Rwandan Cultural Differences

Taken from the Welcome to Rwanda packet I received from the Embassy upon arrival:

"In Rwanda, people tend to concern themselves with the present rather than the future. Nothing gets done in a timely manner. Planning for the future is virtually unheard of. Those of us who are task-oriented, who are accustomed to being successful at making and executing plans may find it frustrating to be in situations where schedules and time tables are not important"

Um, yeah, I think I'd have to agree... My module will be finished after this weekend and that means the next module begins the following Tuesday (Feb 1). It is a team-taught module that I am contributing one of the four weekend sessions, yet, no one seems bothered by the fact that we don't have a syllabus developed yet. So I spent the better part of yesterday creating a syllabus. I sent it out over email yesterday but still haven't heard back from any of the other instructors. Even though I had a lot of other things I needed to get done yesterday, it was worth dedicating the time to developing it just because it makes ME nervous not to have it all planned out ahead of time (I know, call me crazy for wanting to plan a class an ENTIRE week ahead of time!). 

I think it might be worth investing some time to observing some of the other Rwandan professors while they teach a class. Maybe it will give me some perspective of what is expected! I only have my Columbia experience to draw upon and clearly that structure differs from the one being implemented here.

Failure to Launch

The second marathon lecture session went well. The students seem to be embracing the active learning style and are engaging in discussions. The lab session, however, was a nightmare.  It was meant to be an exercise to get them familiar with the IUCN website (the redlist of endangered species) and it required internet access.   Sure, I suspected the internet would be slow, but what I did not understand beforehand was that the students had very limited computer experience and their level of english fluency would make the exercise extremely painstaking. I decided to modify the lab mid course to make it shorter and easier and the good news is that they were able to finish, but boy, was it trying.

The weather seems to be shifting a little bit now. Instead of daily downpours, we are now on what seems to be an every other day or every 2 day rain schedule. I've gotten where I can *usually* tell when I leave the house in the morning if it will rain. If it is gorgeous and sunny outside early in the morning, that usually means rainstorms in the afternoon. Cooler and hazy in the morning, and the afternoon will be nice. Predicting the weather impacts what shoes I wear because the walk from town to our house are on dirt/mud roads. And they can really get awfully muddy fast in the rain.

We've made friends with another set of mazungos (white people) in town: a Flemish couple. The husband is volunteering with me as a teaching assistant for my class and hopefully will also be helping me with my field work once I start in Feb or March. I'm anxious about starting because the more I hear about Nyungwe, the more overwhelming the forest seems to me. First off, it is huge (1000km2). The terrain is very rough and steep and I wonder what I've gotten myself into trying to catch some of the most elusive animals in Rwanda in this huge forest! Wish me luck!

Okan is off to Kigali again tomorrow for phase two of the car search. He thinks he has settled on a car he likes but we are still in the process of amassing the wads of cash necessary for the purchase.  His bank account keeps getting frozen because they think someone is illegally using his account in Rwanda. Alas, it is just us trying to pull out money for the car. We've told the bank a million times that we will be in Rwanda for the year, but for some reason it still keeps getting frozen.

We hired a man named Martin to help with the cooking and cleaning at the house. He worked for Nicole and Simon (the other mazungo couple we know in Butare) a few years ago and they really liked him. He has been doing a great job and it's nice to have someone help with the shopping and cleaning. The shopping is especially hard because if we go to the market by ourselves, the price of food is about triple what it is if he buys it. Yesterday was his day off so I whipped up some cole slaw for the three of us to eat for supper. I wasn't sure if he would like it, but alas, he loved it and literally would have eaten the entire bowl if Okan and I weren't there. 

Second Class

I am preparing for my second marathon teaching session beginning tomorrow afternoon. I've had a hard time trying to decide what to have the students do for the lab on Saturday.  I want to get them outside and looking at animals and birds, yet I hardly feel like an authority on any of the local wildlife since I'm still so new to Rwanda. I decided to take a chance and put out some sherman (small mammal) traps this morning in the arboretum to see what small mammals I might capture. If I am able to capture anything I think I will have the students practice handling/processing animals for their lab.  My back up plan is the internet based lab I planned for last week.

I've been feeling a little lonely as of late- missing my friends from home. I've met lots of people so far at the University, but I'm still very new and feeling a bit like an outsider (I guess it's only been a week and a half!).  Okan and I are also constantly stared at whenever we walk around. I'm fairly used to just zoning out and being in my own head when I walk (as I do in NYC). But the staring does get old after a while.  We're probably 2 of 20 white people in all of Butare.

