Easy-bake ovens and Gender Balance

Today we got up early and hiked out with our backpacks to the place we catch the local bus, only to find we had forgotten today is the last Saturday of the month: Umuganda. Umuganda is a day where no one travels until after 11 am because they are all required to work in their communities or attend community meetings. If you travel, you can be stopped by the police. Even though mzungus are exempt, out here our only option is a local bus. So, no bus until 11:00 am, and it was only 6:30.

We had big plans to eat breakfast at Bourbon Cafe once we arrived in Kigali, so we were a little sad to head back to our house which currently has minimal food supplies. Once we got back I decided it was time to try out the oven portion of what I like to call our Easy Bake Oven:

 

Am I dating myself here? I totally had an easy-bake oven when I was a kid and baked my first purple masterpieces by the mighty power of lightbulb. (Thanks again Mom for letting me  mess up your kitchen!) 

About the size of a microwave, this has been serving as our stove, while 2 other non-functioning stoves serve as glorified trivets/ornamental statues for our house. It's been a long adventure with the kitchen and its definitely not over yet. 

I busted out my biscuit recipe and managed to make a small batch in spite of not having measuring spoons or cups and not knowing how hot the oven could get. They turned out OK but next time I'm definitely doubling the recipe... 2 each was not enough! 

The oven smoked a little and also smelled a bit like burnt plastic when I was done, but I'm going to call it: Success! 

Our landlord has hired a woman named Clementine to be our Jane-of-all-trades; she does some cleaning, some laundry and also functions as our daytime security guard. She also loves learning English and as we were working she kept coming by the back door asking how to say various household things in English. Robin was helping her out and getting a Kinyarwanda lesson in return: Sheets, cup, bucket... She also pointed out a child sitting up on top of our huge (and empty) rain tank. I was confused what he was doing there until I realized that there was someone else inside. Turns out it was her brother, inside the rain barrel cleaning it out, while the little boy 'supervised', watching from a seat with a good view up on top.

Robin started doing the dishes after our biscuit breakfast (we do them in buckets on the floor of our 'kitchen' room), while I was wandering around making tea and putting last night's dishes away. Clementine came by the door again, looked in and saw Robin scrubbing away and said succinctly: "Gender balance!"  At which point we all cracked up and agreed, yes, gender balance. (Her next question a few minutes later was, are you married? I think Robin's stock is going up around here.) Definitely my favourite moment of the day so far!

We're off to Kibuye as soon as we can get a bus. It's another town on Lake Kivu, where we were a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, the town we were in previously (Gisenyi/Rubavu) is now under a do not travel recommendation from the Rubavu/Goma border crossing all the way up to Uganda, for at least 5 km from the DRC border into Rwanda, due to shelling and gunfire. The situation is worsening but it remains to be seen how bad things will get. So far Kibuye and other parts south along the lake are still ok and not under advisory. 

I've been reading the story of Dian Fossey, of Gorillas in the Mist fame. I love the name she received while living on the volcano with the silverback gorillas: nyiramachabelli, or The Lone Woman of the Forest. Such a fascinating book, with such a terrible ending (spoiler alert: she is murdered). It was strange reading about her travels and adventures as I have been to most of the places mentioned in the book, including climbing Karisimbi volcano and seeing the Suza group of gorillas which included one old gorilla Fossey knew. 

Many of you will remember that memorable trip up the volcano the first time in 2009, where it ended up taking 10-12 hours and was an epic adventure. We're talking about maybe making the climb in September... Although prices have also climbed, to a rather bank-account rattling $750 US, just for the permit. This does not include travel to the park, accommodations or anything else, but it is a once-in-a-lifetime event. (Or possibly twice, as the case may be for me). 

Our work situation is a bit precarious here as the organization is having difficulty securing the proper permits. So, we are not allowed to work at the moment and are awaiting permission to continue our project. At this point we've lost quite a bit of momentum and are wondering if in fact we will be able to continue the project or what will happen. Hopefully we get to finish the project that began with such promise. However, pilot projects do have their challenges and the learning curves for everyone involved can be quite steep.

We'll see what happens!

Wind and rain and: The beacon fires of Gondor?

Like everyone here, we have been waiting for the rains. 

Last night after a hot day and a candlelight phone meeting with Canada, the winds started to blow. Lightning was flashing in the distance over the lake as clouds swept across the moon. 

