Johnny Umuzungu Giving Thanks

I have had many emails this week from friends who were curious as to how I celebrated Thanksgiving. Here, it is just another day. Celebrating a feast that the Pilgrims had in Massachusetts is a novel concept on this continent. One friend of mine from the D.R. Congo did know that it was the day when Americans eat turkey. My friends from various European countries assume that it's just like America to have a harvest festival so far after harvest. Then, I explain to them that it is not simply a harvest festival, but began as two events. Originally, it was a religious day of thanks that had combined with the harvest festival for one celebration. As for me, I went to work as usual. After work, I met a friend at the prison.

Part of the program for prisoners to pay back their debt to society involves the able prisoners to perform various duties for the community. For the educated prisoners, they teach. I am making arrangements to study the local language. Heidi, the public health specialist who manages the human health component of the MGVP "One Health" concept has been taking lessons for quite some time so she made the introductions for me to begin. I have been trying to learn kinyarwandan on my own, but it is tough. A guy from town did teach me to say "Umuzungu ni Nyoko." Basically, when you walk around town, young children and drunk men will yell out "Umuzungu" meaning "white guy!" What I learned to reply with is the Rwandan version of "Yo Mamma." It literally translates to "Umuzumgu is your mother." I'll save that one for special occasions.

After the prison, we walked to the Murabura hotel for Thanksgiving dinner. Heidi had a toasted cheese sandwich with french fries and I had a big platter of pineapple. We had many items to discuss for work but our conversation kept coming back to how thankful we were to have been born in the United States of America.

The "One Health" idea includes a priority for capacity building within the community. The idea is that if you can improve the livelihood of a community, you improve the health of the community. If you can improve the health of the community, it is easier to protect the health of the gorillas who live in the park that is surrounded by the community.

For those in severe poverty, health care is a luxury. Capacity building can elevate the livelihoods so that health care is less of a luxury and more of a standard practice. Capacity building can be the coordination of a new milk processing facility that will promote commerce as well as public health. Capacity building can also be as simple as making sure that a bright person has an opportunity for an education. One such person, Pacifique, works at the Murabura hotel in the restaurant and makes 20,000 Rwandan franks each month, that's $35.71. He is 23 years old, single, no children, lives at home with his parents and they depend upon his paycheck for their survival. His father is 72 and handicapped, his mother is 69 and takes care of his father. He just completed a national exam which earned him a full ride scholarship to the National University of Rwanda. If he goes, his parents don't eat. The neat thing about it is that he isn't looking for a handout. What he is looking for is an opportunity to earn enough money so that he can go to school and feed his parents.

The worst news that I heard this week involves HIV. The level of support from around the world for helping children that are born with HIV has sharply risen. There are many people doing wonderful things to improve the lives of these unfortunate souls. The trouble is, in communities where poverty is severe, individuals are intentionally becoming HIV positive just so they will receive the food, clothing and health care that the charitable programs provide. I am talking about children in the 8-12 year old age range who are heads of households because their parents have died. These kids live on the streets and are responsible for their younger siblings. I just can't comprehend that level of desperation.

Just being born in America has been a huge blessing for me. In fact, I think that I am the most fortunate person that I know.

Johnny Umuzungu in a Perpetual Summer

One of the unique things about living here is that the seasons don't really change. I have mentioned this before but during this past week I began to realize just what that means to me. At home, the changing of the seasons provide reference points for your life. You plan your garden around the last frost, you swim and fish in the summer, football is in the fall and so on. You are either putting away the summer clothes and getting out the winter clothes or doing your spring cleaning or looking for a winter project, so much of what you do is seasonal.

Here, when every day is the same, it's like time stands still. The days can just fly by. I have heard from Heather and Paul about the snow at home and it is hard for me to even imagine. The other day, a friend asked me when Thanksgiving was and I had to stop and realize that this is November. It is very strange actually.

