Al Jazeera's look into the genocide

This video and text has a lot of similar information as the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre that I went to last month. Check it out for yourself.

HIT OR SHIT - Rwanda Edition

Taking a page out of the Xaverian Weekly’s book (or paper, if you will – this is my alma mater university’s student newspaper) I will simplify this week’s blog post into a list as I am busy working on another writing piece already..

 

Lost camera – SHIT! Thank God I took the gorilla pictures and videos off of there beforehand! At the bottom are a few of the last pictures from my camera. RIP Nikon CoolPix, wherever you are..

Bringing a purse to a bar with no cover charge – SHIT! People just come to that bar to ambush unsuspecting people such as myself. idiot Good thing I don’t have much money and so TWO attempts and a successful one later, they only stole 10 bucks.

Rwandese friends who stand up for you after said stealing attempts and get the culprits kicked out – HIT! Rwandese don’t want you to think their country is ridden with thieves so they will put a stop to this whenever they can.

Whitewater opening – SHIT! Just because I am jealous and wish I was there…

Paperwork for Visa – SHIT! Who would’ve thought you needed 23498 notarized documents just to declare that you are ‘working’ in Rwanda, then to find out that to obtain the visa you have to pay the maximum price which is for people who are actually getting a salary in Rwanda. All of this even though you are working for FREE in Rwanda?

No running water for 11 days – SHIT! You’d think $300/month of rent would come with this somewhat necessary utility. Bucket showers for life.

Chapatti omelet combo – HIT! Almost like KFC’s ‘Double Downer’ in that this was pretty much a chapatti sandwich with onion omelets as the ‘bread’

Languages – HIT! While it’s fun being able to speak English very fast in order to trick your non-English speaking friends, it’s even better doing it by speaking in pig Latin. 

Nyama Choma – HIT! Traditional Ugandan dish that is just a huge slab of viande de chevre (goat meat) in the form of either the entire goats’ limb or ribs. 

Hashing –HIT! Not sure how else I would get to run through the Rwandese countryside.

Nature calling in the middle of Hashing as a result of eating Nyama Choma – SHIT! Obviously. Try finding somewhere private in the bush in the most densely populated country in the world, even if you are ‘out in the country’. 

Eating with your hands – HIT! This is the norm when you’re eating meat dishes in Rwanda.

Whistling – SHIT! Women who whistle here are seen as uneducated, so NO ONE does it. Except me. I can’t help it when Nicki Minaj gets in my head and just won't get out.

Eating while walking – SHIT! Also unacceptable in Rwanda. Must be sitting.

Canadian girls movie night – HIT! Hadn’t seen that much junk food in ages. Mr Potato (wanna-be pringles) treated us very, very well.

Two hour protestant church service all in Kinyarwanda – HIT (questionable)! Even though the words I could pick out consisted of Hallelujah, harico (which means however), and imana (God),the experience was pretty cool for the first half hour of singing and dancing… which was followed by a full hour of preaching. Needless to say I told my friend that was most likely the first and last time I’d go with him to church…

Nakumatt – HIT! The Walmart of East Africa, open 24 hours a day.

The price of Quality Street caramels at Nakumatt – SHIT! 13,800 FRw = almost $30..

The weather – HIT! Consistently above 20 degrees, I am currently working on my freckle tan outside of my house.

Lack of snow in Africa – SHIT! 

Christmas spirit in Rwanda – SHIT! See previous line. I think there is a direct link between the two for me. However, Rwanda is trying. There are Christmas lights in the trees around the traffic circles, and Nakumatt is selling decorations for ungodly prices like $30 for a string of garland.. think we’ll have to skip the Christmas tree this year.

Christmas music – HIT! I couldn’t wait until December 1^st. This radio website was calling my name.

Thinking about the food from home during Christmas and torturing myself by looking at marthastewart.com’s list of appetizers and Christmas baking – SHIT!

Invigilating exams – SHIT! We aren’t allowed read or do anything while we do this like our profs could at home.

Marking exams – SHIT! Clearly.

5 DAYS UNTIL X RING! – HIT!

Not having my X Ring on the first anniversary of this glorious event – SHIT!

Thinking about the candy-cane martinis and food consumption at Wighland last year during this glorious event – SHIT! Mmmmm finger food and candy canes mixed with alcohol…so unattainable.

Rwandese fabrics and tailors who will make whatever you want for less than $30 – HIT!

Playing football with men who think women in general don’t know how to play, especially white women – HIT! They were surprised I could even run let alone kick the ball with my right AND left foot… 

And now for some pictures:

Congolese Fish YUMMM

The epitome of African tourists

Muzungu Mafia.

