A Black Day with Sinister Foreboding

This is the first day I have managed to get up at a reasonable time after having gone to sleep at a somewhat reasonable time.  But I feel bad.  Blah.

The worst, I am experiencing my first Kigali black-out.  There…NO…TEA!!!!!!!!

Good Cookie

So, a little update here.  I know you will be upset that there aren’t more photos yet. But, I am lazy and terribly jet lagged.  They will come.

Today, we made an excursion.  First, I got up at 3am for no reason and couldn’t go back to sleep until 6 or 7, I don’t know.  Then I woke up at 8:30 and made myself get up to try to beat this lag.  So, I am so tired today.

I don’t really remember this morning, it feels like yesterday.  I had chapatti and bought, from a lady who travels around and knocks on doors and sells things, a kilo of tomatoes.  That is 12 tomatoes…for about 50 cents!  I washed one really well and ate it along with the chapatti.  Normally I would put salt on the tomato but the house ran out of salt.  So Dinah offered me what she likes to use:  garlic salt with pepper mixed into it.  It was really good.  This was a good breakfast.

Then I had like 9 cups of tea, no exaggeration, and worked on the computer, different things, for a while.  This included my daily lesson in Kinyarwandan.  I use the online program Memrise for learning it.  A year ago I found a book by some missionary out in some province who used it to teach other missionaries and children.  So I just put all these words in there, over 900, including grammar and spelling rules, and then promptly stopped even looking at it because I had to work.  Now that I am here in Rwanda, I am loving myself so very, very much for having done this a year ago and am practicing.  And I am around Rwandans at the house all day so I can test the pronunciation and usage of things a lot.  It’s really nice.  Dinah and Evode say that they are really excited that I am bothering to learn the language.  I like it and its fun.

Dinah made me lunch again, leftovers from last night.  Oh yeah, last night.  Archie will no longer be staying at the house and will be staying somewhere else, though coming here for internet and because he knows everyone, because a new person with a reservation for his room came in.  This is Nicole from Canada coming to study for her dissertation the mass rapes during the genocide and comparing different ways of prosecuting it and so on.  Anyway, she is nice.

So, Dinah made dinner for her last night and invited me to eat with them and so I did.  Then, for lunch today she made the leftovers and cooked up a bunch of cooking bananas.  Oh heavenly cooking bananas!  They are green on the outside and have to be peeled like a cucumber.

After lunch I worked a bit more.  Oh, and this morning I took a hot shower in the other shower.  That was ok.  It’s basically just one stream of hot water that comes from the ceiling.  But, at least it’s hot and at least it comes from the ceiling.

So, then later on Dinah took me around the corner to go and get a local phone.  I got a dual sim card phone for 21,000 francs which is about 30 dollars and that comes with a little airtime.  I need a dual sim card because after three months it will be cheaper because half the people I know have the company Tigo and the other half have MTN.  So, now I have Tigo and MTN and can talk to them all.

Then we went to the market where I bought a half a round of local cheese, a large loaf of bread, a can of tuna, and dishwashing soap (we are meant to do our own dishes and provide our own soap) and then went to another local store and bought a pack of bananas, like 15 of them, and a large avocado.  All of this was for 6,600 francs.  This is about 10 dollars.  Pretty good.  I will be eating some of that avocado and bread and cheese and tomatoes for dinner.  Only now I wish I had an onion or something as well.

The advice I have received prior to now is not to eat fresh vegetables or fruits that do not have a peel at all.  The advice I learned from Katie who is with the Peacecorp, or at least the advice that they gave her and that she does not follow AT ALL, is to take the food, put it in a bowl of clean water and drop a few drops of bleach in the water.  Then put the produce in the bowl for like five minutes and then it should be ok.  Katie lives on the extreme wild side, she drinks the water from the tap.  I did not wash my tomato with bleach.  I just washed it really well in tap water.  Probably next time I will wash it really well in boiled water just to be careful if I am going to eat it fresh (cooking kills amoebas).  Anyway, my family will be happy to know that I am living on the wild side.  Not that going to Rwanda in the first place was a workaday thing to do.

As to the title of today’s post: Kixsy’s name is not Kixsy.  It is Keksy.  Because keks means cookie in German and it was Heike and Martin that found the dog.  They got her into the car with the only food they had on them, a box of cookies.  So far, Keksy will eat just about anything they try to feed her, rice, some dog food, potatoes, milk, avocado, and bananas.  Yes, avocado and bananas!  But she just absolutely will not drink plain water.  In order to get her to drink water, they just put all the food in a solution of milk and water and so it’s a big weird dog-food leftovers soup.  It is pretty disgusting but Keksy at least gets lots of water that way.

