For those of you who are interested.
Sunday, November 6, 2012
4:45 am. I wake up in pitch darkness. The call to prayer tells me I’m still in my
room at the Dayenu Hotel in Nyanza. It’s
the day after our COS dinner and going-away party. My bunkmate, Brittany, is still asleep, so
instead of showering I get up and look through the photos I took the previous
night.
Then I get out my laptop and look through photos from the last two
years. I expect to feel something, but all
I can think is how different we all look now.
8:00 am. Breakfast is comp’ed so I eat way too much toast. I spend an hour on the hotel balcony
uploading pictures to Facebook and watching rainclouds drift in over the undulating
green of Nyanza. I think about how
spectacularly beautiful Nyanza is and wonder if I’ll ever get to see it again.
2:00 pm. I say goodbye to some
of the other volunteers and head out into the rain with Jed, Shawn and
Nicole. We have a Rwandan buffet lunch
at Café Ideal for the last time. On my
way to the bus stop I say a quick goodbye to Jed’s host brothers from
training. They reply, “See you next
time.” I hate that people keep doing that.
They know there isn’t going to be a next time. Don’t they?
3:00 pm. I catch a bus to Kigali
with Shawn. We have an intense
conversation about how Peace Corps feels like a simulation of reality, maybe
because you can opt out of or into it like a game.
4:45 pm. I get into site. It’s dark and rainy. I dump the damp contents of my backpack onto
my bed. Since it’s too much effort to put things away, I crawl under the pile
and fall asleep.
9:00 pm. I wake up feeling cold.
I watch Money Ball on my netbook
and go back to bed.
Monday, November 5, 2012
5:30 am. I wake up to pouring
rain and think, “Nope, not yet.” Back to
sleep.
6:30 am. I wake up, imagine
saying goodbye to more people, and think, “Nope, not yet.” Back to sleep.
8:00 am. I wake up, see the time
and try to jump out of bed. Instead I get
tangled in my mosquito net and go crashing to the floor, taking the net and
probably a chunk of the ceiling with me.
Not an atypical start to my day.
9:00 am. Bucket-bathed and
breakfasted, I still don’t feel ready to go into school. There’s no telling what can happen in the
absence of scheduled classes. Instead, I
head out into the banana groves to visit a woman named Mukecuru. We sit in her mud-and-thatch house and talk,
mostly about my plans for the future.
She tells me I should stay in Rwanda, get a job and marry a Rwandan
man. I tell her that no Rwandan man
would accept me. She said, “Why not?
You’re a beautiful girl.”
My well-rehearsed response: “I expect my future husband to cook, clean
and take orders.” Mukecuru almost falls
over laughing.
She sends me off with a bag full of fresh chicken eggs and ample
blessings. At the road she tells me,
“You will have a wonderful journey home, and a wonderful life after. Goodbye.”
I think, thank God. She
understands.
11:00 am. I arrive at school with my students’ graded exams in hand. At the door to the teachers’ room, the dean
of studies, Clement, stops me short. He
says, “I need your other exams.” This week is second sitting, the week that
failing students can retake certain exams.
Never, not once in the last two years, have I been asked to write
anything for second sitting. I always assumed our school didn’t do one.
I say, “I don’t have any other exams.”
Clement: “Why?”
Me: “You never asked me to write any.”
Clement: “Mm.”
Me: “When do you need them by?”
Clement: “Now.”
After some negotiating he agrees to let me use his office while he goes
home for lunch. An hour later I lock up
for him. I leave him two exams, a
grading rubric for each and a thank-you note decorated with stickers. I’m not sure what I’m thanking him for, but
it seems like the right thing to do.
2:00 pm. I climb down into the
valley where Josias lives, slipping in the mud as I go. With me, a woven mat and an envelope full of
photographs. They’re parting gifts for my
adopted Rwandan grandfather, the best ones I could come up with. I wish I had more things he could actually
use, but such is life.
Josias’ wife greets me at the door and welcomes me into their living
room. Josias emergs a few minutes later
taking careful steps . Last week he was
trampled by one of his cattle and suffered a few broken ribs, but he seems to mending
well considering the gravity of his injuries and his relatively advanced age.
He asks, “Are you happy to go back to America?” I say, “Yes and no. I’ll miss you and everyone.” He says, “Yes,
but you’ll be with your parents and in your own country and that will be good. You’ll be happy. You’ll be very, very happy.” There are tears in his eyes.
Two hours later he follows me out to the road. It’s a custom in Rwanda for hosts to
accompany their guests. At the point
where the path gets steep and treacherous, I insist that he turn back. He embraces me – not a custom in Rwanda – and
says, in English, “Bye bye.”
I discover how much it hurts trying not to cry while climbing up a
steep hill.
