10 Days (well actually now 4) til Xmas…Part II

What can I say…it gets difficult to update this thing all the time.  Let’s see…since Thanksgiving lots of things have been going on.  We had some intense Kinyarwanda training followed by starting up model school.  Now, you don’t know language training until you’ve had 4 hours a day, for 5 days straight of a language which has 16, yes 16, noun classes (in case you didn’t know, English has a grand total of 2).  So that was fun and I felt like I could kind of speak the language after that…until I went out in public and realized, nope, I still have no idea what anyone is saying or how to say anything meaningful besides “I’m a volunteer!”

Ah, such is life.  But then we started up model school.  And model school is 3 weeks of teaching students who are voluntarily coming to school during their summer break.  It gives us a chance to lesson plan and actually try to teach.  We’re teaching in teams of five, each one with a different name of an animal in Rwanda.  My group, Gorillas.  It’s been a good experience to get to practice teaching, seeing what sorts of things fail and what actually works.  Definitely better than just being thrown into the whole teaching game.  That’s been going on for 2 weeks and we just started our 3rd week (and final) week.  That’s model school in a nutshell.

5 Days until Christmas…there’s snow all over the USA and guess what…it “snowed” in Rwanda too!  Yes, that’s right.  Yesterday we went on a nice (but long) field trip to Nyungwe National Park which is a rainforest.  We got to go on a nice little hike of the rainforest, which was beautiful, and then it started raining.  Yeah, it started raining in the Rainforest…go figure. But, we saw monkeys and trees and it was really very enjoyable.  Pictures to come soon.

Next post: Care-Package wishlist.  Full of all sorts of goodies.  I expect to receive random, wonderful packages from many people!

10 Days til Xmas? Part I

There’s just something about it being in the 70/80s, sunny, random thunderstorms which makes it very weird to think that we are almost halfway through December.  And, even weirder to think about, we Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) get sworn in as real PCVs in less than a month.  Time has been flying by but it feels like we’re been here forever.

It’s taken me a while to update, I know, and many things have been going on.  All 68 of us went to our site visits for one week, we managed to make an American Thanksgiving in Rwanda and now it’s December and Christmas is next week.  Wow.

So to start off, let me tell about my site visit.  On November 15th, we all departed in small groups with our amazing LCFs as guides to show us where our sites for the next two years will be.  From Nyanza, my site is roughly 2.5 hours away by matatu, express bus and then a motorcycle taxi.  So first, we had to take a matatu bus (African taxibus…slash see how many people you can fit into the bus) to a stop called Kirengere.  From there we hopped onto an express bus (like a commuter bus in the states) and took that to the lovely small town of Buhanda.  And then from Buhanda I got to take a mototaxi, with my camping pack on my back, to my site about 20 minutes away scaling at least 5 Rwandan hills.  Let’s just say, it was quite the core workout.

My site is right on the edge of the Southern Province of Rwanda in the district of Ruhango, sector Kabagali.  I will be teaching at a day school, called Munanira School Complex, which is a little walk away from my home in the center of town, called Muremera (yes, Rwanda is a country of many tongue twisters).  As of right now, my town does not have electricity or running water.  However, electricity it set to come within one year…so we’ll see how that actually goes.  My house is right in the town center and is part of a duplex.  I live in 1/3 of the home while my host mama and her family live in the rest of the house.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures at this time, I thought it would be wise not to bring my camera with me to site visit.  I’ve got a nice, big and open sitting room which is painted bright yellow.  Then there’s my bedroom, painted bright blue with green trim and a nice big bed.  Awesome bonus.  Also inside the house I’ve got an indoor “shower” (another room to bucket bathe in).  Then, going out my backdoor there’s a cute little courtyard with some veggies and herbs growing in it.  I’m looking forward to trying my hand at making them grow and trying to grow some American plants.  Then there’s another building which has my kitchen (aka empty room to cook in), outside “shower” and the latrine.  My conclusion…after two years I will have amazing thighs. Think about it.

