Traditions of the past, and trees of the future...

The past three weeks I’ve actually been back at site, which seems a little weird, especially since the time has been so busy thus far. My life has very much been like a choose your own adventure novel the last two weeks (not that it isn’t almost always that way)! But the last two weeks have very much been guided by my own decision making and less on my expected expectations of those around me, or the dreaded idea of Peace Corps guilt – which generally refers to a guilt we place on ourselves when deciding to do things away from site, or other such tasks. So it’s been a liberating and incredibly positive last two weeks, and probably my best mentally thus far.

So, the first decision made was to go to the Mayor of Nyamagabe district’s wedding. He is the son of one of my co-workers, which was one of the major determinants. So I went, and ended up spending the whole time with a group of women that work at my health center. Being that I live with men, and the men tend to be a little more outgoing (whether there are ulterior wedding wishes or not, I choose to not notice). Anyways, so I got to spend a day with the women, which was awesome! They rented a bus to take everyone to the wedding. After the wedding we did the reception, which is where we saw the traditional dancers in this first picture. They were awesome! There were girls too, but the guys were fantastic! Anyways, after the reception we went to a ceremony which is apparently to “set the bride free” or signify that she is able to make her own choices and such. I thought that it was strange that this came after the wedding, but there are always pieces I don’t understand.

The “Umunsi Mukuru[s]” or directly translated as “important days” or loosely translated as “the celebration” continued for two days after the wedding, and I’m not even sure how many before. So I made another appearance at my co-workers house for fanta on Monday evening. I was too tired Sunday to do anything past my normal two hour appearance at church followed by some laundering! One of the most phenomenal aspects of these two weeks back, are the immense amount of connections I feel I’ve made. It started before the wedding with a trip to the Sector office where I ran into a man named Jean Baptiste, who is the director of an organization called Friends of Nyungwe, who also turns out to be one of my co-workers’ husbands. He also attended the wedding with us. I met the previous Peace Corps Rwanda health program assistant after he came to the health center and recruited some of us to go do HIV testing at the tea factory. And even the group of women I went with to the wedding, were prominent members of my community. I knew them by sight, but it was truly awesome to establish relationships with them.

This past week, the choose your own adventure got really fun though! Monday I laid low and worked on preparation for the coming kids summer camp which starts next week. Tuesday, I decided to go visit two cooperatives that I knew of in Nyungwe National Park. So I set off, only to run into Jean Baptiste by the entrance to the park who informed me of a traditional Rwandan village that is being built on a hill overlooking the park which will also have bungalows that tourists can stay in when they come and visit. After this I swung by the RDB (Rwanda Development Board) office to ask a couple questions about the park and discovered that the receptionist was in fact my neighbor. So I ventured into the park to the first cooperative, which turned out to be a women’s basket weaving cooperative and they were having a meeting. So, they let me sit down and talk to them during their meeting for about 20 minutes and it was so wonderful to make this contact. (This picture is from doing HIV testing at the Tea Factory.)

I guess to preface, my plan of attack for doing this whole “mobilization” thing that I’ve been assigned to do is to start by working with cooperatives established in the community and especially in regards to preventing gender based violence, working with women’s cooperatives. The other aspect of my plan is clubs at the local secondary school, beginning with a GLOW club, and GLOW stands for Girls Leading Our World. This is also what our camp next week is all about! OK, back to the adventures…

After my wonderful visit with the women’s cooperative, I continued deeper into the forest to the bee-keepers cooperative. Although not as fruitful as far as conversing and introducing myself to the world as the first visit was, this one provided me with the knowledge that this group of 24 or so individuals do in fact make their own honey and beautiful beeswax candles that can be bought right there at their office, and their honey is AWESOME! As I trekked back out of the park, a pick-up pulled over on the side of the road in front of me. It was some friends from RDB, who then invited me to adventure into the park with them. So we did a quick driving tour and then back to the entrance, where I continued on my journey in time to head home for lunch.

The next day I traveled to the local secondary school (which is kind of like junior high and high school) and had a meeting with the head teacher/principal about starting a GLOW club as well as inventorying the existing clubs within the school. It went really well and he was very excited about the club idea working with me in January when school re-convenes. This brings me to Thursday, which not only included running into all the people I know in my community (pretty much) but also meeting seemingly all of the police force of Nyamagabe district as well as doing something I’m immensely proud of and feel so privileged to have been a part of, planting trees. (The below tree is one of the ones I planted.)

