Rwanda Nziza...

Beautiful Rwanda....

This will be my last blog entry. Enjoy the following pics highlighting the beauty of Rwanda. To everyone who only associates Rwanda with death, anguish and war, let these pictures prove to you that Rwanda is so much more...it is a place of beauty, love, and hope.

 The view at the top of the hill near my house that I ran up regularly - yes, those are clouds!

 Giraffe in Akagara Park - East province of Rwanda

 A view of Kigali from Mt. Kigali

 A view of Lake Kivu and islands from Kibuye

 Rainbow after the storm - Kigali

  The view at the canteen of Nyamishaba campus, Kibuye - where I taught my first year students

 Lake Kivu, Kibuye

 Butare - Southern Province of Rwanda

Sunrise in a little village near Cyangugu - the southwestern tip of Rwanda

 Nyungwe Rainforest near the Burundian Border

 Gisenyi - Lake Kivu, bordering the DRCongo

 Musanze - North Rwanda, the home of the mountain gorillas

 Silverback Gorilla

 A tree - a symbol of life and hope - Kigali Genocide Memorial

 A view of Lake Kivu - Amahoro Island, Near Kibuye

 Amahoro Island - Amahoro means peace, fitting isn't it?

Best of all - the beautiful friends I made, many of whom have influenced me greatly and given me a new perspective on life

It's been a slice! Thanks so much for following me these past 7 months and I hope you've enjoyed this blog as much as I've enjoyed making it...

Live, love, laugh and TRAVEL 

Farah :)

Final Reflections

I've been home for a few days now and I'm finally closing the chapter to my greatest learning experience yet. I cannot put into words what I have learned yet but here, I will try.

Rwanda Nziza - beautiful Rwanda. But nonetheless, a land of paradox. Rwanda has become my second home but there are still some aspects of it that I am trying to come to terms with.

Let's talk about the environment first. Interestingly, President Kagame has banned plastic bags in Rwanda. At every border crossing I went through (and there were many in my 6 months of traveling), border officers tirelessly rummaged through my bags looking for plastic bags. I'm sure they'd be more phased by the finding of a plastic bag than by a weapon.... And it's a great idea. No where in the country do you find plastic bags spoiling the beautiful green hills and undoubtedly, using paper bags is MUCH better for the environment. But if you want to recycle your tin can that once held oatmeal, goodluck. Recycling doesn't exist. Also, the air is heavily polluted. A lot of dirty cars on the road. That never really made sense to me. I think I've decided Rwanda cares more about how the country LOOKS vs. the actual environment. After all, anyone who has ever visited the country will quickly find that in Rwanda, aesthetics are EVERYTHING.

Gender roles - Rwanda has the highest number of women in government in the WORLD. Go Rwanda go! And yes, women are well respected. But nonetheless, gender roles most definitely still exist. I'd get stares of wonder when I told people I was 25, unmarried, without children and with no plans of doing that anytime soon. They thought something was wrong with me and kept warning me that by the time I wanted these things, I'd be too old (ie. by 30, you are crusty, old and might as well give up on life). Moreover, as I've mentioned in previous posts, men have a tendency to be quite patronizing. It's not fun. 

Resources - Rwanda has virtually no resources. It's main exports are coffee and tea and the economy more or less relies on Gorilla trekking (tourism). However, Rwanda has seen some of the most consistent economic growth in the world. In Rwanda, it takes a matter of days to set up a business - in fact, the country has been ranked by the World Bank as one of the best places for business. Regardless, poverty rates are high. A good chunk of the population still lives in desolate conditions. The good news: in the past 6 years, nearly a million Rwandans have been pulled out of poverty. So the country is on it's way up hopefully.

As you can tell, there are still some things that leave me thinking when it comes to how Rwanda works.

I have learned a lot about humanity though...

Never ever doubt the power of a human being. These people have suffered. More suffering that most of us will ever know. But yet they smile, dance and forgive. They haven't let their absolutely horrific past hold them back. They've kept going.

