Only regret what you haven’t done. -Unknown

This is a blog for us to record the daily trials and tribulations of our 2 year Peace Corp service in Rwanda.

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THE BOOKS HAVE ARRIVED!!

WOW!!!! It’s all that I can say today. . . .the books, that so many of you have so graciously donated money to help ship them here, have arrived. It has been almost a full year since our initial post about needing your help to get books sent to our village.

I just want to give a short recap of this project from inception to current to catch everyone up:

February 2011: We mention to Jean Marie, Rwandan manager we were living with at the time, that it would be awesome to open a library. End of conversation.

May 2011: Jean Marie mentions that he has secured the money to build a library / resource center. (surprise, surprise!!).

June 2011: We find an organization (IBP: International Book Project) through some fellow PCVs to aid our village in getting books send out initial blog / email request to our friends and family.

July 2011 – April 2012: Our friends and family send in money from the kindness of their hearts.

August 2011: Construction starts on resource center.

December 2011: Construction on resource center finishes.

April 2012: We hound our friends at International Book Projects about our books.

May 5, 2012: We get a surprise response from IBP that their freight company is not shipping by boat to Rwanda. Thus, the books will come by air!!

May 7, 2012: The pallet of books is picked up in Kentucky and taken to airport.

May 12, 2012: The books touch down at Kigali International Airport.

May 15, 2012: The books are picked up in Kigali and delivered to our village and put on the shelves!!

Assopthe has completely surprised us on this project. We brought up the initial idea, but they have really made this their own. They changed it from a library only to a resource center. There are not only books, but they have also decided to add computers and they will have an internet café, a printer, and a copying station. The building they built is spacious and well constructed. They have had nice shelves made and nice computer ‘cubbies’. We have also requested them to build tables and chairs so that people can sit and read books. We want to also find some traditional Rwandan grass rugs so kids can sit on the ground if possible. We also dream that maybe we can find bean bags somewhere in Kigali. They are going to hire a person to work there and help people to use books. They will have training on different things for the farmers and also to teach skills such as English and computers.

Now the story of our day yesterday. We got documents saying that the books would arrive in Kigali on May 12th. We actually didn’t believe that books could make it to Rwanda in 5 days when a package takes 3-5 weeks. But alas, it was a miracle and they arrived as they said they would. So we got Assopthe, the tea farmers cooperative, to take us with their truck to Kigali to pick up the books from the airport. We left at 7 am Rwandan time (read: 7:45am actual time). But when a car is going from the village to the big city, other errands have to be ran. So we picked up some computers, some charcoal, and the president of the board of Assopthe and headed out all nice and snug in this truck. After a quick foray into the city center, we head to the airport at 11-ish. We get there (and to our astonishment) have very little difficulties locating and even seeing our pallet of books. But we learn it will cost 107,000rwf (~$175) to get the books cleared through customs. Then we have to leave our precious books to go find the cooperative manager to get a check signed. So we drive back to the town center. Turns out, his wife is in labor and he is at the hospital. No problem, he just leaves her and comes with us and takes us to lunch. After a leisurely 2 hour lunch (partly to wait out the torrential downpour), we go back to the airport with the check and the manager to fetch our books. We arrive at the airport at about 2:30pm this time. The co-op had some other issues with getting some other things from customs. Long story short, we finally have the books loaded up and ready to go at 6:30pm. After seeing our books and even touching them at 11 in the morning, as goes in Rwanda, we didn’t of course get the books out of the airport until dark. Then we drop the manager off (remember, his wife is in labor at the hospital and he left for 6 hours to take care of some books and work issues) at the hospital. Carina told me if I ever did this she would literally kill me. We finally get back to our house at 10pm after a long day of being in the truck and driving here and there and everywhere. Side note: there is a lot of rain this year in Rwanda’s rainy season. The dirt road from the main road (18kms) is like strapping yourself onto a bull. We got bounced around until my head hurt and Carina almost vom’ed.

Then, this morning we unloaded the books to the resource center. We were so excited, we decided to skip teaching today in favor of the books. They didn’t look like much sitting in the back of the truck. But they came alive when we began to unpack them. It was better than we could have even imagined. There were so many books of ever shape, color, subject, and level. We reminisced just by smelling and seeing many books that we read in our childhoods. It was difficult at times to work as I wanted only to read some of these books and discover their stories. There were more books that I imagined while they were sitting on a pallet. They really filled up the shelves. We had many people stop by to see the books and everyone was so excited. Not to downplay my manliness, but I almost had some tears well up as we worked with these books and put them on the shelves. I kept thinking not only of the kindness and generosity of our friends and family, but of the opportunity that our village can have. The manager of Assopthe told us that this will be the 1st and only library in the Rulindo District of Rwanda. Some basic stats of our books – we received 1,233 books which was 557kg (1,227 lbs)!!

• We have a lot of work ahead of us in the coming weeks and months. First, we must figure out the best way to organize the books. We tried to organize a little as we put the books away, but we are not sure how to organize the fiction stories yet. We want to organize maybe by English level but we don’t want to discourage adults from reading simple English because let’s face it, they are at a beginning level for most people.

• For some time, we envision people not being able to take books home. They will come to read the books at the designated library hours. Eventually once people get the hang of this, a future person will implement this.

• We must train the citizens on what a library is, what it is used for, what it is not, how they can use it, how it can help them, and how to enjoy and take advantage of this resource

• We want to try and develop an appreciation for these books. Not only to develop a culture of love of reading, but also a physical respect for these books and their care.

• We must hire a person to work in this center. We already have a snazzy title – TIE coordinator (Training, Information, and Education Coordinator). Then we must train that person on how to help people utilize the books and everything that goes along with the respect for a public place and for public resources.

• We must create programs to teach people about books and the information they can provide.

· We will have a grand opening ceremony a month or so in the future to showcase our project to the district government, Peace Corps staff, and the Rwandan media!!

Carina already has grand ideas of having ‘mini’ field trips to the library to teach groups of students and foster a culture of reading. Carina has read children’s books to her students (15 – 20 years old) with a lot of success. I think all people love reading and being read to, they just haven’t had the opportunity here. Hopefully when our students have children of their own, they can then begin to read to the babies and a young age. Here, children never get stories read to them.

I don’t know what else I can say right now. We have a lot of work and are very excited and motivated. Today has been one of our proudest moments of Peace Corps yet. I want all our readers to know that we have not taken your donations lightly and we plan to make these books loved and used to the best of our ability. We are already campaigning Peace Corps to secure a replacement volunteer for when we leave at the end of the year to ensure the continuation of this project.

*** Special thanks to the hard work of the people at International Book Project, they have been a pleasure to work with – very responsive, responsible, information, quick, and easy to work with. The books they found and sent were an exact match of what we described to them was the ability and need of our community.

I will say it one more time, thanks to everyone for their support and donations.

If you want what you have never had, you have to do what you have never done.

