Bad Blogger

I have been terrible, terrible, terrible about blogging. Nearly 3 months gone by.

That's not to say I haven't been up to a lot. The highlights:

White water rafting in Uganda on the Nile river with Hannah, and good friends and foreign visitors Hugh, Clara, Sarah/Snickles and Lillian. Had the requisite oh-my-god-I'm-being-held-under-for-3-minutes-oh-crap-being-sucked-under-even-farther-I'm-too-young-to-die-oh-now-I'm-blacking-out-goodbye-sweet-world-oh-wait-I'm-above-water-now-and-finding-myself-screaming-this-is-not-fun-and-gasping moment. Would do it again in a heartbeat. Read Hannah's blog for details (http://interestingencounters.blogspot.com/)

Kigali half-marathon. Ran it. Finished it. Slow time. Sore calves for a week. Hilly, hilly city.

Starting a business. Well, to be technically correct, opening up services that have long been offered to the general public. As you all know while at Wharton I was on the Admissions Committee, and along with a few colleagues have some very good ideas on how to help potential students be admitted. Spread the word! Refer us clients (we'll give you a referral fee!)! Link to our site from yours. Check it: http://www.elitembaadmissions.com/

Babies: It seems like half the world is pregnant at the moment (the female half). Guess it is that time in life. But have to give a special shoutout to two babies where I am (honorary) uncle. Well, in one case cousin somehow removed, so let's stick with uncle, its easier. My dear cousin Germaine and her husband Borge had her third baby and first daughter, Annabel. And my coworker James along with his wife Maniza had Keza (which means beautiful in Kinyarwanda). Awwww. I'm anxious to see all parties involved asap.

Finally, the future. I will be transferring with OTF to another project in July. This means leaving Rwanda. This means leaving Africa. And going to Trinidad, for a 20 month project. It's really a decision made with mixed feelings. I love life here and many things about this country. The project in Trinidad sounds fascinating, and who wouldn't want to live in the Caribbean. I think its the right thing. But will mean lots of changes. A positive one is that I am one direct flight away from the States!

So, I am not sure if I have the stamina to continue this blog. In theory I love the idea but when I let it lapse for awhile it stresses me out. And it certainly doesn't replace one-on-one communication whether by phone or email. Perhaps an occasional post or three. Have upcoming trips to Mozambique and a climb of Kilimanjaro planned before I go. Certainly worthy of a mention. If you have passionate feelings one way or the other, leave a comment. Mainly because I love comments.

Love to all.

The real Africa

I can't pretend to know the real Africa - it's a big place, and I've only seen a few parts of it. Plus, I don't interact meaningfully with a lot of the people who have it the hardest (though I am starting Swahili lessons in March). But, it is true that the images we see in the West are not very representative of what goes on day-to-day. This article in the LA Times by William Easterly is very interesting...

What Bono doesn't say about Africa

Celebrities like to portray it as a basket case, but they ignore very real progress.
By William Easterly, July 6, 2007

JUST WHEN IT SEEMED that Western images of Africa could not get any weirder, the July 2007 special Africa issue of Vanity Fair was published, complete with a feature article on "Madonna's Malawi." At the same time, the memoirs of an African child soldier are on sale at your local Starbucks, and celebrity activist Bob Geldof is touring Africa yet again, followed by TV cameras, to document that "War, Famine, Plague & Death are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and these days they're riding hard through the back roads of Africa."

It's a dark and scary picture of a helpless, backward continent that's being offered up to TV watchers and coffee drinkers. But in fact, the real Africa is quite a bit different. And the problem with all this Western stereotyping is that it manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of some current victories, fueling support for patronizing Western policies designed to rescue the allegedly helpless African people while often discouraging those policies that might actually help.

Let's begin with those rampaging Four Horsemen. Do they really explain Africa today? What percentage of the African population would you say dies in war every year? What share of male children, age 10 to 17, are child soldiers? How many Africans are afflicted by famine or died of AIDS last year or are living as refugees?

In each case, the answer is one-half of 1% of the population or less. In some cases it's much less; for example, annual war deaths have averaged 1 out of every 10,800 Africans for the last four decades. That doesn't lessen the tragedy, of course, of those who are such victims, and maybe there are things the West can do to help them. But the typical African is a long way from being a starving, AIDS-stricken refugee at the mercy of child soldiers. The reality is that many more Africans need latrines than need Western peacekeepers — but that doesn't play so well on TV.

Further distortions of Africa emanate from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's star-studded Africa Progress Panel (which includes the ubiquitous Geldof). The panel laments in its 2007 news release that Africa remains "far short" of its goal of making "substantial inroads into poverty reduction." But this doesn't quite square with the sub-Saharan Africa that in 2006 registered its third straight year of good GDP growth — about 6%, well above historic averages for either today's rich countries or all developing countries. Growth of living standards in the last five years is the highest in Africa's history.

The real Africa also has seen cellphone and Internet use double every year for the last seven years. Foreign private capital inflows into Africa hit $38 billion in 2006 — more than foreign aid. Africans are saving a higher percentage of their incomes than Americans are (so much for the "poverty trap" of being "too poor to save" endlessly repeated in aid reports). I agree that it's too soon to conclude that Africa is on a stable growth track, but why not celebrate what Africans have already achieved?

