Thanksgiving

Around 6 PM on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, I sat on the front porch of the project house, reading. Zack, Amber, Consolate, and Gabby pulled up in the Land Cruiser. They had just been to Kigali to drop Dr. Cairo off at the airport.

Emi, the house dog, was VERY excited as they pulled up, because she could smell the turkeys. The team had picked up the turkeys from a farm just outside the capital. To transport the birds home, the farmer had stuffed the turkeys into white plastic trash bags. Now the turkeys sat in the back of the Land Cruiser, falling over themselves as they tried to get out of the bags.

We found that the birds could live comfortably in the gatehouse, which Muzehe (literally “old man”, our gatekeeper) never uses – he prefers to hang out in his room in the house. For a couple days we fed the turkeys corn and millet and Emi tried to find a way to break into the gatehouse.

On Tuesday night we decided it was time. Zack, Rene, and I myself took turns through three positions: holding down the bird, sarcastically commenting on the struggles of the butcher, and removing the head from the turkey. I was first up at severing the head.

Everything I’ve seen about killing poultry has indicated that one strong, quick blow across the neck will remove the head. Rene held the turkey down, and I raised the knife.

We did not have many options for which knife to use. Most of our cutlery is oriented towards chopping vegetables. We don’t boast a full-scale kosher kitchen. So, after reviewing out limited choices, we settled on the chopping knife. The chopping knife has the big flat blade and a good amount of weight. It is particularly useful for scooping chopped vegetables into stir frys.

I brought the blade down, finding that same blank state of mind that I’ve used in the past on the rugby field. It’s comfortable in its certainty. The mental state is sustainable only just before impact. It relies on the conviction that ‘I will break through and cannot be stopped’ to power complete effort of force.

Almost as soon as the knife hit the turkey’s neck, I was shocked to discover it bouncing back up. There had been no effect. I tried again.

“No! No! No!” yelled Rene, “you must saw it off!”

The chopping knife was not serrated and therefore miserably suited for such a job. I pressed the knife down, sawing back and forth.

After a few seconds, with no obvious progress I looked up, “We need a different knife!” I yelled desperately at Zack, who began to laugh. The whole point of the quick chop is that it is humane – the suffering is minimized. But here I was, standing over an animal that I intended to kill, it knew I intended to kill it, and I was doing a very bad job of it.

I crouched down again and continued to saw. Now I cut into the neck, drawing blood. It bubbled up from the wound, warm and sticky, coating my hands.

My goal was still to minimize suffering. The actual spine was proving difficult to cut through, so I focused on severing the windpipe and main arteries – removing whatever connections I could from head and body. I saw the outlines of the windpipe under the skin of the neck. I slipped the blade between the spine and the windpipe and pulled the blade up and out, severing it. But the bird continued to try to breathe, and now I could hear rasping coming from the exposed windpipe.

Finally, the knife found a notch in the spine. I pressed with my force, and pulled on the head. The spine cracked and I cut through the last bit of skin connecting the head to the body. I stood up. The turkey’s head was in my hand and its lifeless body lay on the ground beneath me.

“Ugh,” I threw the head down on the ground. I was shaking a little bit, jacked up on adrenaline. “Wow,” I chuckled, “that was ridiculous.”

Rene went next, with Zack holding down the bird.

Rene was much more experienced and efficient than I was, and the turkey’s head came off after only 10 or so seconds of sawing. However, Rene had cut very close to the base of the head, and this particular turkey was not totally ready to die.

Zack held down the turkey as it began to flap its wings.

“Don’t let go,” said Rene, “it might fly away.”

At that moment, the neck, which Zack was not holding down, turned up and looked Zack in the face. It then began spraying blood…everywhere.

The turkey flapped and flapped and sprayed and sprayed. For two minutes Rene and I howled with laughter and Zack continued his grim task, holding the turkey down as it sprayed him with blood.

Zack was to kill the last turkey and it was my turn to hold the bird down. Having studied my and Rene’s approach, Zack pulled the head firmly away from the body and quickly sawed through the neck. Learning from Zack’s experience, I held down the body with one hand and pinched the neck down to the ground. The body struggled for about a minute, then went still.

The next task was plucking.

Muzehe, Gabby, and I each grabbed a bird and a pot of boiling water. We poured the water over the turkeys, which blanched the feathers. They were surprisingly easy to pull out. Everyone I had asked told me that plucking is a pain, but it seemed very easy.

At first.

I looked over and noticed Gabby and Muzehe’s turkeys looked much less plucked than mine. I realized that they were being very deliberate, removing 100% of the feathers from a particular area before moving on. On the other hand, my bird now only had 5% of its feathers left, but they were scattered more or less evenly across the bird. I went back and plucked each remaining feather individually.

20 minutes later, the birds were plucked. Now Gabby and Muzehe took over completely. They first removed the stomach through the base of the neck. Then they cut into the bottom of the turkey to remove the intestines and other organs. It was fascinating to watch. Also grim.

After the birds were plucked and cleaned, we bagged them in the few plastic bags we had, and put them in the refrigerator to chill overnight.

On Wednesday morning, I fired up my computer and searched for “turkey recipe” on Google. I found a Thanksgiving turkey recipe by Alton Brown, of Food Network.

