A Mist Within Silences

The silence within our car is complete. Not born of awkwardness or frustration, this hollowness surrounding us is a product of exhaustion. Balanced by an immense darkness through which our car pierces, the emptiness of this night drive to Kigali, to a warm bed, feels whole. Our muscles sore, bones echoing creaks of fatigue, today was wonderful.

At 6 am we set out from Ruhengeri to spend the morning and afternoon tracking wild mountain gorillas at the base of Rwanda’s volcanic range. Although I don’t embrace being a tourist, this adventure fully entices me. Packed into a tank of a safari-studded Range Rover, Danielle and her parents, Charlotte, our driver Alex and I made the 40 minute drive to ‘base camp.’ Stepping outside the interior warmed by our bodies into a crisp morning, a thousand silver stones crinkled beneath our boots.

My attention was instantly drawn to the horizon opposite a towering mountain before us. Through a thing grove of slender trees, the morning’s unending horizon of mountains has been eclipsed by a sea of thick white mist, which embraces every crag and valley of those distant ranges. As far as I could see, layers upon layers of folded earth and a thick mousse of cloud between. A union of stone and subtlety.

After receiving a quick briefing we returned to our ride, setting out for the mountainous interior. After 15 minutes the road beneath our yellow safari tank deteriorated into a dense matrix of jagged almost metallic rocks. The ride was so violent we could only manage a crawl of maybe 10 mph for the next hour or so. Jostling back and forth, our path cut through small villages sheltered from city life. Children gathered in that early morning, some in khaki uniforms marching to school, others holding even smaller children, many with mouthfuls of teeth running alongside us, some ignoring us intently.

Along with us were two 40-something Australian women and a middle-aged Virginian man. We all gathered at the foot of a daunting peak and here learned the rules of the way: No smoking, no problem. No eating next to the gorillas, no worries. No running if they charge you, umm…

“But don’t worry, we speak gorilla.” Our guide, elaborating on that note, informed our group that gorillas make 16 discernible grunts or calls, which give directions to others or demonstrate a specific need. I stand there in those sentences wondering where linguists would classify this level of communication. “We’ll be seeing the second largest group in Rwanda, the Agasha” or ‘special’ group complete with an infant. I’m really excited now, and then in a moment, we’re off.

A hand-made wall of volcanic stone marks the national park’s boundary from neighboring farmlands. In lieu of a gate, we climb over this grey patchwork and enter instantly into a dense thicket of forest. One of the porters, all of whom are dressed in green Rwanda Development Bank sponsored uniforms and wearing rubber black rain boots, slices us a path between dangling branches through which one cannot see and burgeoning bamboo with a well-worn machete. The air within contains a purity I’ve rarely experienced--both fresh and electric. Our path, winding upwards a small open valley, is but a viscous porridge of mud, encouraged by an increasingly insistent rain. Our boots are literally being sucked into this soup of black earth, ripping from our feet, leaving some of us in only socks until a porter rushes to help. As the sky empties itself upon us, the guide yielding a machete unfolds a layer of forest into which we follow. Insulated from the rain, we trudge on, now mired in a complex geometry of branches, roots, and inescapable shadows.

After an hour of our ‘40 minute’ hike to the gorillas, we’re pretty sure the Agasha group is hiding from the rain. Voices from unseen guides who live up to 12 hours per day in this labyrinth coo instructions. A man with a sighted rifle leads us higher up the mountain’s slopes, deeper into the jungle's grasp. Our path is formed by the lead guide, yet there are always stinging nettles to either side, or flowers vibrant in their yellows or reds. Two hours in and I’m thinking the Agasha are hiding from us.

Our march eventually brings us to a ridge, its clearing reveals the heights our feet have earned. I peel away my jacket’s hood and absorb the openness of the valley below us sprouting everywhere its giant fern fingers. My eyes cross this valley to the ridge opposite us, its black rocks sheer slabs stretching either to the basin between us or perhaps upwards. Running perpendicular to us, the valley twists upwards to another ridge, a massive cathedral of raw granite and a giant wave of mountain form its outline. When everyone is caught up, our guide descends, and so into the valley we enter.