Munanira School Complex is a short walk up the hill from my house.  I’m kind of happy I don’t have an extremely long walk to school.  Currently, the school is under construction while the students are on vacation, so hopefully it will be done by January when school starts!  Similar to my house and town, my school does not have power either so things are limited to the daylight.  It’s a primary and lower secondary school for grades P1-P6 and S1-S2.  They will be adding S3 in during my second year of service.  I’m the first PCV (and muzungu) to be coming there…ever.  So my headmaster is ecstatic, the teachers seem happy to have me and the small children scream “UMUZUNGUUUUU!!!!!!!” from as soon as they can see my not-so-pale-anymore-but-still-not-dark skin.

For the 5 days that I visited, it was jammed full of walking around, meeting people, going to the closet towns nearby, going to the market, eating, sleeping and lots of pantomiming and trying to speak Kinyarwanda since my town doesn’t quite do the whole “Icyongereza” thing.  Iki bazo ariko (it’s a problem BUT) I’m learning slowly by slowly.  The good news is, I now know when are where 3 markets are during the week (so in theory I won’t starve) and I know the nearest place with electricity (Catholic church).  It’s the important things in life to try and survive in a country you know nothing about.  Then on Friday, it was up to me and me alone to manage getting back to Nyanza on public transport.  Luckily, a nice papa took me under his wing and made sure that I got back to my umudugudu (village) safe and sound.

And that was site visit, in a nutshell.  There’s really lots to tell, but I think it will be best to talk more about my site as I start living there and really becoming part of my community.

Thanksgiving

Yes, we managed it.  Turkey and all.  The menu contained:
-Turkey, cooked via charcoal pit
-Mashed potatoes (45 kilos)
-Mashed “sweet” potatoes (45 kilos). They’re sweet potatoes, but not the kind we know in US
-Stuffing
-“Cranberry Sauce” actually plum jam but we were creative
-Green Bean casserole with onion rings in a beer batter.
-Apple Crisp and Pineapple/Mango Crisp
-Cookies with frosting

It was an all day extravaganza, with PCTs broken up into teams to make the whole thing possible.  Potato peeling occurred the night before due to the fact we had 90 kilos of potatoes to peel, cut and cook.  And after much hard work, funny looks from our Rwandan cooks and digging up the turkeys a couple times to see if they were done our feast was finished and ready to eat!  It was a really fun night, full of cross-culture, lots of laughing and fun followed by a dance party to finish of the night.  We like to party, we like, we like to party.

Stay tuned for Part II…to include things happening from Thanksgiving to current events!

Mwaramutse!

Well, here I am.  To all of you who have been religiously checking this and being like “It’s been almost 3 weeks and she hasn’t updated anything yet!” please excuse my tardiness but understand I’m quite busy with Pre-Service Training (PST) and internet comes in 2 forms here in Rwanda: 1- Internet cafe, where privacy is severely not there. 2- USB modem, which one of my roommate’s has and we do communal time on.  However, even with the availability for internet, it’s not as fast as back in the States.  Think dial-up and that’s Rwanda on a good day!

That said, don’t get me wrong, I am loving this so far.  Here was our view during our first few days in Kigali (capital city):

Tell me that isn’t an awesome view?!  Rwanda is most certainly the land of a thousand hills (slash land of never ending hills).  Our first few days were spent in Kigali where we had to do lots of administrative things, started getting massive amounts of shots and let the in-country staff finish getting ready for our arrival at our training site in Nyanza.  We arrived in Kigali the evening of October 21st and stayed in a compound there until Saturday afternoon when we departed for our training site.