-unknown

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Posted by  |  May 16, 2012 | Categories: PCV Year 2 | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments »

Happy Birthday Me!!! – Life as an ‘umusaza’

Wow!!. . . . I can’t believe another year has slipped through the hourglass of life. This week is my birthday. . . .the big 31. Everything I think from here on out has to be preceded by “The big. . .” because I am over 30. I never thought I would be this old, but here I am. In Kinyarwanda, they use the word ‘umusaza’ not only to mean ‘old man’, but also as a sign of respect (kind of like saying ‘sir’ in English). While the official age of an umusaza in Rwanda is between 35 – 40, I think I am close enough.

Time is a funny thing – it never seems to be accurate or a good predictor of your feeling or place in life. I am still doing activities that I did when I was 16. Every day, I go to the tea factory and play basketball. Occasionally, I go on 5+ hour hikes. I still don’t have an ‘ultimate’ direction or grasp on what I want to be when I grow up. So in many ways I feel like I am still in my early 20’s. soon, we will be finished with Peace Corps and we will have to make another life decision. . . .what to do next!?! The dreaded question of “What are you doing after Peace Corps?” is starting to make its way into conversations and making me less than confident once again as I have never been a “This is what I will do with my life” type of person. I thought the Peace Corps (and the onset of my 30’s) would change me, but I am still the same person – confused and directionless. The plus side is, that I have a wonderful wife who is right there with me. We are navigating this road of life blindfolded and we don’t know what is in front of us. But so far the road has led us to some amazing places and we can only put our faith in this road and trust it knows where we are going.

Enough pondering of life. This past weekend we had some friends to visit us to celebrate my birthday and the birthday of one of the friends who visited. It was quite uneventful, just a good time. Carina and the other girls decided that they wanted to cook some serious Mexican tacos. We wanted to do something special as we always have Mexican fiesta night. So, we bought a live chicken (~$8.30) in our village and Innocent slaughtered it for us. Its always interesting to see your food flapping around and then 3 hours later he is in your taco headed for your mouth. We also got to spice up our lives with legit ‘Enchilada sauce’ thanks to our good friend, Jon and his wonderful care package. Let me rewind a few hours while the chicken was still alive. I had a solid afternoon of Texas living. We went over to the local catina/bar and bought ourselves some beers and cokes. Then, we broke out our folding lawn chair (maybe the best thing we brought back from America last year) and popped a top of beer. The next hour or so was spent in the front yard with a room temperature beer (not as inviting as an ice cold beer. . .but it will have to do in this situation). It was awesome and relaxing. Our beer of choice this weekend was Mutzig, a fine malt beverage of 24oz and 5.3% alcohol for the low, low price of $1.50. This is the next step up from my usual choice of Primus. As I sat there, I got to watch the sun setting and Innocent cut the head off a chicken and pluck the feathers.

The girls spent the next few hours rolling tortillas, cooking vegetables, refrying the beans, cooking chicken, slicing and frying plantain chips, and making guacamole and salsa. It was a meal fit for the Peace Corps record books. Needless to say, we stuffed our faces and all sat there rubbing our bellies wishing we hadn’t eaten so much. Then, it continued. Carina brought out the cake she had cooked in her ‘special’ Peace Corps oven (a smaller pot inside of a larger pot the essentially creates an oven when cooked on a charcoal grill – hey, it’s the closest we got here). It was extra exciting though because – once again – we had some special treats from our care package. We got to put sparklers on our cake and wave sparklers around instead of boring old candles. It was quite a showcase. Then we gorged just a little more on carrot cake with home-made icing. After, we sat around until late in the night discussing our successes, failures, and tribulations of life in Rwanda. I think had we had a few more beers, we could have solved all the worlds’ problems. As we ran out, I guess the worlds’ problems will have to continue. These discussions always are very interesting as we all have very different backgrounds, from different parts of the Unites States, with different experiences in Rwanda, different political associations, and all intelligent and more interested than the average bear in world events.

The next day we woke up. . . .or should I say, rolled out of bed around9ish in the morning. It began to rain at some point in the night and was still raining throughout the morning. It was a good, lazy morning to wake up to. Carina got the day started off with more food (insert sound of Andy dry heaving). She wipped up some French toast while I got us started on some “chai ch’mata” (tea with fresh milk and mint). After it was all said and done, noon rolled around and none of us were in any condition to eat again. We called out visitors motos. After waiting for an hour for these jokers to arrive, our visitors set off. Carina then also set off the Kigali as she had a meeting and I went to visit a family in the village and watched some terrible Nigerian film and drank just one more Primus for the weekend. I ended the night eating dinner with Innocent and watching Iron Man 2 on the computer. Thus, the end of the last weekend of my 30th year of life.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

-A. Einstein

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Posted by  |  April 30, 2012 | Categories: PCV Year 2 | 2 Comments »

I love a rainy day!!

On Saturday, we woke up and it was on the verge of rain. So, it seemed promising enough so I stayed in bed and sure enough by about 8am it was raining. I stayed in bed and read my book while carina got out of bed. I finally rolled out of bed around 10ish. Then, Innocent came over as he does every morning at some point. He went and bought us some milk from a person – not the kind from a store, but the fresh kind straight from the cow. Carina cooked it to make sure that we don’t get sick and we had oatmeal. Then, I had a great idea – tea (fresh from the tea factory 2km away) with some milk (fresh from a cow) and mint (freshly picked from our garden) mixed in. It was awesome and delicious.

After breakfast, carina had an idea to share an ‘American’ child moment with Innocent. He is 23, but we like to give him experiences that most people in America have at some point in their lives but typical Rwandans never get to experience. Some things we have done with him include giving him a legit birthday party with gifts and cake and blowing out candles (his first ever in his 23 years), we have fed him Pop Rocks (freaked him out when they began popping in his mouth), we used sparklers with him (he was amazed that no matter what, he couldn’t put the sparkle out),and shared countless meals with him of typical American food fares unknown here in Rwanda (spring rolls, tortillas, grilled vegetables, egg salad, cheese dip. . .). At first I was a little apprehensive when Carina suggest that we build a ‘fort’ inside. I thought it was a bit childish. But once she began fabricating it, I couldn’t help but be sucked into it. She drug our extra mattress out to our living room, got some old window curtain holders, and used our chairs to fashion a decent fort. After it was a finished, Carina said we had to have a door. I said nay, but she and Innocent made it happen.

Our fort turned out to be pretty awesome. Then we pulled the computer into the doorway. But we were still missing something. . . .So Carina went to the kitchen and came back with two heaping bowls of popcorn. Tough life in Rwanda I tell you. I then had one more trick up my sleeve. To give some background, Rwandans typically love karate/kung fu movies. I speculate because when you can’t understand what they are saying, action movies provide the most entertainment. Thus, I began playing Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon”. Innocent laughed and clapped when he realized what our matinee feature would be.

So we sat there and enjoyed the movie and ate popcorn.

Fast forward to 3pm when the rain finally stopped. We went outside just to escape the cabin fever. We went to our driveway and watched the people pass by on the road. Carina’s mother called and reminded us that it was their annual crawfish party. We were very jealous that we were missing this awesome event of friends, family, food, and cold beer. But sometimes we sacrifice things in order to be here in Rwanda doing what we are doing.

After an hour of that, Carina set off to cook and I went to ‘gutembera’ (walk around the village just to walk). I ended up at the school watching a group of kids who have a kung fu club. How fitting for this day and my earlier movie. They are getting pretty good though and it was entertaining. After I got home at dark, Carina brought out a delicious meal as she does every night – beans, cheese dip, tortillas, and guacamole. We stuffed our faces and felt bad afterwards so we got watched a movie and then went to sleep.

