Fearless in Rwanda

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Another One Bites the Dust

Here we go again, another person going home. However this time has me feeling some kind of way. One of the few people that I have clung to as a close friend here is going home and I am really going to miss her. She told me a week ago, however, today is still a little bit gloomy since now it's actually happening. We just came from hanging out for the last time at the bar, having our usual brochettes, potatoes, and Fanta and I must say we had a really good time. Me, her, and another volunteer hung out for a few final laughs and to reminisce on the series of events that have taken place on our journey thus far. After the bar, we went back to her house to load up the car with her belongings. As we were leaving, she handed her host mother a short letter with photos of herself and their family attached to it so that they would have a keep-sake to remember her by. When I say that this was an emotional moment, I mean it was emotional. From the outside looking in, you wouldn't expect to see many tears (if any at all), but from the inside looking out, we are here building meaningful and lasting relationships. Although we have been with our host families for just 10 short weeks, there is some type of attachment there that I can't really explain. I genuinely love my host mother like a second mother...and today I saw that I am not the only one. My friend's host mom cried as she hugged her for the very last time. As I watched, I began to get a little teary-eyed myself. For one, because Rwandan women DO NOT cry (so this must have really been hard for her), and for two, because of the way that the Rwandan people love so openly and freely. They have welcomed all of us here with open arms and have taken us in as their very own children; taking the time to teach us everything there is to know about surviving in Rwanda. We have had to re-learn how to cook, re-learn how to take baths, and even re-learn how to wash dishes and mop the floor. Everything here is new to us and in many ways, we are like children all over again, with our Rwandan parents teaching us how to be responsible adults.

The girl who is leaving has

Friday, July 6, 2012

Stale Bread and Hot Milk...My 4th of July Dinner

I'm not sure what the deal is, but I think it's safe to say that my family is really roughing it. On our dinner menu for tonight was none other than stale bread (resembling a crunchy hot dog bun) and hot milk with sugar (that I'm sure may have been a few days passed expired). I'm not complaining though, at least I had food...but this certainly isn't anything close to what I was expecting for my 4th of July dinner. Yes I know, the Independence of America isn't such a big deal in Rwanda, however, the 4th of July is also a holiday here, which is why I expected a little bit more than just milk and old bread to fill my tummy before bed. The 4th here marks the end of the genocide (maybe the bread and milk symbolize something??); I'm not sure, but again, I guess I should just be happy that I had something to put in my tummy.

There was another holiday here a couple of days ago. July 1st was the Rwandan Independence Day and to celebrate, there was a huge event at a stadium in Kigali at which many important people from various countries were in attendance. I wasn't able to watch the ceremony on tv, as my family doesn't have one, so we listened on the radio (in English). Apparently there were drummers, dancers, singers, and the like. It would have been nice to be able to attend the ceremony, but since I wasn't able to, I'll just add that to my to-do list for next year.

* * * * *

I'm off to bed now. I'm catching a cold that was passed on to me from one of 4 trainees (I'm not quite sure who the culprit is since most of us are sick or have been sick on and off since day one). Whatever this bug is, it keeps rotating within our group and after several weeks of successfully avoiding it, it finally got a hold of me. My throat is terribly soar, I had a fever earlier today, and I feel like poop. My host mama, being the sweet little lady that she is, keeps coming to feel my head to make sure I'm not too warm and says to me, "Komera" (be strong). She even told me to sleep in an extra hour in the morning so that I can get better. She's the cutest...but its times like these that I really miss my real mom. There's nothing quite like having your own mother there to nurse you back to health and fix you up a concoction of her secret remedies. I guess this is what growing up feels like...mommy won't always be able to run to my rescue. But at least for now, I have a fill-in...and she's doing a darn good job!

