Girrrrrls in the Mist

I honestly can’t remember who first told me about this experience, that you can go to Rwanda and hike to meet the same mountain gorillas that Dian Fossey lived with during her “Gorillas in the Mist” period.  I certainly know I didn’t come up with this idea myself, so to whomever recommended the trip to me, thank you.  This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Gorilla time!!!

We woke up early – really early – to eat breakfast at 6 so that we would be ready for our 6:30 am pickup time.  It turns out that Sandra is a morning person, whereas I am definitely not, so she spent breakfast chatting with the guy who runs the guest house where we were staying (Onesmus), and I spent it grunting into a cup of coffee whenever they asked me a direct question.  It takes me a little while to get going in the morning :)

Rama picked us up at 6:30, and we drove out to the Volcanic National Park, where we would be hiking.  The park is home to 18 different gorilla families.  10 of those are acclimated to tourists and are visited daily by a group of no more than 8 people (plus staff).  The other 8 families are reserved for researchers to observe.  Before we could get going, first we had to get the administrative stuff out of the way.  While Rama went to meet with the park rangers, who would be assigning groups to the different gorilla families, we stayed behind and watched some local dancers.

We had heard from people at the hostel in Kigali that the Susa family is the best one to get because that was the family that Dian Fossey lived with, and some of the gorillas there were babies when she was living with them.  We ask Rama to request the Susa family for us, but if we can’t get them (they’re the most requested family for obvious reasons) then to prioritize assigning us to a large family with a wide range of ages included.  While we are waiting for the assignments to be handed out, we sit in a covered pavilion and are entertained by Rwandans who perform a series of traditional dances for us, complete with accompanying drums.  The show and the cold mountain air combine to finally wake me up, so after a few minutes there I am ready to go see some gorillas!  I start to form a plan for stealing one of the babies if we’re lucky enough to see one.  I decide I will name it TikiTwo and will bring it with me to Cape Town to fill in for the original Tiki.  Sandra looks at me like I’m crazy but laughs when I tell her my plan.  Apparently she thinks I’m joking.

Rama comes back to us with a frown on his face, which has us worried.  He tells us that we were assigned to the Amohoro family.   Sandra had heard that this was a “boring” family because the dominant silverback is so relaxed.  In fact, the family is named for his chill demeanor – Amahoro means “peace” in the local language.  Rama assures us that it actually is a good family to visit because it is big – with 19 members – and that there are a wide range of ages.  Plus Sandra had only heard that through the grapevine, so we decide to take Rama’s word for it and start to get excited about our hike.

Now that the assignments have been announced, we meet up with the rest of our 8-person group and our guide for the day – Eugene – for a briefing.  Our group has 2 older German ladies in their late 60’s, plus a South African family of 4, with ages ranging from mid-40’s to 18.  Eugene tells us about the Amohoro family and explains the process from here on out.  The gorillas are monitored all day every day, but are left alone at night to sleep.  The people who monitor them are called “trackers” (cool name, right?), and it’s their job to locate the family every morning and stay with them until sundown.  Because it is still early, Eugene tells us that the trackers haven’t yet found the gorillas today, but the trackers are out there looking for them, starting from where they left the gorillas last night.  He assures us that 99% of the time they are able to find them, and so we set off in what we think is their general direction.  First, we have to drive another 40 minutes along dirt roads to the place where the hike begins, which is basically in a small village near the edge of the Volcanic National Park.  The guides distribute walking sticks for everyone.  I find this kind of touristy since the terrain doesn’t look all that bad from where I’m standing, but Rama tells me I should take one anyway because “there’s mud in the jungle.”  Um, ok.  I take a stick and we head off.

The first segment of the hike was just from the parking spot to the edge of the park.  We are hiking through gigantic fields of wild daisies, followed by fields of wheat and sorghum, framed by the volcanoes in the distance.  It’s a pleasant enough hike, though the trail is rocky and I find myself wishing I had brought my proper hiking shoes rather than just my cross-trainers.  Oh well. 

Daisies everywhere!

Finally we reach the edge of the park, which is delineated by a large rock wall that runs along the entire perimeter.  On the other side of the wall is a large ditch, and both are in place to prevent the animals from leaving the safety of the park.  Apparently gorillas have no natural predators, but humans have a bad habit of poaching them and trying to sell their babies to private zoos.  When we get to the wall, we meet up with one of the trackers – a man who apparently worked directly with Dian Fossey while she was living here.  He is accompanied by two soldiers carrying rifles.  Eugene explains to us that these men are here for our protection against any animal attacks.  Apparently there are wild buffalo in the park who are not used to being around humans, and they have horns which can do some damage. 

Unless the scarecrow takes care of them first

We climb over the wall, cross the ditch on some bamboo poles, and are in the jungle.  Or is it a rainforest?  Sandra and I admit we don’t know the difference between the two.   The trail we are taking is pretty narrow and would be difficult to spot if we hadn’t climbed over the wall at exactly the right spot.  Eugene has instructed us to walk in a single file line and keep noise to a minimum to increase our chances of seeing other wildlife on the hike.  Apparently the trackers have located the Amahoro family, and they are about a 1-2 hour hike ahead of us, depending on our pace and how many breaks we have to take.  The day started out chilly, but we’ve already been hiking for close to an hour, and so I’m warmed up enough to shed my outermost layer. 

The hike begins simply enough, with dense brush on either side but relatively flat ground.  That terrain quickly disappears, replaced by pits of mud.  The jungle is so thick on either side of us that we can’t deviate from the trail, so we are forced to tiptoe around the muddy parts, hoping to not take a wrong step and suffer the icky consequences.  At this point, I remind myself to thank Rama for telling me to take the walking stick – it’s indispensable on this hike.  In parts where the mud is particularly impassable, I can use the walking stick as a third leg to balance myself as I try to shuffle on the outer edges of the trail, which tended to be less muddy but also very small and difficult to navigate.  In some parts of the trail, the only way to get through was to hop from slippery rock to slippery rock, and there the pole came in handy as well to keep me from slipping and getting a mouthful of African mud. 

Mmmmm tasty mud

We continue on in this fashion, hopping and shuffling our way around the muddy parts.  Keep in mind that this is all done at an altitude of ~2,500m and is entirely uphill.  Some parts are VERY steep and slippery, and the porters who are accompanying us have to help us up the hills because otherwise we would have found ourselves involuntarily going down a muddy version of a slip-and-slide.  The porters had nice rubber boots on that allowed them to slosh right through the muddy parts, and they seemed to know the trail very well so that they knew when we would need assistance and when we wouldn’t. 

Another thing about the jungle was that it is full of evil plants that inflict pain.  The path was lined with different types of stinger plants, just waiting for me to brush up against them so they could give me a rash.  Given my clearly graceful disposition in the jungle (bah!), I may or may not have tottered into a few of these bushes, resulting in my hands, arms and legs being decorated with a patchwork of itchy redness and hives.  I’m starting to itch again just thinking about it.

