Vegetables

Vegetables in Kigali are generally good and cheap.  Avacados for a quarter, pineapples for under a dollar, a kilo of tomatoes for under a dollar.  The main market in Kimironko is quite good with a good selection, though usually the same set of produce.  You can regularly buy pretty fresh red, white, and green onions, roma (and only roma) tomatos, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava (which scares me - that whole neurotoxin thing), carrots, radishes, lettuce, brocolli, green peppers, green beans, chillis, mushrooms, zucchini, eggplant, garlic, ginger, thyme, rosemary, mint, cilantro, basil, parsley, rhubarb, pineapple, oranges, local lemons, limes, apples, passion fruit, tree tomatos, papaya, and sometimes watermellon and fennel. Oh, and tons of scary dried fish, large carcases of hanging meat, chickens in the "local frozen," "imported frozen," and waling around variety.  The only weird thing is that the variety doesn't ever change.  All tomatoes are roma tomatoes, all chillis are the same kind of thai green chillis.  I kind of miss going to the market and seeing what new or different things they have in stock.  And for someone who has never particularly liked celery, there have been a ridiculous number of times I have needed it for something and failed to be able to find it.  Any suggestions for something other than celery for the stuffing for Christmas? (Other than apples and onions?)  Celery salt, strangely, is available - so I might need to improvise there.

I have to go to the market tomorrow to buy things for Christmas.  The whole expedition (and then the washing process) is somewhat lengthy, but it's really a lot of fun.  But to show you something of what's available, the other day Elizabeth and I went a little crazy on vegetable patrol and bought the following for about $30 USD:

Holy Strange Dreams Batman

 So... I'm wondering if the fact that I am having crazy - *and i mean crazy* - dreams every night is related to my antimalarial drugs.  Doxycycline isn't supposed to have this as a common side-effect, buy who knows.  I very rarely remember my dreams at all, and I've been having vivid dreams that I remember each night.

A small sample as of late of the crazy things going on in my brain at night:

1)  Stopped someone who had killed their 14 siblings, but got stabbed three times in the leg as a result.  After going to my grandparent's house they convinced me to go to the hospital, and conveniently there was a hospital just through the garage at the house on Inwood Dr.  This became infected, caused my brain to grow outside of my scull until I was only a giant brain with tentacles as legs to move around.  The infection had its own consciousness, and was attempting to destroy the world.  I was a person on the beach (the site of the world-conquering efforts of the brain-infection-consciousness) as well as a consciousness in the brain trying to stop the infection-consciousness from destroying the world.
 

Albert the Frog

2) We were all performing in a staged production of some disney-esque play but no one knew any of the words and we we just making it up as we go along.  It involved flying purple birds - they were centrally important - and somehow we were friends with Paris Hilton who was a kind sweet caring person (definitely a dream).  Albert was a great friend, also in the play.  Albert was a frog, a green and brown frog.  Somehow, during the performance and after we were all fumbling for lines, Albert fell deep underground.  We stopped the play to mount a very dangerous rescue mission to save him.  He was so scared and lost that he was trying to hide as opposed to being rescued.  The stage was sinking and we were close to getting Albert but it involved being wedged between an electrical panel and running water, which was starting to shock us.  At the same time the front of the stage (which was made of a car) stage that was slipping into the mud abyss had trapped a lady.  All of the other frogs were mounting an operation while we tried to save Albert.

Um...  So definitely staying on the antimalarials while I'm in Mombasa and for the necessary time when I get back, but I might need to consider something else if this continues.  Eternally curious at what the night will bring when I go to bed now.

Christmas in Kigali

Someone rather triumphally announced yesterday that the rainy season (the short rains) had passed.  Somone was epically wrong.  It has been raining - and I mean RAINING - for several hours.  Like raining to the point that it was streaming into the kitchen from the balcony.  All of the surrounding hills have disappeared as well into the brigadoon cloud that has enveloped Kisimenti.

Rain and 82 degrees, I have to admit, does not feel like Christmas, especially for a Maine boy like me.  I definitely do not miss the cold that is the reality in Chicago and Maine this time of year, but I miss the snow - or at least the *idea* of snow. :-)  I've been working on decorating the appartment for the holidays, with the limited things that are available.  I borrowed a tree from the courtyard with large waxy leaves, actually found some lights and then have been making ornaments out of paper.  The goal was to find red and green paper, but, well, welcome to Kigali. 

Shopping here is a bit like a treasure hunt.  Strange things can be found easily and in abundance, while others are completely hit or miss.  I could go out and buy 20 maps of Rwanda, and about 700 Liters of oil without any difficulty, but finding vinegar or garlic was a never ending task today.  I tend to wander through shop after shop looking for the random items on my list for Christmas dinner.  In each shop I might find a few items, or none at all.  One store today had, literally, 30 containers of tea masala spice, and no other spices.  At another I found vast quantities (by which i mean 8 packages) of fish boullion, but finding chicken boullion took a half-dozen more shops.

Hunting for paper was the same way.  After numerous people thinking I was absolutely crazy for wanting *red!* paper, I finally settled on lime green and pink paper.  The result is that the decorations in my appartment make it lind of lokk like Christmas in Key West.  Especially since the same paper is being used for everything - the paper stars, danish woven heart baskets, as wrapping paper for presents...  But it's at least feeling a little bit like the holidays.

The day after Christmas I leave for Mombasa, to spend a week including New Year's on the beach.  Again this seems absolutely crazy to me, but is sounding like a lot of fun.

