pretty little basket...

Rwanda...

Rwanda. It’s a small country. So small that on certain maps of Africa it is marked with only a dot. You must read the accompanying explanatory notes to discover that this dot, at the continent’s very center, indicates Rwanda. It is a mountainous country. Plains and plateaus are more characteristic of Africa, whereas Rwanda is mountains and more mountains… High yet gentle peaks stretch before you into infinity. They are emerald, violet, green and drenched in sunlight. It is a landscape devoid of the dread and darkness of rocky windswept peaks, precipices, and cliffs; no deadly avalanches, falling rocks, or loose rubble lying in wait for you here. No. The mountains of Rwanda radiate with warmth and benevolence, tempt with beauty and silence, a crystal clear, windless air, the peace and exquisiteness of their lines and shapes.

From: The Shadow of the Sun, Ryszard Kapuscinski

So, drenched in sunlight, the mountains in these photos are not... the days were not after all, sunny. However that description is a lovely one, and somehow accurate. Rolling hills and benevolent mountains, yes. Up and down and up and down you go. Roads ride up on a ridge for as long as they can and then wind down into a valley. The hills and mountains are a patchwork quilt of gardens growing things, the valleys are filled with rice patties, tea plantations, corn fields and the occasional lake. You then climb back up and over another ridge to find more endless hills/mountains stretched out before you. Lots of little towns along the way, neat and tidy towns. Maybe even more so than Uganda (which is more so than Kenya). Very orderly. It certainly doesn’t feel especially populated, though every inch of every hill and valley seems to be intentionally growing something or other. No ground lies idle, thats for sure!

I just returned from 5 days exploration in Rwanda with our program driver Vincent, and one of our interns, Jones. Every semester we take our students on a 9-day trip to Rwanda to experience a different part of east Africa. We will go as a group in April, and so the three of us set out to plan for this April trip; make deposits, secure guest speakers, get advice, determine the sites we will visit etc. It was a very packed five days...

We spent most of our time in the capital, Kigali, which is an incredibly hip, clean, modern city in amongst the hills: a mix of big modern city and small town, all swirled together.

Meetings, appointments, driving here and there and back again, a different guest house every night... the last day we drove three hours to Butare- in the south to see the National Museum, the National University Rwanda, and one of the memorials there.

Exhausting, intense, exciting, fun, good.

A 13+ hour drive back home, the very worst of which was the last hour and a half-- the time it took to go the last ten kilometers or so through Kampala-Mukono traffic. Glad, oh-so-glad to be back.

See you in April, Rwanda!

Otherworldly shades of green...

So you know the tree? The big beautiful ent tree I couldn't get enough of when I first got here (and still can't)...? A couple of weeks ago, I began to get worried... she wasn't looking so good. Her leaves were all wilty, shriveling and sparse... made me think back to my arboretum days when we had to keep a close eye on our elms as dutch elms disease was sweeping the midwest, wiping out all the big old elm trees... But she has two sisters-- out behind my house, equally stunning trees that I noticed were also looking peaked. I felt less worried at this somehow, perhaps they were all just going through the same dormancy cycle?? And one fine day all of their leaves were just gone. (surely, SURELY it must just be part their growth rhythm...) I continued to monitor them closely- not entirely convinced we were out of the woods, and to my great relief, after just a couple of weeks their branches started to plump out again, and in the last few days exploded into the most brilliant, otherworldly shades of green!

(pardon the wires)



My camera doesn't do them justice, but they are bedazzling, almost too green to be true!

And how nice-- just a couple of leafless weeks, and BAM, we're back to fully energized, green leafy goodness! Hooray the monkeys have returned!! Not only the red tailed chaps with heart shaped noses, but the grey cheeked mangabeys as well!