Holly in Kigali, Ariel Camp, and AK-47's and mudslides make me a fast mountain climber

Holly comes to town!
On Monday evening, Holly arrived in Kigali! Luckily I know my way around pretty well now, so we had a full lineup of things to do so that she could get to know Rwanda. On Monday night, we headed over to Hotel des Milles Collines before going to trivia night at an Italian restaurant. On the way there, our taxi laughed because every ex-pat in Kigali comes to Sol e Luna on Monday nights for this trivia night. As he pulled up, he shook his head and said, "so many cars, so many mzungus." :) My co-worker met us there and we joined a group of girls from Canada who were all working in Kigali for a few months.

Rwanda Expo - trade fair

The next day, after work, Holly and I met to go to the Rwanda Expo, which is a huge trade fair. We'd heard that the Expo had a lot of crafty items that could be good souvenirs. Most of the traditional crafts in Rwanda - baskets, paintings, etc - seem to be made by co-operatives of women, many of whom are survivors of the genocide. These co-operatives had a large section of the fair to display their items.

The Expo itself was completely packed with music blasting and booths stretching throughout a huge fairground. We later read in the newspaper that they'd had record attendance with several thousand people. I've added a few pictures of a large tea company's booth where we stopped to learn more about Rwandan tea and of course sample a bit.

Rwanda tea company demonstration

Holly and me sampling the tea at the Expo

Women weaving baskets - I bought a few from them

EGPAF Ariel Camp for HIV positive children in Rwanda
Early Wednesday morning, I put on a bright yellow EGPAF shirt and hat and left with two co-workers to visit and help out at EGPAF's annual Ariel Camp in a town about 2 hours from Kigali. The camp's are named "Ariel" in honor of Elizabeth Glaser's daughter who passed away at a young age due to HIV. Ariel's diagnosis prompted Elizabeth to found EGPAF because she wanted to enhance care and treatment for HIV positive children. In the 80's, there was very limited information and knowledge of pediatric HIV / AIDS.

Me, Sushant and some of the kids

The camp hosted 40 children from all over Rwanda who were recommended by their counselors at EGPAF-supported public health clinics, and most of them were orphans and lived in poverty. HIV is a terrible virus for anyone, but for a child, in particular, it's traumatic. They are required to take medication every day, which is hard to hide from friends and family who may not know their status. In Rwanda, like most places, there is a heavy stigma attached to HIV, and many people are not convinced that it's o.k. to touch or share food with an HIV+ person. So, most children try to hide it and consequently don't always receive the support that they need emotionally. Ariel Camps provide counseling and group discussion sessions that encourage children to talk to one another about the virus and how they are coping. They also give guidance on general nutrition, the importance of taking medication properly, and general confidence and motivation to succeed and live a prosperous life. The theme of the camp this year was "Smiling for Life," and it was held at a church camp on top of a smaller mountain - an idyllic location!

Diane and me after we decorated the wall

The two co-workers who I rode up with are the other two ex-pats in our office:  Sushant, the co-worker I mention frequently, and Jill. We taught the kids American songs and then had relay races - three-legged as well as wheel barrow races. That night, we helped them draw self-portraits of themselves, which we hung on display for the closing ceremony the next day. It was so fun and moving to be with these children. Despite the hardship that they've faced in life, they are so upbeat, positive and kind. For example, during the closing ceremony on Thursday (I stayed overnight at the camp), the kids all got bookbags with a watch, bedsheets, and chocolate. A little girl who I'd been hanging out with during the camp turned to me as soon as she got her chocolate and offered me a piece before she'd even had some herself. I was touched and also amazed by how giving she was. This particular child was an orphan and was being raised by her mother's cousin who had unfortunately just passed away due to HIV. This had happened while the child was at camp. So, this child, Diane had lost her guardian, was extremely impoverished, battled HIV every day, and the first thing she did when someone gave her a gift was offer it to someone else. Inspiring to say the least...

Giving gifts at the closing ceremony

So, after two days of getting to know all of the children, it was difficult to leave but such a special experience to have had! I enjoyed getting to talk to them and help make them feel special and know how special they are, even if just for a few days. As I described above, they made me feel pretty special too as they inspired me with their strength, courage and warm hearts.