So, my co-workers informed me Wednesday afternoon that Thursday would be a random Umuganda (day of service – which are usually held on the last Saturday of the month) to “Gutera igiti” or directly translated “plant tree.” So we ventured out by the Nyungwe entrance and headed off the road on a trail through the tea. Probably between a quarter and half a mile in, we opened onto a hillside that had been our version of clear cut. I commandeered myself a hoe and began working my way down the hillside digging up the earth for the future trees. There were between 100 and 200 people approximately that showed up to plant trees and we worked side by side digging holes for two hours before there were no more holes left to be dug. Much to my dismay, this was then followed by a trip back out to the main road to grab saplings to carry back. There are times when my frustration with inefficiency tends to present itself, but that is definitely not particular to Rwanda.So we carried our armfuls of trees back to the hillside and began planting them like crazy. All working together, we edged back down the hillside.

Hundreds of trees were planted on a beautiful day in November, and not too brag, but I’m so incredibly proud to say that at least ten of those were actually planted by me. Afterwards they held a meeting, about what - I’m not sure, as by this point, four hours in or so, I was pretty tired. I can see the crest of the hillside from my front door and I glance at it regularly now with pride, and not of myself, but of the Rwandan people and of my community. I am in love with this place (but no, I still don’t want a Rwandan husband, just in case any of my daily requests to be a wife make it all the way back to my readers! Haha!)
(This picture is of Venuste, a co-worker, planting trees.)

So this weekend I laid pretty low, although I began Friday morning at six with a trip into Butare where I found two huge packages waiting for me from my amazing mother! In it were not only seeds for my garden (which I built and planted this past weekend) but also all the fixings of a Christmas. She sent me this awesome “Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.” Don’t worry, it’s fake and it came complete with the one red ornament ball for decoration, but she included others. I also received a strand of Christmas lights which I promptly hung, and which promptly shorted out due to the voltage differences in the states and Africa. But I have my voltage converter plugged into them now and they’re still just as awesome, even though half of the lights don’t work! And yes, the Christmas tree is already set up and I know it’s even before Thanksgiving, but you all know me and how much I love Christmas, especially it’s over-commercialization!

So as I’ve said, I’m in a great place right now, more positive than I even normally am. I got to talk to Ry, Kaleigh, Gracie and my mom the other day, which was awesome, but always makes me a little sad that I don’t get to be home with family and friends and with my beautiful, amazing niece, but soon enough I know! We have summer camps the next two weeks and I have 20 months left of incredible Peace Corps Rwandan adventures. So Happy Thanksgiving to all of you whom I love so much. This time last year I was driving cross-country, spending time with family on the east coast, and I will hold you all very close to me as Thursday passes. Also, of course Happy Birthday to the ridiculous number of people in my life who I love so much that have birthdays right now. Kaleigh, Mom, Aunt Linda, Dad, Meggie B, Katie and Grandma! Much love as always! I hope your adventures are continuing as mine are!

This last picture is looking back at my community from the place of planting trees, and my house which is close to the blue roof in the distance.

Benchmark two -IST, Lake Kivu and visions of Congo...

The past two weeks or so have been spent at trainings, trainings, trainings! It began with a trip to Kigali to do training about “summer” camps. I guess to preface, Rwanda is on a different schedule than schools in the states, and they just started their long school break. So the end of November we will be holding “summer” camps for the kids with an emphasis on girls empowerment, life skills and health related education.

I already feel like Rwanda is about the size of my University campus, as while I was in Kigali I ran into several people from other places, not even affiliated with Peace Corps. It’s definitely a small country, and therefore, I often feel like there’s very much an eye on me most of the time. So the training for Camps GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and BE (Boys excelling) was awesome. After three months of being at site, I finally felt like I started to wrap my head around what I can do here in Rwanda as far as projects and such goes. It was also the first time that I left sight in five weeks, so I was getting a little stir crazy!

Anyways, that training ended Sunday, followed by a trip to Kibuye on Lake Kivu. After three months of service, all of the volunteers have an in-service training. So my entire training class of 18 people have come together for this. A big group of us had met at the PC office before heading to this next training, so we stopped for some really amazing Indian food in Kigali before the long trek out here. Unfortunately this had us arriving after dark which allowed for a very interesting last 30-minutes of the trip. As the sky darkened, the driver continued to drive light-less. Every now and then he would flick the head lights just long enough to see the wall in front of us before whipping around yet another curve. All of the Rwandans on the bus were laughing and talking loudly, and occasionally a couple men on the bus would scream out cheers as they listened to whatever soccer match was on.

