Adventuretime...plus work.

Scary Stephanie!

This whirlwind trip has been slowing down during the past two days while the team has hunkered down at a local coffee shop to work on EWB documentation. This is one of our least favorite tasks, except for Michael who apparently loves writing documents...weird. I am definitely not going to go into the details of the days of document writing but we did take some breaks to go on intermittent adventures.

working, working, working...at Bourbon.

NYABAGOGO MARKET
All of us wanted to experience a true African marketplace before leaving so we hopped on some motos and headed over in hopes of finding gifts and random trinkets for friends and family back home.  It was not what we expected, it was actually a sea of second hand clothes and shoes and bags.  All things we weren't too interested in bringing home.  Nevertheless, we went "deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole" exploring the rows and mazes of the market.  We emerged victorious after fighting off insistent shoe salesmen, unbudging textile ladies and unreasonable prices. It was an experience indeed.

Kimirongo Market

MEZE FRESH
So...being from Colorado, we all love burrito bars.  We love the instantaneous food and watching a spoonful of rice on a tortilla, piled up with steak, a mixture of salsas and other tasty toppings and then wrapped into burrito. Well, in Kigali there is one such restaurant and we ventured off in search for our little taste of home.  It was amazing and all that we hoped it would be...plus complimentary guacamole! 

CASINO
So, there is one casino in Kigali, and it is a relatively small room on the 2nd flow of an old hotel.  We decided to check it out...the under 21 year olds of the bunch wanted to try their hands at some blackjack. After the initial confusion about what currency to use, we played some blackjack with a few US dollars for a little fun. As gambling always goes, only one of us left with any winnings. 

MATERIALS SOURCING
To finish up the last true field work activity here in country, we wandered through an area with hardware stores and asked prices of various necessary materials.  Without a translator, upon entering each store we didn't know whether to expect broken English speakers or having to deal with a complete language barrier. But with only a few instants of confusion, we got all the information we needed.

ZEN
For our last night in Kigali, we planned to go to a fancy dancy asian restaurant in Kigali with our favorites Willy (NGO contact) and Mazack (translator) and their wives. We showed up to one of the fanciest restaurants in Kigali wearing shorts and t-shirts. Yeah...we immediately regretted that decision, once our friends showed up looking very nice.  Dinner nevertheless was amazing! But the goodbye was bittersweet.

before our amazing dinner

Now, with the documentation and planning nearly finished, we are hoping to enjoy our last day in Kigali before before flying back home.  With school just around the corner, we don't want time to move too quickly.

Till we meet again,

Ariana

Remembering

And we’re back! On Monday we left Musanze and the north of Rwanda for good, down the winding roads of so many hills and once again to the bustling city of Kigali.  

After settling into the hotel we went to see the genocide museum located in the city. The museum is dedicated to the remembrance of the Rwandan genocide twenty years ago so that people can understand all that happened and learn from the mistakes of the past.  It was truly a deep and heavy experience to be able to see it. Inside we walked a timeline of the history of Rwanda leading up to and through the genocide, outlining some of the reasons it occurred and telling about the effects afterwards. We saw stories of survivors, their emotions about everything and what they were thinking while it was happening. The acts of many of the perpetrators were described graphically. Some of the heroes were also recorded; those who sheltered many people, those who hid a few, those who saved one.

It was especially infuriating to see the reactions of the other nations of the world and to see just how little could have been done to stop the genocide. They had a room dedicated to pictures of the victims and a room dedicated to the children killed. Another exhibit covered many of the other genocides that have happened in the world, a scary statistic of how many there are with one clear message; please don’t let it happen again. Don’t let history repeat itself as it has in the past. In the end it was heart wrenching to see all of what had happened and to think that a few people could start such a horrible event. The hill that the museum is located on is a burial site for 250,000 of the victims. Seeing Rwanda now, it is remarkable how they have recovered in just twenty years. They truly are an amazing people. If you are ever in Kigali you should definitely go and see the museum.

After a little while to contemplate everything, we went to dinner at Sol E Luna for trivia night. We feasted on pizza and met with Meagan, a recent graduate who is working with an NGO in Rwanda and wants to work with our team in the future. The restaurant was filled with people from around the world and trivia questions ranging from identification of places in pictures to naming serial killers based on when and where they were arrested. Out of 60 questions our group scored 20 correctly, the winner being a competitive table that only wrote out their thoughts for fear of others hearing them, yet only beat us by 13 points. 

The day was interesting and marks one of our last. Work, work, work for the next few.

That's all from me.

Michael Swartz

Guys with Guns, Gorillas...and a Volcano

Do you sometimes stop, right in the middle of what you were doing, and wonder “What kind of life choices did I make where I ended up here?”

Okay, now the reason I ask is because today we climbed a volcano, named Mt. Bisoke, and let me tell you that while I was hiking- no, sorry, scrambling and dry heaving-I was asking myself that very same thing.

Let me start from the beginning. We wake up, meet the driver, drive, and arrive at some white person haven at the entrance to the national park. After being surrounded by locals for so long, a dense white population can be very overwhelming to some. And these are white people from all over the world, so at least we got some diversity going on. Also, it might be interesting to note that out of the 30 or so that arrived to hike Bisoke that morning, not only were we the only Americans, but also the youngest of the group as well.

