There's no business like "Goat" business

Ever since I was a kid I have raised or helped to raise some sort of livestock. From chickens and turkeys to pigs and cows, there was always an animal or two to take care of. It helped to give me a sense of purpose. About a month ago I was visiting with my buddy Jean Bosco and he mentioned that his wife Macelenne wasn't happy. Jean Bosco has a good job and is going to college. Macelenne quit her job before the first child was born and now they have two children and she was wishing that she could contribute to the family in other ways than raising children. Basically, she was getting bored.

I asked Jean Bosco what she enjoyed doing and he mentioned that she preferred taking care of animals. They have two pigs in a pen but that wasn't a whole lot of fun for her. He said that she really liked goats. As for me, I have been trying to figure out how to have some livestock again. I don't have the place for them so if I were going to be involved, I would need to have a partner. After a few conversations, Macelenne and I had struck a deal.

We picked up two goats on the first of May and have since gotten a third. One of the goats was pregnant when we got her and we are anxiously awaiting our first kid together. The second goat is now pregnant thanks to a neighborhood billy. The stud fee was 300 Rwandan Franks ($0.53).

Our partnership should be good. The plan is that they will eventually buy me out. Basically, it is a no-interest loan. To protect my investment, I will work with them on various animal husbandry practices. We have a budget and a marketing plan which will allow for expansion of the group of breeding females and marketing of the males. I also have made arrangements to get a billy of our own for crossbreeding and to lease out for the stud fee. I stopped in to see them today and they are doing very well and Macelenne is very happy. Her only request has been for a book so that she can learn more about goats. My buddy Mike will be here on Tuesday and is bringing two with him.

My banana buddy Ellie lives near my goat partner so I stopped in there for a quick visit since I was in the neighborhood. He has one tree that is just beginning the reproductive phase. We have a native banana tree here at the house so I set up a way to collect pollen. Ellie's son will stop by the house twice a week. He will take the pollen from my tree to his dad's tree. I googled it a bit and decided just to hang some material on my tree for the pollen to transfer to. Ellie's son will take that material to the improved tree and attach it to the bud and we'll let the ants and bees do the rest. Ellie's son will keep swapping the material around every 3-4 days until the stalk of bananas is well on it's way. We have about a one in a million chances of getting a new banana. I like those odds.

National Day of Rememberance

I write this entry on the 7th of April, 2009. This day is the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. It amazes me to see how quickly this country moves forward. The war that followed the genocide ended in 1998, only 11 years ago. This country is rebuilding an economy, has rebuilt a tourism industry and the schools and hospitals have been going strong for some time. Still, every time that I walk down the main street, I see the reminders of the evil that prevailed no so long ago.

Nearly every utility pole along the main road through town has at least one bullet hole. I am not talking about bullet holes like we see at home where some drunk guy vandalized a sign. Oh no, these are bullet holes from war. These holes are all within the range of the height of a human being. These holes were made when one person was attempting to kill another.

I also often find tarnished brass on the ground when I walk. The brass that is expelled from a machine gun when it fires. Most are from the all too popular AK-47 while others are from the big gun, the .50 caliber. I have picked up a few but have left most. I actually found an old bullet once. The town now is very peaceful and it is hard to imagine the horrors that once filled the streets.

You see other reminders as well. You see the remains of buildings. You see people that are missing parts of limbs. You see people unable to walk because tendons were cut when they were left for dead. Today you could also see the deeper scars, the ones that are normally hidden deep within.

When the genocide took place, I was working on my master's degree at MSU. Where were you in April of 1994? Do you remember hearing about it in the news? There wasn't much in the news at the time. Over 1,000,000 people died because of their tribal ancestry. There were 800,000 people murdered in the first 100 days that followed this day in 1994. How can events like this happen in such a global society?

In the weeks leading up to today, many of the foreigners that have been here longer than I advised me to go to Uganda. "Either get out of the country or just stay in your home" they would say. "Leave this day, this week of remembrance to those who have the memories." I thought about doing that. I gave a lecture on the 6th and after class was visiting with some of my Rwandan friends. I told them what I had been advised. They told me that they were often disappointed by the foreigners who come here and work along side them, laugh along side them and even share meals with them, then leave on the most important day in Rwandan history. So, I decided that I would join in the ceremonies and that is what I did.

Walking to the bus stop this morning was very different. There were very few people in the street. Normally, the people that I met would cross the street to my side and speak, they typically greet me in either French or English and I greet them back in the local language. Today, people moved to the opposite side of the street and nobody made eye contact. As I walked passed homes, I could hear weeping coming from within.

