Puppy Love
(July 27, 2006)
The search for an addition to our household continues as we track down puppy leads. I have a friend who has German Shepherds and the female recently had a litter. Of course, I was pretty excited when she told me. I went to the house to see the dog and took pictures. I even named her on the way home…Sasha. Ken and I talked about it and agreed we would take the pup to the local vet (yes, amazingly they have an American veterinarian here) and if he pronounced the dog healthy we would take it. Well, these folks were selling the pups and long story short, someone else paid cash the morning we decided we would buy the dog. Yesterday another friend called and said she was looking at a rain-soaked flyer outside the grocery store advertising two-month old Belgium Shepherds. We called and the person did not speak English but could communicate well enough to let us know they knew nothing about any dogs. It was another dead end.
Deliveries from Home
Well, hope springs eternal and I know our dog is out there somewhere. Similarly, our household shipment is somewhere between Birmingham and Kigali. It left Birmingham on May 12 and still we wait. The estimated arrival here in Kigali is August 18. I believe the approximate route was Birmingham, AL to a port in South Carolina then it goes on a boat, clears customs in Kampala and then is delivered by ground to Kigali City. I’m sure there are more stops in between but I don’t know what they are. Delivery time via slow boat is just about three months for parcels and probably a couple of weeks for a letter. We receive mail and parcels through the company so we are not using the local postal service (Iposita). I understand from a friend who has a local post office box that letters can take anywhere from six days (unusually fast) to six weeks from the States. Packages can take several months. It costs about $1 US to mail a letter to the States. Still the safest way to get anything to us is through the company office in Birmingham.
A New Normal
I’m finding that the best way for me to cope is to find a new definition of normal here. What does this mean? Unfortunately, it means a lowering of expectations when it comes to day-to-day living. We know that the norm is we will lose electricity every Friday evening beginning around 6:30 and it goes until around 8:00. How do I cope? If we have a dinner date on a Friday after work, I just put the flashlight in my purse before we leave so we don’t have to enter a dark house when we return a couple hours later. The electricity went out last night while we were playing Scrabble; I lit a candle and we kept right on playing.
We do not have Internet access at the house so I still go to the Hotel Novotel to use their computer or I’ll go to Ken’s office. Either option is pretty much a pain. We also don’t have a phone at the house and will not be able to get one because it’s a new house and the city is just not doing new phone installations. If you are not already in a house with phone jacks it is not going to happen so we will not be able to get a dial up connection. DSL is available in some areas for $175 U.S. per month and the people I know who subscribe to the service are all dissatisfied. Okay, call me cheap but after paying $30 per month for DSL in the States I just can’t see paying $175 for a service that frequently doesn’t work and frankly is not worth the money. I don’t have to have it.
We have a stove that has electric and gas burners so when the power goes out I simply switch to gas without missing a beat. We never know when we will have city-supplied water so we’ve learned to check for pressure periodically after Ken gets home and when it’s on we quickly shower and wash the dishes. If we have enough water for me to bathe, I take a candle in the bathroom in case the electricity goes out I’m not in total darkness. The electricity went out last night while we were playing Scrabble; I lit a candle and we kept right on playing. I keep a large pail of clean water next to the sink for doing dishes when the city turns the water off (are you getting the picture that it happens frequently?).
August 1, 2006
More about Rwanda
As I’ve written before, Rwanda is a tiny country located in Central Africa. It is landlocked by Uganda to the north, Tanzania to the east, Burundi to the south and Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) to the west. Rwanda is 75 miles south of the equator and the temperature is fairly constant for most of the year – typically no cooler than about 65 and rarely warmer than 80. Early mornings are typically overcast but there is always brilliant sunshine before 10 a.m. that lasts all day. There are two rainy seasons (we have not experienced them yet). Annual rainfall is around 31 inches with heavier showers in the west and northwest mountains. Most of Rwanda is 3,000 feet above sea level, however much of the central plateau exceeds 4,700 feet. The Virunga Mountains located to the northwest of Rwanda stretch along the Congo border and are permanently ice-capped at their highest peak. The Kagera River forms much of Rwanda’s eastern border and flows into Lake Victoria. Volcanoes National park in the Virunga volcanic mountains are famous for the mountain gorillas seen in the film “Gorillas in the Mist”. East Africa is also the location of the great wildebeest migration, an annual journey of hundreds of thousands of animals from the Serengeti to Kenya.
Paul Kigame is the current president of Rwanda and was elected 12 years ago at the end of the genocide. The country also has a Prime Minister who is the head of government, an 80-seat Chamber of Deputies and a 26-member Senate. The legislative branch of government includes the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The Judicial branch includes the Supreme Court, Constitutional Court, Council of State and the Court of Appeals. Compulsory education in Rwanda is six years, life expectancy is 40 years and infant mortality is high. The main languages spoken are Kinyarwanda, French and English.
Our neighbors to the west of Rwanda in Democratic Republic of Congo recently had their first free election in 40 years. The slate of presidential candidates was at least 30 and they don’t expect to announce the winner for the next three weeks while they manually count the ballots. Already allegations of mass voting fraud are being leveled by one of the presidential candidates. They have also had scattered violence related to the election. Whether there is large scale violence probably depends on who wins and whether the losers accept defeat peacefully. I don’t know if this issue is being widely reported in the States but it is big news here for obvious reasons. Other than the crisis in the Middle East, the big news stories I hear about the U.S. are the recent heat wave and Mel Gibson’s arrest for drunk driving and anti-Semitic comments. Surely there are more important things happening at home?!
What I Won’t do for Love
August 8, 2006
Ken is trying to figure out how to get his allergy serum to Rwanda from San Antonio. It can’t be mailed because it would take three months and it has to be refrigerated. Being the loving wife that I am, I thought long and hard about a solution and it came to me all at once. Why not show my eternal, long suffering devotion to my mate by flying back to the United States just to get his medicine. I would leave this paradise (for a week or two), go to San Antonio (via Chicago) and get the medicine myself. Believe me when I tell you I was quite serious and he knew it. It didn’t work…I tried, okay.
