Went to Kigali Friday after spending a few hours at the office alone (everyone had gone to Cyangugu for my driver’s dowry ceremony). Adam was still in class when I got there, so I sat on the steps at the gate waiting for Louis to come let me in. He found me there and just laughed at me. When Adam got home, we went over to Gavin’s house to have some drinks and dinner and then went out to the bar. Gavin is leaving on Friday, so it was his last weekend in Rwanda. Saturday, we met up with everyone at a restaurant where they were watching football, then stopped and got some food at a different place and then to a shady bar where a lot of people came. We decided Saturday would be a bar exploration night, so we went to a different one in another part of town after about two hours, had 2 drinks there where Adam and I just sat watching music videos by ourselves the last hour (there was some Michael Jackson marathon on), then went to another bar down the road for another 1-2 drinks before ending up at Papyrus to end the night. Sunday, we stayed in until evening and I made grilled cheese sandwiches on the boy’s new sandwich maker. Adam and I met Gavin for dinner at the ‘Indian’ restaurant next to his house and we were the only people there. The food is expensive and not that good, but I still feel bad for the owners that its doing so crappy. Monday, I took the bus back to Butare in the morning only to find out that we had a staff meeting in Kigali that day and I could have gotten a ride home. Why don’t they inform me about these before?!
Tuesday, I went with the head of SPREAD in the US to visit a coffee farmer whom he is friends with. When he was here (in Rwanda) last time, he took pictures of the farmer’s family and had them framed, so we went to visit him and give him the pictures. He was brewing coffee when we got there (coffee he grew himself and his wife roasted in a clay pot on the fire and then ground in a mortar) and they offered us some. I didn’t try any, but he and another coworker both tried it and the American said that it was the best coffee he has had in the country so far. Both the coffee we brew at the office (the coffee from the bag, brewed in the machine) and at the fancy hotel he is staying at are worse than this guys home grown, roasted, ground and brewed coffee. I think maybe because it’s so fresh and it was made that day from roasting to brewing. The kids were pretty cute, 6, 5 and 2 and the mom was pregnant again! I don’t think my family planning messages are working very well. After visiting them, we went to one of the coffee washing stations to see a new mushroom growing project we started where they use the coffee bean pulp to grow the mushrooms. The spores were in plastic bags on tables in a dark shed. Where they got the plastic bags is unknown, since they are illegal here, but they work really well and I don’t know how it would work using paper bags. The plastic seals in the water so you don’t have to constantly water them. Seems super easy and cheap to do and it’s a good way to get another source of protein. I’m just not sure how well they will be integrated into the Rwandese diet. I talked to the boss-man about it and he thought it would be a good idea to have a short nutrition lesson about the mushrooms along with a cooking demonstration (so they know how to cook the mushrooms) and a taste test (so they can try it and decide if they’ll be able to eat them). He wants to talk to me more about it and maybe I’ll get to design the lesson and demo!
