Yes, I know I've been delinquent on here! I've just posted blogs dating back to my South Africa vacation in February. Life has been sometimes hectic and sometimes so slow I read entire books in single days, but my honest excuse for not blogging is a mix between laziness/demotivation and lack of electricity. As of last week I have electricity, so that excuse is gone. The laziness and demotivation stemmed from a bit of a mid-service slump: on the heels of lovely South Africa, with my counterpart's position empty and no movement from Peace Corps on my nutrition grant submission, it was sometimes hard to figure out what exactly I'm doing here and why giving up another whole year of my life was worth it.
I'm over that now, excited (if not quite energized) for my second year of service. A new counterpart has been hired, work with ecoclubs and the continuation of my household surveys and needs assessment is imminent. My nutrition project is going forward, as well as potential collaboration on family planning, anti-AIDS and anti-SGBV (sexual and gender based violence) clubs with the health center titulaire. A new group of health trainees is coming and I'll be helping out a little with training (the lucky trainees - they get homestays!). And perhaps most importantly, I love my village, my friends and neighbors, my soccer girls, my garden. I have a few complaints - the perpetual mold problem and the fact that some teenage girls in the village seem to think my sole purpose in life is purveyor of nail polish. C'est la vie, buhoro buhoro. The anniversary of my becoming a PCV is a week away. Let year two begin!
Showing posts with label my life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my life. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Update
Sorry it’s been so long since an update. I’ve written other posts from December and January, but they will have to wait until I have free internet - there are too many photos to upload by phone modem. For now, I’m back in the village, preparing for my work with the schools and ecoclubs, working on bringing the community needs assessment to other villages, getting my nutrition proposal ready to present to Peace Corps when there’s solar power (but there’s very little these days - I haven’t seen the sun all week), and tending the garden that my family helped me get started (fingers crossed that things grow!). I’m also adjusting to the fact that my counterpart resigned to pursue his master’s degree, so things are up in the air a little on the work front.
Still, I think time is going to fly by for the next few months. I’ve got projects to nudge to life, my garden to nudge to life, new neighbors to visit from the new group of education volunteers. From February 12-26 I will be in South Africa for U2 concerts, sushi, etc and will hopefully get lots of pictures uploaded. Weirdly, I’ll be out of Rwanda when my year anniversary rolls around. In March there’s mid-service training, and the first group of volunteers will be closing their service and leaving. We won’t get the next health group until May, after memorial events in April.
On the down side, just when I’d gotten comfortable - mastered nights with no electricity, baking perfect brownies in the “Peace Corps oven” (a pot inside a pot lined with sand atop my kerosene stove), making stovetop pizza that my sister complimented, in her own way, when she declared “it’s like frozen pizza!” and ate 2 pies - I’ve been granted two reminders that I am definitely in the Peace Corps, and in land that was a rainforest less than 20 years ago. Since December I’ve been fighting a disgusting and smelly mold invasion that is not helped by the lack of sunny hours each day. I replaced bamboo shelving with wood, but mold has gotten all over my Rwandan woven baskets, my hot chili flakes that I thought were a highly toxic environment and were inside an old margarine container, my unfinished wood table, my finished wooden mortar and pestle. I’ve repeatedly wiped the green fuzzy growth off the outside of tobasco, jam and other jars with a bleach-soaked cloth. The smell of mold permeates much of my clothing, but until 4 days ago there was barely any sun to air things out. I’ve been burning incense for the smell, and luckily the weekend was bright and sunny.
Perhaps worse than the mold, while I was away for over a week at the beginning of my family’s visit, a rat moved in. Of all the precious items sent to me in packages (thank you package senders!) - cookies, nuts, baking mixes - he mercifully chose to attack my cheap local Rwandan peanut butter, gnawing through the container lid. He left gross little pieces of evidence all over my kitchen and bedroom. Before I could borrow a trap, I left to bring my family back to the airport, and when I returned and lifted my sheets he ran out of my bed. Well, the trap was set, and though he tried to get into the container where I had stored cocoa and chocolate, he was eventually tempted by the dollop of peanut butter in the trap. He’s now dead. Having heard another rat, I re-set the trap, but I think he can smell fear and death on the cage and is avoiding the tasty new morsel of peanut butter. He was bold enough Sunday to run into my open door (airing out the house: mold vs. rats) while I was no less than two feet away. Needless to say, I will be getting a cat as soon as I return from South Africa.
I usually operate with my stand-by Rwanda mantra of “I’m going to choose not to think about that”: successful against giant roaches and spiders, moldy jam that can be scooped off so the rest of the jar survives - slightly fermented - for several months more, etc. Against these recent obstacles, my mantra finally failed. Despite this, I did not feel too tempted to get on the plane with my family back to the US, and I’m looking forward to the next 15.5 months of service - but at the same time I will not deny that I’m counting the time.
Still, I think time is going to fly by for the next few months. I’ve got projects to nudge to life, my garden to nudge to life, new neighbors to visit from the new group of education volunteers. From February 12-26 I will be in South Africa for U2 concerts, sushi, etc and will hopefully get lots of pictures uploaded. Weirdly, I’ll be out of Rwanda when my year anniversary rolls around. In March there’s mid-service training, and the first group of volunteers will be closing their service and leaving. We won’t get the next health group until May, after memorial events in April.
On the down side, just when I’d gotten comfortable - mastered nights with no electricity, baking perfect brownies in the “Peace Corps oven” (a pot inside a pot lined with sand atop my kerosene stove), making stovetop pizza that my sister complimented, in her own way, when she declared “it’s like frozen pizza!” and ate 2 pies - I’ve been granted two reminders that I am definitely in the Peace Corps, and in land that was a rainforest less than 20 years ago. Since December I’ve been fighting a disgusting and smelly mold invasion that is not helped by the lack of sunny hours each day. I replaced bamboo shelving with wood, but mold has gotten all over my Rwandan woven baskets, my hot chili flakes that I thought were a highly toxic environment and were inside an old margarine container, my unfinished wood table, my finished wooden mortar and pestle. I’ve repeatedly wiped the green fuzzy growth off the outside of tobasco, jam and other jars with a bleach-soaked cloth. The smell of mold permeates much of my clothing, but until 4 days ago there was barely any sun to air things out. I’ve been burning incense for the smell, and luckily the weekend was bright and sunny.
Perhaps worse than the mold, while I was away for over a week at the beginning of my family’s visit, a rat moved in. Of all the precious items sent to me in packages (thank you package senders!) - cookies, nuts, baking mixes - he mercifully chose to attack my cheap local Rwandan peanut butter, gnawing through the container lid. He left gross little pieces of evidence all over my kitchen and bedroom. Before I could borrow a trap, I left to bring my family back to the airport, and when I returned and lifted my sheets he ran out of my bed. Well, the trap was set, and though he tried to get into the container where I had stored cocoa and chocolate, he was eventually tempted by the dollop of peanut butter in the trap. He’s now dead. Having heard another rat, I re-set the trap, but I think he can smell fear and death on the cage and is avoiding the tasty new morsel of peanut butter. He was bold enough Sunday to run into my open door (airing out the house: mold vs. rats) while I was no less than two feet away. Needless to say, I will be getting a cat as soon as I return from South Africa.
I usually operate with my stand-by Rwanda mantra of “I’m going to choose not to think about that”: successful against giant roaches and spiders, moldy jam that can be scooped off so the rest of the jar survives - slightly fermented - for several months more, etc. Against these recent obstacles, my mantra finally failed. Despite this, I did not feel too tempted to get on the plane with my family back to the US, and I’m looking forward to the next 15.5 months of service - but at the same time I will not deny that I’m counting the time.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Meet the people in my village!