Community. Rwandans embraces a sense of community. People look out for each other, even if they are strangers. They say hello, give a friendly handshake and are always eager to strike up a conversation. I already miss that. If you fall, you will hear a million "sorry! sorry! sorry" and everyone rushes to pick you up. People are there for each other. Here, people just walk by and don't even bother to look at you!

Affection - it wasn't uncommon for friends to tell me they love me and my family. In a friendly way of course. Hugs were always free and even came from people you barely knew. They were just always so happy to see you.

The beauty of the simple things. People live simple lives and they are happy. Stuff does not buy happiness.

That's all I can really describe for now. With each passing day, the things I've learned become more apparent. I already miss the land of a thousand hills! My last post will be a photo essay highlighting my favourite moments in Rwanda. 

My last weekend in Rwanda: Beautiful Butare

Well, I'm back in balmy Canada. Mixed emotions at the moment....

For now, I'm going to reflect back on my last weekend in Rwanda. I went to Butare, which is the second largest city in Rwanda. It's 2 hours south of Kigali and is a city rich in history and culture. Butare is known as the home of the National Museum of Rwanda as well as the National University of Rwanda. Both of which were very beautiful...

 Traditional Hut

 Inside the Hut

 Rwandan Pride

 Beautiful Butare

The museum was rich with Rwandan history, culture, and nature. From geology, to dance, to politics, the museum shared facts about all the different aspects of Rwanda and life in this incredible country. I won't give it all away, you'll just have to visit it for yourself one day...

Our next stop was the University, which is set in a forest. Cool, huh? So you can go to class, and then go sit in a tropical forest and study. It's nice and cool and very quiet. Absolutely lovely. The campus was surprisingly large and bustling with students. It was basically just a tropical version of the University of Toronto at Mississauga. We wandered the campus, chilled out in the cool forest, and chatted with a few students. I felt like I was back in school! 

 NUR - national university of Rwanda

 Yes, Monkeys - ie. study buddies

The campus has monkeys. So instead of the boring squirrels I had at the university of Toronto, the students at NUR get to hang out with monkeys. Only in Africa! On the way back, we caught a beautiful sunset. I will miss African sunsets so very much...

Butare is very different from Kigali and I'm glad I saw it before I left. It was a good way to bid farewell to Rwanda...

The KHI Experience

As my time here winds down to the end,  I'd like to reflect and share what life and work in Rwanda has been like. I leave this Friday and I can hardly believe it. It's been the best 6 months of my life and I can say that I've probably learned more about the world and real life than I ever have in school.

During my time in Rwanda, I was a lecturer at the Kigali Health Institute - a university that specializes in training healthcare professionals. I was in the physiotherapy department and was responsible for teaching physiology courses. I was lucky enough to work with a bunch of great people who made me feel very welcome at KHI. But my time there wasn't always easy...

My Building

Walking to work

There are SO many challenges to face when working in a foreign environment. The language barrier was always the most difficult to deal with. Rwandan students who barely know English openly laugh at my ‘American English’ even though it’s my native language. They comment that I say words in a strange way and don't pronounce the words correctly...go figure....It made my job difficult in that when students did not understand concepts, they didn’t always take responsibility or make the initiative to truly learn. Rather, some of them blamed it on my ‘difficult English’ and concluded that they weren’t doing well simply because of me. That was really hard to deal with and inevitably left me wondering if I was really qualified for this job....

But when a student finally understood a difficult concept and thanked me endlessly while grinning ear to ear, it reminded me that I am totally qualified and could do this. I think the highlight of my time with the students was at the end of a debate in my exercise therapy course. We were talking about the different energy sources used in basketball and football and the students just loved this. At the end of the debate, one of them yelled “you are the coolest teacher ever!” and everyone cheered.  It was awesome and left me smiling all day :)

Working in a male-dominated environment was also challenging. Most of the employees here were very respectful. However, there were the few that would make inappropriate comments or look at me in a manner that made me very uncomfortable. There were also the few that were just a little ‘too’ nice and it’s not cool when you just want to be treated like any other employee.