It was quite entertaining. The next morning I woke to see an incredible view of Lake Kivu, which runs the border of Congo and Rwanda, complete with several islands and at times we were even able to see a flat-topped volcano in the Congo with smoke coming out of it and everything. It’s pretty spectacular! So the week commenced with trainings on health related topics, income-generating activities, and several other things, and I feel so ready to go back to my site and start developing some of my project ideas. I’ve been relatively intimidated about doing that thus far as my Kinyarwanda isn’t amazing just yet, and it’s daunting to go out in the community on my own. But, I do feel empowered and excited, and even better, ready.

Friday afternoon, our group took wooden motor boats out to Amahoro (Peace) Island. It was so much fun and so incredibly beautiful. The island is really small and has a trail around it. Hammocks rest by the shore and the views were awesome! The boat ride back was amazing as well as we returned as the sun was setting. It was so nice to be around water again. I love the forest and my site, but I very much have a special place in my heart for water, lakes, rivers, ocean, and everything else. Being here really reminds me of living on Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park. I might have to do some more national park work when I make it back to the states, I just love living in those places so much! Tuzareba (We’ll see)!

Anyways, Friday evening our co-workers arrived. We each had one person from our sites come, and go through a Behavior Change Communication workshop with us. I was very glad to find out that I didn’t forget my Kinyarwanda this past week of only speaking English. So, my titulaire, or the manager of my health center came to the training and I’m really impressed with everyone’s participation as well as the variety of people who have come together. We’ve done some group work, in which we’ve discussed topics like family planning, nutrition, and designing messages. It’s been very interesting having these conversations, US Americans with Rwandans, and seeing where our ideas converge and where they differ, as well as creating strategies for mediating those divides when I return to site.

These have been immensely valuable trainings and we finished Monday. I followed this with a trip to Kamonyi to spend a couple days with my host family and finally back to site on friday. They have a new volunteer living with them now and she’s awesome. It was so nice being around her with our family as well as all of the other new trainees. It’s nice to be around fresh faces and feel like I have something to offer, be it support, or just someone new to talk to. I also re-met a trainee from the University of Oregon who used to volunteer for APS. Small world right? Anyways, Rwanda is starting to feel like home and I’m developing friendships with Rwandans as well as other volunteers. It’s nice to walk down the street and run into people you know that are up for impromptu breakfast dates or invite you to come visit their lake-side sanctuaries! And, every day my Kinyarwanda continues to get better!

One of the trainees will be coming to share my site with me in December. He will be working at the university that I’ve been teaching English at, and his job will be to do just that! I met him on his site visit right before I left to Kigali, and he seems like an awesome person, very optimistic or at least positive, so right up my alley, so to speak. It will be interesting to see how this affects site and how we will impact each other in relation to the community. But, I was away from site for two weeks total, although it went a lot quicker than the five weeks I spent without leaving my site. Haha. Now I’m back and after a day of sleeping and resting, as well as enjoying the living room furniture that finally arrived, I’m ready to get back to work! Although I miss home, my parents birthdays coming up, thanksgiving, Christmas, Gracie turning three months old, friends, everything. I feel very empowered and more ready to be a Peace Corps volunteer than I was going into this experience! We sha’ll see… Much love and until next we meet…

This last picture is a view of Virunga Volcanoes from my front porch after the rains cleared the cloud cover. All of the others are from my adventures on Lake Kivu!

You may now hug your bride...

So, I went to my first Rwandan wedding this past weekend. This was only my second wedding ever, so I’m not sure how much of an authority I can pretend to be, but here’s my attempt! Well, it started with a good case of “I’m a US American and still can’t grasp the concept of Rwandan time.” I arrived around 11 as the invitation said 10, and when I tried to go at 1o, everyone looked at me like I was a little crazy. Fortunately a school is really close to the church so I got surrounded by excited children. I know every single day my Kinyarwanda is getting better as I say “Sinbumva” (I don’t understand) less and less. So I talked to the children for around 40 minutes or so. One of them was sick and kept coughing, so I took the opportunity to teach the “cover your cough” method we have in the states, except I went with “Dukokora Munhokora” which means literally that we cough in our elbow. Don’t worry, I demonstrated and made them all repeat after me, which was a lot of fun.

Two hours later, the bride and groom finally arrived. So we entered the church and watched people dancing for about a half an hour which was a lot of fun. Being that the groom was a co-worker of mine, a lot of my co-workers went, which was fun. Some were even in the choir. Then the couple entered and sat in chairs at the front of the church. They sat facing the alter and a giant wooden cross mounted in front of them. So for the next hour as the choir sang and the people danced, the couple didn’t see any of it. They simply continued to stare straight ahead, without many smiles or such. Then the priest did a little speaking, about what I’m not sure, as I tend to space out during long Kinyarwandan ramblings. Finally, the groom approached the priest, pledged himself to God, was given a certificate, then sat back down. More singing and dancing commenced. Finally, after about an hour and a half or so, the couple did their “I dos” and the groom slowly rolled up the veil on the bride. The priest pronounced them, and they hugged. I guess that was that. I was actually really excited to see a Rwandan couple kiss, as they don’t really ever do that in public. I’ve been here five months and I’ve never seen it. So they hugged. To which I giggled and had to stifle myself with a hand over the mouth.

