meeting the residents

It has been great to hear from some of you and if we don't reply to all the e-mails we are still very glad to get your messages. Thanks a lot.

We had a full day today of meeting the director of CHK (Kigali Hospital), a journey to the other end of Kigali to the Rwanda Medical Council, and meeting the chief of anesthesia and CHK as well as many of the residents.

We have found everyone to be gentle, warm and very welcoming. The residents had some excellent ideas as to how they would like to see the teaching done and we now have a program for the month.

There were some other exciting moments today, like when I couldn't find my passport. We looked everywhere and had a very frustrating visit to the Canadian Embassy. We did have to go there to register, which was fine, but replacing a passport is not easy. I would have to get a police report but neither of the staff members there could tell me where the police station was, what it was called or how to find it. They thought it might be near some other building of nebulous description at the edge of town. The whole discussion took so long we had to move on to our next appointment. Fortunately, the passport did turn up at the only other place where it could be - the tourism office where we picked up our gorilla permits yesterday. I was so ecstatic to receive it - mainly because the burocratic nightmare to replace it would be unthinkable.

So, here's the good things I love about Rwanda: gentle, delightful people; slow pace, no hurry; quiet city - a million people but few private cars, lots of people still on foot; mangos, passion fruit; lush vegetation and flowers everywhere; surprisingly few mosquitos; absolutely perfect air temperature; so much beauty.

These things are not so good: toilets!!!; the showers - you can take a cold shower, with low water pressure, or a hot shower but you have to hold the hand piece AND the switch for the shower at the same time as you squat because there is no where to hang the shower head; beds that are more like hammocks; prices that seem way higher than they should be considering the salaries of people here; things that just don't get fixed.

Genevieve and I are trying to laugh about the plumbing issues because we are very happy to be here and especially to meet the wonderful members of the anesthesia department. They are great folks.

Just last night we were talking to a housemate who will be getting married in four weeks. He invited us to the wedding and told us his family would put us up. They will have 500 guests, which is rather small in Africa as 2,000 would not be usual. This invitation was after knowing Haron for one day! We will be back in Canada by then....

I should add, and it must be obvious, that you cannot go anywhere near a TV or newspaper without seeing Barack Obama. They can hardly wait!!