One Year Anniversary

September 14^th marks one year since I left America and the 16^th when I arrived in Kigali (the 15^th was spent eating Belgian chocolate/drinking Belgian beer/sleeping at the airport Sheraton, all on tax payer and American Airline dollars because we missed our connecting flight). I still have over one year to go until I finish because this past year includes three months of training not included in the two years of service. I will wrap up November/December 2014.

Here’s a reflection on the 4% of my life that has been spent in Rwanda:

— Physical

Before I left I put on some weight as I threw caution to the wind and ate everything in sight like a bear prepping for hibernation. I was the fattest I’ve ever been in my life. I’m now 40lbs lighter and back to my freshman year in high school weight.

My skin has changed color. It’s now farmer’s tan brown with a (sometimes not so subtle) hint of red mud from the road.

I am now Chinese. There are several children and some adults who shout umushinwa—Kinyarwanda for Chinese person—at me when I walk by.

— Maladies

During training my bed was one of the first to be infected with bed bugs and fleas. I had to deal with this until the end, even with multiple insecticide sprayings which subsequently caused blurred vision and dizziness.

The plethora of bed bug and flea bites on my body left me itchy. I woke myself up countless times scratching so viciously that my skin started bleeding. This led to streptococcus finding its way into an open wound on my left shin and giving me a three day retreat into Kigali where I got to receive antibiotics in needle form daily and oral antibiotics twice a day for three weeks thereafter.

A blister beetle crawled on my back and rewarded me with another retreat to Kigali. It left a giant scab on my back that can still be faintly seen.

Milk (and to a small degree all dairy) has become an agent of dissatisfaction to my body that my mind is unwilling to accept. Lactose and intolerant are two words I refuse to acknowledge as applicable to my life. Upon my return to 2% Hood milk in the light blocked bottle I will drink myself sick until my body admits defeat and succumbs to lactose tolerance.

— Travel

I love my site for many reasons but one is location. I see Congo from my house and can hike there to one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in all Rwanda. To get to my site you have to travel through a rain forest called Nyungwe. Cyangugu would be District 13 if Rwanda were Panem but that doesn’t detract from its beauty. Biases aside, Rwanda is a beautiful country everywhere you go. In the north you have volcanoes and in the east you have Akagere where you can go on safari. The cities I’ve been to in Rwanda don’t offer much in the way of entertainment for the passerby but places like Butare, Gisenyi, Kibuye and Musanze have been good reprieves from both my site and Kigali (just because it’s the primary place to meet up with other PCVs because of its accessibility compared to other places). I’ve also been to Zanzibar, out in the Indian Ocean, passing the entire width of Tanzania to get there. I also have tentative plans to go white water rafting and bungee jumping on the Nile River in Uganda and potentially going to Bujumbura, Burundi (assuming travel isn’t restricted any further because as it stands we aren’t allowed to travel to Burundi unless it’s via plane and only to the capital city. This is probably not something you want to hear mom, but I will be careful, I promiseJ).

—Animals

Aside from the typical farm and domesticated animals there are some animals I have seen in East Africa. I went on a dolphin chase, snorkeling to see coral and fish, and see monkeys a lot when I travel through Nyungwe. Rwanda is also an apparently well-known place for bird watching.

—Emotional

I freely and openly admit that I am not the kind of person who shares emotions willingly. I will do anything to avoid talking about your feelings or mine. But here it has been challenging to maintain that guy stereotype. I wouldn’t have been able to make it this far without the support of people back home and the friends I’ve made here, Rwandan or PCV. Sometimes we have days here where we are so homesick and fed up with being called a muzungu that we confine ourselves to our rooms and wish for nothing more than a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and a cheesy rom-com movie to relieve the stress and strain of the day. Since ice cream is only available in two cities in the entire country, that usually has to be substituted for long drawn out texts or conversations with a fellow PCV. If the support back home and here stays as it is I see no reason why I would leave early.

