Murakaza neza Rwanda! Welcome to Rwanda!

Well Everyone.....I Made it! Currently in Kigali, Rwanda with my teaching partner, roommate for the next 2 months and of course, friend, Zach Hynes (<--Read his Adventures)!

It took quite awhile to get here:

LAX-->ORD (4 hours)
ORD-->Brussels, Belgium (8 hours)
Brussels, Belgium--> Kigali, Rwanda (8 hours)

Including layovers, it essentially took me an entire 24 hours to get to Africa, but I'm here! And by here, I mean...HERE!


This is our apartment in Kigali (at least for now). Zach and I actually don't mind it too much, but there is one major problem that can't be overlooked: No Running Water! This is why we haven't taken showers in the last two days/why we have to use outside bathrooms as much as possible. But overall, Africa is great! We walk along the street and people try to sell us maps of Rwanda and this one kid is so insistent on selling us a 32GB flash drive. I just wish we knew how to communicate with people here. People here speak quite a few things, most prevalent is Kinyarwanda, though many people also speak French and Keyswahili. Zach and I are going to try to look into taking a class that will help us learn to speak, especially since that's something I'm definitely interested in.

I woke up Sunday morning around 6am, not too sure why I woke up that early, but the first thing I did was look outside! We have such an amazing view of the Rwandan hills!
I'll try to get a night picture up soon too! Since Zach was still asleep, I decided to work on some pleasure reading, something that MIT doesn't really let me do too much of. I'm currently reading Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, great read about my heritage :) Once Zach woke up (and we still couldn't shower) we head out into the city to get a feel for what's around us. We're actually pretty close to a ton of stuff, the mall, the bank the University we'll be teaching at, even the Swiss, Russian and Chinese Embassies. Our main goal of the day was essentially to get FOOD and INTERNET.

First meal in Africa was....PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICH! Mmmm! I don't know if it was because I was hungry or not, but PB & J in Africa is pretty damn good! Once we settled in and got our internet working we decided it would probably be a good idea to go and see the campus we'd be teaching at....and here she is!

The campus is actually really gorgeous. There are so many nice plants and the architecture is so new. We caught the students in the middle of final exams for this past semester. Summer session starts next week with our class. We're actually going today to meet the people we'll be working with, see our facilities, check our classrooms and just run over logistics. Things are starting to get underway!

After visiting KIST (Kigali Institute of Science and Technology) we made a stop at Bourbon Coffee, which we quickly found out was the place where all the foreigners hang out. We basically just wanted to grab a quick snack, but we ended up staying to watch the FRENCH OPEN FINAL! Since Djokovic lost to Federer in the Semis, I was rooting for Rafael Nadal (Who ended up winning his SIXTH French Open Title)! We went back to the apartment, kinda relaxed a bit, talked about the curriculum, sent some emails and ultimately I went to bed around 11:30PM.

So far, Africa is proving to a very interesting and exciting experience for me. I can't wait to actually start teaching :) It's 4:09AM in California and 7:09AM in Boston...good night, America!

9 hours until Rwanda...

This is it everybody, I'm so nervous. Everything is packed up except for my laptop and a few books, but other than that I'm ready to venture off to AFRICA! I just have to survive almost a full day of flying. I leave LAX at 10AM (about 9.5 hours), fly through Chicago to Brussels, Belgium and finally to Kigali, Rwanda! I honestly just kinda want to sleep the whole time on the flight and I hope I get a window seat because I hate long flights that aren't window seats...The next blog I post is either going to be from Kigali itself or from one of my stops! Be on the lookout!

P.S. Today, it took me ~36 seconds to swallow my pill as compared to the escapade you read in my last entry which took about an hour lol

Will

I Did It!....Sorta...