Bwiza and my adopted family
On my first day in the village, I was led down the hill and among the houses by an ever-increasing gang of children. I was completely disoriented by the time Bwiza invited me into her house “to give a sweet potato” (which she was cooking) and a glass of milk. Bwiza is my age (23), unmarried, and has an adorable 5 year old son. Her family, like so many in the village, came here after years in the Congo. Bwiza finished secondary school in Goma and speaks little English: we mostly communicate in French and Kinyarwanda. She is the second oldest and only girl of 8 kids (ranging from 25 and studying medicine in Goma to 8, just a few years older than his nephew). The family is very intelligent and hard-working. The 22 and 12 year old brothers in particular speak impressive English and are very studious. Bwiza is my village best friend - I’ve enjoyed showing her pictures of friends and family and narrating for her the North American seasons on a virtual tour of Boston via my calendar. We trade food, gossip, stories, comparisons of life in America and here, and English/Kinyarwanda lessons.
Philip, the primary school headmaster
Philip is Bwiza & co.’s uncle. He is the headmaster of the primary school (660 students and expanding to cover the first 3 years of secondary with 60 more students expected). We primarily converse in French. He’s been incredibly welcoming, and helped facilitate my English class, grantwriting, and other projects.
Kayihura
Kayihura is the chief of the umudugudu (village). When I first met him he called me “umukobwa wanjye.” He’s always happy to greet me and we’ve been collaborating on the needs assessment, water project, etc.
Robert
Robert is Rebecca’s houseboy/cook/fixer/extraordinaire. He’s been so helpful for me, showing me to the market town 50 minutes away, helping me find eggs and plant flowers and fruit in my garden, and generally just being good company.. One of the smartest Rwandans I’ve met, at 24 he still has 2 years left of secondary school (he’s saved his money and will return to school this January). Robert’s English is excellent and he loves learning slang and expressions, leading to many a discussion about gold digging, keeping up with the Joneses, odd ducks, etc etc.
Mama Benjamin
Mama Benjamin (of the toothbrushing lesson LINK) has a shop is across the street from my office and house. Every time I visit, she gives me a Fanta (I take citron) and refuses to let me pay. The room where she receives guests and customers is decorated with various Catholic images with origami-style frames made from Primus beer labels. (Fitting for a Catholic, yes?)
Mama Shakuru
Mama Shakuru lives behind the office and my house. She can often be found in her kitchen, where she’ll offer me a sweet potato or cup of ikivuguto (Rwandan yogurt). Her family owns a cow and if I ask a day in advance I can usually get a good deal on a liter of fresh milk - 100rwf ($.15 - it’s 200rwf in shops here and 400rwf in Gisenyi). Sometimes I literally stand there with my empty bottle watching Shakuru, 16, milk the cow. I take the milk home, strain the stray hairs out, and boil it. Once in a while they won’t sell me milk - “we need it for Muhirwa (moo-hee-rgwa),” she’ll say, nodding to her affable 3 year old son, belly swollen with worms. How can I take milk from him? A few weeks ago I used some of their milk to make carrot cake pancakes, so I made 6 small ones for every member of their family (I made 7, actually - Robert raved about his). When I brought them over and said they were like amandazi (donuts) but with milk and carrots, 5-year-old Luisa and 7-year-old Samuel went nuts with excitement. Their mother ordered them to wash their hands and all 3 young kids took a pancake. Samuel’s was gone in 2 bites; Luisa made hers last a few seconds longer. Muhirwa took a few nibbles, and his mother asked for a bite. She liked it, but he didn’t - “he doesn’t like sweet things,” she explained, “not even sweet little bananas.” Luisa and Samuel nearly knocked each other over fighting over Muhirwa’s leftovers; apparently they like sweet things.
My English Class
Since mid-November I’ve been teaching a twice-weekly English class to secondary school students, who are on vacation. My class has dwindled from 20 to 5-10 regulars who often show up 10-15 minutes late, but I try not to take too much offense. Some of the kids are top students, others I’m told are cow herders who aren’t currently attending school. Nearly all are boys; I’ve struggled to get girls to show up with little success. We do fun (I hope) activities - fill in the blank, vocab and interpretation of hip hop songs; the human knot to practice directions, listening to American radio stories, debates, etc, working in lessons in life skills and setting goals. I’ve told Robert, who’s a regular, that the class is sometimes like “pulling teeth” - the education culture here is that of rote memorization and little participation. Getting students to interpret song meanings, compare Rwanda to the America of an NPR story, or guess at a new vocabulary word from context can be a painfully slow process.
The market ladies
Each afternoon, just before 4, women start laying out old plastic sacks on the road with piles of cassava, or buckets heaped with sweet potatoes, or bags of irish potatoes. If I’m lucky someone will have avocado, corn, cabbage or soy flour; on 2 occasions I’ve seen miniature mangoes and onions and once each bananas, urusenda hot peppers, and tomatoes. (Pineapples can sometimes be bought from a passing trader.) It’s the only market within nearly an hour’s walk, and as such, many women shop at the market on a daily basis. Various village women sell their surplus starchy roots. I check it out most days because you never know what you might find. Mostly I just find calls of “Agatesi (that’s me), buy potatoes,” “Agatesi, soya,” “Agatesi, come look at the avocado.” The first time I saw mangoes I was with Bwiza, on my way to visit her house. I bought us 10 for 100rwf ($.15) and we sat at her house, peeling fruits the size of a child’s fist and getting their hairs stuck in our teeth as she showed me pictures of her in school, her son’s father, and her “sweetie.”
On my first day in the village, I was led down the hill and among the houses by an ever-increasing gang of children. I was completely disoriented by the time Bwiza invited me into her house “to give a sweet potato” (which she was cooking) and a glass of milk. Bwiza is my age (23), unmarried, and has an adorable 5 year old son. Her family, like so many in the village, came here after years in the Congo. Bwiza finished secondary school in Goma and speaks little English: we mostly communicate in French and Kinyarwanda. She is the second oldest and only girl of 8 kids (ranging from 25 and studying medicine in Goma to 8, just a few years older than his nephew). The family is very intelligent and hard-working. The 22 and 12 year old brothers in particular speak impressive English and are very studious. Bwiza is my village best friend - I’ve enjoyed showing her pictures of friends and family and narrating for her the North American seasons on a virtual tour of Boston via my calendar. We trade food, gossip, stories, comparisons of life in America and here, and English/Kinyarwanda lessons.
Philip, the primary school headmaster
Philip is Bwiza & co.’s uncle. He is the headmaster of the primary school (660 students and expanding to cover the first 3 years of secondary with 60 more students expected). We primarily converse in French. He’s been incredibly welcoming, and helped facilitate my English class, grantwriting, and other projects.
Kayihura
Kayihura is the chief of the umudugudu (village). When I first met him he called me “umukobwa wanjye.” He’s always happy to greet me and we’ve been collaborating on the needs assessment, water project, etc.
Robert
Robert is Rebecca’s houseboy/cook/fixer/extraordinaire. He’s been so helpful for me, showing me to the market town 50 minutes away, helping me find eggs and plant flowers and fruit in my garden, and generally just being good company.. One of the smartest Rwandans I’ve met, at 24 he still has 2 years left of secondary school (he’s saved his money and will return to school this January). Robert’s English is excellent and he loves learning slang and expressions, leading to many a discussion about gold digging, keeping up with the Joneses, odd ducks, etc etc.
