Day Three

Greeting quota for the day: 1 million, no exaggeration. The problem with being the only white, American girl in town – you never know if you have something on your face because people stare regardless. I was convinced I had a toothpaste smear all around my mouth this morning. I am functioning with only the mirror from my bronzer. It’s so liberating not having mirrors around.

Goals for the day: already sent my three happy texts this morning to fellow PCVs to brighten their day. Attempt the market. Get Edison’s keys from Jeanne. Find the water. Curtain inquest.

Two awesome musical moments:
Caretaker of guesthouses’s ring tone is Jingle Bells. And on the ride to be moved in (or installed as Peace Corps likes to call it), a fantastic, orchestra version of Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror came on the radio. How perfect! It brought a smile to my face.

I just received the ultimate Rwandan gift – a radio. Boy do Rwandans love their radios, at high volumes, and if possible with the noise competing with an equally high TV volume (okay I’ll stop generalizing now). Claudia is in the giving mood today – petroleum jelly, a radio, bottled water, nails, a free tutoring session. I really lucked out with her as my counterpart. She’s part mom, part great coworker. She told a joke today about how the caretaker at the guesthouse cooks the same thing every day - and we laughed together. It was wonderful. She told me all the prices of the food I may being buying so people don’t try to take advantage of me being a foreigner and charge me extra. Plus I can tell she really likes her job and wants to help people. She explained a bunch of stuff to me this morning, getting so excited that I wanted to learn.

We are funded by USAID and PEPFAR. There are three large umbrella organizations – CARE International, CHF International and Catholic Relief Services. (Gotta love all the acronyms). We work under CHF. They then pick the Rwandan organizations that they want to work through – most of which PCVs are assigned to. Mine is EPR or Presbyterian Church of Rwanda. Another one is Caritas. For awhile, Caritas and EPR were both overseeing the OVCs or orphans/vulnerable children, in my district (similar to a county) along with 2 other Rwandan organizations. The program used to be called CHAMP. Now a new program is launching called HIGA UBEHO meaning Be Determined and Live – trying to get away from a vision of handouts and free money. This year my district’s OVCs are handled by only Caritas and EPR – making more work for my counterpart and fellow PCV Jessica’s counterpart.

Top reasons I love this country at this very moment : its acceptable to pick your nose in public (aside from being gross, it’s just funny). Even after not washing my hair for 3 days, people still call me beautiful.

Met with the mental health staff today. Two minutes later I got to sit through an appointment. Confidentiality doesn’t really exist here. The mental health nurses mostly all went to a special school in Kigali. It takes 3 years to complete training. They see roughly 10 patients a day. Epilepsy is grouped with mental illness. Otherwise the most common diagnoses are PTSD, depression, schizophrenia. Same stigma as the US surrounds mental illness.

Met up with Jeanne today. She’s been really worried about me because she has keys to hand off to me and she thought I had no where to sleep in the meantime. She was quite shocked to hear I was already living in my house. Apparently the Director and herself were under the impression that I would live in the guesthouse for a month while I get my house set up. I guess it’s not such a big deal that I eat there all the time then. Since I never heard that housing plan before it didn’t play out like that. I’m actually glad I didn’t follow that plan. Living in my neighborhood and getting to know people has helped me feel more connected, secure and helped me practice my language skills. Just one more miscommunication to add to the pile. Oh well.

Making better friends with my female next-door neighbors. They are so sweet. Asked me what the problem was after my back door wasn’t working and I was trying to unlock it for five minutes. Loving them more and more. Before I can even get into my house after work they are calling to me saying I should visit them. They definitely watch out for me and are concerned about me feeding myself and getting water. Sweet and legitimate concerns but I’ll figure it out. First jerry can returned today looking brand new and filled with free water. The guy wouldn’t accept money. I feel bad since he is definitely in more dire straits than I am.

Which brings up the whole houseboy/house girl thing…
It is very common here to have a school age boy or girl to help you around the house. These children usually can’t afford to go to school so they work instead or if they are only working part time, they are earning their school fees. Some live in people’s homes with them if the job is more intensive. Others just stop by during the day to finish their tasks. We’ve had a few discussions amongst ourselves as volunteers as to whether it’s acceptable to have a houseboy or house girl. Some view what we do as taking a vow of poverty (those are my words, not theirs) so having house help like this places us above the population we are serving and trying to integrate into. Some other people see it is as giving someone in the community a job. Perhaps making them able to afford school or feed their family. On top of that many, many people in Rwanda have help. Of course the poorest of the poor do not but even some that you would assume cannot afford to pay someone, actually do. These people, usually adolescents, are paid very little but maybe it is a lot in this society’s range. A third good reason to have help is time and effort. Sure some Peace Corps volunteers talk about staring at walls out of boredom and starting strange hobbies (please note my tendency to daydream excessively already and my goals of starting a novel, possibly learning a musical instrument, voice lessons, a few million dollar ideas – keeping the dream alive, Stratton!) but these household tasks take a lot of time. And survival skills that we don’t all possess at a high caliber. Starting a charcoal stove is not easy! And washing all your clothes by hand takes a long time and a few layers if skin less later… As you can tell I fall into the second group of opinions. I will probably have someone do my laundry once a week and fetch my water – it’s not as close to my house as I once thought. I’m hoping electricity comes soon but if not I must figure out that kerosene stove.

I would also like to take this opportunity to plug Goodreads.com If you read a lot and are not a member – JOIN. It’s free. It helps you learn about new books to read or read your friends’ reviews of books. You can even win free books through their giveaways – I have. And you can do the book swap thing they started. For my own purposes I am using the To Be Read category as a way for people to know what books I’d like to be sent – if you are so inclined to mail me one. I am definitely missing public libraries the most – of course second to my family. Also, if anyone from Goodreads would like to hire me as a spokesperson I would gladly accept. So find me on Goodreads and friend me: my user name is my actual name.