My life as a muzungo in a small town
Today, I visited my resource family again, and I’ve got to tell you, they are pretty awesome people. My resource father is a pastor, and my resource mom is actually one of my Kinyarwandan teachers. They also have three cute little kids. My resource family is going to teach me all sorts of skills like cooking and washing clothes, African style of course. I’m pretty excited about it. This Saturday, I am going to learn how to cook and next Sunday, I am going to make the 50 minute trek to attend their church.
My resource family has a way of placing me in a very good mood. They make me feel like I belong to the community, even though I stick out like a sore thumb. Imagine walking through a village and have everyone stop what they are doing to stare at you. That’s how it feels when I go visit them. The town kids love seeing me, and they run up and follow me for a while. So do the beggars, but they usually don’t follow me. Other villagers are a little more subtle, but I do get called “muzungu” a lot. Many of the people in our city are a little wary of us, “the American group” because we are learning Kinyarwandan. I try to drop a few Kinyarwandan words here and there so they think we are fluent in it and then, they won’t gossip about us, at least not in front of our face.
In other news, we are finally learning about bargaining and shopping. Two years from now and a car salesman won’t stand a chance with me. Here, they bargain like crazy over everything and I hope to acquire that skill pretty soon. When I bought my cell phone, I bargained my cell phone down 1000 francs but I feel like I could have done better. The main problem is that I do not know what everything is supposed to cost and the shopkeepers raise their prices when they see a mzungu walk into their shop. One of the p.c. volunteers tried to get a haircut the other day in a salon with the price clearly posted for 400 francs. They tried to charge him 2000 francs. He told them he would pay them 400 francs or he would walk out without paying. They then told him he should pay 500 francs because his “mzungu hair” messes up the clippers. He finally paid the 500 francs and walked out. This is just one example. I am sure they are overcharging us on a lot of stuff without us realizing it. I am getting really paranoid about it actually and I usually try not to shop without a Rwandan with me. I get stingy over a few American cents or dollars. It’s humorous actually because I remember my life in the United States where I would spend $50 on a tank of gas or $20 on a meal. I would spend money like water and here I am begrudging a poor shopkeeper a couple of dollars. When I come back to the United States, I will probably experience a reverse culture shock at the prices because everything is very cheap here.
Let me see, what else is new. Oh yeah, plumbing problems. They are very annoying especially with a language barrier. Have you ever tried to describe a plunger to someone who doesn’t know English? An even better experience, my faucet went crazy on me the other day. It completely unscrewed and fell off so I couldn’t shut off the water. It then started spewing water like a geyser when I tried to screw it back on. I tried to look for the main shut off valve and couldn’t find it. I messed with something but I was afraid I was going to unhook a pipe and then completely flood my room. I was trying to arrange the buckets in our room to catch the water and my Rwandan roommate was completely nonchalant about it. She tried to fix it too and when she couldn’t, she told me not to worry about it. She then went about her business while I frantically tried to hunt down people to help me. I consulted the male p.c. volunteers and found out none of them had plumbing experience. To my delight, one of the female volunteers, who is supposedly an expert in plumbing and mechanics, found the shut off valve for me. She told me that the faucet just needs a gasket (or washer maybe) because the other one had worn down. I then had to wait two days for the nuns to fix it and I became very adept at turning the main shut off valve on and off every time I used the sink. Today, they finally fixed the sink so I am very happy about it. And, a tiny miracle, I actually had a little hot water for a shower this morning. Of course, I was done with my shower when the water became hot, but I filled my bucket again with luxurious hot water and enjoyed every drop of that hot water!! My tech trainer said to enjoy small victories and I am definitely enjoying them. Here are a sample of them so far:
*I understood a complete paragraph in Kinyarwandan today, spoken by my resource father.
*My resource children remembered my name.
*I ate a hamburger and fries last Sunday. Even though it was Lebanese-style, it was still delicious.
*I ate a whole portion of spinach greens (or whatever they are) and actually enjoyed it.
*I found a new shower stall with better lighting and stronger water flow.
*I found a cyber café three minutes from our center.
*Learning to type fast on an European style keyboard.
*My feet are getting tough, allowing me to save on band-aids and walk around in flip-flops.
