How to politely accept and refuse an invitation

In Nyanza during training we would have to fill out a weekly survey, rating the trainings and lectures that took place, I remember vividly being asked about our language progress if we were able to politely accept and refuse an invitation. At the time I checked yes, but now I am not too sure, I can yes to meet someone somewhere, however, I cannot say “no thank you.” Time to take out the Kinyarwanda book.
Today was an interesting day. July 4th is also Independence Day in Rwanda, so today, Monday, July 5th everything is closed. However, this was only communicated to half of the people throughout the country. When I spoke to my counterpart on Friday, the 2nd, it was clear that we were to meet on Monday, when I called him this morning to see what time he did not answer my call, no big deal, I show up at the “office” anyway. Only to find out that he is not there and others are only there because they did not know it was a holiday. It turns out “I returned on Wednesday” was heard as “I will return next Wednesday.” My mission to go to the bank and post office, well that did not happen because they were closed, there is always tomorrow. It worked out because some Peace Corps friends of mine came to town since the schools were closed, and they will have to come back again since they need to go to the bank as well. We went to the local buffet for lunch, but since the buffet was closed they were only serving chips (fries) and brochette, this sounded like a great option, until the brochettes came out and we found out that they were liver. Not exactly the part of the goat (I think goat) that I was expecting.
Just like in American it is good to leave a spear key to your house with a friend, the irony of the situation is that I gave my friend Charisa copies of all 3 of my keys since she sometimes uses my electricity during the week to charge her electronics because she doesn’t have electricity in her village and I am often out doing field work and am not around to let her in. Today we took the big step and I gave her my spare set. The ironic part is that when she got back to her village she called me looking to see if she left her key at my house because she couldn’t find it. Her neighbor was able to pry open the door and is she going to get new locks tomorrow and then going make sure someone has the spare set.
In the evening I went to my host family’s house. Here is the point of needing to know how to say “no thank you.” My host family is amazing, great people and wonderful to be around. And if I spend enough time there food usually appears. My host mother tells me to always ask the umucozis (house girls) for food if she is not home but im not comfortable asking. I have no complaints about Rwandan food either, a lot of starch-rice, bread, potatoes, but they also have vegetables and beans. The food is generally not prepared the way I would, but im not in any rush to do all my own cooking everyday, especially on a kerosene stove in a corner of my house. So today after hanging around with the kids for a few hours my host dad came come and told me they were having friends over. The friends came, we talked, I introduced myself, we drank tea, had peanuts, then I was about ready to go home. And out comes the cassava bread, I wish there was a polite way to say, “no thank you I am full”, because that just isn’t an excuse here. You can get out of anything by saying you have to wash your hair or do your laundry but when it comes to eating you have to eat it. Being ‘big’ is a sign of wealth, you can afford to eat, everyone here wants to fatten me up! Cassava bread is a similar consistency to uncooked pizza dough but grainier, they dip it in an oily sauce with a piece of fatty meat. It is not that I hate cassava bread, but it is not on the top of my list of Rwandan foods, so I dipped and ate and did the best I could, but there is a point when enough is enough. So now hours later im still full, and in no rush to have cassava bread again anytime soon. The though is nauseating, lets hope for veggies and potatoes tomorrow!

Fanta Fiesata

During my training in Nyana a current volunteer mentioned that there is a lack of critical thinking and imagination in Rwanda. I notice it a little this on a daily basis and because of it I often ask questions that require an out of box thinking just to see what kind of answer I will get. Being a muzunugu I feel I can get away asking ridiculous questions on a regular basis, it is like being a child, why why why why, whats is this, what is it for, why is it here, etc…. Recently, on my last trip in Kigali, I noticed signs everywhere for the new flavor of Fanta, to me this is very normal, new flavors or beverages come out, you try it, if you like if you buy it again, if not then you stick with what you know. When I saw this new Fanta flavor in a local shop in town (my host mother has a shop in town so I go in there everyday on my way to work to talk to the girls that work there-who may or may not also live with my host family, still unclear) I asked a crazy out of the box question, “oh, what is this?” pointing to the new flavor of Fanta. “Oh- they made a mistake when bottling, it is just Coke in the wrong bottle.” Hmm…I know that is not the right answer. When at my host mothers house a few days later the same situation arises, my host mother has friends over and brings out a case of fantas, coke, and sprite, and in the case there it is, so again, I ask, “oh, what is this?” “It is sprite but dark- they made it a different color” Again, that is not right. Point, it takes a while for things to catch on, and any sort of change comes very slowly. Something important for me to remember in my daily activities here. And PS Fanta Fiesta takes like a meted snow cone, sweet but delicious!

