Last post!

That’s right it’s finally all coming to an end! I can’t quite believe it myself. The last few days have been a whirlwind of last minute gift and souvenir purchasing and goodbyes. I’m not going to say it feels like I arrived yesterday or that the three months have gone so fast…it definitely feels like I lived in Musanze for long enough to have established some lifelong connections and made a home away from home (as cheesy as that sounds!). It was sad to leave it all behind, especially saying goodbye to everyone at the deaf school and Jacqueline who I’ve spent so much time with. The teachers and CHH trainers all took me out for a goodbye drink in town, which was really nice. At home in the evening I gave my gifts to Elie and Bernadette, and their adorable daughter Patience who is home for the holidays (a stuffed elephant made of African fabricJ) and they invited the Canadians over for dinner. Bernadette and Jacqueline also gave me gifts to give to my mother, which I guess is the thing to do here when someone leaves…so lucky mum!

With Jackie at the Deaf School

This morning I met with the other volunteers at the hotel where I usually work.  The bar staff (who I have also become good friends with!) were very sad to see me go and I can honestly say I will miss my corner spot at that hotel and their delicious fish brochettes and avocado. Although leaving was sad, I do feel like my time in Musanze is up, I made what I could of my placement, met some amazing people and had some fantastic experiences and am now ready to go home! There is a new volunteer at Elie and Bernadette’s house who will be running a summer camp for the kids and my spot at the hotel has already been occupied by another group of volunteers on their computers using the free wireless!

Messy fish in Kigali!

I am now sitting in the lounge at Kigali airport which is surprisingly nice! (Unlike the Nairobi one where I have to spend my  5 and a half hour layover…) I am sorry I did not write much in the last few weeks. It was all a bit of a blur trying to get in as much as possible before leaving! I met some volunteers from another organization on a bus in Musanze and spent some time with them in Kigali, which was great since they were renting a house there and let me sleep on the couch for free! They showed me Kimironko, a huge market where you can buy beautiful African fabrics and have them made into “Western-style” clothing! I had some pajama pants made from a funky blue fabric. In the evening we all piled into a jeep and went to a restaurant known for its African fish (huge Tilapia fried in delicious spices, which you share with the table and eat with you hands!) The following day there was big music concert going on, “Kigali Up”, so we went to check that out in the evening. The music was much better than the disappointing hip-hop concert in Musanze, but unfortunately, I think because you had to pay to get in, the crowd was almost completely mzungu and consisted of mainly tourists, and the majority of Kigali’s expat community! It was said that the organizers decided it could not be open to everyone…However the atmosphere was laid back, everyone was having a good time, there was good food and the music was great (a crazy mixture of international and African bands performing everything from blues-reggae to hip-hop). Of course it wasn’t perfect and between each act we had to wait about an hour while an old white Canadian guy did a “sound check”! It is interesting actually how “Westernized” the city has become. I am really glad my placement wasn’t there and that I got to experience something that felt a lot more like authentic Rwanda. In Musanze you can see and feel all around you  a sense of the original cultures and traditions, whereas in Kigali it feels like it’s all about “developing” as fast as possible, which sometimes unfortunately seems to be defined as becoming like the West.

"Kigali Up"

That Sunday I met with my good friend Mark from college in Kigali. He is actually one of the people who inspired me to come to Africa in the first place, as my TA in my model UN course. He has done a lot of volunteer work in Kenya and Tanzania during college and was travelling round this summer visiting friends, so he decided to come see me in Rwanda since he had never been. It was really nice to see him (though totally strange to be meeting up with someone from college in Africa!) and we just talked for hours. I took him back to Musanze and showed him around all the FCYF projects. He also stayed with me at Elie’s. All the staff/teachers/kids loved him! Especially the deaf children and Noella at the Deaf School…He has worked with deaf children before in Tanzania and could speak sign language with them. I think he had a really nice time and told me how much this reminded him of one of his early experiences. It was nice to talk to someone who had been through so many of the same things…Unfortunately he could only stay for 2 days but left saying he wanted to return and I know the everyone at the organization would be happy to have him!

With Mark at the bus station in Musanze

The following weekend Selina, Matt and I had planned to visit Akagera, the only safari park in Rwanda. We had booked a car, which came to pick us up at 4am(!) since it is on the other side of the country and they recommend  you get there for a morning drive at 8. The driver was already itching to go when we strolled into the hotel car park around 4.05! We napped in the car as the driver raced through the winding roads across the country at a ridiculous speed. I am not sure why he was in such a hurry…we certainly weren’t, and it was kind of annoying since we kept being woken up by the sudden jolts of speed bumps he didn’t notice! I was too tired to complain. I was not expecting much from the park to be honest, since everyone I had spoken to had told me it was disappointing compared to the amazing safaris you can do in Kenya and South Africa, but it was actually a really good experience in the end. We were not able to get a guide, since there is a shortage for some reason, but it was fine as our drive (still speeding!) was able to catch up with the vehicle in front of us who did have a guide, so we followed them.  The landscape was very different to the rest of Rwanda, so flat and dry! It was the first time that it actually felt like “Africa”!

Akagera

At first the drive was pretty tedious and boring as we sped along the bumpy roads, saw nothing for about 3 hours except these horrible flies that kept attacking us! Apparently all the animals were at the other side of the park at the lake, since it was the rainy season. At this point I was quite bored and thinking ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’! I felt quite bad for Selina, who was really excited about seeing elephants but I was doubtful that she actually would.  But finally we did see animals… and they all seemed to appear at once! There were baboons, a huge elephant bathing very close to us, then a dead hippo! We didn’t know it was dead until we began to approach and saw it wasn’t moving and half its head had started to rot. It was pretty to macabre! And smelt awful! Then there was a beautiful herd of giraffes and zebras and we got out of the car and took tons of pictures with them in the background. So the park visit turned out to be a great success in the end…and it was great hanging out with Selina and Matt one last time.

Sorry to cram so much into the last post…So much just seemed to happen so fast! So here I am at the airport…finally going home. I am actually in the Nairobi lounge now actually. I managed to fashion a reasonably comfortable bed out of two chairs and got about 4 hours of sleep! So not as bad as I thought it would be.