All in all, life is getting smoother. My dad and mom called this week, which was awesome. I think they are going to try to find calling cards or something so we can talk more often. It is super expensive to make international calls yet it is actually cheaper for me to call them than vice versa.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Cassava greens and Kinyarwanda
Dear Blog Readers,
Satisfaction and contentment are the only two words to perfectly describe my state of mind right now. It is the end of week two at training and there have been many ups and downs so far. Today, however, has been one of those rare days where everything aligned to make the perfect day. The skies are clear and the weather has settled to a nice 75 degrees. The birds sang all day and the roses, daisies and other flowers are in full bloom around our campus. I have gone to two language classes today and they have been great as well. I don’t know how long this feel-good state of mind will last but I am enjoying it to the fullest.
Our training so far has been very intense and difficult. I learn so many words each day that it is hard to keep up. By the time, 5:00 pm rolls around every afternoon, all I want to do is sleep or eat. Yesterday, however, I forced myself to make flashcards of all the words I could not remember. After fifty flashcards, I gave up and fell asleep. This Saturday, we have our first test so I better start studying after class.
Training however has not been all about studying. After class, we usually go out in groups to the local cybercafes or to the market. In the late afternoons, a group of us go to the courts to play volleyball. The last time I went to one of the volleyball games, my forearms were so bruised that they swelled up. Needless to say, I decided not to play volleyball the rest of the week. If we are not playing volleyball, we usually gather around the porches in our center and play card games or listen to the guys play their guitars. Our teachers are our age so they are a lot of fun to hang out with. One of the teachers plays the guitar amazingly and the rest of the teachers sing along with him. It is awesome. They all know these hauntingly beautiful Rwandan folk songs. I want to learn how to sing the sings. Of course, I probably won’t sound as good as they do.
Although my life here in Rwanda is very different from the one I led in the United States, I am adjusting. I do miss a lot of things right now. Some of them are good to miss like the people I left in the United States: Nathan, my family, my friends, and my church. Other things are more material. Here is a short list:
*ice cold sweet tea
*shoes that don’t hurt my feet. Actually, they only hurt my feet because I’m not used to walking for kilometers at a time.
*Hot long full blast showers in the morning.
*My mom’s coffee. (The coffee here is so thick I can put a spoon in it and it will stand up. Right now, I’m filling my mug half full of coffee and half full of milk and it is still really strong.)
*Cheeseburgers
*Water that tastes like water and can be drunk from the faucet.
*Availability to make phone calls without paying $.60 to $.70 a minute.
*Washing machine
*A digestive system that is accustomed to the local fare.
Don’t get me wrong. I actually really like it here. The people are great and really friendly. The culture is very interesting and the countryside is breathtakingly beautiful. Even now, I know I will miss this country when I eventually leave. The food here is good too although I am having to get used to some of the dishes. For example, they cook a lot of goat and rabbit meat. They seem to love potatoes and sweet potatoes, boiled or fried. They even serve us French fries sometimes, which goes over very well with us. Rwandans love cassava (or manioc). They either boil the cassava in pieces or they mash up the cassava and make a type of soft bread. They also boil the cassava leaves and make a dish, which is eerily similar to Southern-style turnip greens. My grandmother would be proud of me. I am actually trying to get used to the cassava greens. If I mix it up with my potatoes or carrots, I can hardly taste it. In restaurants, they serve beans and rice, which is very delicious. Sometimes, they put sugar or cinnamon in the beans. I am not sure I like that as much. I keep putting salt in the beans when they do that because I am not used to beans being sweet. Boiled squash, peas, and boiled carrots are also popular. I eat a LOT of peas and carrots. Also, bananas and plantains are huge here. With the plantains, they cook and season them as if they were potatoes. I’m still getting used to that idea. The bananas are served as dessert, along with passion fruit, Japanese pear???, papaya, pineapple and sometimes coffee cake (very good). My favorite Rwandan food so far has to be the sambusa. It is like a little fried piece of goodness with ground beef inside and a fried crust on the outside. For those who know Brazilian food, it is basically a “pastel” and it tastes just like it. When the cooks serve us sambusas for tea time, we attack the platters. First come, first served. I usually try to eat only three because I’m being good although others eat as much as six of them.