The couple then paraded in a circle around their chairs, then sat back down for more sermon-ing. Finally they left. But, they only headed to the tea factory to take photos. When they returned, the church had been transformed for the reception. They even had cake! But, not enough to go around, which was a little saddening. There was the sharing of champagne, the cutting of the cake together, and they even fed us. We were each given a tin foil box with bread and sambusas in it. (Sambusas consist of meat or vegetables or both, wrapped in thin dough and then deep fried. They’re really good, but definitely in small doses, otherwise your stomach may not be too pleased.) They brought out fantas for everyone, as well as a big green tub full of sorghum beer that many took turns drinking out of with long straws. Finally, there was the gift giving, which I have to admit was slightly annoying. I really enjoyed the aspect of the one other wedding I went to in which they had a gift table. Drop your gift off, and there’s no pushing and shoving and such trying to get to the bride and groom.
I simply gave them a card with money, which is pretty standard here, but got shoved a lot in the process. I gave them one of the postcards my aunt and uncle sent me (sorry Bill and Em). It was one with animals on it as I wanted to keep the ones of PA and Michigan, so I can fondly reminisce. I thought they’d appreciate something from America as well. So sorry that I gave one away, and thank you so much for sending it to me in the first place! Anyways, the whole wedding (including wait time) was about seven hours. Without wait time, it was about four hours. So it was long, but fun. I didn’t run into any of my old elementary school teachers, or old classmates, (as you might imagine) so that was nice as well, removed that element of potential stress. Haha. Apparently our community mayor is getting married in November, who is the son of a co-worker and I’ve been invited. Then two more co-workers will be married in December and January. So, apparently all those weddings I’ve missed in the states, I’ll be making up for it here.

That was my Saturday. Sunday I went to church, and then I did a lot of laundry, which prompted me to go on a lengthy spiel about laundry machines, Laundromats, and how much I don’t much care for doing laundry by hand. This stemmed into an explanation of dishwashers, and the differences between crummy college apartments and my parent’s homes. I very much appreciate my friend Justin (who is my roommates umucozi) who puts up with so much from me, helps me mop my room (which I am surprisingly bad at) and has so much patience! Although, he has started to act a little bit like Ryan in that I think he very much enjoys saying the opposite of what I say just for the sake of it, and he also has taken to mocking me when he can. I’ll say I think the cold weather is good, to which he’ll counter with, no it is bad. I’ll say I can mop my room, he’ll laugh and say, no. It goes like this quite regularly, but we laugh a lot, and he has learned how to speak Megan, in that whatever broken Kinyarwanda I can muster, he understands and translates it into comprehensible Kinyarwanda for other people.
I’ve met some really amazing people, and seen some really amazing things so far. I am so happy with this life choice I’ve made. That’s not to say that I’m not looking forward to my Peace Corps training in a week and a half. I think my brain could really use the gift of speaking English for a while. I feel as though I haven’t had a weekend in quite a while, and they just don’t understand how much work it is sometimes to actually speak Kinyarwanda constantly. But buhoro buhoro (slowly slowly) I will know Kinyarwanda and the stress of that aspect of my life will decrease (at least I hope as such)! Anyways, there’s my wedding tale… much love, until next we meet!

The first pictures is of girls dancing before the wedding started. Next is the bride and groom signing their marriage license. Third is Agnes and I at the reception. She is everywhere in this community, all the time, and a really wonderful woman. Finally this last photo is the ministers drinking the first "swigs" so to speak out of the tub of sorgham beer.

Down to the river to pray... so to speak!

So not too much has happened since my last posting, especially by way of pictures. I’ve been feeling a little on the tired side the last week or so, maybe in part to the rain, maybe the constant overworking of my brain in order to speak Kinyarwanda has finally caught up with me. So last weekend I largely spent at my home, taking naps, reading good books, making another giant pot of soup! The usual. However, I woke Sunday to singing, but not coming from the usual direction, that is, the church. It was coming from the valley by my house. So I investigated to find around 100 people singing in brightly colored igitenge at the bottom of the valley. I soon discovered that it was a baptism, and even better, a baptism by the church I go to. So I threw on my rain jacket and headed down.