Instead, the international development establishment is rigging the game to make Africa — which is, of course, still very poor — look even worse than it really is. It announces, for instance, that Africa is the only region that is failing to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs in aid-speak) set out by the United Nations. Well, it takes extraordinary growth to cut extreme poverty rates in half by 2015 (the first goal) when a near-majority of the population is poor, as is the case in Africa. (Latin America, by contrast, requires only modest growth to halve its extreme poverty rate from 10% to 5%.)

This is how Blair's panel managed to call Africa's recent growth successes a failure. But the reality is that virtually all other countries that have escaped extreme poverty did so through the kind of respectable growth that Africa is enjoying — not the kind of extraordinary growth that would have been required to meet the arbitrary Millennium Development Goals.

Africa will also fail to meet the second goal of universal primary education by 2015. But this goal is also rigged against Africa, because Africa started with an unusually low percentage of children enrolled in elementary school. As economist Michael Clemens points out, most African countries have actually expanded enrollments far more rapidly over the last five decades than Western countries did during their development, but Africans still won't reach the arbitrary aid target of universal enrollment by 2015. For example, the World Bank condemned Burkina Faso in 2003 as "seriously off track" to meet the second MDG, yet the country has expanded elementary education at more than twice the rate of Western historical experience, and it is even far above the faster educational expansions of all other developing countries in recent decades.

Why do aid organizations and their celebrity backers want to make African successes look like failures? One can only speculate, but it certainly helps aid agencies get more publicity and more money if problems seem greater than they are. As for the stars — well, could Africa be saving celebrity careers more than celebrities are saving Africa?

In truth, Africans are and will be escaping poverty the same way everybody else did: through the efforts of resourceful entrepreneurs, democratic reformers and ordinary citizens at home, not through PR extravaganzas of ill-informed outsiders.

The real Africa needs increased trade from the West more than it needs more aid handouts. A respected Ugandan journalist, Andrew Mwenda, made this point at a recent African conference despite the fact that the world's most famous celebrity activist — Bono — was attempting to shout him down. Mwenda was suffering from too much reality for Bono's taste: "What man or nation has ever become rich by holding out a begging bowl?" asked Mwenda.

Perhaps Bono was grouchy because his celebrity-laden "Red" campaign to promote Western brands to finance begging bowls for Africa has spent $100 million on marketing and generated sales of only $18 million, according to a recent report. But the fact remains that the West shows a lot more interest in begging bowls than in, say, letting African cotton growers compete fairly in Western markets (see the recent collapse of world trade talks).

Today, as I sip my Rwandan gourmet coffee and wear my Nigerian shirt here in New York, and as European men eat fresh Ghanaian pineapple for breakfast and bring Kenyan flowers home to their wives, I wonder what it will take for Western consumers to learn even more about the products of self-sufficient, hardworking, dignified Africans. Perhaps they should spend less time consuming Africa disaster stereotypes from television and Vanity Fair.

I Felt the Earth Move

Many thanks to everyone who has written or called – yes, I’m perfectly safe. If you haven’t heard, there was an earthquake in Rwanda this weekend. Unfortunately, 38 people were killed, most in a collapse of a church where services were being held. And hundreds were killed in Congo. The quake was centered near Cyangugu, which is in the SW corner of the country – but it’s a small enough country that the vibrations were felt all the way in Kigali.

I was actually in Ghana when it struck, but tonight I was in the office late, when my officemate said, “That’s weird” and I said – “What’s weird?” As soon as I’d finished closing my mouth, I felt all wobbly, and thought my chair was shaking. I stood up and realized the floor and indeed the whole building were shaking too. I don’t mean to overdramatize – I mean, nothing was falling off the shelves, but it was definitely too much for comfort. My officemate and I ran into the doorway to be safe, and the other coworker still in the building came running in to see if we’d felt it too – but it was obvious that we had when she found us huddled under the door frame. We briefly considered going outside – we are a few floors up, and the buildings here certainly aren’t constructed with earthquakes in mind and thus collapses pose the biggest threats in situations like this. However, it was pouring outside, and the shaking was soon over. But we didn’t stick around very long, that’s for sure.

Now, I don’t have an internal Richter scale, but I’m guessing it was only a small aftershock. Can’t say I wasn’t shaken up though!

Ghana! Or, Country Comes to Town

Friday was a holiday in Rwanda, so we decided to take advantage by lengthening an already long weekend and leaving for Ghana on Wednesday afternoon, returning Monday morning. Why Ghana? Because a friend from UVA and his wife are doing PhD research there, and are leaving in March – so our window of time was limited. But I was also really interested in seeing Ghana because it was W. Africa that first intrigued me in college through my French/politics coursework, and I’d only ever seen Senegal, and wanted to get a firsthand glimpse of an Anglophone W. African culture.

Africa is a BIG continent. Bigger than N. America and Europe combined (I believe). And with the way maps distort the countries at the Northern and Southern ends, Africa tens to look a lot smaller than it is. So, to get from Kigali to Accra, you basically can’t get there in any kind of direct fashion. Our route took us to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where we spent the night, and then left Thursday morning for Accra – an eight-hour flight with a quick stop in Lome, Togo to discharge and pick up more passengers.

I was a bit wary of the Ethiopian experience – not the country, but the airline. I’ve flown it to Burundi a couple of times, but that is a 30 min, barely get up into the clouds kind of flight. Dg spite it being generally considered one of, if not the best African airline, I’d heard recently stories of delays, bad foods, boring airport, etc. However, it was fine. Because our stopover was forced by their itinerary, they covered the visa and hotel, and shuttled us around Addis Ababa for a night. And, the food was good! The airport was all decked out in red, yellow, and green lights – colors of the Ethiopian flag, celebrating the millennium. Now, before you think that they must be so backwards as to be a full 8 years behind on the news, it turns out they have their own calendar, which is related to ours and actually precedes it, and when the rest of the world starting using the Gregorian calendar by consensus, colonial imposition, etc, they resisted the tide. So, in Sept 2007 (on our calendar), they rolled over to 2000, and are in the midst of a year long celebration!

