Day 7 – Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda

Today we woke with the roosters, and for a good reason! We were off at 5:45am to go hike in the Bwindi Impenetrable forest to find the mountain gorillas :)

The road to the forest was rough and muddy. For all of you Disneyland fans out there, it felt JUST like the Indiana Jones ride! It was a long ride and there were a couple of times I didn't think we were going to make it through the road in our SUVs, we were slip sliding everywhere!

Once we finally arrived we got out of the cars and noticed that we were missing one person. One of our colleagues had missed the cars because he was checking his email.  I felt so bad that he wouldn't be able to make it to the trip that he payed $500 to participate in (we paid for this ourselves as it was a personal activity). We had checked that everyone was with us a few moments before getting into the cars...but then instead of staying with us he had headed up to his room to spend some time with his beloved computer :) That was apparently a mistake.

We had a 30 minute orientation and information session before leaving for our trek.  When we got back to the cars to continue driving to the trail head there was a filthy little car waiting for us.  Who was inside?  Our missing colleague, Yiwu!  I was so extremely excited that he made it that I was jumping up and down screaming 'Yiwu, Yiwu!'

Oh my gosh, I couldn't believe that he convinced a taxi driver to take him all the way up the mountain in that little car....roads that our 4 wheeling SUVs could hardly even make it up!

During our drive to the trail head Yiwu told me his story.  He had left us just before we got into our cars to download something to his computer. When he came back down stairs 5 minutes later we were gone.  He immediately asked the super awesome girl at the front desk, Winnie, to help him find a taxi.  They called 3 taxis, all of which told him that he was crazy and tha they wouldn't take him up the mountain.  Finally, after 1 hour of asking different taxis they found one young driver who was up for the challenge.  Once they got to the really rough roads the car got stuck.  The whole thing was quite a specticle to the local villagers.  They were observing the situation. 

Yiwu got out of the car and asked if they would help him push the car out of the mud.  They said no, and that they would require payment for their help.  He offered them $30 to help him get it out of the mud.  After the villagers helped him he got stuck 2 more times, both of which times they helped him get the car out again!  By the time Yiwu and the taxi got to the entrance of the gorilla park the car was completely covered in mud...you couldn't even see the windows. LOL!

After arriving at the trailhead we started our trek up the mountain hills.  We walked past some of the most beautiful vistas* I've ever seen. There were green hills with cows and goats crazing on the sloap.  The valleys were filled with a gentle mist and small villages.  Wow, it took my breath away!

After hiking for 30-45 minutes we crossed into the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. For some reason I've been slightly obsessed with the rain forest since I was in 3rd or 4th grade and was so so so excited to be in the forest, let alone tracking the gorillas!

We hiked within the forest for about an hour before our guide let us know that the trackers had found the gorillas.  This is when we went off the path and into the unkempt bush.  Our guide (Wilber) hacked through the trees and vines with his small sickle. We ended up going straight down an extremely steep hill, walking on dead vines and trees the whole time.  This was the craziest hiking I've ever done! Many times we had to hang out to the giant fern trees for support, with their prickly stalks.

After plunging deep into the crevace of the forest (there was a little bit of uncertainty in everyone's eyes about how we would get back UP the cliff) we slowed down and were told to keep our voices lower. When I turned the next corner there he was!  Mishaya, the silverback of our gorilla group.  He was within 5 feet of me with no glass or fence between us! Holy cow, it was super duper crazy.

Once he got a little more comfortable with us ** the silver back walked back into the group of gorillas and began to eat from the surrounding trees. We saw a baby and two female gorillas also.

After a few minutes we were standing behind the silverback and he decided that he was ready to move past us because there were some bushes he was interested in behind us.  At this point he turned around and pulled hard on a vine.  He then came up right next to us (withing 2 feet) and showed his huge fangs.  Holy crimany...I don't know if I've ever been so scared in my life!  The guides told me after that this was his 'friendly' way of letting us know to get the 'H' out of his way. After that encounter I kept my distance, a nice big gap between the silver back and me!

