Akagera: The Beginning.

So as most of you may have noticed, I stopped posting. No it's not because I got bored. I went to the savannah for a week and was camping with no running water, no toilets, no electricity, no beds. Just me my sleeping bag and kick as Rwandan chef and the crew. It was an adventure to say the very least. Now the problem that has come up has been the fact that I have no where to type. I've attempted writing in my actual note book, but I use it for field notes so one page baboon data others about my day. And well, low and behold it got confusing. So instead I made bullets of every day and I decided instead of telling each day in about 7 new posts I'm going to summarize my experience. Some day are particularly entertaining and those will absolutely be told in full detail.

So to began.


We have arrived in Akagera, for those of you who don't know, it's a giant national park in Rwanda home of a crazy amount of species and insane biodiversity. Here's what I know and what I wonder within 10 minutes into the ride.
1. The dirt is all clay and this is going to be an issue with everything.
2. Is this bus going to make it through this crazy landscape
3. Oh my god I saw a giraffe.
4. I can literally feel dirt in my teeth.
5. Is it healthy to breath in all this dirt
6. How the hell do you close the windows
7. Oh man, wayy to hot.
8. But the dust!
9. This looks much more how I imagined Africa.
10. Leg cramp.
11. I am so cramped in here.

Struggling with fitting on the bus.

And that about summarizes my first thoughts upon entering. Now there are villages scattered all around the park, one which we drove though. And all around you would see goats, little kids, women carrying ply wood or bananas on their head with such grace and occasionally a cow. (cows are apparently a big deal here. If offered a cow you're being proposed to)

Throughout the village the children would run after our bus, some littler ones would jump up and down when they saw us and wave. The adults would vary rarely offer a smile, one intact even spit on our bus. Which I was startled with. A group of boys chased after us on bikes trying to sell some crafts. It was a pretty awesome experience. We stopped once for charcoal (which was neatly wrapped in leaves) and were stared at by a group of boys, who were to say the least baffled by our existence. 

By the time we got to the campsite, it was pitch black. But you could just tell the few in the morning would be breath taking. We had a nice little campfire which a few of us sat around at. An hour or so later we all head off to bed but not before munching on some indian food we picked up. Palak Paneer…My absolute favorite. The restaurant wrote little notes on all our packed dinners.

This is the only way to brush teeth.

Home sweet home.

So to prelude my night story, we have a rule here. Since, well, everything in Africa can kill you, don't go anywhere without a buddy. So 3am rolls around and I wake up, with a bladder so full that it can't be ignored. So my mind started racing. Let me st up the scene a bit. It's dark, cold, I've never been to this campsite, there may be wild cats, perhaps venomous/deadly snakes everywhere. My two tent mates are dead asleep, they may kill me if I wake them up. So my question that I keep asking is, "Will i get in trouble if I go alone?" But more importantly, "Will I get eaten if I go alone?" So after about an hour of debating I finally decide to venture off by myself and let me tell you..I swear to the sky above there was something out in the bush watching me.

Last day in Kigali (for now)

I  didn't get a chance to post this before we left for the Savannah:

Well this morning before the sun even had a chance to rise, I hear Ralph. Ralph you see is my enemy he is the local neighborhood rooster, and I am not a friend. Simply a foe. I am not much one for being an animal killer, but let me tell you. Ralph is one I wouldn't hesitate with. So he starts his squawking before the sun even rises because I'm convinced he is mentally challenged or a hipster rooster squawking before the other roosters do, before it was cool.

I like to imagine he looks something like this rooster, it makes my ridiculous hatred towards him seem more valid. 
So as I hear the terrible noises of Ralph, I start to have the image of being tangled in a terrible spider web rush through my mind. Don't worry guys, it was just the mesquite net…

So I head on down stairs, sit down for another delicious breakfast. But the problems begin to arise. I'm not quite sure if it's perhaps a language barrier, bet let me tell you I ordered my order at least 4 times before it actually arrived in front of me. Also the servers here can't wrap their head around the fact I don't eat bread, they don't get it. And everyday like clock work "No bread?" or when their is battered meat "No meat?" I always respond with. "No it makes me sick" and they always respond with a raised eyebrow, they never miss a beat. Today though we discovered that water costs money, Lily (one of my fellow field schoolers) was not a happy camper. But it makes sense, we get coffee tea, juice free but water is a no no. Beats me. Also on a side note I asked around and everyone else gets hot waters, so I've drawn the conclusion I just suck.