The people had built a dam to stop the canal water and were using this as their baptism pool. When I arrived there was a pastor dressed in white standing to his stomach in the murky brown water. Other people dressed in white would enter the pool on the right. The pastor would hold his right hand up, say something in Kinyarwanda, then forcefully throw the person back into the water. Then they would exit to the left with another joining the pastor from the right. Everyone was singing and cheering, it was such an amazing event to see. After the baptisms were over, I watched as they broke up the dam and the water flooded out into the next valley of tea fields. That was the highlight of last week, but there were other good points as well. The above is a picture from the baptism.
This is one of the views from my house, complete with the cabbage garden, which I'm hoping to commandeer a corner of to make into a herb garden at some point!

Tuesday I walked to another cell within our sector. To digress for a minute, Rwanda has four provinces, North, South, East, and West, and I guess they also have Kigali. Within the provinces are districts, which might be like our states, so to speak. Within the districts are sectors, which might kind of be like counties within the states. My health center serves an entire sector. Within the sectors, you have cells, which may be kind of like rural cities, and within these you have umudugudus, or villages, which are actually a lot like neighborhoods. There are five cells in my sector, and 30 imidugudus (imi makes it plural). There are also around 25,000 people. OK, digression over. So we walked to this other cell to meet with the community health workers. It was somewhere between eight and ten kilometers, so it was really nice to exercise as well as to see more of my new home. I also learned a lot of different back ways, and paths that are always really fun to explore, although you never know where you might end up.

Wednesday I went to one of the local schools to help teach about parasites to the primary kids along with teaching about drinking clean water, and hygiene and the like. Then we taught the secondary students (ages 12 and up) about sex and such. It was kind of entertaining to watch them all giggle about the pictures of the naked man and the naked woman, as I very much being the same way at that age. But it was nice to get out in the community in both cases, and to continue testing my Kinyarwanda.

This is a picture of the University that I teach English at with Nyungwe National Park in the background.

Although I very much wanted to do a repeat of the last weekend with this one, I forced myself out and it was very much to my benefit. I began Saturday with Umuganda, the day of service in Rwanda. I didn’t go last weekend, which was the national one, but fortunately my sector has them every Saturday. It was also nice to be there with a smaller crowd as I was able to talk to many more people. So I arrived and helped them wire metal together, making supports for cement and foundation work. I think there’s a specific name for those, but maybe I’ll try construction work after the Peace Corps, then I can tell you all! Haha. Anyways, it was a lot of fun, and all the men were impressed that I knew how to do it, and that I even knew what pliers were. I really enjoy Umuganda as it gives me a chance to do some physical work, which is like going on vacation with my dad. Haha.

On Sunday I went to church again, although I was still feeling sluggish and tired. But the singing and dancing was enjoyable as usual and I made a pretty good dent in the bible that day. To explain, I’ve decided I should actually read the bible if I am going to take offense to it in any way. So what better time than in church during the sermons that I can’t possibly understand yet. So that goal is underway, and I’m sorry to report, it’s not convincing me into some sort of conversion. But, I am learning a lot about religion that I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t come to Rwanda. It’s such a religious country. All the people are religious, many of the organizations that assist here are religious based, and there is definitely no distinction between church and states, or schools. So I am finding many good life and cultural lessons.

Anyways, sorry for that digression. After church I went to visit two of my co-workers, as she gave birth to a baby girl last Sunday. It was so nice to visit and feel like I have friends to visit here, but it was also really sweet to see their daughter and also think about being back home with my baby niece. It was a successful day complete with homemade curry for dinner and even some time to continue reading The River Why. So the adventure continues. I have a wedding coming up, a potential visit from Pastor Bonnke, my host father, and IST (In Service Training) all coming in the next month. Maybe I’ll be able to sleep next month! Haha! Until next we meet!

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.

Good Afternoon Teacher!

This past week was my very first teaching English to my co-workers. The first day was relatively hectic as everyone had an opinion about how I should teach and what I should teach and pretty much everything else that fits in there. So after the first 30 minutes I sat down and let them talk it out in Kinyarwanda. Then they told me what will happen, to which I replied, OK. The second day went much more smoothly, although less people could make it. They said they wanted to learn about health, so I prepared a list of health words and taught them to them as well as drew a questionable picture of a human with all the body parts labeled. We ran out of time, but we had just started doing a role play where one person played the physician and the other was the patient (both words I taught them that day!) So we will pick up there next week.

This is a picture of my health center with the Rwandan flag flying outside. Not long thereafter the flag tore, so we haven't had one for a while.