They toss babies around like footballs

Babies are everywhere here. The main goal in life here is to get married and have children, the idea of furthering your education and focusing on a career is emerging but still a foreign concept to many. Family planning is slowly happening, condoms are apparently readily available but because of religion and stigma many will not use, natural methods are known and slowly seem to be coming into practice. My host family has 4 children under the age of 6. They are amazing kids, well behaved and wonderful to be around. The youngest is 1 month and 12 days. She is adorable and always makes me smile. I sang my first baby lullaby the other day-my heart melted a little. When I first got to site the baby was handed to me, only a week old. I don’t know anything about babies but they just trusted me with it and everything was fine. I watch the way they just leave the baby on the couch somtimes, is this normal in America? Babies are generally kept on the back of the mother or house worker, which I told my host mother I want to learn, the just take igitnenge (fabric) and tie and tuck and they are back there securely. It actually makes sense, as long as it isn’t bad for their legs, the baby is safe and the mother has two hands to do whatever it is she needs. In general there are babies everywhere, as well as breast-feeding, and they are handled like footballs- picked up, put down, by the arm, whatever way it is, and they are always fine. After I master the baby on the back im going to learn to carry my belongings on my head, water, purse, goods from the market…yesterday a table was delivered to me with two chairs, means of transport, the man walked with it on his head!

And then I met, and shook hands with, President Paul Kagame

Never have I ever been star stuck, and given the year I had before I left I thought that if it was going to happen it would have been then. Shaking Paul Kagame’s hand was unbelievable! SO EXCITING! I have my reaction after on video, unfortunately the image itself was not captured. This all happened at Kwitia Izina, the baby gorilla naming ceremony I went to in Musanze. At first I was disappointed when I found out there would be no actual gorillas, I found this out from the gorilla trekker that guided me to the ceremony, through a forest on a 45 minute hike. He explained to me that baby gorillas cannot be separated from their mothers and that gorillas live in the wild in limited areas of Rwanda. When the trekker asked if I had ever seen a gorilla before I didn’t have the heart to bring up the concept of the zoo. At the ceremony I was guided to the VIP section where all press was standing, I stood right next to the people dressed up in very realistic gorilla suites, the dancers, the musicians, the honorees naming the gorillas, Don Cheadle- who was a guest of honor, and president Paul Kagame. It was not until after the ceremony when I got to shake hands with the president. The friends I met at the ceremony arrived earlier and were told they could not bring cell phones in, after the ceremony, and after the wine and beer that was given to us, wine- a huge luxury in Rwanda, we went to the hotel near the ceremony where the cell phones were checked. We were told that we had to be extremely quiet and sit in a room and wait. We did not understand at first, but then learned the president was there, OMG! Yes I just said OMG! He was giving a tour to US military members on an exchange in Rwanda, and it was then that I shook the presidents hand! Extremely exciting! The president of Rwanda!!! One of the most exciting moment here so far.

Water is not running, and electricity is out. Perfect time to write a blog.

When I last wrote I believe I was off to yet another workshop. I went to Musanze, which is also in the north, I am in the north but central, this is north but west side of the county. Apparently there is a way to get there more directly but I went into Kigali, 1 ½ hours north of me which is the central hub and then took a private bus rented for all the people attending the conference about 2 hours to Musanze. There were 8 peace corps volunteers, and about 30 Rwandan counterparts. The concept of the workshop itself was really great, it was all about savings and lending groups in Rwanda, however, since we are in Africa everything is very drawn out, and give Rwandans the chance to talk they will go on forever, and then complain that things took to long. I am a little disappointed that I didn’t get to see musanze at all, we were in the workshop every day from 8 am to 6 pm, and the sun goes down at 6:15. However I cannot complain, we were put up in a very nice hotel, I had a hot standing shower in a clean tub and there was wireless internet, too bad I didn’t have my computer, I am working on traveling lighter.

