Has it already been three weeks since I arrived in Rwanda? Has it already been four weeks since I arrived in Calgary from Peru? Has it already been almost two months since beginning the Inca Trail? The time seems to have flown by but at the same time I feel like I have been living in Rwanda for a lifetime.
I completed my first week of work and with much success. Four days of school visits, one workshop, two partner teaching where I actually did get to do some teaching. I’ll admit that I really do miss being in the classroom. My absolute favourite moment of the week (and maybe I shared this already and if so, I’m sorry), was at a school where the children were not used to seeing mzungus. I went around to greet the students with the headmaster. As we walked in the room, they all stood up and, in unison, said “Good morning, headmaster!” Then he asked them to greet their guest. They weren’t sure what to say and one little girl, bravely said “Good morning, white people!” We laughed. Children are so honest.
Friday night, the local university, Unatek, was having its Miss Unatek 2009 competition. That’s right! A beauty pageant right here in Kibungo, Rwanda. Apparently there were awards and the whole evening was in support of gender equality. I don’t know about you, but when I think of gender equality, I usually think of beauty pageants. I think that our sex has come so far in the last 100 years. We have the vote, we have equal pay, we have property rights and we have the opportunity to waltz on a runway with a bikini that just wasn’t there for our great grandmothers. Thank goodness for gender equality!! We decided not to go because it was a real posh affair and we were all feeling pretty skuzzy. So, we went for beers instead at the local corner shop. They have a pub there…and a chicken coop. At least we think they did. We saw chickens being taken in a clucking and squawking like mad. Then it stopped. Then we smelled bar-b-que. Uh oh. I guess the chicken won’t be crossing the road anymore.
This morning I met another volunteer from Nyakarambi. It’s about a forty minutes by bus and she was here to do some banking and shopping. We went to the corner store and the workers were hungover and still cleaning up from the night before. We went back to Nyakarambi together because our other volunteer friend has been really sick. They thought she has malaria and was in the hospital overnight. Turns out it isn’t malaria, thankfully, but still a really bad infection of some sort. She also can’t move into her house because the place is overrun with bats. So she’s staying in Nyakarambi until that is sorted out and was told to take the week off work to recover from her illness. Overall, she has had a terrible start to her Rwandan experience. So I decided to go for a visit. When I got there, Dorothy realized she had water working in the back and so we filled up jerry cans and buckets. She has no running water inside, and no indoor bathroom like we do, so it was exciting. I had to laugh because only in Rwanda do you go to visit a friend and before you’re offered a cup of tea or drink, you’re running around filling jerry cans. We made a lovely lunch and then she began to receive visitors. Apparently, the neighbours frequently just walk right into her house and sit down! One of the groups were two teenage girls who were orphaned by the genocide and adopted by the neighbours. They came in because they were babysitting 6 month old twin girls. So we played with them for a while. At 4 I caught my bus because I’m not ready to ride the bus in the dark alone, yet. Nyakarambi is about 1 hour from the Tanzanian boarder and as we waited a convoy of long haul trucks barreled down the road passed us. Then a convoy of UN trucks and tanks, about 20 long haul trucks with the UN vehicles on the back, drove passed us. They were all out of Tanzania and followed by a truck of 6 Tanzanian military police. We speculated they were going to the Congo but weren’t sure. My bus came and eventually caught up with the convoy. The MPs would not let the bus driver pass. He stayed in the left lane the entire time. Our bus, and another, proceeded to spend the next hour trying to get passed him and just when our driver was about it, the MPs pulled infront again. I wasn’t so keen about playing road games with the Tanzanian army because, you know, they have guns and everything. At one stop I tried to buy some fruit out of the window and the driver began to drive away until the locals said “Something….something…mzungu…” until he stopped. I arrived home to a near flood in the bathroom. The water had been off most of the day and I think the tap was left on. Water EVERYWHERE! I had to laugh when, after I cleaned it up, realized that it did not bother me in the least to clean up the mess. At least we had water!
I made fresh yummy guacamole for supper and read for a while. Tina arrived back and Jason and a friend of his who is a guide in northern Rwanda came over for a marshmallow roast. We set up the fire pit in the back, whittled some sticks and roasted marshmallows under the stars. Well, there were no stars as it was cloudy. I learned that I was living with an actual circus performer too - Tina the Incredible Fire Breather! We were treated to fire breathing – at the expense of a tea towel, some flour and some kerosene. But what a show! We tried to convince Jason of the beauty of a roasted marshmallow and, as a Canadian, I felt I was an expert on the subject. A perfect marshmallow can be roasted three times. The first two times you slide the perfectly goldent skin off, plop it in your mouth and continue. We even tried to make smores with Mars bars and cookies. I described the variation of putting a bit of Baileys in your first layer but had to stop as a bottle of Baileys is about the cost of a week’s salary. I realized at some point that I hadn’t roasted a marshmallow in about 2 years and thought it was funny that I had to come all the way to Rwanda to do it.
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