Torpedo, then and now

Those of you who read this blog in 2008 may remember a posting about our little neighbor girl. I never understood what she was saying when I asked her name, and neither did John. I dubbed her "Torpedo" because when she saw us coming out of our house she flew toward us like a torpedo and didn't stop until she slammed into us and hugged us around the legs. If we forgot something and had to go back to the house, even just for 2 minutes, we got another hug when she saw us again. I came to look forward to these hugs and to love this little girl.

Today (June 2009) I took a stroll down the old street looking for our little neighbor. She seemed a bit shy at first, but when I smiled and waved at her she shot out of her yard just like she used to. Above is a picture of my little friend in February 2008; below is the picture I took of her and her brother today. She's as cute as ever.

Another story about driving in Rwanda

Todd and Andria are the other people (besides Mica and I) who are staying at the visitors' house. We've been hanging out with them a lot. Yesterday we did some tourist stuff, including visiting the the palace of the last king of Rwanda in Nyanza, about an hour away. That's another story for another day. John went with us, but I offered to drive because he's still awaiting his driving license and I'm the only other person with experience driving here. I assured everyone that letting me drive would be a fine thing to do. We arranged ourselves in the vehicle and set off down the drive toward the road. About 150 meters later, as you can see from the picture, I got the truck stuck in the mud. Don't blame me--the tires are almost entirely bald. Once stuck, the lack of traction kept us stuck. A bunch of guys with shovels and bamboo poles appeared apparently from nowhere, dug out both front tires, and laid the poles down for me to drive over. Todd took pictures and video just to ensure that I never live this down.

Carnivore

On Tuesday, Mica and I dined at Carnivore, a famous restaurant in Nairobi. A Kenyan friend, Susanne, who used to be a manager at the restaurant, joined us.

The restaurant’s big draw is, of course, the variety of meats it offers, all cooked on a huge open grill near the entrance to the restaurant. Susanne had told me that menu choices suitable for vegetarians would be available, but I have to admit that I was skeptical. On several occasions, meat-eating friends have told me that meat-free options would be available at a particular restaurant, and I’ve ended up with an iceberg lettuce salad and a baked potato. You can imagine how happy I was to receive a special menu for vegetarians (the server announced, “We take good care of yoooo!”). The menu (“For the herbivore and piscivore”) featured vegetarian crepes, kumbi bhayi, vegetable pizza, vegetable cutlets, vegetable lasagna, limuru vegetable pie (a “fountain of potato cake and spicy vegetables on vegetable creole sauce”), and aviyal. I chose the kumbi bhayi, mushrooms and green peas in a delicious white sauce served with rice.

In the meantime, the meat had already started arriving for Mica. The server first brought a big two-tiered lazy susan full of sauces (chili, garlic, barbeque, etc.) for the different kinds of meat as well as fresh salad. At the top of the tray sat a little flag with the Carnivore logo on it. As long as that flag flies, the servers stop by the table every couple minutes with huge slabs of meat on skewers. They sliced off pieces of it onto Mica’s superhot metal plate. Various servers brought beef, chicken, ostrich, crocodile, lamb, pork, chicken livers, gizzards. When you don’t want any more meat, you place the flag on its side to indicate that you’ve surrendered.

Nairobi

What to say about Nairobi...I'm getting a somewhat slanted view of the city as activities are heavily influenced by traffic patterns. You plan your day around avoiding the horrific traffic jams that caused us to take over an hour last night to travel less than 5 miles. Eating exhaust while sitting still in traffic makes the experience even more frustrating. Also, foreigners are advised to avoid several parts of the city, which has a high crime rate, so we can't go downtown or to other places that might be of interest.

But it's an interesting place, much bigger, more chaotic, and noisier than Kigali, which seems absolutely placid by comparison. Yesterday we drove away from the city to the Kentmere Club for lunch. It's a small restaurant surrounded by a huge, lush garden. We had a quiet lunch of an egg and tomato sandwich (me) and fruitcake (Mica). Tonight's dinner is at Carnivore, which is billed as one of the two best restaurants in Africa. Some new laws limit the types of game they can serve, but it should still be a unique experience, at least for Mica. I suspect that I'll be eating bread and salad, but we'll see. I'll definitely share the experience in this venue.

So far, not so good...

I started feeling uneasy this morning the minute I tried to use curbside check-in and they couldn't find my itinerary. The kiosk couldn't find it either. By that time, Karen had driven away from the airport. The guy at the ticketing desk found my itinerary, but I didn't feel any relief because he stared at his computer for so long I knew something had to be wrong. My flight was to Nairobi via Atlanta and Lagos. Turns out I needed a visa for Lagos even though I would just be passing through and not leaving the airport, so I couldn't get on the plane! You can imagine my frustration.

I managed to get an Orbitz customer service rep on the phone and rebook the flight through London, but it cost a fortune and it doesn't leave until this evening, so I'm back home now--Bob came and picked me up. Tonight I'll fly overnight to Gatwick, transfer to Heathrow, wait 11 hours, then fly to Nairobi on an overnight flight that leaves London at 8 tomorrow evening. I'll be getting to Nairobi 12 hours later than my original flight.

Maybe I'm an idiot, but it just never occurred to me that I'd need a visa for a country that I was just passing through. The ticketing agent at the airport had never heard of that either. I found some information on the internet that says that it is indeed true, but it looks like Americans are the only people who have to obtain such a visa in Nigeria. Interesting.

It's part of a longer story that I'll tell you later (when I get home), but my advice is don't use Orbitz. I've used them before and all went well, but when you have a problem, they're the opposite of helpful, and one customer service rep was totally rude.

Have any of you ever heard of this or had a similar experience? Just wondering...

Return to Rwanda

More than a year has passed since my last trip to Rwanda, and it feels like a long time. Much has changed–the building boom in Kigali continues, the 15th anniversary of the 1994 cataclysm has been remembered (and the country continues to recover emotionally and economically), the Urukundo kids have grown a lot taller. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with people and places I’ve come to love. I’ll spend a few days checking out Nairobi with Mica (aka Micaela, my housemate from my last visit to Rwanda), then on to Kigali for three days. After that we’ll stay with the Urukundo kids in Gitarama for a week, and then I’ll slowly make may way back home via Kigali and Nairobi. I’ll be partying with my family and friends in Amsterdam the last three days of this trip to celebrate Erica’s graduation.

This trip will be much busier than the last one, so I can’t make too many promises about blogging, but I’ll try…