It started out with a night bus from Kigali to Kampala—which sounds much more like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban than it actually was. Once we arrived and got settled we began to realize that Kampala is crazy, in a way that makes me really grateful for Kigali. Goats, chickens, cows, bicycles, cars, buses, motos (called boda-bodas in Uganda)–EVERYTHING was sharing the road. But we also got Thai food and everything was much, much cheaper, so I guess it evened out.

At our hostel we met up with our group (7 of us Rwanda PCVs altogether) and began mentally preparing for our upcoming brushes with death—bungee jumping and white water rafting on the Nile—in Jinja, a city a few hours away from Kampala. Below are some pictures of our adventures (my memory recalls these experiences with very little clarity, as I was chanting ‘holy crap’ in my head over and over again throughout them).

Our trip was brief (five days), so we headed back to Kampala that last night to relax and eat Chinese food, breathing a sigh of relief that we were all still alive and well. The next morning we caught a bus home to Kigali, just in time to start memorial week ceremonies. And…that’s about it! A special thanks to Risky Tom, Pinup Mama, Lost Lumberjack, Gander Mountain Gizmo, Slick Brownie, and Stripes Undercover (we PCV’s have a habit of coming up with crazy nicknames for each other) for an awesome trip.

Oh, and on a completely unrelated note: I have some things to beg for since this cat seems to be lasting. For those of you who might be planning to send a package sometime in the near future, I have some new wish items that Rajah (and I) would very much appreciate…especially since he decided to spend a night outside chasing rats and ended up with a bad case of fleas…

1. Flea collar/treatment
2. Cat treats
3. Lint roller
4. Regular cat collar (preferably sparkly)
5. Cheetos
6. Maple Syrup
7. Dried blueberries

A view of the jump…

Sitting in the ‘throne of fear’

Terrified wave

Our group: Hippie Pirate (yes, I AM wearing a swimsuit), Slick Brownie, Pinup Mama, Gander Mountain Gizmo, Stripes Undercover, Lost Lumberjack, and Risky Tom

On the Nile

And…an update photo of my kitten in the hopes that it will encourage someone to send flea meds…(not that I’m begging or anything)

I can’t in good conscience write about my privileged adventures in a neighboring country when this is such an important time for the place that I feel proud to call my home. This week, starting on April 7th, marks 19 years since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

You’ve perhaps heard the numbers—1 million people killed in the time span of 100 days—but if I had to choose one thing that’s changed me the most this past year and a half it has been having that number (1 million) change from just a number into people. People who were living in fear for over 3 months, people who were killed, people who survived. People I know.

So many here have lost their whole families, and seen and experienced things that no human being should ever have to see or experience. I’ve heard stories and wished they weren’t true, and I’ve been on buses where someone has a flashback, sending them back to a horrible time that they wish they could forget.

But those are ‘I’ statements.

It’s difficult to explain what it’s like here emotionally for a PCV during the month of April. On one hand we are outsiders; we can never truly know what it was like to be here during that time. But on the other hand, our job is to become a part of our community, to try to connect to people, understand them. We cannot possibly understand what it was like 19 years ago; to say that we can is disrespectful and untrue. But we each have people we love here, people who love us—and it’s painful to hear about what they went through. To realize that it must be a struggle every day for them. To wonder about the stories we don’t know, and be devastated by the stories we do. The more we integrate into our communities and lives here, the harder this time of remembering becomes.

I wanted to return from my trip in time to commemorate this time with my village because by now I’ve spent over a year creating relationships with people. I have sisters and brothers, and lots and lots of mamas. I have friends. And it seems right to want to spend this unique time with them. To see their pain, and their strength, and their perseverance. This time is not only meant to remember what was lost 19 years ago; it is a way for people to be ‘abanyarwanda’ (Rwandan) together. It is a way to recognize the power of peace, and the will to move forward. I am continually amazed by the graceful way in which the people in my village handle this difficult time. I am overwhelmed by their will to carry on, and to forgive, and to laugh. I am humbled by the way I am welcomed at each ceremony for commemoration.

