Only love can do that

As hate seems to reign across the United States, I can’t help by reflect and compare my experience in Rwanda with the current issues plaguing cities across the United States. Just this past week, two black males were fatally shot in cities across the country from each other, one in Baton Rouge, LA and the other in a suburb of St. Paul, MI. A black male is THIRTEEN times more likely to be murdered in the United States than his white counterpart, and 84% of those murders involve a firearm (Huffington Post). In the past 6 months, 136 black people have been killed by the American police force (Huffington Post). Then just last night, in my hometown of Dallas, TX, 11 police officers were shot (5 killed) while escorting protesters (Dallas Morning News). As the violence hits home for me, I can’t help but alter my perspective on the BLM movement. Mobilization feels different when those who died could’ve been your friends, your neighbors, your family. It strikes a different chord. Thousands are protesting, black and white alike, but this is not new. I could spend pages listing the black victims of police violence, and that is not okay. But now it seems we begin a list of peaceful police victims of BLM violence.

There is such an “us versus them” mentality, black versus white, police versus civilian. I’d like to contrast this with the past 6 weeks I’ve spend in Rwanda, a country characterized by its 1994 Genocide (despite the fact that other genocides occurred prior). It makes me wonder, at what point is enough, enough? At what point do we decide that we are one? Rwanda’s country ‘motto’ per se is “One Country, One People,” something I’ve felt Rwandans truly live by. Despite living as a minority of the population, I have never felt safer. In any situation that felt a little less than ideal, I could turn to my side and see either five Rwandans watching what’s happening, ready to (or already) say or do something, and then I could turn to my other side and see two police officers also ready to intervene. To them, while I am an umuzungu (white person), I am also a Rwandan. Therefore, despite having so little of a connection to the country, I am a part of that ‘one people,’ granting me the same safety, security, and trust that Rwandans now have in one another. Where did this trust come from? In a country where neighbors have absolutely no reason to trust each other, how is it that today there is such cohesion, such a sense of unity? I truly believe that a lot of this unity came from powerful leadership by Paul Kagame, having a leader that moved forward with a mentality of, “What happened is not okay, and here is how we move forward.” We are one country, one people. We are no different. As President Obama said at the NATO summit this past week, “This is not a black issue. This is not a Hispanic issue. This is an American issue.” There is mobilization, but there is so much more hesitancy, and even more apathy. The answer is stricter gun laws. The answer is increased police presence. The answer is less hate. The answer is love.   

As one of my colleagues working in Rwanda mentioned, though we’re returning to the U.S. soon, we don’t have to be worried. We are white, therefore we are safe. In a country that for so many years has served as a role model to other nations, a nation of immigrants, a melting pot, we can’t seem to look at one another as equals. It is difficult to be proud to be an American at this time. It is difficult to be proud to be part of a nation with growing inequality, greater discrimination, and rising levels of violence, not to mention a presidential candidate that exacerbates white supremacist ideology. Issues that have been brushed under the rug for years are finally surfacing, and we are not handling them the way we are capable of, the way we should, the way we can. I’ve found that when people in Rwanda ask me where I’m from, I pause before saying America, trying to decide as to whether or not the judgement followed is worth it. I cannot comprehend, let alone explain how the issues have come to be what they are now. It is embarrassing. It is appalling. It is a disgrace. People ask if I’m excited to return ‘home.’ I don’t know if I am. But as I return home, I hope I can bring some of the unity and some of the love that I’ve been so fortunate to witness in Rwanda.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” –Martin Luther King Junior

Weekend 6: Uganda

This weekend was a long weekend, and we had both Friday and Monday off of work. Therefore, we decided to make the 10 hour trek up to Kampala, Uganda, the capital of the country. Thursday after work we packed up, made dinner, and then made our way to the Nyabugogo bus station for our 8 pm night bus. Our friends Jamie and John were accompanying us on the trip, and we managed to snag some of the last seats in the very back of the bus. The bus was large and decently spacious. It had no bathroom, but at least it had a big TV playing Usher, Beyonce, and Celine Dion music videos on repeat.

