Shopping Adventure

We have been here about 11 days now and it is not getting any easier. Note, that it is not hard per se, it is just not getting any easier. We gotten pretty good at flagging down taxis to get to the places we need to. Describing the places we want to get to is very difficult because there are no street signs or house numbers here. This is a zoning commission’s worst nightmare. Any place you want to go you have to describe what it is close to and then tell the driver (if they speak English) turn by turn once you get close. If they don’t speak English you just have them drop you off as close as you can and walk the rest of the way.

Jay goofing around at dinner time

Basically life is good here and very simple, it is just figuring out what to do with our time that is difficult – it’s amazing how much we depend on reliable and fast Internet access to communicate and how much of our time we use watching television. In the long run this can be very good for us – but the withdrawal it’s pretty tough. We have been reading a lot, on average we are reading 3 to 4 hours every day. That will also prove to be very good for us. Today (one Saturday every month) is some sort of national work day, so all the businesses are closed and everybody is supposed to be outside contributing to the greater good of the community by cleaning etc. On that note we are found Kigali to be a very clean city (other than the exhaust from the automobiles, which obviously have no emissions regulations here). We also just found out about a kid’s soccer league that runs on Saturdays, but of course not today because of the workday… So next Saturday we should be able to take the boys for an afternoon of “open field” soccer.

House Hunters International

Other exciting news is that we have been contacted by the popular television show House Hunters International! We talked with the producer of the show via telephone for about 1 hour yesterday and they are very interested in our story. The paperwork has already arrived (waivers, informed consents, etc.) and it looks as if we are going to film for house hunters international here in Kigali and document our house hunt. We will keep you posted on that and how it progresses. Of course, it is not 100% for sure yet, as we have to get waivers signed by different landlords etc. but as far as house hunters international is concerned we are “a go” and they would love to tell our story. This should be great publicity for Kigali, the Fulbright program, Bowling Green State University, the Kigali Health Institute, etc. pretty cool huh?

Our Apartment

Nate playing with lizards on the porch

We have a wonderful little apartment. It is a two bedroom one bath, with an efficiency kitchen. The efficiency kitchen is perhaps what is most bothersome for us. There’s no real oven or stove to work on and the counter space is nonexistent. Therefore, it makes it very difficult to prepare meals. Also making meals difficult is the fact that everything needs to be prepared well in advance and thoroughly washed with the boiled-water bleach solution bath so that we do not get sick. There is no laundry here so we (mostly Angie) have to do the laundry in the sink. Our landlord promised us that she would purchase a washing machine for us in a few days… We will see? It is proven very difficult to get anything done in any realistic amount of time here. What would literally take us about 30 minutes to complete in the United States takes 6 hours. For example, we had quite a grocery shopping experience yesterday….

Grocery shopping

Well today (January 25) was the day we tried to do grocery shopping. We had a totally different expectation of how it would happen – and of course – it didn’t happen how we expected it to – but it did happen.  We (i.e., Matt, as Angie decided not to go last-minute and what a wise choice that proved to be for her) had to hire a driver for the day and it literally took us six full hours to get about four day’s worth of stuff. While it took a mind boggling length of time to get what we needed, we did find out that we can get just about anything we need. That’s the good news. The bad news is it’s very, very, very expensive to get it and it takes an incredible amount of time and inconvenience to get it. We had to go to about eight different stores, none of which were close to each other at all, to get the supplies and groceries we needed. Making it even more difficult was that driving across the city, you literally take your life into your own hands. The traffic laws here are more like “suggestions” and nobody follows them, because nobody enforces them. What is worse is there are about 100 million little Moto bikes (taxis) that cause bottlenecks on every street. And then navigating the marketplaces is another adventure in and of itself. No one speaks English and everything is bartered for… So buying 6 oranges took me about 20 minutes, repeat that for carrots, one bell pepper, potatoes, bananas, pineapple, and few other small things I was done grocery shopping… and just those things alone took me about two hours. We still had to buy meat, kitchen supplies (bowls, cups, knives, etc.), rice, eggs… Only the basic necessities. I could’ve purchase that all at Walmart in 40 minutes – no problem. Here only got half of what we needed in six hours. This brings a totally new perspective to a popular phrase by ex-pats and Africans alike, around here, “African time.” Also interesting is that the second you walk into the market and you are mobbed by porters wanting you to hire them to carry your groceries for you for what amounts to a few cents tip. There are no shopping carts, no shopping bags, or convenient way to carry groceries you must hire these porters to carry everything… Of course the porters get kickbacks if they bring you to a certain vendor in the market so you being pulled 100 different directions by 100 different people, and three different languages all the time and all you trying to get his six oranges. Anyway… The day proved to be most exciting and by “exciting” I mean frustrating, exhausting, and educational.



I start teaching next week and based on the faculty meetings that I have attended so far will prove to be just as exciting! Stay tuned next week for more exciting updates, same time, same bat channel…

Jay found a Hippo tooth



These moto-bikes are dangerous... someone killed on them everyday!!!! but there are 1000's of them craming the streets.



My favorite pic of all... my super-trooper wife doing laundry by hand in the sink! I love you babe!!!!