Love and Peace Corps,

Dametreea

(Written 7/4/12 at 9:01p)

Good Times

I don't know what it is about Sunday, but it always turns out to be the best day of the week. I woke up today at 8a, ecstatic that I have finally been able to sleep in! This is the latest I have been able to sleep since being in Rwanda so with such a good start, I already knew today was going to be a good day. My family didn't go to church today so the day was more or less relaxing...and kind of boring. After sitting around reading for a while and talking to my family here and there, I decided to call Tamika and see if she wanted to go and visit Phyllis in the next village over. She agreed, and so after about an hour and a half, we were on our way. Helmets in hand, we walked to the center of our village to catch a motorcycle taxi. We had about a 15 minute ride to get to Phyllis's and once there, we greeted her family and then headed out to a bar to have brochettes and Fanta. While at the bar, we ran into a guy from Kenya who spoke perfect English. When he saw us he said, "Finally I find someone who speaks English!" After speaking with him over our yummy brochettes, we discovered that he does not know a lick of Kinyarwanda and that he is here with the Rwanda English Board to help teach Rwandan teachers how to teach English to their students. Like us, he will be in Rwanda for two years.

After our brochettes, Phyllis gave us a tour of her small village and we eventually made our way back to her house so that we could head home and hopefully make it back before curphew. But of course something had to go wrong right?? Well first off, when the moto taxi dropped us off at Phyllis's, we asked him if he would come back to pick us up at 6pm. The guy said okay, told us how much it would cost and went on about his merry little way. Well 6:00 rolls around, and no taxi shows up. Then 6:20 rolls around and still no taxi. At 6:30 (which just so happens to be our curphew) me and Tamika get desperate and decide to just take one of the buses back to our village (which is an overcrowded mini-van filled with drunken weirdoes). When one stopped near us, we walked over to get on, but luckily (this had to be God) it was full. I'm almost positive we would have made it anywhere but home had we gotten on that grimy thing. So there we were at 6:35, standing in the dark, trying to waive down every taxi that passed us by so that we could get a ride home. This wasn't working at all so Phyllis finally went to get her dad and have him help us out a bit. (It's pitch black outside at this point, and I was very worried about getting home safely).

Just as Phyllis's dad approached us from the house, a motorcycle with a passenger was getting ready to take off down the road. Her dad saw this, went up to the motorcycle, told the guy on it to get off, and then

Dance Fever

Today has been a day filled with good music and fun dancing! After umuganda, a few of us volunteers got the music popping and showed off our best and favorite dance moves! We did everything from the Wobble and Cupid Shuffle to the Tootsie Roll and brought back some old school moves with BBD's Poison. It was tons of fun!! After all the fun finally stopped we each went home, but the dancing certainly didn't stop there. Tamika and her mom came over to my house about an hour ago and we had a little dance party with our Rwandan families. It was Tamika, her mom, me, my mama, one of my sisters, and my little brother. When we first brought out the music, our families were a little shy and apprehensive to get up and start moving, but me and Tamika pulled their arms for them to stand up and they instantly joined us in doing America's most popular dance moves. I had the best time!! And my sister has some moves! She did the wobble so cute!! I wish I could post videos. My mama was too cute doing her little two step...you can always leave it to the mama to do the side to side and wave her arms around haha! My little brother was our photographer so he didn't do too much dancing. At one point I did grab the camera from him and he performed one move just long enough for me to snap a picture and then took the camera back. We took tons of pictures so hopefully I'll be able to post them soon.

After dancing through a couple of line-dance type songs, me and Tamika asked our families to show us some Rwandan dances. They all said, "Nooooo" and laughed. My mama was half cooking dinner and half dancing with us while all of this was going on. When no one else would get up to show us how Rwandans get down, my mama put down the spoon she was stirring the rice with and started on her fancy footwork and arm motions...I couldn't quite see what her feet were doing because she had on a long skirt, but I did my best to mimic her moves. My little sister just laughed at me the whole time...apparently I was doing the dance all wrong. Either way, I had tons of fun! This has definitely been one of my family highlights, everyone had such a good time!