approach to dealing with waste disposal. The 3 hotels/resorts at which we stayed were all owned by Europeans so although we were contributing to the island economy much of our money was making its way back to the western world (except at Chumbe). At our last hotel, Patricia and I explored by bike the neighboring towns and saw the poor living conditions that those who stay behind the resort walls never see. In sum, like in most "fabulous" resort locations, the locals are not enjoying the sun, fun and food that we can afford. This tainted but did not ruin our vacation, better to know and see than to ignore.

Our final day at Mbweni we took a trip to Jozani Forest where we walked through a beautiful lush forest, a boardwalk through a mangrove swamp and visited with the Red Colubus Monkeys.

Red Colubus

Our forest walk

The next morning we awoke and took a ferry for a two night stay at Chumbe Island. I can't even begin to describe how special the stay on the island was. Chumbe Island is a privately owned and protected reef sanctuary and forest preserve. The island is a true eco-tourism site creating a minimal footprint, providing important edcational programming, conducting marine research and protecting the preserve. We felt as if we were treated like royalty. Two days of snorkeling, beach and forest exploration, amazing accomodations and gourmet food served always near the beach or in the evening, by candlelight on the beach. On our first day, within hours of arriving, all 4 of us were taken out snorkeling on the coral reef sanctuary. Our guide taught us what we needed to know, helped Nava and Saadya and we were off into the amazing watery wonders swimming with beautiful fish (yes, even Nemo was there) and even seeing and swimming with sea turtles. By the second day, Nava was off and snorkeling on here own (Saadya got sick and had to skip day 2) and identifying the tropical fish as she went along. If you ever find yourself thinking about a trip to Zanzibar Chumbe Island is a MUST VISIT site.

Chumbe as we approached from the boat

Our bungalows

First floor of one of the bungalows, sleeping quarters were up the ladder

Coconut crab (they only come out at night)

Nava with a fossilized giant clam

Exploring the Chumbe beach

As sorry as we were to leave Chumbe, we were certainly feeling relaxed and begining to get our tans on.

Tanned and relaxed!

Next stop, Pongwe Beach Hotel, a resort renowned for its beautiful beach and infnity pool. Our goal at Pongwe was to spend our last 3 days roaming the beach and not really going anywhere. GOOD NEWS, we accomplished this very difficult goal finding it nowhere nearly as difficult as it may sound to you. Nava spent three days clad only in a bathing suit, creating shell gardens and swimming. Saadya relaxed and continued to recuperate from his bout of Zanzibaritis. Patricia and I ventured out on bicycles to see a bit of the surrounding area. Nava, Patricia and I tried our hands at kayaking. We all walked up and down the beach, hung out at the pool and continued to feast on seafood. The photos capture some of our Pongwe time but none of the amazing turqoise, purple and blue colors of ocean.

Sunrise walk

Kayaking

More kayaking

Our Zanzibari Bed

Our seashell garden

Nava on the beach wrapped in a Kanga

The view toward the beach at Pongwe

Our exotic Zanzibar journey came to a close with a quick flight from Zanzibar to Dar and another round of fingerprinting as we left Tanzania arriving back to the cool air, the clean streets and the now familiar sights and sounds of Kigali, the place we are currently calling home.

Adventure is out there!

2011-04-03T21:49:00.000-07:00

From the title, you might guess that we've watched the movie "Up" a few more times since arriving here and you'd be right. It may take 8-9 hours but if we stay in Kigali on weekends we will typically download and watch a movie on at least one weekend evening. Turns out, Kigali is not exactly a hotspot for culture or other evening activities. There is one cinema which sometimes shows films but with no clear schedule, there are dance clubs which the trendy young-set (including the KHI students) sometimes go to and not much else. I've more than once asked the students what do you do on weekends, to which they respond, we play, we rest, we visit and some go dancing. PLAY? Ah you've fallen prey to the mistake I often make, Rwandans have difficulty pronouncing the "R" sound they are not playing, they are praying. We have even heard a few people tell us they "play god on Sunday." Since we can't play god, we work very hard to find exciting things to do in town and, as often as we are able, we get out and look for the adventures.

In Kigali, this past Wednesday, Patricia, Gwenn and I ventured into the offices of Gahaya Links. Gahaya Links was founded by two sisters after the Genocide to train rural women in crafts so that the widows could generate some income. We met one of the sisters, Janet Nkubana who told us about their work. Initially they focused only on basket weaving, now they create jewlery and are branching into tailoring/sewing work. The center continues to train women in handicrafts and provide a fair wage for each of the items the women produce. Many of the women who work or train in the center have HIV/AIDS and they are able to come to Gahaya without facing some of the difficulties and stigma they would elsewhere. Janet was the recipient of a USAID grant some years back that allowed her to attend a trade show in Europe. She made some contacts there and now Gahaya Links products can be purchased at Macy's (Rwanda Baskets at Macy's), via Oprah, and in some other shops in Europe. Janet showed us this month's Marie Clare which features a handbag with the Kate Spade label on it which is actually a Gahaya Links made product (Kate Spade...by Gahaya Links). We toured the Kigali based workshop and bought a few items to bring back to the states.

Paper bead making at the workshop (paper recycling in Rwanda!)

Jewelry Construction

Baskets

Baskets and wall hangings

We hope to see a few more cooperatives and workshops before we leave Kigali but Gahaya Links is certainly one of the more succesful and larger examples. Through their training and connections Gahaya provides wages to women both in the city and in the rural regions who might not otherwise have sufficient money.

This past weekend, we traveled to Kibuye by Lake Kivu and stayed in the most amzingly gorgeous setting at the Cormoran Lodge. Lake Kivu is a large and very deep lake that is part of the Albertine Rift. It defines the border between Rwanda and DRC. The drive out to the lake is along a very windy and mountainous road. After this drive, I suspect Rwanda might be better named land of a few hundred thousand hills or maybe land of high mountains, with windy roads. It is a beautiful drive but as the driver somewhat exhausting and for us, it dumped us on a windy, rutted, rock filled dirt road that felt like it just couldn't be right, especially since we weren't driving a 4-wheel drive car. Luckily, the reward at the end of all this tricky navigation was a private and exquisitely laid out hotel with amazing views, a great room, a little beach and a good restaurant. The lodge is built on a hillside with individual buildings all constructed from wood. Inside each building, the rooms and even the bathrooms are gorgeous, nice woods, large tub, local stone inlays and a balcony on which to relax. I started playing with the panorama mode (as you'll see below) on our camera so you may get some sense from the photos of the expanse and setting.

