Beautiful People

Tuesday, June 24th, 2014

Wrapping things up! Two weeks ago we feared that we might not finish the first phase of construction, but today all the columns have been poured and the tank foundations are almost complete. We are happy to report that the first phase of implementation will finish on time.

It will be hard to say goodbye at the end of the week. Our names are no longer muzungus. Everyone is greeted by name when we walk on site in the morning. 

Nyrotosho 

Yesterday during lunch time at Nyrotosho, Florida gave Steve, Christian, and me a bundle of avocados and tomato fruits in her most precious basket usually reserved for weddings and special occasions. 

Florida (Irreho in the background (best dancer in Cyanika))

She lives in the house next to the site and has graciously hosted us for the past three weeks. She and her husband Wilson have worked on the site everyday and continued to amaze me with their strength and kindness. They have four adorable girls. Their youngest, Rebecca, insists on being on site at all times and cries every day when she has to go to school. She says she wants to stay with the muzungus. She quietly watched everyone work the first two weeks and would barely say a word even though she followed us everywhere.

Rebecca

Wilson is security chief of Nyrotosho and will help facilitate the water system when it is finished. We have spent many a morning talking and signing at one another trying to communicate. One of our first mornings on site, we were leveling the footers. Wilson and I worked right alongside one another leveling with the transit. He spoke in Kinyarwanda and we talked back in English. Having no idea what the other had said. Mezack, our wonderful translator, walked on site around noon and I was eager to explain to Wilson what I had been trying to sign for the past couple hours. Mezack told me Wilson already knew. It is amazing how little we need words to communicate.

Wilson and me

Captain Transit & His Merry Men

T'was a damp dusken evenin' and the crew found 'erselves waylaid at Shakey's Tavern the Second - itself newly equipped with tiled floors and minted walls. With rice and bean victuals weighing down our grateful bellies, the crew reminisced on bygone adventures...

--

A bleak storm imbued the morning skies as Captain Transit and His Merry Men bushwacked across thick shrubs and volcanic boulders. The crew's honorable mission lay ahead of us: brave the worsening weather and unforgivin' terrain to scout two areas for future shipmates - at any cost.

The first territory proved to be a challenge with the surveyor riggings' suddenly snappin' from overuse. With no proper fixin' tools in our sacks, we made do what we could - squeaking the damned thing into place and smartly making 'er level 'gainst the sharp changes of the land.

Aye, the scouting at the first landing was swell, but t'wasn't without the need for beastmastery. While I was charged with navigatin' the sharp rocks and prickly plants, Quartermaster Swartz thrice faced down a pig layin' claim to the land; the Quartermaster hoisted a fierce courage I've only witnessed in distant seafarers told in folk tales of old. Yet, our deftness wasn't enough to protect the riggin' from the beast's filthy bilge. With hands a'dirtied with a stink akin to the new mold growin' in the brig, we moved onward with the mission - refinin' our scouting craft and puttin' our heads together as a good crew does. The scoutin' data was recorded in the log by Captin' Transit and First Mate Jessica before we made way for the second landing.

Swartz combats the mighty beast

Even though the clouds were fast clearin', t'was the bushes that now gave us small pecks 'a trouble. Quartermaster Swartz became familiar with some stingin' pine before we made it out of the volcanic gorge, but t'wasn't nothing compared with the discontent beast in the mornin' - nor the beasts to come. The second landing was firstly clear, though now the sun beat down a merciless heat. We made break for water and trail mixin's while talkin' stratagem for the immediate scoutin' need.

First Mate Jessica took to the field this time 'round - measurin' out data amidst rock and forest debris. T'was a good spell 'til a half dozen ferocious cackling creatures crossed the field and tripped up our riggin's with their jumpin' and howlin' - nearly kickin' First Mate Jessica to the ground, much to the surprise of the captain. The critters and mighty heat made the scoutin' troublesome, but rest assured t'wasn't no challenge for the crew. We made the proper markin's and got er'selves back to our haven - not without stoppin' for a brief brew on the border, o' course.

