Rwanda 2016

Where to begin? What started out as three days of worry free, timely African travel (eerily too good to be true) turned into a fourth day that I would much rather forget! But I am home now, finally, and ready for the final 13 day push to the end of school. Whew. So many sub plans for this trip!

Headed out Friday morning at 5:30am for an 8:00am flight. Very interesting amount of not-that-great-at-the-concept-of-lines and odd ticket counter having-to-go-back-out-the-way-you-came-in?!? But onto flight without a problem. (Except the inspector who didn't want me to take any food on the flight... so I ate some and gave him the rest. Unimpressed.) Arrived in Goma (an hour ahead of Kinshasa! Who knew!??!?) and was promptly ferried to the AMAZING hotel (Lac Kivu Lodge) by the protocol guy and his driver... the protocol got a phone call about renting one of his boats from the Chief of the Central Bank or something... so he was pretty thrilled by that. Settled into my room and found this on the closet.

Just can't get away! (Sticker from the horse riding place next door to TASOK.) Small world. Had some of the best pasta ever (Pili-pili-bacon cream sauce) with this view (!) and got ready for Rwanda in the morning.

Up and out, transferred to the border, where I walked from the Congolese side, past some corn and barbed wire, and into my FIFTH (!) African country. My driver was there waiting, I paid my reasonable $30 visa fee without any problem or hassle and headed out for the 3.5 hour drive. I was totally captivated. Admittedly I have seen very little of Congolese countryside, but this was just magical. Green green green backdrop of incredibly fertile land with every kind of vegetable and farm animal, gorgeously painted buildings and fabrics, so incredibly pretty. I asked 80 million questions and the poor guy (the driver that my friend uses when she is on business in Kigali) tried as best he could to answer them. We descended one of the many hills into Kigali, (Smuggler's notch, Grenoble, Corsica and Greece in one?!?!) ran into the stadium for my 'physical' and race bib, and found my very close-by hotel easily. Next was a jaunt to the grocery store for peanut butter and nutella! I even remembered to buy a knife, plus plenty of water to try to hydrate. Then I asked Emmanuel the driver to take me to the Genocide memorial. It was just staggering the sheer numbers and the history of it all. Very sobering, I am glad I went. Headed back to the hotel to relax. I did actually sleep fairly well the whole trip, considering my nervousness.

The next morning, I headed out with my water backpack and music for the 7:30 start time and was bombarded by not insane amounts, but lots of people all around (including a large contingent with a DRCongo flag, upside down?!? I will never get that?!?). We were let into the stadium at about 7:15 and the gun went off pretty early at about 7:25. I realized early on that it was a lot of gentle downhill... so that was not encouraging, but I continued on, waving and smiling at friendly people headed to church or just doing their thing. Miles 1-5 were pretty fine. I didn't exactly find a rhythm, the downhills had me going a little fast and the climate (much drier than Kin) had my lips and nose all dry, but when we got to an uphill that I could almost touch the hill with my hands in front of my face, I realized that I was going to have to walk some. And I did confirm on my running watch that my walking uphill was faster than my running, so that was good anyway. I made it to the 10K distance without trouble, but now it was time to repeat all of the downhills I had breezed down in the opposite direction. And more walking commenced. I never really ran steadily after that point... I had some funny side stitches (tried eating my running food but it didn't seem to help), and other sad excuses, but soldiered on. We passed the stadium eventually, and looped around to get back to it... and I clocked in at 3 hours and 6 minutes. Which, incidentally, is only 8 minutes slower than my training run, where I walked NOT AT ALL. So perhaps it's better for me just to walk?!? But also perhaps better for me to run where the elevation is not 1,000 feet higher than the highest peak in Vermont. Seriously. Thank goodness I didn't look that up until AFTER I ran. Side note: Being lapped by the real marathon runners twice, it did make me feel better seeing that, while running INSANELY quickly, they did also look like they were out of breath and working hard. They didn't 'make it look easy' (though they made it look a lot easier than I did) and that was somehow comforting.

