31 december 2009
"scared of lonely" - Beyonce, ironic that this would be the first song to come on my itunes this morning.
I've heard it said that if you sneak a new chicken into a coup at night, that the next day, the other chickens will wake up and just assume that the new hen had always been there, a part of their group.. thus avoiding the pecking order. Being that I arrived in the night, to Kagogo, we'll see if the same holds true for humans as it does chickens.
31 december 2009
this is no barbie dream house.
Arriving at my site last night, in the dark, after a 12 hour roadtrip across country, we approached Kagogo with much anticipation. Rumor has it there's a lake over there, and you can hardly see, but somewhere in the distance volcanos stand watch over the surrounding area - the only noticeable geography I hear you'll find if you try to googleearth this place.
Director Johnson met us at the road and brought us over the slippery grassy fields and muddy paths to my house.
"This is your house, all yours."
A house all to myself. Not too big, like the other 5 or 6 bed room homes my fellow volunteers were given earlier in the day. No, this is a 2 bedroom with an open livingroom/dining room area. The living room even has a wall that sits on an angle, not quite a square. Thank goodness. I've never been a fan of squares.
So I pick my bedroom, have a bed moved in and lay out some floor mats.
After dinner at my director's home where his children sat with big eyes, as if they'd seen a ghost (which was nearly true), or pretended to sleep on the couch, to avoid their father's encouragment to come introduce themselves to me, I came home, locked up and settled in for my first night alone in my first house as a young adult.
Alone, or so I thought.
I woke at 1:30 when my bladder alerted me it was time to go.
Back to bed.
At 3:30, the buzzing of mosquitos far too close to my head stirred me.
Then I noticed it, what is that? A radio?
Why is it so loud?
Yesterday my director explained that I'm actually living in a duplex. I share a wall with my neighbors.
Wait, what is that other noise??
A cell phone?
That doesn't sound like my ringtone, but it's so loud..
it must be my phone.
Oya.
Then it begins,
a conversation between my new neighbor - whom I have yet to meet face to face, but who apparantly likes to listen to the radio on full blast and hold uncomfortably long phone conversations (of which I can hear every word) at 4 in the morning.
Wonderful.
I get out of bed, thinking that maybe it would be better if I slept in the other bedroom, a bit farther from this shared wall. On my way through the dining room I see it.
An 8-legged beast.
All in all, maybe the size of a extra large golf ball with a body no smaller than a quarter. The biggest spider I have ever seen somewhere other than a glass jar or in an exibit, behind thick, thick glass at the zoo.
I will forever sleep under my mosquiot net, I promised myself then.
Oh, and there's his litlte friend.. or maybe teammate, in the group - scare Nicole outta this place.
I hurridly carried my bedding and pillows into the next bedroom, hung my mosquito net, and climbed in.
The distance helped to drown out the noise of my nocturnal neighbor and I slowly drifted into dreams of team spider creeping into my suitcase and bed and trunk and any other place where they'd give me a good scare.
Promptly at 6:30 this morning, after a night far too short - and far too interrupted! - for someone who has just spent 12 hours riding up and around mountains on a sorry excuse for roads, Mr. Rooster cock-a-doodle-doos right outside my window.
Has the sun risen?
Thank you for letting me know.
But he continues.
An alarm clock with no snooze.
So now it is 7:01am, December 31st, 2009.
Here I sit, under that same yellow mosquito net that kept me safe in Nyanza, afraid to get out of bed.
I hate spiders,
but I haven't taken a proper shower in too long - that is an understatement.
Turns out everything at my school runs on solar power, which can't handle an electric hot plate, looks like it's a good thing I bought that charcoal stove as well. I am just hoping that I will still be able to get away with using my electric tea kettle, I'd like to think that the days of cold bucket baths are far behind me.
Guess I should venture out, see the school, the lake, the volcanos.. all those things that made me excited to be here.. before I met my surprise roommates.
Here we go.
Sweede, who's got some major swager himself - and who worked as George Bush's driver during his 2008 visit, personally delivered 4 PCVs.
Points off in the distance, to any given mountain.
"you see that mountain?"
yes
"we go there"
nice house. too big. 6 rooms, 1 people?
too big!
"i think we're gonna need bigger boots"
save the best for last
I think this is their vacation
this is our life
26 december 2009
Today, seeing the sun peak through the clouds for the first time in days, I felt inspired. I was going to get out of bed, get out of the house, get out of this funk I've found myself in for the past few days. I put on the wrap dress I'd just picked up this morning at the tailor - only to later discover a few technical difficulties.. for instance when a breeze struck up or when I leaned over too far one way or another - regardless, I put on a foolproof, boy proof playlist, my prescription shades, my sturdy sandals and ventured out into the world of Kinyarwanda and moto taxies.
After penning most of a letter, and being surrounded by a group of children all wanting to know my name, where I was going, what I was doing (ect ect - imagine answering these questions, "what is your name" and "where are you going", for every single child you pass on the street - someone has got to teach these kids some more vocabulary... oh, that's what I'm here for..), I headed home, back to the safety of our little America. Much to my surprise, right out front of our house, on the side of the road, who did I find? None other than Santa himself.
And I don't mean Santa with the big ol'belly and the beard of white.. I mean Santa, my Christmas chicken. The one I'd been gifted the day before only to have him set free - not my doing, I can assure you of that. So guessing that maybe Santa wasn't meant to be someone's Christmas dinner after all, I got it in my mind to catch him and to once again make him a part of our little Peace Corps family.