Try not to touch ANYTHING

And then, it happened.  We were about halfway up the volcano (did I mention the slope we are climbing is a volcano?) when I took one wrong step, and slipped into the mud.  Thankfully I didn’t fall completely, but both of my shoes were completely submerged in the ankle-deep mud.  I pull them out, and try hard to keep them on my feet as they make a weird slurpy sucking noise.  I’m able to pull my feet out without losing either shoe, but my feet and the bottom of my pants are absolutely covered in mud, and my shoes are filled with mud and water.  It was not a pleasant feeling.  I suppose it did have a silver lining – I no longer have to be as careful about avoiding the muddy parts.  Yes of course I will continue to avoid them as much as possible, since they posed a serious risk of sucking my shoes into the depths of the earth, but I didn’t care as much if I got dirty. 

About 2 hours after we entered the park, the trackers stop us and tell us that we are close to the gorillas.  We leave behind all of our gear except our cameras (including the walking sticks – yikes) and shuffle the last 50 meters to get to the family.  The family is hanging out in a very dense area of the jungle.  There are no trails there, so in order to make room for us, the trackers would use their machetes to bend down the taller plants so that we could stand on them.  However, if a gorilla decided to move from its position, sometimes it would walk toward us and we would have nowhere to go!  We moved around as much as we could to give them space, but a few times I was mere inches away from these creatures.

At first we could only see a couple gorillas’ heads poking out through the jungle.  Even though we could barely see them, our entire group got incredibly excited.  They’re here – in their natural habitat!  It’s so much different than seeing them in a zoo. This is where they’re meant to be, after all.  Plus apparently the gorillas you see in zoos are always lowland gorillas, who are a different species, because mountain gorillas can’t survive in captivity.

The first gorilla we saw in his entirety was the boss of the entire family – an enormous silverback, who has a local name that I can’t remember so I’ll call him Big Daddy.  He is an older gentleman – about 40 years old into his approximate 45 year lifespan.  He is the alpha of the group and the father of most of the family.  He greeted us first by ignoring us and walking toward an adult female, who we soon realized had a small baby with her.  Once he got close to her, he faced her, crouched on his haunches and beat his chest several times!  The guide assured us that this wasn’t an act of aggression on his part because he wasn’t facing us while he was doing it.  Instead it was more of a welcome.  The chest beating within the gorilla community has many meanings depending on context. 

All he wants is to be understood...and females with whom to procreate.

By comparison to the silverback, the female was small (though still a big animal).  The baby was probably 6 months old and tiny.  He kept climbing all over his mom, trying to get her to play with him.  His mom didn’t seem impressed, so she started walking away to go climb a tree, with him clinging to her back.  She moves surprisingly well for being such a big creature. 

Mom, mom - look at that!  Those gorillas have alopecia!

We spent the next hour moving from gorilla to gorilla, observing them and taking about a billion pictures.  It was fascinating to see the obvious differences in their personalities.  Some were only interested in eating.

Nom nom nom

Another was super lazy and chilled out with his belly bulging on a pile of leaves.

Letting it all hang out

Some were playful and joking around with each other.

Tee hee

A few were curious about us and would make sustained eye contact.

What are you lookin' at?

We ran into another mother and baby – this one was 3 months old and SO FREAKING CUTE.  As soon as I saw him, I knew he was TikiTwo.  His hair stood straight up on his head.  He kept doing somersaults and other acrobatics and making noises that I can only describe as giggling.  I can’t even describe how adorable he was.  

TIKITWO!!!!!!!

His mom was more engaged than the other mom with her baby – she was playing with him and swinging him around as he rolled around.  Occasionally she would cradle him just like I cradle Cooper and tenderly look at him while he stared at the weird hairless strangers who were nearby. Sadly, I realized pretty quickly that there was no way I could take TikiTwo home with me without Big Daddy ripping me to shreds.  I suppose he’s better off with his mom anyway, though I’m pretty sure I would make an amazing gorilla mom.  Then again, I wouldn’t want to make Tiki jealous, so it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t adopt him.

Stop, mom!  That tickles!

One thing I learned is that a silverback gorilla isn’t a specific type of gorilla but rather it means a fully developed adult male (12 years old and up).  A family can have multiple silverbacks, but only one of them will be the alpha male.  Most of the other silverbacks in a family will be the sons of the alpha male, so they are able to peacefully coexist.  If a silverback is bothered by the fact that he’s not allowed to mate with any of the lady gorillas, then he can go off and start his own group.  Or sometimes he will have affairs with the women behind Big Daddy’s back (!).  Once Big Daddy finds out, he will punish the other male by biting him, but he won’t do any serious damage.  It’s basically your typical family drama – only jungle style.  Apparently inbreeding isn’t really an issue because once a female reaches adulthood, she will switch to another family.  Families will occasionally run into each other in the wild. Sometimes a fight ensues, resulting in women being “stolen.”  Other times they go voluntarily so that they can breed with gorillas outside their bloodline.  Some families are related to each other (e.g. if a male separates to go start his own family), so they will meet and just hang out like extended relatives do. 

Eating, lounging, and passive aggressive chatting - just like most American Thanksgivings!

Our hour with the gorillas went by very quickly.  I understand that they have to restrict the time we have with them because it’s important for the gorillas to be able to live their lives normally without humans bothering them, but at the same time I wish we could have stayed for longer! 

The walk down the volcano was exponentially easier and faster than the climb up.  The sunshine had even dried up a lot of the mud (although that didn’t stop me from putting my foot in it multiple times again).  By the end of the hike, I decided that these shoes were a write-off. I’m sure Onesmus can find someone who would want them, so I feel ok leaving them behind.  I left the jungle bitten, bruised, and dirty, but so happy that I made the trip.  I wish I could go again tomorrow!

We got back to the car around 1:30 pm and drove back to the entry to the park, where Eugene wrote out some official certificates of completion for our gorilla trek.  In all honesty, it seemed like an excuse to get us to hang out for 10 minutes where they had a bunch of shops selling handicrafts.  Nothing really caught my eye though.

