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!

Motos and photos

My first real Saturday off shot way up on the awesome scale when we arranged 3 motos to take us to La Palisse, a hotel/resort on the lake not too far from us. The moto ride was about 30 minutes when we took the back road shortcut, and it was super fun to race along bumpy dirt roads in a sort of convoy. My moto driver raced to the front to pass Robin so that we could pull over and get some sketchy gas from a lady who brought it out in a 1L water bottle from the back of her shop. I didn't even get off and then once we had the gas we went off-roading around an old man, over a bunch of rocks and after one close call with the bumper of a truck, we were back on the dirt road. After that I was (sadly) number 3 in line but it was funny because by the time the first 2 muzungus went by, the kids or whoever we were passing at the time would yell and wave at me as I brought up the rear. 

I managed to take one pic as we were pulling into the parking lot, here is Sarah just ahead and Robin, as he was parking:

This was yet another confirmation that I need to get my motorcycle license when I get home. I may also get one of these guys to teach me if I can find the time. 

The hotel is in a birding area so as I typed this earlier, there were birds chirping and singing in the trees. Some crazy tourists in speedos were fishing with nets in the water and yelling at each other in a language I couldn't quite make out. One older guy threw the tiny fish he caught to shore, calling out to his friend to see. They were also wading around slapping the top of the water with sticks -- herding fish??

Anyway, we are extremely happy that they showed us this place and that the trip here only cost about $3 US one way. I think I have found my Saturday hobby for sure!

It is probably hard to see the bird in this photo, because I don't have my real camera here, but see if you can find the one that looks kind of like a bald eagle, near the top of the tree. 

We definitely needed a weekend off after the marathon of training. We finished off our second week of training with a ceremony for all the teachers with the usual speeches and certificates. Now we are moving into the mentoring phase and will be coaching the teachers in their schools and classrooms. It's hard to believe we've been here a month this coming week!
 
Coming home tonight by moto was even better than the trip out. The hot, hot day was starting to fade as the sun was setting in a bank of pink clouds. The wind cooled us down as we sped home in a cloud of red dust, waving at kids calling "muzungu! muzungu!". Everyone was making their way home in the cool of the short dusk, and the roads were crowded with people and animals. When we arrived home, our security guard came out to meet us as the local boys were driving the cows by our house. A few handshakes, a few smiles and goodbyes in Kinyarwanda and there we were: home.

It was the perfect end to a relaxing day.

In which Thor’s Hammer descends…

So, we have a squeegee on a long handle that we use to clean up after our “showers” (aka bucket baths) and in general for the floor. 

My shower:

It is known in our house as “Thor’s Hammer” because we regularly use it to crush cockroaches to death. Around here, it’s pretty common to hear “Who has Thor’s Hammer?!!” just before bed as we all take a survey of our rooms for bugs, spiders and cockroaches. We do a lot of smiting with our ‘hammer’ around here. I think the latest score is somewhere in the double digits now, at the very least: Muzungu’s 15, Cockroaches: 0.

Thor’s Hammer:

Late this afternoon, we received a delivery from someone in our area office with some kitchen stuff. It was like Christmas around here – mugs, a kettle, tea, a shelf, some water and so on. Slowly, slowly (buhoro, buhoro) we are building our “kitchen”. No stove in sight, but we are getting closer, step by step. Also yesterday we started to make plans for our weekend off and Kigali was definitely the main idea. At this point we would do pretty much anything for a hot shower and some internet that moves faster than glacial pace.

The training has been going well, lots of participation and some tweaking on our end to make it better. We are working well as a team and our strengths really seem to complement each other. I will say that as I type this on Wednesday night at 10:30 pm I am extremely tired. It’s been a long couple of weeks with orientation in Canada, travelling here, meeting the Rwanda team, visiting schools, and prep & lesson planning for the training right up until the actual training. And all this week we have been training all day and preparing for the next day all night. I miss my usual Rwanda bedtime of 8:30! I still haven’t gotten around to that yet on this trip. Electricity and a busy schedule are keeping me on a more Canadian schedule. We all agree that round 2 of training next week will be a lot easier and have way less prep time.

The teachers are a lot of fun and great to work with. We laugh a lot and now that they are more used to us and our speaking styles, they are opening up and answering more. Some of our energizers and demo games for the classroom have been a big hit. I taught a couple of songs the other day to three groups in a row and by the end I thought I would have ‘Head & Shoulders’ in my head forever. I'm also pretty sure that the tune I taught them was slightly off... I'm now envisioning generations of Rwandan children learning the wrong tune from their teachers after this week. You're welcome, Rwanda. You're welcome.

The other day I went to use the latrine at our training site and when I walked up there was a small calf drinking from the soapy water bucket at the hand-washing station outside. He just looked at me and eventually wandered off, but I sure wish I had a picture of him staring at me, standing next to the bucket.

Most nights when we come home there are random people running around the property. Well, they seem random to us because we didn't really know why they were here at first, but a pattern is starting to emerge. There is "our" nun who is around most of the day and talks to me in kinyarwanda all the time, with one or two English words thrown in. Sometimes she has helpers or visitors as well. There are a few people she knows who bring our daily ration of water in jerrycans on a bicycle. There is Jean-Pierre our guard at night, and an assortment, or really a team of people who alternate bringing us meals every day (until we have a functioning kitchen). They are all associated with Aimee, a businesswoman in our village who sends over 3 meals a day by bicycle for us. We are definitely embracing potatoes of every kind around here. She's a pretty good cook and we're just happy to have food showing up, even if we eat lunch at 12 and dinner at 8:00. We are really operating on a different clock over here. 