Another fun thing about living here is all of the people that you meet. For example, there's this guy from Seattle that is just crazy about gorillas. He works like a mad man, volunteering his time to raise funds for MGVP, he even put this web site together http://www.gorilladoctors.com/ . This year he has raised over $30,000 for us. He was here back in October and finally had the chance to go and see the gorillas and meet everybody. He even put this little slide show together to use for fund raising events http://www.vimeo.com/2301443.

Then there is a veterinarian who has a clinic in Baltimore. He provides a tremendous amount of support. During his most recent visit, he brought along a documentary film maker to try and capture all of the positive things taking place in this region. He has actually put together a group of donors who want to support the local community by providing the equipment necessary for small scale cheese production. I am working with some local folks who have cows and are interested in making cheese so maybe we can start moving some of these capacity building ideas forward.

We also get to work with some really great students. The MGVP internship program is taking off. This past year there was a veterinary student here from Yale, a second from Tufts, and a third from Italy. Thus far we have been in contact with a student from Cornell and one from Scotland. The neat thing is that they are not just attracted to the gorillas, they are interested in the livestock work as well.

And to top it all off, I will be planting my very first pineapple in the garden later today.

Johnny Umuzungu Visits Neptune

I went to Uganda last Monday. Benard, one of the MGVP veterinarians in Uganda picked me up at the border and gave me a lift to Kisoro, which is in the south west corner of Uganda. He convinced me to stay at the Tourist Hotel because they have TV in the rooms. I actually was excited because I hadn't had many opportunities to watch TV. The rooms there were named after planets, I stayed in Neptune, which also happened to be room 7. Fortunately for me, the rooms were not named in the same order as the actual planets themselves, think about it.

So, I get all settled in for the evening, turn on the TV and find that I only have 1 channel, international CNN. If you watch CNN, you know that they repeat the same stories about every 20 minutes, so it wasn't long before TV lost its charm. At breakfast, I was discussing this fact with the waitress and she explained that there are more channels, I just need to call the front desk if I want to watch a different one. Turns out, they only had one receiver. When you want to change channels, you call down to the bar and they change the channel for you. So, Tuesday night, once we returned from out meetings, I settled in for the night. I turned on the TV, then called the bar to have the channel changed from CNN. Then, I learned that when the channel was changed, it was changed for everybody. They wouldn't change it because the guys in the bar wanted to watch CNN. It was like being in the twilight zone. So, Wednesday night, I was the only guest in the whole place. There were two locals in the bar and once they left, I called the bar. Come to find out, there were only 3 channels to choose from; CNN, Passport (24-7 soccer from all around the globe) and the Hallmark channel. Interesting.

The trip was awesome though. I hung out with folks from Heifer International. We were assessing the area around the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. We wanted to see the opportunity for rural development improvements among the agricultural community. This place was so unique, it's the Nkuringo region. Imagine a ridge that is about 10 miles long. When you drop off the ridge to the east, it's the national park. To the west, Congo. The ridge dead ends on the Congo border. And not just any part of Congo, it's the southern end of the Rift Vally ( http://www.albertinerift.org/ ). To stand there looking out across the Albertine Rift, the home of one of the greatest amounts of bio-diversity and exotic species, plus the home of some of the coolest diseases in the world. It was inspiring to say the least. Here's a picture looking across the valley.

The time spent there was very productive, and getting there was half the fun. Normally, the road there from Kisoro is about 20 miles long and takes around an hour. It's dirt and rocks and little more than one lane through the mountains. It's actually quite beautiful. However, it is the rainy season. A mud slide had closed the road. And, a creek crossing was under about 3 feet of water, so we took the long way around. A similar style road, but the mud slides hadn't completely closed it off. It was a bit longer, about 80 miles and took 3 hours. It was beautiful though. From one spot, you could see the backside of the entire volcanic chain that joins the three countries.

Here's a shot of the valley that we passed through along the way.