After driving back into town, we stopped at the tour company’s main office because there was a misunderstanding with our itinerary.  Sandra and I had been under the impression that we had booked a trek to go see the golden monkeys tomorrow, but Rama told us that his boss didn’t have that listed on our itinerary.  We go to the office and meet with Ann – the manager with whom we booked the trek.  The meeting did not go well.  After looking up the email chain, we saw that in our confirmation email to Ann, we had agreed to the stated price if it included the gorilla trek and the golden monkey trek.  However, Ann (or her employees) didn’t see the golden monkey part of our confirmation, and so they said “ok” even though the price didn’t actually include the golden monkeys.  After we had paid, they sent us an updated itinerary which didn’t include the golden monkeys, but neither Sandra nor I read the itinerary in all that much detail, so we didn’t notice until we arrived that it was not part of the plan.  It was purely a misunderstanding, but from Sandra’s and my perspective, it was their mistake because we had paid the fee in good faith, expecting that we were getting more than what they were actually providing.  If we had known the golden monkeys weren’t included, we would have gone with another company that would have been cheaper.  Anyway, during this meeting we find out that Ann’s team had messed up the dates of our itinerary as well, and they had accidentally bought a gorilla permit to the national park for the wrong date of our trip.  So they had already lost $750 on our trip, which made her hesitant to lose even more money by giving us the golden monkey tour for free (although it is much less expensive – only a $50 park entrance fee).  It was clear that if her team hadn’t already made an expensive mistake with us that she would have cared a lot less.  Instead, she sat there and tried to debate with us whose fault it was, saying that we should have read the final itinerary more carefully and told her about the issues with it.  We responded by saying that we had already paid, and while it was unfortunate we hadn’t caught the mistakes, it wasn’t our responsibility to QA the itinerary.  We made it clear to her that we’ve been very happy with our experience so far, and it would be a shame for this issue to ruin our positive experience with her company.  She still wasn’t willing to compromise, so we left the office with her telling us that she would “talk to someone and get back to us.”  Oh well.

We had the rest of the day free to do whatever we wanted, and I came up with what I thought was a great idea – let’s go to Uganda!  The Ugandan border is only 25 km away, and apparently the tourist activities in this part of Uganda are basically the same things as in Rwanda, so I can’t imagine myself planning a separate trip just to come to Uganda.  Plus I wanted to add another country to my list!  In order to fully count it, I have to actually *do* something there – I can’t cross the border for 5 minutes and say I’ve been to Uganda.  Sandra had already been there before, but she was up for anything, and Rama said he would drive us as long as we covered the gas expenses (because it wasn’t included in our itinerary – something we are all very sensitive to now).  We decided we would go across the border for a late lunch, and off we go! 

The drive itself is uneventful, but the border crossing turned out to be a pain in the neck.  Rama had told us that our visa for Rwanda should be valid for Uganda as well, so we didn’t expect to have much of an issue.  He had to deal with a bit more red tape to get the car across the border, and apparently the guards wouldn’t let us ride in the car to cross the border anyway, so he drops us on the Rwandan side and tells us to walk across the border and he will pick us up at the immigration office on the other side.  We get to the other side and go through a series of ridiculous border procedures. 

Only some of the ridiculousness was voluntary

First we show our passport to a soldier with an automatic weapon sitting by the side of the road.  Then we get to a small building and have to go into one office, where a Rwandan immigration official sits and gives us our exit stamps (with a heavy dose of flirting – inviting himself to dinner with us in Uganda).  Then we go into another office and get our Ugandan entry stamps.  The issue is that Rama’s information was wrong – our visa is not valid for Uganda as well, so we have to pay a $50 fee to get into the country.  Ugh – this dinner is turning out to be more expensive than we anticipated.  Oh well, we’re already here so we might as well pay it.  Sandra almost flirted her way out of paying the fee (or at least it seemed like the guy was wavering), but in the end we both had to pay it.  Afterward, we waited outside the office for Rama to come – he was taking a while on the Rwandan side because the paperwork for the car was a bit cumbersome.   We waited for about a half hour before he showed up, and then we accompanied him into the Ugandan office for him to complete the corollary paperwork there.  He asked us to come into the office with him because apparently the office workers are lazy and will make you wait for a long time for no reason, but if white people are there then they seem to be much more diligent.  Unfortunately, our presence there also meant that the office thought they could extract more money out of us.  They tried to tell Rama that because he was driving us, his car qualifies as a “touring vehicle” (e.g. something similar to a safari jeep), and so he would have to pay a $75 fee.  Thankfully Rama is able to talk his way out of that one – particularly because we only plan to stay for an hour or two – so we get through without having to pay any additional fees.

While the terrain is basically the same, it was immediately obvious that we were in a different country as soon as we crossed the border.  In Rwanda, all of the buildings are made out of local red brick, but in Uganda, all of the buildings we passed were made with wood!  It’s kind of weird, considering that I would expect the raw materials used to produce Rwandan bricks are available here in Uganda as well, but Rama explained that Uganda is much poorer of a country and so they can’t afford to use brick in as many buildings.  One benefit of Uganda being much poorer is that the prices here are much lower – so much so that Rwandan people will take day trips to Uganda to go shopping for basic necessities.  In fact, during our time waiting for Rama at the border we saw lots of people walking by with piles of clothing – even mattresses carried on their heads – bringing them from Uganda to Rwanda. Once in Uganda, we saw stores with piles of mattresses on the street, waiting for Rwandan and Congolese buyers to come get them.  Weird, right?

Bed bugs come free with purchase!

In addition to finding a place to eat (which is quickly becoming an early dinner rather than a late lunch), I also would like to find a handicrafts shop where I can buy a magnet.  I’ve been collecting magnets from all of my travels since 2008 or so, and pride myself a little bit on the eclectic collection of places represented on my fridge.  Magnets are small, cheap, and easy to transport – unlike lots of other handicrafts.  Unfortunately, the border town where we are looking is not exactly filled with touristy places.  We stop into a handful of different stores advertising handicrafts, but none of them have magnets.  Instead they have woodcrafts, woven baskets, and things like that.  After the fourth store or so, I’m sick of looking and decide that I will instead just make my own magnet. We agree that Sandra and I will order local beverages at dinner and I will save the bottle caps and make a magnet out of them later.  Problem solved.

Next we have to find somewhere to eat.  The guy at the immigration office gave us a recommendation to go eat at the “Tourland Hotel” restaurant.  Based on the name, we don’t think that this place is going to offer us authentic Ugandan food.  Rama confirms that it’s a very touristy place where white people go to eat, but they have things like hamburgers and other sandwiches.  No thank you.

Note: for official use only

Instead we ask Rama to take us to a local place for dinner.  He selects one that certainly looks local – it’s basically a small room with a few plastic tables and chairs, and one table outside on a patio.  As with the restaurant on Twin Lakes, there is no menu – instead the waitress just tells us what they have to offer and we say yes or no.  Our  only option for dinner is goat stew with some rice and mashed plantains on the side.  Sure, why not.  We sit outside at the table and chat with Rama – who is an awesome guy – talking about Uganda and the differences between it and Rwanda. 

Five star Ugandan dining

The food – when it finally comes – is absolutely delicious.  The rice and plantains are boiled without oil, so they don’t have much flavor, but instead we spoon the rich and flavorful stew onto them and eat them together.  Delicious!  Unfortunately the restaurant doesn’t serve any local beers, so instead I get a Fanta, and Rama gets a Coke, and I’m happy to see that the bottle caps say “made in Uganda” on them.  Score!  When we go to pay the bill, it costs about $7 in total – for 3 people.

