Let the world change you...

One last dance

2011-12-08T11:29:00.000-05:00

I can't believe my time in Rwanda is in its final days. After finishing the previous week in my bed with fever, headache and stomach pain I finally made my way to the hospital to get checked out. Good new: It was not malaria. Bad news: I have an infection. I had to unpack the Cipro I had already put in the "to give away" pile and as soon as I started taking them I immediately felt 100x better. Thank goodness because I didn't want to cancel my goodbye party at our new Technical Adviser's house. I took it easy, drank a lot of water, and managed to save up a little energy for dancing.

IPC sessions- safe water and safe sex

2011-11-17T08:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending two of our IPC (Interpersonal communication) sessions. Before I go into the details, let me give you a little background on this activity.

One of the ways that we reach our target audience is through the IPC sessions. Each session involves a group of adults or youth but no more than 25 people per group. The groups are led by peer educators (youth) or community health workers (adults). By having a small group of people, the leaders of the group can control the flow of the meeting and assure that each person participates. The objective of the IPCs is to help participants change risky behaviors.

Most of our partner organizations use IPC sessions as one of their main activities for our behavior change project. On this trip, I went with one of our RPOs to do supervision of session.

We arrived towards the end of the IPC with about 14 women and men sitting in a circle and many kids running around, being curious. This health issue for this community was safe water. The people we visited are part of the population that we classify as "most vulnerable." They receive government assistance, including free health insurance, clothing, and food. As a vulnerable population, getting people to change their behavior is a huge and difficult task. For this community, there was no water source near by so they have to travel down the hill (by hill I mean mountain) to get water from the river. They buy jerry cans of water for 20 francs a can which is about 3 cents. Each jerry can holds 20 liters of water.

The community health worker leading the session was talking about one of our products when we arrived: Sur'eau. Sur'eau is one of our 2 water purification products. During this IPC the group discussed the importance of having clean water and how Sur'eau can treat their river water. One bottle of Sur'eau costs 250 francs, about 40 cents. This one bottle treats 50 jerry cans of water or 1000 liters of water. One of the hardest parts of behavior change is convincing the population that changing their behavior is worth it. While we do sell health related products, the most important aspect of our work is improving people's lives. By getting them to change their behavior to improve their health and invest in it (using safe water, mosquito nets, doing family planning, and using condoms to protect against unwanted pregnancies, STIs, and HIV), they can increase their livelihood long after the donors pull out. Because the vulnerable populations receive things for free, they get into the mind set that they should always get handouts. Getting them to invest in healthy behaviors is difficult but once they get into the mindset and invest in their health and future, the process is sustainable and snowballs into healthier lives.

After the IPC focused on safe water, we attended a youth IPC led by peer educators for a group of about 20 boys and 1 girl all under age 24. This session was more interesting for me (partially because I was there the whole time and it was more dynamic). The session started with a game. We lined up in two lines and stood shoulder to shoulder. While the one line sang a song, the other line passed a potato behind their backs from one person to another. When the peer educator said "stop" everyone stopped and the singing line had to guess who had the potato. I don't think they guessed correctly the entire game.

Next we went inside and the peer educators introduced the topic- HIV/AIDS. They asked the group how they could tell if someone has HIV by physically looking at them. After they gave a bunch of responses (not quite sure what they said since it was in Kinyarwanda) the peer educators reminded them that just like in the game we played, you can't know if someone is infected just by looking at them.

They spoke some more and then pulled out condoms and a wooden penis for condom demonstrations. They passed out a brochure with instructions in Kinyarwanda. Instead of the peer educators just doing a demonstration, they asked the group if they knew the steps of correctly using a condom and went around the circle allowing them to explain and demonstrate. Once everyone figured out proper condom use they discussed reasons why people their age do/don't use condoms, if they carry them around with them on a regular basis, and other stigmas related to condom use.

Even though I could not understand most of what was being said, it was really great to attend these IPCs. It was good to see our peer educators and health workers in action, what challenges they face in the field, and the great work that they are doing on a daily basis.

Nyungwe Park

2011-11-09T08:15:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I traveled to Nyungwe Park with 3 friends and we found ourselves on an adventure. I'll go into details in a minute but first let me give you the highlights:

- 700 Colobus monkeys in the park
- 18 hours in a car
- 5 animal species seen (including 2 poisonous)
- 4 hour hike through the rain forest
- 2 fire places enjoyed
- 1 medium sized waterfall

So Saturday morning we woke up early and drove down the the park. I had made reservations at a guesthouse but when we arrived there was no one that worked there to be found. Of course the phone number to the guy I had talked to was turned off as well. Eventually we found someone and they gave us keys to the rooms. We were the only people there and it was a bit creepy. The Exorcist may have come up in conversation one or two times throughout the day. There was no food there and apparently no restaurants in town so we decided to drive into the park and see what we could find. We also wanted to make arrangements for our hikes since the start of all the hikes in the park was a 45 minute (so said the park rangers). An hour and twenty minutes later, we made it to the hike starting point. We got information on the hikes and prices and walked around the USAID funded buildings. They had the skull of the last elephant from the park on display.

We then drove to the fancy Nyungwe Forest Lodge. At $175 per person (all inclusive) we this was definitely out of our budget so we did the next best thing: ate a nice lunch. Since we decided to forego the $60 canopy walk, we figured splurging on lunch was a great idea. So we had their fixed price 3 course meal. I can't say it was the best food that I've ever had but it was acceptable. The passion fruit capirinha however was probably the best mixed drink I've ever had.

Mountain monkey (we thought it was a Colobus but later found out we were wrong)

Driving by a bog in the park and yes, I sang "Rattlin' Bog" as we went by!

Tea plantation

More tea

Close up on the tea

The drive in to Nyungwe Forest Lodge

Anxious to get our food

And then the rain started...

Artistic rain gutter-- it came from a pipe at the top and these decorative rings directed the water flow

Possibly the best drink I've ever had!

Appetizer: avocado and tomato salad

Chili soy sauce stir fried chicken (too salty and too spicy)

Cheeseburger

Trifle with Amerula sauce

The mist over the hills after the rain

We took our tea at the end of the meal inside since it was getting cold and dark. We sat around the fire place which they graciously lit for us and enjoyed tea around the fire.

Chandelier with cool tree design

This chandelier is made from tea strainers! Such a neat idea!

Traditional dung paintings

We didn't want to drive another two hours back to the cheap guesthouse so we asked if there were any other places around. The guesthouse on this side of the park was booked so the receptionist told us about a place that his friend manages not too far away. We tried bargaining a price on the phone and decided to go to the hotel to see if we could get it any lower. This hotel, the top hill view hotel, blew us away. It is brand new and I had never heard of it. The manager and staff were super friendly and were so accommodating. They did let us pay the amount we felt comfortable with and we spent the evening in a suit complete with living room with fireplace and huge bathroom with a bathtub! Quite a rarity in Africa!

ignore my bag spilling out all over the bed

Aah! This is the life!

Way more fun lying by the fire!

View from our balcony

View of Lake Kivu from the hotel

Main building

Looking onto the rooms from the main building

Inside the main building

Breakfast before our big hike

We head out on Sunday morning to do the 4 hour hike to see a waterfall. This trail is known for seeing mahogany trees. One of our group almost was't able to go due to her footwear. But after explaining that she had hiked Mt. Kenya in flip flops and promised not to do anything if she got attacked by ants or snakes they let her come. Our guide was really nice and showed us different types of plants and animals in the forest. One tree that came from Ethiopia had leaves that have been used by travelers as toilet paper. As you can imagine, the leaves were very soft.

What not to wear when hiking...

Proper hiking footwear, notice the socks over the jeans to avoid ant bites

We took the pink trail

Cutting open fruit that chimpanzees eat

Colobus monkeys!

Three little monkeys sittin' in a tree...

We did a little photo shoot between the roots of a tree.

Amazing canopy!So beautiful. And then it started to rain proving how awesome nature is,

Looking at the canopy from the base of the tree

Time to pull out the poncho!

We finally made it to the waterfall. I can't say its the best waterfall I've ever seen but who doesn't like waterfalls?

And we went into a waterfall photo shoot!

After taking a photo break, we sat down to have a snack and found the largest earthworm looking creature I have ever seen.

Tasty snack!

Not so excited about this worm...

After we hung out with the worm, we continued the hike which looped around towards the new Canopy walk. On the way we ran into a few other forest creatures. The first was a tree frog which apparently is poisonous and can kill a small snake. Notice how well he blends into the tree.

A few minutes later we found a baby green viper. This guy is also pretty dangerous and I'm really glad we did not see his mother.

Continuing on the hike, we made to to the Canopy Walk or at least to see the Canopy. We did walk across a small bridge made from the same steel used on the Canopy Walk. It was almost as cool...almost.

