meanwhile, in rwanda

Right this second I'm sitting in Shokolat in Kigali, or rather lying in Shokolat in Kigali, as I am essentially stretched out horizontal on this incredibly comfortable couch. Jane is sitting/lying next to me and we are happily ignoring each other while soaking up fast internet. Shokolat is our new favorite place because they have high-speed internet and they don't kick you off after an hour, like damned Bourbon, which is now the scourge of our souls. Shokolat has a cozy feel, complete with a large library of books in English, and they sell chocolate chip cookies that may or may not be warm.

John just walked in and said "I no longer have a kettle" the way some people might say "I am no longer married to Marie". He went to the Chinese shop and they wouldn't give him a new kettle but refused to relinquish his old one once he had given it to them, saying that they will try to fix it and give it back to him "maybe on Monday". The shop owner gave him a paper with a number on it and a lot of handwriting in Chinese and then shooed him away. Pretty standard.

Things in Rwanda have been a little tumultuous since the start of the second term, and everyone from the WorldTeach group seems to be having bit of a tough reentry into teaching and Rwandan life in general. For me, things were pretty tame; the worst of it was when my iPod, hotplate, and computer power cable all broke in the same week, and I got sick, and my roommates thieved so many of my things that I started locking my kitchen and hiding my radio, leading to a cold war in the house that still has not lifted. One of my best friends here, Susan, undoubtedly has the worst return to school. She had gone back to the US for the break, so readjusting to Rwanda was rough, but she also had to contend with roommates from hell, an incredibly apathetic student body, and a remote placement in town with zero resources. As a result, she decided last week to leave WorldTeach, but thankfully to stay in Rwanda. We were all having a hard enough time to inspire my Field Director to host a contest where we all had to come up with our best strategies for fighting foreign-living frustration. The contest winners were meant to be announced at a WorldTeach-funded party in Kigali this weekend, but then our faithful FD contracted a bad case of malaria and is currently out for the count (but doing better every day, thankfully). Long story short: Blargh!

In spite of the hiccups, I think things are starting to look up here in the big RW. I've been teaching computer science, creative performance, and English this trimester, and having much more fun with that lineup than I was with entrepreneurship. The kiddos are CRAZY for computers; even stuff that we might consider boring, like formatting Word documents or creating Excel spreadsheets, is apparently great fun for them, and I'm having all kinds of cheesy teacher moments, when I show a kid how to do something and their eyes light up. We just started playwriting in creative performance (thanks to the breakdown of my iPod), and I've been trying to get the students to write about their favorite quotes, songs, photographs, and memories to get them talking about what motivates them so they can figure out what to write plays about. This has been going surprisingly well, and I can't wait to see some of their performances in a couple weeks.

In an effort to become less computer-dependent, I went up to a quiet part of the school last night with a great view of the surrounding hills and watched the stars come out. It was fantastic. One frustrating thing about this country is that there are people everywhere all the time, so even on a long walk or in the house, it's really hard to find a quiet moment to yourself. The part of the school I watched the stars from is where the new dorms are being built; I don't think the students are moving in till next year and the workers all leave at the end of the school day, so maybe I'll spend more evenings there, soaking up the calm.

Not much else to report at the moment. Time seems to be moving along pretty quickly for now; hard to believe that we've got just eight more weeks of teaching for this term, then exams, then break...! Right now, I'm looking forward to our midservice conference in a couple weeks, the World Cup in June (not a diehard soccer fan by any means, but I am surely a fan of mass hysteria), a quick visit from Jason in July, and then a monthlong romp through southern Africa with Morgan! Thanks to WT friends, support from home, plantains, epic books, friendly cafe owners, sharp students, The Avett Brothers, starry nights, and BBC Focus on Africa with Hassan Aruni, I think the day-to-day in Shyorongi should be pretty swell until then :)

searching for the loch ness monster

We are still here at Monachyle Mhor hotel. As spring issues idle promises to put leaves back on the trees and the warmer weather lets us keep our door open to the world, lambs begin to fill the paddocks, rumors of sheep dog puppies down the road can be heard, and daffodils come and go, we continue to balance work and play and plan our trip south. Of course things don’t really seem to change here at Monachyle; if it weren’t for our regular days off giving us reference points in time, I’d swear time was standing still. On our last three off days we have climbed stob binnien, road tripped to the north in search of the loch ness monster, ticked a few things off our gear list, and cycled from here to Killin and back. We have 12 days 5 hours and 7 minutes until we finish work here.