In other Keksy news, today, Keksy got her first bath.  She didn’t want it, but Heike washed while Martin fed her half a box of cookies one tidbit at a time.  In this way, Heike was able to tough Keksy in places that before elicited either snapping or yelping.  Afterwards, Keksy barked for the very first time at someone knocking at the gate and she also began to look like she wanted to play, she sort of hobble-pounced.  Baths make even the saddest of sad dogs a little bit crazy.

But, if you are happy at the current plight of Keksy, be sad for the bunnies who remain locked in their cage for the second straight day.  We need a collar for the dog and it’s impossible!  As of now, the plan is to braid one out of twine and use a carabineer to clip it to the leash which is half rope and half chain.  Pray it works for the cooped up bunnies’ sake.

Random occurrences you will appreciate:

At the kiosk for the phone, the clerk told Dinah to ask me where he can get a mizungu friend like me.  Apparently I seem like Dinah’s pet to other people.

Dinah bought shoes at what, on fifth glance, was a local cobbler’s house around the corner.  Three pairs of shoes for 500 francs.  That is less than a dollar.

At the local store where I bought the bananas and the avocado, a young child ran up to me with the biggest grin I have ever seen and hugged me around the waist looking up into my eyes with absolute joy.  And I said, “Haaalllo!”  Then he walked around seeming really happy with the world.  I don’t know what this meant and Dinah didn’t even bat an eye at the occurrence.

Yesterday I went to return bottles to the shop that is Dinah’s favorite because her friend Florence works there.  There were a lot of young people in the shop just hanging out or something.  Which is weird because the shop is about as big as my closet at home.  Florence began to talk to me.  I flailed around trying to think of how to tell a person that I don’t understand in some universal gestural language and failing utterly.  A young man in the shop spoke English haltingly and tried to translate, “She wants you to come back and spend women’s time with her talking.  She says that this will make her much happier than she is right at this hour.”  I said to him, “I like to make people happy.  If she wouldn’t mind I will have Dinah arrange for us to talk and she can translate.”  Everyone agreed.  Today, Dinah and I went to talk to Florence.  Florence does not own the shop.  She works and sleeps there for her boss who lives there.  She is HIV positive.  She was definitely alive during the genocide, but what ethnicity she is, is just not asked.  Her daughter was born in 1995.  Her daughter has been going to school and has been able to pay for school fees through a program that President Kagame put together that pays for school fees for 9 years of schooling.  This year is Florence’s daughter’s last year of paid for schooling and she wants to continue.  But Florence cannot pay the fees.  She wants to me to find someone to help her.  Dinah deals with most of this conversation for me, explaining that I am not an aid worker.  I tell her that I will ask some other friends if they know of programs that can help her and I will let her know what they say.  A broken heart…it just keeps on beating, relentless…

 

Good Morning Starshine, Rwanda Says Muraho

Hello everyone.  I would like to formally introduce you to chapatti, further proof that the rest of the world eats more reasonable things for breakfast than those in the US.  It is a thick tortilla-like thing, often eaten alongside fruit, for breakfast.  It has onions in it and is just delicious and pretty filling.  This is the chapatti I ate for breakfast this morning accompanied by a cup of Rwandan tea and a small banana.  The bananas here are fresh and delicious and very small.  They are sweet even when yellow and unfreckled.  This is different from the so-called “cooking banana” which is not so sweet but not as thick and starchy as a plantain and are also delicious when sautéed.

 

I’ll post more soon on the compound and some photos.

Muraho Means Hello

Some updates…

Jet lag in the heat of a late morning sleep is hard.  But, every day I sleep more and more reasonably.  My friend Damas picked me up from the airport on the night that I arrived.  It was very, very good to see him after so long and so personal a correspondence over skype for the past year and a half.  It was very good to hug this person that matters to me both personally and professionally.

Upon arrival, Dinah, a lady who works at the guest house, had made a delicious dinner of stewed vegetables (peas, squash of some variety, potoatoes, and green beans or something else that was squishy) in a spiced sauce served over rice.  This alongside Rwandan tea.  It was just what I needed to kickstart my poor digestive system.  After this I was introduced to the others that work here, Elie and Evode, the men of the house, though Agnes, the other woman who works here had already gone to sleep.  We spoke for a while in the living room and then went outside to the patio where all of the other guests were sitting.  There is Sofia from Russia, Heike and Martin from Germany/Austria, Katie from California, Archie from New York, and Kixsy the German Shepard.