So, with those two facts in mind, we were thinking “Yeah, we’re young, we’re strong. We’re from good ole’ Colorado! We climb these peaks in our sleep! Bring it on!”

Well. As we went uphill, things for us started to quickly go the other way. Don’t get me wrong, from the get-go all five of us were eagerly hiking directly behind our kindly guard and the two military men-hereafter known as “guys with guns”- and didn’t struggle to keep up at all. But then the stairs came. The dreaded stairs. Dear readers, image any staircase you have ever climbed, no matter how tall it was, and now replace the stairs with old canvas wheat bags filled with dirt and replace your what I’m hoping was a pleasant mood with one of total despair and hopelessness. I might be exaggerating a bit, but these stairs from hell just wouldn’t end. There is no such thing as switchbacks in Africa apparently because the entire trail was vertical. But the best part was that when there weren’t satan stairs, there was steep mud slides of doom that you had to crawl up as the guides and guys with guns would hop and skip gracefully up the side in rubber rain boots.

Mastering the stairs of death

Okay, so there was my rant. Let’s go over why Bisoke is so amazing, and a mountain that everyone should get the chance to see (once. Only once. It’s still a hard hike, you know.) Remember in the beginning when I mentioned the life choices question? Well while I just finished my 13^th set of the staircase of death, I took the time to look up for a bit and take in my surroundings. Not even the best of my 11^th grade literature class descriptive skills can describe this view. I was walking in a rainforest in the heart of Africa, surrounded by mist and strange flora and birdcalls that were at times eerie but at others more beautiful than anything else. At the base of the volcano were plots of farmland that extended anywhere you looked, and the silver roofs of corrugated metal and the colorful cloths that covered the people working in the fields. Directly in front of you were more stairs. But as I heaved and my heart and lungs struggled to keep me alive and my legs convulsed, I was amazed at where I was. While my body screamed “YOU DAMNED FOOL ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME” my mind was entirely at peace. What a miracle that my life had led me to this wild and foreign place.

            Now, for the moment you were all waiting for. In mid-ascension, one guy with gun told us to quiet down, for while we walked by a patch of forest you could clearly see an entire family of gorillas. About 15 of them; just hunkered down and watching us. There were two males, relatively small in stature and plenty of babies, but before anyone could get a good look we were hurried onward. You sometimes forget that these animals could easily rip you apart. But what luck we had! There are only 400 wild gorillas in the world, and we saw a family of them!

            Finally, we summitted. Well, not all together. Salka and Swartz, having to prove their burliness and represent our hometown, made it to the top first and in good shape. Then came some fit South African couple, then myself five minutes later, and then the rest of the pack afterwards. From the top all you could see were clouds, so there wasn’t much of a view, but the crater of the volcano was a dark lake surrounded by trees so that was perfectly fine with us, and after a lunch of lime-flavored peas, bars and beef jerky under the watchful eyes of the guys with guns, we were en route for the base.

            And let me tell you that the sadistic steps of doom are much more enjoyable coming down, and the mud slopes of pain turned into fun mud slides of pain! All while we shared conversation with some worldly Spaniards. That, dear readers, was how we climbed Mt. Bisoke, and while it was definitely not easy for even the most seasoned climbers, if your life ever takes you in that direction, make sure to take full advantage of it.

You’ll thank me later, but your calves won’t.

Hasta luego, amigos

-Steph

Goodbyes are only temporary

Well folks, our time in Cyanika is quickly coming to an end. All of our days of death defying bus rides, adorable preschooler morning greetings, and miles and miles of walking are no more. The last drive to Cyanika was strikingly beautiful, more than I have ever noticed, perhaps because I have taken it for granted the last few weeks. Miles and miles of eucalyptus forests line the road, surrounded in early morning mists that seemed to dance as the sun rises in the sky. All of this at the base of an enormous volcano. This country has been good to us.

Sabinyo Volcano, near our worksite

Friday marked our last meeting with the Community Vision Board (CVB), composed of local cell and umudugudu leaders desiring to bring water to their people. We reviewed with them the pros and cons of pipeline and rainwater catchment that were discussed in previous meetings with both the CVB and the Executive Secretary of Cyanika. This time, we also gave our official recommendation that after this assessment, we believe that implementation of a rainwater catchment system provides the best solution to expand the populations access to water, while providing a money-making opportunity for the community. The CVB readily backed the idea. We went on to outline next steps in the process, such as what we will be doing from Colorado, and what they can do in the mean time while we work on the design. The community responds with such eagerness to all of our suggestions, promising to mobilize their communities for the undertaking. Community members even donated their personal land to create new catchment systems for them and their neighbors. There is a great sense of community and compassion for ones village in Rwanda, which we have experienced over and over again this trip.

Final community meeting

After a round of "see you laters" (because everyone hates goodbyes, we spent the rest of our day sourcing materials in Cyanika and Musanze, where shop keepers helped us find the best prices and were surprisingly not trying to give us outrageous abazungu taxes. 