I have never met a stronger group of people, and I am honored to call them my neighbors, my friends, my family. Never again, never forget.

The list so far is as follows: Binx (who I blogged about earlier), Emily Rose (who had rabies), Boo and Templeton (twins who were brought to me far too young), Toothless (my favorite, who was let loose by my landlady while I was at our in-service training away from site), Cat (who I found sitting on my couch one day—and who left as mysteriously as it came), and my newest kittens, Rags and Rajah.

At the beginning of the term I spread around my school that I would like a kitten (much like last year). This year, being a veteran of this sort of thing, I made sure to be extremely specific about what age the kitten should be and how many I wanted—ONE ONLY; I underlined this multiple times on the blackboard. I told all my students and coworkers that I would exchange American food for a kitten, and so everyone started promising me one. Students, coworkers, my neighbors, everyone— so I told them all that I would give the food to the first person to give me a cat, and I would turn away everybody else.

I would like to point out that this request was made almost a full year after all the other kittens I’ve had—and I really wanted an animal. In Peace Corps Rwanda we’re not allowed to have dogs, only cats. We might be allowed to keep frogs or pigs or chickens or goats…I haven’t looked into this. The rule against dogs is for a number of reasons, both cultural and logistical; as it is a small country we volunteers leave site pretty often, making it difficult to figure out what to do with a puppy while we’re gone. Cats are a little more self-sufficient, so they’re more practical. There’s also some leftover negative feeling surrounding dogs because of what happened during the genocide; some families in my village have them, but they’re almost always used for guarding purposes only. The idea of having a cat or dog as a ‘pet’ or ‘friend’ is something completely foreign.

Weeks after everyone and their mother (literally) pledged to get me a cat, I heard nothing. I wasn’t exactly dying for another cat; I’ve had far too many bad experiences surrounding them since I first arrived at site. So I forgot about my request. I figured hey, why continue to beg for one when I’ll be going to Uganda soon anyway?

But of course, about three weeks ago the flood of kittens started pouring in—first was one of my coworkers, who presented me with a kitten I named Ragamuffin (Rags). The cat was filthy, smelled awful, and had been wrapped up impossibly tight in a paper bag for a thirty-minute moto ride, which it did not seem happy about. I gave my fellow teacher a precious packet of gushers and some little toy skeletons I had lying around so that he can have some props for his biology classes. Satisfied that I had my cat, I said goodnight to the teacher and settled into taking care of little Rags. I emptied out a care package and duct-taped the bottom, filling it with dirt to make a crude Rwandan litter box. I went next door to buy some avocados and cleaned up my cat bowls (which had been gathering dust for about 10 months). I’ve gotten pretty used to having kittens, so I left it alone for the first day or so, setting out a bowl of food and a bowl of water in front of the wardrobe it was hiding under. It would only come out from under the wardrobe if I was lying completely still in my bed—any movement and it would scamper back to it’s hiding place. We lived as wary roommates for about two days or so and then I got a knock on the door. Further investigation revealed a group of three or four students, carrying a little bag of kitten. I turned them away, but felt bad so I gave them each a few Starburst in thank-you. After three identical visits, with a different group of students each time and a different kitten, I began to feel like kids were trick-or-treating at my house. Only they didn’t have costumes, and they were each carrying a terrified animal in their bags. I turned them all away, but one day I came home from school and heard two kittens crying instead of one—my students had stuffed one of the cats under my door and left. And that’s how I came to have both Rags AND Rajah.

The three of us lived in the same house for a week or so; the kittens played together each morning and gobbled up bowl upon bowl of food. Soon I realized that I would have to give one up; there was no way I could afford to pay for feeding TWO growing kittens. Rags was still terrified of me and would run to hide under the wardrobe if I made any sort of a movement—so one day I captured him (or her) in a stealth attack and brought it out to a field twenty-minutes away to set it free. After having seven kittens previously, each with it’s own unfortunate story, I didn’t feel too badly about it. Plus, I don’t even LIKE cats; so if one doesn’t happen to like me I don’t have any guilt about sending it away to fend for itself.

