Driver Ghasana and his family

** We realized we still had a few Africa stories to share with you such as this one and the safari we did in Tanzania. So we apologize for backtracking from Bangkok **

‘Ghasana’ was our driver for quite a few of our roadtrips while in Ruhengeri. We got to know him as the driver that Cathy would have to threaten to drive slower, by offering to lower his tip everytime she had to tell him to slow down.

He’s the guy who ran out of gas while on the way to Nyarama. We only know this because the car stopped and he had to walk to the nearest gas station to get gas, while the rest of us sat with the car on the edge of a busy roadway . Which finally explained why there were empty gas canisters sitting in the car.

He's the guy who's the father of Toufiq, the smiling, suave, stylish boy we hung out with at Lake Kivu (we have a post about that trip).

Net net – Ghasana built a reputation for himself as a sweet, if slightly scatterbrained, fellow. So of course, when he invited the group to his house the night after ‘boy’s night’ at the Soldier Bar, the boys happily accepted and I happily tagged along.

I was already looking forward to meeting Mrs Ghasana – the woman’s reputation preceded her, as apparently she held court at the soldier bar the night the boys went out. As well, she was the only woman there that night, and managed to make herself at home, in spite of being a somewhat conservative muslim lady. There are reports of dancing as well, but we’ll pretend those reports are unsubstantiated…

At 5pm on the Saturday Ghasana came by to pick us up and we dutifully went over with gifts of food for the home. As soon as we arrived the respect-o-meter for Ghasana skyrocketed. His kids were beautifully dressed, his wife and family seemed really happy and healthy and he kept his family in a really nice house. We were taken out back where Ron explained we were going to see ‘domestic lifestock’ but when we rounded the corner we were greeted by large, potted mushrooms. Not sure how mushrooms got translated to domestic lifestock, but that is a minor detail.

After the tour, we were seated in the living room where two of Mrs. Ghasana’s friends had come to visit. They wanted to get a closer look at the muzungus who came to dinner, no doubt. Suddenly one of the women looked at me and said ‘I know you. You gave me a goat! Julie!’ Sure enough, we fished out the laptop to take a look at all our goat pictures, and there was Mrs. Ghasana’s friend, pictured with Julie, her goat. I looked with some concern at the plate of meat curry before me, pointed at it and enquired ‘Julie?’. Thankfully, I was wrong, and little Julie was alive and well loved by the lady’s two daughters, who apparently make up songs about Julie and sing them to her. It made us feel good to know that the goat, and her owners were still keeping quite happy.

Once dinner was over we dutifully went outside the house to take some pictures where it seems like the whole part of town stopped to stare at the foreigners, after which we all walked home with our swollen bellies, and a warm place in our hearts for Ghasana. It was also pretty darn cool to share a meal with one of our goat recipients. All in all, an excellent evening.  

- Dal

Night before Ghasana's house..hanging at the solider bar. Max (German who was volunteering for a year), Ronnie's brother Collins (who reminded us of Bowfinger), me, Ronnie, Ghasana and Mrs Ghasana

Ghasana and his wonderful family

The woman on the far right, a family friend, was a goat recipient !

Big group photo

Julie, the goat

Bonus photo ! As we walked home from Ghasana's house, Steve and I came across this kid with a Winnipeg Jets jersey ! Gotta love retro NHL jerseys in Rwanda.

One (4) Night(s) in Bangkok

After spending our last two days in Africa relaxing in Kigali and sending out some goat photos (still many more to be sent out), we flew to Bangkok from Rwanda on Kenya Airways via Nairobi. The Nairobi airport is a massive hub in Eastern Africa and was littered with plenty of Europeans (as was the safari and the gorilla trek). It might have been the most depressing major airport I had ever been to. Drab lighting in a dilapidated building without any good food options. Two memories for me are 1) The men’s stall in the bathroom…I summoned my inner-gymnast to extract myself from the stall as the door swings inward and effectively pins you against the toilet bowl. 2) When it was time to go to the gate, they do the ticket and security check..and everyone waits in this stifling room with crappy plastic seats. We notice some people angling towards the front and since we had carry-on bags that we wanted to ensure got into the overhead bins above us, we discreetly jostled our way close to pole position as well. Finally the doors open and it’s a stampede through the tunnel to the airplane ! No orderly line whatsoever. It was a goldmine of new material for Russell Peters as our flight was a full of Africans/SE Asians/Indians..none of whom have sterling reputations for their etiquette on public transportation.