A while later, Mishaya ended up in a tall tree.  I don't know how he balanced on such small branches, as he weighs over 300 pounds, but he did.  I also don't understand how an animal with almost a complete vegetarian diet can be soooo huuuuuge!!!

Apparently all of the babies in the group are the children of Mishaya, that's the way it works with the silver backs. One little guy was particularly attached to his dad and followed him everywhere he went. When Mishaya climbed into the tree the little guy wanted to follow.  Unfortunately, the trunk of the tree was too big for him to grip and he kept falling down from 5-8 feet up.  Soooo cute!

After an hour we had to leave our new gorilla friends and head back to the cars.  During our walk back it started to downpour.  What would a walk in the rain forest be without any rain?!? The way back was slippery and difficult.  We were all completely tired and fatigued, but it was worth every moment.

*vistas meaning views. I just thought it sounded cooler and more exotic to say vistas :)  That's what all the apartment complexes and hotels do, so I thought it might work for me too.

**The gorillas know that the guides are friendly and recognize their uniforms.  The guides also communicate with the gorillas with a deep gargly sound in their throats, letting them know that we're just there for a little visit, nothing too crazy.

Day 6 - Musanze, Rwanda and Kisoro, Uganda

This morning we had some time to walk to the market.  I went to a little craft store and got some gifts for friends and family.  My favorite purchase was a little African doll that I got for my niece.  I hope she likes it :)

After a lunch of pizza and pop we went to the hotel to collect our stuff.  Today is the day that we will be crossing the border to Uganda.

Crossing the border by land was super trippy. The Minister of Security in Uganda provided a letter to the border to make sure that our crossing went well (oh the craziness of working for the foundation). We walked from Rwanda to Uganda.  It’s fun to walk in no man’s land (I did a little dance).

In Rwanda they drive on the right side of the road, speak French,* the streets are impeccably clean**, the houses are mainly made of stucco, all motorcyclists wear helmets and it's illegal to pick up people who refuse to wear a helmet.

The changes were evident the moment we crossed the border. In Uganda they drive on the left side of the road, speak English, their is trash everywhere, the houses are made of wood, mud or brick. The motorcycle drivers did not wear helmets. There was even a 1 hour time change!

Wow, what a difference a few hundred yards can make!

After getting to the hotel I headed across the street to a local coffee shop run by some German ex-pats. After a couple of minutes there was a commotion outside and the German lady told me that the president of Uganda had come to Kisoro to thank the population for voting for him.  I said 'Wow, he's going all around the country doing that?' The German lady replied, 'Didn't Obama do that?'

LOL - no, he didn't go to every city in the US to thank us...but he did do a television broadcast :)

My favorite quote of the day was after my boss had ordered the goat skewer at the local restaurant.  We were waiting for the food to be prepared (it usually takes at least an hour).  When my boss saw a dog in the yard he said 'There's the goat skewer walking towards the kitchen now'.

hahaha.  Of course Ugandans don't actually eat dog...but it was a funny joke anyways :)

*they switched to English speaking earlier this year, but still most people speak French
**I found out that in Rwanda they have a national cleaning day every third Saturday of the month.  Everyone in the country is required to clean the streets and towns for 4 hours!  Super cool!!

Day 5 – Burera, Rwanda (again)

Today was a little more of the same. Instead of going to the cooperatives, we went to the homes of the Community Health Workers (CHWs).  These CHWs are elected volunteers. They are elected by a vote through their communities and are responsible for looking after the health of those in their community. If someone is sick they will treat them with simple solutions or refer them to a Health Center where they can see a doctor.

While we were walking to the village we saw children running and playing.  I always love it when I see kids being kids, because I think this is a sign that a country is doing well.  If a child can act like a child with few worries the things under the surface are probably all right (ish?).

