1st week at site

April 30, 2009


The worst hours of the day have to be from 4:30 to 7:30 pm. As the day wanes and I go home from work, I am always faced with the issue of what to do and how to do it. And I also have to decide what to cook that night, if I will cook anything. Today, I spent an hour trying to light my charcoal grill, all the while wondering what brought me here, thousands of miles away from what I call home. Even now, I can picture myself driving home from work and stopping by a fast food joint to grab a hamburger and fries. Then, I go home and watch my favorite program on the television or I call some friends. I talk to my sister or my mother and then I go to sleep. Everything is familiar and I know exactly what to do and where to go. I know the place, the language, and the people. I can predict what will happen tomorrow and what will probably happen next week. And I am not alone. I am not the only white person for kilometers and kilometers. And my job is clearly defined.

When I first started my Peace Corps blog, I did so for two reasons. The first was to have an easy way to update all of my family and friends on how I was doing, without having to email all of them. But the second reason was to provide an honest and detailed account of life in the Peace Corps so that others who are out there can understand and make an informed decision about whether to join or not. When I first thought about joining the Peace Corps, I read many blogs. Many of them were very good and funny but I noticed that the blogs did not really provide the information I wanted. And the information I wanted to know was how the volunteer integrated into the community, how did he learn the language, and how did he do his job in such circumstances. What were the hardest things to get used to and what were the challenges in the job? Was it worth it after all? Did he ever have doubts? So, I want to do that here and I want to be as honest as possible. And I want to do that because I believe in the Peace Corps’ mission and I think it is a very good thing. Yet, I don’t want people to join with the wrong ideas or the wrong reasons and I want them to be prepared.

I have been at my site for a week and a half now. It is hard for me to come to terms with the realization that I am actually here and I will be living here for two years. For a person who does not like to make promises, I have had to make many promises and commitments, one of them being my stay here. And to be honest, although it is very difficult for me now, I can see my job in the future, like six months or so, and I like what I see. For one thing, what I am doing now actually means something and can help people, unlike any other job I’ve ever had before. And I also feel very fortunate to be placed where I am at now. I am not lying when I say that the people here just blow me away with their hospitality, kindness and generosity. I have actually felt very comfortable here from the first and it is because the people have been so open and friendly. One of my Rwandan friends says that this is the way people are here; it is the culture. They tell me that we are together and that I am their sister. For someone accustomed to the American culture of independence, privacy and “everyone for himself,” it is a little overwhelming at times. Yet, this hospitality is deeply appreciated. If I move back to the States to live, I will take this type of hospitality with me because I think it is so much better than the way we live in the States. People here are shocked when I tell them that many Americans don’t even know who their neighbors are.

I guess I can give you some details about how I am living and so on. I actually have a very nice cement house with four bedrooms. Right now, I have hardly any furniture so it looks so big and empty, but I will be filling it up month by month. Last week, I ordered a desk and a coffee table, but I still need to order chairs for the living room and shelves for my kitchen supplies, books, and clothes. It will probably take a couple of months to get it all because everything is handmade. Let’s see, I also have electricity in two bedrooms. My neighbor has offered to come over and put wiring in my kitchen, latrine, and living room, which would be awesome. I told him he should teach me how to wire my house. I might as well gain a useful skill since it seems like everyone here knows how to do those things. Talking about useful skills, it would be really nice if I knew how to light my charcoal grill. I can get it started but I usually have to go through five or six matches and a lot of paper. Today, after an hour of struggling with the charcoal and watching the sun set, I finally gave up and threw about half a cup of kerosene on the charcoal. Only then could I get the charcoal started.

It’s not that bad though. One of the two best things about my house is the distance from work, only about 200 meters. Every day, I return to my house at noon for a small siesta. The other thing is my view, which is to die for. Seriously, when I step outside my house, I feel like I am in a postcard. Where I am, there are so many hills, mountains, valleys and rivers. When I go visit the surrounding villages, I am always just gaping at the scenery. It is incredible. Of course, the scenery becomes a little nerve wrecking when I am on a big bus trying to maneuver the small dirt roads around the side of the mountains. If the bus moves just a few feet to the right, it is all over for me and my Peace Corps adventure.

Talking about surrounding villages, I am going to be visiting the area villages a lot in the next three months. My first Peace Corps assignment is a community assessment, which involves researching town and hospital records and visiting houses, conducting census-type questions. As it turns out, my sector has twenty-one little villages so I will be visiting them all very soon. The amount of work I will be doing seems a little overwhelming as a result because I not only have to do the community assessment but they want me to start teaching at the clinic. This would be okay normally but I don’t know the language yet. And I really want to be fluent but, right now, I only have survival kinyarwanda. The area schools also want me to come and teach (mostly English). Honestly, I am really excited about the possibilities and I am glad they want me to come teach about health topics. Once I get a good grasp of the language, I really think I will love my job. But right now, I am just a little overwhelmed. When I come home from work, I will usually feel more stressed than when I am at work because I feel like I need to start preparing lesson plans, translating something, filling some form for Peace Corps or trying to light the charcoal before the sun sets. Today, I gave myself a little holiday after work and I decided to write this blog. And I have a reason to celebrate. Today, I taught my first lesson at the clinic and it was awesome! I was stressing about it because they told me yesterday I should teach today at the community health workers’ meeting. But I prepared the lesson on HIV/AIDS and found a translator and presented it with no problem. I don’t know why I was so worried. It was actually fun and great to see how interested they were in the topic. I actually opened a can of worms at one point when I asked them if they thought AIDS is a punishment from God. I was playing the true/false game and I was really trying to determine the level of stigma in the community. They really got into that argument. Some thought it was a punishment from God because there’s no cure for AIDS. Most others disagreed however, and a big debate ensued. I loved it and I tried to facilitate as best as possible with guiding questions. It was a little difficult however because I had to have a translator and the translators kept jumping in and adding their own viewpoints on the matter. Overall, though it was a lot of fun and my lesson lasted forever. I thought it would be around thirty minutes long but it lasted almost two hours.