The Moto Driver and the Delivery Fee: On Trust, Scams, and Living Abroad

It started simply enough. My wife ordered from Rwanda Nuts, and a moto driver was sent to deliver the package to our place in Vision City. Moto drivers aren’t allowed inside the gates,  a rule I’ve come to accept as just part of the rhythm here, so they wait outside by the main street corner. No problem. I volunteered to drive down and collect the order.

I got there. I called the driver. Nothing. I tried to explain where I was standing, and somewhere in the back-and-forth of language and geography, we were completely missing each other. I walked. I waited. I drove around. Forty minutes passed, and I gave up. I turned the car around and started heading home.

Then my phone rang. Someone who happened to be nearby, with better English, helped bridge the gap. I figured out where the driver had probably been waiting this whole time, drove there, and found him. Order retrieved. Mission accomplished, or so I thought.

On my way home, he called me. The delivery fee, he said, was 10,000 RWF.

I paid it. I sent it over MoMo without a second thought, because I didn’t have any information about what had been agreed between my wife and the company. I had no reference point. So I paid.

But 10,000 RWF is unusually high for a moto delivery. When I had a moment to think about it clearly, the sinking feeling set in. I’m pretty sure I was taken advantage of.

What bothers me most isn’t the money. It’s the pattern.

I keep getting caught out like this, too willing to assume good faith, too slow to question, too quick to pay. I walk into these situations open-handed, and sometimes that openness gets exploited. It makes me angry. Not just at the people who do it, but at myself, for still being this way after it’s happened before.

There’s a version of me that wants to draw the obvious conclusion: stop trusting people here. Build walls. Assume the worst. Protect yourself.

But I don’t want to live like that, and I don’t think it would be fair to Rwanda, or to the many people here who have been genuinely kind, generous, and good to us. This country has given us real experiences and real connections. A bad delivery interaction doesn’t erase that.

Still, it’s hard. When trust gets punished, the instinct to pull back is completely natural. I’m still figuring out how to calibrate, how to stay open without being naive, how to extend good faith without making myself an easy mark.

I don’t have a clean answer. Just a 10,000 RWF delivery fee that cost me 40 minutes and a knot in my chest on the drive home.

Nature's Fireworks: The Flat-crown Albizia of Kigali

Kigali has a way of surprising you if you pay attention.

This bloom, small enough to miss, extraordinary enough to stop you, belongs to *Albizia adianthifolia*, commonly called the Flat-crown Albizia or Peacock Flower. It's a tree native to the forests of East and Central Africa, and in Rwanda, it's part of the quiet, persistent wildness that exists alongside the city's famous cleanliness and order.

What appears at first glance to be a feathery purple puffball is in fact a single flower made entirely of stamens, no petals at all. Hundreds of filaments radiate from one central point, white and pale at the base where they emerge from the tiny true flowers, then deepening through lilac to a rich rose-mauve at the tips. The effect is something between a sea anemone and a firework frozen mid-explosion.

The trees belong to the Fabaceae family, legumes, and are cousins of the acacias and mimosas. Their leaves are bipinnate and fern-like, and they share a remarkable trait with many of their relatives: nyctinasty, the folding of leaves at night or in rain. Stand under one of these trees at dusk and watch the foliage close, leaflet by leaflet, like a slow-motion gesture of sleep.

I photographed these in Kigali at close range, trying to capture something that language struggles with, the particular quality of biological beauty that seems designed not for us, but for the bees and the night.

*Spotted in Kigali, Rwanda 📍*

Anthurium in Bloom: Tropical Architecture Up Close

Pink. Glossy. Unmistakable.

The Anthurium is one of those flowers that looks almost too perfect to be real, like something designed in a studio rather than grown in soil. But here it is, in full bloom, doing exactly what it was built to do.

What you’re looking at is technically not a petal. That heart-shaped, waxy structure is called a spathe, a modified leaf whose job is to draw attention to the finger-like spadix rising from its centre. The tiny bumps on the spadix are where the actual flowers are. Understated, functional, and quietly brilliant.

Anthurium are native to tropical rainforests of Central and South America, and they thrive in warmth and humidity. In cultivation, they’ve become a favourite of interior designers and photographers alike, and it’s easy to see why.

Next time you pass one, take a closer look. Nature rarely wastes a line.