So goes another day in the life of a PCV (during the school break).

Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy.

-Gretta Palmer

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Posted by  |  April 22, 2012 | Categories: PCV Year 2 | 3 Comments »

Genocide Memorial Week 2012

April 7th marks the 18th year since the Rwandan genocide. I know I have brought this up several times, but the genocide is a silent enemy that we face daily in Rwanda. It isn’t present through direct violence or visibility, but it lurks in the shadows. It manifests itself in the culture, in personalities, in relationships, in daily work, and in society as a whole. When genocide happens, it not only affects those targeted to be exterminated; it deeply affects all people – perpetrators and victims.

Just to give you a short recap of the events that happened in my own words: In the early years of Rwanda’s colonization, the Belgians exploited the difference in two ethnic groups, the Tutsi and the Hutu. The put the minority ethnic group, the Tutsi, in power to control the majority. When Rwanda fought to gain independence, the Hutu took power and began their persecution of the Tutsi after many years of being suppressed. This kicked off 30 years of sporadic ethnic cleansing killings and forced many Tutsi Rwandans to flee the country. A group of Tutsi Rwandans formed a guerilla army in southern Uganda. They invaded Rwanda several times prior to 1994 with limited success. Then, on April 6th, 1994, an unknown group shot down the presidential plane killing the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. This gave the government forces and secret militias the fuel they needed to put their plan of genocide into action. Over the next 100 days, out of a population of 7.3 million people – 84% of whom were Hutu, 15% Tutsi and 1% Twa – the official figures published by the Rwandan government estimated the number of victims of the genocide to be 1,174,000 in 100 days (10,000 murdered every day, 400 every hour, 7 every minute) (~70% of the Tutsi population was murdered).

Over the time period of 1994 to 2000, the genocide in Rwanda and ongoing wars when the government/militia groups fled into the refugees camps in the Congo sparking The First Congo War and the Second Congo War, more than 7 million people were brutally killed. Unfortunately, the violence still continues to this day in the eastern Congo. Although unheard of in the popular media, crimes against humanity continue even as I write this blog.

Every year in Rwanda, one week is dedicated to remembering the tragedy of genocide and reflecting on peace and how to prevent hatred, negative ideology, and promote development. The Genocide Memorial Week, aka the week of mourning, is a week where in every village in the country, they have afternoon 2-3 hour meetings where they discuss certain topics dictated by the government. In some villages, people still confront their killers or the killers of their families. Sometimes the people of the village go out into the countryside and dig up bodies and rebury them in mass graves.

In our village, we have meetings but nothing as severe as other areas of the country. We are fairly close to the Ugandan border and the exiled RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Forces) first entered the country near here in 1994. The genocide still isn’t spoken of very often and we haven’t gotten the full story, but from what we have pieced together, genocide was prevented from almost day 1 in the areas surrounding our village.

I continue to be baffled by the Rwandan Genocide on a daily basis. Carina and I often sit back and ponder how and why this could happen in a land shrouded in beauty. I have probably read close to 10 books on the subject and watched several documentaries and haven’t even breeched the subject of understanding why or how these events could have happened. I don’t think that I will ever be able to understand, but I continue to be captivated by the thought of pure evil raising its head in this tiny, central African country. I often wonder how you can coax an entire country into killing their fellow countrymen. In Rwanda, in took over 30 years of indoctrination to set the groundwork for the genocide. From the outside, no one can understand unless you have lived through these years of hate being taught at all levels of the government, in the schools, and in the churches.

But, genocide continues to happen over and over in history. We continue to say that genocide can’t happen again in a world with a global superpower and at this stage of development in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. However, even today genocide persists. It is happening in Sudan. Some will argue that what is happening in Israel and Palestine is genocide. President Barack Obama issued a statement on the eve of the Genocide Memorial Week of Rwanda saying that we have a moral obligation to prevent genocide. I am not so sure that the events of Rwanda couldn’t repeat again if it were to happen again next week. I watched a chilling documentary where former president Clinton said, “Unfortunately, whether America gets involved in any of the ethnic conflicts of the world depends on the cumulative weight of the American interests at stake.” I have pondered this point many times and don’t know how to feel about it. I will let you decide for yourself whether it is a moral obligation to intervene in atrocities against humanity or only to help when there are tangible national interests at stake. All I want is for countries to stop hiding under the guise of “it’s our moral obligation” then continue to make excuses when the conflict is at hand.

*** I want to urge every reader of this blog to rent, download, or buy from Amazon the documentary called “PBS: The Ghosts of Rwanda”.*** This is the best documentary that we have seen that explains everything that I have discussed here in this blog. I think it is important to know not only what happened in Rwanda, but what could happen again tomorrow.

Whether or not you want to learn more, I would like to ask everyone to pray for not only Rwanda, but for all the other unresolved conflicts of the world. But say a special prayer for this country – those left without families, those trying to repent for their crimes, and the rebuilding of a nation from ashes.

When they said ‘Never Again’ after the Holocaust, was it meant for some people and not others?

- Gisozi Genocide Memorial Museum – Kigali, Rwanda

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history

Posted by  |  April 14, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

CONGO-NILE TRAIL: part II

If you have forgotten about the beginning of the story or are seeing this for the first time, read part I here:

Day 5 was a day of rest. By this day our legs were hurting and we felt like broke down cars. My knees and calves were swollen and very sore. We weren’t planning on this day of rest, but after we happened to find the orphanage, L’Esperance, we decided that we could use a day to rest and this was the perfect place. Their small guesthouse was perfect. It was small but with plenty of books, old National Geographics, and a million dollar view. There was a ‘turd floater’ that night (polite saying from the great state of Texas when it rains so hard all the horse poop floats down a river or stream). We woke up to an amazing breakfast on the patio overlooking the mountains and Lake Kivu in the distance of omelets, guacamole, cheese, bread, bananas, pineapple, and tea. After that, we basically just sat around all morning. I went and ventured around the campus to see all the beautiful artwork. The kids were all in church as it was Saturday and this orphanage is composed of 7th Day Adventist which go to church on Saturdays and remain in church for about 8 hours straight!! We continued to do nothing and rest our weary legs. Finally around 3pm-ish, the kids appeared from church and we went to hang out with them. Not much was going on until a choir began practicing then this turned into a impromptu dance party. We just stood around and chatted or played with those who were brave enough to approach us. The kids are kids and it didn’t take long before they were climbing all over us and wanting to be held. Of course we gravitated to the babies again by the evening time. They are so adorable and fun to watch. That night, the cook at the orphanage whipped up a special meal for us and it was as if a gift from God himself – a giant, wood-fired pizza!! It was a beautiful sight. After sipping on a beer and eating this pizza, the cook approached again and dropped another pizza on the table. It was a spectacular thing. We could only manage to finish half of the 2nd pizza between the 4 of us. This worked out to our advantage as we got to the take the rest of the pizza to eat the next day on our hike.