Since then, Rajah and I have become great friends. I learned that he hates thunderstorms, loves climbing up my jeans and shirt to curl up on my shoulder, and is especially fond of chewing up electrical cords and falling asleep on my keyboard.

The first big challenge is coming up when I go to Uganda; we’ll see if I have a cat when I get back. I’m leaving Raj in the care of my new compound-mates (I changed houses in November), and crossing my fingers. Although at this point, I’m pretty much expecting not to find him here in my house when I get back.

On another note:

High point of this week: Getting a package from a friend who is now an RPCV (those are the BEST because fellow volunteers know exactly what you want)–thanks, Caroline!

Low point: Saying goodbye to yet another volunteer from my training class. We’re now down to 22 out of our original 37. We’ll miss you, Gilly!

Some of the things written below are what I hear every day, and some of them are unique instances that made me laugh in the moment. Some are the titles of conversations that I’ve had at teacher’s meetings (lasting anywhere from ten minutes to two hours), and some are common phrases that happen because most of the time, I’m not speaking to a native English speaker (I feel that it is necessary to add that it would be a good idea for someone with fluent Kinyarwanda to write a blog entry about all the mistakes and amusing things that I say in Kinya—challenge?). Just yesterday I attended a church service, and had to have the sermon translated into my ‘special’ Kinyarwanda…not my finest moment. Anyways, enjoy:

“When I try to hear English, it is like I am a dog sitting on the ground scratching his ear”.–a coworker of mine, who acted out the dog as a clarification. I responded that it was the same for me when I try to understand Kinyarwanda.

“Book of faces”–another way to say Facebook. This is one I hear all. The. Time.

“Do you eat porridge or do you drink it?” –an hour-long staff meeting conversation.

“Can you give me chalks?” –most days in the staff room. It has become even more of a joke since I have corrected the mistake so many times.

“Do all Americans shave their heads?”–a question that I almost always answer with an emphatic ‘yes’.

“Why do Americans like to talk to animals?”

“Why don’t you want a salary?”

“In America, I know that everyone is rich.”–When I try to combat this statement, I am almost always told that ‘I lie’.

Well, that’s all that I can think of for the moment—I’ll post more when I think of them!

With that out of the way…

Being an American volunteer in Rwanda is strange. We try to live on the same level as our community members, and yet we hoard American stuff in our houses like Y2K is about to happen all over again. We tell people we don’t have any money, but really we’ve either spent it all on trips out of our sites or we’re saving up for a new phone. Sometimes if we know our electricity is going to be off for awhile (or if we don’t have electricity to begin with), we ration out our computer time so that we can watch as many T.V. episodes and play as many games of Spider Solitaire as possible.

Hoarding has actually been a major past time of mine lately; to the point where I’ve begun to feel a little uneasy about it. I hoard stuff from care packages, and letters, and all my notebooks from last year. Before our Peace Corps hostel closed down, I hoarded books and magazines, clothes, and decks of cards from volunteers who didn’t want them anymore. I even caught myself being upset when my water guy only filled up one of my jerrycans as opposed to filling up them both—the nerve!

It seems that although in some ways I’ve become much more Rwandan over the past 18 months, I’ve also become a lot more American in others. Which is odd, because one of the reasons why I joined up with Peace Corps in the first place was so I wouldn’t be so focused on material things anymore.

Too many times to count, I’ve told people here that I am not ‘umuzungu’. I am not rich, I am not foreign. And each time I say it these days, I feel more and more like a hypocrite, claiming to have no money while carrying around a very expensive REI backpack on my back. Claiming to be ‘Rwandan’ while I tell people over and over again that “I do not understand Kinyarwanda”. I AM foreign, and I DO have money, and that is something that (arguably) every Peace Corps volunteer eventually has to come to terms with.

No matter how many times we claim not to be the ‘other’, we are.

But with that in mind, there’s also something that sets us apart from all the other tourists and ex-pats. Something small, seemingly insignificant, and maybe fruitless. One little idea that saves a small shred of dignity for us even when we’ve just spent the last three hours agonizing over our last scoop of peanut butter.

That one little idea that is just two very little words: we try.