This descent is astonishingly difficult. Each of us uses every limb for balance, we are nearly every step now plunging down our own height’s worth, clutching for anything to hold onto--a root, branch, or rock piercing through the still thick mud. At one point, when twisting around to take a swollen branch in order to repel a bit down the impromptu path I realize the thick branches between me and the valley are simply masking a sheer drop to the left. A slip would be long and jagged.

When we finally reach the valley floor, I’m confident for having finished and truly impressed that Danielle’s parents and the Australian women are overcoming this terrain. There are cylindrical plants gashed open by machete, oozing a white milk. I’m told its latex, and touch the sap to my fingers. We march upwards from this valley basin towards the cathedral-shaped granite, hoping.

Three-quarters upwards, and the guide stops. A machete burns through giant sprawling lettuce. Charlotte’s finger points  through the newly revealed patch.

Her black face is gentle, arms cradling a shivering newborn with hair matted from rain, her presence steals words from my mouth so I stand there, mouth agape in something like reverence 10 feet away. I’m drawn to her eyes, amber-shaded irises, piercing in their depth. I’m inspired by her grandness--larger than I had imagined. She rises and moves away from us, her movements quick but elaborate with such massive limbs. We continue on until we reach an opening filled with some twenty gorillas, huddling in the rain. Among them is a magnificent silverback, the mature male who fought violently to control the Agasha females. His arms are folded like a disgruntled grandpa, his eyes frustrated as a man captured in the rain.

The guides grunt deeply UH uh, the same as a child’s ‘no,’ asking the gorillas to stay calm. We have one hour to sit with them. Every once in a while the silverback huff-grunts with his whole body, Ruh Ruh Ruh Ruh, clearly agitated. One time, the whole group joined in unison. But for the most part, they sat there quietly huddled in the rain, and we sat there in silence huddled in the rain.

We spent three hours finding Rwanda’s Agasha gorillas, one hour sitting alongside them, and then another two or more climbing out of that density. The jungle balances extremes. It's mother to intense vegetation, to life exploding from the ground, its leaves reaching towards heavens, its roots plunging towards hells. It's mother to violence and death, home to the decay of the fallen, and cradle to a world we can’t easily endure. That juxtaposition smells, for what its worth, like pan-fried almonds and freshly snapped celery. Every step was an encroachment on life, or perhaps its destruction underfoot. Yet, in that death, absorbed are the nutrients. Life and death reform into and out from one another here, and the distinction between these propellant forces is but one moment captured in an enduring fluctuation. In that immensity, where is time’s place? Does it drive forward, swirl within itself, or simply live among the growth and decay? Regardless, I wasn’t ready to know the time until we were nearly out of that place. Back in our car, time set in again, mastering the sun’s position and dictating the still encroaching moon. I do not live in that world of pan-fried almonds, in a world distanced from time, in the misty intermediary between life and death, and yet…

The silence within our cabin is complete. Exhausted, inspired we sit without words. Our huddled bodies reflect the extant black-tipped nightfall, coating the folded earth, hinging its nadirs and zeniths, embracing us hushed so everywhere.

*****

It’s Saturday, 2 am when I awake from a nightmare: people are telling me I can’t run, to stay home; I have no clue where to go and am late; I oversleep and completely miss the race. I manage to get back to sleep but decide to wake up plenty early so I can get to Amahoro ‘Peace’ Stadium where the Kigali Peace Marathon is set to start. Truth be told I don’t really know where to go, my legs are still sore from yesterday’s gorilla trekking, my shoes are still completely soaked and muddy, and I’ve never run more than 9 km (two weeks before). I’m seriously nervous about the whole thing, but hey its my birthday, and I trust everything works out.

There’s a huge group gathered around the track inside the stadium. I quickly see my friends--a mix from Kigali and Peace Corps. It’s the first time I’ve seen so many of them in a long time. I’m still a bit nervous but am now calmed and ready for my first half marathon.

At the starting gate, all the runners of the quarter marathon relay and the half are waiting at the gate. Without warning:

         “Happy Birthday to You…”

My friends are leading the entire mass of runners in this chorus. It was really a special moment, and made me feel really happy.