It was a very informative trip about the limitations of the region. There's no electric, no phone, and you are at the end of a dead end road that isn't always passable. The opportunities for producing a perishable crop are extremely limited. Everybody there wants to be in the dairy business because there is a milk plant in Kisoro and the dairy business near the plant is quite profitable, but these folks wouldn't be certain to have consistent market access. It's a challenge for sure.

Friday I met with a policy person for the Minister of Agriculture while in Kigali. We are going to be developing two research protocols. Both will be big "umbrella" projects that will consist of multiple smaller segments as individual projects. One of the big concepts is to understand the potential pathogen flow through the region. The concept will be to identify the parasite loads of various species of livestock, wildlife and primates. Then, funding permitted, we'll do the DNA work to see if the parasites are the same sub-species. If the interaction among the animals is such that they share parasites, not just types of parasites but genetically the same families of parasites, then you have a model for disease transmission.

The second concept is to investigate the prevalence of the various diseases that prevent international trade of livestock products like cheese. We want to add the spacial component to see if the prevalence varies across the geographical regions of the country.

The ideas are starting to take shape on the project side. I'll talk more about the other directions we head in at a later time. These bird and chameleon pictures were from out on the ridge. I wish that I could have gotten pictures of half of the cool birds that I saw. These will do for now.

Johnny Umuzungu gets proposal for marriage

An interesting thing just happened, thought that I would share it with all of you. First, for the background, just to get you up to speed, the guys at work have been talking about this local joint called La Volcanica. It's a dive, but the rumor is that they have the best grilled pork in town. Even the Dean was talking about it at the faculty meeting the other day. It came up when Bhebhe and I were talking about good food from America.

So last night, I am walking back from the bus stop. It had just turned dark and was starting to rain. I was about half way home and less than a block from La Volcanica, so I thought that I would pop in for a bite. Naturally, I was the only Umuzungu in the place and it was packed. Being obvious in the crowd, the owner came over and introduced himself. I got the pork and some fried potatoes (everything here comes with potatoes) and it was awesome. I ate, the rain quit and I headed home. End of story? Not hardly.

Today, I had my second tennis lesson. It's a lot to remember. The coach is very strict when it comes to form and my form stinks from all of those years playing racket ball at MSU when I should have been studying. Long reach and fast hands made up for slow feet. Slow feet with Tony the Tennis Pro is not an option. Naturally, when the hour was up, I was exhausted (because of my soft middle). Now, we are up to speed, all on the same page because the tennis court just happens to be right next to La Volcanica, so I went in for an ice cold coke.

Being mid-day, there wasn't much going on. The manager came over to talk and told me that his sister, a waitress there, talked about me after I left last night. She thought that I was cute. She's only about 18, if that. The custom here is for girls to marry young and to marry older guys. He told me that their father was dead and he looked after her. Then, he told me that for 2 cows and some cash, I could have her for my wife. I thanked him for the lovely offer, but declined.

This gets me thinking though; Paul, I gave you and Johnny 3 cows. I will be up at your place in January, we'll need to do some negotiating.

Now, for Mackenzie, who didn't like the last entry because there were no pictures, here's a picture just for her. I took it in Gysengi on October 26th, the day that the rebels took the park headquarters in Congo, (just 20 miles north of where we were) and two days before they marched to Goma. Goma just happens to be the sister city to Gysengi, it's like one big town with a border right through the middle of it. The second picture is looking across part of Lake Kivu at Goma (these towns are on the north end of the lake).

Enjoy,
Johnny Umuzungu

Becoming Rwandan

Over the past two weeks I have begun to settle in to life in Rwanda. I haven't done anything worth taking a picture of so this update will be a little dry. I'll do better I promise. I have been going to Kigali each Friday. There are many people based there that I need to meet with, plus there's the issue of trying to get my work visa, so I just plan on the weekly trip. I take the bus, it is 2 hours each way and costs 3,000 Rwandan franks (about $5.50). In Kigali, there are the little mini-vans that will take you all the way across town for 150 Rf, which is little more than a quarter.

