¡Bienvenidos a Quito!

Sunday night (Monday morning, rather) at 1:30 AM I began this adventure by boarding the Megabus in Madison, which would take me to the Minneapolis airport. A couple flights later I arrived in Quito with six new friends from my program that I met on the way over. Arriving in Quito, I expected to totally know what was going on. After all, I had just gotten home from six weeks in Rwanda, so was else is there to know about international travel? Turns out, I was wrong. This trip is way harder, so far.

Don’t get me wrong; I am going to love Quito soon. But right now, I am a little overwhelmed, mostly because I am bad at Spanish. I live with a very sweet host family, but we have a hard time communicating because of my level of Spanish. They don’t speak English, nor should I expect or want them to, but it can be stressful and awkward not knowing how to ask questions or answer theirs. I already notice myself improving though, and I am VERY excited about that!

Plane picture, just because I end up glued to the window. I thought I'd share what I had been watching for  six hours! 

First glimpse of Quito :) 

We stayed in a hotel the first night, since we arrived very late and had a full day of orientation the next day! This is Sara and Julia, my roomies that night.

There was a dog on a roof across from our hotel room that looks a lot like Belle :) I saw four dogs on roofs from my window that morning! I would like to live on a roof with my dog someday.

I have started some orientation and a couple of classes at CIMAS. CIMAS is a program/center that partners with University of Minnesota to provide a study abroad experience to students interested in international development in Ecuador. The classes are a bit long (an hour and a half each), and having them totally in Spanish doesn’t help the time fly by. I’m sure they are super interesting, but as of right now I only understand about half of what is said! Oh well, I’ll catch on!

Beautiful view from the back of CIMAS! That is a volcano named Pinchicha, which stretches along the entire city of Quito. It is useful to orient yourself because it will always be in the west :)

CIMAS! 

Today (Thursday), we had just one class, then headed out on a tour of Quito Viejo. Quito Viejo is a part of central Quito that used to be all that there was to the capital. We did most of the tour by bus (but sat on the open upper deck so it was still nice) and then toured a museum that highlights several centuries of the city’s existence! Quito Viejo is beautiful, and I really enjoyed this field trip.

Our tour bus. I really liked riding on the top, until it got cold and a little rainy at the end.

Some biiiig buildings in Quito!

I wish I remembered what this church is called, but it is beautiful! 

Some of this wonderful city :) 

I'll admit I don't know what this is, but it shows some of the amazing architecture we saw on this tour. 

La Virgen del Apocalipsis.  

Some of us with Quito in the background! Kat, Shomari, Janay, Alexa, Charlie, Marais, and me. 

Way up at the top is the Virgen statue that I have a close-up of a couple of pictures earlier. It is on top of a beautiful hill!

Have you guessed yet that I love hills?

I think one of our CIMAS directors said that this is the oldest street in Quito? Not sure, but it was nice to walk down!

Whenever the birds would settle in this one plaza, little kids would run through and they would all take off, only to come back a few minutes later :)

 Early tomorrow morning we will head out for a two-day trip to San Jose de Minas, which is two hours north. Apparently there is a distillery, a mineral bath, and some sort of Catholic parade. Somehow these things must all be connected, but I didn’t quite understand how. You’ll see when I post my next blog! After this little trip, I head straight to a family reunion for my host family. I am pretty nervous about that since I probably won’t understand anyone. The sister of my papá (my tía I guess? I don’t want to take these host-relationships too far…) is flying in from New York tomorrow for the reunion. I wonder if she’ll let me speak English to her… Haha! Whatever happens, I’m sure this will be a learning experience. And you will hear about it soon! ¡Hasta luego!

Wrapping it up! (a little late)

Okay, so this post is a LOT late. Life in Wisconsin began full-swing when I got home, but I figured I should write my last post for Rwanda before I depart for Ecuador (which is in 6 days)!

Our work at HDI led up to a long-anticipated final week: SHARE training week! This is the week we spent many hours editing manuals and planning activities/lessons for, and it was extremely rewarding to see the beginnings of the results. First, I'll explain what SHARE training is. This is an opportunity for the leaders, or peer-educators, of local anti-AIDS clubs to come and learn all the information they can in order to prepare them to more effectively train their peers. These are secondary-school students, which is comparable to our high-school level. Students can expect to learn information from many topics related to sexual health and reproduction, ranging from puberty to HIV prevention to stages of pregnancy.