Mama Benjamin
Mama Benjamin (of the toothbrushing lesson LINK) has a shop is across the street from my office and house. Every time I visit, she gives me a Fanta (I take citron) and refuses to let me pay. The room where she receives guests and customers is decorated with various Catholic images with origami-style frames made from Primus beer labels. (Fitting for a Catholic, yes?)
Mama Shakuru
Mama Shakuru lives behind the office and my house. She can often be found in her kitchen, where she’ll offer me a sweet potato or cup of ikivuguto (Rwandan yogurt). Her family owns a cow and if I ask a day in advance I can usually get a good deal on a liter of fresh milk - 100rwf ($.15 - it’s 200rwf in shops here and 400rwf in Gisenyi). Sometimes I literally stand there with my empty bottle watching Shakuru, 16, milk the cow. I take the milk home, strain the stray hairs out, and boil it. Once in a while they won’t sell me milk - “we need it for Muhirwa (moo-hee-rgwa),” she’ll say, nodding to her affable 3 year old son, belly swollen with worms. How can I take milk from him? A few weeks ago I used some of their milk to make carrot cake pancakes, so I made 6 small ones for every member of their family (I made 7, actually - Robert raved about his). When I brought them over and said they were like amandazi (donuts) but with milk and carrots, 5-year-old Luisa and 7-year-old Samuel went nuts with excitement. Their mother ordered them to wash their hands and all 3 young kids took a pancake. Samuel’s was gone in 2 bites; Luisa made hers last a few seconds longer. Muhirwa took a few nibbles, and his mother asked for a bite. She liked it, but he didn’t - “he doesn’t like sweet things,” she explained, “not even sweet little bananas.” Luisa and Samuel nearly knocked each other over fighting over Muhirwa’s leftovers; apparently they like sweet things.
My English Class
Since mid-November I’ve been teaching a twice-weekly English class to secondary school students, who are on vacation. My class has dwindled from 20 to 5-10 regulars who often show up 10-15 minutes late, but I try not to take too much offense. Some of the kids are top students, others I’m told are cow herders who aren’t currently attending school. Nearly all are boys; I’ve struggled to get girls to show up with little success. We do fun (I hope) activities - fill in the blank, vocab and interpretation of hip hop songs; the human knot to practice directions, listening to American radio stories, debates, etc, working in lessons in life skills and setting goals. I’ve told Robert, who’s a regular, that the class is sometimes like “pulling teeth” - the education culture here is that of rote memorization and little participation. Getting students to interpret song meanings, compare Rwanda to the America of an NPR story, or guess at a new vocabulary word from context can be a painfully slow process.
The market ladies
Each afternoon, just before 4, women start laying out old plastic sacks on the road with piles of cassava, or buckets heaped with sweet potatoes, or bags of irish potatoes. If I’m lucky someone will have avocado, corn, cabbage or soy flour; on 2 occasions I’ve seen miniature mangoes and onions and once each bananas, urusenda hot peppers, and tomatoes. (Pineapples can sometimes be bought from a passing trader.) It’s the only market within nearly an hour’s walk, and as such, many women shop at the market on a daily basis. Various village women sell their surplus starchy roots. I check it out most days because you never know what you might find. Mostly I just find calls of “Agatesi (that’s me), buy potatoes,” “Agatesi, soya,” “Agatesi, come look at the avocado.” The first time I saw mangoes I was with Bwiza, on my way to visit her house. I bought us 10 for 100rwf ($.15) and we sat at her house, peeling fruits the size of a child’s fist and getting their hairs stuck in our teeth as she showed me pictures of her in school, her son’s father, and her “sweetie.”
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Thanksgiving in Rwanda
I managed to turn a day of feasting into a full week here, so I think I’ve done pretty well for myself.
On Tuesday I “catered” a party for GACP’s forest research staff: pizza, bean dip and guac, pudding. We (the researcher Rebecca and I) explained that America is a nation of immigrants who’ve brought their food with them, creating a diverse culinary scene including Italian pizza and Mexican bean dip and guac and English (sort of) pudding. In keeping with the Rwandan love affair with beans, the bean dip was the biggest hit. I think they enjoyed beans that had a little more going on than just being boiled to death.
Wednesday we had a little vegetarian Thanksgiving in the village. I taught Rebecca’s house boy how to make garlic mashed potatoes and stuffing in a frying pan, and talked about the origins of Thanksgiving. When we went around the table to say what we're thankful for, he said "for the delicious food Tuesday and Wednesday."
Thursday I got together with my Peace Corps posse in Musanze and we made a delicious instant Thanksgiving from packages - canned cranberry jelly (also good on muffins the next day, FYI), stove top stuffing with instant turkey gravy and canned chicken, and heavenly Betty Crocker sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows. Friday I stuffed myself until I felt sick at an expat Thanksgiving that included turkeys freshly killed on Wednesday! And Saturday my boss, Rebecca and I had a girls’ night at a restaurant in Gisenyi. Topics of conversation included the difficulties of finding and managing housegirls/boys and email identity theft.
There was also shopping - a quick Black Friday trip to the Musanze market (I got the cutest aprons! $.12 each!) and today while waiting for an appointment I found some nice clothes in the Gisenyi market. Bet you can’t get $11 DKNY jeans in the US, even on Black Sunday (alas if I were a different size DKNY could have been Diesel for $11).
So have no fear, I’ve already started working on my holiday weight gain and consumerist binge, even in Rwanda.
I want to say how thankful I am for my amazingly supportive family and friends from home who spoil me rotten, my wonderful friends and colleagues here, and for being born into such incredible privilege in America.
On Tuesday I “catered” a party for GACP’s forest research staff: pizza, bean dip and guac, pudding. We (the researcher Rebecca and I) explained that America is a nation of immigrants who’ve brought their food with them, creating a diverse culinary scene including Italian pizza and Mexican bean dip and guac and English (sort of) pudding. In keeping with the Rwandan love affair with beans, the bean dip was the biggest hit. I think they enjoyed beans that had a little more going on than just being boiled to death.
Wednesday we had a little vegetarian Thanksgiving in the village. I taught Rebecca’s house boy how to make garlic mashed potatoes and stuffing in a frying pan, and talked about the origins of Thanksgiving. When we went around the table to say what we're thankful for, he said "for the delicious food Tuesday and Wednesday."
Thursday I got together with my Peace Corps posse in Musanze and we made a delicious instant Thanksgiving from packages - canned cranberry jelly (also good on muffins the next day, FYI), stove top stuffing with instant turkey gravy and canned chicken, and heavenly Betty Crocker sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows. Friday I stuffed myself until I felt sick at an expat Thanksgiving that included turkeys freshly killed on Wednesday! And Saturday my boss, Rebecca and I had a girls’ night at a restaurant in Gisenyi. Topics of conversation included the difficulties of finding and managing housegirls/boys and email identity theft.
There was also shopping - a quick Black Friday trip to the Musanze market (I got the cutest aprons! $.12 each!) and today while waiting for an appointment I found some nice clothes in the Gisenyi market. Bet you can’t get $11 DKNY jeans in the US, even on Black Sunday (alas if I were a different size DKNY could have been Diesel for $11).
So have no fear, I’ve already started working on my holiday weight gain and consumerist binge, even in Rwanda.
I want to say how thankful I am for my amazingly supportive family and friends from home who spoil me rotten, my wonderful friends and colleagues here, and for being born into such incredible privilege in America.