Anyway, I guess I should conclude…it has been an incredible experience that I will remember forever. It was nothing like I had ever imagined, but then again I try not go into things with too many expectations or preconceptions. The only one I really had was that Rwanda was “hub of development” in African and it is, there are so many great initiatives going on…but it is so much more than that! It still has such a strong sense of culture and tradition. The people are so warm and friendly and accept you almost immediately as part of their family. What was also striking was their sense of identity as Rwandans. For example when I met people, they would welcome me to “their” country. I was asked numerous times “How do you see Rwanda?” and went on to describe all the great things about the country and why it was different to other countries. This was really nice to see, especially since I could never imagine, welcoming anyone to England or America or Finland…and describing it as “my country”, but maybe that’s just me J I definitely want to return to Rwanda in the next few years and will continue to do whatever I can to help out with FCYF. It is such a great organization and I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to see and be a part of it for 3 months. I will of course always remember and miss dearly the amazing people who work for the organization. Outside of this I have made so many friends during my time in Rwanda who I am sure I will keep in touch, and maybe even meet up with in Europe and America…

With Elie, Bernadette and Patience

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog. I hope you have enjoyed it. If you have any questions, feel free to email me: marikaison@yahoo.co.uk

Mzungus in the Mist...

Sorry it’s been so long…I would say I have the excuse of being extremely busy with work and I was writing and editing the FCYF newsletter all last week and then I had tonnes of exams to type up for the deaf school…But that was all last week, so I guess I’ve just gotten lazy with the blogging! Lots to tell though…

Finally went to see the gorillas…the famous endangered mountain gorilla is the main tourist attraction of Rwanda and there are only about 800 left. To be honest I was not sure what all the hype was about. I have never been particularly interested in gorillas, and didn’t want to pay $500 just to hike up a hill and hang out with them for an hour. However everyone told me I was insane to be going to Rwanda and not see them…once in a life time experience etc. (and mum offered to pay!) so I thought why not. It somehow seemed like we were getting a good deal as well, since the price of permits just went up to $750! We were told when booking that the Susa group were “the group to see”, since they are the biggest (35 gorillas!), have the most babies (including a rare set of twins) and there are 3 Silverbacks (the big daddy in charge), including a “visitor” from a Congolese group! HOWEVER we were also warned that tracking this group involved the most arduous hike! I was not too keen on this as my fitness level is not great. But Selina and Matt were extremely keen, so I was not going to be the spoilsport…so we specially requested this group from our tour guide.

We (Selina, Matt, me and Matt’s host brother, Vincent, who he was treating as a birthday present-its much cheaper for Rwandans!) were picked up bright and early at 6am at a local hotel and driven to the National Park base where they had a big touristy welcoming ceremony with tea, coffee and a performance of the Intore traditional singing and dancing. They only sell 80 permits per day and I think there are 10 groups that you can track, so people are divided into groups of 8 and assigned (supposedly at random) to one of the groups. I guess most people don’t make special requests as we got assigned the Susa group as we had hoped. We were with a really nice group of young couples, none of them tourists, all living and working in Africa for a longer period of time. After an introduction from our guide, who thought he was really funny making jokes about how he was not strong enough for the intense hike to see the Susa group…and suggesting we just go see the golden monkeys instead! The Susa group is also the furthest away from the National Park base so we had to drive for over an hour in the jeep, before we actually got to the starting point. Half of this was on an very bumpy dirt track through a village, with street children running alongside the vehicle demanding “amafaranga” (money) and “agachulpa” (bottles). This made me wonder if some tourists actually throw money/bottles at them from the car windows!

We finally got there, with headaches and feeling rather queasy, were given our walking sticks, which we joked about at the time, as being completely useless…but soon found out they were actually very necessary! I was a bit confused as I couldn’t see any forest anywhere and we were just surrounded by mountainous farmland. There were children running around, locals farming the land, and lots of cows and goats. This didn’t really look like the kind of place you would expect find a gorilla! And it wasn’t! So we started walking (at quite a fast pace) up the hill through the crops and farmland. I was already starting to lose my breath after about 20 minutes…but I told myself it wouldn’t be much further. I could immediately see the usefulness of the stick though, and I was using it to take some of the weight off my legs with every step! After about half an hour I was exhausted and we didn’t seem to be advancing anywhere as we were still surrounded by crops with no jungle in sight. I started to question my decision to come on the trek and wondered if I was going to make it. I asked the guide, how much further and he replied with his version of humor again, “oh maybe 2 hours, maybe 6” (!) I was not amused. With no end in sight, I started thinking I can’t believe I’m paying $500 for this! I wasn’t the only one who was suffering…there was an Italian girl and an American, who were both just as exhausted but still seemed in high spirits…so I tried to keep a smile on my face even though inside I was swearing, and cursing myself for going along with Selina and Matt’s idea of a “fun hike” to see the “best group”. They of course were way up ahead and Matt’s host brother Vincent, the only Rwandan of the group, was wearing a winter coat and had not even broke a sweat! After about an hour and half I felt like I was going to collapse at any moment, and was just staring at my feet, willing them to keep going. There was an absolutely beautiful view from where we were halfway up a volcano, but unfortunately I was in absolutely no mood to appreciate it!

So finally after about 2 hours we stop and I finally see some trees and heavy vegetation a few meters away. Our hilarious guide, had a huge cheesy grin on his face as he says, “Welcome to the national park, this is where we begin” We hadn’t even begun yet!? I could only really laugh hopelessly at this at this stage…He said something into his radio, got a response in Kinyarwanda and then we were ready to enter. He told us this part would be much easier, since the land was pretty flat. I don’t know what he considers easy, but for me it just brought a whole new set of challenges! They had clearly made efforts (or not) to avoid destroying the gorillas’ natural habitat as there was no sign of path, the tracker at the front hacked away some branches of the vegetation so that we could get through the thickest parts but for me it felt like I was being swallowed up! Most of the plants were taller than me and with every step, I thought I might fall in and not be able to dig myself out! There was also the joy of abundant particularly powerful stinging nettles that manage to sting you through your clothes! I had stopped feeling sorry for myself at this stage and was finding the whole thing vaguely amusing. After about half an hour (I don’t think we had gotten very far!) we came to a small opening and the guide tells us we must leave our stuff there, and can only take our cameras. He says it will be about 2 more hours. This, I know is a lie as I had read that they only make you leave your stuff when you are close to the gorillas and he is talking constantly on the radio now.