The flight itself was uneventful (thankfully) and 9 hours later, we were in Bangkok. Bangkok’s airport was incredibly efficient (as most of the Asian airports we’ve been to thus far) and we were out in about 20 minutes and took a taxi downtown to our hotel.

Bangkok itself can be described as commercial and culinary craziness surrounded by majestic history and beauty.  We ate, we drank, we bought and then we ate some more. Here are some of our Bangkok highlights

Patpong market : Patpong Market is one Bangkok’s famous night markets bustling with stalls hawking real and knockoffs clothes, watches, jewellery, DVD’s and art. It’s also known as Bangkok’s Red Light district as evidenced by the numerous approaches I received (with Dal standing next to me) to come see “nice ping-pong show” by men holding menus of various sexual acts that could be performed at ‘best price’. As a sidebar – what does it say about Bangkok’s tourist clientele if the lead pitch is the ping-pong show. Really???? That’s the tried-and-tested hook that gets the most people to enter their club ?? What ever happened to the classics such as “Come see pretty girls” or “Five dollahs...girls love you long time”. We responded that we preferred badminton..and got zero laughs from the pitchmen.

Negotiating: As a strong believer that most things can be negotiated, Thailand’s markets are a magical playground. After our first couple of purchases where we got fleeced (we paid a combined $25 for items we discovered later we could have got for $15), we mastered the art of “hear the starting price – react with incredulous facial expressions without saying a word – allow the vendor to drop the price by 40% on their own - then make an offer at 10-15% of the original asking price - come up to 20-30% of their asking price if we really like it - walk away - get called back - agree at around 25%.”

Massages : Dal and I had been really looking forward to asian massages, but we may have gone overboard. We wound up getting 3 massages each during our 4 days there. My first one was a thai massage where the masseuse essentially twisted me into a pretzel while expertly stomping all over me. Ironically, I wound up getting a hamstring cramp during one of the twists..but the masseuse standing on my back was able to fix that quite promptly.  We also got a massage at 12:30am after shopping at Patpong market….60 minutes of bliss included a foot massage, then head, neck and shoulders followed by tea..for $8 each.

Food : Good God the food is incredible in Thailand. Several times, we OD’d on the soups, the pad thai, the curries etc.. so fresh and so cheap. One of our favourite joints was the food court in Robinson’s supermarket because we knew it was incredibly clean and we could both eat well for about $4 and it was a nice 10 minute stroll from our hotel. Dal was also hooked on the mango and the baby coconut water that we bought on the street for less than $1.

Taxi Tricks : Thanks to reading Lonely Planet and a few blogs, we were prepared for a common scam that unscrupulous taxi drivers pull on unsuspecting tourists. The rule of thumb is to ensure they use the meter before you get in the taxi. One time, we forgot this rule and entered the cab of an overly-friendly chap. About two minutes into our ride (which I knew would be about 120 baht) I asked about the price. The taxi driver smiled gleefully and said “don’t worry..good price”. I asked “how much ?”. He grinned widely again and said “20 baht”. Right away, I knew why and said forcefully “No stops”. He responded “only 1 stop..I take you to nice tailor shop”. The cabbie gets a sweet commission for bringing tourists to the shop, which is often not even on the route to the original destination. We threaten to get out of the taxi and his disposition quickly changes from cheery to pouty and we have a bit of a debate (Thais don’t like loud brash arguments). Silence then ensues and we enjoy a quiet although tense ride the rest of the way for 100 baht.

Lee Min Ho : We decided to check out some of the malls near Siam subway station when we started to notice around 3:30pm a bit of a crowd forming consisting of teenage girls near a makeshift stage. We continued our shopping and at 4:30pm, the crowd had swelled to at least 1,000 people on the ground floor with lots of people watching from other floors. Some asian star named Lee Min Ho was making an appearance. Of course we had no idea who he was but we decided to join the hordes and wait for his arrival. Without the benefit of Google, we were left to guess at his relevance and we settled on recent Asian Idol winner as our best bet. At 5:30pm, the crowd was now massive (and yes..there were a LOT of Hello Kitty paraphernalia) spanning 7 floors. We had already waited for an hour for his arrival so bailing now seemed stupid. So we waited..and waited some more..played Angry Birds on the iPhone..made lots of jokes at our predicament..and finally at 6:15, we saw him from our 5^th floor perch. Pandemonium ensued as teenage asian girls shrieked in delight. Of course we joined in, professing our love for Lee Min Ho quite loudly which only drew a few stares. When we got to our hotel, we googled him and he’s apparently a South Korean heartthrob actor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Min_Ho . Whoopee.