The real canopy walk

Our awesome guide

Natural vine: George, George, George of the jungle...

Stuck in a cloud

Orchids

The final ascent

Somehow hiking in flip flops leaves your shoes cleaner than hiking in shoes

After the wonderful hike it was time to drive back to Kigali. Thinking that it would take us about 4 hours we should have been home around 5:30. According to google maps there are 2 ways to get to Kigali from the park. The first way we took to get to the park through Butare. Since we saw a sign at the other end of the park to Kabuye and google maps showed that it would take about the same time, we figured we'd go a different route. BIG MISTAKE! The road from Butare was paved and smooth sailing. Little did we know, the road to Kabuye, while quite scenic, was an unpaved twisty mountain road. Since it's rainy season, there were big piles of mud everywhere which even in our 4 wheel drive vehicle were terrifying. It ended up taking 4 hours to get to Kabuye and then another 2 1/2 back to Kigali from the paved road. We felt lucky and fortunate that we made it back safe.

Mountain monkey on the way out of the park

Watch out, he's coming at us!

Driving back through the tea plantation

Blurry but you can see the dirt road we took for the next 4 hours

Rice paddies

Rice paddies and agriculture

More fields of agriculture

Rice paddies

Lake Kivu- I'm pretty sure we drove around the entire lake

So there comes a time when you need gas. When there are no gas stations out in the middle of nowhere, you find a small village and fill up on gas that they have collected in water bottles. These bottles are really meant for motorcycles to fill up on but since there are no gas stations, we got used to the shocked responses and hoards of people as we filled up the car. In the following picture we are about 2 hours from the paved road. The town must not get many white people because we were immediately swarmed. We were asked for money and objects, hair stroked by older ladies, and lots of staring from kids.

Attempt at getting the sunset over Kivu while racing to get to the paved road before dark

We barely made it to the paved road before dark and were relieved once we did. We ended up getting back home around 9:30 pm. It was a crazy trip but such a blast and had a great time with my friends!

Feelin' fine at 29!

2011-11-04T02:00:00.000-04:00

In honor of my birthday I had a party at my house. I wanted to do it potluck style and of course I always have to have food and drinks on hand.

Before the party started we cooked up a storm. Two of my colleagues came over early to cook and they made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and butternut squash salad. I was sad that one of my favorite restaurants in town, Papyrus, had closed so in tribute I made gnocchi with vodka sauce.

Oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough

Chopping the chocolate!

Butternut squash salad

A pinch of salt to the start of a vodka sauce

I combined a few recipes for the gnocchi with vodka sauce and came up with the following (this is made with ingredients found in Rwanda as well as kitchen supplies):

Gnocchi:
6 potatoes (about 1 kilo)
3 cups flour (plus more if its too soft)
1 egg

Boil potatoes with skin on. Once they are boiled, remove the skin and mash them to a pulp with a fork (A potato masher would have been excellent if I had one). Create a well in the middle and add in the flour. Mix with your hands until they are thoroughly covered in dough and sticky. Add a lot of salt and pepper. The dough should be soft but not too sticky. Roll dough into "snakes" on a table and cut with a butter knife into small pieces. Use a fork to put pretty lines on the gnocchi (also serves the purpose of getting more sauce on it). Meanwhile, boil water with salt. Once the gnocchi are made, drop them in the boiling water until they float up from the top. Put cooked gnocchi in an aluminum foil made "take away" container that can go in the oven.

Vodka Sauce:
6 tomatoes, diced
2 onions (red)
2 cloves garlic
fresh basil (from friend's garden)
1 cup vodka
1 container Masaka farms creme fresh (or any other creme)
Akabanga sauce/piri piri/ hot sauce/ red pepper flakes
Parmesean cheese

Chop up the garlic, onions and tomatoes. Saute onion and garlic in a pan until soft. Add diced tomatoes and chopped basil let simmer for 30 minutes. Add in 1 cup vodka and simmer for 30 minutes. Whisk in the creme with a fork so that it doesn't curdle. Add in some shredded parmesean. Add hot spices to taste.

Putting them together:
Add sauce to aluminum foil container (ie baking dish) and top with extra parmesean. Bake as long as you can take it before you think you NEED to eat, ie 10 minutes. Voila! Delicious!

People started arriving and eating. After awhile we started up the dance party and for the next 4 hours we were standing outside my house in a circle taking turns going in the middle. It was a little intimidating but a lot of fun!

Hanging out on the wall

This was probably the song Bella by the Dreamboys, one of our favorites!

He said he doesn't smile in photos...

My favorite artists in Rwanda- check out their website www.ivukaarts.com

Not quite sure whats up with the peace signs here

Our attempt as serious faces

Streets of Kigali- A few articles on Kigali

2011-10-25T09:40:00.001-04:00

I found this article this afternoon which describes Kigali's streets. While nicely kept, there are no street names or at least street signs which means getting around Kigali is based on giving landmarks or telling the driver a neighborhood and then directing them to the place. If you don't know French, your ability to get somewhere goes down about 70%. Some moto taxi drivers speak basic English but if you want to end up where you are planning, they understand French way better.

For me, famous for my lack of direction, it has been quite a challenge explaining things to people. For instance, I had a party for my birthday and tried giving out directions. What I wrote out seemed extremely complicated but it was all land marked based. To get to my house you have to make 3 turns and describing them is not so easy. "Turn right when you see a red and white barrier in the middle of the road where you are not supposed to take a u-turn" "Turn at the school." "Continue down a small road." " Look for the house marked with a silver star or just look for my roommate's car outside."

Even my office building's address is "the pink buildings" on "the road to the hospital." The only way mail actually gets here is because we have a P.O. box but I still laugh every time I address a letter back to the states.

In b-school, when you talk Rwanda it is frequently about its development process compared to Singapore's. The government is certainly making an effort to increase development, foreign investment, and decrease reliance on foreign aid. This article talks about Kigali's cleanliness, development goals, and reasons for such an emphasis on keeping the city clean. Plastic bags are illegal, people are paid to clean the streets as part of a poverty reduction program (and I swear I've seen people painting the pristine black and white lines at least 2 times since I've been here), and the last Saturday of every month is a mandated day of public service (mostly planting and cleaning). In the five months I've been here, they have put in reflectors on the streets and street lights that tell you how much time you have at the light. At the school near my house, the entire school spends the Friday before picking weeds, picking up trash, and beautifying the school. This upcoming weekend is this public service day, called Umuganda, and I plan on spending it cleaning in my neighborhood. There are signs everywhere designating where to go based on where you live and its highly organized. It's an awesome time to be here with the government's Vision 2020 policy and plans and seeing how PSI works with the government (and other NGOs) to help accomplish these goals.

Refresher Training: Ngoma

2011-10-19T09:46:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago (aka the last week of September) I spent a week in Ngoma helping with the 12+ refresher training for mentors. This training reviewed the training that they do with the girls each weekend, went over activities and got their creative juices flowing, and reviewed/updated them on the M&E tools. Between the instruction and activities, we did ice breakers for them to do with the girls. The following photos are of the mentors doing the Human Knot ice breaker.

Moonlight VCT

2011-10-19T06:29:00.000-04:00

Now that I have been in Rwanda a few months, I felt that it was important for me to see some of the activities that we do. I spend most of my time in the office so going in the field and seeing what we are collecting and analyzing data on gives me more of a connection with what we do.

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a Moonlight VCT (voluntary counseling and testing) event in Kigali. Our partner organizations implement these invents- one group does the actual counseling and testing and another puts on skits, songs, and entertainment while people wait for their test results.

These activities are held in areas with large amounts of people at risk. This particular one was held by the stadium, a place where there are lots of bars, sex workers, hotels, and foot traffic. The group that does the entertainment sets up a stage, puts on loud popular music and draws the crowd. People enter into the event and register when they arrive. They are given a number which is used for the VCT.

People register as they arrive for the event

The person in charge of this event walked us through the different components. Here she is explaining to our PSI Fellow how the system works.

Next we visited the laboratory. The lab technician explains the process of testing the blood. There are 3 tests that they can perform on the blood. If the result tests positively for HIV, they do additional tests to ensure that it is not a false positive.

Here he is showing us how they write all the tests in a logbook.

After explaining the lab we walked over the the tents where they did the actual testing and counseling. The photo is quite dark but you can see that people are in line waiting to be tested.

Here a counselor is counseling a patient. She explains to him the possible outcomes of the test before he takes it. Before reading the results, the counselors prepare the patients for possible results and next steps.

While they are waiting, the performance group entertains the crowd with music and dancing.

Here, two actors are performing a skit about a woman that gets pregnant and asks him to get tested with her. Here, he has just found out and is speaking with his friend about he does not want to get tested because he has been sleeping with many girls.

He later decides that he should get tested, calls the girlfriend and they go to a moonlight VCT. Here they are anxiously awaiting results. They find out that they both tested negative and they shout for joy.