We finish our dinner and decide that we’d like to make a stop to buy a gift for Onesmus, since he is from Uganda.  We want to buy him something that he can’t get in Rwanda, so we go to a local bar and buy him a bottle of local banana wine to take back with us.  We’re not actually sure if he drinks alcohol or not, so we also buy him a locally bottled “energy tea” – whatever that is.  The banana wine sounds interesting, and Sandra and I would like to try it, so we decide to stay at the bar for a little bit and each have our own.  I’m using the word “bar” here very liberally – it was basically a hole in the wall shop that sold beer out of a fridge.  There was a bar-like structure that the fridge rested behind, and some drunk guys standing next to it, so I guess it counts as a bar, but not what most westerners would think of when they heard the word “bar.”  Since the place is tiny, we step outside to enjoy our drinks, and someone pulls up a plastic table and some plastic chairs for us.

Banana wine makes us giggle

Right as we step outside, we notice a young child (probably 4 or 5 years old) who is near the doorway next to his mom.  He sees Sandra and me, and a look of terror comes over his face.  He starts screaming and crying and trying to hide behind his mom.  It turns out that he had never seen a white person before!  Even more, he was from a small village, and in the villages sometimes children are taught that white people are all cannibals, and will eat you if given the chance.  Poor kid – he was scared out of his wits at us because he thought we were going to eat him!  His mom thought it was hilarious, as did everyone else standing on the side of the road observing the interaction, so we were able to laugh it off pretty quickly. 

Another thing that’s different about Uganda is that there are a lot more people on the streets, just sitting around.  We walked past a group of moto taxi drivers, who yelled out something to Rama in the local language that made him say something back in a very curt and scolding tone.  Sandra and I didn’t need to use much of our imaginations to guess what they had said to him, and what his response was.  I suppose this crowd doesn’t see a local man like Rama walking around with two white girls very often.

Another random sight outside of the bar was a turkey!  He was just wandering around, pecking at stuff on the ground and gobbling as only turkeys can do.  Rama explained to us that turkey is a prized meat here, but the only way you can get it is by serving it at home – either by raising it yourself and then butchering it or buying it at a specialty meat place.  It’s too expensive to be served in restaurants or sold in regular stores. 

After we finished our drinks, it was time to get back to the border because the immigration office closes at 7:30 every night.  We didn’t want to get stuck in Uganda!  The border crossing was similarly frustrating as coming over.  We had to buy a new Rwandan visa, and the petty bureaucrats who staff the desk there seemed to take pleasure in making us wait longer than would be reasonable.  Regardless of their mind games, I’m really happy I made it to Uganda – the experience was a lot of fun!

  

Cheeky monkeys and chilled milk

Today we left the hostel and started our adventure to northern Rwanda to see the reason we came to this country in the first place – the mountain gorillas!  Our driver/tour guide picks us up from the hotel bright and early in a nice SUV.  He introduces himself as Rama, and seems to be a nice enough fellow.  We ask him what the itinerary is for the day, and he tells us that we’re going to drive straight up to Musanze - the second largest city in Rwanda, located in the northern-most province, where we will be staying for the next 2 nights.  We ask him if he could accommodate a couple requests along the way, most notably asking him if he could take us to a milk bar.

Yes, you read that right, a milk bar.  Apparently that’s a thing here.  He isn’t familiar with the term, so we look up the local name for it, and he chuckles and tells us we can go find some milk.  I’m not actually that much of a milk drinker, but I’m really curious – what are these milk bars and what types of people visit them?  I have to find out.  He says he doesn’t know of any places in Kigali off the top of his head, but there’s one on the drive, so we agree to stop there.

The drive is similarly beautiful to what we saw yesterday – rolling hills, plenty of fields planted with various crops, and lots of people in vibrant colors going about their daily lives.  We roll down the windows, and Rama puts on some Rwandan hip hop music, and we all enjoy the drive.  As we climb higher and higher into the hills, I’m disappointed to see that a fog has descended, so we can’t enjoy what must be stunning views.  Oh well.  We stop at a lookout and take a photo anyway.

You can kind of see how pretty it was - right?

Sandra and I have been noticing for a couple days now just how clean of a country Rwanda is.  In other African countries, it’s extremely common to see piles of trash everywhere, but everything here is pristine.  We even see people in vests weeding the side of the highway as we drive.  We ask Rama about it, and he tells us that the government has instituted a policy of mandatory community service for every household.  On the fourth Saturday of every month, everyone in the country takes a few hours and cleans up the country.  They pick up trash, garden, and otherwise tidy things up.  What a great idea!  And even better – it actually works!  Peer pressure from neighbors and/or the government means that people actually show up to do this.  Apparently the fact that Rwandan people are generally rule-abiders helps as well. 

If I lived here, I'd want to keep it pretty as well

About a half hour outside the city, Rama spots a monkey by the side of the road and pulls over so I can take a photo.  When we get out, we see that it is not one monkey but at least 15 – a family of them who are hanging out in the grass and trees by the side of the highway.

Why hello there

A few villagers carrying baskets of bananas (on their heads of course) stop to look at the monkeys with us.  The issue was that whenever I tried to get close enough to get a good photo, the monkeys would run away, scared.  Rama came up with a great solution to the problem – he bought a bunch of small bananas from the women standing next to us and started throwing the bananas at the monkeys.  They went nuts!  One in particular was a greedy little pig, so he kept inching closer and closer to be able to intercept the bananas that Rama was throwing to the other monkeys.  

Mine?  Mine?  Mine?

I was able to get some great shots of these guys.   They put on a good show for us: sometimes chasing each other to get the bananas, other times standing on two legs like a person to eat the banana they had claimed as a prize.

  

Awww he thinks he's people!

And the fat one kept stealing the bananas from the rest of them.  We stayed and watched them for about 10 minutes until we ran out of bananas, and then they lost interest in us and started moving more into the woods.

The Banana Grabber!  (Arrested Development, anyone?)

One thing about Rwanda that’s worthy of comment is the foliage here.  It’s an extremely diverse range of plants, and Sandra keeps exclaiming that sometimes it could be mistaken for Australia (where she’s from).  This is largely due to the great number of eucalyptus trees, which are growing everywhere.  Apparently some Australian missionaries imported this species to Rwanda about a 100 years ago to help combat problems of erosion, and the trees took root and spread like wildfire (haha I think I’m funny).  It’s true that certain patches of the landscape here could easily be located in Queensland.  But at the same time, there are also patches of acacia trees, bamboo shoots, and banana trees.  It’s an eclectic mix, but lush and beautiful at the same time.