Now, Kixsy is an older Shepard that was found the day before by Heike and Martin on the street after almost being hit by a car.  She is dirty and starving, anemic and anxious, and covered with ticks and fleas.  She also recently had puppies.  This kind couple have been bringing her back to health.  While I didn’t take a photo of her at the time, a day and a half later here is a photo of her.  She is gaining weight and looks a great deal better.  As it turns out, the person with the most experience with dogs is me and so I have quickly become caretaker number 3 after the other two because they go to work early in the morning.  This is especially important because Dinah and Agnes are afraid of dogs and during the last deluge common in the rainy seasons, Kixsy broke her collar and is now roaming free on the compound.

This is also especially important because the last three guests of the compound are three white rabbits.  They are let out of their cage in the morning and forage over the compound all day long.  So far, Kixsy has shown exactly zero interest in these rabbits, but as she comes back to health she may show more interest when someone turns their head, as she did with Sofia cheese sandwich last night…that was sad but it’s hard to be mad at a starving dog.

Heike and Martin are hoping to give Kixsy to a Rwandan family to be their guard dog but so far haven’t had much long and are increasingly attached to Kixsy anyway.  They are starting to consider what it would take to ship her back to Austria when they leave in a few months.

 

Anyway, do not be concerned for me everyone, I have instant friends of scholarly and Rwandan origins, I live on a compound with a nightwatchman, a big locking gate, even my room locks, and a vicious guard dog (yeah, right…maybe in two months she could be).  But, if you are still concerned, remember that you have a higher chance walking out of your door in Boston, Houston, New York City, Albany, and any other city and being murdered than I have of being murdered here.  Crime is very low.  This may have something to do with the fact that everywhere there aren’t RDF (Rwandan Defense Force or Rwandan army) members standing around with assault rifles there are police standing around with assault rifles.  The country is secure and safe!

My Big Fat Jewish Plane Ride

As the title should no doubt suggest, the plane ride(s) was an adventure.  I am writing this section from the Brussels airport where I am drinking a LARGE beer.  Si vous plait.  Qui!  I am drinking a large beer because, although it is 8:45 in the morning here, it is 2:45 in the morning for me. 

 

I didn’t get much sleep last night, I wanted to spend every second with Conor and I was nervous of course.  And so I got on the trains yesterday, and then got onto the first flight. 

Newark, as always, is an utter disaster to have anything to do with.  I had a glass of wine before the plane ride and another on the plane ride, both passing as some sort of chardonnay.  That got me over the almost constant turbulence on the flight here.  Which is strange because we were very high, above 35k feet, and the temperature outside was very cold, -60 degrees F.  I am told that these are both a recipe for a smooth cross Atlantic flight by my pilot husband.  But, at one point we actually had to go higher.  Nice pilots.

There was a moment of real fear at the beginning of the flight when the English speaking pilot said that we should enjoy our trip to Oslo, Norway.  Did I say fear?  I should have said elation (as many of you know, Oslo was a stop on our honeymoon).  Anyway, the other pilot who repeated the message kindly in French and, I believe, Dutch, definitely said Brussels.  Or, more accurately, Bruxelles. 

Anyway, on to the title.  I didn’t sleep on this trip but for about 10 minutes of bad dozing that could have slipped into a deeper sleep.  Instead, there was a VERY large group of orthodox Jews from, by language, everywhere in the world, on the flight.  They were all carrying kosher looking bags of food that had addresses locating their proprietors in the heart of Brooklyn.  Anyway, there is nothing about side-head curls that keeps me awake.  But, this large group would not watch movies or play games.  I suppose they are meant to avoid all this American nonsense.  Anyway, they went through their snacks and their newspapers quickly and passed them around and switched back and forth and…then…they got really bored.  They were not sleeping.  So they began to congregate in the aisles.  This was fine, I understand, truly, and have had the wiggly-worm feelings in my legs more often than I would like to remember, but, as they are standing in the aisles, this gives no room for all the other traffic in the aisles but to stick their bums in my face or push my pillow or dislodge the precariously placed elbow or knee or toe that keeps you from rolling about the place when you are trying to go to sleep sitting so close to a million other people.

About four hours into the flight the attendants started to get really angry.  They were still polite in their demeanor because, I think, they thought that the announcement that the captain then made that went something like, “I know there are many of you traveling together.  As there will be more than enough time for visiting in Brussels, I kindly ask you to get out of the aisles and return to your seats so that the flight attendants can move about easily and those attempting to sleep may do so….” would actually have an effect. 