This made my day!

2011-10-17T03:51:00.000-04:00

We received the following email (edited for privacy) from one of our 12+ focal points and it completely made my day. It's great to see how a project you are working on really takes off and affects the people involved in it!

"I would like to share with you a good idea that I observed in one of the teams of girls with their mentors. This initiative is a Sunday home visit between girls with the main objective to build solidarity among them. They make rotations to visit each girl and they make some surprise activities for those who have a birthday. One parent was happy because a team had visited her daughter."

Busy busy bee!

2011-09-23T16:28:00.000-04:00

What a crazy few weeks I've had! I'm sorry for the lack of blogging lately- I seriously have not had much free time recently. The past two weeks have had major activities for a few of my projects.

I've spent every morning (and a good part of every afternoon) since last Wednesday in a conference room at the Top Tower Hotel meeting with our 10 RPOs (Rwandan Partner Organizations. (If you are counting, you realize I still have 2 more meetings to go!) Each day has been spent helping them create their work plans and budgets for the last year of a USAID funded project BCSM (Behavior Change and Social Marketing) project. As we are all well aware of our flailing economy, funding from many donors has been reduced which is a challenge in creating new budgets. So this year instead of just showing up and starting a work plan and budget from scratch, we gave each RPO a budget amount and told them to draft a plan. Our individual meetings have been to polish the budgets and plans to work within our decreased amount and time period. I have been on an emotional roller coaster over the past two weeks from being ecstatic with organizations whose calculations and plans fit perfectly into what we asked to frustration with those who are sticklers on one last thing that "cannot" be removed. One thing I can say is that I have definitely learned the art of negotiation. I also really had a chance to spend time with the leaders of each RPO individually which made me feel more like part of the team (minus the rapid fire Kinyarwanda which at times makes me feel even more like an outsider). My supervisor was not able to attend these meetings as she hoped so it makes me feel good to show her that I (and another co-worker) can get this done in a timely and accurate manner.

Aside from working with the RPOs, I've been busy working with 12+ (as you see from some of my previous posts). At the same time that I have been working with the RPOs, we are doing refresher training for the mentors in each district. I left Kigali last Friday morning for Huye (in the South) to attend the end of the refresher training and help out at the actual 12+ training event. Despite the cold, rainy weather, the girls had a blast and this is the happiest I have seen the girls at a training to date. They were all singing and dancing and cheering and having a blast. It made my heart smile. On the back end, ie the M&E team, things are starting to get more organized but its still a little chaotic. A database is now in the works which will make a significant improvement in updating forms and being able to calculate data more accurately. We've also reviewed all of the questions asked during pre and post tests to re-evaluate what we are asking. As a pilot program, we are constantly re-evaluating what is working, what we can do to improve the program, and how to make the documentation process simpler for the girls and for ourselves. Despite the challenges, I am really enjoying this project. A new intern is arriving next month whose main job is M&E for this project which should be really good. I'm hoping that I will still have a role in 12+ once she arrives since it is so rewarding for me.

Next week I'll be meeting with the final 2 RPOs, finalizing all of the budgets and work plans, and then doing a refresher training in Musanze (the North of Rwanda-- think Gorillas in the Mist area). This time I should be at the training for the whole time. I'm leading the M&E tools part of the training which I have managed to prepare in between meeting with RPOs, data entry for 12+, editing creative briefs for our website, and assisting with our transition to a local NGO.

Outside of work I went to trivia on Monday and my team came in 2nd place! I've been wanting to get 1st or 2nd place since I arrived in June and finally it happened! Our prize was our drink bill removed. I realized that I should have ordered more than just a bottle of water but free is free!

I've started doing exercise videos after work which give me more energy and are a good release from sitting down all day. I've been mixing Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred with Zumba videos and P90X. It's also kept me from going out spending money which is good since I spent a fortune over the last few weeks for my friends' departure dinners.

Tonight I went out to happy hour at the Marines- this time they opened early and had badminton set up, the pool open, and a Mr. Chips booth (a new restaurant that is the closest to a McDonalds that you can find in Rwanda). The owner makes fresh cheeseburgers, chicken burgers, hot dogs, and even pulled pork, all served with french fries (chips). Apparently they also have fish and chips. After being here for a few months, it is the closest taste to home and a welcomed meal. It was nice to sit and relax, have a burger and a drink, and
start off the weekend. Tomorrow we start the third 12+ training module and then its on to movie night at Heaven. Have a great weekend!

12+ Ngoma

2011-09-20T11:28:00.001-04:00

12+ Huye

2011-09-20T11:28:00.000-04:00

Wedding!

2011-09-13T04:05:00.001-04:00

First of all, I apologize in advance for the blurry photos. These were all taken on my iphone and it was dark and lots of movement. Since I was in the wedding, my photos are all from getting dressed and the party afterwards. In Rwanda, people can have up to 3 weddings--a civil wedding (ie signing the papers), a traditional wedding, and a church wedding (like our own American weddings). The one I attended (and was in!) was a traditional wedding which I am told is the least boring. I personally didn't think the wedding was at all boring and I had a blast! My co-worker's youngest sister got married and my co-worker was the matron of honor. My position in all this was kind of like an usher, or a service person. The traditional outfit, called Mushanana consists of a long skirt that you tie around your waist, a strapless top and a long piece of fabric that hangs over one shoulder. It slightly reminds me of a toga. So all of the service girls (I think there were 6 of us total) wore either a gold top with green Mushanana or a green top with gold Mushanana. My role once the wedding started was to serve drinks to "the old people." So here's how it all went down:

12:00 Rain starts

12:30 Get picked up by my friend, her husband, and the bride.

12:45 Arrive at wedding site (house of the bride's brother). The yard has been transformed with 3 large tents, two facing each other and one at the end of the yard. The two facing each other are reserved for the bride's side and the groom's side. The tents are white lined with bright green and gold, the wedding colors. Beneath the tents are rows of chairs and a head table in the front row. The third tent has a table with four chairs designated for the bride, groom, matron of honor and best man.

1:30 Put on clothes, the tailor made my top a little too tight so the bride's oldest sister cut a few threads so I could breathe. And here I am in the complete Mushanana!

Getting ready!

Oldest sister giving instructions

The Bride calming her nerves before the big day!

Bride's older sister getting beautiful!

Matron of honor (my co-worker), Looks fabulous!

Bridesmaids getting ready

2:00- 7:00 The wedding officially starts. A few minutes before, a man introduces himself to me as Mark. He tells me I need a Rwandan name and I am officially named Uwera. According to him, the name means "very brown" which I found hysterical. Apparently it also means "holy" and today at work someone else told me it can mean "perfect." After the master of ceremonies started the ceremony I was directed to grab a tray with 2 champagne classes and a pitcher of liquid which I determined to be tonic water. I then walked in the rain to the groom's family, hoping the whole time that I wouldn't trip on my skirt, drop the tray, and ruin the wedding. Luckily I successfully made it over to the table to then have the father (?) say something to me in Kinyarwanda. All I could think to say was the greeting that I know, Amakuru- how are you? I was then escorted, with an umbrella this time, to the bride's family and passed off more drinks. Then I walked back to the house and was congratulated for successfully fulfilling my role. I think many of the guests were surprised (and entertained) to see a muzungu participating in the wedding but I had a blast. Throughout the rest of the wedding I served guests drinks as they came in late and watched the ceremony. Basically the families joked around with each other and made each other do silly things in order to "prove" the seriousness of the request to marry. One of the men had to sing and I'm sure do other things that I missed because of my lack of Kinyarwanda. There was also a lot of traditional dancing and singing which was fun to watch. At one point, they called anyone who wanted to go up and sing or entertain. After the wedding, people lined up for a feast and the families said goodbye. Those of us who were left danced and drank wine and celebrated and boy were people into dancing.

Another co-worker who attended the wedding.

Drinking wine

My new BFFs!

The Bride getting her groove on!

Sisters dancing the night away

Favorite picture! This is the oldest sister's son. He was showing off his moves!

Mother of the Bride

9:30 The party ended and we said our farewells after a fun and exhausting day.

12+ Kicukiro

2011-08-31T08:27:00.000-04:00

Girls sharing reasons for saving

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend and help with one of our 12+ trainings in Kigali. I was so impressed by how smooth it went (the first time was a little rough but they really have their act together and were well prepared). The training started at 2 pm and the trainers had arrived at 11 am to prepare. The girls are now on to their second module and they had a great time.

This week's topics were Why Save Money?, Know Your Body, and the Fundamentals of Puberty. The girls started out by sharing their group cheer and song. One of the supervisors and I were pulled into their song and dance as we walked around in a circle and they sung about making good decisions. Throughout the day, the mentors called out to the girls "Yes I do" met with the response "I do, I do."