When we are not eating or suffering through language class, we also have cultural sessions with our teachers or our resource family. It is super interesting, especially when our teachers talk about dating and marriage. First off, a Rwandan girl must never ask a guy out on a date. Instead, she must hint around that she likes him until he asks her out. The dating time before marriage seems to be about the same as in the United States, six months to a year. When the guy decides to marry his girlfriend, he must purchase a cow for the girl’s family. It is a symbol of how important the lady is to him. In Rwanda, the cow is the ultimate symbol of richness and beauty. To have cows means that you are rich. If a lady is said to look like a cow or to have the eyes of a cow, it is the highest compliment. Poetry and songs are written about cows. Schools, institutions and people have names that have the word “cow” in it. Before the genocide and even many years before, when Rwandans owned many cows, a man would bring his bride’s family to his cattle ranch and the family would choose a boy with a strong throwing arm. The boy would throw the spear towards the herd of cattle. Wherever the spear landed, the family would receive all those cows. Obviously, the objective would be to throw the spear as far as you can. Now, however, it is only necessary to present one cow to the bride’s family.
Other interesting cultural notes are the handshake. In Rwanda, if you meet an elder or someone of respectable position, you must wait until he offers his hand. You must never offer your hand first. Then, when you shake, if you want to be polite, you must place your left hand across your right arm when you shake. It is extremely rude to shake hands or to offer any type of food or object with your left hand. If you meet an old woman or old man in the village, it is okay to say “Hello, old man or hello, old woman.” It is actually a sign of respect because age is respected here. Unfortunately, the Kinyarwandan word for “old man” is only a letter away from the word for “crazy man.” You can also call a woman old enough to be your mother, “mama.”
I will present a short disclaimer here about the culture. Given I have only been here a short amount of time, I may be wrong about certain cultural aspects. I have only written what I have been told by Rwandans and what I have experienced in Kigali and Butare. Kigali and Butare are the two biggest cities in Rwanda and they are more modern than the rest of the country. Cultural issues and food may differ across Rwanda depending on proximity to the borders or isolation from other villages. I will continue my cultural notes whenever I observe them and when I reach my site. Forgive me however if I make assumptions based on one town or stereotypes based on a group of Rwandans I know. Rwanda is a very dynamic country and I am looking forward to experiencing the rest of Rwanda.
As always, I miss you guys and I hope you are doing well. Take care and tell me how Obama is doing so far. He is immensely popular here in Rwanda. I bought an Obama hat in the airport, and I am probably going to wear it around soon to show it off.
Satisfaction and contentment are the only two words to perfectly describe my state of mind right now. It is the end of week two at training and there have been many ups and downs so far. Today, however, has been one of those rare days where everything aligned to make the perfect day. The skies are clear and the weather has settled to a nice 75 degrees. The birds sang all day and the roses, daisies and other flowers are in full bloom around our campus. I have gone to two language classes today and they have been great as well. I don’t know how long this feel-good state of mind will last but I am enjoying it to the fullest.
Our training so far has been very intense and difficult. I learn so many words each day that it is hard to keep up. By the time, 5:00 pm rolls around every afternoon, all I want to do is sleep or eat. Yesterday, however, I forced myself to make flashcards of all the words I could not remember. After fifty flashcards, I gave up and fell asleep. This Saturday, we have our first test so I better start studying after class.
Training however has not been all about studying. After class, we usually go out in groups to the local cybercafes or to the market. In the late afternoons, a group of us go to the courts to play volleyball. The last time I went to one of the volleyball games, my forearms were so bruised that they swelled up. Needless to say, I decided not to play volleyball the rest of the week. If we are not playing volleyball, we usually gather around the porches in our center and play card games or listen to the guys play their guitars. Our teachers are our age so they are a lot of fun to hang out with. One of the teachers plays the guitar amazingly and the rest of the teachers sing along with him. It is awesome. They all know these hauntingly beautiful Rwandan folk songs. I want to learn how to sing the sings. Of course, I probably won’t sound as good as they do.
Although my life here in Rwanda is very different from the one I led in the United States, I am adjusting. I do miss a lot of things right now. Some of them are good to miss like the people I left in the United States: Nathan, my family, my friends, and my church. Other things are more material. Here is a short list:
*ice cold sweet tea
*shoes that don’t hurt my feet. Actually, they only hurt my feet because I’m not used to walking for kilometers at a time.
