Birds from My Hammock

Random bird pictures taken today (6/27/2012) from our hammock in the front yard.  I know nothing about birds and unfortunately can't identify any of them.  Took pictures of probably a dozen different kinds, but will only put a few on here.  More will go on facebook.

  

There were a number of the ones below.  I like their mohawks and long tails.

Since I'm red-green color blind, I always appreciate anything blue.  I also really like the long, curved beak of this guy.

Another one with a long, curved beak.  This one was really hyper and kept jumping from one branch to the next, never sitting still for very long.  It also kept going upside down and sideways.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm Potatoes

After 2.5 weeks, patterns are starting to emerge.  For anyone who followed our Vietnam adventures, you are probably not surprised to learn that food has been central to our routine and an avenue to explore our new hood.  

To start the list, since we are in Rwanda, is the local Rwandan fare.  There isn’t a ton of diversity in the day-to-day food, except for in the carbohydrates.  Most meals are chocked full of them, in many different forms.  When out at the PIH sites, we start our day with bread brought in from Kigali and frozen on site until needed.  The bread is accompanied with all kinds of delish relishes from Rwanda – peanut butter, honey, strawberry jam.  On special days, the house manager Sabine makes yummy crepes and omelets to spice things up – omelets seeming to be a consistent quick meal out or at home and not only for breakfast.

Lunches and dinners at site always come with choices of starch – today was rice and pasta for lunch and rice and French fries for dinner.  These are always served with some type of saucy goodness to smother the carb with – tomato soup with peas and eggplant, meat sauce, or my favorite, Isombe – ground cassava leaves with nuts.  Pretty typical in local restaurants are the lunch buffets, which for $2-5 you get a plate piled as high as you can get the carbs to fit.  Here you get more carb options – the most diverse buffet had ugali (local mashed maize), two types of rice, pasta, French fries, mashed cassava, and matoke – by far my favorite carb, plantains stewed in tomatoes.  The buffets will also include some sides – isombe, beans, tomato gravy and then you are given one (maybe two if you're lucky) small pieces of meat.  

Part of the reason that the diet is so carb heavy is that everything else is quite expensive.  Even when we cook at home, I find that we don’t use a ton of veggies – a lot of carrots (can get a bunch from a lady down the street for 13 cents), some green peppers, tomatoes.  Nathan cooked greens (maybe collards) one night that were really good; we have had both broccoli and cauliflower.  But they are pricey.  We are getting a better grasp of what you can get and what you can get cheap.  Nathan just made a trip to the market while I am at the project site, and I can’t wait to see what he has found!

In such a carb heavy diet, one might worry for our health.  I do sometimes feel fluffy – we have joined the local gym to try and nip that in the bud – but overall, I feel really healthy.  The food, while carb heavy, is all local and rarely fried (potatoes the exception).  We are taking multivitamins that we brought from the US and Nathan is encouraging me to eat the local tiny bananas and drink juice.  I want to make passion fruit a more normal part of my diet.  And there are also the giant and practically free avocados.

So we are still figuring out the food, but the one thing I have figured out… I LOVE the coffee.  Rwandan coffee seriously is the best in the world, and luckily that is readily available and worth every penny.

Kigali Electricity

Rwanda is full of things that are familiar to what we had in the U.S., but just a little different.  One such example is electricity.  For the most part, our house and other houses around us are provided with elecricity from overhead power lines.  Each house is lit up at night with incandescent or fluorescent lamps.  A lot of people use linear, 2 or 4 foot, fluorecent lamps as exterior lighting by sticking a single lamp fixture on a pole so that it juts out over their fence or gate.  People have electrical outlets throughout their homes and many have TVs, fans, toasters, etc.  We even have a washing machine at our house, though it just stopped working.  Electricity is much less common in the rural parts of Rwanda, but in Kigali it is commonplace.

Differences in Rwandan electricity include the voltage and frequency. The houses here use 230 volt, 50 hertz instead of the 110 volt, 60 hertz used in the U.S. This means that while many of or U.S. electrical products; such as laptops, battery chargers, our portable projector; can still be plugged directly into the outlets, others; such as the X-Box; require a transformer to work. Generally, things that run on DC and have an inverter to get from AC to DC will work here, with the X-Box being a notable exception with the inverter provided by Microsoft, though we've ordered an after market replacement that accepts multiple voltages. American electronics that run on AC directly; like TVs, DVD players, and refrigerators; will not work here without a transformer.
 