Last weekend I spent with my fellow volunteers from my training class in Butare. My friend Christine had her birthday, so we all came together for a celebration. It was a lot of fun, but I was actually pretty sad about being away from site for so long. But I stalked up on things to cook Americanized food and I even got to buy the cutest mobile for my adorable little niece. How to get it to Oregon, I will figure out later. Before I left I was worrying that I wasn’t making a good impression with the women at my health center, as I live with three men, and the men are always around me. They are much more social in a lot of ways. But I would sit down by myself to study or work on a project, and then one of my male co-workers would ask me a question about English or what not, and the next thing I know, they’re all asking me questions while the women sit on the other side of the waiting area. But this week I really made an effort to be around the women, and I think it paid off. It’s an interesting culture to navigate, especially not knowing the language, but buhoro buhoro (slowly by slowly)!

They have me back typing reports, which never seems to end. But now I’m typing their required monthly reports, which I’m excited about, as after I can do some yearly analysis to discover trends and the like. I think this will be very informative. I’m also going to start assisting to teach English at the University here next week, two evenings a week. The university here trains all of the people who work in the national parks, so you all must know how exciting that prospect is to me! It’s nice that projects are taking off. It’s also nice to teach English as it’s something that they really do need. For those that don’t know, Rwanda recently switched their national language from French to English. So all of my co-workers who are over 22-ish never studied English. Everyday my co-workers will say something I taught them in English, and they study so enthusiastically. It’s really rewarding. One of the talked about problems that volunteers apparently face is feeling like they actually didn’t accomplish very much during their service. But, I know if I can help my co-workers learn English, even though that’s not my main job, I know I will have helped them a lot. Especially because most of them know French and Kinyarwanda, so they will be close to trilingual which is amazing!

This is yet another picture of the Nyungwe forest with tea fields before it. Will you ever get tired of these, because I never get tired of seeing it myself!?

Other than work, I’m still madly involved in my love affair with Rwanda. The rains are coming and it helps settle the dusty haze that developed. So every day, my view of Nyungwe National Park and the mountains, and hills and everything else, gets more and more beautiful. We also even had hail yesterday, to which I was jumping up and down about and my co-workers were laughing at me. But I had a dream last night, that it hailed just enough that I could teach them how to make mini-three-inch snowmen. It was a very exciting dream. I’ve also begun my usual itch for Christmas. I’m struggling not to listen to Christmas music. I know, I know, it’s September! Haha! Maybe I’ll never learn!

I’ve been cooking a lot of soups, which of course, is no surprise. My mom has called me a soup-a-holic ever since I was somewhere around ten or so when I would eat soup practically every breakfast, lunch and dinner. But it’s been fun as I’ve gotten to cook all my food from scratch. I think my community is both surprised and incredibly pleased with how many onions and tomatoes I buy all the time. I went through two kilos of tomatoes this week, and just bought another one today! I still haven’t figured out the kilo thing though. Some things like veggies, I need way more. Then they try to sell me a kilo of beans or rice, and I have to explain to them that I just simply can’t eat that much. I still have rice from the first kilo I bought the first week I arrived at site. To it’s credit, I think I’m a little burnt out on rice. I did find couscous last weekend in Butare which was really awesome, and I have some lentils, so we’ll see what I can make with all of these things.

I’ve finally gotten to the point that I am eating normal amounts again. Living with my host family, eating carbs, carbs, carbs all the time, I definitely gained weight. So it’s nice to control my diet again. It’s also nice to be able to eat vegetables pulled right out of the ground, and avocados taken right off the tree. It just makes me feel healthier. Even if I ate the same proportions, it feels better because it’s not just potatoes, rice and beans. They also use a TON of oil when cooking, which is a little overwhelming. They think I’m weird that I don’t love their oil. But they think I’m weird for a lot of reasons. I was talking to one of my co-workers/roommates the other day, and told him that after seeing women in maternity give birth, I’m not sure that I want to go through that. To which he replied, why? To which I said, do you want to give birth? This went on for a while including his quoting the bible saying I MUST have children. Then I explained the concept of overpopulation. I also explained the concept that the bible was written by a group of men, which also segued into the idea that there are so many different churches in the world because everybody interprets the bible in different ways. I concluded with, when you want to go through labor, maybe I’ll consider it. We all laughed.

This is a picture of my village from an adjacent hill. The health center is out of the picture to the left, and you head to the right to get to Gasarenda, Butare and even Kigali. To the left, past the health center is Nyungwe, and then eventually the Democratic Republic of Congo.