The view from our room

Cormoran Lodge

Our room with a view

View of the mountains that surround Lake Kivu

Saturday, when we arrived was sunny and warm. Our room is the one in the photo above that is the highest of all the buildings. We settled into our room, Nava, Patricia and I changed to swimsuits and spent the afternoon at the beach and on the dock. Patricia took a swim in the rather cold waters. Saadya mostly stayed in the room since he is not a beach person but he did enjoy wandering the property which includes beautiful trees and gardens. The trees produce the fruit from which our breakfast jams on the next day were made (I could eat homemade Guava jam every day with a lake view).

The beach (Nava and Patricia on the left)

In the evening we sat on the balcony of the restaurant enjoying both the meal and the view. Saadya and I ate Lake Kivu fish in the spirit of our water adventure. We returned to our well appointed room with games from the office and full bellies. Since we needed an extra bed, Saadya got the on the floor mattress which was placed in a tent to give him a pretty cool version of a mosquito netting.

Our room as we prepare for evening

Aside from some noisy partying folks the overnight stay was fantastic. And even those noisy folks (at least the ones below us) got their just due when we stomped around our room in the morning and oops, dropped a few heavy items on the floor. Breakfast included fresh bread and jams made from the local fruits. We left Cormoran and drove into Kibuye where we took a boat ride for an hour to see a bit more of Kivu. Admittedly we could have hired a boat at Cormoran but the cost was unbelievable and the boat was a typical western motor boat. We got to ride on a sort of dhow with a motor. At about the halfway point, we were met near the shore by a guy on a moto who our "captain" had called to bring more fuel.

On the boat

Loaded with fuel, we cruised around the lake as a storm approached, seeing the birds and islands. The islands had some cows on them which our captain told us had swum over from the mainland.

Just as the day started to get rainy and stormy we took off in our car and drove back to Kigali renewed and refreshed from our Lake Kivu and Cormoran Lodge visit.

This week marks the beginning of the Genocide Memorial period for the country. Thursday and Friday will be formal memorial days but the period of mourning lasts for the entire 100 days to match the time period of the Genocide. We aren't really sure just what will occur during this time and how the period is marked. On Friday when I went to the Serena for instance I was told the gym would be open for all of April but that there would be no formal classes (aerobics, toning) for the entire month since they don't play music.

Saadya and Nava have a two week vacation from school and KHI is off as well. Like many ex-pats, we will take leave of Rwanda for some of this time and are off to Zanzibar later in the week.

You say Huye, I say Butare

2011-03-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we took a trip south (I drove!) to Butare the city that is home to the National University of Rwanda(NUR) and the National Museum. The government has renamed some of the larger cities in Rwanda so Butare is supposed to be called Huye (and Ruhingere is supposed to be called Musanze) but I have yet find anyone other than tourists who call the renamed cities by their new names. The new names are supposed to help with differentiating province names from city names so I guess government officials probably are among the only Rwandan users of the name Huye. Butare is about 2.5 hours south of Kigali, once it was the capital and center of culture in Rwanda. Now, it is a city with a very busy but short main street and lots of residential areas. Our goal was to visit the area, see the museums and visit with Kate and her husband Okan. Kate is also here on a Fulbright, she is a professor of environmental biology at Columbia University and she studies mammals (Kate's CU website) while here she is teaching at NUR and supposedly setting up a research station in Nyungwe Forest. In typical fashion her research is being held up by an incredibly difficult and tiresome beuracracy that will not issue her a permit (with each inquiry into the permit process she gets a slightly different story from the Rwandan Development Board/RDB).

Our first stop on the road was at Gatagara Pottery cooperative. The Twa are a pygmy people who live in Rwanda. One of the crafts at which they excel is pottery and in Gatagara there is a cooperative at which a number of people work and sell their crafts. Unfortunately, Saturday was not a work day but the manager came and showed us around the work area and we bought some pottery while we were there. I really wanted to bring home this very ingenious hand washing pot they had that had a spigot operated by foot but we could never get it on the plane back home.

After Gatagara we drove on to Nyanza to visit the old royal palace museum. The first part of the visit is to the "modern" palace which was built in the 1930's by the Beligans. The building itself was unimpressive and the exhibits had posters that were way too wordy and difficult to read. However, the photos of the king (mwami) and the old newsreel was pretty fascinating and fun to watch. We learned about the kings who ruled from 1853 - 1961: Kigeli IV (Rwabugiri), Mibambwe IV, Yuhi IV, Mutara III and Kigeli V. Kigeli is now living in the U.S. and has a website which really details the history of the monarchy (HM King Kigeli V).
Near the modern palace and has part of the museum is a reconstructed King's hut which we got to go into and learn about courtesy of an excellent guide from the museum. I didn't pay the extra fees to take photos but here is a smaller reconstruction from the museum we went to in Butare.

King's Hut reproduction at the National Museum

The King's hut is marked by three large poles sticking out of the roof and its immense size (not as obvious in this photo). Since there are no doors on the huts there is an entry way or foyer area marked off by some concrete or stones. The entry way was guarded but if a prisoner sentenced to die managed to touch this pole he could have his sentence cancelled and be set free. As you see below, Nava got there.

Behind the King's hut were two smaller huts, one for milk making and the other for beer making. Behind that were the King's cows, a true sign of wealth. The king sat on a special chair while everyone else sat on the floor. Here King Saadya demonstrates

I found it hard to imagine how these 6 foot and taller kings managed this teeny but obviously very special stool. The King and Queen slept together in the King's bed surrounded by the baskets that contained their jewels and wardrobe.

The basketry you see here is one of the amazing handcrafts that is still done in Rwanda today. Baskets range in size from very small to bigger than Nava

On the way to Butare we passed and stopped off at some of the basket weaver's stands and made a couple of purchases.

In Butare we lunched with Kate and Okan at what they claim is one of the only places to eat. We wandered down the street to Inzozi Nziza for ice cream. Inzozi Nziza was founded by the owners of Blue Marble Dreams Ice Cream in Brooklyn. The ice cream was OK (Nava and Saadya both say Bourbon in Kigali is better) and the shop was notably empty. Kate says she doesn't think many Rwandese actually eat there. After ice cream we walked back to our cars and drove down to the National Museum. The museum was excellent, a well curated set of exhibits that depicted the history and culture of the country. We got to see displays of the money used here over the years, the clothing worn, basketry, dance garb and drums among other things. It was hard to leave the museum for all of us but ultimately we had to return to Kigali and I ended up managing my first foray into night driving in Rwanda (OK so my traps are still not recovered from my death grip on the steering wheel).