Regarldess of the voltage requirements, U.S. plugs will not go into Rwandan outlets without an adapter. We brought a bunch with us and they're really inexpensive, but if we forget to bring one to a coffee shop we probably won't be able to plug in our laptops. Rwanda uses an outlet that accepts plugs with two round pins (type C). Some outlets have a round pin sticking out that requires a hole in the plug to receive (type E).

Another big difference so far has been reliability. Our power has gone out a lot.  Probably 25 to 30% of the days we've been here have been at least partially without power. To be fair, they're working on our street right now and the power outages are probably more frequent for this reason. Water has been out about twice as often for the same reason. It seems that utility lines aren't really marked and the excavating equipment just digs them up. The picture to the left shows an electric line that has been repaired. The evening before we saw the line just sticking out of the ground, wires exposed, and I wondered aloud to Bethany if she thought it was still live. By the next morning somebody had re-connected it with a couple of short wires and some electrical tape.  We're pretty sure it was always a live wire. Scary to think about when you see hundreds of kids walk down our street every day on their way to school.  I've seen lots of exposed wires sticking out of the ground in different parts of the city where they used to (or expect to) have street lights and suspect that the risk of electecution is greater here.

Besides reliability, power quality is a real issue here.  Whenever I go to the restroom I watch our incandescent lamps (25 watt lamps - I didn't know they made such low wattage lamps for overhead lighting) get brighter and dimmer over and over again as the voltage coming in is constantly changing. All major (expensive) electronics need to be plugged into a voltage regulator to avoid dammage.  We have one for our refrigerator and another for our computer equipment. The one for the refrigerator (pictured below) makes a lot of noise when the refrigerator is running. It is rated for a much higher wattage than the one we use for our computers.

The last major difference in electricity between the U.S. and Rwanda is how we buy it. In Rwanda, instead of getting a bill at the end of the month for the amount of electricity we use, we have to pre-purchase electricity and keep track of how much we have left otherwise we could run out. I really like this system as it is easy to monitor our consumption. We go to any of the grocery or convenience stores that sell electricity and water and then give them the unique code for our electric meter. We tell them how much electricity we want to buy and they give us a receipt that includes a 20 digit code. When we get home, we type the code directly into our electric meter and it instantly increases our remaining balance by the amount we purchased. I’ve only bought electricity once so far and I decided to buy 30,000 RWF worth ($49), which was 223.2 kWh. This comes out to $0.22 per kWh, which is a LOT more expensive than what most people pay in the U.S. as the average residential rate for the first three months of 2012 was $0.1157. The increased cost is probably due to how electricity is generated. In the U.S., most electricity is generated from coal (34% in March of 2012 - though dirty, the cheap cost of coal keeps it #1), natural gas (30%), or nuclear (20%), and most of it is domesticly supplied. Rwanda gets 25% of its electricity from imported diesel fuel and another 20% from heavy fuel oil. The remainder is primarily from hydro-electric, though 20% of the total electricity consumed has to be imported from hydro plants in other countries. Here's a link to the Energy, Water, and Sanitation Authority's website on electricity generation. There are plans for a large methane extraction plant at Lake Kivu, but I don't know when this will go into service. The additional need for infrastructure investment in Rwanda probably also contributes to the higher electric rates.

Rwinkwavu Visit

Though we live in Kigali, Rwanda's capital city, Bethany will be doing work with each of the three sites where Partners In Health runs a hospital. It sounds like the one she'll visit most often is the Rwinkwavu site. She was there a couple of days last week and I came with her this week.

PIH Sites in Rwanda

Burera District:
• 150-bed Butaro Hospital
• 15 health centers

Southern Kayonza District:

• 110-bed Rwinkwavu Hospital
• 8 health centers

Kirehe District:

• 120-bed Kirehe Hospital
• 14 health centers

The Rwinkwavu site (or Rwink in PIH-speak) is about 87 kilometers (54 miles) from our house in Kigali (Remera Neighborhood). It took us about 1 hour and 45 minutes to drive to on the way here, though I'm convinced I could have cut 30 minutes off that time if I was driving :-)  Here's a link to a satellite view.

