So apparently my online Journal has developed quite a following, it’s a neat feeling. With all the compliments I feel compelled to write more… that is good for both of us.
Speaking of pressure, my first week as a spread intern was overwhelming. Not only was I trying to adapt to a strange culture, but I also wanted to give 110% as an intern. The people I work with are nothing less than awesome, going out of their way to make me feel at home, so that has helped. Let me provide you a little background information. I am interning or working rather on the international development project called SPREAD or Sustaining Partnerships to Enhance Rural Enterprise and Agribusiness Development. SPREAD targets rural Rwandan agricultural enterprises involved in high value commodity chains, such as coffee and provide them with appropriate technical assistance and access to credit and health related services that results in increased incomes and improved livelihoods.
In the case of coffee, what SPREAD has done, is it has brought together small farmers from across Rwanda and formed cooperation. This has allowed farmers to become organized into cohesive groups providing them with greater power as decision makers as well as making it easier for specialist from across the United States to teach Rwandan farmers how to refine their coffee production so that it is certified as specialty coffee. Through the formation of coffee cooperation’s, farmers have been provided skills and technology that have given them access to international markets, whereas before SPREAD that access was limited.
This explanation is watered downed, it would take me two journal entries to really do it justice, which would cause me to lose readership, so this is what you get. Drop me a note and I will gladly pass on further information about this development initiative.
I have two primary objectives as an Intern:
1.) Assess the assets of the Muraba coffee cooperative and determine an economic value for the cooperative itself, then using that data to determine a share value for each of the members.
When I first heard my assignment I was a little frightened. Anyone who knows me knows, that I do not get along with numbers and numbers do not get along with me, this fact coupled with the fact that I am not an Ag Business/Ag Economist major left me a little worried as to how this task was going to shake out. Sitting in a room, in the center of the ring, all eyes on me just like a circus, expecting me to know the answers was over whelming. It is at this point that I had to keep my composure, and remind myself that I have been here before. You see there is more power in saying “I do not know “ rather than trying to fake it, well at least for me, I am an awful liar. Knowing this I went and did the research, finding that this is a common practice in the states and with a few financial documents I could have this task well on its way to completion.
On a side note acquiring the documents has been more challenging than the actual assignment; I am running up against developing country issues such as transportation not being available, and transportation breaking down. This is where I have to be a little forward and see that it gets done sooner rather than later.
2.) My second task and this is more a personal mission rather than intern related, this is to conduct my thesis research. I want to know how projects such as SPREAD have impacted the livelihoods of these small farmers who are members of the coffee cooperatives that were started under this project. I have my interview questions prepared, but I have found several challenges first my research objectives are not meshing with my task as an intern, so I feel like my research is more a secondary issue to my counterpart rather than something they are interested in, the challenge here will be trying to find some middle ground. I remain optimistic, it’s only my first week and furthermore I can’t afford to return to the states empty handed, it would not be good personally and even worse financially.
My second challenge is the language barrier, everyone speaks French and Kinyarwanda. I had my first interview on Friday with the manager of the Muraba Coffee cooperative. While it was successful, I realize I may have gotten lucky, because while he had a hard time understanding spoken English he could read written English without a problem. So my interview consisted of me handwriting the question and the gentleman reading them, then repeating the answers back to me. My bread and butter is with the small farmer and based on this initial interview there is a high probability that there English will not be as good. I suppose my survival depends on finding a temporary translator and getting creative with the way I organize my questions.
About the language, there are three spoken in this country, French, Kinyarwanda, and Swahili.
My French is getting better every day; I can order a cold beverage, a shish kabob with fries and say your basic greetings.
My Kinyarwanda is limited to the basic greetings and ordering a cold beverage. Learning how to order a cold beverage in Kinyarwanda consisted of Israel (Domestic Helper) giving myself and Lenar (roommate) a two hour lesson on the different verb tenses. I can order a cold beverage and the rest was a little over my head, like my research I remain optimistic that this will get better in time.