So we continued through the forest for maybe five minutes, I had made sure I was near the front of the group this time as I didn’t want to get left behind! Selina and the guide are the only ones ahead of me. We turn a corner and all of a sudden there is a HUGE gorilla about 2 meters away from us! It was kind of shocking/scary and really exciting all at the same time. I was also pretty relieved. The whole group stopped and as we looked around and came to our senses, there seemed to be gorillas everywhere! The guide pointed out a mother feeding a baby, young ones playing, and two of the Silverbacks. They could clearly see were there, but didn’t seem to care. As if to prove the point, after about 5 minutes of us standing and staring in awe, one of the Silverbacks jumped on a female and started mating! A few minutes of very loud screaming and action ensued, which we all caught on camera of course! It was crazy. The other gorillas just went about their business eating, playing and sleeping. It was amazing being so close to them in their natural environment. A few minutes after the mating another Silverback decided to start a fight! (He wasn’t happy that the “lower” male had mated with one of “his” females, according to the guide) This meant more screeching and action! I couldn’t believe we had such a clear view of the whole thing! We watched them for about an hour, following them if they would move around a corner or into another area, the guide instructed us the whole time, telling us the best paths to take to get the best view. I was never particularly scared but there was one point when one of the Silverbacks eyed us suspiciously and looked angry, then started to approach us. The guide just told us to move slowly out of the way…apparently we were just in his path! I wondered how they see us! We must look completely ridiculous and pointless to them, white, skinny, hairless versions of them, holding black objects, making strange noises and moving around to accommodate them! During the time we were there we also saw some of them climbing trees to get to the best bamboo. And a pair of twins (very rare apparently) riding on their mother’s back!

up close and personal!

baby

mummy and baby

The whole experience was amazing and don’t think I can really do it justice, trying to put it into words. All I can say is that I quickly forgot about the hellish hike! The hour felt like a lot less and I think we could have stood there all day. We were sad to go, but were all on a high all the way back down the hill! I felt rather proud of myself as well and bought myself a stupid “Mzungu in the Mist” t-shirt as a reward…a joke based on the Diane Fossey movie. Its definitely was not easy, but I can say now (in hindsight!) that I’m definitely glad I did it and I don’t know if the other groups would have been as amazing an experience but I can proudly say I saw the “biggest and the best gorilla group in Rwanda” : ) 

The easy part...
(I was not in the mood to take pictures on the way up!)

Weekend Trip to Butare and Nyanza: The Modern and the Ancient!

So a few things I never thought I’d be doing in Rwanda…Yoga (!), walking around a university campus more modern and developed than any I’ve seen in Europe or the US…and eating Chinese food!

On Tuesday, I joined Selina for a yoga session with a local cooperative of girls. They are part of an organization called “Ubushobozi” (ability), started by some Americans in 2008, where they train local young girls (in their late teens) from a background of poverty in vocational skills like sewing, weaving etc. so that they can make beautiful products (which they sell locally and at a few locations in the US) to sell for profit in order to make a living and support themselves. We had been to see them a few weeks ago (at the suggestion of some friends who we saw with their beautiful bags!) and they explained to us how the cooperative works. They girls go in every day and have a daily schedule of sewing and working, as well as English and computer lessons from local teachers. They also have weekly yoga and dance lessons. The dancing is the traditional style, but the yoga came from a foreign volunteer I think, who taught them the basics and gave them some yoga mats etc. and they absolutely love it! Anyway they had seen Selina in town last week and invited her to join them and she said it was awesome…so this week I decided to tag along as well. It was really fun…but quite unlike any yoga I am used to in West! They did have all the same sun salutations, breathing exercises etc., they just did them a bit differently…and everything was superfast! We jumped from position to position at a crazy speed and the girls seemed to love watching me and Selina sweating as we tried to stretch into some of the crazy positions! I even got a round of applause when I managed one (that I had never seen before in my life), which involved bending down, reaching one arm behind my back, one in front and joining hands between my legs and then lifting my leg up into the air! We had a lot of fun with the girls, even though they speak hardly any English. And it was great to see how much fun they have together… It really felt like they were all a big happy family! We are definitely planning on going back this week.

This weekend we visited Butare, which we had planned a few weeks back. Unfortunately Patricia couldn’t join us as her host family wanted to show her their cow farm! (Cows are a big deal here…I’ll explain more about that later). So Selina, Matt and I set out on the (long) road to Butare…which is a city in the Southern Province on the other side of the country. It is regarded as the “intellectual capital” of the country as it is home to the biggest and oldest university as well as many other educational institutions. It also has the National Museum of Rwanda and many prominent cathedrals and churches. We were expecting the South to be different to the North, but we were in no way prepared for how different! The landscape leading into the town all looked very similar, green rolling hills dotted with mud huts etc. but the actual town was like a different world! There were huge modern houses everywhere, wide paved roads, several roundabouts, street lamps painted in the colours of the Rwandan flag…and everyone seemed to be well-dressed! We almost felt scruffy! We joked that if you wanted to give someone a biased picture of an African development “success story”, this was it!

part of the university campus

Once we had found a nice-looking and cheap guesthouse and dropped off our stuff, it was already late afternoon so we decided to go check out the university. After quite a bit of confusion and wrong turns trying to figure out where it was with the rather misleading map in the guestbook, we found the huge campus on top of the hill. Walking through it felt quite surreal…it was so quiet and peaceful. The grounds are beautiful, surrounded by exotic trees and gardens and there is an amazing view of the whole city. The buildings themselves are super modern-looking, which seemed strange since this is supposed to be the oldest university in the country. But we realized (and read) later that the university was destroyed during the Genocide and subsequently completely re-furbished in 1995 and officially re-opened by President Kagame. Peeking into some of the lecture halls, they looked much more modern than the ones at my university and we could see students with their laptops hooked up, studying and chatting!

Chinese food in lunch trays!

