Christmas Terror

My colleagues Christmas tree. Dec 2013

Let me start by saying this Christmas was by far one of the best I have ever experienced.  Of course nothing can compare to the holidays spent with family, but this one definitely comes in close second!  Christmas Eve and half of Christmas were spent with one of my coworkers and his family, and the other half of Christmas was spent with a few of my fellow volunteers.  Each celebration filled me with more joy than my little heart could handle...all except for one moment...my moment of Christmas terror! *insert horror music here*

It was on Christmas Eve that I traveled with my coworker to the city to spend the first part of the holiday with his wife and daughter.  They were having a "party" on Christmas day, however I didn't want to be alone on Christmas Eve so I opted to stay the night.  Like Rwandans tend to do, they treated me as nothing less than a guest of honor, tending to my every need (against my wishes), and even gave me a Christmas present, which was an all expense paid trip to the neighborhood bar for akabenzi!! (a yummy pork dish).  I had been talking to my coworker about akabenzi for the past year and he and his wife made me the happiest meat eater alive when they took me out for my first taste of pork in TWO YEARS!  Long story short, Christmas Eve turned out to be a great time, that is until we made it back to their house, well after dark, and I asked to use the bathroom.  There was a slight pause after I asked the question, then my coworker and his wife looked at each other and responded "yes" in unison.  I didn't think much of their hesitation at the moment, but I soon figured discovered why they should have told me  no...or at least added on a disclaimer after they responded yes.  I then

Carpe Diem

The first two visitors I had here made me question whether in-country visits are a good thing or a bad thing.  I can't deny the good time I had during the visits, but when each visitor left, especially my sister, I was left feeling empty, counting the months, and then the days, wishing they both were drastically less.  My mother came to visit for Thanksgiving and my birthday and I'm not sure I can say the same thing this time.  After being here for so long, I kind of grew numb to the experience--I've forgotten to live in the moment. Rather, I have been living in tomorrow, musing at the life I'm "missing out on" in the States.  My mind has slowly begun to ignore the beauties that, before I grew "bored," had the ability to hypnotize me each time I looked far off into the distance.  However my mom was able to bring back the excitement for me.  Every time she looked off into the distance, she was scrambling to retrieve her camera so that she could capture every wonder--every beauty.  And each time she fumbled with the zipper of her purse, I chuckled inside at the thought that I too was once this excited about being in Rwanda and just had to capture everything within the lens of my hand held digital.

During her time in Rwanda, my mom had a chance to

Global Handwashing Day

If we're friends on Facebook, you probably know by now how great the Global Handwashing Day festivities went in my community.  After months and months of stressful planning and not so promising preparations, we did it!!  The community and kids had a blast and we were even on the radio.  Woohoo!  I guess what they say is true...hard work really does pay off!

Village children dancing during GHD celebration 2013.

The day was complete with dancers who composed and sang a song about hand washing, which they danced to tirelessly until members of the audience got up to join them in all the fun.  Next up was a drama performed by the secondary  school GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) Club, where they acted out scenes of a family with very poor hand hygiene, a child dying from the effects of her family's unhygienic practices, and a hygiene class where families were taught various ways in which the spread of hand hygiene related illnesses and child deaths can be prevented.

Of course the day wouldn't have been complete without Keza (me) making a speech in the local language, which always turns out to be

657 Hand Washing Stations! #done

Guess who's on a natural high!! Yours truly!!

And guess who's project is a HUGE success!! Yep, you guessed it...MEEE!!!!

Mother and child washing hands with newly built tippy-tap.

Mysteriously, (and very magically, might I add) myself and my fellow villagers were able to meet our goal of building 657 hand washing stations!! And it only took two weeks! We have met our goal of increasing the number of hand washing stations in the community by 20%! Woot woot! Now before I go getting ahead of myself, the project is coming together nicely (after a whole year), however there are still some challenges that I am facing that maybe YOU can help me with.  I've spoken with my Rwandan colleagues, Peace Corps Administration, and fellow PCVs, however I am still at a loss for how to successfully tackle one BIG challenge.

You see, my project is one that deals with behavior change; getting the people in my community to improve hand washing behaviors that they learned as children and have carried into their adult lives.  Had I known behavior change would be so hard, I may have tried to tackle another issue, but anything worth anything takes a little bit of a fight right?  And when the project does succeed in all respects, I will be that much more proud of myself; not only for taking on such a challenge, but for tackling it with persistence and unmatched dedication.