Let me tell ya, a muzungu standing in the road, starring at a chicken for that long catches the attention of others. Next thing I knew I had a woman standing there, right behind me, watching me watching my chicken. I heard her say "inhoko" (chicken - I'm getting good at picking up on the few key words I know) in a sentence I imagine must have gone something along these lines "What the hell is this white girl doing standing here in the road starring at this chicken for??" Maybe that's what she was wondering, and to answer her question, I replied "ndashaka inhoko" (I want chicken). Then, being as bold as I am, I informed her "yitwa Santa" (his name is Santa). She went on to rattle off some more fancy things in Kinyarwanda - show off - and i decided that I wasn't about to chase a chicken around in front of a whole slew of people. So feeling slightly defeated but also slightly determined (thinking I could return home and gather up a chicken-catchin' team), I went home.
Later, Maggie, one of my housemates burst into my room. Flustered, she told me I'd better get out there (where?), that there was something I had to see. Thinking it was going to be another creepy baby doll picture from a magazine or something, I wasn't exactly in a rush. She lead me around to the back room where we have our water filters and told me to pull back the curtain covering the window. (Yeah right, I'm thinking. There's going to be one of those 5" long grasshoppers back there, I'm not pulling that curtain back, you gotta be kidding me).. but I do it anyway. With a scream invoked by both fear and surprise, who was it other than once again.. Santa himself, feathers and all.
I was so glad. Santa came home. A Christmas miracle!
I immediately went outside, scooped him up in my arms and took him out front to cuddle for a bit. Everyone was socked by Santa's calm demeanor. What can I say? I have a way with animals.
I set Santa down - gotta stretch those legs - and he wandered a bit in the yard but decided the social scene was more his thing. He flew up and perched himself on the front windowsill where he has been keeping guard of our house for the past 5 hours.
And you know what, I wouldn't be surprised to find Santa still there tomorrow morning.
Santa the Christmas chicken, a Christmas miracle.
25 december 2009
You know those mornings where your eyes open and the brightness of the risen sun sends a sharp pain through the nerves and axons of your brain? You can't even imagine the throbbing that may ensue if you so much as think about lifting your head from the pillow. Not to mention that sitting up would be like flipping a switch on a blender of your tummy - a tummy that is not for any reason happy with the decisions you made the night before. So, eyes closed and with as little movement and energy as possible, your fingers fumble around the bed sheets in search of your phone. Thank goodness for call history records because you're not sure how many international, extra-long distance phone calls you may have made, nor to whom they may have been.
Relief sets in to see the only new outgoing call is to your all-too-forgiving sister.
You make a decision then and there that you will never, for any reason, drink again.
But you will.
Drunk dialing America is a very expensive, bad habit.
Thankfully it only happens on rare occasions.. such as holidays where you can't justify your actions in any other way than just trying to cope with being away from your life, your family, your friends, your traditions, your language, your bed, your culture, your routine, your carpet-covered stairs, your hot, running-water shower, your Christmas - your home.
So then you deal with those consequences - the physical demands attention first - because it's your heart that is normally supposed to beat - not your head. You take some ibuprofen but discover that standing is the catalyst of nausea. You send yourself immediately back to bed and rely on the generosity of the giving season to invoke pity in your roommates enough for them to bring you water - and vitamin C powder drink mix. You close your eyes and doze in and out of consciousness, hoping that as the sun rises in the sky, you will eventually be able to enjoy the Christmas brunch that your friends have spent the morning making over charcoal fires and electric hot plates. You awake to the rich voice of good ol'Frank and other comforting, American deep-old-man voices singing warm Christmas wishes.
"I'll be home for Christmas,
if only in my dreams"
You find that if you lay perfectly still, your head and stomach give it a rest and then it's time for your heart to kick it up a notch. You are laying on your Rwanda foam mattress, half made with your Peace Corps-issued Mickey Mouse sheets. You stare up at your mosquito net and see that it has fallen once again and is now actually kissing your eyelashes rather than guarding them from a distance. You decide maybe you ought to apologize for the tearful phone call you must have made the night before so you ring up your other half and clarify some details..
"so I called you, right? What did I say? ... I'm sorry" and then it happens.
Even if for the past couple weeks you have tried to refuse permission to your mind - not allowing it to wander across the vast ocean to the snowy covered ground (or rain as is the case when Mother Nature confuses her seasons), to the tree that now takes up half of your living room, to the warm, freshly baked cookies that just came out of the oven after hours of preparation and laughs with loved ones, to the fact that this is the first Christmas you've ever spent without your family - the tales of a brother and sister staying up past two working on last minute present perfection for the parentals - the "We better go to bed or Santa won't come" - and it breaks. You can actually feel the cracking of your heart as it manifests itself in the form of tears streaming from your eyes. Your voice cracks too. "I miss you. I love you."
And you hang up.
And you kind of allow, for the first time in days, your heart to marinate in sadness. It saturates itself with so much pain that you have no escape other than into the realm of dreams - but even they deny you any remorse.
And so this persists well into the afternoon,
you try to leave your bed for the first time in hours to attend the Christmas brunch, but immediately find yourself bent over a bucket, spilling over the water you'd drank seeking refuge from the hangover that keeps on giving.
Fortunately that small purge of your stomach surprisingly does a little trick. Suddenly you are able to stand without feeling like your sea legs might give out and you manage to keep down a bit of cold leftovers. The grease of the hash-browns seems to help absorb some of the sickness, but you're still not quite convinced that your tummy is ready for a truce, so you make your way back to bed where your head once again cuddles the pillow - a pillow that feels betrayed for your 10 minute absence.
And you do this all day.
You lay in bed all day.
People file in and out of your house, thunder threatens a storm but fails to produce, you watch episode after episode of Sex and the City, wondering - where has this fabulous show been all your life - so many of your unasked questions answered - probably could have saved you be a bit of heartbreak had you had HBO growing up. Darkness sets in as you are once again on the phone with your family, this time in a sober state of mind, and you and your mother share a bit of surprise to hear that it doesn't quite feel like Christmas on all different corners of the World.
