The Weekend

I am writing for Saturday and Sunday, because I didn’t really do anything worth writing about this weekend.  We are settling into our new home in Kibungo and just took the weekend really easy and relaxed.  I read, listened to music, wrote, and watched a ton of movies.  In the last 3 days I watched:
Code Unknown – it was amazing, Haneke rules and is an expert filmmaker
Enchanted – it was awesome, I love singing
Michael Clayton – I thought it was interesting
Lars and the Real Girl – it was awesome, I loved its subtlety and theme of tolerance
Dan in Real Life – it was sub par, conquirk gone so wrong
Funny Games – it was alright, I appreciate what he’s trying to say but Haneke dropped the ball
Pride and Prejudice (2006) – it was still awesome, I’d seen it before

The highlight of the weekend, and only thing unique that wasn’t eating, talking or lounging in some form, was going out to watch the Euro cup finals.  It was in some hall and they had a huge projector set up on a wall the size of a theater screen.  The hall was packed with people, and watching a soccer final in Africa is much more exciting than watching sports in Canada, the people were going crazy!  They would do lots of tongue-rolling calls, imagine saying “la-la-la-la-la” high pitched and as fast as you can, and then imagine it faster than that, and lots of clapping and yelling.  Their clapping too is different, it’s almost like a drum roll it’s so fast.  They were so into it, and it was really fun.  Everyone seemed to be rooting for Spain, and after the game was over I asked Regina why they wanted Spain to win and she said it was because of Germany’s past with Rwanda, it had nothing to do with the team and everything to do with the country.  I think they were rooting against Germany more than they were rooting for Spain.

Oh wait, I remember one other highlight: On Sunday we were going to UNATEK to use the computer lab and check our email and do internet business.  There was a miscommunication and the lab was closed.  Lama knew of another internet café that had pay-per-hour internet on the other side of campus, so we made our way over there.  I didn’t have much to check so I wasn’t using a computer, I was sitting beside Kara. She was on my left, and on my other side was another computer being used by a group of kids, probably a 10 year old, an 8 year old and a 5 year old.  I was sandwiched between the two groups.  For the most part I was talking to Kara and watching what she was doing, uploading her pictures to Flickr and such.  But when she started reading messages and emails, I didn’t want to look over her shoulder and read her private conversations, so I looked away, but when I did, I saw that the kids to my right were looking at porn.  I almost burst out laughing, but instead just stuffed my knuckles into my mouth and put my head down and looked at the floor.  I could tell the kids were looking at me, and I was smiling and stifling laughter, so I think they were on to me, they knew that I knew.  I didn’t want to look their way and I didn’t want to look Kara’s way either.  So I was stuck between two awkward places and I just sat there doing my best not to laugh.  I really wanted to tell Kara, but I didn’t want her to look because the kids were wise to me and so I just secretly enjoyed the hilarity.

That was the lazy weekend and I’m looking forward to digging into work this week.

Isoko

Again I woke up in the middle of the night not feeling well.  This time instead of coughing, I had an awful headache and felt really nauseous.  I couldn’t sleep any longer, so I decided to watch a movie.  I put in Michael Haneke’s “Code Unknown”.  It was funny because I was feeling so sick that I was really scared that if the movie was tough to watch at all it might make me throw up.  I knew I couldn’t stomach something like Funny Games, and as a director Haneke is capable of anything, so I had no idea where the movie was going to go and was extra nervous the whole time.  In the end I thought it was fantastic though, and I wonder, is there a better actress than Juliette Binoche?

I fell back asleep after the movie for an hour or so and woke up at 8 am.  The three of us had breakfast and then we had a meeting with Sigfried.  We discussed our project and our plans over the next few weeks, the first steps we will be taking.  As I find with Rwanda as a country, the conversation was exciting as we talked about the unlimited potentials.  The scope of the situation here is as large as we want to take it, and it feels like we can do anything.  Hopefully that feeling translates into something tangible.