After all the stops, time changes, etc, we arrived in Ghana Thursday afternoon, and had one last delay in the immigration office. Apparently our fax for the visa on arrival hadn’t gotten through, so we were taken into a little waiting room and had to let 4 people take about 2 hours to decide what to do with us. I think what finally tipped the balance in our favor was my French skills – a woman from the Ivory Coast was also waiting to get a visa, but didn’t have the 100 dollar fee in actual dollars, only African francs, so they were trying to tell her to leave her passport and come back with the money to claim her passport. Until I explained to her what was going on she was refusing to hand over her passport, so once it was all cleared up the immigration staff was very friendly, and we had our visas (they weren’t so grateful as to waive the fee though!)
Thankfully our friends had withstood the long hot wait outside – it was so great to see them! And it was a hot one – I’d say 90 and humid the entire time we were there. Significantly warmer than KGL.

Accra is a city! Lots of people, lots of traffic, lots of choice. Terry and Erin (who blog about life in Ghana at http://bewisedonturinate.blogspot.com had casually mentioned some things they’d made for dinner, and some things they’d picked up at the mall. Well, when they said mall, they weren’t talking about a Rwandan style, 12 stores plus a bank but effectively only 2 stores that have any interest strip mall or even our new indoor mall, they meant a MALL. So we had them take us, and it was a big one, with department stores from S. Africa with electronics, linens, cookware, a food court with chain restaurants, a mega grocery store that had things like Roquefort Cheese, tortillas, international cuisine etc etc etc. We were beside ourselves – it was like country had come to town. And its funny, I am not a big shopper, I don’t generally feel deprived in Rwanda (other than an occasional craving for a Chipotle burrito), but I did go a bit nuts, and wonder what reverse culture shock in the US will be like.

Highlights of the trip, besides just hanging out with our friends, include: a trip an hour or so outside of Accra, on the way to Cape Coast – we took the local tro-tros (18 person buses/minivans) to a nice house on the beach. One of the nicest beaches I’ve ever been too – long, sandy stretches, lined with Palm trees, no one around – and the waves! Great surf…we spent half a day just riding the waves – the undertow was a bit strong, and the Lonely Planet I read (after swimming, thankfully) said that that part of the coast is pretty rough, and that several people drown each year.

Finally, the African Cup of Nations! For you non-soccer fans, or those outside of Africa, word probably hasn’t reached you that its football fever here! It’s a mini-World Cup – the African countries have qualifying tournaments and send 16 teams to battle it out for the title of African football supremacy. Ghana is a perennial favorite, 4 time champion, and this time, the host nation. So the national team jerseys were all over the streets, everyone decked out in the national colors, faces painted, people shouting, Go Black Stars, etc. A very exciting atmosphere, especially when Ghana won their quarterfinal match 2-1, even being down a man due to a red card – mayhem. So now as I follow the rest of the tournament from home, I have a favorite! (Don’t worry, I am not being a traitor, Rwanda didn’t qualify this time…hopefully that’ll change, as we plan on attending the 2010 Angola African Cup qualifying matches here in the spring/summer, which also double as the World Cup South Africa 2010 qualifying matches as well.

Overall, a fantastic time. And of course its so much nicer to see a country with people who know it – thanks T and E for being great hosts!

Assorted Photos

Normally I don't publish photos on my blog bc our camera is broken, and even when we do have pictures from friends, the internet is maddeningly slow and the upload is enough to turn your hair gray. But, by popular demand, here are a few shots of our house (decoration still in progress, but check the local art), scenes of Kigali/Rwanda, and gorillas.

Stick with it

Some of you may know that I don't really make New Year's resolutions, but prefer a guiding motto for the year. For 2008 I've chosen...Stick with it. For many reasons...I am training for the hilly and high-altitude Kigali half-marathon, the CFA exam...but it applies equally to my blog. Since I last posted, I've:

had 3 friends visit for Christmas. A tour of the country was in order, with new sights such as the monkeys in Nyungwe national forest being really fun - but a tough hike.

less of a hike but with much more than just a monkey was Volcanoes National Park...home of the Mountain Gorillas made famous by Dian Fossey and Gorillas in the Mist. AMAZING. You get up at 7am, go to the office at the base of the volcanoes, get assigned into groups of 8 tourists and then are sent over terrrrrible roads in a 4x4 to the base of your volcano. My tribe was Umubano (friendship), consisting of ten gorillas, one being the male silverback - the leader. huge! and scary. but cool. the best part was the babies playing...just like little kids, poking each other, running around, getting scolded by the mom. The hike was beautiful, and the experience amazing. Pictures soon.

New Year's in Zanzibar - Zanzibar...one of those places like Timbuktu or Kathmandu - such a cool name you don't even know its a real place. Zanzibar is an island off the coast of Tanzania, but was ruled for a long time by Oman, so is a real mix of Arab and African culture. Its known as the spice island because there are many plantations, and it was the center of the Indian Ocean spice trade for quite awhile. Meaning great food...not to mention great beaches, and great sunsets. Not to mention a great painting I got to add to my African art collection.

and finally...more friends! Two more visitors in January meant another circuit of the country, but the most memorable experience had to be the Saturday night in Cadillac...one of Kigali's (hottest, funniest, craziest, most surreal, you pick the adjective) clubs. In the words of a teenage boy who was quite enamored of the muzungus...Did you had fun?!?!