Energizers…so on the first day of the workshop they asked different people to volunteer for different roles, a time keeper, a note taker, a reporter, two energizers, as well as a few more miscellaneous position, so I volunteer for the energizer position, figuring it would involve a few group stretches every once and a while, no big deal. So the first day goes well, and then the next morning the staff reads aloud reviews people wrote of the first day. Everyone was a complaint that the workshop ran late AND there were not enough energizers, well I didn’t know I was supposed to interrupt the group every 30 minutes to entertain everyone. So day two and three there were many energizers. Let me tell you, this took some imagination with a language barrier and some creativity to keep everyone happy. I thoroughly embarrassed myself numerous times leading exercises including Simon says, human knots, jumping up and down, songs, dances, the garden state concept of making a unique noise and movement in a spot where no one else has done the same thing, it was beyond ridiculous but that is what they wanted.

After the workshop I went back into Kigali. We got in after sunset on Friday night so I spent the night at another PC volunteers house. Two girls are living above the office they work from in Kigali, which definitely has some pros and cons. I am very grateful they were able to accommodate all 6 of us that were stranded, a major plus to the alternative of having to pay for a hotel. The next day I went to my counterpart’s house, she had asked me to spend the weekend with her family. I met her three children and husband. And saw the nastiest cockroach in my room there, I tucked my mosquito net in very tight after I killed him with my shoe, not a bug that I was willing to trap and let outside politely like I normally do. So far all of the children in Rwanda have been very well behaved and polite, minus them always asking for money. Well I met an exception, still a cute kid but wild. When he jumped on the table and started licking the powdered milk out of the bowl when his mother left the room, well you can paint the picture of this 4 year old for yourselves. Sunday I went to choir practice followed by church, no singing for me, then lunch then back on a bus to site.

Now to the title of the blog, sorry if I have lost any of you on my stream of consciousness blog post, no running water. So I come back from dinner at my host family house next door all ready to put water up to boil so I can shower, and there is nothing coming out of the spicket. I have plenty of water filtered to drink, im glad I prepared that ahead of time. I don’t know why the water is out, when it will come back, or if this will happen often. Ill get it all sorted out in the morning. There is a community spicket near by, I can get one of the village kids to bring me water in a gerry can if necessary. Once I realized I couldnot shower I took out the computer to start this blog and the power went out. So im 0 for 2 right now, but many volunteers never have power or water so im usually ahead of the game. I’m getting better an functioning in the dark, I try to always put my belonging in the same spot so I can find them, and cell phone have flashlights, it is great!!

More to come soon since I promised to update on a more regular basis

Yes yes- it has been far too long and I am sorry.

First off language test- we had to pass a language test in order to swear in and become PCVs, peace corps volunteer. Let me tell you, it was hard. There is so much involved with this language and so many words sounds alike, example, amahoro means peace, umahoro means machete. Very similar words, very different meanings. I managed to pass my language test with a low-intermediate, that is what I needed to pass and that is what I got. I am actually very pleased with my achievement thus far. After passing the language test and a written test on not only language but cross cultural training and technical training as well we went to Kigali for the swear in ceremony.
There was talk of us staying in the same fancy hotel we went to before site visit with a pool and wireless internet since we didn’t get a chance to really enjoy it, but that didn’t happen-were keeping our fingers crossed for something nice for our three month in service training. Once in Kigali we got all dressed up for the swear in ceremony that was at the ambassadors house. We were told by current volunteers that there would be American food, they were telling the truth, it was delicious!!! Speeches were given and we took an oath, it was broadcast on Rwanda television and an article was in the paper the next day. The next few days were relaxed chaos. We all went to stores in Kigali to buy whatever we needed for our houses, problem, half of the people didn’t know their living situations, what furniture they would have, if they would have running water or electricity etc. So you can imagine, 35 muzungs running through Kigali not knowing where to go or what to buy but still wanting to see, touch, and price everything.
After a few days in Kigali it was time to go off to site. I got in a car with a peace corps driver, a peace corps employee and on other volunteer. Everything we own here, a mattress, a trunk, a fancy bike, and our suitcases were put in the back of a truck and off we went. Of course I was dropped off first, literally we got to my site and out I went. The moment of panic didn’t really hit me until my first night alone. Everything is getting sorted out slowly, I got my actual bed today, im going to put the screens on on my windows this weekend, I got fabric from the market to use as curtains, and I pretend that my mosquito net is a fort, thanks Allie. I haven’t been at site for more than three consecutive nights, I was here a few days and then asked to go to a workshop on permagardens in Nyanza. I am now an expert farmer. Tomorrow I am off to another workshop for CHF, the overhead organization I work with, I will be back on Friday. Now that I am getting settled I will start to blog more often. Phone calls and emails are greatly appreciated!!!