For the session on saving money, the girls stood in a circle and threw a ball of yarn to each other as they said what they would save money for. The responses varied from a new pair of shoes, to clothes, to food. They also spoke of long and short term goals for saving and prioritizing saving money.

Girls taking the pre-test before the session began

For the module on Know Your Body, the girls discussed why they should know their bodies (feeling a sense that it is their own, feeling comfortable with yourself, and taking care of yourself to remain healthy). The girls had cards with body parts on them and they took turns labeling a picture of the human body.

Posting body parts on the image

12+ Coordinator

Answering questions from the mentors

Girls playing a version of Simon Says

Learning about puberty

Supervision- watching the mentors interact with the girls

The other intern at PSI Rwanda

With 6 groups of girls and few rooms, we had some girls under tents

Yay interns!

It was so nice to see how excited the mentors and girls were during the training. It made the program "real" and not just a bunch of feedback forms and numbers which have been my experience with the project thus far. It was so great to see what was actually happening on the ground and I'm so glad I get to be a part of this program.

South Sudan independence day

2011-08-11T05:10:00.000-04:00

Happy Independence Day Andrew!

Those of you who know me well know my background and interest with Sudan so I was thrilled when I rented a room from a Sudanese man living in Kigali. My roommate Andrew is awesome and I learn so much from him about his family, culture, and growing up in Sudan. Since he couldn't be in South Sudan on July 9th celebrating, we brought the celebration to Kigali.

The day started early with a trip to the only bagel shop I know of in Kigali, African Bagel Company (read more about them here) which is actually a cooperative. On Saturday mornings they serve hot fresh doughnuts in addition to the bagels. I picked up a dozen for the party.

Andrew came and met me and some friends in town for lunch while I shopped for cake ingredients. He bought lunch for us and other friends to celebrate the big day. So sweet of him! At home we started the celebration, eating, drinking and chatting.

After dinner with a work colleague I returned along with some hostel people for the big party. The finishing touches (ie the frosting) was added to the cake and we danced and danced for hours. We sang Happy Birthday to South Sudan and yelled quite a few "oyeahs." Andrew gave us a brief history of Sudan and how the new South Sudan became and independent country. He also shared his personal story that was heartfelt and emotional. We had him blow out the candles and cut the cake and the dancing continued.

The final cake!

Cake cutting... or staking

Later, we left the house for a few night clubs and ended up getting home at 5 am the next day.

What I'm doing when I'm not exploring Rwanda

2011-08-09T10:33:00.000-04:00

The weeks keep getting busier at work and I’m definitely learning the meaning of time management. I’m currently working on about 4 projects and I’m getting more responsibilities which I am taking as my work being appreciated.

One of the main tasks I am doing is creating a field manual. PSI Rwanda is decentralizing and localizing and in the next month or so, a lot of staff at HQ will be moving to 4 districts in Rwanda (North, South, East, and West –creative, I know). Along with moving physically, their jobs are going to be different than what they are doing now. Staff will be getting more responsibilities, learning new protocols as well as better helping and being closer to our beneficiaries “in the field.” This manual that I am producing is an effort between all of the departments (logistics, procurement, vehicle management, programs- HIV and MCH, finance, etc). For me, it is a great way to learn about each department, what they do and how everything fits together. It’s also a lot of work and I want to make sure that this manual is useful and not a doorstopper when everyone gets to the field.

One of my other main tasks is working with our partner organizations or as we call them here RPOs (Rwandan Partner Organizations). These are the organizations that do most of the great work that we do on the ground. As PSI Rwanda moves to a more technical support role from an implementation role, we provide these groups with capacity building skills to implement projects on the ground. One of the big projects that the RPOs are helping implement is through a 5 year behavior change USAID funded project. As we come to the end of year 4, I have now been tasked with making sure their work plans and budgets are approved for year 5. Since I arrived, I’ve been attending meetings with the RPOs, learning about their challenges and the awesome work they are doing as well as played the role of auditor on compliance visits. If you told me I would one day be auditing organizations a few years ago I would have probably laughed in your face. Even more so, I enjoy the audits and sharing results with the RPOs. The best part is hearing them talk about making changes to improve mistakes that we find and then seeing them implement them. I think we all feel like we are making a difference when you see a positive direct effect from your efforts.

Project number three is helping create a website for the organization and the local Rwandan NGO (when it begins operating). I don’t necessarily call myself tech savvy but it is kind of fun developing a website from scratch. The content and structure is almost ready, now we just need someone to actually put everything out there on the web.

More recently (last week), I became involved in another project which I am so excited about. This one is a pilot program for 10-12 year old girls. It kind of reminds me of Peace Corps’ life skills or Girl Scouts and is focused on trainings about health and financial literacy. While there are certainly a few kinks in running a huge pilot program (600 girls across 5 districts), I am so excited to be working with this. My office has been invaded by photocopies as we compile binders for the girls’ mentors (older girl volunteers). I’ve been assigned to the monitoring and evaluation team which means shortly I will be receiving everything from attendance lists to testing forms to feedback forms which our team will be evaluating for the project.

This week a PSI trainer based in Kenya is here training PSI Rwanda’s M&E team on qualitative analysis. We attended day one of the training to get an idea of how to incorporate it into the 12+ program. The first part of the training reminded me a lot of one of our marketing classes during the Core, talking about learning about our target market and using our research to better market to them. We even watched a few commercials via youtube—the Evian dancing babies commercial which I am convinced I either watched in class in the US or in France and one about wearing a seatbelt.

One of the tools that really left an impression on me is photo narratives. You work with a sample size of people that you have worked with previously, give them a camera, and have them take pictures of their day or week or whatever period you want information on. Then you meet up with them and they walk you through their pictures. The example we were shown was excellent. Afterwards you feel like you really know the person, what goes through their head and what they really believe about whatever topic you are researching. Next week we’ll meet with the trainer to see what/how we can apply some of the qualitative techniques to this specific project. After everything being so quantitative, it is really neat to see how to incorporate the qualitative aspects.

So that’s what I’ve been doing in Rwanda lately although it may seem like all I talk about are my weekend trips and evening adventures. Speaking of which, last night I went to a dance competition because one of my friends here sponsored one the dance crews. It was supposed to start at 3 pm and the first group started dancing at 7:45 pm. There are 15 groups and they are all supposed to perform one original song and one to a song chosen by the judges. They only made it though one song given the late start. Hopefully today and tomorrow will run more smoothly and on time. I only stayed for the first 4 groups (the fourth group was my friend’s) and it was pretty comical. As you can see from the videos, most groups tried to do some sort of break dancing/hip hop dance including their clothes. The judges were pretty harsh—I’m talking harsher than Simon on American Idol, which is what I think they based the competition on. The DJ would talk to the judges, get their responses and then talk to a group member to give his feedback. The group we went to see did a traditional dance and was the first group to get no bad feedback. They played the drums and sang and were praised on their costumes and making their own music. I personally think that no Rwandan would criticize their own traditional dancing.

The group we were supporting!

Friday night I went to the Embassy for a movie night which was fun to watch on a big screen. Saturday was bagel day and we got bagels and then went to town to find where to get good fabric. I found out that they made the finals and returned on Saturday for the big showdown. They ended up coming in fourth place which is awesome for only having danced together for 2 weeks. This was the first time they had participated in an event like this and they had a blast. A "famous" singing group called Dream Boys performed and we had front row seats. There was an adorable little girl that they kept singing to as well.

After the dance competition, I went to Planet Club or what is more commonly referred to as the club at KBC (Kigali Business Center) along with my roommate and his co-worker. I knew this weekend I would not stay out until 5:30 am like the previous trip to the club. I made it home by 2:30 this time. :) The music was great- a Kenyan DJ who was mixing at the dance competition came for the after party and the music was 1000x better than what they were previously playing.

Sunday I went to Expo, a large trade fair, that is organized by one of our RPOs. It was really neat and my favorite part was a big display by a tea company whose booth was all naturally made, including artwork on the walls made from waste from the tea. They also had a large teapot pouring hot tea and a display of the process of making tea. I stocked up on crafts until I realized my wallet had been pick pocketed--apparently a common occurrence at these large events. While I was not happy about losing my money, bank cards, and id, I realize it was my fault for not being more careful and I learned my lesson. Out of all the times I've been to Africa, this was the first that I had something stolen. I'm over it now and enjoyed Expo regardless of my misfortune.

Akagera

2011-08-08T06:43:00.000-04:00

My Rwandan friend John (more on his awesome work here later) invited me to go with him and his visitors from the US to Akagera National Park for a day so of course I jumped at the opportunity. This is the "safari" park to visit in Rwanda, located on the border of Tanzania. At one point of the trip, our phones actually registered on the Tanzania network so I'm trying to decide if I can count Tanzania as a place I've been. :) Regardless, I'm planning a trip there in a few months. We left at 4 am to drive the two hours there. We mainly dozed off during the drive and awoke to a beautiful sunrise.