The next morn', the crew set forth for the High Mountains to face the Mud Monsters of the Northern Reach. A strange morning mist was sure to ill-fate our expedition and help was scarce to be had in the wee hours of the morn'. Soon enough, we joined crew with a few fair maidens from the south willin' to put forward a share of the loot in exchange for their much-needed knowledge of the area. Our motley bunch bantered and shared old tales of plunder and adventure, distractin' 'erselves from the wretched mud hives impedin' 'er way to the treasure laying atop the mist. Falls and scrapes from the mean terrain were met with cuss words a-plenty and futile cries against whatever powers that be. Alongside the sun breakin' the clouds, we made it soundly to the summit, though. Alas, no gold chest was found dug below the volcanic soil as t'was thought before. After a much-needed respite, our crew made our way back through the treacherous misted trails of slippery rock and vile shrubs. On the final descent, we all realized the true treasure to be had on this day: people hailing from worlds' apart can be made fast friends, even in the face of frustratin' mother nature.

The crew and our fellow adventurers

With aching limbs and a certain sickness for a warm bed and meal growin', we'll push forward on our primary mission as this month comes to its inevitable close.

Gasebeya progress entering the final week of implementation

Nyruntosho progress entering the final week of implementation

Tally ho, mateys, and be sure to keep eyein' this place for more entries followin' in tow.

Boatswain Mitch, East Afrika

Speaking Without Words

Another day begins in Musanze. Bird’s songs resonating amongst the trees in the cool morning air, the sun, not yet risen, illuminates the sky in deep orange light, and the town slowly awakens to the new day. Like most days we will start our day with a hearty breakfast of toast, eggs, fruit, and coffee, and end it caked in dirt, sweat, and splatters of concrete, exhausted and hungry from a long hard day -  yet satisfied with the progress we have made.

Gasebeya before

Gasebeya next day

This week we have been continuing our work in Cyanika and have made an enormous amount of progress on the project. We have all of the footers poured on each site as well as half of the columns. The work has been very difficult; however, the workers who show up each day are enthusiastic and able to get the job done on schedule. They are easily able to out-work all of us each day.

Gasebeya leader Ignas digging footer

Let’s take a look at how the site is: think for a second about trying to communicate through hand signals, and how well you think you can do that. Forget it. I came into this project thinking that I could communicate well enough through signals and have proved myself very wrong. Each time something is needed, an intricate dance filled with exacerbated flailing motions ensues, usually ending in zero understanding. It is not only on our side either. The community members will do similar routines to try and say something to us, also prompting blank stares.  Now that we have become more used to each other, the process has gotten simpler, but it is still somewhat of an art form.

Installing rebar

Foundations poured

We only have our one translator, Mezack, to bounce between the two sites and without him we would be completely lost. When he is on a site, it is very easy to get tasks done and for questions on both sides to be answered, but the second he leaves something else will come up leading to the drawn out dance of hand signals that has become so common. If this doesn’t work, and a lot of the time it doesn’t, Mezack will receive a call before he is even half way to the other site, inquiring as to what the other is saying.

Mason Bosco fitting rebar columns

I make the situation out to be horrible, however it is not all that bad, and while frustrating at times, the days still go relatively smoothly. The lack of translation also creates an interesting relationship between the community members and us. We only know a select amount of Kinyarwanda, but just enough to learn the names of the workers and say numbers as well as ‘good job’ or ‘stop’. While being with them every day, we have seen a small amount into their personalities as well and have grown fond of them. They always seem happy to see us and are excited when taking to us, even when we can’t understand it. They have learned my name, but can’t pronounce it quite right so that it comes out as ‘Marrico’. I’m sure they say the exact same things about us after we leave, especially about our pronunciation of words.

Putting up formwork

Pouring column

Being able to work alongside the community members has been a fantastic experience overall and has allowed us to really get to know people we are working with. I am excited for our friendship with them to grow over the coming week and finish up the first half of this project.

Until next time,

Michael

What's A Saw Bag?

