A Visit to the Genocide Memorial

This week was a little lest touristy, a little more researchy. Accordingly, I don’t have as many crazy stories to tell or cool pictures to show. Still, a few interesting things happened:

• I finally got my suitcase back!!!! 8 days after I flew into Kigali. 8 days. EIGHTDAYZ. That’s a lot of days to be living out of a hastily packed carryon. Too many, if you ask me. Apparently, a Rwandan guy named Jean Dedieu Nshimiyimanana (I’m not making his name up. That’s what the airport told me.) accidentally nabbed my suitcase, thinking it was his. He then traveled home to southern Rwanda and, for reasons unbeknownst to me, didn’t call the airport and didn’t bring my suitcase back to Kigali for an entire week. Yeah, I know. It seems weird to me, too. The whole situation has been incredibly frustrating, but, hey, at least I have my suitcase back.

• On Thursday, Ginni, Dahea, and I went to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, the biggest genocide museum in Rwanda. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the Rwandan genocide occurred over a 90-day period during the summer of 1994. Nearly one million Tutsis (the ethnic minority in Rwanda) were killed, and much of the country’s infrastructure was destroyed.  Despite knowledge of the situation, Western powers failed to intervene. It is a tragedy on many levels. As you might imagine, visiting the museum was an incredibly sad experience. Unbelievably tragic.

• The museum is built adjacent to a mass grave where over a quarter million bodies were dumped by the genocidaires near the end of the genocide. The grounds include breathtaking gardens and fountains dedicated to the victims. Inside, the museum guides you through the history of the events leading up to the genocide, the genocide itself, and the aftermath of the genocide. 

• Unfortunately, there was no happy ending to the genocide. No silver lining. At least nothing that begins to approach to the significance of the lives that were lost. The only thing to do now is to remember the victims and strive to not repeat such events. The thought that kept coming back to me over and over again was that something so horrific and so pervasive didn’t occur overnight or out of the blue. This resulted from the cumulation of millions and millions of bad decisions. It was a reminder to me that we need to stand up for what we believe is right both when the stakes are high and even when they are low.

• Whew. Sorry. That was heavy. But the genocide is the defining moment of Rwandan history, and I knew I would have to write about it at some point. For anyone looking for more info on the genocide, I'd highly recommend the book, "We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will be Killed with our Families." It's well-researched and balanced:

• In lighter news, we finally got moved into our hostel! Here’s a picture. It’s pretty basic, but it works. Every time I walk to the community showers in my flip-flops, I feel like I’m a 13 year old at Boy Scout camp again. It’s semi-fun.  Other highlights include complementary mosquito nets, low maintenance concrete floors, a chic brick wall on one side of the room, and a tribe of geckos that are semi-terrifying and semi-cute. Plus, it’s next to a large Catholic church. People are constantly singing. It’s breathtaking. Rwandans have the voices of angels. Yesterday, I awoke to Handel’s Messiah coming through my window. Overall, I’m pleased with our accommodations. 

• On Sunday, Dahea and I somehow managed to locate one of the LDS churches in Kigali. Given the directions we had, it was nothing short of a miracle (click picture to enlarge):

• Turns out "Cobblestone Rd" is actually a cobblestone road (rather than a road named "Cobblestone Rd"), and also turns out that the cobblestone road had been dug up during a recent construction project. Dahea and I knew none of this when we were searching for the church, but, after prowling around the parliament building for a few minutes, we ran into a Rwandan guy carrying a Book of Mormon and followed him to the church.

• Apparently there are three LDS congregations in Kigali now, and they are all growing quickly. As soon as the church gains legal status, they'll be able to build an official chapel with a sign. Till then, though, they have to meet in this dump:

•  With this terrible view:

• So tragic. haha Dahea and I loved going to church! We will be traveling to different cities and countries most weekends, but Dahea and I both hope we get to go back before we leave Rwanda. For the record, Rwandan Mormons are pretty much like other Mormons, except they smile more and have cuter babies. Both good things. Well, that's about it. Till next week!

Muraho, Rwanda!

Muraho!

I’m here. IN RWANDA. I’m completely thrilled! I’ve wanted to go to Africa for as long as I can remember. And I’ve been looking forward to coming specifically to Rwanda since last October. In case you missed it, I’m in Kigali Rwanda for the summer, working on intimate partner violence (aka domestic violence) research. My project is an appendage to Dr. Calland’s (my mentor) NIH-funded Rwanda Research Initiative. When I’m not working on my research, I plan on gallivanting around all of eastern Africa. This summer is going to be a blast!