There are some hospital buildings just up the hill from the road, and then a large administrative building above the hospital. There are a series of dormitories just south of the complex, which is where we're staying, in a VIP room with our own bathroom. They've just built a new maternity building near the hospital and are almost done with another admin building next to the first. Bethany will have an office in the new building, which we saw when we toured it yesterday. Currently, she works out of the central dining area in the admin building, which has wireless and an amazing view overlooking the valley below and the hills beyond. There is a TV in this area and I watched a re-play of the Sweden - France game (which had an AMAZING goal by Sweden's Ibrahimovic in case you missed it - unfortunately all links on YouTube have been made inactive because of UEFA copyright claims) with some of the employees and people in for a training while I participated in a webinar on my laptop. It was a very strange experience as I spoke with two people in the U.S. and one in Brazil while watching a game from Europe using very modern technology while looking out over the valley and not really seeing a single electric light for miles in any direction.

For the most part, all meals are communal, with staff getting food either from the hospital (for lunch) or one of two large houses in the area (breakfast and dinner). The picture below shows Bethany and some friends at lunch yesterday, which was great. Sounds like most meals are rice and beans heavy. Lunch yesterday included french fries (or chips, as they're called here) and some steamed banana dish (called Matoke I believe), which Bethany really likes. Dinner last night was more rice, beans, matoke and a salad fresh from one of the PIH-er's garden complete with fresh bib lettuce, onions, avocado, and boiled eggs.  Breakfast was some bread, coffee, and a very yummy onion and cheese omelet.

I've had some work to do, so I've spent a lot of my time on the computer, but also got in a nap in the grass overlooking the beautiful scenery. I listened to a few Kinyarwanda (local dialect) lessons, though I can't say I remember much beyond "Muraho" (hello). There are lots of birds everywhere I've been in Rwanda so far. I really like the large raptors that fly overhead sometimes, but haven't been able to get a good picture. The small bird below is one that kept visiting me while I was playing on my computer. Have no idea what kind it is, but he seemed friendly.

 

Post-Thursday Lunch Update: Bethany requested that I post my pictures from today's lunch as well. We had rice, matoke, and some peas with eggplant (a small, local eggplant that is a little bitter). We ate with some of the employees and I checked out the cooking area. They make huge pots of food when they cook and have set-ups to do many at the same time. Pretty impressive.





Afterwards, we walked down to one of the local bars (one of the two) and had two Cokes. 400 RWF each for the 30 cl size and they were cold (the one I had yesterday was the same price, 50 cl size, but un-refrigerated).

TVS StaR Sport 125

The little motorcycle Bethany mentions in her post is actually a TVS StaR Sport 125. The bike is made in India and has a 124.8 cc single cylinder, 4 stroke, air cooled engine. The engine is rated at 7.56 kW of power at 7,700 rpm (just over 10 horsepower) and has a listed maximum speed of 93 kilometers per hour (almost 58 miles per hour).  

It has four gears, but they aren't set up the same as bikes in the U.S. Instead of being 1 down, 2, 3, 4 up, with neutral in between 1 and 2, this bike has neutral all the way down, and then 1, 2, 3, and 4 going up. Confusing when you coast into a stop light not knowing what gear you're in and just automatically shift all the way down to what you expect to be first gear.


The bike weighs 118 kg (260 pounds), so you can almost pick it up and carry it up steps if you need to :-) Of course, it is rated for no more than a 130 kg (286 pounds) carrying capacity. Let's see, if I weigh 175 pounds, that leaves 111 pounds for Bethany and whatever gear we're carrying.


The best feature is the fuel efficiency. It is supposed to get 85 kilometers per liter... that is 200 miles per gallon. Our 16 liter (4.2 gallon) tank should last 1,360 kilometers (840 miles). Not too shabby. I wonder if severely over-weighting the bike and then trying to ride up steep hills will effect the fuel economy?


The bike we got isn't on the TVS website (made only for select export markets), but it is supposed to be the Star City bike (http://www.tvsstarcity.com/) with a 125 cc motor. All details above come from the user manual.


I bought the bike from Sameer Hussein TVS at the base of the Kigali City Tower. It cost about $1,700 USD (1,030,000 RWF). That price came with two helmets and a quart of oil.  Since I brought some helmets from the states (and the ones included are cheap, molded plastic), I only kept one helmet and he credited me 7,500 RWF. He also has nice, expensive helmets (around $100), which Bethany might look at later. He let me pay in USD and gave me a 613 Francs per Dollar exchange rate. When I picked up the bike, he threw in a seat cover, tank cover with pocket, a vinyl document holder, and a TVS tee shirt.


