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!