Our "tour guide" eventually showed up but the extent of his telling us about things was pointing out a few animals and speaking to the driver in Kinyarwanda. Regardless, the trip was a lot of fun and we saw so many animals. I think my favorite were the zebras- there were so many of them!

This is the view of the big savannah area we were driving in.

We drove by a large lake and saw a crocodile (in the middle) and hippos who every few minutes would pop their heads out of the water.

We also saw a hippo on land who looked as if he had been attacked by something. You can't see it in this picture but his hindquarter had a large gash in it.

At one point of the drive, we saw a small merecat like creature running towards a mound that led underground. Our driver got out to see if he could find it.

One of the coolest things we saw was a heard of elephants. This photo does not do them justice but there were literally dozens of elephants in small groups headed towards us to go to the watering hole. There were some adorable baby elephants and some not so adorable large ones that tried to protect their young from our "dangerous" car. We were chased down the road by a large elephant--it felt like we were in a bad movie with the car trying to outrun the elephant. We got away fast enough but the elephant was definitely charging at us. The guide spent the rest of the trip warning other vehicles about the elephants.

There were some really neat plants in Akagera. This bush, maybe thistles, almost looked like a bunch of polka dots driving by. There was also this bright red flower that reminded me of something from Dr. Seuss's The Lorax.

There were plenty of Impala.

And then my favorite: MONKEYS!! I think these may have been baboons.

This is another type of deer-like creature. I think this one is called a topi.

About 5 minutes before we exited the park we found giraffes! This is just one of them but I promise there were more!

Apparently, this area is also where the traditional cows are raised. We drove past many groups of them on our way out of the park. Check out how big their horns are!

Akagera was such a fun activity and I had a blast! I'm getting better pictures from one of the other ladies that went and will post them as soon as they arrive. Unfortunately the zoom on my iphone and my camera are not all that great.

Long Weekend Part II. Liberation Day

2011-08-03T02:51:00.000-04:00

While I did have the chance to celebrate America's Independence Day (twice!), July 4th marked the 17th Liberation Day in Rwanda. While this may not seem all that exciting, think of how recent this is- 17 years! I was 11 years old. Can you imagine being in America 17 years after gaining freedom?!? Yeah, that's right, most of the population can remember when this happened. Liberation Day marks the end of the genocide and is a symbol of hope for the country. So a group of us from the hostel loaded up in a few taxis and headed to the national stadium for a big celebration including traditional dance, music, military processional, and a speech from Rwanda's President, Paul Kagame. Once we arrived there were thousands of people filling the stadium and lined up to get searched before getting in. A nicely dressed man came up to us and asked if we needed help getting in. He took it upon himself (Rwandan hospitality?) to help us get through the line and find seats. It turns out he works for the Ministry of Defense and he got us quickly through the line (we all felt guilty for getting sent to the front of the line-- they call this muzungu privilege and this may be the one time I ever felt slightly ok with it). Once we got searched, which was worse than airport security, we passed the gates and waited to get seats. We followed a policewoman up the stadium stairs and through a crowd that rivaled any thing I had ever seen. At one point I felt like I was going to get pushed over the balcony and I can't count the number of times toes were stepped on, people were pushed, and it looked like people were about to riot to get a seat at the coveted event.

Our new friend got us seats in the "VIP" section which turned out to be a section filled with other expats, located directly next to the real VIP delegations who came from neighboring countries to witness the days events. It was also the section from where the President would make his speech. Very cool but once again, very uncomfortable sitting in the area where we had the clear view of the dancers and entertainment and not so much for the general Rwandan public who bused in from all over Rwanda for their big day. He later arrived and sat with us which was good because the entire ceremony was in Kinyarwanda and all I can really say is hello, how are you, fine, thank you, milk, water, and eggs.

The group of us at Liberation Day

Shortly after we arrived traditional dancers came out and performed accompanied by local singers and drummers.

Traditional dancing-- the wigs are supposed to resemble lions

After the traditional dances performed, it felt almost like we were at a circus. There were people on stilts, roller blades, unicycles, and gymnasts.

Unicycle

Mini unicycle

Backflip crew

Man on stilts

Then came the military procession along with their jazz band and the Rwandan police force.

The military lining up

Presenting the flag

Official flag presentation

President Kagame!

Military processional

Rwandan police force

After the military presentation, the special forces came out and showed us that "just one person on the special forces can take out an entire team." It was hilarious and proves to me that people here watch way too much 24. The best part, as you can see in the following video, was when one of them came out dressed as a woman and took out the entire crew. Probably my favorite moment of the day.

Then the traditional dancers came out one more time before the President gave his speech.

Once the event ended, we were swarmed in a sea of people making their way to the one exit. The event was very long and hot but totally worth seeing. When we got back to the hostel, we had about 30 minutes to get ready before heading to the American celebration.

Long weekend Part I. Volcano National Park

2011-07-05T11:46:00.000-04:00

Another weekend down in Rwanda. Time goes by so fast here. We had a long 4 day weekend--July 1st was Rwandan Independence Day and July 4th was the 17th Liberation Day. I spent my weekend traveling, celebrating Liberation Day and US Independence Day. There's a lot to say so I'll do it in a few posts.

Friday, a group of 8 of us (7 from the hostel and 1 that I found through the RPCV list) headed to Volcanoes National Park. Located in the north of Rwanda, near the Ugandan and DRC borders, the park has a chain of 5 of the 8 volcanoes in the Virunga and is the spot to see gorillas...if you have $500 that is. It's the site of Dian Fossey's grave and if you've ever seen Gorillas in the Mist, the film is based on her life working in the mountains. Our group hiked one of the volcanoes called Bisoke.

We head out Friday morning to get a bus to Musanze, the town where we stayed and apparently we missed the memo that you have to book buses in advance. By the time we got to the bus station, all of the buses were full. Luckily the man behind the counter was really nice and had someone escort us to a different bus company. We lucked out and were able to get bus tickets for that afternoon. We had a few hours to kill so we hit up the local grocery store- the closest thing to a Wal-Mart in Rwanda and stocked up on snacks for the hike and bus. We got to Musanze in 3 hours, driving through gorgeous countryside. The view reminded me of "real Africa" (as opposed to clean, organized Kigali), green everywhere, houses scattered among the 1000 hills, and life much calmer than in the big city. Goats and cows were scattered in fields and children waved as the bus drove by. It was great.

Getting ready to go at the hostel

Excited face!

Not so excited that I took this picture

Driving to the hotel- this volcano is on the border of Uganda, Rwanda, and the DRC

Once we reached the hotel we split off into rooms of four (see the roommates below) and headed to the big living room to check out the warm fire. It was significantly colder and we all bundled up in our sweatshirts and ate soup to stay warm. We ended the night in front of the fire with hot African tea and coffee-- a mixture of tea or coffee with lots of milk and spices.

Hotel in Musanze

Roommate #1

Roommate #2

Roommate #3

The next morning we woke up super early to get to the park by 7. Our vehicle arrived at 6:30 and we head out to the Park to start our day.

All the vehicles are ready to go

Driving to the starting point

Waiting to start with our awesome walking sticks

Dirty Gorillas

Now the explanation in the guide book about the hike was that it is easy and we kept hearing that it only takes about 2-4 hours. We found out that it is a little more intense. The altitude is completely different from what I'm used to on the East Coast -- just walking down the street in Kigali will leave you breathing heavily if you are not used to it. So climbing a volcano that starts around 3000 meters doesn't make it any easier. While the hike was strenuous, completely vertical, muddy and more like rock climbing than hiking, it was amazing and the views were awesome. I sadly did not make it all the way to the top, but I did manage to hike 5 of the 7 hours and it was so worth it. I figure I'll try to go back at some point and make it to the crater lake at the top but I enjoyed what I did hike and my time chatting with the drivers at the bottom.

Bisoke- the volcano we hiked

The starting line

Fields

Altitude =2967 meters. This is where they told us the hard part starts...

Water break

Using trees to stay out of the mud.

Gecko

Armed guards with walkie talkies

Gecko blending in

Almost back!

One last view

Weekends in Kigali

2011-06-29T08:03:00.000-04:00

I just made it through my second weekend in Kigali and I really appreciate having those two days off to relax, go to the market, and explore my new city. After my first week of work I spent the weekend going to a large market called Kimironko which reminded me of the market in Praia where there was a hodgepodge of nearly everything. One side of the market is filled with tables of mangos, passion fruit, avocados, oranges, green lemons, tree tomatoes (plums), papaya, and all the vegetables you could imagine. Then there’s a section with cassava and other types of flours and dried beans. As you move through the market you move to the random imported clothing (possibly once donated from the US or other countries) and other goods. There are areas filled with large buckets which people use to wash clothes, electronics stands, and cooking utensils.

