My life as a muzungo in a small town

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.