According the guidebook, “The Chinese Restaurant” (it’s actually called that) is the best place to eat in town, so we figured we try it for a nice change from African food…and out of curiosity at what on earth the Rwandan take on Chinese would be! After some communication difficulties with the waiter and the usual hour and a half wait, the food came. And it was pretty much the same fried noodles, beef, rice and vegetables that we are used to. The funniest part was that Matt and Selina had ordered set meals (noodles, beef and vegetables) and they came in metal prison cafeteria-style lunch trays with each food type in a different compartment!

The next morning we went to see the biggest Cathedral in Rwanda, which was huge and beautiful but strangely had three sets of pews going out in three different directions from the alter…which made us wonder how the priest can give a service facing all three sides at once! We also went to see the national museum, which was really interesting and packed with information about the history, traditions and culture of Rwanda. There were traditional weapons, tools (I never knew there were so many types of hoe!), instruments (one with strings made from ox nerves!), clothes (mainly loin cloths and capes made of black tree bark and animal hides before cotton came in). One of the most interesting things I remember reading was a description of the tribal belief in divination. There are many many differ forms, but one involves a diviner placing the client’s saliva into a bird or bull’s mouth and then whispering into its ear the question they want the answer to. They then kill it, open it up and decide the answer based on the arrangement of the inner organs!

Biggest cathedral in Rwanda

In the afternoon we got a bus to the nearby town of Nyanza, which used to be the royal capital of the ancient Mwami Kings! Interestingly, their history is somewhat mysterious and there are many gaps and unknowns, since the only evidence of the Kingdom’s existence before the 15^th Century is based on oral history. Though we rather stupidly got off the bus too early in town and had to walk about 5km uphill in the sun to get to it, the museum was great! It was an hour before closing, but we were told the tour would only take about 45 minutes. A young Rwandan lady, who looked as if she was dressed for a special ceremony in a beautiful silk wrap, and spoke perfect English, gave us a guided tour of several types of restored Mwami palaces. When I say palace, this is a HUGE structure made of hay, straw and bamboo thatched together make a kind of dome (sorry I was too cheap to pay the fee to take pictures…you can google it!) Inside felt very spacious but cozy at the same time! We had to take our shoes off and it was basically one huge space with a few thatched partitions and the floor covered with straw mats. There are separate areas for men and women of course….the women being the King’s many wives, who come one at a time when invited accompanied by their ladies in waiting. The King’s bed was ridiculous, it took up about quarter of the whole palace! The guide made a clearly tried and tested joke about it being “King-size”.

Behind the palace were two much smaller almost identical straw and hay structures...one for the “milk girl” and one for the “beer boy”, responsible for the King’s milk and beer respectively, both of whom had to be virgins!

Rwandan ceremonial cows (not taken by me)

Afterwards we saw the cows. Now I knew that cows are highly regarded in Rwanda, and if you call someone a cow, it’s a complement suggesting they are intelligent! Apparently cows are a symbol of both power and wealth…the more you have the wealthier/more powerful you are. So as you can imagine the Mwami Kings had quite a few! They’re not just any cows though, their special Rwandan cows with a deep shiny brownish black coloring and both males and females have huge long curved horns. They do appear rather regal…not like our black and white milk cows! Traditionally they were used for purely ceremonial purposes and never milk or meat.   

We left quite satisfied at having our fill of Rwandan culture and history and jumped on a bus to Kigali. We were quite tired when we got there, ready to be soon on our way home to Musanze. Unfortunately what we didn’t realize is that the buses stop running at 7pm! We got there just after 7.30…So that put a bit of a kink in our plan, but we figured we would just find a cheap hotel nearby and return in the morning. Unfortunately the bus station is not in the nicest area of town, so the selection of hotels was not the most appealing. But we sucked it up and got a couple of rooms in rather dingy, institutional-looking motel with broken toilets and headed to a nearby buffet-style restaurant as we were starving. The food was cheap and edible normal buffet stuff- rice, beans, chips etc. But unfortunately it didn’t agree with Selina who was up all night with food poisoning in the miserable stuffy hotel…

our not so luxury hotel...

So not such a wonderful end to what was otherwise a great weekend…but even Selina agreed it was a really good trip! It was so interesting to see the huge contrast of the city of Butare. It really reflected how much the rates of development can vary even in such a small country… 

Gorilla-naming, burgers and more beautiful lakes…

So Friday was Matt’s birthday, so we (me and the Canadians) decided to treat him (and ourselves!) to a nice Western-style burger and fries at a touristy café in town. It was delicious (especially after another week of rice and beans) and we all polished off our plates. Though we maybe should have thought about how our stomachs would react after having become so accustomed to having the same thing every day…we all felt quite sick for a while afterwards! We did all agree it was worth it though!

The enjoyable part of our burger experience!

Today was a very special day in Rwanda, Kwita Izina, the annual gorilla-naming ceremony, where all the baby gorillas born during the year are given names at a huge festival held near the Volcanoes National Park and lots of government officials, celebrities and other VIPs show up. Since the gorillas are endangered, and their survival is so important for Rwanda’s tourism industry (the county’s biggest source of revenue) newborn gorillas that survive each year are very special and considered a gift to the country. It is therefore a great honor to get to name one of them, which is usually given to important people/international celebrities (like the president and his wife last year…I think Natalie Portman named one, Don Cheadle the guy from Hotel Rwanda etc.). This year 20 were named, 19 babies and one adult who had moved over from another group in the Congo.

Kids dressed as gorillas!

I am not sure how, but we managed to get into the VIP section, I think because we were white… we didn’t have tickets (we didn’t know we needed them)…but after some argument in Kinyarwanda the security guards ushered us in. It was quite strange in the VIP enclosure, which was full of foreign press, important-looking people and of course hundreds of wealthy-looking tourists. We felt kind of stupid, but we took advantage of the free food and drink and the great view… we sat on the grass right by the Prime Minister (he wasn’t sitting on the grass)! He gave a long speech that we couldn’t understand…but one of the best part was him getting up to dance, when the traditional dancers came over! The performances were great with mixture of modern and traditional performances with amazing Intore Warrior dancing and African drumming as well as some new Rwandan hip-hop and RnB artists. The naming itself was really nice as well, with each “namer” giving a short speech about who they were and why they had chosen their name. One was a very young girl, who had won a drawing competition and had some trouble reading her speech, which was adorable! The funniest part was the pack of “gorillas” they had crawling across the field to the stage, to represent the babies being names (a bunch of children in black fury gorilla costumes and masks!) They had even been taught to behave like gorillas making screeching noises, banging their chests and rolling about fighting with each other! Obviously the crowd loved it. The ceremony was followed by an insane amount of free food and drink in the buffet tent (in the VIP section). Each of the hundreds of tables had an abundant supply of beer, wine and spirits. I did wonder who exactly was paying for all of it…the whole event must have cost a fortune….and it did feel quite hypocritical. I guess it is a way of giving back to all those who are funding the tourist industry, but I’m sure all that money could have been put to better use. We figured we would take full advantage since we had paid $500 each already for our Gorilla Trek (booked for the end of June!) and this was probably what a large part of all that money goes towards!