There is only market, or “Isoko”, two days a week here, so we needed to go and stock up on food and anything else we’d need for the next few days.  The market is pretty lively and hectic.  There are people everywhere, selling all kinds of things, and I think since everything is foreign, including the language, it feels extra frenzied.  Thank goodness we have Lama around to broker deals, but even still I think Kara’s and my Mazunga presence is a liability.  We get overcharged on everything, and Lama does his best but just us being around hikes up all the prices.  Luckily though, since everyone is so nice and friendly, we had people helping us the whole time buying everything we needed and then transporting it back to the house.

While we were buying beans, a group of woman were talking and laughing, and it was obvious that while not necessarily at us, had something to do with us.  Kara asked Lama what they were talking about, and he translated that they were saying that the woman selling flour behind us looked like Kara when she was younger.  Lama asked me to take her picture and she agreed, but I felt extra Mazunga taking out my camera.  Here she is though:

Once it was out though, some people were interested in having their photograph taken, as is the case with this guy, who took almost a minute to get his collar ready and his pose for the picture.  I had to say, “Let me know when you’re ready”.

We left the market and ate lunch at a café, and then went straight from the café to another lunch at St. Joseph as it was a professor from UNATEK’s going away party.  There was a ton of staff from the University there, and lots of drinks and food.  We met and sat with Casimir Museruka, the Vice Rector of the University, and I have a feeling we’ll be working with him again soon.  Second Lunch was fun, and ended with a whole bunch of really long speeches in Kinyarwanda that I wished I could have understood.  Lama said afterwards both speakers were very eloquent and had quite the way with words.

We went from St. Joseph to ETO, a furniture building place to pick up our beds and order a table and some chairs.  Again, Lama had to do all the bartering and I am not really sure why, but the process took forever to the point that Lama just told us to leave and he’d catch up with us.  Everything worked out, and our beds were delivered and assembled that night so we didn’t have to sleep on the floor anymore.

Regina stopped by the house and joined us for dinner, and she stayed and talked til about 9:30.  Once she left, Lama, Kara and I didn’t have much more left so we all retired to our rooms.  Kara’s sister had given her a whole bunch of DVD’s to take with her, and I ripped some to my computer.  The one I was most excited of all to see, and the one I watched last night before bed was Enchanted.  It was amazing.  I felt so good the whole time and during the song “How do you know that she loves you?” I was laughing out loud it was so awesome.  I fell asleep on top of the world.

Cynthia

This is Cynthia

Today was our last day in Kigali as we were moving to Kibungo for the next 2 1/2 months.  We enjoyed a final breakfast outside, and said our goodbyes to Dany and David who were good friends to us throughout our stay.  It was a touching farewell, I was sad to say goodbye, and Dany said we were going to make him cry.  I told him we’d be pen pals and that we would stay in touch.  We hung out outside until Lama pulled up in a taxi so that we could get everything in order before we left, and then we’d drive to Kibungo.  We had to go to the bank to withdraw enough money to pay for my 10 night stay at the hotel, sign in at the Canadian embassy, and do some house-hold item shopping at a market.

After all the running around and shopping, we packed up everything into the cab and took off.  I have no idea how we fit everything into that car, but somehow we managed.  Actually, I know exactly how we did it; I was completely buried under luggage.  I had my backpack under my feet and two bags on my lap.  Even though we were getting a private drive to Kibungo, we managed to have less room than the mini-bus.  I couldn’t really move, but since I was busy taking pictures of the gorgeous country-side, I wasn’t paying attention to exactly how much pain my legs were in.

When we arrived in Kibungo, we had even more shopping to do and we decided to capitalize on the fact we had Cassim, our driver, with us anyway.  We had to get Lama a mattress and we had to get bare necessities like water, fruit and a little food.  The market was closed so we were pretty limited on what we could get, but we did our best.  By the time we got to our house and unloaded our stuff and set it up in our rooms, we were beat.  There were lots of people at our house too, so it was quite festive.  There was Francis, his mother Betty, Kad, Charles, Solange, Sigfried, Lama, Kara, myself, and Regina’s charming little daughter Cynthia.  The group of us were all hanging out on the patio drinking Mutzig and talking.