Now, we must turn to our handy dandy checklists to fill the rest of our days here! We are compiling our myriad of surveys, writing the 522, using GIS, and finish up water quality testing to name a few tasks.

Working hard in our gazebo!

Saying goodbye to Alberto. Our favorite Italian.

But first...we took a break to visit the local Chinese, yes, as in fried rice, egg rolls and teriyaki chicken, restaurant by the name of "Green Garden." Necessary background information: We have passed this restaurant EVERY night on the way to dinner, and made some quip about its risks of food poisoning and salmonella. And on more than one occasion, someone in ur group swore that we will never eat there. Ever.

But alas, craving something different than heaping piles of cassava, rice and beans, and not to mention our near daily ration of pizza, we caved. After all, Chinese in Africa could be good right? 

Turns out, no lives were lost, and the food - while not Chinese in nature by any means - was a welcome change to our palates. We hyped the risks up for nothing, the dramatic college kids that we are.

tomorrow.....we hike Bisoke Volcano!! Stay tuned.

Bì ag rince go deo,

Jordan

How many tongues does it take to get to the center of a Tutsi (or Hutu) pop?

Dear reader,

I hope you are still able to recall those occasions when, as a child in search of permission for some controversial activity, sound strategy dictated selectively approaching one parent before the other such that the precedent assent of the more laid-back of the pair would pressure the other to concede in spite of their better judgment so as not to appear the heartless disciplinarian. For our EWB team this past week, such youthful exploitations of adult psychologies proved to be continually applicable life lessons.

Faced with the less than encouraging responses to our proposals from big poppa EWSA described by previous posts, our adopted Uncle figure, the Chief Executive Secretary of the Cyanika sector, became a stalwart proponent of our plan to install rainwater catchment systems as a primary phase. We suspect his taking up of this position was motivated in equal parts by a good natured sense of protection as by fear of our abandoning the project altogether, nonetheless the shift was significant given his initially expressed predilection towards the pipeline extension. With the Chief’s blessing, our motherly and nurturing hosts comprising the Community Vision Board received our bid to implement catchment with much enthusiasm. The Board members were swayed by the community’s ownership of the water, the immediacy of the solution, and the entrepreneurial opportunities afforded through accumulated user-fees. Thundercats are GO!

 

The sunny reversal of circumstances above was a sign of things to come; the rest of the perfectly temperate afternoon was spent following the umudugudu leaders through the stunning Cyanika landscape to additional potential catchment sites, as was the following morning. Thursday afternoon, after topographically mapping six sites in rapid succession, we were gifted with a sight right out of an umuzungu’s African fantasies- the utterly undeveloped and enigmatic Lake Burera. The nearby cousin to the more widely renowned Lake Kivu, the terraformed shores of Burera fade into the mist with equal mystery, yet the crystal clear waters tempt one to dive in without the omnipresent threat of being permeated by innumerable burrowing, suctioning, and slithering extremophile parasites mutated by methane into deadly micro-beasts. The Chief asked what we, as engineers and architects, would do to improve the place. My suggestion: don’t.

 

Upon returning to the hotel, thoroughly exhausted and soiled by long hours of surveying and collecting earth samples, we were surprised by a phone call received the very instant we’d collapsed into our beds. The Chief had stopped at our hotel to visit with a few of his superiors, apparently mentioned our work, and it turned out they wanted to meet us; what better way to celebrate a successful two weeks of work than getting tipsy with government officials? I’ll admit I was mildly nervous at first, we were quite beat and these were the Rwandan equivalents of state senators, but after they ordered us all a few rounds (each round here consists of two beers, so you can figure the math) those anxieties evaporated and a boisterous conversation ensued in a wholly postmodern admixture of French, English, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, and gestures exaggerated by inebriation. Topics ranged from the acceptable number of children in a family:

            Rwandan Officials “Ten or eleven is just more fun, if you don’t like some of ‘em                                                   there are always others to visit! You can have your own                                                          football team!”

            EWB Team      “Are you kidding me? How can you remember all their names?”

To national gun control policies:

            Rwandan Officials “Teenagers can buy guns? Isn’t that dangerous?”

            EWB Team      “Uhh…. yeah”

It also merits mentioning the openness with which our Rwandan counterparts were willing to discuss their nation’s history, including the darker periods we are all too familiar with. Between the forces of colonial guilt, the NAACP, and the separation of Church and State in the U.S., we often refuse to deliberate provocative subjects rather than expose them to public consideration though most of us recognize repression often results in the minimally concealed festering of open wounds, merely delaying violent repercussions. The present success of the reconciliation of Rwandan ethnic groups based upon candidness and public accountability is a powerful testament to the merits of transparency.

We rounded out the evening with a hearty dinner at our favorite local Italian joint, Alberto’s. In case we hadn’t butchered enough languages yet that evening, we instigated a conversation in Spanish with a Belgian engineer who currently lives in Guadalajara, Mexico and has been in Musanze for nearly two years on a job assignment. I took it upon myself to explain that some claim Colorado as the world’s new Belgium of beer. He was not pleased, but took the news in stride.

