Me and the Rwandan flag. One more country to add to the count.

Not much blogging (actually none) on this trip although there was plenty to blog about. Among other things, the scenic bus tour through Rwanda and eastern Congo turned out to be an intense and grueling journey, definitely a test of one's stamina. Not totally unexpected, but there were a couple or three moments when arrival at the destination was not at all certain. I also witnessed a new record for number of people on a minivan, 31. No, I'm not kidding and for comparison, the previous record (as witnessed by me) was 29. That leg of the journey featured a bench seat where all of the padding had worn off, so I was basically sitting on the pipe frame that would normally hold up the padding, and the board that had replaced the padding on the back had a nail sticking out of it and occasionally into my back. 

Things I am looking forward to on this trip:

• adding a new country to my checklist
• a scenic bus tour through Rwanda and Eastern Congo
• the possibility of being witness to the launching of a new program for our organization--please note this is not a slam dunk, so many things could push back, postpone, undermine, derail, or otherwise frustrate this process. All the usual philosophical cliche's apply: Murphy's law, 'nothing is ever  as easy as it seems', 'that that don't kill me, can only make me stronger', Ok, that last one is a bit of a stretch, fueled by the double espresso I just ordered and my inability to sleep on airplanes. In fact at this point I'm barely ahead of the proverbial army of monkeys randomly typing at keyboards. I mean this is a bullet point that has apparently turned into a rambling paragraph, hardly making a point at all, bullet or otherwise. Can't wait to get to a bed somewhere and sleep. That is still 14-16 hours away I expect.

Schipol, from gate arrival through security check to reaching my departure gate, 15 minutes. Sorry, wasn't alert enough to set my stop watch. I realize that almost no one cares about the time it takes to process me through airports, but I figure that someone out there is mining data on traveler perception of airports, and this is my contribution. Plus it amuses me in an environment otherwise largely devoid of amusement--unless you consider duty-free shopping to be a form of amusement. Also I have a theory that some airports are better at this than others and eventually I hope to collect enough data to prove it, at least to myself.

This trip will have the added feature of taking a bus basically all the way around Burundi to avoid possible political things. Actually it will be one bus for about 5 hours followed by a public, shared taxi for another 3 hours. So including transfer times, border crossings, etc it should be a 9 or 10 hour trip. Should be very scenic.

30 minutes from entrance to gate, Toronto Pearson airport.

This is one of the first microwatershed projects that Floresta Haiti ever did. I think about 2005 or 2006 so it's just slightly over 10 years old. Good to see that the trees are still there. The darkish green trees in the centre and left of the photo are 'frenn' (Simarouba glauca) which is a species native to Haiti. The lighter green trees on the right of the photo and further up the slope are eucalyptus (not native). 

One of many beautiful waterfalls on our hike to install water quality monitoring equipment. Tough job, but somebody has to do it.

Airport time from entrance to gate, 22 minutes. Minor delay because I couldn't use the ticket kiosk for some reason. Otherwise a good morning so far. This trip to Haiti to work on a new (and hopefully improved) way to handle data, and a new way of monitoring water quality. This in particular I am pretty excited about. A battery operated data logger that will automatically collect information on water depth and water temperature. There are several practical issues to sort out like how to protect such a device from cows and children, but we are working on that, and the possibility of getting some really valuable data back makes it worth the effort. We shall see. I'll let you know how it goes this week.

See, this is the thing: I can be sitting here on this pretty beach, in the cool shade, enjoying a cold beverage, looking at the beautiful mountains across the shimmering lake, and just 15 minutes down the road, this fragile political situation may or may not be unfolding. It's a contradiction of the highest order.

The other day a colleague of mine was explaining how he was trapped for 4 days in a guesthouse in a capital city with nothing but the bottles of juice and bread that he had somewhat on a whim purchased the night before. Well the next four days was serious city-wide rioting so intense that guesthouse staff wouldn't even cross the road to come to the guesthouse. So there my colleague was, all alone, rationing his juice and bread. At the end of this story, he sighs and says, "Ah, Africa", conveying in one succinct phrase a deep and passionate love, and at the same time an equally passionate frustration.

While I am not much more than a glorified tourist, I have some sense of what my colleague was expressing. This place can make one profoundly happy, and at the same time drive one mind numbingly crazy.

The good news it seems to me, is that people seem pretty willing to talk about the political situation. And fairly open about complaining about the government. That's got to be a good indicator doesn't it? Isn't that what we do in democracies, complain? 

Day 5 of 8: There's something very sad about the fact that I am in Africa this week and so far I've talked more about my luggage than anything else. This may be a bad sign, I'm not sure.

On the other hand, I'm really don't know what else to talk about. Talk about work would go mostly like this:
'Had some meetings. Talked about some stuff. Agreed on some stuff. Set dates to do some stuff. Talked about more stuff."

I can barely think about writing about that, let alone imagining that someone wants to read about it.

Of course the really big topic is politics here in Burundi. Things are very tense right now with elections beginning next month (ish). But I don't feel like I can talk about that either for a couple of reasons. One, much of what I know is based on rumour and speculation. I just don't think I have any business posting that. Two, the more official news you can easily find by doing some responsible internet research yourself. I would warn you though that you will likely discover articles that say everything is great, everything is fine. Myself, I am not qualified to comment on the validity of such claims, but recommend that if you find articles like that, you keep looking for other articles with a different perspective.

I will venture to say that it feels very much like things are on a hair-trigger. For a myriad of reasons, social, historical, cultural, political, economic, even environmental, there is potential for the situation to take a turn for the worse very quickly and without much warning. So, an entire nation holds their breath, waiting and hoping. Like the Scout motto I suppose--I think it's a Scout motto--"Hope for the best but prepare for the worst". If you're the praying type, now would be a very good time to do so. If you're not the praying type, well, think positive thoughts or something. It is not an exaggeration to say that what happens in the next couple of months could be the difference between a nation with a promising future, or a terrible tragedy.

