Ellen in Rwanda

Looking for Torpedo

2011-04-30T05:32:00.001-07:00

A couple of you have asked about our little neighbor "Torpedo" from my 2008 stay in Gitarama (see June 2009 blog entry). I named her that because when she saw Micaela or me she would dash toward us at full speed and not stop until she crash landed into our legs with a big hug. Even when a native speaker of Kinyarwanda asked her what her name was, he couldn't understand her reply, so others started calling her Torpedo as well.
One day last week we drove slowly down the old street--it's even bumpier now--so I could look for her. We stopped near the house I stayed in then, and I got out and looked around for her. Some curious kids stopped to observe us (they never seem to tire of gazing at muzungus), but I didn't see her among them. We tried to ask about her, but no one spoke English, and Kinyarwanda still eludes me.
Next time, if there is a next time, I'll take a picture of her and a Kinyarwanda translator with me to increase my chances of finding her. I hope all is well with my little buddy. I'd love to see her beautiful smile again.

Location:Gitarama, Rwanda

Pile of elephants

2011-04-29T11:27:00.001-07:00

Today I visited the elephant orphanage (it has a longer, more official name, but most people just call it the elephant orphanage) on the outskirts of Nairobi. The elephants were orphaned by the deaths of their mothers by poaching, accidents, or natural causes. Naturally, the babies were unbelievably cute--bumping into one another, rolling in the mud, and generally acting like kids.

Location:Nairobi

Public health celebrity

2011-04-29T11:11:00.001-07:00

While finishing my dinner at Heaven, I saw the muzungu guy walk up to another table and start a conversation. I tired to eavesdrop, but they were too far away for my efforts to be effective. However, I did overhear "public health stuff," and when he was leaving that table I heard him say his name was Josh. Right away I remembered his picture from the New York Times. When he stopped by to talk to me I asked him if he was Josh Ruxin, and he said yes.

Josh is the founder and director of the Access Project in Rwanda, an initiative of the Center for Global Health and Economic Development at Columbia University. He's a frequent contributor to several publications (including this one--this information comes from his bio on the Access Project's website: theaccessproject.com), such as the New York Times and the Huffington Post, and he's been featured in the Washington Post, Forbes, Time, Seed magazine, CNN, and CNN International's "Inside Africa." He has taught public health at the Mailman School of Public Health and is the founder and director of the Neglected Tropical Disease Control Project. He has also done extensive work with the Millenium Villages Project in Rwanda.

I know of Josh through some blog posts he wrote in association with Nicholas Kristof's blog in the NYT. I believe Josh has another blog now. He mentioned that Nick had visited Rwanda 3 weeks before and had sat right where I was sitting. Now that I have connections at the NYT, you can say you knew me back when I was a humble Writer-Editor at NIOSH. (Oh yeah, I'm still a humble Writer-Editor at NIOSH...)

Best of all, Josh and his wife created Heaven in Rwanda (heavenrwanda.com), the lovely restaurant in which I was enjoying delicious food and interesting company.

Location:Kigali

Welcome to Heaven

2011-04-27T22:20:00.001-07:00

When I arrived at Heaven, a new (to me) restaurant in Kigali, the staff greeted me with an enthusiastic "Welcome to Heaven!" I just smiled, figuring that I couldn't come up with a heaven joke they'd never heard before.
The menu, a bit meat-heavy, featured items such as grilled filet of beef with cassava chimichurri, vegetables, and mashed potatoes; fish and chips; Thai-style tilapia with rice and seasonal vegetables; and beef or lamb burger on a homemade bun with Gouda, sauteed onions, and fries. Not knowing exactly what to expect, I opted for the "eggplant stack" with green curry sauce and seasonal vegetables and a starter of cauliflower soup. When the server brought my drink, he also brought a sample of avocado soup in a tiny glass--delicious and so spicy I drank half of my Fanta citron (like Sprite) to cool it down.
Like many restaurants in Kigali, Heaven consists of a large covered deck, so you're sitting outdoors in a beautiful space that has all the comforts of indoors. I chose a seat over toward the side of the deck, where I could see the other diners and gaze at an amazing view of Kigali's hilly suburbs. (Rwanda's descriptor of "land of a thousand hills" fits perfectly. Sometimes when walking up yet another steep incline, I think all of the thousand hills must be in Kigali.)
Although the dining area probably had 30 tables, only three or four were occupied. When heading toward my table, I noticed a muzungu (that's what white people are called here--a simple statement of fact) couple sitting with an African man. The muzungu guy looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place him.
The eggplant stack turned out to be a Lincoln log-type construction of lightly fried eggplant strips arranged interlocking one another in a square. It sat on a bed of green curry sauce, and was draped with thinly sliced vegetables. Everything was outstanding, and my very attentive server get kept stopping by to make sure all was well. After one of my exclamations of culinary bliss, he asked, "Is it heavenly?"
The back of the menu explains that the restaurant, a "social enterprise," helps Rwanda develop its most important resource, people. It claims that Heaven sets the national standard for service and food quality. Rwandan craftspeople built everything in the restaurant, including the deck, chairs, tables, place mats. The food is locally sourced.
To Be Continued...in the next exciting installment you will learn the identity of the vaguely familiar muzungu, which may only be interesting to the public health people in the audience. Stay tuned...