Due to lack of time, desire, and internet accessibility, I’m not going to writing down all of my experiences in a lot of depth. Mostly just funny stories here and there and LOTS of pictures. If you have any questions about Rwanda, though, feel free to ask me, or, better yet, just google it. Well, I think that covers the basics. Here’s what’s happened since I left the good ole U. S. of A. last Wednesday night:

Around midnight on Wednesday, Ginni, Dahea, (two of my classmates) and I flew from Washington to Kigali. Overall, we spent 17 hours in the air. 17. Hours. That’s a long time to sit still for someone with self-diagnosed ADHD such as myself. Luckily we had a pit stop in Turkey to break things up.

Our layover in Istanbul wasn’t long enough to go out into the city, but it was more than long enough to raid the Turkish delight store in the airport of all of their free samples. I felt sorta bad afterwards, but I think their 3000% margins will see them through to fiscal safety.

After landing in Kigali, we de-boarded the plane, hopped through customs, and the waited in the baggage claim area for our suitcases. And waited. And waited. And waited. Dahea and Ginni both got their bags, but, unfortunately, yours truly did not. That was on Thursday night. It’s Tuesday and I’m still waiting. Hopefully soon. In the meantime, I’ll just have to keep washing my two t-shirts and one pair of jeans in the sink. The joys of traveling.

Other than suitcase-gate, though, the past few days have been INCREDIBLE in so many ways that I could never begin to articulate. I’m guessing that’s how my entire trip here will be.

A few things that have happened the past few days:

• Thursday and Friday we stayed at a motel/hostel thing. It was basic, but fine. Except for the shower. There was only cold water and it came out like dribble. I had to do something akin to an interpretive dance routine to get my body covered in water. Luckily, our new hostel has cold AND hot water AND decent water pressure.

• While we were randomly walking down a street near the center of Kigali a few days ago, I saw a building that said “Hotel De Mille Collines.” Hold up.  I knew that place! Having seen the movie five times (so sad but so good), I knew immediately that Hotel De Mille Collines IS Hotel Rwanda. We stopped and snapped a few pictures. It was a profound experience being in a place where so many miracles happened in the midst of so many terrible things. If you haven’t seen Hotel Rwanda, I highly recommend it.

• There are lots of bugs here. I guess that’s why there are mosquito nets in every hostel room. I’m hoping that between the mosquito nets, daily doxycycline, and millions of gallons of bug spray I apply every time I walk outside, I’m going to stay malaria-free during my time here. After all, I’ve heard malaria isn’t the funnest thing.  

• On Saturday we took a 4-hour bus ride to the town of Gisenyi. We were the only muzungus (foreigners) on the bus, so it felt especially adventurous. Gisenyi is on the western border of Rwanda and sits on the coast of Lake Kivu, the largest body of water in Rwanda. Sean and Lisa, our new friends from Yale Med, decided to come with us. It was gorgeous area. We stopped by Kivu Beach at sunset. We didn’t swim (see “There are a million parasites in African water”), but did dip our toes in the super clear water. It felt great.

 

• On the way from the beach, I saw this baby sucking on a lime. She made the most unbelievably funny faces. I was dying laughing. And then the mom turned around and it got awkward. Luckily, I got a few pictures before that happened:

• After a dinner of goat-kebabs and potatoes, we played scum late into the night. In order to make the king/scum designations more rewarding/punishing, we rearranged the seat cushions. The king chair had four cushions and the scum chair had none. Haha Needless to say, no one wanted to be scum. It was way more fun than I would’ve guessed. There was a lot of trash talking involved. Despite spending like 90% of the game as the “scum,” I finished the game as “king.”

• The next morning we hiked around the lake to some hot springs. Some parts are so hot that people actually boil their potatoes there. The area was beautiful. The kids followed us everywhere we went:

• After the hot springs, we stopped at a restaurant named Paradis Malahide. The food was good and the ambiance was even better:

• This is where we ate lunch. I wish I ate lunch here every day.

• After a quick stop at the DR Congo border (The State Department highly discourages Americans from entering the country due to violence, instability, etc. etc.), we took the bus back to Kigali.