May your hearts and glasses always be full,

Michael Salka

FRONTAL LOBE!!!

Thanks for being a wonderful addition to our travel team, Kara!  You have the matured frontal lobe that we all lack.         

          An ongoing inside joke within our group is about that fact that we learned that the decision making part of the brain (the frontal lobe) is not developed completely until age 27.  This is evidenced by the fact that young people do not always make the best decisions, mainly because we do not think through everything as we make them. All of us are far below this 27 year old marker in life and thus our decision making ability is not up to par of that of our mentor, Kara.  Today we had yet another "frontal lobe" moment:

            Between taking water use surveys (which I will talk more about later) we had some time to kill so Salka, Stephanie, and I decided to play a little bit of frisbee in the field.  Unlike the soccer game last week, people decided not to join in our play, but instead to watch us play catch. As Stephanie was passing the frisbee to Salka, some crazy, wayward wind gust must have occurred because huge frisbee suddenly landed on the roof of a nearby building.  A gasp echoed through the crowd, with a few intermittent giggles as we eyed the frisbee atop the roof searching for a way to get it down.  As we rounded the back of the building we found a pile of stacked bricks, about 4ft x 4ft x 3ft. Salka immediately climbed up followed by Stephanie and I with a plan to lift help one of us on the roof. Before we could decide who would do the honor of climbing up, our shuffling around caused much if the pile of bricks to collapse.  This time the crowd watching all gasped while we stood flabbergasted at the mess we had made.  Then, like children, we starting to pick each block up and stack them up. You know how the worst part of Jenga is the construction of the tower before game play, well this was much worse.  Our shame made us work faster and finally we staggered from the back of the building, covered in brick dust, to find the kids and Swartz playing catch with the "lost" frisbee.  They had apparently gotten it down by jerry rigging some sticks together.  Now who are the engineers here? Anyway, clearly our frontal lobes are not fully developed, but it did make for a good story. 

Frisbee on the roof with the stick contraption to get the frisbee off...

The frisbee was down, but we are on the other side of this building, working on stacking some bricks.

Other than that mishap, the rest of the day went very smoothly.  It was Kara's last full day in country, so she helped us finish the water use surveys with two more Umudugudus (villages).  The surveys will become very helpful when it comes to finding out how much water every person uses so we can size the catchment units correctly.  It also gives us an idea of how the sanitation has been for them.  They also have served to let the community members know we are here and what we are doing.  It has been nice to walk around the villages to find familiar faces!

Finishing up with the water usage surveys.

We then met with the Community Vision Board again to explain to pros and cons of rainwater catchment vs a pipeline. After hearing these the community represenatives were definitely leaning toward the rainwater catchment systems, so that was definitely good for our travel team to hear.  

With things going smoothly, we decided to go on one last hurrah dinner for Kara along with Mezack, and Willy. We went to...of course, Alberto's Mambo Italiano.  Dinner was better than ever and our Rwandan associates definitely enjoyed the fresh Italian food.  It was our last day with Kara and we are going to miss her so so much! 

God Bless,

Ariana 

When your life is in the hands of children...

Productivity and frustration! These are the two best ways to finalize a project decision on an assessment trip and happened just the other day.

We began the day surveying the sites that were proposed for the water distribution systems in order to map the grades. These hours were some of the most riveting that I have ever experienced. Processes involved taking a tape measure to the other end of the site then using a leveled scope to view a stadia rod (large ruler) at the other end which would tell us the elevation change between the two points. Exciting for sure. Then we would have the person with the rod walk five feet in and take the reading again, repeating this until the stadia rod was back at the scope. Walk, view, record.

But wait, it gets better. After doing one line of some unforgivable distance, we would re-dispense the tape measure for another angle! Walk, view, record, walk view, record. This done for multiple angles at the site; we’re building a topographical map. Then off to the next site. Walk, view, record. As we progressed, we accumulated a large horde of children all intrigued by the fancy equipment and it was adorable to see them get some string and mimic us in our surveying techniques. Walk, view, record.

After surveying a few sites - walk, view, record - we received a call informing us that EWSA was on their way to meet us for a second meeting so we needed to send some people back to meet them. Because surveying does take a good number of people - walk, view, record - we sent two people back to the meet. Kara wanted to be one of these but she said she was uncomfortable with finding her way back direction wise so of course I volunteered that I knew the way. Now, a note on my directional abilities; I would consider myself generally good at finding my way and recognizing places I have been before however going in the opposite direction changes things a little. Because of this we made it most of the way back just fine… There was just one little fork that I didn’t recognize. Lost! No phone. Uh-oh.

Now we had a meeting to get to and we couldn't just turn around so we did the next logical thing; turn to the group of children following us who knew almost no English. We showered them with words that they might understand such as town, road, chief, bus, and government until we stumbled upon one they recognized – police station! As they took us down some paths we had not seen before they whispered and laughed around us causing suspicion that they were just leading us somewhere remote to trick us or kill us further arousing suspicion when they all dashed ahead and grabbed large stalks of sugar can – the perfect weapon to beat someone with. Eventually we made it back safely and found out the next day that if we had just chosen the other path at the fork, an easily recognizable area was just around the corner.