You hang up after broken voices do their best to hide their pain over the wire, "I love yous" and "Merry Christmases" manage to sneak through - and you do, you do love them so, so much. With every square inch of your being, you love them so much and you miss them more than you ever have before. You close your eyes but the tears still find passage, and the whole marinating process begins again.
Then, you have an idea. Those twinkly lights you bought in Kigali, wouldn't those be a nice touch? Maybe brighten your spirits a bit? So you gather them up and drape them from the top bunk of your bed. You go to plug in the power-cord and cross the room to the light-switch, which you flip to find yourself startled when a loud pop brings to your attention the fact that you have just blown a fuse (one you don't know how to remedy) and destroyed the lights that brought the comfort of home to your otherwise hurting heart.
So there you are,
resting your head (that has only started to feel better) on your overly-priced pillows
feet up, stretching the back of your legs, on the edge of the top bunk
computer in lap, the only source of light to be seen in the room
eyes reading the written form of words (that have just failed you the moment that you acknowledge their existence in your mind - or maybe more accurately your heart - prior to their life in readable print on the screen) that sometimes run but sometimes more accurately drag their heels, kicking and screaming, out of your fingertips
listening to sad music that gives way to the noise of the rain on the roof as the weather somehow knows exactly how to match the gray skies that occupy your soul these days
And you remember,
that even on what may seem like one of the loneliest days of your life,
your friends, your fellow volunteers - who are hurting just as much as you
still did the best that they could despite their own emotional state,
to make this a special Christmas.
They snook beautiful cards and notes under your mosquito net while you slept - so naively unaware of the pain to encompass your body the entire day - and they used friendship bracelet string to tie up a small parcel - a pair of earrings you'd pointed out last week in Kigali, and then they arrive, in a group of 4 holding in their extended hands a carmel-colored chicken, not quite a chick, not quite an egg-laying adult either, a chicken which you decide to call Santa - a chicken they had spent the night before chasing around in the field and road outside your house - a chicken that would later be set free - because after all, he was just a loose chicken, probably someone's delicious Christmas dinner that just up and walked away.
And you think to yourself,
you have toilet paper, you have clean-drinkable water, you have a roof as well as a handmade dream catcher over your head, you have seasons 1-6 of Sex and the City, you have friends and family at home - and around the world - who love and support you, you have dark chocolate kisses that arrived from grandmawh yesterday as well as a singing Christmas card from your other wonderful grandparents - and other than this horrible hangover, you have your health.
What more do you need?
And you wish everyone who cares enough to read your heart poured out over the web, and who takes the time to write you a proper letter or email, and who created a skype account just to keep in touch - you wish them all a very Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and many blessings in the days and years to come.
And then you think that maybe it's about time to get lost in another episode of Sex and the City again and that you're incredibly grateful for the box of Cheeze-Its that arrived last week and will have to do as your Christmas dinner tonight.
Merry Christmas, happy holidays.
22 december 2009
I've been 22 for 5 months now - silly, but it's something I notice the 22nd of every month. 5 months ago today I was exploring the beach at Reid State Park with my family. The drove thousands of miles to
Ironically I'm listening to a song called "home" by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros "home is wherever I am with you"
This is home.
I missed my friends while I was gone, losing myself in the cyber world, this afternoon. I made the familiar walk home. Put in my earphones, didn't feel like being friendly.
I am going to miss them so much.
13 december 2009
Last night Bethel and I were pretty excited about doing what any young American woman spends an average Saturday night in Rwanda doing - watching a movie curled up under a mosquito net (Nyanza doesn't exactly have the night life of a college town so it's pretty typical to be in bed by 10:30, even on a Saturday night - is this what growing up feels like?).
You know, I thought that there were two kinds of seasons here in Rwanda - rainy and dry, little did I know that there's a third (shoot - maybe a fourth, fifth - mango season, avocado season??) but this third one, it's not a juicy fruit or a ripe vegetable, this third one - it's a plague, and I mean the kind I remember hearing horror stories about in the bible - the kind where the sky goes black, a tidal wave of locust, but this Rwandan plague has a different color scheme. This one comes in leaf green and pale brown and each unit in its force is about 3 inches in length with a 5 inch wing span - this is no exaggeration!! These g.hops (as I have coined them) mean business as they set up camp in every inch of our home, seeking shelter from the awful crow-like birds that unlike seagulls - actually deserve the title of rats of the sky. These disgusting birds wake us up every morning, bouncing around on our tin roof. You'd think there were a cat and dog wrestling around up there with all the ruckus they make!
Well, this third season anyway, it sneaks up on you. We wake up to find the sun shinning, thinking it's like any other day but stepping out of the protection of our closed up bedroom fortress, instantly you know that that is not the case. The walls, the curtains, every edge of the door - making it impossible to close without a crunch - (which is something I just cannot bring myself to do!), is covered with these enormous grasshoppers! As we tip toe around them in fear that they might (and often do) use their spring-like secret weapon to attack. Yikes!
So Bethel and I were curled up on my bed, just starting "The Darjeeling Limited", when we heard it. We've come to pick up on this warning sound, our ears have tuned themselves to listen for the very clear brusling of wings against the walls as the clumsy critters fly carelessly around our room - which sometimes they manage to enter, heaven forbid we should leave our window open a moment to get some fresh air in here!
11 december 2009
"It'll change your life".
Before going to sleep last night, I took my Malaria meds - as I do every Thursday night - with the silly hope of spending a night lost in a particularly vivid state of dreams. Tonight fit the bill.
