Hippos & Giraffes & Zebras, Oh My.

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Last week was bizee bizee. Here are a few things that went down:

• Dr. Calland was here for the week. It was great having him here! He's so insightful/fun/generous/inspiring. I'm lucky to have him as a mentor. We got a lot of work done on my project! We finished processing all the data from the survey, and, this week, I'll be writing abstracts to send to various research symposiums happening this fall. The current list of potential locales includes North Carolina, Florida, AND Trinidad & Tobago. I'm crossing my fingers that someone accepts my abstract. I'm looking at you, Trinidad-&-Tobago-research-symposium-abstract-screening people.

• A few days ago, Oscar (one of the newly-graduated Rwandan medical students) took us to a market so we could buy fruit. Turns out $10 will buy you about 30 lbs. of avacados, sugar cane, bananas, mangos, and passion fruit in Rwanda. I might never leave.

• All of my credit cards and internet accounts think that my identity has been stolen. Apparently, it's weird for people to buy something in America one day and something in Sub-Saharan Africa the next. Google is especially worried about me. Thanks for caring, Google.

• One of my favorite parts about this summer is the time we spend at CHUK (Central Hospital du University du Kigali), the flagship hospital in Rwanda. Healthcare in the U.S. and in Rwanda are soooooooo different. In the mornings I go to the surgery department's morning report to hear the attendings and residents discuss current surgical cases. In the afternoons, I work on research, meet with my collaborators, and/or attend seminars. 

• On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to sit in on mock oral boards for the surgical residents. Dr. Richard, the surgeon giving the mock orals, is a visiting attending from the Harvard-affiliated Mass. Gen. Hospital. She definitely knows her stuff. Dr. Richard appointed me to be the timekeeper while the residents answered questions about hypothetical surgical cases. 

• At one point, there was some confusion about a case. Dr. Richard asked all the residents what the best way to differentiate an upper GI bleed from a lower GI bleed is. None of them knew. Then she turned to me and asked me if I knew. Although I thought I knew the correct answer, turns out, I actually didn't. So much for my moment of glory. FYI, my answer: color of the stool sample. Correct answer: retro-suction with a naso-gastric tube. She smiled and said, "Nice try." haha Thanks. Doubt my future patients will say that. Guess I still have stuff I need to learn.

• This weekend, Dibya, Valentina, Yi, and I decided to take a quick trip to Akagera. For those of you who don't know (as in, 98% of you), Akagera is a national park in eastern Rwanda. It's the only safari park in Rwanda and, even though it doesn't have as many types of animals (i.e. no lions, cheetahs, rhinos etc.) as the bigger parks in east Africa, there is still a lot to see. Highlights included: driving around the savannah in our safari car, staying in a nice little lodge that had baboons walking around the grounds, eating mango and juice and pastries for breakfast, and, most of all, getting a ton of great pictures of the animals. Shout out to mama bear for letting me use her zoom lens.

 

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!