Traditional Rwandan drumming

I have been spending all my weekends locally for most of this month, so I can’t wait to go for another trip…Next weekend we are off to Butare (a town all the way on the other side of the country). Supposedly there is an amazing cultural museum there and the reconstructed remains of ancient palaces! Anyway being here has been interesting as well. Last weekend there was a big hip-hop concert at the stadium in town. It was part of a tour where a bunch of Rwandan artists taking part in a big competition and the public can vote for who they want to win etc. A huge amount of people turned up (young, old, families, mothers, babies!) It was held at the local stadium, which is huge so everyone could easily fit in and entry was free. The stage however was tiny, so we couldn’t see much. The music was not really to my taste…and most of the music seemed to be lip-synced with lots of aggressive shouting by the presenters in Kinyarwanda in between songs! A lot of people were drunk (which is not surprising considering you could buy 2 beers for about 50p!) but not aggressive. As usual there were many street kids running around, and they seemed to gather around us and point and stare a bit more than usual. I guess it was mainly locals and we were the only white people there. I didn’t stay for long but it was an interesting atmosphere. I have never seen so many families and young children at a concert…it was more like a village festival (with beer!) than a hiphop concert!

Relaxing at Lake Burera

Sunday was really nice…it was a beautiful day so Selina and I decided to go check out Lake Burera, which is about a 40 minute bus ride from Musanze. The bus ride was interesting, crammed full to the brim as usual, luckily we had seats…Selina sat next to a woman who was breast-feeding for most of the journey. Apparently this is a normal public activity here. Breasts are fine I guess… but a woman should not show her legs! When we reached the town near the lake, we had to take bike (bicycles) rides for the rest of the journey down a very bumpy, hilly path! I have taken one once before in Musanze but never on an unpaved road. I held on for dear life to the sharp edges of the little square seat I was sitting on, on the back of the old rickety bike, as it sped down the bumpy road. A few parts were uphill and I did wonder how these young skinny boys driving these things has enough strength to cycle people up the hill all day! Anyway it was a fun experience and the view was absolutely stunning! The lake was beautiful, different to Lake Kivu though…There was no sandy beach, but a grassy area instead a small café and picnic area. All you could see all around was the huge green volcanoes surrounding the lake. It was also pretty isolated and felt very peaceful as there was hardly anyone else there except a few couples, some men who seemed to be having a business meeting (!) and young family. I’m not sure why since it was such a beautiful day but we had a lovely relaxing day just lying on the grass by the lake. Later we ordered some chips and goat brochettes and didn’t even realize they took over an hour to arrive…Must be getting used to “African time”!

xx

A day in the life...(my daily routine)

Sorry I haven’t posted anything for a while. Having lived here for just over 6 weeks now, I think I can finally say I have settled into the “Rwandan” swing of things. My day-to-day routine/schedule usually looks something like this:  I wake up in the morning at seven (consistently, somehow…without an alarm, maybe it’s the noise from the chickens or the house boy playing his wind-up radio outside my room while he cooks and cleans- but that usually starts around 5!). I have breakfast (which is always set out on the table for as many volunteers/guests/visitors that happen to be staying at Elie and Bernadette’s home (up to 7 at a time). This usually consists of a huge hot flask of milk and/or porridge (which you drink- it is not the oaty Western type, but rather a runny, slightly sweet version made of wheat or maize flour cooked with water). It was weird at first…but it grows on you and I now look forward to my steaming mug of morning porridge! With this there is usually some kind of pastry- “beignets” (like doughnuts), “chapatti” (thick fried pancake), crepes or bread…and of course delicious mini bananas (I don’t think I can ever eat a regular-size bland Western banana again). Needless to say I have not been going hungry in the mornings!

I then usually head to one of the schools. Sometimes Wisdom (if I am meeting with one of the teachers or Elie), in which case I walk, taking a very scenic route along a dirt track through a village, which is slightly shorter than the main road and means I get to greet many people, witness the morning routines of the village women, pass by a large expanse of green fields and potato and bean crops, a cow pasture and am invariably greeted with the ecstatic cries of “Umuzungu!” “Good morning!” of the hundreds of local village children who rush to hug me and press their runny noses into my skirt! Usually however I go to the deaf school which is too far (for me) to walk, so I take a moto-taxi, which strangely enough I was not overcharged for yesterday. Quite the opposite! They guy actually offered to take me for free when I said I did not have enough, and was going to get the bus. When I asked him why, he said “I love Mzungus”…so I guess it works both ways, you either get over-charged or under-charged! In any case I get to the deaf school eventually, usually after a slow process of negotiation or calling one of the drivers I have now befriended. Another scenic route through several villages, but this is uphill all the way. Street children still seem to notice me going by even on a moto and I guess a Muzungu on a moto is an even more exciting prospect! The number of children on the street here is still quite unbelievable to me. In Rwanda over 2 thirds of the population are children…and you see it on a daily basis. Bare-foot, grubby children as young as two, often in groups playing about in the huge gutters at the sides of the roads, sometimes they have sticks to play-fight with or balls of paper that they kick around endlessly. Sometimes I see young girls, maybe 9 or 10 years old, carrying their baby siblings strapped to their backs, like the mothers. Public education is free, but most of these children cannot afford the school materials they need to learn and many of them are orphans and have no one that cares enough to make them go to school…so they just wonder around and play in the street all day. I am definitely realizing how much we take education for granted in the West.

