36. Six month mark

April 24, 2016

It’s hard to believe that nearly 6 months have passed since we left Ann Arbor! Since saying farewell to friends and family last Fall, we have managed to get settled into our lives and routines here in Rwanda.

Life in equatorial Africa has a different rhythm than the Midwest of the USA. Seasons are now defined by the amount of rain we receive, rather than by temperatures, falling leaves, budding flowers, and blowing snow! Temperatures here range from the upper 60s at night to around 90 during the day, with most days in the 72-86 degree range. Sunshine abounds, and the trees and grass are always green.

Rwanda is known as the “Land of a 1000 Hills,” and we can confirm that this country has virtually no flat ground, except along some river basins in the valleys. Agriculture is the primary economic activity here, and the hills are absolutely covered with crops, including maize, banana, beans, potatoes, cassava, sugarcane, rice, coffee and tea.

We live in the capital city of Kigali. Even with a population of over 1 million, and development happening at impressive speeds, there are still plots of land used by residents to grow their essentials. Ruth Ann and our guard, Simeon, have managed to cultivate and plant a fairly successful garden in a portion of our property that is essentially an unused driveway. The soil quality on our property is very poor, but things are still growing.

Isaac and Naomi have just 5 weeks of school left. For Isaac, this third term of the school year, which started at the end of February, is all about preparing for and taking the Cambridge IGCSE exams. There is virtually no new material taught in the 3^rd term. Rather, teachers spend class time “revising” previously taught material, so students can be ready for the nearly month-long exam period. Isaac made the honor roll for the 2^nd term (his first term here), and he seems to be ready to do well on the exams in May.

Naomi also made the honor roll last term, even after being promoted from 5^th to 6^th grade after the Christmas holiday. She is doing well in the new class, and aims to be one of the top performers in her class this term. Outside of school, Naomi is taking violin lessons, spending time with friends and passing time reading books. She has taken a bit of an interest in running, which in this part of the world is more demanding than in Michigan (altitude and hills are the biggest challenges!).

John has devoted a lot of time to working on consulting projects for his Michigan clients. His plan to work with the local water utility in Kigali fell apart after the utility decided they needed a full-time person working for 2 years on the project, rather than a part-time person for 9 months. He has had a few conversations with local non-profits, who might be interested in his experience in local government and water utility issues.

Peak season (for coffee) has started! The coffee cherries are coming in to the 250 washing stations that dot the mountainsides. So Ruth Ann has been crazy busy with related items for the MSU project that brought us here, as well as efforts to grow her coffee importing and coffee consulting business. Selling consulting services to local coffee companies is proving more challenging than first imagined, so Ruth Ann is doing some independent research and visiting coffee washing stations to develop a better understanding of where she could best apply her skills in the coffee value chain.

[Note: in May Ruth Ann realized part of the problem to selling services like "lean training." There is an ingrained culture in Rwanda and other African countries that the trainer must pay the trainees to spend time in the classroom. It's bad enough that there is an assumption that all training is free, but add to that the expectation that all trainees will receive a per diem, sometimes as much as $10/day, and you can see why very little training happens and when it happens (with per diems paid), it is only marginally appreciated therefore it's impact is greatly reduced.]

We enjoyed a visit from Noah in January. He was stressed while here, as he was waiting for final grades and final acceptance from Ford for a job in the sales division. All has worked out for him, and he is now living in Memphis, TN. He is responsible for sales to all Ford dealership service departments in the state of Arkansas. He’s only been there 2 weeks, so he is still not entirely familiar with the work and territory. If anyone has experience living in Memphis, please let us know. Noah has so far found it very difficult to adapt to living in that area. He doesn’t know anyone there, and the culture is vastly different than what he is familiar with. Any tips to help him adjust would be appreciated! He hopes to be there only one year, but his assignment may go 2 years.

Locally, we have managed to see some of the country, and we hope to see more after school is out. We spent a few days at a lake resort in Gisenyi, which is on Lake Kivu, right on the border with DRC. Noah, Isaac, Naomi and Ruth Ann spent a few days in Musanze, visiting Volcanoes National Park. Noah and Isaac hiked to the top of Mount Bisoke (exhausting and muddy). They were lucky enough to see some gorillas on their hike. Naomi and Ruth Ann visited Rosamond Carr’s homestead and took a hike to see the Golden Monkeys. John stayed home to work on projects those days. We all travelled together to visit Akagera National Park, where we saw lots of baboons, some elephants, hippopotamus, bird, velvet monkeys and other wildlife.

Two weeks ago we were in Uganda for a few days. Rwanda was essentially shut down for the annual Genocide Memorial week. Many expats take the time to leave the country to visit other places. We were amazed as we drove through Rwanda to the Uganda border and saw not a single business open. The road was practically all ours, as Rwandans were meeting in their local villages to discuss the genocide, and learn about preventing future genocides.

[Author: John]

35. Uganda Vacation - Isaac Bungee Jumps!

April 7 - 12, 2016
This week was Genocide Memorial Week (GMW) in Rwanda. The schools are closed and businesses are all closed for the first day or two, and then they are only allowed to open for a half day for the other days. No alcohol is served in the restaurants. It's a very solemn time. And one that we felt we would have difficult participating in -- so we took a family vacation. We drove north to Uganda.