Besides the bike, I needed to first get tags and a Tax Identification Number (TIN). This cost a combined 75,000 RWF and the shop was able to handle this for me, but I had to bring two passport photos and it took two days before I could pick up the bike. I paid for the bike when I picked it up from the store.  At that time I also had to get insurance. I got one year of basic insurance (covers other people only, but not our bike) for 40,000 RWF ($65). Insurance actually stays with the bike if I sell it, so if I sell it within a year the new owner would have the remainder of time on my insurance. To get new insurance (which is required by law) I can just go back to the shop where I bought it. They have two different insurance companies represented in the shop. The bike also comes with the first three tune ups (750, 2,500, and 5,500 kilometers), which are done at the warehouse / shop located near the airport. First tune up includes free oil, I have to pay for the oil at the next two (and oil filters at all three).

Almost every other bike in Kigali (95% plus) is a TVS GLX Victor 125.  Most of these are "motos", the motorcycle taxi that everybody uses. Similar engine, slightly different styling. We have a slightly larger fuel tank, the Victor has a disk brake in front (we have drum). http://www.tvsmotor.in/victor-glx.asp

We've arrived.....

We just finished our first full week in Rwanda – and the transition could not have gone smoother.  Part of it is that I am so excited to finally be here (and I think Nathan feels the same way)… it seems like this move has been a long time coming and that we have more or less been in transition since the end of January.  We have had an eventful and wonderful few months since January, but it’s not been settled.  Our first real activity here was to go grocery shopping and cook dinner – not terribly exciting, unless you hadn’t cooked dinner in months.

The fact that we got here as smooth as we did is a miracle in itself… we had a lot of bags.  A LOT.  I keep going back and forth between being embarrassed by the amount of stuff that we had and being thankful every time I pull out an unexpectedly highly useful gadget.  The guy helping us at the airport was super patient, and helped us figure out the cheapest option for getting our stuff here, and 24 hours later, we showed up in Rwanda, and all of our bags showed up with us.  That rarely happens with one bag, much less seven. 

Our life this past week…. We are subletting a really comfortable house until August.  Nathan is already getting a real African welcome to the house… the first few days we were without water just getting a low drip from the sink from our gravity water tank in the back.  The third day, when the water came back, the electricity went out.  We had a few days where we had one, or the other, but not both.  We were excited when we finally had both, allowing hot showers, but turning on the water heater causes one of the faucets to nearly explode shooting water from all seams. Oh well, he has already shown infinite flexibility and ingenuity, and patience…. probably the three most important skills needed to be happy here.

Other events – we got a small moto(rcycle).  I think its more like a put-put, apparently the engine is about 1/10^th of the size as Nathan’s last motorcycle, but apparently it gets 200 miles/gallon.  I started work – it’s a slow start (not unexpected) and I have PLENTY that I am still closing out, so not too worried.  I have already been to one of our more rural sites, and Nathan is joining me there next week.  We have cooked at home about every night, and are enjoying discovering what is and isn’t available, and of the things that are, what aren’t CRAZY prices.

There have been a few lowlights, on the list - The heavy pollution especially around dinner time when there is both traffic and cooking.  Apparently this will decrease in the rainy season.  Not always understanding everything or everyone, or worse, not always being understood. And the commute to our rural site has gotten more complicated as one of the bridges washed out a few months ago.  On the way to the site last week, I got out at one side, walked across and there was someone waiting at the other side.  On the way back, we went around the bridge – a 45 very bumpy, very narrow, very uncomfortable detour.

But for every lowlight, there have been plenty of highlights…  Being here with Nathan makes it seem like I am coming here for the first time.  Everyone (friends, colleagues, neighbors, strangers on the streets) has been super friendly.  And for me, my excitement for the work ahead seems equally matched by my colleagues.

We will be posting periodically on the blog (aiming for at least every two weeks), so keep an eye out here if you want more of a narrative of our time in Rwanda.  I will nudge Nathan to put a few posts on as well.  And please stay in touch… the world has gotten much smaller, and we should have regular internet and cell phone access.

And in case your curious, here is our current sublet (thanks, Justin M!): https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=-1.958776,30.103065&daddr=Boulevard+de+I+Umuganda,+Kigali,+Rwanda&hl=en&ll=-1.958686,30.103413&spn=0.002303,0.002739&sll=-1.958686,30.103413&sspn=0.002303,0.002739&geocode=%3BCWEqoiGj-JHFFcoZ4v8dyYLLASnLhYP7qqfcGTENcEzsRrpD1g&t=w&mra=mift&mrsp=0&sz=19&z=19