27 October 2009
I received my first snailmail letter today. It came over the river & through the woods from the wee island of Ireland, from my dear friend, Cono.
Oh my goodness, my teachers didn’t recognize me saying “Nicole is here, Nicole is back!! Turishmye!!” I was so, so happy, I couldn’t help but to have a silly grin on my face the entire time reading it.. and then rereading it. Thank you, Cono. Your letter was absolutely perfect.
Talk about a pick-me-up. I know other letters are on their way, this one was postmarked the 14th, but I suppose coming from Ireland it had a bit less water to cover than any coming from the States. Goodness though, that was wonderful.
Tonight I just wanted to comment on a couple of cultural things that I’ve noticed.
1. People don’t eat in public. here. and we have quickly realized why. If you walk down the street eating something, people expect you to share it with them.. or even more so, to simply just give it to them. Walking home from dinner the other day, snacking on a banana for desert, a kid looked at me, held out his hand and rather than the typical “give me money” that we get half a dozen times a day or so, he said “give me banana”. What the heck kid, there are banana trees all over the place here. Go get your own.
2. You know how in the States we like to put our earphones in, crank up the jams on the ipod and pretend like we’re the only one who exists on the road or sidewalk, wherever you happen to be? It’s like we float around from place to place just doing our own thing, in our own little worlds, complete isolation. Maybe this is the reason why so often in the States I could find myself in an incredibly crowded place (store, room, lecture hall, ect) and yet feel so alone. Well, that doesn’t happen here in Rwanda. Whereas in the States it’s awkward to make eye contact or share a friendly smile with a stranger you pass on the street (that creates suspicious thoughts: what’s on their mind?), here it’s awkward NOT to acknowledge others you pass on the street – and being that feet are a main mode of transportation here, there’s always a whole slew of people on the street.. all of them, if they’re not too busy picking their jaws up from the dusty road at the sight of a muzungu, are expecting some sort of friendly hello. It’s hilarious, there must be a whitey alarm (or maybe it’s just the national geographic man’s voice that I imagine narrates our every move) or something that warns people when we’re coming because there are some houses where literally, as soon as you step foot on the road in front of their place, the same kid comes out of nowhere, running out in his tattered second-hand clothes screaming “Bonjour!! Bonjour!!” at the top of his lungs.. and this kid isn’t right up by the road, no, he’s down the hill, running through the chickens, over the garden, parallel to the road, screaming until we pass out of his line of sight when he must return to wherever it was he came from, just waiting for us to pass his way again. There’s another home with a wooden fence that lines the road but the same kids spot us every time between the cracks and say “good morning!” as we pass by at 2pm on our way back to class for the afternoon. The whole “good morning” thing has been quite entertaining here. We always respond with “good afternoon” and it took two weeks, but the kids caught on because now they use the appropriate greeting rather than “good morning” post-lunch time.
3. Cell phone etiquette is another thing. You know how in the States a conversation may end with:
“okay, talk to you later”
“sounds good, see ya”
“bye”
“bye”
-or- (if we’re in 7th grade)
“you hang up”
“no.. You hang up”
“I’ll just wait til you hang up”
(giggles) “noooo….”
*and this goes on, eating into the family plan minutes for the month
Alright, well what I’m getting at is that us Americans, we like closure at the end of a conversation. Heck, if someone accidentally hangs up the phone before a proper closing statement has been adequately shared, it’s awkward and we call back to apologize for cutting the other person off. Well here, I noticed time and time again when I had one of our language teachers call my host mom to make plans that one second she’d be on the phone and then the next she’d have put the phone down and be telling me something.. all the while I am thinking “is my host mom still on the phone? Is she waiting for a reply right now? What’s going on?” There’d been no “goodbye” or “I’ll call you right back” (obviously I mean in Kinyarwanda – if they said and understood those other things in English, I’d be the one making the phone call myself)… but it took me a few days to realize that’s how people are on the phone here, they talk, say what they need to say, get the information they’re seeking and hang up. No mushy gushy stuff, no dilly addling, just straight to the point. Maybe this is because most everyone here has pay as you go phones and they don’t want to waste their credit with polite fluff. Who knows, but for me, goodness, I found that rude until I realized that it was a cultural norm.
