Camp Kigali

Welcome to Camp Kigali!  It’s us against them...mosquitoes, cockroaches, and wall-climbing salamanders.  Thank goodness the ants sensibly go about their business outside.  The water from the storage tank that is fed by the city looks a lot like the Muskoka River – acidic brown.  As the expert at Mountain Equipment in Toronto advised Yusuf and me, as long as there’s no “crud” in the water, we can just add sodium dioxide or boil the water to eliminate any parasites or bacteria.  Well, that’s reassuring.  Only problem is that I am suspicious about drinking water that I can’t see through perfectly.

A large salamander gazing straight at the night light on the ceiling of our outside front entrance.

Some time back, we visited a Moroccan family that is running a school here funded by the Kuwaiti Foundation.  It’s open to all children.  (That’s were Yusuf first got bitten by a mosquito on his thumb but we didn’t worry much because he’s taking anti-malaria medicine.)  The place was essentially a mosque, school and house with goats, chickens and a couple of sheep on the edge of the city.  Apparently, the cow and calf died along with the pigeons and rabbits.  Damn those parasites! 

"Open door" living out on the farm!

Anyway the two young children were quite healthy despite an “open door” concept which included unobstructed entrance for a chicken and flies.  Of course, where there is manure within walking distance, there will be flies.  However, at Camp Kigali, it’s quite a simple procedure to just swish the flies away from the food before they land.  I spoke in French to the hostess and host and Zain spoke in Arabic with the host.  Yusuf just listened and sat politely being more of a visual-spatial kind of guy anyway.  All of a sudden, our host grabbed at my knee!  Before I knew it, he had plucked a huge African mosquito from my thick linen gown and flicked it onto the floor – dead or alive, I know not which.  I was quite shaken having seen those ghastly mosquitoes on television and knowing that the females can transmit malaria.

Our host assured us that his children never get bitten by mosquitoes and never get sick (despite the open-door living conditions).  So I needed to investigate.  The house was very clean except for unvacuumed carpets so I figured the children were allergy-free.  Everyone had a mosquito net for sleeping.  They buy fresh food from a local market.  They boil their water and THEN let it drip through ceramic filters in a professional stainless steel drum.  That was it!  A double process was required for the water treatment.  I could no longer drink the brownish water at our own place water even if it was treated with sodium dioxide. 

The Morrocans had taught me that it would be much safer to use two processes i.e. boil the water and then filter through porous ceramic.  (Of course, no one here can afford sodium dioxide and I haven’t even seen any for sale in the better department stores.)  I remembered that one of the portable water filters at Mountain Equipment had a plunger that let one force the water through a porous ceramic cyclinder.  I think it cost $70 but I figured then that I didn’t need it.  When I went home, I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of drinking sodium dioxide including the residual parasites and bacteria that it was supposed to have killed.  Zain, a chemical engineer, assured me that the chemicals were safe to drink but I just couldn’t consume any more brown water.  So, we’re back to buying spring water which is sourced in Kigali from the famous Gasabo springs.  Too bad the city can’t just connect the springs to the city water supply. 

Zain and I have agreed to purchase one of the stainless steel tanks with ceramic filters which as a large reservoir at bottom which catches the drips from the ceramic, candle-shaped cylinders – usually three per unit.  Problem is that it takes a while for the water to filter through because gravity is the only way the water will filter through.  Will probably cost about $70 at the huge Chinese department store here called T2000 at the The Red Rooster building.  However, it will process a lot more water than the hand-held one for the same price back home.  If any of you go camping, I think the porcelain cyclinder concept with the plunger would be ideal with or without sodium dioxide as a pre-treatment.