 

Earth Day 2026: One Planet, Three Continents

Earth Day looks different depending on where you're standing.

I've been thinking about that a lot this week. I grew up in Eugene, Oregon, surrounded by old-growth forest, winter fog, waterfalls you could hear before you could see them, and the particular smell of wet moss that still, to this day, immediately transports me home. Then I spent 22 years in Okinawa, Japan, where I learned to scuba dive and discovered that what's happening below the surface of the ocean is at least as extraordinary as anything above it. Now I live in Kigali, Rwanda, where I regularly encounter things through a camera lens that I still haven't entirely processed.

For Earth Day, I wanted to share six photographs from across those three chapters. They weren't chosen to be a "best of," they were chosen because each one reminded me that this planet is worth paying attention to.

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Caption: Proxy Falls, Oregon Cascades — Nikon D7200 | Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8

This is Proxy Falls, somewhere deep in the Oregon Cascades. I grew up near places like this. I hiked through forests like this on weekends as a kid without really understanding what I was looking at. It took leaving, 22 years in Japan, and now Africa, to appreciate what the Pacific Northwest actually is. There is nowhere else on Earth quite like it, and I don't think I knew that until I was gone long enough to miss it.

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Caption: Cape Perpetua Overlook, Oregon Coast — Nikon D7200 | Nikkor 18-200mm f/11

The Oregon Coast in summer marine layer. The forest runs right to the edge of the cliff, then drops into the ocean. I've stood at this overlook dozens of times, and it never looks the same twice. The fog does something to the light that I've never quite managed to fully capture; this comes close.

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Caption: Kerama Islands, Okinawa, Japan — Nikon D7200 | Nikkor 18-200mm f/11 | Panoramic stitch

The water in the Kerama Islands is genuinely this color. No filter, no adjustment beyond what I'd apply to any raw file. I moved to Okinawa not knowing much about it, and within a few years, it had fundamentally rearranged my sense of what "beautiful" meant. Learning to dive here changed everything. It opened up a second world, one that most people never see, existing right below the surface of that turquoise water.

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Caption: Tomato Clownfish, Okinawa coral reef — Underwater dive shot

This is a tomato clownfish tucked into its anemone. I took this on a dive in Okinawa. The reef looked healthy that day. Parts of it still are. But I've watched the same reefs I dove ten years ago bleach and recover and bleach again, and I am aware, every time I'm underwater, that I'm looking at something that is not guaranteed to be there in the same form for the following generations. That awareness doesn't make it less beautiful. If anything, it makes it more so.

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Caption: L'Hoest's Monkey, Nyungwe Forest, Rwanda — Nikon Z6 | Nikkor 24-200mm f/4

Nyungwe Forest in southwestern Rwanda is one of the oldest montane rainforests in Africa. I spotted this L'Hoest's monkey in the canopy on a morning walk. It looked at me for a long moment, one of those moments where you feel briefly, genuinely assessed and then moved on. I think about that moment more than I'd expect. There's something about being looked at by a wild animal that recalibrates things.

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Caption: Plains Zebra, Akagera National Park, Rwanda — Nikon Z6 | Nikkor 24-200mm f/4

Akagera National Park in eastern Rwanda is a genuine conservation success story. Lions were reintroduced in 2015, black rhinos in 2017. The park, which had been heavily impacted by the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, has been systematically restored over the past decade. This zebra, standing in golden savanna grass at the edge of the park, didn't seem particularly burdened by any of that history. I appreciated its perspective.

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Three continents. Very different ecosystems. The same conclusion every time I raise a camera: there is so much here worth protecting.

Happy Earth Day.

All photos © 2026. Shot on Nikon Z6 and Nikon D7200. If you'd like to see more from Oregon, Okinawa, or Rwanda, follow along on Facebook, Instagram, VERO, Bluesky, X, Mastodon, or Pixelfed.

One Year in Rwanda: Welcoming the Rainy Season Again

April has a way of announcing itself in Rwanda without subtlety. The skies grow heavier, the air thickens, and before long, the rain begins to fall, steady, persistent, and sometimes overwhelming. The rainy season is here again.