Headed out from the hotel at noon to get back to Congo, dealt with some hassle at the border (Courtesy Visa does not mean they will be courteous to you. Seriously.) but got back to the hotel fine and happily had another helping of pasta.

Monday morning things turned sour... my ticket said 1:20pm flight. So the protocol said he would send his driver at 11:30 to get me at the hotel. That seemed reasonable to me for a domestic flight. However, when we arrived at the airport, either the flight was earlier than 1:20 or the rules are just very strict, but the check-in had closed at 11:30. I felt sick to my stomach (still do) about my idiocy in believing the protocol guy and getting duped so royally. I spent several frantic hours on the phone, trying to fix my ticket, get my sub plans together, reschedule everything, and obviously get a room for another night in the hotel. I still feel terrible about it, but I guess what are you going to do. This morning, we headed out at NINE AM! For the flight and I made it on time... so now back home and ready for whatever the rest of the week will bring. I am so happy that I went to Rwanda, it is so pretty, and I am so happy that I worked hard to train (which was therapeutic in it's own right, doing something for myself and doing something out in Kinshasa in the early morning). I am also happy to say "I did it!" but will need to find a lower elevation for my next race and see if I can run more of it!

So many thoughts about Rwanda I might need another post about it... but I will leave this here for now. Have a good week all!

Long Awaited Street Fashion Post

Hi all - Was asked a LONG time ago to take pictures of people wearing pagne on the street. I finally got to it on Thursday, and of course it was a very light day for people wearing pagne, not a lot of variety and not lots of people about. It seems that every lady I caught was wearing a conservative dress with sleeves, which is not always the case, but this is what I was able to capture. Didn't get any guys shirts, but those are pretty self-explanatory if you know the fabric. I did manage to get a few bonus street sightings that I thought you might enjoy (egg man!) Here goes!

Lady waiting for the bus in pretty shirt with skirt... my personal favorite is when the frame has the President's face in it, but it can also have a saint or in this case maybe a building?!?

Pretty bordered pagne for the shirt and skirt, along with her sun umbrella!

Generally Congolese people love the large pouffy sleeve - I could never get into it, but it's very popular.

Balancing things on one's head is an art form here! Also, see guy with his two wheeled cart carrying bottles. They are used for everything here. It never ceases to amaze me how much the wheels look like they should fall off but they stay on!

EGG MAN! If you can see on the left side of his eggs (hard boiled) there's a red jar of pili pili salt (spicy salt) attached for him to season people's eggs!

Need any shoes today?

This is a more casual look with a pagne skirt and regular T-shirt. I hate to generalize, but mostly (from what I have seen) worn by people who are slightly less well off.

Have bleach, will travel (carrying container in his left hand)

Ok, so sorry for the terrible picture quality and the fact that I only seemed to get ladies leaving the office who wear more loose outfits, there are very fitted ones that you can see as well, but I hope you get the gist. I now have a photographic record of my commute to weightlifting on Avenue de Justice, my favorite street. (Tree lined and busy but not crazy) Before I arrive in Kinshasa, they widened the main boulevard to allow for more traffic, which is a good thing (imagine if they hadn't) but the trees and character of 'The Boulevard' are now much less pronounced. (It's still teeming with people and all kinds of activity, but there is little foliage and just a lot of cars, 3 lanes each way.) That's why I love this street instead. Anyway, next weekend I am headed on my little jaunt to my 5th African country! I will be sure to update you upon my return. Much love!

Congo River Boat Trip: 2016 Edition

Hello all!

Last Sunday, another intrepid group of TASOK teachers (some of the same as last year, some new) took another boat trip to a sandbar in the middle of the Congo River. Last year, I remembered that I was disappointed with my attempts to photographically show the river banks as we left the port. So I enthusiastically set out to rectify this... and then put my camera away and took no further pictures on the beach or on the way home. So there's that. But, if you want to see those type of pictures, you are welcome to refer to my post from last year! I spent the whole time under the tents napping, playing 'Spot It!' and 'Set', both of which I love, and eating. Oh the cherry muffins! and chips & dip! and just so much good food. We TASOK teachers do know how to picnic!