The workload of teaching these back to back classes on Friday and Saturday also is challenging. I haven't had much time to give any thought to my field work, which I hope to start next month. We're also still looking for a car (which we would need to do the field work!). We've found one we like, but the owner wants cash.  This presents two challenges- first, there is an ATM limit to what we can withdraw and the only alternative is taking out larger amounts within the bank which means hefty bank fees.  Second, and more amusingly, the largest bill in Rwanda is the equivalent of a $10 bill. So paying for a car means having absurb amounts of Rwandan francs on hand. Something on the order of a briefcase full of cash! We figure we can probably use the ATM's to get enough out in another 10 days or so given the daily withdrawal limit.

On the bright side- the electricity is back on! Yay! Which is good because it has been quite cool this week (so no more cold baths). I'm off to check my traps this afternoon- hoping some small creature will be drawn to the peanut butter and oat bait!

No Electricity

The house still has a number of problems. Foremost, no electricity since Sunday. Which means, amongst other things, cold baths. The average high temperature is 73 in the middle of the day with lows in the afternoons/evenings in the high 50s. So not the typical hot weather that most people imagine with Africa. We're not very optimistic the electricity will be fixed anytime soon so I guess we had better get used to cold baths. I guess it will be good to get used to since my field work will probably be under similar conditions.

Okan started back working at Kaplan today. As long as he works from campus he seems able to get some work done. The internet on campus (which has been working most of the time- touch wood) is actually really fast. We've been pleasantly surprised. The modem we got for the house is miserable- hardly worth getting online unless it's for something important.  The biggest challenge for Okan is that the NYC workday starts at 4pm our time.  Although now that we have no electricity, there's no real rush to get home anytime early! I have an extra desk in my office so we're sharing office space which is nice. He'll head back to Kigali later this week to keep up the car hunt while I do my teaching.

Settling In

Teaching went well on Friday and Saturday. The biggest challenge is the language barrier- Rwanda made the switch from French to English as their official language only in 2009. I spend a lot of time repeating myself. But the students couldn't be more engaging and eager- a real treat to teach.  Another challenge was the laboratory I had prepared was meant to be conducted on computers with internet. Alas, the internet was out (it had been so good all week!!). So I put something together new over lunch right before lab. I think it worked out ok given the circumstances.

Okan and I are still working to settle into our house. The landlord has turned out to be lame so we are probably going to move in February sometime. I won't bother explaining why he is lame, but he's what you might refer to as a scrooge. So we are looking at other places to rent that also might be less expensive. It's not that we're paying so much (it's Africa after all), but by most standards, we're paying too much for what we're getting (Sorry Joy, Margaret and Paul! Hope the new digs will be big too!).

Moving, no matter if it is in New York or Rwanda, is generally a pain (but not as much of a pain as it must be riding this bicycle). Rwanda has its' own set of challenges. For example, it appears that no one sells sunscreen in all of Butare. And Okan looked for some when he went to Kigali (2hrs away) and couldn't find any there either (though we're told it does exist). So I'm walking around with a bit of a sunburn at the moment.  Our electricity has also been out for the last 24 hours and getting the scrooge owners to help isn't easy. But all of these things are typical normal hurdles one expects when living abroad.  I'm trying to take these challenges in stride.  I like to think of myself as a rubber band that hasn't gotten stretched in a long time (maybe since Mexico?) so I've gotten a bit tough and lost some flexibility. And that living in Rwanda is a good experience to help me stretch my horizons and outlook on life. I am working on becoming more flexible.

On a lighter note, here's an amusing billboard that is posted just outside of campus. I can't read the kinyarwandan, but I think the Sugar Daddy part and picture make the message clear!

Teaching

Tomorrow is my first day teaching. It is an exciting time for the department because this is the very first class of a new graduate program that has been in the works for several years now. I've tried to remain zen about things, but I get news of problems or changes with the classroom/labs/my course expectations about every 30 minutes throughout the day. Once all the "fires" are put out, I generally feel prepared and excited for a great first class tomorrow (3 hr lecture on Fri, a 3 hr lecture on Sat morning, and a 2 hour lab on Sat afternoon!).

I think the students will be in for a bit of a shock with my teaching style (American)! In Rwanda, most professors teach by lecturing straight from notes for several hours at a time. And the students receive the lecture notes. I will be doing neither of these things and I know the students will be surprised at this different sort of teaching strategy. My lectures are based on active learning- with lots of discussions. I ask them to break out into pairs to discuss questions I pose in class and then we discuss as a group. I'm expecting it will take the students some time to warm up to the idea. I'm told that Rwanda's educational system was developed by the Belgians and that their system was very hierarchical. The professor was the boss and the students better just be quiet and take notes. For one, I don't have the attention span to lecture straight for three hours. But also, how are the students supposed to stay awake for three hours?