Kara and I were taking pictures throughout the night and showing people how to use the cameras, and Kara asked Cynthia if she wanted to take a picture.  She was very shy and she said no.  Eventually though, Kara showed Cynthia pictures that had been taken of her on the LCD and that excited her a lot.  After seeing the immediate fun of digital photography, she was off taking pictures of her own.  She must have shot over one hundred pictures between both of our cameras.  Not only was she shooting lots, but what she was shooting was actually good.  She took this amazing photo of me looking at pictures on my camera:

I think that conceptually she’s ready to attend Emily Carr.  She understood how to use the camera quickly too, despite her not speaking English and us not being able to describe how to use it.  Plus she’s five, but that really didn’t stop her.  Everything about Cynthia behind the camera thrilled me – how much fun she was having, seeing her creativity come to life before my eyes, and how we were sharing knowledge and ideas without actually speaking.  It has probably been the highlight of my trip thus far.

After everyone had gone home, we had a late dinner and you could measure the amount of fatigue between the three of us by the amount of silence.  We basically just ate our food and all agreed we were tired and went to bed.  I listened to some music as I lay down, but I was asleep within 2 songs.

Mefloquine

Mefloquine is my Malaria medication I have been prescribed to take while I am in Rwanda.  It is a weekly medication, so Tuesdays are my “drug day”.  I forgot to take it all day yesterday, and remembered in the evening.  You are not supposed to mix with alcohol either, although I don’t know how much time that means between alcohol and the medication.  Anyway, I had had one beer at dinner, and then ended up taking the pill right before I went to sleep.

I would now like to quote the wikipedia article regarding the medication: “Mefloquine may have severe and permanent adverse side-effects. It is known to cause severe depression, anxiety, paranoia, aggression, nightmares, insomnia, seizures, peripheral motor-sensory neuropathy,^[2] vestibular (balance) damage and central nervous system problems.”  I bolded nightmares, because “vivid dreams” are described on the packaging as possible side effect, and I think it is safe to say the side effects are taking affect on me.

Last night was the CRAZIEST night of my life.  My dreams felt REAL.  They were so tangible and crystal clear.  That isn’t necessarily so bad, in fact it’s really interesting, but at one point in my dreams I was murdered (not fun), and then I was wandering around in some sort of purgatory.  I was even thinking “This has to be a dream, this can’t be real, I can’t be dead” but then because of the lucidity of the dream I thought “No, this is way too real to be a dream.  This is actually happening”.  It was terrifying.

After I woke up, it probably took me ten minutes to realize I was lying in my bed, it had been a dream, and I was actually in a hotel in Rwanda.  Even once I had consciously recognized my surroundings I couldn’t really adjust to reality.  The night felt like it had lasted over a week too.  Having dinner with Lama and Kara and then going to sleep felt so distant.  It was unlike anything else, but I can’t actually bring myself to conclude I didn’t like it.

I’ll have to see how the side-effects progress; if they actually get worse or extend beyond only having intense dreams or not.  I don’t mind the vivid dreams but I would like to avoid permanent psychological damage.  At least at this point, it seems that Tuesdays nights are going to be interesting.

Conference – Day 2

The second day of the conference was quite different from the first.  Yesterday we saw a lot of presentations by Doctors and PHD students who have researched problems and solutions in Rwanda and their potential application.  It was the sharing of knowledge and ideas and it felt constructive.  Today, we sat and listened to the MC drone on and on and on.  He is very abrasive and grating, and tells long drawn out anecdotes-as-analogies that do not make sense, and while intended to be humorous actually just frustrated and offended me.  At one point I was actually plugging my ears because he was shouting such worthless comments into his microphone that I couldn’t stand listening and it was physically hurting my ears.

