Some Rainy Season

Sunday was our first real "day off" since getting here. We certainly haven't been swamped by any means but there have been visits out into the community and health worker training to observe nearly every day. So sleeping in today was pretty special.

After a late start we walked down the road to the Travelers Rest Guesthouse, an oasis of gardens and plush furniture and incredible pancakes. One of us ordered banana pancakes, the other got bacon pancakes. Not bacon AND pancakes. Bacon pancakes. We've heard that all the meals here are pretty fantastic and the dining room is cool and well-appointed, so it might become a "treat yourself" locale when we're in dire need.

After breakfast, we finished our coffee on the back patio and worked on updating lesson plans for an upcoming Village Health Worker training session. The sun was shining and a Hadada Ibis (which we would identify as such in the pages of Birds of East Africa) was rooting around in the wet grass. The ibis and we got a lot done that morning and around 1 o'clock Katrina and I walked back down the homeward road. The ibis found other soils for rooting.

The rainy season is no joke. In other words, when we saw great swirls of grey clouds overhead on our walk we knew there was no question of what was to come. The day before, we had raced a dark and terrible storm from the corner store all the way back to our house, reaching the porch only seconds before the skies opened wide. This Sunday afternoon was shaping up similarly.

We hustled up the driveway and dropped our bags inside just as all the corrugated tin roofs in our compound began to come alive with the drumming of raindrops. Soon hail, half-an-inch or more in diameter, was bouncing up to our front door. The sloped awning that protected our porch from lighter, more-or-less vertical downpours was of no use against this omni-directional onslaught. Water -- liquid and solid -- was assaulting us from its gaseous state miles above. But it's not a storm; it's a season, and it's no joke.

Rain was off and on (but mostly on) for the rest of the day and power was on and off (but mostly off). Both of these might end up being fairly common features of the rainy season. But being housebound on a Sunday was just what we needed to rearrange our living room a little and make Katrina's famous sweet potato stew (prepared with the local-est ingredients we've ever had).

Evening was peaceful. The sky had settled down and the setting sun was peeking through one small corner. Mt. Muhavura had never looked clearer or more prominent and we stood on the porch admiring it with our neighbour Amit, an attending doctor at the hospital. Every few minutes we heard the cheers of a far-off crowd of people. Maybe two soccer teams and their fans releasing the nervous energy pent up from an afternoon of rain delays.

Backyard Volcano

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Kisoro is nestled into the Virunga mountain range. These (mostly) inactive volcanos straddle the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda. We can see the third tallest one (Muhavura) from our front porch.

There are probably very few outdoor places in Kisoro district that don't offer an impressive view of Muhavura. At 4,127 meters above sea level, this thing is taller than Mt. Fuji! It's mythically big. Around it are smaller cousins Mt. Sabyinyo and Mt. Gahinga. All together, these volcanoes make the skyline spectacular.

I took a picture this evening of Muhavura from our backyard. Normally the peak is shrouded in clouds but as dusk approached the sky cleared a little and only a few wisps remained. You can see a worker laying bricks on a house next to ours.

How to be Friendly in Rufumbira

The church we pass on the way to the hospital.
 Hidden in clouds is the enormous volcano Muhavura.

We have both started shadowing Doctors for Global Health (DGH) employees on their frequent visits to the villages outisde the town of Kisoro.

Sometimes they are taking census data, sometimes running CDCOM (Chronic Disease in the Community) clinics where medicines are distributed, and sometimes they are checking on the health concerns that a Village Health worker (VHW) has identified.

 There is a lot of work already being done by a lot of dedicated, intelligent people, VHWs and DGH employees alike. Our job these next few months will be integrating ourselves in the organization in a way that helps them continue to do great work.

Rows of beans outside our house

Along with getting a richer sense of what the work that we've been hearing about for so many months is really like, we've each started picking up enough of the local language (Rufumbira) to be polite when we meet villagers. Here's what we've gleaned so far:

(My Rufumbira spellings are totally phonetic and would probably make a local giggle. We're also still figuring out the pronounciation, so think of these as a beginner's approximation.)