Sunday was Purim and we had promised Saadya and Nava that we would not be on the road. In an effort to get us all in the mood I got all dressed up, made some bad Hamentaschen and we made some noise whenever anyone mentioned Haman. Yeah, you say Haman and I say Huye!

Purim in Kigali...all dressed up with nowhere to go

Bon Appetit!

2011-03-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

Today I did not go to my office and instead worked from home and ran a few errands (quick trip to the Tanzanian High Commission to get our tourist visas for...Zanzibar!). The best of these errands was a trip to Kimironko market with Patricia. Kimironko is a huge and very busy market area with sections for fabric (waxes), clothing, shoes, household goods, baskets and food. We bought a few more hand-woven baskets and some fabric but I was excited to get to the food. The food section is amazing, baskets full of beans/Ibihyimbo of all different colors, piles of vegetables and fruits and pyramids of flour.

Some weeks back I wrote about our food difficulties but today I'm going to quickly write about some of the foods I'm really enjoying here. First of all, if you like avocadoes then this is the place for you - avocadoes are large, plentiful and delicious. I've made a guacamole (OK, so there are no tortilla chips worth eating here) and at least once a week we have bean and rice burritos stuffed with avocado. Other vegetables that we can buy fresh and eat include aubergine, cabbage, potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, carrots and lettuce. Now you may have heard the warning for travellers to Africa - if you can't peel it or cook it, you can't eat it; and while that is true, our housekeeper learned many years ago from some previous employers a method of washing our vegetables in "medicine" so that our stomachs can handle them. I think the medicine is some type of low intensity chlorine and it seems to work.

Fruits make me very very happy here - we get fresh pineapple, bananas, papaya, mango, passion fruit and maracuja. I'm mad about maracuja and passionate about passion fruit. Maracuja is a golden passion fruit that is incredibly tasty, sweet and juicy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passiflora_edulis. Patricia even made a maracuja mousse one night that was really delicious. The bananas are a different variety from what we are used to, smaller and less sweet but still lovely. Bananas grow all over this country and there are larger ones (more expensive) and then green ones that can be cooked into Matoke which is a delicious cooked banana mash with vegetables. The first time I ate Matoke I thought it was some type of potato.

Today's big (and I mean big) find was a jackfruit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackfruit). This thing weighed about 6 pounds and Patricia carried it home from the market like a little baby which prompted much laughing and stares from the Rwandans who would never carry anything without a bag of some sort much less treat it like a little baby. We ate it at lunch and it was pretty good, a bit like a less sweet banana with these huge pits that I want to make into beads. Patricia mixed the jackfruit, banana and maracuja into a vanilla yogurt and declared it delicious. We also bought part of a cane sugar stalk and all of us are sucking and snacking on the sweet juice this afternoon.

I looked all over the market today for tree tomatoes and while I did not find them, I usually enjoy a daily dose of tree tomato juice after my workout. As a substitute, today I made some tea from moringa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa) and leaves lemongrass. I like it, but Chantal, our housekeeper, says that moringa is not good tasting and is only a medicine. Its true, moringa is an amazing leaf loaded with vitamins, amino acids and protein.

Rwandan cuisine in general is nothing to write home or even blog home about. Saadya and Nava in particular have had a hard time finding food they like because the western look alikes (eggs, milk products, pizza, french fries, etc.) taste nothing like what they are used to. We have found a couple of bakeries that make breads that we all like and for unbelievable prices have been able to buy some jams and canned foods imported from Europe. If only Saadya ate more fruits and vegetables he would be much better off but he is a meat and potato boy from way back and Rwanda will not convert him. Nava enjoys the fruits, eats some vegetables and has become a big fan of our weekly burrito night.

As for me, I could be satisfied with my avoka, matoke, inkinyomoro, moringa tea, marakuja and invanje.

Camping à Kagera

2011-03-10T20:15:00.000-08:00

We took a three day weekend, hired Jacques (our amazing naturalist, driver, cultural translator, camping equipment supplier, and guide) and went to Akagera National Park. Jacques actually told us that in Kinyarwanda the park is named Kagera but with all the French speakers over many years saying "nous allons à Kagera" the name was joined with its preposition to become Akagera. Let me start with the list we made last night of all the wildlife interactions we had and then I'll describe the trip, the park and all of our experiences.

Animals we saw: Impala, Topi, Vervet monkeys, Baboon, Mongoose, Zebra, Buffalo, Girafe, Warthogs, Hippopotamus, Reedbucks, Waterbucks, Crocodile, Leopard
Bird sightings: Marabou stork, Weavers, Eagle, Kingfisher, Grey Crowned Crane, Goliath Heron, Cormorant, African Jacana, Francolin
Animal signs and tracks: Python track, Elephant scat, Aardvark holes
Animal sounds at night: Baboon, Leopard, Impala, Hippopotamus, Hyena

Are you impressed? Did you feel like saying "oh my"? I can't even find the adjectives to describe our awe and wonder at the beauty of this park. Here then, is our camping story complete with a few photos.

We drove off to Akagera on Saturday morning. The terrain on this trip is quite different from that of North Rwanda, flatter with many more areas for larger herds of cattle. Most Akagera trips are to the south entrance of the park but Jacques took us north because he feels it is more beautiful, less traveled and there are more animals. We arrived at the north park entrance around 1:00, even before the entrance we spotted Impala wandering among the cattle. Jacques told us about the reduction of the park's lands after the genocide to provide places for the returning exiled Rwandans to live. The park is now 1/2 of its size before 1994 and though many animal populations have returned, there are no lions because they were killed to protect the cattle.

At the entrance to the park, I found a weaver nest. Later we saw a tree that was filled with the nests of a whole colony of yellow weavers. Seeing the nest up close helped us to appreciate the intricacy of creating these structures for the birds.

The entry way to the park is a woodland and immediately we spotted baboons and vervet monkeys (Nava: "what is the blue thing on those monkeys?" Me: "Um, uh, its their private parts" - seriously the male vervet monkeys have, well, sort of a torquoise coloring).

