It’s tough being a VIP all the time

Okay, so last I left you was kind of a while ago… I’ve been busy though and busy is good! I’ve made some weekend trips, which has helped with the monotony of village life.

One weekend, I went to visit three of my friends who live about an hour north of me. On my way there, I got caught in torrential downpour on the back of a moto. The moto driver had us duck under the awning of a shop to wait out the rain and when we had a five- minute window, hopped back on the moto and went to find another shop. This process took maybe two hours when it should have been 45 minutes. Quite frankly, getting caught, straddling a moto with a driver unfamiliar to you just is not as romantic as it sounds. And with the pouring rain and lack of a rain jacket (you’d think I’d carry mine around during Rwanda’s rainy season…) it was not the most pleasant experience in the world. BUT I FINALLY MADE IT!! My friends and I attempted to make a keesh using a charcoal stove, which was rather unsuccessful, but still tasted good. AND WE GOT TO EAT HOMEMADE BROWNIES. I think you will begin to notice as readers how much good food can make a volunteer happy!

The next night, we were feeling rather ambitious and decided to cook a seven- course meal. Yeah, we probably should have stuck with one or two… Disclaimer: the food tasted slightly better than it appears in the pictures below, but only slightly! I also was fortunate enough to get caught in another storm this day only this time I was with my friends and it was HAILING. Welcome to rainy season here- yikes!!

This is our waiting out the storm in a barber shop selfie

My weeks have kind of been a blur. I’ve been working hard to try and finish my CNA, which I’d be happy to post if any of you would like to read it! J It’s going on 16 pages at the moment and I’m still not done… Mom, I’m sorry in advance! BUT it is interesting to take a look at the data I have collected thus far.

Another weekend trip I made was to my Eastern Regional meeting down in the southeastern part of Rwanda. (My mom likes to refer to the region of Rwanda I am in as the Big East, which if anyone of you know me I am a HUGE UCONN Huskies basketball fan so I find this nickname fitting!) So I met up with maybe 20+ volunteers for our meeting, which included PULLED PORK and BANANA WINE!! The banana beer and the banana wine you can find here is definitely worth a try!! While the wine tends to taste more like drinking vinegar, do it for the experience, right? (PS fam, you’re working on sending that fireball, right?!)

At the meeting, we discussed a camp that we will be holding soon. It’s called B.E. for Boys Excel and it will be a weeklong camp filled with activities and sessions on leadership, career planning, decision- making skills, and to live healthy lives. This camp will just be for boys, but will have another one for girls called G.L.O.W., Girls Leading our World, in the spring. I’m pumped to be a group leader for this upcoming camp! All the group leaders were instructed to pick a leader to represent their team, so Shabazz Napier will be representing mine! Sorry Dad, it would have been you, but there were certain qualifications the heroes needed to have, but your olive skin didn’t quite cut it… I’m also teaching a session on physical, mental, and social health, which should be really fun! Drawing upon my icebreakers learned from being an orientation leader and my days substitute teaching to help me with this! I’ll be teaching the lesson with another girl and we’ll have a translator THANKFULLY!

It is really fun for me to see fellow volunteers’ sites! When I was in the southeast, I got up before everyone and went on a morning run. Now THAT is the way to see a place! It was just before the whole village was awake and I was able to explore the area and catch sunrise at the same time! LOVE!!

The NEXT weekend I had a meeting in the capital, Kigali for STOMP. I recently became a part of a group here in Rwanda called STOMP Out Malaria. It is a program that works on education, prevention, and awareness for Malaria. I’m so excited to be on this committee and will work as a representative in the east to help eradicate Malaria! We’re SO CLOSE!!! Oh, and by the way, my friend and I are working on the social media for STOMP, so if you have Twitter, Instagram, and/ or Facebook look for us! (or accept us when I request you!)

This was just last weekend by the way, I know my timeline and dates are a little vague. There were also other committees meeting this weekend, so it was a great opportunity to see some of my friends! We have been issued an eight-week challenge to stay at our sites as new volunteers and this weekend in Kigali marked the end of that challenge! Now we’re free more or less to spend our weekends where we like!

Okay, so some highlights from Kigali:

• I got a massage with two of my friends! IT WAS WONDERFUL…
• While waiting for a bus to get back to the Peace Corps headquarters, some woman came up to me, bit my arm and told me that I was beautiful…. How do you even respond to that?!
• I WATCHED A REAL, LIVE STREAM FOOTBALL GAME!! It was the best thing ever. Some of the kids in my fantasy football league and I stayed in Kigali Sunday night to stream the game. We went to Rwanda’s version of Chipotle, had burritos and felt like true Americans switching between games.
• ALSO, prior to the football we went to see Gone Girl!! I was SIKED because I had read the book a while back and couldn’t believe it was playing in Kigali! We even had popcorn too! At one point during the movie, however, there were flood lights that started going on and off… only in Rwanda!
• Okay, guess I got a little ahead of myself because after the movie and before football, it started to DOWNPOUR. Three of my friends and I hopped in a taxi to avoid the rain. Well what do you know, it starts raining INSIDE the car. Obviously, this would happen here. I mean though I was getting more soaked in the car from the leaks and the windows that didn’t go down than I would have been outside! Oh, and to make the ride just that more amusing we got into an accident… Now when I told my family this I couldn’t stop laughing! We were going down a hill in our taxi and keep in mind this is Rwanda and the state of the cars and all transportation is questionable to say the least, so this guy’s brakes weren’t that great. We went sliding into the car in front of us so our car was literally underneath it lifting it up a ways. I burst out laughing at the time from the back seat as my friend in the front just looked around in confusion. The driver got out of the car, went to talk to the car we hit, came back and said, “No problem.” This incident I feel like epitomizes the transportation mentality in Rwanda!! I couldn’t stop laughing the whole night! The whole thing was just too casual!