Friday, October 29, 2010
An atypical day in the life
I had to see the doctor Thursday in Kigali, so I left Kinihira Wednesday morning to run some errands in Gisenyi in preparation for moving next week. I traveled to Gisenyi in 2 overcrowded taxi-vans (matatus), which was relatively comfortable compared to the alternative: the puke-green bus of death.
In amongst arranging to buy some furniture I’d been eying for a while (a cushioned chair and a few coffee tables, one of which will be a book shelf on the cheap), I visited the post office. I got my parents’ Halloween package, as anticipated, but there was no sign of my absentee ballot - way to go MA! However, there were about 14 newly delivered mailbags, so I asked if I could wait and see if there was anything more for me.
Although they weren’t doing anything else, it took the post office employees 30 minutes to get around to opening the mailbags. I occupied with fresh copies of the New Yorker, courtesy of my grandparents, then turned to watch as they dumped the bags unceremoniously onto the floor with painstaking slowness. The bags themselves were quite interesting: they originally came from France, with a few from Great Britain and the US, but seem to have been appropriated by the Rwandan Posita. There was still no sign of the absentee ballot, but my parents’ Thanksgiving package had made it to Rwanda in about 16 days - a record! The post office workers kindly offered me a French mailbag so that I could carry both packages home, and allowed me to trade it for an American one (which has a neat little Velcro closure at the top). After a 30 minute climb uphill I made it home with the USPS sack of packages slung Santa Claus like over my shoulder just as it started to rain. Phew!
At dusk I went and picked up the remainder of my furniture and as I was going to buy cushions in the market had to fend off a teenaged ass-grabber with a slap. But the excitement was only just beginning.
That evening I went to my old boss’s new mansion for dinner. Much to my surprise I found a new used car in the driveway! Papa Rene, as he is called, is a proud member of Rwanda’s NGO-funded upper-middle class. Although I was 45 minutes late, I still waited over 20 minutes for he and his wife to come home from work, which I occupied with phone calls to friends, wowing the housegirls with my rapid English, and by playing with the cutest 3-year-old on earth, Glory. When Papa Rene arrived he informed me that before dinner they’d be visiting his family in Brasserie (where the brewery is, 6km away) and said “I think we can move together,” indicating that I was to join them in the car.
Much to my surprise his wife (who is about 26 and the mother of 3, the oldest of whom is 8) got into the drivers’ seat. “Does Mama Rene know how to drive?” I asked. “She knows buhoro buhoro,” said my boss. If you don’t recall, buhoro buhoro means slowly by slowly and is the phrase I use to describe my Kinyarwanda abilities. Did I mention it was dark out? Needless to say I found the only working seatbelt in the backseat, buckeled up, and made the 3-year-old who preferred to tumble all over the backseat sit on my lap where I could keep a firm grip on her.
The car stalled 5 times as she backed it out of the gold-painted gate and up the steep street, and another time as she attempted to pull into traffic. With Papa Rene calmly coaching his wife in Kinyarwanda, we made it out of Gisenyi town and turned up the hilly and curvey road to Brasserie. For the next 6km I texted goodbyes to a few friends as Mama Rene slowly wound her way to our final destination, the outer tires running off the road only a few times and the breaks being slammed once as she got scared by oncoming headlights, though they were safely on the opposite side of the road.
We finally arrived at the family’s house and I unclenched my fingers and texted news of my ongoing existence to a friend. At the family’s house, I introduced myself, showing off my Kinyarwanda, and then accepted a Fanta and mostly tuned out the conversation in favor of children-watching. Papa Rene’s 3-year-old was playing with her cousin, an 18-month old, precariously feeding him orange Fanta straight from the bottle as mothers sometimes do to their young children. Note that mothers usually have a lot more arm strength and coordination and do not attempt this act over their shoulders. Miraculously she didn’t’ spill any before her mother stepped in with a plastic mug. The 18-month-old was playing with a plastic toy truck, which was marked UN in large letters, I kid you not.
After the Fantas were empty and family business was concluded and a bag of eggs was given to my boss’s family (they gave it to the tired 3-year-old to carry, and I carried her) we returned to the car. I was dismayed but not surprised to see the tired and slightly frustrated Mama Rene slip back into the driver’s seat for the trip back to Gisenyi.
When we’d safely made it back inside their gate and Mama Rene had almost but not quite hit the side of the house as she brought the car to a stop, Papa Rene turned around and said “You see, Agatesi, she knows!” “Yes, she knows!” I agreed. 8 months in Rwanda have at least taught me to lie as well as Rwandans.
Dinner was delicious and thankfully it was my boss who drove me home, otherwise it might have ended up all over the new-used backseat of the car.
As a postscript, today I found my ballot in the Peace Corps office in Kigali, shipped by UPS express. The address was my Gisenyi PO and didn’t mention that I’m a PCV so I have no idea how it found its way to the PC office, but I guess MA is no longer as delinquent as I thought. I’d already voted by email, though.
In amongst arranging to buy some furniture I’d been eying for a while (a cushioned chair and a few coffee tables, one of which will be a book shelf on the cheap), I visited the post office. I got my parents’ Halloween package, as anticipated, but there was no sign of my absentee ballot - way to go MA! However, there were about 14 newly delivered mailbags, so I asked if I could wait and see if there was anything more for me.
Although they weren’t doing anything else, it took the post office employees 30 minutes to get around to opening the mailbags. I occupied with fresh copies of the New Yorker, courtesy of my grandparents, then turned to watch as they dumped the bags unceremoniously onto the floor with painstaking slowness. The bags themselves were quite interesting: they originally came from France, with a few from Great Britain and the US, but seem to have been appropriated by the Rwandan Posita. There was still no sign of the absentee ballot, but my parents’ Thanksgiving package had made it to Rwanda in about 16 days - a record! The post office workers kindly offered me a French mailbag so that I could carry both packages home, and allowed me to trade it for an American one (which has a neat little Velcro closure at the top). After a 30 minute climb uphill I made it home with the USPS sack of packages slung Santa Claus like over my shoulder just as it started to rain. Phew!
At dusk I went and picked up the remainder of my furniture and as I was going to buy cushions in the market had to fend off a teenaged ass-grabber with a slap. But the excitement was only just beginning.
That evening I went to my old boss’s new mansion for dinner. Much to my surprise I found a new used car in the driveway! Papa Rene, as he is called, is a proud member of Rwanda’s NGO-funded upper-middle class. Although I was 45 minutes late, I still waited over 20 minutes for he and his wife to come home from work, which I occupied with phone calls to friends, wowing the housegirls with my rapid English, and by playing with the cutest 3-year-old on earth, Glory. When Papa Rene arrived he informed me that before dinner they’d be visiting his family in Brasserie (where the brewery is, 6km away) and said “I think we can move together,” indicating that I was to join them in the car.
Much to my surprise his wife (who is about 26 and the mother of 3, the oldest of whom is 8) got into the drivers’ seat. “Does Mama Rene know how to drive?” I asked. “She knows buhoro buhoro,” said my boss. If you don’t recall, buhoro buhoro means slowly by slowly and is the phrase I use to describe my Kinyarwanda abilities. Did I mention it was dark out? Needless to say I found the only working seatbelt in the backseat, buckeled up, and made the 3-year-old who preferred to tumble all over the backseat sit on my lap where I could keep a firm grip on her.