Deaf school kids posing!

At the deaf school, I usually join Jacqueline, the social worker and accountant for the Child-Headed Households morning meeting. The 47 children, the three vocational skills trainers and Jacqueline gather each morning to discuss the cooperative, how everything is going, the children’s responsibilities and the challenges of the project. The CHH project is now in its third stage, where the children are now all qualified in a vocational skill (basket-making, embroidery, sewing, knitting or wood-carving) and are being helped to organize them in to a “cooperative”, so that they can earn maximum profit as a group from the sale of their products and continue to produce more and buy more materials etc. After the morning discussion an prayer (led by Jacqueline…and all in Kinyarwandan…I have gotten used to trying to understand what is going on from volume, tones of voice and body language!) Jackie and I go to work in her office. I usually work on my laptop and she does everything by hand, in very neat, long (and tedious-looking) tables. This includes all the accounts and finances and other information for the CHH, mentors and widows. However now that I have come with my laptop, she is very keen to learn how to use it and transfer all her information over to word documents and excel spreadsheets...So we have spent many an hour doing that! 

CHH children making baskets

In the late morning (usually around 11), we go “for porridge” with the other trainers and teachers at the deaf school. This is essentially the Rwandan version of a coffee break J although porridge is a lot more filling (and nutritionally beneficial!) than coffee. I am usually not hungry, but it is kind of socially expected so  I try to get away with just taking a little….and they all laugh at me, saying I must take more so that I can grow “big and strong”…I have accepted that to them I look like a child! Afterwards we go back to work, or go and hang out with the CHH children for a bit. I like to watch the girls make baskets, they make it look so easy but when they tried to teach me, I found the intricate and precise threading of the needle very difficult. I got the hang of it slowly, but I don’t think I would have the patience to make a whole basket! The girls don’t speak much English other than the basic “good morning” “how are you?” “I’m fine thank you” that Jacqueline has taught them but I think they appreciate the company and love to laugh at me trying to speak Kinyarwandan!

Deaf children with their wood-carvings

Lunchtime for staff is around 1pm, after the deaf children have finished. They have a lovely cooperative system where the children take turns in groups cleaning up after mealtimes…and they seem to really enjoy running around with the mops and buckets! We usually eat while they clean, which is fun to watch! Lunch is the same every day, but is not too bad…rice (or more frequently since it is cheaper) “poshu”, which is stodgy white blocks of starch made of maize meal. It’s honestly not bad when you mash it up and cover it with the stewed cabbage and beans that you get with it. Sometimes there are also some “Irish” potatoes (just for staff!)- That’s what they call normal potatoes, since they also have sweet potatoes/yams. After lunch the day’s work usually starts to die down. The CHH children go home and the older deaf children start vocational skills training/sports/free time. I help Jacky, Louis or anyone else if they need anything (usually printing or something computer-based…Before this trip, I had never thought about the value of printer ink! - something else I have always taken for granted…) I then wait the for the bus to take me back, sometimes up to an hour, as they are often full!. Back in town, I usually head to the Muhabura hotel (where I am good friends with the bar staff by now!) to check my emails/do some research/write up reports for Jackie.

After a few hours at the hotel, I might walk into town (if I have any energy) to pick up some things or just to people-watch or I head home for a kettle/bucket shower before dinner. Depending on if there are guests or not, dinner is around 7 or can be as late as 9 if it’s just me, Elie and Bernadette since they don’t get back until late if they are working at the school. Again depending on if there are other people staying at the house or coming for dinner, more or less (usually more!) food is prepared and set out on the table in big heat-proof pots(family style), by Innocent the house boy, and more helpers will come to cook if a lot of food is being prepared. When it’s just us, the selection usually always consists of rice/Irish Potatoes/Yams (or both), green beans/peas or cabbage and a delicious thick peanut sauce with eggplants/aubergines. When we have Western visitors, there is also often extra ‘special’ options like beef stew, fried potatoes and spaghetti…oh and dessert (only usually when we have guests or special occasions) is delicious fresh tropical fruit, or traditional African donuts or crepes! The food is always delicious and I cannot complain...I am eating more on a daily basis here in Africa than I ever did in the West! We do have basically the same thing every day though and I do miss variety, having a fresh salad every now and then (vegetables are always cooked) and being able to order a pizza or an Indian!

Elie and Bernadette's home

Elie and Bernadette are usually visibly exhausted (understandably as they never seem to stop working) and go straight to bed after their mugs of amata ishushi (hot milk) and I usually read for a while/write my journal or (rarely) go out for a drink with the Canadians at a local bar or hotel (usually we are all too tired during the week!). I am usually in bed by 10.30…I guess that’s why it’s so easy to get up at 7!

Boy happily planting a tree

Anyway that’s the basic gist of an ‘average’ weekday at the moment, of course it changes a lot when visitors are here or there is a special occasion like this week Wednesday was World Environment Day, so I spent most of the day at Wisdom in order to document the spectacle of 800 trees being planted by 300 children by the river around the sports field! And weekends of course are a whole different story…but more about them later!

xx

tree-planting madness!

Weekend excursions: Gisenyi and Kigali

Dry season seems to be arriving slowly but surely. It still rains at least once every day here in Musanze but it seems like less heavily (it rarely sounds like the roof is going to fall in anymore!) and less frequently…although it is raining cats and dogs as I write this, so this may just be wishful thinking…my nose is distinctively redder than the rest of my face though, which means there has been a significant amount of sun as well! Thought I should give an update on the recent weekend trips I have taken with the Canadians.

Lake Kivu

Last Saturday we decided to visit the nearby town of Gisenyi and the beautiful Lake Kivu on the D.R.C. border. We got lucky and it was a beautiful day! We all go a bit burnt actually as we didn’t expect it to be so hot and sunny…it was absolutely sweltering compared to Musanze! We took our friend Mick, a nice teenager from Musanze, who introduced himself to me a few weeks ago while I was walking in Elie’s neighborhood (he lives nearby with his family and 11 siblings!). He has finished high school and speaks very good English and is currently taking art lessons and trying to make money to pay for university in Uganda (which is a apparently cheaper than Rwanda). He spends a lot of time with me in the hotel, while I work/use the internet just talking, telling me his hopes and aspirations for the future. He has really made me think about how lucky I am and how much I have always taken for granted, when I see his awe and amazement when looking at my photos from New York, London, skiing holidays and college. Despite his circumstances (which are better than most people’s here), he remains positive and hopeful for the future, telling me that God well help him go to university, get a good job and travel to America (his dream)! I hope he is right. Anyway he has become good friends will all of us (me and the Canadians) and wanted to show us around Gisenyi, so we invited him along.