By the time the meeting with EWSA happened the rest of the group had joined us again. From this meeting we were expecting some charts about the water infrastructure near the community as well as some answers to the tricky system that we could not figure out on our own. This ended up not happening and the conversation turned into almost an identical copy of the first meeting with them plying towards a partnership where we would fund the project while they were in charge - design and assessment somewhere unclear. As we walked out to view one of the parts of the system we were unclear of, some of the workings of the system became secrets and there was a heated exchange between one of our colleagues heavily invested in the community and the technician ending the day with some frustration however confirming our choice of project to that of catchment systems.

In the end the day was enormously productive and solidified our opinion as well as that of the executive that rainwater catchment is the best option until we can work out the EWSA situation in the future.

Until later,

Michael Swartz

Hasta la Pasta, Baby

The view from the Mountain Gorilla View Lodge....which I'm pretty sure was called paradise.

This is a story about five college kids and a mentor who were always hungry.

The famished group would wander the streets nightly in search of nourishment that didn’t consist of omelettes and goat kabobs. They first stopped by Shakey’s the local buffet with all the exciting staples you always craved such as rice, beans and squash. Well, needless to say Shakey’s just wasn’t enough. The gang moved on.

A few nights later, as we- the group- were eating dinner at the hotel’s restaurant upstairs, a pair of mildly drunk Canadians suddenly appeared! Apparently the tall brunette and the short, stocky blonde were claiming to be twins. Well, they shared the same birthday and year, which is a mildly interesting fact, I’ll have to agree. But still, we were hungry and they were distracting us from our french fries.

“Hello there,” we say as we dip fries in Egyptian Heinz.

“WE’RE TWINS” the pair screams again.

“Yes, we know.” * exaggerated eye roll* “So, how are you two liking Musanze so far?”

And at that moment the Canadians had a moment of total lucidity.

“Have you guys been to Mambo Italiano? We’re going there tonight! It’s fantastic!” The blonde pulls out a card, “It’s owned by a guy named Alberto. Here’s his number!”

The next night, after setting up a reservation with the now famous Alberto earlier that morning, we took off for the restaurant. The directions, however, weren’t the most clear.

“I think he said something about turn left at the 20.”

“The 20?”

“Uh, wait, maybe it wasn't that…”

“Do we turn left at this street or the next?”

“OH MY GOD WATCH OUT FOR THAT BUS.”

Well, eventually we made it. If you want to picture Mambo Italiano just picture a meat shop mixed with a tiny candlelit Italian joint, complete with candles, posters of Venice and cheese or what have you on the walls, and, of course, CD’s lining the ceiling. We were confused about the CD’s too until the lights came on and made the entire place sparkle. Touche, Alberto.

            So we took our seats and looked at the menu. Pretty regular fare, even for an Italian restaurant in the middle of Africa. Pasta, pizza, sausage and cheeses, wine and assorted meat and vegetable dishes. Okay, I thought, I can live with some Rwandan pizza. So I order pizza (this is where first person comes into play here, culinary adventures are very personal, you know): a proccutio and mushroom pizza. At this point, there was no Alberto in sight anywhere. I’m expecting a fat, jolly Italian with a moustache to come out wiping his hands on his apron and saying “Molto benne! Come eat a-sausage with a-me, Alberto!” Stereotypes work sometimes, people, c’mon.

            This time, though, they honestly didn’t. While waiting for our food, in comes Alberto, the skinny, tall guy with no facial hair whatsoever. But albeit the lack of common Italian stereotypes, the man is very courteous to us very demanding and picky Americans. The food came out fantastic and just the way we hoped, not to mention that for dessert there was homemade gelato drizzled with Rwandan coffee and covered in local strawberries. Now I, for one, was obsessed.

            So we came back for more. The next time we had the pleasure of having Alberto invite us to a picnic on Sunday. How could we possibly say no? Our stomachs were already rumbling in anticipation.

            The morning of the picnic we met up with a mish mash of cultures at the bus stop in Musanze. There was some Czech, French, Italian and, well, us present, all apparently there for Alberto’s picnic as well. We all managed to cram into a bus and were taken to Kinigi, a village we haven’t gotten the pleasure of visiting yet. And man was it a pleasure. The hour and a half hike was fantastic; the views were great, the weather to die for and we only a few kids asked for money this time! Oh boy what a treat!

A frightened chameleon, which curiously made children just as frightened when you showed it to them, thus an easy way to keep them from parading behind us all day. 

            Eventually we made it. Now, the entire time I was expecting a picnic by some potato field with some sausages and cheese, not that that was terrible, of course, but just pretty ordinary.

This was no potato field, but rather the Mountain Gorilla View Lodge and this place had the works. There were tropical flora, vistas of towering volcanoes, shaded hammocks and of course, donkeys. While we napped under the shade of tall trees a meal of the best kabobs, fries, and all the avocados we ever wanted were prepared for us by the staff. Seriously, if you ever had some crazy obsession for avocados, go there. They will fill your plate. At some point the donkeys went missing and we were pretty sure they were sacrificed for kabob meat, but hey, that’s what hunger will do to ya: make you think some pretty weird things. Thankfully, it wasn’t donkey meat, but rather from a cow that probably came from down the road. Ah, the circle of life.

