Elephants are bigger in real life...

Well – I have now officially learned the diverseness of this tiny little country. This weekend I went camping in the Savannah (yes this really does exist) and saw an elephant, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, impalas, buffalo, birds of many kinds, baboons, monkeys… and the list goes on. It was really fantastic, but quite the adventure. So prepare yourself (especially to my parents) because this was far from being the most organized or safest adventure I have ever been on**…

** I would like my parents to note that I am returned safely with all limbs and no problems. So, no matter how bad things sound, remember I’m safe, so it doesn’t matter any more…

It all began with a jeep. There were seven of us in total on this trip… The German, the Swiss, the Dutch, the Belgian, the American, the Quebecoise and me. I realized about half way through that although only two of us actually came from the same country, the four which originated from Europe had all grown up in closer proximity then the other Canadian and I. The language spoken was English, but it was certainly only my first language, since the American had grown up speaking Hindi (although now, her language of comfort was English).

The jeep was a seven seater, so we were certainly safe from that perspective. However, it took us only five minutes of driving before one of the famous Butare rainy season downpours hit and we realized that the windshield wipers (which had worked fine 10 minutes earlier when the man who rented us his jeep had shown us how to work them) were broken. We pulled over, tried to get them to work, but no cigar. Then, out of nowhere they started working again, and we celebrated, and continued along our way. The rain stopped and everything seemed fine, until, of course, the rain started and the windshield wipers didn’t. Alex, the German, and the driver, braved the rain and the lack of windshield wipers and continued. However, due to the hill like nature of Rwanda, we soon found ourselves going up a mountain which was now heavily covered in fog, with no windshield wipers, and surprise, surprise, no lights! (we had also tested to see if these worked, which they had, and later we realized we just didn’t’ know how to turn them on). We pulled over for a bit, trying to get the windshield wipers to work, but again, no luck. So we cleaned the widow with a towel, and continued on until we had to do the same thing again. It was a slow process, but it worked out in the end.

The lights were not a big deal, until darkness came (here it comes at 6 everyday, since we are so close to the equator). Then we had no lights and constantly had people flashing their high beams in our face to let us know we didn’t have our lights. It was also a Friday night, which is a busy time to try and get into Kigali, and we were stuck behind a bunch of trucks which were having a hard time getting up the hill. This is very common, since they are so heavily loaded and the hills are so steep. Usually you just pass them, but it’s easier said then done since you have to go around the truck by briefly risking your life in the lane of opposite traffic. It’s best to go when there is no one coming, but it’s hard to tell when that time is since the sharp turns every few hundred meters seriously limit your ability to see.

Needless to say we made it into Kigali, and then into the district where our hostel was just outside of Kigali (the name of which has escaped me), parked our car in a very small space and congratulated our driver on getting us to Kigali unharmed!

We proceeded to having diner. We looked around for a place to eat, trying to avoid ‘mélange’ which is what we eat everyday and consists of a buffet of mainly carbs which you are able to take as much as you want of as long as you get it on your plate the first time you go up to the buffet (the trick is to make a mountain on your plate). Most Westerners don’t like this food, I don’t mind it so much, but didn’t mind the idea of eating at another restaurant.

Well we showed up, it was in a hotel, and the prices were insane (between 4-6$ when a mélange can be around 0.50$). Nonetheless we ordered our food, found out quickly that they in fact did not have any of the food we wanted and that their chef was at home sick. We found this out about 30 minutes into sitting down. No matter, we all ordered something else, and hoped it would come soon since we were so hungry. Unfortunately, the food didn’t come until 3 hours later, and by that time 3 of us had to be back to the hostel since the rooms we were staying in had a curfew of 11pm. Alex and I went back to the hostel to talk with the manager and beg him to let us stay out a bit longer so we could actually eat. He was drunk, and agreed reluctantly. We went back to the restaurant, ate, and came back right away. In the end perhaps the early curfew worked out for the best since we were having to leave so early the next morning. But all the same, this was my second time in Kigali, but my first time with friends – and a part of me was really hoping for a night out on the town!