Embarrassingly, we didn't see any temples since we knew we'd be seeing a tonne in Laos and Cambodia. However we're in Bangkok again for a couple of days prior to flying to Mumbai and have plans to visit the Royal Palace a couple of other sacred areas.

-DP

New posts coming this week

Hi there..sorry we've been silent for the last 10 days ! We are still alive and kicking with tonnes of stories and photos to post. We will be doing so over the next few days, so please check back for stories on
* how a python began to wrap around Dal's neck
* how we survived a 2 day slow-boat trip down the Mekong river
* what kind of accomdation $5 gets you in SE Asia
* why David was in a sauna wearing a skimpy towel with 5 asian women (and Dal)
* how David took his elephant for a bath..and Dal's elephant took her for a bath

Also..on the left side of this blog are links to some of the videos we took in Africa of the kids. Feel free to have a gander.

DP

Final Goat Update - 155 Goats Delivered !

After 7 trips to the goat market where many of the goat sellers actually knew us by name, we purchased and distributed a grand total of 155 goats.

Here are some of the highlights of the goat market

Peterborough Connection

•  Seeing one of the goat sellers wearing a Peterborough Lakers lacrosse t-shirt. I grew up in Peterborough which has a population of about 75,000 so of course I had to take a photo with this guy
• The view of the Virunga mountains in the background (where the Rwandan Patriotic Front army (the good guys) regrouped and re-launched their efforts to achieve peace) made the entire thing surreal
• Sitting in the back of the truck with the goats as we drove the 20 minutes from the market to the school – I waved to everyone as though I was royalty riding a goat float..and of course many of them smiled and waved back

• 

  Rwanda's newest goat herder

  Dal trying to hold the ropes and maintain 5 goats…unsuccessfully
• Talking to the people who would inevitably crowd around me…..soccer/football was the easiest thing to discuss as ‘Man U’ ,‘World Cup’ and ‘Drogba’ need no translation







Ticket from Police



• Getting a ticket by the police on the 7^th and  final trip back home…because it’s apparently illegal to have people AND goats in the back of the truck together. You can have one or the other..not both. The fine was 10,000 RWF..about $17. And because Rwanda is a country that firm against corruption, we weren’t able to negotiate the ticket.

For us, the real highlight was being able to give the goats and see the emotions of the people we were able to help. We’re so thrilled to have been part of this project and we’re very grateful for the immense generosity of our friends and family and those we’ve never met that helped. On our last day, we received an official letter from the regional government executive secretary formally thanking us and our friends for helping the region. We’ll scan it and add it to the blog when we get a chance.

Thank you.

No..Thank YOU !

Group photo

*** BONUS BONUS BONUS ***

Teste was able to negotiate so well with the goat vendors (bulk purchasing power baby !) that we had about $1200 left over ! We’ve allocated the extra money as follows :

·    $200 went to 10 care packages for needy families (consisting of cooking oil, sugar, salt, 2Kg of meat, tomato paste, soap, a plastic basin and a blanket)

·    $150 went towards a roof, doors and windows for a family building a house near the school. They’re a very hardworking couple with a beautiful child and we were happy to help them accomplish their dream of completing their build

·    $75 went towards new boda-bodas (slippers) for the street kids who we play soccer with and feed on Saturdays

·    $500 went towards obtaining land across the street from the preschool so that Cathy and Teste can now build a primary school

·     $20 covered a care package for Mama Benita who invited us over to her house on the last day and is a fantastic mom to two of the nicest kids you’ll ever meet

·     $100 went towards the passport application fee for Ron – read Dal’s post on Ron to find out why we felt strongly about this

·     $200 for Cathy to use on any project she sees fit

Assembling the care packages

The house which will be getting a new roof, windows and door soon. As a sign of gratitude, they gave us their first born.

Mama Benita, Benita and Confiance. Just wonderful kids.

A photo in front of the new land Cathy's purchased to build a primary school.

Can't wait to see you in Canada, Ron !

Additionally, we’re using some of our business skills to help create a powerpoint deck that Cathy can use to promote PREFER to potential volunteers or contributors.

So there you have it. Sept 2010 has undoubtedly been the most productive month of our lives and we really proud of our achievements here. We’ve been called angels by a few of the goat recipients which is incredibly humbling. But the reality is that we are the lucky ones to have been experience such an incredible country and to have spent time with Cathy and Teste who perform saintly miracles daily to help improve the community (http://www.prefercanada.org/) . We would wholeheartedly recommend this experience for anyone looking to volunteer between 2-4 weeks and help make small, sustainable differences in the lives of others.