The crew with some friends we picked up along the way to the lodge....and Michael's eyes are closed.  

            We ate our fill, and after continuously offered more and more food ("Oh god, no, we're already so full.....well okay if you insist."), we napped some more, enjoying our day of leisure after a hard week of work, but like everything else in this short life of ours, it had to come to an end. Waving goodbye to the staff and the loud donkeys that hated all humans
, we headed back home. It was a perfect day for a group of hungry college students and mentor, and we all came back feeling refreshed, rejuvenated and ready for our last week in Africa.

The end.

May you find peace, happiness and good Italian food,

-Steph

DONKEY.

GIve Me Things That Don't Get Lost

Well well dear readers, much has passed since my last post. I’ll begin with a roundabout explanation of the title I’ve chosen for this entry:

This past Friday a few of our team met with the director of the Musanze district branch of EWSA -pronounced ooh-wah-saw for reasons unknown- Rwanda’s federal energy, water, & sanitation authority. Though EWSA did allow us to view some revealing documentation illustrating the existing water infrastructure, the director himself proved about as helpful as Aquaman’s superhuman ability to commune with marine life in any typical human situation (not very). After hearing our aim of extending the existing pipeline to bring water to underserved residents of Cyanika, the director suggested EWSA, rather than EWB, preform the assessment and design the system. Of course he was happy to permit EWB to oversee the implementation and provide all of the funding. Clearly this is not how EWB functions and in no way accords with the tested principles of sustainable community development. Furthermore, EWSA, not Cyanika, would be the eventual owners of the infrastructure and though the director agreed to guarantee Cyanika residents long-term access to the water provided, he was careful not to go so far as to promise ownership of the water rights. Following a good deal of deliberation we were able to convince the director to concede responsibility for designing the system to EWB, so long as the design passed EWSA’s approval prior to implementation, and to support integrating community labor. However, he remained hesitant to relinquish the assessment and refused to budge on the issue of ownership.

Here is where the title comes in- based on the ultimatums proposed in the meeting with EWSA, our team was forced to make a preliminary decision as to whether pursuing an extension of the pipeline in partnership with the government is indeed in the best interest of the community, or if another solution might prove more prudent. The primary alternative under consideration is a series of communal rainwater catchment facilities that would also provide sheltered community-gathering spaces and foundations for future tap stands. Our team recognizes the view prevalent among Cyanika residents of the pipeline as a shiny symbol of modernity; nonetheless catchment offers some undeniably significant benefits. Firstly, like a pipeline catchment would dramatically reduce the need of community members to travel hours a day to gather water for at least 9 months of the year, thereby freeing that time up for other productive activities, and effective sterilization consisting of first-pass sedimentation and chlorination is simple and inexpensive. Secondly, the maintenance of prefabricated plastic tanks is very easy and cheap, and could be more than paid for by the fees charged for access to the water, even if this price were markedly less than what the citizens currently pay. Additionally, the surplus funds could be redistributed within the community either to bankroll further development projects or as stipends to purchase water during the 3-month dry season. Thirdly, conservation practices required for the successful use of rainwater catchment would serve as an ideal vehicle for water and sanitation education based on a curriculum developed and executed by EWB. Lastly, even if EWSA does eventually deliver the pipeline, in the case of potential water shortages or diversions Cyanika would remain in ownership of a sustainable, naturally renewing source of clean water as well as an economic engine. Therefore our team’s decision as of the current moment: Give me things that don’t get lost.

On a lighter note, the team spent the afternoon packing into Cyanika’s executive secretary’s car like so many clowns to visit the Mutobo Water Treatment Plant, a veritable arcadia of kaleidoscopic gardens, chattering brooks, and bathing African cherubs screaming ABAZUNGU! (Kinyarwanda for white people). Somehow, even the dung-dropping cows seemed perfectly picturesque. The sources for this plant are two springs, which percolate upward through volcanic pebbles and are protected by half-acre plantings of chromatic water lilies that towered over all of our heads (except perhaps the executive secretary who happens to be nearly 7 feet tall). The plant employs air stripping, aeration, and chlorination to produce water which our own tests have verified has no harmful bacterium, near 0 turbidity, and a pH safe to drink yet basic enough to kill cancer. Ponce de León would be proud.

 

Hoping you all find your own fountains of youth,

Michael Salka

Surveys, Camp Cyanika, and Hoes

Wednesday and Thursday were all about data collection, community interaction, and digging…all under the watchful supervision of all of the children in Cyanika.  There is very little that happens without a curious onlooking from the beautiful and playful children of the community.  The term abazungu (white person) has subsided greatly and they moved on to a more blunt “give me money” or “give me book” spoken in clear English. Once that grew old they were left staring curiously at what these crazy American engineers were doing.  They now feel more comfortable to play games with us, ask our names, and even laugh at/with us.  All of this is part of the bonding process that will hopefully lead to our success with our future project.