This past semester I passed my Writing for Engineers course, which means I have a semi-adequate ability to write a blog.  

On a groggy Wednesday morning, bright and early at 6:30 am, Grampa emerges from his cave sun burned, coffee deprived, and a tad bit delirious. After brushing his teeth using UV-cleansed nalgene water he slowly made his way over to my room. I open the door to see him in his dirty canadian tuxedo, glasses askew, and as we ready to bring our various bags of materials I ask him, "Mitch, can you get me the saw bag?". With a confused look he asks in return "What's a saw bag?", to which I blatantly reply"....it's a bag full of saws!". After a few moments pause we both burst out in laughter, not quite comprehending the conversation that had just ensued.
   
         Since the two hour bus ride from Kigali to Musanze our trip had been full of these types of foolish conversations, becoming more and more prominent as the days of digging pits, bending rebar, and hauling gravel wore on. "Dude....I just put potatoes, on my potatoes". Its what we use to cope with the mental adjustment to the life these people we are striving to help endure every day. We've accomplished quite a bit having been with our community for only a week. After a welcoming meeting with the Chief and Community Vision Board monday morning, Jess, Michael, and Mitch headed out to get a feel for the sites we would be building with. Steve,Willy, Jordan, and myself headed back into Musanze to source our construction materials. We walked around to many stores using Willy's language skills in order to negotiate non-muzungu (non-foreigner) prices. We discovered many places that had not been seen in past trips such as THREE lumber yards, a metal working shop equipped with a welding machine that looked like an original Tesla invention, and multiple examples of basic roof designs that would have been useful to know about.

      Throughout the week we began and continued to work with our village leaders and community volunteers, all of whom have put in an effort above and beyond our expectations. With great confidence in our abilities to complete the project on time, if not early, we were met with multiple challenges fairly quickly. The volcanic area has made digging footer foundations quite difficult, forcing us to move two footers to the opposite end of our Nyrutoshu site due to massive volcanic rocks, impervious to our basic tools. Gasebya has endured similar issues with massive boulders causing  us to reassess our design and adapt on site. Mezack, our interpreter, has proven invaluable to our team. His soft spokenness and eagerness to help could melt anyones heart in an instant, but accompanied with this comes his driven motivation to complete our project. His ability to help us overcome the language barrier between their difficult kinyarwandan and occasional broken english and our limited knowledge of their language has allowed us to accomplish our goals at each site. Throughout the day, he is usually needed at multiple sites so, as he leaves our site we are forced to revert to primitive sign language in order to try and communicate how we need to mix concrete, tie rebar columns, and level footers while working with community volunteers.

      We have accomplished quite a bit in the past week and have set ourselves on track for a busy coming week of pouring footers and beginning column work. Munini has proven quite a simple project, to be completed by tomorrow, leaving most of the work up to the local masons to create our foundations, and who have delivered beautifully.

Saturday set our schedule back a bit after a downpour of rain overnight and throughout the morning halted our construction progress, however it gave us a much needed day to rest our feet and decompress. We took Sunday as the locals did with Jess joining Willy for an East African church experience, followed by all of us, after a day of miscommunication and broken down jeeps, trekking for an hour through the 65 million year old caves left behind by ancient lava flows. The over priced experience was not what we thought, with a stone path laid out throughout the cave and accompanied by 4 armed militia guards sporting classic AK-47's we walked through the broken cave segments. The most worthwhile part of our cave experience was entering an empty parking lot with a run down tourist shed and the government minister in his three piece suit handing us our helmets, hairnets, and completely unnecessary rubber boots, knee pads, and face masks.

 We are excited for the early morning to come to begin our week of footer pouring and column building.

Some Things Stay the Same

We arrived safely in Kigali, Rwanda after our adventures in Brussels, so that makes this blog post the first impressions post. I am supposed to tell you all the dramatic differences between home and Rwanda, but there are more similarities than I was expecting. People still smile at each other on the street and say hello. Friends still gather around a table to share a meal and tell stories. Young people still listen to loud music over drinks. Families and friends still celebrate love with a wedding. A mother's main concern is still her children whether the baby is strapped in a stroller or strapped on her back. There are many more parallels than I anticipated, but there are still a few differences from home. For example, road lines are more like guidelines that actual rules, negotiating is expected, and going out to dinner will take at least three hours.

