It's Wednesday morning. The kids are at school and Caleb is playing golf with his dad, who finally arrived at 2 am on Monday after lots of delays. The weather has turned here - rainy season seems to be over and it's gotten much warmer. Still very pleasant this morning, looking out on our garden which is in full bloom thanks to Theo's hard work and the past month's rains. The oranges are finally ripe, and we've been enjoying fresh green beans and little tomatillo-like berries. Some tomatoes are almost ripe, and the mangoes are getting bigger, though I'm not sure if they'll be ready before we leave... which is in less than 3 weeks... which is hard to comprehend. Our impending departure, and everything we have left to do before we go, is very front-of-mind right now, even as we continue to try to stay present and connected and, this week, to spend time with Grandpa and give him a glimpse into our life here.
Adding to my sense of being in multiple places and headspaces is the fact that I took a trip to DC last week. I was conflicted about going... the Clean Cooking Implementation Science Network (which funded some of my work in Ghana over the past several years and includes a great group of researchers I really enjoy), was having a wrap-up & next steps meeting, and I was excited to join the conversation and reconnect with that community. At the same time, it was very hard to leave here with so little time left. Mazie was quite salty about me going... "Why do YOU get to go when you're making ME be here in the first place?" I was also not looking forward to the travel itself... two long trips there & back in less than a week (I left on Sunday and got back Saturday afternoon).
In the end, the trip was great - I crushed the jetlag (slept well on the long plane ride and got myself on East Coast time without any trouble), had a great meeting (lots of colleagues have worked in Rwanda, so I actually got some good perspective and advice on work I'm trying to start here as well as motivation to publish more of my Ghana results), and got to have dinner with two friends from my JPB Environmental Health Fellows program, Leah and Jen. It was both odd and very familiar to be back in the US... a glimpse of what it will likely be like when we actually go home, I expect. Interestingly, the biggest thing that stood out to me walking around Bethesda and DC when I arrived on Monday was how QUIET it was. I don't think of it as being oppressively loud here, but as I'm sitting back here in Kigali writing there are lots of sounds in the background... birds chirping, a kid crying and then laughing, someone hammering, people talking outside our walls, cars & motos honking in the distance, children's music playing at a nearby school (Frere Jacques & Wheels on the Bus). The church on our street also has a loudspeaker and brings church right to us for multiple hours a week. At night we hear our neighbor's baby crying and dogs barking. I've gotten used to the sounds and don't think about them a lot... now that I am paying attention, I think I enjoy the reminders of what's going on around me, the sense of being surrounded by other lives and experiences. So it was funny to notice the quietness in DC, even in the middle of a big city. I was out & about during the day on a Monday so I think it was a particularly quiet time, maybe not representative of average noise levels in the area, but still noticeably different than here. Makes me curious what will stand out when we get back.
For now: focusing on the next few days with Grandpa and then getting organized for our last two (!) weeks.
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Photo recap of my trip:
Heading to DC via Addis Ababa on Sunday. A little skeptical about this whole travel plan. Taking my shadow along with me for moral support.
Walking the mall on Monday. Shadow's still here.
This fancy breakfast tartine definitely hit the spot. (DC prices were a bit of a shock, however.)
Super pumped about some serious nerd time & catching up with colleague-friends. These alluvial plots alone were worth traveling for.
Dinner with Leah & Jen! Definitely a highlight... love these brilliant ladies.
And I'm back! Home with my silly family Saturday afternoon.
Special guest blog - started last weekend and just finished today.
Alexa had a double sleepover at her friends house Name; Sophia.
Sophia got a new jacuzzi! Alexa said they bathed in it all two nights! The second time they went in it it got too cold 🥶, too high, and too bubbly. She said a white liquid spewed from holes in the sides of it.
Sophia didn't finish some homework and her nanny had Alexa help her with it sens she was all ready finished.
She said They had pasta for dinner and launch both days! But they also had some 🍞 before launch on the second day.