So today we venture to the cloth markets. I'm excited. Apparently you pick out beautiful Rwandan fabric and its made into whatever you want. I've decided I want pants and let me tell you that decision was not taken lightly. I may or may not have had an overwhelming freakout as which to cloth and what garment I wanted made for me for like an hour. So we all hop on the bus and head to the market.

Let me just start off by preluding that, I've been in uncomfortable situations. Plenty in fact. There are little to, well absolutely no experience that left me feeling as uncomfortable as I did in pulling into the market. We were zoo animals, we where stared at, pointed at, glared at you name it. And there was nothing we could do about it, there was no hiding our pale skin. And I've never been so uncomfortable being in my own skin, literally my skin color was making me uncomfortable.

So that terribly uncomfortable feeling started subsiding after I was convinced ever person in that market had looked at me at least once. You began to also hearing the word "Mzungu"which I found out means, foreigner/white people/tourist, being whispered through the whole market. That was fun.

These two guys really wanted a picture of themselves, and kept calling out to me "Sister! Sister!" it was weirdly touching and nice to feel like they included me as human as strange as it sounds.

So we make our way towards the windy paths, past fruit, fish and everything you'd expect to be sold there and more to a smiling face. Her name is Josephine. She welcomed us all with hugs, and smiles and let me tell you she is incredible. She helped me for 45 minutes pick out material and after when all was said and done, gave me my Kinyarwandan name, "Mbabazi". It means mercy incase you were curious. In this culture being given aname is kind of a big deal so that was exciting. I think she gave it to me because I got so worked up and kept apologizing for everything I was doing. She grabbed my hands and told me to breath, stop apologizing and that it was her job to help me. She is hands down an incredible woman.

While walking through the market, you would spot wounded people everywhere. I couldn't put my finger on it until I realized most of it must have been from the genocide. A women walked past me only about 3 ft tall, at first I thought she was a dwarf or midget but I realized she was missing her legs. Instead of being refined to a wheel chair she just was talking on her stumped legs. She instantly was my hero of the day.

On our way out we got in the middle of a crazy fight between two men, I got my foot stepped on in the mix up another classmate nearly got punched and we sprinted out. I have no idea what was said but the anger in the men's eyes was startling.

So we head back to the hotel and had an option to get off the bus or go to another market. I, not wanting to miss out on anything decide to go on to the next market. Mistake number one. Mistake number two consisted of using the sink water on my toothbrush later that night. But thats another story.

What was supposed to be an hour trek wound up being 3 hours, and I became so hangry. A term frequently used on this trip meaning "Angry because your hungry", it's a bit like a warning. A bit more like an excuse for a not super attitude. A good, valid excuse though. Not only did the trip take long but we hit rush hour on the way back. Let me tell you Rwanda traffic is nothing like I've experienced. Rwanda has this thing called "Tigo" and it's this big phone company that is as common as McDonalds and they seem to sponsor everything. Including what I like to call "Tigo Riders", instead of of taxi drivers Rwanda just has guys on motorcycles with two helmets and they pick you up and drive you where you need to go. It's insanity. Mid traffic we saw this tigo rider plow into the back of another and both passenger and driver fall over, luckily it was only about 3 miles an hour. Still hilarious, what was more hilarious was watching the businessman who was just thrown off the bike stand in the middle of traffic with his helmet as his tigo driver drove off without him.

Also on a random side note. Traffic lights in Kigali have a timer on them, for both green and red. You know how long till the lights gonna change, and how much longer you have to sit at a red light. I think they should exist everywhere-garunteed to lower road rage and tickets.


We come back to the hotel to hear the song "Waka Waka, It's Time for Africa" (if you don't know it look it up and just try not dancing to it) and as tired as I am, I gotta go dance. It was worth it. Tonight I became the ultimate enemy of mosquitoes. It really has become a practice and challenge to make it under your bed canopy without getting bit. I not only mastered it but I killed at least 3 misquitoes on my way under the canopy. It makes me feel very James Bond like.