We try (and in my case, fail) to learn the local language. We try to adapt to the local culture and customs, and we try to really get to know our neighbors and coworkers. We try to cook Rwandan food and join choirs and start clubs and inspire kids. We try to change the world (a lofty goal), and most of the time, we fail. But it’s the trying that counts—the trying that makes Peace Corps such a weird-awesome-horrible-wonderful experience. It’s trying that makes all of our material problems (like the last jar of peanut butter) not quite so bad. We still have those 1st world problems, and I will probably continue to hoard until my close of service next December, but being a Peace Corps volunteer is all about balance. Balance between living ‘on the level’ and maintaining sanity. Balance between alone time and social time. Balance between the values that we grew up with and the values we’ve had to painstakingly learn over the course of our service—balance between our American lives and our Rwandan ones.

So while my house has more useless things in it than most of my neighbors’ houses, and while I shamelessly eat a whole entire bag of chocolate chips in two days flat, I can still have that little shred of dignity—that little voice that says “eh. You try.”

So.

The school year “started” on January 9th, but that doesn’t mean very much here in Rwanda. Saying that a school year is “starting” is like saying “you need to start showing up for class, but there is absolutely no guarantee that you will actually have students or that you will actually teach”. With that in mind, I had planned a whole lot of nothing for my first few weeks. I only had half of my students, because the government was still grading the final exams for one of my levels (those exams were graded last week—a month after the term “started”), and so I was sort-of teaching a grand total of six hours a week in January. I went in, had them ask questions about America and the Illuminati and Lady Gaga, and then I went home.

Now that I have all my students, things still aren’t all that organized. My schedule has changed three times, and I expect it to change again once my headmistress hires the last English teacher. My school spent a whole week dividing the newest students into classes, and school clubs still haven’t been set up yet even though we only have a month and a half left of this term.

I vaguely remember something similar happening last year—chaos, frustration, confusion—but this year there is a very important element that has changed: me. This year, I wasn’t upset when my schedule was changed without anyone telling me. I wasn’t upset when my students told me they’d been ordered to ‘cultivate the land’ during my teaching hours, and I wasn’t upset that I was the only English teacher for an entire month.

This year, I can relax. This year, I am Rwandan.

I go to school with no expectations each morning, and I do what people tell me to do (except when I don’t want to do something—in those frequent cases I’ve learned to repeat what I want over and over again until the person I’m talking to gives in…it’s similar to the ‘are not, are too’ game that kids often play). I stay at school during my breaks instead of running home to watch another episode of 30 Rock, and I have strange conversations with my coworkers about strange things, like buying cows in America and what it means to ‘rock the house’.

We’re trying, buhoro buhoro (slow by slow) to start clubs back up again at my school, and I’m hoping to teach both Journalism and Guitar on Sundays…but first we need guitars. And students who are interested in Journalism. My tentative plan so far is to lure my kids into media writing with a really great song or video clip and trap them into the club that way. So my goal for the next few days is to discover a really great song or video clip about Journalism—suggestions are welcome.

Next weekend I have my second judges class, which I hope to use as a way to motivate me into finally start studying for the GRE. We’ll see!

That’s about it for this update—I hope it earns me some Starburst. Or at the very least, a picture of some Starburst.

My good mood has lasted nearly a month (I’m really hoping not to jinx it with this entry), and with that in mind I decided that it was probably time to go back to work on that funny little word ‘integration’ and try to get to know my community a little bit more than I already do.

Last year, I went through some integration lulls where I sat around ‘doing nothing’. My version of ‘doing nothing’ involved watching piles of T.V. shows and movies, accidentally killing cats, and cooking obnoxious concoctions out of whatever ingredients happened to by lying around my house at the time. This year, I hope to change ‘doing nothing’ into things that actually involve being with other people, like hanging around unnecessarily at school or visiting my Rwandan little sisters, Divine and Eunice. So, while chanting ‘integration’ over and over again in my head, I set out to join a local choir, fully intending to make a fool of myself more than a few times over.

The choir meets every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 4:00,and it’s made up of both students and teachers who study and work at the university. Thanks to me, it’s now made up of foreigners, too.

