So here in Rwanda, the government has this required thing once a month called Umuganda, which is a day of work to help beautify and maintain the environment and such here in Rwanda. It's required of all people, and if you get caught not doing it, then you're fined. How strictly this is regulated I am unsure. I know many people who have not been to either of the two that I have attended since being here. Anyways... Yesterday was Umuganda, the last saturday of the month. Being on American time after roughly 23 years of living that way, I was up and ready to go early in the morning. (OK I realize the morning part of that sentence does not sound like me, but I have been living on my dad's schedule here, up at 6 and to bed by 9. No electricity and functional daylight hours - 6 am to 6 pm - are kind of what dictate my sleep schedule!)
Somewhat to my Rwandan family's dislike I rushed out of the house without my morning cup of tea, or any of the porridge they had made especially for me, with the family hoe in hand. As we walked (thankfully with my teacher) we continued to ask people where to go, to which Rwandan directions standardly replied with over there, complete with a flip of the wrist. So we arrive, on American time. To explain, here in Rwanda, things are a little bit more relaxed. Much to my sometimes frustration, they like to greet everyone as they walk down the street. They walk at a very slow pace a lot of the time, and they arrive, when they arrive. We often have to clarify with our training director, "Do you want to leave Rwandan time, or American time?" In other words can we take our sweet time showing up as maybe we want another cup of tea.
Another qualifier for this Rwandan time theory, is that they do not go out in the rain. To their credit, when it rains, it really rains. But it usually only lasts briefly. So unlike Eugene, it does not rain all day, almost every day! Sorry, another story real quick. My host family's toilet is outside. To get there I must go through 3 very squeeky doors, one with a double lock on it. Last night we had a crazy rain storm at about 10pm, to the point that it sounds like it'd be quieter outside in the rain, but it's so cool. Unfortunately I really needed to go to the bathroom at exactly 10:07ish last night. So I crawled out from under the mosquito net, put on my flip flops and rain jacket, trekked through the three squeeky doors, dove across the back yard area under the cover of my siblings porch roof. Then I tip toed through the mud, and raced around the corner into the bathroom. I'm so freaking happy I brought my head lamp! hahaha
Anyways, about Umuganda, we were in the first batch of 10 people to arrive. So we discovered work for ourselve. With two hoes and a shovel, we set to work trying to remove stumps from where they would later build a house. Before we started we tried to guess how much of the Rwandan's time would be spent watching the abazungus (foreigners) work. I was definitely off by saying 67%, in actuality, it rounded off probably around 96.4%. So as we went to work hacking apart a stump and digging it out of the ground (using hoes only) everyone watched, including our teachers and the family members that had gone early. After an hour of work 2.5 stumps destroyed later, and at least 150 Rwandans leaning on their tools watching us, we headed back down the hill, for bucket baths and a trip into Kigali (the capital of Rwanda).
It was a crazy and very thereapeutic adventure, although I have the crazy blisters or rather open wounds going on my hands right now. I took out a lot of agression apparently on that stump. But, now I am down to two weeks left of training. We just had a language evaluation and I received very high marks, which was gratifying. We also had check ins this past week, and the training director said he really didn't have any worries about my survival at site and my ability to intergrate into the community. That was really nice to hear, whether he does have worries or not! So two weeks and I will be an official Peace Corps Volunteer (how long has that process been in the works? OY!) As I said, I love Rwanda and I'm so pleased that this is my assignment.
These pictures are of the area where I have lived for the past two months. The first one is a view from one of the other PCTs houses. The next is the road through my village with two small kids walking to school, and the last is of a few boys laying (where the elephant sleep). It's called the Inzofu (elephant) something or another, but it's a grass park-like area. It's so beautiful!
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