And in the coming weeks I will be traveling to Ghana for fun, and Burkina Faso and Uganda for work, so stick with my blog and I hope to write more in-depth posts about these adventures...

p.s. Special thanks to Chris, Heike, Arwen, Andrea and Meredith for visiting us here - it was fantastic to see/host/hang out with you all, and spread the word to everyone else that they too must come!

Lightning Round Part 2

My posting has dropped to all-time lows, mainly because I have been swamped at work. In a few more days it should be smooth sailing til the end of the year. However, while I've been busy, I still have found time to:

1) Have Thanksgiving dinner at the American club. About 200 people attended, and they did a good job of importing all the favorites (though nothing beats our family's stuffing). Although we sat with friends and had a good time, I vastly preferred hosting our own Thanksgiving for ~15 people in Belgium last year, so I've resolved to try to repeat that here next year. That will mean finding a local poultry farmer, paying him to kill the turkey, and then plucking it ourselves, but I think its worth a shot!

2) Attend the Mille Collines Road Rally. There were 17 entrants, and we are friends with two of the co-pilots. The race went from Kigali to the NW part of Rwanda (volcano/gorilla region). The cars were fast and loud (except for the two Belgian entrants driving Peugeots!) and the track was scary! Cliffs on one side, freefall to a river on the other. Local kids turned out in droves to watch the cars zoom by, and were really into it. The best part was going to the pit stop and seeing the drivers make tons of repairs in the 15 min of allotted time, while being surrounded by throngs of children. We took a break to drive up to the Virunga Lodge - a chichi eco-lodge that costs 800 dollars a night (and really isn't worth that much!) but does have the most stunning views I've seen in Rwanda: a 360 degree panorama of volcanoes and lakes.

3) Start decorating the house. I commissioned a huge painting (6 feet by 3 feet) from a local artist, and it should be ready next week- really hoping it turns out nice. We have bought some local cow dung art for the walls, started painting the rooms, etc, had a carpented build some furniture...all to be shown off to the 3 guests we have coming for Christmas, where we'll do the full tour of the country - cannot wait!

It's a bit strange to be in the holiday season in such warm weather - first time I've been sunburned in December! Hope you are all well

What's in a Name

I am just back from a week in the U.S. for work, happy to have seen family and friends, and to have stocked up on hard to find goods. I'd be even happier if both my bags hadn't been lost, meaning my marathon session at CVS was essentially a waste of time. But ahhhh, the luxury of choice in shopping...

Combine that trip with a week in Burundi for work, and there isn't a lot of Rwanda-related news at the moment.

But as I've lived here almost three months now, a I learn a lot of small, interesting things about life here.

Something that can be endlessly confusing (because its very difficult to know if/how people are related), but is cool, is how people are named. There is no such concept as a last name (or nom de famille). Most people have two names, often an English or French first name and a Kinyarwanda last name.

So, for example, Joseph Ishimwe.

But in this fictitious example, Joseph's son wouldn't have the last name Ishimwe, nor would his father. Ishimwe is just a name that his parents liked. And this is what he is probably called by his family, when speaking the local language. My guess is that people used to just have one name, and with colonialism and the European custom of two names, just started adding a European name as a first name.

Now, Ishimwe has a meaning - joy. And because so many people have names that mean something, quite often the name that is chosen in English or French has a more literal meaning than the names we are used to in English. You meet your Marys and Josephs here, but I also have meet people called, Blessing, Patience, Prudence, Innocent, Aime (Loved), Dieudonne (God-given), Beau (Handsome), etc

Adventures in Driving

After a great 4 days in Burundi for work (which justifies a separate entry), I spent the weekend in Kibuye, a small town on Lake Kivu - the same lake that I went to last weekend, but several hours south. The lake takes up most of the border of Congo/Rwanda. The weekend was with about 14 people at a new hotel there to celebrate a friend's birthday. 6 of the people there were Scorpios, so there was lots of celebrating. One of the guys had a boat, and there were boat trips and waterskiing and general lake fun. Despite the coldest weather we've had yet in Rwanda (60 degrees?), and a lot of rain, the temperature of the lake was like bathwater - very nice.

The scenery is idyllic - green, mountainous, misty, practically untouched by humans - almost as you'd imagine Eden.

But I've blogged about the lake. What made a bigger impression over the last few days has been the driving. On Saturday we rode with two friends, iPod blaring, enjoying the hilly views on the road from Kigali. We had a small incident we laughed over - involving a stray goat darting across the road, and us nearly turning him into a kebab/brochette dinner accidentally.

That was just a hint of things to come. On Sunday, we were heading back to Kigali. The roads are pretty deserted in the rural areas. Let me clarify - deserted of cars. No matter where you are, there are always people walking along the side of the road - some carrying bags/baskets on their heads, some just walking to the local village or down to their huts, but regardless of time, there's always a buzz of human activity. However, most of the road traffic is the local taxi- minivans that carry about 18 people. On the hilly terrain, they have a hard time on the uphills and go quite slowly. So at one point at the beginning of a hill we were behind a taxi and a police truck. The police pulled out and tried to pass the taxi, but apparently they'd been eating too much or their motor was too weak, and they couldn't build up any speed. Luckily we were in a circa 1993 Toyota that could whip right past those two suckers!