So, I have continued my church hopping. I went to the Anglican church this morning, which was very similar to the Pentacostal services, but they had the most intense introduction I've experienced so far. When the churches have guests, they introduce themselves to the congregation. This one made us come in front of everyone and with a microphone do the introduction. They love it when you call out hallelujah or amen, but I'm just not there yet, so I stuck with a queit "Imana ishimwe" which means God Bless You. It made them happy, so what the heck right? But after the four visitors were done, they all started singing and clapping, and formed a line to come by and do this hug/handshake thing with each of us. It was intense! I wasn't really sure how to explain the concept of blushing to them, but I'm pretty sure my face was red.

This is my co-worker Emile and I coming back from a baby-shower-esque celebration for our titulaire. They apparently have these about three months after the baby had been born. I've held a lot of babies here in Rwanda which is so unusual because the only baby I held before coming here was my cousin Ally's daughter Gabby, which lasted about 20 seconds and then she started crying and I gave her back. Hopefully I will finally be ready when I make it home to meet Gracie!

Today is September 11th and I'm very sad that I am not in the states right now partaking in the memorials and rememberances. I can't believe that it has been ten years, and it's disheartening to see some of the things that have unfolded as a result of September 11th, 2001. It's also amazing a lot of the things the last decade has held. I have been watching the online news coverage to the best of my ability, but it's also weird being nine hours ahead of Oregon, as it's almost like I'm living in the future. I have to keep doing all the calculations in time to know when everything happened. I was also really disheartened by the comments many people have posted on articles on the news websites. Well, everyone is very much in my thoughts and much love to you all! I hope the next decade brings more positivity to our world and to our country. We could really use it!

Ndi Munyarwanda Kazi...

I can’t believe I’ve been into this new world for a month and a half already. I was sitting here typing reports in excel spreadsheets today, feeling that this was totally the right decision for me, even though I spent a good 20 minutes venting to my mom on the phone the other day. I was venting about how sometimes I feel very much like I expect animals in the zoo feel. As I sit here and write, a young girl was standing at the door just staring for a good 5-10 minutes, even after I greeted her in Kinyarwanda and asked her how she was. She’s now back again at a different window staring in. Usually they get bored when the realize the “muzungu” doesn’t do very much that is exciting. But, I am very happy here. I feel like I’ve found a niche, at least in myself, what I’m doing and how to exist successfully in a culture so different than my own.

The last few weeks I’ve been typing reports for them and I realized as I struggled over reading their cursive writing, that I learned how to type on computers in school, while they learned to write cursive. Never thought I’d regret not remembering to write cursive. Haha! Anyways, it’s been nice to jump into something. I also have my community needs assessment that I’ve been working on. I just had my co-worker edit my questions in Kinyarwanda, and I feel like I’m incapable in writing in any language now! But my Kinyarwanda is definitely coming along really well. A lot of the time I can have an entire conversation in Kinyarwanda without saying “sinbumva” which means either I don’t understand or I don’t listen, depending. They always think I mean the I don’t understand one though, which isn’t always the case. It’s so easy sometimes to just space out everything that is being said as they speak at their normal pace during meetings and stuff. Then they say my name and I smile and nod. Not always the best method, I’m sure, but I always ask for clarification after the meeting. (To my credit, our meetings are at 7am daily, and I can barely think in English, let alone in a foreign language!)

The above picture was taken at the Assumption Day Ceremony. It was raining, just a little bit, and I loved all the colors of the umbrellas. It was a lot of fun, although I believe the rain was unintentional!

Anyways, the rains have begun to return. It’s been really cold at my site, which is really nice. I was reading the introduction to Rwanda material they gave us at staging in Philadelphia that I never bothered reading, and it mentioned that the average elevation in Rwanda is about 4,000 feet, and the Virunga Volcanoes to the north get up to 9,000 feet. Just outside of the national park here, our elevation is also pretty high, so we get colder weather, and more rain. Funny how that happened… I thought I left the Willamette Valley?! So I’ve taken to sleeping in my sleeping bag, partly in response to the cold, and partly in response to Bedbugs II, The Sequel With a Bite! Hahaha. Anyways, hopefully they are subdued again, the jerks!

We had a regional meeting in Butare the other weekend and many of us converged on Inzozi Nziza (Sweet Dreams) an ice cream shop run by a women’s cooperative. We had our meeting and then stayed the night, going out for dinner, and some dancing. It was a lot of fun to get a tour from people who knew where they were and to be around another group of volunteers. It was a much enjoyed break, and yes I did eat ice cream again for breakfast in the morning! It was epic! Hahaha! Another weekend, I went for a bike ride, which was ridiculous, in that the hills here are completely ridiculous. So I made it probably three quarters of the way on my bike and then walked it the rest. I was super tired afterwards and it was awesome! I rode the six kilometers out to the tea factory and then back. It was pretty.

This picture was taken on my walk to the tea factory with my friend Adele. These are baby tea plants and they are sitting in water that sources the Nile!

