Perfectly Rwanda...Perfect for Me!

My site visit was AMAZING!! I don't think things could have gone any better!  I don't really know where to start or how to put into words the fantastic experience I had, but I will do my best.  This post might get a little lengthy so sit tight and enjoy!!

Site basics:

Republic: Rwanda

Province: Eastern

District: Gatsibo

Sector: Kabarore

Cell: Marimba

Village: Rwimbogo--means the background of the buffalo.  Long ago, my village used to be a national park and the buffalo were one of the major attractions of the area.

My House:

My house is soo cute!!  I really wish I could put up pictures, but that'll have to wait until I am able to get to a FREE internet cafe.  At any rate, my house is located right behind the health center I will be working at and is a duplex style building with two houses attached to one another.  And both are mine! Go mee!! Each one has a living room, a bedroom, and a small hallway.  My latrine is located behind my house (some vounteers actually have western style toilets, but I'm perfectly okay with my little hole in the ground).  There is also a bathing area attached to a compound behind my house, but during my stay at site, I just took my bucket bath in my hallway (I felt much safer this way).  The house is very quant, but very me.  It's super cute and I can't wait to start decorating!  The walls have a fresh coat of canary yellow paint so I'm thinking I want to do chocolate and yellow for the color scheme :) .  There is a slight problem with the house though...it has HUGE  spiders all over the walls!  When I got home on the first night, there were literally two huge ones (the size of 50 cent pieces) and 5 or 6 small ones (about the size of quarters).  Along with the spiders were several humongous crickets!  I am terribly terrified of all insects, but I did my best to deal.  I thought about taking one of my flip flops and killing all of the bugs, but I immediately thought otherwise when I realized that I didn't know what kind of spiders these were nor if they jumped or how fast they were.  So I ended up just crawling in my bed, tucking in my mosquito net, and praying REALLY hard that nothing would crawl in and get me.  As I fell asleep, all I could think of was the movie Arachnophobia. 

Kibondo Health Center:

This is the name of the health center that I will be working at during my stay in Rwanda.  It is a nice little center with a maternity ward, an HIV/AIDS center, a hospitalization area, TB services, circumcision services, minor emergency care, etc. The health center has about 2,000 patients registered and they see between 40 and 70 patients per day.  The health center is open daily from 7am to 5pm, however there is a nurse that stays over night with the patients who are hospitalized overnight.  I was able to meet a good majority of the nurses at the health center during my visit and they were all so amazing!  There were very welcoming and tons of fun.  They were all surprisingly quite young and as they have youthful spirits and bubbly personalities like me, I fit right in...so much that they didn't want me to leave at the end of the week when I had to return to Kamonyi to finish out my language and culture training.  Apparently I made a good first impression, as did they...I can't wait to go back!

The Village:

The village is smaller than the one I am in now, however the people in the community are the sweetest and most hospitable people I've ever met.  The views are beautiful, the weather is perfect (like Arizona during the transition between winter and spring), and the food is amazingly delicious! I had a lot of plantains and goat (which I finally mustered up the courage to try for the first time), cassava, corn on the cob, bananas, fish in some type of yummy sauce, beans, rice, pineapple, bananas, and Rwandan doughnuts, among a few other things.

Administrators and Officials:

My Titulaire (supervisor) is an older man with a wife and 3 kids.  He's a really nice guy, but speaks very little English so our communication was sparse.  My counterpart (the person who I will work the closest with) is a younger man (25 years old) and just like everyone else, he made me feel very welcome at the health center.  As instructed by our supervisor, he showed me around our village and the surrounding areas and took me to meet various village and district officials.  I met the chief of my village, the Executive Secretary and Social Affairs Chair at the district and sector level, the director of the district hospital, and the headmaster of the primary school that is closest to my health center.  When I met the director of the district hospital, though, I have reason to believe that I got scolded a bit.  Hierarchies here in Rwanda are  VERY important and when I met the director he made sure to let me know that I had not followed the proper procedure/order for meeting district officials.  He told me that someone underneath him, whom I had met two days prior, called to inquire about who I was.  He was not able to offer an explanation of who I am since he had not yet met me, and this was a problem.  Then he proceeded to interrogate me: who are you? Why are you here? Where are you from? What did you study in America?  What is Peace Corps?  How long has Peace Corps been in Rwanda?  This man asked me question after question, nonstop, but I think I handled it rather well.  I apologized for not following the hierarchy of officials and he told me that it wasn't my fault since I'm not from here, but that someone should have told me.  At the end of all of this, he asked for the number to the person over Peace Corps and so I gave him the phone number of the PC Rwanda Program Manager.  I just about ran out of his office when he told me our meeting was finished and went to call my program manager to let him know that he might be getting a phone call from the director soon, and that he wasn't too happy about not meeting me sooner.  I've only been in Rwanda for 1 month and already I've been in trouble...smh...

Moto:

The only way to and from my health center (which is about 9 miles from the main road) is via a motorcycle taxi.  Moto's are the main mode of transportation within the villages of Rwanda and as I LOVE riding them, this is absolutely no problem for me.  It was a bit scary at first, riding on a moto with a complete stranger, but I eventually relaxed a bit and began to enjoy the rides all around the village and district.  After site visits, a few volunteers shared stories of how their motos actually tipped over or fell back when the driver attempted to tackle one of the many great hills that Rwanda is so famous for.  Luckily, my moto rides all went without a hitch and I even found them to be quite humorous as my health center's driver had no mercy for anything.  As we rode along, he would honk his horn and had old ladies (and I mean really old) running to get out of his way to avoid being hit.  You name it, when were coming, they were running...even the chickens and goats! 

Kinyarwanda 101:

The staff of the health center seemed more excited to have someone to practice English with than to have a helping hand with their community health projects.  Each person I met, the first thing they asked me for was my phone number so that they could call me and practice their English.  Of course I obliged...on one condition.  If I practice speaking English with you, you have to practice speaking Kinyarwanda with me.  Of course they agreed so I have Kinyarwanda lessons whenever I want just a phone call away! Go mee!!  Already I've gotten a couple calls from a few nurses.  Here is how the conversations typically go:

           

            "Hi Keza!"

            "Hi, how are you?"

            "Good, I just wanted to greet you...goodbye."

            *click*

I chuckle every time...these are the most awkward of conversations.

Recreation:

There isn't much to do for fun in the villages so here are the main activities that Rwandans partake in during their free time (which they seem to have very little of): drink beer, drink Fanta, listen to music while doing the traditional Rwandan dance, watch gospel music videos, and frequent bars (the latter applies more to men than women).

FAQ:

The questions I came across during my site visit:

·         Do you have this in America (they would name different foods)?

·         Are there poor people in America?

·         What is the climate like in America?

·         How do you cook in America?

·         Do all Americans have house workers?

·         How are you from America if all Americans are white?

·         What are some differences between America and Rwanda?

·         Are you really American?

·         Is your mom Rwandan?

·         Why do you have Rwandan hair, but not Rwandan skin?

Love and Peace Corps,

Dametreea