And it did, the entire compartment began to clap!  In a way, I thought, just how rude.  On the other hand, I was happy to know that I was not the only person not sleeping because the place had turned into a very small but very crowded and uncomfortable meeting place for this extended family or group of friends.

Suffice it to say, I didn’t get any sleep.  I am VERY tired and feeling pretty haggard and weird.  I want a shower and a bed and I only have another two hours to wait until my next 8 hour flight to Kigali where I don’t know much of what to expect, except that somewhere near the end of the journey after I will have spent more than 24 hours traveling there will be a rather small bed with no woobie in it.

On the other hand, I hate my bed at home.  A couple of years ago I thought that the mattress was going because my back started to hurt.  The truth is, as I have since found out as the result of a new and very nice mattress, I am just getting older and I sleep much better on a harder surface.  I am hoping that the guest house I am staying at will not have splurged on a nice mattress and that I will sleep well in this bed.  I am looking forward to an open window and a mosquito net.  But these are just my imaginings.

I am not sure yet what time the sun sets in Rwanda because I do not have the internet to look these things up, but I hope that it will be setting or will have set by the time I get there so that my totally dry, sad, rough, sandpapery, (ok that’s enough descriptors) eyes won’t have to look into the hot sun when I arrive.  I think that will make me feel ill.

I have heard that people sometimes feel ill with jetlag or in different latitudes as a result of sun-encounters.  Anyway…I cannot believe I am about to be on a plane to Africa.  I just wish the trip was over.  I am too old for this kind of travel.

Note to self – always get a window seat.  The passenger next to me slept like a baby without having been so disrupted.

A couple of other notes… if I ever travel for more than 24 hours again I should bring a change of clothes.  And a shower for that matter, I stink.

Met a guy from Liberia who asked me business advice in the middle of Brussels Airport over my beer.

And for a good time, call security at Brussels Airport, because I really enjoyed the full body massage I was given.

 

P.S. Blogger.com, just because I am in Rwanda doesn’t mean that I want my interface to be in French!

Woobie Nights

I am on the train from Albany to New York Penn station where I will transfer by monorail to Newark Airport.  From there I will leave on a plane to Brussels.  From there I will hop a flight to Kigali.

I have my passport, my vaccination documents, my letter from CNRG saying I can come there, puzzle books, all the chargers I need, a camera, in fact…I don’t think I have forgotten anything.  One might say that I “forgot” to turn off the coffee pot, but, in fact, it turns itself off after 2 hours.  Not a thing we have to worry about anymore.

I utterly cannot believe that I am on a trip to Africa.  This, the culmination of all of my dreams and obsessions and study for most of my life, seems so meaningless suddenly in light of what leaving my husband at the train station was like.

He is the love of my life and I cannot believe that I am on this adventure without him.  This is just the sort of thing he would love to do.  My hope is that future adventures will be shared.  That he will have the sort of job that he can take leave from relatively often and join me somewhere.

Anyway, parting, for us, was a great deal harder than we thought it was going to be.  I thought I would be excited to go to Rwanda after all this time.  But, for now I am numb with the stomach clenching anxiety of being parted from my partner, my teammate….my woobie.

If you would like to know what a woobie is, you should watch the film Mr. Mom.

Or look at this photo and know immediately…

 

Look for future updates as I make each leg of the trip and hopefully, somewhere along the way, I am going to write something about what exactly it is that I intend to do in Kigali.  Expect to hear more from me in the coming days about my woobie-less nights.

Images and Words, Plus a Map!

So, based on a hand (computer) drawn map of the location of the guest house I will be staying in, in Rwanda, I have created a Google Map of important landmarks and a new place called "Home" - the Ward Brooks Guest House.

Here is a link to that map which I have made public so you can peruse if you so desire.

Rwanda Map

Another interesting thing about Rwanda is that there aren't really any street addresses.  The streets do not always have names, I am, as of yet, unsure what the different KK16 etc names are in Google Maps.  The big roads have names.  The way you say where you are going is to pick a landmark that people will know about, if you were taking a taxi, and then give directions from there.  Like, drive west on African Union Boulevard from Prince House and turn right on the next street.  It will be the big house with the gate, or something.

This means, among other things, you cannot get mail at your home unless you have some sort of official address, like an embassy or something.  So, when I arrive, I will have to rent a PO Box at the Kigali post office if I want to receive snail mail.

Next up on the agenda is photos.  Here are some photos of the guest house that were sent to me by its owner.

 

 

You are now formally invited to imagine me doing work atop that gorgeous platform gazing every so often at the "Land of a Thousand Hills".