Unfortunately the cops didn't like us showing them up, and radioed ahead. At the next checkpoint - BUSTED! We were pulled over and given the usual spiel - need to see license and registration. Unfortunately, the friend driving us had forgotten his license, and the routine stop became a bit of a nightmare. After quite a long time of fruitless negotiating, I slipped my license to the driver's wife, which she "found" in her purse. Luckily all muzungus (foreigners) look alike, so we were off! Though I did effectively get a ticket (for 50 dollars! prohibitive for the average Rwandan) for only sitting in the back seat! And my license seized until I go pay the fine.

Which brings me to today: had a meeting in Gisenyi at 8am, started out with a colleague at 4:45. Took my car but with him at the wheel since I was so recently sans license. About an hour into the drive, out in the endless hills, light just breaking, mist obscuring the valleys. Coming off a long uphill, just starting down a big incline. Go into a turn...and we just kept turning. Was it the wet roads, too much speed, brakes locking too quickly, bad tires? Who knows. We were spinning and spinning for what seemed like an hour but must have been 10-15 seconds. My clearest memory is spinning and getting a view of the left side of the road and thinking, I don't want to hit that wall of rock. Then 180 degrees later seeing the right side of the road and thinking, I REALLY don't want to plummet hundreds of feet down this mountain to certain death, then closing my eyes tight.

Since I'm writing this I guess its clear we didn't plummet. Bounced into the rock, came to a stop, limped to the side of the road, about 8 kids came running down the road to see what was going on - we hammered the wheel well a bit so the tire had room to rotate, cut off part of the bumper that was hanging to the ground, tied the brake lights that were hanging down into a stationary position with rope fashioned from a nearby tree, and crawled back to Kigali.

I think I will start walking to work!

Congo Congo Congo!

On Friday I had to give a presentation in Gisenyi, a resort town on the Congo-Rwanda border which overlooks Lake Kivu. Lake Kivu is one of the largest interior lakes of Africa and is the highest (elevation almost 1500 m), and is nestled in between the 8 volcanos that straddle the Rwanda-DR Congo and Uganda borders - home of the gorillas.

The lake has very few fish due to elevated methane gas levels that are the results of volcanic gases that bubble up from the bottom occasionally - some areas of the lake are not safe to swim because these gases rise to the surface and will asphyxiate you! However, most areas are safe to swim in, and a side benefit of all the gases is that many of the nasty diseases you can catch from freshwater swimming in this area of the world aren't present.

It really is a beautiful setting - sandy beaches, an immense lake, with volcanos in the background. The highlight on Saturday was lunch - we went to a local restaurant with tables that were individual huts on the beachfront. We were told we had to pay a cover charge of ~1.40 USD, which included a free beer and music. Well, this music turned out to be a 3 hour concert on the lakeshore of traditional Rwandan dancing (with a couple of hiphop tunes thrown in) - about 30 musicians with drums, traditional instruments and a microphone they passed around. There were about 12 dancers, wearing traditional outfits - a combination of kilts and overalls, with tambourine-like bells strapped to the ankles. It was all highly choreographed, and a huge spectacle for an audience of less than 20.

On Sunday we crossed the border to enter the DR Congo, specifically their version of the Lake Kivu resort town, Goma. In 2002 the Nyiragongo volcano erupted, and within 2 hours the lava had reached Goma, running all the way down to the lake. The city was covered in 6 feet+ of lava, and today the evidence is still everywhere. Buildings buried so that just the roof is sticking out, a parking lot with 10 cars half covered - and now of course the lava has turned to gray rock, so those cars are stuck - rusted through but really immovable. People have taken the hardened lava and made fences out of it and used it as building material, and in general people have rebuilt right on top of all the lava.

There weren't really too many sights to see in Goma except for all the volcano damage, but its amazing the contrast that is immediately obvious on crossing the border that you're not in Rwanda anymore - the quality of the roads is atrocious (granted, the lava might have had an effect there!), there is trash everywhere on the sides of the roads, and things just seem more...dilapidated. To be fair, this region of Congo is currently at war (don't worry, we were safe - although fighting was going on 15km north and 20km south, Goma is the base of the UN operations, so is relatively secure...at least for an afternoon). It was also interesting to see how many mansions there were - our guide said they were vacation homes of those who'd gotten wealthy via diamonds.

The volcano isn't stable enough to be monitored, but experts are relatively sure it will blow again, and probably soon. There was smoke coming out the entire time we were there, and its possible to spend a day hiking the volcano, camp out at top, and peer into the crater and see lava bubbling below. Maybe next time!

Thirty

So, on this blog I try to talk less about myself and more about Rwanda, finding anecdotes that are interesting to people who've never been here and are curious what its like. But let's be honest, these "people" are basically my family and friends, this isn't exactly reaching millions of readers, and pretty much everyone who sees this knows that, today, I turned 30.

Yesterday I had my little crisis and am over it. My sister sent an email saying, "Hope they have cake there", and I am happy to report that indeed there is a fantastic bakery. My coworkers + Hannah threw a little surprise party this morning; I totally fell for the "we have an urgent team meeting in the conference room now," walked right in to all 12 or so of them singing and then we had chocolate and carrot cakes, both of which were delicious.