*Hot long full blast showers in the morning.
*My mom’s coffee. (The coffee here is so thick I can put a spoon in it and it will stand up. Right now, I’m filling my mug half full of coffee and half full of milk and it is still really strong.)
*Cheeseburgers
*Water that tastes like water and can be drunk from the faucet.
*Availability to make phone calls without paying $.60 to $.70 a minute.
*Washing machine
*A digestive system that is accustomed to the local fare.
Don’t get me wrong. I actually really like it here. The people are great and really friendly. The culture is very interesting and the countryside is breathtakingly beautiful. Even now, I know I will miss this country when I eventually leave. The food here is good too although I am having to get used to some of the dishes. For example, they cook a lot of goat and rabbit meat. They seem to love potatoes and sweet potatoes, boiled or fried. They even serve us French fries sometimes, which goes over very well with us. Rwandans love cassava (or manioc). They either boil the cassava in pieces or they mash up the cassava and make a type of soft bread. They also boil the cassava leaves and make a dish, which is eerily similar to Southern-style turnip greens. My grandmother would be proud of me. I am actually trying to get used to the cassava greens. If I mix it up with my potatoes or carrots, I can hardly taste it. In restaurants, they serve beans and rice, which is very delicious. Sometimes, they put sugar or cinnamon in the beans. I am not sure I like that as much. I keep putting salt in the beans when they do that because I am not used to beans being sweet. Boiled squash, peas, and boiled carrots are also popular. I eat a LOT of peas and carrots. Also, bananas and plantains are huge here. With the plantains, they cook and season them as if they were potatoes. I’m still getting used to that idea. The bananas are served as dessert, along with passion fruit, Japanese pear???, papaya, pineapple and sometimes coffee cake (very good). My favorite Rwandan food so far has to be the sambusa. It is like a little fried piece of goodness with ground beef inside and a fried crust on the outside. For those who know Brazilian food, it is basically a “pastel” and it tastes just like it. When the cooks serve us sambusas for tea time, we attack the platters. First come, first served. I usually try to eat only three because I’m being good although others eat as much as six of them.
When we are not eating or suffering through language class, we also have cultural sessions with our teachers or our resource family. It is super interesting, especially when our teachers talk about dating and marriage. First off, a Rwandan girl must never ask a guy out on a date. Instead, she must hint around that she likes him until he asks her out. The dating time before marriage seems to be about the same as in the United States, six months to a year. When the guy decides to marry his girlfriend, he must purchase a cow for the girl’s family. It is a symbol of how important the lady is to him. In Rwanda, the cow is the ultimate symbol of richness and beauty. To have cows means that you are rich. If a lady is said to look like a cow or to have the eyes of a cow, it is the highest compliment. Poetry and songs are written about cows. Schools, institutions and people have names that have the word “cow” in it. Before the genocide and even many years before, when Rwandans owned many cows, a man would bring his bride’s family to his cattle ranch and the family would choose a boy with a strong throwing arm. The boy would throw the spear towards the herd of cattle. Wherever the spear landed, the family would receive all those cows. Obviously, the objective would be to throw the spear as far as you can. Now, however, it is only necessary to present one cow to the bride’s family.
Other interesting cultural notes are the handshake. In Rwanda, if you meet an elder or someone of respectable position, you must wait until he offers his hand. You must never offer your hand first. Then, when you shake, if you want to be polite, you must place your left hand across your right arm when you shake. It is extremely rude to shake hands or to offer any type of food or object with your left hand. If you meet an old woman or old man in the village, it is okay to say “Hello, old man or hello, old woman.” It is actually a sign of respect because age is respected here. Unfortunately, the Kinyarwandan word for “old man” is only a letter away from the word for “crazy man.” You can also call a woman old enough to be your mother, “mama.”
I will present a short disclaimer here about the culture. Given I have only been here a short amount of time, I may be wrong about certain cultural aspects. I have only written what I have been told by Rwandans and what I have experienced in Kigali and Butare. Kigali and Butare are the two biggest cities in Rwanda and they are more modern than the rest of the country. Cultural issues and food may differ across Rwanda depending on proximity to the borders or isolation from other villages. I will continue my cultural notes whenever I observe them and when I reach my site. Forgive me however if I make assumptions based on one town or stereotypes based on a group of Rwandans I know. Rwanda is a very dynamic country and I am looking forward to experiencing the rest of Rwanda.