Christmas dinner is going to a bit of a fusion event of Danish, Rwandan, and Finnish dishes.  The is looking like the following::

Breakfast:
Danish Tea Ring and Local fruit salad

Diner:
Pineapple Mint Salad
Pickled Cucumber Salad
Dilled Carrots
Danish Carmelized Potatos
Sage-Apple Dressing
Chicken, Pork, and Beef Brochettes with Orange-Thyme Marinade

Dessert:
Orangesmekeager
Ris ala mande
Rhubarb Crumble

All of this is,of course, dependend upon finding a few things during my next shopping treasure hunt in the city.  We'll see how it goes...

 And yes, that is a Flying Turtle on the Christmas Tree!

Invaders

These creatures were attempting to invade my home the other morning.  I found this when I entered the Kitchen in the morning (the poor thing was still alive):

  

After removing the unfortunate cockroach from the kitchen, I headed into the bathroom to get ready and discovered the following:

There are bugs and creatures everywhere here.  It's like a never ending war.  The ants are particularly annoying and incessant.  They are part of the reason that I made peace with Lloyd, the white lizard who lives in the kitchen behind the fridge, and have decided to let him stay.  As long as Lloyd keeps helping with the bugs, and only startles me every few nights, I'll be fine.  I'll try to get a picture of Lloyd sometime, as well as of Steven (the conglomerate name for all green lizards that live outside the building) and post it.

My Experience with Kigali's Hospitals

This was unpleasant...

So after returning from Bujumbura things went downhill, and quickly.  My roommate started feeling ill on the way home, and I thought I was doing ok.  I was wrong.  About 8 PM Monday night I started feeling sick, and by 10 PM I had all but taken up residence in the bathroom.  By about midnight I was heading to the bathroom about 8 times per hour, every hour.  It was really, really bad.  By about 2 AM I had decided something was really, really wrong, so I called my other friend who had gone on the trip with us.  She had just started vomiting.  I thanked my lucky stars I wasn't vomiting as well.  10 minutes later, I was back in the bathroom vomiting violently - really violently.  A little after 3AM I called a friend who was a doctor, at a complete loss of what to do.  I was starting to lose fluids, a LOT of fluids, and fast.  On her advice I started trying to take the cipro, but it I couldn't keep anything down.  And vomiting cipro-bile through your nose into the sink, while also sitting on the toilet having diarrhea - wow.

This continued all night, and by morning I could feel myself getting dangerously dehydrated.  My doc friend did a house call in the morning, said to keep trying to take the cipro, but if i wasn't getting any fluids down to go to King Faisel Hospital.  By noon, at which point I was vomiting and crying at the same time, it was clear that wasn't working.  Six times per hour to the bathroom with no liquid intake is bad, really bad.  Hardly able to walk by this point and losing far more liquid than the few drops i was taking in, and still with no antibiotics in me, I called a friend to take me to the hospital.  He was wonderful.  As was the hospital. 

So I spent the day admitted to King Faisel Hospital in Kigali.  It's the private hospital in town, and is actually quite good.  Not like one back home of course, but everything was sterile and new.  I spend the day on an IV rehydrating somewhat and getting massive ammounts of antinausea meds, antibiotics, and I'm not even sure what else.  By nightfall they had determined that I had an intestinal infection, though no identifiable parasites, no malaria, and no typhoid.  This was good.  The best part of the tests was the following medical report (I have this in writing) "Stool Appearance: Green."  Aie.  Let me just tell you that providing a stool sample into a little cup with massive diarrhea while also managing the IV in your arm... interresting.

I ended up returning home that night once I had been able to stop vomiting, which meant I could get fluids and antibiotics in me.  That said, it took me the better part of a week before I had any energy back at all.  Massive fluid loss, sickness, and not eating for several days straight will do that I guess.  It was unreal just how much it totally wiped me out, and especially how fst it happened. But in any event, it seems to be better now.  All in all, the doctors were great and my friends were amazing during a very very scary time being sick.  We still have no idea what caused it, or why it attacked my so violently, but it's definitely made me very wary of any food.

Burundi and the Beautiful Lake Tanganyika

We went to Burundi for the weekend, four of us, and it was amazing.  Really amazing.  After getting our visas in Kigali at the Burundi Embassy, we drove down.  I was worried a bit about the drive as the area from the border to the capital can be really dangerous, but this seems to be mainly after dark, so we made sure to be in Bujumbura before 4PM, and everything was fine. 

One of our friends used to live there so it was really nice seeing the parts of town we would never have otherwise experienced.  We went out to some amazing restraunts - like Indian that was so great we, literally, were licking bit of sauce from the table atthe end.  The food in general was really really good, though I still wasn't thrilled with the fish, even if it was "fresh" from the lake.  Growing up on the coast of the North Atlantic makes you spoiled.  Bujumbura does have some fun nightlife though, and we went out dancing more than once.  The return trip was crazy, especially the near fist fight that broke out in the pushing shoving mob at the painfully slow exit customs. Some lady called me a bitch after *she* forced herself in front of me in the "line" (read: mob) and I noted what had happened.

But by far the best part was the lake.  It was stunning, warm, fun, just amazing. We spent a lot of time at the lake at a place called Bora Bora run by a friend of a friend.  Waves, sand, water, mojitos, the mountains of the DRC - the really really high mountains - on the other side ofthe lake, it was gorgeous.  And real chocolate mousse!  Can you tell how sick of Kigali's restraunts we are?  The only problem with Bujumbura was that the food was so good that it made us really sad to return to Kigali. 

Honestly though, Kigali is great.  It's safe, there are systems that work, even if they are slow.  We have hot water at home, a great view, and decent fresh foods, even if they get a bit repetitive for lack of variety.  You can walk around at night.  The police do not hasstle you.  This comes with the fact that the food is expensive and shitty in nearly all restraunts, and public service is truly terrible.  Frequently orders are messed up, bills added incorrectly, and when this is pointed out, people often (though not always) show no concern at all.  It makes you appreciate good customer service when it actually happens - or at least appreciating mediocre service.

