Recap of Weekend Fun

Friday Night: The Best and Worst of the British Party

A group of people living in Kigali, working for Tony Blair (providing technical assistance to the President), hosted a fun costume party on Friday.

Some of the attendees:

Harry Potter

Ginger Spice
A member of the M16 (British CIA)

Amy Whinehouse and a Bond girl

Jenny dressed as a pound of silver and I was paparazzi with the "News of the World" (the slimiest newspaper in London!)

The appropriate reaction to my picture taking.Joan Collins and Jenny

Sporty Spice

Lady Di

Saturday: International Fair and the Ambassador's Residence (charity event)

I volunteered to help set up the American booth so I could be there to sample all of the yummy food before it got too crowded.

Nice and tacky decorations!

The Canadian booth

The British booth

Steve and Ann enjoying all of the samples.

Glad I got there early! (The American booth served hamburgers, hot dogs, and chocolate chip cookies)

Sunday: A CDC Family Gathering (at Bambino's, a Rwandan fun park)

The senior team and myself pitched in to provide our staff and their families with a much needed, fun Sunday get-away. I was able to do the master negotiating and planning to make the arrangements and allow the kids to use all of the play equipment for a really great bargain. It was a wonderful time to get to know our CDC family members better. We had a fantastic turnout- 30 adults and 25 kids!

Many of our team members and their kids had never been to this park, because the rides are very expensive. They were so incredibly appreciative.

The adults had a chance to enjoy the rides too.

Including me!

I aranged for kid plates with french fries and pizza, and adult plates with beef kebabs and chicken.

I think this event will go down in our office memory books for many years!

Food Adventures

This weekend I stayed around Kigali and spent some time at home... in the kitchen. One of my colleagues at the US Embassy has a farm and delivers on the weekends. I ordered a chicken, milk, and eggs to be delivered on Saturday. The milk was creamy and the eggs were big and brown.

The chicken arrived whole with insides and neck included. Embarrassingly, I have never really cut up a whole chicken. I wanted to cut it into pieces rather than roast it whole, in order to make an orange chicken recipe for friends that evening. I would have called my mom (like I usually do) for cooking instructions about which parts to keep and which to toss, but it was 9AM in Kigali and therefore the middle of the night in Indiana. I did the next best thing and googled how to cut a chicken!

Here was the goal picture of pieces of chicken that I needed to end up with. Mine did not exactly look like these, but I did pretty well.

I gave away the gizzard, neck, and back (I know, I could have made soup with it) and later was informed that in the local culture if your husband comes home to eat chicken and the gizzard is "missing" then he becomes suspicious of his wife. Luckily, I didn't have to worry about that and I didn't think my friends would miss the gizzards!

Kimironko is the big market in Kigali where you can buy fruit, vegetables, meat, and fish.
With some help from my housekeeper Scola, each week I have an abundance of fruit from the market ...mini bananas, passion fruit, tree tomatoes, mangos, and papaya.
This makes for delicious fruit salad that I take to work.

Breakfast commonly includes bread and tea with milk and sugar. At the Embassy they offer samosas (fried with meat or vegetables inside), pancakes, and a variety of muffins for breakfast.

Lunch and dinner are often served buffet-style in local restaurants (and as an option for lunch at the Embassy cafeteria). A traditional Rwandese buffet typically includes boiled beans, bananas, sweet potatoes, or cassava. Umutsima (a dish of cassava and corn), isombe (cassava leaves with Eggplant and spinach) and mizuzu (fried plantains), as well as goat or some other meat stew. Avocados are everywhere in Rwanda and are often served as salad with tomatoes and onions. Fish in Rwanda is mostly limited to tilapia and sambazas, so it is a good thing I love both. The fish is mostly raised on farms in Rwanda. Sambazas are little fried fish usually served with a tartar-like dipping sauce and you eat the whole crunchy thing- head and tail included.

There are a number of small grocery stores where I buy other things not offered in the market.

Blue Band margarine/vegetable oil spread. This product scares me a little because it seems to last forever and surely is not very healthy. I use it sparingly and instead use my olive oil spray that I packed in my suitcase!

White rice in a bag

Strawberry jelly in a tin can

Dishwashing soap for dishes, and bleach for washing fruits and vegetables

Orange juice in a boxMilk in a bag (which oddly lasts a really long time, not sure why)

Thoughts from the President in the New Times

Sunday, 10th May 2009- http://www.newtimes.co.rw/index.php?issue=13891&article=3665

Africa has to find its own road to prosperity

BY PRESIDENT PAUL KAGAME
At recent meetings of the Group of 20 and the International Monetary Fund, world leaders have gathered to discuss the global economic crisis. Unfortunately, it seems that many still believe they can solve the problems of the poor with sentimentality and promises of massive infusions of aid, which often do not materialise. We who live in, and lead, the world’s poorest nations are convinced that the leaders of the rich world and multilateral institutions have a heart for the poor. But they also need to have a mind for the poor.

Dambisa Moyo’s controversial book, Dead Aid, has given us an accurate evaluation of the aid culture today. The cycle of aid and poverty is durable: as long as poor nations are focused on receiving aid they will not work to improve their economies. Some of Ms Moyo’s prescriptions, such as ending all aid within five years, are aggressive. But I always thought this was the discussion we should be having: when to end aid and how best to end it.