As always, I miss you guys and I hope you are doing well. Take care and tell me how Obama is doing so far. He is immensely popular here in Rwanda. I bought an Obama hat in the airport, and I am probably going to wear it around soon to show it off.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Sorry for not posting sooner!!!
Igitagangurirwa! No, it does not mean “welcome” or “hi” in Kinyarwanda but it is the longest word I have learned today. The length of the word, which means spider, kinda makes me wonder about the size of these creatures in Rwanda but I guess I’ll just have to find out.
Well, for those of you who have been following my blog (or one post), I have finally left my home in the United States and have arrived in Rwanda to begin training as a Peace Corps volunteer. And so far, (not to sound clichéd) it has been an amazing experience. I feel like I have met so many new people, experienced so many new things and learned so many Kinyarwandan words that I don’t really know what to do with myself. I don’t know where to put all this new information and my American routine has been disrupted so badly that it has taken awhile for me to adjust. Who am I kidding? I am still freaking adjusting and I will be for a loooong time.
My American routine was pretty consistent. I woke up late in the morning, drank some coffee, sat on the couch, watched television or read a book, ate lunch, then drove to work. After work, I would usually hang out with friends and eat dinner. Then, I would go home and go to bed sometime around midnight or 1 am. It was a pretty comfy life, I will admit.
Now, my schedule is sorta like this. If I sleep through the night, I wake up at 6 am. I grab my shampoo, soap and bucket and rush to the communal bathrooms before the other volunteers get there. Not that there is not enough showers for all of us. It is a question of having enough water for all of us. I turn on the faucet and a fast dribble of cold water comes out. I fill up my bucket and shower from that. I usually need around two buckets of water to shower. If there are too many people showering, I have to wait until water reaches my stall. The positive part is watching the sunrise from my stall. I get an awesome view from my window. Then, after I’m done “showering” comes the tricky part. I grab my flashlight and start hunting for a suitable toilet. I look in one and no toilet paper. I look in another one and no toilet seat. I look in another and it hasn’t been flushed in the past three days. It usually takes me looking in about eight stalls to hunt down the amenities I need for a toilet.
Around seven o’clock, I join the other volunteers for breakfast and enjoy hot tea, Rwandan coffee, little sweet breads, passion fruit and something that tastes like goiaba. I take my malaria pill and then head to class.
Class is a mixture of exhilaration, exhaustion, frustration and complete incompetence on my part. I have language class three times a day, each one lasting about an hour. The teachers are bright young university graduates and I have to admit, they have a lot of patience. So far, I have been studying Kinyarwandan for a week, and I feel like I have learned a huge amount of information. At the same time, I realize how much I need to know.
Tech training is also part of our schedule and it is my favorite part. In another blog, perhaps, I will go over in detail what we might be doing in our site. We have received some more information about it, and it is pretty exciting. Our main trainer is a woman from Zimbabwe and she is amazing. She has a Master’s in Public Health; she was a nurse and midwife in her country for many years before traveling around Africa and the rest of the world gaining more experience and education. She is a great teacher and her excitement is infectious. I wish I could attend tech training all day but there is that little matter of picking up a whole new language. And it is not like Kinyarwanda is a piece of cake either. For example, there is no frame of reference between Kinyarwanda and romance languages so I can’t use my Portuguese to remember words. In addition, they have something called “noun classes,” 16 in all. Depending on the noun class, the prefixes of every word in a sentence will change to agree with the noun in the sentence. We haven’t gotten to “noun classes” yet, but learning it has become very ominous indeed.
Our language and tech training ends around five o’clock in the afternoon. We have a two hour break until dinner. After dinner, we usually hang around in small groups and pretend to study Kinyarwandan. I usually head to bed around 9:30 ( I start yawning at 8:30) and I tuck myself into my mosquito net and I read John Grisham until I pass out. Then, I wake up again at 6:00 and the whole routine is repeated.
The days differentiate a little and I am still trying to figure out a personal schedule for myself. (For example, when do I wash my clothes.) Hopefully, I can get it figured out in a week or two and I can start posting more regularly on this blog.