FOOTBALL AND BURRITOS!! ❤

Definitely love having meetings and the excuse to get away for the weekend! This last one in particular was amazing!! Since it was Columbus Day Monday, I decided to take the day off because I can do that here. Besides, we had watched football the night before and needed a travel day!

Traveling back to site, I was excited because my friend had just given me some seeds to plant in my garden! Now, I am not sure if I have posted pictures of my garden before, but it was here when I arrived at the end of August. There are many vegetables growing in it that include, onions, carrots, spinach, some sort of pepper, a tea plant, and some other greens. So, in my mind, I was going to see if there was any space to plant some of my own seeds, or if not, I was going to make my own, smaller version, close by. Well, one of my coworkers caught wind of my plans to plant some of my own seeds and showed up to my house the other day with a hoe in hand. He starts TEARING up two existing plots in the garden, while I look on in horror. I try to explain to him that I didn’t need much room and was willing to plant them elsewhere, but it was too late… Before and after pictures below.

I just really hope the rest of my coworkers don’t KILL me for the destruction of some perfectly good carrots, onions, peppers, and greens… To be honest though, that garden will be better off with some cilantro, jalapenos, basil, watermelons, and radishes!

I think they’ve forgiven me though because my friend Odile invited me to a wedding! I was really excited to go because I knew a bunch of my co-workers were going as well! I had umuganda in the morning, Rwanda’s day of national community service, so had to make the usual rounds giving speeches. I was telling my dad this and I’m not sure the reasoning behind this, but I feel way more comfortable speaking in from of a crowd of a couple hundred people in a different language than I would in front of my peers in English! I was up there cracking jokes and telling my community members that fruits and vegetables aren’t going to kill them. What’s going to kill them is if they keep neglecting to eat them! I also try to give a message about using their mosquito nets, condoms, and just good health and hygiene in general. What cracks me up though is when my tutitlaire asks me to “deliver the message.” He makes me sounds like a prophet when in actuality, I am just saying the same things he says to the crowd, but it’s coming from an American…. Oh well, they make me feel special and needed. Actually, after this last speech, the whole crowd cheered and broke out into song and dance. I mean come on guys, I know I butchered at least half of that speech! I think people are just easily impressed with the little Kinyarwanda I know!

Alright so after umuganda, I raced home to get showered and presentable for the wedding. Since I was wearing a dress, taking a moto was just not going to happen, so my friend and I hitched a ride with the sector official in his pick-up truck. Naturally he had to transport prisoners, so a guard and all of the prisoners hopped into the bed of the truck… Nothing surprises me anymore in this country!

So we arrived at the dowry ceremony at about 1pm. Note to self: do NOT sit near the speakers if I value my hearing. The ceremony was filled with lots of dancing and singing and SPEECHES… These people really need to learn how to say what they want to in a LOT less words. The whole premise of the dowry ceremony though is to give the woman over to the man. It’s a lot of acting as the parents pretend to negotiate bride price, in terms of cows, or the future husband pretends to consider the bride’s other sisters. These guys should win an Oscar for there roundabout way of handing the bride over. They really leave you in suspense about what’s going to happen…. (sarcasm). This part of the ceremony could really be wrapped up in 20 minutes.

Okay, on to ceremony #2! This one was held at a church. Everyone sang and danced their way in only to sit for an hour and forty-five minutes listening to the priest speak… At least, I wasn’t the only one itching for him to finish! My coworker and I are both Catholic and we decided that there is no way guy would be allowed to talk for so long in our church! Also, side note: the bride had yet to smile this entire time… Apparently, she’s supposed to look miserable as her family’s handing her off, but on what one would think is the happiest day of her life, she looked like someone just died.

FINALLY, ceremony #3!! This one was held at a resort type place called Seeds of Peace. My coworker kept telling me that we were going to Seeds of Fanta and I was very confused why he kept messing the name up. It dawned on me when we arrived that it was indeed going to be a dry reception.. Oh, well… THERE WAS CAKE!! I forgot to mention this before, but there were four other white people at this wedding… Really stealing my thunder as the token white person at an event– how dare they! It didn’t matter though because I was quickly whisked onto the dance floor, with the spot light on me as I danced with the choir. Also, I was given food and cake first like some VIP. I only knew the groom because he gave me my Rwandan name, but you’d think I was there closest friend or some celebrity the way they sat me in certain places, took pictures of me (LOTS), and consistently dragged me to the dance floor to dance.

I am still kicking myself for not having my camera on me for this event! My phone had died from community service that morning and I didn’t feel comfortable taking my nice camera. The whole ceremony was absolutely beautiful! My favorite part was the reception because we all convened under a tent right along Lake Muhazi. The whole party was lit up by small Christmas lights and you could see the reflection of the lake from the lights. I know for a fact though that this will not be my last Rwandan wedding, so hold tight for pictures from my next one! (Side note: I got back home by 9:30 that evening… SUCH a long day!!)

Pictures before my phone died:

Fact of the day: face swapping and old booth apps are funny in any culture!