ELEPHANT INCOMING!

Trip to Akagera involved this little guy:

Joyeux Noël! ¡Feliz Navidad! Noheri Nziza! Sherehe ya Krismasi!

That means merry Christmas in French/Spanish/Kinyarwanda/Swahili, all languages that I attempt to speak...This may be my last post of 2010 (SO WEIRD saying that, time is juuust flying) because on Saturday I am heading sans-laptop to the mythical island of Zanzibar, which, by the way, I didn’t know was a real place until I came to East-Africa ha! I just thought it was a made-up name from that Tenacious D song…

Anyways, people are asking what Christmas is like in Rwanda. To tell you the truth, I have nooo idea. I keep asking Rwandese so that I can give you back home an answer, but all I have been able to gather is that
a) they go to church a lot if they are Christian
b) they hang out with their family
c) they know what Santa is, but he’s a white dude that doesn’t come to Africa
d) there are no Christmas trees or stockings or presents or turkey and only lights on a few of the round-abouts in town.

So. It's quite a bit different than Christmas at home, where I still believe in Santa (hehe) and people ask me 'what I want' every year, and there are HUGE turkey dinners and I decorate my house for hours on end before the annual Christmas Sweater Party (have fun at it this year you hooligans, hope Shayla's fam is ready for it!!). It's this time of year when the girls of 29 Highland watch the Holiday Yule Log on TV for the last time before heading home after exams:

Merry Christmas Reeb, Jose, Ewin, Kimbo and Alex: ours was definitely NOT this sophisticated
with Blu-Ray haha but this is as close as we'll get...

It's also a time when I would read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve, then try to wake my family up on Christmas Day at 6 AM in order to watch the Grinch (cartoon version, obviously), open stockings and presents and then eat eggs benedict before heading out to the Miller's. YUMMM.

Obviously it was pretty strange for me yesterday when I was heading home from a Safari in Akagera National Park (which was unbelievable, pictures and video of an elephant chasing our Land Cruiser soon to come...giraffes, impalas and hippos, oh my!) and I was listening to my favourite tunes about chestnuts roasting, sleigh bells, and White Christmases from Bing, NSync, Sarah McLachlan, Sinatra and Mr. King Cole. No matter how many times I watch Love Actually, or the Holiday, it doesn't feel like Christmas at all. I think it's the combination of lack of snow, the lack of access to a piano so I can play hours of Christmas tunes, lack of a warm fireplace to cuddle up to with a mug of hot choc and cookies, and the fact that my roommate is as into Christmas as Scrooge was. Except unlike Scrooge, Caroline will not have a change of heart and become Christmasy. She is lucky that she embodies what Christmas technically is all about, being kind-hearted and how she appreciates the company of family and friends during the season, or else I'd have to move out HAHA. Even though I don't have any of these things, I'm not feeling homesick, because virtually nothing here reminds me of Christmas at home. It seems like this year, it might be just like any other day.

Anyways, this doesn't mean that it will be any more inferior of a Christmas than one at home, it will just be very, very different. December in Rwanda is changing my perspective about what aspects of Christmas are most important to me. Presents are not one of those things anymore, unless it is presents in the form of food...tee hee.

So what do I want for Christmas? Even when my parents offered to send me stuff from home, I just asked for typical food from home, turkey and all the fixings. Clearly this didn't happen haha. But some cards and a couple of gifts did manage their way here with C's mom (THANKS FAMILY, LOVE YOU!). But really, all I want is for people to send me pictures or descriptions in words of all of the glorious food and baking during the holiday season. And even if you can't do that, all I want is for everyone to be safe and enjoy the time with your loved ones. And to enjoy a couple of rum and eggnogs on my behalf. And shred some powder up at WH2O while you're at it, please.

So although I will be missing home and the Christmas spirit, I am starting to dread my departure date of February 25^th. Molly (from Sask) just left today and Reeb is leaving next Monday. I am getting a little preview as to what it will be like when I have to leave, and it's not looking pretty. It's a strange feeling, just up and leaving these relationships you've formed with people, especially since you don't know if you'll ever see them again.

C, S and I will be heading out on a 30+ hour bus ride to Dar es Salaam on Saturday, and will soon after be enjoying the white-sandy beaches, seafood and drinks in Zanzibar (where it currently 'feels like' 37 degrees with the humidity). Not bad for a Christmas holiday, I must say.

Well, 2010 was full of unexpected things and people, and I am so excited to see what 2011 brings (hopefully not the end of the world on Dec 31^st..).  So wherever Christmas takes you, I hope that you all enjoy it and think about what it is really all about for you! And that you have a Happy New Year :)

And in the good words of my main man Santa Claus:
"Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!"

Much Love,
L

PS Here's one of my favourites: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuTWA6SBupY

Happy World AIDS Day!

Here is a piece I wrote for my local newspapers, ENJOY!

