Reflecting on the most special 3 months of my life

Things I didn’t miss about the US – the cold wind slapping my face, strip malls, advertisements everywhere and stop lights.

Things I missed about the US– Mexican food, normal electrical outlets, brushing teeth, drinking out of the tap, and getting water in my mouth while showering without having to worry about getting parasites, my car, friends and family of course.

Things I don’t miss about Africa– having parasites, taking Malarone pills against malaria, sleeping with mosquitos buzzing in my ears, public transport, exhaust and dust in my face and up my nose, not being able to jog anywhere outside.

Things I miss about Africa – Well, we don’t need to go there, there are so many!  Let’s just leave it at $.50 football  size avocados and mangos.

If I were to try summarizing my trip in a nutshell, I would have to say:  This trip was amazing in so many ways, but I look forward to making it truly my life.  I was chasing a dream for many years, and with hard work and a lot of money and Dominic’s love, it became real.  Even including all the frustrations of Africa, I still feel spoiled, and lucky, and grateful to Dominic, and happy, so happy knowing this is our new life.  I still don’t have answers to what, exactly, my new profession is, but I am feeling some answers get closer as I keep an open mind and as opportunities arise.  It seems that environmental education and conservation through sustainability and development is likely the course. I see those needs everywhere I go, and they are tangible with funding. I repeat, funding.  Fundraising is not my forte, but it must be somebody’s, right?  The world needs to grow many more awesome development people to help the dark nooks and crannies of the world.  It would be a way to further spread out the money of the wealthy to those who are in need. Philanthropy, the US was the first country to give a tax break to those who give, so as to encourage charitable giving.  Philanthropy has increased in recent years, as has the establishment of non-profit organizations.  There is more money out there, but more competition to get it. 

That is exactly not the reason why I want to start my own non-profit.  As any of you with non-profit experience know, it is no easy road!  But maybe I will try… The goal will be to raise money for education in struggling communities abroad.  This is not a new idea, and there are many organizations already doing it, but it is still needed in many nooks and crannies and it makes a huge difference not only in the lives of the individual people learning, but to the community.  This is my experience so far.  If I can see it, it is there, I don’t need statistics to know it works, although funders do.  Maybe a video clip can do the trick.

Jonna's rescue dog, Scruffy with his snaggle tooth

Paris

My first trip to Europe (not including England) was Paris.  I mean, really, what can I say besides I’m in Love?  Most people I know have been to Paris, so I’m not going to say much more about it. And for those who haven’t, you must experience it for yourself.  What I will add is a little background, a list of the places I/we visited, and two highlights.

Dom had an OIE conference (World Organization for Animal Health – in French, not a direct translation) for 3 days at end of February.  For 1.5 days before and 2.5 days after, we enjoyed Paris together, and for the 3 days while he was working, I was spoiled and given the chance to enjoy more of it on my own.  Not in order of enjoyment I/we visited: Hotel des Invalides, Pantheon, Notre Dame, Palais du Luxembourg, Musee Rodin, Petit Palais, Louvre, Eiffle Tower, Musee d’Orsay, Chateau de Versailles, St. Germain des Pres, Cimentiere du Pere LaChaise, Arc de Triumphe, Basilique du Sacre-Couer, Hotel de Ville, Moulin Rouge. 

I sure was busy working Paris!  Especially on the day I decided to walk from Hotel des Invalides, near where our Hotel St. Dominique was located, to Cimetiere Du Pere LaChaise to see Jim Morrison’s grave.  None of the tourist maps I had have the distance key, but if I were to guesstimate using tiredness of legs, soreness of feet, and experience jogging 3 miles every day, I would say it was about 4-5 miles, in heels. But I knew what I was getting myself into, and Paris is the place to walk, and more importantly, Jim was worth it.  The highlight of that day was when I patiently waited 3 hours to eat my fresh deli sandwich in the cemetery on a bench surrounded by hungry black crows watching my every move.   Just like a bad girl “feeding the wildlife”, I placed a small piece of bread on each side of my bench to see who had the courage to jump up and get it.  The female won in the end.

Of course everything was amazing, but Moulin Rouge must be one of the top 5 best events in the world.  We bit our lips paying for it, but have no regrets.  Four- course meal, tasty and perfect, the service perfect, and the show extraordinary.  I won’t go on about the women’s and men’s perfect naked bodies or the talent and skill it must take to do their work, the detail of their costumes, and the side acts during costume breaks, like the juggler, vantriloquist, and contortionist couple that were the best I’ve ever seen, but for four hours of pure bliss, we had not one complaint. 