Border to the DRC whaaaatt!!

Slacklining in Gisenyi

Moto burn v. 2.0

The closest I'll ever get to the DRC

Some beauties at the pier during sunset in Gisenyi. One of my favourite pictures

LA MUSICA!

So I just posted a bunch of videos from YouTube, haven't really watched any of them but if they are typical East-African quality, they are hilarious and full of fancy cars and bling. Not to mention possibly theee sickest dancers.

Anyways this is the music that we often hear at the club in Kigali, coming from the hiphop/R&B music hotbeds of Uganda, Kenya, Jamaica and Nigeria, mixed in with lots of North American music (that should read American music, except the abundance of Justin Biebs prevents me from fully excluding Canada ha!).

I think this is my attempt at distracting myself with other music so that I don't cave and start listening to the Christmas tunes too early.... I have my Christmas radio site  open and waiting but I. must. not. give. in. Vince Guaraldi Trio, why do you do this to me every November?!

So for all you party people, enjoy! And picture a craaaaazzzy dance circle going on around you while you listen.

Longombas - Queen (Official video)

Cali Swag District - Teach Me How To Dougie

Gyptian - Nah Let Go [OFFICIAL HD]

GYPTIAN FT. NICKI MINAJ- HOLD YUH (HOLD YOU REMIX) **HOLD YUH RIDDIM**

gnl zamba kikakane

P-Square Feat. J Martins - E No Easy

Eddy Kenzo - Stamina Remix Uganda music

D'Banj - Fall In Love

'Making Sport'... Physical activity: trying (and failing) to keep me slim since ‘88.

SO, here are a couple of quotes from some people in the workplace as of late (yes, we talk about many things that could be considered inappropriate to talk about amongst work colleagues in Canada):

‘Lauren,’ imagine a huge grin on the late-20 something man’s face, ‘you have become so big! What have you been eating?’ – Kenyan man in medical imaging

After explaining to him that this isn’t necessarily a good thing to say to someone from a Western culture, he said, grin getting even wider ‘Well, this is Africa. It is a very good thing here.’
Thank you, I guess?

‘Teacher,’ another seemingly inappropriate subject to be discussing with my students, but hey, TIA, ‘Your arms, can I have some of the fat off of them to put on mine?’ – fourth year BLS student

Thanks dude.

R tried to make me feel better by saying ‘pretty sure they think muscle and fat are the same thing here’. That’s what best friends are for I guess, keeping you delusional about your weight HA.

Could these conversations be due to my lack of physical activity as I was having to get to work by 6:30 AM in the mornings for the past two weeks to invigilate exams and then wouldn’t have enough time after work to go for a run before it got dark out? In light of these frank conversations, I’ll talk about the physical activity that I actually HAVE done, because although it hasn’t been much, it has been a memorable couple of weekends for ‘making sport’ in Rwanda.

The weather here is still hovering around 20 degrees, and although hearing about snow falling in Nelson and Vancouver gives me little pangs of jealousy, the heat is glorious and keeping my freckle disease in full bloom.

LAST WEEKEND in Musanze/Ruhengeri:
Silverback gorillas!!! Unbelievable experience. For a mere price of 500 USD, you can go sit with one of the gorilla families for an hour, and the money is contributing to their conservation and upkeep of the Volcanoes National Park in the North of Rwanda. We hiked into the rainforest for about 1.5 hours and then were greeted by 16 of these enormous creatures.

This 'little guy' was so cold!!!

A look at the family, notice all their backs are turned to us haha

Gorilla 2 m away from Robyn and I, such a flirt.

We were supposed to be at least 7 meters away at all times, but R and I had the chance to be about 2 meters from one of them.

 

They were SO human-like, and even better because they had not only opposable thumbs, but also opposable big toes! Think of the possibilities if we had those! All I can think of are the eating possibilities (obviously) because then you could hold a fork with your hand AND your foot at the same time. Yummmmm.

Hard to explain the gravity of hanging out with these creatures we evolved from who are now endangered so I’ll just shut up and post some pictures/videos.

The next day, R and I, with a neighbour of R’s from Newfoundland (small world I tell you), did a hike up the smallest volcano of the chain, Bisoke.

3700 m, not bad!

It was a steep climb up 1000 meters, with the oxygen thinning in the air. This was no easy hike, there were times we had were grappling up on hands and feet, not unlike the gait of the silverback gorillas. Four hours later, we made it to the top where there was a lake in the crater that the once-active volcano had carved out. This hike reminded me a little of the one I did in Peru last summer with Kaitlyn, Sarah and Evan, the one across from Macchu Pichu (Puticusi I think it was called?) Except it didn’t have those sweet ladders!

