Ndakomeza

Life continues as usual in Gihara. There are a ton of new students at St. Dominique which means a whole new batch of kids who need to be taught to call me “teacher” instead of “muzungu.” I spend most of my time at school. We’re rewriting the schedule of classes again at an indeterminate time this week, but until then I plan to keep teaching and running my English club. Soon we’ll be converting one of the old classrooms into a library and the dean has said I’ll be in charge of organizing the books. I’m extremely excited to start. I have big plans for an adapted library of congress system.

We’re in the short dry season now, so everything is dry heat and red dust. Fetching water has become tricky because parched honeybees gather in angry clusters around the water spigot. Sometimes when I get home from school I spend a few minutes lying on the cement floor of my kitchen to cool off.

Perhaps the biggest difference between this year and last year (besides the feeling of normalcy) is having another American with me at site. Meredith and I don’t see each other that often but even our brief and infrequent interactions make a difference. I don’t feel isolated anymore, which is both good and bad. It’s nice not to feel as alone as I did, but I now have appear sane not just to the villagers, but to another American. It’s a challenge.

In some ways I think my presence has had greater impact on her than hers has had on me. Everyone in Gihara knows who I am and they expect Meredith to be the same or similar. I imagine this had made some things easier - Meredith probably spends less time explaining why she has her own moto helmet and doesn’t give handouts - but it also means that people compare her to me. She’s already had to explain why she doesn’t speak as much Kinyarwanda as I do (I’ve been here a year) and that she is my colleague, not my younger sister (you’d think that would be a no-brainer since she’s tall, thin and Korean-American, but I guess not). I feel bad for denying her the clean slate I had when I arrived, but then again her situation is more typical within Peace Corps than mine was. Not many volunteers get to break in new sites.

This year will be all about finding a balance. A balance between projects outside of site and at site. A balance between social time and time alone. Between work and integration. Between worrying about the impact I’m having and allowing myself to relax. I’ll let you know how things play out.