We met on campus this morning and I joined the students and other faculty as we walked in silence past the genocide memorial to the town center and listened to a speech. After that, we all went back to the memorial. Similar to most memorials, the genocide memorials have some statues, are enclosed by a fence, there are small signs and markers. Unlike most other memorials, these are also mass graves. There is no way to know how many people are buried in such graves. Every town in Rwanda has one. They are full of the pieces that were collected. The weapon of choice at the time was the machete so bodies were not left intact.

After returning to the town center, people were given the chance to share their experiences. Many of the stories described the events carried out by independent groups of extremists in the years before the genocide. A co-worker discussed how his family fled to Uganda before he was born, back in 1959 after his grandparents were stoned to death. One woman from the community described how homes in the rural villages were burned back in 1972, the year that she was married. Then, in 1991, her husband was taken away. She followed the truck and saw how all of the prisoners were removed, beaten, and then murdered. The bodies were never recovered. She spoke of forgiveness and how her salvation has taken the hate and the anger away, then she begged that if any person knew what happened to those bodies to please tell her, her only wish now was to bring her husband home for a proper burial. There were other stories, like how the national radio at the time would broadcast live from the mass killings like reporting from a sporting event. Stories that told how the extremist government officials had the community dig giant holes that were to be used as new community toilets, only to be used as mass graves. And stories that described how families would give their life savings so that the children could be shot instead of chopped to pieces. Many families were a mix of the two tribal ancestries so some family members would survive after having watched the rest of the family be butchered.

It is impossible for me to understand what it was that these friends of mine suffered through. Many people in the international community view the annual remembrance as an inability to move on. Quite the opposite is true. The purpose of the ceremonies that take place throughout Rwanda is in part to educate the children. To show them that horrible things can happen if the people are divided. To show them that forgiveness and love triumphs over all else and that as a people united, they can accomplish anything. Another purpose was not to dwell in the past, but to be aware of the past. To know that the past is where your roots are, the platform from which to grow forward. A final purpose was to pay respects to those who died such horrible deaths and to show forgiveness for the ones who performed such acts. Those are the words from Rwanda's President Kigame.

It was a beautiful day. There were birds chirping, flowers blooming and butterflies. What I thought would be simply a day of mourning turned out to be a day of love, a day that recognized the power of the future. Unfortunately, events like these are happening now in other parts of Africa. We hear about Darfur in the news from time to time, but a genocide is currently taking place there. Nobody is stopping it.

Johnny Umuzungu Goes Bananas

There was a really interesting article in the Smithsonian magazine a while back about bananas. Dr. Lucy gets the magazine and she thought that I would be interested. She was right. Turns out, the bananas that we eat are an ancient mutant. The original banana is inedible and full of seeds. I always ate bananas and thought that those little black specs in the middle were seeds. Oh no. Those are the traces of where the seeds should be. Turns out that about 2000 years B.C. a banana without seeds was discovered and every banana that we have ever eaten was a cousin or so from that original one.

Grafting took place that spread the edible banana all around the world. By the early 1900's, there were two main varieties. One was wiped out in the 50's. Since then, every banana in every store has been a clone of each other. Without cross-pollination, the genetic variation just doesn't exist. As a result, different plant diseases come along that cause big problems. Being clones, if one plant gets sick, they all can get sick. There was a fungus in the 50's the not only wiped out an entire line of bananas, but still contaminates the soil of many tropical regions making it impossible for some old banana plantations to ever grow bananas again.

Now there seems to be a new fungus that is threatening the current tasty treat. Evidently, scientists around the world are on a quest to cross pollinate ancient wild bananas with the modern edible variety and come up with a new hybrid that has the edible characteristics of the modern commercial banana and retains the fungus resistance of the original inedible one. Who knew?

The other day while looking for four-leaf clovers in the back yard, I noticed a banana on the ground that was full of seeds.


These things are the size of marbles. I picked up all of the bananas that had fallen from our old lawn ornament and washed out 868 seeds just for kicks. I now have a pile in my office that I am not sure what to do with.

Anyway, I got to thinking. I have a buddy that grows some bananas on his land up by the volcanoes. We have 10 old banana trees that are the hearty inedible kind. I have learned when they produce pollen and when pollination takes place. My buddy is going to let me rent a few of his trees that are of the improved variety. The next time that one of our traditional trees produces pollen, we are going to collect the pollen and use it on some of his trees. I will buy all of the bananas that are produced and eat until I bust or find a seed. It won't be easy. One plantation in Central America searched through 40 tons of cross-pollinated bananas and found 8 seeds. They produced a hearty banana that isn't tasty enough to market. I can't let those odds stop me. I am optimistic that someday, instead of a "Chiquita" you'll be in the Piggly Wigggly buying a bunch of "Johnny Umuzungu's" and the rest, as they say, will be history. Or not.

Johnny Umuzungu Takes A Hike

This past week I was able to finalize my schedule as to what I will be teaching and when. It is great to finally know what I will be doing but things are going to get real busy in a hurry. Knowing this, I wanted to enjoy this weekend before work takes over.