Back in my sophomore year of college, I watched a decent amount of Food Network. Alton Brown hosts a show called “Good Eats”. Alton distinguishes himself by applying ‘food science’ to his cooking methods. He thinks about how heat and chemicals interact in a dish. He clearly loves the process of cooking. He’s a quirky dude, a bit of a nerd, but his food always looks incredible.

The recipe called for the turkeys to soak overnight in 5 gallons of brined. So I got out the big pot and added salt, sugar, and spices to boiling water. I prepared several gallons of the stuff and put it in the fridge to cool.

The brine needs to stay cold to prevent any bacteria from getting the wrong idea, so I also prepped a bunch of ice. Since we only have two ice trays, this meant checking the ice every few hours, emptying ice into the bucket, and adding water to the trays to make more.

That night, I thoroughly washed out our big garbage can. I put the three turkeys in it, and then added the gallons of brine. I put a big rock in a plastic bag to keep the turkeys submerged. Then I added the ice.

Finally, I refilled the trays and went to bed.

The next morning, I boiled apples, cinnamon, and onions. I washed the birds and put them on our only cooking sheet. I added the ‘aromatic’ mixture to the bird’s cavities, coated them in olive oil, rosemary, and sage, turned the oven on, and put the birds in.

Several hour later, I dined with our team and about 20 guests (Muzungus and Rwandan friends). Even though I was exhausted from cooking all day, I greatly enjoyed the event.

…

Later, I reflected that I was very glad to have had the experience of killing the turkeys, but at first I wasn’t sure why.

Originally, I simply thought of the experience as a rejection of the hypocrisy of eating meat but never preparing it. And that’s true, but it’s not the whole story.

There are many things that we do in modern society which are removed from our natures. Sitting in an office for 12 hours a day is an obvious example. We submit to the modern life because it enables the way we prefer to live. The efficiency generated through the division of labor frees up time and resources for the things we like – a nice apartment, tasty food, a laptop, leather couches, a decent sized TV (with cable, DVR, and HBO of course), and an iPhone. But there is something lost in the efficiencies that allow us to own these things. Through the daily trudge, there can be a disconnection of life and living.

The life and living disconnection limits the joy of life. In a Platonic sense, we feed only our appetites and not our souls. There’s that empty feeling of a Sunday afternoon spent on the couch – dulling your senses before the work week begins. That’s not living – it’s surviving life.

I was glad to have the experience of a carnivore – to find an animal, to kill it, and to eat it. I watched the turkeys bleed and suffer and die before me. I felt the regret of killing, the power of taking a life, and the joy of a small task of living.

The experience increased the value and joy of the meal. I was connected – through a shared experience – to my meal. I was more thankful of the ability to be with friends and to feel alive. Zack says that the turkeys were the best he’s ever had at Thanksgiving. I suspect that’s as much related to the value of the experience as to our skills in the kitchen.

It was not pretty, it was a little bit sad, but it was a thanksfull experience – it made me happy to be living.

The whole process was very deliberate. There was joy in experiencing each of the iterative tasks – killing and cleaning the birds, preparing the brine, cooking the meal, and sharing the meal with friends. The division of labor of modern society allows us to feed our appetites without thinking too much about the joy of experiencing the whole process.

That said, I do not believe that modernity is unredeemable – we got the turkeys from a farm, we drove them home in our SUV, the recipe came from the Food Network website. Ask any of the people that use Shingiro health center if they enjoy growing their own food, preparing it and cooking it. It’s not possible in their context of extreme poverty.

The efficiencies of modern life are preferable to a life in the poverty of complete self-reliance.

But life and living are much more enjoyable when connected.

Snake in the Bed

Rwandan men have a superstition that if their wife touches their penis, then they will become impotent when sleeping with other women. Jeanne D’Arc was speaking to a group of men about this and other sex-related topics:

“But you all sleep naked! Of course your wife could touch it when you sleep!”

They had, apparently, never considered this possibility. They were at once dumbfounded and terrified.

Kigali - Night

We pulled up to “Hill Top Hotel and Country Club”. “They have golf? Tennis?” I asked Zack.

“No.”

After a tense discussion at reception regarding my failure to bring my passport from Musanze, we checked in and I promptly collapsed on my bed. The TV sat on a short table next to my bed, in line with my face. Zack turned it on and began watching soccer.

Perfect.

For the next 15 minutes I tried to sleep over the soccer announcer shouting in my ear.

There was a knock on the door.

“Time for drinks,” said Ro, from the hall.

Zack got up to leave, “I’ll be there in a bit,” I said, “I’m going to try to take a shower.”

I went into the bathroom. There was no shower, per se. The bathroom was maybe 25 square feet. There was a shower head, and a bucket on the floor next to the toilet. I turned the knob, and water shot out of the spout at waist level. I looked for some do-hicky that would redirect the water to come out of the shower head. No such luck. The shower head had a hose dangling down from its base, so I tried shoving this into the waist level spout. Nope.

After a hot day in Kigali, I felt grim. Sweat, oil and dirt was caked over my entirety. I have to do something, I thought.

I looked at the sink. Frowned. Shrugged.

I turned on the sink. I stepped into the bucket.

