Julia, Patricia and some gorillas in the mist

Rwanda's number one tourist attraction is Mountain Gorilla tracking.  For weeks now, Patricia has been urging me to amortize my resident visa (foreign residents pay only $250 for a permit, all other foreigners pay $500) and get a permit before the tourist season starts and go see the gorillas.  It's not that I didn't want to see the gorillas but the logistics seemed tricky since children can't go and I really wanted to do the whole journey as a day trip.  This week, we found out that there were still permits left so I went down to ORTPN and bought two!  We then contacted Jacques to drive us, arranged for a sleepover for Nava and adult backup for Saadya who stayed in the house on his own (well, you're never really on your own with house staff around) and off we went on our last big Rwanda adventure to the Virunga Mountains to see Gorilla.
We arrived in Ruhengeri (still can't bring myself to call it Musanze) just after dark and a little shaken by the last bit of driving.  Driving in the dark in Rwanda is really treacherous and we just narrowly missed hitting a crazy bicycle rider who was flying down a mountain into the oncoming traffic lane just clipping the car's sideview mirror.  We stayed at Muhabura again (I've heard Dian Fossey stayed there) and after checking in we calmed ourselves down with wonderful brochette and beer.

Check in at the Kinigi Center for the tracking was 7:00am.  We arrived bright and early though not necessarily chipper after yet another restless somewhat sleepless night in Rwanda.  The day looked as though it would be sunny, clear and hot.  Groups of eight were formed and we were introduced to our Guide/Tracker, a man named Francis who told us about our Group called Hirwa. 

Francis who could talk like a gorilla and knew everything about the members of Hirwa

The Gorilla groups or families are habituated to humans and are visited daily by the park rangers, trackers and tourists.  There are 7 groups visited by the tourists and others that are visited only by rangers or researchers.  Hirwa lives on Mount Sabyinyo a very majestic volcano.  Francis told us about how we should behave around the gorillas and the rules of tracking:

• Stay a distance of 22 feet from the gorillas (we ended up breaking that rule)

The boots to the gorilla is 22 feet, the distance we were supposed to be from the gorillas

• Viewing time is one hour (we were with the gorillas for more than an hour)
• Before we get to the gorillas we will set up a base camp and leave our backpacks since the packs may confuse the gorillas into thinking we have babies on our backs
• Try not to make rapid movements that frighten the gorillas (OK, but what do you think we all did when the big silverback made rapid movements that frightened us and seemed ready to walk right over us?)

Francis also let us know that yesterday the Hirwa group was found just inside the park boundaries and that the visitors had an easy hour of observation as the group did not move for the entire time.  This description did not sound like much of a mountain jungle adventure but we were ready for action.  We drove up to the trailhead feeling grateful for Jacque's driving and his four wheel drive.  From the trailhead we hiked up to the park boundary and then in at the point where trackers last saw the Hirwa.  After an hour, the trackers who had gone ahead let Francis know that we should leave our packs and move forward to see the gorillas.  Francis led the way making gorilla sounds and shortly thereafter we spotted the silverback in the bamboo.

Silverback in the bamboo

A couple of 4 year old gorillas were playing nearby and a mama gorilla was wandering in the area as well.  After we had observed the gorillas for about 10 minutes the silverback decided it was time to get up and go and all the gorillas quickly took off up the mountain through the thick brush and bamboo.

Gorillas heading up the mountain

At first I thought that was the end of our gorilla viewing but Francis and the other trackers led the way up and up and up and up and across the volcano using machetes to bushwhack through the jungle.  Along the way it started to rain (our raincoats were in the backpacks at our base camp) so now we were slipping and sliding through the jungle in search of the mountain gorilla.  Our simple walk in the park turned into a strenuous climb up a treacherous volcanic mountainside.  Patricia and I were lucky to be fit and altitude acclimated; our fellow travelers were most definitely not but they managed to make their way often with the help of porters or trackers.

After two hours of finding plenty of gorilla sign (stinky poops and discarded half eaten bamboo shoots) we came down into a gorge and were rewarded with an extended period of viewing of 8 of the Hwira group gorillas including the silverback.

Munching some bamboo shoot

Gorilla hanging on a tree in the MIST!