If going to Africa in and of itself is not an adventure....swallowing my first pill certainly was. In my last blog entry, I mentioned how I had never swallowed a pill before...well, right now, I have one of THESE babies floating around inside my stomach! This is what the Doctors call Doxycycline, a drug that is (hopefully) going to keep me from contracting malaria. It is essentially an antibiotic that is used against all kinds of things, but I don't want to bore you with the details of the drug. What you really want to know about is how it got down my throat....

Well, it wasn't easy, I'll tell you that much. I went out to eat at a Cuban Restaurant tonight with my aunt and I told myself I was going to take it during dinner. I even told the waitress I couldn't eat any dairy products with my meal since it wouldn't settle well with the pill. As I took the pill out, I was intimidated by its size, plus, I realized that I had eaten butter during dinner and I didn't want to know what would happen when Dairy met Doxycycline (I think the result also starts with a D....Diarrhea). So I gave up and decided that I would just do it when I got home.

Take 2: Got home and immediately wanted to get it over with. Went to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of H2O and told myself "You WILL do this, Will!" (lol) My siblings (ages 11 and 12) were mocking me saying, "Come on, Willy, you're 22 and can't swallow a pill"!? My brother even swallowed a bean to prove to me that it was 'effortless'. I went to a little corner where no one would see me, so I could have alone time to accomplish my feat. Just me and the blue pill.

Put it in my mouth, drank nearly half the bottle of water and....nothing. The pill was still there on my tongue as if it hadn't moved one inch. UGH! "Why is this so hard!?" I realized that I couldn't be the only one in this world who has this difficulty, so I went to none other than YouTube. I figured someone had to have posted something. I immediately found this video and connected with the guy. He said he learned to swallow pills when he was 21 and I am 22. He described EXACTLY what it felt like when the pill would just float around in the water and not go down. I knew this was the start to my answer. He essentially gave 4 easy steps:

1. Go to the mirror and open your mouth real wide to show yourself how much room the pill has to go down.
2. Place the pill at the back of your mouth (which is further than where you think it is)...this was SO true for me, I was putting it essentially at the front of my mouth
3. close your mouth and let your tongue fall back into your throat (with the pill)
4. Drink Water if you start to choke

Even though I had outlined the steps over in my head, I still wanted to find a way out of actually swallowing the pill. Some of my friends told me I could just uncap it and mix the powder with water. I really wanted to do this, but after researching it a bit, I decided that they put the damn coat on the pill for a reason and I should just go for it. So I ran to the restroom, opened up my mouth REAL wide and said, yup, the pill can definitely fit down there (Step 1). Put the pill further back in my throat (Step 2) and simply closed my mouth (Step 3). It wasn't exactly how the guy in the video said it would be. Although the pill kinda fell into the place at the back of my throat, I gagged it back up and it was in that same position in the middle of my mouth. I was determined to get this pill down, so I pushed it back again and gave it another shot. Same result.

At this point, I had to act fast. My saliva was starting to melt the coat and I was starting to taste the inside. I had already thrown one failed pill away and I was not going to waste another. I pushed the pill back with my tongue, swallowed a gulp of water and...voilà! It was gone and I could only assume that it went down my throat. I don't know whether I can call it all a success, but I'm one step closer to being able to actually swallow pills! :)

Down to just about my last 30 hours in California. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. But now that I feel a bit more protected against Malaria...I'm ready to start my summer in Kigali :)

Countdown to Rwanda: 3 Days

I'm starting to feel it now, that "hit" you feeling...I'm really headed to AFRICA in 3 days. It's pretty surreal. I still don't really know what to expect when I get off the airplane. It's going to be quite an adventure getting there in itself. Luckily, Zach and I are on the same flight out of Brussels so we get to talk about AITI for a whole 8 hours! :) If nothing else, I'm glad I'll have company. Python is...coming along. The important thing is that I feel like I'm *learning* and I think I am in decent shape to tackle at least the first few weeks in Rwanda.