All the songs that they (we) sing are in Kinyarwanda, and all of them are about God—my favorite subject lately, especially since just last week I admitted to being an on-again, off-again atheist to my students. The director is a friend of mine from last year, but everyone else involved is a stranger. So the first time I showed up they stared.

And stared.

And…stared some more.

I have to write all the lyrics down in a frumpy leftover notebook I have from last year, and each time I sing along I have to squint to read my own scrunched-up handwriting, stumbling unceremoniously over the unfamiliar words. I have no idea what the lyrics mean and I miss about half of them because my brain is divided between learning the melodies and singing the word for God instead of the word for sheep (imana vs. intama).

We’re supposed to have performances at church, but seeing as how I refuse to go to a seven hour service, I’ve released myself from that particular obligation. I am, however, banking on being a part of the music video shoot they have planned for later this year.

Thus far choir has been interesting, which is a word that can be used to describe pretty much all of my extra-curricular endeavors. It’s frustrating and wonderful and exhausting and exhilarating. I have to force myself to go every day but after I’m there I never regret it. Half the time I show up and we don’t have practice, and half the time they changed the time or room and forgot to tell me.

But the students and teachers are all so welcoming and willing to help out, and it’s kind of nice to have come across another little niche that I can occupy here in Gitwe. I have school, I have my old compound, I have my new compound, I have the bus guys and the shopkeepers, and, now, a choir.

That funny little word ‘integration’? Piece of cake.

Back in September I went to an orientation about teaching court staff at the Supreme Court of Rwanda. The project has interested me for awhile, mostly because whenever I hear the words ‘Supreme Court’ I think of Law and Order and doling out justice and big important trials held in big important rooms. Peace Corps Vols who signed up were agreeing to help out teaching English to judges, lawyers, etc. who work for the Supreme Court. Everyone who wanted to participate signed up for one weekend each month and a level.

My first weekend was a couple of weeks ago, and I taught level four, which is for the most advanced students. My fellow volunteers and I (four of us newcomers altogether), set off for the Supreme Court a little bit early to set up and get situated in our classrooms (which were really courtrooms with blackboards in them). We were all a bit nervous; in my case it was because I’ve never really had any teaching training outside of Peace Corps, and most of my students these days have trouble remembering what a verb is. Adults, especially ones with such impressive resumes, were a little intimidating compared with my usual students. So I stood in front of my class of twelve students that first day with more than a little trepidation, wondering if the lesson plan in front of me would actually work and hoping that my newly-shaved head wouldn’t stand in the way of gaining the wary respect of my new students.

My class trickled in little by little, the last students arriving about an hour into the three-hour lesson. Our introductions (which were supposed to take fifteen minutes) ended up being extended by nearly half an hour, during which I was able to explain how I’ve already finished university and why I recently decided to go bald. We went around the room, letting each person talk about their profession, their life experience, and why they wanted to learn English—what a relief to be with students who could talk about themselves in English for five whole minutes straight! In some cases their English was better than mine; before signing up for Level Four I was warned that you have to watch yourself around them because they so often trip you up on grammar. We held mock interviews, and a conversation about handling yourself in a job interview quickly turned into a heated debate about how to interview a witness. We went over on class time because I didn’t want the discussion to end—quite a change from my usual philosophy of ending exactly on time so that I can hurry home to eat. When I finally did end class, I shook each of their hands and they each said ‘thank you’–I can’t begin to explain how wonderful it was to get appreciation and genuine respect just for the simple act of speaking English.

My brief introduction to the Judges program hit me like GLOW camps hit me—it reminded me that we volunteers can actually do something useful every once and awhile. Who knew?

So, high on my recent brush with adult education, I came to a decision that may or may not decide what direction my life will head in the next ten years; I decided to see if I have what it takes to become a professor. Those of you who know me might make some quips about me being an ‘absent-minded professor’, which will probably end up being true if I really do choose to go after this hastily-chosen profession. Both ‘absent-minded’ and ‘professor’ are words that do tend to run in my family already (sorry, Dad).

