Lost in Translation

The t-shirts worn in the rural areas are incredibly amusing. I can't help but smile when I see a little boy wearing a shirt with "world's cutest cowgirl" splashed in sequins across the chest. There's the ironic "I love snow days," or "blondes do it better" and the oh-so cherished image of a super slight 80 year old woman swimming in an oversized “Tupac Lives” tee. I'm passed by a woman, mud crusted hoe in hand, sporting the logo for a Minnesotan turkey trot and I'm left dumbstruck, once again, by the fickle finger of context.

Quirks of Kigali

I've heard a few foreigners refer to Kigali as the "Disney Land" of Africa. The influence of the West are not limited to designer coffee, a 24hr shopping center and Hummers, but the this city has immense personality all its own. The most entertaining and convenient way to get around town is by moto taxi. The process goes something like this: whistle, wave or hiss (very popular) to signal that you want a ride, bargain for a price in French or broken Kinyarwanda, throw on the spare helmet, hop on the back and straddle a total stranger while white knuckling it toward a requested destination. Each ride is an adventure alone, but the blessings of nimble transport can also be its curse. Motos have the advantage of creating a third "lane" by squeezing through the 36 inch gap between the preexisting ones. Capitalizing on vehicular elbow room is guiltlessly satisfying in bumper to bumper traffic. The down side is the momentary terror of getting smeared against neighboring vehicles. Throw in mid-ride (engine running) gas stops, construction-evading sidewalk riding, back seat language lessons, thunderous afternoon downpours, and giant I-need-to-race-EVERYONE ego, and you have a picture of the potential associated shinanyguns. Bus transport is a close second for entertaining conveyance. The Kigali bus system is doing its part to carry Rwandan hiphop to every corner of the city via radio waves and I return the favor by mystifying fellow riders with my white girl "seat dancing" moves.

Karmic Voyeurism

For a weekend excursion we traveled as a group to Akagera National Park in the Eastern Province. I was pretty satisfied with my bicycle safari in Kenya, but in the end I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see more. Plus, we heard that the park had recently burned, making it hard for animals to hide from our prying eyes. The trip required a lot of sitting, which tested everybody's enjoyment of the experience. One of the three vehicles broke down soon after entering the park, which called for creative, close quartered seating reconfigurations in already hot conditions. We saw plenty of incredible wildlife: baboons, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, spider monkeys, buffalo, gazelle, zebra, and antelope to name a few. Sadly, I think the biting fly attack at the end of the day remains everyone's most vivid memory of the excursion. The inside of our jeep turned into a bloody graveyard of the insidious pests. I smashed indiscriminately and remorselessly.

The Work Begins

The fun and games lasted only a few days before it was time to join a collection of World Water Corps volunteers and begin two harried weeks surveying households and institutions, mapping villages, and collecting water samples. We paired up with students from the Generation Rwanda program and set off to capture a general snapshot of water access and sanitation conditions, and existing infrastructure in the Rulindo district a short distance from Kigali. We set off just after dawn each morning in teams composed of some combination of interviewer, water chemist, student interpreter and a hired driver willing to brave the half-cocked road systems. Rulindo is separated in to several sectors, cells, and villages. I spent my time in the Cynzuzi sector, in the Budkiryana cell, traipsing through eight villages that stretched across one large watershed. Rwanda is indeed the land of a thousand hills, and actually it's quite an understatement. Rulindo, and Cynzuzi in particular, is spread over a rather steep set. Most of the roads in the area follow the ridge line, with villages queezed side by side along hillsides or stretched over them in swaths of mud brown dots straining in the sun at the baren hilltops and plunged down into the cupped shade of lush banana trees at the bottom of the drainage. In order to get geographical representation for our study, we needed to sample households from all corners, which meant a lot of hiking and meandering through plots of wispy cassava and sweet potato. Convincing the "team" to set off for the far reaches was one of the most challenging aspects of the work because it required skidding down and scrambling up long sections of steep eroding trail.