Thank you Dominic! Smooooooooooooch!

Rwanda

February started off with Dom leaving on the 5^th for a USAID conference in Rwanda.  For that entire week I stayed at Mac and Jonna’s while they were gone, and pet sat for their 6 adorable cats and dogs. Dom also had more business to do regarding Mountain Gorilla Vet Project and Predict collaborations.  In addition, Uganda elections were going on Feb 18^th, and we had two options to avoid getting involuntarily involved in the heat of the situation – either hole up for 5 days in our apt, or leave Uganda all together.  We decided on the latter, so I met Dom in Rwanda on the 12^th and we stayed the week until our flight to Paris for his second conference starting in the week of the 20^th.

French, clean streets, great food, sidewalks, volcanoes, and gorillas, that’s Rwanda in a nutshell. For two nights, Dominic and I stayed in a wonderful hotel, complete with a workout room and large pool in the sun.  This is where his USAID conference was, in the main city of Kigale.  A good friend and colleague named Tony (associated with Mountain Gorilla Vet Project) took us to this awesome restaurant called Gorilla Bar Chez John, which had amazing mushroom soup, tilapia, and pizza. It is the rainy season for Rwanda, so you can (seemingly) count on at least one short rain every day, which cools everything down quickly. When it is not raining, the sun is complemented with a nice temperature.  When I left Kampala, it was hot and dry, it hadn’t rained for 3 weeks and the dust was nasty. The rain in Rwanda was refreshing! 

Did you know it is a law in Rwanda that the first Saturday every month the entire population has to clean their streets and communities?  Did you also know that Kinyarwanda and French are the common languages, but that English is becoming more popular and, in fact, the government is in the process of changing the national language form French to English?  Did you know that French people in France are now expected to learn English? 

The rest of the week was spent at Ruhengeri, a town built from eco-tourism at the bottom of the volcanoes, a two hour drive northwest from Kigale.  Mountain Gorilla Vet Project (MGVP) as well as USAID/Predict is located here, and it is on the volcanoes where the vets give direct vet care to their hairy patients in the forest of the national park.  The staff also monitors the health of each individual.  Google them, they’re awesome.  Dominic’s colleague and good friend, Mike Cranfield was a hoot as usual, and it was really great to spend time with him. 

The Rwanda countryside is built from volcanic hills and valleys.  With the heavy amounts of rain and sun, plants and food grow very well, and the place is always green.  The elevation keeps the temperature pleasant.  It’s spectacular.  Dominic and I were hoping to see the gorillas, but due to high numbers of visitors during this non-tourist season, and our bank account (it’s $500 each person to spend 1 hour with a group of gorillas), we saw the golden monkeys instead.

Golden monkeys are adorable and rare.  They are found in the bamboo forest, which is the first layer from the edge of Volcanoes National Park.  They are not difficult to find, so we didn’t have to worry about getting blisters, or hiking tremendous altitude. They are well habituated to groups of calm humans, so getting a close-up picture or fun video is no problem.  Dom and I got both =)  We stayed with them for an hour and then hiked back down to the car.  

But the hike down to the car, and up to the national park (NP) from the car, is interesting in itself.  Every inch of Rwanda that is not highly protected by the government as a NP is farmland.  Rwanda has the highest population density in Africa, and with the fertile land, subsistence farming is the main form of survival and for some, income.  The hike up to the golden monkeys was farmland; we were walking through cultivated fields that seemed like people’s private farms.  There were cattle and corn and cabbage, etc.  It was beautiful countryside, but to see the abrupt contrast in foliage once we approached the rocky wall (built with volcanic rocks) that stood as the only barrier between national park and private land, which was very easy to cross, it became evident how easily humans can change entire ecosystems with one machete/panga.

From afar, when driving away from the volcano, one can see the distinct line that runs across the entire mountain (called a “hard edge” – in ecology language) from where farmland meets rocky wall and protected forest.  It is so obvious that for non-painters, it would be easy to paint.