Vervet Monkey

The woodland soon opens up into a plain that was full of birds, buffalo, antelope of various types (topi, etc.) and zebra

Topi

Buffalo and Egrets

Zebra

The park's buffalo are dangerous and mean. When they are in herds they will not attack but a lone buffalo will attack a human who is not safely ensconced in a car. For that reason, as tempting as it would have been to hike everywhere, Jacques insisted that we stay close to our car, or at our campsite, close to our campsite.

Oh, did I say birds on the planes? Many small birds flew around our car and then we spotted some large Marabou Storks wandering around. Although they look awkward when walking up in the sky they are amazing flyers. We drove toward some vultures who were enjoying someone else's kill (a topi). I couldn't help but start to quote from Jungle Book when I saw the vultures..."whachyouwannado?" but they didn't look as if they wanted to start a conversation.

Marabou Storks

Vultures

Up the hill from the planes area we drove into a grove of trees and were greeted by some taller friends snacking on the tree tops

At about this moment it really all felt surreal, we cautiously got out of the car and found ourselves hanging out with a family of giraffes.

After this amazing first experience with game viewing Jacques drove us deeper into the park to seek out our campsite for the night and to see more of the terrain. Akagera has a beautiful landscape variation from plain Savannah to bush and woodland Savannah all surrounded by mountains and filled with lakes. I think as Jacques drove our mouths were always open in wonder and each time we spotted an animal, flower or bird we had to hold ouselves back from shouting. To his credit, Jacques was patient and always willing to stop to let us view most anything.

Here is where we ended up camping

Our campsite had a view of two lakes and was up on a hill. We set out to put up the tents, two of which were easy and one of which was confusing to say the least. It took some time and after getting the tents pitched we gathered firewood and made a campfire to cook our meat (no, not our kill, poaching, thank goodness, is illegal). Nava delighted in gathering rocks to build the firering and by the time we left the campsite two nights later she had constructed the perfect stone wall.

Two nights of hard Rwandan ground may have been tough on our aging backs (Saadya and Nava never complained) but completely worthwhile for the experience of being out of a car in the park, hearing or viewing our night visitors and seeing the night sky that was full of stars and distant lightening. On the first night the loud noises we heard were hyenas and hippos. In the morning I asked Jacques what that barking dog sound was, turns out it was the baboons. On the second night Patricia and I were awoken at 2am by a very loud sound that we could not identify. We heard Jacques get up to get the fire stoked up and then he called us and asked if we wanted to see a LEOPARD!! Yes, we saw a leopard out hunting at night, a very rare sight. Jacques stayed up for a few hours to follow his movements and it turns out there was not one but two leopards around our campsite.

In the morning it rained and we drove to the lakeside to see some of the water animals

In the photo above you can probably spot the Hippos, but can you find the crocodile? Hippos are noisy noisy guys in the water; constantly huffing and puffing and blowing out water.

We spent most of the morning driving around the park, returned to our campsite for a brief respite and then went out again in the late afternoon for more viewing. The next day we asked for one more visit to the Savannah plain area and to the giraffes and we made our way out of the park.

In total, I probably took well over 200 photos (most of which came out fuzzy and hard to see) and we had well over 200 different things happen that I could have written about, maybe you can still get a feel for it all from this posting; I hope so!

Pomp and Circumstance...KHI Style

2011-02-28T23:51:00.000-08:00

Friday was the 7th graduation ceremony at KHI (KHI Graduation Links) with 324 graduates in the disciplines of Physiotherapy, Nursing, Bio-Medical Laboratory Sciences, Dental Therapy, Ophthalmology, Medical Imaging and Environmental Health Sciences. I would have been very happy to simply view the proceedings but as it turned out, I took on a larger role as I agreed to lead the academic procession and carry the institute's mace. It was quite an honor, but for those of you who need a good laugh, try out this image. You can well imagine why I was concerned that this short very pale looking person might be considered more of a comic spectacle than a leader of a serious and consequential academic event.

I am wearing the gowns that those (and there are very few) who have PhD's wear, not exactly my colors - green and pink with a really humorous hat and none of my PT colleagues from SC were there to help me dress. Here are my new colleagues at KHI, a rowdy bunch when it comes to graduation ceremonies.

The ceremony was held in the KHI courtyard and we were lucky to have a day without downpours

I was actually not the first person to enter the procession, first came the dancers and drummers (here a photo of them relaxing before the ceremony). These students performed traditional Rwandan dance while other students drummed and sang. No Pomp, no circumstance for an academic procession here, just drums!

After the dancers two students carried the flags, then me, then the singers, then the faculty and the honored guests who included the Rector, the KHI board and the Minister of Education. I got to hear for the first time the Rwandan National Anthemn (and for the second time at the end of the ceremony); Rwanda Nziza "Rwanda our Beautiful Country." For a ceremony of only a few hundred graduates it felt long and hot and I was lucky enough to sit among the honored guests who got water bottles to drink because with the heavy robes and length of the day I was feeling a little dizzy. There were speeches by the Rector, the Minister and a student speaker. Awards for the "best students" and of course the conferring of degrees. The speeches, quite different from the U.S. focused on the idea that these graduates are prepared now to serve their nation and to help with development; I couldn't help but think about the very different nature of US graduation speeches that focus on personal development and professional development as US gradautes leave their institutions prepared for further study, careers, earning money and families. The ceremony was both similiar and incredibly dissimilar to the commencements I've attended in the U.S. sans the Elgar piece that is probably now running through your head.

After the ceremony there was a cocktail reception for the honored guests and faculty. I stayed and personally met the Minister of Education (well we talked a bit about the possibility that I might provide some clinical services for his family and my teaching). The day was long and unusual and 324 KHI graduates are now ready to serve Rwanda.

Weekend in Ruhengeri

2011-02-21T09:51:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday morning we arranged for Jacques, who has become our tour guide and driver for our longer journeys in the country, to pick us up and take us to Ruhengeri and Parc National Des Volcans. The trip is not long, only about 2 hours, because the roads are pretty good. The park is the location for mountain gorillas (yes, those "Gorillas in the Mist" guys) trekking and some very costly hiking trips.

On Saturday, Jacques took us first to see Lake Burera, a very large lake with a dirt road that goes up and down the steep hills and around the lakes' perimeter of beautiful coves and farm land. The day was cloudy and the threat of rain was always present but the clouds and rain really made for a more enchanting visual over the lake.