Resources were sometimes a problem as well. You need classrooms to teach and sometimes there just simply wasn’t one available. And you’d find out the day of your lecture. So you just have to bite the bullet, cancel the class, and cram the material in with the remaining time. Scheduling is a bit of a foreign concept here too. Although schedules DID exist, they weren’t necessarily abided by. This made things very frustrating. When I wanted to scream, I just tried to remember how the students must feel – it’s a lot more stressful being a student with exams that are constantly changing dates than it is to be the lecturer. I sometimes wonder how the students did it….

My first year orthopaedic students and I

I guess I'll summarize by saying that working at KHI has taught me the value of patience, flexibility, and adaptability. KHI definitely has a long way to go but I feel lucky to have had the chance to contribute to KHI and to the development of healthcare in Rwanda as a whole. I truly love this country and see the potential it has. Despite all the challenges, I will miss KHI and Rwanda dearly and hope to one day return and continue my work in Rwanda.

Crazy Kampala and Nile Rafting in Uganda

This past weekend, I took the 10 hour bus ride to Kampala, Uganda. I had been told by several people that while I was in Rwanda, I had to check out Kampala because it is so 'crazy'. They weren't kidding. When we arrived, we were greeted by this sign on our hotel room door:

Comforting welcome

Kampala is nothing like Kigali. The streets are crowded with people. Clothing markets everywhere. Clubs and bars at every corner. It's a lot dirtier too. But it's a very exciting city and it's never short of things to do. We decided to spend our first day in Uganda poolside to catch some rays and just relax.

Fancy pool

We took it easy that Thursday and enjoyed a view of Lake Victoria:

Giant vulture like birds roaming the park

The following day was very, very different. We got up early that Friday morning and hopped on a bus to a town called Jinja to go white water rafting on the Nile. One of the sources of the Nile is found in Jinja.

Norah and I excited before rafting

The rafting started out fun, not too scary. But by the third rapid, which was a serious grade 5 rapid (the maximum is grade 6 which is considered 'hazardous to life'), I was freaking out. 

Coming down a more gentle rapid

Being flipped in treacherous waters - I'm the single person in the middle holding on for dear life

When you hit the large rapids and get tossed out of the raft and into the river, the water literally throws you around as if you're just a rag doll. I spent maybe a maximum of 5 seconds underwater but it feels like a lifetime. It's the worst when you are stuck in a rapid on the raft (it's like surfing) and you can't get out and water is being thrown on top of you. I was so disoriented at some points. It's a crazy thrill but can't say I'll do it again...at least for a very very long time. The Nile was lovely though. We took some swimming breaks in between rapids and the water is warm and tranquil...until you hit those rapids of course.

The following day, after recovering from the insanity that was white water rafting, we toured around Kampala and did some shopping in the craft market. We then decided to drive out to Entebbe and enjoy Lake Victoria beachside. We were even lucky enough to catch the sunset!

Enjoying the Beach

Ugandan Sunset

We went out that night and I couldn't believe just how culturally different Uganda is from Rwanda. In Rwanda, people are quite reserved and conservative. In Uganda, people just openly dance, are loud, and dress, well, not conservatively. It was a very cool contrast, especially since Uganda is Rwanda's next door neighbour.

We took an overnight bus back to Rwanda on Sunday and unfortunately, our bus broke down in the middle of nowhere. We waited for 3 hours in the middle of the night for a new bus to come rescue us but let's just say, my patience with Africa was dwindling at that point. One thing I've learned here is that patience is probably the most important characteristic in the world if you plan on living happily in Africa. But in the end, we made it home to Kigali safe and sound and that's what matters most!

Uganda - it's a crazy place! 

Conquering the Rooftop of Africa: Mount Kilimanjaro

Sorry for the delay in my posts, life has been hectic since I got back from my travels. But let me now share the tale of Mount Kilimanjaro AKA the rooftop of Africa. At 5985m above Sea Level, Mt. Kili is the highest peak in Africa and the largest free standing mountain the world. It is among the 7 summits of the world and is one beautiful mountain to climb.

I climbed kili with a Canadian friend from Rwanda who organized the whole thing and his friends from Quebec. In total, we were a group of 6. Everyone in the group had previously climbed a 'real' mountain so I was the only newbie. A bit intimidating but their experience came in kind of handy - they supported me and I got to borrow everyone else's extra gear which saved my life as I was not prepared for the cold climate of kilimanjaro!