Just before awaking i was giving my friend Penny a MSU postcard. On it there was the MSU tower (MSC - Michigan State College), the one that sits in the football stadium parking lot, lingering in a sky filled with bright pinks and fading out to a blue clearer than that of the Mediterranean Sea. Colors so distinct and distinguished, painting the sky only to find themselves meeting a backdrop of a small cluster of mountains in the distance (Thank you, Rwanda. This is where we see how this country is finding ways to creep into my heart - Lord knows MSU is flatter than a 12 year old late bloomer). But as I held up this postcard to my friend Penny, originally from Colorado herself, her eyes light up as she found similarities between the new landscape and that of the one she calls home. Her hands let the postcard drop and there we were - wandering in a Michigan winter wonderland.. with the same sun-setting sky, a water-color pallet spilled out before us, and even the mountains found their way from Rwanda into the home of my dreams. On the ground there must have been a foot and a half of snow - but not the slippery kind that somehow seeps through your "waterproof" boots to soak up your socks and freeze your little tootsies, no it's the powdered sugar kind that on a windy day gives you the illusion of being trapped in a snow globe or on a calm day simply dusts the Earth she sits on. My dream, the best of all my worlds.
As we stand together, taking in the setting, Penny and I, with our eyes big and our hearts warm, I find that am reminiscing about this past summer.
"You've got to work at KP for one summer at least"
I tell her.
And then
my lips let out a whisper
"It'll change your life".
I awake.
Sometimes my consciousness - or lack thereof in this state of dreams - does that, it betrays me - letting the secrets of my mind, heart, and soul, pass out into the world of "real"ity.. waking my roommates who the next day laugh and tease me for once again talking in my sleep. This time it was me they awoke, but I am grateful for it because here I am typing, hoping to remember, now 3:32am... the result of a dream that has woken me with a bursting heart and a mind full of ideas.
I am sure you've all picked up on the references I've made to KP in my past emails and updates. What you may not know is what exactly KP is.
KP stands for Kingsley Pines - but those acronyms come with a punch.
The K isn't just Kingsley and the P isn't just pines.
Those two letters represent the most magical summer of my life.
KP is
- trees as tall as the eye can see
- fields of on going green
- a lake that in the same summer will chill you to the bone and warm you like a bath
- a white beach parking lot of boats in every size and shape
- a lodge that holds the nostalgia of that of a National Park, the smell of a wooden stove and that of an old library (together, but separate), and the heart of thousands who have passed through its doors
- imagination that literally matches (and often exceeds) that of Walt Disney or Dr. Susse
- baseball games that extend well into the dinner hour
- sunsets beyond even my most wild of dreams
- nights when every star in the sky is worth making a wish on
- the fullest of full moons, waltzing on the calm waves of Panther Pond
- enough friendship bracelets and string to tie a lasso around that moon and pull it down to Earth, just because you asked me to
- so much bad pop music that inspires the best of dance moves
- biffy walls that have heard more genuine laughs and tears than any cinema
- chocolate-filled chocolate chip cookies that melt not only in your mouth, but also in your hand
- musicals and reflections nights that give everyone the opportunity to safely unlock the door to their heart for all to see the beauty, the pain, the talent, the emotion and the wisdom inside
- children - of all corners of the world, who arrive with all of their languages, cultures and insecurities and who leave with a trunk full of memories, tie-dye, more bumps and bruises than a spilled bushel of apples but a confidence that will stand against any bully that the future may hold
- a staff - a collection of the most talented people you'll ever meet, also coming from all corners of the world, who arrive broke - like it's nobody's business - from living the life of a college student - throughout the summer though, some of us realized that we arrived at KP broke in other ways as well.
- broke in ways we hadn't even noticed before - in ways we couldn't notice before - because so many people in this world are, and go about their lives totally unaware of their own state of brokenness. Somehow, it slips through the cracks, literally, and seeps into our hearts where it is naturalized, where a state of brokenness becomes the norm.
Some of us, we arrived with little chips in our shoulder left by a society that tells us we're too big, too small, too fat, to slim, too slow, too hairy, too straight, too gay. We're too religious or too free. Too poor, too prude, too loose, too uneducated, we have too few friends, too many freckles, too this, too that. We showed up with hearts full of deep wounds, some were fresh, maybe left there by a recent love - someone we'd left behind to distance ourselves from over the summer with hopes of establishing that emotional space as well - while others were the results of hurt that had been caused by the own-worst-critic critiques of ourselves or those engrained in us by others over the years. Either way, we too arrived, with our duffles packed -too- full of their own unwanted baggage - or at least I did.
As time passed though, something happened.
I'm not sure if it was thanks to the entire month of June, but maybe all of that rain began to wash it away.
Or maybe like our clothes, those thick layers of insecurities, began to strip off. We found ourselves floating naked in a lake of the most beautiful, natural friendship - a friendship whose origins are unlike any of those in the outside world. At KP, one lives in nature, not just amongst the trees and the loons but amongst a group of people free to discover and be themselves. A group of individuals, such as myself, who had spent far too many years building up that thick skin but who found that their defenses could be left to fall by the way-side - for who needs protection in the safest place on Earth? And new callouses - the reflection of walking around barefoot, or of holding your canoe paddle - fun, physical activities - which should be the only reason for thick skin - started to grow in their place.
And so we too, at the end of the summer, we left with our luggage full of tie-dye and memories, bumps and bruises - but they were no longer inside, hiding from the world's eye, they covered our skin, from falling in a game of capture the flag, or from slipping on the dock at Nubble Pond, and our hearts, as we packed them up too, we found that they'd been renewed, they beat with more pep in their step than they'd ever seen before - and all of those cracks, they'd been stitched up with a thread of friendship - and self-love - a thread so strong that it too, would stand up against any bully that the future may hold.
And so I sat here in bed after waking from this dream, this dream about this place that "will change your life" and I reflect on the validity of that statement and on all of the other places and people I have encountered who have helped me to become the person I am today - and whose love and support will help me to become the person I aspire to be tomorrow.
And I find that I can't sleep because I am so excited.
I am so excited for the future
and determined to leave my mark here in Rwanda.
I want to start a library.