SO TIRED/ lack of O2

View from the top

The descent was even more bad ass. If we had thought that it was muddy on the way up, imagine what it was like when we were blessed with good ol’ African rains on the way down. Result: full-out bails with our feet swept out from under us. The three of us lost count after falling ten times a piece, and the porters and guide were laughing SO hard at the crazy Canadians not giving a shit if we got even more muddy and wet than we already were. Maybe wearing my mesh-topped New Balance 1064’s wasn’t such a good idea… but waterproof was only a relative term during this hike as even the most ‘intense’ hikers from France with their gators and full fledged hiking boots were soaked.

Them French people offloaded all of their stuff on this dude, who scaled the mountain unphased by the extra weight!!

Three hours of sliding down the volcano later, we were back at the guest house, ready to eat our faces off.

THIS WEEKEND in Kigali:
My friend Mark who is here with the US Peace Corps invited me to go with this running group that meets in Kigali each Saturday. Didn’t realize it was a Hashing Group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_House_Harriers) which, put simply, is a bunch of people who run around like mad women/men on a trail which you have no idea where it will lead you, and the only thing you follow are bits of shredded paper placed on the ‘trail’ every so often. Oh ya, and they try to trick you at ‘checkpoints’ and have three different trails snaking away from the checkpoint, and you have to figure out which one is the main trail that will bring you back to the start. There is a good chance you’ll get lost and then you’re screwed, but it’s kind of comforting that people yell ‘ON ON’ whenever they see another shredded paper trail. It was a great way to see the beautiful countryside just outside the city, and it isn’t often I feel like I’m legitimately running for my life so that I can keep up with the guy in front of me so I don’t get lost in the middle of nowhere. The locals looked at us like we were a crazy bunch of muzungus/a couple of Rwandese running around their farmland, which is exactly what was going on.

Seven and a half kilometers and one hour later, I made it back, where as a ‘hashing-virgin’, they have a beer for you to chug while they sing some crazy chant. In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea staying up the night before until 5 AM (can’t resist the African dance circles, it’s like having a bunch of Michael Jacksons, Ushers and Beyonces in one room) and the beer chugging gave me flashbacks to the previous night’s 4 AM beer drinking competition. But hey, nothing cures a hangover like some cross-country running! I was the first woman finished, only after four lanky hashing-expert men. Not that it was a competition (even though it always is with me…) but I say take THAT adipose tissue.

Anne MacDonald, I’ll have you know I played piano this weekend! Played is a term that should be referred to loosely here, however. Even though this took place at a party after a few drinks and the piano had about 40 working keys, Fur Elise was a hit. As this was my go-to song, I think I need to get back to tickling the ivories when I get home so I have a more extensive repertoire next time I’m playing piano in the middle of a party in East Africa.

Deportation status: Still waiting on the Nelson RCMP to process the criminal record check. I tried to get around this and go get my Visa anyways but I couldn’t fool them.. They also informed me that since my university diploma is in Latin (I think it’s because StFX used to be a catholic school/kind of still is), they can’t accept it because it needs to be in a language they can understand, so in English, French, Kinyarwanda or Swahili. The latter two are unlikely to happen, but how does one go about getting another university diploma printed out in English? Wasn’t $50,000 enough to spend on the first one? Come ON! Thankfully there was an English translation on the back of it, and after yet another notarization, we could use that.

Since I can’t play with the football team on a regular basis, I’m going to go get my fix today and shoot on one of my friends. It’s good to have a friend that is a keeper because we all know that no one likes that position except crazy people. Krysha, remember all those times shooting around this summer and last, and having to take turns in net, trying to save the ball with our feet… none of that here. Sweet!

Word up to trying not to give in to the cultural context that says it’s a good thing to be a big woman. My love for food, though, will never falter.

Much love, good to hear from everyone at home every so often!
L

PS Happy 6^th anniversary this week Chad and Les :) and Happy Birthday little Sach-man.
PPS Rwanda's first MRI!!!!Check it

Deportation Qualms..

Well, was going to leave this blog post for next week (when I actually will have something interesting to say as I am going to Musanze to see the Silverback Gorillas and hike up a couple of volcanoes!), but I seem to have created a bit of a kerfuffle on Facebook by my "deportation impending" status.

So. This is how she goes.