Last year's GROW team had put together a preliminary manual full of various activities and games, with the intention of making this training week both informative and interesting! We spent a lot of time editing the manual and preparing ourselves to lead each of the activities. When SHARE training week finally came around, we realized we really had to just go with the flow, as some things took longer than we had to expected and we had to cut out or modify other activities. It was not only a huge learning experience for the students, but for us as well! Here are just a few of the things we learned, in list form because I am bored of paragraphs right now:

• How to speak slowly, clearly, and in simple terms (language barrier)
• To keep, and regain, the attention of students
• To drop assumptions in order to understand where their views might be coming from
• To evaluate our experience and our work
• To communicate some of the problems we encountered, and propose solutions

We will be able to take these new skills with us into the future, especially as I believe we all have learned how important education is in any field. As far as the immediate future, we have some ideas for additional directions we would like to see our work with HDI go. We have, and will continue to, communicate these ideas with HDI and collaborate to increase sexual health and reproductive knowledge in Rwanda!

(I wish I had pictures of SHARE training for you, but my memory card mysteriously got re-configured or something after the training and I lost those images!)

While that was an exciting week, it was hard work and was complicated by our team getting fairly sick, with two of us making hospital visits. When the weekend came, we were ready to relax, and what better place to relax than Lake Kivu? This beautiful area is where we spent our last couple of days in Rwanda, and we enjoyed every minute of it.

Our hotel was called Paradise Malahide and is in Gisenyi, a city in the Western Province of Rwanda. It was super nice!

On the grounds of Paradise Malahide, looking out over Lake Kivu.

Maggie and Abby (and I) exploring the shoreline near our hotel. 

More of Lake Kivu! Congo is on the other side, and with how peaceful it was on this side of things, it was hard to imagine the warfare happening on the other side. 

Our room! Which was actually our own little, circular building. There was even a bathroom inside! So cute :) 

2/3 of the beds! Abby's obviously ready to go to sleep!

 We discovered almost right away that there were canoes available for us to use, so we hopped in one and aimed for the island that you can see a few pictures above. We didn't quite make it... maybe only halfway... but it was worth a shot!

Maggie pushing us off! Our canoe might have been leaking a little bit, and our paddles were very different sizes, but we at least got a little ways off of shore! 

Abby's artsy shot off the front of the canoe. 

Enjoying the change of scenery - from busy city to peaceful lake!

Momma's gotta untie all the hard knots :P

Later that evening we used Abby's Rwanda guidebook to find a restaurant suggested, then headed into town! I think the restaurant we chose was called Bistro at White Rock, it it was probably less than a mile from the Congo border! We walked up to the border just because of all the news we'd been hearing on it, then went and had one of the best meals of our trip. Bistro's food, especially it's dessert, were delicious! The next morning, after a nice breakfast and a last stroll around the shore, we headed back to Kigali to say our goodbyes.

Border between Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Our complementary breakfast was sort-of a strange mix of various small portions of things, but it was good! 

A lizard that came up behind where we were eating :)

Another American at our hotel took this picture for us!

For our last night in Kigali, HDI's executive director, Dr. Kagaba, organized a going-away dinner for us! While the order took a long 3 hours to make (even with a few annoyed visits to the kitchen made by Cassien), it was great to be able to talk to everyone before we left. We're certainly going to miss these people and have had an incredible time in Rwanda!

GROW team with Maureen and Juliet! 

Our house :) 

Some of HDI! Kristy, Maggie, Me, Cassien, Abby, Nessa, Juliet and Maureen.

Rather than flying for four days like we did on our way to Rwanda, coming home only took two. I said goodbye to Maggie in Johannesburg, and Abby in Paris. Who knew that six weeks could bring near-strangers so close? I'm so glad it happened though, and I can't wait to see them again when I return to Appleton in January! While Rwanda was fully of crazy experiences and a ton of learning about myself, I am thankful to be home again. Being away really made me appreciate what I have here, while at the same time giving me courage to run off again! Ecuador, here I come!

Inshuti Wanjye

This title means “my friend” in Kinyarwanda. We’ve made quite a few friends during our time in Rwanda, so you’re going to hear about some of them! (and some other fun from the past week).