Animal sculptures at our hotel!

I am very glad he came he came along actually, as he knew the town like the back of his hand and we would have been completely screwed without him. For example at the bus station, we were swarmed with hawkers, trying to sell us “cheap” taxi rides, food and drink, and he just walked calmly into the ticket office, bought our tickets and showed us which bus to take, telling the people to go away! When we arrived (after a very bumpy, travel-sickness/headache-inducing bus ride), he lead us to the hotel we had decided to stay in beforehand, “The Diane Fossey” which was nice enough, with big clean rooms and running (cold) water and relatively cheap. The funniest part was the interesting choice of decoration…as it was surrounded by life-size wild animal sculptures (which the guide book described as “Disney-on-acid animal sculptures”!). After checking in, we headed into town, which was very different to Musanze…smaller, much less built up, unpaved dusty roads, still lots of shops and people but much more spread out. We walked for about 50 minutes in the sweltering heat to see the “big border” and then another 50 minutes to see the “small border” (which was much bigger!). Again we were lucky to have Mick with us to show us where they were and explain that we were not allowed to take pictures, or the armed guards would be very angry and come and delete them! Neither of the borders were particularly remarkable, it could have been any busy junction/crossing with lots of trucks and cars and there was not even a visible D.R. Congo sign…just lots of hand-to-hand-trading (of foreign currency and all manner of goods between the locals). Mick explained that goods are much cheaper in the Congo and people bring them over to sell in Rwanda for a profit.

The D.R.C. border

In the afternoon we went to see the lake, which was absolutely beautiful, a vast and calm expanse of water, gently lapping against a sandy beach surrounded by the rolling green hills in the distance and a pretty well-groomed park separating the beach area from the main road. It was so big it could have been the sea! Of course there were no other white people around and we caused a bit of a scene (as usual) as we waded around in the shallow water and took hundreds of pictures! I decided to walk back to the hotel, since I was exhausted and wanted to take a shower and rest before the evening. Unfortunately, although I was confident that I knew where it was, my sense of direction failed me, I got lost and ended up making an hour’s detour into town…I had asked for directions from some hotel guards and they nodded confidently that I was going in the right direction but I guess they hadn’t understood! I did get back to the hotel eventually after asking some moto-drivers and declining many offers of rides. We were all exhausted but decided to head out in the evening to a nearby restaurant, where we had a nice Western-style pizza and then crashed at the hotel.

Mick and the Canadians in Gisenyi

Our trip to Kigali this weekend was out first “unguided” excursion but I think we handled ourselves relatively well! We knew where to go for bus tickets this time…the scenery during the journey was very different though as we were going in the other direction and essentially winding down through the mountains for the whole 2-hour journey, which was absolutely stunning (but not so great for Selina and Patricia who got a quite travel sick). I was surprised at how large the city of Kigali is. As you drive in, you can see it extends for miles and miles. We were staying in a house, owned by a Canadian organization that Selina knows an someone from. It was a huge, beautiful house overlooking the city in the clearly more wealthy area of town near the Prime Minister’s office, all the government buildings and NGO headquarters. It was almost like being in another world (or somewhere in California…rather than Rwanda!), with all the neatly trimmed hedges, clean, paved and painted roads, huge houses with flowery, groomed gardens and big security gates. I felt a little guilty…but I can’t deny how good a real hot shower felt!

After dumping our stuff, we set off on foot to visit the genocide memorial, with a map that a local woman staying at the house had drawn from us. Obviously we ended up going in the completely wrong direction. Lunch was an interesting experience…we stopped off at a restaurant on the side of the road, asking if they were open for lunch, the waitress nodded and ushered us in to a large room with a bar and plastic chairs and tables. There were only a few locals sitting inside drinking. We sat for a while, wondering if she was going to bring us menus. Eventually we saw from the terrace a truck pull up in the car park below, then our waitress walked down and began loading up our plates with food from large containers on the back of the truck! After she was finished, the truck drove away and she brought up four large plates filled with rice, beans, a few pieces of meat and some fried plantain chips. We were too surprised and amused to complain or say anything. The food was good anyway (pretty standard Rwandan fare) and good value (2000Rfr/$3). I am still not sure if this is normal…but it was definitely a new experience for us!

View of Kigali from the genocide memorial

Giving up on our map (the women who had drawn it had herself admitted that Africans don’t use maps and that she was afraid of them!), we jumped on four moto-taxis that took us safely to the memorial. The Genocide memorial was beautiful, very respectfully and tastefully arranged, with free entry in order to emphasize access to all and the importance of remembering. The site consisted of a museum, which takes you through a detailed and informative tour of all the stages of the genocide, from the history and lead-up to the aftermath and consequences. The most moving was the children’s memorial section which displayed along with a large photo, the name of each child, their favorite food, temperament and how they died, e.g. : “hacked to death by machete” or “shot in mother’s arms”. There were also exhumed skulls, bones as well as clothing taken from the massacre sites hanging in a dark room which was extremely eerie. The memorial gardens surrounding the mass graves outside were beautiful. We spent several hours walking around and speaking to guides there who were more than happy to talk about their lives and experiences (most of them were orphans/survivors!)

In the afternoon we headed to downtown Kigali, where Selina showed us the Union Trade Center, a new Western-style “shopping mall” that she had visited before with a starbucks-type coffee shop full of white people using the wireless and a huge supermarket with Western goods. Most of the imported stuff was ridiculously overpriced (special K was something like $10!) and the whole place was pretty garish, but I did get my dark chocolate fix and some non-dairy creamer J We left pretty quickly and went to a cooperative market full of local handicrafts, wood-carvings, bags and jewelry (and quite a few imported from Kenya). I decided to get all my gifts/souvenirs out of the way so spent all my money in there, bargaining with the lovely (but very persuasive) venders.

enjoying some Western food!

