On the road again....

This past weekend, I visited my host family in Kamonyi for my host parents 25^th wedding anniversary. It was so much fun! I left Friday for Butare, where I was so happily greeted at the post office with three boxes from my parents, another padded envelope from my mom (containing the book The River Why, which I’m already reading again!) and another small package with my new English, French and Kinyarwanda dictionary! I’m so thankful that we have a volunteer living in Butare, as she let me keep my packages there over the weekend as I continued my travels. And although I appreciate it immensely, my dad did his shopping at Costco, which made carrying all of this stuff, a very heavy process!

So Friday I met a few other volunteers in Butare. A couple of us went back to the PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteer) house and ended up accidentally stopping a robbery in progress. This is the third time it’s happened to her, although the second and third times the attempted thieves didn’t actually make it in the house. It was kind of a bummer though. I have to say this volunteer has more poise and grace than most people though, as she handled it so logically and calmly. In the evening. we went to what’s becoming a PCV favorite that we have dubbed “The Pork Place.” You order pork by the kilo, and it’s really good, although I think I overloaded on meat this weekend, as my stomach was not too pleased with me! I don’t eat any meat at site. Worth it? I haven’t decided.

This is a picture of Saj and I at the anniversary celebration. Saj is the youngest of my host siblings.

So Saturday morning, I got up bright and early dressed in my Rwandan igitenge dress and jumped on a bus to Gitarama! As I waited for my host family here, I stopped into a boutique for a mug of hot milk, and between playing solitaire on my cell phone, I talked to some kids who wouldn’t stop staring at me. Then my host father showed up and took me to my host family! It was so incredible to see them all again. It felt like I had never left, but this time I knew so much more Kinyarwanda that I could actually talk to them. We all piled into a “squeeze bus” or twegerane, which means squeeze, and drove to a church, where my host sisters immediately made me change into a shananana or some such Rwandan dress. It consists of a tank top with a few pieces of material wrapped around. I felt very exposed after months of dressing modestly, even for me. The ceremony was a lot of fun, and I was expected to take pictures so I didn’t feel intrusive. I walked with all my host siblings (except Nafta who returned to University in Uganda) in front of my host parents as they entered the church. Then they sang, and prayed.

Finally the gift giving began, which was so entertaining to watch. Looking at a lot of Rwandan’s photos, they have tons of receiving gifts or giving gifts, so it was fun to see these pictures come to life. Everyone comes up and presents their gifts to the families (there were five couples celebrating their anniversaries). After the ceremony, we went outside for photos, followed by a nice meal and fantas. It was so much fun to be with them all again, and I had the wonderful opportunity to meet my host father’s father and his surprisingly young looking new wife. After all the festivities, we changed back into our normal clothes, piled into the twegerane, me with Immacile on my lap, and drove the forty minute drive back to their house in Kamonyi.

There were tons of people at the house, which now finally has electricity by the way! We ate again, but it was really nice to help my sisters serve the plates and clean up, because it made me feel like I belonged there and less like I was a muzungu (foreigner) tourist. On Sunday a new group of volunteers came and my host family received another one. I had the privilege of speaking with her Sunday night when my host father called to see if I made it home safely. She seems so nice although sounded the same as I did on my first day, giggling a lot, as I was definitely overwhelmed. But anyways, they moved the “volunteer” room outside, to Nafta’s room, which I slept in Saturday night, and it was so weird. I missed Nafta a lot. But, after the guests departed, and I caught my little host brothers drinking sorghum beer out of a water bottle with a straw, we settled down and exhaustedly headed to bed. Aline (my oldest sister) laid on my bed and talked to me for a little bit before we went to bed, about life, her new job and her desire to go to University soon.

This is a picture of my host parents during the anniversary celebration while they were praying.

This was one of the most amazing parts as, I have these four amazing host sisters, these truly awesome women, that I’ve never been able to have a real conversation about life or anything really with. So it was really nice to see how far I’ve come in my Kinyarwanda, and to continue to ferment these life long relationships. Aline is so amazing, as she’s the oldest girl, she more often than not takes the role of surrogate mother. Wrangling the children, making sure they all have food (as she does most of the cooking) and making sure we’ve all bathed. Everything, and she’s only 20.