At 8 pm on the dot we departed for the Rwandan-Ugandan border, which is only about 2 hours away from the Kigali bus station. When we arrived, there were already a ton of people at immigration. Everyone was taking advantage of the long weekend. We waited on line for a long time, got our passports stamped, and then walked over the border to Uganda where our bus was waiting. The first immediate difference we noticed between Uganda and Rwanda after crossing the border was ENGLISH! We understood what everyone was saying! Granted, they were mostly heckling us for money, but we understood them nonetheless.

After finishing with immigration we hopped back on the bus and tried to sleep for the remainder of our journey. This proved quite difficult because it felt like our bus was driving 100 mph (or should I say 161 kph) and the road was extremely bumpy. I started counting the number of times I would jolt awake because my head would bang into the window or Caitlin. I lost track pretty quickly. Still, before we knew it, we had arrived in Kampala at 7 am.

We <3 markets

We walked to our hostel, got settled, and then set off for the day. We purchased our first rolexes, which are delicious street food creations consisting of a rolled up chapatti with eggs with vegetables. Another difference between Uganda and Rwanda: street food is not illegal here… Then we hopped on boda bodas (the Ugandan term for a moto) into the city center. The Ugandan bodas don’t have extra helmets for passengers, have older and less safe bikes, allow two people to ride with the driver, and somehow drive even faster and crazier than the Rwandan motos. It was definitely an experience.

We had planned to go on a 6-hour walking tour of Kampala as our activity for the day. Jamie and John joined us. Our guide, Joan, was very enthusiastic and fun. She led us all around the city and gave us facts along the way. First we visited a craft market, which we all ended up spending way too much money at. Then we visited a very large produce market. They had all the usual fruits and veggies we see at the markets in Rwanda, but also some unsual stuff like jackfruits and fried grasshoppers. We convinced the vendors to let us try them, but we weren’t that impressed. Finally, we went to the general market, which, according to Joan, is the largest market in East Africa. It was extremely overwhelming, but definitely very cool.

Caitlin eating a fried grasshopper!

After lunch, we visited several beautiful churches, walked through a hospital compound, past the Kampala Parliament, and ended at the King’s Palace. Nobody is allowed inside the actual palace, so we toured the outside. We saw Idi Amin’s torture chamber from the ‘70s and learned about the gruesome way thousands were tortured and killed during his regime. Finally, we made our way to the Gadiffi National Mosque. We put on traditional scarves and received a tour, which ended with a climb to the top of their tower, the highest point in the city. The view up there was amazing. After the tour was over, we ended our long, full day at a beer garden we had found online, because there was no way we could resist the prospect of draft beer!!

A view of Kampala from the top of the tower at the Gadiffi Mosque

Saturday morning we woke up and travelled to Jinja, Uganda, which is about 2 hours away. Jinja holds the source of the Nile River, and has many different activities along it. Today, Caitlin and Jamie were planning on bungee jumping, and Sunday, Caitlin, John, and I were going white water rafting. After settling into the hostel, we took bodas to the bungee jumping place. Within 15 minutes, Caitlin and Jamie were on the tower, 45 m above the river. Caitlin jumped first, followed by Jamie. I was their official videographer (see Caitlin’s instagram for the full vid). We spent the rest of the day relaxing by the Nile.

After dinner, we went to the Nile River Camp hostel, which was hosting a “Jinjapendence Day” Party. By 9 pm all the muzungus were turning up. People were already dancing on tables and climbing on the walls. On our bus to Jinja this morning, we met an interesting guy named Sebastian who had just quit his job and was clearly looking for a good time. We ran into him again at this party, where he proceeded to buy us all many rounds of drinks. The next morning we saw him again and he told us he had 37 rounds of whiskey and 7 beers. We’re not sure if we believe him, but you can decide for yourself.

The very first rapid of the trip

Sunday morning, we got ready for rafting. They debriefed us, gave us our lifejackets and helmets, and then breakfast. We travelled 45 minutes to the rafting launch point, separated into groups, and got into the boats. We made it very clear that we wanted to be “extreme.” Everyone who ended up in our group was more or less okay with this, so we were happy. On our raft were two American grad students who were working in Kenya, the two of us, and then two French men who were working in South Sudan. They were particularly funny because they kept trying to push each other off the raft, and cursing at each other in French. Our guide’s name was Josh. He was for the most part very mellow, but he liked to scare us with stories of people who had died in the rapids (by attempting stupid stunts), and telling us worst case scenarios for situations where our raft might flip. There were about nine rapids in total, six of them were Grade 5 Rapids, and we flipped on four of them. Getting tossed around in the rapids was pretty scary, but a total rush, although we both probably consumed about a gallon of Nile River water in the process. It was a lot of fun and we totally recommend it.