Traditional dances during closing ceremony

AK-47's and mudslides on Mt.Bisoke
I got back from camp on Thursday night, and Holly and I decided to go climb Mt.Bisoke over the weekend. Mt.Bisoke is a volcano on the border of Rwanda and the Congo (DRC). It's a day hike, so we planned to take a bus to the nearby town of Gisenyi, which is on Lake Kivu, right after our hike. Lake Kivu is another landmark owned jointly by both Rwanda and the Congo. In fact, as I write this, I'm staring at Goma, a city in the Congo.


Mt.Bisoke is located in Volcanoes National Park, which is definitely the largest tourist attraction in Rwanda. It's home to three volcanoes and of course the famous mountain gorillas. It's such a large tourist attraction, that I wasn't even able to get gorilla permits in Rwanda because it's sold out for several months (hence why we went to Uganda to track gorillas instead). But we had no trouble obtaining a permit to hike Mt.Bisoke. On permits, the park uses a chunk of the proceeds for environmental conservation, and the price includes your guide and multiple armed guards. The armed guards are officially there to protect against gorillas and buffalo. They're dressed in full fatigues with huge AK-47's, so I think they are capable of intimidating anything or anyone who may try to interrupt our hike along the border.

The night before the hike, we took a bus to Musanze, which is a semi-small city right outside of the park. The bus was pretty full and Holly and I ended-up sitting separately. I sat next to a lady whose toddler stared at me without blinking for about 45 minutes before she finally reached out and touched my arm, obviously very curious about this mzungu sitting next to her. I asked in Kinyarwanda what her name was and her mother coached her into responding. Then I said in Kinyarwanda, "My name is Meredith." At this point I normally just get a nod because as I've mentioned before, Meredith is pretty much unpronounceable everywhere. But this time was different. When I said my name, the child's mother looked at her and said in Kinyarwanda, "Her name is Mzungu." Haha, whatever.

After that bus ride, the next 24 hours would prove to be a comedy of errors. Our guest house in Musanze was...interesting. It was the kind of place where you don't really want to touch the floor without shoes on. I guess they've gotten that feedback before because they provided two sets of shower shoes in the bathroom. I don't know which one would've been more uncomfortable, putting on the shower shoes or taking a shower without them. We decided that we'd avoid that question altogether and just not shower before the hike. So, we set off into town for a little exploring. Musanze is not a big town, but there's a lot going on. We didn't really know where to go, so we decided to sneakily follow a group of tourists that we saw walking in front of us to see where they were going. Unfortunately they were only going to a bank, as we found out, so we opted instead to have a drink at a nearby cafe where Celine Dion was blasting on the stereo (people love her here).

Traditional Rwandan dances before the hike

After getting breakfast at 6:00am the next morning, we went to the park and met our guide and the two German girls who would be hiking with us. The park has a group of dancers who perform traditional dances for everyone before they set out on their hikes. I've seen these dances several times, including when the children at the Ariel Camp did them, but this was by far the biggest performance I've seen, and it was a fun way to start the day!

Unfortunately, even though it's the dry season, it was pouring raining and had been all morning. Being optimistic, we kept hoping that it would slow-up, but as I'll soon describe, it didn't stop raining all day. Let me note that this is extremely bad luck considering that this is the first day of my entire trip that I've seen rain for more than a few sprinkles in Rwanda.

Holly watching the dancers

The hike itself was pretty intense physically. It was also beautiful! The hike was basically through a dense rainforest on the side of a volcano. We had one guide, one porter, and four armed guards. A funny note on the porter: when you start your hike, most guides will ask you if you'd like to hire a porter. For a few dollars, they will carry your pack and/or help you up or down the mountain. All four of us girls felt like we didn't need one, so when asked, we declined. This one porter, however, smartly knew that we probably just didn't know what we were talking about and decided to come along anyway. For reasons I'll describe below, he ended-up being hired, and we were very grateful that he was there to help us get down the mountain!