…

Feeling refreshed if slightly ashamed after my hobo shower, I wandered out to the patio, where Zack, Ro, and Jeanne D’Arc were interviewing a candidate for the Medical Systems Coordinator position.

While we waited for the interview to end, Amber, Elie and I chatted. I ordered a coffee and a beer – not exactly the wisest combination, but I wanted to simultaneously wake up and relax.

When the waitress came with my order, I was pretty happy to find that ordering a coffee means you get the whole pot. Also, my beer was a full liter. Excessive, but appreciated.

…

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant. Restaurants in Rwanda are generally unreliable – for most menu items, you could get almost anything based on your order. In Musanze, I routinely am brought the wrong thing, or nothing at all. The best defense to this problem is to order Briochete and chips. Briochete is goat kebob. Everyone in Rwanda knows what Briochete is and how to make it and basically all Briochete tastes the same.

Ro, Amber, Zack and I made the safe play and ordered Briochete and chips.
While we waited for the food to arrive, we talked about Rwandan culture. Women’s rights issues are for some reason a favorite a favorite topic of conversation for all the women present.

“In Rwanda,” Jeanne D’Arc said, “If a man is with a woman who is not his wife, that is called a ‘mistake’ and if there is a child it goes to live with its father. But if a woman does the same mistake, the husband divorces her and takes all the children.”

Jeanne D’Arc is part of a local group in Musanze. They beat wife beaters. Seriously. The Mayor's wife is a member of the group.

“Yeah, I think Gabby mentioned that women cannot whistle?” I offered.

“That’s true, only men may whistle in public,” said Elie.

After long time of good conversation, the food arrived. At this point I was too hungry to care, but I did notice that my fries were dripping with grease. To save money or because of lack of supplies, sometimes Rwandan restaurants don’t change the frying oil as often as they should.

As we sat and talked more after dinner, I noticed the grease begin to work its magic – I was suddenly deep in a food coma. Everyone was excited to be going out to Cadillac, and Amber secured the positive RSVPs of Elie and Jeanne D’Arc – Ro, of course, was in from the start.

…

After dinner, we went back to the room. I was ready to fall asleep. I lay down on my bed, and began drifting off to sleep. Happily. Softly. Nicely.

“Mike, it’s time to go to Cadillac.”

“Nooooo,” I protested.

And then we left for Cadillac.

…

We rolled up to Cadillac around 10:30PM. Zack and I had both voiced concerns that this was too early for a dance club, but the team seemed unfazed. Zack and I went up to the guy collecting covers – “500 each,” he said, eyeing us. Zack covered me and Amber. The bouncer seemed annoyed to get up off of his stool.

We passed through the leather, padded double doors. The doors opened into a large, dark room. Sparkling lights covered all the walls, a dance floor at the middle of the room. I looked around. Empty.

I almost ran to the bar.

“A Jameson and a red bull on the rocks.”

“Double up that Jameson?”

“Absolutely.”


…

After a bit, people began coming into the club. Most gawked at the knot of Muzungus dominating the bar next to the door, and congregated at the other bar across the room. A short guy came up to me. “Hello,” he said in very accented English, “How’s it going? I’m Leonard.”

“How’s it going, man?”

“You like Rwanda? You like girls?”

“Yes?”

“Look,” he said, pulling out his phone, “I know lots of girls.” He began scrolling through his contacts, showing me entries with names of girls…Mary, Anne, Jessica.

“Great man, I’m really proud of you,” I said, hoping he’d get the hint and leave me alone. I turned my head and saw Zack and Ro giggling at my predicament.

Apparently he was not appreciative of my tone: “So where were you in 1994?”

Woah, I thought. “Uhhh, I was 8? In America?” I offered.

“So do you like Edgar Allen Poe?” he asked.

“Who?”

“The poet.”

Thoroughly confused, and experiencing one of the most bizarre encounters in my life, I decided that I had had enough, “I dunno man, I’m going to go talk to my friends.”

…

We all chatted for a while. Then Elie, Amber and Jeanne D’Arc decided to do a bit of dancing. My stomach rumbled – between my unsettling conversation with Leonard and the greasy fries and goat, my mood and stomach were both frothing. Zack’s next move didn’t settle anything.

Zack waved me to the bar, where he waited with a small bottle of Waragi and two glasses.

Waragi is a Ugandan banana liquor. The name “Waragi” comes from the British colonists in Uganda, who called it “War Gin”. It is among the most horrendous drinks I’ve ever had the misfortune of drinking. It is technically vodka but it tastes like bathtub gin.

“Thanks for nothing,” I said, as I drank the shot.

…

As the night wore on, a couple groups of Muzungus came in.

I thought about the dynamics in the club – a lot of Rwandans having a good time, and a handful of Muzungus coming in and grabbing a lot of attention.

Why do we get so much attention? I wondered. We’re …rich?
I make over 100 times the average salary here, I realized. I could be a Sugar Daddy! Just like the billboard!

I processed the implications of this realization. In Musanze and at Shingiro, I’m exotic, different, a who-knows-what-to-expect entity. But in Kigali, there are enough Muzungus that we’ve established a collective reputation. Apparently it’s not a great one at Cadillac on a Friday night at 1 AM…

Rich, foreign, predatory.

Where was I in 1994?

Woah.