Arms full of bags of baskets and wood-carvings we decided to get a real (car) taxi back to the house and had a nice long shower, tea and snack break. Eventually around 9pm we set out to find a restaurant recommended in the guide book, but after almost an hour of walking figured it did not exist, so ended up going to a nice Western-style bar/restaurant Selina had been to before, with burgers, pizza etc. It was full of white people and wealthy-looking Africans drinking and listening to loud hip-hop and R&B. Strangely enough, there was also a bakery attached to bar, which seemed to be open all night serving locals who would stop off to buy a baguette or cake! We waited about an hour for our food and didn’t eat till after midnight…but we are pretty used to waiting by now so weren’t too surprised and the food was delicious! (maybe just because we are so used to rice, potatoes and beans by now) I had a fish brochette, Patricia-chicken, Selina-pizza and Matt- a good American-style burger J. Afterwards we went back to the house and chatted over tea and dark chocolate until 3am, which is the latest I think I’ve stayed up since I have been here! It was a really nice weekend and I definitely hope to go back to Kigali, since we only covered a small part of the huge, diverse city and I would definitely like to see more of it (plus I might need to re-stock on the dark chocolate!)

 Though it’s nice to take the occasional break from Musanze, having lived here for over a month now, coming back feels from these trips actually almost feels like coming home!

Dancing with Widows and a major wake-up call…

face-painting at the deaf school!

Where to start…this gets more and more difficult each week! So lots of Mzungu visitors arriving to visit us. I’m starting to feel a bit like a welcoming committee (with one person!), but I don’t mind it’s been great meeting so many new people, especially since Elie’s boys have gone back to boarding school in Rwanda, and Elie and Bernadette are so busy. Last week we had a group from one of FCYF’s main supporters in the UK, Jubilee Action and Think Money. Zoe, the representative from Jubilee Action who was leading the group was great and made sure everyone had a good time. They only stayed for a week, but had a pretty packed schedule. This included visiting all the individual projects, organizing games and activities with the deaf children, meeting with the mentors of the child-headed households program and seeing some of the children’s homes, watching an amazing performance of song and dancing by the CHH and deaf children, dancing with/receiving gifts from the widows of the huge cooperative (884 women!) and attending an intense football/volleyball match between the deaf school and Wisdom! Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed tagging along and joining in with all the activities and entertainment J

Think Money team with the CHH mentors

One of the most fun experiences was dancing with the widows. Other than Elie mentioning it in passing, I had no idea about this huge cooperative of women supported by FCYF. They do not have much funding or resources, but with the help of FCYF, the women who all live in the Kimonyi sector of Musanze have organized themselves into 30 cooperatives that make the most of what they have through activities like farming, handicrafts and livestock. When describing them, Elie was really adamant about the importance of helping these women, as he has seen how much they have been able to do with the little they have and they are supporting thousands of children. Also, it has actually been shown that women will invest everything they have back into the community and their families (as opposed to men, who are more likely to use money and resources for themselves!)

The Kimonyi Widows welcoming dance!

When we finally arrived to meet them, after a very bumpy ride through a mountainous village (off the main road), the welcome of the community was immense! Hundreds of women (as well as some men and all the children of the village!) had gathered to greet us in a large ‘village square’. As we climbed out of the van the traditional Rwandan singing and dancing began. The women dressed in matching, bright and beautiful African fabrics swayed about in an amazing rhythm to the singing and the beat of the drum. We all watched in awe as amazement as we were ushered to a bench at the front of the crowd. At the end of the welcoming performance, the president of the cooperative stood up and gave a speech to welcome and thank the team for their support (which Elie translated.) Then the singing and dancing started again, and before we knew it we were all pulled up by the women and given bright cloths to wear. I felt ridiculous trying move my hips and arms like them, but it was a lot of fun! After the dancing we were all given gifts from the women, a large bag (each!) containing fruits and vegetables that they had grown. We felt a bit bad, knowing that we wouldn’t really be able to make good use of with 20 tomatoes, hundreds of bananas or bitter African plums…but of course it was important to accept their gift! We all left on a high as they continued to dance and sing for us. I really hope they are able to get more support and continue their work as their sense of hope and optimism, despite their difficulties, was so inspiring.

learning to weave baskets with the CHH

Another more saddening/eye-opening experience I had last week with the team was going to visit some of the orphans, supported by the organization’s Child-Headed Household (CHH) program. This is basically a psychosocial support and vocational training program, for children who as a result of the genocide or HIV/other diseases have lost their parents and are struggling to support several younger siblings/older dependents) within their households. The program enables the children to choose adult “mentors” within the community (from pre-selected trusted and respected members of the community) to give them advise, visit them and essentially provide the love and care of a parent. The program has been running for several years now and from what I have seen the children are really happy, enthusiastic about their work (they all now proficient in handicrafts, wood-carving or knitting) and have really formed a community amongst themselves. This is a very different picture from what Elie and Jacqueline the social worker, described from when the children (the most vulnerable in the community), were first selected. Jacqueline said that many of the children (understandably) were so traumatized they would not even speak about their experiences. They saw no hope for the future. What the program has done for them is great, but seeing their homes was a wake-up call and reminder that they still need a lot more support and their a situations are still far from ideal. The most shocking was the first home we visited, which was literally just two large sheets of corrugated iron attached together as a shelter from the rain. Inside they had little more than a thin dirty double mattress (shared by the boy and his younger brother), and a pan and a bowl tied to the ceiling! The boys seemed quite happy to show the large group (gathered around with umbrellas and cameras) their home. I didn’t really know what to think. In my mind, it was unimaginable that anyone should have to live like this, but there it was right in front of me.  I told myself that at least they were receiving some help from the community, their mentors and learning vocational skills so that they can maybe make some money in the future to improve their situation…but how many other orphans are living like this, or in even worse conditions and receiving no help?

A CHH orphan's home

I think it is impossible to come away from seeing something like this and not want to do something to help. The visitors I was with were visibly affected by their experience…and so was I, though in my current position I feel quite powerless to help these children directly. I can only hope that the more people that come to visit and see with their own eyes the conditions that so many orphans face, the more people will be inspired to help and things will actually begin to change…