• I’ve eaten lots of goat meat. Rwandans like their goat. A lot. I’ve had it like five or six times in the past four days. It’s a little chewy but has very good flavor. More like beef than chicken. As would be expected, we see goats everywhere. Here’s one:

• So, I accidentally used a bathroom in Nakumat yesterday (the “big” mall in Kigali) and left without paying (In my defense, lots of bathrooms here are free). The bathroom lady chased me halfway across the mall to collect her 100 RWF (like 15 cents). haha Special shout out to the mall guards carrying automatic rifles who opted not to shoot me for my egregious crime.

• Public transport is crazy here. Buses, taxis, and motos (motorcycles that drive around one passenger at a time) weave in and out of each other at will. The main rule of the road is, “If you can get there first, you have right of way.” Needless to say, this makes the roads a little chaotic. My favorite form of transportation is the motos. They are a tidge dangerous (Hopefully you aren’t reading this, mom), but they are super fun and cheap. About 50 cents will get you a ten minute moto ride. Here is a moto looking for a passanger:

• Ok, some guys next to me are speaking Kinyarwanda (the primary language here, along with French and Swahili). They just said, “;asldfjasd ;lfja;sdlkjfa;l kdjfFASTANDFURIOSSIXa;sldkfj as;dlkfja ;ldksjf.” Guess, Americans and Rwandans aren’t that different after all. Well, my times up. I’ve been sitting at Nakumat, typing this post for WAY TOO LONG. See you next post!

The Final Countdown

• Well. Year One is coming to a close. 42 weeks down. 1 to go. It's the final countdown! Sing it with me! (Click on the video below for a little help)

• Hopefully, I cross the finish line with as much panache as this little guy:

 

• For the record, I have no idea what's going on in the clip above, but I just love it. Never seen a cat wearing a race number before. Or a cat in a wheel chair. Or a cat winning a race. Let alone all of those together. A+ for originality.

• The past two weeks, we covered ear and eye stuff (in addition to other topics). In my clinical group, we finally got to dust off our oto-opthalmoscopes and look into each others ears and eyes. Here is a picture of me getting my ears checked out by Andy and Lauren. Good news! They got to practice being doctors. And they didn't even burst my ear drums in the process! Win win. 

• Friday, I went up to Washington, DC to visit Lauren and go to one of our temples. Here's a little background reading on Mormon temples, if you're interested: LDS Temple Info. The DC temple is one of the most incredible buildings I've ever visited. You can actually see it from the beltway. Taking pictures at night isn't my forte, but I gave it a try anyways:

• What else? Oh yeah. My class is in full on party mode. I think most of us were ready for summer break weeks ago. In celebration of our last team-based class this past week, we threw ourselves an indoor breakfast beach party. During class (when the professors weren't lecturing). Don't think that's possible? Think again:

 

 

 

 

Well, that's it for this week! See you next week, same time, same place.

The day I met the Rev. Sir Dr. Stephen T. Mos Def Colbert, D.F.A.

Most of you are probably here to hear about my run-in with Stephen Colbert. I’ll get to that first and then hit a few other things later. For those of you who are over the age of 50, under the age of 10, or who have been living under a rock for the past decade, Stephen Colbert is a political satirist that hosts The Colbert Report, a daily-news comedy show (Here’s a link to his Wikipedia article if you still don’t know what I’m talking about Stephen Colbert Wikipedia). I’ve been watching the Colbert Report regularly for the past four or five years. Even though I often don’t agree (or at least completely agree) with Stephen’s views or consider him a hero or role model or anything like that, he almost always makes me laugh. And he seems like a genuinely nice guy. I consider myself a big fan.

That being said, you’ll understand how completely thrilled I was last November when UVa announced that Mr. Colbert would be the valeciction speaker at UVa’s 2013 graduation. I fully planned on attending the speech.

Ok, fast-forward 6 months….

Friday night I got a text from a friend. This friend’s sister was flying into Charlottesville to visit. As she was boarding her plane in New York, she ran into Stephen Colbert, who, as luck would have it, was headed to speak at graduation and on the same flight to Charlottesville. So of course she texted my friend who then texted me. Next thing I knew, I was driving to the Charlottesville airport to “help” my friend pick-up her sister at the airport. And by “help,” I really mean “attempting to track down Stephen Colbert while pretending to help my friend pick-up her sister at the airport.”

Annnyways, long story short, I saw Stephen standing at baggage claim waiting for his bags. Deciding I had nothing to lose, I went up to him, told him I was a huuuuuuuuuuuugee fan (yeah, I said it just like that), and asked him to take a picture. He laughed (probably because I drug out the word huge for a good three seconds), snapped a picture with me, and told me it was nice to meet me. And that was it. As I walked out of the airport, other people approached him for pictures. He had every reason to say no. I’m sure he was exhausted after a full day of work and a late night flight. But he was extremely kind to every single person. I was impressed. So there ya go. That’s the story of “Nate meets Stephen Colbert.” Here is photographic evidence:

And here is Stephen's valedictory speech:

Other stuff:

• Happy birthday, to my beautiful lil’ sis, Emily! The big 2-0! So proud of you! 