Before we were able to set sail, there was the small matter of passing through 'customs' (as we enter international waters) and paying. Since I was the point person for this voyage (last year I teamed up with someone else) the responsibility fell to me. Three guys pulled me out around the 'Yacht Club' to review everyone's documents and re-check the checklist I had made 4 times. At the end, they started in "Do you want to have a good time on the boat?" "Then you need to have a drink first..." Apparently the customs guys were also the owners of the Yacht Club bar. After fighting with them that no, they did not need to retain our copies of our passports 'for next time', and no, we did not need to drink to have a good time, I finally got up and walked away - comforted by the fact that our boat owner was not in the group, so it appeared that our boat ride was not in jeopardy by my abruptly ending the conversation. I rejoined the group to find the boat owner, who I paid a hefty sum, and then he skipped off into the sunset, leaving his 3 employees to take us out onto the river. Never dull in Kinshasa! Other than me forgetting a bottle opener, I think a great time was had by all and we came home sandy, tired, and relaxed from a lovely outing.

Departing the Yacht Club! Thank heavens! We were approved by customs! Whew!

Backing the boat out of dock: notice the traditional boats docked in the background. And the impending traffic jam to the left.

Traffic:Not just for cars in Kinshasa. We had to get very up-close and personal with this boat to escape from the port!

And almost escaped!

View on the other side: "Is that metal or wood?" Pretty legit question... The boat was non-functional, but still afloat.

We made it to open water! We saw these boys with their fuel or water in their yellow containers, steering their pirogue (traditional boat)

I am now the resident TASOK goat-freak... because there are no cows in Kishasa, so I have to get my ruminant fix from somewhere... so when my colleagues saw this goat on a boat, they were very excited for me to get my photo!                    GOAT on a BOAT! = Happy Ellen! While the guy in the foreground is waving happily, the people on the boat were not that pleased with my photographing their goat. I said "Don't put your goat in a boat if you don't want me to take a picture of it!"

Egrets under Houses 

And a lonely grass island in the middle of the Congo.

Happy weekend to all!

New Basketball Court

Hello all!

Wanted to update you about our new gym. As a reminder, this is what our old gym looked like: Cement with green paint on it. It used to be uncovered, so the cover is good, but the surface was very slippery and very hard for falling. 

Therefore, the school decided to buy a new court surface. We thought it would be perhaps foamy like the Montgomery Elementary School, but instead it turns out that it is this hard plastic tight webbing (hard to see in photo) made out of recycled plastic milk cartons (which we ironically don't have in Congo). So there are these squares of plastic webbing fit into this frame, and that is how they stay together. When some players move quickly or aggressively, the tiles can pop up, but so far it seems functional overall. It is not really that much softer to fall on (and you get web marks on you!) but it is much much better for stopping. New rims were also added and the famous 'cage' has been removed. Quite a transformation. It was a privilege to coach this year on the final year of the green cement and at the tournament for the inauguration of the new court.

On another note, sighted this morning: 

• Breathtaking sunrise over Kinshasa
• Some beautiful chickens including a very tall thin rooster and a pretty grey hen
• Lawn-mowing with hedge clippers (I guess it could be worse mom)
• An appreciative smile and giggle from a lady watching me struggle up a hill
• A thumbs up at a gas station
• Not one but TWO dudes on their morning commute with their saw (have saw, will travel?) 
• Some eggshells in my shoe tread (running on eggshells?) 
• A great smile from a girl and her little brother (I can't usually get smiles from kids, but these guys delivered) 
• My favorite turquoise lion and dolphin gate
• To top it all off: a dude sticking his head up out of the drainage grate in the sidewalk. As in up from the drainage area under the sidewalk. I thought I was hallucinating. 

Wasn't happy with my pace or distance, but plugged in my running watch to reveal that I have run more than twice the mileage that I ran in March. I guess that's an accomplishment! I am so thankful for my continued good health.

Have a wonderful weekend all!

Vacation Bonus: Fabric

I am so sorry I really did blog last weekend and then somehow it just saved in drafts and never posted! Silly me! Whoops!