Our next stop is in a small village.  Everywhere throughout the village are signs giving praise and accolades to a man named Sine Gerard.  Rama explains that Mr. Gerard is a local businessman, who came from very humble beginnings and has risen to be one of the richest men in Rwanda.  He has used his wealth and success to invigorate the economy of the village where he grew up, and so now everyone is employed at his factories and stores.  He started out as a restaurant owner (making donuts), so many of his products seem to revolve around food, but apparently he has expanded into other industries as well.  It is here that we stop in a restaurant for a glass of milk.  There are photos of Mr. Gerard on the wall there, showing him receiving some kind of international award for community service.  He is obviously beloved by the entire village.  The restaurant is nice – white tablecloths and everything.  Since it’s 10 in the morning, the waiter thinks it’s pretty hilarious that we came in to order some milk, but he obliges anyway.  He goes into the kitchen and comes back with two glass mugs and a yellow plastic bottle that somewhat resembles a gas can back in the US.  From the large bottle, he pours a white liquid into a mug.  It resembles milk, but seems to be much thicker than the milk that I’m used to drinking.  Seeing how generous the pour is (and frankly uncertain of what exactly we will be consuming), Sandra and I tell him that we’ll just share one glass.  The milk turns out to taste like an unflavored lassi drink, or perhaps a very thin Greek yoghurt.  It’s tart and full of milkfat, and it turns out that I actually like it.  I could imagine myself turning this into a fruit smoothie for breakfast or something.  Sandra and I decide that it could use a little sweetening, so the waiter brings us some local honey, which tempers the tanginess and makes it easier to drink (whereas before we could only sip it).  I’m so glad I randomly read a blog entry about milk bars!  This restaurant clearly isn’t a milk bar – it serves food instead of purely dairy products – but otherwise I never would have gotten to taste this delicious Rwandan milk!

Does a body good

We wander downstairs toward the car and are enticed by the smell of an open barbeque.  Around the corner are a few kiosks where cooks are grilling beef brochettes, corn on the cob, and potatoes appear to have been seasoned and baked and/or grilled.  It smells DELICIOUS, but neither of us are hungry.  Sandra gets a grilled corn because she simply can’t resist, and I get a sambusa, remembering how delicious the one yesterday was.  It turns out to be a good thing that we had a little snack because we wouldn’t end up getting lunch until late in the afternoon.

Hot potato!

We continue with the drive until we get to Musanze, but continue driving because apparently we have lunch plans somewhere.  We turn off the highway and onto a bumpy dirty road, headed toward destination unknown.  Finally we stop at a lake, and get out of the car to admire the view.  Rama explains to us that this is actually one of two lakes, which are side by side.  One of the lakes is natural, and the other has been created by a hydro-dam, which supplies electricity to the entire province.  

Twin Lakes sounds like Twin Peaks...do you think I'll run into David Lynch?

The dam is made evident by the HUGE exposed pipe, which carries water from the natural lake to the other.  Apparently they’re called Twin Lakes because of the symbiotic relationship between them.  We snap a couple photos, careful not to photograph the area where the soldiers are patrolling the dam (because I don’t want to get shot today).  

My pipe is bigger than your pipe...

Rama points out the restaurant where we will be having lunch – it is a set of circular copper roofs located across the lake from us, and looks absolutely lovely.  We then drive around the shore to the dam itself, which apparently is where we will be embarking onto a boat, which will take us across the lake.  

Like Washington crossing the Delware...except not at all

The boat is basically a large motorized canoe and reminds me of the boat I took down the Amazon in Ecuador last year on my Random Walk.  It takes about 15 minutes to get across to the other shore, where we are greeted by the staff of the restaurant, clad in crisp white button down shirts and black ties.  It turns out to be both a restaurant and a hotel, and is absolutely beautiful as a venue.  There are manicured gardens surrounding the restaurant patio, but the best view of all is of the lake.  We have a panoramic view of the lake, the jungle, and the volcanic mountains in the distance.  Sadly it was still a cloudy day, so we didn’t get the full view of the volcanoes, but what we saw was stunning enough to satisfy me

.

Because without visible volcanoes, the view was basically terrible

We were the only people at the restaurant as far as I could tell.  As is common in Rwanda sometimes, there was no menu, but instead they just told us what they had to offer and we either agreed or disagreed.  In this case, they could offer us goat brochettes (kebabs), rice, sautéed greens, salad, and fries.  We tell them that it sounds delicious, and settle in to enjoy the view while we wait for our meal.  In true Rwandan fashion, the meal takes about an hour to prepare, but we couldn’t have been in a more beautiful place to wait.  I was a little nervous about eating goat – I don’t think I’ve ever had it before – but it turns out I enjoyed it!  It wouldn’t be my first choice of meat because it’s pretty fatty, but it’s full of flavor and tastes kind of similar to beef. 

After the boat ride back to the other shore, we get back into the car and drive to the hotel.  The rest of the afternoon is unplanned, since we have to be up early tomorrow morning.  I had some ambitious plans to blog when I got back, but as soon as I settled into my room, I passed out and took a much needed nap.  I really hadn’t slept well either night at the hostel, so clearly I needed it.  I slept from about 5 pm to 10 pm, and woke up cursing myself for letting myself sleep so long.  Oh well – gorillas first thing in the morning!

Tragedy and generosity

January 11

Last night I got in a fight with the mosquito net above my bed.  It is large enough that it goes from above the top bunk all the way to the floor, which means there's a lot of netting.  During the day, the hostel staff takes all of the netting and ties it into a knot.  The only way to untie the knot and distribute the net around the bed is to do it from the top bunk.  Being the graceful and coordinated person that I am, I somehow ended up wrapped up and tangled in the net and could not manage to get it to fall around the bed like it was supposed to. Eventually it was wrapped around my body and several of my limbs, feeling more like a straight-jacket than anything else.  Seeing no mosquitoes in the room, I decided to just give up and threw the entire net on the ground.  Good riddance.

Today was a heavy day.  We spent it touring Kigali, and (for better or for worse), most of Kigali’s tourist sites have to do with the 1994 genocide.  So today was sad in many ways, but I’m glad that I saw the things that I saw.  The events of that time period are nothing short of tragedy.  I simply cant understand how human beings can be so cruel and barbaric to each other.  But at the same time, my experiences here in Kigali have shown me that the Rwandan people are kind and extremely generous.  They love their neighbors and have moved forward from the events of 20 years ago with a renewed sense of community and social responsibility.  It's both sad and moving at the same time.

We started the day on a lighter note by going to an art gallery near to the hostel.  The gallery is the first of its kind in Kigali – it was founded by two brothers who are self-taught (but extremely talented) artists.  They created the studio as a collective to teach other Rwandans how to be artists.  Their pupils range from age 6 to 60, and in teaching them they are giving them an occupation, empowering them to express themselves and earn an income, and promoting the arts.  One of the proprietors – Emmanuel – was there and showed us around the studio.  So many of the paintings were absolutely beautiful.  I wish I could buy one of Emmanuel’s or his brother Innocent’s paintings, but they’re a little out of my student price range.  He didn’t seem to care that we couldn’t buy anything, and spent lots of time with us walking around and explaining the different paintings and styles to us.  I took his card and plan to contact him when I actually have a salary. 

Us posing next to some of the installation art outside the gallery with Cory (our friend from the hostel who accompanied us there)

As an illustration of how wonderful the Rwandan people are, we asked Emmanuel to call us a cab to take us to the genocide museum.  He gladly did so, but when we went outside and the cab hadn’t come yet, he hopped in his car and offered to give us a ride.  How sweet!  He was under no obligation to do so, but he is just a generous soul and did us a favor.  Or perhaps he’s just a very shrewd businessman and knows that I’m that much more likely to follow through on my desire to buy a painting from him later.  Either way, it was a very nice gesture.