…

Several old Muzungu men began dancing with their Rwandan ‘girlfriends’. These guys looked to be in their mid-50s to late-60s. Old. There are a number of unsettling realizations that come from watching these couples. The most glaring, though, is what dorks the guys are.

There’s a serious cognitive dissonance when a supposed ‘millionaire-celebrity’ goofily performs a cringe-inducing ballroom dance to “Get Low”. Not ballroom dancing like he’s some pro. Ballroom dancing like the man’s never had the courage to try to dance. Like how the theatre kids 'express' themselves at a high school dance. Damnit, it was embarrassing. And enraging. My blood boiled.

…

Making the easy choice not to share a dance floor with Neil Strauss, Mystery, David D’Angelo and their ladies, I began to recognize just how bad my stomach felt.

Ro, Jeanne D’Arc, and Elie were ready to leave, and so was I.

We said goodbye to Zack and Amber, who decided to stay and dance, and we made a happy retreat to Hill-Top Hotel and Country Club.

…

Kigali is a beautiful city at night.

We drove home, and admired the lights of the city, an abrupt difference from Musanze, which is very dark at night.

“It looks like the lights of LA from a distance, but we’re so close,” said Ro.

She was right, though the lights, being so close, didn’t twinkle. The black wall of the hillside passed from left to right through the windows on the opposite side of the back of the Land Cruiser. Each light represented an open door or window of someone’s home. They gently slid past.

…

The next day, Zack, Amber and I sat in Bourbon while the others did more errands. We had a good time chatting and people watching.

The most memorable group of people I saw was a disastrously representative American family of four. They fumbled about, completely unaware of how loud their cultural hubris was shouting. Each member of the family was overweight. Each wore an ill-fitting t-shirt with a completely non sequitur print: a “Just Do It Later” Bahamas souvenir, a shirt extolling the virtues of Yellowstone national park, a Wal-Mart knock off of an Ed Hardy print, and a shirt bearing Taz, the Looney-Tunes character. The husband was stocky, with a protruding gut and a shaggy brown beard. His wife’s brown hair fell long and unkempt – she wore no make-up. One of the boys dragged the mother by her hand to the counter display of pastries. The boy pointed at his selection - not demandingly, not even expectantly. He showed no anticipation. That he would get whatever he wanted was a foregone conclusion. I witnessed the last member of the family, he looked to be about 6, eagerly snatch a cup of hot cocoa from his mother. He took a big gulp of the steaming liquid and a grimace broke out on his face. To his credit, he didn’t cry or scream. He just looked puzzled – what have I done to deserve this unpleasantness?

…

The drive home was really nice. It was late in the day, and the temperature was perfect. We had an English-language quorum in the back of Gertie between Zack, Amber, Ro and myself. During one of the shopping excursions, we had accidentally bought an Indian version of Trivial Pursuit. It was almost what we had wanted, and all we could do was laugh about how hard questions about cricket and Indira Gandhi would be to try to answer.

Kigali - Morning

My memory of the first visit to Kigali is a blur. Maybe it was the heat. Or the non-stop action. Or the sudden drop in altitude. Whatever it was, only the most jarring moments remain to my mind with any clarity.

…

I woke at 5:30 on Friday morning in Musanze. My buzzing cell phone alarm crashed into my dream – What? Why? Oya. I made some toast and coffee, and plopped myself in front of my laptop. After catching up on rugby news , sports, and current events for a while, I started to pack.

With Ro, our fearless leader and CEO of WWHPS-CCHPs, in the country there were a number of meetings to hold in Kigali. The plan was to go and meet all day Friday, stay overnight, and finish meetings and shopping on Saturday.

I didn’t pack much. Along with my laptop and a notebook, I threw a button down, clean boxers and socks, and a toothbrush into my bag.

By 7:30 we were all packed up and loaded into Gertie. The morning was cool and dark as we left Musanze but our excitement prevented any of us from trying to sleep on the way.

The trip began uneventfully. Like most rides in the Land Cruiser, the back section was dominated by Kinyarwanda speakers, so I zoned out to “Live at Folsom Prison”, which periodically skipped as we bumped down the pot-holed road to Kigali.

…

The day began to warm as we climbed along the ridge of the hills that precede the drop into Kigali. “Bob Marley, Greatest Reggae Hits Vol. 2” now played. Old Gertie, the team’s Land Cruiser, began to shake violently, not quite to the music. Thinking we had a flat, Zack pulled off onto the shoulder. The tire was fine.

We rumbled away again and Gertie shook harder. “It only shakes when we’re going uphill,” said Zack, “This is the last part right here.”

The road rose gradually but determinedly, up and up the great hill. We had climbed along the east side of the mountains for most of the trip, but now we crossed the ridge-back to the west side.

We reached a small town and stopped in front of a school. This time we all piled out.

The sun beamed down brightly on the white Land Cruiser, and I thought about what it might be like to get trapped at the top of the great hill. The thought did not animate a fear of danger so much as a fear of time wasted. Sitting on top of the hill, baking while our appointments in Kigali went unmet.