The race went well. I kept a pretty solid (for me) pace for the first lap of 10 km, and was reinvigorated getting a cheer as I made a lap inside Amahoro Stadium’s track to begin the second lap. They ran out of water very quickly, but had a seemingly infinite supply of bananas every 4 km or so. This resulted in their being banana peels all over the road, the comedy of which kept me smiling. I was really surprised at how hard the last 5 km were. At one point I was so thirsty and overheard a man offering a cold bottle of water to his running wife. She declined, he looked at me and asked if I wanted it. It was a godsend, a true gift. About 3 km later a Rwandan came alongside me. We stayed together for a bit and I handed him the rest of the water. I finished the 21 kilometers (13.1 miles) in a little over 2 hours. My goal now is to break 2 hours on a half and to train for a Marathon when I get back home.

Afterwards, we cheered on our friends. Laughed about banana peels and water shortages. We took part in standing ovations for particularly inspiring individuals: a Rwandan who completed the half on crutches with his one leg, an elderly Rwandan man that finished the whole thing along with a blind European man who ran the Marathon with a pack of friends helping to guide him through the street course.

That night, I ended up staying in Kigali and had dinner with friends and Danielle’s parents at a great outdoor Indian restaurant (my favorite type of food). They hosted a traditional Rwandan dance group decked out in elaborate costumes and we enjoyed mysterious dishes I’d never tried before yet found delicious. After dinner, the power cut out. Then a group walked downstairs with a candled plate of fruit and ice cream. They sang “Happy Birthday” in at least 4 languages, including what I think was Hindi. One of the men took my hand, urging me to stand and I danced with him throughout an extended chorus or two. It was hilarious and a great capstone to the best birthday weekend in memory.

We left Khana Khazana, gave friends goodbye hugs and 4 of us went looking for motos on the main road. The night was crystal clear. Grabbing the attention of one, we called out into the street, passed by several motos already with passengers. After a couple minutes, one heard us, turned his head toward our group--

The violence of metal exploding and lights shattering stopped everything except for the scene that unfolded. The moto driver slapped against the SUVs windshield, splintering. When the car finally stopped, the man was flung uncontrollably some 15 feet onto the ground, rolling, his helmet breaking away. I’ve never seen a serious accident before. I glanced at my friends, we were all in shock. I looked at the moto driver, he began to move slightly. Before I knew it I was moving towards him. A large crowd of men gathered. The Chinese driver was clearly distressed and confused. They tried to lift the moto driver into his car but the man refused. They set him down on the grassy median. My friend Caitlin was an EMT in college. I tried translating to the group what she needed us to do into French or Kinyarwanda as she stabilized his head. His eyes were so vacant. In a few short minutes he began shaking violently. It probably was his body going into shock, which Caitlin later said can be what actually kills someone. We tried to tell the group to not move him, but they wanted to move him. When he started shaking, I felt utterly helpless to ease this man’s pain. I didn’t think about it and grabbed his hand, I guess I was trying to comfort him. I doubt it helped. They took him and put him into the back of a taxi with no one else but the driver with him.

I have no idea what happened to this man that night. When I think about him, I sincerely pray he is recovering from his injuries and he has family that can comfort him. I don’t know how serious his injuries were, but that impact was something that still frightens me when I’m on a moto. I always secure my helmet now.

We could have discussed life's impermanence, the delicate fluctuation balancing existence and death. But we don't fully live in a world of symbols and metaphor, we live in one of individuals. And their suffering seems to deserve more than metaphysics, topics of conversation, or flowery prose. We got into a taxi after the moto driver was put into his own. We went home and slept. The silence within our cab was complete.

Short and Sweet

         As we walked beneath an unrelenting sun, a rushed day amassing condiments, canned vegetables, soaps, and various supplies potentially necessary for our upcoming venture into divergent lives, Danielle and I began to tire. The two of us had lived relatively in tandem since our midnight arrival into Kigali what was then one month ago. The memory of arrival remains distinct: the clamoring for overheard luggage; the curious enthusiasm; an opening of air-locked doors and clanking of shoes against metal stairs; the distinctively familiar and sweet aroma--of air thick with heat containing the exhalations of burning plastic, sewage, and the smell of sun-baked sand. Stepping into that night was reminiscent of so many in Niger, that scent so characteristic of Africa that whispers: you’re on land foreign and long from home.