Then you move on to the fabric area which is so bright and colorful. Tailors work away at the ends of each row while you walk by and shop owners welcome you at their booths to choose your fabric. We’ve made friends with one fabric owner, Josephine, who has many dedicated expatriate customers and because of that makes sure we get a fair price on fabric and getting clothes made. My first weekend I went just to explore and see what was available. My second weekend I returned, purchased fabric, and am now waiting for a tailor made dress which will be complete in 4 days.

Once you move passed the fabrics, the crafts appear and shop owners call out to you to buy their products. “This is really nice.” “Do you want to try it?” “Real ebony wood, good price for you.” To me the products seem sort of factory made, each person has the same items with a slight variation of colors, materials and quality. After having visited East Africa twice before, the goods seem the same as they were 8 years ago on my first visit to Africa. I keep my eye out for unique objects but none of the wooden sculptures, paper bead jewelry, and colorful sandstone call out my name.

The next day I headed to Gisozi, the national genocide memorial in Kigali. The museum/memorial was very well done, informative and shocking and really puts into your head how recent and how many people it has affected. You are not allowed to take photos inside which is completely understandable but they are allowed outside in the gardens. The memorial center was divided into multiple parts describing the history of Rwanda, the genocide, the aftermath, other genocides around the world, and children affected by the genocide or what they spoke as “the lost generation.” Outside are many gardens, each very symbolic, as well as mass graves where over 250,000 people are buried. The museum had a good balance of historical information, shocking images of wounds suffered from the genocide, pictures of other memorial sites throughout Rwanda, photos donated of family members by survivors of the genocide, sculptures and stained glass created by local and international artists, and what I found to be the second most chilling exhibit- bones, skulls, and clothing displayed from victims. To further drive the point, the audio tour ends with an exhibit dedicated to the children of the genocide complete with large photos of children of all ages along with a description of their favorite foods, subjects in school, favorite games, and last of all, how they were killed. The way the memorial was laid out, you exit the children’s exhibit to a balcony outside for a bit of fresh air to give you a moment to process what you just witnessed. I visited the gardens second, as recommended by other people staying at the hostel, which was nice after witnessing the inside exhibits. As you can see in one of my pictures, the mass graves in the exterior of the center lie in plain view of the city in the outside. I found it quite interesting that the gardens and mass graves were not walled in like you would find at some other sort of museum or memorial, closed off from the world. It was weird being surrounded by this sort of dichotomy of so much death and violence and the world on the outside moving on, functioning, and progressing as a society. It exemplified to me what Rwanda is today. People moving on, having hope, living out their daily lives while this undertone still remains. While discussing other East African countries, a colleague of mine mentioned that Kenyans and Ugandans are much more friendly. Even she mentioned that Rwandans are more serious, possibly because of the genocide. I thought that was an interesting point.

Kigali Memorial Centre

Coming out of the Children's Exhibit

One of the stories up close.

View of the eternal flame

Elephant statue representing remembrance

Flame

Walking down from the gardens to the mass graves

Wall of Names- still a work in progress

Young forest of remembrance

When we got back from the memorial (about 5 hours later) we spent about 3 hours cleaning and chopping and mixing and cooking. It was a good way to process more from earlier in the day while giving us something to do. With one cutting board and 2 kitchen knives that we found in the hostel, we made our own “gourmet” meal. The final meal was pasta with tomato sauce from scratch, mango salsa, guacamole, and garlic bread. We also made a cocktail with a Ugandan gin called Waragi as well as green tea, lemon juice, and honey. It was awesome.

Weekend #2 we also made dinner. This time we did a taco night for the entire hostel or whoever was there. We made everything from scratch: pineapple salsa, guacamole, beans (these were from a bag but I spiced them up), lettuce, cheese, and even tortillas which turned out a little more like nan or pita bread than tortillas. Everything was delicious and there was plenty to go around. For 600 RWF a person or $1 it was the right price for all of us!

Pineapple salsa

guacamole

lettuce

cheese

tortillas

peppers, onions, and okra

beans

the spread

Rosie and Catherine chowing down!

First week of internship

2011-06-22T06:03:00.001-04:00

June 18, 2011

I just finished my first week at my internship and already I’ve had a whirlwind of emotions. The first few days were a little overwhelming. Since my bags hadn’t arrived, it made setting up a little difficult so I was bounced around to different people until they found a computer and desk for me to use. I don’t know if I am in my permanent desk or if there are still plans to move me around but I guess I’ll find out soon.

Over the past few days I have been meeting with the heads of every department to understand what they do, how their department fits in with the rest of them and their major challenges. The organization is going though major changes right now by decentralizing so things are a little confusing and chaotic and I’m trying to get a good picture of how things used to be and where they are headed. New departments have been created and people who have been working at the same position for 10+ years and now have to learn new jobs. It’s a great time for me to be here during this transition period and I foresee other organizations in Africa going through similar processes in the future.

After working at the ground level with NGOs for the past few years, it is really interesting to be working at a headquarters. The amount of work that goes in to creating, implementing, and supporting projects is immense and I am so glad that I am getting this experience.

I am currently sharing an office with one of the new regional managers and he has been really helpful answering questions about everything for me from work related material, to the genocide in Rwanda, to cultural events. He told me all about weddings in Rwanda. Apparently they can last a long time (his friend’s wedding is this weekend) with a traditional portion and the church portion. During the traditional portion, the parents sit down and discuss the marriage of their children, almost in a banter, teasing tone until they finally agree on the marriage. There is a dowry in cows and as he explained, wealthy people give more cows and a high quality cow (there are 2 types of cows here—ones that come from India and others that come from Europe) can cost up to 1 million Rwf. Then they go to get marriage certificates. A week later, there can be a big church wedding, like our own in the states, with a reception afterwards. People have so many family and friends that are invited that there could be 600 people at a wedding! So at the end of the day I was maybe invited to attend this wedding with my colleague.

I made friends with another colleague Friday afternoon during my last meeting of the day. I was meeting with our external affairs person and after discussing work I tried to get to know her a little more. She offered to take me to the market so I am looking forward to going today.

This past week has pretty much been wake up, go to work, get lunch, back to work and then random activities at night with the other people at the hostel. Monday we went to a pizza place for trivia, Tuesday we went to a coffee shop/Morroccan/Mexican restaurant, Wednesday we went to an Indian restaurant for a goodbye party for someone, Thursday we went to the Chinese restaurant by our hotel, and Friday we went to a BBQ hosted by the marines that work at the Embassy.

June 13-14

2011-06-22T06:00:00.000-04:00

June 13-14, 2011

My experience in Africa this time is much different than my previous ones. Instead of being in village or at least a small town, I’m living in the capital city. For all of the capitals that I could have potentially lived in, Kigali is not a bad place to be. Seeing foreigners everywhere does take some getting used to and it feels more like a vacation than anything. The city seems calm compared to the rush of people in Dakar or the motorcycle taxis zooming around Kampala. There are large sidewalks that line all the streets, motorcycle taxi drivers and riders are required to wear helmets. There is a plethora of ethnic restaurants—so far I have had Italian and Mexican food. There’s a Chinese restaurant near my hostel and tonight I’m going with some people to get Indian food for someone’s goodbye dinner.

The government seems to have a hand in everything here- the NGO that I am working with has strong partnerships with various government ministries. They are the ones who created the laws to make people safe and maybe my favorite thing, have banned plastic bags because of the environmental impact. Once a month everyone is required to do public service and I hear that communities all come together to do beautification projects in their towns. It is very cool to see a developing country making environmentally friendly changes. The description of “land of a thousand hills” describes Rwanda perfectly. From every vantage point you see hills in every direction and each hill has its own name. It is very green, even in the city. Rwanda reminds me a lot of Uganda- the climate is similar and I ate some beans yesterday that rivaled my favorite meal in Uganda. I was actually told that it is the same thing. One thing that I have already come to love is the tea. They peel fresh ginger and brew it with regular tea and it is just spectacular.

First day in Rwanda

2011-06-14T11:38:00.000-04:00

After a good night’s sleep in under a mosquito net in my private room at the hostel, I woke up, cleaned up and headed to the back porch for breakfast. I met 2 Canadian law school students and a few US law students from Pepperdine who are here not only for internships but a 2 week in depth study of the genocide. I also made friends with an Australian who is working on traveling elsewhere in central Africa. Breakfast was tea, milk, cereal, bread, and omelet. Because the electricity was still out, the coffee maker and toaster were not functioning. After chatting with the other people at the hostel for a bit I head out on the back of a motorcycle taxi along with two of them to visit a place in town called the UTC. In the UTC is a large grocery store that is pretty much the Target of Kigali as well as a bank, foreign exchange office, clothing shops and a coffee shop. After stocking up on the essentials we head over to the coffee shop where I discovered the best new coffee drink I’ve ever had. On the menu it was called African coffee and it consisted of espresso, fresh ginger, chocolate, and steamed milk. Delicious! We checked email since they did have electricity and then head back to the hostel.