Due partly to the challenging terrain, several villages in Cynzuzi have not benefitted from improved water sources (pipes, tanks, taps, pumps, etc.), as a result they spend hours walking from their homes to remote open sources that flow though ravines, or to pools at the bottom of drainages. During the rainy seasons many families are able to collect water closer to their homes, often harvesting rainwater directly from their roofs. It's now the end of the longer dry season, so every able body: man, woman, and child is recruited to fetch drinking water for the family and their livestock. Jerry cans are used to collect and store water, and the typical can has a 20 liter capacity and weighs about 40 lbs. I can't adequately describe how impressive it is to see people balancing 40 pound jugs on their heads, let alone carry them up these hills. Picture a 45 degree slope, unstable dust/clay trail (not a switchback in sight), and potentially a baby added to the load. What's more, the standard shoe worn in these parts is a foam slip-on. It's athleticism redefined. I call it "circumstantial badassness" and it's something I've marveled over many times during my travels.

The surveys ask a varied set of questions that attempted to capture basic data about water access and sanitation. For example, we want to find out how many people in the district live within 500 meters of a water source, the official distance deemed "acceptable" by the Rwandan government. As it turns out the answer is "very few." The government is currently trying to centralize people in "umudugudus, " or villages, (my absolute favorite word!!) and is pushing for development to occur at the tops of the hills. They are going so far as to try to relocate the households spread out over the hillsides, with a goal of total relocation (about two million rural people) over the next 10 years. They're incentivizing the program by concentrating all services on hilltops, including health services, electricity, water access points (potentially), while preserving individual ownership of cultivated land left behind. As of now, living at the bottom of the hill is a tradeoff that means closer access to water. Those living on hilltops have closer access to roads, markets, and services, but have an inordinately inconvenient schlep to collect enough water to meet their basic needs. Asking about toilets added a bit of levity throughout the day. We needed to get an idea of sanitation practices like hand washing and latrine depth, but the real highlight was the photographic portion of the visit…"don't mind us, we're just skipping through to take a snapshot of the family pooper." Rwandans are private and relatively shy when it comes to asking about toilets and most things related. We were asked to get snapshots of superstructure and make comments as to the level of "technology" associated, such as a roof or a door. Most people laughed at the idea and allowed a photo, some were more reluctant. I can get as jazzed about sanitation as the next person, but I'm no fan of taking awkward pictures. I just smiled and laughed my way through that bit of the visit and always reserved it for last.

The whole experience was largely made enjoyable by good company. I worked with the brilliant Jean Bosco, a clinical psychology student at National University, who took on the project with amazing fortitude and surprising enthusiasm. He took care to interpret conversation in detail, which helped me tremendously in understanding our interviewees, their perspectives and concerns. We were usually joined by another Jean Bosco, a very tall, quiet and humble version who appeared out of thin air one day to guide us around. It took some time to draw it out, but we eventually found out that he was a door to door evangelist in a past life, and therefore acquired an impressively detailed knowledge of the area. His expertise really came in handy when it came time to map village boundaries. Most village boundaries extended from the road up top to the drainage at the bottom of the hill, which was simple enough. Some, however, were identifiable only by longstanding landmarks like avocado trees, which meant that the mapping project required lots of bushwhacking and tap dancing with tin foil hats to find a signal - otherwise recognized as blind faith and patience.

Rwanda: A Thousand Hills and 2,500 Verb Conjugations

Kigali struck me right away as a place that could really grow on me. Thanks to Steph I had the advantage of falling in with friends as soon as I arrived. Nic and his roommates offered me a place to stay and relax during my first days in Rwanda, and introduced me to the local version of a few beloved activities. In the first 48 hours I met with a newly minted hiking group, scheduled a mtn bike ride with a new set of riding partners, found the ultimate frisbee group, and the local Hashers for weekend runs. My first ride was up the back side of Mt. Kigali. The rainy season hadn't started, so the dust was fluffy, stubborn (in that it can momentarily steer your front wheel in unintended directions), and inches thick. I pushed up the first steep ascent only to get bucked off at the apex. I had at least 10 little hands immediately pulling me upright, dusting me off, and pushing me up the hill at a full (and impressively sustained) run. The ride took us through several villages- to the unimaginable joy of every kid in sight. Rwanda is very densely populated; it's the size of Maryland with twice the population. There isn't a remote possibility of biking anywhere and escaping notice. Population density aside, our fairness and general "otherness" is recognizable from miles away. All this really means is that there are non-stop gaggles of children running along side entourage-style. Besides the enthusiastic and persistent crowds, the best part about the rides are the plentiful single track pathways spidering along the hillsides and through drainages that connect climbs. I have unexpectedly landed in a mountain biking paradise.