5:30 pm. With nothing left to do
for the day, I resort to burning old exam papers in my imbabura. I also burn some worksheets from COS
Conference, a guide to Kinyarwanda noun classes, the remnants of a compromised
debit card, some photos I brought with me from college, copies of my passport,
and two pairs of old socks.
It feels therapeutic, though it’s probably just carcinogenic.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
5:30 am. I wake up, stumble out
of bed, lace up my trail runners and go for a lazy jog through the cornfields. When I get home I think about taking a bucket
bath but instead I fall back asleep on top of my covers.
8:00 am. BOOM. I sit up sharply, thinking for a minute that
the ceiling’s falling in. It always
sounds like that when a magpie lands on my tin roof.
9:00 am. While I’m heating up
water for coffee, Louise calls. She
tells me that her sister, Anna, is visiting and that I should come over to have
my hair done. Anna works in a salon in
Kigali. For weeks she’s been after me to
let her braid my hair “Rwandan style,” i.e. in cornrows. I acquiesce without much of a struggle.
12:00 pm. Anna finishes braiding
my hair. I look like a more stereotypical
Peace Corps volunteer. I like it for its
novelty, but I know I’m going to take it out as soon as I leave Gihara. Hopefully it won’t take the full three hours
to undo it all.
2:00 pm. It starts raining
again. I crawl back into bed with my
paperback copy of Moby Dick. I might even finish it before the week is
out.
9:00 pm. I make stir-fry and
watch a fascinating documentary on the secondhand clothing business in
Africa. I feel even more convinced that Peace
Corps service isn’t a self-contained experience, but a starting point for
something bigger. What exactly I’m not
sure, but it’s a good feeling.
10:30 pm. My mom calls. I ask her how the election is going, then
realize it’s still early afternoon on the West Coast. Results won’t be in until tomorrow my time. I sleep fitfully.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
5:30 am. I’ve put my alarm clock
on the other side of the room specifically so that I’ll have to get out of bed
to turn it off. Instead, I wait for it
to stop beeping and fall back asleep.
7:00 am. I wake up to Jean Paul yelling nonsense at Saverine across the
garden. I eat a banana and head into
school to see how second sitting went, only to discover that no one is there.
10:00 am. I’m hanging my laundry
out to dry when Baptiste runs up to me with his portable radio and tells me
that Obama won the election. The entire
health center is celebrating. I smile
and thank him, internally feeling unsettled that the American presidential
election is this important in Rwanda.
12:30 pm. I visit Mama Valentine and her daughter Fanny and give them
some photos I had printed in Kigali.
Unlike most families in the area, they have their own TV. The results of the American election are
playing on a Rwandan news station. They,
too, congratulate me on Obama’s victory.
“We like him because he’s African and because he wants to work with
other countries,” they tell me. Again,
I’m unsettled by the apparent importance of American presidential elections in Rwanda. I feel like telling them that Obama isn’t actually
African, but I decide to keep that fact to myself since they probably won’t
believe me anyway.
2:00 pm. I cook an omelet with
some of the eggs Mukecuru gave me. My
neighbor, Brigite, stops by to ask when I’m leaving. I tell her that she gets my imbabura when I
leave. I’ve already pawned off or given
away my furniture and most of my kitchen things.
5:30 pm. I give some of my
clothes to Ingabire, the convent housekeeper.
She thanks me and leaves. Five
minutes later she comes back and asks what else I’ve got. I die a little inside.
9:00 pm. Meredith calls to ask
if I’ll be going to Kigali in the morning.
I have my COS interview in Kigali and she has some errands to run, so we
make plans to travel together. I try to
sleep, but end up watching the second season of Arrested Development until midnight.
Thursday, November 9, 2012
5:30 am. I actually wake up to
my alarm and throw on my running clothes.
Halfway through my run, a thick fog settles over Gihara. I’m thankful for the concealment – no
children try to run after me – but by the time I’m home I’m freezing and
wet. The power is on so I use my kettle
to heat bathwater.
6:45 am. Meredith stops by to
find out when I’m leaving for Kigali.
She can’t call because signal is unattainable. Not an atypical problem at our site.
8:00 am. I wake up to Meredith
knocking on my door. I don’t remember
going back to bed.
9:00 am. Meredith and I part
ways at the Peace Corps office. My
interview isn’t until 11 am so I try to return my Peace Corps medkit at the med
office, only to discover I need the GSM to sign for it.
10:00 am. I’ve found the GSM,
but now I can’t locate my medkit. The
med office secretary has disappeared.
10:30 am. I discover that the med office is unlocked. I sneak into the secretary’s cubicle,
retrieve my medkit, take it to the GSM, get his signature on my property
checklist, and restore the medkit to the secretary’s cubicle. It took me an hour and a half to return one
article of Peace Corps property. I still
have to return my Peace Corps bicycle, trunk and water filter, close my bank
account, get the PCMO to sign off on my COS physical, and have about half a
dozen other papers signed by various PC administrators.