Day 6 was April Fools Day and a busy day of walking. After breakfast, we left the orphanage and set out to continue. I took a hard-boiled egg to eat on the road for a snack. Maybe the cook (who is Rwandan and doesn’t speak any English) pulled a fast one on me or maybe it was fate, but in true April Fools fashion, I felt something wet on my leg and thought maybe I peed my pants until I stuck my hand in my pocket and realized it was egg oozing through my pocket onto my leg. Because we had such a large, delicious breakfast again at the orphanage, our break schedule was thrown off because we weren’t ever hungry. So after 9 hours of walking to our next destination, we realized that we had only took a 20 minute break and our legs were telling us that this was not the best idea we had so far. We finally made it into Kibuye to a small bar that had ice cold beer. It was refreshing, replenishing, and went down easily with our left-over pizza from the night before. We then cheated slightly and took a bus to the next checkpoint because this stretch was all paved road busy with buses and cars and we knew it would be miserable. The EPA (environmental protection agency) would choke if they ever came to Rwanda, the buses and diesel SUVs belch black smoke as they chug up and down the mountains. After the short 20 kilometer bus ride, we got off and strolled over to a fellow PCVs house/room where we stayed that night. She made us a great pot of chilli and we got a good night’s rest once again.

Day 7 found us off the roads onto small paths. This was much more pleasant. We found during this whole trip that people are generally nicer and more genuine off the main roads where they don’t have a lot of traffic or access to the outside. I would say this is almost true in the USA as well, but it is particularly evident in Rwanda. On this day, we never quite knew where we were going. It was not well signed on this day and had we not known Kinyarwanda, we probably would have got lot. We found a young boy that took us on a shortcut and straight down a mountain instead of the round-about way. Then, we had to sludge through a swamp area where we found and old man to show us the path to our next village. We were slightly intimidated when the road in front of us went up a huge mountain and the old man with the walking stick was making us look bad. We were sweating bullets and panting like dogs and this old man kept chugging away like the tortoise racing the hare. I found another guy, Antoine, returning from his fields in the valley and conversed with him in KW the rest of the way to keep my mind off of how tired I was. We were dead tired at the top but powered through because it looked like the heavens were going to open up and dump an ocean on us. We made it to the next stopover, Musasa, by 3pm. We found a gvmt office and asked where we could sleep. He said we could sleep in front of the office and that he would summone a guard for us. We then asked about food in which he replied there was NONE to buy in this village. It was small. . . but seriously, nothing?!? He took us to a small boutique (what they call tiny stores here) where we had our dinner of 2 amandazi each at 3pm. I drank milk which was at this point like yogurt but wasn’t too bad. The gvmt official and another teacher who helped us find the gvmt office then treated themselves to a beer and Fanta and essentially walked out making us pay for it without us ever offering. We were thoroughly pissed off about their gumption. We had time to kill, so we went for a stroll and ended up just outside of town at a small church with nice grass where we spent the afternoon and listened to a legit acapella group practice. Close to dark, we ventured back to the small gvmt office. We set up our tents and called it a night around 7pm. The guard showed up shortly thereafter. This is where the nightmare began. He was jamming his radio loud 10 feet from our tents, talking, laughing, and singing with whatever people he could find on the road at this time of the night. This continued, literally, all night. It was so upsetting. I don’t know why there were people out in the middle of the night in this village, but they were there and we got only an hour or two of sleep. Telling them to be quiet only got more laughter and chatting about how the ‘muzungus’ were speaking in KW.

Day 8, we rolled out of our tents before the sun came up. None of us were in a good mood this morning. I couldn’t resist telling off the guard and his group of 6 friends. I told them they are stupid and are bad people with bad culture. I hope the point hit home and they feel guilty even still. The morning walk was quiet and we once again found ourselves not knowing if we were taking the right roads. We stumbled on a small village high on a mountain in a forest. We stopped at a cobblers shop (shoe repair man). We bought some bananas to eat and rested while a group of 20 kids gathered 3 feet in front of our faces to just stare. The cobbler then took me to find a place to fetch water front a mountain spring (we were finding water then adding iodine to make sure it was safe). By the time we left, we had the parents of these children laughing as I would try to poke a kid in the stomach and they would yell and scatter like ants. The nice cobbler man then gave us a parting gift of 6 bananas for a safe journey. We captured the hearts of this small village in only 30 minutes. After a few hours, we found ourselves on a shortcut path straight down a mountain through a coffee tree ‘forest’ down toward the lake. We reached a market town where people venture over from the Congo to buy various wares. We found a small restaurant and sat down for a nice, well deserved break. The food was decent and they had a TV!! We were captivated as if watching TV for the first time watching the Rwandan music videos. As we left, we found a man making sambusas (small, triangular shaped fried dough filled with ground meat). These are common in Rwanda, but to find a man making them and eat them straight out of the frying pan is very rare. They were perfect. Once we got back on the road, we found that in this area, the kids all knew how to say ‘What’s up?’ – ‘Nothing much’. We speculate that there had to be a PCV nearby. We never found the PCV but the kids loved yelling at us “What’s up?”. And we loved hearing it – as opposed to muzungu or give me money. We were determined on this day to set ourselves up for an easy last day so we continued to walk more than anticipated. We walked from 5:20am until about 5:30pm!!!! We were worn out but knew the end was near the next day. At this end of this day, we ended up in a village where we spotted a school on top of a hill overlooking the lake. We befriended two teachers who then set us up to camp here. They even called the local gvmt office and again retrieved guards for us. They were very kind and we had great conversation with them. From here, we could see the lights of Goma, Congo and the Nyirangoro volcano with its red glow from the crater, lava lake. We got a good nights rest finally after the night from hell

Day 9 started around sunrise again. We packed our bags and hit the road early. We took it easy on this day as we were hurting from the 12 hour walk the day before. My knees were swollen and it was painful to walk downhill. We worked our way from the hills back down toward the lake. We could see our end point, Braliwa Bay, in the distance. At one point, we walked next to some guys carrying rocks on their heads that would crush my spine had I tried to do what they were doing. 4 hours after beginning to walk, we made it to the END!! It was only 10am, but we found a cozy bar where we sat on the lake shore beach and had beer, goat kebabs, and french fries. We laughed and talked about our adventure of a lifetime and all decided that it was an amazing experience and were happy we did it.

God’s assignments don’t necessarily include career advancement

-anonymous

PS I am putting together a video and conclusion to post of this hiking trip. It will be finished once I see the other two I hiked with and get their photos – ihangane (be patient)

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Posted by  |  April 10, 2012 | Categories: PCV Year 2 | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

CONGO-NILE TRAIL: part I

I have just returned from the adventure of a lifetime. Me and 2 other friends just finished a hike of epic proportions – literally! We walked 140 miles from the very south of Rwanda to the north along Lake Kivu. Here is the quick summary if you don’t like to read what I write. See below:

BY THE NUMBERS

Miles Walked: 140 miles

Days on the Hike: 9 days

Hours Actually Spent Walking: 65

Longest Day of Walking: 12 ½ hours

Average Speed: 2.15 mph

Nights Slept in a Tent: 4

Hours on a bus (getting to and from end of trail to home): 12

Mountains Hiked: ??? too many to count!

