A Day in the Life

I planned on being much more vigilant about regularly updating this blog, but have been finding, for the first time in a while, that I have very little free time.  Between my morning routine at the gym a 9 hour day at the kindergarten and orphanage, and a long dinner with a couple beers, I usually find myself very tired after dinner.  Lame excuse I know...let's get to the blogging.  This blog post will take you through a typial day in the life here in Rwanda.

Early Morning: Luxury (7:00 - 9:00)

I sure am getting used to my early morning routine.  I wake up around 6:45 AM.  Then it's a 25 minute walk to Serena, 30 minutes in the gym, 5 minutes in the steam room, and then another 30 minutes at the breakfast buffet.  It definitely feels weird engaging in such luxury when you consider what the rest of my day looks like.  But if anything, this gourmet morning routine only fuels my fire, increasing my desire to help the kids at Gisimba and give them my 100%.  Just two short days at Gisimba has helped me fully appreciate that money does not buy happiness.  But it hasn't made me lose my appreciation for a nice plate of bacon and eggs and a hearty bowl of fruit in the morning.

Mornings:  (9:00 - Noon)

In the mornings, I've been helping at a kindergarten that's attached to the orphanage.  Along with a young female Australian volunteer named Jordan, I've been working with 4 and 5 year olds, teaching them basic English word clusters (counting to ten, animals, shapes, etc.), singing songs I forgot existed (Old MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle), and running around with them outside.  There are about 48 kids in the class, and, without the volunteers, only one teacher responsible for the classroom.

Among the many challenges of working with these little rugrats is getting their attention.  My vocabulary in their language of KinyaRwandan is up to about 15 words, but it's still difficult to get the kids to pay attention with such a strong language barrier.  The kids love the songs, however, especially ones with physical components like "Ring around the Rosy" and "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes."  I can safely say that a year ago, I would never have pictured myself singing "Do the Hokey Pokey" with a bunch four year olds in the middle of Africa.

Jordan surveys the sea of youngsters

On Thursday afternoon, we took the kids outside for an extended time of running around.  Jordan and I tried to teach the kids relay races, an attempt that failed miserably.  Instead, every time I started running to demonstrate, the kids would begin chasing me.  This led to an impromptu game of "Chase Alex," whereupon the kids became increasingly aggressive upon catching me, eventually to the point where I'd have 3 kids trying to hang onto my neck, 3 trying to reach into my pockets, and another 2 or 3 trying to pull my pants down.  Needless to say, "Chase Alex" did not last long.

The early stages of "Chase Alex" - the game became increasingly violent

Overall the kids are a ton of fun to work with.  They are for the most part extremely happy, and they seem to genuinely love having Jordan and I around.  At one point, we gave out crayons and pieces of paper and had the kids draw triangles, circles and squares.  Jordan and I were nearly swarmed with kids excitedly running up to us and proudly showing off their handiwork.  Moments like that make working with these kids incredibly rewarding.

Lunch (Noon - 12:45)

For lunch, I head to one of the nearby cafes with the three other volunteers at Gisimba: Anne and Jordan from Australia, and Richard from Minnesota.   The food is unbelievably cheap; 1,000 RWF (~$1.60 USD) gets you a full plate of goat meat, potatoes, rice, fries, and vegetables.  Nonetheless, I've been the only one regularly eating the meat at these cafes; ever since Jordan got quite sick on her second day in Rwanda, the other three have been understandably careful with what they eat.  As a professional gambler, I feel it would be sacrilegious to not take some risks with what I eat.

On Thursday, we headed to the local market, a very typically Rwandan experience.  The market is broken into a food section (largely consisting of fruit, with some rice and beans), and a non-food section, with everything from handmade tapestries to electronics to shampoo.  After eating a delicious mango that cost me only 250 RWF, I stumbled across a small butcher shop just across from the market.  Immediately, I noticed a huge number of flies and other bugs hovering around, and picking on the meat.  One of the butchers aggressively tried to sell me on a cut of goat, but I politely passed, desperately hoping that the local cafes we've been eating at get their meat from another source.  Hopefully cooking the meat would kill off any germs put in place by these pests, but the experience just highlighted the (likely financially necessary) more lenient health laws in place in Rwanda.