The next morning we woke up, packed the jeep, filled the radiator with water (otherwise it overheats) and crossed our fingers that the wonky battery would not do us wrong. Luckily we were fine and we headed into town to buy some food for the weekend of camping (which in the end consisted of some cheese, peanut butter, jam, white bread, and groundnuts (like peanuts unroasted)… oh, and some banana liquor of course). Then we went to eat breakfast. This I have to talk about just because it was so funny since we ordered “an omelet, with some bread.” Now, you would think this means an omelet, with some bread on the side to go with it. But when our food came we had an omelet with bread cooked inside of it. Hah!! It was actually really yummy so I didn’t mind, but all I could imagine was the people in the kitchen cooking saying “those crazy muzungus, bread with omelet, what are they thinking!?”

We drove the 4 hours or so to Acagera National Park, close to Tanzania, where we were going to spend our weekend. It was a fairly uneventful trip and the landscape changed so much from dense forest hills to spread out flats. Who knew such a little country could be so vastly different from one side to another?

We turned off to go up the 28km dirt road which led to the park and, oh! Surprise, surprise, we had a flat tire! In the middle of a village, not many cars around…. Hmmm… We took off the spare tire from the back, looked for the jack and realized it was broken. (the man had shown it to us before also, but the people who had checked it didn’t realize it was missing the top part). So we went on a search of someone with a vehicle, but luckily a taxi-van came down the hill, we flagged them down, and begged them to help us with our spare tire. Which they did (thank God), and we were able to continue on our way. But upon further checking of the other tires we realized they were all quite old and in battered condition – and we were about to go on off beaten roads to look at animals. Let’s just say the rest of the weekend was continued with a sense of possible tire flats and doom if that happened.

Luckily, it did not.

The safari was amazing. It was absolutely beautiful, and we camped on the top of a mountain overlooking a beautiful lake. We saw an elephant (which has been my dream, so yay!), and zebras, giraffes (we got really close to one too), buffalos, impala, about 15 hippos… in all we were quite lucky compared to most tourists since we got to see so many animals. It was completely worth it. The entire time felt so surreal, is it really possible that giraffes exist? I still can’t tell if the weekend actually happened or not – or if I just dreamed all those beautiful animals, trees, plants and landscape.

I did the drive back from the park to Kigali. This time, thank God, not hitting a motto-taxi driver like I did last time I drove in Africa. Actually, I managed to make it the entire way without hitting anyone of anything! Plus it felt really great to be driving a jeep in Africa, kind of made me feel like some NGO worker with some important logo on the side of my car. Maybe one day…

In Kigali Alex took over for the rest of the drive. Everything seemed to be going extremely well until we went around a curve passing another vehicle and then the police (which are all over the roads) pulled us over. Eeep. One was a police officer, the other a military man carrying the oh so popular, cheap, and easy to find AK-47 in his hand. The police officer tried to explain that we had passed the truck when there was a solid white line, which was illegal, and meant we had to get a ticket (which are quite expensive here). We tried to pull the ‘we don’t know what’s going on, we are only mzungus in some strange country!’. The police officer seemed ready to let us go but the military man just started yelling we had done something wrong. They asked for Alex’s license and went to write up a ticket. A few moments later however, they came back and said they would let us go. Lucky us Alex’s license was in German and was probably far too confusing for them to actually figure out what information to write down to give us the ticket. We managed to make it to Butare with no stops and no car troubles from there.

We had so many car troubles, and had bent the bar of the roof carrier of the man’s jeep that we thought we were going to be asked to pay for everything. We agreed that most of it was not our fault, except for the bar, and that we would pay that back. We said we’d offer 20,000RWF (about 40$) and be willing to go up to 35,000RWF. However, he had been so stressed about lending us his jeep for the weekend that he didn’t care that the tire had gone flat (I think it was going to happen soon anyway), or about the windshield wipers, or the bar. He was just so happy his jeep was back. He took 20,000 for any damages, but I think he would have let us give him nothing. He even drove us all back home he was so relieved. Another lucky for us I suppose, since we thought we were going to be really stuck for cash.

This was a wonderful weekend it was so nice to be camping again (although we were supposedly supposed to see hyenas and leopards in our campsite which we didn’t). All the car troubles worked out in the end, so to me it was just a gong-show which ended ok. Now I really feel like I’m here and I’m excited for this weeks tasks. My to-do list is a full page long, with notes and everything. On Sunday some new volunteers are coming from America and the house is going to be full. I’m starting to really feel comfortable and adapted here and am super pumped for the next 3 months.

New Excitement!

Miriwe (good afternoon) to all!