Lake Burera

Jacques brought us to a lovely spot to picnic and he very nicely chased away the ever present children interested in the Muzungus. We wanted to walk or hike but having a crowd of children chasing after us made it difficult. In the end we drove further on the road and then Jacques dropped us off so we could get a bit of a stroll at least just back up to the car. Along the way we were rewarded by spotting two crown cranes, one in flight. These are huge and amazing birds!

Jacques drove us up to see the Virunga Lodge http://www.volcanoessafaris.com/safari-lodges/virunga-safari-lodge/. Earlier I called to inquire about the cost per night to stay at this fancy and famous safari lodge, and what a bargain it is at $600 per person per night (Nava's stay would have been discounted a bit). We drove up because I just wanted to see the amazing views and perhaps have a drink. We were rewarded with $3 sodas and coffees on the lodge porch and some truly amazing views. The lodge is situated on a very high mountain between Lake Burera and Lake Ruhondo. We walked a bit around the lodge. Of course as we got to the edge of the short lodge trails a group of children came running over to...see the Muzungus (by the way I now charge 500RWF a minute for viewings and extra if Nava talks). Then the first rains came and we sat on the porch watching the storm clouds roll in and out. As they rolled out we got some great glimpses of the volcanoes.

Volcanoes

Saadya trying to look like a rich Muzungu on the porch of Virunga Lodge

Rains coming in

From the Virunga Lodge we traveled toward the entrance to the park to try to get another small walk and this time we were succesful as Saadya and Nava chose to stay at the car and Patricia and I walked a bit along the road as dusk was approaching. Not only did the movement feel good (and needed) we both agreed that traveling along the road by foot gave such a different feel. In the evening we stayed at a hotel in Ruhengeri, and no, we did not stay in the "Dian Fossey" room.

Sunday morning we rose early, had a good breakfast and went to the park headquarters to purchase our Golden Monkey treking passes (at $100 each, much cheaper than the $500 gorilla passes). Just as we were ready to take off on our trek it started to pour, we jumped in the cars to get to the trail and as we drove up to the trail the rain turned to hail. Lucky for us, the hail stopped and we hiked in with our guide, a tracker and protection (yes, a man with a big gun. I thought it was because we were close to the border but actually we were told it was to protect us from buffalo that might attack). The "trail" was really now a fast running stream and the rain just kept coming. We got to the edge of the bamboo forest where the monkeys live and the tracker and protection man went in to see what they could find while we waited, and waited, and waited in the pouring cold rain for the signal to join them. At about this point we began to wonder if this might not be one of the reasons that people think the Muzungus are odd, here we were freezing and soaked and we paid just how much to do this? After what seemed an interminable wait in the fields our guide got a call on the walkie talkie that they had sighted some monkeys. We finally got to go into the bamboo forest, and after a short walk saw our first monkey. Hard to see but we felt OK, now we've seen something. Then our guide kept us moving and bushwhacking through the forest and as we moved we saw more and more and more monkeys. It was really getting exciting, we saw babies, adolescents and adults. Nava was trying to keep count (she says we saw over 200) because the guide promised us at least 20 monkey sightings.

Bamboo forest and a monkey

The guide finally led us back to the wall at the edge of the park where all the monkeys were gathered. I have tons of photos but this one will at least let you see just how proximate we were by the end.

Nava wanted to take one home

Wet and cold, we returned to the car, changed up and drove back to Kigali where the sun was shining and it was quite hot.

As a side note, I'm glad we immediately downloaded all of these photos from our camera. Today, as Nava was walking home from school, she was taking some pictures of flowers on the road to our house when a man grabbed the camera from her hands and ran. We will still post photos of our trip but the quality will probably be much lower. Kigali is a "safe" city but like every city petty crime is rampant.

Murisanga (please feel at home?)

2011-02-17T11:04:00.000-08:00

Now that we've been here a month, it seems time to describe the ins and outs of daily life for us. Believe it or not, we are just as exciting (or perhaps just as dull) as we are in the States.

Our House: We are settling into our house. Here is our address...we live in Kimihurura/Rugando, travel down the street opposite Parliament, after you pass the corner shop and the signs for ISK you keep going down the hill and then you come to the yellow bar, take a sharp left and look for the bright yellow gate; that's our house. No, we don't have a street address, noone does and very few streets have names. Naming streets and providing street addresses are in the long term plans for the future of this city. In the meanwhile just look for that yellow bar and you know you are near our house. When you get here, you can find the bell that is hidden in the bushes and ring, one of our guards or our housekeeper will let you in. The house itself, like all houses here is in a walled in "compound." We live in proximity to our neighbors but never see them (though trust me, we hear them). Compared to the wealthy (very very wealthy) ex-pat community our house is quite simple. We have 4 bedrooms, a guest room, a kitchen, a dining room and a seating area. The best part of our house is the back porch. This past weekend we went out and bought some plants and now this is where we sit for afternoon tea if we are home. Most afternoons we are not here for tea because of work or school but it is still a nice place to sit.

New beautiful planting on right

Daily life: Just like in the States, I am the first one up each morning (well, our night guard is supposed to be up all night but I think I've seen him snoozing in the early hours of the morning). When I arise around 5:00am it is 10:00pm in Northampton so I get up in today while the most of you are living in yesterday and about to get into bed. At about 6:00am our guard plugs in the water heater so we can have hot showers (if we have water and if the heater works). By 7:00am the house is really hopping, Saadya and Nava are getting ready for school and Chantal our housekeeper has arrived.

Chantal in our Kitchen

Breakfast like most meals here is a struggle. The food we eat is always just a hair off, for instance we have tried so many different forms of milk but none of them taste right in cereal or tea so now we only use milk for cooking. Breads are tricky because they tend to last about one day and then you can use them as baseball bats. I'd say that thus far the biggest complaints in our house are food based complaints. To her credit, Chantal tries very very hard to please our disciminating palates. Once breakfast is over Saadya and Nava walk to school and I get picked up by a driver for the trip downtown to KHI. In the afternoon, Saadya and Nava return home, most often walked by Patricia, and once my work day is over I get driven back and we try our hardest to enjoy dinner. Most dinners are declared a success when 2 or more of us enjoy the food! I think both Saadya and I have lost at least 10 pounds here (Dr. Atkins look out, have I got a diet book in my future...).