Sunday, I took a brief detour to the Peace Corps “Hub” as we call it. I got to see Mupemba, our training director, Esperance, the language coordinator and Nonci, my wonderful teacher. It was so nice to see them all, and I was able to speak in Kinyarwanda the whole time, which was also nice, and I could tell they were so pleased. They tried to get me to stick around until the new volunteers came, but I thought it would be really unfair to the new volunteer to automatically feel like they were competing with me in our host family, or seeing my relationship with them and that I am able to communicate with them now. That and I had a long way to go. So my sisters walked me to the twegerane, loaded me up and sent me down the road to Kigali.

This picture is of our group. All my host siblings, except Nafta. My host sisters are all down in front, my host grandparents, host parents, and more extended family and friends.

I began with a trip to Nakumatt, to buy things to cooked westernized food. Including, very excitingly curry paste and red wine vinegar. My parents have done an amazing job of sending me seasonings. I made chili the other night for the first time as a result of chili and baja seasonings sent to me. It was semi-vegetarian as it had no meat, but used beef bouillon. I also had potatoes and gravy the other day. I’ve eaten really well since I’ve been at site, and I’ve discovered new realms of chef-ery within myself, I never experienced in the world of pre-made canned goods known as college. After Nakumatt, I went to Bourbon Coffee and had a salad (with real lettuce, not cabbage) followed by chocolate ice cream. Then I headed down the road to Butare. Here I went and visited the volunteer there, picked up my packages, we ate my bag of cherry tomatoes I had bought at Nakumatt, which were AMAZING! Then headed to my next stop.

On the bus to Nyamagabe, I ran into my friends from the Environmental and Conservation College here at site, that I just started teaching English at. Eve is from Uganda and only speaks English and she’s the same age as me. Denyse is one of our students. It was nice to see that I have really started building friendships here to. And it’s nice to have someone that I am able to carry on long conversations with that isn’t just associated with the Peace Corps, gives me a little diversity. They fortunately had a truck coming to pick them up in Nyamagabe, so they invited me to ride with them, which saved me a very uncomfortable 30 minute motorcycle ride to my home carrying all my insanely heavy things. They even helped me carry my extra bag, which was the heavier one. So I successfully made it back home, after a successful and very fun, but tiring weekend.

This is my host parents, with Pastor Bonkey's father and his new wife.

Now I am back at work. I attempted to do my interview with the Community Health Workers (CHWs) yesterday as part of the community needs assessment that I need to do. It was a very frustrating experience as it began with my co-worker demanding I buy him fanta if he was to help me. Which I was very offended by, as I help any way I can here and he was one of the biggest proponents of me teaching them English and I told them I didn’t want any money. So to say I had to pay him for his help in doing a report that will help me understand better how to help our population, just seemed counterintuitive. It was frustrating. The actual questioning didn’t go so well either, as they all just stared at me until the head of the CHWs helped me. Even then, I had to explain the concept of resources to them. Needless to say we didn’t get too far. But to be positive and optimistic I did learn some very valuable information! That’s what I’m sticking with from that endeavor.

Later yesterday I caught two of my co-workers laughing at a woman because she wasn’t wearing shoes. To which, I wanted to literally beat the crap out of them for. They explained to me why they were laughing and I said I understood. Seeing the displeasure (I hope) on my face, they asked if I agreed with them, and I said no. Which I continued to explain why I thought it was so awful they were laughing. They explained that she was a friend. To which I countered, but she’s not laughing. She’s not happy. I pulled out the whole, to laugh at someone is mean, but to laugh with someone is ok thing. To which one of them then apologized to the woman. I was glad he at least recognized the problem. But to laugh at someone because they don’t have shoes. I wanted to slap their superior selves right in the back of the head!

Last night, I taught the whole class at the university by myself, about pronouns. I had no idea I knew so much about pronouns, but it went really well. I guess that whole journalism education thing planted seeds in my brain that I had no idea were actually there. It’s a nice break to go there with people other than my co-workers. It’s giving me a life outside of the health center as I live with my co-workers, work with them, go to events with them. They are amazing people, but it’s nice to have a multi-faceted life, especially when it’s still doing positive things like teaching English. Well, that's all for now. Much love and best wishes everyone!

This picture is of Byishimo and Saj (the youngest of my host siblings and host brothers) eating dinner, before they got into the Sorghum Beer.