The upper right is a glimpse of the baby that was hanging onto this mama

Grooming

The silverback

The silverback

The photos barely do justice to the scenery and the proximity of the gorillas.  Patricia wanted to take one home because they do look big and cuddly.  For me, there was one startling moment when the silverback walked through our group and almost on my foot after he was startled by a gun going off nearby (probably to scare off buffalo).  As he trampled through with his incredible bulk he seemed a frightening figure, but in truth these are beautiful but big and peaceful vegetarians living on the sides of the volcanoes in the land of 1000 hills and I feel pretty lucky to have visited them (THANKS Patricia!).

Yes I'm working!

This post is for the friend who after noticing that most of these blog posts document our travels and adventures, all of which sound exotic and exciting, asked "are you getting any work done or doing your Fulbright duty or just having the ultimate sabbatical safari?"

I've had a full teaching load this term at Kigali Health Institute.  Courses are taught as modules and most of the faculty in the department teach 1-2 modules for a total of 10-20 credits.  I was assigned and agreed to teach 3 modules for 23 credits, yes, KHI is getting their Fulbright's worth out of me.

1. From January until mid-March I taught the Biostatistics module to the 4th year students. 
2. From mid-February until early April I taught the Clinical Epidemiology module to the 3rd year students.
3. From April until early May I taught an Orthopaedics I module to the 2nd year students. 

The 2nd year physio students, all students are supposed to come to class in their lab coats

Teaching was a tricky experience.  These students speak fluent Kinyarwanda, in secondary school their instruction was in French and a couple of years ago the language of instruction in secondary and higher education was changed to English.  Now I think I have the easiest accent and many students agreed but it turns out my lecture style and joking manner were quite new to them.  Very few lecturers use active learning techniques as the most common style of conducting a class is the straight lecture.  Often students seemed not know what to make of my methods.  I quickly discovered that the trick to successful teaching was to work with material on Monday, review it on Tuesday and start Wednesday with the same material as on Monday with something new added in.

Students do not have textbooks (faculty don't have many themselves) and they rely on published notes that faculty provide (from what I've seen that faculty plagiarize from elsewhere).  I felt writing a full set of notes was too much pressure since these notes are essentially textbooks themselves and I couldn't write 3 texts while I was here.  Luckily I brought some orthopedics materials to give out to the students and I provided them with the ubiquitous and ugly PowerPoint slide sets that helped me to organize the content.

In between teaching, I have been holding clinic hours Tuesday and Thursday morning at the KHI Kiyovu clinic.  Prior to starting their own clinical experiences, the 4th year students would join me in seeing patients.

As of May all of the students are out on full-time clinical experiences.  These experiences are SO, SO different from our approach to clinical education in the US.  The students go out in groups of usually 6-10 depending on the clinic size.  All the clinics are hospital based since all physio here is hospital based.  The students are assigned patients and it appears to me that they are often seeing these patients with little supervision.  Two days each week a KHI faculty member visits the clinic and the students see patients with the oversight or assistance of a faculty member.  Thus far, I've visited Kigali based clinics including King Faisal Hospital, Kanombe Military Hospital, and the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali (CHUK).  There are rumors flying about the future of Kanombe Hospital which is near the airport; for the curious, keep your eyes on the US military Africom which apparently may be a partner in the hospital's renovation.

The ultra-modern King Faisal Hospital which was recently accredited by some international group

The waiting area at Kanombe

The gym at CHUK

In the next two weeks I will be out in the provinces at Gatagara and Gahini.  I'm not so sure how effective my clinical teaching has been, it's pretty clear that the style of orthopaedic treatment in the U.S. is pretty different from the style here.  There is barely any patient documentation written and I've seen loads of use of massage, hot packs, infra-red and a few other modalities that I thought had disappeared with the dinosaurs. 

This set up was done by a student after I explained why modalities would be ineffective in this patient's case

Signage at King Faisal, can you say Physical Therapy?