We started Wednesday with Ariana, Michael (the one with an S), and me doing surveys of the two the communities.  The surveys were conducted at the cell house (much like a community center) in groups of roughly 15 households.  It was a written, multiple choice survey and we were impressed and the high literacy rate of the community.  They arrived on time and took the survey very seriously.  We unfortunately embarrassed them with a questing regarding how often they cleaned their jerry cans.  The “daily” option was met with “how can we clean it daily if we cannot get water daily?”  This is definitely a first world oversight on our part.  Aside from that small blunder it was a good way to interact with and receive information from the community. 

While this was happening Michael (the one with an S), Jordan, and Stephanie went to measure a roof for Carole’s work back in the States. Along the way the group learned the following important lessons: 1) “they all came from God” 2) they all need to learn swahili and 3) a tape measurer is by far the most interesting thing that the people in the village had seen in a long time.   All are equally important lessons.  The roof measurements show that one of the sides of the building is 1 foot higher than the other side.  This fact will prove important if we should consider rainwater catchment systems in the future.

In the afternoon we continued walking to understand the layout of existing pipes.  We keep coming back to a tank that seems to have a mystery surrounding it.  The pipe goes from a low elevation at the road up to a higher elevation tank and back to the road?  This is not to build head/pressure, they tell us.  We also felt the pipe moving below the ground with such vigor that it made us repeatedly question if there was a pump.  After much debate about the reason for this pipe to the tank we learned that the Chinese built the pipe in the road and EWSA (local water governance) was building a tank, which the Chinese asked to utilize for water storage.  This new fact didn’t really help solve any mystery but instead just peeled back one more layer of the onion. 

So after trying to wrap our brains around the Rwandan-Chinese spaghetti system of water piping we retired back to the monastery.  Not without first stopping in town at the “hardware store” (read as: American gents go to your local home depot and kiss the ground) to buy PVC glue…more to follow later on PVC glue adventures….no moms, sniffing was not included.

The evening consisted of sleeping, eating, working, sleeping…no card games, no riddles, I want my money back for Wednesday evening. (says the mentor)

Oooh speaking of mentor I think I should advise you of a few lessons I have learned myself. I am trying to learn Kinyarwandan.  So far I’ve learned the word for let’s go, goodbye, cow, and nanny (couldn’t find anything similar to mentor…that will have to do).  My “lessons I’ve learned” have nothing to do with my learning, but moreso an observation that when they say it gets harder to learn a language as you get older, it is true.  I am SO impressed that the students are learning things like numbers, “how are you”, “what is your name,” etc.  They are very impressive!  I will never understand how to say the number six (GahTahnDahToo) and so I stopped worrying about numbers…I have fingers. Cows on the other hand are used in so many sentences in my day to day language that I knew I must learn the word.

Is it Thursday already?  Why yes it is and today we are going to….?  Yes, you guessed it.  Today included walking, camp Cyanika, and hoes. Today was the end of Ramadan and the entire country had a holiday. This meant that some of what we wanted to do was put to the wayside this morning, which allowed us to have some fun with the community.  Stephanie, our resident camp counselor, ripped off her shoes and began frolicking in the fields playing soccer with the children.  It wasn’t long before there was an organized soccer game including a ball, a truck running through the field, sheep, and what appeared to be small children at either end of the field placed as goal posts.   Maybe that was just where they plopped down. Once the small children wore out the EWB team, we moved on to more common games like slapping each others hands, learning rhythmic songs by using our knees as bongos, and arm wrestling. Lessons learned: the kids slap HARD and a boy in bright pink shorts can definitely beat you.

Now that we’ve started making friends, we should start doing some real work.  In this country that pretty much always (as we learned from umuganda last year) includes a hoe.  Good thing several of us packed them and snuck them by TSA security.  It’s time to do what every civil engineering student thinks would be great to study and will never use in their life: geotechnical engineering.  (I too studied this with a vigor thinking every employer would think I was brilliantly smart…fooled them)  Basically this equates to digging in the dirt…or, excuse me, “soil.”  We (and by “we” I mean primarily the Michaels....the ones with an S) hoed approximately 1 foot into the soil at an existing tap stand, a cell house, and a proposed tap stand site.  This sounds simple, right? No.  The land is volcanic soil and rock.  It is difficult to dig and the crowd of Rwandans watching us use a hoe and laughing doesn’t help.  Mezack, our translator, kept taking it from us saying “let me show you how”.  Somewhat embarrassing, but not as bad as the 60-70ish year old woman who tried to take over….and succeeded. 

After we had played in and collected the “soil” we were on to our final task of fixing a pipe.  The pipe was a buried PVC pipe that had sprung a leak.  (get excited! This is where we use the glue…I think that may have been a let down) The strong arms of CU Boulder hoed up a 6 meter piece of pipe and the technician taught them how to remove and replace a section of pipe.  This included melting the pipe to secure a fit between the two pipes (this was done with a wad of grass) and then once the pipes fit the glue was applied and the pipes were pushed together.  Simple…until the force of putting the pipes together creates a break at another joint….start digging again….