Thankfully, we split back into our groups from the day before and we were back into constructive, positive, progressive mode and I enjoyed myself again.  Within the sharing of our ideas and working together, there was a great deal of laughter and I was contributing a lot more since we were talking about the role of Art and Culture in Rwanda.  We stayed in our groups until the end of the day.

While we were waiting for a cab driver to arrive to the hotel and pick us up, Lama, Kara and I sat outside in the beautiful backyard patio of the Novotel to sit and talk.  When he arrived thirty minutes later, we decided to move the conversation back to our hotel in Nyamirambo and have dinner there.

The patio was deserted, Kara grabbed a candle, and thanks to the very gradual food preparation of the restaurant, we had plenty of time to keep talking and enjoy the beautiful, warm evening.  We spent a few hours having another engaging, sprawling dialog and as it became late and the exhaustion sunk in, we parted ways and I might have been asleep before Lama made it out of the hotel.

Conference – Day 1

I had a rough sleep last night, going to bed quite late, and waking up really early (2 am) in a coughing fit.  I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I watched Joe Dante’s “The Second Civil War”.  Pretty funny parts and I found it is still, if not more, relevant today than when it was made.  I think I fell back asleep for 15 minutes before my alarm went off and I had to get ready for the first day of the conference.  Kara and I ate breakfast, which was quite slow arriving, and we were a little late getting out of our hotel and on our way.

Lama and I have never actually traveled by public transport before 9 am, and it was actually really busy at 7.  Lots of vans didn’t have room for any of us, and finally when an empty taxi-van showed up, there was a frenzied dash to pile inside, and Lama and Kara made it but I didn’t.  I waved goodbye as they drove away and waited for the next one.  We met up easily enough downtown and then all transferred onto the next taxi to take us to the hotel.

The conference we are attending for the next three days is “Impacting Socio-Economic Change in Africa through Knowledge, Science and Research” and it was really fascinating.  I am not a scientist, researcher, African or Rwandan, so I have very little to contribute to any conversation or group discussion.  However, for the very same reasons, I have a lot to learn.  So I just sit quietly and pay attention.  The one thing that most impresses me about the conference, and everything I’ve experienced thus far in Rwanda, is how passionate and enthusiastic these people are about changing their country and improving the lives of the people that live here.  They have an entirely different perspective on the word “humanity” to me.  They modestly and honestly are asking, “What is wrong with Rwanda, and how do we fix it?” and they are brainstorming and converging and collaborating to solve these problems they are identifying, and the excitement and potential is palpable.  They are so genuine in their pursuit of “changing the world” and it is inspiring.  I feel it is daunting to even decide where to begin implementing change in anything, but here I can see tangible action and something that resembles the foundations of change.  I really believe they can do it.  How come nobody feels this way in and about Canada?

The conference ran quite late, there was cocktails and mingling afterwards.  I took a moto-taxi home, and decided to film (in video) the ride home.  Some of the footage looked great at the time, so I might be editing together something from it.  I fell asleep within minutes of returning to the hotel.

Rwanda R&R

My morning routine was the same, except with a few minor differences that I will note.  1) My shower had some warmth today, it wasn’t entirely ice cold.  I wasn’t positive if I was getting used to the cold or it actually was warming up, but by the end, it was pleasant. 2) There was Sunday mass right across the street from my patio, so while eating, reading and lounging on my patio I got to hear AMAZING gospel song.  They were really belting it out, and there were instruments and everyone clapping and it sounded really good.  They must have been having a lot of fun too, because they went all day long.  They started by 7 am, perhaps earlier, and they were dismissed at around 3 in the afternoon.

I know for a fact that it was one long continual mass and not several because I myself never left the patio.  I watched a movie out on it, I wrote, I read, I stayed there all day.  Regina, the student and niece of Sigfried we met yesterday was in town and she stopped by the hotel to pick up her laptop that Kara brought with her from Canada.  Kara has also switched from the Novotel to my hotel.  So once Regina arrived, the three of us ate lunch and had drinks on the patio, and continued the lounging.  Eventually I thought it’d be fun to play a game, and I got the dice I brought with me and we taught Regina how to play Yahtzee.  I explained the joy of playing Yahtzee for punishments but Kara and Regina weren’t having it, so we just played straight up.  It was still really fun.