We've done a little exploring but not too much as we tend to prioritize work in these first few weeks. We have heard to stay away from the lake as there are crocodiles and hippos, especially when the rains begin again. Most of the hippos are elsewhere apparently, enjoying some swamp nearby. We did have a little rain last night, which was so great as our area is very, very dry and water is limited for everyone. It washed some of the red dust from the trees and definitely cooled things off a bit for today.

We heard from the education officer for this sector the other day, that he has heard around the village that we are always working, working, working in our house. It's true, but entertaining to hear about it from someone who doesn't even live in this village. I guess the bush telegraph is still in good working order and we do have quite the posse running around here in a day. I've said it before and I'll say it again... there are no secrets for muzungus in Rwanda! The local people (and children especially) enjoy watching us through our hedge or (often wide open in the daytime) front gate. I saw one older man who was peering through a gap in our hedge, moving around and leaning way over to try and see into our yard. I was 'invisible' behind some sheer curtains and when I surprised him by calling out "mwiriwe!" (good afternoon) loudly, he jumped, answered quickly and took off. I'll admit, it was pretty funny.

Well the mosquitoes are buzzing around my head in spite of the rather superior Canadian bug-spray I have on, so… time to climb under the net for another night.

Day 1 of Training...

Day one of our first round of teacher training: Complete!

After weeks of prep and planning, we launched our training today with the first group of 36 teachers. We started out walking to the wrong building in our village – turns out they had found a better location “up above the parish” (where we thought we were!) but eventually we found our way and got started.

It was a slow beginning with most teachers unused to being taught by native English speakers (and in our participatory style) but the day ended up being really great. There were the usual first day issues but also a lot of laughter and fun and they really enjoyed the activities we designed. We have some real characters in our class who made us laugh a lot today. In particular, we did a group project where they presented posters they had drawn that represented Rwanda. One teacher was explaining the items on her group’s poster and pointed to some banana trees they had drawn, saying: “In Rwanda, we grow bananas. If you eat a lot of bananas, you will get fat!” which was punctuated by giving her hips a little shake and pointing her finger at the class. We all cracked up laughing and clapping for her.

They also really enjoyed another activity we did which was basically a form of musical chairs; there was a lot of competition and good times were had by all. We had a delicious lunch and ended up teaching a few more words over lunch (toothpick, earrings). We finished up the day and walked home to throw ourselves down for a few minutes before we started taking care of our business for the following day. Speaking of which, I really need to sign off and go over my sections for teaching tomorrow!

Love, as always, from Rwanda.

PS – I will try to post some pics later on!

Goat Invasion!

We had a 4-goat yard invasion today. We were working on lesson plans like we always are, when we started hearing noises from the yard... We ran outside to see what was going on and found the goats were eating everything in sight. No one was around and the gate was closed. Goat Houdinis?!? How did they get in? 

We briefly debated whether it was a game - stealthily insert goats and see what the muzungus will do? Intentional - were they our lawnmowers/fertilizers? What happens if we chase them out the gate and they get run-over? 

Decisions, decisions.
 
We ended up chasing one away from a small tree in our garden (after we noticed he ate half of it). A little later 'our' nun/landlord Sister Beatrice came in and gave us a look like, 'what are these goats doing here?! I leave you Mzungus alone for 5 minutes....' -- and she chased them off with a stick out the front gate. 

End of adventure for today!

Greetings from Eastern Rwanda!

The news around here is: we moved to our house in the community, we have internet as of right now, and I have found out the specific school where I will be mentoring teachers over the next few months.

As for the internet, I just set it up tonight: slow and steady definitely wins the race over here. It has been busy and very hot and dry as we are in the midst of the dry season. All the roads are very dusty and every plant within sight is coated in red dust. Yesterday we moved out to our house in the community - it was not exactly as predicted, but we are doing just fine so far and our front porch looks out over a lake. I have a picture but will have to load it later, perhaps in the city with faster internet.

We went to visit the three schools today and met some of the teachers. They are currently marking exams but the largest school mysteriously still had oodles of children running around. They were happy to greet us and practice their English (as well as calling us mzungu, mzungu of course) and we had some quick meetings with the teachers. We happened to have a driver this time as there were 6 or so of us running around together, and by the time we left, all the dust on the car had been converted to handprints and smears. The kids do love cars, but the driver was standing guard to make sure no real damage ensued.

Next week we start our intensive teacher training, and we plan to spend as much of this week as possible writing lesson plans and prepping and practising for Monday. We will also do a mini-lesson session with some of the local education advisors and organization staff to try out our content later on this week. Today we also decided which schools each of us will be placed at for the ongoing mentoring, post-training. I'm going to be at a school about 5 km away. I think I'll be taking a motorcycle taxi to work, which I always enjoy, so no worries there – it keeps that adrenaline flowing!!

To wrap up this post, I’ve got the score so far on bugs vs. humans in our new home…
 
Cockroaches: 0 (including Ned, our first pet), Mzungus: 2

The battle continues.