This week has been a very busy week. I have gotten to know Rwanda quite a bit better and can feel myself falling in love. It is a completely different sort of culture then Uganda, which although it may seem naive to say is really surprising to me since they are so close. The people here are the most polite people I have ever met. They obey authority without question (which can either mean bad or good things – but with the leadership of Kagame generally means good things). However, this is very strange for me since I prefer the bottom-up sort of activist style, but here that just wouldn't fly. If the order does not come from above it is not an order. That being said, if it is from above, it is law.

On Wednesday of last week I went to the gacaca (pronounced gachacha). This is a war tribunal kind of a court which takes place every Wednesday (but it varies from village to village) and is a place where people can come to give testimonies about prisoners accused of acts of genocide. It is generally a form of justice and retaliation on those who killed families, friends, loved ones... Everything closes down on Wednesday in the city to encourage people to go. They have until the end of this year to try everyone (although with speak of extending the dead line of the bigger cases taking place in Tanzania it's very possible this deadline will also be extended). In some places they have already finished, but here in Huye they are still trying prisoners. So I give for you an account of what I saw. Everything was in Kinrwanda so I have only a broken translation of the case brought forward.

The day started late, and there were maybe around 50 people there (although this number grew substantially as the case continued). Five judges walked in, two women and three men. These judges stay the same throughout the trying, and most looked slightly older. They each wore everyday clothing save a sash with the Rwandan flag.

The case started with a moment of silence. I think this is what shook my core the most. It reminded me of the moment of silence we take November 11^th every year to commemorate the soldiers who fell during the First, Second and Korean wars (among others). However, when I am taking this moment of silence I am remembering people, events, feelings I never experienced. Sure, it moves me, and I try to feel what it must have been like to fight for these wars, but that is nothing compared to really experiencing a war. However, I knew that during this moment of silence everyone in the room knew exactly what had happened during the genocide. They all had stories to tell, scars to bare, loved ones to miss. It was very moving and eerie to think of a moment of silence in which everyone in the room was thinking of their own experiences.

Next came the testimonies. Everyone was welcome to bring forward names of people they knew who had commited acts of genocide, along with accounts of why they had been tried. This was done on sheets of scrap paper that were brought forward to the judges and then were examined accordingly. Next came the introduction of the prisoners. I only stayed for the story of one of the prisoners, but here is what happened:

He came forward. He had been sitting in the back with the other prisoner and there seemed to be one guard near by. Neither tried to make any escape, and both wore prison uniforms which were pink and consisted of a shirt and shorts. The shorts were interesting to me since I realized these were actually the first bare male legs I had seen since my arrival here. It is a way, I think, to humiliate and demoralize the prisoners since no one wears shorts in any circumstance.

They did not have a folder for this prisoner so they had to go through his story and make one for him. He said he had been a shop keeper down the street. The judges asked him how he moved his products around and he said that he had a truck that was given to him by a mzungu (white person). He did not know the name of this mzungu and just kept sayig 'mzungu, mzungu.' This, of course, is one of the few words I understand, so although at this point I did not know what was going on I definitely knew they were talking about a white person. Anyway, he concluded that he hadn't comited acts of genocide, and that this truck he had been provided with was given to him by a mzungu, and not the intraharmwe (the militia Hugu group which made the genocide happen).

There were two witnesses testifying against him (the ones who were going to testify for him were going to come the next week). The first one got very sick half way through her testimony and had to be escorted away from the chair where she was sitting. However, she came back after the second witness had given her testimony. Basically, she had also been a prisoner at one point in 1997, for what reasons, I still don't fully understand why or the relevance of this. What was shocking is that mid-way through her testimony people began laughing. Laughing? Really? This seemed far to serious to be any kind of a laughing matter. The other witness had given a full testimony, saying that one of her friends who worked at the hospital with her (and where both witnesses worked) had been killed. The second witness said that it was him who did it, and gave her testimony against him. However, the first witness, the one who got sick midway through and had to leave, said that she did not know who killed her friend. I later discovered that this is why they had been laughing at her – they said that there was no way a friend could be killed and you would not try and find out who had done it. This seemed very strange to me, and hard to grasp. I don't know how I feel about this – I mean, it seems like it would be pretty difficult to want to know who had killed your friend when people all around you are being killed. Wouldn't there be a certain feeling of just wanting to stay out of it and pretend like life was continuing on as normal? An interesting moral dilema.

