Here in Rwanda

Here goes. I have already been struggling to absorb and be able to accurately describe what has happened to me in the last week. I moved to Rwanda to begin my service as a Peace Corps volunteer. I will be in training for 10 weeks before I can officially be inducted as a volunteer. So let me start at the beginning. I missed staging. Staging is a pre-service orientation and involves getting to know the other persons in your training group and learn basic Peace Corps policies. It is a 36 hour event that takes place in the US. Due to my passport issues, I was given one more day of vacation and was forced to skip staging and meet my group at their layover in Brussels. It all worked out for the best. I traveled to DC by myself to complete the staging paperwork and obtain my yellow fever shot solo. Although most people thought missing staging would create a more stressful departure but I have to admit it was bad. Flexibility is the name of the game. I was able to meet my country desk rep in DC who was incredibly helpful. I rode the metro, enjoyed the scenery, and ate Subway as my last American meal. This is nothing like the comfort of knowing the answer to every question they are about to ask: Italian Herb and Cheese, toasted, no cheese, cucumbers, tomato, pickles and cucumbers with sweet onion sauce.

Well now that my housemates have awakened I am distracted from my blog post. I live in one of the four houses the PC rents in my training town. It is the largest house. I live with 9 girls, 2 boys and 4 language teachers. It has the most beautiful view, definitely the best of all the houses. We are on a hill looking out over the valley. There are many hills in the distance. It is generally partly cloudy, the pretty, puffy clouds. Everyday is breathtaking here.

I’m going to attempt to explain the most simple everyday things so you all can get a sense of life here. Yes they wear the same clothes as us. The girls tend to wear more skirts than Americans and always at least to the knee. Jeans are common as are khakis, capris, etc. People on the whole are generally more dressed up than Americans. Linen pants, button down shirts, always well groomed. I’ve seen a ridiculous amount of women wearing fancy sandals or high heels on dirt roads. It’s hard to not look frumpy around this crowd.

I spend most of my time in class. I am learning Kinyarwanda in 10 short weeks. Challenging and frustrating but it's only week one.

Now let me describe the most important parts of life - the bathroom. We do have plumbing but water generally only works two hours a day. Mainly midnight to 2am because that's when the hydroelectric plants turns it on. We have two tanks of water in the backyard. Buckets are taken into the house for all purposes but drinking. It has to be filtered or boiled first, or both. There is a pit/latrine in the backyard for most bathroom purposes. There's nothing that bonds a group faster than discussing bathroom functions and figuring out the proper procedures here. Toilet paper can't go in the toilet. I feel that most things we've dealt with in the past week are Rwandans trying to Americanize things for us. Everything remains in this middle ground of it being nothing we are used to but also nothing they are used to - a cultural grey area. For example, our sink is lovely and we appreciate the fact that plumbing is there but water is rarely coming out of facet. So in the past week I have successfully gone to the bathroom in a hole and given myself a bucket bath. Hot water is a thing in my past. Thank goodness it is usually very warm here.

The town we live in for training is wonderful. Everyone is friendly. You are expected to say hello and how are you to everyone you walk past. We have gotten very good at our kinyarwanda greetings and they are always surprised we are speaking their language. Although most of the time they would like to practice their English with us. Immersion can be a struggle here because we all want to be great students in our second language.

We met with the mayor a couple nights ago and were welcomed to the community. It was wonderful. No celebration is complete without a Fanta so we all mingled and drank Fanta with the police chief, education administrators and mayor.

Sorry for the rambling. I will try and get out every detail. I'm just afraid this long post will take forever to load so I'm going to stop now and write more later.

Thanks for all the warm messages and emails. I appreciate all the support I can get!