Our first of many raft flips

After we were done, we had a large buffet and looked at pictures from our day. Our raft pictures were hilarious (see a few below), so we all chipped in and purchased them. Everyone in our raft got copies. At the lunch, we found out that none of the other boats had flipped even once. I guess all of them took the mild option when offered (lame!!). After rafting, we headed back to Jinja, packed up, and then hung around at our hostel until 11 pm for our 12 hour night bus from Jinja all the way to Kigali. This bus ride was just as interesting as the first one, but we were glad to arrive back in Rwanda early on Monday morning with the whole day ahead of us to unwind.

Crazily enough, this is our last week in Rwanda. Were going to spend the short work week at GHI finishing up our projects and enjoying our last moments with the incredible GHI staff.

Moto Adventures

The quickest, cheapest, and most effective way to get around Rwanda is by taking motos (motorcycles). They drive around the cities, gather in villages, and take passengers wherever they need to go. Motos are definitely not the safest mode of transportation, but all Rwandan moto drivers are required to have a specific license that is apparently very hard to obtain, and to carry an extra helmet for their passengers to wear. In our 5 weeks here so far, we've probably taken hundreds of motos. We take them to get from our little town of Gasima near the GHI farm to Kigali, we take them to get around the city, and we take them to all the homes of the mamas we visit to interview.

This is how they work. Because we are muzungus (white people), whenever we look like we might need a moto, a whole swarm of them come over, offering us their helmets. I think this is because they think they can swindle a more expensive price out of us than local Rwandans, which is probably true, although we have gotten pretty good at negotiating and bargaining. But essentially, you call over a moto driver and tell them where you want to go. Hopefully, they know where you are talking about, but oftentimes they don't, or they just cannot understand what you are saying. In the latter case, we usually just repeat where we are going a bunch of times hoping they might understand eventually, but as you can imagine this usually doesn't work. So, we are forced to get creative and talk about landmarks they might be familiar with located near our destinations. Either that or we find someone nearby who speaks a little English and can translate. Next, we negotiate a price. If communication is an issue, we often resort to typing a number into our phone calculators where they either agree, or grab our phones and type in a different number. This interaction goes back and forth until we both agree on a price, then we hop on the back, put on our helmets, and the driver zips off (usually way too fast) to wherever we are going.

I have never felt unsafe while riding on a moto, and have actually found them to be quite fun, but we have definitely had some interesting experiences while riding them. We take motos from the farm to Kigali and back all the time. This ride is always questionable as the road is full of dust and holes. We often find ourselves airborne on the back of the moto, holding on to the small bar behind our butts for dear life. But, this ride is a breeze compared to some other roads we have experienced while riding motos. We have literally been taken up and down mountains until the drivers could go no further, and we were forced to walk. We have been 'harassed' by a large friendly gang of moto drivers in Musanze who were so excited to see three white girls in their tiny village, that they all wanted to be the one chosen for the ride. They all had good intentions, but the amount of helmets that were shoved into my face and forcibly placed onto my head was quite overwhelming. We have been taken to the wrong location several times in remote villages with the GHI communications team on our way to home visits, and even in Kigali when Caitlin is just trying to get to the grocery store 5 minutes from our house and her driver takes her halfway across the city...