There’s something transformative about this time of year. The hills seem greener, almost impossibly lush, as if the country itself is being renewed. Roads can turn muddy, plans can change at the last minute, and the rhythm of daily life adjusts to the sound of rain on rooftops. It’s a season that demands flexibility. You learn quickly to carry an umbrella, to leave earlier than usual, and to accept that sometimes the weather will simply have the final say.

The rainy season also reveals a different side of Rwanda. Markets continue to bustle, children still find ways to play, and life moves forward with a kind of quiet resilience. There’s a beauty in that, how people adapt, how routines shift but don’t break. The rain becomes less of an inconvenience and more of a backdrop, something woven into daily life rather than disrupting it.

It feels especially meaningful this year because it’s almost been a full year since I moved from Japan to Rwanda. That realization is hard to grasp. A year ago, everything felt unfamiliar: a new climate, new routines, new ways of doing things. Now, many of those once-strange details have become part of my normal life.

I’ve gradually gotten used to the weather, including these long stretches of rain. I’ve adjusted to the pace of life here, which feels different from Japan in ways that are both challenging and refreshing. The food, once unfamiliar, has become something I look forward to. Even the language, which initially felt like a barrier, is becoming something I can navigate more comfortably day by day.

The culture and the people have also become more familiar over time. There’s a warmth here that stands out, a sense of community that reveals itself in small, everyday interactions. And perhaps most importantly, I’ve been fortunate to build connections along the way. Finding friends within the Japanese expat community has made a big difference, offering both a sense of home and a shared understanding of what it means to live between cultures.

Looking back, this past year feels like a gradual process of settling in, not all at once, but piece by piece. The rainy season feels like a fitting symbol of that journey. At first, it can seem overwhelming, even inconvenient. But over time, you learn how to live with it, how to move through it, and eventually, how to appreciate it.

As the rain continues to fall this April, I find myself reflecting not just on the season but on the year behind me. What once felt new is now familiar. What once felt uncertain is now part of daily life. And in the steady rhythm of the rain, there’s a quiet reminder of how much can change in a year.

Orchids & Uninvited Guests in Kigali, Rwanda

 

I was drawn in by the color first that almost electric magenta against the out-of-focus green of the surrounding foliage. The Nikon D7200 with the 105mm Nikkor macro is genuinely one of my favorite combinations for this kind of work: the rendering is clean, the background separation is beautiful, and you get just enough working distance to avoid disturbing what you're shooting.

It wasn't until I was reviewing images on the computer that I noticed the ant. A tiny dark ant, completely unbothered, tucked right against one of the deep maroon buds.

Those are the frames that stay with you.

Camera: Nikon D7200 · Lens: Nikkor F 105mm Macro · Location: Kigali, Rwanda

Portfolio Day 2026: From the Savanna to the Streets of Kigali

Today marks #PortfolioDay, and I’m excited to share a gallery of my latest work. Being a professional photographer in Rwanda provides a unique canvas. This collection showcases the technical discipline of my wildlife work, highlighted by a recent Plains Zebra study, alongside the vibrant, fast-moving energy of professional events and birdwatching in Kigali.

• Using the Nikon Z6 and a range of Nikkor lenses, I aim to bring the viewer closer to the beauty of East Africa. Check out the full gallery below

Plumbago in Kigali, When Common Becomes Invisible

There's a phenomenon familiar to anyone who has lived in the same place for a while: you stop seeing it. The details that struck you as remarkable when you first arrived become background noise.

Plumbago (Plumbago auriculata) is one of those things for me in Kigali. The pale blue-white flower clusters grow everywhere in this city, spilling over garden walls, lining public paths, brightening courtyards. I have walked past hundreds of these plants without registering them.

This week, with the Nikon D7200 and Macro 105mm in hand, I stopped.

The Shot

Late afternoon light was coming in at a low angle, creating warm separation between the flower cluster and the dark green background. I worked through several focal points before settling on the primary cluster, letting the single flower at lower right sit slightly soft as a secondary element.

The Plant

Plumbago auriculata is native to South Africa but grows throughout tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. The common name comes from the Latin plumbum (lead). One theory holds that the plant was once thought to cure lead poisoning. The sticky calyxes visible in the image are a defense adaptation rather than a pollination mechanism.

It's a plant worth looking at. I'm sorry it took me this long.

📷 Nikon D7200 | Nikkor Macro 105mm | Natural light | Kigali, Rwanda

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