The small village, that could only be reached by foot, was so clean I did not see even one piece of garbage in the walkways. The homes had fences made of cactus or sticks and the homes included little pins for their animals.  All of the cows that I saw were well fed, fat and happy!

Both of the CHWs that we visited were beaming with pride.  The first was a gentleman who has been serving as a volunteer since 2003. He put on his best sport jacket and welcomed us to his home.  He stood there and spoke about how proud he was to help the children and families of his village and was very excited to tell us that they have not had any child deaths from disease in the recent past (he couldn’t remember the last time). The second CHW that we visited was a women who had been volunteering for a couple of years.  The people of this region depend on agriculture for their sustenance. As one of our friends said:

‘Here the soil is so fertile.  You put a seed right here and in 2 weeks you have a tree.’

We asked this CHW how many hours a week she spent on the volunteer work and she told us that she couldn’t give us an amount of time.  She said that the amount of time required is increasing and that when she gets to the field she often gets an SMS (text) and has to turn around to see a patient. So, she is not spending all of her time helping people, but the ask for help is so inconsistent she can rarely commit any time to her personal work.

We followed that information with the question of if she is still happy that she is a volunteer even though it takes up so much time.  Her answer was definitive. She values her position because she gets to help the children and families of the community and she is happy to keep learning.

These kinds of programs have begun to spring up in many countries, but few have been as successful as here in Rwanda. Much of this is probably because of the cohesive workings of the government.

On the way out of the village we passed a church.  The doors were closed, so I couldn't see what was going onn inside.  But I could just imagine.  The singing, clapping and stomping was a wonderful sound.  I wish I could have stopped and joined in the worship, but this isn't that kind of trip :)

After the field visits we went to the new district hospital.  It was a super amazing building, although possibly out of place and obnoxious. It lookes like something you might see in a US city and made the rest of the surrounding seem even more poor. The average person in Rwanda lives on less that $1.25 per day.

Day 4 – Burera, Rwanda

We’re driving out of the city today to visit the villages.  While driving out of Kigali its evident how much hills have impacted the culture. We are surrounded by them. It’s lush and beautiful with tons of people walking the streets. The soil is this wonderful red color…their pottery must be red.  The homes are mostly white stucco or cement with a thin layer of red dust.  There are some brick buildings, but they are less common.

I love the way the women dress, in colorful and beautiful fabrics. Please don’t be surprised if I come home with some ridiculously bright blouses and skirts…who cares if they match. 

After driving a while we run out of pavement and continue on gravel roads.  It’s foggy in the hills.

I was AMAZED at the beautify of the country side. The hills were covered with different levels of flattened fields, they looked like steps that a giant would use. In some areas there were field of tea growing. And everything was sooooo green.  Amazing! There were so many farmers actively working. Both men and women (in many African countries the farming is mainly done by the women) maybe this is a trickle down effect of the obvious respect of women in the government.

I haven’t seen any stray dog…that’s weird now that I think of it. In all other countries I’ve been to stray dogs run in packs!  I have literally not seen one dog here, very strange.*

Once we reached Burera, we had a meeting with the Vice Mayor and other officials of the district (like a county in the US).  We met with them to hear about the health work in the district and the statistics.  After this meeting we grabbed our packed lunches and ate in the cars on our way to visit smaller villages and their cooperatives.

The cooperatives that we visited are opportunities for Community Health Workers (CHWs). These CHWs are elected volunteers. They are elected by a vote through their communities and are responsible for looking after the health of those in their community. If someone is sick they will treat them with simple solutions or refer them to a Health Center where they can see a doctor.  The cooperatives that we visited are opportunities for the CHWs to buy shares of this small business; this is one of the perks of being a CHW.

The particular cooperative that I visited had 120 members with 75% or the membership being women. When we entered the small building (which did not have electricity) they offered us seats and many people piled into this space for our meeting. The meeting began by the President of the cooperative talking to us about the status of the business.  He told us about where the cooperative used to be and where it was now.  How many members there are, what they sell, etc. My favorite part of his speech was when he started listing the assets of the company.  With the profit they have made over the last year they have purchased:

‘2 houses, chairs (you are sitting on them), tables, scale (even bigger than we need!), paper, pen, staple and 1 stamp.’