Location:Kigali

Can't stand it

2011-04-26T23:27:00.001-07:00

I just wrote a long blog post about the restaurant I went to last night, but my Internet connection cut out as it was posting. I had saved it as I was writing it, because this kind of thing happens sometimes, but it seems that the whole thing just evaporated. Gone. %{*#+^{!

Location:Kigali

Life-sustaining pool

2011-04-22T02:09:00.001-07:00

During previous trips to Kigali, I'd had drinks at the Hotel des Mille Collines and even dipped my feet into its pool. But until Monday I had never stayed there as a guest. When I arrived in Kigali Monday morning I partly spontaneously asked the taxi driver to deliver me to the Mille Collines. To keep my options open, I had made no hotel reservations. Upon arriving at the airport, the Mille Collines just seemed the right choice.
Remember the movie "Hotel Rwanda"? The Mille Collines is the Hotel Rwanda. More than 1,200 people sheltered there for about 3 months in 1994 to wait out the devastation occurring immediately outside the gates and all over the country. Early on in this horrific time, the water and power for the hotel were shut off in attempt to force the people out. The refugees, knowing they'd be killed if they stepped out into the street, stayed put, drank the pool, and used it for cooking and washing.
The movie was filmed in South Africa with South African actors, but the set looks much like the real Mille Collines. The entrance still looks just like the spot where Paul (the "Hotel Rwanda guy" played in the movie by Don Cheadle) was left standing in the rain in a none too subtle reference to the international community's lack of assistance or intervention in the genocide.

I hadn't brought a swimsuit and didn't really plan to get in the pool. But perfect weather and beautiful surroundings forced a change of heart. So I put on my nylon, quick-dry shorts and a tank top and headed down to the pool. Initially the water felt cold, but the sun kept me warm and gradually I got used to it and swam some laps. After a long, difficult winter, it was spring again. Feeling sun on my skin and knowing that the sun (unlike in Cincinnati) would last more than a few hours or a day brought about a renewal of spirit and a life-affirming sense that things really can get better. Immersing myself in a pool that sustained so many lives felt like a baptism. Everyone who sheltered at the Mille Collines survived the genocide.

Connection test

2011-04-19T05:15:00.001-07:00

The Internet sometimes avoids me, but I keep looking for it...
My hotel has wi-fi, but it's not free, and I'm sure I'll be surprised when I get the final bill. In the meantime, it seems that Bourbon Coffee (no bourbon in it), long a coffeeshop frequented by expats and locals alike for its wi-fi, is no longer providing that service. Yesterday, after I ordered lunch, the server told me, "intanet broken," so I thought this condition was temporary. Today I stopped by and asked if the Internet was still broken, and a different server said, "intanet gone." Me: Forever? Server: Yes, no more intanet. I am sorry, madam.
No problem, but I trust that "madam" doesn't mean the same thing to him that it does to me.
(I know it doesn't; it's a term of respect for older women, similar to ma'am. But it always startles me the first time or two I hear it.)

Location:Kigali

Thing 3

2011-04-15T07:19:00.001-07:00

Happy hour on Friday afternoon: passionfruit juice and vodka, what else?

Location:Nairobi

My favorite thing

2011-04-14T10:30:00.001-07:00

Thing 1: getting here. Thing 2: passionfruit. The first time I ever had one I didn't like it. The second time I had one, I squeezed it open like the kids I was eating with, and it squirted one of them in the head. Amid shrieks of the kids' laughter, I tried my third passionfruit (cut with a knife) and was hooked forever. It's about the size of a small plum, with a hard crusty exterior. You cut it and eat the insides with a spoon. The fruit consists of goop and seeds, and it's delicious. The only place I've seen them in the Cincinnati area is Jungle Jim's, and they're very expensive there.

Location:Nairobi

Dusting off my blog

2011-04-11T10:11:00.001-07:00

I wasn't going to make any commitments about blogging this time, and I'm still not. But...a number of people have asked me about my blog (thereby stoking my writer wannabe ego), so now I'm considering attempting a few blog posts. As of today, I'm still home, but tomorrow I leave for Kenya, where I will spend some time with my good friend Micaela and her partner Hunter. And next week I'll go to Rwanda for a few days to reconnect with important friends and places.

So stay tuned, friends, family, and random blog readers. Maybe I will share some of my stories with you even before I get home. I will be attempting blog updates on my iPad, which I'm still getting used to. Buts it's a lot of fun and way more portable than a laptop. I'm trying to figure out how to post pictures, so no promises there either.

Tutaonana (see you later),
E.

Torpedo, then and now

2009-06-04T06:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-03T12:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-31T06:18:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-26T04:24:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-05-22T10:35:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-21T05:53:00.000-07:00

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…

Spelling matters

2008-03-02T08:39:00.000-08:00

Although most people here are Christians (which in Rwanda means no drinking), I had noticed that the city has an inordinate number of saloons. Signs are painted directly on the building, and with the abundance of saloon signs, I began to question the no-drinking rule.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I was about to take a well-deserved nap (aren’t they all well-deserved?), when Etienne arrived at the house to ask me to accompany him to get haircuts for the kids. Reluctantly, I got out of bed and went with him. He had some of the kids, and more joined us as we walked. As we climbed the dirt “road” (I’m not sure if it’s a road if you can’t navigate a car on it) up to the main drag I looked back and saw about 20 of our kids walking behind me and in front of Etienne. I knew the afternoon would be long with 20 heads to shave (girls too!)