The car stalled 5 times as she backed it out of the gold-painted gate and up the steep street, and another time as she attempted to pull into traffic. With Papa Rene calmly coaching his wife in Kinyarwanda, we made it out of Gisenyi town and turned up the hilly and curvey road to Brasserie. For the next 6km I texted goodbyes to a few friends as Mama Rene slowly wound her way to our final destination, the outer tires running off the road only a few times and the breaks being slammed once as she got scared by oncoming headlights, though they were safely on the opposite side of the road.
We finally arrived at the family’s house and I unclenched my fingers and texted news of my ongoing existence to a friend. At the family’s house, I introduced myself, showing off my Kinyarwanda, and then accepted a Fanta and mostly tuned out the conversation in favor of children-watching. Papa Rene’s 3-year-old was playing with her cousin, an 18-month old, precariously feeding him orange Fanta straight from the bottle as mothers sometimes do to their young children. Note that mothers usually have a lot more arm strength and coordination and do not attempt this act over their shoulders. Miraculously she didn’t’ spill any before her mother stepped in with a plastic mug. The 18-month-old was playing with a plastic toy truck, which was marked UN in large letters, I kid you not.
After the Fantas were empty and family business was concluded and a bag of eggs was given to my boss’s family (they gave it to the tired 3-year-old to carry, and I carried her) we returned to the car. I was dismayed but not surprised to see the tired and slightly frustrated Mama Rene slip back into the driver’s seat for the trip back to Gisenyi.
When we’d safely made it back inside their gate and Mama Rene had almost but not quite hit the side of the house as she brought the car to a stop, Papa Rene turned around and said “You see, Agatesi, she knows!” “Yes, she knows!” I agreed. 8 months in Rwanda have at least taught me to lie as well as Rwandans.
Dinner was delicious and thankfully it was my boss who drove me home, otherwise it might have ended up all over the new-used backseat of the car.
As a postscript, today I found my ballot in the Peace Corps office in Kigali, shipped by UPS express. The address was my Gisenyi PO and didn’t mention that I’m a PCV so I have no idea how it found its way to the PC office, but I guess MA is no longer as delinquent as I thought. I’d already voted by email, though.
Monday, October 25, 2010
My new house!
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Home depot
My new house is right next door to the GACP field station/office/house. It’s maybe 12 or 14 feet square, divided in half and then one of the rooms in half again: one small room (in front, to be my bedroom with another, more distant view of Nyiragongo LINK) and two smaller rooms. The walls are mud with plaster on the inside, the floor is cement (most floors here are dirt), and the roof is tin (most here are ceramic tile). The garden behind the house is huge and I can’t wait to plant some vegetables and herbs (the only veggies in the market here are the occasional cabbage, corn or avocado). I’ll leave some of the banana trees in place but I’m going to get rid of the ones that block my view of Lake Kivu.
Today we met with the landlady, who was wearing a Home Depot sweatshirt - perfect! We discussed the alterations to be made: the 2 windows will be expanded and they’ll put in metal doors (with windows, giving me 4 windows). They’ve already put in a cement gutter around the house. I’ve put in a request for the walls to be painted white or yellow (many walls here are painted a torquoise-green, ugh). They’re going to build a bamboo fence around the property, joining it to the fence around the GACP property, and we’ll put a gate between the two. They need to build a toilet and shower, but in the meantime I can use the ones on the office property.
I’m hoping to be able to move in the week of the 20th, after IST.
Today we met with the landlady, who was wearing a Home Depot sweatshirt - perfect! We discussed the alterations to be made: the 2 windows will be expanded and they’ll put in metal doors (with windows, giving me 4 windows). They’ve already put in a cement gutter around the house. I’ve put in a request for the walls to be painted white or yellow (many walls here are painted a torquoise-green, ugh). They’re going to build a bamboo fence around the property, joining it to the fence around the GACP property, and we’ll put a gate between the two. They need to build a toilet and shower, but in the meantime I can use the ones on the office property.
I’m hoping to be able to move in the week of the 20th, after IST.
Monday, September 6, 2010
A busy first weekend
I arrived in Kinihira Friday. Saturday I walked 50 minutes to the nearest market town with R., the scientist’s houseboy (she’s on leave in the US). Gakere isn’t much, but it’s got more going on than Kinihira - there’s actually fruit for sale, there’s a butcher shop and a bar that sells brochettes, and some of the milk bars actually sell sambusa (in Kinihira it’s just bread and donuts). There are a lot more houses, but still no power. R. makes great company - he’s incredibly smart and eager to improve his English but also a great Kinyarwanda teacher. Although he’s 24, he still has a year left of secondary school - he’s been working to save money for it.
Today was Inauguration Day. Apparently each umudugudu was given 50,000RWF ($90) to celebrate - in Kinihira the entire sum seems to have been applied to sorghum beer, with maybe a few Fantas. There’s got to be at least 25,000 imidugudu in Rwanda - that’s a lot of beer money!
In the afternoon I joined R. in his reading group. He admitted 10 kids to the yard and we read a picture book to them, R. assisting my attempts to translate. More kids peered at us from behind the fence. Afterwards I passed out crayons (thanks Auntie K + Uncle C!) so the kids could draw a scene from the book. The book was about a tree that’s to be cut down in the Amazon, and the reasons the various forest inhabitants give about the tree’s importance. The snake’s plea was ineffective here: he said his fathers and his fathers’ fathers had lived in the tree. 16 years ago this village didn’t exist, so the importance of an ancestral home has little resonance in Kinihira.
Today was Inauguration Day. Apparently each umudugudu was given 50,000RWF ($90) to celebrate - in Kinihira the entire sum seems to have been applied to sorghum beer, with maybe a few Fantas. There’s got to be at least 25,000 imidugudu in Rwanda - that’s a lot of beer money!
In the afternoon I joined R. in his reading group. He admitted 10 kids to the yard and we read a picture book to them, R. assisting my attempts to translate. More kids peered at us from behind the fence. Afterwards I passed out crayons (thanks Auntie K + Uncle C!) so the kids could draw a scene from the book. The book was about a tree that’s to be cut down in the Amazon, and the reasons the various forest inhabitants give about the tree’s importance. The snake’s plea was ineffective here: he said his fathers and his fathers’ fathers had lived in the tree. 16 years ago this village didn’t exist, so the importance of an ancestral home has little resonance in Kinihira.
Friday, September 3, 2010
First day in Kinihira
(It’s pronounced “kee-nee-hee-rah” - I’m learning that around here “k” and “g” are almost always hard.)
This is a lot more like what you might picture when you hear “Peace Corps”: There are a few water pumps in town and only the distant one reliably works. The only electricity comes from the solar panels at the health center and GACP field station (where staff - all 4 of us - are allowed 1 computer charge per week). There are erect power poles awaiting wires. I’m told they were put up before the election as a sign of progress; the power station itself is months from being finished.
The field station and my future house are located on the main street, which is lined with shops and houses. The bulk of the village is a dense collection of houses stretching down the hill behind this street. The surrounding view is beautiful: emerald tea fields, plot being tilled as the rainy season begins, cow pastures, glades of eucalyptus. Behind all this, if it’s clear, Nyiragongo bellows smoke and Karisimbi disappears into the coulds). On the other side of the street, from the field station, Kivu is visible on a clear day.
Cows are an even bigger deal here than in the rest of Rwanda, which is saying a lot. Milk costs 30% what it does in Gisenyi - 120-150RWF/liter ($.25). Cheese in a neighboring village is 1800 RWF/wheel - by far the best price in Rwanda.