- DP

Last Day of School

It’s hard to believe that our stint in Africa is complete.  We arrived in Rwanda with a lot of ambition and a bit of trepidation and hoped to learn about this side of the world and about our ability to handle the challenges here. We depart feeling that we accomplished more than we imagined…but we both feel a bit guilty that we’re now off to vacation for 3 months while so many people that we’ve met in the last 6 weeks couldn’t even afford the $100 fee to apply for a Rwandan passport. As Ron Burgundy would say, we’re in a glass case of emotion.

To overcome these pangs of guilt, we’ve committed to looking for short-term volunteer opportunities in Cambodia/Laos/Vietnam, 3 of the poorest countries in the world. Robyn, a wonderful volunteer we met in Rwanda told us about an organization she volunteered with in Cambodia. If anyone else has recommendations, we’d love to hear them.

It’s very difficult to quantify the difference we made in Rwanda. We didn’t have visions of changing the world as we are only 2 people and there are so many things to be done. A couple of weeks ago, we realized our goal really should be to create as many small sustainable differences as possible. As Cathy says, the goat program isn’t a hand-out but rather a hand-up. It provides an immediate emotional boost to a family, but ultimately it’s their responsibility to take it and make the financial impact long-lasting.

On our last day at the school, the regional executive secretary came to do a presentation of the 20 care packages that Dal and I along with Robyn and Liz had funded to 20 deserving families.  As Cathy and Teste had invited Intore dancers to perform that day, there were a lot of neighbours on the grounds meaning the crowd was at least 300 people. He gave a fantastic speech to the crowd that crystallized what I love about the Rwandan attitude. His main points were

1)      Thanking us and our friends who have donated these important care packages without evening knowing any of these families personally

2)      These families are immensely grateful for these gifts from God..and they now had two main responsibilities:

a.       Use the help wisely…don’t squander

b.      Help others in your community who also have very little. You have been given something out of love…and you must show love to those around you who need it

After the speech, we hugged each family and exchanged greetings and then there were off on their merry way. One of the women took the speech to heart to the extent that she half-jokingly invited Cathy to dinner that night to share the meat.

Once the dancers and families left, the kids then did their daily 'goodbye' routine which consists of sitting in a massive circle and the teachers would lead them through songs. Dal and I went around the circle and high-fived each of the kids. The kids serenaded us with all the songs we had taught them, including "WE WILL WE WILL ROCK YOU", "ARE YOU SLEEPING, ARE YOU SLEEPING", "A WAVIN FLAG" but the hardest one to hear was "NAH NAH NAH, HEH HEH HEH, GOOOOODBYE". (I've written these in all caps because the kids literally bellow the songs). Dal and I stood in the middle of the circle and simply took it all in. At one point, Dal was about to break down into tears but then we saw one kid shove another kid to the ground which returned laughter and balance to our world.

Here are some photos from our last day at school.

Putting together the care packages

Intore drummers

Dal's decided to let her hair grow out. Ta-da !

White men can't jump...but they can.

Robyn, Dal, me, Liz, Teste, Executive Secretary Jean-Marie, one of the care package recipients

Exchanging greetings with the care package recipients

Walking out with the care packages.

The last high-fives

Dal's about to lose it..

The last goooodbye

Ronnie Bakira - our Rwandan Hero

During our stay in Rwanda at Cathy’s house, there is one person who has delighted and impressed us, and has earned a permanent place in both of our hearts.

Ronnie Bakira – preschool teacher by day, ‘Acidic’ – musical prodigy by night. He is the saver of orphaned kittens and the collector of lizards in your bedroom as you hysterically shriek for help. He is also the purveyor of the ‘African Knock’ – a culture-appropriate way of admonishing kids who throw stones at the dog, kick a ball at Cathy’s head or engage in any sort of unsavoury behaviour. (While Western society may balk at the thought of knocking little ones swiftly on the head with a knuckle, I’ll say all the kids I’ve met here – INCLUDING the street kids – are scores better behaved than 70% of the kids I’ve met in Canada). I might need to administer a few African Knocks myself when I’m back, so hide your sons and daughters.

Ronnie is 26 and returned to Rwanda from Uganda about 1997/1998 by his estimation. He has no parents, and one brother who lives in the area. Ron is a permanent fixture in the house – while he lives in his own place, he’s at Cathys house for all meals and to help out with any volunteer related details. Such as taking so and so to the bank, taking this one to the gift shop, and that one to go buy phone cards. He’s always available and ready to help.

He also says some interesting things like ‘I wish to live only until I’m 60’. ‘Don’t you want to see your grandchildren??’ David asked. He pondered it for a moment. ‘No’. Fair enough.