            After two hurried days of Embassy orientations, we had disembarked from that dusty capital bearing suitcases and chimerical conclusions about Rwanda. A handful of weeks followed in the verdant southern city of Nyanza, the nation’s center of cultural heritage, home to former Kings once revered as deities. Danielle and I trained alongside 70-some Peace Corps volunteers, intensively learning Kinyarwanda; participating in cultural-immersion sessions; acquainting ourselves with cultural subtleties spoken with eyes, the oft-jagged earth, and the brilliant turbulence of foreign clouds.

            As we are here through Fulbright and not Peace Corps, we spent a lot of time together when not engaged in their official requirements and became good friends in those first weeks. But our time as a minority within a pack had ended that afternoon as each of us set out on independent journeys to new homes and lives. And so we found ourselves in Kigali, accruing supplies beneath the pressing noon. Our backpacks and arms weighted, our ears exhausted by the yelping of children or automobiles, our faces damp with perspiration, we trudged home. We crossed a hazardous intersection arriving safely on a frontage road when--without warning--a boxy sedan barreled down upon us without a hint of breaking. Danielle and I literally leapt out of its path. I struck its trunk with a clenched fist as it passed, furious. After a moment of bewilderment we marched on, anger yielding only to exhaustion.

            Yet within a matter of steps, the day’s geometry upturned. A precious little girl of no more than three ran from out of nowhere, grinning aglow with eyes that laughed. She gazed up at us with neither fear nor covetousness. Without hesitation, her tiny fist unfurled to take my free hand. We walked with our new friend beaming at her soft, childish replies to our questions in Kinyarwanda: How are you? What is your name? How old are you? In engaging her little world we seemed to escape for a moment from the matrix of time, the once vehement sun melted into the rolling hills of the horizon, its absence filled with the refulgence of a vivid present. After a few minutes her small fingers released, we all said good-bye, and a blur of her yellow dress receded into the arms of the city. Though the sun reformed atop the sky and yelping car horns remembered to squabble, a residual feeling of joy remained throughout that afternoon, lingering like an aftertaste of a rich, dark chocolate. And neither the toils of past nor the future unknown mattered in those moments short and sweet.

That's Rwandan hospitality for you...

1

I'm completely alone, walking toward Byangabo's small city center. The darkness is thick save for the moon at 11:30pm and I'm wondering, "What the heck am I doing?"

Every Friday night I host an English Film Night and discussion for the students at ISAE. So far, we've seen Inside Man, Blood Diamond (their request), and The Curious Case of Benjamin of Button. Two weekends ago, we watched Slumdog Millionaire (most Rwandans love Indian movies, especially with dancing, so they were excited). My four hour lecture ended around 6 and we started at eight pm. The small cement room was packed, students scrunched up on benches and several times we had to find more seats.

My friend Danielle (she's the other Fulbright here, whom many Peace Corps Volunteers believed was my wife and that our last name was Fulbright, hence the blog's url: Jonathan Fulbright), she and a group of her college friends came up North to visit. I'm not sure why, but there is a large pack of Yale alums in Rwanda. I figure Rwanda must have had a mind boggling booth at a Yale career fair some months ago.

Anyway, I was hoping to meet up with them after the movie. It would be difficult to find a ride, being so late, but I'd give it a shot.

After Slumdog's dancing credits ended, I'd never seen the students so animated, and though I wanted to see my friends, I let go of that eagerness to leave. I asked them what they thought of the repeated theme: "it is written." This launched a debate about whether fate, choice, or chance dictate our lives. Many agreed: What Imana (God) wants is what happens. Life is fated.

Rwanda is an extremely religious--particularly Christian--country. Nearly every day I see a group of students at a Bible study group outside; the weekends are filled with dozens of Christian singing groups practicing away for future performances; and Church often lasts for 4-6 hours.

Some students argued that life was dictated by choice. "Imana may have created us, but we choose whether to good or bad, to try, or to give up." The quality of the discussion trumped many that I've heard in the US. Someone asked me what I thought, but I'll spare you my philosophy. Without realizing, we'd spent an hour exchanging opinions, weaving through ideas as though walking in a garden of forking paths, on one of the most central of philosophical inquiries. I was pumped.