In the afternoon I met a few more people staying at the hostel including another intern who is with one of PSI’s partner programs that focuses on behavioral change social media. It seems like a really great project and I am looking forward to learning more about it. Six of us walked to a club called Mambo and spent the afternoon playing volleyball, throwing darts, and being lazy. It was definitely strange being in a place that was 99% foreigners after spending the majority of my time in Africa with locals. We ended up grabbing dinner at Mambo and I had grilled goat skewers and an avocado salad. So good! When we returned to the hostel the electricity was back on. We all hung out for a bit, played bananagrams, and chatted until a storm came through and the electricity went out. We were about to start playing a game that we just invented when the lights came back on again.

2011-06-12T16:00:00.002-04:00

I made it safely to Rwanda but the journey here was less than perfect. My patience skills were put to the test but I’m alive, had some sleep, and clean. Here’s a play by play of the past few days just so you get a good feel for my travels…

Thursday June 9

11:00 am leave Winston-Salem to go to Moose Café and airport

11:30 arrive at Moose Café, realize I didn’t have my passport

12:00 arrive in Winston, grab passport, grab lunch

12:30 reach to get gum out of cabinet, knock over soy teriyaki bottle and make huge mess

12:50 leave Winston to go back to airport, freak out about going to miss my flight

1:30 arrive at airport, am told that my flight is delayed

1:40 rebooked for same flight on June 10 since there is no way I would make connections

Friday June 10

11:00 leave Winston this time with passport in tow

11:30 arrive at Moose Café, eat huge southern meal

12:30 head to airport, find out flight is delayed

1:20 say goodbye to Mike one last time

2:00 Mike calls and says he’s still at the airport and my flight still hasn’t left its original destination (thanks for the bad weather Chicago!)

2:30 Mike goes home, I wait for my flight which is 45 minutes late

5:00 arrive in Washington, DC

5:30 make it to my gate which is boarding after a tram and running through the airport

Saturday June 11

8:00 am arrive in Brussels, make it to my gate with plenty of time to spare

10:30 take off, make friends with German guy sitting next to me; school group of high schoolers on plane switching seats every 5 minutes

11:00- 3:00 sleep

4:00 snack passed around, its an ice cream bar with nuts so no snack for me

5:00 look through guidebook with German friend, make plans to get a drink after we land

6:40 descent into Kigali, wait, no, there’s a thunderstorm so we’ll circle for 15 minutes

7:00 pilot decides its not safe to land yet, continue on to Entebbe where the plane was to go next

8:00 arrive in Entebbe, sit on plane while they refuel, change the crew and clean the plane

9:00 head back to Kigali

10:00 land, go through customs easily, wait for bags

11:00 name is on a list of people whose bags didn’t make it, go to counter to file claim

11:10 meet driver and go to hotel

11:30 arrive at hotel, power is out, stumble around room by candle light and pass out

A weekend in Paris

2011-03-13T12:47:00.015-04:00

After a long week of classes and barely any time to recuperate from vacation, La Slashette and I decided to take advantage of our 3-day weekend and go to Paris. Our French friend who studied at USC last semester happens to live in Paris she let us crash on her couch and showed us around the big city.

We started our tour by the Palais Garnier, the opera house where the Phantom of the Opera takes place. On the walk there, we stopped by a macaron shop, Pierre Herme recommended to la Slashette as the "best macrons in Paris." From the Opera House we attempted to visit a Salvador Dali exhibit at a museum but when we arrived, we learned that the exhibit had already closed and the museum was closed while they were putting up the next exhibit. Oops. Thank you tourist office for not letting us know the exhibition was over. Anyways, we decided it was then time to walk up the Champs Eysees to the Arc de Triomphe.

Palais Garnier

We first walked along the Seine near the Louvre and found a pretty bridge with lots of "Love Locks" on it. I'm pretty sure that it was the Pont des Arts bridge but I'm not 100% certain.

Place de la concorde

Obelisk

Statue

Tuileries Gardens facing the Louvre

You can see the Eiffel Tower in the distance!

Close up on the locks

We found the largest Sephora store I have ever seen, a Louis Vuitton store with at least 5 levels, and a Toyota store with innovative designs and a spotlight on their hybrids.

Yes, the car IS on the wall!

I'd like to see one of these in a Bond film!

And then we finally reached the Arc de Triomphe...

Tomb of the unknown soldier

After the Arc de Triomphe it was time to take a boat tour down the Seine. While we waited to get on the boat we took a few photos of the Eiffel Tower!

And then on to the tour. There was an Italian family sitting in front of us with an adorable little boy who kept turning around and making faces at us. La Slashette eventually started making faces back. The tour was interesting and we were able to see a lot of the famous sites from the boat.

This little guy was passed out in line as we waited to board the board.

Slashette listening intently to the audio tour

The boy in front of us making being a bear!

And of course we ended up back at the Eiffel Tower.

Then it was time to begin our climb up the Eiffel Tower. The view at the top (ok so it was the second floor) was worth the 600 stairs that we had to climb.

After all the Eiffel Tower fun, we decided to go to the Musee d'Orsay since we thought it was open late. When we got there it turns out that it had already closed for the night. So we walked over to the Louvre which was open but decided not to go in because of the entry fee. We decided to try out restaurant Angelina for a cup of their famous hot chocolate. Well, turns out they had just closed for the night so we were not doing so hot with our activities. So we walked some more to find a bar or cafe to get a drink and on the way there a bird decided to relieve itself on my head. I was not a happy camper. But I got over it a few minutes later when we were seated at a bar enjoying a nice glass of the house wine.

By that time we were getting hungry and we met up with our French friend for dinner. She booked us a reservation through this website that gives you discounts on meals when you reserve through them. We ended up having a great meal for half price including an entree and main course or main course and dessert. I ended up getting French onion soup which was amazing and something that was like a Shepard's pie only it was duck meat. So yummy! By the time we finished it was already 11 and time to head back for the night.

Saturday we woke up to walk around the Montmartre neighborhood. We stepped off the metro in front of the Moulin Rouge, the erotica museum, and lots of sex shops. Once we passed the main drag we were in a really pretty area surrounding the Sacre-Coeur church. We toured the inside and walked through a square where artists adorned the streets trying to get your attention and draw your picture. Little cafes and restaurants surrounded the square and with the sun out, people were everywhere. We walked over to a Salvador Dali exhibit (this one did exist!) and the artwork was amazing. Sculptures, paintings, photographs, it was all really incredible.

Our awesome host, tour guide, restaurateur, perfume expert

After seeing the exhibit we headed back by the Opera House to go to the Fragonard Museum of Perfume. I went there with my parents in 2004 and bought a perfume that I really liked. I have been waiting for about 5 years to get more of it and I finally had my chance! We took a guided tour of the museum all in French where we learned about how they make the perfumes and saw all the old perfume bottles and sampled their specialties at the end. Of course you end up in their shop where I refilled my supply of Soleil. This bottle should hopefully last me a while.

Our French friend retired to her house to do some work while Slashette and I headed to Centre Pompidou to see some modern art. The building itself is really interesting and looks very industrial. The special exhibition was very phallic and included a lot of large glass balls configured in different positions. It is always fun to look at modern art- for me the new exhibits seem to test the boundaries and can be quite shocking.

We headed back after our full day for sushi (I know, not French at all) but it was delicious and a nice change. We headed to a party with students from the school our friend goes to and met people from all over the world- Argentina, Germany, France, USA, Canada... Everyone there was very cool and it was nice meeting more students. It really makes me want to do a semester abroad next year.

I'm back in Clermont and back to working on internship applications, working on my report for school and getting ready for Mike's visit. I'll finishing updating spring break slowly but eventually it will be up here. Stayed tuned for more...

Time to start blogging more regularly...

2011-01-28T06:56:00.004-05:00

Snack break while shopping: Honey and banana crepe

Town square in Lyon

Getting my room in order

And I will, I promise, really soon. As soon as I catch up on my back log of posts that are way overdue. In the meantime, here are some pictures of Clermont to keep you occupied...

2011-01-28T06:52:00.001-05:00

Jan 7, 2011

I have been here almost a week and it feels a whole lot longer than that. I kind of wish that I were surrounded by French as much as I was by Kriolu in Cape Verde but its difficult to do when many people want to speak English with you. Maybe I will tell them to only speak French to me. I really want to learn the language. Will living with two other Americans hold me back from it? I know that having my own space will also be good but I don't know.