Day 1: we started our journey at Machame gate. Our plan was to do a 7 day climb to the top via the Machame route. Day 1 was very easy - a nice 5 hour hike through the jungle:

 Day 1: trekking through the beautiful lush jungle of kili

I was relieved at just how easy day 1 was. It was almost relaxing. Machame is known as one of the more physically challenging routes on Kili but day 1 treated me right. At the end of the day, we reached about 3000m above sea and the vegetation was already beginning to change. The large trees of the jungle were progressively getting smaller and the air was getting drier. 

 View from camp 1

 Machame campsite: night 1

Day 2: Another lovely hike. Not as easy as day 1 - steeper and naturally, at higher elevations everything gets tougher. But it was so interesting to see how much the landscape and vegetation changes as you get higher and higher. On this day, I got my first view of the snow covered top of Kili:

The views were spectacular and we were already at cloud level.

We reached Shira camp and were greeted by this site:

 It doesn't look that big, right?...wrong!

 Looking super classy in my high socks, toque, and lululemon gear :)

 Shira Camp (~3700m above sea level)

 Dr. Eddison Chia (AKA Baboo -grandfather in Swahili) and I admiring the mountain

 Artistic shot - you can see kili in the reflection and a Canadian flag in the background - proud Canadians!

Day 3: This was a crucial day for acclimatization. On this day, we trekked up to Lava Tower (about 4600m above sea level) and had lunch there. We only spent an hour at this level but it gives the body a chance to begin to adjust to the high elevations. At this point, I was still feeling great. 2 of the members of my team were actually doctors, so they were keeping an eye on me and I had plenty of aspirin to ward off any altitude related headaches. I was also very thankful I had kept running in Rwanda as it meant the only challenge I had to face was the altitude and not so much the fitness aspect of mountain climbing. But what amazed me was the porters. Carrying about 20kg each on their backs and heads, they managed to keep their balance and climb some serious uphill challenges. Absolutely amazing.

 The view of Kili from Lava Tower

 Our lunchtime hangout spot on Day 3 - Lava Tower 

Lava Tower shown here - a high rock formation - the result of a volcanic eruption thousands (maybe even millions) of years ago

Beautiful Kilimanjaro

As we descended to our campsite (back to about 3900m), we came across these really neat trees, which apparently can only be found on Kili and Mt. Meru (another mountain in Tanzania). These trees are called Senecio plants and the descent into Barranco valley is covered with these strange beauties. So the area is notoriously known as the Garden of Senecias. 

 Huge senecio plants

Day 4: We left Barraco camp bright and early and made our way to Karanga campsite. The landscape is beautiful here -  a stream running through the rocks with clouds surrounding us. The day began with a scramble up the Barranco wall- which means you gotta use your hands and feet to climb up this rocky wall. It was actually SO much fun. But the guide kept reminding me to go Pole Pole, which in Swahili means, slowly slowly. And again, I was mesmerized by the porters who were somehow scrambling with huge bags balanced on their heads. Unreal! Once we got up the Barranco wall, we got a spectacular view of Mt. Meru:

 Meru: at 4565 m above sea leve, the 10th highest mountain in Africa

When we finally reached Karanga campsite, we were pretty spent. This is actually an optional campsite for people climbing in 7 days. We opted for the extra day for acclimatization. It increased our chances of making it to the top and allowed us to spend that much more time on kili. I was happy to take my time  as the altitude was getting the best of my digestive system. I had no appetite and wasn't eating much so I was climbing pretty slowly!

That night we admired the full moon:

 Natural light source :)

Day 5: The big day. We had some breakfast (except for me, food grossed me out at this point) and some hot drinks and off we were to base camp. It was a pleasant 3 hour climb through desert-like, rocky terrain to Barafu high camp. It was pretty cold at this point, despite the REALLY strong sun. This is where my breathing began to feel a bit strained.

