Bungwe and Back

So day three was another trek up a different mountain. This time to Bungwe in the North of Rwanda right on the border with Uganda. It's a great clinic. There are these wonderful Sisters who run the clinic. They have been here for more than 30 years and are just lovely. This place is about 3 hours outside of Kigali, another hour on good tarmac past people carrying all kinds of things and tea farms in the middle of harvest. Then a quick turn off to a 60 percent grade of rutted dirt. You bounce up and down along steep switchbacks again through stand after stand of banana trees. More children, more neatly kept small cement and dirt houses with terracotta tile roofs and perfectly tended "yards" and fences made from thickly growing tall plants kept trimmed to shoulder height.

Bungwe is a very poor village, like all the others really. While people that had not seen the new auberge (sp?) were getting a tour I took a stroll down the lane.

Word of the lone mzungu woman traveled quickly and I was soon surrounded by all but the youngest children, who tend to be slightly frightened of the colorless skin. All crowded around repeating one of the few words they know in english, photo, photo, photo.

After 10 minutes or so of half words in kinyarwandan and very broken french, I got them to understand that they needed to stand still while I backed up so I could get them all in the shot. This was after backing about 100 meters down the road with them creeping forward with every step I took backward.

Then, it was off to the "restaurant" in town for goat on a stick. I skipped the intestine, and got a good laugh when I explained we called them chitterlings in the states.

All for now. Miss you guys,

K.

Back in Rwanda

Dear Luci and Emily,

Got in Monday and have been going ever since. This part of the trip is feedback to the health facilities on how their patients are doing and the HIV/AIDS Implementers Conference. Started at Centre de Sante Muhura. It's about a two hour drive from Kigali, 45 minutes of fairly good tarmac and then up up up up hill on red dirt roads flanked by small symmetrical rectangular houses. Each has a door directly in the center and then to the left and the right, evenly spaced between the door and the corner of the house, two small square windows. The front "yards" are well tamped down red dirt, cleanly swept. The gardens around are squarely hedged, each house has at least a small stand of banana trees and then there tends to be sorghum and a small vegetable garden. And children everywhere! 3 year olds walking up and down the road, groups of kids hollering and waving to the passing car, cries of Mzungu Mzungu (white person/foreigner)!

The clinic is modest, but they got solar power earlier this year so they can do a lot more now. The setting is beautiful, atop a hill overlooking terraced farms. Little red lines snaking up the hill where walking paths have been carved. Five minutes out your door and you and everything else is covered in a thin red dusting of the earth.

The beauty of this place always astounds me. The way they paint their houses, the care they take with their farms, the amazing smiles when you greet someone in kinyarwandan. Driving up to Muhura as you are about half way up the mountain, the smell of eucalyptus is everywhere as huge trees blow in the breeze with their silver grey leaves.

Houses carved into the sides of the hill on small perches. Steep steps cut into the earth so they can climb back up to the road.

More soon. Hope all is well at home. Love, Kik.

Updates

Dear Luci and Emily,

Ok, so I've decided there is no way I can backtrack and catalogue all the trips to now so I thought I'd do a summary...Haiti, home, Kenya, Uganda, home, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, home, Haiti, home, Haiti, home, Nigeria, Rwanda, Zambia, home, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, home, Uganda, Tanzania, Zanzibar (vacation), home, Haiti, home, Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya (just 2 days), Uganda, home, Haiti, home, Haiti....and here I am in Rwanda again. I'll be here until the 19th then off to Tanzania, back to Rwanda for a day or two, on to Kenya and the HOME!

I think that is it, but the passport is a bit hard to follow. I may have missed one or two so embellish at will!

More to follow,

Kik

I do have chairs though...

Home Base

Ok, so it hasn't been all work. I managed to get home long enough to find a home! Brick, great neighborhood, Dakota loves it. She uses more rooms than I do.

Yes it is still this empty, but who really needs furniture?

Muraho from Rwanda

Hey Luci,

I finally have Internet connection so I thought I would drop you and Emily a brief hello.

I feel like I have been all over this country since arriving. I started by flying to the west, right on the border with Congo to review new clinics we will be assisting this year. I drove back, what took 30 minutes by air was 6 hours by road. It was a beautiful drive, but this country is so juxtaposed. The tension is very close to the surface. I stopped at a memorial for the genocide on the way back, I was not as prepared as I had thought. I'm sending you some pictures, the one of the little girl standing on the wall was taken right next to school that had been turned into the memorial. I was standing in a room full of bodies and could hear the laughter of children playing just outside. It was truly affecting, chilling really.

You can also see happier things, one of the villages I was working in right before the rains come, the landscape, some kids who followed me everywhere and got into trouble with their teacher when they were going to be late for class, and one of me with the clinic team I was working with.
I then went to the north near the Ugandan border where we have two clinics. It was a lot of work but lovely. The country is the most densely populated in all of Africa, and you can feel that and see that as you make your way through. There are people everywhere, even in remote villages, and every square inch is cultivated. They call Rwanda the land of 1000 hills and it is true, everything is on the side of a mountain.

I have learned some Kirwandan which goes over big with the kids because it makes them laugh to see a white person (mzungu) speak their language, and the adults like it and try and teach me more or think I am fluent and launch into long conversations during which I smile and nod, smile and nod and try and explain that I don't understand.

As hard as this country is to be in, the trials are going on right now as to whether the french participated, and every other day there seems to be a gacaca (village trial of genocidiers), I fall more and more in love with this continent. The people, the way of life...I really could live here I think.

Well, I have some work to do while I have connection with the outside world. But I wanted you both to know I was thinking of you. I can't wait to be here with you both someday!

Love,

Kik

Random

So, looking through pictures and e-mails and my journal. This blog is going to be very disordered for a bit until I catch up with present day. The work stuff is easiest to do first I think so next is the e-mail that kicked off this crazy idea of documenting my travels on this blog.

Getting Started

Ok, so the 2nd post was not quite as imminent as I first expected. Best laid plans and all of that. Mostly, I'm not quite sure where to begin. A little history maybe...before embarking on my current career I had only left the United States for three other destinations. First one was Italy, all the way back when I was 16 to study, and then not again until my very late 20's (ok, maybe I was 30) did I venture to Canada. A couple of trips to Montreal (one Montreal trip was just to go back to the best restaurant I've ever eaten at, Restaurant YoYo http://www.restoyoyo.com/) was it for my travel experience. Then, finally, back to Europe for an amazing trip to Paris. Always best to see it with a native. I absolutely fell in love with traveling, and Paris of course.

And then it started, really started. In the past 2 1/2 years I have been to the following places, a couple of times; Haiti, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Well, there and a lot of airports in Europe. Luci and Emily get these long rambling e-mails from me and they thought I should put them up on a blog (which they had to explain to me was short for a web log, nifty). Since they will probably be the only two people to ever read this, outside of my immediate family I'd think, these posts will probably be a series of letters to them. So here we go ladies, in no particular order of importance or relevance I will begin posting...

Not just another small woodland creature

No, this is not a picture of me. But it is one of the pretty cool things I've gotten to see recently. This beautiful teenager was not waving hello. We were right in the middle of his kitchen. After moving down river a bit he was content to show off. I had no idea elephants washed their food before they ate it, but sure enough he would pull out large clumps of grass and then run it back and forth through the water before putting it in his mouth.

KikAbout Debut

So Luce and Emily think I need to post long winded and flowery comments about my life, job, travels, and breathing....I'm sure i will profoundly begin shortly...stand by with baited breath. - Kik