When we arrived, I looked into the small room with four chairs and three guys cutting hair. The place was totally simple—just chairs, mirrors, scissors, hair clippers and not much else. The name of the place? BM Saloon. So see, folks, spelling is important because a saloon and a salon just aren’t the same thing. And guess how much the haircuts cost? 20 cents apiece.

Here is a cow

2008-02-28T01:47:00.000-08:00

Nothing you can imagine is as dark as a Rwandan night. Few streetlights illuminate our dirt road, and because many people live without electricity, they don’t have porch lights to help passersby see where they’re going. Moonlight helps, but last night was cloudy. The street is partially illuminated near our guesthouse, but as we make our way in the direction of our house, the street becomes inky-black. I can’t see my feet or where they’re going.

I suspect that before she left for the U.S., Arlene instructed the guards, John, and Etienne that they were never to allow Micaela and me to walk in the dark unaccompanied by a man. Last night after I was finished using the internet connection at the guesthouse, Olivier, a worker there, offered to walk me home. I accepted, knowing that even if I declined, he would accompany me anyway. Olivier has a little English and is very soft spoken and a bit shy about using his English. I had forgotten my flashlight, so the night was especially dark. (Micaela and I are the only people in town who use flashlights. Rwandans walk in the pitch black as if the sun were shining.) As we strolled along the street on the 6- or 7-minute walk to our house we talked only a little, with Olivier occasionally pointing to puddles for me to avoid.

We walked somewhat slowly, as is the custom in Rwanda. Without even a hint of alarm or surprise, Olivier mentioned slowly in his quiet voice, “Here is a cow.” Simultaneous to his quiet comment, I realized that I was about to run smack into a cow! It was less than a meter away and I hadn’t even seen or heard it. We both laughed at my surprise at narrowly avoiding running into a cow and then walked on.

Being 50 in Rwanda

2008-02-24T04:54:00.000-08:00

I remember, after being in my 20s for the usual number of years, the first time someone asked me how old I was after I turned 30. Same thing for 40. It was hard to say it out loud. The good news is that I’m getting a lot of practice saying that I’m 50 because people in Rwanda don’t have the Western hesitation about asking how old you are. People ask your age as a matter of introductory information like whether you speak French or English, where you’re from, why you’re in Rwanda, and how many kids you have. When I tried to explain the Western custom of lying about your age to the students in one of my English classes, they just looked confused even after Etienne translated into Kinyarwanda. In Rwanda, where the average life expectancy is about 53, advanced age is a badge of honor.

The fun part of being honest about my age is that no one here believes me. They’re actually aghast when I tell them I’m 50. Maybe I flatter myself, but I think their surprise is genuine. It’s not that I look particularly youthful; it’s that they don’t adhere to the Western custom of lying about age. In addition, people have hard lives, so many Rwandan people who are 50 look like they’re 70. Back home in the US, I look my age, but here people think I’m 35.

Last week John got around to asking me how old I am. He just about fell over when I told him. Then he and Micaela started laughing, a private joke or something. So here’s the story…they had to wait a long time for me at the airport when I arrived because I was waiting for my suitcase that didn’t show up. I was the last person out of the baggage claim area. In the meantime, John had gone looking around for me. He knew my age, and he reported back to Micaela and Etienne that he said that he had seen a muzungu in the baggage claim area, but he didn’t think it was me because the woman he had seen was much younger than 50. With this kind of flattery, I may have to consider moving to Rwanda forever.

Driving in Rwanda

2008-02-19T01:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday for the first time I drove in Rwanda. To be more precise, I drove a Toyota SUV with four-wheel drive around town, up to the building site (dirt road), and up a hill on another dirt road, impossibly long and full of huge rocks, massive holes, mud, and deep ruts. Micaela said I was brave to drive here, but it’s really not a big deal. I’ve been driven by others a lot here and have observed the locals’ driving habits. So all I have to do is drive like them, which sometimes proves a bit counterintuitive to me, but isn’t difficult.

In Rwanda, people drive on the right side of the road, so that’s good for me. However, the driver’s side of the car is also on the right. Fortunately, Arlene’s SUV is an automatic; I think driving a stick using my left hand would have thrown me off too much. Other than that, most things are where you expect them to be except the turn signals, which are opposite from my car at home.

We were going to the site of the new house in the morning. When John arrived with the car, he handed me the keys, got in the passenger’s seat, and asked if I would mind driving. “Fine with me,” I said, and off we went. I had offered to drive a number of times, but he always declined before.

Several challenges present themselves when driving in a town like Gitarama. One is that many more people walk in the street than drive cars. Pedestrians are everywhere, including the middle of the street. Also chickens, goats, and the occasional cow. A two-way trust exists between drivers and walkers. Walkers make way for cars, trusting in a way I certainly don’t count on while walking in Hyde Park that the drivers will not try to hit them. Drivers trust that the walkers really will get out of the way. Sometimes while driving you have to get uncomfortably close to walkers, but both you and they know it’s safe.

Mototaxis provide another challenge. Guys hang out all around town waiting for passengers to ride on the back of their motorcycles. They provide a helmet for the passenger, then you sit on the back on hold on real tight. They travel slower than cars and usually more or less stick to the right side of the road. To get anywhere on time, you have to pass mototaxis quite often. Etiquette requires that you give a short honk on the horn as you approach behind the mototaxi to let the driver know you intend to pass. He (it’s always a man) then turns on his right turn signal, not to turn right, but to notify you that he heard you and will stay over to the right side while you pass. This signaling routine also applies to passing larger vehicles.