I do have a new "vice" in my day. I took a membership at the Serena Hotel spa. The Serena is the fanciest hotel in this city, 5 stars, and it is a couple of blocks from KHI. Now each day at lunch I go to a very chic, western style gym (well the TV is usually set to Al Jazeera, not exactly like Hampshire YMCA), I workout and then enjoy the fresh juice and other amenities of the spa. It is luxurious and I get my exercise.

School, ISK (http://www.isk-rwanda.org/), has thus far worked quite well for both Saadya and Nava. Nava has already had a number of playdates and gets along well with her classmates. Saadya is involved in an afterschool activity for students at international schools in which he is trying to create a news story for a competition. One of Saadya's new subjects is debate and, not surprisingly, he seems to enjoy it very much. Both children are also having French class though I'll be surprised if they leave here being able to say much more than croissant and baguette.

Weekends: Thus far, weekends have been tricky because we don't have a car and have discovered that being in this city carless is very difficult and gives one a land-locked feeling. We do sometimes take bus adventures and a couple of times have hired a driver. Last weekend we hired a driver to help us get the plants for our yard. The weekend before we took a bus adventure to Caplaki, a crafts market. We got to the market easily enough with just a brief interlude under a tree with some school children while it poured. Shopping for crafts was fun...

Nava at Caplaki learning the basket balancing skill

but the return trip home was frustrating as we stood at the bus stop while bus after bus passed us by. I guess we don't know the secret signal to getting buses to stop for us as yet. Patricia is now our most savvy bus traveler as she has used busses both within and outside the city. We hope that we will do some more travel outside the city in the next weeks.

Weather OK, you New Englanders have had a snowy winter and I shouldn't be complaining but the heat has been tough on us all. Last week it was in the high 80's most every day. This week we have had amazingly hard rains and tremendous thunder/lightening storms. We are not shoveling snow but we have been too hot and too wet in between being just right and seeing the rainbow.

Yes, our daily life, like daily life everywhere, is the sum of things that work, things that don't, moments of feeling homesick and disgusted, and moments of pleasure and happiness.

Mean, Median, Bill Gates and Prof. Julia

2011-02-08T07:11:00.000-08:00

The first module I am teaching at KHI is biostatistics for the 3rd year physiotherapy students. Like the American students, very few of them enjoy it but they seem to be tolerating my teaching and teaching style and we are getting used to each other. Last week, I was teaching about measures of central tendency and talking about choosing the right measure to match the data and the distribution. In describing the choice of median over mean as a measure I asked the students to think of a measure that produce a skewed distribution. Since they could not, I decided to give them the tried and true example of income. I asked them who the richest person they could think of was and they all easily answered Bill Gates (he visited Rwanda and his foundation funds projects here). I then asked them how much income they thought he generated each year and his net worth they guessed around 1 million dollars of income and 6 Billion worth (underestimate but who knew??). I drew Bil Gates on a graph on the board and then I asked them what they thought my income might be and where the "average" American income would sit on my graph. They thought that I must earn close to Bill Gates because, like him, I come from THAT country. I proceeded to draw on the board a graph that looks like this one:

Then I showed them that my income while quite generous by both US and, of course, Rwandan standards is not pulling the distribution as much as Bill Gates. It was surprising for them to learn.

They seemed to understand median as a measure and more importantly, they seemed genuinely surprised that Bill Gates' current worth is in the millions while Prof. Julia's current worth...well...its just not worth discussing. They learned about skewed distributions and I learned about their skewed beliefs.

Sorwathé

2011-02-04T01:28:00.000-08:00

February 1, 2011

Kigali

Tuesday was National Heroes Day (somewhat like our Veteran’s Day) so we all had the day off. We decided to hire a driver and take a trip north to visit the Sorwathé (Societé Rwandanise pour la production et le commercialisation du Thé) tea factory and tea plantation. The factory is located about 75Km from Kigali in a small town in the north. The Sorwathé tea is the only fair trade and grown without pesticides tea in Rwanda. Both tea and coffee are exported from Rwanda. Sorwathé produces about 3 million kilos of tea annually which is 15% of all the tea production in Rwanda.

This was my first chance to get out of Kigali to really see the countryside. The trip started on a paved and potholed highway which, we turned off of after an hour of driving onto a dirt road that wound through fields and fields of tea. When we arrived at the factory, our driver arranged (in spite of the holiday) for all of us to go on a tour and learn how they produce the tea. First we needed to garb up.

Tea Fields

The latest in tea factory fashion

The tea making process has 7 steps:

1. La Cuillette (plucking/harvesting) - every ten days the top three leaves of a plant are picked by hand

2. Le Transport (transport) - baskets of tea leaves are dropped into a truck and then brought up the mountainside to the factory

3. Le Fletrissage (withering) - in the factory the tea is laid out and allowed to wither and then it is sorted and a sample is weighed to determine if the tea picked is of sufficient quality to continue with the process

Box for sorting tea

4. Le Roulage (rolling or twisting in the case of “orthodox” tea) - over many stages machines roll the tea leaves and move it to the machines in which it ferments

Rolling tea

Tea as it is rolled and fermented

5. La Fermentation (fermentation)

6. Le Sechage (drying) - huge fires are kept burning from local wood which they cut down and then replant

From tea leaves through the stages to tea

7. Le Triage et L’emballage (sorting and packing) - tea is sifted and different grades of tea are used for different purposes like medicines or drinking

The train is a mystery since Rwanda does not have a rail system

At the end we went to the tea tasting room and had a chance to buy some of Sorwathé tea. We tried to walk in the village a bit but the number of children following us (they rarely see Muzungu) and trying to touch Nava and her hair was intimidating so our walk in the country was extremely short.

As we drove off our driver offered to take us to Ruhengeri/Musanze to see the volcanoes. We had a lovely late lunch in Ruhengeri as we waited for the clouds to lift but the clouds never lifted so we had no view. Ruhengeri is both home to the Volcanoes National Park and the start of most gorilla trekking expeditions so I am sure I will return at some point soon. In spite of the clouds and the rain we had some amazing views of the mountains and hills of Rwanda.

What not to do when you start teaching in Rwanda…

2011-01-31T03:07:00.000-08:00

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Kigali

Is it really January? I think I have weather lag, which I’m defining as a condition similar to jet lag but instead of a struggle around time it is a struggle with the climate. Yesterday it was 86 degrees here and it felt much hotter in the sun. I just can’t get the weather and the month to match in my mind, especially when I keep getting emails from Massachusetts about snow days and delayed openings.