• We had an eye dilation lab this week. At first, I was really excited. I'd never had my eyes dilated before. Plus, it gave me an excuse to wear these bad boys:

• But then, 8 hours of my right eye being dilated (we only did one eye) and a massive headache later, I decided that getting your eyes dilated wasn't as fun as I imagined:

• Moral of the story: Eye dilation is more of business thing and less of a pleasure thing.

• This past week we were assigned a prerecorded audio lecture on anti-emetic drugs (Emesis = throwing up, so anti-emetics are basically anti-nausea drugs.).  As I listened to the lecture, I typed notes at breakneck speed (per usual). After I finished, I glanced back over my notes and noticed that every single time I typed anti-emetic, my computer auto-corrected anti-emetic to anti-Semitic. Apparently, my computer has a beef with Jews. For future reference, I apologize in advance to any of my Jewish friends who my computer inadvertently offends. Mormons love Jews! No seriously we do: Check out this article.

• Lauren moved on Friday. Sad day. We were so consumed by finals and exams the past month, that we barely even saw each other. This is basically what it was like:

•  And then I finished an exam and Lauren finished finals a week ago. The past week was like:

• But then she left on Friday, and now it's like this again:

 

• Oh well, I suppose that's part of being a med student who is dating a law student. Life is busy busy.

• Well, that's not even a tiny bit of my week, but I have to run. See ya next week!

A Hard Day's Night

DINGDINGDING, WE HAVE A WINNER:

 

Big announcement. I’m dropping out of medical school. I got this email a few days ago (click on it to make it bigger):

So that's why I'm dropping out. Who needs a career when you already have money? And who cares that Mr. Bente Lybecker can’t use proper noun verb agreement? Or that he is married to a flower rather than a woman? Not this guy. He’s "donating the sum of 2 million USD" to me. Just gotta cross the t’s and dot the i’s. And drop out of med school. It’s going to be a busy week for me. That being said, I'll keep typing on the off chance that I decide to stay in school and keep this blog going. 

 

I do stuff like this all the time:

On Wednesday, I put my shirt on backwards when I was getting ready in the morning. I know I know. Most of us do this every once in a while. But most of us don’t walk out of their apartment without noticing. Or ride the bus without noticing. Or attend their neurology class without noticing. Luckily, I eventually noticed and ducked in the bathroom between my first and second class and pulled the good ole switcheroo. Up to that point, had I committed a felony and gotten arrested, this definitely would’ve been my mug shot:

Hopefully, that doesn't shake your faith in me as a future health care provider. I'm trying to get my act together, promise.

Yo no espeake Medical:

So, according to my clinical group mentor, you learn 25,000 new words in medical school, approximately doubling your vocabulary. While I think that might be a slight exaggeration, I can attest to learning a ton of new words. I use and abuse the NIH Online Medical Dictionary. It's very useful for giving me the textbook definition of a term. What it's not good at, try as it might, is giving me the pronunciation.

Here's a quick example. I looked up the word telangiectasia a few months ago. According to the dictionary entry, it means little red/purple dots that come up in your skin due to capillary dilation (It happens secondary to various conditions.). Cool. Great. Now I knew what it meant. What I didn't know was how to pronounce it. After consulting the dictionary's pronunciation (To hear the dictionary's pronunciation, click on the speaker icon under the Telangiectasia entry), I quickly determined that was not the correct way to pronounce the word. At least not the correct way for a human to pronounce it. 

So, what's a med student to do? Well, I had a lot of stuff to do, so I moved on. Which worked out just fine, until I ended up needing to use telangiectasia in class in front of all my classmates. At that point you just take your best guess. And unfortunately, this is not an isolated event. It happens ALL THE TIME. I don't know how to pronounce at least 50% of words until I attempt (and often fail) to use them correctly. Part of the learning process I suppose. It's happened so many times that now, whenever a classmate asks me how to pronounce a word, this is basically my response:

Medical lingo. It really is a different language. So do I currently speak medical? No, not yet. Not fluently at least. But I'm working on it. And I've got telangectasia down, so there's one. Only 24,999 to go!