Passing larger vehicles can be quite unnerving, but it has to be done if you’re going to get anywhere. In this mountainous terrain, if you stay behind a large truck chugging its way slowly uphill, you will never get where you’re going. So you do the same as passing a mototaxi: honk, then pass. The problem occurs when several vehicles get lined up behind a too-slow truck and three or four of them pass it at once. So you have the truck in the right lane going ever more slowly up the mountain, and four or so cars passing it at the same time in the left lane, facing oncoming traffic. One of the local assumptions is that no oncoming traffic is actually on its way. This is often the case, but not always. In the event that cars are approaching in the other lane, they slow down and let the passers pass. Everyone know what’s expected and no one gets angry about being passed or about seeing cars approaching them in their own lane. They just slow down and wait.

A convenience in driving is that if the road is rough (and many roads are rough; I’ve read that only 6% of roads in Rwanda are paved) you can drive on the wrong side of the road. No one gets excited about this, even if you’re coming their way. They expect it. They know you’re avoiding holes and ruts and have to select the best path around them even if unconventional driving is necessary.

The wife of one of the guards here had a baby by C-section over the weekend. She was being released from the hospital yesterday. Theogen’s (the guard) plan was to take her and the baby home by mototaxi. We just couldn’t imagine riding a mototaxi after having major surgery, so we offered to pick her and the baby up at the hospital and take her home. Theogen was thrilled, so off we went. Our experience at the hospital is another story for another day.

Anyway, we traveled down the road toward Kibgayi with the car loaded with five people and the baby. We turned off the main (paved) road onto a wide dirt road. I’d been on this one before to see one of the kids who just started in a secondary school up that road. We passed the turn to the school, and road got narrower. As we crawled along at 10-15 km/hr we laughed after each big bounce. Micaela and I were with three people who knew no English, but you don’t need a common language to understand how difficult this road was. Occasionally I looked toward the back seat, afraid the baby had bounced out the window, but the mom always gave me a thumbs up.

I have no idea how many km this road was, but as it narrowed, it got steeper, rockier, and more rutted. A few times, I slowed the car way down and studied the best way to get over whatever obstacle presented itself. After what seemed like forever, we arrived at Theogen’s house way up the mountain, where he got to present the baby to his waiting family. He is so proud of the baby, and he was even prouder to be driven home in a car by a couple of muzungus. John said that Theogen would remember that for the rest of his life and that being with us brought him new high status in his neighborhood. I find this attitude toward people with white skin uncomfortable, embarrassing, and unwarranted, but people here cannot be talked out of it.

Just so you know...

2008-02-17T08:07:00.001-08:00

I promised to post a picture this weekend...well, I just tried and failed! The picture wouldn't upload even though I was willing to sit here forever waiting for it. I tried three times, and each time got an error message telling me that the internet couldn't access the page I requested, or something along those lines. So for now, you'll have to read my ramblings unembellished. I'll try again tomorrow or Tuesday. Sometimes things that don't work one day go smoothly another day.

Micaela and Etienne

2008-02-17T07:57:00.000-08:00

I promised to try to post a picture this weekend, so here I go. I hope I can get it to upload without technical difficulties. This is a picture of Micaela, my housemate, and Etienne, who works at the children's home. It was taken a couple weeks ago when we went for a walk up to the highest point in Gitarama.

The muzungu price

2008-02-13T08:25:00.000-08:00

One thing people here feel sure of is that muzungus have a lot of money, even if we’re aid workers, students, or people on leave from work. And they have a good point–if you have the means to board a plane and make your way to Africa, by default you have more money than most of the people in Rwanda.

This attitude toward muzungus translates into higher prices for us than a local person would pay. Example…on Monday, Oswald (our driver), Micaela, Etienne, and I traveled to Kigali to pick up some meat, fish, and other items that are better bought in Kigali than here. We had lunch at Karibu, a restaurant I frequented when I was in Kigali in September. (I felt quite cosmopolitan, being able to make a restaurant recommendation in an African capital.) Anyway, a kid was selling very nice laminated maps of Africa and Rwanda on the street. Not wanting to pay an inflated price, I asked Etienne if he would go talk to the boy and find out the price. He talked with the boy then returned to our table. The price: 2000 Frw (about $4). I said I’d like a map of Rwanda and one of Africa; Micaela wanted a map of Rwanda. We gave Etienne the money, and he disappeared around the wall surrounding the restaurant. He returned shortly sans maps. We thought the boy had perhaps relocated down the street, but Etienne said no. He explained that after the boy saw him talking to us and realized that the maps were for muzungus, he raised the price to 2500 Frw, so Etienne wisely declined to purchase. We thanked him for keeping us from getting ripped off and proceeded to enjoy our meal.

After lunch, as we walked toward the car, the same boy approached us with his maps, asking if we wanted to buy. We said no, 2500 was too much, and got in the car. As we pulled away from the curb, he ran alongside the car, banging on the door, yelling, “2000, 2000, I sell for 2000!” So we stopped and bought three maps from him. I’m sure those of you who have traveled a lot have had similar experiences. It always helps when the vendor truly believes you’ll walk away, which we would have.

Another example…the same day, as we were pulling away in the truck from our last stop in Kigali, a man selling The New Times, an English-language Rwandan newspaper, approached me to buy a paper. I’m a bit news-starved here, so I asked how much. Through Etienne, he said 800 Frw (about $1.50). I thought this was a little steep, but we needed to get going and I wanted the newspaper. I shoved it between the seats on the hour-long drive back to Gitarama.