We leave for Akagera tomorrow, and boy am I exhausted.

Last supper

Before the cloth market!

Rwanda Day 1

They day started off beautiful, I pulled back the curtains a light haze of fog, filled the hills of Rwanda (this is where the crazy weird lights began to all make sense). The scenery was beautiful, the temperature brisk and so refreshing. Went downstairs to breakfast, which was lovely. Because everything thus far as been lovely. I order a ginger tea, and let me tell you. Thats not something to mess with, that stuff is PO-tent. My throat burns the entire time, but damn it's good. The fruit salad for breakfast was this beautiful concoction of god knows what, but let me tell ya folks- Best. Damn. Fruit. Salad. Ever.

We do our assignments and presentations, the last one is about the genocide. They are all simply slides and numbers and horrible statistics, but it wasn't until the boy from yesterday with the happy smile stood up and told us his story. And suddenly it wasn't just numbers and statistics. I won't get into that here because it's his story to tell, but to stand in front of him and to imagine the horrors he endured hurt, my eyes burned the entire time. Yet has horrible as his story was, he grew from it and it astonished me how big his smile was and had grown to be since the horrible events. He told us how he chased after a different life and how if you want something bad enough it can happen. He absolutely became my hero. And for all of you that don't have the privilege of meeting him, his name is Willy and he is the kindest soul you will ever meet.

So we're off the memorial in a giant bus, it is in fact a giant Camel bus.

No, not like the middle eastern camel. I'm talking sunglass wearing, smoking nicotine camel. It's full of so much irony, but alas it is our caravan for the trip. We make our way down the crazy dirt roads, eyes glued to us because well frankly in a 20 minute bus trip I did not see a single white person and quickly learned how much we stuck out.

The city in daytime is stunning, I mean "stop your breath beautiful, no picture will ever do it justice" stunning.

 It's called the city of a thousand hills for a reason. 

To read about my experience at the memorial center simply find my other entry "Genocide Memorial". 

After leaving the museum the most bizarre occurrence started happening. I mean I knew Africa had weird bugs big bugs, you name it. But sitting under a tree I and another girl began to feel something fall on us. Me thinking it was a leaf ignored it.. Low and behold it was an ant. The tree above us just had ants, casually falling front the sky on to us.  No. Big. Deal….

We were approached by this group of Rwandans our ages, asking if we wanted to tell a message to the youth about the genocide- to make sure nothing like it ever happens again. I wrote "We all have two eyes, a mouth, arms, legs and a heart. They should be used for nothing but love never hate. We are all human. We are all one. Love one another. Always" It was beautiful watching this and am very excited seeing it come together. Originally it was suppose to be just 13,000 but after such a high demand they are capping it off at 1 million. Keep an eye out!

Driving home we saw little kids yelling "Bite" (accent on the e) meaning "Hi!" and they were waving, jumping up and down blowing kisses. I fell in love.

We got home and I was so excited for a nice shower to find out….*drum roll* NO hot water! Not even like a luke warm, or anything of the sort. I'm talking, someone put ice in the shower head and are trickling colds after through the ice. I never thought I was a baby until this moment. I was forced to wash each body part separately no more that .8 seconds per limb, wrap myself up in towels to prevent what I was convinced was going to be hypothermia and wash my hair. 

Crawling into bed excited, I start to realize this hotel is not sound proof, that I was convinced little hippos were gallivanting in the halls and sleep was not in my agenda for awhile. 

Genocide Memorial

 Today was hard, I'm not going to lie. I don't remember feeling so much sorrow in my heart in a long time as I did today. I want to give this prelude because, while my first true day in Africa was beautiful, awe inspiring it was also a very emotionally draining one.

Caution: graphic and sad

We arrived at the memorial, it the location was beautiful. We entered and viewed each exhibit divided into three. One into the start and actual parts of the genocide, the second about other genocides and the third was called the "Children's Room". Every room broke your heart, the raping, slaughtering, dismembering, acts of hatred were terrible, pictures of people dead, dismembered, mutilated. Stories of the survivors playing on the walls with subtitles. My heart felt broken. We walked into rooms off old photographs of people lost, and I felt as someone in my group did that I needed to look at every pictures because I believed every life needed to be acknowledged. The last room in the building I wandered into was all the belongings found at the massacre sights. The one item that seemed so difficult to look at was a child's spiderman bed sheet hanging like a ghost in a glass room. Seeing it, I thought of a little boy probably running around pretending to be a superhero-now slaughtered. 