Amandazi eaten: 12 (amandazi are fried balls of bread the size of your fist that cost $0.15 with zero nutritional value. Their only purpose is to make you feel full for little money and clog your arteries)

Pizzas Eaten: 1

Water Drank: 6.4 gallons

Times ‘muzungu’ was shouted at me: 450 (estimate 40 times per day x 9 days)

People greeted: everyone along the way‼

This is going to be a tough blog to write as the 9 days are tough to describe: the beauty, the tea fields, the frustration, the friendliness, the frustration, the early mornings, the long days, the pain, the hunger, the laughter, the innocence, the coffee fields. . . . .the list goes on and on. This trip happened rather quickly. Alanna had an idea to hike this trail and immediately I was in. the another PCV, Shawn, joined in. From there on we were hooked and excited. All this happened from conception to hiking in less than 3 weeks.

We started out by taking a arduous bus trip 7 hours through twisting and turning roads through the Nyungwe rainforest. We started our trek in Cyangugu, the most southwesterly town in Rwanda near the Congo and bottom of Lake Kivu. After a good meal and a cold Primus, we had a last good night’s rest then set out at 6am the next morning. Our first 5 hours were walking on a main road through a enormous tea plantation (Gisakura). After eating diesel smoke for 5 hours and then getting rained on for an hour or so, we parted with the main road and headed north on a dirt road. We stopped off at a small village to eat a meal, nothing more than a bus stop and street vendors and hagglers. We were immediately the most exciting thing to happen to this town in days. They tried to charge us 4x what the meal should cost and I had to ‘tell off’ the waitress in Kinyarwanda and demand the real price ($1.17 for a plate of food as opposed to $3.33). That night, we didn’t reach an official camp site so we found a church on top of a hill – lending privacy – and set up our tents here. After waiting out some on-lookers and a baby then the rain, we climbed in the tents at 6:30pm and didn’t get out until 5am the next morning.

The next day, the road was a sloppy mess from the storm the previous night. We fought the mud as did the few squish vans and motos. People were understandably very curious as they never get tourist in this part of the country and especially white people that speak their language. We took a lunch stop at a bar overlooking Lake Kivu and all its splendor. From here, we reached our stop for the night at a small guesthouse/hotel overlooking the lake. We drank 2 well deserved beers and rested our aching feet and legs. We had fresh fish from the lake and rice and French fries. They didn’t speak English, so we tried to explain them the concept that we brought our own houses (tents) and were going to sleep outside of the rooms on the front lawn. They assumed that this meant we were really poor and offered to let us have a bedroom for FREE! We didn’t want to take advantage of them, so they watched on in amazement as we pulled out a tiny bag and turned it into a shelter to sleep.

The next day was full of amazing views of the lake. It was a very peaceful 9 hour walk with few people and even fewer villages. It was shocking for all of us to see an area that wasn’t bursting forth with villages and people. We found a small village near the top of a mountain and stopped for our first food of the day. We randomly picked one boutique out of the five that are pretty much the same nameless stores that all have the exact same thing. We really lucked out here though. The seller that was working was a kind, friendly lady who was so curious about us. She gave us good service and we returned the favor by eating like pigs. She gave us fresh, still hot amandazi which were amazing (usually they are sold cold and a few days old). We ate peanuts, bananas, and had tea with milk. She laughed and laughed when we told her our purpose for walking across Rwanda – just for fun!! She held the group of 10 kids trying to peer in to see us at bay. She never even called us muzungu but asked our names!! (ground-breaking here) Later on in the day we stopped of thirst after the hot, equatorial, African sun was beating down on us for a few hours. A 3 year old child spotted us from about 20 meters away but down a steep mountain where he was watching as his mom hoed her field. He made his way up the side of the mountain to us and just sat there; not talking, not begging, not doing anything. We got him to say a little bit and I gave him the last of my water as he was sweating like no 3 year old I have ever seen. It was a beautiful experience (video of this to come in the future) That night we crashed with a fellow PCV who happened to live in the area. She cooked us a good meal and we finally got our first shower.

Day 4 started out very quiet again with few people and few villages. We were thankful by this day as rainy season has began here in Rwanda and we had thus far missed out on the bad weather. After an hour or two, we picked up a group of elementary aged children. They were just following us. If you have ever been followed by a group of 15 kids just behind you, it makes you antsy and annoyed. Finally, I put into practice a trick that I have learned here in Rwanda to cope with this – I MAKE THEM SING TO US!! This works two fold, they have fun and I am entertained!! (video of this also to come in future). Later, we found a man going to find homemade banana beer. As I chatted him up in KW, he took us on a amazing shortcut through peoples fields and between houses that saved us a good hour of walking. We finally reached a large market town in the middle of a rice paddy. We were hungry by this point so we asked a young man where we can find amandazi. He took us across the street to a store with a café like area in the back of it. He hung around and after asking him a few questions (his English was good), he told us that he had a Peace Corps Volunteer as a teacher last year! It was awesome. Then, after he left, another man who spoke English well said that he was a teacher with a PCV in a far away part of the country. THEN, another man sat down. His English was flawless. He was a Congolese man teaching English in Rwanda that knew PCVs back in the 1980’s in the then country of Zaire. What a coincidence!! 3 random strangers in a village in the middle of nowhere all with links to the Peace Corps!! Then, the Congo man wanted to help us, so he walked with us and took us on another shortcut. Instead of following the road up the mountain, we crossed a rice paddy, 4 streams with sticks for bridges and walked straight up that mountain!! It was tiring but probably saved us a few kilometers. We then parted ways and ended up at the campsite set up by Rwanda which was at an orphanage. But this was no ordinary orphanage, it was beautiful. We showed up just in time to help the kids with their computer class. Then, we watched the 10 babies there eat. The house mamas then put them on these tiny little potty training plastic toilets and waited for them all to poop. While they sat there, all in a row, they house mamas had them sing songs while they had a war throwing their pants at each other. It was beautiful. That night we slept in the orphanage’s guesthouse and had a great meal and beer. The girl working there also happened to be from Portugal and happened to have moved when she was a baby and happened to have ended up in Rwanda. I guess its true, IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTERALL

The story of Days 5 – 9; to be continued. . . . . .

A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

-Unknown

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Posted by  |  April 5, 2012 | Categories: PCV Year 2 | Tags: , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Childhood Development

First, I want to briefly (unlikely) discuss an very interesting topic. The education of children. But, I am not talking about school age children, I am talking about before children are in school.

Let’s take it back a little to infants. Infants in America have mental and physical stimulation most of every day. For example, the infants sleep in cribs and have mobiles to play with, touch, and listen to. Then, pretty early in life, parents begin to read to the children. Even before parents read to their kids, they babies are listening to music and watching television. The build hand-eye coordination and critical thinking, kids have such things as legos, puzzles, color matching games, toys that make sounds of animals, toys that require you to put a round block into a round hole, etc. Then as a child begins to be able to speak more, the parents really begin to read more to the children. The children also are coloring with crayons, beginning to write, drawing pictures, . . . . the list goes on forever.