I will find a way to make it happen.
If you know you have a stack of old children's books somewhere tucked away in your basement, I invite you to dust them off and donate them to the children of Rwanda - children who've never even set foot in a library.
You know, we often have a tendency to romanticize the past and remember it as better than it actually was, but receiving 2 letters from KP friends yesterday (making that probably nearing a dozen or so in the 2 months that I've been in Rwanda), letters full of pictures that show the love words fail to describe, and the reminders of friendships so strong that they not only endure the difficulties of distance, but rather excel, they prove that this summer was not just a mess of memories that I am making out to be better than they truly were, but that this summer was really so spectacular and soul shaking that it is not only woven into my memories but into my heart and all of my being as well.
"friendship is the glue that binds us together here at Kingsley Pines"
---------------
Friday - just before noon.
All of my friends here don't understand why I felt the need to write for 2 hours between 3 and 5 am. They can't.
BUT
Today was like Christmas. Maybe this was another reason for my emotional excitement last night. We've received our placements!!
I will be going to live in Kagogo - "a small village or site" according to the map. It is just about as far north as one can go while still being in Rwanda. I have the Ugandan border just a skip to the North, Lake Burera to the South and East (hopefully only minutes from my home which I will receive more details about on Monday), and the Parc National des Birunga - the national park with all of the volcanos right to the East - maybe they'll be visible from my school. Who knows? The other national park with the gorillas isn't far at all either. I am so happy (as long as those volcanos don't become active!), but I had hopes of being placed in the North and near water and goodness, I bet it'll be beautiful. More good news is that two of my close friends here, Penny and Katy, are just on the other side of the lake - maybe within bike-riding distance. I can't wait to get my bike! I will be sure to give more details (will I have water, electricity, is the house furnished, ect?) as they arrive and next Thursday we will leave for Kigali. Friday we will have free time to go around and scope out prices for things we'll need to get to make our house a home, Saturday we'll be sworn in as official PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) and we'll return to Nyanza on Monday. Holy cow.
Peace Corps Volunteers. Peace Corps Rwanda. That's awesome.
Amahoro
Nicole Gaunt
US Peace Corps
PO Box: 5657
Kigali, Rwanda
6 december 2009
Nibeza Umunezero Nicole
Beautiful Happiness Nicole
Back under that mosquito net again. The power just went out - this hasn't happened for a couple of weeks, at least not that I've noticed - but I'm grateful for the protection of the net as I know the light from my screen would draw in swarms of flying critters otherwise.
Bethel, another trainee, and I just got back from mama wanjye's home. [ah, the generator just kicked on] I saw my host family at church this morning. I got a later start today than my 6 o'clock wake-up last weekend (my internal alarm goes off around 6:15 every day, regardless of whether or not I'd like to sleep 'til noon...) so a few of us trainees went and found a few empty spots besides one of our LCFs, arriving just as mass was about to begin.
Mid-service my curiosity snook up on me and told me to take a look around. I felt slightly guilty for not going to my host family's place to walk to church with them this morning and I wanted to see if they'd shown up or not. Right over my shoulder, just a couple of pews back there were 3 handsome little boys. Aligned tallest to shortest, they were all dressed in crisp, white button down shirts and black slacks. Each looking like a larger or smaller version of the others, a smile light up my face as I recognized these little gentlemen; my brothers - Robert, 9 - Gibert, 7 and Moise, 5. I was so proud, Robert and I made eye contact and he returned my smile. (You know, I have to wonder what these 3 young boys think of me, of the entire situation. Who on Earth is this white girl who has shown up out of nowhere, where is she from, what is she doing here and why does she come over for a couple hours every Sunday? I grew up in a family where it was common to host international students, but then again, it's not unusual to come across foreigners in the States. Here I am though, the only blonde in the crowd of hundreds, all gathered together as one under the steeple.)
I met up with mama and the boys once mass was over and Assinath, our LCF, helped to translate so that I could make plans to visit this afternoon. Mama wanjye had told me last weekend that she wanted to have a Kwita Izina, a naming ceremony, for me this Sunday - I thought that would be wonderful as long as she didn't decide to name me Kayitesi - spoiled girl, but honestly I was a little nervous as to what all a "naming ceremony" would entail. Assinath could not fill in the missing details saying that it all depended on the family.
We parted ways with only a rough outline - I would go to their house this afternoon, there would be a Kwita Izina. This is the same family, remember, who took me to the dance school to see a 20+ minute long recital when I expressed my wishes to learn traditional Rwandan dance - so I really didn't know what to expect.
Around 3 o'clock I decided it was probably about time to head over. I jokingly invited my friend and roommate, Bethel, to come along to my Kwita Izina - expecting her to say no, but she took me by surprise and said she'd actually really like to go. Since I was unsure as to how all the afternoon would unfold, I figured that I ought to call ahead and make sure it was alright for me to bring a friend:
"nshobora kuzana ninshuti yanjye mu rugo?"
"yego"
"awesome"
I packed up my bag, ipod & speakers (music is always a fun thing to share), digital camera (what if they dressed me up or something??), water bottle - always a good idea to have safe drinking water on ya, and we were on our way.
Arriving at mama wanjye's home, having come across her in town, we were greeted by the boys, Diane and a couple others I'd never met before. Diane was busy in the kitchen cooking with the help of the others who appeared to be of about the same age. [Diane is 18 years old. From what I understand, Cecile adopted Diane, her brother's daughter, when he was killed in the 1994 genocide. Here, children are raised calling both their mother - as well as all of their aunts "Mama", and their father - as well as all of their uncles "Papa" because incase of the death of a parent (or parents - as is often the case thanks to HIV/AIDS), the children are not left abandoned, but rather they are warmly welcomed, adopted into an aunt or uncle's family. Family is very important here and is not limited only to birth parents and children, it includes neighbors, distant relatives and the elderly. Shoot, it's even flexible to the point that it incorporates our group of 30+ Americans. Let me tell ya, every time my host mother introduces me - a freckle faced/blue eyed American to others as "mwana wanjye" (my child), it nearly brings tears to my eyes, eyes that set me apart, eyes that spill all the secrets of my heart.] Bethel and I went inside where Robert and Tuyisenge (a 15 year old) joined us. Apparently there was still some cooking that needed to be done before the Kwita Izina, we passed the time fiddling through my ipod, trying to find songs to keep us entertained.
