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
Tell them that Black is Black and we ALL have Rwandan hair (except for Beyonce).
ReplyDeletehahahahah! Literally rolling on the floor right now!
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