At school, he’ll spend a Friday morning playfully sparring with one of the 2 year olds in his class, while on Saturday morning he’s a strict disciplinarian and coach to the over 100 street boys who turn up every Saturday to play soccer and receive a meal of bread and sorghum, as well as soap. In the pre-school, any child who is misbehaving need only see him come around the corner and they’re swiftly back in place. And if someone isn’t doing quite what I tell them to do, all I have to say is ‘Teacher Ron’ and they turn into angels. Who says threats don’t work?

Ronnie hopes to come to Canada someday and go to school there. This would be an excellent opportunity for him – he’s a smart, witty, resourceful and personable young Rwandan man, and Canada could provide some amazing opportunities. In Rwanda, when the locals see non-black people, they shout out ‘Amuzungu, Amuzungu!’- which loosely translated means white-person/foreigner. Ron jokingly asked if when he came to Canada, people would point at him and go ‘BLACK BLACK!’. We said yes.

But first he needs a passport – which costs about $100 USD to process in Rwanda. While Ron has been saving for this passport, we decided it would be a really worthwhile initiative to use some of our excess goat money to fund Ron’s passport. Which we’ve done.  His first stop in Canada is BC – and when he makes it to Toronto, he’ll hopefully stay with us so we can treat him to Indian food (which he tasted for the first time with us, and loved)   and to feed him sushi which he will likely hate, but it will be fun to see him try to choke it down. Retribution for the time he told me a store bought strawberry ‘wine’ was ‘wonderful’ when in fact it tastes like cough syrup.

So here’s to ‘See you sooner’ Ronnie. We hope you make it to Canada real quick.

Dal

Dal, David and Ron on the way to Kigali. Ron LOVED wearing yellow

David, Steve and Ron have drinks at Khana Khazanaa..an amazing Indian restuarant in Kigali

Our Daily Routine in Rwanda

So what do we actually do ? We just realized we don’t have a post that detailed our weekly schedule, so here it is :

Monday – Friday 8am-noon : volunteer at the preschool
Monday/Thursday from 2-4pm : teaching english to the adults
Tuesday/Friday 10:30 am-noon : go to the goat market to purchase 20-30 goats
Tuesday/Friday 2:30pm-3pm : hand out the goats to those selected

Saturday 9am-noon : soccer and feeding the street kids

We loved Wednesdays because we were free after lunch to wander, nap or head to Ste Anne's hotel for free (but slow) Wifi and cheap beer and food.

The schedule wasn't all that hectic, but teaching is tiring so it suited us fine. We were often in bed and asleep by 9:30pm and work up the next day around 6pm or whenever the imam decided to be particular energetic with his morning prayers.

While at the preschool, our duties consisted of

·         Feeding the kids

·         Helping teach numbers, counting, alphabets, writing

·         Play with them at recess (see our post on evaluating recess games)

·         Teach them songs

·         Escort them to the ‘nurse’ (Cathy) to address boo-boos (real or fake)

Teaching English to the adults was a different animal, but was an exercise in patience as they struggled with concepts that come so naturally to us. We usually started the class by getting the adults to stand up and read out sentences such as “ My name is __“, “I have __ children”, “My favourite colour is __”,  “My favourite animal is __” and “I would like to visit __ someday”.  Or we’d simply write the alphabet on the board and have adults stand up and tell which letter we were pointing to. This would allow us to assess who’s a beginner / intermediate /advanced. From there we’d break up the classes. The beginners would continue to work on the alphabet. The intermediate class would work on vocabulary and the advanced class would work on reading and conversation. This structure somewhat evolved over our 5 weeks there, but it seems to work really well and we noticed demonstrable improvement in many of the students.

One of the ways we were able to connect with the class was downloading a Kinyarwanda-English dictionary to our laptop. We brought out laptop to school and then would write out english words on the whiteboard. We divded the class in two teams and the team that was able to spell the word and give the meaning in Kinyarwanda would get a point. As it added a small element of competition and because it helped us learn more words in Kinyarwanda, it would up being one of the favourites exercises for everyone.

This adult class was also very interested in basic health and hygiene knowledge (how to treat a cut, how to cure a headache etc.) so Cathy has organized those types of sessions as well that other volunteers have led.

In retrospect, we really enjoyed the adult classes because so many of them were really engaged and desperately wanted to improve their English. On our second last day, we took a group photo which we showed the class on our last day. They were thrilled to see themselves in a photo and it’s now hanging up proudly in one of the classrooms.



Dal holding court



David using a whiteboard..some things never change.

Group photo with adult class -  now hanging up in the classroom