As some of you know, I got a tattoo a couple of months ago. It's of a gorilla, some imigongo (rwandan art), and my Kinyarwanda name, Kalibu. While this is a significant tattoo, it was really just a way to break the seal so that I could get the tattoo that I've had in my head for more than 8 years.
When Mazie was born (or before actually) she was given the Elephant as her "spirit animal." We're not that spiritual, but the imagery and the animal had a lot to do with Katie's mom, Katie, and this baby, "peanut." Elephants are matriarchical (is that a word) and the line from Tracy to Mazie is very sweet.
When Athena was in Katie's tummy (that's not how babies are made) Katie asked me and Mazie what we thought this baby's animal should be. I was thinking Tiger in my head and little 2 year old Mazie said, "Tiger." So we went with it and called Athena tiger for the rest of the pregnancy.
Our third child was given the owl as her animal. This story was a little more about balancing the three. We thought about a water animal or a flying animal or a whole list of other land animals. I think we settled on the owl, because it's wise and quiet and little, but it's actually a stealth predator. Somehow, being the youngest of 3, there was some thought that this little animal would be fierce. So, Alexandra (aka Zae, aka Alexa, aka Lexi, aka Monster) is our owl.
I'm not a good artist, but in my head I pictured an image of an Elephant with a Tiger between her legs, with an own between her legs. Kind of a Russian doll of my daughters' animals. The image didn't include any reference to Katie, but I was okay with that. This is a tattoo about my kids. We were pretty sure that we weren't having a 4th, so 8 years ago I wanted to get this tattoo. I don't have any tattoos, so it is a pretty big deal and I haven't been able to pull the trigger.
Fast forward to a couple of months ago and I got the gorilla tattoo with almost no planning and much less significance. The Gorilla is my animal, but the whole tattoo is a "welcoming" tattoo and a remembrance of Rwanda. (The Gorilla is a "welcoming" animal, Imigongo is "welcoming" art, and the word Karibu is "welcome" in Swahili)
A few weeks ago, when we were on safari, Katie said, "I think my spirit animal is a tree." And then my tattoo design was nearly complete. I decided to put an Acacia tree over my animals to represent their mama watching over them. Finally, I decided to add roots under the whole design to represent my parents and siblings (I was the youngest of 4 for several years before Shannon took the mantle.) In design, we decided that the art needed ground between the animals and the roots, otherwise they look like they're floating. I like the ground we went with and to me it represents my community...the world that we all stand on and in.
So, here are the iterations of the tattoo with the last one being on my body. :)
Last weekend the kids had Monday off (Labor Day) and we had them skip school on Friday for a long weekend adventure. A big part of why we're here in Rwanda in the first place is because of the wonderful experiences I had in Tanzania, one country over, while I was in grad school. Visiting Zanzibar was a highlight of my Tanzania time, and when we decided (for a variety of reasons) to come to Rwanda instead of Tanzania for this adventure, I was determined to find an opportunity to take the family over there. It didn't disappoint. We had a wonderful time, and even the hard-to-please teenager expressed her satisfaction with the experience. (Something like, "That was actually a fun trip." High praise.)
Boarding the plane to Dar es Salaam
We left Friday morning, flew from Kigali to Dar es Salaam (2 hr flight) and then had a couple of hours at the airport before our flight to Zanzibar. Unfortunately when we went to check in for that flight they didn't have a record of our booking (or they could see it in the system, and we could see that our credit card was charged, but apparently the airline didn't actually issue our tickets?) so we ended up having to scramble and re-buy them and then race to catch our flight. Luckily it's a pretty cheap flight and we were on our way.
Waiting for our flight to Zanzibar (before we figured out we didn't actually have tickets)
Getting ready to land...
Also, Caleb sat next to the Mayor of Dar es Salaam on the flight over. Of course he did.