Over on top of the hills near the bottom of the lake, a lightning strike started a huge bonfire on the hilltop. It burned for quite a while before the rain came and put it out. We joked that Gondor was signalling us with a beacon fire to join the fight against Mordor. 

I spent some time outside, enjoying the wind and chatting with JP our security guard. He taught me the kinya word for lightning and a few other words which I promptly forgot. 

Finally, the rain started lightly just as we were finishing our prep to leave today for Kigali, then Gisenyi (now called Rubavu) on Lake Kivu, along the DRC border. 

We're off on a long weekend and this Bourbon Cafe breakfast/Internet stop is just the beginning!

Love from Rwanda! A look back at our gate as we left this morning:

Tadpoles in the water bucket

When I took the lid off my red water bucket in my bathroom the other day, I noticed a few brown dots and bent down to check them out. Upon closer review, I found a few little brown squiggles floating in the water bucket. I grabbed a cup and when I tried to scoop them out, I was startled to see them swim down lower to escape the cup. Turns out, I have a family of worms/tadpoles/minnows hiding out in my water bucket. I immediately called everyone else to come and see and we proposed theories as to how they got in there. As in most things in life, the simplest answer is probably correct: either our “direct from the good well in the village, arrives in yellow jerry cans on a bicycle” water is really “avoid the crocodiles and hippos and take water (including mini wildlife) from the lake to bring to the muzungus” water, or it’s just not as pure as advertised. So although our Rwandese supervisor is recommending the local village well water as totally fine to drink, the presence of visible life in the bucket tells me otherwise. 

Robin & Sarah went back to their rooms and when they checked their buckets, it turns out they also had some floaters. All I could think about was all of the times I poured water over myself in the half-light of morning, the cool darkness of evening… mini-tadpoles swimming through my hair… over my body… in my ears… I instantly became itchy, itchy, itchy, at the thought! 

I held off using the water or bathing until necessity (and hair like straw) demanded it this morning. I managed to scoop out a lot of water without including any wildlife (most had died and floated down to the murky depths), and then dumped out the rest. I emptied my new jerry can of water into the bucket and after carefully searching the water, it seemed like either there weren’t any or they hadn’t had a chance to grow to a visible size yet. I’m choosing to go with the idea that it was a one-time fluke (pun intended). We’ll see what happens tonight when the daily water ration arrives.

We went to Kigali on Monday to sort out some paperwork with the national office and pick up some supplies. While walking downtown, I noticed a lot of large birds in some trees across the street. The first reason I noticed them was the wide circle of white poop on the ground under the trees. Looking up to find the reason for the poop, I saw birds that looked like the love-children of a lonely pelican and heron meeting in the night. Fat and white, they were murmuring to each other, high in the trees. The branches were moving and swaying as they settled and re-settled themselves in the upper branches. I laughed, pointing them out to my friends, happy to be on the other side of the street. 

We turned a corner to go to the store we were headed to, when all of a sudden I realized there was even more white poop on the ground under my feet. In a sort of slow-mo sequence, I noticed the poop, looked up, called out “run!!” to R & S, and sort of started to run at the same time. Just as I started to move, I felt/saw/heard a load from the upper branches making its way through the leaves, down to where we were. Taking stock of ourselves once clear of the huge bird colony in the tree, I found bird poop on my arm, but thankfully not my hair. Robin assured me that to be shat upon was, in fact, lucky. I think I offered to share my “luck” with him, but he declined.

We have started to “cook” for ourselves as of Monday night, but like everything on this trip, its one slow step at a time. We now have a two-ring gas burner in pieces on the floor in our store-room, and Monday we got a gas tank to go with it. Once we returned home, we discovered that the connector cable between the two was missing. Someone had given us a two-burner electric stove however, so as the electricity was on we could still make some food. We have some basic things but not others… it’s an adventure, what can I say. We are pretty stoked to be able to choose the time we eat though, even if it is only ichiban noodles or a cup of tea. The 12:00 lunch – 8:30 PM dinner stretch was a bit long for us, even though after a few weeks we were starting to adjust.

The other night we started decorating the house by candlelight, as the electricity was off again. We had some leftover chart paper and markers from our training sessions, so we each did a portrait of someone else and hung them on the wall using tape. We also made a calendar and some other art for the walls. It’s starting to look a little more colourful and homey around our living room for sure. 

Well, we’re off to the village to find some vegetables to add to dinner this evening. Tomorrow we begin a long weekend and I’ll try to post more about those adventures when I get back!