This week also consisted of a welcome party at the house where I am living for me and the other volunteer who is newly arrived, as well as Alex, the German volunteer who has been here a while, whose birthday was earlier in the week. We celebrated and partied, it was a really great time. I learned about a Rwandan custom which was so very interesting. It is the costum of banana beer (which tastes neither like bananas or beer). Banana beer is the local beer and it is dubed the beer of heros. In fact, if you wish to drink it you have to prove you are a hero by going in front of everyone and saying 'I am a hero because...'. Then everyone yells and judges whether or not you are trully a hero and deserve to be drinking this beer. This tradition originates from the genocide when, at the end of the day soldiers would come back to their camps and would have to say how many people they have killed. If they had killed enough, and had had a successful day then they were able to drink – if not, they were not permitted. I hope to bring some banana beer home. Along with some strawberry wine (which neither tastes like strawberries or wine).

This Sunday was also a big event. It was the 25^th annual Candlelight Memorial March. It is a march which happens every year in memorial of people who have died or been affected by AIDS. Last year the turn out was bigger, but this year was more organized. In my eyes it seemed like a wonderful success, but I know Alex, who was the primary organizer was disappointed. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed myself. There were many speechs preaching abstanance and condoms if you really can't hold it in (it was my job to help hand out free condoms). There was a testimony from a woman who's husband had cheated on her with another woman and brought back AIDS, which she was now dying from and which her three children also suffered from. It was moving, and in the end I think the audience was very moved by the speeches made.

I also went up to the project early last week, but if you wish to learn more about this you are welcome to check out my second blog. All I can say is that things here are starting to pick up and move along. I really love the medical students, and have so much to learn from them. I was a bit sick with a cold this week but now that I'm over it I'm all set and ready to go for another week in paradise!

Tropical Paradise

I am living in a tropical paradise!! Again, I repeat… I. Am. Living. In. Tropical. Paradise!!

This is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, by far. The sun shines, everything is green (greener then BC at it’s best) and there are hills everywhere! Mountains almost to even my criteria (although maybe Quebec has lowered my standards, who knows?). I really feel like I am somehow landed in the middle of paradise. There are beautiful flowers, and trees everywhere. It’s unbelievable.

I spent all of yesterday sleeping, so I don’t have much to report except that I started looking through project documents today and boy oh boy am I excited! Unfortunately I made the last minute decision to not bring my very broken laptop that works at times (deciding it was not worth carrying around) and found out today that had I brought it I would have been entitled to free wireless around the university campus. Oh the small regrets.

I guess that is the biggest and perhaps hardest difference for me. Here I am among academics, working for a club that is run exclusively by medical university students. So you can imagine the difference from going from Uganda working in rural never seen a white person before to Rwanda academic speaking French and English whilst debating politics and having incomprehensible medical conversations. The thing is that RVCP has a huge international base. I am living with other international participants (two Germans at the moment, one also named Alexandra) and it’s great. But it’s still very different.

For now I have to admit that as I doze off to sleep my mind is certainly still yearning for Uganda and the fun of being completely culturally outcast and trying to adapt. This city, Butare, is such a tourist attraction and university city (as well as high class hospitals) that you can imagine how different the feel is. The computers people are using are nicer then the computers we have at McGill, if you can believe it. And many students have laptops… I guess this was just very unexpected. I’m sure I’ll get used to this different environment in due course and love it for all it’s worth – but for now my dreams still lie with the rural village, the latrines, the lack of running water…

That being said I will be going to the project site where the women are working very soon! And I am very excited about this. The project sounds great, I have seen some more pictures, and I’m sure everything is going to be phenomenal. There are some money issues to sort out, but when are there not? The most important thing is that the money come in by the end of May since if we get the hives after that this means that we will miss the bee keeping season! Eep!

In all I am really loving it here. I miss Montreal in a way I never thought I would – it’s hard to leave behind a city and people you are just newly starting to fall in love with. But everything will be there when I come back. Rwanda is quite different to Uganda, but I am learning to soak up the differences, and appreciate them as they come. The job I’m set out to do, and the project itself is so vastly different from the one I did last year the I am excited to take advantage of the moment. Besides, who can give up such a wonderful tropical paradise?

A New Adventure

Hey All!!