Signage at CHUK now I'm really confused about how to say this in Kinyarwanda

4th years at King Faisal

In addition to teaching and clinic, I've been working with my Rwandan colleagues to assist them with their scholarly endeavors.  I've worked on a number of different projects including one that will be presented in June at WCPT (I got last author credit).  I'm right now drafting a manuscript for a special issue of  the Journal of Physical Therapy Education about the issues with and potential for further research collaboration between US physios and those in developing countries based on my experiences.  Aside from helping with my colleagues work, be on the lookout for 2 articles in which I am an author in July of this year (Phys Ther and JOSPT).  The finishing work for these articles was completed while I was here.  Oh yes, how could I forget, one last piece of scholarly work...that darned book continues to occupy my time.  J&B, our publisher now has a website for it so I guess it might be published one day this year.

Adventure and work, I think these past few months we've tried to maintain a balance.  If this post sounds like more than a person on sabbatical should be doing...think again...after all, I'm not the chair/program director while here, instead I'm just another faculty member doing her bit and enjoying it too.

Making news in Kigali

I've found these news items that seem to include something about me.  Who knows exactly what they are saying, they are all in Kinyarwanda but I believe they are all about my work as an instructor at KHI and my availability for consultation at the KHI clinic in Kiyovu.

KHI physio clinic story this one comes complete with pictures
Another story about my work in the clinic from the newspaper Izuba
Yet another story about my work in the clinic from a press release on TV/radio by ORINFOR
KHI PR  information about me the KHI public relations blog

Enjoy the read!

In which we make an expotition into Uganda and see lions

Last weekend we again hired Jacques, and drove from Kigali north to western Uganda and the Queen Elizabeth National Park.  The border to Uganda is only 1.5 hours from here, we crossed at Gatuna in Rwanda entering into Katuna in Uganda.  The frontier crossing was an adventure in itself.  Jacques had to go into 4 different offices to get approval to bring the car through, the approval comes in the form of a white slip of paper about 1 inch by 1 inch on which someone wrote in hand, "gate pass."  We had to stand in lines to do exit forms for Rwanda and then entry forms for Uganda which included getting photographed and fingerprinted and visa purchase.  There was a mass of people, trucks and buses and seemingly very little organization in the whole operation.  Before we arrived Saadya was wondering how they handle the switch from right hand side driving to left hand side driving and the answer is...with no clear instructions and often with the road being blocked as trucks and cars all try to make the switch in both directions simultaneously.  The entire affair took us about an hour but with visas in hand we headed into Uganda.

The drive was long, we left Kigali around 9:00am and arrived into the outskirts of the park in the early evening as a big storm approached. At the entry to the park we were greeted by some vervet monkeys crossing the road. Further along, we found our first elephants. 

Elephants and yes, a rainbow

Our initial plan had been to camp but with the storm looking menacing we enquired about lodgings at Mweya Safari Lodge, somehow we couldn't fork over the $600 per night for lodging (we are just not that type of safari family) and we made our way to the campsite setting up our tents by the light of the car.   The campsites at the park were not as pretty as at Akagera and we were sad that we couldn't just travel into the park and set up camp anywhere.  Our night's sleep, once again was serenaded by the sounds of hippos, hyenas and this time...lions!

On awakening we noticed the weavers in a bush near our tests and we had our first campsite visitors, marabou and warthogs. 

Weaver with a nest

Good morning warthog, aren't you handsome today

Marabou from the backside at our campsite, from the front you see his black raincoat

Nava describes marabou as looking like guys in black raincoats who seem to be dressed for the wrong party.  From seeing them at the tops of trees and up close, I'm now pretty sure that it is marabou who have the "Whacha wanna do" conversation in the movie Jungle Book and not vultures who appear much, much more intelligent.  After packing up for the day we went to the park office to get our passes and camping permit.  The grounds of the office were right in the wandering path of a group of mongoose who seemed to be hoping for a treat. 

Banded Mongoose

While at the office, I bought Saadya a true safari hat, I think he looks great in it.