When we were in Bujumbura I had my ipod stolen - from out of the vehicle when we were stopped at a stoplight.  A guy just reached in, grabbed it, and ran before I even knew what was happening.  The police offer standing literally right beside out car just stared blankly into space with no concern whatsoever.  (We later learned that for abribe of $10 the police officer would have *shot* the guy - for real.)  As it turned out, an old man saw what happened, chased the thief down, beat him up, and then returned the ipod!  It was surreal, but it's hard constantly having to be on guard.  In Rwanda you're constantly on from the hasstles - No, I don't want to buy airtime, No, I don't want to buy a map of Kigali, No, I don't want a copy of the New Times OR Jeune Afrik OR the Economist (offered always in that order), Stop screwing me on prices for motos, No, an avacado is not indeed 700 francs (it's 100), and Yes, I am fully aware that I am a Muzungu (white person) though that is not indeed my name, nor is "my friend" (always followed by "give-a me money" or something to buy), and contrary to popular belief, it is not actually necessary to announce that "Muzungu, Muzungu!" has arrived every time I enter certain shops - but the key is that in Rwanda you do not have to be constantly on for fear of theft or personal safety.  There is theft, of course, but it's more like the reality in Chicago or Boston.  Be careful and alert, but you can put the windows of the car down, and you can walk around after dark.  It's just a different kind of having to be "on", but I'd prefer hasstle-on vs safety-on any day of the week.  Bujumbura was great for a visit- and I'd go back - but I'm so much happier to be living in Kigali!

No Power, but Progress

It seems that a post I wrote never made it up here, likely due to the computer dying in the midst of the posting.  The power situation in Remera has continued to be rather abysmal.  Yesterday it went our 7 times, and the last time seems to have been for an extended period.  Went off at about midnight last night and now (9:30AM) it is still off...  This makes getting work done on the computer rather difficult as I have about two hours of battery life on this computer.

In any event, following the awful day that made in into the last post, things have actually been going quite a bit better.  I went back for yet another meeting at the archives and this time three miraculous things happened: 1) the construction equipment blocking the stacks had been moved so that access was (mostly) possible; 2) the woman in charge was actually there; and 3) she was there *at the same time* as I was!  This proved well, as I finally got things set up so that I can now use the resources available there.  AND, it is possible to bring things home to work on them, which is even better.  So since then I've been spending my days actually getting back on a real schedule and digging through lots of reports.  It also turns out there is an annually published evaluation report of the National Commission on Unity and Reconciliation which is a great overview of their activities.

I've also decided that given the extreme berth of time it can take to accomplish things here the original research plan, which was neatly divided into time blocks is going to have to adjust somewhat.  Interviews will still begin after the first of the year or after Feb 1, but I'm going to just start contacting the religious organizations and other commissions now and starting to piecemeal that together as is possible, rather than waiting until I'm done with the resources with which I'm currently working.  It also helps quite a bit to be somewhat direct in expressing the frustration with slowness.  This seems to help because 1) Rwandans, for good reason, are quite conflict averse, and 2) people actually begin to see that you are working on a timetable.  In any event it feels good for things to be actually rolling along well.

I am also realizing that I think a part of the "it'll be done when it's ready" approach to things may have something legitimately to do with the weather.  It is now November 17 and it could just as easily be August 17.  Nothing changes here.  It sometimes feels like an episode of Twilight Zone, or you've been thrown into Land of the Lost (without the dinosaurs).  Every day it is 82 degrees and every night it is 64.  Not even kidding here.  It rains, or it doesn't rain - that's it.  You hear the same noises, the same birds, the same sun...  It makes me think about how strange it really is for us in the North to live with the impending doom of winter just around the corner.  There's always a sense of time moving.  Summer ends and the leaves start changing, the air starts getting brisk - there's always a sense that something is just around the corner, and this comes with a correlative sense of anticipation.  Time to get ready for Thanksgiving, getting ready for the winter holidays, praying for spring to arrive and the sun to emerge from its long cold slumber behind the Chicago gray.  There's never a rush to get things done before winter comes, or to get ready for the spring.  Now mind you, I quite enjoy the absence of cold, but the effect of a season-less year is a feeling of indefinite time.  Perhaps I will feel differently knowing that the April rains are coming when March rolls around, we'll see.  But the current "rainy" season literally means about an our of rain rolls through in the afternoon - a lot like camp.  It doesn't really disrupt anything, unless you get caught in it.

In fun news, Papyrus (the club, the one with the least number of prostitutes)) has also undergone a recent renovation, tripling it in size!  We met the owner the other night and there are also plans to install additional air conditioning in the new rooms, which is great because it was, as KS would say, "hotter than the hinges of..." in there.  Tons of fun now with the new space and lights, but HOT.  All of the University students are now on break as well, so it's crazy packed, which doesn't help on that front.

A final note, and one of great sadness.  One Love guesthouse, which had the best brochettes on town - the only food that we have actually craved since coming to Kigali - is now under new management with a new menu.  The brochettes now taste just like every other place in Kigali, just ok.  Perhaps we should stage a mini-protest.  One of my friends the other day described Rwanda as a "culinary failed state," and I think this may be spot on.  We've gotten to the point of being excited for mediocre and vastly overpriced food.  My roommate and I decided the other day that the food at "Chez Moser" is definitely the best in town, so I think we're going to stop trying to find the elusive great restaurant that just doesn't exist.  The list grows ever longer of things to bring for when the parentals arrive! :-)  On the plus side, wonder of wonders I found a place that imports Rocquefort cheese and Capricola!  And... they are actually good.  The repertoire of possibilities at Chez Moser is growing.

