Gisenyi

On Friday night, after work, we hopped on a bus out of Kigali and headed northwest to Gisenyi, a small town on the northern coast of Lake Kivu, just on this side of the border with the DRC. It was about a three hour drive to Gisenyi, so since we left late, it was dark for most of the ride. However, we were lucky that there was a full moon, so we could still see the outline of the volcanoes and the landscape around us. Perhaps the most incredible view, though, was of Nyiragongo, an active volcano just across the border in the DRC.While in Gisenyi, we were truly on vacation. There's not much to do in the town, so we spent the weekend laying on the beach, swimming in the lake, enjoying good food at the Kivu Sun Hotel, reading, listening to music and just generally relaxing. As hard as it was while we were on the beach to believe that we were still in Rwanda (and just a few kilometers from the civil war in the DRC), there were plenty of reminders throughout the weekend of just where we were and what was going on around us. Probably the reminder was the collection of the military boats we spotted out on the lake, practicing border patrol exercises.
As we left Gisenyi to drive back to Kigali via Ruhengeri, we also passed through the areas of the country that had been affected recently by serious flooding. Although the waters in this picture may not look particularly bad, there are still several buildings and a lot of valuable cropland that are underwater in some of these towns.
Perhaps the most stark reminder was a transit center that we passed just outside Gisenyi. This camp is run by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) and houses refugees who have recently escaped from the DRC.

Umuganda in Gikongoro

This afternoon, at approximately two o'clock, a government representative came to the project and told our administration department that we needed to send employees to Gikongoro for umuganda (a day of community service that takes place on the last Saturday of every month). This might be reasonable and almost logical if Gikongoro were a neighborhood nearby and if umuganda were in a week, except that neither of those facts are true. Gikongoro is three hours away in the southwest of Rwanda, and umuganda is tomorrow morning at eight o'clock! So we have had to arrange transport and find volunteers from each department to leave this afternoon to spend the night and most of the day tomorrow in Gikongoro. And yet no one except the expats seems particularly surprised or confused by this. I don't think I'll ever understand how an entire country can function on a system where everything is organized and executed at the very last minute.

Thanksgiving

Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, green beans, carrots, salad, cranberry sauce, sweet corn casserole, broccoli, dressing, rolls, pumpkin pie, apple pie, chocolate cake – it was almost like a real Thanksgiving tonight in Kigali!

Although a buffet dinner with over a hundred people (most of them strangers) under a huge tent in the driveway of a random building in Kigali isn’t what I usually think of when I think of Thanksgiving, the evening was surprisingly comforting and relaxing. It was so nice, after a full day of work and a busy week, to celebrate something so familiar and reassuring with the friends who have basically become my family here. Although nothing can top a Thanksgiving at home, this one wasn't bad at all.

Silvia

I made a new friend today at work. Her name is Silvia and she’s about six years old. There are always a few children running around the clinic while their parents are in the waiting room or with a nurse. But Silvia was different than most. When she saw me, instead of standing paralyzed with confusion or turning and running in fear, she walked straight up to my desk with a big smile on her face. One of the nurses made introductions for us since neither of us spoke the other’s language, and I found out she is the daughter of one of the project’s community workers. Since I couldn’t take a break from work, I gave her a colored pen and some paper to draw, and she stood at my desk for a while. But I could tell she wanted something else. It didn’t take long to realize she wanted to wear the sunglasses which I had been wearing on top of my head. Before long, she was wandering all around the clinic with my enormous sunglasses on her face. I’m pretty sure everyone got a good laugh out of the situation.

Joint Parliamentary Assembly

Members of African, Caribbean, Pacific and European parliaments are in Kigali this week for the 14th Joint Parliamentary Assembly. The assembly is a week-long plenary session that happens twice a year that was originally set up by the Contonou Agreement to “improve standards of living and economic development in the ACP countries and to establish close cooperation between these countries and the European Union.” This afternoon I had the opportunity to attend one of the sessions that focused on the fight against impunity and on victims’ access to justice. The session was headed by Denis Polisi (vice president of the Rwandan parliament) and Johan van Hecke (member of the European Parliament) and included speakers from a number of organizations. The topics that were addressed included a victim’s perspective on the need for justice, the International Criminal Court, the concept of universal jurisdiction, the role of non-governmental organizations in investigation and prosecution of serious international crimes, and the role of parliamentarians in strengthening the fight against impunity. The session was really interesting and the entire set up of the conference was quite impressive. There were even headsets for each person with immediate translations of the discussion in English, French, German, Spanish and Dutch.

Later in the afternoon, the parliamentarians split into groups to visit three projects in Kigali that had been selected to represent various field such as HIV/AIDS and gacaca. We were honored that Projet San Francisco was chosen as the HIV/AIDS site to be visited. Approximately thirty parliamentarians came to tour our clinical trials research site and hear presentations from the supervisors of each of our departments. The supervisors were so nervous about giving their presentations in English (the vast majority of them are francophone), but they did wonderfully. They presented the project well and were able to answer some difficult questions. At the end of the visit, the parliamentarians gave the project a very good review. The next day, I was even told that the director of HIV/AIDS for the Rwandan government had been praising and promoting PSF on the radio all morning, another sign that the parliamentarian visit went well.