Working at the National University of Rwanda

I walked to school on Monday for the first time. It takes me about 50 minutes to walk from home and it's about 75% up hill. While it's not exactly the way I like to start my day at 7am, I figure it will be good training for my field work up in the mountains of Nyungwe. I started work at the National University of Rwanda (I just call it NUR) on Monday. It's an interesting place but has baffling bureaucracy. It seems that the government recently changed the scholarship system for its' undergraduate students. Previously, everyone received scholarships- starting this academic year (Jan 1) only the poorest students receive them. The result I'm told, is that the vast majority of students have not shown up for classes which were meant to have started this week. I'm told that most students can't afford university without the scholarships. It's unclear what will happen. The professors seem to think that the students will be able to collect money from their families and eventually attend- maybe in a week or two weeks time.

I'm lucky because I am teaching graduate level students who are not affected by this scholarship rule. I start my first lecture on Friday afternoon. Because my students are all working- mostly as civil servants, I teach 3 hours on Friday and another 5-6 hours on Saturday. I was given the option of breaking it up over Fri, Sat, and Sun, but I decided I need one day off! I've been working really hard trying to put together 8 hours of lecture material for this first week's meeting. It is like cramming the equivalent of three weeks of material into a weekend! And for a class I have not taught before (Wildlife Ecology & Management). While I'm nervous about what the class will be like (I'm told the student's written and oral English is not the best), it's exciting to be holding the very first class of a brand new (first ever in Rwanda) Masters program in Conservation Biology! We are having a small party to celebrate the beginning of the program tomorrow night.

Kigali to Butare

With the public affairs director from the US Embassy, we gathered our equipment in a van and made the two hour drive on Friday from Kigali to Butare, in SW Rwanda. I had a range of feelings on the drive: the scenery is striking in both beautiful and disturbing ways. Rwanda is called the land of a thousand hills, and that it is. But as a conservation biologist, the highly fragmented habitat and lack of any large forest tracks along the drive was a little depressing, although not unexpected. I remember feeling the same way in 2008. Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa and most people subsist by farming- either larger scale farms, or family size subsistence crops. In any case, from the valleys to the hillsides, most land is deforested and farmed- even up to the very top peaks of the hills and mountains. They use a terraced agricultural system that looks a lot like steps: a flat area with crops growing and then as they move up the mountain, a step of 1-2 meters in height separate the next flat area-all the way up to the top of the hills.  The sheer magnitude of agriculture means that most hillsides have been completely deforested.

We arrived in Butare, the town where the National University of Rwanda is, just after lunchtime. The town is small but densely populated with 100,000 people living here and has a fairly simple layout that reminded me a little bit of Social Circle (where my Grandma lived in Georgia) with a main road coming down the middle with various shops on either side. Lucky for me, the layout is just simple enough that I might not get lost too often! I was both extremely excited and nervous as we made the drive through Butare (all 5 minutes of it). Excited to see what Butare finally looked liked, and nervous to meet the department chair of the Biology Department who was going to show us two houses where we might live.  The University is really beautiful. Sure, the buildings aren’t very pretty, but they are all nestled in trees and amongst lush grass.  It reminded me a little bit of UCSC and the redwoods.

We met with the Dept. chair who was really nice and gave me a gigantic hug when we first met. I had read about how hugging was a common form of greeting in a guidebook, but I had forgotten about that and was still a little taken aback. But it was also nice to be so warmly received. We looked at two places to live. One wasn’t great, but not horrible either (a 2 BR apartment). The second place was only $50 more and was a house with a garden, a furnished 3 BR and 2.5 baths (Joy, Margaret, and Paulo, your rooms are ready and waiting!), including plenty of space for my field equipment. While the second place was quite a bit farther from the university than the first apartment we saw, as Manhattanites who have lived in a glorified shoebox for the last ten years, we couldn’t fathom turning down the 3 BR house with a yard! The rent also included someone to clean the house and a guard! Seemed like a no brainer to us. We both felt a little guilty about moving into such a huge place- after all, it is only the two of us. But we spoke with some other ex-pats in the area and were told that big homes were the norm and that it was hard to find smaller places that were nice. We have a papaya and mango tree in the back yard, and a garden with lettuce and carrots growing!