I will miss this place and I won’t miss this place. The solitude is a blessing and a curse. I cannot put in words nor capture in photos the beauty of this place. I love sitting here in my room with the door open staring out at he mountains on my doorstep towering above the green fields and trees, watching the trees gently sway as the wind moves through them, the sound of the wind and the feel of the wind while hearing lambs and birds, watching the birds play, as the constant shhh of the river reminds me of that beautiful feeling I had once and I could happily close my eyes and dream with the door open. Yet while it is beautiful and we have a great group of people working here, we are so few that when one of us has time off nobody else does. It would be really fun, and good for everyone, if all the staff could get out and do something together. But we are always working. That being said nicki and I do get time off together and being out here affords us ample opportunity for outdoor exploration.

From the summit of stob binnien, at about 1165 meters, we were looking down on all the mountains surrounding the hotel. (The mountains which normally tower above us) It felt like we were on top of Scotland. We saw far. We could see Ben Nevis to the north and Ben Lomond to the south. From where we were, on top of Scotland, it seemed the mountains stretched all the way across this country. The walk was a good one. Another one of those Scotland walks where we start in shorts and t-shirts and by the end of the walk we’re fully bundled for cold weather. It took us about 5 hours from the hotel and back, 3 up and 2 down. After cycling from here, the walk began with a steep ascent for the first 700m, then followed along a ridge for about a mile before climbing steadily to the summit. It was really neat to be able to see the topography of the area north of the hotel, and hopefully we can use our understanding of the terrain to come up with a good route up Ben Mhor.

So we took a trip up to Inverness and Loch Ness, kind of searching for the monster but also wanting to see Scotland. We saw some signs of Nessy, as you can see in the photos.

This wave can only have been caused by a monster

Can loch ness support large aquatic life?

Nicki tries to lure nessy...

On the way up we drove past aviemore and the Cairngorms national park. The Cairngorms are large and mountainous wilderness area a few hours north of our hotel. Aviemore, on the west side of the park, is home to Scotland biggest skiing area. It was there we camped as we made our way up to Inverness. It was a beautiful spot next to a loch. Waking up here the next morning was one of the highlights of the trip. It had that smell. (When Trevor lost his sense of smell I asked him how it was affecting him. He said it sucked. He is forever left with a lingering new car smell on his nose. Yet he adjusted fairly quickly. However, the smell he missed the most was the smell of clean fresh air after it rains. As it rains on and off a lot here, we get that a lot. You can also smell it outside early in the morning amidst the freshly settled dew. We have started calling it Trevor’s smell.) I love waking up in the mountains. We drove up to the base of the ski field just to have a look. Inverness is a nice medium sized Scottish town.

It was also on this day that we put a picnic in a blanket on a stick and found a spot on the beach of the black isle north of Inverness.

We leave in two weeks. Just booked our train yesterday from Edinburgh to Milton Keyens. Tomorrow I’ll write a letter to granddad letting him know when he can expect us. We’ll stay with him for three nights then go to Brighton for three nights before taking the ferry to Dieppe in France. Then it’s just us and the bikes. For people who haven't seen our crazy idea here it is:

The route may change as we go, depending on how we go.. All of our gear has been bought, some is still in the mail. If anyone’s interested in checking out other peoples bike touring pages check out the trento bike pages web site. I'm still not sure how we will stay on touch during the trip, but we'll try to keep up blogs of our progress. We plan to meet up with Nicki’s friends in Carcassonne for a few days, hopefully cross paths with the tour du france as we pass through gap, see our friends in embrun, and also meet up with more friends when we get to Dubrovnik. The realization and excitement of the trip dawns on us more and more as we get closer to the day. just two more weeks here at Monachyle Mhor