Billy Joel, Cuban Cigars, and Dante’s 3rd Ring of Hell

On April 2 -5 I taught in a remote campus of KHI. I was teaching exercise physiology to the first year physical therapy students [As an aside teaching exercise physiology – which is already difficult because it has always been upper division course– to students who’s English is their third (not second) language proved to be quite a challenge]. However, I was impressed with their effort and level of understanding. But what made this more of a challenge than necessary were the other distractions...

The scene from the front of my classroom

This remote campus was in a small lake town called Kibuye on the western border of Rwanda – very near the Democratic Republic of Congo. As one of my previous blogs indicated I was extremely nervous about the transportation to Kibuye. I was nervous because of recent grenade attacks as bus stations as well as the bus ride and the accommodations. Let me just say – I was right to be nervous! No grenade attacks, but the bus sucked royally!



But… before I describe that experience let me start by saying… So that nobody thinks I am complaining too much that Kibuye is certainly one of the most beautiful places on the planet! No one lied to me when they told me this place would be beautiful. When God made beautiful places – this was certainly one of His highlights. And about everywhere you look was a perfect postcard picture.

Having said that… Let me be as clear as I know how to be, in spite of its beauty I think I was in Dante second ring maybe even third ring of hell! Technology and the rest of the world forgot that this place existed!

Tight ride... this was the ride home - so i was able to get my
bag under my feet... but notice how my neighbors hand slipped
right under my arm and between my legs to hold on for dear
life during those hairpin turns.

Before I get ahead of myself… Let me describe the bus ride. I arrived at the bus station 20 minutes before departure to find an empty bus. I was thrilled because that meant I had the pick of the seats. I picked a nice aisle window seat. Within 10 minutes the bus was full. And by full I mean 26 people in a bus of 19 seats. Yup – that is correct they put 26 people on a three hour bus ride that only had seats for 19 people. This was not one of your greyhound type buses either this was a VW van from the 1960s with a slightly extended cab. It was absolutely horrible. I had two bags both of which were on my lap. My roller bag suitcase and my laptop backpack were piled on my laptop to my chin. At one point I saw a cockroach crawling on the wall next to my seat, but couldn’t even swat at it cuz my arms where trapped under my bags. So I sat there in my seat knees forward, upright posture, bags in my lap, piled up to my chin with the Rwandan man tightly and intimately pressed up against my left side. I am so glad that on my right side was a window – if not I might have gone legitimately crazy. So for the next three hours traveling at about 40 or 50 mph on roads that every quarter-mile had 180° hairpin turn I sat there and stared out my window trying not to smell the smells or think about how cramped my legs were. I did however have my MP3 player and I was able to listen to contemporary American music. Mind you they have a lot of American music here but it’s all hits from the 1970s – a lot of Rod Stewart, James Taylor, and Barry Manilow…  

One of the scenes from the side of the road... chicke truck
accident. dead and alive...

Once I arrived in Kibuye I was scared to death… It was literally a Western-style ghost town. What I was expecting in my mind was totally different from what I got. Fortunately, someone was there to pick me up and take me campus. Once I arrived on campus – as I’ve already described – I recognized how truly beautiful it was.

The accommodation was a tiny little guesthouse cabin-type place where visiting faculty stay while they teach. There are no permanent faculty on this campus everyone travels from Kigali to teach the first-year students in all the different programs. One of the things that KHI does is keeps all the freshman for all the programs in one location and then once they pass their freshman year they matriculate on to the Kigali campus. So there were about 800 freshman in all the different programs on this campus living in the dorms.

The thriving metropolis of Kibuye, rwanda... Thats the
Best Western Hotel to the far right of the pic.

The first room they gave me was probably 10 x 12 with a large foam sponge as a bed, mosquito net, and a folding chair. I laughed to myself and said this would be fun and asked to see the restroom, which was a community bathroom at the other end of the hallway. I was escorted to the bathroom and was shocked and horrified at what I saw fortunately I noticed that there was no shower. When I asked about it they said they didn’t realize that this bathroom did not have shower. So they moved me to another dorm – however the other room they wanted to give me was already occupied so I would just have to wait until that person left. Several hours later the person is gone they changed the sheets and moved me in. Still attend by 12 room with a foam sponge in a folding chair… But at least this facility had hot water and shower.

