Camp GLOW Website

I spent a good chunk of time creating this website for our project Camp GLOW. And now I am very excited to announce that it is up and running although there is one page that is still under construction. Click here!!

Quick Update

I haven't made a blog post in a while. I received very good feedback on the cultural notes posts so I will do my best to continue those. There's plenty more to tell... for now I just want to overview the happenings since my last post.

MARCH

As some of you might know, my birthday was March 5th. I celebrated it with close friends and at a benefit concert in Kigali. The concert was planned by fellow PCV's to raise money for the Books for Africa project they had started a while back. It's a big project to bring tens of thousands of books to Rwanda for schools and libraries around the country. For the concert, many top Rwandan artists volunteered their time to play free of charge. I was very happy to be a part of it. Unfortunately, a rumor spread around Kigali that there were three grenade attacks that night (f.y.i. Kigali has been the site of several grenade attacks in the past several months that have killed several and injured dozens more. It's thought that the attacks are related to the presidential elections that are planned for this August.). The rumor had no factual basis but it was enough to prevent many people from coming to the concert. Luckily, the concert was still a success.

Also in March, I attended a training of peer educators in Rwamagana for one week. At the meetings I gave presentations on the transmission of HIV, reproductive health and other topics. I also had the youth (ages 14-18) put anonymous questions in a bag for me to answer the next day. The questions revealed a lot about what information, misinformation, or lack of information Rwandan youth receive. In the first round of questions, over half concerned the proper use of condoms! This was quite revealing. Rwanda, along with many African nations, still shy away from the use of modern contraception and especially condoms. Just the Kinyarwanda words for penis and vagina can cause a room full of people to laugh hysterically. This is changing little by little. When it comes to a persons health, people must be serious. HIV is no joke. Over 28 million people are infected and Rwanda is no exception. So, the next day I paid a visit to my good friend Justine who is the head of community health in my sector. She gave me a wooden penis and a box full of condoms (a few female condoms too). I gave demonstrations on the proper use of the male condoms. I was facilitated by my counterpart Jules and a guest. I also had a stockpile of condom flyers that PSI (Population Services International) gave to me a while back. It went well and I felt accomplished.

I later learned that all 32 of the youth at the meeting are out of school! I was appalled. Many expressed interest in continuing school but they just don't have enough money! This is outrageous. Honestly, I saw 32 kids... most of them survivors of one of the worst conflicts the world has seen... denied of what I consider in unalienable right has a human. The right to a decent education. Most of them have only completed some elementary school.

The month passed as other have in the past. With plenty of peaceful interactions with my community, a few rocks in my rice and as always the constant reminder that I'm a muzungu... thanks kids. All in all, I'm still loving it here. Sometimes things may bring me down but every morning, as I am drinking my tea or coffee... my tiny 1 year old neighbor waves and calls out, "Mwaramutse Blandoni!" (good morning Brandon!), waving both of her tiny hands at me and standing in a worn out pink dress... I then realize why I'm here and why I've chosen this life.

Traveling continues III…

Our last trip was to Akagera park in the Eastern Province of Rwanda and an unique area due to the changing landscape from the rocky hills of western Rwanda, to the vast Savannah's of Kenya and Tanzania. We unfortunately had problems with our tour company which I won’t go into but the tour guide at the park proved to be very good. She showed around to see about 16 species of large animals (not including the tons of birds we saw). At the top of the list was giraffes, zebra, buffalo, hippos, crocodiles, and antelopes. We had a great first day. When we took a break for lunch we set up our tent and met a group of Libyans who proved to be some of the most hospitable people I have ever met. They fed us freshly cooked chicken, beef, Libyan pasta, Arabic coffee and even a little sheesha (sp?). They were so kind and really made our day. The food was some of the best I have had in over a year. We camped that night on the lake. We could shine our flashlight around and see the eyes of crocodiles shining back at us. All night we could hear splashing in the water from hippos and crocs. The hippos also make grunting noises. Our fire kept everything at a good distance but I won’t lie, it was a little unnerving. Hippos are the most dangerous land animal (even though they spend most of their time in the water). They are generally harmless as long as you don’t get between them and the water when they are on land feeding. The most dangerous creature in Africa is actually the malaria carrying mosquitos. The next day we searched for elephant but all we saw were tracks and poo. The drive was beautiful though. Unfortunately our tour company, Akagera Tours & Travel (be warned) ended our day at noon. However, we were highly satisfied with the number of animals we saw. Rebekah left the next day. :(