Thought I would show off the fabric purchased (with the paid-in-tuna cat model extraordinaire). Tailor has not come yet and I am still hemming and hawing about what I want to get made. Suggestions welcome.

First, the hand-dyed Senegalese fabric (these are in no particular order)

I guess I will model if you insist.

Next is the super-soft more expensive fabric from the mall in Ghana - the one that will drape. I have too many ideas for this and not enough fabric! It is so soft! But seems like it would be wasted on a pillowcase. But that I could sew myself!

That pesky flash is getting in the way of my napping.

 Then the pseudo-kente cloth I got in Ghana. Real kente is very expensive and has a disarming habit of involving the color bright orange. Not my jive. So I got this fake in my colors instead.

You are boring me mom... boring me.

 This purple is also from Ghana. So pretty. Can't handle it.

So I guess I will sit on the fabric..,

And there is some classy Congolese side-eye for your day... the glare that says "Feed me now! Modeling over!"

I hope you have had a good week. Much love!

Vacation Part 3

Howdy y'all! Fresh off a week of organizing and still trying to catch up a bit after vacation, a good week overall and I'm happy it's over. My half-marathon training went well this morning and now I am resting, should be at work but with 8.55 miles run I think I would just pass out on the piles of work, so staying on my couch for the moment. Thought I would share the final bits of my vacation. After our big day of fabric shopping and ferry riding, we took the next day to travel to Madame Pasqualini's village, Somone, about 1.5 hours south of Dakar by taxi. The city disappeared quickly on VERY smooth roads and gave way to some very regular looking country side with occasional buildings, construction, and businesses, giving the impression of more economic activity/vitality than there is here in Kinshasa. My favorite part of the drive, aside from the villages and regular life observing, were the amazing trees. Just growing wherever. SO cool.

I was also trying desperately to get a photo of something that looked suspiciously like a Milkweed tree, which I knew my mother would love, (to weedwhack) but no such luck. Next time. 

We arrived in the village and got to Madame Pasqualini (my former landlady in Corsica)'s house and got settled in, agreeing to the days the housekeeper would come and cook us Chicken Yassa (again! YUM!) and getting down to resting. We spent our days laying on the porch, even though the beach was right around the corner it was chilly and we were in the mood to be lazy. Her screened porch was amazing with it's perfect lounge chairs and we spent a lot of time reading and hanging out. 

We had meals at a few local places within walking distance and it was very much a 'beach town' feel, everyone we met seemed cool and calm and less tense than the city dwellers (not that the city people seemed overly perturbed or anything, I think things just seem calmer when you live by the ocean) There were a few main hotels in town, both on the beach, as well as some restaurants which I ran by one morning. A restaurant caught my eye, which I decided to try to bring Adiya and Ella to for lunch. However, finding what I was looking for proved to be much more difficult from the road side than from the beach side where I had been running, so we ended up at a different restaurant instead. We walked up some stairs to a raised area so we could look out at the ocean as we ate. 

Our view of the fishing boats and fish cleaning depot was really lovely, if not sunny, and we were treated to a prix fixe menu that was SOOOOOOOOOOO good, aside from Chicken Yassa the best food of vacation. I had a veggie quiche that was insanely good, Parmesan crusted fish that was ah-maz-ing, and a papaya rice pudding for dessert. We headed back via the beach (still no sign of where I was trying to bring us for lunch) and were treated to some classic Ella dancing. We had watched Pitch Perfect 2 the night before and were serenading ourselves with some of the songs. (Serenading ourselves was an ongoing theme of vacation)

That evening, our last in Somone, the housekeeper came to make use our chicken and we headed out for an evening stroll with the house caretaker who had had a role in building a Mangrove Forest reserve right behind the house as part of the Lagune de Somone, the inlet at the end of the town. A rich French guy had invested money to create a protected area with raised walkways to show of the crazy-cool Mangrove trees and all of the wildlife that they attract. It was awesome! Mangrove trees (which live in water) grow these long skinny things that look like big string beans. When the time is right, the trees drop their string beans straight down into the water (it looks kind of like someone is writing underwater) and the trees grow roots and more roots and become kind of like a full grown hedge all growing together. It was so cool! There were crabs and fish in the water below the trees, and SO many birds in the Lagune... I didn't get any good pictures, but if you have a magnifying glass, you might be able to find the egrets and pelicans that I thought I was photographing?!?! 