Here Comes the Avalanche

After the last two months of travel, there is more to write about than ever. From the beginning...of the middle...of where I left off.

From Pai we made our way south to Mai Hong Son, following a route artfully called “The Loop” that’s popular with motorcycle tourists. The first three days of climbing out of Pai had me hanging my body over the front of my bike to keep the front tire from popping up off the road. The hills were steep and relentless and necessary to tackle as early in the morning as possible. We stopped in small towns, waiting out the heat in the afternoon and exploring in the early evenings. By this time we were miles from the Mekong and making our way along the Moie, an unofficial border between Myanmar and Thailand. A day out of Mai Hong Son we ran into the first and only cycle tourist we would meet on the road in Thailand- a jovial, Hawaiian shirt clad Kiwi traveling light with two tiny, half empty panniers. I was green with envy. Because our original plan had us biking through the mountains of Tibet and Nepal through May, we were lugging at least five extra pounds of winter gear, including 3lb zero-degree sleeping bags. The extra weight was particularly insulting as the terrain steepened and the thermometer rose, but ditching the gear wasn’t an option considering the last leg of the trip would take us through the roughest conditions.

Mae Hong Son had a subdued feel to it. The city was tucked in a lush valley and showed all signs of a popular tourist haunt, but the hollow restaurants and quiet strip of shops along the main market implied that the escalating violence in Bangkok was responsible for thinning the herd. The central lake and surrounding temples made up the urban draw. We found a comfortable hotel nestled in an alley off of one of the concentric roads ringing the lakefront and took two days to rest rubbery legs and explore by motor bike. The Mae Surin falls were spectacular. Our waterfall visits had been hit or miss (mostly miss) due to the delay in the monsoon, but this time we lucked out. The falls normally rage, so the dry season is really the only time of year when swimming is possible. We played under the tamer cascades and dove into pool after pool of refreshing, clear, green-blue water. The park was free (as compared to the $10 fees we paid near Loie) and empty. We headed to the hot spring on the other side of town to find it had been captured and held hostage as an expensive day spa, so we skipped it to cruise the countryside and chase after a hard to find canyon. We found underwhelming trickling falls, enveloped in uniquely weathered, spongy rock formations resembling bronze meringue whipped into skyward peaks and slopes. Tanks nearly drained, we headed back to the bikes to find them, and the nearby fence, literally dripping with fluorescent yellow caterpillars. I did my best to shake and sweep them off, but found myself dodging darts of bright mush catapulting from nooks and crannies for a good mile.

From Mae Hong Son we took on a less touristed route and made out way to Mae Sot, a transshipment point and the only open border (for tourists) between Thailand and Myanmar. The road grades between these two cities remain the steepest I have ever cycled…or seen. The combination of steep terrain and rural surrounding meant that we had to maintain high enough mileage to reach food and water by the end of each day. Mae Sariang was a comfortable mid-way stop. We stayed at a family run hotel and the giggly company of two sisters who came to our room toting a costume box and plenty of spunk. It rained with impressive force the morning we planned to head out of town. We had only 40k to go to Mae Ngao National Park, so we risked frying in midday heat and headed out just before noon. The skies were friendly when we left, but the clouds gathered, darkened and burst just 2k from our destination. When we arrived we were told that the park was closed, despite the fact that our Kiwi friend has stayed just a few days before. The park rangers were reluctant to offer up one of the empty bungalows, but apparently our pathetic looks of dejection and our drenched state was enough to win us a huge three bed/two bath bungalow in the end. The power and water had been shut off to the cabins for the season, so our hosts brought us a thermos of hot bathing water and delivered omelets, steamed forest mushrooms, and a pot of rice for dinner. The downpour finally subsided sometime after sunset, promptly followed by a barrage of winged jungle bugs. Thousands of them found their way through the small holes in the window screens and honed in on our headlamps. We sealed off the rooms as best we could, and woke up the next morning to a carpet of carcasses.