When we got back to the house, I settled into the couch with a cup of tea and my newspaper. Well…not only was the price printed on the front…300 Frw, but to add insult to injury, the newspaper was three days old. So old Mama Warbucks here paid more than double the expected price for a thee-day old paper!

Market day

2008-02-09T10:47:00.001-08:00

Gitarama has an outdoor market twice a week (Wednesday and Saturday), and yesterday I went there with John’s wife Hope, who works at the boys’ home. She came to our house to get some money (all financial transactions here are done in cash) and we set out up the street toward the market. I asked her what we would be getting at the market and she gave a long list: potatoes, charcoal, vegetables, fruit, rice, school supplies. Unsure of how the two of us would carry all of this, I followed along. He stopped by the boys’ house to pick up some shopping bags, but I still didn’t think we’d be able to carry everything.

Nothing happens fast around here; it’s one of the things I like about this place. Our progress toward the market was slow, partly because of me. Little kids, including our neighbors who see Micaela and me several times a day, come dashing out of their houses to yell, “Muzungu, muzungu” as if this is the first time they’d ever seen a white person, even though they may have just seen us an hour ago. They speed toward us, stopping only when they slam into our legs and hold on tight. I don’t know their names, but I call the tiny girl who lives two doors away “Torpedo” because her impact can just about knock me over.

Then, after we got off of our small street and onto the bigger main street, Hope started seeing her friends, many of whom she greeted and talked with. They greeted me too, with the ubiquitous hand-touch greeting. It’s like a handshake, but you just touch the person’s hand rather than grasping and shaking it. Everyone here has been very friendly.

Not too many people have cars in Gitarama; more have motorcycles, but still not that many. People walk everywhere. Another thing I like about Rwanda, at least away from Kigali, is that the street is as much for people as it is for cars. In fact, cars are secondary as people gather in the street to talk, do business, greet their friends. As we walked further, I saw the market, with vendors setting up tables in the middle of the street. Along the side of the street were permanent stalls from which vendors sold shoes, cooking oil, shampoo, rice, radios and other electronics, clothes, towels, just about everything. Hope explained that we would buy potatoes first, so we proceeded to her favorite potato vendor.

Hope is a great shopper: she squeezed every cabbage; sorted through the pile of green beans to make sure no bad ones were hidden at the bottom; thumped the pineapples, pronouncing some too ripe and others just right; sniffed the flour so make sure it was fresh. At the potato vendor, she went through several piles, picking through them to get the best ones. Then the vendor started filling up a huge bag, which, when weighed, turned out to be 50 kilos. At this time I finally began to understand how the hauling would be done. After the bag was filled and the vendor stitched it shut, a tall guy in a blue coverall placed it on a wheelbarrow made from thick branches. A battered wheel supported the cargo. We left the potatoes there as we went to buy other things, and I now understood that the tall guy would load up the wheelbarrow and take our purchases home that way.

We bought other items in the same manner: Hope selected the vendor, sorted through the fruits or vegetables to get the best ones, paid, and we moved on to the next vendor, leaving our purchases behind to be picked up later with the wheelbarrow. It was a long process, and occasionally I wandered off to look at other things. I saw no other muzungus the whole time I was there, and as always, people were curious. Kids want to touch your hands and arms, often pointing back and forth between their dark skin and my light skin. Teenage boys greet you with a big smile and, “Hey muzungu!” and do the greeting where you touch the other person’s fist with your fist. One kid, who stood before me and stated, “muzungu” laughed when I said, “Yes, I know.” I told another one, “Oya muzungu, nitwa Ellen” (Not muzungu, my name is Ellen), and he told me his name. Those who noticed my watch were fascinated with it…it has two faces on it, one for time in U.S. and the other for Rwanda.

I can take a bit of this but after a while I get a little uncomfortable. I didn’t take my camera because a muzungu strolling through town draws quite a bit of attention. If you add sunglasses, the attention increases a little. Add a camera (especially a large one like mine—I wish I had a smaller camera for Africa) and you’ve got a swarm of people who want their picture taken and to look at it in the camera. So as much as I could in a crowd of thousands, I kept a low profile.

Thousands of people wandered through the market dressed in all manner of clothing from T-shirts that say Lincoln Elementary School or Nike to traditional African wrap dresses. Occasionally someone in a business suit would pass by, but most people wore their daily clothes. Too many children of all ages were there—I wished they were in school, but not all families can afford to send their kids to school. Primary school is free, but they have to have uniforms, shoes and school supplies. Also, some families need their kids to work to earn money or grow crops, so these are the kids I saw at the market.

Hope wove in and out among the huge tables covered with all kinds of fruits and vegetables that made up the main part of the market. She bought pineapples, passion fruit, mangoes, bananas, a purple fruit I don’t know the name of, oranges, and several others. I was surprised to learn that some of the food comes from far away; I had imagined that most of the fruits and vegetables would be grown locally. The food at the market came from everywhere: Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Pakistan (rice, curry).