This morning I started walking down the street and met sme girls carrying roof tiles on their heads. I asked why they weren’t in school and they said “it’s cold,” though I may have misunderstood. It was cold but that’s a pretty poor excuse. They gave me a tour of the village, introducing me to pretty much every adult who was home. Along the way we gathered 20 or so children - I felt like the pied piper. One gave me a very green passion fruit; another a piece of sugar cane. I was welcomed by a village elder, Francois, who wasn’t actually very old. Upon leaving his house the kids and I came across a circle of people around an open space. What could be more interesting to stare at than the new muzungu? It was a neon green snake. Francois came over and killed it with his walking stick.
I also met Bwiza (“bgiza,” meaning good). She’s 23 (my age) and has a 5-year-old son whose father is in Kigali (I think). She welcomed me into their small house and gave me a sweet potato and a cup of milk. She lives with her parents and some of her siblings - 9 people in total. They have a dirt floor but are fortunate to have a tin roof.
In the afternoon I visited the health center with my new counterpart, M., to meet the titulaire (director). Then I tried to read while kids gawked at me through the fence, so I talked to them a bit. The scientist has been here two years, so you’d think they’d be used to a white woman by now. At the afternoon market (4-6pm daily) there were only irish potatoes and sweet potatoes. This is typical. If I’m lucky I might find cabbage, corn, or avocadoes - you can see why I’m eager to start a garden!
I was able to carry on a decent conversation with many people here: the extra four months of Kinyarwanda since swearin make a huge difference. Many adults also speak Swahili and some speak French because the majority of the population was repatriated here from Congo after the genocide. I’m hoping my French will get some much-needed practice and I might try to pick up some Swahili.
It was a great first day. Because inauguration is Monday, I’ve got a 3-day weekend to explore and make more friends (or at least continue building my army of children). I’m really excited about many potential projects here!
This is a lot more like what you might picture when you hear “Peace Corps”: There are a few water pumps in town and only the distant one reliably works. The only electricity comes from the solar panels at the health center and GACP field station (where staff - all 4 of us - are allowed 1 computer charge per week). There are erect power poles awaiting wires. I’m told they were put up before the election as a sign of progress; the power station itself is months from being finished.
The field station and my future house are located on the main street, which is lined with shops and houses. The bulk of the village is a dense collection of houses stretching down the hill behind this street. The surrounding view is beautiful: emerald tea fields, plot being tilled as the rainy season begins, cow pastures, glades of eucalyptus. Behind all this, if it’s clear, Nyiragongo bellows smoke and Karisimbi disappears into the coulds). On the other side of the street, from the field station, Kivu is visible on a clear day.
Cows are an even bigger deal here than in the rest of Rwanda, which is saying a lot. Milk costs 30% what it does in Gisenyi - 120-150RWF/liter ($.25). Cheese in a neighboring village is 1800 RWF/wheel - by far the best price in Rwanda.
This morning I started walking down the street and met sme girls carrying roof tiles on their heads. I asked why they weren’t in school and they said “it’s cold,” though I may have misunderstood. It was cold but that’s a pretty poor excuse. They gave me a tour of the village, introducing me to pretty much every adult who was home. Along the way we gathered 20 or so children - I felt like the pied piper. One gave me a very green passion fruit; another a piece of sugar cane. I was welcomed by a village elder, Francois, who wasn’t actually very old. Upon leaving his house the kids and I came across a circle of people around an open space. What could be more interesting to stare at than the new muzungu? It was a neon green snake. Francois came over and killed it with his walking stick.
I also met Bwiza (“bgiza,” meaning good). She’s 23 (my age) and has a 5-year-old son whose father is in Kigali (I think). She welcomed me into their small house and gave me a sweet potato and a cup of milk. She lives with her parents and some of her siblings - 9 people in total. They have a dirt floor but are fortunate to have a tin roof.
In the afternoon I visited the health center with my new counterpart, M., to meet the titulaire (director). Then I tried to read while kids gawked at me through the fence, so I talked to them a bit. The scientist has been here two years, so you’d think they’d be used to a white woman by now. At the afternoon market (4-6pm daily) there were only irish potatoes and sweet potatoes. This is typical. If I’m lucky I might find cabbage, corn, or avocadoes - you can see why I’m eager to start a garden!
I was able to carry on a decent conversation with many people here: the extra four months of Kinyarwanda since swearin make a huge difference. Many adults also speak Swahili and some speak French because the majority of the population was repatriated here from Congo after the genocide. I’m hoping my French will get some much-needed practice and I might try to pick up some Swahili.
It was a great first day. Because inauguration is Monday, I’ve got a 3-day weekend to explore and make more friends (or at least continue building my army of children). I’m really excited about many potential projects here!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Big Changes!
There’s some big changes to announce for me! I’ll be changing jobs and moving sites. Although it’s a bit unusual in the Peace Corps, Rwanda is a new country with new placements and it’s fairly common here for volunteers to move around a bit. I’m glad I’m doing it now, 4 months into my service, rather than after a whole year. This way I’ll still have 20 months at my new job.
Although I loved my coworkers at my old job, there wasn’t a lot of space for a Peace Corps Volunteer to work with their office. They were very diligently fulfilling donor requirements, or making it look like they were fulfilling donor requirements, and added projects I was discussing would have been outside that scope. I was also frustrated by the relationship with the inefficient NGO funding my project, and with all of the waste (see Jen’s blog for more http://jeneambrose.blogspot.com/2010/08/ngos-wasting-money.html). Mostly, I was frustrated by the fact that my office didn’t even work in Gisenyi but in surrounding sectors. My job involved sitting on the back of a moto, riding through the beautiful country to visit groups for an hour or a morning in order to fulfill donor requirements and give “trainings” and pay out per diems before returning to town. I joined Peace Corps to do grassroots development work in the community in which I was living, but I felt like an outsider doing a modified version of the NGO-worker-in-a-Landrover activities I wanted to avoid.
In July I met an American who is here with Iowa-based Great Ape Trust and their local Gishwati Area Conservation Program, based in Gisenyi (my current city) and Gishwati forest, where they are trying to reforest and where they look after 15 or so chimps. They were vaguely interested in a PCV to do more broad community engagement work in the villages around the forest. After my hike in Gishwati LINK and some discussions with GACP and Peace Corps, I’m switching jobs. I'll be doing a broad-based needs assessment with my new counterpart, working with their environmental clubs in schools around the forest (and I hope to start health and girls' clubs), working with the local health center a bit, and trying to combat diseases shared between humans and chimps (meaning community-based education on sanitation, safe drinking water and good hygiene), and perhaps trying to bring bio-briquettes to the villages because they currently cook with wood which is bad for both the forest and their health.
I move to the village of Kinihira into the GACP field station guest room on Friday. I have my in-service training in Kibuye September 13-18, and then hopefully my tiny little house will be ready (they are doing things like knocking windows into the mud walls and building the latrine). I'm going to have a huge yard for gardening, sloping downhill with a view of Kivu on a clear day. Although I love Gisenyi, I’m getting what I wanted originally- to live and work in a rural village. There's no electricity (there are poles, so it’s coming) and I'll pay someone to fetch my water. There's an American woman who's been there a few years researching the chimps, and the local research staff live in the town, so I have a welcoming community already.
My blogging frequency will definitely decrease without electricity, but I’ll try to update in batches whenever I’m in Gisenyi. Kinihira is 75 minutes from Gisenyi on the road that goes to Kibuye. GACP has a car that goes back and forth to Gisenyi on Mondays and Fridays, and bedrooms in their office, so it will be free and easy for me to get back to Gisenyi 1-2 times a month - the best of both worlds! I’ll have the same address and I still appreciate mail, email, and phone calls.