Ro thought the spark plugs might be dirty. Gabby popped the hood. Ro, Zack, Elie, Rene, Gabby and I crowded around the engine. Though I know nothing about cars, there’s something deep within most men that drags us to the exposed engine of any car. I can nod, grunt, and shake my head with the best of them. The actual mechanics and engineers of the group – Elie, Rene, and Gabby – conferred, but concluded there was nothing they could do.

We piled back in and Gertie started up again, shaking but moving on.

…

Rwanda is remarkably densely populated. It holds 10 million people packed into an area smaller than Massachusetts. Moreover, the biggest and arguably only city, Kigali, has only 800,000 inhabitants. The rest of the country is covered in small farms. As we descended into Kigali, the demarcation of city and countryside never came. The city limits overlap with the countryside such that billboards and corner stores seem to rise up out of the fields of banana and maize.

…

Kigali is at once bustling, chaotic but also small. It holds so much activity is pressed into a tiny space. Wherever you are, you feel trapped on the side of a hill, slowed by the incline, the heat, and the crush of just under a million people. Most people live in homes ranging from modern condos to mud-brick constructions, though like any city Kigali has its fair share of the homeless and beggars. But in Kigali more of the beggars than I’ve ever seen have missing or deformed limbs. The limbs are clearly not deformed, but damaged – a beaten wrist or an ankle forced back upon itself. The wound is healed, but not healthy. The beggar is always functional enough – smiling sometimes even. But often they move with great strain. The injury is not genetic, but for those carrying the wound the original form will not be recovered.

…

We stopped first at the Millenium Village Project offices, where Zack and I got out. Affiliated with Columbia, it also houses staff members from Columbia’s Access Project. We work closely with Access in Musanze. We met with Teddy about our proposed filing system for Shingiro.

Currently, the health centers do not maintain comprehensive patient histories. This leads to misdiagnoses and other problems stemming from a lack of communication. For example, patients are sometimes treated the same way for the same disease multiple times. At one community meeting in Mugali, a woman explained that her son was not treated for intestinal parasites because the pharmacy was out of the drugs prescribed for him. When she returned after the drug had been restocked, the health center did not have a way to verify the boy needed the drug, so he had to be retested. A filing system would cut down on such wastes of patient time and health center resources.

Teddy gave us a number of helpful suggestions and we had a good time with the reclining pleather desk chairs and the air-conditioning. I snapped off a picture of a map on the wall, finally wrapping my head around Musanze District geography:

...

Zack and I hoofed it up a hill to meet the rest of team at Bourbon Café. We climbed up the hill and into the office tower, probably 6 stories tall. Bourbon Café sits in the office tower’s indoor atrium. This courtyard mall serves as a kind of Muzungu haven in Kigali. There is one grocery store and a few small shops. Bourbon sits in the back-left corner of the atrium.

Jean D'arc and Consolate at Bourbon Cafe.

The walk up the hill in 85 degree heat left both Zack and I sweaty messes. Zack suggested I order the “Moca-Mania-Cowa-Chino”. When the waitress brought it out, I was confronted with a chocolate-coffee smoothie topped with whipped cream. It was the most impressive artifact of American cultural transfer I’ve yet seen Rwanda. It’s the kind of very American drink my brother always orders at Starbucks or Dunkies – over the top, with so much sugar that if you put your straw on the bottom of the glass you end up chewing on grains of sugar crystals. At 3,500 francs (~$7), it did not disappoint.

...

Zack, Jean D’arc, and Ro had a lunch meeting with Josh Ruksin, a Columbia professor and the head of Access.

While they went off to their lunch, Elie, Gabby, Rene, Amber, Consolate, and I went to ours. On the way to Africa Bite (pronounced ‘bee-tay’), Elie pointed to a collection of short buildings at the point between the hill we were going down and the hill we were about to climb up, “There is Cadillac, the nightclub.”

“What is it like? They dance there?” I asked naïvely.

“Oh yes. Hehe, the last time I was there was in 1988. A lot of dancing.”

Zack, Rene, and I had talked about the possibility that we would go to a nightclub while in Kigali. Cadillac was on the list that Rene provided, along with Planet, B-Club, Black and White. Rene had gone through them:

“Cadillac is popular, a lot people. Planet is good also – those are the two more popular clubs. B-Club is VIP. You have to dress to impress. It’s expensive, if you go in jeans you don’t go in. So it’s less popular. And there is Black and White. It’s OK, it used to be more popular a few years ago.”

Africa Bite turned out to be a pleasant little restaurant. We piled our plates with a buffet of African dishes: curried lamb; igasafria, a hot pot of bananas, potatoes and tomatoes; ugali, maize or cassava flour mixed with hot water into little balls; sweet potatoes; mashed bananas; rice and beans; and a naan-like bread. There were also two sauces, a tangy yogurt sauce and pili-pili. Pili-pili is a mashed chili paste, hotter than almost anything else I’ve been able to eat, including my beloved Sriracha.

We ate in the restaurant’s garden, enjoying the breeze.

...

After lunch, we passed Cadillac once more on the way to shopping. Across the street, I noticed a strange billboard – a man beckoned to two young women, one of whom drew away while her friend pushed her toward the man.

“What does that say?” I asked Rene and Consolate.

“It says to not have a sugar daddy,” offered Rene.

“A sugar daddy?” I asked, “It’s an advertisement against prostitution?”
“Sort of, basically,” said Consolate.