Wa-ra-ye...........................Good Morning
Wi-ri-we...........................Good Afternoon
Mu-ra-ho..........................[all-purpose greeting]
Co-me-ra..........................Are you feeling well/strong? (also a greeting)
Eh-go.................................[appropriate response to the above four]
U-me-zu-te.......................How are you?
Nda-ho...............................I'm well
A-ma-ku-ru........................[another] How are you?
Nyi-me-za...........................I'm good
Bi-te..................................[informal] How are you?
Sa-wa..................................I'm fine
Wa-ko-ze...........................Thank you
Wa-ko-ze gu-shi-ma.............Thank you for appreciating (our "you're welcome")
Wa-ko-ze cu-za...................Thank you for coming
Wa-ko-ze gu-sang-wa...........Thank you for having me
Wa-tet-se...........................Thank you for the food/drink

The Birds (and sights) of Kigali

We walked down exactly one road in Kigali -- a wide boulevard that skirted a lovely park and gardens and ended at a big fountain -- so we can't recount too many wild city adventures.

What we can talk about, and wildly too, are the incredible birds that casually alight in Rwandan trees. Rwanda has birds like we have breakfast cereals: all imaginable colors and shapes, all spread out in front of you. We hear that Uganda's array is even more impressive! Well, we've been bitten by the birding bug, officially. 

These birds below are ones we saw on our day in a Kigali hostel , almost entirely from the balcony off our room! Thanks to an encyclopedic volume on the birds of East Africa (thanks mom!) we've even managed to identify a lot of them. 

Some chattery thing...I'll have to look that up again

Black Kite!

Ross's Turaco!

The view from our room

One of the deep valleys that wrinkle around the city

Saturday is, apparently, an incredibly popular day for weddings. During our 40 min walk, we saw at least a half dozen wedding parties!

Pictures of our Final Days in Italy

We're so excited to finally be in Africa!

We'll spend today in Kigali, exploring and getting provisions, and then get a ride over the border to Kisoro, Uganda tomorrow.

Here is an album of our last few days in Italy, including our big trip to Florence with all the parents!

Arrived in Kigali!

Yesterday was a whirlwind of travel! We drove a little, funky-looking purple Peugeot (stock photo below) on the Italian Autostrade from Rapallo to Milano. We passed many signs warning us of the strong winds and felt lucky that our heavy baggage was holding Little Purple down so we didn't blow away! When we were up in the mountains the clouds were hovering in our midst and we felt lucky that it wasn't raining.


The Turkish Airways flight from Milan to Istanbul was remarkable only for it being the end of my short guilty-pleasure love affair with Scandal. In this last month of vacation, I have watched all three seasons of Olivia Pope and Associates' antics, plus a President and Chief of Staff who do almost no work. It's gripping as those of you who have also succumbed to its charm will admit!

The flight from Istanbul to Kigali was 3,000 miles, about three times as long as the first flight and the plane was equipped with fancy individual screens for each passenger. Andrew watched Tim's Vermeer, a movie about an inventor-type who becomes obsessed with the painter Vermeer's methods and spends years investigating them by recreating one of his paintings. I guess I was in the mood for a catharsis of sorts and I watched The Fault in Our Stars, a tear-jerking romantic drama about two teenagers who meet in a cancer support group and fall in love. The young woman, Hazel, introduces her new friend to her favorite book, and the two seek out the reclusive author in an optimistic naïveté to find out what became of the characters. It struck a chord about how precious love is and how devastating it is to lose someone close to you. These young people were inspiring, though, as they figured out how to absorb the life's essence in a short time and deal with its ambiguities in ways that others doubtfully could. The movie packs a lot of perspective.

I also caught a bit of The Promised Land too -- and feel ashamed to admit I didn't know for sure what fracking was until its dramatic activist description by one of the movie's community members who organized a simple stand-up-to-the-man demonstration at the town hall in the high school gym. The flight landed in Kigali before the movie was over so I will have to wait a little while to know how it ended. I was astonished at the selection of movies on this plane, though! Everything from The Truth About Cats and Dogs with Uma Thurman and Janine Garofalo to a made-for-TV movie about Gabrielle Douglas, the first American gymnast to win both the individual and the team gold medal in the Olympics.

We arrived in Kigali after midnight, which was a relief! The plane had two destinations - Entebbe and Kigali -- and we weren't sure which was coming first. We deplaned and went through passport control. Before seeing the agents, we filled out a screening questionnaire for possible exposure to or symptoms of Ebola virus infection and had our temperatures taken with a infrared (non-contact) thermometer. The two workers who checked our temperatures were wearing masks and there was information on Ebola provided by the Ministry of Health available at the agents' desks.