After a quick 20 min hop, we were on the island of Unguja! (Zanzibar is made up of 2 big islands: Unguja is the bigger, southern one, and Pemba is to the north.) Our taxi driver, Momo, picked us up at the airport and drove us 20 min to Stone Town, where we drove through the winding streets to the Tembo House Hotel. The hotel was beautiful and colorful (it had a very Wes Anderson vibe) and right on the beach. Apparently it was the US Embassy at one point. (One thing I didn't know when I booked is that it's a temperance hotel, meaning no alcohol sold or to be consumed on the premises. Zanzibar's population is 90% Muslim so booze is a little more limited than we're used to, but we adjusted fine.)
Tembo House Hotel at night...
And in the morning.
Kids' room
Looking out toward the water at night...
And in the morning.
Going to make this one into a puzzle. There are a lot of cats in Zanzibar.
After we got checked in and settled, we walked over to Forodhani Garden and its night market. We were immediately engaged by the first vendor selling an impressive assortment of seafood and meat skewers. They took our order, sat us down on a bench, and brought us several plates piled with octopus, calamari, shrimp, chicken, beef, and bread. It was all pretty dry and not that great, AND we paid a robust mzungu price for it... all part of the adventure.
Over the next couple of days Caleb took photos of the market area from the same spot at different times of day... pretty fun.
Bellies partially full, we wandered the market a little more and then decided to go to a restaurant down there the water for a little more (higher quality) food and some ridiculous large cocktails with bottles of Corona in them. (I don't think we knew about the no booze at the hotel thing yet, so we weren't overcompensating... just getting into vacation mode I guess. I needed a good bit of help from Caleb to finish mine.) From there, we walked back to the hotel and stopped for gelato along the way. Then off to bed.
On Saturday, we had breakfast and set off on a walking tour of Stone Town with Khamis Mwalim, or as he introduced himself, "Chief Guide." We've been pretty spoiled here in Rwanda by having Anaclet as our guide on our safaris and other explorations, and somehow we hit the jackpot again with Chief Guide. As we walked around town, he was constantly greeted by locals, who would yell, "Chief Guide Chief Guide Chief Guide!" at him, and do a kind of call-and-response greeting in Swahili. Pretty great. He took us to the Old Fort, and we were talked into having henna painted on our hands at one of the little shops set up in the fort.
Chief Guide!
Henna painting, with a cat sleeping in my lap.
From there, we went all around the winding narrow streets of Stone Town. As I remembered from my visits way back in 2006-2007, it's just an amazing mix of cultures... Arabic and African and Indian and European. Its iconic doors apparently come in more-Indian and more-Portuguese designs - the spikes on the Indian ones were reportedly designed to keep elephants out of people's homes, and were retained even though there are no elephants in Zanzibar.
Got caught in a traffic jam for a bit while this little TukTuk tried to squeeze itself through a tight opening. Made it through eventually.
Chief Guide took us through the spice market and the fish market. The kids were flagging at that point so we dropped them back off at the hotel, had lunch, and then went back to the old Slave Market site, which now houses an Anglican church (the English played an important role in abolishing the slave trade), a memorial statue, and a museum. I learned a lot about this Eastern slave trade, which was a huge part of Zanzibar's history and development. Apparently at one point enslaved people being shipped through Zanzibar on their way to plantations in Madagascar and India or Northern Africa made up about a third of the island's population. The origins and drivers of this slave trade seem to differ quite a bit from the Transatlantic trade we Americans are more familiar with... one thing I'd heard before is that slavery in other places, including this Zanzibar route, was more fluid... people could become enslaved after losing wars to other tribes, and then be freed, and even have slaves of their own. The chattel slavery system that's such a deep part of our American history was unique in being entirely race-based and passed from one generation to the next. Which doesn't mean the Eastern system was "better" - it was also brutal and terrible, evidenced by the terrible slave quarters we saw where 70+ grown men were crammed, and the museum's images of people chained together carrying elephant tusks over long distances, a primary market of which was the US, it turns out. So (fun fact!) our country also had a big hand in fueling these human atrocities AND wiping out most of this continent's amazing wildlife in the process. Ugh.
Back to vacation?