Wednesday, had to wake up at the crack of dawn because we left at 6am to drive up north for a meeting with the other health team. We stopped in Kigali at the main SPREAD office to pick up the M&E manager and all got out and had tea and talked and filled up the back with boxes of condoms and Sur Eau, a water purifier, before getting on the road again. The drive north wasn’t too bad, but the whole day we listened to Kinyarwanda radio, they spoke in Kinyarwanda and I could only understand words and phrases, so I knew what they were talking about in general, but didn’t know the details and couldn’t participate in the conversation. By the end of the 2 days, I was so sick of Kinyarwanda! We stopped in Musanze to drop off the boxes at the office, and then went to Gisenyi to meet the others at the hotel. It was a nice hotel up on the ridge above the water, so the view was nice of the lake and Congo. We ate lunch and then worked a bit on the COP (country operation plan) together with the Musanze team. It was a bit frustrating because no one had read it yet, so I went over what I think we still needed in the plan, but when Jeanne (the head of the health program, my boss) went outside to take a phone call and told me to continue, no one listened to me. One person started playing on their computer, another got up and made a phone call, etc. I had being the underdog. If you don’t have authority in this country people don’t listen to you. So, after working for a while, we decided to go into town. We all packed into the car and drove down into town. Went into a few shops where the women wanted to find clothes and shoes, but didn’t find anything. I called Portia and met up with her and we walked around town together then she packed into the car with us and we drove around town a bit more, before driving down to the border with Congo. We got out of the car and it seemed like they were going to cross, but didn’t and we all packed into the car again and drove along the lake before heading back up into town and dropping Portia off at home. I was hoping that we’d have dinner in town and then get a free meal for Portia, but we ended up eating at the hotel again. The food is surprisingly bad for such a nice hotel. I ate just veggies and French fries for dinner. The next morning, we met again and finished up the COP and then worked on the Work Plan for 2011. They were all speaking Kinyarwanda to each other and then would give me a short summary of what they said, so I just sat on my computer writing up other things and cleaning up my iTunes. We had lunch and then took off to go back to Butare. We stopped in Musanze so they could go to the market, which I guess has cheaper potatoes. We were there for almost an hour as they shopped and I sat in the car with the driver. We stopped again at a roadside market, where they bought pineapples, sugar cane and some meat. Then again at a shop where I and others bought some biscuits. We didn’t stop again after that, thank goodness, until we got to Kigali to drop of the M&E guy. The sun was setting as we got to Kigali and theres one part of the road that goes along the ridge of a hill, so as we were driving along, I looked down and the light was reflecting off of the river below in the valley and it was beautiful! It was just a long slither of sliver across the land. We got into Kigali and dropped off the guy and I was kicking myself for not packing enough for the weekend so I could just stay at Adam’s that night. Didn’t get back into Butare until 9:30pm! I quickly ate some ramen noodles, brushed my teeth and went to bed.
Had to wake up at 5:30 the next morning to go into Kigali for a meeting at 9. We got into Kigali, dropped Beta off at the Sotra bus station so she could pick up a book she sent earlier in the week and then waited for the woman from the Musanze to arrive on her bus to drive with her to the meeting. We were a few minutes late, but were still one of the first ones to arrive. As we sat waiting, we looked over the powerpoint print out they had given us and realized that there wasn’t anything for the health programs on it. After about 15 minutes of the meeting, we realized that we were in the wrong meeting! They sent us an email asking us to come on October first, so it wasn’t our fault, but it was still embarrassing telling the lady. The worst was when she asked us questions about the coffee farming and we just sat there silent and then let out a small ‘I don’t know’ before revealing the error. We still sat through the meeting because there was no one from the agriculture department there, and I thought it might be necessary information for them, so I stayed to take notes. Martin then drove me to Adam’s and dropped me off. He was sick in bed, so I just hung out at the house watching things on his computer, until later in the evening when we went to MTN center for drinks. There we met Adam’s ‘big bro’ and talked with him about his wife and baby. I need to go see the baby again, she’s so frickin cute! One of the guys there who Adam knows bought me a shot of scotch; it was hard to drink! Got home at a reasonable 3:30. Saturday, we hung out at the house for a while but it was sooo hot! Sunny wanted to go swimming, but I didn’t have my suit with me. We went over to Penny’s house for a little bit before heading over to a houseparty for a girl Adam knows that’s leaving to Canada. It was super fancy and the guards at the door had a list of names of people who could get in. Minega and some of the other boys didn’t RSVP, so Adam had to find the host and she had to go to the gate to let them in. It was a fun party. Afterwards, we went to Papyrus and got home around 6am! It was light out. I had to take the bus back to Butare that day, but didn’t make it out of Adam’s house until around 5pm. The bus back was dark and boring because my iPod was dead and it was too dark to read my book. We ended up dropping off a lot of people along the way, which slowed down the bus and then we picked up some villagers and had to drop them at various points along the road. I didn’t get home until 8:30! I made pasta, watched Mad Men and went to bed.
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