Samuel, a driver arranged by the hostel, greeted us after we got our baggage, and took us to the Discover Rwanda Youth Hostel where we are staying for two nights. He gave us a little tour along the way -- we stopped in Remera at an ATM, then passed the Convention Center Hotel (under construction) which he said was being built on land that used to be owned by Microsoft's Bill Gates. We also caught a glimpse of the Senate and Parliament buildings, but it was very dark so we'll have to get out and see them again today!

Morning in Genoa

We're still hanging around Liguria. Andrew's parents come tomorrow evening and we'll spend the following 3 days in Florence. Today we spent the morning in Genoa and then came home to luxuriate in our own individual states of stupor: reading, crossword puzzles, "Scandal" Season 3, and of course deep and serious napping.

Genoa is an impressive city: Impressively bedecked with ancient wealth, impressively riven with bustling pedestrian alleys, impressively grimy. Genoa does not care what you think about it. It is there for the long haul with or without your approval. The city's port district, however, is noticeably polished with bright, modern public spaces, a huge aquarium, and the trendy supermarket Eataly.

Eatlay packages a brazenly "American" experience -- a one-stop-shop for all groceries and related paraphernalia with endless shelves of selection -- but it seems to be catching on in Italy despite that fact. It's hard to see the entrenched array of traditional "-erias" (salumerias, panneterias, osterias...) being displaced by something like an Eataly, but Italians looking for convenience (you can even order food --sandwiches, fresh pizza and pasta -- to eat right in the store) may start to change their shopping habits.

We ate dinner back at the house (fresh, melt-in-your-mouth pumpkin ravioli with butter and sage) and then walked around the seaside town from 10 to 11pm. Everyone was out, eating outside in streetside bistros. The air was busy with live music (a duet of electric piano and a DJ spinning Pink Floyd), cigarette smoke, and perfume. We got gelato (violet, nutella, fig, vanilla) and walked the buzzing waterfront and the quiet plazas a few streets back.

Here are some pictures from the morning.

First Days in Italy with Family

Our last stop before Africa is a doozy.

The town of Levanto

10 days on the coast of Liguria, Italy's northern-most province on the Mediterranean. Katrina's family has been coming here for over 15 years. They're on a first-name basis with half the residents which has led them into an intimate relationship with the best places to eat. Eating here, after all, is taken very seriously.

Within hours of landing we gorged on focaccia (normale, cippole, and, olive) which is a staple of the villages here, sliced up and sold by the kilo. It is light and chewy, crispy around the edges and dimpled with olive-oil-catching nooks and crannies. The gelato is also fairly ever-present but we've managed to hold back in our first two days. That will change pretty soon.

Last night's dinner -- on the terrace of a place that overlooks the sheer and lushly forested coastline, as nearly all self-respecting Ligurian restaurants do -- started with antipasti: boards of salami, prosciutto, and toasts topped with buttery lardo; puff-pastry filled with melted stracchino and gorgonzola cheeses; and then moved onto heaping dishes of pansotti (a regional pasta stuffed with spinach and herbs) coated in salsa di noce, a creamy walnut sauce.

When we're not eating we explore the small towns that dot the verdant coastline. We'll see many more in the coming days (with a trip to Florence in there too! Stay tuned for that...) and the ones we've visited so far are all bright with pastel stuccoed walls, woven with narrow streets and walkways, and fronted by gorgeous, sparkling ocean views.

We've been out of the house so much that I haven't had much time to post but here are some pictures that capture a little of what we've been up to.

The waterfront in the town of Camogli

A shady pinoli tree near the town center

An old railroad line that was converted into walking/biking paths

Every so often there is a break in the tunnel...

...like this one!

Katrina and Andrew dip their toes in the water

Two hillside villages. How do they get up there?

Last Day in Barcelona

I have a very heavy heart as I think about recounting our last day with Becca and Joey in their wondrous new home. They've taken a huge leap of love and faith and landed so gracefully. The language, the metro stops, the side streets, the menus: they're absorbing it all and making it their own. We were overjoyed with the prospect of spending time with them here and the visit exceeded all of our expectations. Three great days! If only it could have been three dozen. We love you guys!

