First True Rwandan Week

It has only been a week and my fingers already feel uncomfortable on this keyboard. The last time I wrote, I was still in the developed world, but in the last week, I have gone from Belgium, to a hostel in Kigali, to a rural Rwandan home with no electricity or running water. I have filled out more papers and gotten more shots than I even care to count and jumped straight into a new language and a new life. That being said, the following entry is meant more to tell you what I have been doing than it is to tell you what I think or feel about it.

After arriving from Belgium, the Peace Corps volunteers went immediately to a Peace Corps hostIe in Kiglai where we spent the night and the following day getting the beginning of our vaccinations and taken care of and filling out papers. The very next day, we were packed in vans and dropped off at our new host families, which I have to admit was nothing less than intimidating. The only person at the house was my host-grandmother, Melanie, who speaks only Kinyrwanda and only speaks it very quickly. She welcomed me by speaking rapidly in Kinyarwanda while pulling me all over the house and then by cupping her breasts and laughing at the fact that I was wearing a bra. I was nervous, to say the least. Thankfully, there are three people in the house, including Fanny who is fairly good at English and only a little older than me, and Paciente, who is 6 and loves to teach me new words. “Ni byiza umucobwa,” that is what my host sister, Fanny, tells me on only my second night in her home. This means that I am a good woman and I am a good woman because I am helping her to dry off the dishes that she has already washed, outside and by hand, earlier that day. The fact that I know how to work at all is impressive to them because this is apparently not something that women in the United States need to do. In Rwanda, it is no small feat to get food on the table each day. My family can start cooking at 6:00 and still not have dinner on the table until 9:45, which means I am usually hungry for dinner. Of course, I can’t expect anything different since we have no electricity at the house so we cook over a fire in the dark. It takes a long time to do pretty much anything here. To get water, Fanny and I have to haul it from the watering hut back to the house, which we try to do at a run to minimize how long it is that we have to hold on to our jerry cans. This is added to by the fact that I have to bleach my water and filter it before it is deemed drinkable by the Peace Corps medical staff.

In grating contrast to the slow pace of the Rwandan lifestyle, my life as Peace Corps trainee is faster than anything I have ever experienced in the states. I get up at 5:45 every morning to run with some of the other volunteers, a time we try to savor because it attempts to let us feel like Americans. However, it is hard to feel like a normal American when you’re in Africa and everyone is staring at you or shouting “Muzungu” (a term which literally means “white person spinning in circles” after the first Belgian explorers in the DRC). It is also hard because my 45 minutes of daily independence are over the moment my run is. After that, it’s just a quick bucket shower and some bread with peanut butter and tea before I have a full day of language training, broken up only by lessons on the Rwandan school system and how to draw blood samples to test for malaria...or, a volunteer favorite, more shots. The moment my lessons are over, I go back to my home stay, where I will also find very little rest because I spend the night doing chores and learning new vocabulary until my family goes to bed and I study Kinyarwanda by lantern light.

Strangely, I wasn’t tired until today, when insomnia (induced by my anti-malarials, which also give me crazy dreams) woke me up at 5:05 in the morning. It’s hard to adjust, but the people that live here and the other volunteers are making it well worth the effort.

This barely begins to cover my life right now, but I think it is the best I can having only been here for a week. I will write next week with probably infinitely more insight.

All the best,
Catie

I Caved

Hey guys,

I finally decided that I actually DO think that my life is exciting to write about so I am starting a blog. I can't make any big updates right now, but this is where they will all be in the future couple of years I spend in Rwanda.

My first update, however, has nothing to do with Rwanda, but instead is about a little side trip that my Peace Corps group just took in Brussels (YES, WE ARE IN BELGIUM!) before beginning our 27 months together. We had some lengthy delays in NYC, which all ended up working out in our favor, making it possible to spend a day in Belgium eating waffles, drinking beer, and realizing how amazing it is going to be to work together for the next 27 months. This group is easily the easiest one I have ever tried to fit into and the energy among the volunteers is a huge comfort and inspiration to me. I know that these are the people I will need to lean on the most while I start to really experience Rwanda and the challenges of being a volunteer and so far away from home. I am so excited to be working with these people and also excited to be able to write home and share my experiences with my newest friends with some of my oldest.

SO MUCH LOVE!
Catie

P.S. Check out facebook if you want to experience some mad jealousy over DELICIOUS Belgian chocolate, waffles, and fried cheese balls.