When we had gone to the Forum in Uganda, we met many other GlobeMed GROW teams like ourselves, working for East African NGOs for the summer. Among these other teams was the GROW team from Middlebury College, who has been working for Gardens for Health International (GHI) just outside of Kigali. This past week, we had the chance to drive over to GHI with Cassien to see what work they have been doing! We were given a short tour of their office and farming area with an explanation of their project, them we joined the staff/community for lunch! GHI generally trains mothers about nutrition and health, while helping them start their own gardens to help feed their families nutritionally. It sounded like a really great organization!

The GHI office

One of the dogs on the property :) We saw two and they were so cute! And made me really miss my dog :/

Pig roast for the community dinner that would happen later that night. Gross.

Heading out to see the gardens! Cate is the first one heading out, followed by Ryan. They are the two GlobeMed students that are partnered with GHI.

This is Cassien, my boss at HDI! We all took pictures to pass some time as we waited for the HDI car to come for us.

On Saturday, the three of us were invited to go to the Expo with Maureen and Juliet, two HDI staff. It reminded me so much of the expo at the Wisconsin State Fair! There were a lot of crafty stores with clothing and jewelry, and a few sort-of “TV ad” stores with mops or blenders, similar to at the Wisconsin Fair.

Abby, Maureen and Maggie checking out a shop at the Expo. Notice the panels of tile and wood next to them for people to demonstrate the mops they are selling! Just like Wisco :) 

They had quite a few cool food designs here! I'm not sure what they were trying to sell...since selling the produce would have messed up their designs...

Right after the Expo we headed to our favorite market in Kimironko. Our first time there, we found a woman made Josephine and her fabric store. We were able to pick out fabric and describe a piece of clothing that we want made from it, and she has a really good seamstress to make it for us! And it’s cheap compared to clothes in the US! We’ve been there a few times already – it’s pretty addicting. We’ve gotten mixes of shirts, pants, and skirts! Abby recently got a dress. I had to stop after three things since I’ll probably find something like this in Ecuador too :)

Abby sitting in the little fabric stall!

Fabric :) I love this part of the market!

We got home just in time to head out again to a Chinese restaurant for Ryan’s birthday (one of the GlobeMedders at GHI). After dinner we wondered what we should do to pass time before going to a club, and decided to come back to our house to play beer pong! I should be pretty bad at it since I had only ever played once before, but to everyone’s surprise, I accidentally made a “death cup” shot that won the first game!

Teaching our housemates how to play! I guess beer pong is not a thing in Ireland :)

Every good game of beer pong needs a custodian!

Once we passed enough time, we headed out to the clubs! The three of us were pretty excited since we’re not allowed to go out dancing in the US. We started at this place called Papyrus (the same place we had our first meal in Kigali), which was a lot of fun! There was usually a good mix of American music we were familiar with and a few songs we didn’t know. Then we headed to the part of the night we were most looking forward to: the mirror club. We heard a lot about this place where apparently there are mirrors all over, and strange men just stand in front of the mirrors and dance with themselves, intent on not involving anyone else in their groove. The actual experience was not quite what it was talked up to be, but we still had a great time! There was one wall that was a giant mirror, and there were a few times we caught people dancing with their reflections. We definitely tried it, too :)

Cassien, Abby and I in the taxi!

The famed mirror that we danced with ourselves in! 

The Americans of the group! So basically, the group minus Cassien. Maggie, Ryan, Brett, Abby, and me!

Sunday morning I went to Christian Life Assembly for the last time. I have really enjoyed worshipping and learning there and am sad to leave! Once the service ended, I found Maureen and Juliet and Maureen’s friend Kevin, who just moved from Kenya. (I enjoy the fact that there is someone who is newer to Rwanda than me! Haha). We walked over to Bourbon for coffee and lunch – a nice Sunday afternoon with people and a place I’ll definitely miss when I go home!

Maureen took a picture for me in front of church once the service was over :) 

Me, Juliet and Maureen at Bourbon coffee!

This Monday, and the one before, we finally got around to going to the quiz night we had been hearing about! We met up with the other GlobeMedders and some of their GHI friends at a restaurant called Sole Luna for pizza and trivia. Last Monday was a lot of fun, but this Monday’s quiz was just obscenely hard and not fun. I’m for sure excited to be able to do trivia in the VR (Lawrence’s campus bar) when I get back to Lawrence in January!

We just have our SHARE training week, which is in progress, and a relaxing weekend at Lake Kivu ahead of us before we go home! I am sad to be leaving Rwanda and everything I have enjoyed here, but at the same time I am very excited to go home and see everyone/do everything I have been missing! I guess getting sick with worms made me a little more homesick as well, but that’s a different story! :)