One of the volcanoes who's name has something to do with teeth

Dom, Jaque, Cranfield - Gorilla Docs

Fruit bats on Lake Kivu near DRC border

every inch of land used for farming

Golden monkey

In the bamboo forest inside Volcanoes National Park

Climbing from the national forest, over the volcanic rock wall, back to farmland

Dian Fossey's hang out

Another fun adventure was driving to the border of the Democratic Rep of Congo (the really huge country in the middle of Africa, AKA. Zaire).  We were dropping off Jacque, a Congolese vet who works with MGVP to GOma, the city on the DRC side of the border.  MGVP holds meetings on the Rwanda side because DRC increased their immigration rates to $250 USD for non-residents, but Rwanda decreased their rates to $0 for DRC and US citizens, among many other countries.  It was raining and muddy and there were lines of people waiting to cross both borders.  On the way to the border, Mike introduced us to an old colony of fruit bats that roost in the palm trees along the main road, next to a big lake called Lake Kivu. Mike said they are always here, no matter what. But he noticed something odd during this trip.  The palm branches that the bats were hanging on were all brown, limp and dead.  In fact, it looked as if all the trees were dying.  Some bats were found in other types of trees, which also did not look healthy.  My mind was going wild with possibilities of causes. Maybe I’ll camp out there for a few months and find out!

Ruhengeri is a pleasant town where MGVP compound is stationed, and I felt comfortable jogging in the neighborhood, both physically and mentally.  My lungs were already used to the elevation from Kampala, but in this particular hood the roads were nicer, the hills flatter, and there was less traffic with less pollution and dust.  Plus the weather was cooler, and even though there were tons of Africans walking the streets and looking at me, I got the feeling that they were used to mazungus.  Many ex pat government aid workers are established in this area.  I could see myself jogging there every day.

The MGVP compound is a beautiful set up that used to be a nunnery. The project moved there a few years ago from another compound nearby.  On days when there was a room available, Dom and I were invited to sleep there.  On days when there wasn’t a room available, we stayed in a nice bed and breakfast around the corner from MGVP.  An English woman and a Rwandan man, a lovely couple, live there and recently decided to make their awesome property into a business, after putting in 3-4 years of manual labor to fix the place up. We were happy they wanted to share their home with us.

One of the most interesting parts of the trip was meeting a man named Jinah Mohamed in the same restaurant that Dian Fossey used to hang out, Muhabura Bar.  While we were having lunch, he was sitting at the table next to us chain smoking, and overheard our conversation about Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International.  He politely interjected to share a personal story. Turns out, his family was good friends with Dian, and when he was a boy, she invited him to ride in her truck up to the mountain with her on many occasions.  He spoke of only good things, but what most stood out was, “she is the reason Rwanda is so successful today”.  Now there are always two sides of every story, and unfortunately, one side gives Dian a bad reputation.  But there is definitely truth to what he said from what I gathered during our stay in Ruhengeri. The place is rich (relatively speaking) on gorilla eco-tourism.  If Dian Fossey hadn’t made such a fuss about them, and was murdered for them, gorillas would have not received this attention.  However this is all very controversial, so please take my impression with a grain of salt.  “Called one of the foremost primatologists in the world while she was alive, Fossey, along with Jane Goodall and Birutė Galdikas, was part of the so-called Leakey's Angels, a group of three prominent researchers on primates (Fossey on Gorillas; Goodall on Chimpanzees; and Galdikas on Orangutans) sent by archaeologist Louis Leakey to study great apes in their natural environments”? Wikkipedia! Ha!  

On our last day, Cranfield brought us to one of his favorite spots to bird watch, along a dammed river that is now a lake.  Bird watching was nice as we walked along the muddy path that led to a long left turn into a quieter area with a large field just below a steep, tall hill.  Where Mike was hoping to be a peaceful area, was a soccer game with local kids playing on a Saturday.  We all watched them with smiles and took pictures from afar, but once they saw us, they stopped the game immediately to see what we were up to.  Dom didn’t think twice.  He approached them and, using only body language, asked the boys to juggle.  At least 6 of them jumped in right away to participate.  I couldn’t help myself, so I jumped in with them.  Now, I don’t know what ball you are imagining, because they didn’t have a real football; they make their own.  This one was exactly like an oversized hacky-sack, but if you replace the beads and sand with plastic grocery bags (which, by the way, were completely banned from Rwanda – Go Rwanda!) and vegetation, then you understand what we were working with.  After many laughs and handshakes we went our separate ways, and before we knew it we were wishing we had a real ball in our backpacks to give to them…but did you think about how they would keep it inflated? …Ah ha…Africa. 

On the way out of town, Dom and I stopped at the genocide museum.  Not surprisingly, Dom and I have found these types of museums to be the most impressive museums ever encountered. I visited the Apartheid museum in Johannesburg, and Holocaust museums in the past.  Rwanda’s ended 16 years ago, and although it is still quite fresh, you wouldn’t know it by walking around. The people are respectful to each other, and the place is clean.  The daunting exhibit is a memorial that shows beauty and respect for lives lost. 

Rwanda was beautiful and a wonderful experience overall. Next time, though, we will see those mountain gorillas!