Early Afternoon: Downtime (1:00 - 3:30)

After lunch, I switch my focus from the kindergarten to the orphanage.  The early afternoon is traditionally a period of downtime at Gisimba.  The kids often gather in the cafeteria, watching their favorite movie (a completely ridiculous Rwandan zombie movie that uses a mix of live actors and animation), or sitting in the computer lab playing games.  The computer lab at Gisimba was apparently donated by a Korean group, but is now in very rough shape, operating on something like Windows 95, with many of the programs not working and constant error messages popping up.  It's better than nothing, however, and some of the older kids have even been using the computers to write resumes.

I brought four chess sets to Gisimba, not really sure what to expect.  The reception from several of the older kids has been overwhelmingly positive.  They enjoy not only playing full games, but sitting down and learning tactics like pins, forks, skewers and mate-in-2s (chess nerd speak).  I've been spending this portion of the day mostly playing chess, which serves as a nice break between the energetic youngsters in the morning and the athletics in the afternoon.

Jean-Paul tries to remember proper theory in the Winawer variation of the French Defense

Late Afernoon: Hoops City (3:30 - 6:00)

My goal for the year 2016 is to coach the Rwandan national basketball team to relevancy in the continent of Africa.  For now, I'll settle for being the coach of the Gisimba basketball team, an eclectic group of 12-18 year old youngsters who favour hoops over the much more popular football (soccer to us Canucks and Yankees).  Unfortunately there isn't a basketball net at Gisimba (one of several areas I'm considering donating to at the orphanage), so we head to a nearby public court where a myriad of streetballers of varying skills congregate in the afternoon, donning Lebron James jerseys, ready to strut their stuff.

Basketball has always been one of my favourite sports to play and watch, and despite my mediocre athletic abilities, I've played enough organized ball to know the fundamentals pretty well.  Before heading over to the court, I've been practicing dribbling and passing drills with the kids.  We've been to the court twice now, and walked into two very different scenarios.  The first time, there were some kids already there, but we were able to work ourselves into a couple competitive games of 3 on 3.  A The second time, we walked right into a pretty competitive full court 5 on 5 game, complete with a referee and about 50 fans sitting on court-side benches.  We weren't able to take to the court that time, but enjoyed some pretty entertaining streetball, and did more passing and dribbling drills.

Core members of the Gisimba basketball team.  From Left to Right: Olivier #1, Sebastien, Danifique, Coach Alex, Debra, Olivier #2

Dinner: (7:30 - 9:30)

Dinner can be anywhere from grabbing something easy and quick near the apartment to extravagant dinners out with my mother and her work colleagues.  Wednesday January 9th, which happens to be my mum's birthday, proved to be the most enjoyable dinner to date.  A total of 10 people attended: my mum, her colleague Faye from Atlanta, another colleague named Sophia from the UK, three local Rwandan anaesthesiologists (Bona, Paulanne, and Christian), Bona's wife, my mum's friend and former tour guide Steven, our friend and driver, Emmy, and myself.

The venue was a downtown Indian restaurant that is a favourite of ex-Pats and local Rwandans alike. For just $200 USD, the ten of us ate an absolute feast, with a mix of spicy and non-spicy dishes, meat (mostly chicken and goat) and vegetarian dishes, and several types of bread and other accompaniments.  The highlight of the dinner happened around 9:00 PM when the lights all of a sudden went out.  Naturally, I assumed this was a power outage, until I heard a bunch of music come on, and the entire wait staff began parading around the restaurant singing happy birthday for my mum.  

The entire parade went on for nearly five minutes, and included 3 songs and culminated in the presentation of a delicious cake.  While I've seen this sort of thing happen from time to time at restaurants back home, the effort and extent of the celebration by the staff was truly A+ and the cake didn't taste too bad either.  

So there you have it...a typical day in the life here in Kigali.  By the time the dinner bill rolls around, my eyes are usually beginning to close, ready to get back to my apartment and fall into a deep sleep, optimistic that it will be undisturbed by the mosquitos who have taken a fondness to my skin.  It's the first time in quite some time I've been on such a regulated routine, but it's a good change of pace, and the experience has been extremely rewarding so far.