After Regina left, I thought it would be fun to take Dany to the cinema to see a movie.  He thought that maybe he could go, but he’d have to wait til about 6 to find out.  Kara wasn’t feeling to hot and Dany had to work so we decided to retire to our rooms and wait until 6pm.  I finished reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (which is quite possibly my favorite book I’ve ever read, no joke), so now I am reading Steven Pinker’s “How the Mind Works”.  It is excellent already, and the only negative is that it is a pdf on my laptop and not a physical copy of a book.  I read that until 6 pm and went to see who wanted to go the cinema.  Kara still didn’t feel good and didn’t want to, and Dany wasn’t able to leave work.  We had to settle for a back up plan.

The back up was finally getting around to watching Buster Keaton’s Our Hospitality.  The film was great and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but what I enjoyed even more was how much Dany loved it.  Within about 10 seconds of Buster Keaton appearing, he was laughing.  He managed to say, “Oh my god, he’s a comedian!!” through his boughts of laughter.  It was so much fun, and once it ended Dany had to get back to work and I was exhausted enough to fall right asleep.

Back to Kibungo

Today we were going to Kibungo again, so that we could get some living arrangements in order and so that Kara could see the place.  We went to the bus depot early to get good seats, and Lama had to go to the bank first so Kara and I were just going to meet him there.  We bought our tickets and got into the bus and were sitting and waiting, and by the time Lama arrived all the seats had sold out!  So we got our tickets transferred to the 11 am bus and waited for good seats.  The good seats are up front where there is actually space and legroom, and there is room for 2 besides the driver.  Lama is much taller than me, and Kara has back problems from a car accident, so I gladly volunteered to sit in the back.  The drive there, as usual, was beautiful.

Once we got there, we met with Sigfried, had a quick drink, which was Fanta, because I’ve learned not to drink a huge beer first thing off the bus from Kigali when I am thirsty and hungry.  We stopped by the house and met with Charles, our landlord.  He didn’t have the keys, so we decided we’d head out and get some lunch.  We were all grabbing moto-taxis, and while I was waiting for mine, a student who Sigfried knew pulled over to say hi and ended up just giving me a ride downtown.  He refused to let me pay him, and Kara didn’t have any small bills to pay her driver, so he pitched in and payed half of her fair too!  So Sigfried, Lama, Kara, this kind student who I never actually caught his name, and myself ate lunch.

After lunch we went shopping, we were going to buy kitchen supplies and basic necessities for our house for the next three months.  Sigfried, Lama, and the Kind Student were negotiating all our prices and things we needed, and since the shops were basically a counter and supplies behind it, I just stayed outside.  In Kigali, no one really pays too much attention to me.  I am an outsider, but it’s no big deal.  In Kibungo, I am an alien.  Kids would crowd around and stare at me, and when others saw the crowd, would come see what the big deal was and join in.  It didn’t bother me at all, but I simply didn’t know how to react, I just didn’t know what to do being stared at.  The way when someone asks, “How are you?” and I like to be able to say “I am fine, thank you”,  I would like to know the proper way to behave when you are stared at for 20 minutes solid.  I would talk to the kids in basic French, asking their name and telling them mine, but inevitably always explaining “Je parlez une petit peu francais”.  Later I heard Lama say that the kids would actually say, “Hey, there’s white people, let’s go look!”

After we had the shopping sorted out, we went back to the house.  We met Regina, Charles’ daughter and Sigfried’s niece, and Kat and Irene (pictured), and they were great.

The group of us just sat out on the patio of our house (pictured) and watched the sun set while we waited for the bus.  I was very relaxed and happy.