—Food

I can count on a six digit hand the staples that make up 100% of the meals I cook at site—tomatoes, onions/garlic, potatoes, green peppers, carrots, rice/pasta. The only difference between meals is the sauce/spice. For a while 20% of the money I spent a week on food went to peanuts but I have since cutback on fear of developing a peanut allergy as some PCVs have done while here. I now have some popcorn donated to me from my site mate that I cook when I need a snack. When I want to feel adventurous I buy passion fruit and bananas. If I’m feeling particularly daring I’ll buy a pineapple.

Meat has never once made an appearance in my own cooked meals. I only eat it when I buy it at a restaurant that serves good meat, though good is a relative term. Fatty pieces of fat sprinkled with a semblance of muscle are considered quite appropriate. Same as intestines.

—Teaching

The jury is still out on whether or not I am actually teaching anything to my 400 students but I like to humor myself by thinking at the very least they’ve increased their listening comprehension and that I’ve lost my fear of public speaking (this doesn’t apply to being requested to give an impromptu speech in Kinyarwanda at a ceremony where you know hardly know anyone and are the only white person). This could very well be wishful thinking. I never thought that I would enjoy teaching. I never want to be a teacher after this but not because I hate it. I don’t love it but it certainly has its worthwhile moments. After a long absence from my students I begin to miss them. It’s also really nice when you hear proclamations of love from your students (Kinyarwanda doesn’t differentiate between love and like, but I’ll take it still) or when you hear through the grapevine that the students really enjoy having you around.

—Down time

Something that we all anticipate but never adequately prepare for is what to do when we have nothing to do. I’ve read 55 books since January and watched countless movies and TV shows. I watched every episode of Seinfeld in less than two weeks and picked up some Danish because of all the subtitles. I spent one Saturday watching 12 episodes of Dexter. When I start a TV show I don’t stop until it’s finished. Whenever PCVs get together we inevitably bring our external hard drives to swap media. I no longer accept sitcoms or anything because I have flawed logic in thinking that since they’re only like 20ish minutes long that just one more episode won’t be that bad. Before I know it I will finish an entire season in one day. I now just watch movies when I cook dinner and relax after the sun sets, which is at six so I watch like 2 movies a night.

— Beer

Rwandan culture practically requires that you drink beer, unless of course you’re a woman. Leaving this blog entry without a beer section would not be an accurate depiction of life in Rwanda, PCV or not.

The first time I drank at my site was at a teacher’s meeting. My tolerance (probably my liver as well) has not fared so well since then. At swear-in I drank 8 Primus (each is like drinking a 40oz). Now, if I drink a small Primus I’m feeling tipsy. A big one, I’m quite buzzed. Two, I’m drunk. Three +, make sure I had a good dinner or stop me from going on. I’ve also switched beers to Turbo King, aptly motto-ed the Beer of Men (inzoga n’amabago). This saves money in the long run but runs the risk of more inebriation due to higher alcohol content. Then there’s urgwagwa (spelling might be off), which is banana beer. This is the foulest “beer” I have ever tried in my life. It’s made from bananas thrown in the ground and left to ferment for a while. Some other steps are included but that’s the gist of it. Try this beer and Rwandans will love you but your stomach might subsequently make reservations with a latrine.

All in all, I would say that life in Rwanda has been generally positive. I was upset that in my interview with Peace Corps I was practically assured that I wouldn’t be going to South America, lest I should actually get the opportunity to put the Spanish half of my university degree to use. But Rwanda really is a diamond in the rough. It’s overlooked by the other countries in east Africa and severely overshadowed by its recent history but that makes it no less amazing than what it is. Hills abound and make you curse such a landscape until you make it to the top and marvel at all the beauty this country has to offer. 

Zanzibar

For PCVs in east Africa Zanzibar is the Mecca that we are all driven towards at least once in our service, and for good reason. However, nothing worth having comes easy. I traveled, quite literally, across two countries to reach the holy land of vacation destinations. From the doorsteps of DRC, through a rainforest, meandering Rwandan hills, across savannah, a four hour break in Creeperville, an overnight stay in Dar-es-Salaam in a hotel with the tiniest cockroaches I’ve ever seen, and a 90 minute ferry. I left my house sometime on a Saturday to spend the night in Kamembe to catch a 530am bus Sunday to visit my host family for lunch, spent Monday in Kigali so I could catch the 530am Tuesday bus leaving for Dar, scheduled to arrive Wednesday around noon. If there is truly a heaven and hell then that bus ride from Kigali to Dar is purgatory sprinkled with hints of what hell is like. The bus picks up people heading towards Dar and they stand in the aisle because the bus is fully reserved before leaving Rwanda. I’ve since learned that my sitting height is the same as the groin height of Tanzanian men with different views of hygiene than what Americans are used to. My head is also the same height as the elbows of said Tanzanian men whose arms relax a little from holding onto the overhead railings to support them when walking up down the aisle of the bus. I also apparently give off the appearance of a guy whose face screams “Yes! Please put your arm around my neck so I can smell your armpit! Welcome!”