John spent many days researching possibilities and coming up with an itinerary. We knew there would be a lot of hours of driving, and sure enough -- it was a loooooooot of driving. To make things worse, because of some crazy Google maps, GMW, and a torrential downpour, it took us an hour just to get out of Kigali. The first day ended up being about 12 hours of driving -- from Kigali to Entebbe, Uganda. The kids were great. Very patient and did not complain. Even at the very rustic road-side toilet stops!

In Entebbe, we stayed at the wierdly cavernous, but nice, "Sanctum Hotel". Sight-seeing here included the botanical garden and a fun zoo. We hired a guide at the garden, who did a nice job showing us the flora and fauna. At the zoo we passed on the guide, and were entertained by the many animals in "close to real" kind of settings for zoo captivity. For example, the chimpanzees and "big cats" were all in open spaces -- just with big fences. No windows and cement floors for them to live on like I'm used to seeing in U.S. zoos.

After two nights at Sanctum, we drove further north about 3 hours to Jinja. Again, the trip could have been 2 hours, but with Kampala traffic as jammed as it always is, it took 3 hours.

Jinja likes to call itself the "source of the Nile." (Rwandans disagree, and say Lake Kivu is the source of the Nile.) In any case, it was fun to stay at a guest house called the "Source of the Smile". (It was not a dentist office!) It had fun and interesting decor all made with things from nature and recycled things like wine bottles and all sorts of tiles and pieces of mirrors. Had a bit of a hippie-70's feel.

The first night we went to dinner at "The Keep", a restaurant in Jinja that Isaac selected from his research on-line. It was great! We all enjoyed it. They had great espresso drinks, a "15 minute" menu and nice wait staff.

The next day, (Sunday), in the morning we just hung out at the lovely guest house pool. John, unfortunately, was feeling pretty ill due to some bad food, so we took off for the afternoon, leaving him to convalesce in bed. That's when we took Isaac to the bunjee jumping place. Oh my! The staff there were obviously experienced in helping people, probably many mothers, be at peace with paying $125 to have their child thrown over a ledge!  Seriously, I was scared. But Isaac wasn't. So we paid, he got weighed, and then they took him out to this crane-like apparatus, 44 meters above the river. He jumped! It was pretty amazing! A small raft-boat was right there to pick him up and in a matter of about 10 minutes he was back -- all smiles and laughs. He wanted to go again!  (Mom said "no".)

From there we drove up the river a ways to a place that offered kayaking and stand-up paddling. Naomi and I got a 2 person kayak and Isaac tried out a stand-up paddle boat. It was beautiful, calm and had a kind of "secluded" feeling out on the river. Since they built a damn on the river, it is very wide and calm, almost like a lake, but there is definitely still a current. Naomi enjoyed it a lot, and Isaac did, too. Even though he actually found a way to nap for awhile on his stand-up boat.

That night the three of us went out to eat without John, who still did not feel well. The next day he felt much, better, though -- thank you God! We all went into town and spent way too much on souvenirs, including some snacks at the "The Source" cafe (started by an acquaintance of John's). That day, Monday, we drove from Jinja to Kampala. And on Tuesday, we woke up very early to beat the traffic jams, and got out of Kampala by 7am. We got home to Kigali around 5pm! Much better timing on the way back.

34. Multicultural Festival at Isaac's High School

April 2, 2016

West African face paint at Green Hills Multicultural Festival

Isaac prepared pancakes, syrup and home-baked tortilla chips as his contribution to the Multicultural Festival at Green Hills Academy. It was bigger than I expected with the large gymnasium housing about 10 different countries, including the large Rwanda "area", which included three grass huts and a line of about 10 djembe drums. Spilling out on the the grassy hillside outside the gymnasium were more countries - India, Australia/New Zealand, Kenya, West Africa, Uganda. It had a bit of an "ice cream social" feel, as you had to buy tokens which in turn are used for food.

Poster for the Multicultural Festival

There were such delicious options for food! The France group had everything: croissants, baguettes, many quiches and an entire creperie set-up by the Kimi Gourmand restaurant. The Germany group had authentic pastries and breads from the La Gallette bakery in town -- Americaner, Berliner, Apfelkuchen, Dunkelbrot and real whole-grain Broetchen! Not surprisingly, we were very attracted to this one and spent a fair amount of time as family there. Well -- minus Isaac. Isaac seemed to dissolve into the woodwork soon after Ruth Ann brought him at 10am. He dropped off the things he had made and started tossing the football with some friends inside the gym, and then he disappeared. The Polish booth was interesting, too. They had a fascinating story about a Polish man who biked the length of the African continent in the 1930's and even had photos of him meeting the last Rwandan king.

With Naomi's friend, Aisha, and Eric, a master's student from Ruth Ann's project.

But what was truly fun for us was the fact that the constellation of countries represented was so different than what one would see in the US. Burundi and Congo had substantial booths. Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia had a joint-booth with great food, authentic clothing, photos, crafts. Kenya, Uganda and India had very large and elaborate booths. It felt much more like I was learning something and seeing new things than I usually feel at these types of events.

The finale of the program was the Rwandan dancing. The large troupe of young people had obviously trained well. The enthusiasm and energy of the large audience of parents and siblings watching the dancing, singing and drumming was what really got the excitement level high. In terms of music, it was also treat to hear the Green Hills band play Michael Jackson's "Thriller"!  John and I were the only ones in our group who could really appreciate that one! Didn't get that one taped, unfortunately. The video below is a snippet of their rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In." One of the few American tunes that probably has been enjoyed more than "Thriller"!