I left the gates of the school compound, asking the guard in his skull cap and puffy yellow jacket if it would be possible to find a motorcycle this late. He walked me to a neighboring house and banged on the door. It was late and these folks were not coming out at 11pm. He wished me good luck and I set out on an impossible task, following the one road to town.

When the moon is full, even the most isolating of darkened moments seem possible.  It shown like a floodlight, drowning out surrounding stars, echoing off the mountains hugging our valley. The solitude of walking in that darkness produced an intoxicating freedom.

I realized quickly that there were no motorcycle taxis at 11pm from here. In fact, Byangabo is so small, I've yet to see a single moto taxi, unlike in most towns. Then, I did what many have done in similar situations: I took a stance on the roadside and stuck out my thumb. Only two or three trucks and one bus passed. None slowed, and one seemed to speed up past me. "What the heck am I doing?" came to mind.

Putting the thumb down, I went to a nearby bar and saw a young man dressed like a student and asked him if he had any ideas on how to make the 30 minute trek to Musanze, where my friends had now arrived some time ago. Valentine was indeed a student at ISAE and energetically took my hand, walking us down some mud paths carved out by powerful little rivers, between clay-brick houses with corrugated metal gates warped from wear, some of which glimmered in the moonlight.

He knocked on an unassuming house door stained with rust and a naked man wrapped lightly in a towel emerged to answer, clearly awoken from sleep. He and Valentine spoke in Kinyarwanda while I laughed to myself at the situation, simultaneously feeling sorry for the sleeping man. Valentine turned and said, "he's got a bike but it's not working. But, he thinks he can find another." Disbelief turned into excitement as the man disappeared into the greater darkness of his one room home, reemerging with what looked like snoopy's outfit when dressed as the Red Baron.

We walked to another house that had a moto and the Red Baron took the helm. Valentine said, now it is late so he won't do it for less than 2,500 francs. That's $4.16. "Ok," I replied. As I turned to thank him for spending so much time on a whim with me, for hunting down a ride in the middle of the night, for being so generous, he replied simply, "That is how we treat our guests." Now that's Rwandan hospitality for you.

The rest of the night was fun. I met with my friends who had teamed up with a group of German and American volunteers. We all crammed into the back of a white safari truck and went to a really sketchy bar that smelled more like urine than stale beer. I saw several students at ISAE there, and one in particular who must have learned English from a Rasta because he's vernacular contains "Bodacious" and he refers to himself as a "ghetto boi." As is customary in Rwanda when dancing at a club, I only danced with guys. (Girls at clubs are almost always prostitutes and homosexuality does not exist in Rwanda, according to culture, so dancing with guys doesn't bother them, a lot like girls dancing with each other in the US doesn't alarm anyone.) So, long ago yielding to the awkwardness potential, I danced with the ghetto boi and with a few friends in a circle, holding hands and kicking our legs out in a  whirling dervish of sorts.

We left early because one of my friend's phones was stolen. (more later on getting that back) We took motos back to Byangabo at 2 in the morning, winding around the edges of a thousand hills, tired and free, cutting through the valleys filled with moonlight, our bodies swaying on machines beneath the stars unseen.

Living it

Sometimes you can’t explain it. Depending on what ‘it’ is, the lack of explanation can be trivial or mundane, but depending on what ‘it’ is, the absence of certainty can unnerve you to the core, can unravel your sense of truth and reality.

Late last night I found myself unraveling. Fortunately for me, the uptwisting and outpouring I am alluding to was what most modern doctors would call ‘food poisoning.’ Nevertheless, for hours in the middle of darkness I succumbed to this ‘it’ that had taken hold of me and demanded out.

Although I didn’t have any official obligations today, I had promised my friend Fofo—yes Nigerinos I have a Rwandan friend named Fofo :) --that we would climb the mountain across the street from ISAE, the landscape that fills the brown metal of my square bedroom window like a painting of vibrant realism. I had bailed earlier in the week, and didn’t want to flake again, so although I felt exhausted mentally and physically, I figured, what the heck, maybe a hike would do me some good.