The genocide museum was heavy stuff, so get ready for some sad narratives.  We started on the outside of the museum where they have a group of mass graves where over 250,000 people are interred.  That’s right, 250,000 people.  Many of these people are still unidentified, and they are going through a painstaking process of trying to identify all of the remains.  It seems like it will take years and years to accomplish this, sadly.  The mass graves were relatively unadorned – simple stone slabs.  A few had flowers on them with messages like “genocide – never again.”

After visiting the mass graves, we walked around the building to see the series of gardens that are there.  Each garden is chock full of symbolism about the country.  There was a garden dedicated to women everywhere, one dedicated to self-defense, one centered around the 10 provinces of Rwanda.  Most impactful for me was a series of 3 gardens all next to each other.  You start in a garden of unity, representing the time before the civil war.  Water from this garden flows downhill into the garden of division, representing the events in the early nineties.  We sat in that garden for a while, each on our own bench, and reflected in silence.  Finally, the water flows downward into the third garden, bursting forth from a fountain there, representing reconciliation. 

The fountain of reconciliation

Finally we entered the interior of the museum.  I wasn't allowed to take photos there but will do my best to describe to you its contents.  The first portion of the museum contained a detailed history of the genocide - its origins, influencers, perpetrators, victims, and repercussions.  While I vaguely remember hearing about the atrocities during 1994, I really didn't know that much about what had happened, so it was incredibly informative.  I'll do my best to summarize what I gained from this museum:

The origins of the tensions between the Hutus and Tutsis can be traced back to the early- and mid-twentieth century.  I had been under the impression that it went back further than that so was surprised to hear this.  The Germans and the Belgians were the colonial powers here in Rwanda (Germany pre-WWI and Belgium post-WWI).  Hutu and Tutsi weren't even popularly defined terms until the Europeans got here.  The designations were also not initially ethnically defined but rather socio-economically.  Hutus were the farmers, so they were poorer.  Tutsis were cattle herders, and therefore the richer class.  The monarchy had always been Tutsis (obviously because they were rich).  Tutsis were the minority in the country, but they were a dominant minority, having the most plum jobs and leadership positions.  Even if you were born to Hutu parents, you could be designated a Tutsi if you owned 10 or more cattle.  When the Europeans got here, their fascination with eugenics meant that they wanted to categorize and codify the differences between the Hutus and Tutsis.  After creepily measuring skulls and otherwise poking and prodding people, the Europeans declared Tutsis to be a "superior race" to Hutus.  That obviously didn't help engender neighborly love here.

In 1962 the Belgians gave Rwanda its independence, and the new country switched from a ruling Tutsi dominant minority to an elected Hutu president.  Times were a changin'.  This started a movement toward "Hutu Power" where the new government wanted to right the perceived wrongs of colonial times and redistribute wealth to the Hutus.  This led to persecution of the Tutsis, who started leaving the country when violence would break out (on a small scale always).  Over time, there became a Tutsi diaspora in Africa, with many of them living across the border in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).  In 1973, a military dictator seized power and further bolstered the "Hutu Power" movement, eventually building and training a militia under the principles of Hutu Power.  By the early 1990's, the Tutsis who had fled were sick of the persecution, so they pulled together their own army and invaded the country, sparking the civil war.  One mind-boggling fact is the role that the French government played in this war.  They actually backed loans for the Rwandan government to acquire the weaponry required to fight the war.  If the French had stayed out of it, the Tutsis would have beaten the militia quickly, and would have been allowed to come back into the country (which is what they were fighting for).  The genocide could have been avoided.  This is one of many occasions when the west totally effed up the situation here, making things worse rather than better.

The civil war raged for a while, with rising numbers of Tutsis being slaughtered. In the background, the Hutu government was planning the genocide.  They had put together "kill lists" of people who were to be murdered when the genocide started.  They trained the militia and indoctrinated the people with propaganda and things like "The 10 Hutu Commandments" which basically encouraged hatred and dehumanized the Tutsis.  The reason that the Hutus were so efficient at killing so many people in 1994 was because they had been planning it for years behind the scenes.  The UN was even warned of this threat, but did nothing.

In spring of 1994, the Hutu president's plane was shot down upon approach into Kigali, killing everyone on board.  No one has ever claimed credit for this attack, and so it's unclear whether the Tutsis did it as part of the civil war, or whether the extremists orchestrated it to justify the beginning of the genocide.  We'll probably never know.  Either way, within 1 hour of the plane going down, death squads were marching through the streets of Kigali, busting down doors and murdering people on the kill lists.  The violence quickly spread throughout the country.  Neighbors turned against each other - even family members would turn each other in for suspected sympathies with the Tutsis.  People were forced to die in the most humiliating and/or terrifying ways possible.  Some were buried alive.  Others were burned.  Some were forced to watch their family members being brutalized before being killed themselves.  Others were forced to kill their own family members.  Children were ripped from their mother's arms, and women were raped by known HIV-positive men and kept alive to suffer the consequences of the disease.  People who sought refuge in churches were massacred in droves, with even some clergy betraying them to the death squads.  The photos, videos and news articles in the museum were horrifying, with each story seeming more disgusting and brutal than the last.  It made me sick to my stomach, but I read every part of the displays anyway.

The only foreign country to put troops on the ground while this was happening was the French, and they managed to only make things worse.  They tried to create a "safe zone" in one part of the country, but all it did was allow the perpetrators of the violence to escape punishment by slipping away into neighboring countries.  The UN denounced the violence, but in the same meeting voted to decrease its presence there.  Other countries seemed to mean well, but were too slow moving to actually make an impact.  Over the course of just a few months, approximately 1 million people were murdered.  70% of people lost a family member, 80% saw someone killed, and 90% feared that they would be killed.  I can't even imagine what that was like.  The violence finally ended when the Tutsi army beat the Hutus - outside help didn't seem to play much of a factor in the end of the war.

The aftermath of the genocide is, as expected, messy and emotional.  Mass graves are still being discovered to this day.  Many people still don't know what happened to their family members.  Many families were entirely wiped out, leaving no one behind to register their names as victims.  The Hutu extremists didn't quit immediately though.  They tried to regroup and come back to kill the rest of the Tutsis in 1997.  One story broke my heart - they entered a primary school and told the children to separate into Hutu and Tutsi.  The children's response was "We are not Hutus and Tutsis.  We are all Rwandans here."  The  extremists threw grenades into the classroom and killed 6 of the brave children who stood up to them.  