As for the blog, I have quite a few entries written but I'm out of time! I'll be posting them from IST on the 12th, backdated, so at that point be sure to scroll down for older posts if you're not using an RSS reader.
Although I loved my coworkers at my old job, there wasn’t a lot of space for a Peace Corps Volunteer to work with their office. They were very diligently fulfilling donor requirements, or making it look like they were fulfilling donor requirements, and added projects I was discussing would have been outside that scope. I was also frustrated by the relationship with the inefficient NGO funding my project, and with all of the waste (see Jen’s blog for more http://jeneambrose.blogspot.com/2010/08/ngos-wasting-money.html). Mostly, I was frustrated by the fact that my office didn’t even work in Gisenyi but in surrounding sectors. My job involved sitting on the back of a moto, riding through the beautiful country to visit groups for an hour or a morning in order to fulfill donor requirements and give “trainings” and pay out per diems before returning to town. I joined Peace Corps to do grassroots development work in the community in which I was living, but I felt like an outsider doing a modified version of the NGO-worker-in-a-Landrover activities I wanted to avoid.
In July I met an American who is here with Iowa-based Great Ape Trust and their local Gishwati Area Conservation Program, based in Gisenyi (my current city) and Gishwati forest, where they are trying to reforest and where they look after 15 or so chimps. They were vaguely interested in a PCV to do more broad community engagement work in the villages around the forest. After my hike in Gishwati LINK and some discussions with GACP and Peace Corps, I’m switching jobs. I'll be doing a broad-based needs assessment with my new counterpart, working with their environmental clubs in schools around the forest (and I hope to start health and girls' clubs), working with the local health center a bit, and trying to combat diseases shared between humans and chimps (meaning community-based education on sanitation, safe drinking water and good hygiene), and perhaps trying to bring bio-briquettes to the villages because they currently cook with wood which is bad for both the forest and their health.
I move to the village of Kinihira into the GACP field station guest room on Friday. I have my in-service training in Kibuye September 13-18, and then hopefully my tiny little house will be ready (they are doing things like knocking windows into the mud walls and building the latrine). I'm going to have a huge yard for gardening, sloping downhill with a view of Kivu on a clear day. Although I love Gisenyi, I’m getting what I wanted originally- to live and work in a rural village. There's no electricity (there are poles, so it’s coming) and I'll pay someone to fetch my water. There's an American woman who's been there a few years researching the chimps, and the local research staff live in the town, so I have a welcoming community already.
My blogging frequency will definitely decrease without electricity, but I’ll try to update in batches whenever I’m in Gisenyi. Kinihira is 75 minutes from Gisenyi on the road that goes to Kibuye. GACP has a car that goes back and forth to Gisenyi on Mondays and Fridays, and bedrooms in their office, so it will be free and easy for me to get back to Gisenyi 1-2 times a month - the best of both worlds! I’ll have the same address and I still appreciate mail, email, and phone calls.
As for the blog, I have quite a few entries written but I'm out of time! I'll be posting them from IST on the 12th, backdated, so at that point be sure to scroll down for older posts if you're not using an RSS reader.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Anecdotes
It’s been a long time! I’m sorry I’m so behind - I was in Nyanza for a few weeks in August helping improve the Kinyarwanda materials in preparation for the next training group - I took the lead on writing a Kinyarwanda grammar, which was very exciting because I’m a nerd. It’s never been done before and the language is incredibly complex. It made me appreciate the Latin I was required to take in high school, which gave me a solid grammatical foundation for learning any other language.
I’ve got a whole bunch of pictures and blog posts to come, hopefully before Friday when I’m moving - and of course I’ve got to explain the big move! I hope to do a whole bunch of back-dated posts this week to make up for lost time, but for now, here’s a few anecdotes.
Rain
It’s been dustier than I could imagine here. Green Rwanda has turned to brown, and there’s dust everywhere. I don’t dry my clothes on the line outside because they’ll just get dusty. Everywhere I walk my feet are brown with dust. Early Thursday morning I was awakened at 2am by the sweet sound of rain. In the rainy season I slept right through it, but the thunder of rain on the tin roof was so foreign that it kept me up for an hour. Last night I was with a group of PCVs in Musanze (an hour and fifteen minutes from Gisenyi) and multiple people got texts from friends saying “It’s raining in Rwamagana!” or “It’s raining in Nyanza!” It rained again this morning and I was able to walk down to the 5 star hotel to use internet - and my feet were clean when I got there! This may not sound very impressive, but I haven’t been able to walk around here for months without my feet instantly being covered in filth.
Good Afternoon
It is every Peace Corps Volunteer’s basic mission to teach people that saying “Good Morning” after noon is incorrect. We all go around correcting people with “Good afternoon. (translated from Kinya) After noon, in the afternoon, you say 'good afternoon.' Do you say mwaramutse (good morning) now? No. You say mwiriwe, which is 'good afternoon'."
So last night well after dark, there’s about 10 of us walking down the street together after dark in this town, and a Rwandan teenager says “good afternoon.” Well after dark. I guess it's better than "good morning."
Ew.
Today on the bus I was sitting next to a very well dressed lady. There’s a vibrant middle class here (largely created by NGOs) and I’m pretty sure her outfit was the $300 variety. Half way through the trip, she opened her handbag and puked into it. Which I suppose is better than puking on me or on her expensive outfit.
I’ve got a whole bunch of pictures and blog posts to come, hopefully before Friday when I’m moving - and of course I’ve got to explain the big move! I hope to do a whole bunch of back-dated posts this week to make up for lost time, but for now, here’s a few anecdotes.
Rain
It’s been dustier than I could imagine here. Green Rwanda has turned to brown, and there’s dust everywhere. I don’t dry my clothes on the line outside because they’ll just get dusty. Everywhere I walk my feet are brown with dust. Early Thursday morning I was awakened at 2am by the sweet sound of rain. In the rainy season I slept right through it, but the thunder of rain on the tin roof was so foreign that it kept me up for an hour. Last night I was with a group of PCVs in Musanze (an hour and fifteen minutes from Gisenyi) and multiple people got texts from friends saying “It’s raining in Rwamagana!” or “It’s raining in Nyanza!” It rained again this morning and I was able to walk down to the 5 star hotel to use internet - and my feet were clean when I got there! This may not sound very impressive, but I haven’t been able to walk around here for months without my feet instantly being covered in filth.
Good Afternoon
It is every Peace Corps Volunteer’s basic mission to teach people that saying “Good Morning” after noon is incorrect. We all go around correcting people with “Good afternoon. (translated from Kinya) After noon, in the afternoon, you say 'good afternoon.' Do you say mwaramutse (good morning) now? No. You say mwiriwe, which is 'good afternoon'."
So last night well after dark, there’s about 10 of us walking down the street together after dark in this town, and a Rwandan teenager says “good afternoon.” Well after dark. I guess it's better than "good morning."
Ew.
Today on the bus I was sitting next to a very well dressed lady. There’s a vibrant middle class here (largely created by NGOs) and I’m pretty sure her outfit was the $300 variety. Half way through the trip, she opened her handbag and puked into it. Which I suppose is better than puking on me or on her expensive outfit.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Peace Corps TV
Materials: one iPod with video, one pair of extremely loud headphones, one clip case attached to one tshirt tied around one bent leg.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Kittens!!
Found by my sitemate/housemate in a bush Sunday. Their eyes aren't even open yet so we think they're less than a week old. We're feeding them cow's milk from a tube.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Some things that make me happy
- Discussing how difficult Kinyarwanda noun classes are…entirely in French.