Moto-ing on the edge. The fact that I was taking a picture
and not holding on is definitely a cause for concern

This post was inspired by our most recent moto ride, however, to a home visit in Gasabo, about 20 minutes away from the farm. The GHI mama that we were going to see gave Lucie, our wonderful translator, some questionable directions, and we found ourselves descending a steep mountain ridge that should NOT have been accessible by any vehicle, including these agile motorcycles. All the drivers were struggling, which was understandable with the rocky decline they were trying to maneuver. All of a sudden, I find myself flying off the back of the moto onto the ground. The front wheel had gotten stuck in a small ditch and both me and the driver were wrenched off, although he was able to catch himself and his bike, while I took a much less graceful tumble. Luckily, I was totally okay, with only a few small scratches to mark the occasion, but we were still in the middle of this random road (if you could even call it a road), with no idea where we were going. Eventually, Lucie realized that we were in the complete wrong location, so we turned around and entirely retraced our steps. Finally, an hour later, we got to the site of our home visit. We had a really successful interview, and a very nondramatic moto ride back to the farm.

Before I end this post, I've got to amend the statement I wrote earlier. I have never felt unsafe while riding a moto, until today, but I appreciate the thrill nonetheless.

Weekend 5: Kigali/Akagera

While this weekend wasn't a weekend where we traveled crazy distances for a weekend of adventure, we still managed to have a good time with a trip to Pili Pili on Saturday and a trip to Akagera National Park on Sunday. For those of you who may not know, we moved out of our homestay on Friday into a house in Kimihurura in Kigali, where we will be cat sitting for a UNHCR worker named Martina. Her cat's name is Fatty and we have had a great time so far, though we are looking forward to spending more time there as we settle into our last 2 weeks.

Fatty the cat in our new home!

Friday
We both stayed at our homestay for our last night. Food was delicious and it was wonderful to spend time with the family before heading into the city. We will be hosting a dinner at the farm for them and for the fellows that live on the farm next week.

Saturday
In the morning Caitlin was up early to meet our friend Yves for Umuganda. Umuganda is a service morning on the last Saturday of every month from 8-11am. Across all of Rwanda, people wake up early and participate in a variety of community service in their communities, whether it is farming for older members, building a house for a friend, or working on the roads that run through their villages. Caitlin and Yves joined Impact Hub Kigali for a morning of mural painting, a lower key version of Umuganda, but still very fun. (picture will be added once Impact Hub posts them!). Ryan hung out with Naomi and our family for breakfast and then continued on to the farm, where she worked on her DIS essays. Eventually, we met up at our new digs in Kigali, and caught motos to Pili Pili, a bar/pool/restaurant/lounge with amazing views of Kigali. Caitlin stayed there and hung out with Jared and Erin while watching a couple of soccer games, but Ryan ventured to Havana to meet her friend Emma, who we were going to Akagera with the next day.

View from Pili Pili featuring a Tusker Lager (Kenyan beer)

Sunday
We were up bright and early for our day at Akagera National Park, a 120,000 km national park that is home to a variety of wild life, and was one of the first protected park lands in Africa. We made the 2.5 hour there, trekked 6 hours around the park where we saw a variety of wildlife. We saw: impala, baboons, an elephant (that charged at the car...), zebras, giraffes, water buck, water buffalo, hippos, and LIONS! It was super exciting to see the lions, because they don't normally come out during the day. Our guide said we were the closest she's ever been to the lions, and that we were her first group in 2 years to see all of the animals. Lucky day to say the least!

Hippos!

Lions!

Zebras! He was uncooperative in our photo taking...

Week 4

This week we focused on gathering content for our Back to School fundraiser. We went on 4 home visits, where we had the pleasure of meeting with Mamas who had graduated from GHI's program. It was absolutely incredible to see how far they had come. Most of the mamas we visited had beautiful gardens, healthy children, and spoke of how GHI had truly helped their family become and remain so much healthier. Most also spoke of how so many of the lessons taught in the trainings they still use, especially the One Pot One Hour and Listening & Communication trainings. The One Pot One Hour training is a cooking demonstration that shows Mamas how to cook a healthy, balanced meal for their families in one pot in one hour. This trainings saves many of them firewood, fuel, time, and provides them with more time to sleep every night. The Listening and Communication training focus on how to have difficult conversations with family and friends. While we would love to provide more details on these visits, we will be using the content we gathered in our fundraiser! So check out the GHI page in the coming months to check out what encountered!

Here's a sneak peek from one of our home visits in Rubungo though :)

Egidia and Emmanuel with 2 of their 5 children (Henriette and Samuel)

This week we are focusing on 4 more interviews (3 with home visits, 1 with a teacher), and are also working on our blog posts for the GHI blog.