Bethel and I tried to teach Robert the "crank that" Soulja Boy dance but found that neither of us knew the steps beyond the first 20 seconds of the song. Apparently KP brought out the best of me because the impromptu "Thriller" I tried to do this afternoon couldn't even compare to the moves I busted this summer at camp .. so, the dancing was a flop, and one by one, children began to arrive. I taught them and we played a couple rounds of "telephone" - when a good dozen or so kids were present along with a woman mama introduced as her friend, it kinda hit me that this Kwita Izina was a big deal for them. It seemed like half the village was gathered there in the living-room.
Mama brought out a notebook and gave instructions in Kinyarwanda. Around the room, passing through all of the tiny hands, it began to travel. Bethel and I both guessed that she was having each child suggest a name for me, from which she would pick the one that suits me best. It was really adorable how much effort she put into keeping the open-faced page of the notepad out of my line of sight. It felt like when you know someone is putting in so much love and effort into making something extra special for you, and it's taking place at the kitchen table, which you are forced to walk by time and time again to get to the fridge, but you pretend to be distracted by some serious hunger pains or a good song on the radio, so distracted that you "don't even notice" what's going on there at the kitchen table, right before your eyes. I played along with their game, not that I would be able to understand anything written on the lines of their notebook page anyway.
Eventually Diane brought in bowls full of rice, potatoes, greens and the small, bitter eggplants covered in some kind of sauce. I knew she was busy cooking all afternoon, but I guess I didn't realize that that was actually for me. Sounds silly to say now, but I'd never had a meal at my host family's before, so this was a pleasant surprise. All of us adults got our own plates but the abanas were gathered into two circles, half a dozen or so in each, on a mat on the floor. A large platter of food was brought in for each circle. While we had forks, the kids were left to use their hands - making the meal one big messy adventure for them.
After the plates had been cleared away, cups of the most delicious-what must have been tea/coffee/milk & a whole lot of sweetness-blend were poured. The kids went out to play and then Mama announced it:
Nibeza Umunezero Nicole.
Beautiful Happiness Nicole
I couldn't imagine a better name. I felt so accepted, special, loved. Mama was very glad to see me so happy with my new name, Tuyisenge translated for me saying that she wished her husband could have been there for my Kwita Izina - he has been in the hospital since we arrived (and who knows how long before) here in Nyanza. He has some kind of neck problem, but none of us have the language skills to explain or understand.
I was curious as to what all of the children had suggested. Mama gave me the list, other ideas included:
nigena - god's plan
igiraheze - god did well
umukunzi - a friend
tuyishime - happy, thanks be to god
umurerwa - polite, very intelligent
umuheza - someone you go to for comfort
uwamahoro - peaceful
Talk about a boost to your self-esteem. The names, the words are wonderful - but I found that their actions, the fact that nearly 20 people gathered to celebrate a Kwita Izina for an American, that a delicious meal was prepared, that they presented me with a big, beautiful card full of kindness in both Kinyarwanda and English - man, that just speaks wonders for the goodness and generosity in their hearts.
I hope to find a way to print a couple of pictures of her family to give Mama wanjye, I think that would be a really special way to repay the warmth they have shown me.
It was a great day in my world here in Rwanda.
Amohoro.
2 december 2009
I wanna take the preconceived
out from under your feet
We could shake it off
instead we'll plant some seeds
We'll watch em' as they grow
and with each new beat
from your heart the roots grow deeper
The branches will they reach for what?
Nobody really knows
but underneath it all
there's this heart all alone.
- all at once, jack johnson
Remember that wooden roller-coaster of a ride through the national park I told you about a month or so ago? Well late this morning I got home from a site visit with another trainee to a couple volunteers who live in Mwezi, a village in the South West part of the country - over the mountains, through the jungle and around the potholes we go.
Could you imagine holding it while convinced that you're bladder is on the verge of bursting, for several HOURS while bouncing all around on the bus, just like a little kernel of corn, ready to pop at any moment. Oh dear, it was horrible. Not to mention that the bus was so crowded I sat with my backpack and purse on my lap, my water-bottle finding just the right spots to lay heavily on my tummy, adding that extra pressure - reminding me constantly just how bad I had to go.
I even tried to distract myself playing some tunes on my ipod but that did no good as I was seated right besides one of the speakers that was screaming Rwandan music into my thigh - for all the bus.. and surrounding villages.. to hear.
So after hours of holding it on the bus, it go to the breaking point. The bus paused momentarily to let a man out at a stop in some little bus-route drive through - truly, the buses stop along the main road at different points, and all stops offer a variety of small convince shops - all selling the same things for different prices (depending on the color of your skin and the size of your belly - big belly means you've got $$$), but not only that, any time the bus stops, it is quickly swarmed by young men holding heavy tubs full of baskets of fresh fruit - mangos, passion fruit, bananas, or water-bottles, small bottles of concentrated juice mix, yogurt, and then of course there's the occasional young man who will bring his blind grandfather up to you, not offering any goods but rather just asking the muzungu for cash. It's like Rwandan fast food - or the pit crew at those race tracks, only instead of gasoline or french fries.. you've got a basket full of fresh fruit at your disposal. What the heck? Only an American could come to Africa and get fat.. and it still boggles my mind as to how that happens.