Is that enough for a day?  Yes…time to go back to the monastery.  Sleep, eat, work….hopefully something exciting in store.  More to follow tomorrow…

Written with love (and longing for a good taco),

Kara

   

“Do you mean walk…or hike?”

Muraho everyone!

Weather report from 1 degree south of the equator: 70 degrees with a light breeze and cloud cover for the last couple days, perfect hiking weather!

A hazy Muhabura volcano overlooks Cyanika

Coincidentally, hiking is exactly how we spent our first full day in Cyanika. We walked about 6 miles, from the local government building, out along the currently pipeline, through the lovely hills of Rwanda, all the way to the border of Uganda. Along the way, we stopped at 9 different villages, each without ready access to any water. We discovered that there was a pipe system installed through 5 of these villages about half a decade ago; but it stopped working in 1973 and was never repaired.

Technology is difficult. How many engineers does it take to turn on a GPS?

Salka and Stephanie used the handy dandy Garmin GPS to plot the location of potential tap stands throughout all of these villages, beginning from the end of the current pipe. Ariana and Swartz also worked on testing water from existing tap stands in the villages that do have water. All tests came back well within the potable water range! Great news.

Clean Water! Turbidity = 0 NTU

The village leaders all took time out of their days to keep us company on the walk and tell us about their vision for these tap stands and the pipe line extension. They are incredibly patient with us, waiting for us to gather GPS and water data along the route, as well as snapping copious amounts of photos and video footage. All in all we walked for 8 hours that day. We were EXHAUSTED. Mezack, our ever patient friend and translator, stayed with us the whole way, teaching us more and more Kinyarwandan along the way. I think we are all going to get the hang of the basics of the language soon!

Follow the leader! 

After carb loading at the local buffet, we spent the rest of the evening (nearly 4 hours), play copious amounts of camp riddle games (Johnny Whoop, Indian counting sticks, bang bang, etc.), until we could laugh no more! It was so incredibly wonderful to act like 5 year olds for a night :)

Michael is going to make a great dad :)

As always, after the first day of work we have a to-do list a mile long! For now, we need to identify whether the best option for the community is going to be a pipeline extension, or a communal rainwater catchment system. Ariana and Kara drafted a community water usage survey, and will be interviewing 5 different umudugudus (villages) beginning tomorrow. We will also go ahead and build a map on ARCGis Map of the area’s government building, roads and potential pipeline route, research potential rainwater catchment solutions.

Current tap stand in Cyanika. The line was incredibly.

Ruhengeri (now called Musanze) is BEAUTIFUL! The village is at the base of Muhabura Volcano, lush, and full of life! Life is good here in Rwanda – Great community, great team friendships, and plenty of goat to go around.

With love from the Land of One Thousand Hills,

Jordan

Abazungu Problems

Hello from the beautiful countryside of northern Rwanda,

After a few hectic days in the capital, Kigali, I was looking forward to leaving the crazy traffic and terrifying moto-rides and go to the slower countryside a few hours away.  But, new adventure brings new responsibility and the true EWB work began today.  

We all woke up early and  piled into the big van and headed off to Musanze with a plan to head straight to the Cyanika government building. On the ride over, through the mountain roads very much reminiscent of Colorado, we all fell asleep after the initial excitement of seeing a bunch of monkeys crossing the street like squirrels! But on a mountain road in a van with no seat belts and leather seats, we had to get as comfortable as we could to sleep on the ride over. 

Stephanie ready for a long trip to the country.  Needless to say it was an early morning

Falling asleep in the back seat getting as comfortable as humanly possible.

Once we arrived, we met with the Chief of the sector (like governor of a county) along with a few of the other representatives from the villages at a Community Vision Board Meeting. They were completely welcoming to us, and we got some great information about what they expect from us. The meeting was very fruitful and gave us all a lot to think about. They were so willing to help that we all piled back into the van and went to the water source that we are considering tapping into.  I was surprised about how many people from the community valued our presence in the community, most of them even joined us on the trip to the water tanks and even farther along the pipeline. Upon arrival to the water site, we were swarmed by children yelling "Abazungu!" (white person), including one lonely boy who said "give me money" in English, which we were slightly stunned at. But still the children were completely adorable and the community members were very gracious to us, so look forward to working with them.

Wonderful community leaders in Cyanika after the community vision board meeting.  Half of us piled into a van to head to the water source.

In other news,  we continued to adventure pretty far north and tried to make an appearance in Uganda. But...didn't make it much past the intense security along the border.  It was still pretty great! 

Almost to the border of Rwanda and Uganda! We weren't allowed to go any farther.

Quick language lesson: 

• amarfaranga means 'money' and not 'friend' as Jordan originally thought when it was yelled at her last trip.
•  Jimmy cans are actually the African cousin of Jerry can 
• When 'pump' is said by a Rwandan, it can also mean 'pipe'. Which is very confusing on conversations about pipes, and pumps.
• The proper response to 'amakuru?' (how are you?) from a Rwandan priest is always 'AMAKUYOU!' right back to him

...more to come of our language adventures here too.  We are trying really hard to learn as much Kinyarwandan as possible. 

Now we are all settled into the hotel here in Musanze and are getting task named out for the next few days.

Have a great day!
Ariana