Katrina and I spent the morning at the Museo National d'Art de Catalunya. It sits high and regal on the side of the Mountjuic hill overlooking the Placa d'Espanya. A long promenade of fountains and waterfalls and statues and stairs (oh, the stairs!) draws you up from the bustling plaza to the forested middle-heights of the hill where you can turn around to see the city sprawling out below you.

The inside is rich with marble, light, and wide-open spaces. The modern art wing was closed for renovation so we spent our time slowly walking through the Renaissance collection and then less slowly walking through the Medieval wing (museum-ing is tough on the feet). Both sides are vibrant and proudly regional cross-sections of their time periods.

The Medieval side of the museum features dimly-lit spaces recreated to emulate the 10th and 11th century churches that once housed the frescoes on display. You feel as if you are seeing the vast murals (the swaths that survived) from the same perspective that a Catalonian church-goer 1,000 years ago might have.

Afterwards, we met Joey back at their apartment and then found our way to the neighborhood of Gracia for lunch. It was a classic tapas experience in an understated place bustling with mother-daughter pairs and businessmen in suits. We had tortilla espanola, pulpo a la gallega (octopus grilled and seasoned until it resembled a mouth-watering bacon-oyster hybrid), skewers of spicy pork, and the fried cod balls which proved so irresistible (even to those normally lukewarm towards seafood in our party) that we ordered a second helping and fairly limped from the restaurant.

A long, meandering walk through this neighborhood gave us a better sense of the less-seen side of the

city before taking the train back into the heart to visit one of the most-seen sides: la Basilica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia. Becca met us here after her second full-day of school and, bearing the tickets we had bought ahead of time to skip the surely-hours-long line that snakes around the block, we headed up the steps

The building's scale defies photography, but thousands of visitors swarmed around us with phones and cameras extended anyway. I tried capturing it too until I became self-conscious. Just being there seemed enough. Gaudi started work on the basilica in 1883 and spent the last years of his life utterly devoted to it before his death in a tram car accident in 1926. Construction has continued since then

The intimidating host that looms over the entrance

but vast areas of it remain unbuilt. While Gaudi may have intended the project as a testament to Christianity, I was left with an impression of nothing so much as the fervent, fevered mind of Gaudi himself.

Obsessed with natural forms and merging the organic with the structural, Gaudi filled his plans with a menagerie of faces, fruits, fractals, birds, beasts, and bugs. In 88 years since his death, the builders have been bringing those plans into reality. Every inch of the interior and exterior is densely wrought. The sum total can feel crowded -- almost gaudy -- and certainly overwhelming. Joey noted wryly that if an advanced alien race had been picking up Christianity over the radio waves that traveled through deep space, the church they would have built to impress us might have looked like this. "Out of this world" is a pretty fitting descriptor.

The interior is a forest of chromatic light and exotic shapes like hyperboloids and helicoids, all rendered with exacting precision. Ornamentation is in turns majestic (colossal pendants of luminous glass depicting the Gospels) and baffling (light-up grapes and bassoons). Small areas of the sanctuary are reserved for quiet prayer but the dominating air is that of an overrun drive-by natural wonder. The sheer enormity of the space does soften the bustle and chatter but can't erase it, and I found myself missing the intimate silence of Girona's cathedral from our first day.

For dinner we walked down Carrer de Blai, a pedestrian-only avenue of open-door tapas bars. Joey, showing how thoroughly Barcelonan he has become, scoffed at our unheard-of dinner time of 7:30 pm. They'll wonder why we're eating lunch so late", he grumbled. Nevertheless our eatery of choice agreed to serve us from the dinner menu.

We ended the night with a movie back at home and will begin the next morning bright and early at 3am to see how Massachusetts residents voted in the gubernatorial primaries. Go Don Berwick! With him at the helm, our state could really become something to be exceedingly proud of.

Day 2 in Barcelona

We've only got 10 minutes before we run out to the National Art Museum of Catalonia before they open at 10am (making today our earliest mobilization by far!) but that should be just enough time to throw up some pictures.

Yesterday was a long, sunny exploration of the city with Joey as our very capable guide. It included a walk to the beachside peninsula neighborhood of Barceloneta, some incredible paella on a side-street of same, wandering through the beautiful Parc Ciutadella and past the Arc de Triomf, and of course it all began at one of the many bustling open-air markets that the city is famous for.

The city's public bike system

A well-earned rest...

Las Ramblas: where, apparently, everyone is

Columbus pointing out to sea