Blog Post 080911 – Roger

Amakuro, greetings from the land of a thousand hills! Our expedition team is enjoying the first week in Rwanda, and I have plenty of exciting news to keep you guys updated. The adventure began even before we arrived in Rwanda, with one team member forgetting to check that his passport was actually already expired (blame the Europeans for not requiring a passport when traveling within Europe, haha). When we landed at Addis Ababa for transit, the oxygen mask compartment a few rows ahead of us decided to fall from the plane ceiling, which made me all the more appreciative of physically getting to Rwanda in one piece. Nah, I’m probably over-dramatizing this ‘ordeal’. At least Ethiopian Airlines provided some in-flight comfort – beer.

 

I was really excited about meeting the DHE team (Dartmouth Humanitarian Engineering) for the first time in Kigali. We have had numerous Skype meetings, but meeting face-to-face and living under one roof in Kigali will be a different experience altogether (I was quite sure they had queer habits! lol). What really surprised me was how we sat around one night playing geeky card games and solving riddles. By then I was convinced that geekiness transcends geographical boundaries.

 

On a more serious note, we went on a mandatory visit to all our 3 Energy Kiosk sites. As usual, the first-timers were very excited and started snapping photos every 30 seconds. It was great to see their first reaction to the kiosks – It must have been really cool to physically see the kiosks that everyone has been working on and talking about for the entire year.

 

Besides visiting the kiosks, we were busy sorting out administrative stuff, such as haggling for electrical/mechanical components from the metal market, calling 10,000 people (TIA!) to get our shipment in Rwanda and Tanzania sorted, and taking turns to shower with limited water supply.

 

So there you have it! I should probably make myself more useful with the data logger experiment (Var is also nagging me to stop now). Till the next time!

 

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