Ignorance

I went to visit my neighbor (who is the sweetest woman ever) on Wednesday and she asked me to come to church with her on Friday.  I told her, "I'm Christian."  Then she said, "That's okay, it's just to visit."  I asked her when and where the church was and she told me that she goes on Fridays.  "I work on Fridays," I told her and then she said, "We can go during your lunch."  Great, I'm cornered.  I have the hardest time telling people no, so I obliged and told her that I would come to her house as soon as I got off of work for lunch.  I'm strong in my faith as a Christian so I figured it wouldn't be too big of a problem; also, I'm not perfectly fluent in Kinyarwanda just yet so I probably wouldn't have been able to understand what was being said anyway.  I agreed to go more for integration purposes than to be converted to Muslim and I assumed this wouldn't be a problem...that is...until I asked two of my coworkers for their advice.

After the staff meeting on Thursday morning, I walked into the office that I share with two of my coworkers and popped my big question.  "My neighbor asked me to go to church with her on Friday, but she's Muslim.  I'm not sure if it's appropriate for me to go or not.  What do you think?"  Little did I know, I opened up a huge can of worms with this question and should have stuck with just asking my mom and sister in America for their opinions.  One of my (very outspoken) coworkers, who happens to speak English rather well, lit into me immediately.  Here is a blurb of what he said: "Why would you want to go to church with them?  Muslims are dirty! Do not be their friends!  Do not go to their mosque!  Do not eat the food they give you!  They are different.  They do not have hygiene.  When they use the bathroom, they wipe with their right hand and will make you sick."  As he said all of this, I couldn't help but to notice

how emotional he suddenly got. I mean, the guy was practically yelling at me.   In between his extremely rude, ignorant, and disrespectful statements, I did my best to respond in defense of my neighbor, but his booming voice kept over powering mine and I've never been much of an arguer.  He continued, "You cannot go with her.  Even in America you are afraid of Muslims."  Then I interrupted, "No, in America we are not afraid of Muslims."  "But you are afraid of Al Quida," he said.  I responded, "Yes, we are afraid of terrorists, but not all Muslims are terrorists."  At this point he threw up his hands, turned away from me, and said, "Fine then.  Go to church with the terrorists.  You will be killed."  And then the conversation stopped.  I decided that arguing with him wouldn't change his mind so I called it quits.

Just when I thought I was in the clear of that conversation, my coworker started up again!  This time in a much calmer voice, he said,  "Do not go with her.  I know you are thirsty to know Kinyarwanda and culture, but to go to a Muslim church in Rwanda is bad.  If you keep going to so many different churches the people will think you are a spy.  It is okay to talk with her, but do not go to church with her."  And with that, I decided not to go.  Not for the fact that he told me not to or because she would "kill" me, but because I don't want my going to a Muslim mosque to hinder my integration.  Apparently mixing religions by any means is unacceptable in Rwanda...even if you are just going to visit.  Lucky for me, though, I didn't have to tell her I changed my mind because something came up and I had to go to Kigali on Thursday night.  Lets cross our fingers and hope she doesn't ask me again.  I so suck at saying no.

Love and Peace Corps,

Dametreea