Back in India

I have much more to write about my two months in Thailand, but I'm now in India and about to lose internet access for the next 4 to 6 weeks. Here is the general itinerary:

I'll be riding with four friends from Corvallis: Dave, Chris, Danielle and Nyle. Dave is actually "stuck" in Thailand (there are worse things) trying to rectify an infuriating visa problem, but he should join us in a week or two in Keylong. In the mean time, the four of us will take a train to Pathenkot this evening and make our way to Dalhousie and on to Chamba. From Chamba we will take on Sach Pass, one of the highest and most scenic in India. This section should be the most challenging of the trip, so of course I look forward to it...the most. After surviving the pass we will ride along the Manali-Leh highway to Leh, taking side trips along the way. An excursion through the Nubra Valley should be a major highlight with views of the two highest ranges in the world, the Karakoram and the Himalaya. I hyperventilate just thinking about it (the spectacle and the thin air). The plan is to take a bus from Leh to Srinagar to avoid biking the highly militarized area. We'll finish the trip with few days on a house boat in Srinagar in early August before flying back to Delhi and heading off to the next adventure. I promise too much detail and lots of pictures in August! Til then:)

So Much Catching Up!

I have fallen way off the blog wagon. Way off. I'll attempt to breeze through the last month or so without killing off the best bits and pieces with haste. We stayed in Chiang Mai for four days- our longest stint anywhere since Vang Vieng. We took to the hills with unloaded bikes and made the most of our location at the foothills of Doi Inthanon National Park, climbing to the peak at Doi Pio and heading back toward town through lychee orchards. The mtn riding made evident the need to get the bikes tuned. We found a bike magician at Jackie's Bikes who replaced Dave's pedals, crank, chain and cassette and made some much needed realignments to both rigs for an amazing bargain.
Chiang Mai proper was a moted grid of western bars and bakeries bespeckled with towering wats and gilded statues of the Buddha. The constant rush of traffic was best avoided by ducking into the sois (back alleys) that crisscross the patchwork. I managed to find the tastiest and cheapest crop of mangoes at a stray stand down such an alley. If mangoes could dream, they would dream of tasting as good as these mangoes. Good golly. I spent a fair amount of my stay gorging on sticky fruit, machine cleaning my entire wardrobe (twice), gawking at the cost of used books, wrinkling my nose at the Starbucks, McDonald's, and 7-11s on every block (except to dash in and bask in the frigid AC...I'm weak), and reading up on the intensifying battle in Bangkok. By the time we left CM the army had overrun the Red Shirt barricades with tanks, shot a leader in the head (mid interview) and arrested hordes of others. Aside from a red flagged barricade on a street corner and smashed ATMs and telephone booths the day after the government's siege, we didn't see a hint of unrest or hear any concern from locals. A curfew was imposed the morning we left town, so we left at ten minutes after it lifted and left without a hitch.
We made our way to Pai in one 135k push. It wasn't planned or necessarily desired, but we made due after finding little accommodation and no vacancies. The first 50k out of the city were mellow. We found ourselves beginning the ascent just before noon with a very fortunate blanket of clouds protecting us from the mid-day heat. The grade was sustained but relatively mellow. A few showers kept things cool and a jovial band of firemen let us fill up our water bottles mid-way to the summit. From the top we refueld with fried rice and watched with mixed awe and concern at Dave's calf muscles twitching with fatigue. The ride down was seriously steep, windy and hot, but it shot us 8k from town. We limped directly to a guesthouse on the river and passed out.