Now, take all that away and what do you get? Rwandan children. All this came up in conversation twice today. First, the children are never taught how to spell their own names. Sound crazy? It is to my mind, but it is true. Kids in school will spell their name differently on their assignments they turn it. Think I may have briefly mentioned that in Kinyarwanda, there is no differentiation between the /r/ sound and the /l/ sound. Therefore, they are interchangeable in KW. Unfortunately, they bring this over to English where they are two very distinct letters and sounds. Thus, one day a student can write their name “Eric” and the next day write his name “Elic”. I had to try and explain to a student why his name was “Felix” and not “Ferix”. I understand a language not having the two sounds, but to write your name two different ways boggles my mind even after 15 months. In Kigali you will see signs to buy “Frash drives” or “Blead” to eat. Back to the children, it goes beyond the /r/ and /l/. Some of the legitimately don’t know how to spell their own name, their parents never taught them. Second, we had a teacher to borrow some Elmers glue from us and use half a bottle of it on about 5 sheets of paper. Poor thing had no idea that you just need a few splotches on the corners and maybe a squiggly line or two in the middle of the sheet.

Kids don’t read or write AT ALL until they start school. There are no books at home. The parents have never read to them. They have never played with ‘educational’ toys. As you know, your brain develops the most in those first few years of life. Critical thinking is never engaged until it comes into play in a real-life situation. But by this point, the skill just isn’t there so the critical thinking doesn’t take place or it is highly delayed. We see adults in situations where they must critically think and the answer appears obvious to us, but they just can’t solve the problem. Case in point, while exiting a bus people will literally try to climb over/around you in an isle wide enough for one body. They don’t realize that they could exit the bus quicker if they just exited out in a line. Entering on the bus is the same thing, they will enter in the bus before the passengers have exited thus creating this crazy stand-off. And this is at all bus stops day in and day out.

Even skills such as reading and writing aren’t developed early enough. To make matters worse, the teaching method here is “Chalk and talk” and not ‘student centered’. This means that teachers write notes on the chalkboard and students copy it into the notebook. They students never have to create their own language or stimulate the creative portion of their brains. This results in students in secondary school (~middle school) not being able to form basic sentences in English. Even if they can speak some English, they just can’t produce language or a paragraph of text.

It is my opinion that the education of Rwandans could be changed if people can find a way to stimulate the minds of the youngest children starting from a very early age. If they were engaged mentally when they were 1 – 5 years old, this country could change many the society. I would venture to say that this issue is one faced all over Africa. All these NGOs are doing this project and that project. But if they truly taught people to think for themselves and how to problem solve and critically think, the African people could complete all the projects on their own!

“We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box. “

-Unknown

Posted by  |  March 27, 2012 | Categories: PCV Year 2 | 4 Comments »

Thank You!!

30,000 views!!! – 127 posts – 87 followers

I just wanted to make a quick post and thank everyone for reading our blog. I hope that in the past 17 months I have been able to shed some light on the Peace Corps, Rwanda, and our experience in the Peace Corps in Rwanda!!

I have tried to make the blog entertaining as well as educational and I hope you are enjoying it. I am very surprised to get to 30,000 views in such a short time. I am going to continue to write things that will teach you more about Rwanda and our village of Kinihira. I will try to take more pictures also (b/c I know that is really why you look at our blog!!)

I should have a lot to write about over the next 10 days. Me and 2 friends are going to walk 139 miles from the very southwest corner of Rwanda to the most Northwest point in the country (Cyangugu to Gisenyi) in 10 days.

Again, I want to say thanks to everyone who has read our blog over the past year and a half and please continue to read.

The world is full of people who will go their whole lives and not actually live one day

-unknown

Posted by  |  March 24, 2012 | Categories: PCV Year 2 | 1 Comment »

Peace Corps vs. Other NGOs

For those of you who don’t know much about the Peace Corps or development work in general (as I didn’t before I came to Rwanda), I hope you will find this blog enlightening.

This past weekend was a real eye opener. Peace Corps Rwanda went to help volunteer with “The Other NGO” in Kigali. “The Other NGO” is an organization that does great work by going around the world and giving surgery to help people with cleft lips. Cleft lip is when a child or person has a large indention or missing section of their lip. I don’t claim to be a doctor and thus will not go further into the disease. Regardless, affected people are born with this and it affects every aspect of their life because the stand out and look different.

As I said, “The Other NGO” does great work and changes people’s lives. HOWEVER, some things are strikingly different from how the Peace Corps operates. “The Other NGO” paid for about 200 people to travel to Kigali to be evaluated for the possibility of surgery. While they were waiting, these 200 people were essentially moved into a large room for one week. They were given a mattress (with no sheets), a bowl to eat from, a cup to drink water from, a few pieces of soap to wash their bodies, dishes, and clothes, and a basin to wash and bathe in. They were essentially moved into a refugee camp like setting but on a smaller scale. So our job as volunteers was just to be there and assist the Rwandans with any issues they may have and to help them in any way needed.

On Sunday, the people were served a breakfast of mashed plantains and porriage. Then around 9 am, the folks from “The Other NGO” showed up. They brought with them some interns from South Africa who’s sole purpose was to give away balloons, toys, candy, and take photos with children. I can appreciate their desire to briefly induce happiness by giving stuff to people, but what happens when these people (the interns) leave? And, 2 hours later, that is exactly what they did! So, these people showed up, gave stuff away, took some photos, and blew out of there in 2 hours.

This will start a larger debate about what is development and what is the Peace Corps take on development. Peace Corps believes not in showing up and tossing money around, but development by working side-by-side with citizens of that developing country (sustainable development). We don’t give away things, we work with our host country nationals to find a way to get what they actually need. For example, our school’s basketball and footballs were becoming very old and we had only a few for the 1,500 students. Instead of just buying them balls and them learning nothing, I had a teacher of the Primary school to write a request to the Sorwathe Tea Factory to ask for a donation to the school. The teacher wrote the letter and I then made a few corrections and typed it up on the computer and printed it out and delivered it to the director of Sorwathe. One week later they agreed to give us balls. I think that you can see the value in this as opposed to just giving a hand out to someone. Now, they know how in the future to acquire new sports equipment if they are in dire need without the help of any foreign people.

Back to the “The Other NGO”, we stayed there after the ‘muzungus’ showed up and gave stuff away. [I am not trying to ‘dis’ “The Other NGO”, they are doing amazing things to give people the chance at a normal social life. I just want to point out that maybe they should be a little more tactful about how they engage their outstanding community works.] Fortunately, we speak Kinyarwanda and the people think differently of us because of this. We discuss with them why we are here in Rwanda and that we live in the villages all across Rwanda. Later that day, I used aluminum foil from my lunch sandwich to play catch with some of the children there and kept them entertained for two hours. The next day we showed up and these same kids were all friends by that point. So my small contribution to these people was to help them build friendships amongst the others. That next day, there were many avocados that had fallen from the tree in a storm the previous day. I had a group of about 5 kids pick them all up. Then I made them turn their heads so they couldn’t see me. I went and hid 10 avacados in the large yard and made them find them. At first they didn’t understand, but after a few round they became quite good at this game. After 30 minutes, I had about 8 kids playing this game and about 30 mothers and fathers looking on. It was a very touching moment when Carina began to help and hid an avocado on top of an old woman’s head and the crowd of parents just roared with laughter. They were then cheering the kids on as they hunted for the avocados. It doesn’t take a fancy football or television to entertain, just your time and love. These people were stuck at this compound all day for a week and all they wanted was someone to help them have a small bit of entertainment.

