Thanksgiving

L-R- Sam, Lisette, Davina

Thanksgiving abroad is an interesting affair. First of all, it doesn't feel remotely like Thanksgiving. It's in the 80s every day and sunny, and everything is green. I see friends posting on Facebook about listening to Christmas music, and I just have no real desire to listen to it- it's impossible to get into the spirit. I could go through the rituals of these holidays, force myself to eat turkey and listen to the PoG Christmas CD, but it's weird when the form is divorced from the context that I'm familiar with. It just doesn't feel right.

Which is why it's somehow appropriate that this was my Thanksgiving dinner:

This is none other than Khana Khazana, the best Indian food this side of the Mississippi. I didn't know that I liked Indian food until I ate here over the summer; all I had had before was those crappy buffets. It's pretty expensive for Kigali, but hey, it's Thanksgiving. Drinks and tip and everything was like $17 a person.

But, of course, the important part of Thanksgiving is giving thanks. I'm thankful for:

-A good job that has allowed me to come all the way over to Africa, meet a bunch of great people, and learn a lot;

-Family back home that is praying for me and has supported me through the last two years of unemployment and hurry quick I need to buy stuff for Africa;

-Housemates that are cool and I get along with;

-most of all, for Andrea and Dave's beautiful baby girl and my neice, Georgia. I'm very excited for getting to visit them over Christmas.

P.S.- my housemates are Sam and Lisette, Davina is a friend of Lisette's who hangs out with us on occasion. Sam (Philadelphia) is here teaching dance, and Lisette (Netherlands) is doing Malaria research for a Master's thesis.

Daily Commute

Andrea suggested that I post some pictures of the scenes I see every day on my way to work. So, praying that the moto driver didn't do anything crazy, holding the motorcycle with one hand and my camera in the other, I took some pictures from my commute to work this morning.

It's sort of boring to me, but I guess people have certain expectations of what a morning commute in an African city is like, so here's a little bit of my experience in Rwanda.

This is the street I live on. That trench on the right is typical of the gutters here- they're everywhere, even in poorer areas, and in the hills, even in some of the more remote parts of the country. The soil is pretty poor here, and they prevent the hills from getting saturated and leading to erosion or landslides. Occasionally cars get stuck in them.

On the road heading up towards the city center. This road is fairly new, as you can tell, and the the lanes in the opposite direction are still under construction.

Same road, getting closer to the city. Hopefully this gives you a sense of how hilly it is- the roads go around the hills in spirals with occasional switchbacks. You can see on the left how much dirt had to be removed- and this is getting close to the top, where it levels out a little. They'll eventually cover that bare face with a wall.

The city center. That tall modern looking building is brand new, the first of many such projects that are part of the government's 'Vision 2020' programs. This program involves eminent-domaining all the poor people out of the downtown area and replacing them with big buildings like this one.

The city center. This is the main roundabout in the center of Kigali, and you can see how well it is maintained, with all the grass and bushes. All of it is done by hand, with machetes and clippers. Even the grass. You may be able to see the fountain in the middle, which wasn't on this morning.

Going around the roundabout. In the very center of this picture and to the left is where all of the buses go. I catch my bus home pretty close to the new tower. Further left at the top of the hill is where the Union Trade Center (UTC) is, which is sort of a Western-style shopping mall. Also up there is the Simba grocery store, where I get all of my non-produce foods.

And back down the other side of the hill, to the Muhima district where VFC (Vision Finance Company, the MFI that I'm working at) is. The whole ride is about 10 minutes, and costs me 700 RWF (a little more than a dollar). I usually take the bus home, because that's only 180 RWF, or 30 cents. And it's easier to carry groceries on the bus.

Introducing Nigel

This is my current roommate. We are able to be friends because we do not eat the same food. I trust him fully with the chocolate in my room, and I do not encroach on his supply of cockroaches and mosquitoes (although he's smaller than most cockroaches).

Our House in the Middle of Our... Kimihurura

This is where I've been living for the last three weeks, and where I will presumably be for several more months. It's a little bit east of the city center, sort of on the top of one of the hills opposite Kigali proper.

There's room for five separate tenants, but only three live here now. It's reasonably nice, and the rent includes utilities, internet, 24 hr guard, 3 days a week housekeeper, and laundry.

The kitchen (no ants, but plenty of cockroaches)

It's in the suburb called Kimihurura (the 'K' pronounced like 'ch'), which is populated mostly by ex-pats and wealthy locals. There's a few nice places to eat, like Papyrus, an Italian restaurant that features their own dairy where they produce cheeses and delicious yogurt. There's also Executive Carwash, the bar where I went this summer to watch the World Cup games on a giant outdoor screen. Tonight we're going to try Flamingo, a local Chinese place that I've heard is pretty good.

Our spacious backyard, perfect for tossing the football around... maybe four square? That brick structure is actually a huge grill that doesn't appear to have been used in quite a while.