Saturday I put in a new flower bed in the back yard and a small patch of sweet corn. Saturday afternoon I played tennis and then Saturday night was movie night here at the house. Sunday afternoon some friends and I went for a hike at one of the nearby water falls.

We made the drive towards Uganda then headed east along the north side of Lake Burera to Rusumo falls. We knew that we needed to check this place out because there is a project underway to construct a hydro-electric facility which will divert the water. In about a year, these falls will be different and the top one will be gone.

From the top, you look south out across the valley towards the lake and where construction has begun which will divert the water. To the north, you can easily see the impact of poor farming practices that are common in this region.

The stream on the right comes out of the marsh while the stream on the left comes from an agricultural area. Big difference. The combination of steep slopes and constant cultivation results in a severe loss of top soil. It's not really gone I guess, it's just all relocated to the bottom of the lake.

Conservation is often called a western luxury. It will be sad to see the falls go, but, this 23.5 million dollar project will supply electricity to a bunch of people who have never had it before. That's the thing with developing countries, trying to find the balance between progress and things like conservation and scenic beauty. At least this way, they are not creating a lake where there wasn't one or creating a place where fish are no longer able to swim up stream. Most importantly, there won't be any smoke stacks.

The first drop (2 pictures up)is over 250 feet, the second drop (the above picture) is about 30 but the third is nearly 350. This picture is from the cliff at the top of the third fall. The last picture is the view of the third fall from the bottom. Don't forget that you can click on the picture to get a larger view.

Overall, it was a great weekend. Now it is down to business. I have about 2 weeks to finish putting my lecture material together for the five courses that I will be teaching. Starting in mid-March, I will be teaching every day until the end of May, then for the month of July. I am sure that I will find some time for an adventure or maybe two. I'll keep you posted.

Johnny Umuzungu - Back on the radar

Time has just been flying by and it hardly seems as if I have been doing anything. I was gone for three weeks for my trip back to the states to visit with family, check on the cows and go to the Gelbvieh meeting in Denver. Upon returning, I have been just trying to get up to speed on being Rwanda once again. I did get my pineapples transferred into real flower pots.

I have also been working with my buddy Justice on developing a management plan for his new land. This is the view from the property in Uganda looking back south at Mt. Muhabura.

He initially wanted to plant potatoes. I had to call on Uncle Bob for a little advice because I hadn't grown potatoes in a while. I put the budget together and it didn't seem too profitable to me. After reviewing the budget with Justice, it didn't hardly seem worth the effort to him either, so we switched gears. There is a milk processing plant in Kisoro, near his home, so Justice is going to get a cow and plant the property to forages. With a good dairy cow that is well managed, he will have milk to consume for him and his family plus milk to sell. We will pattern his small farm after the one here in town that I have developed a budget for. Getting the cow will be an issue. Good cows are hard to find and expensive. The groups like Heifer International and Send A Cow only work with producer groups, not individuals, but we'll find one if it is meant to be.

The farmers here have always farmed for survival and are new to realizing farming as a business. As marketing opportunities are discovered, it is important to incorporate accounting principles and understand profitability. I didn't care for all of the budgeting and accounting when I worked for MSU, but working with these guys makes it fun.

Most of my time lately has been spent reading journal articles for my dissertation and preparing lecture material for the courses that I will be teaching this year. Creating course material is a challenge. For four courses without access to reference material is an even bigger challenge. Life is different every where you go. One unique thing about here is that in these courses, the students will only get what I give them. In coursers that I have had, we had access to text books, handouts, the Internet, and a variety of other resources. Here, there are no text books. Internet access for the students is very expensive and very limited (it has taken me over 4 hours to post this blog today) and the only information that they will get is what I give them.

I have also been helping to develop projects for the student interns that will be joining us for the summer. There are a few things really taking shape that should be pretty good. We will see if the funding is available and go from there.

On a lighter note, we started Umuzungu movie night at my place. If you are in the neighborhood, come on by around 7pm on Saturday. Bring a movie and the group will pick which one we watch.

Johnny Umuzungu Does Umuganda

I wanted to mention one more thing about the caves. Last week talked about the bats but there is another side. There is a social aspect to the caves of this region. During the genocide, some caves were used by rebel forces for hiding in. Some caves were used by villagers. There's one cave in particular that a village hid in for two years. The women and children never left, the men snuck out at night for food and didn't always return. Some caves are littered with human remains while others are simply littered. Some are considered to be sacred places. There's a rumor of carvings in one from the last King of Rwanda. The caves are an important piece of the history of the region and tell the story of the human experience as well as the geological past. I wanted to include this information last week but I wasn't quite sure how to put it. In this picture, my job was to block the hole in the net that spanned the entrance. Why do I get all of the weird jobs?

