THE PAGE TURNS

April 21, 2026April 25, 2026

R is for Rwanda

Fast Facts

Named for: Rwanda, ku-aanda or anda in the native language, expanding, referring to the consolidation and expansion of the Kingdom of Rwanda.
Capital: Kigali
Long/Lat: 1.5 S/30.3 E, 9500 miles or 19 hours east from Castro Valley
Population: 14.1 million or 200 CVs.
Size: 10,200 sq mi, 560 CVs
Avg temp in April: 80 F/26 C but varies because mountainous
Median household income: $7,200 annually
Ethnicity: 84% Hutu, 14% Tutsi, 1% Twa. And therein lies a tale.
Main industries: Precious stones, coffee, ores, i.e. natural resources scooped out by places like UAE, China, and the US.

Rwanda is a place of beauty and tragedy. Its nickname is “Land of a Thousand Hills” because of its lush mountains, formed as part of the Great Rift. This is near the place where humans were born, where “Lucy” and her hominid friends put their babies in a sling, stood up and started hunting and gathering.

That is, Rwanda is not only its genocide. The genocide was mostly what I had known, that it was a place of massacre, where modern tools of warfare facilitated murder on a large scale when an uneasy truce was broken. But Rwanda also known for its mountain gorillas, which are prized by both poachers and tourists, as well as for its beautiful landscapes. To explain Rwanda is just a few paragraphs is not easy, but let’s try.

April 20, 2026April 20, 2026

Q is for Qatar

Fast Facts:

Named for: Ancient land of Catarhei, according to Pliny the Elder.
Capital: Doha
Long/Lat: 25.2 N/51.3 E, 8000 miles and 16 hours east of Castro Valley
Population: 3.2 million, or 48 CVs. Approx 90% are migrant workers or expatriates.
Size: 4400 sq mi, 240 CVs. High population density.
Avg temp in April: 93 F/32 C
Median household income: $75,000 annually
Ethnicity: 48% Arab, 43% South Asian
Main industries: Oil, trade, commerce, tourism

Qatar is the only country that starts with a “Q,” and I never do this challenge if I can’t manage the Q, so there you go. Even though I just wrote of Oman, here we are again at another country right in the middle of the Strait of Hormuz.

In fact, yesterday the NYTimes pointed out that Qatar is between a rock and a hard place. That is, they are friendly with the U.S., meaning strong business ties and a military base, but they are also on good relations with Iran. Neither country is cheerful about dealing with a compromiser. As a result, Qatar has been subject to 700 missile and drone attacks since the Trump War started.

April 20, 2026April 20, 2026

The Panama Canal: 500 Lives per Mile

The original Panama Canal still operates a century later. Kajmeister photo.

A grand vision. Incredible hubris. Stupidity and poor planning. Thousands of lives lost. A miracle of modern science and engineering. A doorway between oceans. The Panama Canal was–and is–all of these things.

Yesterday, I wrote my A to Z post about the country of Panama. But I mentioned the serendipity of being in Panama while it was time to write about Panama. And the first thing anyone usually thinks about Panama is The Canal.

Knowing I was planning this trip through the canal, Nan, one of my chickleball friends, recommended an excellent history of the canal: David McCullough’s The Pathway through the Seas. It earned a Pulitzer Prize 50 years ago, and for good reason. I had to speed-read the last of the 600 pages, just finishing it it in time–phew! otherwise, we would have been stuck in the locks. Spoiler: they did it. It was cray-cray. Herein, I will give you the speed version, 2000 words instead of 600 pages, the How, Why, and What the Canal was all about.