We have all started some new routines. Saadya and Nava started school on Monday and it seems to go well for both of them. Saadya has remarked often about his class make-up which includes students from many countries both in and out of the African continent. Nava seemed to find a fit for herself quite quickly and already, on the second day of school went on a play date with a classmate. I have started my work at KHI, met my colleagues and met some students. I’ve learned some of what I need to get by but that learning will go on for months.

Monday I had my first experience with Rwandan government bureaucracy as I started my application process for a work visa. Eugenie, who works in the Public Affairs section of the U.S. embassy, had helped me prepare for the process by telling me about the list of documents I would need for my visa (criminal background check from my local police, CV, diplomas, transcripts, letter documenting work schedule from KHI, etc.). On Monday we pulled together all of my documents and then I went to Rwanda Revenue to pay the 50,000RWF for each visa ($1=590RWF so about $85 x 3). The line at the office was incredibly long, it would have been hours of waiting which Eugenie explained had something to do with national exam results being posted for students. She asked an embassy driver to take me to an alternate office; we drove all over the city stopping at 3 different offices until we found one that would accept visa payments. At this particular office when I asked the official about payment he insisted on sifting through my application. He looked at and commented on each document claiming that my diploma copies would not suffice since they were not originals and that many of my documents lacked “stamps”. I kept on explaining that I really only wanted to pay the fee. Finally, after he had looked at every page and had reordered the packet he pointed to an office across the hall and told me that I could just go over there and pay. After paying I returned to him and he said that he didn’t even review these types of visa applications, only business venture applications and mine needed to go to immigration/emigration. The next day Eugenie brought in my application with the payment receipts and then called me stating that I had a few problems. First, I don’t have Saadya and Nava’s birth certificate and their passports will not suffice to show that I am their parent (who knew?) and second, my diplomas are clearly copies and they want to see the originals (which are hanging in frames in my office). I’m now working on a resolution, I’ve placed a call to the mayor’s office in Northampton (thanks Karen!!!) where they have produced and scanned in a document that attests to the fact that I am Saadya’s and Nava’s mother and that we all live together (with the appropriate stamps and seals) and then a notary at the embassy will put stamps and seals on my diplomas (because my official transcripts which have registrar stamps and show the degrees just won’t do). I could probably have a side business here stamping pieces of paper with a seal that says “official”.

We have moved into our new house and it is nice to settle in. We have two American housemates who will be leaving Kigali after completing a year of work here. They are lovely women, Emily and Chalee who have been so helpful in showing us the ropes. We not only benefit from having a house they have also already hired the house staff (night guard, day guard, housekeeper) so we don’t need to do any searching on our own. The house is comfortable. Many ex-pats here live in luxury, we prefer to live in comfort, at some point I’ll post some photos to demonstrate the difference.

Patricia went on an overnight adventure to Nyungwe Forest National Park. She was put in shock by the cost of the adventure (pay for driver, pay for guide, pay to enter the park, pay for each trail on which you hike). Nonethless, she describes a great adventure including the canopy walk which goes over the top of the rain forest, birding, seeing 3 different types of primates and walking some children to school through a tea plantation in the early morning. I will get to Nyungwe at some point as well.

My great week’s adventure has been starting my teaching at KHI. I’ve now had two class sessions. Teaching is done in modules or as we call it in the U.S. blocks. My first module is on biostatistics with the 3^rd year physiotherapy students. Elias, who is manages day to day functions in our department gave me the briefest outline for content and I set up my first days’ teaching plan. It appears that scheduling is week by week since the department can never be assured of teaching space which is at a premium at the school. At this point, I’m not even sure when my module ends, though I think it is in 2 weeks. I am supposed to teach for 5 credits which is 50 hours of content but Elias tells me that a good part of that time should be students doing individual work. I do get to use slides via PowerPoint as a guide while talking so that is quite helpful, I wasn’t expecting access to a data projector. On my first day, Elias introduced me to the class and to the two students in the class who are the class representative and my class “helper.” I’m still learning exactly what their roles are but every time I go to erase the chalk board from all of my scribbling the helper gets up and does it for me (or some other student who notices). Apparently, erasing the chalk board is something I should not be doing. On the second day when only 20 of 28 students showed up and most were late, Elias scolded the class representative for not having a full class and showing respect (note that he was present and on time so apparently part of his role is to pass along information from the department to the class).

I am using content from my teaching at SC (imagine how overwhelmed I would be if I wasn’t) but as I look at my slides for similar lectures at SC I realize just how much I have to adapt. For instance, could I possibly talk about percentiles and explain it through their experience taking SATs or GREs? I’m also not yet sure just how much PT terminology these students know and most of my examples incorporate clinical studies from the U.S. After being introduced by Elias on my first day I start talking and immediately hit my first mistake. I speak too quickly! These students are struggling with English and mine is not the English they hear every day. In fact, these students probably did their secondary (HS) studies in French, started their BS studies in French and then, when it was decided to switch to English had a semester of intensive English studying and then continued on the road to their BS in English only. Along the way in these first two lectures I seemed to make other cultural mistakes, my jokes often fall flat, I asked each student in the class his/her age to use as an example for teaching descriptive statistics and they seemed taken aback, I keep trying to erase the blackboard on my own, I ask questions about material that nobody seems to feel comfortable answering or, when they do it comes to me in a whisper. In my first lecture I introduced the “muddiest point” concept to the class (they thought this was a very funny idea). Now 2 lectures in, it seems they like to raise their hands and announce what is muddy (everything!!!). I’ve got to figure out how to manage this content. I’ve asked Elias for permission to observe some of the other faculty teaching and I will ask one of my colleagues here to observe me and provide some insight about how better to handle the classroom.

On Friday when I walked out of my lecture and was doing some finishing work, I noticed that the faculty seemed to have changed out of their work clothes into more relaxed attire. Elias was wearing shorts, Jeanne was in jeans, something seemed amiss and they were all about to leave. Jeanne came to the end of the hall where my desk is and announced we were leaving for a party, “it is not optional.” We boarded the KHI buses and the entire faculty of all departments drove off from the campus to the grounds of the Gahinga guesthouse which is in another district of Kigali. There everyone gathered to celebrate the New Year. Although I had to leave early the party was rather elaborate with a meal, music, games and dancing. I’m not sure how late it went into the evening but the men were enjoying their beers (it is unusual for women to drink in public) and I suspect everyone stayed late.