I love that he included the stamp and staple in his assets J

*Later I found out the answer to this. It turns out that during the genocide the stray dogs were feeding on the dead bodies in the streets.  Since then the Rwandans have had a very negative feeling towards dogs (rightly so!).  They do not have them unless they are very rich and use them as guard dogs.

Day 3 – Kigali, Rwanda

Wow!  What an amazing day. There are nine of us traveling from the foundation and then a few people from our local grantee, JSI. Today we had meetings with the ministry of health, learning about their health, vaccine and essential medicine programs.

Our first meeting was with the Minister of Health, she is awesome!  If I had the chance, I would intern under her. She seems demanding, funny and energetic…just like my boss now J. At one point in the meeting she ran out of coffee and signaled to one of her staff that she needed more. Her staff started to get up to tell the secretary that we needed more coffee and the minister said:

‘Sit down. What is this technology of using the foot? Send an SMS’ (an SMS is a text message)

This was so funny to me it took all my effort to not laugh out loud.

The ministry of health has been working with vaccines since 1998 and they are at iover 90% coverage!  This is completely unheard of in most countries. We got a chance to visit their vaccine storehouse; 4 large refrigerators and 1 large freezer that keep all of the vaccines for the country. They also have a huge back-up generator to keep the fridges going when the electricity cuts out (which happened 3 times when we were there for 15 minutes).  They are even already starting their HPV vaccination campaign for all girls in high school. This is soooo far ahead of most developing countries.

Rwanda is one of the only countries that are on track to meet all of their MDG goals.

While meeting with the minister she told us that she is personally responsible for answering to the president about the health goals. The president takes two entire days out of each month to meet with his ministers. Wow!  That’s a lot of time.  The CEOs of companies rarely meet with all of their leaders more frequently than once a month, and they’re just running companies, not entire countries.

Another interesting thing about the Rwandan government is that it has the highest percentage of women in office than any other country in the world. After meeting the minister of health it is obvious that women can be just as rigorous and hard hitting as men.

We also got a chance to visit the central warehouse of all of the medical supplies for the entire country.  The fact that they even have a central warehouse for the country is fantastic. We saw antibiotics, latex gloves, family planning supplies and many other things.  The districts of Rwanda put an order in every month and the supplies are then brought to them by a truck that drives all the way to them, which is also extremely unique. The warehouse is efficient and well organized, more so than most places I’ve worked.

After our meeting for the day, we had a 30 minute break and then we hosted a reception for the Minister of Health and 35 other partners in the area. It was a good event and after it was finished my stress level went down about 105%

It’s a good trip so far!!  Woohoo!

Day 2: Kigali, Rwanda

Please note that this post is just my thoughts.  If you would like to confirm the facts, please do your research.  These are my feelings and how I interpreted what I saw.

I woke up at 8:30am after getting 4.5 hours of sleep.  It was already warm out (actually it never quite got cool) and there was some humidity in the air. I headed down to breakfast and met up with two of my colleagues who were also already here.  The three of us were the first of the group to arrive.

After breakfast, we got out of the hotel for the early part of the day to explore the city a bit.  We started our day at the National Museum of the genocide that occurred in 1994. This is when the Hutu tried to exterminate the Tutsi from the country of Rwanda. The museum was really well done, informative, but not too gory (it’s always a fine line of how much the public can actually handle). Two sections of the museum stood out to me, in particular. 

The first was a video of one of the Hutu perpetrators who had been a ‘genocidaire’ in the massacre.  It was a video of his trial. He was explaining all of the murders that he had been involved in, including the names of the individuals.  He was so matter of fact, and even continued to crack jokes as the judge tried to get information from him. As far as I could tell (and I have about 2 hours of training on this…just what I saw and read in the museum) the way they dealt with the ‘genocidaires’ was in the culturally appropriate method of public confession and forgiveness.  This means that the Hutu who were involved in the killings are still in the same cities and towns where they committed the murders…living right next to the family members of those they had killed.