Swahili, you can pretty much forget about it I was not even aware that this was a language inside the country until Friday. I have yet to recognize it when I hear it, but who knows, like my dialect in the islands, I may return to the states a Swahili speaking monster.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Home to Butare
After 2 days of travel I finally arrived in Butare Rwanda on Saturday evening, this is the city which I will call home for the next few months. My initial impression is that its busy and seems to be a commercial hub for Rwandans living in the south.
Upon arrival, I knew nothing about my living conditions other than that I would be sharing a house with a Guy named Lenar, who teaches at the National University here in Butare. This was a leap of faith on my part, however, arriving at the house I realized that any trepidation I may have had was unjustified.
My house, or fortress rather, is surrounded by a 7 foot wall with glass shards protruding from the top so as to keep out any unwanted visitors. This wall also comes complete with a solid metal gate controlled by a security guard. This is a little excessive for my taste, however, one can never be to secure. I live in a three bedroom three bath house and have 3 roommates.
Lenar - Is a 31 year old dutch gentleman, who is here for 6 months teaching atomic physics at the university. He speaks perfect English and has been my running buddy for the last week. I owe a lot to Lenar because he has taken it upon himself to show me Butare and make me feel at home, we have become fast friends.
Gi(Gee)- My second roommate, is from Korea and is employed by the university handling much of their accounting. He is also a nice guy, mostly keeping to himself, I have not had much interaction with him.
Israel- Our live in Rwandan or as I like to refer to him, "my man Friday". Along with a gate keeper I also have a domestic helper. Israel is in charge of cleaning, shopping and any other domestic chores we see fit to have him do. When he is not domestically helping Israel spends much of his time studying English, as he sees it as his ticket to a better life.
Me and Lenar have spent many evenings over the past week engaging Israel in conversation, both to help him out but also learn about Rwandan culture and the local language, I don't think my experience here would be as rich without Israel around.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the guard. The guard is a lush most of the time, leaving me to wonder if he is really capable of guarding anything. In Saint Vincent we would refer to him as a crazy man. In my experience however, it is better to have a friendly crazy man guarding your house because he typically has a re pore with the people who would be daring enough to scale my wall.
I have spent many hours sitting on the porch this week playing Pictionary with the guard. Meaning that, he would try to engage me in conversation speaking KinyaRwanda, the local Language. Because no one in my house besides Israel can speak this language, our conversations usually consist of hand gestures, leaving me to sit there and guess what he is trying to communicate. I would like to think he is telling me something pretty profound, however, I doubt that's the case. I know its something about the army, Israel and trousers as far as the relation, I have yet to figure that out.
***** I am trying to upload pictures but the internet connection here is less than slow, so ill keep trying and get some on this blog ASAP. ******
Upon arrival, I knew nothing about my living conditions other than that I would be sharing a house with a Guy named Lenar, who teaches at the National University here in Butare. This was a leap of faith on my part, however, arriving at the house I realized that any trepidation I may have had was unjustified.
My house, or fortress rather, is surrounded by a 7 foot wall with glass shards protruding from the top so as to keep out any unwanted visitors. This wall also comes complete with a solid metal gate controlled by a security guard. This is a little excessive for my taste, however, one can never be to secure. I live in a three bedroom three bath house and have 3 roommates.
Lenar - Is a 31 year old dutch gentleman, who is here for 6 months teaching atomic physics at the university. He speaks perfect English and has been my running buddy for the last week. I owe a lot to Lenar because he has taken it upon himself to show me Butare and make me feel at home, we have become fast friends.
Gi(Gee)- My second roommate, is from Korea and is employed by the university handling much of their accounting. He is also a nice guy, mostly keeping to himself, I have not had much interaction with him.
Israel- Our live in Rwandan or as I like to refer to him, "my man Friday". Along with a gate keeper I also have a domestic helper. Israel is in charge of cleaning, shopping and any other domestic chores we see fit to have him do. When he is not domestically helping Israel spends much of his time studying English, as he sees it as his ticket to a better life.
Me and Lenar have spent many evenings over the past week engaging Israel in conversation, both to help him out but also learn about Rwandan culture and the local language, I don't think my experience here would be as rich without Israel around.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the guard. The guard is a lush most of the time, leaving me to wonder if he is really capable of guarding anything. In Saint Vincent we would refer to him as a crazy man. In my experience however, it is better to have a friendly crazy man guarding your house because he typically has a re pore with the people who would be daring enough to scale my wall.
I have spent many hours sitting on the porch this week playing Pictionary with the guard. Meaning that, he would try to engage me in conversation speaking KinyaRwanda, the local Language. Because no one in my house besides Israel can speak this language, our conversations usually consist of hand gestures, leaving me to sit there and guess what he is trying to communicate. I would like to think he is telling me something pretty profound, however, I doubt that's the case. I know its something about the army, Israel and trousers as far as the relation, I have yet to figure that out.
***** I am trying to upload pictures but the internet connection here is less than slow, so ill keep trying and get some on this blog ASAP. ******
Saturday, May 23, 2009
My first adventure in Rwanda, getting lost at the airport.
So I finally arrived in Kigali, Rwanda on Saturday at about 8:00 am Rwandan time, 1:00 am Central Standard time. I should mention that I am not a good airplane sleeper, it seems like every time I would fall asleep someone would come by and serve me dinner, so I just gave up on the practice all together. It taking 2 days to arrive in Rwanda from Texas, by the time I finally did reach I hadn’t slept in about a day and half, I was tired. Now the trip itself was relatively problem free, so much so I was in disbelief, usually the flights are delayed or I miss a connection, that was not the case, notice I said relatively
My only problem came when I reached the airport. Arriving at the airport I was told that there would be someone to greet me and take me to the city where I would be living, I didn’t find that to be the case. A normal person would have freaked out. I can understand how arriving in a strange country with no prior knowledge of your contacts and no numbers with which to reach them would cause some to turn around and fly back home. Remember I once bummed a hundred dollars off a random Australian; I have been in worse situations. Playing it cool I waited and used the airport internet to send emails to anyone and everyone who wanted to know that there was a very tired person wearing a blue shirt and Khaki pants at the airport…. I actually did describe myself like that in one of my emails; exhaustion will allow you to do funny things. Upon sending my emails I found a bench at the airport restaurant and dosed off for a few hours. Waking four hours later and realizing no one has come for me, I decided it was time to find a hotel room with a phone and wait this situation out, not the card I wanted to play, but the safest bet at the time.
Kids don’t try this at home, really when traveling to a foreign country it’s not wise to let the locals dictate the price going into the transaction, for example you should try and have concept of what a fair price is for a taxi cab and one night in a hotel room would cost, I did not and probably over paid.
Upon booking the hotel at the airport taxi stand, my only requirements were, bed, cheap, safe and internet so I could have a life line. That’s exactly what I got; what I hope was cheap room, with one bed and a working internet cable, as far as safe the door barley locked but it was good enough for my purposes. Arriving at the hotel I continued my barrage of emails until finally Mike ( god bless him) the other intern in country replied back and said that the people responsible for collecting me thought I was arriving from Germany at 8 that night. So there was confusion in the schedule. I have done that, it’s an easy mistake to make, I am willing to forgive that, life goes on.
In his email he provided me with the number for Julius the driver responsible for collecting me. Now, the phone in my room could only accept incoming calls and not place outgoing calls, just my luck. Approaching the front desk, I asked to borrow a phone; apparently the only phone in the hotel that makes local calls is the personal cell phone of the young lady manning the desk and guess what it was out of minuets. In order for me to use this phone I first had to buy a phone card, which I probably overpaid for, but it’s all part of the adventure and makes for a good blog, so I just rolled with it. Finally getting an opportunity to call Julius, I soon began to get a taste, of things I will be learning while in country… namely French. Calling the driver I quickly realized that he spoke French and I didn’t. While he speaks good enough English I only understood about half of the conversation.We communicated well enough that he knew where my room was and that he would be by to collect me shortly. At that point I just wanted the day to end and my direction to be pointed more towards the city in which I will spend the summer, I told the girl at the front desk who is now my best friend to use her cell phone and call him when Julius arrived. An hour later he arrived.
When Julius, arrived he was very apologetic showing me that the schedule he had was in fact misprinted, at that point it was already water under the bridge, Julius suggested that I sleep a few more hours in the room since I paid for it and called him when I was ready to leave town, under normal circumstances maybe, however, these circumstances were far from normal. While I was extremely worn out, the only sleeping I would do was in his jeep on my way to Butare, the city in which I will be spending my summer.
My only problem came when I reached the airport. Arriving at the airport I was told that there would be someone to greet me and take me to the city where I would be living, I didn’t find that to be the case. A normal person would have freaked out. I can understand how arriving in a strange country with no prior knowledge of your contacts and no numbers with which to reach them would cause some to turn around and fly back home. Remember I once bummed a hundred dollars off a random Australian; I have been in worse situations. Playing it cool I waited and used the airport internet to send emails to anyone and everyone who wanted to know that there was a very tired person wearing a blue shirt and Khaki pants at the airport…. I actually did describe myself like that in one of my emails; exhaustion will allow you to do funny things. Upon sending my emails I found a bench at the airport restaurant and dosed off for a few hours. Waking four hours later and realizing no one has come for me, I decided it was time to find a hotel room with a phone and wait this situation out, not the card I wanted to play, but the safest bet at the time.
Kids don’t try this at home, really when traveling to a foreign country it’s not wise to let the locals dictate the price going into the transaction, for example you should try and have concept of what a fair price is for a taxi cab and one night in a hotel room would cost, I did not and probably over paid.
Upon booking the hotel at the airport taxi stand, my only requirements were, bed, cheap, safe and internet so I could have a life line. That’s exactly what I got; what I hope was cheap room, with one bed and a working internet cable, as far as safe the door barley locked but it was good enough for my purposes. Arriving at the hotel I continued my barrage of emails until finally Mike ( god bless him) the other intern in country replied back and said that the people responsible for collecting me thought I was arriving from Germany at 8 that night. So there was confusion in the schedule. I have done that, it’s an easy mistake to make, I am willing to forgive that, life goes on.
In his email he provided me with the number for Julius the driver responsible for collecting me. Now, the phone in my room could only accept incoming calls and not place outgoing calls, just my luck. Approaching the front desk, I asked to borrow a phone; apparently the only phone in the hotel that makes local calls is the personal cell phone of the young lady manning the desk and guess what it was out of minuets. In order for me to use this phone I first had to buy a phone card, which I probably overpaid for, but it’s all part of the adventure and makes for a good blog, so I just rolled with it. Finally getting an opportunity to call Julius, I soon began to get a taste, of things I will be learning while in country… namely French. Calling the driver I quickly realized that he spoke French and I didn’t. While he speaks good enough English I only understood about half of the conversation.We communicated well enough that he knew where my room was and that he would be by to collect me shortly. At that point I just wanted the day to end and my direction to be pointed more towards the city in which I will spend the summer, I told the girl at the front desk who is now my best friend to use her cell phone and call him when Julius arrived. An hour later he arrived.
When Julius, arrived he was very apologetic showing me that the schedule he had was in fact misprinted, at that point it was already water under the bridge, Julius suggested that I sleep a few more hours in the room since I paid for it and called him when I was ready to leave town, under normal circumstances maybe, however, these circumstances were far from normal. While I was extremely worn out, the only sleeping I would do was in his jeep on my way to Butare, the city in which I will be spending my summer.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Hopefully this comes out in English.
So I am stuck here in the Amsterdam airport waiting to board my plane to Kenya so that I can board another plane to Rwanda. So as I sit in the airport attempting to update this blog, I realized that when traveling to a foreign country my computer automatically adopts the native language of that country. My computer now speaks dutch? and I don't. Some other things that I was reminded of while in Amsterdam.
Military time - An important concept while traveling to other countries. Lets just say if I had remembered this that I would still be asleep in my hotel room that I rented for the day Which brings me to my next point.
The Euro - 1 American dollar does not equal many Euro. Word to the wise, figure out the conversions before you check in to the airport hotel. While the extra sleep was worth it, this combined with not knowing military has left me here sitting in an airport lobby, typing to you on a computer that speaks dutch?
Moral of the story, if I would have done my homework I would still be sleeping.
Military time - An important concept while traveling to other countries. Lets just say if I had remembered this that I would still be asleep in my hotel room that I rented for the day Which brings me to my next point.
The Euro - 1 American dollar does not equal many Euro. Word to the wise, figure out the conversions before you check in to the airport hotel. While the extra sleep was worth it, this combined with not knowing military has left me here sitting in an airport lobby, typing to you on a computer that speaks dutch?
Moral of the story, if I would have done my homework I would still be sleeping.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
East to Rwanda
Leaving for Rwanda in the morning and I hope I accounted for everything. With the Peace Corps its was easy they mailed you a plane ticket and said come on. This time around, I am on my own in a manner of speaking, big brother is not around to hold my hand. I am a little nervous, however, I know traveling to far away places is something I do really well.
Two things I am trying not to do before I leave:
1.) Wreck my truck
I went to Trinidad over the Thanksgiving holiday and the day before I left my neighbor decided to use me as target practice, that was a nightmare. Consequently If you have happened to get behind a truck that was driving like it was hunting for the early bird, that was probably me.
2.) Don't forget Passport and or walk around money.
Even though most people realize that I am a rock star, approaching the ticket counter and stating that "my name is Matt Stellbauer and yall better straighten up" without a passport in hand would cause me to lose automatically. As not to become someones "You'll Never Guess What Happened at Work Today Story", it would be in my best interest to not forget my passport.
Secondly and this is a lesson learned in the Peace Corps. Flights from the Caribbean Islands to the United States are less than reliable. Missing a connecting flight and not having any money to buy a taco is a demoralizing experience.
Its because of this point that I carry a hundred dollar bill in my wallet. After missing my flight and realizing that I have just become destitute, I bummed a quarter off of a random Australian gentlemen to place a call. This Aussie just happened to have an envelope overflowing with hundred dollar bills. Over hearing my call and the terror in my voice, he so kindly gave me enough money for a hotel room and 2 tacos. Karma has it out for me and by god I am not going to let it down, I am about to buy some one a chalupa.
To that end, here is to a great summer filled with many adventures and interesting people.
Two things I am trying not to do before I leave:
1.) Wreck my truck
I went to Trinidad over the Thanksgiving holiday and the day before I left my neighbor decided to use me as target practice, that was a nightmare. Consequently If you have happened to get behind a truck that was driving like it was hunting for the early bird, that was probably me.
2.) Don't forget Passport and or walk around money.
Even though most people realize that I am a rock star, approaching the ticket counter and stating that "my name is Matt Stellbauer and yall better straighten up" without a passport in hand would cause me to lose automatically. As not to become someones "You'll Never Guess What Happened at Work Today Story", it would be in my best interest to not forget my passport.
Secondly and this is a lesson learned in the Peace Corps. Flights from the Caribbean Islands to the United States are less than reliable. Missing a connecting flight and not having any money to buy a taco is a demoralizing experience.
Its because of this point that I carry a hundred dollar bill in my wallet. After missing my flight and realizing that I have just become destitute, I bummed a quarter off of a random Australian gentlemen to place a call. This Aussie just happened to have an envelope overflowing with hundred dollar bills. Over hearing my call and the terror in my voice, he so kindly gave me enough money for a hotel room and 2 tacos. Karma has it out for me and by god I am not going to let it down, I am about to buy some one a chalupa.
To that end, here is to a great summer filled with many adventures and interesting people.
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