 Barafu high Camp - about 4600m above Sea Level

The view from Barafu 

We reached Barafu at around 11am. We had a quick lunch and then slept until 9pm. We then carb loaded with some pasta, put on our serious winter gear, packed some gels and chocolate bars and began our final ascent to the top. We left at 10:30pm and were greeted by the lovely full moon (we didn't even need our headlamps!). But our summit climb was also accompanied by some very gusty ice-cold winds. My fingers were numb and I couldn't even feel my thighs at one point. The ascent also has to happen at a PAINFULLY slow pace so as to avoid getting winded. Pole Pole. You basically shuffle all the way to the top. At around 3 am, one of our team members began swaying around and showing signs of incoherence. This is really scary because of the risk for cerebral edema at high altitude. Cerebral edema is a life threatening condition where the brain fills with fluid. Unfortunately, one of the doctors on the team instructed him to turn around and go back. So we were now 5 with our awesome guide Kibacha (who was doing the climb for the 151st time) and a couple of porters who were there in case we could no longer carry our day packs. At this point, I was mentally drained. I felt like I had frost bite and was just super scared because I felt like if my experienced team member couldn't do it, then how the hec was I gonna get up there? I was also dehydrated because my water bottles froze through the night. But after throwing on some snow pants and extra boot covers and scarfing down some mini snickers bars, I found the courage to keep going. Thank goodness for good team members too who kept encouraging me and ensuring me I wasn't showing any signs of altitude sickness. 

We finally reached Stella point (5685m) at around 4:45AM. At this point, you can see the glacier and there is ice and snow surrounding the trail. Every step though is hard. My heart was pounding. I was shuffling like a turtle but I felt like I was sprinting the final kilometer of a half marathon. 

At around 5:30AM we reached Uhuru Peak - the summit of Mt. Kilimajaro. It was beautiful. Behind me, the full moon was setting and in front of me, the sun was rising over Africa:

 Sunrise from the highest point in Africa

I was a bit loopy due to the altitude. In fact, you feel really drunk up there. I guess it's a combination of the low oxygen and the sheer exhilaration that you ACTUALLY made it to the top. After almost 6 days of climbing, the goal was finally reached. It was amazing. Unfortunately, you can only spend 30 min to maximum 1 hr at the top because the cold really starts to get uncomfortable and quite dangerous (it's about -25 celsius up there). 

I took it all in though. Way above the clouds on the summit of a huge-ass dorment volcano, surrounded by happy people, glaciers and a huge volcanic crater. It was all very overwhelming!

 Around 6:30AM at the top of Africa

We then began our journey back down. In daylight we could see more of top and it was absolutely breathtaking. In fact, as one of my team members said "It looks like Star Wars up here!". It was dry with jagged rocks and an open terrain. It looked like something out of this world. 

 Beginning our climb down. 

You basically slide down the loose rocks back to base camp. It's exhausting though. I've always found downhill a lot harder than uphill. My knees were aching and all I wanted to do was sleep. The adrenaline and joy kept me going though and so did the increasing oxygen levels. We reached base camp 3 hrs later (took us 6 hours to get up!) and rested for an hour before climbing down for another 4 hours. It was actually at this point, I was starting to lose my mind. My toes hurt, my knees ached, and my quads burned. Let's just say I was eager to get off Kili now.

We camped the night and on Day 7, finished the final 3 hour descent through the jungle. We were greeted by some Columbus Monkeys.

This brought me some joy but my mind was just occupied now on getting to the bottom, showering (I was so dirty after 7 days of climbing and camping), using a real toilet, and icing my feet and knees. When I saw the gate at the bottom, I literally ran down with my team members close behind me laughing at the level of insanity I had reached. I was smiling like a fool and was never happier to sit in car in my life.

This is probably one of the most memorable experiences I've ever had. Africa has brought me many extraordinary moments but this definitely ranks near the top.

I'll never forget the sign at the top: CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE NOW AT UHURU PEAK. One of the proudest and happiest moments of my life.

Our team - with our guide on the bottom left and a very supportive porter on the bottom right

You can see the joy in all of us, especially me. Yes, I'm the one all bundled up in the red marshmallow jacket :)