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!