Finally, Hope was finished with her shopping. The blue-coverall guy, who stayed with us most of the time we were at the market, left to get the wheelbarrow where we had left it with the potato vendor. He came back with the huge bag of potatoes and an even bigger bag of charcoal. To that, he added two large bags (almost waist high) full of fruit and vegetables, a huge bunch of bananas, and a shopping bag of green beans. Hope had also bought some peanut flour and cassava flour, and that went on the wheelbarrow too. She and I each carried a paper bag full of fruit. The wheelbarrow man left ahead of us, and most of the way back to the house he stayed ahead of us even though he was pushing what had to be at least 150 kilos of food. At one point, in the middle of town, he stopped to rest. He took off his baseball cap with the Deutsche Bundesbahn (German national railway) logo on it and sweat rolled down his face onto his coverall. He only paused for a minute or so, then picked up the wheelbarrow and continued on. To understand what a feat this is you have to remember that the road is not paved. It has deep ruts, big rocks, and is very uneven—high in the middle and sloping toward the sides. After we turned onto our street, had to push the wheelbarrow up a hill then down a steep driveway to the boys’ house. I called him Superman, and he laughed at that.

Raising hail

2008-02-07T21:24:00.001-08:00

Both today and yesterday we had thunderstorms with hail. Yesterday when the storm started, I was at the guesthouse, and Micaela was at the girls’ house. She said the girls were running outside to collect the hail into buckets. Today, during my English lesson for staff and neighbors, rain started suddenly, then even bigger hail than yesterday pounded the tin roof. We had to stop the class because we couldn’t hear one another talk. I hadn’t realized it yesterday, but no one here had ever seen hail before, so my class and I stood at the window for some time and watched the white hail pile up like snow. After the rain stopped, a couple of the mamas stopped by and they, Micaela, and Etienne ran around the yard throwing handfuls of hail at one another. When the class was over, we picked up handfuls of hail and let it melt in our hands. My students were amazed. It’s always warm in Rwanda, and none of them have ever seen snow or ice. (They don’t know how lucky they are!) I taught them the English word, hail; I don’t think Kinyarwanda has a word for it.

Since I’ve been here, we’ve had an earthquake, a thief, and two hailstorms. Locusts, anyone?

Ibisambo

2008-02-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

“Ibisambo, ibisambo.” Sadi kept saying it over and over as if repetition would make me understand. He doesn’t speak English, I don’t speak Kinyarwanda, so we had an impasse going. Without understanding what had happened, I went back inside the house.

I had awoken 2:45 a.m. to bloodcurdling screaming on the street in front of the next door neighbor's house. You have to understand that we can't see out to the street because the house is surrounded by a tall brick wall. The screaming didn't stop, so I hauled myself out of bed, getting tangled up in my mosquito net and almost landing on my hind end. I went outside to find our guard, Sadi, gone. So I walked up the driveway in my nightshirt and the pants I had hastily pulled on and saw a group of people in the street in front of the neighbor's house. I didn't try to intervene because the situation seemed to be slowing down, and without any Kinyarwanda I wouldn't have known what was going on anyway. Etienne, an assistant at the children’s home who serves as our interpreter, has a room on the grounds of our house in a separate building, but he slept through the whole episode. He's 21, and sleeps through everything like only young guys can.

Micaela and I waited on the back porch for a while, deciding on the best thing to do. I went around to the side of the house again, and Sadi was back. He kept saying, "It's ok, it's ok, ibisambo, ibisambo," so I went back inside, somewhat, but not completely reassured. “It’s ok”sounded reassuring, but I knew that ibisambo was the key to understanding what had happened.

Wide awake by this time, Micaela and I made a snack of cheese and crackers and watched the rest of Sister Act, which we had started on Saturday night. Eventually we went back to bed, still not knowing what had happened. I never went back to sleep.

At breakfast with the boys, still no information was available, but we learned that after John took some of the kids to kindergarten, he would find out and tell us. Later, he came to the house and explained that a guy had tried to break in to the house next door to steal some animal skins that the neighbor uses to make drums and other traditional items. Apparently, the guard at that house heard him and grabbed him by the throat. Then Sadi and the guard at our girls' house (across the street) and several others ran to assist. It seems that they apprehended the guy and delivered him to the police. It turns out he sleeps in a bush down the street and has robbed other homes. He had a stash of stolen property that the police allowed the owners to reclaim. The guard at the girls' house is now regarded as a hero by the neighbors. I think Sadi is a hero too, and I told him this. Ibisambo means thief.

I slept through it

2008-02-04T10:20:00.000-08:00

Last night after my post, John (the general manager here), told me that the mayor of Gitarama was the one who put out the news about the earthquake. He said that the revised timetable was between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. Micaela, Etienne (an assistant here), and I heard on the news on TV that the earthquake was a rumor, which didn't provide much information (after all, some rumors are true), so we went to bed. Around midnight I heard people talking outside, but I fell back asleep. In the morning we learned that an earthquake had indeed occurred around midnight. Unbeknownst to Micaela and me, John had the kids take their mattresses into the courtyards of their houses, so they all slept outside! Some of the kids were pretty scared. John is the hyper-responsible type, so I think he just took care of matters and didn't want to bother us. I wish he had though--I would have liked to reassure the kids. As it was, I slept until my alarm went off at 6:30 and missed the whole thing!

Earthquake update

2008-02-03T10:50:00.000-08:00

The latest is that we're supposed to have an earthquake here in Gitarama between 8 p.m. and midnight tonight. It's almost 9 p.m. now and nothing has happened. I'm not sure where this news flash came from, or whether the source is reliable. I just Googled "what to do in an earthquake" to find out what we're supposed to do (if inside, stay inside and take cover under a sturdy piece of furniture). I'm not really all that worried, but just want to be prepared. I'll let you know how it went tomorrow.