Nyanza is a beautiful little (and by little I mean 250,000 persons) city full of life.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures of Nyanza at this point in time.  It’s not very polite to take pictures of people without their permission and I don’t want to seem too much like a tourist since I’m here for two years.  Thus, the camera tends to stay locked away.  I’m sure as time goes on I’ll take it out more, but sorry, nothing right now.  When we arrived in Nyanza our group was split up into our Peace Corps Trainee (PCT) houses and I am in one of the smaller houses with only 4 trainees and 2 Language/Cross-Culture Facilitators (LCFs).  Our house name is Ibvyshimo, meaning Joy.  Very fitting since we all tend to be happy, upbeat and there’s always laughter happening for some reason.  Unfortunately we have no furniture except for our beds.  But we have an epic tile floor which is just screaming for dance/yoga parties.  Here’s where I (and roommate Caitlyn) will be spending our nights for the next 3 months: In case you’re wondering, I’ve got bottom.  And yes, those puke-yellow things are mosquito nets (YAY malaria!) and I choose to think of them as a “princess bed” instead of a deterrent for mosquitoes and other things.  For the first couple weeks, we had no pillows BUT today was our lucky day and everyone finally got pillows.  They are “Rwanda foam” which really means they form to your head after about 4 days and then never change.  But it’s a pillow, so it’s no problem.

Since it’s so difficult to really sum up everything that’s happening, what’s new (umm…everything) and what I’m doing I think I’ll just leave you all with some things which will hopefully entertain you:

1) It’s like we’re in Hollywood…but hilly.  So then, Hillywood.  We get stared at 24/7 with the calling “muzungu!” (white person!) all over the place.  And small children are like the paparazzi.  They come tearing out of nowhere screaming “muzungu, muzungu!” and then proceeding to either a) stop about 2 feet away from you and stare or b) grab/hug you anywhere.

2) When asked if it flooded in Rwanda during the heavy rains, our LCFs responded with “No, it does not flood…but sometimes the rivers get indigestion when it rains too much.”

3)”Yego” meaning “yes” is an acceptable response to just about any question or statement.

4) When riding a bike, muzungu’s get called “muzungu” at a rate of 1 call per minute per miles per hour.  Aka, the faster you go, the more you get yelled at.  And then they ask you if it’s a race.

5) Rules of the road?  Nope.  Haven’t seen a single speed limit sign, driving is an art of honking your horn and speeding around slower vehicles.

6) Bucket baths are awesome.  And yes, there is a competition to see who can use the smallest amount of water to wash themselves, including their hair.

Oh, and Kinyarwanda is the language we’re learning.  It’s a bantu language like Swahili (but not like Swahili) and is quite a challenge but we’ve got awesome LCFs to teach us the language and help us in preparing for going into our sites at the start of the new year.

Til next time!

**NOTE: So, I wrote this awhile ago and am now just uploading.  I’ll try to get one up on my site visit which happened last week soon!**

Ready, Set...Go?

8:15pm - Give up on finishing packing and run away to the ambulance barn to get an hour of doing nothing productive.  A huge win and much needed break from the day.

10:55pm- Finish packing carry-on (camping backpack) and take everything on a trial run.  I look like a pack mule...do not mess with me I will pummel you with my large backpack.

So here I am, all packed and ready to go.  Two mid-size bags to check, each 37lbs (yeah, I didn't max out the 80 lb. limit, no big deal) and one heavily packed camping backpack to carry on.  And here is what I've concluded from this extravaganza:
1) My mom is a packing guru...I have no idea how she did it and in so little time.  I could not have done it without her.

2) I am still in denial about leaving tomorrow.  This is not actually happening.  I'm not waking up in 5 hrs to take one of my last hot, running water showers and use a hair dryer and straightener for the last time.  Nope, it's all a dream, not really happening.

3) After lugging all this stuff around, I am going to be a small house.  Insanity workout, you ain't got nothing on Peace Corps luggage hauling.

And now, with those final thoughts, I'm off to continue watching my movie's download onto my computer (Hook, Heavyweight and Sweet Home Alabama....solid gold) and head off to bed to wake up in a few hours and embark on the adventure of a lifetime. Goodnight world!

T-4 days...

Everyone says it's important to have a blog.  Make sure you make a blog.  We want to follow your blog.  A blog will help you keep track of the next two years.  Yada, yada, yada.  So yes, I've made a blog and I will use it.  However, as a disclaimer to everyone out there who reads it...please remember these thoughts are my own and not those of the Peace Corps.