And I digress.

Here is my issue. 

International Malaria Day

Malaria day, which didn't go as planned, but turned out to be a HUGE success was a blast!  One of my fellow PCVs traveled to my village to help me host a day filled with activities at the village primary school and to host a Malaria Awareness parade from the school to the village market.  We played a few Q&A games with the kids on the facts of malaria (transmission, signs and symptoms, treatment, prevention, etc); held an art contest where the children were provided with various supplies and were asked to create a positive message about malaria; and taught the children a song (in Kinyarwanda) about the prevention of malaria that would be chanted during the parade.  We also had the children make a pledge to sleep under their mosquito nets and encourage those around them to do the same.  After repeating a short phrase (the pledge), the children signed their names on a small piece of African cloth and then tied each of their cloths together to create a long chain, symbolizing their unity in the fight against malaria.  Just before we left the school to begin our parade, myself, my colleague, and my counterpart surprised the winners of the various malaria activities with prizes!!  Brand new notebooks, flashy pencils, candy, free mosquito nets; and the kids loved them ALL!  I think the prizes may have been my favorite part of the day.  The march was tons of fun, but to see the kids' faces when that something new was placed into their hands was priceless.  At one point, I just watched and thought to myself, I heart my job.  It's frustrating, and stressful, and progress is slow, but those smiles make it all worth it.  In that one instant where the children flashed their pearly whites, all of the stresses disappeared and I forgot how hard it was to make the event happen.  All that existed in that moment was me, the kids, and their smiles--and then I smiled.

Next up was the parade, which almost didn't happen, but

Work and Projects

This post is long over-due, I know, but here is what I do at my health center (or should I say what I'm trying to do).  Things are moving, but I must admit, the progress is painfully slow.  I have officially been here one full year and my primary project has yet to get off of the ground.  In case you're wondering, no I'm not sitting around on my derriere all day; it has just been tough getting the people in my community to work without receiving money for what should be community service.  I am often awe-struck at how money hungry the people around me are, but in all fairness, I will say that they are no more (or less) money hungry than Americans.  Somehow I thought things here would be different, but nope.  People are people and people like money.  And money (or lack thereof) is making my job a living hell right about now.  Maybe I'm being a little extreme because I'm so darned frustrated...then again, maybe not...

I digress.

My day to day work consists of

Preggers

It just so happens that a little while back (several months ago) I left my village for approximately one week and came back to a very pleasant (but questionable) surprise.  One of my coworkers was preggers...VERY preggers...like 6 months preggers! lol  (Unless she managed to squeeze 6 months of pregnancy into just one short week, I definitely need to be more observant...btw she's not someone who can hide a pregnancy, she's about a size 2 without the slightest bit of meat on her bones).  Anywho, this is my same coworker who just had a wedding two months prior o.O

*SN: I'm not judging.  It's just that based on Rwadan culture, pregnancy (even sex) before marriage is frowned upon...or so I thought (apparently I was wrong).

At any rate, shocked at her "unorthodox" pregnancy, I opted to ask one of my coworkers the obvious, "Is she pregnant?"  My coworker looked at me and said with a mischievous smile, "I will tell you in a moment when everyone is gone [from the office]."  When it was just the two of us and the conversation began, I  just about fell on the floor laughing at his many responses.  See the entire conversation below:

Ants...AGAIN!

It has been a looong time since I've posted anything, but I think this not-so-rare occurrence is reason enough to start up again. It all started this morning when I was sound asleep, only to be woken up by my LOUD neighbors at 4 in the morning!  I'm not sure what the commotion was, but I was anything but happy about all of the noise that was keeping me from falling back into a peaceful slumber.  Finally after God knows how long, I fell back into an off and on again slumber until about 6 o clock when my neighbor walked to my room window and shouted in, "Keza!"  I attempted to pretend as if I was in such a deep sleep that I didn't hear her, but of course (as usual) that didn't work.  She just stood there and shouted my name two more times.  At this point I thought to myself, I really wish these people could take a hint, I'm obviously sleep in here!  Finally I responded to her shouts with a sleepy "Yeah?"  Her next words were enough to get me out of bed in a jiffy.  She blurted out a whole slew of words in Kinyarwanda, but the only ones I was able to pick out were "ants," "many," and "INSIDE!!!"  At that, I jumped up and ran to my door to see what she was talking about. 