Side note: Ryan also had the pleasure of going to Immigration/the Ugandan Embassy twice this week, because visas are fun! Thankfully, the Ugandan Embassy is much more helpful than the Rwandan Immigration office! Thanks to them, we will be headed to Kampala/Jinja this weekend for the long weekend (there is a holiday on Friday and Monday)!  

Weekend 4: Lake Kivu!

For our fourth weekend in Rwanda, we travelled up north to the town of Gisenyi, which is about 3 and a half hours away from Kigali. Gisenyi is a popular weekend location because it borders the beautiful Lake Kivu, so our Friday afternoon bus was especially crowded. One of us luckily got a window spot, but the other was stuck talking to a perfectly friendly Rwandan gentleman who unfortunately did not understand the concept of personal space while conversing. We arrived in Gisenyi around 7, and journeyed to our hostel for the night: Discover Rwanda Youth Hostel. Discover was right on the lake, and it was bustling with travelers like us. We ordered dinner at the hostel, and while we were waiting for our food (which was quite a while) we met several people who all had cool stories. We met two women who were staying at Discover for the night before they headed into the Congo to hike the live volcano, Nyragongo, the next morning. We told them to look out for our two GHI friends who were doing the same hike that very day! We also met a consultant from England who was approaching his last week in Rwanda, a microfinance volunteer from Canada who was about to continue his journey around Africa, and two American bikers who were about to embark on the two-day trip down the Congo-Nile trail from Gisenyi to Kabuye, another Rwandan town along the coast of Lake Kivu. We told them about our kayak trip that we were about to start in the morning (more on that in a minute), and everyone was very jealous. I guess we all had pretty cool weekend activities!

We had booked a two day kayak trip along Lake Kivu with Kingfisher Journeys, which involved starting in Gisenyi and ending in Cyimbili, a town 10 km away, and then completing the return trip the following day. We were very excited, but when we woke up on Saturday morning, what did we find? RAIN! It is the dry season in Rwanda, and there hadn't been a single drop of rain during the day in the entire 3 weeks that we'd been in the country. But of course, the one day we are planning to spend our entire day kayaking on a lake, it decides to be rainy, gloomy, and cold. At our start location, we met the other members of our group: Hilary, Leah, and Francis. Francis was our guide, and he was awesome. Hilary was a Peace Corp Volunteer and had been living in Rwanda for a little over a year. Leah was her best friend from college who had come to visit her. Together, the 5 of us made up a really fun crew.

Day 1 in Gisenyi at the ka

At around 9:30 in the morning, we set off into the gloom (luckily it had stopped raining), and kayaked along the coast, with Francis pointing out key features. We stopped at a hot spring, which Francis explained has a temperature of 100 degrees Celsius, and can boil an egg in 3 minutes. There were many shirtless Rwandan men hanging around the hot spring, and many of them were excited to see us. Hilary can speak pretty decent Kinyarwanda, so she would respond to them and call them out on some of their comments. They were pretty surprised, and it was very funny.

                     

We spent the rest of the morning paddling and getting to know one another. Francis told us funny stories about uncooperative tourists that he has had to deal with, Hilary told us stories about her village and her job, and Leah told us stories about her and Leah's college experiences. We stopped at an island for lunch and had delicious vegetable sandwiches, coffee, and cookies. We hung out on the island for about an hour before continuing on our kayak journey. Soon, we had reached the coffee islands. We paddled around these massive islands completely covered in already-harvested coffee trees. One of Rwandan's main agricultural products is coffee, so it was really cool to see the trees, especially in such a beautiful setting. Right at the end of our trip, with the guesthouse we were staying at for the night in sight, it started to clear up and the sun came out. Hilary jumped in the water, which looked really nice, but Caitlin and I were tentative because Lake Kivu has parasites (apparently you're safe if you are deep enough, but we weren't convinced). Finally, around 3, we arrived in Cyimbili to a very, small welcoming guesthouse.