The second section that hit me hard was a room that was dedicated to the children who were killed in the genocide. The information provided was given by the living family members of these children, mothers, fathers, sisters and grandparents. There was a picture, the age of the child, some small facts, and the way they died.  For instance:

**Age: 4

Favorite food: Chips and soda

Favorite activity: singing and dancing

Best friend: His mum

Death: Hacked by a machete

This made it so real to me.  This little kid sounds just like my niece or nephew!  How awful to watch someone you love killed right in front of you. And the reason? They were born into the ‘wrong tribe’?!?!?!

Some other things that I learned, which I had not known are:

·         These groups were one people until Rwanda was colonized.  The Europeans were obsessed with differentiating social classes and therefore separated these groups into tribes that they created, the Hutu, Tutsi and Twa.

·         Many of the people killed knew their killers personally.  They were neighbors, priests and ‘friends’.

·         This only happened 16 years ago!  Meaning that people my age were teenagers when they witnessed their families being murdered!

After our time at the museum we headed over to have lunch at the Hotel des Milles Collines. We know this as the ‘Hotel Rwanda’, where Paul Rusesabagina boldly saved many from the genocide.

We were sitting at the ‘Hotel Rwanda’ in the beautiful sunshine.  All of a sudden the dark clouds rolled in and the downpour began.  There we sat, under the bar with a grass roof eating our lunch and watching the massive drops fall into the nice clean pool. The rain comes and goes.

While eating lunch our colleague told us of his experience in Rwanda just after the genocide.  He was here in 1995 to help put organizations back together after the tragedy.  I heard stories from him of colleagues who hid in the ceiling of their building for weeks, waiting for a chance to escape.

It’s amazing to think that it was only 16 years ago that this country was torn apart by the genocide of the Tutsi. Today the streets are so clean and crisp, all motorcyclists wear helmets (which is unheard of in Africa).  The rain comes and goes.

**This is a fictional child.  I did not write down the information of one particular child, but I did see all of these entries on at least one plaque…these are just jumbled.

Day 1: Rwanda/Uganda

Lufthansa has been trying to get on the foundation’s good side for years.  Which is why we get free upgrades to first class all the time.  Crazy, I know. 

The super crazy thing is that today I was sitting in the first class lounge in Frankfurt and who sits down across from me?  Will.i.am.* I didn’t get a photograph or autograph to post, but I DID get a conversation and a hand shake, which I very much prefer.

During my short layover in Addis I quickly remembered two of my favorite lingual things about the Ethiopian language: (not that I speak or understand it, but these are small things that you can pick up if visiting for a week like I did last summer). 

Their way of saying ‘Okay…yep…I get it…uh-hu’ is:  ‘Ishee…ishee…ishee…ishee’

They say it constantly and I love it. 

Another thing that makes me laugh every time I hear it (which is often) is when Ethiopians make short, sharp and audible inhalations during a conversation (similar to the sound an American makes if they hear something that surprises them).  This is like saying, ‘Oh, yes, I see!’ The first couple of times I heard it I thought that the person I was speaking to was shocked by something I had said, but then I realized that this is just to acknowledge that what was said is important and understood.

Flying out of Addis at 11pm local time I noticed that the ground looked like the night sky.  Some of the ‘stars’ were even twinkling.  After a couple of seconds to process it I remembered that the electricity is not consistent in Addis, and these lights were twinkling because they were blinking on and off randomly with the electrical inconsistency.

*When he first sat down across from me I had no idea who he was.  I had to wikipedia Black Eyed Peas after they mentioned that band name in their conversation.  Then when I was writing this post I first wrote 'sam.i.am' hahahahahah...what a dork!