The only thing I really have on my mind right now is, "What do I need to grab before I go to Africa"? I'm dreading Thursday when I have to start taking my malaria pills...I've never swallowed a pill before in my life. Not Advil. Not Tylenol. Nothing. I remember the doctor laughing at me once when I was 18 asking for the liquid version of the medication she was prescribing. She told me it would be a useful skill to know and now it's coming back to bite me in the a**. Oh well, hopefully it's quick and painless. I just don't want malaria!

There's still so much to learn, so many people to hang with, so much food to eat and so many things to buy before I go....ready....set....GO!

Countdown to Rwanda: 7 Days

It's Thursday night, 11:30PM, beautiful CA time! The weather has been everything I wished Boston weather had been over the last academic year. I am even starting to my get true skin color back! If California does not make me caramel colored...Rwanda certainly will. But I find myself in a blogging kinda mood.

I've really been enjoying this stop in California for some reason. I mean, I always love being home, but something about this one just makes me smile more. Blame the weather, blame my family, blame my friends. I think I just feel good. MIT is over for a bit, I can focus on things that I really enjoy like educating these kids in Rwanda and learning Chinese. I'm really grateful for my partner, Zach Hynes. He and I work really well together. We haven't had to reschedule a single skype call this whole week. In fact, I think we have talked almost every single day for at least half an hour since the semester ended. We made our first LAB together on Data Structures today...I know, it's a bit weird for me to start saying all these computer science terms, but it's gonna kinda be my life for the next two months. I'm still looking forward to it though.

I looked up the exchange rate for Rwandan money (which I found out was the Franc) today. It turns out you can get 600 Francs for 1 American Dollar. The only question I had was: How far does 600 Francs get me? Hopefully pretty far! It's only when I travel that I truly value the worth of the American Dollar. There are few currencies that really compare. Last summer when I went to Shenzhen (深圳), I felt like a I became rich when I exchanged money....I wonder what it'll feel like in Rwanda!

At this point, I'm trying to find the perfect balance between the work that Zach and I still have left to do to prepare the curriculum that we'll be teaching and time with friends and family. I'll be spending some time with some friends tomorrow and Saturday! Jenecia and I are supposed to go and see the exhibit about CUBA at the Getty Center! Now if you know me at all, you know how much I love my Cuban Heritage, so this exhibit should be a great look at the changes Cuba has undergone over the past 80 years or so. I'm really looking forward to it. Be on the lookout for my experience at the exhibit.

As for now, it's about midnight here and I'm starting to get a bit tired. I've actually been getting more than decent sleep (8-9 hours per night!). I hope I'm able to continue that through the entire summer (and next semester? Maybe that's asking too much). I have ONE full week left in California before venturing off to Africa, so I hope it's a great one!!!

Buenas Noches de Los Angeles,

William

P.S. I have to give a shout out to the following cause before I get some rest. My baby brother, Julian Yuen is going to be working as a Camp Kesem counselor this summer back at MIT at the end of August. If you don't know, Camp Kesem is a summer camp for kids who's parents have either died from cancer or currently have cancer. He's currently trying to reach a goal of $400.00, which he is over half way to accomplishing (Proud of you, baby bro!)! I would really really REALLY appreciate it and I KNOW Julian would also super appreciate it if you could give ANY little bit you can :) You can donate to his page here

Countdown to Rwanda: 11 Days

Hello Friends and Family,

For those of you who do not know, I will be heading to Kigali, Rwanda this summer to teach mobile and web technology at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology. I'm pretty excited! There's only one big problem...there's so much to learn before we go!!!! It's kind of funny that I am a part of Accelerating Information and Technology Initiative (AITI--Still has its old name on the website, but I think that's set to change soon) because I am one of two people in the whole program who is not majoring in either Management or Computer Science (the two main focuses of the program). Naturally, that means I have to brush up on everything that I learned in my Intro Java class at MIT as well as learn Python, Google App Engine, Django, etc, etc.

This is gonna turn out to be quite the adventure...BRING IT!