Lake Bunyoni

Lake Bunyoni (literally translated, the place of many little birds) is a must stop for any bird lover in East Africa. My good friend Rita and I both happen to be bird lovers living in East Africa, so before I was too far from Rwanda, we made a trip. The island is home to over 200 species of birds. Beautiful, colorful, singing birds! I’m pretty sure while at Lake Bunyoni we also converted our friend Virginia.

From Kabale, we took a twenty minute taxi ride to the edge of Lake Bunyoni where we were dropped off at the small dock for Byoona Amagara-- our hotel. From the dock, we were given the choice of paying for a motorboat or taking the free wooden canoe to the hotel. I’ll give you one guess as to which option we took.

Our canoe ride took about forty five minutes, and my exhaustion after paddling off and on throughout made me a little nervous for the white water rafting trip I had planned the next week…but more on that later.

unpacking in the geodome

Once off the boat, we were shown to our own personal geodome. This “room” was an open hut, allowing us to take in the beautiful views of the lake and the birds while still in bed.

geodome

Byoona Amagara is a self-proclaimed “traveler’s paradise” and came highly recommended by various Peace Corps and VSO Volunteers. The reviews held mostly true. It is certainly a backpackers place and very camp-y, so if that’s not your scene, I would look into other options on the island. The staff is mostly friendly, accommodations are nice and the price is very reasonable—although everything besides the room is extra, including hot showers and any battery charging you might need (the geodomes do not have electricity).  There is a small library on the property, as well as other entertainment options you can pay for.   

If you find yourself visiting Lake Bunyoni (which you absolutely should if you're in Rwanda or Uganda), I would recommend Byoona Amagara, with some additional suggestions to make your stay even better: make sure all your electronics are charged ahead of time; bring binoculars and a book or two (maybe even a bird guide); pack some snacks—the restaurant is good, but it’s your only option and can get a bit tiresome and expensive. On that note-- make sure you have enough Ugandan Schillings for everything! Credit cards are not accepted and while US dollars are, the exchange rate is awful. 

My friends and I spent a lovely few days on Lake Bunyoni at Byoona Amagara. The combination of beautiful birds, good food (I highly recommend the avocado crayfish dish), and general relaxing/vacation vibe (long naps, jumps into the lake, swings, and nature walks included) were a fantastic start to my newest adventure; and a well needed rest after the long, two-year Peace Corps adventure I just completed. 

view from our geodome

The Adventures Begin! -- Kabale, Uganda

From Saint Paul’s Hostel in downtown Kigali, I headed to the Nyabigogo Bus Station. My big bag weighed heavily on my back as the driver inched up Kigali’s hills; gravity and my pack fighting to push me off the small motorcycle seat. In Nyabigogo, I met up with two other friends who were joining me for the start of my adventure. First stop: Uganda. More precisely, the town of Kabale, in Southwest Uganda.

If Kabale rings a bell, it’s probably because over the last few months the city has been the epicenter of Uganda’s most recent public health crisis: Ebola virus and Marburg fever. I am happy to report that neither my friends nor I contracted either deadly virus or fever, and the town itself seemed to be doing just fine.

Virginia, ready for Uganda

In Kigali, we mounted a Kampala Coach bus, which takes passengers from Kigali all the way to Uganda’s capital, Kampala in about fifteen hours. Less than three hours after our departure, we arrived at the border, where we were asked to dismount the bus, check out through Rwanda’s immigration office, walk across the border, and check in at Uganda’s immigration desk before getting back on the road.

My friends and I knew we were no longer in Rwanda the second we saw street food. In Rwanda, innocent civilians are deprived daily of the culinary delights that are fried street foods because of “sanitary and hygiene concerns”. Uganda seems to have its priorities more clearly in line, and street food is abundant. More on the escapades of my taste buds later.

Less than an hour after crossing the border, we were motioned off the bus. Welcome to Kabale! Eager motorcycle and taxi drivers offered to take us anywhere, but being the cheap (Returned) Peace Corps Volunteer that I am, I walked.

