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)
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
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...
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...
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
"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)!
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!
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!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
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