On that note, here's a recipe for one of my go to salads I've been making lately.

O-A-RO Salad (Orange, Avacado, Red Onion):

Mix together and then allow to marinate for a while:
Oranges, rind sliced off, seeded, and cut into wedges
Red Onions, sliced in half and then into very thin slices
Bunch of Cilantro, chopped
Bunch of Mint, chopped
Olive Oil
Red Wine Vinagre
Salt and Pepper
Sugar to taste (if oranges are a little bitter)

Serve over rough cubed avocados and top with Cinnamon toasted Macadamia Nuts (with a hint of sugar)

Dinner at Fadi's and the Power Mystery Revealed

Let me just say that Fadi is an amazing Lebanese cook.  We all went over to his place for dinner Friday night before going out for a while and it was absolutely amazing.  Seafood, humus, this awesome yogurt dish, the pomegranate salad, fresh homemade pita, it was great.  He lives up in the hills near where I almost moved, which would be great with a car... not so good without one.  Glad I ended up in Remera, even if the power does go out every day.

There is supposedly a problem in the supply line on the power front, and difficulty regulating how much of the power produced at the plant goes to the DRC and how much to Burundi.  Their infrastructures are much worse than here so it's hard to regulate the pull each takes on the plant.  So it seems that Electrogaz is installing some kind of monitoring equipment that should be ready in the next two months...  They are also replacing the main transformers in Kigali - this should be interesting.

Hiking Mount Bisoke!

We went this weekend up north to Musanze to go hiking for the weekend, and while we're a bit stiff now, the trip was incredible.  Mount Bisoke (Visoke depending on the spelling) is one of the Volcanos in Volcano National Parc and the one with a crater lake at the top.  It took a fair bit of time to get our passes in Kigali as they were having problems with my ID.  I am a resident student here in Rwanda, which it says on my residency card (my official ID here), but they wanted to see my passport to see that it said "student" on my visa.  This was difficult as 1) I had not brought my visa with me, and 2) it does not say student on my visa because they don't print visas that say student on them.  Of the three of us here on that grant you all know about, *none* of us has a visa that says student.  It seems the visa office "offers" them but doesn't know what that really means.  After talking with the manager, and enlisting the diplomatic help of an ICRC friend of mine, we finally convinced then that the official resident ID issued by the Rwandan government that declared me a student was, in fact, sufficient to establish that I was both a resident and a student.

So off we went.  We spent the night before at a hotel up in Musanze where I always forget how cold it actually gets.  The elevation is quite high, which has a big effect upon the weather at night.  The blankets are actually needed up there.  The next morning bright and early we headed out for the hike, and after traversing some unbelievably bumpy roads in the 4x4, we arrived to begin the hike.  It was AWESOME!  Starting out through fields at about 2500m, traveling through lush vegetation for a long time and then eventually into more of a tropical alpine grassland.  Near the top was only one kind of tree, that had these huge pillars emerging from them (a flower of some sort I think), and then the grassland.  The hike was also incredibly muddy and slippery - thank heavens it wasn't raining!

When we finally made it to the top at 3711m (12,175ft), the view was spectacular.  This was also now officially the highest I have ever been while still firmly planted on Earth, though still less than half of Everest. :-)  The crater lake was really beautiful, and when the clouds cleared you could see all the way down to Musanze, the farmlands around, and the other volcanos in the chain.  The lake itself is off-limits to swimming, probably partly because it is really quite cold at the top.  I'm also guessing the lake is rather toxic, probably huge amounts of sulfur in it.  The swirling clouds that rush up over the side of the mountain and then swirl around the crater were an amazing sight to behold.  It was like there was a cloud vortex over the crater lake that would just disappear.  It was pretty incredible to lay down on the grass on the ridge and watch the clouds rush over the crest.  And then they would just all be gone and it would be crystal clear again.  Stunning. 

I had a great time on the way up and the way down.  Parts of the way down were more like a slip and slide - just keep moving, just keep moving and you wont fall.  Also, stinging nettles SUCK and hurt like a bitch when you touch them.  The spines all have some kind of poison in them that stings like crazy.  I fell into one on the way down rather directly and it started swelling up like crazy, which doesn't appear to be a standard reaction.  Luckily I had epipens and benadryl with me (as always) and after a benadryl everything was fine again.  Something to look out for in the future!

The altitude surprisingly didn't bother me at all - I'm going to chalk it up to my abundant red blood cells. :-)  A few in our group were having some real problems getting super tired and then short of breath, one finally had to be supported the last bit back to the car.  But we all made it up and down, and even back to Kigali before the ICRC curfew!  I really love hiking, always have.  I guess this is what happens when you begin hiking while still being carried on someone's back!  With my ease of scrambling over rocks, my friends decided that I was perhaps not so much human, but part mountain goat!  Danish calves baby, and a lifetime of err... "not" playing on the rock cliffs behind Eagles Nest at Scout Camp when I was a kid.  Because we certainly never broke any of the rules at Scout Camp... Um...

"Alexander and the..."

Well I succeeded in buying seeds today, but everything else was a giant bust.

As the Judith Viorst book goes this was a "...terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."

1. After the guy came to the balcony to mix the dirt he just left a bag of dirt on the balcony and took off.  I will be mixing it later.

2. The US Embassy ran out of money. Yes, the US Embassy ran out of money.  WTF?  So I have to go back tomorrow.  A large portion of the small amount I was allowed to withdraw today was in 500s.  Let's just say that 59,000 in 500's is a heck of a wad of cash.