End of day 1. Flight was good, no delays, and about 20 hours which is probably the fastest I've ever made it to Bujumbura. Somebody met me at the airport to pick me up. My hotel room is clean. The electricity works. There's hot water. No rioting in the streets. Yup overall a good day.

29 minutes 10 seconds from entrance to gate. YYZ. Slower than usual because I had to actually talk to a ticketing agent rather than using a machine. Which was more pleasant than using a machine anyways, I have no complaints about the service. Just that it's drawing down my average check in time.

This is day 1 of 8. Easy trip. At least logistics wise. I expect within that 8 days there will be about 4
fairly complicated hours and the rest should be the proverbial walk in the park.

I'm trying a new luggage configuration--yes, I'm sitting in an airport and there's not a whole lot to do, so I'm blogging about my luggage. This is a 15 litre rolling briefcase and an 18 litre backpack. This is about a 45% volume reduction compared to the other system I use. Plenty of room for one week I think. And I've finally caved in and got rolling luggage. I knew this day was inevitable, but sadly it is here. Sad because I'm giving in to gravity. Resistance is futile I guess, but all these years I've felt compelled to actually carry my stuff rather than roll it.

Day 37 of 38. On the road again. About 30 hours from now I should be home if all goes well. Never assume that though. It's been a good trip--not without its stressful moments and I'm exhausted but we got almost everything done that we set out to do. This morning was the first day in about 35 days that I just lay about, appreciating the ability to lie horizontally: something I won't be able to do for the next 30 hours. 

Seems to me Burundians are pretty happy today. There is really not much point in me trying to explain here. All you have to do is check any news links at all on Burundi today, such as this one: http://www.hrw.org/news/2015/02/18/burundi-journalist-be-freed-bail

It is pretty much all anyone is talking about. My unsolicited and outsider commentary is that a victory has been won for democracy here. I think you can see it in people's faces.

Wait, was I just complaining about how juicy that mango was? Here I am enjoying this great breakfast of freshly brewed local coffee, crusty baguette, eggs, and an amazing, perfectly ripe mango, and I'm focused on the little bit of juice running down my fingers. Yeah, sometimes I catch myself being ridiculous. What I worry about is all the other times I don't notice myself being ridiculous. Absurdity, I suppose, is just part of the human condition. We try to cover, with nice clothes, polite language, decent haircuts...well, I cut my own hair, so I don't even have that. Which by the way did I mention I need a haircut? Yup, day 34 of 38 I definitely need a haircut. And it turns out I didn't count the extra day of flying to get home, which means trip is actually 39 days. I should have made it 40 days just to be in solidarity with Noah and company. I wonder if Noah thought to bring mango on that boat.

Day 30 of 38: So far everything is holding up. I actually have a surplus of clean socks. I just had to charge my e-reader yesterday for the first time. And my electric water flosser is still working on one battery charge (amazing--but I'm expecting it to give out any day). I've change hotels at least 7 times. I haven't seen a gorilla though. And most likely will not. Those are so far upstream that it may be a while before I even get to a location where I could see one. And, truth be told, I've only spent about a third of my time actually in Congo. The rest has been spent in Bujumbura (Burundi) working on analysis and planning stuff. So even those two thirds of the time, I've been thinking about Congo--pretty much completely immersed in it (or is that submerged?). When I get home I think I'll take a day off. And I need a haircut.

If you look very closely at the footpath in the middle of the photo, near the the ridgeline, you will see 4 or 5 farmers plodding their way up to the top. This is the daily routine if farming is your occupation here. Walk these trails, get to your field where you do the actual work you came to do, and if you harvest any firewood, or crops, carry those back on this same trail  In fact the farmers you see here are making their way home in the late afternoon. When they get home they will then have to cook dinner for their family. Exhausting. I just had a look at some research that showed that women in these communities work on average 15 hours per day. 

Congo reminds me of a river. Which is probably not the greatest metaphor since Congo is also actually a river. But I mean the country. Not that I am really in any way qualified to talk about what Congo is or isn't. Nevertheless, I know that rivers are never what they seem. There are currents and eddies, and it flows at different speeds, around rocks, at the edges, in the middle. If one navigates a river, one should be on constant watch, reading the currents, scanning for hidden rocks, maneuvering for the best, safest route. A river can be calm and beautiful, but just around the next turn it can be a raging torrent, terrifying and deadly. A river can pull you under and snatch your life in a second, or it can sustain you, quench your thirst, soothe your soul.

If you look at the bottom of this hill (mountain?) in the middle of the photo, you will see a line of trees, about 12 or 13 of them, all evenly spaced in a line. This is a native tree species known locally as kavungwe, a.k.a. Khaya anthotheca, a.k.a. African mahogany. What is exciting to me about this, is that first, farmers are cultivating this tree deliberately in their farm fields which means there is some potential for promoting more agroforestry in the area. Second, these trees were not planted. Kavungwe grows up naturally everywhere, and farmers choose to let it grow where they like. This is essentially a system that agricultural development practitioners have named FMNR (Farmer managed natural regeneration). One of the big advantages of FMNR is that it is considerably less costly and labour intensive than tree planting. So having the option of being able to promote FMNR, a system which some farmers here are already practicing traditionally, means there is the possibility of transforming a large area like this with little cost.

Please don't get the idea that I think this is a "problem-solved" scenario. There are plenty of challenges to confront before a hillside like this could change. But at least the seed of an idea is already there.