Ironically the next week, Adele (my co-worker and manager of the Community Health Workers) and I walked out past the tea factory to visit some of the health workers. It’s really cool to explore this area, and it’s more and more beautiful every time I find somewhere new. When I was a little kid I always dreamed of finding secret trails that no one else knows about, and a lot of the time that’s exactly what exploring here feels like! It’s always like a secret pirate adventure on land, and in Kinyarwanda. And I live next to the jungle. Speaking of which! So, Adele’s husband works for RDB which stands for Rwanda Development Board, and they manage Nyungwe National Park. So they have told me that I can’t go walking by myself on the trails in Nyungwe because the animals, the monkeys, will eat me! I mean seriously! Did someone make them aware of my monkey fears before coming here!? Haha. I am allowed to walk on the road though and there’s a bee cooperative not too far in and they manufacture honey that is really great! So, death by monkey versus really awesome honey?

A week ago was a holiday in Rwanda. It was Assumption Day with the Catholic church, so I went to the ceremony with one of my roommates. (I’ve taken to calling my three male roommates as my older brothers, even to other people in public. It seems to help squelch wild community ideas, but maybe not!) But we went, and being a foreigner has it’s perks. They had us sit under the tarps in the plastic lawn chairs, which are much more comfortable than the wooden school desks they had pulled out. So, partway into the ceremony it starts raining, but the choir just keeps singing, and these poor girls dressed in white dresses with blue ribbons, continued to dance in the rain. Then it started pouring, and people brought out their umbrellas and everyone made a valiant effort to stay in place and celebrate the assention of Mary to heaven. As it continues to pour, puddles began forming on the tarps above us, and people in the crowd began scattering into school buildings.

These are some of my coworkers picking carrots at the health center garden. Mama Inyoni to the left, Teoneste in the middle, and Teodozie on the right.

We stood strong for a good ten minutes and then I turned to Alphonse and told him that we needed to go. He shook his head, and I glanced back at the developing puddles. Suddenly one of the ropes holding a tarp further back broke and water came rushing down. Fortunately I wasn’t hit, but as muddy water began circling my sandaled feet, I gave a last look at Alphonse and turned and ran under the protection of the school roof. I couldn’t stop laughing. Men continued to go around and push the puddles off the remaining tarps and several times it came down in buckets on the people seeking shelter. This just made me laugh harder. It was really great! The whole time the priest was still speaking into the microphone trying to bless the sacrament but it really felt very much like a lost cause.

I’m very happy here, and the time is flying by. To be clear, my close of service date is July 13^th, 2013. That seems pretty far away, but I’ve been in Africa for almost four whole months already, which is almost half a year! WHAT? Hahaha! Little crazy! It’s going so quickly already! So hopefully my mom will visit in May and then my dad in the following December, and maybe Felice and whomever else would love a semi-local guided tour of this beautiful part of the world. And, after I’m done being a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer – they love their acronyms!) I plan to take maybe a month trip south to explore some other parts of Africa before returning state-side and figuring out what the heck to do next!

As you can see in the above pictures, the rains have come, although today was in fact really sunny and hot. The true rainy season isn't supposed to start until September!

But, to close, Friday is Lindsey Jackson’s birthday! She would be 23! That seems so old for her! Haha, but I will be celebrating as always, and I wanted to wish Happy Lindsey’s BDay to all my wonderful friends back home missing her as well. I have my album turned to her picture standing in my room right now, and I can’t help but look back on who I was when I was 18 and how much I’ve changed in 5 years! Lindsey definitely helped me get to where I am today. She instilled so much confidence and genuine all-encompassing happiness in me, and those have helped guide me so far in life. So happy Lindsey birthday August 26^th!

Finally, although I am unsure if it has been mentioned, but I thought it was the best possible ending point! I AM AN AUNT! Gracelynn Haley Foster was born on August 3^rd and she’s so freaking cute. I’ve been showing all my co-workers pictures of her and my family. I never thought I’d be so freaking excited to be an aunt, but I definitely am! I can’t wait to meet her… in two years! Bummer, I know, but I’m so excited to know her and see how our lives grow. I was talking to a friend the other day about how we ended up at the point where our siblings were having kids. What happened to college? How’d I end up in Africa? It feels so much like I was in high school just the other day, and now I’ve gone through so many stages in my life already! Does this mean I’m getting old? Haha! I’m so happy that Gracie is now a part of this world and a part of my family! Much much love as always!

This final pictue is one of my house, the door to my courtyard. I really like my house, in spite of the agasimba (small animal) problem that I tend to have. Meh. Whatever!