The drive back to Kigali, as usual, was cramped and miserable.  I waited with Kara for her personal cab driver Laurent to pick her up from downtown, and once she left I hopped on a moto-taxi.

As I was coming back into my hotel, I remembered there is also a sauna and massage attached to it.  I was so stiff and sore from the ride back to Kigali and my neck was killing me, so I decided I would get a massage.  It cost me $6 and it was the best massage I’ve ever had.  I also found it personally hilarious because she even massaged my feet and toes and I was laughing and giggling because it tickled so much!  And then I would laugh harder at the situation of me trying not to laugh, and it was a vicious cycle of laughter.  Normally, I don’t mind social awkwadness like that, but since I don’t know the Kinyarwanda word for “ticklish” it was more awkward than usual.  Anyway, I went to bed feeling amazing.

Mazunga

Last night, staying up to watch the soccer game was the latest I’ve stayed up yet, around 9 pm.  So when I woke up at 5 am, I wasn’t really feeling like getting out of bed.  I looked out the window, and it was really hazy outside.  Kigali is kind of smoggy some days, I don’t know where it comes from, but regardless, it wasn’t spectacular outside so it wasn’t enough to entice me out of bed.  I went back to sleep until 8 am.

After breakfast, Lama, Kara and I were all meeting at Union Trade Center downtown.  While I was waiting for Lama to stop by and pick me up (he lives further down the same road as my hotel, so I’m on the way), a little boy came up to me and pointed at the water bottle I was holding.  I assumed that meant he was thirsty, or at the very least wanted to see it.  I handed it to him and he drank the entire thing in one breath, handed me the bottle saying “Merci!” and ran away waving.  He was obviously thirstier than I was.  Less than a minute later, Lama arrived on my preferred method of transportation, so I flagged down one behind him and we were off.  Lama and I were late getting there, so Kara was already having coffee at the Bourbon Cafe when we arrived.  We hung out there for quite awhile, just discussing anything.  We would talk about the project, our lives, Rwanda, and move back and forth through all the topics because right now, they all seem to be the same thing.

We left and walked to some restaurant for lunch.  I would say it was fancy, and there were lots of other “Mazungas” hanging out there too.  Mazunga is what all the kids call me all the time, and Lama explained what it meant: It comes from when Europeans first arrived, and the Africans noticed that the white people didn’t work so much as walk around and tell other people to work.  Lama says it’s not derogatory, it has become kind of a status word where you have enough money that you don’t have to work, you can be lazy and do what you want.  I’d like to think it’s comparable to the english words “rockstar” or “celebrity”, but really, I can tell when these kids are saying it to me they mean “whitey”.  Anyway, lunch was nice and we basically just kept the conversation going while we ate.  We also had the most delicious beverages ever, some sort of passionfruit drink.

After that, Kara and I went to the bank to get out some more money since we’re heading to Kibungo tomorrow to rent our house and buy furniture for it, so we needed the cash for three months rent up front.  The bank wasn’t too easy, but eventually we sorted things out.  Lama had other meetings to attend to, so Kara and I cabbed to the Canadian embassy to register with the Canadians abroad registry, so that if the political situation changes at all they will know where I am and how to extract me.  Well hopefully they know how to extract me already, and I’m just letting them know where I am.  I think it’s a good idea, if something crazy happens it’d be nice to have Canada looking for me, and besides, how much did I love getting in a cab and saying “take me to the Canadian embassy!”?  The answer is a lot, which is good, because it was closed when we got there so I’ll get to say it again on Monday.

Since we were near Kara’s hotel, we decided we’d just head there and hang out.  She wanted to swim, I wanted to read, we’d both check our email and I had nothing to do anyway.  And that’s exactly what we did.  As it got dark and we were still hanging out on the restaurant patio, a band set up and started playing great covers and just good jazz.  We drank some beers, listened to the music, and when we got hungry ate dinner there.  Since Dany still wants to see Buster Keaton and I was getting pretty tired, I decided I would head back to my hotel.  Kara’s hotel is actually pretty far from mine, and all that means is a way longer motorcycle ride.  This driver has been the best yet too; he drove so fast, weaved through traffic like a pro, and basically drove the thing like I would have if they let me drive.