November was a month that had me traveling around the beautiful country of Rwanda, hiking up volcanoes in Volcanoes National Park and tracking a family of silverback mountain gorillas. These touristy activities are the opportunity of a lifetime that often only the most fortunate people have the chance to do. Anyone visiting Rwanda from the Western world no doubt can look forward to these experiences, and I guarantee that some people reading this have even had the pleasure of doing them or maybe know someone who has. While I share in the awe-inspired feelings after seeing a lake carved out by a once-active volcano as well as a family of sixteen endangered primates, I would like to acknowledge a facet of Rwanda that I have witnessed that tourists who have visited East Africa, or Rwanda in particular, may not have had the privilege of seeing. In light of Wednesday, December 1^st being the twenty-second annual World AIDS Day, I would like to speak about HIV/AIDS, a subject very dear to my heart.

Common misconceptions of the virus in Canada:

“HIV/AIDS is only a problem in Africa, so I don’t need to worry about it here.”

“People with HIV look sick and I am scared to touch them because I might get it.”

“Only homosexual men get HIV.”

My own HIV/AIDS education came about when I was sixteen. One of my high school teachers at LVR was very progressive with her approach to educating us about the social impacts of the virus, bringing in locals in association with ANKORS who were HIV positive to talk about the virus with these impressionable students, most of whom would never have had any sort of contact with a person with HIV. When studying biology at St. Francis Xavier University, I learned in depth about the science behind the virus, however the most important lessons came through my involvement with a student society, Xtending Hope. This society’s aim was to raise awareness on campus of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa, and through this I witnessed both the passion to be informed and the apathy towards the virus of Canadian post-secondary students. I quickly realized that although students were empathetic towards the situation in Africa, they did not make the connection between the virus in Africa and the virus in North America. It was as if there was no realization that viruses do not discriminate between certain groups of people, they can infect in any geographical setting and people are all susceptible to them. This was apparent during our ‘Know Your Status’ campaign held at StFX where it was a struggle to implement anonymous HIV testing on our school’s grounds partly because of its Catholic roots. After we were finally given the go ahead to make testing available, only seven students were tested, one of which was myself. Although this was a huge step for our society, and that meant that there were seven opportunities for HIV/AIDS education and prevention of potentially spreading the disease, the turnout was a bit disheartening given the thorough advertising we did.

Looking back on my secondary education in Nelson, I cannot recall learning about the virus in the most important context: the prevention of transmission. I remember in Career and Personal Planning class in Trafalgar learning about safe sex, condom use, and STIs but not about HIV in particular. It was as if since 0.3% of the population has the virus, it was not really worth educating about. I beg to differ.

Now that I am in East Africa, the area of the world that has been hit hardest by HIV, consequently I was expecting the level of knowledge to be much greater than that of Canada. Needless to say, I was mind-boggled to hear the following questions:

“Well white people can’t get AIDS, can they?”

“People have access to an HIV vaccine in the Western world, don’t they?”

 “I heard if I have sex with a virgin, I will not get the virus?”

One can see the parallels between the misconceptions about HIV/AIDS in Canada and those here in Rwanda. These are not questions from street people who have never been educated. They come from casual conversation with some of my university-educated Rwandese friends. Unfortunate really, that in a place where HIV is ten times more prevalent than in Canada, the simplest knowledge of prevention and transmission is absent. Being in Rwanda has brought me closer to the virus, but only slightly. I now have a few friends who are HIV positive, something that I don’t have in Canada. The campaigns here advertising condom use and safer sex practices are inspiring, as are the number of NGOs whose sole purpose is to educate youth and the general population in order to combat the virus. But then again, you still have people asking questions such as the ones I spoke of above. This lack of knowledge is by no means a problem only in Rwanda, but all over the world. 

How can people be so ignorant and misinformed about HIV/AIDS? Easy. Just think about how ‘taboo’ the subject of sex is, and even more so the subject of risky sexual behaviours which lead to the spread of STIs and HIV. This creates stigma surrounding the virus, which is so influential that people do not want to talk about it, thus preventing education about HIV and subsequent attempts to fight the pandemic. I have heard first hand accounts of people attending churches in Africa where preachers, aside from condemning condom use, say that HIV/AIDS can be cured by praying to God. In the Western world as we heard last week, only now, after almost thirty years since the formal discovery of the virus, is the Pope endorsing the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV. No wonder HIV is still widely misunderstood.

I have only delved into the sex-related aspects of the virus, which is leaving out a whole other side of infection involving intravenous drug-users, mother to child transmission, and more. The combination of my attendance at this past summer’s International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria, on behalf of AIDS Free World (an American advocacy organization co-founded by Canada’s own Stephen Lewis) and my recent research into the education of youth about HIV/AIDS/safer sex practices leads me to wonder how many people back home really know their HIV status, or have even considered being tested. The UNAIDS report released on November 23^rd, saying that the spread of the global HIV epidemic is at a standstill, is somewhat deceptive. There are still issues surrounding funding and access to treatment, indicating that there is still a long way to go. The simplest way to combat the disease is to start at home. So I ask you all to question your own HIV/AIDS and safer sex practices education, and that of your children. On December 1^st, World AIDS Day, I challenge you to ask yourself, do YOU know your status?