When I opened the door,

Learning to Live in the Moment

Many people who know me, know that I have a bit of an issue with living in (and enjoying) the moment.  I tend to dream about the future and what I want to accomplish, rather than focusing on the present and what I currently have my hands tied up with.  Here I am, doing this wonderfully amazing thing in Rwanda, dedicating two years of my life to something bigger than myself, and all I seem to think about all day every day is what I will do once I return to the states.

I read a passage in my Daily Word that touched on living in the moment and being grateful for what you currently have and the things you have been blessed to be able to do NOW.  With the emotional rollercoaster ride that serving in another country is, I find myself rushing through each day so I can get on to the next day...month...and year...and then finally, on to the close of my service.  Here is where I need to sit back, relax, and take a breather.  Rwanda is a beautiful country.  I am doing a beautiful work.  I am surrounded by a beautiful people.  And I am being blessed in the most beautiful of ways.  Every week (or whenever I feel like I'm thinking too much about life in the states), those are the things that I remind myself of.  With the time difference and cost of making phone calls to mommy, I'm not always able to call when I need a mental boost or some kind words to push me through a tough day.  So I sit myself down, tell myself that I can do this, and list out in my head all of the ways in which I am lucky and blessed beyond measure to be living this dream that I am fortunate enough to wake up to every day. 

Below is what I read that inspired this post and reminded me to live for today. I'll worry about living in tomorrow when tomorrow comes (:

Zanzibar, Tanzania Pt II

Nurses to the Rescue!!

Now about those nurses.  Lucky for us, there just happened to be two of them (one from Australia and the other from London) staying in the same resort as us.  And boy did they come in handy!  As you read in the last post, they helped to tidy up my sisters foot with some of their supplies, but that's not all.  One of my friends got terribly sick on the second day of the trip and was practically bed ridden for the rest of our time in Tanzania.  Poor thing.  It started with a sore throat, then a cough, then a terrible fever, then the runs, then a terribly achy and sore body.  We had no idea what was wrong and we couldn't get reception on our phones to call the Peace Corps doctors.  Lucky for us, the nurses came to her rescue; as did a doctor (the resort owner had one of his Tanzanian friend doctor's come to take a look).  With still no diagnosis, the nurses gave us something to stop the diarrhea and vomiting, and some aspirin to bring the fever down.  For two days, my friend progressively got worse and then on the third day began to feel a little bit better.

By the time New Year's Eve rolled around, I began to feel a little under the weather, but tried to push it out of my mind.  I thought I was just being silly, assuming that whatever my friend had, had moved on to me.  Regardless of my "feeling under the weather," we all (minus my sick friend) decided to go into Stone Town to explore a bit and find something fun to do for New Year's Eve.    And here is where it all began...

Zanzibar, Tanzania Pt I

Part two of our Tanzania vacation took place on the brilliant little island of Zanzibar.  After spending about 5 days there, me, my sister, and my friends decided that if Disney has ever done anything right, they definitely hit the nail on the head when they made The Lion King.  I always thought the "Pride Lands" was a made up place, but after visiting Tanzania, I have seen that it is definitely real.  A lot of the little phrases in the movie actually came from a real language too!! Swahili!  Hakuna matata, which seems to be a favorite phrase of the people there, really does mean no worries (or no problem).  I also learned that rafiki (the little monkey from the Lion King) means friend, and simba means lion.  Disney really seems to have done their research for this childhood favorite.  I have always been a fan of Beauty and the Beast (I just love a good love story and that movie just about trumps all), but I think the Lion King has moved its way right up to the top of my list of favorites!

Anyways, off of my Lion King tangent, here are the highlights of the trip:

The Villages

Homes and Unfinished Buildings

It was quite interesting comparing the villages in Rwanda to the villages in Tanzania; the lives of the people just seem so different.  Of course Zanzibar is a bit more touristy so I'm sure that plays a role in the differences, but living so close to the water makes a world of a difference too.  The houses in Rwanda are built with mud bricks covered in a cement-like material.  The houses in Tanzania, were made of

Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Finally I get to the post about my vacation in Tanzibar!!! Yayy!!!  Okay so Tanzibar isn't really a place.  It's actually Tanzania (the country) and Zanzibar (the island just off of Tanzania), but just for fun and the sake of not having to type out both locations a million times throughout this post, we're going to go ahead and refer to my vacation hotspot as Tanzibar (:

Most of the trip was spent relaxing on a small beach resort with three of my Peace Corps friends and my big sister.  It was absolutely, positively, breath-takingly BEAUTIFUL!!!  The water, the people, the village...all so beautiful.  The beach that we stayed on turned out to be a very intimate and culturally rich part of the island, which myself and the other volunteers preferred to the wild and crazy, party side of the island.  We were able to get a vacation and a cultural experience all wrapped in one and we enjoyed every minute of it!  When we got bored with the beach (which failed to happen at all) or just wanted to see what else Tanzibar had to offer, we wandered off through the nearby villages, played with the children, and visited small boutiques to test out the cultural snacks that are Tanzibar specific.  (Lucky for me, my PC bff likes to eat just as much as I do, so whenever we're together, we tend to spend a bulky part of our days trying out strange, new treats).

A lot happened on our trip, but this post highlights some of my favorite moments.  Ready, set, here we go!!

Tanzania Airport and Hotel

When my sister and I arrived at the airport in Kigali, we just happened to run into a woman who we met that morning at our hostel.  She stopped to say hello to us and after a few minutes of conversation we discovered that we just so happened to be on the same exact flight to the same exact place...Tanzibar!!  Long story short, we and Nancy (our new Ugandan friend) exchanged numbers and

Sister Masters Rwanda

Roach Infested Bus

In just one short week, my sister and I took more busses than I'm sure she has taken in the last year.  One of which was infested by, yep you guessed it, ROACHES!  This is the very last thing we needed as I am slowly getting over a terrible phobia of bugs and my sis is just as bad as I used to be.  Here we were on this 3 hour bus ride, with several HUGE bags full of candy and snacks that I'm sure the little roaches were having a celebration over.  Lucky for us, nothing jumped out of the bags when we made it to our final destination, but the ride certainly wasn't the most pleasant of bus rides.  And to add icing to the cake, just before the bus took off, a little roach crawled up onto the window directly to my left.  There just happened to be a man standing there trying to sell a pair of shoes to me and my sis.  I took his standing there with the shoes as a sign--I was supposed to take one of the shoes from him to get rid of the roach.  And so I did!  I quickly snatched a shoe and rubbed it across the window, attempting to fling the roach outside.  Instead of going flying, the roach ended up smushing between the window and the shoe.  The man looked at me like, Give me money for the shoe!  And I looked right back at him like, I am NOT paying for this!  Lucky for me (again) there was another man walking by selling newspapers.  He took note of my little dilemma and handed me a newspaper to wipe off the shoe (thank you God).  So I wiped off the shoe and handed it back to the shoe man.  He gave me an I'm-not-happy-about-this look and slowly walked away.    

Sister's Rwandan Name 

One of the two days that my sister was in the village, we hung out at my job for a bit.  While we were in the office watching music videos with one of my coworkers, we ended up talking about Rwandan names and my sister said that she wanted one.  My coworker immediately responded, "Mbabazi."  My sister lit up and asked, "What does it mean?"  I had no idea what it meant, but I do know of a girl who owns the village bar and her name is Mbabazi.  So immediately after she asked her question, I asked my own, "Like the girl at the bar?"  My coworker laughed hysterically at my question and responded, "NO! Not like her! hahaha!"  I asked why he was laughing and he said to me,

The Village Experience (with Sister)

Here are more stories from our fun in the Rwanda sun! Enjoy (:

Fetching Water

I must say, my sis did pretty darn good at adapting to village life in just two short days.  She's certainly no veteran (like me), but she did great!!  Of course the critters took their toll on her, but she was a natural (almost) at bucket bathing and using the latrine.  She even managed to fetch her own water! Usually, one of the health center workers helps me fetch water since the jerry cans are so heavy, but this time they decided to just watch and laugh...and I must admit, I laughed too!  My sister is the "stronger" one out of the two of us (seeing how she works out on a regular basis and I NEVER do) so I expected her to be able to fetch water like she's been doing it every day all her life.  I couldn't have been more wrong!  Here I am with a small jerry can in my left hand and a large one in my right, walking along to the house without a hitch...and then there was my sister...several feet behind me, holding ONE jerry can with TWO hands, hobbling along with water all over her skirt!  We couldn't stop laughing the entire time, which wasn't helping at all, because with every burst of giggles, she ended up with more and more water on her and less in the jerry can.  The entire time, my coworkers were watching in the distance, laughing almost as hard as we were.  That's alright though; in the end, we did it!  Even if the jerry can wasn't full when we made it back to the house (:

Gifts

Good Times with Big Sis

I was lucky enough to NOT have to spend my first set of holidays as a Peace Corps Volunteer alone!  Yayy mee!!  My big sis spent a nice chunk of her hard-earned teacher money to make sure her favorite big head didn't have to cry herself to sleep on those days when most families are all together surrounded by love, opening gifts on Christmas and counting down as they ring in the new year.  We had a BLAST!!  I miss her so much already, but we have some great memories that I'm sure will hold me over until she returns next Christmas!  Yep...there will be a part two to the Keza and Mbabazi Chronicles!!  Yayy again!! Read about our adventures below:

First Night in Rwanda and Already She's Ignorant

On Christmas Eve I waited and waited, and waited some more, for my sister to get through customs at the airport and when I finally saw her walk through the airport doors I didn't know what to do.  I thought to myself, She's here! My sister is really here!!  After we hugged and expressed every joyful emotion just short of tears, we made our way to our taxi that waited not one...not two...but THREE hours for my sister to make her way through the loooong customs line.  Long story short, the driver drove us to a hostel near the city center and we decided to stay up late so we could catch up...that is, until the man in the next room shouted through the door, "We are trying to sleep!  You are ignorant!...Will you please open the door?"

Here we were, just minding our business and having a few quiet laughs over a few stories and good times that we've each had during our time apart.  About 10  minutes into our conversation, we hear a light tapping on the wall.  Not sure if it was geared toward us, we looked at each other, shrugged it off, and kept right on chatting.  And then there it was again, "BANG BANG BANG!"  (Okay this time we definitely knew it was for us).  We decided to consider the rude bangs on the wall and took our semi-quiet chatter down to a very-quiet whisper.  At this point, we were literally speaking as if we were telling secrets in church during the benediction.  We carried on talking this way for about 10 more minutes and then we heard a door open...then a knock at our door...and then an angry male voice, "Will you please stop talking?  We are trying to sleep here."  My sis, who isn't one to take any crap responded, "We are whispering. We aren't even talking loud."  The man then retreated back to his room and shut the door.  Less than 5 minutes later, a door opened again and, "BANG BANG BANG!" went our door.  "We are not talking loud!" said my sister, with a slight attitude finding its way into her voice.  The man then responded, no shouted, "We are trying to sleep!  You are very ignorant!"  After about a 10 second silence, the man said very kindly (strangely nice considering the way he just yelled at us)  "Will you please open the door?"  Uhmmm...no!  I'm sure my sister and I both thought to ourselves.  You were just yelling at us at the top of your lungs and now you ask us ever so kindly, as if you are a boy scout selling cookies, if we can open the door?  At this point, my sister and I gave up on our failed attempts to whisper and decided to call it a night.  Half of me was afraid that this man was going to try to bust through our door so when my sis agreed that we should just go to sleep, I breathed a sigh of relief and closed my eyes.  All of the fun would just have to wait until tomorrow.

Christmas Day!!

Feeling the Love

I'm quite late with this, but HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I was lucky enough to be able to bring in the New Year with my big sis and we had a blast together!! (More on that later).  I just want to thank everyone for the Christmas and New Year packages that were sent and for thinking of me during this holiday season.  It was tough being away from mommy and daddy, but the goodies in the packages definitely made things more bearable (:

I am feeling the love from everyone back home, including friends, family, colleagues, Sorors...the list goes on.  In case I don't say it enough, THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!  I have more snacks and necessities than I know what to do with!  I think I might actually have enough necessities to last me the rest of my two-year tour! (Okay not really, but I do have a lot).  If you're planning on sending anything any time soon, you can feel free to leave out deodorant, lotion, bar soap, dental floss, and hand sanitizer.  I honestly have so much right now that I think I'll have to pass some along to my fellow volunteers...I'm totally out of storage space in my itty bitty house!

Thank you again for your love, support, and encouragement!  It is honestly what gets me through each day.

Love and Peace Corps,

Dametreea

PS

I'm also feeling the love on Spam lol feel free to leave that out of future packages as well...I have more than I know what to do with (: