a veritable ocean: Arrival

I'm finally here in Rwanda, after months of prep and almost a year of dreaming up this trip. And... we're off to a slow start, but a very fitting start. I knew that I would have to get re-used to the amount of time it takes to do things around here, and I have a hunch that allowing 6 weeks here would be appropriate not because it would take so long to do my field research, but because it would take so long to make contacts, set up appointments, and all the nitty-gritty little practicalities.

I flew in on Saturday and got right to work with practicalities - phone, internet, accommodations, food. I'm staying at the old stomping grounds of St. Paul in town, and currently subsisting on one exorbitantly expensive coffee each day and a bunch of cheap little snacks like samosas and chapatis and peanut butter sandwiches. I bought a local SIM card and an internet modem on the first day, but they refused to work so I had to go back Monday to get them sorted. In the meantime I tried to connect my computer to the internet at various different places, only to fail (almost) every time, so as suggested by my internet troubleshooter I did a system refresh. This subsequently lost all my downloaded programs - I didn't quite realize how much I'm dependent on those downloaded programs for pretty much EVERYTHING until I lost them all in one fell swoop. Word processor, pdf reader, pdf organizer, note organizer, music player - all gone. So currently I'm hanging out at Bourbon Cafe re-downloading all of these programs so I can actually do something with my spare time. But luckily I didn't lose anything that can't be restored with a little time and a decent internet connection, so it's really just amounting to a bit of a setback, and nothing more.

In the meantime I've managed to have a couple good meetings, and I saw one friend yesterday that I hadn't seen in four years, who has agreed to go back to Nyagatare with me and act as an interpreter where I need one. Things are slowly taking shape, although I'm still not sure what's in store for me from day to day.

Because I keep forgetting to take and load pictures, the pictures below are from my last trip here in 2009. I will try to post more pictures later.