Going on Fridays tricks me into thinking that I have a 3-day weekend and taking the bus helps me to develop language skills. I have my vocabulary sheets, but it seems like the right word is never there. It's the same way when the locals try to talk to me, their English vocabulary is limited so what they say might not be what they intend to say. For example, I started taking tennis lessons because tennis is the only opportunity for recreation here in town. The tennis instructor is a really nice guy who is Rwandan and also speaks French. At the end of the lesson last Saturday, he pointed to his stomach and said "it is because you are soft here that you chase your breath." I thanked him for pointing that out to me.

I am also learning to adjust to "Rwanda Time." It is a time zone like none other. I learned about Rwanda time this past week when I went to my first faculty meeting. The meeting was scheduled for 9am. I was there at 8:55. Two other faculty members were on time and they both brought their computers with them. I thought that it was odd to bring your computer to a meeting. By the time that the meeting finally started at 10:45, they had gotten much work done. I'll take mine next time.

I share an office with a great guy, Dr. Bhebhe from Zimbabwe. He has a PhD. in Animal Breeding from Texas A&M so we have lots to talk about. While he and I were waiting for the faculty meeting to start, I asked him if there would be doughnuts. We laughed and throughout the day would mention other foods from home that are unique to the states, like hot wings, pit bar-b-q, a backyard fish fry and cheeseburgers.

On Wednesday morning I learned a few things from Bhebhe. I was late to work because I went to town to watch the election coverage on the TV at the local hotel. There was a huge crowd there and they were all cheering. When I got to the office, Bhebhe was watching the election coverage on his computer. We talked a bit about the election. I won't bother you with all of the trouble in Zimbabwe since their previous election, but with that history on his mind, he watched ours in amazement. He saw the large crowds that were not violent, he saw the mixing of races celebrating together and not killing each other, he saw one party transfer power to the other without military intervention and he discussed how these things have never happened in Africa. Here, the national boundaries cross many tribal boundaries. It sounds strange at first but imagine America without ever having European settlers, now overlay the states and force the tribes to get along. I realized that the world is so interested in US politics because it functions as it is intended to. We actually pull it off. Only about half of us are ever happy with the results and we argue and debate the issues, I always tell myself that the whole thing is a waste of time, but it isn't a waste of time. In most countries, people die if they oppose the ruling party. People get beaten, houses burned down and families murdered as examples to any neighbor who thinks of voting for the challenger. The world watches America and cheers because we vote without violence, they watch in amazement and dream that it could happen in their country some day.

On Monday I am going back to Uganda. A guy there that I will be working with told me the other night that he voted once but never will again. He talked about the corruption and the violence, the threats and the bribes, he commented on how fortunate we were to have that opportunity and for the process to occur peacefully.

At MGVP I work with a guy from Congo, he too praises our system. Monday night he asked me if I had voted. I told him that initially I wasn't going to but I eventually did at the US Embassy in Kigali. He told me that it was good, regardless of who I voted for. He explained how things have gone in his country, that the elections never matter, about how people never allow democracy to take place. He told me that the system is there, but that when a person becomes frustrated, they don't discuss things and wait for the next election and use the system, instead they assemble an army and take control of a region, like Nkunda is doing now.

I was in Nairobi, Kenya last year just before there election and there was much tension around the town. After the election, whole communities were burned, murder and mayhem prevailed. They celebrated this past week because a descendant from that country is now the President of the greatest nation on earth, they also celebrated the fact that it was even a possibility, that it occurred peacefully, it's an amazing concept that we all just assume but the folks here can only dream of.

On a lighter note, I had a different conversation with Benerd, my friend from Uganda, trying to explain daylight savings time. The Equator goes through Uganda so for him, where he lives, over the course of a year the sunrise will vary by 10 minutes. On the longest period of daylight, the sun rises at 6:55am and on the shortest, 7:05am. There have been other interesting conversations this past week like explaining time zones when discussing why the election results come in at different times across the country. I also had fun explaining about swing states and why the focus was different for different states by the campaigns. It is really fun to see how unique our country is through the eyes of the people here.