Umuganda is a national work day. On the last Saturday of each month, people are to return to their home village or community and work. The task will be determined by community leaders. It might be picking up trash or it might be sweeping the streets. The November Umuganda was planting trees. The night before, I was at the Murabura hotel for dinner. The crew there all know me well by now. We were talking about Umuganda and I asked them what they would be doing. They said that they would be along the road near the border with Uganda towards Kisoro planting trees. I said "sounds like fun, I think that I will join you."

They all erupted with laughter at the thought of some Umuzungu doing manual labor. I reminded them that I am not just some Umuzungu, I am Johnny Umuzungu. I told them about planting trees with the 4-H club back in Ohio, working for Pancake's Nursery and planting thousands of Christmas trees one summer just outside of Rogers. They didn't believe me. The next morning, bright and early, I piled into the bus with over a dozen employees of the hotel and we headed out.

Being the only Umuzungu working, I attracted quite a crowd. It was a lot of fun and I met Dean, the Dean of travel. He snapped these pictures. He is a professional traveler/photo journalist. He is currently working with a local conservation and research group and just happened to be on the road that day. Dean is originally from Nebraska and worked for Pfizer so we have had many interesting conversations since then.

The guy that I am talking to is Justice. He lives in Uganda and commutes. He lives with his 65 year old mother and 2 nephews, one 7 and one 3. The nephews were orphaned when his sister and her husband died in a bus crash. The rest of his family (dad, 3 brothers and 2 sisters) were killed during the genocide. The guy in the picture with me swinging the pick is Pacifique. He is the guy I mentioned a few weeks ago with the full ride scholarship to the National University at Butari. He starts on January 5th.

The kids were just from the neighborhood and wanted to talk to the Umuzungu. It was a really fun day and we planted a bunch of trees. I don't know what kind they were, other than the fact that they were native trees. I will be learning the trees as we develop plans for Gishwati where reforestation will be an area of emphasis.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Johnny Umuzungu

Johnny Umuzungu - Bat Boy

Tourism is one of the leading industries in Rwanda. Naturally, the various organizations that are involved are trying to expand this industry in a variety of directions. My buddy Doug is looking to create a rafting experience. He wants to start exploring various rivers starting around March. As you might suspect, I have volunteered to help. ORTPN, the Rwandan wildlife and parks folks are interested in offering cave trekking as an opportunity to do other things in this region besides going to see gorillas.

Thanks to the ring of volcanos and the previous lava flows, there are caves all over these hillsides. Where there's caves, there's bats. We all know that bats are our friends. They consume huge quantities of insects and are required for many plant species to exist due to there assistance with pollination and germination. They are all very unique to specific regions and food sources.

Being a mammal, bats can be susceptible to similar disease that we deal with. In the states, we understand that bats can have rabies just like we can have rabies. Here, the concern is Marburg. Marburg might not sound familiar but it was referred to as an Ebola or a type of Ebola. Does that ring any bells? Back in August, a tourist experienced a cave trek in Uganda and became infected with Marburg.

There is one bat that has been recorded as being a carrier to Marburg and also can die from the disease. That particular bat was in the cave that was part of the trekking experience in Uganda. Before cave trekking is to be offered here, the survey work needs to be done here. I was able to provide some assistance with this work.


Remember, you can click on the picture for a larger view

The survey work included a bat survey as well as a virus survey. It will take a while for the diagnostics to reveal the viruses that these little fuzzy guys had, but we did identify some interesting species. One of which was the Egyptian Fruit Bat (the one with the big nose) that is the one that can have Marburg. Another interesting one was a Horseshoe bat. This particular Rhinolophus had measurements outside of the normal range and could be a unique sub-species. This particular bat has a nick-name, the horseshoe bat because it's nose is shaped like a horseshoe and helps to create a bit of a satellite dish with its ears. It echo locates insects. Also, it has a horn like a rhinoceros, like the center piece in a satellite dish. Very cool.



For me, the creepiest looking one was the Otomops Martienseai. It has a really long nose and can open its mouth really wide. This bat is the moth specialist. It is endangered in some African countries and the bat team was excited about finding so many here.


After processing, the bats would need to be warmed up before being released. I was the bat warmer. We kept them in little cloth bags. After processing, they went back in the bag then I dropped the bag down my shirt. In this picture, I had 13 Egyptian Fruit Bats, the Rousettus aegyptiaca, the Marburg/Ebola one down my shirt. They are a very active bat and all of their squirming around tickled like you wouldn't believe.

There is a complete other issue about these caves that I will discuss next week. for now, I need to run. I want to get some tennis in on such a sunny day. Today will be a different sort of lesson, it will be my first game. Wish me luck (and hope that I don't get Marburg).