We set out at 10 am and unlike the recent weather, a thick fog layered over the morning with intense fortitude. “Rain’s going to come today,” I suggested. “Yes, but not yet.” “Then let’s get to it.”

Crossing the street into Byangabo, the small roadside town outside of ISAE is always an exciting thing—not because Byangabo is a fascinating place by any means, but because being the town’s only white person, or muzungu, most everyone seems so excited to greet and share a few phrases. As we walked towards the base of Mount Byangabo, a chorus of school children in blue or tan uniforms rang out: “Muzungu! Good Morning!” I love joking with Rwandans, and when I hear the title muzungu I often shoot back: Muzungu ari hehe? Bari abanyarwanda gusa hano! (Where’s the white person? There are only Rwandans here!) Although I wasn’t feeling too hot, hearing the responding laughter cheered me up immensely.

We cut through a field of tall grass still wet with morning dew, past the local primary school, and into a small village set at the base of our day’s objective. The dramatic transition from life on the main road to country life was made more so because of the minor distance separating the two. Some 200 yards from the main road—one of Rwanda’s four—there is no electricity, the paths are all mud, and the well-kept western clothes most Rwandans wear around ISAE are replaced by aged cloths and plastic sandals.

Cementing our transition into another world, one distant from modernity in most senses of the word, a crowd of 20-some young children instantly gathered around Fofo and I. They all wanted to touch our hands, to ask what we were doing, and to laugh from their tiny cores when we could communicate in Kinyarwanda. 

Now at the foot of Mount Byangabo, we began with a brigade of local 6-8 year olds that apparently didn’t have any official obligations today either. The path upwards became way steeper than I had imagined near instantaneously. The fitting was slippery because of the morning fog, and the grey clouds seemed intent on unraveling and outpouring just as I had last night, and soon.

I grabbed for branches or rocks on the side of the slick mud path that sloped a twisted upwards, and as we made our way higher, our brigade dwindled to an elite special forces unit of lil’ Rwandans.

It struck me as we climbed that people lived on this mountain, that the mud brick houses we passed on this sloping gradient were inhabited by people that traversed this path each day—with groceries, with gallons of water in their arms or on their head, with infants on their back. That sense of humility struck me in a fashion like I had seen in The Motorcycle Diaries when Che and his friend are passed up by an elderly, indigenous man porting a huge load as they collapsed on the roadside. Upon seeing him, they quickly rose and continued, and remembering this helped me suppress a little post-nausea fatigue.

The slopes of Mount Byangabo are similar to most of the mountains I’ve seen here—incredibly steep and cultivated. I had no idea one could raise corn, carrots, cabbage, potatoes, or green beans on gradients that one could easily slip straight off, but Rwanda’s population density has necessitated drastic and innovative measures to keep up with the growing demands of a hungry and ever-larger populous. As we turned a corner along the way, we came upon an entire family tilling their land by hand. We greeted them, and as we continued to walk throughout our day, they remained there with hoes in hand, for hours, farming on the mountain’s edge.

At one point the path literally washed away from beneath us so Fofo and I got on all fours and crawled our way upwards, often sliding back several feet. But regardless, we were getting up that mountain. We paid a child 100 francs (20 cents) for water to wash our hands, and we were on our way.

As we pressed on the morning fog began to melt away and the distances across the surrounding countryside came into precise focus. At the summit, there is a Pentecostal Church. So many mountaintops are capped with churches in Rwanda.

On our descent, a woman picking corn with her young son hollered down to us and brought us handpicked ears of fresh white corn. As we stood and spoke with her, a flock of sheep enveloped us and the 9-year old herdsman cackled as I tried to speak sheep.

At another turn, we came upon an umudugudu (village) meeting. Elders and local leaders were meeting on an overhang over a grass-covered cliff, debating and deciding in an age-old democratic form. Our presence had gathered pretty stern glares of interest, but when we greeted them, prostrated, with utmost politeness, the tense atmosphere evaporated just as the fog had recently melted away. “Hey, the muzungu speaks Kinyarwanda,” exclaimed a man on a thick log bench. “Who, me?” I tossed back. “I only speak Kinyarwanda. I forgot my English when I came here.” As we rounded the corner away from this now jubilant scene, a sense of warmth filled me as a mixture of sun, laughter, and the beautiful landscape seemed to pour into me. It’s moments like this that make the hard times worth it.