3.  I was informed that the two boxes that were shipped to me on the advice of someone at the Embassy will likely never arrive.  I was told that "it's possible" they will arrive, but not to count on it.  Apparently letters are possible via the post, because there's nothing to steal, but packages arriving are more like winning the lottery.  The woman today actually told me that she had "heard of one arriving via the Rwanda post," but not to count on it.  This would have been helpful information earlier.  Now there is a new address but I'm not really allowed to use it.  The word from the Embassy was basically that it is not possible to ship anything from the US to here.  Great, because it doesn't feel isolated enough as it is here.

4. First trip to the archives today failed.  No one was there and they told me to come back after lunch when the woman in charge would be back.  The construction equipment has been moved, but the shelves are still a wreck of a mess.

5. Second trip to the archives today failed.  Of course, no one was there, again.  I'm supposed to now call this lady who doesn't answer her phone.  This should be a blast.

6. It is impossible to buy a freaking key chain in Kigali.  Every store I go to greets me with looks of "you have three heads" for asking such a crazy thing.  This is extremely odd to me considering how lock-happy Rwanda is in general.  I was given 4, yes 4, keys to my bedroom when I moved in, and every single door in the house has its own key for its own lock - no master keys here - and yet to buy a key chain... crazy!  insanity!

7. It rained on me when I was coming home.  Twice.

This left me in a less than thrilled mood.  On the way home I stopped and bought an exorbitantly priced bag of Doritos, two diet cokes, a mountain dew and a snickers bar.  The snickers bar had gone bad (which i didn't know was possible), and the salsa I made was so spicy I now feel somewhat ill.  It is also super smoggy today and something is making my allergies go crazy.

So that's enough complaining for today.  It takes so much effort to do anything here...  It gets exhausting.

Off to dinner tonight with some friends - with any luck the moto driver won't get lost on the way there (again)!

Mixing Dirt - Red and Brown, with unexpected help

This weekend I went and purchased some terra cotta planters to put on the deck.  After a friend's recent visits with fresh vegetables in tow from her garden in Musanze, I decided that I needed to start my own small garden - even if it was just on the patio in planters.

Along with the planters I purchased three large bags of dirt.  Let's just say that this was the "richest" dirt I have ever purchased, and I have been a bit worried that it is too "rich" for things to grow in it.  It was also tremendously wet, so I have been letting it dry out a bit and mixing it periodically.

This morning our houseboy saw me mixing dirt and after an unsuccessful communication between us involving him picking up dirt from the ground and dropping it several times, he showed up at the door... with a bucket of red dirt.  He is currently hauling buckets of red dirt into the apartment patio and mixing them into the dirt in the planters.  My best guess at this juncture is that he has expressed the same concerns as me, and is fixing the mix between brown and red dirt in the planters, though as I speak virtually no Kinyarwanda and he speaks no French or English, it is rather difficult to tell.

Today is another beautiful day in Kigali, though there is a bit of smog in the air.  Today's adventures will include attempting to purchase seeds for the garden and checking to see if the construction equipment has been removed from in front of the archive shelves - so that I can actually get to the materials!

Power Outages

The last week or two in Kigali the power has been abysmal.  It seems to be out almost every day during the day, though it has been on in the evening until tonight.  It would appear that tonight the entire city is now without power.  I was sitting on the porch and watching entire neighborhoods just go dark.  First Remera, then Kicuciro, followed shortly by Gikondo, Kimihurura, Kiyovu and Nyamirambo.  The only lights in the hills tonight are a few selected cars, a few streetlights and then the government buildings which are presumably running on generators.

At least the water seems to continue to work even though the power is off.  I can't say, however, that this does wonders for the food in the fridge. 

On a positive note, thanks to the wonderful help of a friend and his vehicle today, I bought eleven terra cotta planters and a bunch of dirt to place on the side balcony that gets all the sun.  Tomorrow or Monday we'll be heading into town to look for seeds and with any luck in a few weeks we'll be enjoying fresh herbs and lettuce from the patio garden. 

"You Have Come to the Wrong Country" - The Uganda Trip

To be uptated soon.

Food Illnesses and a New Roommate - not related items :-)

The cooking of the chicken was a bit of a production, and while the meat tasted rather different than any chicken I've had before, it was ok.  I'm not in any rush to repeat the process, especially considering the undeveloped eggs and the unidentified organs that were still inside...

In the meantime, I've managed to spend a fair bit of time lately with food related sickness.  First it was a very poor decision to see if I still am allergic to eggplant.  I am.  That was a full night with chills fever and stabbing pain wrapped up in the fetal position.  Then there was an incident with some beef that apparently was not good.  This time it included unbelievable nausea, stabbing headaches, and unbelievable back and shoulder pain.  After some time again doubled over in bed trying to sleep it off, and some ginger-chicken broth, I am at the moment back up and moving.  The lesson at the moment seems to be that I'm going to lay off of the cooking of meat at home, or at the very least being quite a bit more careful where I purchase the meat.

I'm also happy to report that my long-awaited couch arrived.  Well, for the moment all that has come has been the frame, but this is a mighty improvement.  It is quite nice, made for me by acarpenter by my landlord, which was also quite kind.  She's working on the chushions at the moment, which should be ready in the next few days.  And when she was here last shee made arrangements to get me both a small table for use on the balcony and a small table for the TV.  My guess is that it'll take a month, but I think it's quite nice that she's been so good about trying to make sure I have everything that I need.  Ever since I moved in she's actually been wonderful.  Installing curtains, putting up shower rods, fixing curtain rods that weren't properly done, contracting to have the couch made, and now the tables.  Needless to say, I'm quite happy to have ended up here.

I also have a new roommate as of tonight.  My friend Kiran was looking for a place after her landlord randomly decided to move to Burundi, so we talked, and now she's renting a room in the north wing.  The timing works out perfectly as well, because she leaves just a few days before mom arrives.  I think it will be great having someone else around as well.