Traveling Continues II…

After going to Uganda we took a trip again to the north but this time to Musanze, (aka Ruhengeri) the place where Diane Fossey once lived amongst the endangered mountain gorillas at the foot of a string of volcanoes that divide Rwanda, the DRC, and Uganda. This place is one of extreme beauty. We came to visit the gorillas but we weren’t sure if it would be worth the $$. We hiked about 1½ hours through a tone of stinging needles and left our walking sticks and other items so that the gorillas didn’t suspect we were poachers. Our guides made calls to let the gorillas know we are friendly. Then… we came across 1, 2, 3… about 15 mountain gorillas. We were allowed to get up to about 20 ft to them but in reality they got up to about 12 ft from us. They were relaxing, sitting down and eating wild celery or other things. They continued as if we weren’t even there. The silver back (an adult male and head of the harem), was effortlessly gnawing on the bark of a very large branch he had ripped down. As Rebekah and I turned our backs to an adult female to take a photo of us with the gorilla in the background, the gorilla decided to approach us. From studying the gorillas at the zoo in Albuquerque (a university class), I suppose the gorilla thought we were inviting her to groom us. The guide quickly got us to move further away. The gorilla then gave her own grooming invitation to us. This whole time I felt completely unthreatened by them, even though they could potentially and effortlessly rip us to pieces. They knew we weren’t there to hurt them. If anything we were a minor disturbance to their nap time. Furthermore, I was very impressed at the vision of conservation that the park shared. The tours are expensive but it keeps the number of visitors down thereby protecting the gorillas. Supposedly, a large percentage of profit flows into adjacent communities thereby showing the community how the tourist attraction can directly benefit them and reduces poaching. Lastly, the park is constantly monitored through a collaboration with the military to prevent poaching. Over the years the number of mountain gorillas as steadily climbed due to this vision of conservation.

...Traveling Continued

Rebekah came to visit me for about a month in Rwanda. The first trip we took was to a town called Gisenyi on the northern coast of Lake Kivu in Rwanda. I brought her there to show her an acrobat troupe that I had seen there before. We spent the day juggling with them and swimming in lake Kivu. Rebekah taught them a bunch of juggling tricks and they showed us their incredible acrobats. I also showed her around Rwamagana of course. 
Second, we went to Uganda. After a 13 hour sleepless BuMpY bus ride we arrived in the capital of Uganda, Kampala. We walked around town for a couple days exploring the large sleepless city and feasting on cheap delicious indian and ethiopian food. We stumbled on a beautiful hindu temple that was decorated for the Hanuman (Hindu monkey god) feast day. We took our shoes off and wondered around the beautiful temple adorned with statues of gods, elephants and buddhas. After our quiet walk through the temple, we walked through the largest thatch structure in the world where 4 Ugandan kings are buried. Our tranquil  tour guide walked us through the history of the site, Kasubi tombs, slowly and allowing time to explain everything in detail. After a couple nights, we went to another city called Jinja which sits at the mouth of the Nile as it flows out of Lake Victoria, away from the equator and eventually through Egypt. The moment I touched the Nile was one of the most memorable moments of my life, in part because I was on the end of a 145 ft bungee cord elbow deep in the water. Soon enough, I was completely submerged in its massive rushing rapids holding tight to my raft and paddle. We managed to do an extremely difficult complete backflip the first time we flipped our raft. The second, third and fourth times were relatively unexceptional... except for the second flip which happened at the bottom of a class 5 rapid where I, along with all but two passengers (one of them Rebekah, an ingrained childhood circus skill I imagine) became detached from the boat and had to swim my way back to it. After lunch on a private island we continued on with only four passengers, we lost three in part due to an injury. We continued on, down more high class rapids including a waterfall that dropped probably about 15ft. About this time it started raining. The waters were calm at this point but the sky was all but calm. Soon the rains and winds had drastically dropped the temperature and we all jumped out of the raft seeking the warmth of the Nile and hoping nor crocodile would disturb us. Lighting was striking all around us... and very close I might add. For a minute I thought to myself, “so this is how I go, huh” and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. The rain caused visibility to drop just as drastically as the temperature leaving us seemingly alone and our safety boat and kayakers and the other raft were completely out of site. As we floated down the river holding on to our raft, we started swimming as hard as we could perpendicular to the river trying to reach land that we knew was somewhere beyond the thick cloud of mist but could not be seen. Our progress couldn't be known but what we did know is that a 6 class (the highest of all classes) rapid lay somewhere downstream. With no idea of how close it was, we jumped back into the freezing raft and paddled as hard as we could toward land. After a while we reached our destination point where we walked around the class 6 rapid only to get back in for a class 3 and 4. Then we finished... exhausted, shivering, adrenaline pumping and smiles of two kinds... of relief and of satisfaction.