Tonight these coworkers, their spouses, and some of my (few, but I'm working on it) friends in Kigali are going to dinner at the Indian restaurant, which honestly is the best Indian food I've ever had. So, I'm living high on the hog as we say at home. Here that'd translate better as, high on the cow.

To bring this back to Rwanda, I'll talk about what a cow culture exists here. When the Belgian colonial administration initially divided the population into Tutsi and Hutu for identity card purposes, the criteria was cows: Own more than ten cows, you're a Tutsi, less, and you're a Hutu. Here cows are still given as wedding dowries and presents, and beef is much much more present than chicken in grocery stores.

So, while I haven't received a cow of my very own yet, it has been a great first birthday in Africa!

Rainy Season etc

My, my, time flies. A lot going on, so it's time for a lightning round of your questions/my random observations that haven't made it into other posts!

1. Hannah is here! She arrived almost two weeks ago now, has settled in amongst the bugs, and is looking for a job, with some successful leads so far. For all you blog junkies, she has her own at http://interestingencounters.blogspot.com

2. I've caught my first tropical disease! Ok, ok, perhaps that's a bit of an exagerration, but all my friends here exchange stories of malaria, giardia, bilharzia etc like its nothing, and I was feeling left out. So I went and got myself the flu. Or something that kept me in bed for 48 hours with body temperature "so high you could grill cheese between my legs"

3. I have hobbies! We joined the pool/tennis club at the Novotel. The courts are clay, the coaches/lessons are cheap and it seems to be a social center for expats.

4. It's now the short rainy season, which means it's slightly hotter during the morning, then at some point in the afternoon will rain for an hour or three - sometimes a sprinkle, sometimes a veritable downpour the likes of which I haven't seen in my life. Then the rest of the afternoon/evening is quite cool. This should last for a month or two, then back to dry.

5. Buffet restaurants seem to be very popular here. They usually consist of: bananas, fried plantain, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, a meet dish, a vegetable succotash (usually pea and carrot based), avocadoes, tomatoes and then fruit. And sometimes French fries. Mmmm.

6. There is basically no Diet Coke here. Coke everywhere, Fanta everywhere (orange and lemon), but no Diet Coke. You can buy cans of it in the two expat grocery stores I know (at a hefty price premium over Coke), but in restaurants, regular stores, etc - non-existent.

Any questions for the next lightning round can be submitted in the comments!

Umuganda

On the last Saturday of every month, from 7am-noon is Umuganda. I'm not sure how it translates exactly, but it basically is a morning of community work. Everyone is expected to participate, roads and businesses are closed, and everyone reports to their community organizer. Last weekend I saw tons of people cleaning the streets, building things, a real frenzy of activity. At first this struck me as a really nice idea, everyone working for the common good, building the community, etc. But as I've talked to people about it over the past week, its quite controversial apparently.

The arguments for it are that because the informal economic sector is so large in Rwanda, it is very difficult to collect taxes, and this service is in a way a method of collecting a tax. Also, everyone working alongside each other promotes Hutu-Tutsi collaboration and reconciliation, and of course the community and infrastructure benefit.

However, some people say that the idea isn't new and that it originated with the previous regime, and that certainly didn't result in ethnic reconciliation. Also, the idea that it is forced is a bit too Soviet-centralized-state-esque for comfort. When you participate, you get a card with a stamp to prove you've gone, and you're often asked to show this when you need government services, and if you have missed a Saturday, good luck getting power, water, etc. Wealthier Rwandans abuse this system by sending their houseboy, etc, to participate and get the boss' card stamped.

What do you think? Great community initiative? Good idea, but hard to implement equally? Scarily interventionist? In any case, it's definitely indicative of a different mentality than we are used to...

Rwanda in the NYT

September 28, 2007, 12:37 pm
The Word Is Getting Out
By Josh Ruxin

Josh Ruxin is a Columbia University expert on public health who has spent the last couple of years living in Rwanda. He’s an unusual mix of academic expert and mud-between-the-toes aid worker.

It was much to the dismay of family and friends that my wife and I moved to Rwanda. Having seen little more than “Hotel Rwanda” to educate them about the country, they believed it to be a hostile and unstable place. We had a different take: it’s safe, clean, friendly and relatively uncorrupted. Our perception is clearly shared by others and, now, the country’s resurgence is being recognized.

Tuesday, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation released the results of its “Ibrahim Index” — a holistic ranking of how African countries are doing across the dimension of governance. Ibrahim, one of Africa’s most successful and philanthropic entrepreneurs, set up the index to inform the Mo Ibrahim Prize — an annual award of $5 million for a former head of state who has demonstrated excellence in leadership. The surprise to all but Rwandan insiders was that Rwanda made the greatest progress of any country during the course of the last five years.

As the always insightful Steve Radelet pointed out in an earlier post, governance and democracy in Africa mean everything. Having worked in nearly a dozen countries in Africa, I decided to place my bets on Rwanda because it was the first place I’d never been asked to pay a bribe. I’m not alone: donors are lining up to invest in Rwanda, reassured that the money will reach the people who need it most.

None of this is to say that Rwanda is utopia: major challenges remain for improvements in the press and in democracy. Nevertheless, at a time when many nations are spiraling downward, it’s heartening to see little Rwanda making progress against all odds.

The News That Has Kigali Abuzz

From People magazine....I feel it could spark an intellectual debate on the role of celebrities in society, whether any attention is good attention, can fame play a role in economic development, etc. But....Paris Hilton?!?!? I can't bring myself to comment. Readers, thoughts?