About halfway through the hike, I started to wonder if I could actually do this. Holly actually decided not to continue because she'd hiked muddy mountains before and was worried about how treacherous it would be to come back down. However, being the stubborn person that I am, I decided to take my chances. The rain had made a stream out of our trail and the mud was so thick that we were constantly slipping and sliding our way up the mountain. To top it off, you can't grab onto the foliage because in most areas there's a large amount of "stinging nettles." I don't know the technical term for these plants, but the point was made clearly the first time I fell into a patch of it. So in summary, when sliding down a mountain, you had a choice of falling in the mud or grabbing a huge clump of stinging plants :)

The inspiration for the title of this blog was a particular time that I slid. I planted my trekking pole (thank you Holly for bringing these!), put my right foot up on a "rock" and then when I thought the coast was clear, I tried to pull my left foot up to meet it. That "rock" turned out to be a huge clump of clay that was ok with one foot, but not two, and therefore I went sliding back down the mountain a foot or two. When I looked up, I was staring straight into the barrel of one of the guards' AK-47's. He was looking at me to make sure I was alright (I think), but he clearly forgot that a huge gun was hanging from his shoulders.

Me and the trail guide at the top of the volcano

Our guide was not tolerant of wimps either. He told us it should take 7 hours total to hike the mountain, and of course we did it in 5 hours. When we finally reached the top, it was all worth it though. At the top of Mt.Bisoke is a crater lake, which I'm assuming is where the lava used to erupt from. The lake is beautiful, and I think it's cool that the mountain, and crater lake of course, are in both Rwanda and the Congo.

In this picture, Congo is behind me. Note the massive amount of mud below my knee. This got markedly worse on the way down!

At the crater lake on top of Mt.Bisoke

Oasis at The Serena in Gisenyi
When I got back to the base, after practically skiing down the mud-covered mountain, I was tired, caked in mud, and hungry because I'd accidentally swapped our snack bag for our lunches (i.e. we hiked for a little over 5 hours up to over 12,000 feet with only graham crackers). Our guide knew that we were trying to get to Gisenyi that night (to the lake), so instead of stopping at the base of the camp so we could change and wash the mud off of our hands, he went straight back to town. Personally I would've loved to scrape some of the mud off of me, but c'est la vie. We soon discovered that all of the buses were sold-out from Musanze to Gisenyi. It's a holiday weekend here, The Day of Assumption, and Gisenyi is a popular vacation spot for Rwandans. So, our driver pulled-up to a matatu (local mini-bus) and asked if they were going to Gisenyi.

A matatu isn't the ideal way to travel an hour down the road. They stop every 5-10 minutes, no one speaks English or French, and it's pretty difficult to figure out where they're going or what's going on at any particular point in time. But, without much choice, we squeezed into the front seat with all of our mud-covered bags. Due to the number of stops, the drive took a little longer than usual, but neither of us cared as long as we actually got there. At each stop, people would run up to our window and just stare at us repeating the word "mzungu" over and over. Children, in particular, seemed to think we looked really weird and out-of-place because they'd just point and smile inquisitively.

The beach at Gisenyi on Lake Kivu

When we finally arrived to Gisenyi, we saw an oasis on the beach - The Serena Hotel. Serena is a chain of hotels in Africa that resembles American hotels with all of the same amenities and such. It's the only American-style hotel in Gisenyi as far as we could tell. Ordinarily we wouldn't take this option, but considering the events of the past 24 hours, it just made sense to want guaranteed hot water and electricity for a night.

However, I did feel bad trekking into this hotel with mud literally all over. When we arrived, I asked Holly if she'd check us in because I was afraid they wouldn't let me walk-in the way I was :) When we finally got to our room though, my shower was incredible. I felt like the dog from Annie when they were scrubbing all of the mud off of him to come into Daddy Warbucks' house. My favorite quote from Holly was, "that was the best shower of my life!"

The rest of our time in Gisenyi was wonderful. Holly and I spent the evening trying to solve the problems of the world since we'd both been volunteering a good bit this summer. We also thoroughly enjoyed the simple luxuries of fast(er) internet, ice cream, and TV (none of which I've had for almost 2 months)! As you can see in these pictures, Gisenyi is a really pretty place with a long beach and kind of a tropical feel. It was very relaxing and nice after such an interesting hiking day!

My last week in Kigali...
For my last week in Kigali, I will be volunteering with the Hope Shines camp, tutoring one last time at ROP and of course finishing my projects with EGPAF. It will be nostalgic leaving so many wonderful friends! But I very much look forward to seeing you all soon! Love and miss you! Have a wonderful week!

Love,
Meredith