Once you get through all of that though and you find yourself in Dar, things turn magical. English is nearly ubiquitously understood with minimal special English, food has flavor, there are no hills, people don’t stare you down just because you’re different, the ocean is within walking distance, and there is a Subway the size of a which my arms could touch all sides at once. Judge me all you want but spend a year in a country that borders a country known for its spice trade yet reaps none of its flavor and you’ll understand why Subway was all that I cared about when we arrived (just so you won’t judge too harshly, I did eat local food and it was amazing). I even kept the bag my foot long beef pastrami on “brown” came in, and boy did I ever eat fresh that day.

We didn’t do much in Dar but rest. The ferry ride in the morning wasn’t bad at all and before we knew it…ZANZIBAR! To see pictures just go to the FB once they’re uploaded. Rather than detail everything that went on here’s a bullet point of things:

§  three nights in Stonetown

§  slave market tour

§  amazing Ethiopian food from an equally amazing restaurant that let us in and eat two hours before they opened

§  wandering meandering roads

§  night market

§  kitties in the night market

§  Ramadan

§  I SPOKE SPANISH!! (though immediately realized how awful my Spanish now is)

§  spice tour, with tasting of food on the tour, lunch, and beach after

§  swimming in the Indian Ocean

§  two nights in Jambiani at a house we rented

§  drinking cocktails at a bar on the beach as the tide comes in and nearly reaches said bar

§  dolphin chasing (we went on a boat and found an area where dolphins hang out, put on flippers and snorkel masks and had our guide yell, “Take mask on! Take mask on! GOGOGOGOGO!!!” every time dolphins came near the boat so we’d know to jump/fall into the ocean. Our masks always filled with water, causing us to choke when we breathed in, our flippers nearly always fell off, the waters were choppy and made it kind of disorienting, and the dolphins didn’t like being berated by tourists trying to touch them so they always dove or swam away so we’d have to jump (fumble is probably more accurate) into the boat and repeat.

§  fishing

§  snorkeling (this time in calm, shallow water), where one of the girls on the group found Nemo!

After all this we had to trek back home. The ride back was better and worse at the same time. This time it was traveling the width of Zanzibar (2 hours) a choppy ferry ride back with people vomming (2 hours) overnight in Dar to take a 6am bus back to Kigali. The better was that no, or relatively few, people stood in the aisle to go to Kigali (though those who did inevitably stood next to me of course) and that this bus had a TV which showed us Rambo, Rambo II, Rambo III, Rambo IV, and a Chuck Norris movie. The worse was that rather than the compulsory rest from midnight to 4am in Tanzania (a safeguard against hijackings and lootings on the road) we stopped from 930pm to sometime before the sun rose, which happens around 630-7am in Tanzania. But, with all that’s said and done I am happy with everything about the trip. The bus ride is almost like a rite of passage for PCVs, similar to how a pilgrimage isn’t meant to be an easy journey.

Power Issues

I’ve now gone through two power strips. One was a surge protector I had in the States that my mom sent over, the other I bought locally. You’d think something designed to prevent electrical hiccups would hold true to its word. Not in Rwanda. That’s why I am left only with the outlet that brought about their untimely demises. The first one sparked, started smoking, smelled like burnt marshmallows (this one I still maintain could be construed as a positive), and shorted the electricity in my house for a few minutes. The second, as pictured below, felt the need to go a subtler route. It started smoking, but kept it to such a low level that it was undetectable until it was too late. Within a span of seconds I watched the cord go from the normal untainted parts you see below to the burned globby mess you see in the first picture.