Bunks at Home of Edirisa

The walk to Home of Edirisa, a hostel recommended to me by other volunteers, took longer than I had expected, but offered a great first glance at Uganda. The streets seemed less organized and dirtier than Rwanda’s, yet somehow more vibrant and definitely wealthier: more grocery stores, more banks, and more clothing stores with more clothing. Amazing how, despite the distance being only a few kilometers, the differences between Rwanda and Uganda were so clear to me.

At the Home of Edirisa, we sat down for a nice, long lunch. The atmosphere and the place itself were nice, the food was fine once it got to the table, but the wait time for food tested even my well trained patience.

Rita, traditional umbrella model

For the unbeatable price of 9,000 Ugandan Shillings, the decision to stay the night was pretty easy. $3.50 got me not only a clean bunk bed and warm-ish shower, but a free tour of the “museum”. A very friendly staff member showed us around a large room where a traditional hut had been built and lots of traditional decorations hung. The guide explained everything along the way, including the traditional umbrellas, which I obviously tried on. 

The rest of our time in Kabale was spent admiring street food, admiring the shelves of Ugandan grocery stores (they have maple syrup!)…admiring food in general. 

Murabeho, mu Rwanda

On November 15, I officially finished my service with Peace Corps and became a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer-- although it will still be a few months before I return home.

During my last two weeks in Rwanda, I tried to write this post, but couldn’t. I thought perhaps some geographical and temporal distance would give me the perspective necessary to neatly summarize the last two years of my life. Maybe more miles and more years will help; for now I can only tell you that two countries and three weeks are not enough.

As a very eager college freshman, I went to the office hours of my assigned adviser in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. I felt determined to get to know this professor for several reasons: sitting in on his class as a pre-frosh had been a big factor in my decision to attend Cornell; many students had warned me about his rigorous coursework and tough grading; and finally, I had heard he was a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer.

“I heard you did the Peace Corps! Did you like it?!” my enthusiastic, eighteen year old self blurted out to the six-foot-something, square glasses, bow-tie-and-suspender-wearing Ivy League Professor. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh.

“Did I like it? That’s like asking someone if they like breathing. You don’t like it—you just do it.”

At the time, I found the response to be rather odd. Now, after two years in the Peace Corps, I find it to be the most appropriate response to such an absurd question.

There are people, places, tastes, sights, and smells that I have liked—no, that I have loved-- about my Peace Corps experience. My heart aches to think that I will probably never again pester my fourteen year old neighbor Kabebe as to whether or not his mother has eggs to sell me. I will miss the casual nights with friends drinking lukewarm Primus and savoring brochettes. On my last night at post, staring out at the sun setting over the hills facing my “backyard”, I thought perhaps leaving was a mistake after all. Of course, there were many moments throughout the last two years where I had thought of nothing but making it to that last night… but I did it.  

I am so grateful for the amazing opportunities and experiences that the last twenty six months have brought me. From the first rays of sun that so brutally hit my body in Niger, to the mud-caked shoes I scrubbed clean during rainy season in Rwanda—it’s been a trip.

I have learned a lot about myself: that I am an emotional eater, and in times of stress all food items containing large amounts of flour and/or oil should be kept at bay. I’d also like to think that I’ve learned a bit about “the world”; certainly about Rwanda: that development statistics don’t tell the whole story, and that in the face of complete mental, physical, and emotional destruction, people are much more resilient than you’d think. I have learned that I am one of the luckiest people in the world.

And now, it’s time for the next adventure! Over the next four months I plan to travel overland to eight or nine countries—from Kigali all the way down to Cape Town. Various friends are joining me for different parts of the trip, and I’m making several stops along the way to visit other friends and friends-of-friends. The itinerary is very flexible. For the first time in my life, “the next step” is completely blank, but I feel very confident and hopeful about it.

Stay tuned!

Dad visits Rwanda, and blogs about it!