I begin to wonder if I’ll actually COS on schedule.
11 am. I have my interview with
Brian, our new PM, who’s standing in for Steve, our Country Director. Steve broke a tooth and had to leave the
country. Brian and I have a wonderful
getting-to-know-you conversation. He
then bids me a fond farewell and wishes me luck with the rest of my COS
process.
1 pm. Shawn and I get lunch at
Mr. Chips, a fast food restaurant run by a Canadian expat. I reflect on the fact that most Rwandan food
is at least as fattening as the burger and fries I’m eating but not nearly as
delicious. Suddenly I’m overwhelmingly
eager to get on a plane out of here.
2:30 pm. I close my bank
account. The whole process takes 45
minutes. I spend 5 of those minutes
actually closing my account, 40 of them trying to withdraw the funds I still
have with checks that are apparently expired and a national ID that confuses
the bank staff because it isn’t a passport.
3:30 pm. I use the free Wifi at
a café downtown to send some emails, check Facebook and research things to do
in Malaysia. Having done everything
productive I needed to do, I start looking up low-calorie recipes that I could
never make in Rwanda because the ingredients don’t exist here. The words “braised chicken” make me drool on
the table.
6:00 pm. Having returned to site, I brew some herbal tea and organize
my COS papers.
7:00 pm. Mom and Dad call. We talk for a really long time. Afterwards, I get the first good sleep I’ve
gotten all week.
Friday, November 9, 2012
5:30 am. I wake up but it’s
raining, so instead of running I do some sun salutations. Then I get back under the covers and revel in
the coziness of my little room. Suddenly
I’m preemptively homesick for Rwanda.
It’s weird.
9:00 am. It’s the last official
day of the school year. I go into school
where I expect to find teachers handing out report cards. Instead I find teachers frantically typing up
report cards.
The headmaster calls me into his office and I sit for half an hour
while he reprimands one of my students for fabricating a report card with fake
marks. He asks me if I have anything to
say to the student in question. I say in
Kinyarwanda, “If you’re going to cheat this skillfully, you should put marks
that we can believe.”
My headmaster is not amused.
10:00 am. Teachers are still
typing report cards. I read Moby Dick, then take a nap on a bench in
the teachers’ room.
11:00 am. It’s still raining and
teachers are still typing report cards.
I tell Damascene to call me when they’re done and head back home to make
some tea.
2:00 pm. I’ve returned to school
and waited another two hours for the last of the report cards to be signed and
printed. Finally, everyone goes down to
the meeting hall.
Once the teachers are seated, the director goes over the program for
meeting. He gives a list of talking
points that must be covered and explains that at the end of all of our official
business, I will be saying a brief goodbye as I’m returning to America
soon. Mistakenly thinking I’ve been
called upon to say something, I jump up and launch into my goodbye speech.
A minute later I note the
confused looks on everyone’s faces and realize I’ve made a fool of myself for
probably the ten thousandth time in Rwanda. I sit down and spend the next hour staring at
the floor and blushing furiously.
4:00 pm. Official business has
been concluded, drinks have been distributed and I still haven’t given my goodbye
speech. My director is already two beers
into the evening. Deciding to be bold, I
stand up, tap two bottles together, and announce that I’m going home to America
in a few days and that I would like to say goodbye. Then I launch into the same speech I’d begun
earlier, but with more emotion, confidently enunciating the Kinyarwanda I so
painstakingly prepared ahead of time. The words flow and the teachers get
misty. Their reaction emboldens me and I
stop following my notes. By the end I’m
crying a little, but so are the others. One by one, they stand up and thank me for my
service.
I think, “Thank God. I didn’t
blow it.”
5:00 pm. The last speech is
given by the director. He presents me
with an agaseke basket and urges me to take the good and the bad I have seen in
Rwanda and put them in it for safekeeping. He tells me that in Rwandan culture, a child
is named eight days after it enters society.
He says that while my initial eight days in Rwandan society are long
past, it isn’t too late to christen me with a Rwandan name. He gives me the name Umwari, which means a
girl who is educated, cultured and discreet.
I tell him that he couldn’t have given me a better gift – meaning the
name. He shoots a confused looked at the
agaseke basket, then shakes my hand.
The teachers commandeer my camera and spend the next half hour taking
pictures, mostly of each other walking up the stairs outside the meeting hall.
8:00 pm. I stop by my headmaster’s
house to drop off some photographs and say a final goodbye. I end up sharing a glass of urwagwa with his
wife and chatting with the two of them for several hours. He tells me that he feels privileged to have
worked with me. I feel a mix of
emotions. Mostly I wonder if he’s been
hyperbolic on purpose.
~ To Be Continued ~
