Friendship

I joined Peace Corps, among other reasons, to meet new people and learn about a new culture. Ostensibly, I’ve achieved that; I know many people and I know more about Rwandan culture than any other culture, outside my own. I wouldn’t consider a single person in Rwanda a friend however (students notwithstanding, but that’s a vastly different relationship and one with, albeit blurred, boundaries). There are many people I am friendly with but that’s not the same as being friends. The difficulty lies both within the culture and within me.

I don’t know what it’s like to have gone through genocide. It’s indescribable. There’s nothing I can do to fully grasp the enormity of such a traumatic situation. It changes people. It changes their behavior. It changes their perceptions of others. It changes their ability to trust in others. This I can come to terms with. I have to earn a person’s trust just as they have to earn mine. It’s not an easy thing to accomplish in a post-conflict country however, and one that many people have claimed is among the more difficult Peace Corps countries in Africa to serve. What’s difficult to come to terms with is how, after two years, the other teachers and the staff members at my school repeatedly fail to invite me to ceremonies, school meetings, or simply talk with me during lunch. I don’t know how many meetings I have learned about by pure happenstance. If I decided to wait another ten minutes, like I was going to but decided to leave earlier, to walk to a neighboring village to buy pasta that I didn’t need until a few days later I would not have run into a fellow teacher and found out about the dean of studies at my school having a little get together for teachers and staff members to celebrate her recent engagement.

It’s a daunting task being thrown into a foreign culture. I’m very shy when I meet new people and I despise small talk, so making a connection with other people takes a long time for me. So in the beginning I tried slowly to integrate and know the teachers. I always sat in the teacher’s room preparing lessons, marking quizzes/homework, or reading a book. I tried to make short conversations but those never amounted to much. Eventually I learned teacher’s never talked with me because they didn’t want to “disturb” me. Somehow, me doing the same things as other teachers (save reading a book) seemed more important and not worth interrupting. Still, I persisted. I interrupted conversations. I sat next to groups of teachers. I ate lunches with teachers. I baked teachers banana bread. I asked to watch movies together. I shared media. Yet nothing happened beyond the superficial after two years. I’ve barely had a more in depth conversation with a teacher as you would a stranger.

It’s equally overwhelming to have an outsider in your midst. It’s a complicated dance getting to know someone of a different culture. But what adds fuel to the flame with the failed attempts trying to get to know teachers is that walking down the street on any given day I would meet at least one person who would say to me in English or Kinyarwanda that he/she wanted to be my friend. People who didn’t even know me, whose English was hardly ever very good (I can speak English with all the teachers at my school without difficulty) would express sincere desire to get to know me. Perfect strangers had more to do with me than my colleagues after two years, though eventually it would surface that they wanted something from me (i.e. money, private English lessons, a white person to be seen with to increase their perception of being important, a white wife, a visa to America, a job, the list goes on). The realization that after two years I made the same amount of progress in building a lasting relationship as if I had never even tried is upsetting.

Not everything is an emo song filled with self-loathing and tirades about being alone and unloved. I have my students. They are among the very few reasons I’ve remained in Rwanda and will be able to finish out my service. The conventional student-teacher relationship is something I said goodbye to a long, long time ago. In any different situation my students would be people I could see myself being friends with, sharing good conversations with over a beer. But the situation is what it is and I have to maintain some modicum of professionalism and distance, which hinders the development of a real friendship.

I have my market mommas who I am loyal to. They know me, know what I want, and always give me a bonus avocado, bonus sachets of peanuts, bonus onions, etc. We’re always friendly with one another and talk for a short while when I come to their stalls. But they’re my market mommas, not my friends.

I have people who I greeted on occasion (read: went to their houses, shared Fanta and biscuits, and had awkward conversations). Even though I liked the people I greeted it became a chore. I had to walk an hour each way (uphill both ways, because this is Rwanda and hills defy geographic norms) only to talk about something as long as it took me to drink a Fanta, then leave, as custom here dictates. I did these things to try and be closer with someone but the first conversations and the last conversations were nearly identical and showed no deeper connection.

But that’s what I don’t understand. It seems that locals themselves don’t know one another on a deep, meaningful level. There’s some expression in Kinyarwanda about not sharing information with friends because you don’t know who your friends are and if they’re actually your enemies. Here’s a standard conversation when you see someone:

Person 1: Mwiriwe mwiriwe!

Person 2: Yego, yego. Amakuru?

Person 1: Ni meza, ni meza! Wowe?

Person 2: Ni sawa.

Person 1: Uvuye hehe?

Person 2: Hariya.

Person 1: Ugiye hehe?

Person 2: Hariya,

Person 1: Sawa, sawa. Munsi mwiza!

Person 2: Yego, yego, nawe!

Person 1: Good afternoon, good afternoon!

Person 2: Yes, yes. How is the news?

Person 1: It’s good, it’s good! You?

Person 2: It’s ok..

Person 1: Where are you coming from?

Person 2: There.

Person 1: Where are you going?

Person 2: There,

Person 1: Ok, ok. Have a good day!

Person 2: Yes, yes, and you!

This is almost verbatim the exact conversation I have with nearly everyone. No details beyond what’s observable are ever discussed. I have never been asked what I did during the weekend, just how was the weekend.

Ramblings in summation: it’s difficult coming to the end of my service and realizing that I’ll be leaving with acquaintances and not friends.