Adventures, Adventures and… Adventures

This last month and a half has been one of vacations. In late December, I decided at the last minute to go to Zanzibar (an Indian ocean island off the coast of Tanzania) with a group of friends for Christmas.
Zanzibar
We (PC friends and I) took a bus from Kigali (capital of Rwanda) to Dar es Salaam (capital of Tanzania) at 6:00 a.m. on Dec. 19th. But we weren’t to arrive until about 3:30 p.m. the next day. At around 10 p.m. “sleepy time”, the road became a bumpy dirt road making it very difficult to sleep. The landscape was beautiful and very African looking. After arriving in Dar, we took a boat that evening to Zanzibar (2 hrs). We arrived in the Stone Town, a beautiful city that I’ll describe later.
The electricity was out on the entire island due to the explosion of a transformer (or something). I found a cheap hotel with a generator and unloaded. I met with two friends that night for dinner. We walked aimlessly along the ancient winding streets only to come across a park on the sea lined with dozens of tables lit by lanterns and manned by men in chefs hats. Big eyed and curious we walked up to the first table. “Welcome, please take a look”, the short charismatic chef said in his charming African accent, “as you can see we have the freshest shark that is cooked by our amazing chef, and octopus, crab...” he continued to list the types of seafood that lay on the table for a couple minutes (there must have been 20+ varieties to choose from). We ate like kings and sipped on delicious fresh squeezed sugar cane juice.
The next day we stumbled upon the ruins of an ancient palace. Went to a beautiful beach and walked out to sea only to get our feet scratched. We came back bleeding a little but still satisfied. We also got to see a Taarab band (traditional Zanzibar music that basically sounds middle eastern except the lyrics are in Swahili). We wandered around the streets of stone town admiring the elaborate doors that had been carved out of wood with large elephant stopper spikes sticking out. The streets were tiny and dark. The electricity was supposed to come back before christmas but it never happened but we had a great time still. Our group did a secret santa gift exchange for christmas which we spent at a friends house in Zanzibar and on the most beautiful white beach I’ve ever seen. I guess we had a white christmas after all! This time we walked in the water again past the seaweed farms trying to get to the tide which was hundreds of feet out. We didn’t make it before a friend was stabbed by a sea urchin and then stung by a jelly fish almost simultaneously… so we went back satisfied just to eat mangos on the beach.
I left the group to return to Rwanda a little early to begin my next journey. The bus ride back was pretty rough though. Conclusion… Zanzibar is incredible. It is literally a mix of Africa, the Middle East and India all in one. By far, it was the most unique place I have ever seen.

Cultural Notes

1. The only day that people have weddings is on Saturdays. It’s a common sight to see caravans for weddings, but only on Saturdays.
2. Due to the fact that 90+% of Rwandese are farmers, one of their first questions to me about America is “do you have cows at your house?”, “what do you grow?”, “are there many farmers in America?” and “do you grow this [pointing] in America?”
3. Many women tend to wear headgear of two types: a.) a tight head scarf around the head can signify that she is muslim whereas b.) a larger more decorative headdress signifies that the woman is married.
4. Women tend to wear traditional African dresses whereas men almost always wear modern style clothing.