So in the Peace Corps we believe in teaching people to help themselves. Sometimes we work even more basic than this. We live amongst people to simply share culture and to educate people to think differently. For Carina and I, we haven’t completed any large projects, yet I feel that we have significantly impacted people’s lives here. When we showed up, the students were petrified to talk with us. Now we have students show up at our house just to talk or to ask questions about life/sex/relationships/AIDS/slang/etc. This in a culture where it is not in the norm to befriend your teachers.

Back to the debate about how many NGOs work. Many NGOs have a set mission statement. Maybe, for example, they create water projects to give people access to water by building water catchment systems (rain collection). This is a very noble thing to do. However, the community doesn’t have to do anything for this project and thus they don’t have the ‘buy in’ to make the project their own. Thus, they think that people from outside their country are so rich they can just show up and build anything they want. Maybe in five years, the rain collection system breaks and the people won’t repair it because they expect the NGO to repair it. If this were a Peace Corps situation, most likely the PCV would help with the idea and work together with a local community member to find funding through a combination of the village itself and maybe some outside donations. Then the PCV and the local would see the project out until completion. Thus, not only did a local co-lead the project, the village contributed money either through cash or labor.

I know it often feels good to give stuff to people less fortunate than you. It gives the person receiving the goods immediate happiness as well as the person giving the goods. However, it can create a sense of dependency or a sense of ‘you owe me this because your country is richer than mine’. When Carina and I came to Rwanda, we brought a bag of candy to give to children. After being here and learning more about the Peace Corps, we NEVER gave that candy away and we still have it in a bag. I have only within the past two weeks gotten rid of some of it as a end-of-the-semester reward to our debate club students who participated all semester in our after school debates.

Development is a tricky thing. It has its value at times, but at other times it just creates dependency and laziness as people think, “Someone from the West will show up and solve our problems.” I personally believe that it is best to help a country find its way through development. A society can’t become better until it knows how to develop itself. If development comes from outside, then it is artificial and not sustainable.

My blog kind of got off track, but I hope you get the picture. In the Peace Corps, we don’t give things away or ‘blow’ through town and bring money. We live as neighbors, citizens, colleagues, and friends of those in our villages. We speak Kinyarwanda or whatever the local language may be. We eat the same food. We shop at the same market. We learn about the real challenges of village life. I truly believe in the Peace Corps mission and think that it is a great organization. I hope that I can convince some young people out there to not be afraid of the Peace Corps as many people are, but to see it for what it is; a great opportunity to learn about other cultures and to improve your own skills and knowledge. At the very least, being in the Peace Corps will make you thankful for the opportunities afforded to us by our great country, The United State of America!!

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

-Chinese Proverb

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Figure 1; Drawing with chalk on the cement with the kids

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Figure 2; Praying together on Sunday morning

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Figure 3; the laundry drying

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Figure 4; finding out who will receive the free surgery

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Figure 5; watching the muzungu show with the others

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Figure 6; child with a cleft lip

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Figure 7; Grahm talking with Rwandans instead of just giving them ‘stuff’

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Figure 8; typical Rwandan mother dress and how they carry their babies. The babies absolutely love this; they sleep a lot and don’t cry while on their mothers backs.

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Figure 9; hiding from the African sun under a mango tree. The young man in front of me, his tongue was so swollen and diseased, he had to wear a catch for his drool. i dont know how this poor child manages to eat food and survive, but somehow he does

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Figure 10;Carina cuddling up to the 4 week old baby with the cleft lip; he was so precious and small.

Posted by  |  March 21, 2012 | Categories: PCV Year 2 | 1 Comment »

The Real World: Rwanda style

I have taken some time to reflect back about what I thought Rwanda would be like and what I have come to find out after living here for the past 17 months.

Expectations before we came here:

Violence – not true. We have rarely seen any forms of violence here. We know the history of genocide in Rwanda but it is hard to imagine on some days. You see the remnants of genocide not in peoples physical actions or violence, but in the culture, psychology and behavior. The only violence I have seen in my 17 months here was a guy getting beaten and drug out of the market for stealing something and a fight between two neighbor hoodlum teenage girls.

Unsafe – positively not true. Especially towards foreigners. I don’t know what they have told Rwandans, but the people here have a healthy respect and treat us well all the time (not counting the annoying stares, following, shouts of ‘muzungu’, and occasional asking for money). As far as true safety is concerned though, I feel very safe in Rwanda. Probably as safe as anywhere I have traveled before. I have felt more in danger on the streets of Rome, Italy than on the streets of Kigali, Rwanda. The government has had public relation campaigns and managed to teach people that foreigners are very important to the economy and bring money with them; the better you treat them, the better off the country will be.

Corruption – little to none. Rwanda is maybe the least corrupt country in Africa. I am not saying this because am biased to Rwanda, it is true. Google it. The do not tolerate corruption. You can’t find a police or government worker asking for bribes. Corruption inevitably happens in every government, but nothing apparent or out in the open here. Rwanda has a very strict ‘Anti-Corruption’ policy and public relations marketing going on.

Live on ‘African’ time – True. For those of you who don’t know what African time is, it is very fluid and flexible. Time is well respected and followed in America. In Rwanda, a meeting that starts are 2pm may not actually start until 3:30pm. A wedding that is set to begin at 11:00am probably won’t begin until 12:30pm. Time is not a determining factor here. It comes and goes just as time does. If you are late, its no problem. Trying to plan a day on a schedule – don’t count on it!! We often try to schedule out our days because we are American. Those days most often go crazy and we will have to wait for a bus for 2 hours or wait in a random store for the rain to quit. Here, time is not money – it is simply time. Some aspects of this are refreshing, but some are frustrating as well.

Hot, dry, savanna looking – FALSE . You have seen my pictures I have posted on previous blogs. Mountains, valleys, volcanoes, lakes, rivers, trees, flowers, tea, coffee, rainforests, vegetables, fruits, . . . . . Need I say more.

Helpless poverty – while poverty is definitely a daily distraction and here, it is not as bad as I imagined. People are generally poor here and don’t have much in the way of discretionary money to spend. But, we don’t see people starving. There is a reason why Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa; the land is fertile and the climate is perfect for cultivating. Many people are paid about $1 per day for hard labor. But, these same people can stay at home and grow what they need to eat on their own land. While they may face malnutrition because they aren’t eating a good variety of foods, they are eating food. Its hard to tell a person who can’t leave the village or buy new clothes they their poverty isn’t serious, but it is just different from what American media brainwashed me to think of when I thought of Africa before I came here.

Low technology – True and False. True in the fact that Rwanda all-together skipped land line phones and now 80% or more of the people have cell phones. While they might not be able to talk freely (cell phones work on a pre-paid basis and translates to about $0.02 / minute), they have cell phones. On top of this, the country is mostly covered by service. You can only find a few of the most rural areas that don’t have coverage. With this, there is wireless internet in most places. This internet works with a USB modem that you must buy. Then you just buy airtime and load up your modem’s SIM card. The technology is there but almost no one has laptops (except the richest 5% of the people) and the foreign people.