Exploring Lake Kivu on kayaks

Hilary and Leah were in the mood for some beer, and they didn't have any at the guest house, so we ventured out into the surrounding villages. After about a 15 minute trek of steep uphill incline, we arrived at a tiny opening which had one small bar. Luckily, we had Hilary's Kinyarwanda to help us, and we got beers and became friends with some friendly local guys who thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world that they were hanging in their local bar with a couple of white girls. When we eventually walked back down to the guesthouse, the sun was setting, and we had the most incredible view of Lake Kivu and the coffee islands. The rest of the night involved a delicious Rwandan buffet (Leah's first one), good conversation, and an early bedtime. This proved a little difficult for us because right before we were about to go to sleep, Caitlin saw a mouse in our room, which freaked us both out a solid amount. Other than that, everything was great!

The beautiful sunset overlooking Lake Kivu and the coffee islands in Cyimbili

The next morning, we set out in our kayaks at 8:30 am to try to make it back to Gisenyi to catch a bus back to Kigali at a decent time. We passed a bunch of fishermen in large boats and kids along the shore. They called out to us and a couple of them jumped into the water and started swimming after our boats. We were too fast though :) It was a lot warmer and sunnier today, and we kayaked a lot faster, so it was definitely a workout. We arrived back at our starting location in Gisenyi around 12:30. After exchanging contact information with Francis, and thanking him profusely for an excellent time, we left with Hilary and Leah to grab lunch and then a bus.

At the cafe, they were extremely busy and they told us our takeout sandwiches would take 40 minutes. Although that was not ideal, we decided to wait. While we were waiting, we ran into the two women who we had met on Friday at Discover who were hiking the volcano! They told us about their trip and showed us pictures. Then we asked if they were driving back to Kigali, which they were, and through that exchange we managed to get offered a ride back! Unfortunately our sandwiches did not take 40 minutes, they took double that time, but at least we had secured a means of getting back to Kigali. Melanie and Ailee, the two women, were both really awesome. They were both ex-Peace Corp Volunteers who were now living in Rwanda, so Hilary and them had a lot to talk about. It was a great car ride full of conversations about Peace Corp scandals, experiences with traffic police, Rwandan and other African adventures, and more. It was a great end to a great weekend. We were sad to say goodbye to Hilary and Leah, but luckily we might see them next weekend because we both happen to have the same travel plan to Akegara National Park. Stay tuned!

The Wifi #struggle

We are not impressed

As we are halfway through week 3, we thought it would be nice to include a piece that characterizes a struggle that we have experienced...having no wifi in an environment where wifi is a necessity. The Gardens for Health office in Gasabo is a strange mixture of Rwanda and the U.S. with both running water (most of the time) along with a squat compost toilet, an indoor kitchen with most American amenities and an outdoor kitchen with a wood burning stove, a staff that consists partly of Rwandans and partly of expats. That being said, the office is relatively modern, with working wifi. However, during our first 2 weeks here, the wifi basically didn't work. At first we thought this was just Rwanda being Rwanda...like "oh the wifi will be really bad/slow/spotty," but in reality it was like "you cannot send emails" bad. So more or less for our time in the office, we were doing what we could without access to the internet. The problem with this was that all of our work involves research, collaboration, and communication with the Boston office. For 2 weeks we were pretty lost, unable to do work...basically sitting in the office pretending to be doing our projects. I kid you not, for a good 2-4 hours of our 9 hour work day, we just complained to each other about the wifi not working, along with the rest of the staff. Finally as this week began, the Wifi became SO bad that the Deputy Director, Kamanda, took action. This is not surprising, as on Tuesday 14 out of the 20 people who work in the Gasabo office left work or did not come to work to work from cafes in Kigali. We were included in that. In the 6 hours we spent working on Tuesday in a nice cafe in Remera...we got more done than we had basically in the rest of our office time. With plans to budget for going to Kigali for internet twice week from that point forward, we returned to find nobody in the office, except a man in a jumpsuit messing with wires. Low and behold, the answer to our prayers had been received. The man in the jumpsuit was a man from Tigo, a wireless/internet/phone/you name it carrier (GHI had previously worked with MTN). We now are not only able to actually accomplish tasks during office hours, but can actually stream live sporting events once work is over (wild!). Stay tuned for an instagram post depicting our wifi struggle of Monday June 13th.