Anyway, I'm about to burst, remember? So the bus comes to a complete stop (yeah right) and I'm on a mission. People fold up their chairs (because the rows in these buses are 4 across.. no isle space, unless one of the 4 chairs is folded up and over, creating some walking room) allowing me to make it to the front and once I get there, without thinking (because I'd already been contemplating which phrase to use "J'ai besoin de pisser".. or the less crude options..) blurted out "J'ai besoin de la toilette". Some young gentleman sitting in the front hopped up to my desperate cry for a restroom saying "je vais vous aider". And off we were.. quickly making our way from the bus into any establishment that would have any sort of toilet. (Toilet is a relative, loosely used term here..). So we end up walking through spaces between buildings, do people live here? work? who knows, who cares, they've gotta have a toilet! right?? He talks to a man who gives him a key and takes me to the latrine in the back. I unlock the door to the haphazard shack to find a hole in the ground - which is exactly what I've come to expect to find here - and I just feel so glad to have snatched a few napkins from my backpack. Not a huge fan of the drip-dry method. I'm sorry, this is kinda graphic, huh? Could be worse, trust me, I could go into detail about the odor of these outhouses..
Gosh, did I feel silly. Honestly, what came to mind as I walked back to the bus was not the relief that consumed my body, but rather the embarrassment I felt, remembering a similar - yet very, very different event - one time in elementary school when I had the bus driver wait outside my house as I had to run back inside to use the restroom, I felt bad for holding up the whole bus and slightly guilty about the fact that it is the whiteness of my skin that allows me to get away with such things here. [not just me, and not just bus incidents.. it cannot be denied that here muzungus - while getting harassed a lot more than is comfortable, are at the same time extended certain privileges or special treatment denied to the majority of the rest of the population - more attention, better service, ect ect].
Hours after our departure, "team dumb and dumber", Katy - my travel buddy and I called ourselves (she was only a fraction as nervous as I, heading out on this adventure - she found comfort and confidence in the fact that I speak French - ha!) our bus driver signaled that it was our stop.
"uuhhhh, I think he's talking to us".
"yeah? shoot, I guess we'd better get off the bus"
here goes nothin'
So, Katy and I get off the bus and sure enough, they'd been expecting us. A man quickly approached us saying that Alicia [we were meant to be visiting an Ally and Emily... "who's Alicia?" - but then again how many muzungus could there really be out here, in the boonies?] had called him the day before and arranged for motos to take us to their home in Mwezi.
Mwezi - a small, beautiful village tucked safely behind endless fields of tea and mountains of green, off the main road.. reachable only by moto-taxi.
It was a lot like what I imagine a biathlon could be..
Can you survive the 4 hour bus ride without getting sick?
If yes - then you may advance to the second branch of the race.
Strap up your helmet, climb onto the back of a dirt-bike and hold on for your life
as your driver texts with one hand, races the other driver with the other, and tells you in his broken English that he wants you to teach him - all while dogging huge grapefruit-sized stones scattered all over the path and trying to steer away from the deep, canyon-like crevices the rainy season has left weaving all sorts of trouble into the "road".
Ernest - was my driver's name.
And sure enough, he turned out to be true to it.
As I said over and over again "oh my gosh, oh my gosh" he asked first in Kinyarwanda, then realizing I didn't understand in French.. "tu as peur??" (you have fear??)
Uh, yes, Ernest. J'ai peur!
He reassured me in his Mufasa-like voice, "bad roads, good driver, no problem, we go buhoro buhoro (slowly slowly), no problem".
The tea fields to our left and the towering trees of the forest to the right, the wind on my face, I knew it was a long stretch from the truth of the situation, but like the potty break earlier, if I closed my eyes, I could relate it to something I'd felt before. This ride - with my eyes closed - reminded me a lot of the hours I'd spent on the back of a motorcycle, riding along with my dad, growing up. Those rides were always so special. Dad was in his zone, doing his thing, and even through I would get scared as the bike would follow the curve of the road, lowering us one way or another to the pavement as the forces of gravity, (torque?? - shoot.. just ask Mark, physics was never my thing - thank you for reminding me of that, by the way!), took over. But riding with Dad, even if I was nervous, I always had some (silly, naive - yet overwhelming) sense of security and confidence. I was untouchable. Safe because my Dad's a superhero.
I love you, Dad.
Of course the reality of the situation here with Ernest, good name - but was not exactly that of cruising on the back of a Harley or BMW. No, especially when one of the girls who'd gone to visit this pair of volunteers just a couple weeks before took a spill when her moto driver laid the bike down (granted it had been raining and this clay earth is incredibly "Caution - slippery when wet!") and covered her leg in road rash and bruises. So, I think I had reason for having fear. (J'avais raison d'avoir peur..).
Thank goodness we made it to Emily and Ally's place all in one piece - or two, I suppose if you count both Katy and I as one each. That doesn't mean I didn't slip in the mud when I had to cross a bridge before Ernest managed to both stuck and unstuck his moto in the mud as well. At least we made it.
By the way, when he asked, I told him I was 40 and had 10 children.
Sometimes this Kinyarwanda thing is kinda fun.
The next couple of days unfolded with many smiles, full tummies and hints of internal debate.
Their home - oh my goodness. Imagine, (why do they say this?? but -) a small slice of paradise. A brightly painted 4 bedroom home with a huge garden - overrun with weeds - but beautiful & fruitful none-the-less, complimented only by a backdrop of silhouetted trees atop the mountains, reaching their fingertip branches up to the sky. A back patio covered with a protective roof that allows you to stay outside and continue reading in dry comfort during the afternoon storms, holy cow. This peace of heaven, in the backyards of Rwanda - who knew?