This just in...

2008-02-03T04:55:00.000-08:00

You may have heard about an earthquake in Rwanda this morning. I'm posting to let you know that all is well here in Gitarama. The earthquake was in the western part of the country, along the border with DR Congo. Apparently, 21 people were killed (1o when a church collapsed), and 200 injured. Etienne, a Rwandan guy who was with us at church this morning, said he felt the quake, but I have to say that I didn't notice. Just thought I'd reassure you.

National Heroes Day

2008-02-01T10:42:00.000-08:00

Today, my first full day in Rwanda, was National Heroes Day, a holiday that seems a bit similar to Veteran’s Day except that the heroes don’t have to be veterans. Yesterday I was informed that everyone in town was expected to go to the football (soccer) stadium at 7 a.m.! That meant that we had to get up at 5:30 to get ready, eat breakfast, and walk over there with about a dozen of the kids from the home. I thought getting up that early might be hard, but roosters start crowing around 4:30, so waking up wasn’t a problem.

After a very small breakfast, we set out for the stadium. The day was beautiful, and everyone was up and walking to the stadium, so it was easy to forget how early it was. As we left our small street and turned onto the main street that leads to the stadium, we saw that indeed, the whole town was turning out for the National Heroes Day celebration, which was to feature a speech by Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame. Most noticeable was a long line four people wide of girls from a local Muslim school wearing identical blue skirts, white blouses, and white head scarves. I was surprised because I thought the vast majority of Rwanda was Christian (mostly Catholic). Etienne, the “technician” from the home, was walking with me and explained that most of the girls aren’t Muslim, it’s just that the school is run by Muslims, and the skirts, blouses, and head scarves were their school uniform.

As we got closer to the stadium, the size of the crowd became evident. Even more evident was that we would have to stand in a long, slow line to get into the stadium. A small number of police officers stood at the entrance, frisking the men and children and using handheld metal detectors on the women. It was a slow process to inspect each person; we stood in line for well over an hour. The crowd experience was intense and somewhat uncomfortable—we were packed together and people were pushing to get in.

We finally did get in, and took seats on the cement bleachers. Asking people to arrive early was part of the crowd management plan; we waited 2 to 3 hours before the festivities began. I had a bottle of water but drank little of it because I didn’t want to have to attempt to wade through the huge crowd to get to the dubious looking “toilettes publique.” So we baked in the sun and chatted until things started happening.

The soccer stadium is huge. The crowd of “regular” people (that would be us) sat on the side with the cement bleachers. The other side, smaller, had a cover that kept the sun out. Government dignitaries and other “big” people, as one of the boys called them, sat over there. I’m not good at crowd-size estimates, but I wondered if 100,000 were there. Later I asked Micaela (the other person who’s managing the children’s home with me) how many people she thought were there, and she said 100,000, so between the two of us, maybe we have a good estimate. I counted five muzungus, for a total of seven including Micaela and me. I thought I’d see a few more, but it’s still a little unusual to see white people in Rwanda other than in Kigali, the capital.

Various groups filed onto the soccer field, including acrobats, dancers, singers, drummers, and a marching band complete with black and red uniforms, tubas, the whole nine yards. They were a good distance away, and a little hard to see because they performed facing the relatively small group of dignitaries, rather than the huge mass of people who came to see their president.

Apparently, for security purposes, no one knew exactly when the president was to arrive. You could tell once he had arrived outside the stadium because men in business suits were running around looking busy, important, and somewhat frantic. He arrived in a black Mercedes preceded and followed by two grey SUVs. He sat with his wife, the Supreme Court chief justice, the minister of sport and culture, and other dignitaries. [As I’m writing, I’m watching the event again on Rwandan television—one of the two channels we get here.] The others spoke first, the drummers played again, then Paul Kagame spoke. Of course, I didn’t understand any of it, but Patrick, one of the older boys, sat next to me and provided an abbreviated version. He talked about ordinary heroes and of Rwanda’s need for heroes. He said that you don’t have to be in the military to earn hero status, but that small acts can be considered heroic. After he finished speaking, he walked around the stadium, past all of the “regular” people so they could see their president. Apparently people see him as very accessible, and he’s very popular. Anyone can request an audience with him, and he periodically goes to events like the one today, so people can see him, which makes sense in a country where most people don’t have TV. The fence separating him from the crowd was flimsy, and I thought they’d push right through it, but a significant police presence kept that from happening.

We were hot, hungry, and thirsty, but we got to see the president of Rwanda. It was worth the discomfort.

Bought my ticket

2007-11-18T08:42:00.000-08:00

After numerous attempts to piece together my own arrangements to get to Kigali, I finally gave up and let AAA do it for me. The woman who helped me had never heard of Kigali (many people haven't). After confirming that Rwanda is in Africa, she spent a lot of time with me investigating various possibilities for getting there and back, one of which cost $8500 for coach! It's not easy to get there from here. Eventually we found flights that I could live with (i.e., without too many stops) at a price that didn't make me sick to my stomach. Going over, I'll fly direct from Cincinnati to Paris. After spending the day in Paris, I'll go on an overnight flight to Nairobi, then from there to Kigali. On the way home, I'll go through Johannesburg (with an inexplicable stop in Bujumbura, which is probably a half-hour flight from Kigali) and Atlanta. I'll be leaving on January 29 and getting to Rwanda on January 31. I'll leave Rwanda on March 5 and get home on March 6.