I got to the hotel and saw if Dany was free to watch a movie, and it turns out he wasn’t able to.  I watched a movie alone and went to sleep.

Kara Arrives

Again my routine stayed in tact as I woke up at 5 am and headed out to the patio for a read over breakfast. Once I was done eating, I talked with Dany, a member of my hotel staff for a nearly two hours until Lama came to pick me up and go to the airport. Since I called this blog “People, Places, Things.”, I decided I will dedicate entire posts to people as well, and Dany will be my first. It’s just harder to write about people I find than events, so that will come later. Anyway, Lama was running late, and since it would take several transfers to bus to the airport, he just showed up in a taxi and that’s how we went to pick up Kara.

Airports are always interesting to me, people saying goodbye and being reunited, but somehow the Kigali airport managed to be the best I’ve ever been in. I saw Kara coming through security, and I waved, but then she was stopped by a guard and had to go back. I didn’t know what happened, but I am so glad that she was delayed, because while I kept waiting, I saw the greatest airport scene ever: A man, not too old, but aging with some gray hair, came out, and when by my best guess of his wife saw him, she was overcome with emotion. She burst out laughing and crying at the same time, and ran to him. She gave him the biggest hug and he had to support her she was so affected. A bunch of children ran to him too, and everyone was just so happy. I don’t know how long they had been apart, in fact I don’t know a single circumstance about what I saw, I just know that I myself became so happy just watching them. Kara eventually made it through, and it turns out a bag she was given to bring had exploded, and the contents were covered in lotion and shampoo and was therefore wrapped up in either London or Nairobi, and the airport security wouldn’t let her leave with a wrapped suitcase (for whatever reason).

The three of us headed to her hotel, checked her in, had lunch, and then headed downtown, and we hung out at the Bourbon Cafe, aka Rwandan Starbucks for most of the afternoon. Kara was exhausted from her 30 hours of traveling but wanted to try to stay up to get her schedule straight. After she had fought off exhaustion as long as she could, we all parted ways, and after Lama and I saw Kara safely in a cab, I was motorcycle taxi-ing my way home. Here is a stupid little video I put together as a result of the ride, so you can kind of get a feel for what it’s like to motorcycle through Kigali. The song I included is the song I ALWAYS hear in my head when I am riding one. That’s not true, but if it was, it’d be funny.  The style of this stop animation-esque video is a complete rip off of work that Miles Decourcy does by making videos from still photographs.  I wanted to try it out, but this is in no way anything original by me.

Kara had met some med students from Philadelphia on her flight, and they gave her a pdf of a Kinyarwanda/English dictionary. When we were at her hotel, I downloaded a copy of it onto my laptop. So when I was back at my hotel, I was hanging out with Dany, David (another hotel staff member) and his best friend Adolph, and I was trying to read words and sentences from it to the three of them. They would in turn DIE laughing at me. They would explain the phrases and put everything into context for me. Not only was it so fun, but it felt like we were bonding too.

Earlier that morning, I had told Dany that when I got back that night we would watch a movie, and I was thinking Buster Keaton’s Our Hospitality. I figured silent comedy was universal, and since I had accidentally brought the Emily Carr Library copy of the DVD with me to Rwanda and I’m going to have hundreds of dollars in late fees when I get back, I might as well try to get my money’s worth. I gave them the option of Buster Keaton or Hoop Dreams, and they wanted to watch Hoop Dreams. We put it on and watched over half of it, but we had to turn it off to watch the football game between Portugal and Germany since that was a really big deal. They said they were rooting for Portugal, so I said I’d root for Germany for fun. It turned out that Portugal was their absolute FAVORITE team, they weren’t just rooting for them in the game. And then Germany won. Heh…. um….. yeah….. no hard feelings.

That was that day.