“No, not prostitution,” said Rene, “young people here are very poor, so sometimes the young women will go around with much older guys and let them buy them things.”

I thought on it: “Same as it ever was.”

…

We drove to what seemed to be the commercial center of Kigali. The streets are narrow and feel more so because they are packed with people – moving, hawking, being. Everywhere there are children and beggars, teenagers selling blue jeans, belts, and high-heeled shoes. Internationals stood out in the mostly-Rwandan crowd: stocky Germans wearing wire-framed glasses, short sleeved button down shirts, and crew cuts; spiky haired Chinese dressed in baggy jean shorts and t-shirts with cut off sleeves, and of course, the gawking, pointing, squinting American tourists.

Given my lack of local savvy, inability to speak Kinyarwanda, and skin color that screams ‘SUCKER’, I was more a liability than a help in the effort to purchase supplies. Determined to look more Jason Bourne than Clark Griswold, I threw on my ‘informed-American’ swagger and followed Rene into an electronics store. Every inch of the store was covered in electronics for sale. The aisles were filled with merchandise, small washing machines jammed alongside coffee makers and vacuum cleaners. Along the back wall was a long counter and above it light switches and bulbs.

A Chinese customer stood in front of the counter. He was negotiating with the clerk in Kinyarwanda. Say what you will about their efforts to establish an economic sphere of influence in Africa, at least the Chinese really dig in. Along with a scattering of Indians, the Chinese are the only non-Africans that I’ve encountered that speak Kinyarwanda. The power adapter/strip combo Rene was looking at was no good – “they say it will be 12,000 but we got these for 8,000 a few weeks ago, let’s try another place.”

The next store we entered was not an electronics store. It had a main aisle running through the middle of the store, with perpendicular rows of shelves that nearly reached the ceiling. Each row was maybe 3-4 feet across. The store was not well lit. Rene ask the attendant where they kept the power strips. He led us to the end of the main aisle, and down the left half of the second to last row. The power strips were at the end of the shelf. Rene decided that this power strip was not right either as another group of shoppers entered the row.

There is no word for “please” or “excuse me” in Kinyarwanda. I’ve always thought of pleasantries as a bit disingenuous, but in their absence I’ve come to realize how essential they are to American culture. It is jarring when an English-speaking Rwandan forgets to culturally translate his or her thoughts. I’ve been on the receiving end of comments like “You will do the analysis for me,” instead of “you are so good at the analysis, and I don’t know how to do it, would you mind doing it for me?” Or “Give me the internet card,” instead of “can I use the internet card when you are finished using it?”

The convention also applies to crowds. Rwandans literally push each other and place hands on each other to get where they want to go. As I led Rene and the attendant out of the row, I was confronted with a cultural translation problem. The people that had moved into the row took up the whole of the 4 feet across. In the US, people move out of each other’s ways in such situations, almost unconsciously and rarely with acknowledgement. Here there was no indication that the Rwandans noticed me or planned to get out of my way. Unable to bring myself to dragging the other shoppers out of my way, I sort of shimmied around the group. I squeezed myself against the shelf and used my back and butt to carve space for the rest of me to birth my way out of the row.

In the light of day outside the shop I gulped the fresh air. “One more place to try,” said Rene. We crossed the street. This time, I tried waiting outside, hoping not to earn us the Muzungu price. Rene came out, shaking his head, “She wants 10,000 – that still seems high.”

...

To be continued…

The Economics of Squishing

On Tuesday morning we woke up early and headed to Shingiro. We attend the Shingiro staff meeting on Tuesdays, which starts at 7:30. After waking up at 7, I coughed down a breakfast of banana bread and a cup of coffee. Outside Elie, Amber, and Shingiro nurses Pascaline, Louisa, and Mary wait in the Land Cruiser. Ro sat up front. Zack got in to drive, and Consolate got in the back with us.

As we left the project house, there were seven of us in the back seat. This did not bode well for my comfort. Already I was confined to a small area of personal space and I knew that we would be picking up Jean D’Arc and Rene on the way. This would push me over the edge from ‘morning cranky’ to ‘full-blown-squashed-and-resentful’.

We picked up Jean D’Arc and then Rene. “Rene should sit up front with me” said Ro, “because, Elie – aren’t we picking up two more people?”

“Hehehe, maybe two, I think three though,” chortled Elie. This would push the number of us in back seat to 10 or 11.

I began to think about the economics of the squishing decision. Given a scarce resource – a ride to Shingiro – there should be some logic behind how it is distributed to the pool of potential users.

Scenario 1: Perfect World

Assumptions:

1. Riders have homogeneous preferences between cost and comfort
2. Riders are added until the trade-off between cost and comfort are equal (due to homogeneous preferences, this could be either for each person or total utility)
3. Once in the Land Cruiser, an individual cannot get out (once the decision is made to get in, social norms mean you can’t get out, but your original preferences stay intact)

Implications:

The alternatives to piling into the CCHIPs’ Land Cruiser are 1. taking a moto-taxi or 2. walking. A moto-taxi costs RWF 200. For simplicity, I will assume the cost of walking is equal to taking a moto-taxi, RWF 200.