Returning to Rwanda

2007-11-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

Those of you whom I've talked to about Rwanda know that even while I was still there, I was pondering how and when I'd be able to return. Well, I already have my answer in the form of a very cool American lady who runs a home for children in a Rwandan town called Gitarama.

Because I traveled to Rwanda with a group of social workers and lawyers, we visited several social work organizations. One of them, the Urukundo Home for Children, made a strong impression on me. It's run by an American lady named Arlene Brown who, at the traditional age, experimented with retirement for about a year and found out she hated it! (Hating retirement challenges my imagination, but hey, we're all different!) So she ended up opening a home for children in a sizeable (for Rwanda) town not too far from the capital, Kigali.

The social worker/lawyer group arrived late at Urukundo, so we toured the various buildings at night. Even in the dark, I could tell that this was a place in which children were happy to live and where they were well cared for and loved. The buildings were simple, homelike, and personalized. Arlene and her staff had prepared a delicious dinner, and after dinner the children sang and danced for us. Their closing number, much to my surprise, was Edelweiss. For some reason, hearing a group of African orphans sing a song about a little white flower native to a faraway country brought me to tears. The children seemed delighted to sing for us, and their affection for their "Mama," Arlene, was obvious (and vice versa).

What impressed me most about Arlene was her ambitious, yet achievable, plan to make Urukundo self sustaining. Although her donors are generous, she knows that the best legacy she can leave the children is to ensure that the home is always able to operate, even after she is no longer managing the place. Already, the home's chicken farm generates income from egg sales, and Arlene and her staff also operate a guest house for travelers. Her next move is to purchase a large plot of land upon which she will build more buildings for children to live in, a day care center, a school, and several other projects. She needs $35,000 right away to secure the land, so she's going home to the US in January to meet with her donors and do some other fund raising.

I heard through the Rwanda "grapevine" I've maintained since I got home that Arlene was looking for someone to manage the home and associated operations while she's back in the US for several weeks. I immediately sent out some emails to my Rwanda contacts, and called Arlene the following day to discuss the possibility of being the person to manage the place while she's gone. She pretty much said "C'mon over." Due to previous commitments, I can't get there until the end of January, but another woman (Candy, from Arizona) from my social worker/lawyer group will be there in early January. She and another young woman (Micaela, from Germany) will manage the place together. When I get there, Candy will return home, and Micaela and I will work together until Arlene comes back.

Although I will miss my friends and family (and yeah, even my coworkers...), I am beyond excited about the opportunity to get to know Rwanda better while making a worthwhile contribution to the welfare of children. Rwanda has a huge number of orphans, some of whom are fortunate enough to have a place like Urukundo to call home. Other less fortunate kids live in the streets. Some work as house boys or girls (cooking, cleaning, etc. for a family), where they may or may not be well treated and may or may not have the opportunity to go to school.

The only thing I regret about my visit to Rwanda in September 2007 was that I neglected this blog. Keeping it up would not only have enabled my friends, family, and coworkers to share my experiences, but would also have provided me with a diary of my trip. As it is, I'm piecing together a diary of sorts from memory, emails to various people, and stories and pictures from my fellow travelers. Next time, I'll keep up the blog! Also, I was astonished by the number of people who asked me about it and said they missed it when I quit writing. Ok, folks, I'll do better next time, I promise.

September 18, 2007

2007-09-18T14:26:00.000-07:00

We rescheduled our visit to the Kigali Memorial Centre to today. It's a genocide memorial where over 250,000 bodies (or parts of bodies) are buried, with room for more because bodies are still being found. All of the people who work there are genocide survivors who tell their stories every day. The displays were at times difficult to look at, but it's important for people to understand because genocides keep happening. People here seem hopeful about the future and proud of the progress Rwanda has made in rebuilding, healing, and reconciling.

Sunday September 16, 2007

2007-09-16T12:08:00.000-07:00

I'm finally here. It look just about forever, but it's all worth it now. For the moment, I'm sitting in the lobby of my hotel (free wi-fi), and it actually feels more like Europe than Africa, i.e., the hotel is a little too nice. What to say? The airport in Kigali is so small we rode in the plane almost to the front door of the main building. We drove around the city quite a bit this afternoon--it's a patchwork of modern and timeless. A lot of construction is going on--new government buildings, houses, and apartment buildings and yet you see people carrying loads of bananas and firewood on their heads. People stop and stare at a busload of muzungus (white people), but then they usually wave.

We saw some genocide stuff today--Camp Kigali where the Belgian UN Peacekeepers were killed on the first day of the genocide is now a simple and moving museum and memorial site. We also saw the Hotel des Milles Collines (the hotel in Hotel Rwanda), stopped to use their restrooms actually, so I took some pictures of the hotel and pool. I don't think I'll have a chance to swim there, but our hotel has a nice pool too (just not famous).

We'll see another genocide memorial tomorrow on the way to Butare, then we'll be done with that stuff and focus more on how Rwanda has changed. By the way, you see very little litter here, and plastic bags (grocery bags) are illegal because they cause so much litter.

September 9, 2007

2007-09-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday, and I'm leaving for Rwanda on Friday. Yesterday, I bought a bunch of "stuff" for my trip--typical American, I guess. We always have to buy more stuff! I bought some fabulous hiking boots, one of those superabsorbent towels (handy for washing up on the plane--it will take us 2 days to get there), and a reusable, foldable water bottle. That's not so bad, is it?