The best part of the house- the gazebo in the front. Perfect for relaxing and reading during the day, at least before the mosquitoes come out.

View from the front. My room is on the back, a couple rooms up from that big dish that's just taking up space because we don't even have a TV.

My room, back when it was nice and tidy. I'm going to have to buy a desk. And some rugs- tiles don't work well in a bedroom.

Akagera... AGAIN

I went with some housemates to good ol' Akagera National Park, where the only things rarer than visitors are the animals.

Just kidding, kind of. This trip wasn't as good as my last one, because this is the rainy season, so it rained half the day and the roads were terrible. We didn't see any elephants (which is the whole reason for going during the rainy season), and the rain prevented us from going off the road to see the big herds of topi and impala. But we got pretty close to some giraffes, and saw some crocodiles as well, so here are some pictures.

The sunnier half of the day

Evidence of elephants

Topi during the rain

Crocodiles. I was highly disappointed that nothing got attacked or eaten.

Giraffe!

Pregnant giraffe!

Buffalo!

Bringing Home the... Fruit

Just to give you an idea of what I get when I go to the market. I went to Nyabugogo market on Thursday after work, 'hired' a boy to carry my bags ("Give me a job." "Ok.") and bought all this stuff. It cost 7000 RWF, or about $12. I'm sure that's significantly more than the locals pay- no matter whose stall I went to, they seemed to have a set price as if it were run by the local passion fruit and onion cartel. Usually I hear a high price and bargain it down eventually, but I was unable to budge them more than 100 RWF or 2, even after starting to walk away.

Anyway, the only things in this picture that maybe aren't easily recognizable to Americans are the tree tomatoes (oblong red/yellow things on the right) and passion fruit (small green/brown fruit on the right). And the big green things on the right are mangoes. Papayas are gross.

It's Hard Out Here For A Mzungu

Living in Africa is not easy. A good deal of that difficulty comes from the fact that it's unfamiliar; from navigating the bus routes and roadways in a place where there are no street names and everything is in a different language to navigating the claustrophobic and dirty markets while constantly saying "No, thank you" and "No, sorry" to the peddlers and street children vying for attention.

There are difficulties specific to us mzungus - mainly derived from this widespread logic: 1. We are rich. 2. Therefore, ripping us off is ok. Most of the time it's fairly harmless, because I am rich compared to most Rwandans, and don't mind that people in the market inflate their prices, or that taxi drivers never seem to have exact change, so they end up with a little more than the agreed upon price. The more egregious examples are more trying, and more difficult to brush aside. Such as the lunch buffet near work raising its price by 50% when I come in, and insisting that that's always been the price, or our Akagera guide lying to us about the cost of transport home that we needed to pay him, inflating the originally agreed-upon price five-fold. Or our housekeeper over the summer, who was found to be grossly overcharging us for food while feeding herself and her family from the food that she did buy.

There's also institutionalized ripping-off, practiced by the businesses geared mainly toward expats. These are the giant supermarkets that sell goods in a style that appeals to Westerners with the bright lights, fully stocked shelves, and fixed prices. These carry absurdly expensive, usually imported goods of low quality (usually from China). The handle of the food storage bucket I bought broke off after a week of light use. The banks charge high fees to get money from my bank account back home, and put the money through several (poor) exchange rates before you get it.

All of this put together makes day-to-day life more difficult. It's terrible to go around doubting the honesty/intentions of everyone around me; I've already found myself mumbling 'no, sorry' when spoken to on the street and then turning and finding someone simply saying hello.

So I'm looking forward to being back in the land of plenty in 9+ months. Until then, I suppose I'll learn some Kinyarwanda and get real familiar with what prices are supposed to be.

In Which I Go to Rwanda

Well, I've arrived. I was on the very first direct KLM flight from Amsterdam to Kigali, and we were greeted at the airport with drums, dancers, souvenirs, and cameras. I'll put some pictures of that up once I get my computer.

I moved into a house with a few other expats in the Kimihurura neighborhood (just a short bus ride west to get to the center of Kigali) and I'm settling in. The house is rather poorly equipped (especially in the kitchen), but it's comfortable enough and my housemates seem to be cool. I had a good time buying sheets in Nyabugogo market last week, making sure that they're 100% cotton instead of the 65% polyester blend that are presumably cheaper.

I've been enjoying plentiful fruits, such as mangos, passion fruit, bananas, tree tomatoes, and avocados as big as grapefruits (I'm serious- I'll post pics) that are fairly cheap in all the markets. It's kind of a pain to get around, having to rely on buses and moto taxis, but once I get in a rhythm it'll be easier.

Work in Africa wouldn't be complete without a few hitches, such as not having the computer that was ordered for me a month previously, and the two main people on my project being transferred to other branches within two weeks of my arrival, and needing to train their replacements. Which is to say that everything is going as expected.