The other exhibits in the museum were a mixture of sad and grotesque.  Part of the museum is dedicated to chronicling other genocides around the world, some formally recognized (e.g. the Holocaust) and others not (e.g. Armenia in 1915).  I learned there that the word "genocide" wasn't even invented until the 1940's with the Holocaust.  Another section of the museum showcased bones of the victims.  There were rows of human skulls and piles of human femur bones in glass cases.  Some of the skulls were victims of obvious traumas - gunshots, cracked skulls, or with large holes from blunt objects.  Another room held photos of victims that had been submitted by family members.  Rows and rows and row and rows of photos of smiling faces, people living their normal lives prior to the violence.  Finally, the last room of the museum was dedicated to the children who lost their lives.  The room showed photos of each child and information about the child, such as their favorite foods and toys, who their best friend was, and their last words. The youngest child in this exhibit was only 15 months old.  By this point, I'm emotionally exhausted and all I can think about are my niece and nephew, Addie and Cooper.  I'm so thankful that they are growing up in a country where they are safe from this type of violence, but am so sad that there are still places in the world where children their age have to live in fear.

We walked out of the museum quietly, not knowing exactly what to say.  I'm glad I went, but at the same time and so sad from what I learned there.  It's hard to believe that this all happened only 20 years ago - during my lifetime!  I've done a lot of research and reading about the Holocaust, but it was always easier to distance myself from the events because they took place in another time, to another generation.  With the Rwandan genocide, it's hard to make those rationalizations. 

Next, Sandra had heard about a church in a suburb of Kigali where some people had sought sanctuary during the genocide but had been murdered en masse.  We decided to take a public bus out there to see it.  At least I think it was a public bus - I'm still not entirely clear on how the system works.  We walk to the nearest bus station to the museum and find one that is headed to the main bus terminal in the city.  The bus terminal is the first place in Kigali where I've felt the chaos and pressure of other African cities.  It is EXTREMELY crowded and disorganized, and once we found the area where the buses we needed to take were located, we were swarmed by different promoters trying to get us to take "their" bus.  This is why I don't think it's entirely public - they must be privately operated or something.  We chose the bus that looked the nicest and least crowded, and asked when it was going to leave because we wanted to go grab food.  They told us it was leaving in 8 minutes, so we start to walk away and then the bus door closes and it pulls away!  Um...does 8 minutes mean something different here than in the states?  So we run after the bus and bang on the door and get in.  The people outside had told us that the fee was 500 per person (less than $1), but when we got inside the woman told us the total fee was 1100 for the two of us.  Given that the difference wasn't that big, and we're talking about pennies, we paid the 1100 but wondered if we got ripped off.  The bus ride was beautiful - taking us through rolling hills beyond the city limits and into villages where people carry large loads of goods on their heads as they walk down the side of the road.  

After over an hour (longer than we had expected), we get to Nyamata, the village where this church is allegedly located. The people at our hostel had told us that the church was easy to find - all you had to do was ask for "church" at the bus station and we would be pointed in the right direction.  Sadly, it wasn't as easy in practice.  We asked for directions from a guy in an official-looking "taxi" vest, and he told us he would show us the way.  But then he took us toward a series of motorbikes and tried to get us to get on.  There is a breed of taxis here that are motorbikes which can take only 1 passenger.  They're cheaper (and more dangerous) than taxis, but we had been told that this church was close enough to walk to so we declined his offer.  Unsurprisingly, he didn't actually give us directions on how to walk there.  We decide to walk around the town a little bit and try to find food, directions to the church or both.  We walk into a few establishments and are met with blank stares when we ask the question in English.  I suppose it makes sense that the people here in the villages wouldn't be as well educated in English as your average Kigali resident.  We were acutely aware that everyone we walked past was talking about us.  We would even occasionally hear the word "mazungu" which means white person.  The restaurants in town all seemed to serve large buffet meals, and we weren't in the mood to sit down and have a heavy meal.  With our blood sugar meter dipping close to the level of “hangry,” we found a supermarket of sorts where we could buy “sambusas” which are basically Rwandan meat samosas.  They were filled with an unidentified meat and delicious spices, prompting me to say that I don't know what I just ate, but I know it was delicious.

Refreshed and refueled, we set out to figure out exactly where this church that we’re trying to find is.  After being met by blank stares by several people (who clearly didn’t understand the question), we decide to concede defeat and pay the moto taxi guys to take us.  We approach a group of them, and once they realize that we are willing customers, they swarm us and are all trying to get us to choose them as our driver.  The frustrating thing is that they’re all quoting the same price to us – 300 francs (about 50 cents).  Knowing that you should never accept the first price you are offered, and recognizing this as a situation where supply was high and demand is low, we take the opportunity to negotiate the price down.  Sandra’s negotiation style is to start out with humor.  She announces the price we are willing to pay (200 francs) loudly and in a joking tone, so that they laugh, but then she keeps saying it until they know she’s serious.  My style is a bit more confrontational.  I start wagging my finger (as the Rwandans do) to their quotes of 300, and firmly state that we are only willing to pay 200.  Out of a group of at least 10 drivers, we finally find 2 who are willing to take us for our stated price.  I make sure to confirm that the price is round-trip, and off we go.  They give us helmets, but mine was way too big for my head, so I have a feeling it would have done more harm than good if we had actually crashed.  Thankfully the bikes don’t actually go that fast, and as it turns out we were only going about 400 meters up the road. It was good that we didn’t walk though, since the church ended up being off a side road, and given my terrible sense of direction, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have found it on our own.

You'll notice I'm holding on to the bike rather than the driver, since I'm pretty sure he hadn't showered in a while.

Unfortunately, after our rather long and meandering journey, the church was closed by the time we got there.  It was around 3 pm but on a Sunday, so I suppose we shouldn’t have been completely surprised, but we were disappointed.  The armed guard allows us to peek in through the windows, and we see a bare concrete room with rows and rows of dusty (and in some cases bloody) clothing stacked in piles.   The church has been turned into a memorial, and I’m guessing we are looking at items that belonged to the victims and were found with their remains.  It’s a somber and sad place, but I have to admit that after our time in the museum earlier today, I’m a little relieved that we didn’t linger there very long.  We found out later from a friend at the hostel that there was a mass grave in the back, which you could actually enter into as a tourist.  Apparently it was filled with rows and rows and rows of skulls and smelled of decay.  I’m kind of glad it was closed so we didn’t have the opportunity to go into a mass grave.

People's belongings, as seen through the window

We notice that there is another (much newer) church right next door, so we figure that we might as well go look inside since we came all the way out here.  There are about 20 people milling about, dressed in their Sunday finest, chatting with each other.  We walk past them and try to enter the church, only to find that all of the doors are locked.  Seriously?  It’s a Sunday afternoon for crying out loud!  One of the people we had just walked past calls out to us in (what Sandra tells me is) perfect French that he’s sorry but someone locked the church and left, and they don’t know how to find him, so we can’t go in.  These people all are church members who want to go inside the building, but they have been locked out due to some oversight or mistake of a church employee.  Silly Rwanda.

