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!