We headed back to the house at dusk for our Chicken Yassa and packing, and we left the next day to return to Adiya's friends house in Dakar for our final night of vacation. We did a return trip to Goree Island to pick up some art that Adiya had her mind set on, and spent a fun evening with the family hosting us. They also rose early to take us to the airport - we were very grateful! Thank you! And that was vacation. (We had a long layover in Ethiopia, where we went out to eat fun Ethiopian food as well!)

Overall I was very very happy to have experienced non-Congo Africa in such a fun way, traveling with friends, meeting up with friends and having interesting places to stay. Air travel was an experience, super fun (lots of kindle reading!) and I really really enjoyed both Ghana and Senegal for different reasons. I am happy to have come and will be happy to return one day! Until then! 

The basketball tournament was a success (will update with pictures of the new basketball court) and now to bear down for the last stretch of school. Seven more weekend blog posts until I am home! Hard to believe. I have some plans to take a picture drive and get some last pictures and I am already planning my ending posts. More to come! Have a wonderful week ahead! <3 

Vacation Part 2

It's time for the second installment! It took some doing to get from Accra to Dakar and we landed in the evening, got a SIM card for Adiya's phone and contacted our Air B&B host who collected us at the airport and navigated us to our apartment. The Dakar airport is very much in the city, so it was a quick jaunt (happily enough, as we were wiped out) and the apartment was on kind of a main drag and near several shops and businesses (including this great hairdresser, which I was able to photograph the next morning.)

Upon waking, we took in the view (of a more functional construction site than that Greek one Lat and I saw). The way the apartment looked out over this area (can you spot the cat?) made the sound echo really well, and we were often hearing the horse-drawn carts (which operate right along with the traffic, not large or sleek horses but most looked pretty well cared for) and goats (not sure where they were hiding?), as well as sounds from the mosques. It was not a quiet apartment, but very cool to get the sounds of the city! I had an immediate flashback (as I'm sure every normal person does) to the last chapter of my Sophomore year of French class to the words for mosque and minaret (which are the same thing in French and English, I think) and it was a surreal feeling to know that when I had learned those words I had wanted to experience those things and here I was doing just that.

We spent the first day lazily loafing about, (we really needed this vacation!) changing money and buying groceries, until it was time to head out to Adiya's middle school friend's house for dinner (they went to middle school together in America, she just happens to live in Dakar now!). We made a pit stop on the way! What an immense and very cool sculpture.

We had Chicken Yassa (Yassa Chicken?) for dinner and it was amazing - chicken cooked in onions, it is SO good! 

The next day was jam-packed as we headed out to go fabric shopping in the garment district. We went down these tiny alleyways with guys sewing in every corner - my favorite was a guy listening to his MP3 player, sewing and holding a pen in his mouth! It was beautiful. I did get a hand-dyed Senegalese fabric (blue). 

The sewing alley

Trim for all the outfits they are sewing!

Garment selling street with dust from the Harrmattan, which was over in Ghana but not in Senegal yet.

Taxi! 

Then after lunch we boarded a ferry for Goree Island, a famous slave-trading island (though it may not have had as many slaves pass through as previously thought, it was still impressive.) We toured the slave house and wandered about looking at the art and gorgeous flowers (bougainvillea, my photos do not remotely do it justice) on the windy island until it was time to depart. 

We headed back to the apartment via a beach-side bar where we ate a GIANT seafood platter. YUM!

We await our food! Can you spot: (1) guy selling birds that you can buy and then 'free' (2) a dude working out by running in circles on the sand in front of people eating... we were mystified (3) surfers surfing! (4) the huge sculpture we had seen the day before in the background (5) Ella's glass recyclable Sprite bottle, one of the coolest recycling ideas in Africa I think!

Until next week all! <3