I feel like I have so much information yet I do not want to bore you. If you have any specific questions about Rwanda or you want me to write about certain topics such as food, culture, taboos, just let me know. I will try to get around to them, sooner or later. For now, I need to head to bed. It is 10:39, way past my bedtime. Enjoy the read, and your hot showers and cheeseburgers. Good night.
Well, for those of you who have been following my blog (or one post), I have finally left my home in the United States and have arrived in Rwanda to begin training as a Peace Corps volunteer. And so far, (not to sound clichéd) it has been an amazing experience. I feel like I have met so many new people, experienced so many new things and learned so many Kinyarwandan words that I don’t really know what to do with myself. I don’t know where to put all this new information and my American routine has been disrupted so badly that it has taken awhile for me to adjust. Who am I kidding? I am still freaking adjusting and I will be for a loooong time.
My American routine was pretty consistent. I woke up late in the morning, drank some coffee, sat on the couch, watched television or read a book, ate lunch, then drove to work. After work, I would usually hang out with friends and eat dinner. Then, I would go home and go to bed sometime around midnight or 1 am. It was a pretty comfy life, I will admit.
Now, my schedule is sorta like this. If I sleep through the night, I wake up at 6 am. I grab my shampoo, soap and bucket and rush to the communal bathrooms before the other volunteers get there. Not that there is not enough showers for all of us. It is a question of having enough water for all of us. I turn on the faucet and a fast dribble of cold water comes out. I fill up my bucket and shower from that. I usually need around two buckets of water to shower. If there are too many people showering, I have to wait until water reaches my stall. The positive part is watching the sunrise from my stall. I get an awesome view from my window. Then, after I’m done “showering” comes the tricky part. I grab my flashlight and start hunting for a suitable toilet. I look in one and no toilet paper. I look in another one and no toilet seat. I look in another and it hasn’t been flushed in the past three days. It usually takes me looking in about eight stalls to hunt down the amenities I need for a toilet.
Around seven o’clock, I join the other volunteers for breakfast and enjoy hot tea, Rwandan coffee, little sweet breads, passion fruit and something that tastes like goiaba. I take my malaria pill and then head to class.
Class is a mixture of exhilaration, exhaustion, frustration and complete incompetence on my part. I have language class three times a day, each one lasting about an hour. The teachers are bright young university graduates and I have to admit, they have a lot of patience. So far, I have been studying Kinyarwandan for a week, and I feel like I have learned a huge amount of information. At the same time, I realize how much I need to know.
Tech training is also part of our schedule and it is my favorite part. In another blog, perhaps, I will go over in detail what we might be doing in our site. We have received some more information about it, and it is pretty exciting. Our main trainer is a woman from Zimbabwe and she is amazing. She has a Master’s in Public Health; she was a nurse and midwife in her country for many years before traveling around Africa and the rest of the world gaining more experience and education. She is a great teacher and her excitement is infectious. I wish I could attend tech training all day but there is that little matter of picking up a whole new language. And it is not like Kinyarwanda is a piece of cake either. For example, there is no frame of reference between Kinyarwanda and romance languages so I can’t use my Portuguese to remember words. In addition, they have something called “noun classes,” 16 in all. Depending on the noun class, the prefixes of every word in a sentence will change to agree with the noun in the sentence. We haven’t gotten to “noun classes” yet, but learning it has become very ominous indeed.
Our language and tech training ends around five o’clock in the afternoon. We have a two hour break until dinner. After dinner, we usually hang around in small groups and pretend to study Kinyarwandan. I usually head to bed around 9:30 ( I start yawning at 8:30) and I tuck myself into my mosquito net and I read John Grisham until I pass out. Then, I wake up again at 6:00 and the whole routine is repeated.
The days differentiate a little and I am still trying to figure out a personal schedule for myself. (For example, when do I wash my clothes.) Hopefully, I can get it figured out in a week or two and I can start posting more regularly on this blog.
I feel like I have so much information yet I do not want to bore you. If you have any specific questions about Rwanda or you want me to write about certain topics such as food, culture, taboos, just let me know. I will try to get around to them, sooner or later. For now, I need to head to bed. It is 10:39, way past my bedtime. Enjoy the read, and your hot showers and cheeseburgers. Good night.
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