We jump on the moto taxis and go back to the bus station.  Once we arrive (a whole 2 minutes later), the taxi drivers (who have clearly been conspiring while we were denied entry to the churches) announce that we owe them 400 francs each.  Then they start asking us to give them 500 each.  They start to claim that the price was 200 francs each way.  Well, after the long day we’ve had, I am in no mood for someone to try to pull a fast one on me.  Yes, I know we’re talking only about pennies, but it’s not the money that I care about – it’s the principle of the matter.  Just because I’m a mazungu does not mean that people should be able to go back on their word and try to overcharge me!  I calmly place 200 francs each on the seats of their taxis, and walk away toward the buses.  I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this, but I accidentally took too much money out of the ATM when I first arrived, so Sandra and I have been both using my francs, and we will settle up later.  Anyway, because Sandra didn’t pay anything, the entire group of taxi drivers swarm her as she follows me, grabbing her arm and asking her to give them more money.  She politely asks them to back off, and by that point we have reached the area where the buses are leaving.  Now we are swarmed yet again by a group of bus promoters (for lack of a better term), who are all trying to convince us to get on their bus.  They promise us that the fee is only 500 francs to get back to Kigali, which makes us chuckle.  We again choose the bus that has the most space and is leaving the soonest, and are thankful to be out of that chaotic herd of people.

Once on the bus, the woman collecting payment eventually comes to us.  We tell her we’d like 2 tickets, and I hand her a 2000 franc note.  She gives us back 1000 francs as change and a receipt.  Hooray!  I’m happy that for the first time, the price we were actually quoted was the one that we were charged!  Funnily enough, she comes back about 5 minutes later and says “I accidentally gave you the wrong change.  Can you give me 100 back?”  We push back and tell her that we were told it would only cost 500 francs, and we show her the receipt that she herself had just given us.  She doesn’t put up much of a fight, and backs away to collect other people’s fees.  Then I realize what had just happened: she had accidentally charged us the regular price and forgotten to mark it up by 100 francs (as is apparently the standard practice for mazungus).  She didn’t push back because the extra charge is bogus and she just made a mistake and forgot to overcharge us.  Hilarious!

Too bad, so sad for her

The ride back goes more quickly than the ride out there.  The views were beautiful, as we drove through rural villages and through idyllic rolling hills.  People would wave at us from the streets as the bus drove past.  We walked past countless merchants carrying baskets of produce on their heads either to or from the market.  I like Rwanda :)

We got back to the hostel around 6 pm and headed out for dinner with 2 friends we had made at the hostel around 8 pm.  We went to a place recommended by Jean – Chez John.  The place turns out to serve Rwandan food with a few French items as well.  Sandra had been raving all day about the salad she had the previous night – it was just half of an avocado (which are double the size, half the price and have 4x the taste of the avocados you get in the US) filled with a vinegarette.  We are happy to see that the same item is on the menu here, so the four of each order one, plus some local entrees and side dishes.  One thing I may not have mentioned about Rwandan restaurants is that they are incredibly slow moving.  They could only be slower moving if the servers walked backward I think.  So, about an hour passes, and while we have gotten our drinks, we still haven’t even gotten our salads yet.  How long does it take to cut an avocado in half and put some dressing into it – 2 minutes?  Maybe 3 if you are one-handed?  Sandra goes into the kitchen to ask where our food is, and she sees the full staff of the kitchen sitting around and chatting. No one is working at all.  That explains it J  Thankfully, that spurs them to action so they come out with our salads 10 or 15 minutes later.  After that, we had to wait over an hour to get our entrees, and so by that point we all were just giggling and how ridiculously slow the service was.  I had ordered a local dish, a chicken brochette (basically a kebab), so I start joking that they must be hatching the chicken from the egg and raising it before they kill it to become my dinner.  Perhaps it would have been more understandable if the restaurant was busy, but there were only 2 other tables in the entire place!  The food, when it finally turns up, is absolutely delicious, so at least I can say that it was (sort of) worth the wait.

The garnishes were done with Jackson Pollack-level precision

The taxi ride home is another negotiation fiasco.  We get into the cab and the guy quotes us a price of 5000 francs.  I turn on my hard-ass negotiating persona and tell him that we paid 3000 francs on the way here, so he should charge us that amount (in actually we paid 4000 to get here, but we all knew we were overpaying).   He changes his offer to 4000 francs, and we keep haggling for a while.  Only then do we realize that we never told him where we were going! 

Me: (gives name of hostel and relevant landmarks to driver)

Driver: (blank stare)

Me: Do you know where that is?

Driver: 4000 francs

Me: But you know where we’re going?

Driver: 4000 francs

Me: But we only want to pay 3000 francs

Driver: 4000 francs

Me: How can you know the price if you don’t know where you’re going?

Driver: (shrugs)

We get out of the cab and Sandra walks into the restaurant to ask them to call us another one.  At that point, I remember that I have the actual address of the hostel in my email account, so I pull that up and show it to the driver.  He looks at it and nods with a glimmer of recognition.  By this point, we all just want to get home, and when I push him and say “so 3000 francs?” he agrees and waves us into the cab.  Hooray!

The night ends with a climax of the tension that had been building in my bunk-bed-ridden room.  The two girls on the bottom bunks were both part of some university program where they are coming to Rwanda to study for 2 weeks.  The entire group in this program is staying at the hostel, and they’re the type of people who like to sit around and talk about how worldly they are and how they’re saving the world by deigning to come to Africa.  Ughhhhhhh.  Anyway, so these girls have been very cliquey and unfriendly the entire time, but that doesn’t bother me because I have no interest in being their friend.  Anyway, when I get into the room, I notice that the mosquito net – my foe from the previous night – has already been draped around the bed, presumably by the girl who is lying in the bottom bed.  The problem is that she didn’t orient the net properly, so there is no opening for the ladder up to the top bunk.  I have to shimmy under the net and try not to step on the net (which is incredibly slippery) as I climb up precariously to the top.  Once up there, I lie down and the net is resting straight on my face.  It’s like a thin piece of gauze covering my entire face, making it itch and would be completely useless from protecting me against any mosquitos.  After last night’s debacle with the net, I’m in no mood to rearrange it so that it’s comfortable, so instead I tell the girl below that I’m very sorry, but I’m going to have to take the net down because I can’t sleep with it up.

Her: (stands up out of bed) “But…I think it’s there to protect us against mosquitos.”

Me: “Yes it is, but there aren’t any mosquitos in here.”

Her: “But I could get bitten anyway”

Me: “By non-existent mosquitos?”
Her: “Sometimes you can’t see them but they’re there”

Me: “Well it rests on my face and I can’t sleep that way.  If you'd prefer it to be up, you’re welcome to take the top bunk.”

Her: (grimaces) “Ugh, no”

Her friend in the other bottom bunk: “I have bug spray if you want it”
Her: “Ugh, fine, I’ll just wear bug spray.”

Me: “Ok, well if you change your mind I’m fine with switching.”

Her: (storms out of the room and slams the door)

Seriously?  Who is this girl?  I have to admit I felt a touch of glee from exerting my (ridiculously small) bit of power on someone who’s pissed me off.  Does that make me a bad person?  Eh, either way, I can happily report that I woke up without any mosquito bites.  Katie (1) Annoying Girl (0)