We went out to an Itallian place close to my appartment Sunday (Sole Luna) and it was great.  Even good calamari which was an enormous surprise to me.  That said, I've been craving random things that I just cannot seem to find here, or are totally unavailable in Rwanda.  On that list at the moment are lemons, diet dr pepper, blue cheese, dried cranberries, and arugula.  Actually, all of those together in a salad with the ddp to drink sounds lovely at the moment.  Oy.  In any event, I had some great orange, avacado, and onion salad with balsamic and olive oil dressing.  I must say that it was one of the better things I've had to eat since I arrived!

Tomorrow night we're all having movie night at my place, which should be fun.  Especially now that I have a reigon 1 DVD player and can actually play all of my dvds on a screen other than the computer!  And while I do love the computer, it's not the same as being able to sit on the couch and watch a movie on the tv.

Anyway, back to hounding people to respond to my emails at the moment.  Wish me luck!

Wasps Be Gone, It's Chicken Time

It is raining in Kigali, I think we're starting to make the transition to the short rainy season that should be here in a few weeks.  The reain is great at the moment because it gets rid of all of the dust in the air, which makes it look cloudy most of the time in Kigali at the moment.  I'm excited to see the flowers and all the green that comes with the rains.

I am happy to report that I am no longer sharing my balcony with wasps, which is a good thing especially considering I am allergic to them.  I opened the door for a bit only to find one of the wasps deciding he was going to explore the inside of the apartment.  Me shooing him outside using sofa cushions as a shield was quite the sight to behold.  In any event, once outside, armed with a blender full of soapy boiling water, I sent the wasps on their way.  I am hoping they will not return.  But I have a steady supply of soap and boiling water if they do.  If the neighbors didn't already think I was crazy they surely do now.  Especially since I locked myself out of my place yesterday and we had to crawl in through a window to get the keys, lol.  This was all quite amusing.

I also bought a chicken at Kimironko yesterday.  There were three options.  There were "imported" chickens in a big cooler, "local" chickens at a little more expensive in a cooler, and then there were birds walking around on a table being herded together by an older woman.  I frequently see people walking around with chickens that are very much still alive, heading home.  I'm not sure if they slaughter the birds themselves or what, but I wasn't exactly up to that prospect.  No clucking chickens for me.  I went for the "local" bird which I was told tasted a bit better, so now it's in my fridge in a paper bag.  I'm a little afraid of it.  It has a neck.  I haven't looked inside yet.

So tonight I'm going to be cooking a chicken, just need to decide how.  This will be my second attempt to cook meat a home.  I've had it when we go out, but the last attempt was not good.  It involved ground beef that, well, had an interesting taste.  I'm hoping that tonight will be better.  It at least looks like a chicken.  With a neck.  Wish me luck.

We will see if I'm back to vegetarian at home by the morning.  

On a final note, the cool breeze that drifts in as the rains feels wonderful, and the clouds are so thick that while I can still see Gikondo and Kicuciro, but Kimisaghe and Nyamirambo are all but lost into the Brigadoon clouds.

End of the Visa Saga, Kigali Clubbing, and Why Running in the Mountains Sucks

The biggest thing I've been working on thus far has finally come to an end and I now have both my visa and my Foreign National ID card.  And it only took 6 visits to the Immigration office.  Trips 1-3 were attempts to drop off materials, with two false starts (sending me back to obtain more letters) and trips 4-6 were pick-up attemps.  The best was today where I stayed at the Immigration office for four hours - I was beginning to thinkI shoud just bring a pillow and move in, but finally someone showed up having acquired all the appropriate signatures and I have in hand as of today all my official doccuments, officially.  I can say that throughout the process the people at the office have been generally quite helpful.

The last week has been good as well just in terms of getting settled.  I still get on wrong busses, but I can generally now figure out what went wrong and how to get back to where I was supposed to go, which is always a huge plus.  My torilla making skills are improving marginally, but I'll keep working on it.

Last weekend, I went to the Movie Night at the US Embassy which was really a lot of fun.  They were screening Shrek Ever After on a giant inflatable screen (giving me ideas for camp already...) outside at the Embassy.  There was a fundraiser for a charity where you could buy (really good) brochettes, samosas, burgers, and salad, and the Marines were tending bar where you could get quite cheap beers.  While as the Embassy I met a few people from all over the place (Singapore, Thailand, India, Germany, Canada, and Vermont) and there was an epic 3-game match of foosball which was a blast.

I ended up heading out with some people I met and he headed out to meet another friend and hang out at her place for awhile, and then headed to a (very French) house party.  After staying there for awhile we headed to one of the Kigali clubs, Papyrus, which was really a lot of fun.  It's largely a mix of expats and trendy Rwandans, with the standard compliment of those who - er... - work there.  So I had to do the standard 'thank you but no thanks' thing a few times but we easily got back to dancing and having fun.  It was a rather funny mix of music, somewhat predictable American pop stuff, with some 80s and 90s throwbacks in the mix.  Overall, just fun music, nothing superb musically, but fun.  In any event, when 4AM rolled around we decided we should probably head out so a quick moto ride and I was back home.  The place is in Kimihurura, which is actualyl quite close to where I live, so that's always a good thing.  So come 5 AM, I was finally getting to bed.  The construction that started next door at 8 AM was, well, painful. :-)

I ended up meeting up with the same group the next night for dinner at someone's house, and some amazing food.  Spent a decent amount of the evening speaking with sme really cool people, and flipping between french and english depending on the conversation.  The french is going well, but the Rwandan-inflected french with all of the shadow vowels is really hard to understand.  Later that night we ended up back at Papyrus, and this time I got to bed at 4 AM.  It's been quite a while since I've been out dancing that late and it really was a lot of fun.  I'm excited to see more of the Kigali clubs (well, the other one or two, lol).

