Safari-on, dudes.

Cuatro de Mayo, 2012

I knew the day would probably not turn out as planned upon heading to the toilet at 4am to discover my eye almost completely swollen shut. I hoped for the best, half-heartedly, and headed back to bed. (My usual method for dealing with medical ailments and injury: ignore it and hope it just goes away on its own.) When I opened my eye[s] around 8am, I knew I would need to do something, something medical, come daytime. The wasp sting had swollen the entire area to mid-cheek, including the inner corner and lid of my eye to the point that half of my face looked unrecognizable.

My lodge stay at this magnificent place thus thwarted, I didn’t much feel like exploring the grounds and local community projects looking like a freakish mutant from the bog. I spent the morning, after being coaxed out of my room by a staff member for breakfast, waiting for our “guide” to arrive and give us a ride into town to visit a pharmacy. I couldn’t even really take many pictures, as I quickly realized it’s hard to do so with your predominant right eye being half-shaded by folds of skin, and behind glasses that I was forced to wear, with not wanting to risk putting a contact in that thing.

Richard spent the day tracking gorillas and having a great experience, even stumbling upon chameleons and endangered golden monkeys on the way back down the mountain, while I finagled antibiotic drops into my eye and tried to remain somewhat chipper about getting the shit-end of the stick. I hope I will get the chance to revisit Rwanda, and some of these lodges, and maybe even track gorillas again (or arguably, for the first time) as the couple of most memorable experiences I was supposed to have on this safari got ruined by poor planning, powerful persuasion in the wrong direction, and a malicious wasp.

At dinner tonight a married German couple, and three American businessmen staying in the lodge joined our ramshackle party. The dinner conversation centered around their business ventures, random mutual professional contact between Mr. CEO of giant microfinance firm, and Mr. Germany rich guy, and then moving to the financial state of European countries.

Mr. CEO created one of the largest microfinance NGO organizations in the world (forgot the name—see how industrious I am?) and the other two worked with him/went to Harvard Law School with him or something. His organization funds education only, primarily small to medium-sized schools that receive loans to establish themselves/pay staff/build/purchase supplies, etc. and in return become self-sufficient in order to pay back the loans, thereby giving capitol back to fund other projects related to education. At least, that’s what I understood of the dinner conversation. I love the concept of entrepreneurial/business minds working to actually improve social situations in developing countries…. it seems so much more effective than hand-outs and Western-imposed ideology that doesn’t satisfy or understand local community needs. That and aimless short-term aide that just ends, creates dependency, or stops being useful once the group moves on to the next crisis situation.

Interestingly enough, talk turned toward the West/East Germany conflict, and Mr. CEO asked frank questions to the German couple about the current state of Germany. The German man revealed that at their age (mid-sixties, I’m guessing) it was difficult, and powerful, to be the children of parents who were directly affected and/or part of World War II. He explained that it was still very difficult and painful for Germans of this era to have been associated with these atrocities, and directly remember stories told my their parents of what happened in that time.  Being in Rwanda, visiting the genocide memorial and seeing miscellaneous shrines and graves around Kigali recreated many of these painful memories, learning as children what happened, and trying, without avail, to understand how humans could be capable of doing such horrible things to each other. And yet, experiences like this are not unique, and have been repeated worldwide across history.

Tomorrow we finish our safari in Kigali, and I will visit the genocide memorial. I am a bit nervous to see it all in front of me, and be in the Mille Collines, because it makes me incredibly sad to remember that these stories are real, those three people I saw around town with one leg actually likely had them violently removed as children 18 years ago.  It’s a long enough time for many of the physical scars to have healed for survivors, but the legacy of the tragedy lives on in the stories and spirits of the people in Rwanda and the rest of the world.

It’s amazing how clean and sanitized the city of Kigali appeared on the outside. It’s as if the horrible history of the genocide (and the 50 years leading up to the culmination of the violence we all know about so well from its oversimplified portrayal in movies like Hotel Rwanda and Western media) has had a fresh blanket thrown over it—underneath still stinking of rotten flesh.  I feel for the people of Rwanda, they seem to have been innocent pawns in political chess, manipulated and knocked down, murdered and mistreated, in order for an evil few to hold power over the masses, accumulate ridiculous amounts of money, and maintain their elite status.  It’s not an unfamiliar story to any of us, even those in the Western World, maybe our murders and violence are just a bit more discrete than here in Africa.

...

Cinco de drinko! And instead of celebrating the gringo American holiday, I headed to the genocide museum in Rwanda.


The museum, although powerful, seemed oversimplified. I left feeling as though I had received a sanitized lesson on what happened in 1994 Rwanda--even though there were sad anecdotes and historical information--it didn't seem complete.  I read every tiny piece of text.  The stories were like a car accident: the images and information so horrible you don't really want to know, but at the same time you have to see more, you can't look away. There was a section on other genocides throughout history and brief summaries of how and where they occurred. I felt ill reading over and over about the horrific things humans can be pushed, persuaded and driven to inflict upon each other. 

I got into the last part--the children's tribute section.  It had photos of children that were killed and listed raw facts about them: their name, age, favorite sport, favorite toy/game, favorite food (it seemed sweet to me that these Rwandese children's favorites were simple foods: "beans" "rice" or "milk", general personality/nature, and what they wanted to be when they grew up. Tragically, they never got the chance.

The boys finished about 30 minutes before me and were exasperatedly waiting for me to emerge from the museum. I felt heavy and sad, and didn't much want to talk about trivial nonsense as we headed to a restaurant for lunch. We were scheduled to spend the remainder of the day in Kigali, see the Volcanoes office (located within the Mille Collines Hotel) and then depart early in the morning for the long drive back to Kampala.