I was introduced to several people and they were very pleasant and very friendly. I asked where the cafeteria was and if there were food and they can just looked at me and chuckled and said there wasn’t any. If I needed any food I would have to go into town to get it. Of course the campus driver was in Kigali getting the car repaired so there was no way to get into town. So I went the first day without any food. Fortunately I had a half a can of Pringles and a packet of Keebler cheese peanut butter crackers that my wife made me take. If I not had those I very well may have starved. I ate the cheese crackers for lunch and the Pringles for dinner.

The team bathhouse... I "showered" out of that red bucket
in the tub.

The next morning at 7 AM I went to the restroom and try to take a shower and found out that the shower doesn’t actually work. Yes – the room has a shower, but the shower doesn’t work! When asking about this later apparently I wasn’t specific enough that I wanted a working shower. They just understood that I wanted a room with access to a shower nevermind that it didn’t work. So I was instructed on the finer techniques of how to shower yourself with a bucket of hot water from the sink. And yes that’s exactly what I did. Imagine this… me in all of my splendor and glory standing in a filthy dirty the restroom afraid to touch anything splashing water out of a bucket onto my body to get myself wet, once wet lathered up with my soap and then splashing myself out of a bucket of water literally hands gripping each splash to get all of the soap rinsed off. I was pissed! And it is now that I realize I have entered Dante’s third ring of hell!

My classroom - no chairs.

But having a great attitude and armed with positive thoughts I laughed it off, shook my head, counted it as a wonderful learning experience and proceeded to the class. Of course no one was there and none of the desks had any chairs. I was told that the students would start arriving about 8 o’clock in that they would be responsible to find their own chairs from other classrooms that were not being used. Apparently there are only a finite number of chairs on campus and there are not enough chairs to accommodate every classroom so the chairs rotate from classroom to classroom depending on what classroom is being use and when the students need them. Very interesting.

Flipped a coin on what to eat for dinner and which
one for breakfast

Mind you I still have not had any real food yet and I’m about to lecture for four straight hours. I resigned myself to have to wait till lunch break when somebody could take me into town to get some food. This was day one. I had two more days of this… And by the way after the genocide commemoration I have to go back for another week and a half.

By the second day… Oh, I did end up getting someone to take me into town to get me some food. I won’t even bother to describe that adventure suffice to say for lunch I was able to secure two pieces of flatbread – called chipatti – and two mini bananas. Hardly enough calories to sustain my basal metabolic rate!

Anyway… By the second day I had become very skilled at taking sink showers by splashing myself – something I’m quite proud of! Class went fine and the students were very engaged and appreciated the fact that I could speak clearly in spite of my American accent. But it was certainly a new challenge to try to teach a very complex and difficult subject to first-year students in the language and with an accent that they do not know very well. Keep in mind that exercise physiology uses a lot of words like a “Adenisone triphosphate,”  “acetylcholine,” and complex chemical interactions… trying to describe the creatine kinase reaction to students who don’t even understand you when you say “hello” was challenging – but I learned a lot!

My office and prep space for the week... a TV tray and folding
chair :-) My back is against the bed... very tight working space.
The bus trip preped me for it...

I had arranged to be picked up by the campus coordinator at 6 PM for dinner that night… I was excited because I was going to ask of you will go to town and eat at what he called “an American-style restaurant” for dinner… Well when 8:45 came around and he still hadn’t come I decided to call him… Long story, but He had forgotten me! He went to dinner with another colleague from the University and forgot to pick me up… So I went without dinner that night as well!

By the third day showers were no problem, in fact they were becoming easy. But most of all I remember that I had packed one of the Cuban cigars that I had bought for Dr. John Fischer in my bag – in case of an emergency – and this was an emergency – sorry John, but I smoked a cigar that was meant for you! And I’m glad I did. I found a very nice spot on the lake took my folding chair from my bedroom. Set next to the lake, smoked a Cuban cigar (Montecristo Open Master from Habana) – which was excellent by the way, and listen to Billy Joel’s greatest hits. It was surreal. I truly, truly, truly enjoyed that time in one of the most beautiful places on earth. At least for a few moments I forgot about the bus trip, forgot about the classroom fiasco, forgot about the showers, forgot about the no food, forgot about my foam sponge mattress… Enjoyed the beautiful scenery and time alone with my thoughts!

In a few weeks I go back, but I will be prepared mentally and physically for what I will encounter and will have a much, much, much better experience!