We spent our time asking questions - questions questions questions. So many questions. I didn't even know I had so many questions until we were in the presence of current volunteers - and then they just spilled out of me as if some imaginary flood gates in my mind had broken open and out they poured, one right after another. "Where did you get this? How much was that? How do you do this? When can we do that?" Outrageous! But I am so thankful for their patience and explanations. We learned to cook [pizza, Indian - curry, we even baked - pots & dirt, that's an oven right there], we cleaned, we ate, we laughed, we danced, we had a fantastic time.
Not all was fun and games though. On Tuesday our hosts took us to the health center where they volunteer. There we blew past the "waiting room" - benches along a brick wall, outside, full of mothers and babies. Always so many mothers and babies. We took a tour of the center and in the "hospital/patient wing" (if you can call it that?) - there are no nurses, when patients need to stay the night for one thing or another, it is the responsibility of the family to come and cook and care for their sick loved ones - but in one of these rooms, full of beds, we came across a young woman, in her teens. In her arms she held an infant, no older than a couple days of worldly life in his veins, a beautiful baby with a wide, flat nose. The mother, held her baby, the volunteers were surprised to see that he'd been born, but assured her that he was beautiful. Young, so, so young - the mothers here.
When we left that part of the center and continued on our tour, one of the volunteers explained her surprise about seeing that the baby had been born there. "It's a special case.." she explained. This young woman, this young girl, had been raped by a police officer in the Congo. Not only did she obviously become pregnant and give birth to this monster's child, but she contracted HIV from him as well.
Man.
[I take a mental, physical, emotional pause as I type this].
What can you even say after hearing something like that?
The volunteers said that this new mother had recently fallen off the deep end.
I don't know if it'd be humanly possible not to.
This man stole her innocence, her youth, her life.
Who in their right mind wouldn't go crazy in response to something like that?
GD.
We passed the weighing station, where babies are hung in a swing-like scale to be measured and recorded, to then receive the proper dose of their immunizations. All of the mothers decked out in their wax print, openly breast-feeding their new-borns. That looks really rough; props to all those breast-feeding mothers out there. Does the babies good.
So, it was a really powerful experience visiting their health clinic. I found myself lost trying to imagine what it'd be like to go to work every day, to constantly be surrounded by HIV patients, women whose husbands sleep around and then refuse to use condoms (because after all, they're their wives.. "and married people don't need to use condoms"..), thus infecting the mothers of their children.. remember all of the orphans I saw at church last Sunday? Goodness. It's sick. I have to believe it would be emotionally draining to be in this environment on a daily basis. At the same time however, I believe that being a teacher will bring with it its own set of challenges - working with those young children who've grown up on their own, having lost their parents to this disease; a disease that continues to spread like flames on drought stricken fields with a strong wind from the west. Holy cow. I think it's safe to say we've all go our hands full here.
Another thing that has been on my mind a lot lately is the decision (I don't really make any of the decisions around here) to request to live either on my own or there has been talk about them needing a couple of female volunteers to live and work together at the same school. I've talked about it with one of the other trainees and we figured being that we're currently roomies now and have so much in common (including our guilty love for bad pop music), that we could offer to be site-mates. Visiting the two volunteers that live together this week, really opened my eyes to the pros and cons of both situations - living with someone vs. living alone.
I see that it'd be really nice and comforting to have a roommate, to have someone to always talk to, maybe it would be easier to make friends - to go out into the community together to meet people, to bounce lesson ideas off of one another, ect ect
At the same time though, I think if I had a roomie, I think it'd be a lot easier to just stay in that American comfort zone, I wouldn't be forced to make friends in my community, I wouldn't practice my Kinyarwanda or French as much because I wouldn't need to find other people to talk to.. I wouldn't be able to walk around my house naked all the time. :) Kidding, kinda.
I had my own room as an RA for the past two years, but I've never really lived on my own. I've always been surrounded by people, I don't know how to be alone (man, that's a bigger, more loaded truth than most can admit), and I kinda feel like I want to take on that challenge here. I feel like living alone at site would really allow me to get the most out of this experience, force me to truly get involved in my community. It wouldn't be the most comfortable option, but the good things in life are usually those that you've got to really work for, right?
I picked those Jack Johnson lyrics at the beginning there because I'm inspired.
I wanna take the preconceived out from underneath your feet
I want to shake things up.
I want to redefine and clarify my assumptions; cultural, professional, worldly, ect.
Instead we'll plant some seeds
we'll watch them grow
and with each new beat
from your heart the roots grow deeper
I want to plant some seeds - literally and figuratively.
I want to have a garden.
(please feel free to include seed packets in any letters you may send my way!)
I want to feel that pride my mom always does when her green-thumb produces a fruitful harvest.
I also want to plant seeds of confidence and hope in my students, particularly my female students.
I want to open their eyes to different notions of what it means to be a woman, to the different opportunities available out there, to the world outside of Rwanda, to the health education that may allow them to develop and pursue their dreams. (How realistic are these cheesy goals? We'll see.)
The branches will they reach for what?
Nobody really knows
but underneath it all
there's this heart all alone
This may be the most difficult of them all.
I want to learn to be self-sufficent.
I want to learn to rely on myself - for comfort, strength, courage..
I want to learn to be alone, to feel loneliness and to be okay with it.
I've never done that before so I have to imagine it will be very hard for me and I bet I'll look back on this some night when I'm at home, lonely, hurting and bored out of my mind and I will think I was such a fool. At least in this moment, constantly being surrounded by people and with my history of flowing from one relationship right into the next, I can say that learning to be alone is something I want for myself. I'm sure it will prove to be much easier said than done.
So who knows?
Hopefully we will be told about our placements early next week,
I picked up my dress for swear-in at the tailor yesterday.
I think it's really beautiful, hopefully I'll pass my language tests and have the opportunity to actually wear it on December 18th when we are to be sworn-in as Peace Corps Volunteers in Kigali.
Man, I can't wait.
Cheers.