I also caused quite the spectacle when I went for a run the other day.  While out for a run, I got stares, bewilderment, laughs, and applause from more than one set of school children.  Granted, I am happy to admit that the 6'2 white guy in shorts and a tshirt running in the mountains was a sight to behold, but the attention was a little much.  Toward the end I just smiled and waved and was like, yeah white guy going for a run here....  I will say that I just about died... The combination of the fact that I think every direction is uphill, it was hotter than hell, and it's a mile above sea level.  I'm hoping the next time will be better :-)  IN any event it felt good to be out and around.

And this is gross...
Oh, and I hesitate to share this final point, but folks, in Rwanda, iron your clothes.  I hadn't been ironing everyting because I had checked and there aren't really Tsetse flies in Kigali.  This is true.  The flies to be concerned about, the ones who lay eggs on your clothes as they dry that then hatch when in contact with your skin and bury their way in, are not indeed Tsetse flies.  They are Tumbu flies (Putzi).  I do not like them.  I do not like them at all.  Suffice it to say, after some serious freaking out, I removed a three larvae, thankfully all from innocuous places.  They were removed very early, so nothing like the pictures you will see if you (inevitable) search for them online, and I guess they don't really cause any harm other than the massive freakout.  The ones I removed were like a tiny white worm/maggott only about the size of a mechinacial ppencil lead.  They get much bigger and I guess naturally dropout of your skin after 10-15 days, but I have no interest in seeint that happen - ever.  And while there's no real danger, it was, however, perhaps the grossest thing I've ever had to do...  I will be ironing ALL clothes from now on.  ALL.

To end on a positive note, Kigali is beautiful tonight, and the moon looks just like you'd expect a cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland to appear with his glowing eyes over the bright, and reddish, moon.  No power cuts for almost a week as well, which is always nice!

Kimironki Market and the Inauguration

Much of the last week has been spent getting settled here in the appartment.  I've come to the conclusion that "things" are what are expensive here, i.e. any type of manufactured good, which makes getting settled a somewhat expensive endeavor.  The good thing is that transportation is cheap, and food is quite inexpensive, at least in terms of fresh goods. 

I finally decided it was time to check out the main market, and it was awesome.  Kimironko is a covered market, and the stalls are very close together, but there is tons of wonderful fresh produce.  Tomatos, tree tomatos, fruits, vegetables, peas, potatos, beans, and all kinds of flours and sugars all piled high.  The flour/sugar was a bit unnerving as they were all *swarming* with bees and hornets - so I stayed clear of that area.  A pineapple for 50 cents, and avacados for 20 cents.  It was an awesome pineapple as well, and became part of some wonderful curry.  All around the sides of the food market are the meat, fish, and chicken stalls.  Live chickens in places and full beef carcases hanging in the open air being carved for customers.  I didn't so much buy meat.  Some wonderful fresh leeks, lettuce, even fresh cilantro.

Home from the market I decided some mexican was in order - a bit of a procedure here.  There are no tortillas so I had to make my own - and I've discovered this is a fair bit harder than I had anticipated.  No cast iron pan, no tortilla press...  I ended up pressing out the tortillas by hand on the bottom of one pan and then cooking it in another using the two as a press.  It sort of worked, but I'm going to need to work on my tortilla skills, which presently are largely nonexistent.

The other day, I finally decided to try purchasing meat - at the supermarket.  Behind glass, and all I was brave enought to buy was the minced meat, like hamburger.  You purchase it the same way you do eggs, in a brown paper bag.  I used some to make a taco salad, and it was ok - the meat here is very very lean, which is good, but I'm not sure it's really worth the price.  Not expensive but I think for the same price I'd rather have a kilo of tomatos as opposed to a kilo of minced meat.  So once what i bought is used up, I may be heading back to being veg.

In non-food realted news, today was the presidential inauguration.  They have been getting ready for several weeks painting everything in town, putting up new streetlights, repaving streets, and repainting the alternating black and white stripes that are on all of the curbs here.  The inauguration went well today, and as far as I can tell, there were no problems either.  It was all broadcast on Rwanda TV and was multilingual so it was ok following along with most of it.  And the rain held off, mostly, until it was all over.  Tonight we're having some thunderstorms, but it's still mostly clear.  The rain rolls in and out really quick, I'm interrested to see what it will be like in the next 3 or 4 weeks when the rainy season starts.

I also did laundry for the first time today.  In the bathtub, by hand, which took a fiar while, but not as long as I had feared.  Everything is now outside drying, and I'm greatly looking forward to having some clean clothes.  I'm still not sure whether I will be hiring a cleaning person or not, it just doesn't really seem necessary to me, it's only me, and I don't really make a mess.  I just need to find a place to buy a broom and a mop and I'll be all set.  I must admit, however, it is rather strange hanging all of my underwear outside for the neighborhood to see.

In other news, I still haven't heard anything about my visa, which I'm chalking up to the inauguration being today.  I'll try to get in contact with them if I haven't heard anything in the nest day or two.  And Wednesday I'm off to the Embassy for Security Briefing, attempt 2.  Hopefully, I'll be able to find the room this time.  Oh, and on a final note I'm very hapy to report that I now have a shower curtain!  This is very exciting, and water no longer covers the entire shower as I take a shower!  In any event, I'm excited to get some real research started, which should get going this week or early next - now that I'm finally getting settled in, and have a few things done for camp that I had to complete, it's time to get some work done!