October 21st.
Email from the Canadian High Commission:

INFORMATION

  VISA FOR RWANDA  – VISA POUR LE RWANDA

This is to inform you that as of 1 November 2010, a visa is required by the Rwandan authorities for all Canadian citizens to enter Rwanda. Please contact the Rwanda High Commission in Canada * or get the form online at http://www.migration.gov.rw/ . Once the form is completed, the Directorate General of Immigration and Emigration will send you an email approving your request. Upon your arrival in Rwanda, you will present this approval and pay on-site the visa fee (≈60 USD). The visa will be issued at that time.

Easy enough, right? WRONG.

This seemingly easy procedure to obtain a visa, combined with my tendency to procrastinate (and apparently C, S, and R's as well, because we are all here as Canadians and failed to take this email seriously ha) resulted in it now being November 12th and Lauren (along with C, R and S) is sans visa, otherwise known as an illegal immigrant. Woo!

What is the deal? Why did this change all of a sudden? I remember the hassles people going through during our three-week orientation in Antigonish trying to sort things out for certain countries where Canadians required a visa before entry. Rwanda wasn't on that list then, so why the hasty regulation change? What happened with the relationship between these two glorious countries that now would leave me stuck in Uganda, unable to return to Rwanda, if I was to go there next week as I had planned? Stephen Harper.. what are you up to, you ol' dog you? This story on the Globe and Mail could be somewhat related, as there is no Canadian Embassy in Rwanda, and the closest one is in Nairobi, Kenya. Check out this link for yourself.

November 10th.
Eric Galbraith running around Nelson BC trying to obtain his daughter's criminal record check, only armed with photocopies of her ID and trying to explain that she is in Rwanda and can't be here to pick it up herself but it is an urgent matter (Sorry Nelson RCMP staff..). Eric also having to get his daughter's diploma notarized so that Rwanda knows that her degree is legit. Love you Daddy. What would I do without you? Be sent back to Canada apparently.

November 12th.
Police record check will take about a week to process in Canada. KHI comes through in the clutch and prepares all the documents needed to take to immigration. Who would've thought that the administrative duties on the Canadian end would be the limiting reagent in this situation?

So, if everything goes well at immigration in a week's time, we will have official working visas. If anything is delayed past November 30th, we are in trouble.

Bottom line is we will have to pay a fee for not having our shit together by November 1st, and that we will become legal again given that our criminal record checks get here on time.
So no need to worry, although I don't think that people were really worried as the general consensus to this issue seemed to be: "Well, that's kind of good news, because if you get deported, then you can have your annual Christmas sweater party after all!!" Thanks guys, but I think you're going to have to party without me this time.


Next week I will hopefully have pictures of me cuddling in the rain forest at 3600m with the King of the Silverback Gorilla Community... 

Happy belated Remembrance Day, and have a great weekend!
Much love,
L

"Did one of the Boyz II Men memers die? If not, they've gotta come out with another track ASAP." ~C.Lutes

Random tree at Reeb's office in Rwamagana, love how different the flora is here

Put me in coach.. Too bad I don’t know how to say that in French or Kinyarwanda. So I just waited and ended up getting 20 minutes of playing time. Pretty sweet, God that chick on left wing was fast. Those Africans and their fast-twitch muscle fibres, I tell ya. Probably can’t play with them again because of work and traveling but it was sweet (and tiring) while it lasted!

The mosque in my hood.

‘The Internets’

One of my brother Chad’s favourite sayings, the plural form of internet, has made it across the pond. It is always a topic of struggle, with the word ‘struggle’ being totally relative to many other sources of struggle in this continent, of course.

BUT, having said that, when was the last time any of you went without internet for 8 days? Okay, I’ll have to admit C and I have been cheating a little bit, and may or may not have sat at a restaurant that had wireless for 4 hours (read: 7 hours) straight just so we could download the newest episode of Gossip Girl, but who’s counting the hours anyways (hopefully not the staff at Shokola)?

You realize just how useful being connected is when it goes out at your workplace for over a week because of 'network problems'. Rumour has it that the bills haven’t been paid (FAIL!). TIA. Usually, I can keep abreast of all the latest news back at home via websites from the Nelson Star/Nelson Daily/Nelson Post (filling me in that the new Glory Chair is going to DOUBLE the area of Whitewater, WHAT!), The Vancouver Sun (informing me that Justin Timberlake just flew in for a little stopover to see his girlfriend Jessica Biel in Nelson, making my dreams since the age of 9 come true and then simultaneously crushing my dreams upon the realization that I am 14,000 km away from this. Don’t worry JT, I’ll find you some day.), and The Globe and Mail (tantalizing me with the most amazing recipes that are waiting to be cooked upon arrival in Canada as the ingredients in Kigali are either nowhere to be found or are 2342 times the price. That and we don’t have counter space in our kitchen so it becomes difficult cooking up a storm when you have to chop vegetables on top of your mini fridge and coffee table). But for now, this is leaving young interns such as myself and C, who can’t afford to pay for a modem because that would mean less Primus on the weekends, internet-less. Day 9 sans-internet has just commenced and thankfully I am going away to Butare to do final clinical evaluation of the fourth year BLS students, where there is a guesthouse with internet and (hopefully) a hot shower waiting for me.