It's not the typical sort of hot spot she's used to, but Paris Hilton says that she's planning to hit the road to Rwanda. Apparently making good on her post-jail promise to help others, the socialite, 26, tells E! Online about her African ambitions, "I'll be going in November, after I get back from filming my movie. There's so much need in that area, and I feel like if I go, it will bring more attention to what people can do to help." Though a trouble spot of notorious proportions – an infamous 1994 genocide in Rwanda claimed about a million lives (in a nation of 9 million) – the country's multitude of problems doesn't seem to worry Hilton, who vows to pay calls upon a variety of beleaguered regions. "I want to visit more countries where poverty and children's issues are a big concern," she says. "I know there's a lot of good I can do just by getting involved and bringing attention to these issues." Hilton reportedly will visit Rwanda at the invitation of Scott Lazerson, whose year-old Playing for Good charity assists celebrities and high-profile business personalities in getting involved with organizations that benefit those in need. Hilton's Rwanda trip will also cap a busy September, during which she's been in Toronto filming her upcoming movie Repo! The Genetic Opera, partying at the MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas and hitting a slew of Emmy parties in Los Angeles.

Language and Poetry

So, as I've mentioned, the language here is a mess. Kinyarwanda is the local language everyone speaks, Belgians instituted French in schooling system, was the most common language of the educated, but during the years leading up to and including the genocide, so many people fled eastwards and spent significant time in Anglophone countries that English is widely spoken, not to mention Swahili which exists quite a bit as a regional lingua franca.

So, its theoretically a tri-lingual (English, French, Kinyarwanda) country. Very few people though are fluent in all three. The past week I've run a few workshops for work, and usually the format was: the head of the organization would present for 15 min to his staff in Kinyarwanda to introduce us. Then my colleague from the US would present in English, and I'd translate slide by slide into French (using such hard to translate words as framework, balanced scorecard, etc). Then I'd present in English and a local colleague would translate into French and Kinyarwanda if necessary.

Something I've noticed though, is that people here are very, very good with metaphor. Not sure if its something thats used a lot in Kinyarwanda and they translate them, whether the educational system encourages it, or whether they are just a poetic people. When the audience of the presentations would ask questions of us, even in English or French (remember, not their native tongue) they would really have a way with words, giving vivid examples, etc As anyone who speaks other languages knows, you're usually just happy to get the grammar and the words right, let alone flowery speech worthy of literature.

The best example I can give is the following. At OTF, I'm managing two local consultants (kind of at the McKinsey equivalent of BA, the position right out of undergrad). One of them - whom I really, really like, is really smart, super nice and one of the few trilingual Rwandans - and I were working on a project on Friday. It was about 5:50pm, he was at my desk, and we were talking about how our meetings had gone that day and what needed to be done as the next steps. In my mind I was thinking, these are things that need to be done next week, but apparently that wasn't clear and he thought I was asking him to do them right then. He looked at me so earnestly, almost like a little boy (he is my age, married, and with a 3 month old son), and said, How long do you think this will take, I have a meeting with the queen of my heart tonight, and I am already twenty minutes late.

Referring to his wife as the queen of his heart. Isn't that the nicest thing you've ever heard?

Creepy crawly

In some of my pre-move research, I'd read that Rwanda was sometimes referred to as "Africa light" because it didn't get as hot or as buggy as some of the steamier parts of the continent.

So, I thought I'd be living alone in my house until Hannah's arrival. I was wrong. I have many roommates, with many legs.

Sure, there are mosquitos everywhere, and I'd been prewarned about the little ants that are omnipresent and impossible to get rid of - when I saw them coming out of a miniscule chink in the kitchen wall tile, I thought, How Industrious. They keep to their little area in there, and I keep to mine - a good arrangement. And, the small green lizards I've seen on the walls are old hat - they are all over SEAsia and I think kind of cool. So far so good.

It started going slightly downhill when I first noticed the caterpillars crawling on the floor, leaving a slimy trail. Not cool. Really not cool when I woke up one morning with one on the wall directly behind my bed. That was responsible for a night of constantly waking up feeling something crawling on me. That hasn't lasted thankfully.

One morning I woke up and was going to work, and in the living room saw a dead cricket. And there were my friends the ants, swarming the carcass in the hundreds.

All of this I was handling pretty well. But the worst part was the other day - I came home from work, went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and the biggest cockroach I have ever seen came scurrying down the side. I'd like to say I handled this well, but to be honest, I shrieked like a little girl and went running into the hallway. After a few seconds and a lot more screaming and the feeling that my entire nervous system had just lit up like the 4th of July (or 21st of July for you Belgians reading this), I realized that I had left the fridge door open and certainly didn't want that critter running in THERE! So I ran back into the kitchen, slammed the door, saw the roach again, screamed a bit more for good measure and at this point for old time's sake, stepped on the roach, and ran out!

Domestic Life

So, as a result of nothing terribly exciting happening lately, I'll share some of the more mundane details of my life in Kigali by answering come questions I've gotten in emails.

My "staff." First, that's weird to get used to, the idea of having 3 people have their full time job be related to my house. The two guards are named Edouard and Sombiri. Edouard is the night guard (6pm-6am, 7 days/wk), and Sombiri takes the other half. I was given the option of having armed guards, but I haven't seen a single other house with one, so I thought a) I don't like guns and b) it would give the impression there is something inside worth stealing, so they are unarmed. I often wonder if the armed guards would have been these same two guys, just with guns, or if there are more...highly trained armed guards. Don't get me wrong, these guys are nice, but I can't see either of them harming a fly.

