2019 – Well Thats a Wrap – A Boy Among 1000 Hills

Happy New Year, Everyone! Alright, I know – my blogging reliability to finish out 2019 was abysmal. I cannot believe I have not written in over two months! So, first off, I am sorry. It isn’t all that fair of me to leave you without news of my whereabouts. I’m not one to make excuses, so I wont give myself a pass for leaving you in the dark. But I will say that the past two months have been a rollercoaster of experiences and emotions that I needed to process personally and never quite got to the point of putting pen to paper to share with the world. Living and working in Rwanda is stretching me – personally and professionally. Ive laughed more and cried more in the past few months than I have in most of my life. And it has been overall wonderful – I feel so so alive.

Unfortunately for this blog, a number of my experiences are best left not on the public inter-webs. Alot of my research work is sensitive – I hope you can respect that. If you want me to fill in some of the gaps, send me an email and Ill see if I can give you a better glimpse into my world.

But, it has been two months and I have so many stories I can tell. So please see the highlights here! Lastly, I am making a New Years Resolution to keep in better touch – expect more frequent posts. Although, we all know New Years Resolutions are inevitably broken. So I am asking for forgiveness in advance. Alas, if there is anything this experience has shown me is that everyone is human – me most of all.

So without a further-ado, here is how I closed out the decade:

I Hung Out in a Rainforest

Nyungwe national rainforest is in the SouthWest of Rwanda. It is full of apes, monkeys, hikes, birds, and views. In short, it is beautiful. One of its biggest attractions is tracking chimpanzees. We did just that – in addition to walking in the canopy. Unfortunately, we got poured on during the canopy walk. And while the stereotype of Eastern Africa is that it is incredibly hot. Take high altitude plus a downpour and we were both shivering and soaked. That said, it was a beautiful view! Although, the experience is not one i’d readily sign up for again.

However, after a night at a beautiful eco lodge – again, the high altitude is freezing, so they gave us these lovely warm water bottles to snuggle while we curled up in blankets in our grass huts – we set off to track chimpanzees. That was incredible. The clear skies and gorgeous weather definitely helped. We found a chimp family within the first 15 minutes or so of tracking and then followed them for about the next 3 or so hours. The highly skilled guides help keep tabs on the chimps throughout the day and make sure you find the apes. Chimps tend to not keep to the trails, though, so there is a lot of tramping around the forest. Its really quite fun!

I Saw More Of Kigali

These are just a few of my pictures – but ive made every effort I can to see some fun parts of the city. The first is of the fabric markets, one of my favorite places. It is hidden inside a covered alleyway in town and can often be difficult to find. But after asking around for a bit, I eventually found out that if you look for the door with the #35 outside it, you are sure to find your way.

I Got Off the Beaten Path

Most of the major trails in Rwanda are up volcanoes or in national parks. There are one or two like Mt. Kabuye in the east that are on my bucket list and are not in those areas. But for the most part, the formal hikes are 5-8 hours long and have a fee for entre. I have done a bit of free hiking – remember, Rwanda is a sea of hills so everywhere is a hike – but mostly in cities outside Kigali. So a few friends and myself consulted google maps then jumped on a half-hour taxi ride out of the city. After hopping off the main road, we spent the next few hours wandering our way down the mountains and over rivers back into town.

Picked Up Some More Parasites

I appear to be a magnet for disaster, so you knew it had to happen. I wont get into the gory details, but I was, once again, bed-ridden for an unfortunate amount of time. However, my mum sent me her soup recipe. And our lovely housekeeper whipped up a pot. So at least that was a bright spot.

Made Some New Friends

I have kept up playing viola in the orchestra. We had one decently successful concert a week after Thanksgiving. But from that, I got recruited to play as part of a quartet accompanying the, very talented, Chorale de Kigali – a hundred-person strong choir that is the pinnacle of Rwandan classical performing arts. They are so so skilled. When they sing, it pretty much fills the entire room. There were over 1800 people at the concert including government officials like the Prime Minister. The choir draws quite a crowd!

It was an awesome, albeit sometimes chaotic, experience that included a number of last-minute rehearsals, me forcing myself to practice for a few hours, and some spontaneous runs to a hard-to-find tailor in town. The Chorale had all of the matching suits and dresses custom-made in the week before the concert! But I really enjoyed making friends with the quartet and choir and would happily play with them again.

Saw My Family & A New City

I dont know if this is cheating the experience a little bit, but my family wanted to spend the holidays together. So we all converged on London for a week. It was so nice to be in a cold weather environment, even for a short bit. I dont think I realized how much I love seasons until I moved to Rwanda during the summer and then just never had Fall or Winter. And London was great! I had never been to the UK before and definitely want to spend some time exploring there again in the future.

I did not take any of these pictures. Creds to Dad, Mom, & Andrew

So thats a wrap. At least for now. One decade closes and we are at the start of another. In the past few months, Ive been in busses, cars, and planes; far too much on my feet; and on a few more motorcycles than I care to admit. Ive been at the top of hills and the bottoms on my daily grind – you can take that both physically and metaphorically if you wish. And I have learned more about others and myself than I ever thought possible in such a short time. So with that in mind, I am looking forward to the week, month, year, decade ahead. Happy 2020. Hope to hear from you soon.