Today is the last Saturday of the month which is Umuganda. Each month, on Umuganda one adult from the house must join in a district based public work effort (street or neighborhood clean up, road building, etc.). The entire city participates and if you are out on the streets not participating you could be stopped by police, questioned and fined. A notice came to our house but since it is written in Kinyarwanda we aren’t sure where to go for our neighborhood project. Hopefully, next month we will participate. This afternoon we have hired a driver so we can do some shopping to get the house supplies we need. Tomorrow we’ll try another pool at one of the Kigali Hotels.

Our first few days

2011-01-24T11:16:00.000-08:00

January 24, 2011

Kigali

My first in Kigali blog post is finally here. It won’t be perfect, and it will probably have more inane detail than you are all interested in but these first days have been so full and surprising that I’m only able to get down facts without putting all the emotion and impression into it as yet. I’m sure I’ll fill in details of what I’m seeing and how I’m feeling in later posts. Here is the update to life here so far.

We arrived last Thursday night and after all the stories we heard (or experienced ourselves in the past) about lost luggage there we were at the Kigali airport watching our 5 checked bags come down the luggage chute. Kudos to United and Brussels air because when last seen those bags were having a TSA inspection in Hartford CT. On retrieving the bags I had my first awkward conversation with the woman next to me in French. My French is rusty but I’m pretty sure she wished me a good stay in Rwanda.

We exited the terminal to the welcome of Eugenie and Melanie from the U.S. embassy. Eugenie is Rwandese and was at the Fulbright predeparture orientation last June in DC sharing a wealth of information and ideas for preparing for the trip. Melanie and I had communicated by email, she arrived in Rwanda in October and so is relatively new to the post. Over the past month we had created a plan that on arrival we would first stay at a guest house and then, once we found something suitable, move to permanent housing within walking distance of Saadya and Nava’s school. From what I can recall of that evening and my exhausted post-travel state, we all chatted amicably, they gave me an embassy information folder, which I must have left in the van, and then deposited us at the Romalo guest house advising me that on Monday I would be picked up by a driver to start my embassy paperwork.

We surveyed our two rooms at the Romalo, each is quite large with a balcony one room has a single queen bed, the other two twins both have a sometimes working bathroom. Our Bradt guide describes the guesthouse as in the moderate range. I would agree that the environs seem “moderate” but the price, or perhaps the Muzungu price, doesn’t seem exactly moderate. Then again, this city boasts hotels that can cost from $125-$350 per room or per person per night. The manager Moses settled us in and sat with me to set a “program” of our food needs for our stay. The next morning he gave me the program - did I really agree to meals that include matoke kidney and liver? We’ve come to learn that breakfast with African tea is our least favorite meal of the day and as we’ve explored bits of the city we’ve found already a couple of spots where we can get meals a bit better than at Romalo. Still, we’ve had some nice meals, eaten our first bites of passion fruit, mango and goat meat brochette while staying here. Nava is particularly fond of the two cranes who live in the compound.

Friday we were walked up to ISK, Saadya and Nava’s school. It really is only a 5 minute walk up the hill. First impressions of the school were quite good, we met the head of school, some teachers and saw the classrooms. While we were visiting Nava’s jet lag plus altitude adjustment got the better of her and we needed to lie her down to get over some dizzy and faint feelings. After a rest at Romalo we hired a taxi and ventured to the MTN center (sort of a mini-mall building with shops and businesses) to do some money changing and get SIM cards for our phones. Success at the MTN on all counts and in the German butcherie Nava enjoyed an ice cream while upstairs at Bourbon café we were able to get a real hot cup of coffee. Our Romalo breakfast includes “African tea” which means we get a thermos of hot milk (is that really milk?) and tea bags with which to make tea. The coffee was a welcome treat and after ISK and MTN we felt we had a successful start but just enough activity for our tired state. We returned to Romalo to rest and to find an email inviting us to join Emily and her housemate on an adventure on Saturday morning to discover the African Bagel Company. Emily and I had been emailing about the possibility that we might move into her rental house as she is departing in 3 weeks time.

Saturday morning Emily and Chalee arrived to pick us up at Romalo. We walked with them through the valley near our neighborhood up around to the main road where some friends of theirs spotted us and offered us a ride in their truck. Emily and Chalee gave us many hints and helpful pieces of information about life in Kigali. We all ended up at the bagel place where we ate doughnuts, bagels and fruit and wandered through a garage sale happening in the yard. After this adventure the women brought us to one of Kigali’s markets where they wanted to buy some fabric to have dresses made (the photo shows you the iron used by the tailors with hot coals). We got to see some of the basket weaving for which Rwanda is famous and naturally, Nava ordered a dress. After we got a rest at the guest house we went to Emily and Chalee’s house which is just around the corner and it looks perfect so we will move in there on Tuesday. Armed with plenty of new information and plans for our future move we said good-bye and returned to our guest house to watch a DVD movie we bought at the garage sale.

Sunday we decided to try one of the hotel pools. We picked the Stippag hotel based on a recommendation of someone Patricia had contact with from the U.S. You may recall that I said there were some upscale hotels in Kigali, well this is definitely one of them. There were not many visitors around so we had the pool area basically to ourselves. Nice, but sometimes it also felt we were putting on a show for the large number of staff just sitting around. We had good food and really enjoyed the pool but even at an upscale hotel we learned…look out for the plumbing. When Patricia and Nava went to shower off after the pool the handle came right off and water started spilling everywhere. In the evening we walked to Sole Luna, an Italian restaurant about 35 minutes walk up from our neighborhood. Some of the food was quite good but the pizza which came so highly recommended was not our style. The walk back was a bit scary, the main road has street lights but the rest of the walk down to our guest house was partially lighted by security lights and partially lighted by the crazy drivers. I suspect we won’t really go out all too much after dark in the future. Kigali is considered a “safe” city by any standard and the main road is incredibly heavily patrolled by police and army but I still didn’t feel completely at ease on this walk. Maybe I’ll feel better after a little more time here.

I’m really looking forward to today, Monday. The children start school, I am going to the embassy to work on my visa and then I hope to get to Kigali Health Institute to start to learn about my teaching responsibilities and meet the faculty.