4. Okay. How about the whole “muzungu” thing? Muzungu literally means “white man”. The other day at my host mom’s, her English-speaking neighbor was there, remember, I’ve mentioned this. Well anyway, I saw in my Kinyarwanda book that it listed both muzungu for white man and then another word for black man and I asked the neighbor if someone calls me “muzungu” if it would be rude for me to respond saying whatever the translation is for “black man”. He said no, “Nta kibazo” (no problem). I told him that I found it rude to be called muzungu, that it bothered me. He apologized immensely and then explained to my host mom that I didn’t like to be called it and he wanted to know how they should refer to me, if not by “white man” and I said “ndi umunyamerikakazi” meaning “I am an American”. I think they got a kick out of this, here’s a white girl saying “no, I am not a white person, I am an American!” (oh boy..) And then later when the neighbor and my host mom were walking me back to town from her house, of course all of the kids we pass on the way see me and yell “muzungu” and the poor neighbor, Lembert is his name, just kept apologizing to me but at the same time begged me not to be offended by it, as he explained “everyone here says it, it’s not meant to be offensive”. Maybe it’s just because in America you’d be asking for a good smack across the face if you went around getting peoples’ attention by hollerin’ the color of their skin at them, but is this whole diversity – political correctness, race is a taboo subject thing – an Americanism? Are we just offended by being called “muzungu” because we have grown up being socialized to ignore racial differences.. or at least to address them with appropriate sensitivity? I think that’s definitely it. We have grown up being taught to be “colorblind” through our social filter so we find it totally offensive when people point out the obvious. Yeah, I’m white. Goodness, what a concept.
5. Okay, so when we did our cultural taboo day a couple weeks ago, our language teachers pointed out that one thing us American’s do that they find odd is that we sit anywhere and everywhere. Between classes, for example, many of us enjoy sitting on the ground in the courtyard together to relax and catch up. I guess that people here find this habit odd… or for example, how I prefer to sit on the ground on the balcony at the internet café. Every single time the woman comes out with a chair and asks me to sit in it, but I’m sorry, I find it much more comfortable to type on my computer with it sitting on my legs as they’re extended in front of me.. rather than folded, sitting in some chair. But you know what I find odd is how walking into town, it’s not unusual to see some woman just sitting on the side of the road breastfeeding her infant, I have even seen a woman changing her baby’s diaper in the tall weeds on the side of the road as loads of people pass by. So, who are we to judge? We’re all a little weird.
6. Body odor probably deserves a whole post all to itself. I don’t even have the energy to go there tonight but I will say this. It’s bad. It’s really bad.
7. Oh my gosh!! And how could I forget this.. Okay, so PDA isn’t really acceptable here.. and homosexuality is punishable by law (real cool, huh? – you better pick up on my sarcasm there) but one thing I am not sure I will ever get used to is how men here walk around holding hands. Women do it too. There’s so much more same-sex affection expressed between friends, I suppose this is because it’s not allowed between the sexes, and we all need some TLC from time to time. I don’t mind one way or another who holds hands with who, it’s just funny because two men holding hands in the States would often imply a romantic relationship so that’s the mindset I have when I see men walking through town holding hands here, but if that were the real case, those fellas might find themselves in jail. Oh man, to each his (or her) own, huh?
Alright, that was our cross-cultural lesson for the day.
Hope you learned a thing or two.
Oh, also! So ya’ll in America probably have your costumes already picked out (or 3 for every day of the weekend..), but I think that some of the trainees are working on putting together a Halloween party for us here. I doubt Nyanza has ever seen Halloween before.. and they already think we look like goofs, can you imagine?!! This will be interesting.
Please ya’ll, make good choices, have fun, be safe.
I miss many of you terribly and wish that I could be there to go out with you this weekend.
“Sorry I can’t make it, I’m in Rwanda.”
Ha, how many people do you know who can say that?
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