As more riders enter the Land Cruiser, personal space is not impeded until there are 6 people in the back. At this point, the squishing and squeezing begins. Once 10 people are in the back of the Land Cruiser, all personal space is gone, the back is full, and on average most people would say that additional riders make the alternative – paying for a moto-taxi – a better option.

Thus, potential riders should stop wanting to get into the CCHIPs van at the same time that each of the current riders would prefer no one else get in – once there are already 10 people in the Land Cruiser. Lovely. Unfortunately, that’s not the way the story goes. Real world preferences are not homogenous. In this case, being a pampered American, I was far less willing than everyone else to squeeze.

We arrived at the turn-off of the main road for the bumpy, dirt road to Shingiro. Two more Shingiro nurses piled in. At this point we had 10 in the back of the Land Cruiser. Though everyone else seemed ok, I was definitely not happy.

Scenario 2: Social Utility Maximization under Heterogeneous Preferences

Assumptions:

1. Riders have heterogeneous preferences between cost and comfort
2. Riders are added until the marginal social benefit of an additional rider is negative (group utility is maximized)
3. Once in the Land Cruiser, an individual cannot get out

Implications:

In this scenario, my preferences are crankier than the group’s. My frustration builds much faster than everyone else. In fact, at 8 people I’m already indifferent to the unpleasantness of riding in the crowded Land Cruiser vs paying for a Moto-taxi. For me, each additional person adds a growing amount of pain and discomfort, which I translate into an increasing willingness to pay for the alternative. Conversely, the group only adds a set amount of pain for each person added.

The group seemed content with 10 people in the Land Cruiser, so I was willing to stay quiet. I’m a guest here, a volunteer. Because one of the assumptions is that I can’t get out, I was locked into my original, correct decision to ride the Land Cruiser.

However, as we cruised up the bumpy, rocky road to Shingiro, Zack stopped not once, not twice, but three more times to pick up more riders. This wasn’t just unpleasant for me – everyone seemed sort of cranky when we arrived.

Scenario 3: Personal Utility Maximization under Heterogeneous Preferences

Assumptions:

1. Riders have heterogeneous preferences between cost and comfort
2. Riders are added until the personal utility of an additional rider is negative
3. Once in the Land Cruiser, an individual cannot get out

Implications:

Here, even though everyone already riding in the back of the Land Cruiser is done adding people, the driver and potential additional riders hold the power to make the decision.

Because the additional riders (the "squishers") have a different preferences than the group – they are more willing to sacrifice on comfort – the utility of the group is not maximized (i.e. – on the whole the group is annoyed).

In fact, at 13 riders, the group average cost of riding (in discomfort) is RWF 350 vs the alternative RWF 200 for the moto taxi. Thus, the total loss is:

(RWF 350 - RWF 200) x 13 = RWF 1950

The driver, who also holds the power to make the decision, is not faced with the choice. He knows he can bank on the gratitude of the additional riders he picks up. Good manners and fairness mean that the resentment of the group will be muted or unexpressed. Unless one of them has a blog and a long memory.

Scenario 4: Reality

In reality, the Rwandans are pretty happy jamming as many people into a vehicle as possible. Without me, the “group preference” line above wouldn't cross the Moto-taxi line at RWF 200 until 14 or 16 people are in the back of the Land Cruiser.

In fact, at 13 people, my personal discomfort cost RWF 2100 (discomfort) - RWF 200 (alternative) = RWF 1900. That means that the other people, on average, only were about RWF 5 uncomfortable.

Sadly, while I was close to establishing that Zack is a jerk through economics, all I really proved is that I need to suck it up.

But, as this video proves, it was a little crazy.

Friday Night No-Lights

After my first week, I was ready for a break. I had been introduced to the health center, to the nurses, and began to get a sense of the work that I would be doing. Even so, there was little I could actually accomplish besides reading old government reports and messing around in Excel. When Friday afternoon rolled around, I was pleased as punch.

Government policy mandates that all organizations, including NGOs, must allocate office time to “sport”. Friday afternoon is when our team participates in sport. On my first Friday, we played soccer with the staff from Ruhengeri Hospital.

I threw on my new Warrior Kung Fu’s (for a light touch), a Dartmouth rugby t-shirt, green mesh shorts, and high socks.
“You look like a moron” said Zack, as we arrived at the field.
“True,” I obliged, “but I’m a celebrity here – I say what’s cool.”
“Keep telling yourself that…”

The soccer field lies near the center of Musanze - it’s more a stadium than a field. The complex is surrounded by roads on all sides, which makes it feel almost urban. The complex contains a full sized soccer field, a track running around it, and stands on one side. On the other side of the field is a large open, grassy space, presumably for practicing, and a small basketball court, at the end of, set back from, and perpendicular to the soccer field.

As we walked down into the stadium, I looked around. Two teams faced off in a scrimmage on the field, with about 20 spectators along the near sideline, away from the stands. Another thirty people kicked around soccer balls on the open field and others milled about. In total, the complex felt full, but not crowded. The rest of the CCHIPs staff waved to the group on the basketball court, the Ruhengeri Hospital staff.

The hospital staff looked to be mostly in their late 20s and 30s, all male, with varying degrees of athleticism. I stepped onto the court, shaking hands and exchanging “we-don’t-speak-the-same-language" smiles. I was pumped to go, though on the basketball court were about 20 people.