The 2nd part talked about other genocides, and the quote that hit me reading was.. 

The room that truly shattered my heard was the "Children's Room", in each room was a picture of a child, some infants some toddlers, some siblings. Underneath each photo listed their name, favorite food, game, hero, something cute or funny and the last bit, how they were murdered.

 A picture of a precious little girl in a white dress and big doe eyes smiling stared at me, underneath written favorite food milk, favorite toy her doll, loved playing with her father and lastly "smashed against wall". I remember my world pause in that moment tears flooding my eyes. And no pictures, no murders easier "stabbed in eyes", "machete in mothers arms", "shot in the head", "drown", "buried alive". And looking at these innocent eyes I just couldn't grasp, how anyone could kill something so pure so innocent. I had to leave. I felt my heart my shatter with one more victims face, one more child's smiling face.

The difference between this genocide and the Holocaust and why I find this almost worse was the use of close contact killing with machetes. The Holocaust, while horrific and massive, dehumanized people, killing them with machines, guns, gas, etc. But this genocide the killings, the people did not dehumanize anything. This genocide was not blind killings, but this was Hutus killing Tutsis, neighbors killing neighbors, wives being forced to kill their family before being killed themselves. Humans staring into the other eyes of humans with such hate and slaughtering them with machetes. 

Yet there is something so beautiful about the Rwandan people, their ability to move on, not forget of course, but keep living. And not just living, but surviving. To look out into a crowd of people and know that nearly everyone over the age of 20 has their own story. Yet are able to still manage and function as a society, to not hate, not let revenge killings happen. They are far better people than I.

The whole world failed Rwanda…

 Someone in my group today told a story of her experience flying over to Rwanda. A man asked her first if it was her first time visiting Rwanda, she said yes. He responded to her "Why do you come now? Not 20 years ago." And walked off into the plane. And the truth is we as a country stood by and did nothing. No one really did. In total towards the end we sent 50 troops.. Over 1 million lives lost and we sent 50 people.

Arrival

This trip started of as a NIGHTMARE. We arrived to the airport in Amsterdam to be told by a lady at KLM (bless her little heart..) that our ticket for Kigali had in fact never been purchased, that something went wrong and we never actually bought the ticket. Had you had to tell my mom or stepdad what she had to tell them, I would have been terrified- they can be a bit "Assertive/protective. Something about the name of the credit card not matching mine? Who knows… but luckily thanks to a lovely man named Taha, I was still getting on that plane and making it to Kigali.

The flight was miserable, screaming babies, a elbow hog sitting next to me and a seat kicker behind me. Not only that but since my original ticket no longer existed, my request for gluten free food had been null and void. Thus began an 8 hour battle with my stomach, and a ridiculous about of consumption of gluten free bars..Being "hangry" became real. At one point one flight attendant took pity on me and gave me some cheese- much appreciated let me tell you. A little cube of cheese had never tasted so good in my life.

Well, I have official arrived. My two feet are on the beautiful homeland of all human evolution- Africa. In truth I had no ideas what this would entail. If people would be friendly to an outsider, if Kigali was beautiful or not, if the food would be good (really a big one for me). And when first arriving to Kigali, I was convinced I had wondered into a foreign land, either one of magical fairies or one of alien space invasion. Outside the window, scatted high and low, close and far were little LED looking lights. What I learned in the daytime is Kigali is built on hills. Which accounted for what seemed like un organized  array of tiny fairies or space ships scattered in the sky (but really hills high and low). I got picked up by two Rwandan boys and a classmate, the boys were wonderfully nice and curious and insisted on carrying my bag up two flights of stairs- which let me tell you I did not complain about. He had the most beautiful and heart felt smile and as corny as this sounds his whole being was just so happy. The streets of Rwanda lined with militia every 40 feet or so.

The hotel is beautiful, it was nothing like I anticipated. At first I believed the mosquito netting was just a beautiful touch, but then I realized that there was nothing about it but function. Believe me..