The past few days have been exhausting. Last night was the first night I went to sleep before one o'clock and I slept in until 10:30. Way better than the night before where the girl we are staying with had a party until 4 am followed by an 8:30 am French class. I can't function on 3 hours of sleep. Especially in a foreign language. The welcome group from the school has been wonderful but there is definitely a difference in age and stages in their lives. All of them around 21 yrs old and want to party every night. I don't know if this is a cultural thing or an age thing but I can't handle long nights and early mornings 7 days a week. They have been really great in helping us set up bank accounts, get phones, and find apartments. I'm going to be living in an apartment, or a flat as they call it, with two other people from my program.

We started classes and have had two so far. The schedule looks very useful and focuses not only on learning French but learning French to work in a business environment. Our textbook, which in France is given to you—no trips to the bookstore to buy lots of books, references businesses and even the introductory lessons have pictures of business cards, or cartes de visite. Our first class was on culture and civilization, where we learned the geography of France and looked at post cards from all over the country. I now know how to say that Lyon is to the east of Clermont-Ferrand, Nice is to the south, and Lille is in the north. Awesome.

Why chocolate covered marshmellow bears are life changing

2011-01-14T03:16:00.002-05:00

Ok, so maybe not exactly life changing, but the girls and I discovered chocolate covered marshmellow bears or "chocomauve- La dream team des oursons!" as they are called on the package during Wednesday's big sale day. In France, there are two big sales a year mandated by the government, one in January and the other in July. Unlike in America where things are on sale all the time, sales here are rare. So this week kicked off the first day of 3 weeks of sales, with each with getting progressively heavier discounts. We were on a quest for boots because they are the quintessential accessory here. I also had my eye on a new Longchamp bag in purple. The main shopping routes and the mall were pretty equivalent to the stores in the US on black Friday so it was a little overwhelming. We'll have to take a bus this weekend to find H & M which is located a little further from the town center. Unfortuntunately (or rather fortunately for my wallet) the only purchase that I made was the chocolate covered marshmellow bears from Jeff de Bruges. Honestly I bought them because they were less than 5 euro, one of the only things I could find without nuts, and included white, milk, and dark chocolate. Definitely worth it. And after a day of bad news regarding our apartment search (more on this to come), they made us forget about our stress for a few minutes. So thank you chocolate covered marshmellow bears for giving us a few minutes of bliss as we fought through the crowds of sale day.

Clermont-Ferrand

2011-01-04T12:06:00.004-05:00

Well I'm officially in Clermont-Ferrand, France which will be my home for the next 4 months to a year, dependent on an internship. The trip here was exhausting but it is really nice to finally have reached my destination. A group of students from the Welcome Association at the school met us at the train station and took us to their flats which are scattered around the town for the evening.

The next morning we walked to the school and saw the amazing view of snow covered mountains in the distance. The town we are in has a lot of charm, small cobblestone roads, a town center with a large ferris wheel, and lots of boutiques lining the streets. We all got cell phones and enjoyed a coffee sitting outside in the cold outside a cafe. The time change has not yet set in for me so I've been constantly tired but hopefully it should work itself out in a few days.

Today was our first day of actual class and I felt good about understanding a good portion of what the professors were saying. It is going to be an intense few months but I am really looking forward to it. Tomorrow I will search for a place to live, hopefully I can find a flat and move in by the end of the week.

New beginnings

2008-09-17T22:45:00.008-04:00

It's been a rough few weeks adjusting back to America. Mike and I moved in together in PA where he is attending Penn State and finishing a degree in Biology before applying to Dental School. Our apartment is great and things with us are wonderful. The hard part for me is getting back into America- the pace of life, living in a new part of the country, trying to find a job, trying to make friends, figuring out where I am and where I want to go. The Peace Corps was an incredible experience but now I have to figure out how to translate my experience into what I want to do with the rest of my life. I know graduate school is in the near future and I'm trying to create these great plans but getting there is harder than I thought.

One of the big changes I made when I returned was cutting off my hair. I let it grow out the two years I was gone and decided I would again donate my hair to Locks of Love. You can see the difference between the following pictures. That's a lot of hair- yikes!

I'm still trying to find a job- one that may help me on my career path and not completely change it. Needless to say, there's not much work outside of the restaurant and retail industries in State College but I'm looking. It's weird being in a college town and not actually in college.

June 28, 2008

2008-09-17T22:45:00.004-04:00

Today we went on our first outreach to Masaaka. We split into two groups and took people's medical problems, blood pressure, and personal information. I worked with Steven, Jude, Lara, and translator/Dr. Steven. We had a good time hiking in and out of the cornfields getting from house to house. We tried to buy hot peppers (think Cape Verdian piri piri) at one house and they gave us all they had drying in the sun for free. It was really neat for me to see something from Cape Verde all the way in Uganda.

During our outreach we ran into a girl with a high fever, headache and the vomitted in front of us. We all felt really bad for her and the seeming neglect from her family allowing her to lie in the sun in this condition.

Walking up the mountains was absolutely beautiful. It's weird being back. Very surreal.

June 28, 2008

2008-09-07T20:59:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was a pretty incredible day. We spent the morning learning how to use blood pressure cuffs and to take eye exams.

In the afternoon we went to the vocational school that I helped build in 2003. It was really neat seeing the final result and the center being utilized. There was a little session where the director introduced the teachers and students, we gave our speeches and they sang and danced.

June 25, 2008

2008-09-07T20:35:00.004-04:00

We're here in Buhkaweka, Uganda. Just getting here was quite an adventure. We spent a night in Dubai, the only time I'll ever be in the Emirates. We saw a large mall with an indoor ski slope, the famous sailboat shaped hotel that costs at minimum $2000 a night, and drove on the island shaped like a palm tree. I felt very uncomfortable being amongst all this money. The flight to Dubai was amazing--good service, good food, and the coolest tvs with hundreds of movies, tv shows and games to keep you entertained during the flight.

When we finally made it to Uganda the Tanzania group's counterpart had not arrived so we waited with them while they figured everything out. We then drove to Kampala to change money and went on to Mbale. We finally reached home around 12:30 am and our house is great. Its across the street from the old Crossroads house which is now being used to house a Peace Corps volunteer. We've got a sitting room, a room for the boys, and 2 1/2 rooms for the girls. Out back are our 2 holes. We woke up this morning and all got on boda-bodas--motorcycle taxis-- to the intersection and then got on a matatu to Mbale. We spent the day buying supplies for our house and now have a stove, dishes and food. We got back to Bukhaweka with electricity and cooked our first meal of rice and vegetables!

On the road again...

2008-06-22T18:23:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's 50th anniversary celebration for Operation Crossroads Africa was awesome. There was a service in the morning that leaned a little on the religious side. There were some drummers who played music from West Africa, accompanied by dance, a gospel choir from a local high school, speakers from past Crossroads groups, and a few former Crossroad-ers who are now Reverends who said prayers and a litany. It payed tribute to Rev. Dr. Robinson, the founder of Crossroads. Afterwards we headed to the UN building for an incredible feast of food from all over Africa with 4 tables, buffet style, with food from each of the regions of Africa. There was crispy duck and zucchini from South Africa, Red Snapper and Yams from East Africa, Yassa chicken and jollof rice from West Africa, and Pecan Crusted Lamb and couscous from North Africa. There were also a variety of appetizers, drinks and desserts (including mango sorbet).

My good camera broke and I had to buy a new smaller one since I would have no picture taking ability. We leave in an hour for the airport going to Dubai. My group is "fighting" over who gets the window seat so they can see the palm tree shaped island as we fly over the country. We'll finally land at Entebbe on Tuesday and head off to our site near Mbale along with the other Uganda group (working with the FDNC and Samuel).

I'm getting more excited by the minute! I'll write more when I get to Uganda.

America

2008-06-20T08:48:00.002-04:00

I'm back in America and getting here was a little difficult but I finally made it. I got back on June 7th and my stomach problems adusting to American enriched chemically altered food are now kicking in. Good thing I'll get to go through this again in about two weeks...

Mike was really suprised to see me at the airport 3 days early and we had a great time in Winston with my family and friends. Lauren suprised us and took us to see a new musical about pirates! We also hung out with Ler, Adam and Daniel at the annual rib fest (yay bbq!).

I'm now in New York for Crossroads Orientation. I arrived Tuesday after a much delayed flight. Mike and Rick drove up Wednesday and we went into the city, drank way too many Long Island ice teas, and saw Spamalot. Very funny! Yesterday the participants arrived and we had day one of orientation. My group has 8 people (including me), mostly college students, one recent graduate, and one older woman. The majority of them are pre-med or work in the public health field. I'm really excited to start this next adventure with them and I think we are all looking forward to finally getting to Uganda.

Today is the Crossroads pinning ceremony where we are sworn in as the 2008 (50th anniversary) group of Crossroaders. Tomorrow is a big 50th anniversary celebration in the city and an African food feast at the UN.

That's about it for now. I'm going to indulge in some more Starbucks before our medical session this morning.

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