Rwandan Wedding/Relationships

A while back I went to the wedding of the sister of a teacher who used to work at my school and it really made me think of how we in America view relationships compared to here in Rwanda. To put it generally, in America we marry (ostensibly) for love and in Rwanda it’s more a matter of functionality/practicality. Obviously this is way oversimplifying things but I’m just speaking in broad terms. Not everyone in America marries for love and I’m sure there are plenty in Rwanda who hold out for someone they truly want to spend the rest of their life with. But take a look at this following photo:

No one looks happy. Like this marriage is the last thing that anyone wants. When we think of weddings it’s usually a happy, joyous occasion and there usually isn’t a shortage of smiles. Here though it’s considered rude for the bride to smile because it’s seen as leaving her family behind and joining another, thus the deadpan face. This couple did however let the occasional smile slip out, but like most Rwandans in front of a camera it takes a hand with the speed of Superman to catch them.

Some cultural differences about weddings:

§  Having less than 100 guests means your community doesn’t like you or you’re not respected

§  It’s common for people to show up uninvited who you don’t even know (like me, who ended up as the official photographer for the event…)

§  Only intimate friends/family bring gifts

§  Having a wedding not in a church (according to those I’ve spoken with at least) is unheard of

§  Dowries still exist. You either give a cow or the equivalent of the cost of one, though the cow is preferred

§  There are more ceremonial traditions that take place concerning the meeting of families and giving away the bride

§  Women can marry starting at 22 and men at 21

When my friend Rebecca was here we had a good discussion with some of my female students about relationships. The gist of what they said is that they don’t really dance around liking someone. If you like them you tell them and if they feel the same you get married, or wait until you’re both of age to marry.

In the States we hold hands with those we love; it’s a form of affection that’s generally reserved for those with whom we are intimate. Same with kissing. It’s normal to see couples holding hands and giving each other a kiss in public. It’s when you get into heaving petting and the like that it gets taboo. In Rwanda the taboo starts with holding hands. That’s reserved for friendships, which are predominantly same-sex. Two men or two women holding hands is completely normal. Two men/women sitting, legs intertwined, arms stroking one another, completely normal and in no way considered homosexual. The idea just doesn’t come across to them as it does to us. Personal space is virtually nonexistent here too, which I’m sure I’ve lost all concept of and will learn when I return to the States and have some awkward encounter with a stranger.

In Rwanda there still remains a heavy focus on conventional gender roles. Men do the work and women cook, clean and take care of the kids. Things of course are changing but there’s a stark contrast between Rwanda in general and the West (also a huge difference within Rwanda from the village to Kigali, which is never the focus of my generalizations because it’s more Western than Rwandan with certain values and customs). Men and women also don’t hang out together. They stick to their own gender, which is what makes marriage, to me at least, seem like it is meant more to serve a purpose, i.e. child production, than two people coming together who love one another.

In Kinyarwanda the word inshuti translates to friend but has a different connotation. The idea of me, a guy, calling a girl my inshuti means that we are romantically involved. I need to call her my colleague, sister, cousin (though this one is still marriage material), or something else platonic. Whenever I am around another girl it’s inevitable to be asked if we are married or why we aren’t going to get married. Men and women have friendships with one another certainly, but it’s there’s a fine line between friend and friend.

I had a good experience with my host family to see how things are changing with gender roles. When my host mom gave birth the dad stepped up and helped out cooking. The umukozi (helper) and daughter (7 years old) were instrumental in making sure that all loose ends around the house were tied up but the dad really made a concerted effort to help with the absence of the mom. From what I’ve heard of from other PCVs the mom cooks and that’s about it. Whenever I tell people that I cook my own food they almost always do the “eh eh eh,” which is typical in Rwanda to show disbelief, and tell me that it’s a woman’s responsibility to cook.

As Rwanda develops they are taking on more Western values and ideas about gender equality. However, tradition reigns supreme and while women are becoming empowered and climb the political hierarchy they are still generally expected to maintain a good household and cook/clean/raise the children. Men are beginning to do simple, basic things (like cook dinner) but I guarantee it’ll be a long, long time before we see them carrying children on their backs like the women do.