Just before it was too late I had the long wished for opportunity to visit my daughter in Rwanda. We had been communicating regularly by telephone and email and had even seen her briefly twice in the past two years, and we had, of course, read this blog and seen many photos, so we thought we had a pretty good understanding of her experience. Of course, I was wrong. Totally wrong. In this case, the cliché about “having to experience it” is most apt. My week in Rwanda was wonderful, incredibly informative, and certainly unforgettable. I left feeling tremendously proud of my daughter (don’t mean to embarrass you, Alma, but that’s the deal…) and also proud of the Peace Corps, not so much for the help they provide, though I see there is plenty of that, but for the extraordinary dual service they perform on behalf of our country: first, I think it would be a huge mistake to underestimate the diplomatic value of Peace Corps volunteers. They do represent our country wonderfully and the relationships they create “out in the field” do pay dividends. Secondly, Peace Corps volunteers create a magnificent pool of extremely talented, world-wise, multilingual, problem-solving individuals that greatly enrich our present and future leadership class. I had a vague idea that this was the case, but now I’ve seen it for real. Cheers to you and to all PCVs. That’s the feel good part.

Lodging in Ruanda: I stayed in three perfectly comfortable hotels, Chez Landa in Kigali at the end of the week, a lodge at the entrance to Nyungwe Forest National Park, and Hotel Paradis in Gisenyi, on beautiful Lake Kivu. My first night in Ruanda we stayed at a hotel that reminded me of my poorest student days. Dim light, depressing furnishings, cracked walls... but, it was fine. The other hotels were quite comfortable. Hotel Paradis lived up to it's name, no for the accommodations, which were fine, but for the spectacular surroundings. A tropical paradise. That was the tourist experience. The two nights at my daughter's site in Munini... that was the real deal. No electricity, no running water, and a latrine the likes of which I had not experienced in several decades. No, that's inaccurate. That was a completely new experience.

Hija mía, two years like this?! That is serious. That has to change you. Big time. Of course, it's not just, nor even principally, the loss of typical, rich country comforts that will change one, though I'm sure that it has a huge impact. It's all that in combination with being in a thoroughly different culture. You're white where no one else is. People stare. Really stare. Want to feel like a freak? I've got a place for you to visit. I don't want to insist too much on what's fairly obvious, but it's worth remembering: language, beliefs, climate, history... it's all so different. You absorb it little by little, adapt, evolve, integrate. One day you realize you're not the same person you were six months ago, a year ago. Your horizon is wider, your field of vision deeper. When I was 20 years old I experienced this during a nine month stay in Madrid, Spain. It had a huge impact on me. Alma, what you've experienced over the past two years makes my experience seem like a stroll over to the next village.

Ruandans: I liked the Ruandans I met. They were friendly and seemed genuinely glad that I was there. I need to make a special mention of Augustin Mudahunga, our driver for two days. When my daughter mentioned she was going to hire a driver, I was skeptical. A driver? Really, that sounds like something for the super rich. I'd just rent a car. Nooo, good call, Alma. To call the route that runs north/south along the eastern shore of Lake Kivu a "road" is somewhat of an overstatement. Yowzer! Again, you have to experience it. Augustin was fantastic. He's a very skilled driver; more importantly, a wonderful guide and a very kind, pleasant man. If you go to Rwanda, make sure Augustin Mudahunga is your driver! The people in Alma's village were also kind and interesting. It was wonderful and extremely satisfying to have my daughter, fully integrated into the community, be my interpreter and guide! But what life is really like for adult Ruandans... I couldn't really understand, of course. Who can? In the back of my mind always was the genocide. How does a society move forward from something like that? Could it ever happen again? I don't have any answers, but I can say I'm glad I left reading about the genocide for AFTER the trip. Romeo Dallaire's Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda is an extraordinary book. Infuriating and heartbreaking.

Rwanda is a beautiful country. Land of a thousand hills. Indeed! The Nyungwe Forest is a real gem and it was a treat to be able to take a nice hike in it. Green valleys everywhere! People everywhere! The "buses"! I thinking some of my bones are still vibrating. I saw an awful lot in one week, met many people, was given much to think about.  I'm still digesting it. Thank you, Alma, for your service! And thank you for teaching your old man so much!

Z is for ZINGARO

Rwanda's equivalent of bar food involves goat meat skewers and roasted potatoes. Usually, the meat on the skewer is normal umubir, body meat. If you're extra lucky though, you'll get zingaro, the tasty insides! 

Y is for YOUTH

X is for X-rays

The district hospital has one x-ray machine that sometimes works. It's one x-ray for the entire district-- with a population that exceeds a quarter million people. Below, my friend and district radiologist.