- Hearing people point me out and say aracizi, “she knows the language,” when I walk down the street, before I’ve said anything to them – I’ve got a reputation!
- Greeting people, enjoying their shock and delight when I speak not French but Kinyarwanda, and hearing them say as I walk away that I’m umunyarwanda kazi, Rwandan.
- Kids on my street running up to me and hugging me, even if some still call me muzungu. Kids all over town calling me Agatesi and not muzungu, as far away as the bus station and down by the lake.
- Watching over-sexualized American music videos with Rwandan adults who have no idea whatsoever the context of these videos – the S&M imagery of Rihanna’s Disturbia was to them “ghosts.”
- “Cooking dinner” last night with two colleagues. Which meant that we grilled some corn (think: half-popped, grilled non-sweet corn, it’s pretty good!) and sat there eating it while watching our host’s umukozi cook.
- Getting fed dinner every time I watch the world cup with my colleague who has a satellite. And in general, the bonding that’s occurring over the World Cup.
- I have grown to love Rwandan tea, which is actually hot milk with plenty of sugar and a hint of tea or Nescafe. Similarly, I really do enjoy a cold Fanta Citron – it’s like a refreshing carbonated lemonade.
- Serena’s real actual delicious coffee in a huge pot, served with steamed milk, for $2.25 – just over half my daily budget and totally worth it. Plus the wireless there is really fast. And I can take a hot shower. And the view of Kivu and Congo with the sound of the waves really is serene.
- Hearing people point me out and say aracizi, “she knows the language,” when I walk down the street, before I’ve said anything to them – I’ve got a reputation!
- Greeting people, enjoying their shock and delight when I speak not French but Kinyarwanda, and hearing them say as I walk away that I’m umunyarwanda kazi, Rwandan.
- Kids on my street running up to me and hugging me, even if some still call me muzungu. Kids all over town calling me Agatesi and not muzungu, as far away as the bus station and down by the lake.
- Watching over-sexualized American music videos with Rwandan adults who have no idea whatsoever the context of these videos – the S&M imagery of Rihanna’s Disturbia was to them “ghosts.”
- “Cooking dinner” last night with two colleagues. Which meant that we grilled some corn (think: half-popped, grilled non-sweet corn, it’s pretty good!) and sat there eating it while watching our host’s umukozi cook.
- Getting fed dinner every time I watch the world cup with my colleague who has a satellite. And in general, the bonding that’s occurring over the World Cup.
- I have grown to love Rwandan tea, which is actually hot milk with plenty of sugar and a hint of tea or Nescafe. Similarly, I really do enjoy a cold Fanta Citron – it’s like a refreshing carbonated lemonade.
- Serena’s real actual delicious coffee in a huge pot, served with steamed milk, for $2.25 – just over half my daily budget and totally worth it. Plus the wireless there is really fast. And I can take a hot shower. And the view of Kivu and Congo with the sound of the waves really is serene.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
It appears I've made a friend
Today, while riding a moto with another (licensed) colleague, the police pulled us over again. My new friend just wanted to chat. I told my unlicensed coworker that he better get a license before I end up with a fiancé.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Checking in
A few notes:
1. I got a postbox in Gisenyi, so my mailing address has changed:
Trude (last name)
B.P. 304
Gisenyi, Rwanda, East Africa
I’ve updated my contact info page accordingly. I’d love packages – especially with food. Nuts, dried fruit, candy (rease’s pieces), canned treats (jalepenos, peaches)… Also magazines (New Yorker, Atlantic, etc) and new movies and whatever else might surprise me. But packages aren’t necessary – I’d love mail or even just email!
2. I’ve been a Peace Corps Volunteer for one month as of tomorrow. They aren’t lying when they say there’s lots of ups and downs, often within the same day! There are countless frustrating moments, but I’m getting very good at keeping my emotions in check – and I've learned that many things that are frustrating one day might get resolved the next day, or the next week. As Rwandans say, ihangane (“ee-hahn-gahn-ay”), have patience.
Each day presents new challenges, new vocabulary, new discoveries, new confusions, new triumphs. Some days I’m pumped about my awesome coworkers and working with cooperatives, other days I’m not sure how I fit in with my assigned organization – but then I’m excited about all the other potential projects in the community. Some days I’m down on having a housemate, but then I love my neighborhood and view LINK. Particularly when I see tons of other white people, I still get bummed about not being rural and isolated, but then I love the opportunities and bustle and character of Gisenyi. Cries of “muzungu” irritate me one minute and the next I’m smiling because I’ve introduced myself and made a new neighborhood friend who’s impressed with my infantile Kinyarwanda.
I’m celebrating small victories, like when the Congolese woman who lives in one of the other two houses in my gate fed me dinner of cassava “bread” and delicious greens on Tuesday. Speaking of food, yesterday I ate a mango the size of a (slightly flattened) football (it was expensive, but well worth it). The daily views of lake Kivu and the Congo beyond, the nightly volcano show, my wonderful (and funny) coworkers, text message exchanges with my fellow volunteers, the proximity of the beach, lots of worthwhile potential projects, and never being bored: I’m mostly happy, and always happy to be here.
3. I’d like you guys to comment with your questions about Rwanda, Rwandans, or my life here. What topics should I cover in the future? Is there anything you want to see a picture of? Who’s reading this?
1. I got a postbox in Gisenyi, so my mailing address has changed:
Trude (last name)
B.P. 304
Gisenyi, Rwanda, East Africa
I’ve updated my contact info page accordingly. I’d love packages – especially with food. Nuts, dried fruit, candy (rease’s pieces), canned treats (jalepenos, peaches)… Also magazines (New Yorker, Atlantic, etc) and new movies and whatever else might surprise me. But packages aren’t necessary – I’d love mail or even just email!
2. I’ve been a Peace Corps Volunteer for one month as of tomorrow. They aren’t lying when they say there’s lots of ups and downs, often within the same day! There are countless frustrating moments, but I’m getting very good at keeping my emotions in check – and I've learned that many things that are frustrating one day might get resolved the next day, or the next week. As Rwandans say, ihangane (“ee-hahn-gahn-ay”), have patience.
Each day presents new challenges, new vocabulary, new discoveries, new confusions, new triumphs. Some days I’m pumped about my awesome coworkers and working with cooperatives, other days I’m not sure how I fit in with my assigned organization – but then I’m excited about all the other potential projects in the community. Some days I’m down on having a housemate, but then I love my neighborhood and view LINK. Particularly when I see tons of other white people, I still get bummed about not being rural and isolated, but then I love the opportunities and bustle and character of Gisenyi. Cries of “muzungu” irritate me one minute and the next I’m smiling because I’ve introduced myself and made a new neighborhood friend who’s impressed with my infantile Kinyarwanda.
I’m celebrating small victories, like when the Congolese woman who lives in one of the other two houses in my gate fed me dinner of cassava “bread” and delicious greens on Tuesday. Speaking of food, yesterday I ate a mango the size of a (slightly flattened) football (it was expensive, but well worth it). The daily views of lake Kivu and the Congo beyond, the nightly volcano show, my wonderful (and funny) coworkers, text message exchanges with my fellow volunteers, the proximity of the beach, lots of worthwhile potential projects, and never being bored: I’m mostly happy, and always happy to be here.
3. I’d like you guys to comment with your questions about Rwanda, Rwandans, or my life here. What topics should I cover in the future? Is there anything you want to see a picture of? Who’s reading this?
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