Speaking of Jessica Biel, my sister Sydney was asked to be a double in The Tall Man and while doing this, invited Jessica to come watch her hilarious comedy show, Skidney and Sleazle (check it:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Skidney-and-Sleazel/134174223300394), at Oxygen last weekend. No big deal.

But enough about home!

Halloween

Reminiscing of all the effort we put into our costumes back home for the past 4 years at university, my personal favourite being cereal box characters last year (only to be shown up by the Manor Boys), C, R, S and I decided to take the easy route and ask some dudes on the street if we could have the shirt off their back. Literally. People stand all around the city wearing fluorescent yellow MTN (a cell phone service provider) pinnies selling airtime, because all cell phones and internet are pay-as-you-go type of thing where you just buy minutes. This is probably due to the lack of street addresses here to send bills and the fact that almost no one has a credit card (lucky ha!). Even when you put electricity into your home you can do it via text message (they call it SMS messaging here) from your cell phone!

So, the guy was pretty weirded out when we asked nangahe? (how much?) and pointed to his shirt. But, since this is Africa, he offered up a price of 2,500 Rwf for the pinnie that he probably gets for free from MTN. Fine by us, this was a $5 halloween costume! And not a huge deal because they wear a yellow MTN shirt underneath their pinnies. BUT. We needed 5 of them. The first guy proceeded to run up the street and grab four more pinnies from four more guys who wanted to make a fast buck. Two of them even sold us their hats haha. Anyways we were laughed at several times at the party full of westerners (who else, they don’t celebrate this strange holiday in Africa and most of Europe) when we said ‘Sistah! Sistah! Airtime?’ in typical MTN fashion. I almost tricked someone into actually buying airtime from the used cards we picked up off the ground… A couple of Rwandese friends came to the festivities and thought everyone was absolutely nuts. Why wouldn’t a bunch of white people dressed as zombies, cats or as a shower gather in one place on October 30^th for a party? By the time 5 AM rolled around, two (in some people’s case, three) bars later our MTN careers were over. And the sun was up. Thankfully I don’t have a picture of what we looked like then..

Other than continual power outages at work (KHI may not have paid those bills either?) and the concurrent four-day water shortage at our house in Nyakabanda (bucket-showers4life, until you run out of reserve water… then it’s no-showers-or-washing-hands/feet-and-no-flushing-toilet-4life), life is grand. Just gearing up for a weekend in Gisenyi (Northern Province, on the other end of Lake Kivu, the lake I was on when I worked in Kibuye) for an interview with a young woman, Molly, from CTV Saskatoon who is pitching a story to my, C, and S’s local newspapers about CIDA internships. She is here volunteering at RwandaTV, Rwanda’s only news channel. Why do we need to travel to do this interview when Molly lives in Kigali too? Well, considering the weather here is still 20+ degrees, we are going to fit in a little basking in the sun and swimming during said interview… When in Rwanda..

OH AND HOW COULD I FORGET: Was honoured to be asked by my lovely friend since we were babies – not you Corbin – Erin Speirs, to be in her wedding party next summer! Clearly there is some sort of love bug rolling around my friends, and I couldn’t be happier because a) marriage and love are happy things and b) weddings = party time.

I’ll post some pictures when I have more than just pictures of football games and food, which are two of my favourite pastimes but aren’t the most interesting of photography subjects. Speaking of football, my friend was telling me about the time he played against team Canada at the U20 tournament held last year in Lebanon… he’s 24… Rwanda is taking a page out of Nigeria and Congo’s FIBA ‘Under 19 Team’ book.

For now I’ll continue to listen to Boyz II Men Greatest Hits (thank youuuu utorrent) and be more productive than I ever have been because I don’t have Facebook beckoning me on my Firefox tabs… I don’t think office work is really in the cards for my life plan, clearly.

Happy one-month-til-X-Ring y’all (in my case, 11 months since X-ring.. I am soo old.)

Amahoro,
L