After spending the morning at the Bourbon Cafe and plugging back into the rest of the world, Jordan haggled with the moto drivers to take us to the genocide memorial. She told us, "You're all set, strap on the helmet and jump on." Not wanting to look like a newbie, I tried to swing my leg over the seat and 'hop on,' instead I almost knocked over the driver and scrabbled on to the seat like a two-year-old. I held on for dear life and we were off. The motos rode in a pack weaving through cars and trucks both with traffic and against. After our final left turn, where I thought we might die, we made it to the memorial.

The atmosphere in the lobby was much calmer than the chaos outside. We gathered information from the receptionist and headed inside. Everyone lost their words and we quietly walked through the exhibits and read the unfolding of the genocide. After the last rooms of photos, bones, and old clothes, Mitch and I waited in the main exhibit for Christian. A horrifying scream came from one of the exhibits. My heart sank to my stomach and my feet felt cemented in the floor. It must be audio from the exhibit video. It wasn't stopping. The wailing cries of agony didn't subside. I felt sick. Please turn it off. Moments later, a women, not much older than me, walked out of one of the exhibits crippled by her memories. I will never forget her heart-renching cries. I cannot imagine witnessing the scenes that compelled her to remember an event in such horror. 

The memorial left us in a reflective state. It left me wondering how any person can come to think so low of another that they could dehumanize an entire group of people. We sought a ride back to the hotel outside the memorial. Mitch hopped on a moto and the rest of us waited for a taxi. Ominous clouds waited overhead. Christian, Steve and I jumped in a taxi. Just as we started down the hill, buckets of rain began to pour over Kigali. We found Mitch standing outside a gated house, drench from the rain, looking like a lost puppy and the guard telling him to 'shoo.' We made it back to the hotel and Mitch's shoes squeaked all the way back to our rooms, but at least he didn't have to shower that night. 

  ~Jess

                     Market Place in Kigali

                  Mitch After the Rain Storm

Thor: The Weakest Link

We have safely made it to Rwanda, despite a few "delays" along the way. To the seasoned traveler of DIA, I posit the following question:

How many United Airlines agents does it take to check a bag?

Answer: More than one.

It was a slow morning at DIA as the travel team waited for Christian to check his bag at the United counter. Michael and I tapped our feet and watched as more and more United agents showed up at the kiosk to 'help' Christian check his bag and match it with his reservation. After a half-hour, Michael, Jess, and I ran out of airport topics to complain about and joined Christian and the four other agents at the kiosk.

Despite their frantic typing, the four agents couldn't overcome whatever database glitch they were supposedly trained to deal with. After this slight delay, we made the executive decision to officially and finally start the three-day trip to Rwanda.

With rebel bag in tow, final goodbyes were given, obnoxious tour groups were avoided, and security lines were navigated. We made our way to D.C. and renewed our boarding passes at Dulles. At the gate counter, the Brussels Airlines representative swiped Christian's passport and keyed in his itinery number - only to immediately look up at Christian, pause, and say, "You have five bags checked, sir?" Apparently, the Denver agents registered four phantom bags under Christian's name...

We fueled up on the last American meal we would have for a month before embarking on the eight hour leg across the Atlantic.

Rain, trains, French, Dutch, German, G7 (G8-1) security, and more rain greeted our day-long layover in Brussels. The team elected to save money and explore Brussels by night. By morning, we nearly got stuck in a police cordon, befriended Frenchmen at a local taphouse, and got attacked by drunk tatooed-women.

Christian enjoys a Belgian waffle!

Grand square in Brussels city center

Over the next few days in Kigali, we'll sort out communication, cash, transport, materials, and attend critical meetings with our NGO partners before heading up to Cyanika.