Aid has not only often failed to meet its objectives; it has also rarely dealt with the underlying issues of poverty and weak societies. We see this with our neighbour, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There, 17,000 United Nations peacekeepers – the largest and most expensive presence of its kind in history – treat the symptoms rather than addressing the issues of capacity, self-determination and dignity. Often, aid has left recipient populations unstable, distracted and more dependent; as Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister of Afghanistan, has pointed out, it can even sever the relationship between democratically elected leadership and the populace.

Do not get me wrong. We appreciate support from the outside, but it should be support for what we intend to achieve ourselves.

No one should pretend that they care about our nations more than we do; or assume that they know what is good for us better than we do ourselves. They should, in fact, respect us for wanting to decide our own fate. At the same time, as I tell our people, nobody owes Rwandans anything. Why should anyone in Rwanda feel comfortable that taxpayers in other countries are contributing money for our well¬being or development?

Rwanda is a nation with high goals and a sense of purpose. We are attempting to increase our gross domestic product by seven times over a generation, which increases per capita incomes fourfold. This will create the basis for further innovation and foster trust, civic-mindedness and tolerance, strengthening our society. Entrepreneurship is the surest way for a nation to meet these goals. Michael Fairbanks’ book, In The River They Swim, which uses Rwanda as one of its examples, highlights the need to respect local wisdom, build a culture of innovation and create investment opportunities in product development, new distribution systems and innovative branding.

Government activities should focus on supporting entrepreneurship not just to meet these new goals, but because it unlocks people’s minds, fosters innovation and enables people to exercise their talents. If people are shielded from the forces of competition, it is like saying they are disabled.

Entrepreneurship gives people the feeling that they are valued and have meaning, that they are as capable, as competent and as gifted as anyone else. Asking our citizens to compete is the same as asking them to go out into the world on behalf of Rwanda and play their part. We know this is a tremendous challenge given our status as a land-locked nation emerging from conflict, with few natural resources, little specialised infrastructure and low historical investment in education. But, in fact, we have reasons to be optimistic: we have a clear strategy to export based on sustainable competitive advantages.

We sell coffee now for high prices to the world’s most demanding purchasers; our tourism experience attracts the best customers in the world and market research reveals that perceptions of Rwandan tea are improving. This has resulted in wages in key sectors rising at more than 20 per cent on an annual basis. We have cut our aid as a percentage of total GDP by half over the past decade, and last year we grew at more than 11 per cent even as the world entered a recession.

While this is encouraging, we know the road to prosperity is a long one. We will travel it with the help of a new school of development thinkers and entrepreneurs, with those who demonstrate they have not just a heart, but also a mind for the poor.

The writer is the President of Rwanda
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

Jungle Party in Gisenyi- Take 2

I convinced Jenny to return to Gisenyi with me (my third visit!) so we could attend our second Jungle Party. We went to one together about a month after I was here in 2007 and a couple months after she had arrived- almost 2 years ago! (http://talesfromrwanda.blogspot.com/2007/07/gisenyi.html)

We arranged to ride with friends (3 hours from Kigali) to the western part of Rwanda on Lake Kivu, next to Goma, DRC. We stayed (again!) in the very nice Kivu Sun/Serena hotel which offered a special $100 deal for rooms because because of the "jungle party" on the beach with a bonfire and live music planned. We made the decision to go late in the week and I had to sweet talk the reservations staff (thanks Eme) into giving me a room; I brought them cookies when we arrived.

Jenny and I, in front of the hotel.


Jenny, in our room, with her tennis raquet which I insisted she bring but we never ended up usng!

This was the beautiful view from our room.
We had some trouble with our door, which locked us out on one occasion because the inside-security latch caught accidentally caught when we closed the door. The hotel staff thought it was fine for them to climb accross the balcony from the room next door to come inside through the un-lockable back door whenever this happened. Luckily, technician-Jenny was able to break the latch further to "fix" the problem.

On Saturday, we had beautiful sunny weather and I spent most of the day at the beach.
Lounging with friends,
and swimming in Lake Kivu or the pool.

The Serena began to set up tents and the stage on the beach for the Saturday night "jungle party".

We enjoyed early-evening happy hour on our balcony.

We bought tickets for the jungle party- $20 each!

Before the party, we took a taxi to a nearby restaurant at Paradis hotel, and unexpectedly were able to see traditional dancers and drummers perform .

Most of us got up to dance with them.

We made some new friends at dinner too.

The hotel Paradis is a beautiful spot to eat dinner, and we were able to sit right near the water.

The menu included the usual chicken, fish, beef, or goat choices and the food arrived on cute wooden plates, some with wooden silverware.

I took this picture of my friend Barbara at the bar at the jungle party, before smartly deciding to put my camera back in my hotel room once it got crowded (little did I know I should have put my purse away too!) The "headliner" music artists at the party were 3 Blue (three women from Uganda) who didn't start playing until 2AM but were pretty coordinated with pop hits and choreography. Unfortunately, shortly after then, my purse was stolen. VERY fortunately, most items were returned (including my passport, phone, and flash drive, minus the money) when other guests caught the thief. The upsetting part was my being confused over why the police wouldn't come and how the hotel was "handling" the thief themselves. In the end, it all worked out and was quite a learning experience for me. I visited the police station on Sunday to get a better sense of the system and meet the local Inspector. It was eye-opening!

We drove back to Kigali after lunch on Sunday, and I of course, took lots more photos of the beautiful Rwandan hillsides and tea fields.