Visas, $16 Ice Cream, and Justin Bieber

I was up bright and early this morning so that I could be at the US Embassy at 9AM for my scheduled security briefing.  No one knew, however, where I was supposed to go, and by the time it was figured out after calling I think everyone in the Embassy, it was over... So next week at 9AM I'll have to be back there to try again.  In any event we figured out a lot of the other details that were necessary, which was helpful, and I no longer will have to pay the very high commision rates at the Bank of Kigali to draw Euros against my US account, and then reconvert to Dollars at a hefty premium.  It looks like as a courtest we can withdraw funds direct at the Embassy, which is a huge help, and with some special clearance it will even be possible to withdraw dollars.  Thank you US Treasury!!!

So after wandering around the Embassy for forever, I headed out to drop off my visa - round two - this time with all of the requested forms.  The first round had me sent back needing additional forms that "were listed on the website," though they are not, nor have been for months.  So anyway, it seems to be a new visa category and we're all just trying to figure it out.  Turns out I also overpaid, but wasn't able to get the refund the day I overpaid (they were closed), so now I need to write another letter requesting a refund. :-)  In any event, I have sucessfully submitted all of my forms, and with any luck in 3 days I will have my passport back with my visa approved

I then headed into Kyovu, alternately referred to simply as "Town" or "Ville," and wandered around for a while, having decided taking care of a few errands might alleviate the stress of the morning.  After some searching, I found a new cell phone, which hopefully will allow me to actually wake up in the morning - something my very inexpensive MTN phone simply did not have the volume to do.  It also has an FM radio on it, which is quite a bit of fun.  I also bought sponges, dishtowels, and some fun snacks at Nukamatt (sort of an upscale Rwandan version of Wally World, except that a piece of your soul doesn't die every time you walk in).

The most exciting part was that I actually figured out how to get the *right* bus back to Remera.  It seems I live in between Remera and Kimihurura, though a fair walk from the Remera taxi park.  There are two routes, and it seems that the correct (i.e. closer) route is the route for busses that actually go to Kimironko.  This was a great piece to learn, as it drops me off a 10 minute walk from home, instead of a 30 minute walk.

On the walk home, I heard a phone ring - and just having left camp - it turned my head immediately.  "Baby, Baby, Baby... ooooo, Baby, Baby, Baby."  Yes folks, Justin Bieber in in Rwanda, and he has become a ringtone as well.  I was just walking down the road laughing.  I then decided that I had a craving for Bananas Foster (random I know) and given how great the bananas are here I figured this would be a great idea for tonight.  I stopped off at the local market (Ndoli) to pick up a few things - some Ugandan rum, sugar, bananas, and ice cream.  As I went to pay, I did a double take at the price, and looking at my receipt, I discovered that the 1.5L container of ice cream I had purchasesd cost 8,000 RFR!  That's about $16!  For a half-gallon!  And I somehow doubt that it is worth that premium.  Oy, I need to figure out the random pricing - but these better be some of the best Bananas Foster that have ever been made!  Oh well, I'll know better next time.  I'm thinking this will be a year largely absent of ice cream - maybe I'll get on perfecting my rice pudding recipie.  Shoot, just remembered I don't have any cinnamon - so perhaps the Bananas Foster will have to wait until tomorrow night.  Just ice cream tonight I guess, *expensive* luxury ice cream. :-)

On a final note, I just received an email from the Rwanda Immigration Directorate saying that they had received a visa application, with my last name misspelled...

I hope this doesn't involve another letter.  I have a feeling it will.

Off to have some $16 ice cream and dig up a few Justin Bieber songs from the camp list on my computer.

First Week in Kigali

After several days of very long flights I arrived in Kigali and promptly checked into my hotelroom and went to sleep.  Much of that first week was spent working out some of the basics.  And at the end of a week (and a half), I'm quite pleased to report that most of those basics have been taken care of.  I now have a place in Remera, a lovely 3 bedroom appartment in a 4-unit house with a wonderful woman from whom I rent.  The view from the main balcony (there are 3) is just gorgeous.  You can check out some pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nodybungle/. 

In the future I may see if it iseasier to just post photos here, or whether it will be better to link to flickr, so stay posted!  I have navigated things to get the internet working, my phone working, and as of today, I now have a television with Star Media, which is apparently a Chinese company in Rwanda that does television subscription service.  I'm still not entirely sure how the whole thing works, but somehow you recharge the account via your mobile phone. 

Absolutely everything in Rwanda seems to be prepaid - mobile phones, internet access, television, and even power.  I know this because the cash power ran out the other night, and it was rather dark getting ready for bed.  So in the next few days I'm going to be purchasing a great deal of prepaid power to prevent this from happening again - and then we'll see if I remember to check it before it runs out again!  But knowing me, this will likely happen at least once more before I get the thing figured out.

I've yet to really figure out how the pricing works for things either.  Random things seem to be very very expensive and others are very very inexpensive.  A $12 bottle of olive oil, and my $70 rice cooker, but the bus totown is 40 cents and a green avacado is only 40 cents as well.  It's mostly things that have to be imported that are pricy, but milk products - especially butter - seem to remain rather costly.  I've yet to do any meat other than chicken.  The goat last time was ok, but I'm considering just going vegetarian this time.  I don't really like meat all that much anyway, and am generally happy with produce and beans, so that may indeed be the route.

Finally I should note how very much I am loving my mosquito net.  Following several nights being eaten alive, I now have the net up in my bedroom, and it is wonderful being able to sleep.  I'm even figuring out how to keep my hands away from the net while I sleep so that they don't bite my hands through the net!  Two days ago I had 12 bites on my left hand alone, but the swelling is going down and I don't think there's been any new bites.  So this is progress!

In the next post... details on the visa-acquisition-saga, and the upcoming inauguration.