Summary: I had an epiphany after teaching my first adult class in Rwanda. I came to the conclusion that seven more years of school might actually be worth it, and I might actually be the right person to sign up for it. New goal—earn a PhD before I’m thirty.

So thanks, Peace Corps, that stuff about finding yourself and growing and changing…that’s all actually kind of true.

But that came later; let’s start at the beginning.

Climbing aboard the plane in Kigali, I felt only relief. I had just had my infamous mid-service breakdown after some difficult months, and I was more than ready to recharge my mental batteries. Just the thought of the candy aisle at Target was enough to make the 20 hours of plane rides and layovers worth it, and once I got through customs in the U.S. things only seemed to get better. The relief I felt in those first few days and weeks was for physical comforts as well as emotional ones—microwaves and hot showers, friends and family, grocery stores—I fell back into my old life and self as easily as if I had never left. It was relaxing to be surrounded once again by people who could actually understand me, people who could understand the idea of personal space and eating in public. People who didn’t stare and call me umuzungu. People who understood my excitement over a thing as seemingly insignificant as Skittles Riddles.

The longer I stayed in America, however, the more uneasy I grew. Everything had picked up where I left off a year ago—nothing had changed. Why wasn’t there some tangible evidence that I had lived over a year in an East African country? Why wasn’t I more capable, self-sufficient, wise? A part of me had hoped the effects of Peace Corps would be both immediate and obvious, and it was more than a little disappointing to arrive home and realize that it was easier to revert back to who I was before I left than to try combining my two selves—the one in Africa and the one in America.

Now that I’m safely tucked into my Rwandan life again, it’s both comforting and off-putting to think about how everything will still be there when I go back to America. The microwaves, the hot showers, the friends, the family, the grocery stores; all of that will be there in a year. Right now I guess I just have to hold onto the things that I won’t have in a year—my coworkers, good weather, freedom, total immersion in another language (however obscure that language might be), and an endless supply of Fanta.

Sometimes it seems like I’m living as two people at once (I think it’s helpful to add that one of my biggest fears these days is that I will slowly-or quickly-go insane living in this house by myself). But I suppose the trick is to remember that I only have a limited time in Rwanda, and I can’t constantly be wondering how much better my life would be if I just had one more packet of Gushers. Everything will be there when I get back, so in the meantime I’ve just got to enjoy all the capability, self-sufficiency and wisdom I’ve picked up here . Who knows how long it will take to show up in the American me once I’m back in the states for good….

There’s not really anything spectacular to report—everything’s been relatively mellow for the past few weeks, mostly because I’ve been at site. I read 4 books in 6 days and got maybe a bit too involved in their plot lines; while reading The Bonesetter’s Daughter I tried to teach myself Chinese, which lasted until I realized that there’s not really a whole lot of practical use in Rwanda for Chinese. That plus the fact that Chinese is, from the look of it, just as difficult as Kinyarwanda had me saying ‘zai jian’-which apparently is the Mandarin word for goodbye.

Other than my fictional adventures, I’ve listened to my students give presentations in English and holler over one another about whether we listen to Rihanna or Sean Kingston afterward. I’ve made a list detailing what I’ll eat when I go back to America for Christmas (it is by no means complete, but a rough draft is below). I’ve taken walks around my village, lesson planned, cooked, and started getting very excited for my family’s visit to Rwanda in two weeks. I’m starting to write a grant that will hopefully allow my school to get guitars; next year I want to be able to teach my students and coworkers how to play (although I’m still kind of learning myself).

Things are very normal, in a very pleasant way. It’s hard to believe more than a year has passed since that terrifying first plane ride from Minneapolis to Philadelphia; but it has, and it feels pretty great to look back on a full year of teaching and know that it is complete.

One down, one to go…

Olive Garden salad and bread sticks
BACON
Cheese
Cheesecake
Salad (any kind)
Bagels
Nachos
Pad Thai
Enchiladas
Steak n’ Shake
Homemade cookies
Homemade pie
Pizza rolls
Pizza
Orange chicken
Sweet and sour chicken
Chicken fried rice
Egg rolls
Coffee heath bar crunch ice cream
Turkey sandwich