Even though we secured housing, and that was our biggest worry, there are still a ton of little things to get sorted out that make it a little hard to relax.  Our saving grace has been a US conservation scientist and her family who live 5 minutes away. They have generously taken us under their wing and have been so amazingly nice and helpful. They’ve given us advice on all kinds of practical and logistical issues (which internet service to use? Do we need a guard for the house during the day? Should we buy a car for getting to my field site? What kind of car is best? How do we buy electricity?). They even gave us a tour of Butare yesterday. Much to my delight and surprise, there is a LOVELY 20m pool at one of the hotels here from which you can buy swim passes!  That definitely made my day to see this gorgeous pool overlooking a small forest and valley where the arboretum is located!  We’ve eaten dinner at their home with their very cute little kids (6 and 3 yrs old) for the last two nights.  They have been such a blessing and it’s so nice to already have some friends in town!

Jan 6, 2010

Well, the trip to get our visa wasn't a TOTAL failure. While we were turned away for missing a document that neither is listed on the immigration website nor one that the US Embassy was aware was needed, it seems getting the last document might do the trick (touch wood). So we'll return to the immigration office again tomorrow with the document (a letter from the National University asking for the immigration to give us the visa- apparently a letter of invitation to work at NUR was not sufficient).

Later in the afternoon, Okan and I met with a past Columbia faculty member who lives in Kigali and helped develop the Millenium Village in Rwanda. He had lots of useful hints about living in Rwanda since he and his family have been here now for close to a decade.

Tomorrow we'll return to the immigration office to learn if our work visa will be granted and then will be heading to Butare! It is a two hour drive and luckily, the embassy is giving us (and our 700 lbs of equipment) a lift. I'm looking forward to seeing our new home, settling in, and unpacking.

Day 1 in Kigali

After months and months of planning, we finally made it! In a lot of ways, Kigali seems much the same as it did from our 2008 trip. Yet, in other ways, I feel like it is so different than I remember it- I suspect that the lens that I am viewing Kigali has changed due in part from our trip to India last year.  We traveled India for 3 weeks in 2010 and I found myself experiencing substantial culture shock on that trip due to the widespread poverty and complete lack of infrastructure found throughout the country. With India still fresh in my mind, Kigali almost seems like a rich country in comparison! Of course Kigali is hardly reflective of the economy throughout Africa’s most densely populated country. But still, I feel struck by Rwanda- it’s beautiful! It’s so clean! The driving/drivers seem so sane and logical! There are massive amounts of development occurring throughout the city, including a gorgeous new convention center/complex.  In sum, it seems to be a thriving city. And I couldn’t be more excited to be back.

The Trip: After a lot of fretting, we dropped off all eleven of our bags/boxes of equipment (weighing nearly 700lbs!) at the airport in NY with little problem. The flight was uneventful and we were delighted that, like a gift from the heavens, ALL of our equipment and baggage made it to Rwanda, despite two plane changes en route! We had a small panic attack at the Kigali airport when the Rwandan customs official told Okan that we couldn’t take our traps because we didn’t have a detailed invoice of the equipment. Thank goodness for the Embassy folks who met us at the airport. They were instrumental in convincing the customs official to let us leave with our equipment!

The First Day in Kigali: We spent the morning of our first day at the US Embassy in the security briefing and orientation. The Embassy has been so welcoming, helpful and kind here. They picked us up from our hotel and brought us to the Embassy (cabs are somewhat expensive here, so this was a welcome surprise). There are plenty of perks to having access to the Embassy including free check cashing and a way to get mail sent through the embassy pouch. Tomorrow at least one Embassy staff will also accompany us to the Rwandan Immigration Office to file for our work visas. Keep your fingers crossed- I’ve heard more than one previous Fulbrighter tell me of problems they have had getting their visa!  I’m told I can’t start teaching in Butare without it so am keeping my fingers crossed it works out ok tomorrow.

We spent the afternoon with Jean and her husband, who is a Fulbright Scholar who will be working at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) as a Mathematics Professor. They helped us find the main shopping area in Kigali and we bought new cell phones and some other electrical equipment. After visiting KIST, we returned back to our hotel and I met with the director of the Rwandan Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). It was good to learn more about my field site, some of the conservation issues that the national forest faces, and some of what life might be like living in Butare. Although I’m anxious about starting teaching next week, I am more excited about the challenge than anything.  I’m also really excited to start my research project and also mentor graduate students at the National University of Rwanda (NUR) where I will be teaching.