So I am once again going on an adventure, setting out to try and understand this strange world we live in.

This year has been phenomenal. Given the obvious ups and downs of moving to a new city and going to university I have learned so much, given some fuel to my passions and grown happier by the day. Montreal is maybe the best city in the world, and I don't mean that as a hyperbole. I have met wonderful people and set off on the life long journey to break down the McGill admin. I have tested the waters of left wing radical politics and activism and can't wait for more. I've learned to combine my love for Africa and History with academia and am loving every moment of it. In short, this year has been an adventure of it's own. But a new one starts now - and here it is...

On May 8th I will be setting off to Rwanda (eeeeep! Rwanda, for those of you who read my last year's blog you'll know how much Rwanda means to me). The deal this time is that I am doing an internship with End Poverty Now, an NGO (Non-Government Organization) which is dedicated to ending poverty through education and sustainability.

This trip will be pretty different from the last one. Aside from the new country and culture my role will be drastically different. I will be working at a project through a smaller Rwandan run organization called the Rwandan Village Concept project on one of their smaller projects with a group of widows living in a village about 30 minutes outside of Butare (the old capital of Rwanda, previously known as Huye, about 2.5 hours from Kigali).

The project is through a widows organization to make and sell honey products for a living. The numbers of the project are breathtaking as they claim that within the first year the women will have increased their wages by up to 80%. Wow. Many of these women's husbands were killed in the genocide, or in some cases from HIV. I truly believe that women are the silenced backbone of Africa and I am so excited to work with these women as they attempt to eliminate poverty in their community with this project.

My job at the root is pretty boring. The project is brand new (it was began in February). Since End Poverty Now (EPN) is an NGO it has to prove to the Candian government that all it's funds are going towards it's projects, and that it's projects are indeed running. So, my job is to go, take pictures, keep journals, keep records of all money dispensed, check books, put up some kind of End Poverty Now sign and ensure that things are just generally running smoothly. Eventually I think EPN will send this information onto the Canadian government as proof that this specific project is really up and running.

Luckily, this bureaucratic bull shit does not have to be the be all and end all of my work. I will also get to; work in the fields with the women, learning about how to make honey, hang out with the women, just doing the general talking about life thing (I am hoping for the occasional theorectical discussion on feminism) and dig around for whatever else needs to be done at the project. As well, I think that Hovaire, the director of the Rwanda Village Concept Project is wanting to start up another project and wants to utilize my language abilities to help him out with that. I am more then happy to do that since it sort of falls in line with what I was doing at House of Hope in Uganda.

I am leaving in 3 days. I still haven't subleted my apartment (please, if you know anyone send them my way!) and am completely distracted by that. Nonetheless, I am really excited to be going, and hopefully once the plane takes off I will just let my Canadian worries disappear. Most of all I am excited to be going to Rwanda, a country which has fascinated me for years. I am there until the end of August but am definitely going to take some time to travel back through Uganda to see some old friends, hug a few well missed children, and finish off with a night or two in Nairobi, discovering the attractions of Kenya. My hope is to pick up as much Kinrwanda as I can while living in Rwanda, since this time the adjustment period (hopefully) won't be as long, since I kind of understand the African routine. Montreal will definitely be missed, especially after living through the longest and most brutal winter of my life I feel I deserve to enjoy a little bit more of the wonderful summer here - but I'll be back in no time and will have a summer in Montreal one day. It's going to be hard to say goodbye to some friends whom I know will be having some good times without me - but hopefully facebook will let me live vicariously.

I will be updating this blog as often as possible, with estimated internet time of once every week to 2 weeks. You are all welcome to e-mail me any thoughts and just hellos at ally.macadams@gmail.com (i've changed e-mails).

As well, I will be keeping another blog going for the purposes of End Poverty Now with more project oriented information. That one will be kept more updated more often with details about the project. My plan is to keep this blog more for thoughts, emotions, and travels which fall outside of the EPN realm. Hopefully this blog will also include more pictures then I had up last time... but we'll see how that goes.
You can (and should!) check that blog out at : http://sustainabilibee.blogspot.com/

Here's to a new adventure, and a new visit to Africa. As the year has gone by I have only fallen more in love with Africa and have learned many new names, dates and anecdotes to put with my love. I cannot wait to go learn more hands on - oh change in the making!! It's going to be a good summer.