Edouard is perhaps 70. And he moves slow. And the word frail comes to mind. He has taken over the garage, put a bed and radio in there, and I can hear him playing the radio if I am in the dining room or kitchen -he listens to news in Kinyarwanda or French, and often very Gregorian chant sounding music, and sometimes what sounds like more current African music.

Sombiri is I would guess 16. I haven't talked to him much because I am not around too often during the day. And the fact that he doesn't speak French or English complicates things. So I can't give you many details about him. He always has a huge smile on his face. But, he washes my car every morning! It seems like such a waste since its such a piece of crap, and you can't avoid dust here.

Of course, there is a part of me that thinks, how can I have guards who are either senior citizens or should be in school. Why isn't he in school? I casually mentioned to a coworker that it was hard communicating with him because of the language barrier, and the coworker was shocked that he was hired - suspects that maybe the office manager gave the job to the son of a friend. But, I don't want to say anything because I have no idea of the circumstances and certainly don't want to be responsible for someone losing their job. Maybe when I start Kinyarwanda classes I can practice with him and get some information.

Then there is the housekeeper/cook, Melanie. She is my favorite, because she speaks English and French, and leaves me funny little notes around the house explaining things or asking me questions. The company pays her directly, and also gives her money to go grocery shopping, so I am completely at the mercy of what she cooks me. Though I did stress, NO FISH in about 6 responses to her notes.

What she cooks though is usually excellent. Usually a salad with lots of vegetables, and then a rice/meat/sauce dish. The beef is good, usually in a tomato sauce. Chicken with peanut sauce. Pasta casseroles on the weekends. Meatballs and onions. I can't always identify it, but its usually great!

I think this week I am going to ask her to pack me a lunch, because I feel like it takes so much time for me to go home (the commute is only 5 minutes, but she serves the meal course by course, no one rushes anything here!), and while I'm at the table she serves me like a waitress which just feels ridiculous.

Long Awaited Pictures

So, these are all from the safari this weekend. Many thanks to my coworker Jeremy (and his amazing camera and photog skills) for sending them to me.

NOW are you ready to visit?

Safari!

When you think of African tourism, what do you think of?
SAFARI!

Rwanda's tourism niche is gorillas, and the traditional African safari is most often found in Kenya or Tanzania, and I guess at Kruger in South Africa. However, Rwanda has a national park on its eastern border (shared with Tanzania), where the landscape is drastically different - think lakes and savannah with small trees, acacia, etc. In this part of the country, there is most of the wildlife you'd associate with safari - elephants, zebra, hippos, giraffe, buffalo, monkeys, baboons, wharthogs, all sorts of antelope - topi, impala, etc. Even a few leopards, but none of the big cats - lions - those are all in Kenya and Tanzania. We saw everything except leopard and elephant, but what we did see was amazing.

We rented a 4x4, packed some lunches, and made the 2 hr drive to the border. It was my first time out of the city, and the countryside is really great. Hills that are completely green, filled with banana trees (its mainly the western and southern parts of the country that have the coffee and tea farms) that gradually gives way to a flatter, grassier landscape.

Also, outside of the city it hits home that the GDP is 270 dollars per person. Most everyone is a subsistence farmer, working plots of land the size of an acre and trying to scratch out a life. Most of the houses are stick frames and made from bricks or dried mud. Also we seemed a bit more foreign - got more stares and waves, and some extended hands asking for a handout.

We got to Akagera (the park), went to the office, and was given a guide. One of my coworkers had been to Akagera many times and knew the place well, but the guide was really good at spotting wildlife in the distance and in the brush. He also had a big book of the Birds of East Africa - apparently there are 550 species of birds in Rwanda and there is hopes to develop some bird tourism to diversify the country's offerings. Ever since my sister's pet parakeet Sammy, I haven't been a huge fan of birds, but these things are amazingly colorful, like someone painted their feathers with a brush.

Seeing the animals is a thrill, and most are completely unconcerned that you are there. The two highlights were the hippos and the giraffes. We went to one of the lakes in the park and there were about 6 hippos in the water, and one sunning himself on the bank. It was HUGE! Apparently the number one rule of hippos is: NEVER get between the hippo and the water. Water = safety for them, so if they are near water they feel fine; if they perceive a threat between them and the water, they'll fight like hell. And trust me, you'd lose that fight.
Our big fella just stayed there calm as day, watching us with a wary eye but only staggering to his feet after we'd been there quite a while and were revving the engine to leave.

The giraffes were much more skittish but we went offroad and got pretty close to them and they are amazingly graceful. And that neck is just so odd. Loved them!

There were a lot of DLAs as my coworker referred to them (Deer-like-animals) that were hard to keep straight, and after 6 hours it wasn't quite as exciting to see them or the baboons (so many it was like pigeons in Paris). Plus, after my experience at a game restaurant in S. Africa a couple of years ago, I was more interested in tasting them than sighting them.

My general theory on zoos etc is that they are smelly and kind of sad, but this really changed my mind - the guide knew an amazing amount and seeing them in the park was fascinating. Even though Rwanda may not be the place for the ultimate safari, the people I was with who know Africa well loved the fact that there were NO other people around. We literally saw a group of 4 Germans once, and Akagera receives only 15,000 visitors per year, less than 50 a day, while Serengeti etc are in the many hundreds of thousands. A hidden gem, and definitely on the must see circuit I'll take you on WHEN (not if) you come visit.