We continued downwards, passing more people, taking photos with droves of children, and feeling refreshed. When I got home, I slept for 7 hours straight.

Sometimes, I suppose you can’t explain it, whatever ‘it’ is.

Yesterday ‘it’ was the origins of sickness. Today, it was the sights and sounds of a mountain village and the crossing of paths between people that had, until today, no connection. Maybe that unexplainable causality propelling us towards our future, towards one another, and away from our lunch holds answers. At this stage, I couldn’t tell you. But I could tell you that whatever that mystery is, ‘it’ sure is beautiful.

"The harder we push the faster we'll all get out of here." -- Chief Wiggum

Hello everyone! So much has happened in the past two months, my words will undoubtedly fail to express the moments I have spent here in Rwanda, but I hope at least these words will keep us connected though the distance between us endures.

This weekend was full of surprises. On Friday shortly after dusk, one of the directors of my school, ISAE, (the Higher Institute of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, French Abbrev.) tapped on my glass door while I was practicing "A Day in the Life" on guitar. He invited me to go to Kigali and watch Rwanda compete against Burkina Faso--one of the only 3 nations in Africa I've been to--in the Under-17 African Championship. I hadn't thought about the game at all and had been planning a Saturday of bucket laundry and leisure reading, but as he sat in my cold, concrete living room I realized that there was fun to be had.

We made the 2.5 hour drive to the capital from our natural haven at the base of the national volcano park and soon found ourselves at the jampacked gates of Amahoro (Peace) Stadium with no tickets--the impulsive wailing of vuvuzelas and anticipation surrounding us. Unfortunately, we quickly realized there were no tickets available, that we had made the trek for not. Then, just like a caravan of officials, a caravan of officials drove up to the gates. We pressed ourselves against the steel bars of the makeshift roadblock, positioning ourselves for what would be at least a glimmer of hope of entering. Guards--some in suits, most dressed in camo and brandishing automatic rifles--told us to stay back as we edged our way close, shifting among the swelling crowd.

Though his attempts to coerce the lead guard failed again and again, without warning, the lead security officer opened the gate ajar, pointed to two people and they pushed their way through and onto the grounds, then another, then the director! But just as it looked like the impossible had happened, the gate shut. "My colleague, my colleague! He's with me!" In a rushed blur of pushing and running I had breached the gate, joined my superior and we made a mad dash for the field, beaming because somehow we had managed the impossible. We rushed through security, then sprinted past the ticket takers and as we climbed the slab steps up, the roar of the crowd beckoned like a siren's call, but a lot more like a large group of excited people.

Rwanda played a hardfought match, but ultimately lost 2-1. The disappointment was palpable because after going down 0-1, Rwanda equalized in the second half and the sea of Blue, Yellow, and Green waving flags and chanting in unison, everyone in that stadium was urging Rwanda to victory, everyone seemed to believe. Though Rwanda lost, I saw President Kagame on the jumbo-tron. The crowd went absolutely wild when he entered the stadium and took his seat. The man has a staggering level of popular support.

So, all in all, not too bad for the price of admission.


Saturday morning I went for a run at a stadium adjacent to the campus. While there, a few young boys gathered and started playing soccer. When I finished my last lap around the field, I ran over to them and asked if I could play. We spent about 2 hours playing a version of monkey in the middle with a rolled up ball of plastic bags held together with twine. The kids were hilarious. For those of you that know, I'm not the best soccer player, but my skills were decent compared to 8 year olds--just needed to find some opponents at my level, haha.

Most of them had ripped clothes, no shoes, and brimming smiles--I wonder how many millions of children fit that description and how many will fit that description 50 years from now. At one point I was in the center trying to steal the ball, which was passed to one of the kids. I had tried to anticipate it being passed and made a sprint towards him. As the ball touched his feet he looked up at me with the biggest eyes you could imagine, made an about face, and sprinted for his life. As I got to the ball and stopped we all started laughing and the little guy joined in too when he realized I was never actually going to slide tackle him, haha. Pretty adorable.

That's a taste of my life here and not the worst weekend I've had. Until next time...