Saadya reading at the camp site in his new safari hat

Queen Elizabeth Park (QEP) has an incredible number of birds (more species than in the entire UK I read somewhere) and other animals.  Our list of wildlife spotted increased on this trip and included elephant, banded mongoose, warthog, hippo, Nile crocodile, African buffalo, Ugandan kob, waterbuck, chimpanzees, black and white colobus and vervet monkeys, baron lizard, fruit bat, and many birds like the coucal, palm nut vulture, long crested eagle, fish eagle and Egyptian goose.  The park is bordered to the west by the Rwenzhori Mountains and the Congo which make a beautiful back drop, and look very tempting as a hiking location.  Lake George marks the north of the park and Lake Edward marks the south.  We camped near the Kizinga channel that connects the two lakes.

Our first day we drove off to the track that runs through the crater area.  These craters were formed by volcanic explosions and create a really beautiful landscape. 

Crater in QEP

There is not much wildlife viewing up near the craters but on the way we did have to stop for an elephant Xing.

Elephant crossing

Safari girls

We lunched at the overpriced Mweya Lodge and then, in the afternoon we took the boat ride on the Kizinga channel which offered a different view of animals and many amazing shorebirds. 

Elephants having an afternoon swim

Hippos

We returned to our campsite, as Nava was gathering wood and straw for our fire, we heard a noise and looked up to see an elephant approaching.  Patricia quickly called Nava into the rain shelter and the elephant sauntered through the campsite disturbing only the brush but leaving our tentsite intact.  That night we were awoken by a very loud hyena paying his visit to us, Jacques got up to look at him and told us in the morning that he was not only loud but pretty large.

Our second day of driving was a quest to find some lions.  We had heard that people were seeing a pride not too far from us and drove off hopeful.  After a couple of hours of driving, getting lost and looking we were almost ready to give up.  The park ranger who we asked encouraged us to go to the "mating grounds" where he just saw 9 lions.  We drove up there and noticed quite a bit of freshly killed kob but couldn't find the lions.  We circled the mating grounds 2-3 times, and then, suddenly we spotted them resting under some trees and recovering from their feast.  The kings and queens of the savannah.  Seeing any of these animals in the wild is amazing but seeing a lion in the wild really left me totally awestruck.

Lion, he was panting and exhausted from the hard work of eating his Kob

After two nights in tents, we treated ourselves to an evening at a lodge driving up to the ridge in Kichwimba and staying at the Kingfisher Lodge.  From the lodge we had views of the park and with binoculars could even see herds of elephant. 

View from Kingfisher Lodge

We had dinner at the overlook and enjoyed a relaxing evening.  In the morning, Patricia and Jacques set off to track chimpanzees in the Kyambura Gorge while Nava enjoyed the swimming pool and Saadya and I read. 

Kingfisher Lodge had 3 pools and 2 cool water slides

From Patricia's report, they gorge was also beautiful and really different from any other terrain we saw.  Although many people track and see nothing, they found the chimpanzees and were treated to quite a show including a teenage chimp showing off his swinging abilities.  Doesn't matter your species, teenagers always steal the show. 

In the afternoon we drove back to Kigali knowing that this was probably our last BIG family adventure of the trip, as we now enter the final month of our stay in Rwanda.

100 Days

Mention Rwanda to anyone in the States and the only association they have is of the 1994 Genocide, usually because of viewing the film Hotel Rwanda.  Prior to our departure, when I wanted to read about the country most of the books available were focused on the Genocide.  It is recent history and it has scarred the lives of all who live here.

I've noted more than once that the beginning of April is marked here by Genocide Memorial Day.  In truth it is a period of 100 days of commemoration marking the time from April 6 until July when hundreds of thousands of people were killed.  We were not in Rwanda on April 6 and 7 (many ex-pats leave the country to allow the Rwandans a time to mourn) but these two days are marked by memorial marches and official ceremonies of commemoration.  There is an official commission, the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide on which you can read more detail about how the 17th commemoration is being marked. 

I could never do justice to writing about the Genocide, I won't even try.  Here in Kigali we are surrounded by the survivors, the criminals and many returned refugees.  Most Rwandans keep their stories to themselves.  Every adjective you are thinking right now is appropriate to describe this event. 

During early April, Patricia and I did visit the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre.  The centre has exhibits that describe the genocide and the history that led to it, exhibits on other genocides and it is also a mass burial site that is still active as even today and this month more bodies of victims are being found.

The memorial flame at the centre, it is lit on April 6 and stays lit for 100 days

One of the areas of the mass graves