No exposure to outside world – TRUE. In the village, the only form of mass communication is radio. Radio is generally listened to by all people. Rwandan radio includes VOA (Voice of America) and the BBC (British Broadcasting Corp) and international news. But most Rwandans have no perspective. If you hear that there was a tsunami in Japan but have never seen the ocean, how can you understand? If you hear about the financial crisis in Greece but have never been inside a bank, how can you understand? I think the whole calling all white people ‘muzungu’ if proof positive that there is no exposure to the outside world. In this day and age of globalization with people so mobile in the world, there is no reason to differentiate people based on the color of their skin unless you have never interacted with these strange skinned people! Another thing, try explaining the scale of the world to a person who doesn’t know what exists 30 kilometers from their house!?! How can you explain the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the height of the World Trade Center to a person who has never seen a building taller than 2 stories?? They see some movies occasionally, but you just can’t understand some things like New York City or Reliant Stadium full of people from a picture or in a movie.

Dirty un-hygienic people – True and false. In general, I would say that the kids are pretty dirty here. Lets face it, kids are dirty all over the world. Kids love dirt!! The difference in a Rwandan village, there is no cement. So there is a lot more dirt to play in/with. Plus the kids maybe only have a few shirts and shorts and flip flops for shoes that they wear a lot longer than any American kid would wear. Kids are fortunate enough (not that they care) in America to get new clothes often and regularly. As adults, I would say that people are generally clean. If anything, they definitely dress nicer here than we do in America. The teachers were nice slacks and dress shirts to teach in daily. Even if a person is dirt poor, they were dress pants and a sports coat; granted the sports coat might have holes in it because of hand-washing it for 5 years and the pants may be stitched at the knees again because of use and hand-washing it. In general though, people bathe daily or every other day. You can find people that smeel pretty rank, but how can they avoid it when they work swinging a hoe for 8 hours and deodorant isn’t known in this country at all? They do clean themselves at night though. Tooth brushing happens by most people as well although it might only be once a day.

Bad food – False. The food outside of the capital is completely natural. Rwandans don’t cook with any spices at all. But Carina has learned to take all our natural veges and make miracles happen with them. And we have been growing cilantro in large quantities. On the contrary, the vegetables are amazing because they are perfectly ripe and all natural. They don’t pick the tomatoes 2 weeks early because they have to package and ship them 2,000 miles across the country. When they are ready to eat, they pick them and sell them at the market that day or the next day. Plus some things such as avocados and pineapples are unnaturally large here. You should try a Rwandan banana. It is like eating the first real banana in your life. Then you wonder what are those things that look like bananas you have been eating back in America all your life.

No electricity – False. We have electricity 95% of the time. Rwanda has a push to get electricity to all citizens and they are well on their way. The government is inviting all people to move to village centers with the incentive that they will give them electricity at reduced rates. They are highly successful at this and people want to have electricity. It is more uncommon now to not have electricity. But you have to understand by electricity, I mean having 3 light bulbs and 1 socket in a house and using that sparingly. We use about 30kw every 1-2 months. That is our consumption in ½ day in the US. And a Rwandan may use 30kw every 6 months!

No water in houses – True. This is generally true. The lucky, more well-to-do folks have running water in their house. But in our village it is more like 5% of the people. In the larger towns in Rwanda, people may have a water tap in their yard somewhere. But the majority of people get their water one jerry can at a time from the community water tap. The jerry cans hold I think 20L (~5gallons). Can you imagine having to walk anywhere from a few hundred yards to half a mile to get only 5 gallons of water at a time?? That would make you think twice about leaving that faucet on for a few extra seconds. Though water is plentiful in most of Rwanda, it is still precious because there isn’t a developed system to deliver the water to houses.

Small, poorly built houses – True and false. Small, yes. Poorly built, no. The houses are small here. But they are built with clay blocks that are formed by the person building the house (people build their own houses here). These clay blocks are about 6 inches wide, 12 inches long, and 6 inches tall. The walls on a house are thus pretty thick. Then the rafters are made with trees (not boards) and the roof with either corrugated metal or sometimes (though more rare now) clay tiles like the kind you would see on a ‘Spanish villa’ in the states. Rain does become more of a threat over the course of a decade because the clay blocks do begin to break down. But the houses are sturdy and shelter the people just fine from the elements. Luckily, the only elements we deal with here is rain (heat not a problem, cold not a problem, no hurricanes, no tornadoes, no earthquakes, no hail, no floods, etc)

Not familiar with white people – True!! I have mentioned more than a few times people yelling ‘white man’ to me while walking down the street. In fact, this happens every few days or every five minutes when I go to a new place where the people are not familiar with me.

Giant, carnivorous, wild animals everywhere – False. In fact, we didn’t see our first lion until going to the zoo in South Africa. We did see the rare mountain gorillas in Rwanda, but you have to pay big bucks to do that. We do not have any wild (ANY!!) wild animals (by animals I mean mammals) in our village except birds. Nothing, no squirrels, no rabbits, no deer, no groundhogs,. . . .NOTHING. the animals of Rwanda were hunted out a hundred years ago. There is a park in the east of Rwanda that you can find some large mammals, but that is only a tiny tract of land that has been made into a park.

All black people look alike . . . . right? – False. This may sound a little racist at first but all white people may have been thinking it. I read something really interesting one time. It said that people of a particular race/ethnicity were able to tell their people apart easily because they are raised differentiating between each other. In America, we all think Asians look alike when they are able to tell each other apart just as we can tell fellow Americans apart. Rwandans say the craziest things about how Carina and I look like brother/sister or how I look like a visitor we may have simply because he is white. Rwandans simply can’t differentiate people that are not Rwandan because they have not had exposure to outsiders. In America, I wasn’t exposed to black people at home or daily so it was hard for me to tell significant differences in facial features. After living in Rwanda for 15 months and seeing Rwandans on a daily basis, there is such a huge variety in their looks. In fact, I think that Rwandans are beautiful! The women are very beautiful and the men handsome. Many Rwandans have eyes ranging from dark, dark brown to the lightest of green eyes with skin anywhere from almost black to very light, soft brown. Plus the women were such amazingly colorful outfits. Even though our students wear the same uniforms and are forced to have their heads shaved at all times, it is easy to know who is who because of their face. I must admit this was tricky at first, but I have grown accustomed now. It was hard at first to even tell who was a girl and who was a boy unless you looked at if they were wearing pants or a skirt.

These have been some of my general ideas. I hope they help to paint a better picture of life in Rwanda!

"Life is simple. Have a look at Maselow’s hierarchy of needs; what most people want in modern society is so far down the list it’s not funny. If you have a roof over your head, food on the table and no-one is going to shoot you in the street tomorrow then you’re better off than about 3 billion people." -Unknown

PHOTOS: The included photos are pictures of the Nyabugogo bus park in Kigali. This is where we go when we arrive in Kigali to transfer buses to then go to the Peace Corps office. (If you were wondering, it is actually even more chaotic than it looks in the photos)

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Figure 1: Nyabugogo bus park in Kigali

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Posted by  |  March 20, 2012 | Categories: PCV Year 2 | 2 Comments »

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