I forgot that over lunch we also took a dip in the Tembo House's second story pool overlooking the spectacular Indian Ocean. (Tembo means elephant in Swahili, by the way.)
If Zanzibar was a highlight of my time in Tanzania many years ago, there was one rooftop restaurant I remembered visiting that was one of the most memorable parts of my time in Stone Town. By sifting through old emails, I was able to find its name: the Emerson Hotel. Back in the day, I think you could just go up to the restaurant for a sunset view & cocktail, but they've since made it so if you want to do that, you have to make a reservation and do a whole fixed-menu dinner. Luckily, I figured this out earlier in the day and they still had reservations available. We decided it was worth it. (Caleb does our finances and can confirm that this was not a cheap trip.) The hotel is tucked into one of Stone Town's narrow streets and doesn't look like anything extraordinary. To get to the restaurant, you climb multiple flights of stairs in the building, and then a last narrow staircase from an outside patio up to the very top. The restaurant space is tiny and gorgeous, and it's one of the highest points in the city with a 360 degree view of rooftops and the ocean. We arrived as the sun was setting and the Muslim call to prayer was vibrating through the air. Spectacular.
We sat with maybe 15 other guests on cushions on the floor and had cocktails and a delicious several-course meal with live music. The kids were a little droopy at the beginning (Athena had chlorine-eyes from the pool and couldn't keep them open), but perked up and even tried dancing with the musical performers by the end of the evening. A really wonderful night.
The next day (Sunday) we decided on a "Safari Blue" adventure. We took a cab to a fishing village about 40 minutes south of stone town, and loaded up into a wooden dhow boat with an assortment of other tourists from all over (a couple from Botswana, three Muslim folks that spoke Swahili and could have been from Zanzibar or the mainland, an American and her Francophone African friend, a family of 5 from maybe Russia...). We motored over to a small island and dropped a few crew members and food there to get started on lunch, and then went over to a little lagoon where we got out to swim.
Then we went over to a sandbar and played there for a while, before going back to the first island for a really yummy seafood lunch.
After lunch we walked over to an enormous old baobab tree on the island. It fell over at some point and just decided to keep growing in a new direction. The kids and I climbed a bit.
Then it was time to load up and head back. April-May are the long rains in Zanzibar and I was worried before our trip that we'd get dumped on the whole time. It rained a bit on Saturday but not for long, and during our water safari it seemed like there were spots of rain in every direction when we looked around the wide horizon, but it never rained on us. Another really wonderful day.
We got back to Stone Town in the evening and walked over to a place our hotel concierge recommended for dinner, serving lots of yummy local dishes (seafood and coconut curries and rice and beans). Went back to the hotel and the kids played on the beach a bit, and then we sent them to bed and Caleb and I went to Livingstone's next door... sat on the beach and had cocktails and listened to music. Lovely.
Monday was a bit of a whirlwind. Caleb and I went back to the spice market, bought a painting for Anaclet (an elephant for an apartment he rents out to people coming to Rwanda on safari), then got back to the hotel and realized we were supposed to be at the ferry terminal already, so raced to pack up and get over there. Farewell Zanzibar! The ferry was a little rough... not too bad, but in retrospect the flights are a) cheaper and b) faster, so probably the better way to go.
We made it to the airport in Dar in good time, got on the plane, and then realized I'd left Anaclet's painting (which was taken off its frame and rolled up into a tube) at the immigration area! I let one of the attendants know, expecting a "gee, that's too bad," but she gave me her number and got to work trying to find it. We had to leave before she succeeded, but when we landed I got a message from her that she had it back in Dar and was putting it on a flight on Wednesday. Caleb successfully recovered it and we gave it to Anaclet as a celebratory gift on Thursday when we signed paperwork to buy 10% of his safari business and loan him money to buy a safari vehicle. Um, yeah. We did all that. As I've said, it's the season of schemes...
Anyway, Zanzibar was magical! Highly recommend if you're in the area.
Anaclet's Tembo
Great shot of the five volcanoes from the plane coming into Kigali. Caleb has become quite the little photographer while we've been here.
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