The overcrowding was resolved by making three teams. My team was the first to sit – figures. While we waited, one of the Ruhengeri Hospital staff led us in drills. Are you kidding me? I thought. Here we had the CCHIPs staff, all of us more or less adults between 23 and 45, kicking a soccer ball back and forth and running laps. It was surreal, like a middle school gym class.

After a short wait, we were on. It was me, Consolate, Monique, and our coach, who I nicknamed Earnest, versus Zack, Jean D’Arc, Gabby, and Rene.

Long ago, when I was 8, I played in my first ‘travel soccer’ game. Back then we played six against six and the fields were small – speed wasn’t a factor, just a light touch and a good sense of direction. I was very good. As time went on, the field got bigger, speed mattered, and my skill set slipped out of relevance for competitive soccer. Fair enough – eventually rugby became a more than adequate substitute.

But on the basketball court, four on four, I was back in my element. I dribbled around Jean D’arc, around Gabby, and passed off to Earnest. No problem – light, easy, fun.

The game continued, back and forth, with no one scoring for five minutes. It was time to shuffle the teams again. Those that didn’t really want to play, like Jean D’Arc, turned in for good at this point, and two permanent teams coalesced.

As we began to play, the game picked up tempo and ferocity.

The goals were the base of the basketball hoops. The hoops sit on a box frame, with two poles lined up with the court. The goal was small, but so was the court. I took a shot and the ball sailed between the posts. “No goal,” said Rene. What!? “You have to hit the post, not shoot through them.”

It actually made sense, given the size of the field and lack of goalies, but I had to ask, “Why haven’t I been told this yet?”

Over the next 10 minutes, as my team continued to put pressure on the other while they tried to bring the ball out of their end, I shot the ball through the posts two or three times. Damnit, I guess I just need to keep shooting, I’ll get the hang of it.

As my frustration grew, the momentum also shifted. Despite Consolate’s heroic efforts, Zack’s team effectively exploited our “guys on offense, girls on defense” strategy. They pinged two quick goals.

I quickly realized something key – on such a tiny field with unorganized teams, we’re not playing soccer, we’re playing basketball with our feet. Soccer is all about setting up the perfect shot. You hold the ball and move it slowly down the field. Territory matters because the field is large. Possession is important because the opposition can quickly kick the ball away from shooting range. But on a basketball court, shooting at poles, the key was just to rip off as many shots as possible. You could set up shots quickly, and every shot was low probability, including the ‘perfect shot’.

With that thought in mind, I began to push the ball down the court every chance I got.

Finally I scored my first goal. “Mmmmm, that tastes goooood!” I yelled at Zack as I ran by, “I’m gonna get me some more of that.”

After a few more minutes, some of the guys from Ruhengeri Hospital had had enough, and I invited a couple of the local kids to step on. They were probably 14 or 15, but built like soccer players and wearing cleats. Though the cleats made them slip around a bit, they were quick and talented additions to the team.

Quickly we began to lay it on, scoring a couple goals. The kids on the sideline laughed whenever I would compliment one of my local additions on a nice play.

Zack grew more and more frustrated as members of his team disappeared. By the end of the game it was 7 on 3, and – among other feats of bravery, strength, and skill – I had scored a header from midcourt (mostly due to the lack of numbers on the opposition).

Finally, it was too dark to go on and we called it a night. My shirt was wet with perspiration, my brain flush with exercise- and winning-induced endorphins. I shook hands with everyone whole-heartedly.

I looked around the stadium in the twilight. I was happy and felt accomplished. Though the air was thin in the altitude and my body weak from nearly two weeks since seeing the inside of a gym, I had a great time and impressed the locals with my Muzungu talent.

Sport is great – in a two hour period I rode a narrative arc that I will hopefully replicate in my work and life over four months. (Though I expect my competitors will be malnutrition, poor access to healthcare, and poverty instead of friends and colleagues.)

My Umbrella

Another gem from Jean D’Arc, who has terrific stories about rural Rwandan culture and superstitions. She is somewhat unusual for Rwandan woman – she talks about sex. As a nurse, I suppose it comes with the territory.

As part of her job, Jean D’arc advises couples on family planning, including condom use. Sometimes she demonstrates how to unroll a condom (think the banana in health class).

One day, a man she had counseled came to her, confused and upset:

“Jean D’Arc,” he said, “I followed your instructions exactly for using the condom, but my wife still got pregnant!”

“Tell me what happened,” she asked.

“I did it just like you showed me. Before I made love to my wife, I put the condom on my umbrella.”

Holy Guacamole

Jean D’Arc relayed an interesting anecdote to us one morning as we drove up to Shingiro. We were discussing food and, of course, I touched on my love of avocados. Apparently it is very hard to find avocados in the Musanze District. The locals believe that avocados cause HIV.

The reason why hilariously illustrates the leap of logic from correlation to causality.

Avocados are a staple food in southern Rwanda. When migrant laborers, soldiers, and truck drivers from Musanze returned from working in southern Rwanda, people noticed that these groups were more likely to have HIV/AIDS. Because the biggest difference in their lives was what they ate, these people assumed it was the avocado that was causing HIV.

Just remember kids: if it’s casual, it might also be causal.