What It's Like

Exams started on Tuesday.  No matter how hard I try, they always catch me off guard by a week.  The official start date for exams is October 27^th.  A Saturday.  I guess I should’ve known better.

It’s funny – I keep expecting things to be different because I’m leaving, but nothing changes.  Exams caught me off guard by a week, the proctoring schedule hasn’t been written yet even though we’re several days into it, and I keep getting stuck at school for things like recording exam grades and filling out report cards.  In a couple of weeks I’ll start getting rid of my household effects – cookware, furniture, things I don’t intend to take with me.  Then I’ll get on a moto taxi and leave.  It’ll be just like any other weekend trip to Kigali.  

Except that I won’t come back.

Last week I visited the training site to take a language assessment and meet some of the trainees.  Rather egotistically, I was anticipating all kinds of questions about service, but I guess that’s what Volunteer Assistant Trainers are for.  I only got asked one question.  They wanted to know what it feels like to be so close to finishing.

I said, “Exciting and scary.  Mostly scary.”

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m looking forward to going home and seeing all my friends and family again, not to mention all the hot showers I’ll take and all the cheese I’ll eat.  I swear I’m going to put cheese on everything for awhile after I get back.  It’s going to be fantastic. But the prospect of re-integration into American society still freaks me out.

For those of you back home reading this blog, I figure I should make a short list of things that intimidate me about America so you can help me out when I get back.  Or, you know, laugh preemptively at my strangeness.  Whichever.

Fear #1: Overprotective Mothers

In the United States, mothers freak out when their kids run out into traffic, stick metal objects into electrical sockets or wander away with total strangers.  Not so in Rwanda.  It’s not that Rwandan parents are indifferent to their children’s wellbeing – they just have different expectations.  In Rwanda, parenting is a communal thing.  If a kid runs out into the street, someone else will swoop in and rescue them from getting run over by a bicycle.  And if not – well, that kid won’t run out in the street again anytime soon, will he?  Getting hit by a bike hurts.

In my village, I’ve regularly gone on walks with other people’s kids, picking them and carrying them for miles before re-depositing them where I found them.  I’d like to believe that I won’t pull this stunt in America, but if I get arrested for kidnapping within a month of returning home, you guys will know why.

Fear #2: Not Being Special

Rwanda is a tiny country with a remarkable degree of ethnic, linguistic and cultural homogeneity.  I’m an oddity in the cities and a minor celebrity in my village.  The fact that I speak Kinyarwanda makes me even more so.  When I say things, people listen.  When I ask for things, I usually get them.  And I always get VIP treatment at weddings, ceremonies, baby showers and formal functions. 

I hope that my temporary and underserved celebrity status hasn’t made me a pain to be around.  There’s no telling until I get back home and try to function in my native culture, where I’m effectively a nobody.

Fear #3: Smart Phones

True fact: I have never accessed the internet from a phone before.  The last phone I used stateside had a plan for calls and texting and that was about it.  I don’t even know what a smart phone is, much less how to use one – all I know is that my friends back home miraculously have Facebook access everywhere they go.  I’m so intimidated by smart phones, I considered Googling “smart phone” to see if it’s two words or one.

I’m going to need some serious help in this department.

Fear #4: Being Fat and Getting Even Fatter

Contrary to popular belief, a lot of PCVs actually gain weight during service rather than losing it.  This is especially true in sub-Saharan Africa where the local diet consists of starchy roots and tubers cooked in excessive amounts of palm oil.  In Rwanda, a typical meal consists of three or four fried starches, a little bit of fried meat, and if you’re lucky, a small serving of veggies, also cooked in oil.  I exercise, I snack on fruit and I try my best to limit my portions despite everyone’s well-meaning attempts to overfeed me, and I’ve still managed to gain a shameful Peace Corps Fifteen.  I’m terrified that when I get off the plane, people will be like, “Seriously? You got fat in Africa? What did you do, eat your village?? Wow.”

Since I gained weight in Rwanda, I’d like to believe I’ll lose it automatically went I get home, but I’ve been deprived of American food for two years so that’s a feeble hope at best.  Like I said, I plan on putting cheese on everything.  If you guys want to get me a Christmas gift I’ll appreciate, maybe you should look into gym memberships and hire me a personal trainer.

Fear #5: American English

There are days when I swear I forget my own language.  It’s part of the reason I maintain a blog – to keep thinking in complete sentences.  Granted I do teach my classes in English, but it’s not the English I used to speak back home, it’s a weird hybrid of Rwandan-accented English, Kinyarwanda/Swahili words and French.  What can I say?  It’s the only “English” my community understands. 

Despite my best intentions, I just know I’m going to get home and say something awkward.  I have this recurring nightmare where I’m in a restaurant and instead of asking for the check, I say, “You will bring the facture, sawa?”

If I think of more of these, I’ll keep posting them.  Trainees beware – two years from now, this is what you’re in for. 

Mwaramutse, Rwanda

I wake up and find that I’m still in Rwanda.

There’s always a period of mild culture shock following conferences.  The week and a half following COS conference has been no exception.  When all fifty of us get together, we’re like our own little version of reality, our own self-contained culture.  We retell the bizarre things we’ve experienced with humor and irony, putting a buffer between us and the realities of life at site.  But then I return to Gihara, watch the paved road shrink behind me as I moto past clusters of waving children, choke on the thick, red road dust and inhale the smoke of something burning that shouldn’t be burning, and realize that this is still real.  It’s not just a story to tell and retell.  Not yet, anyway.  I’m still here.

 Jean Paul, a village umusazi,* is outside my house talking to himself.  He used to bucket-bathe on my front porch but he’s stopped doing that since the convent ran out of water.  His incessant rambling used to bother me, but now I sit and talk with him in English and he responds in Kinyarwanda.  Sometimes I tell him my problems when I don’t feel like burdening anyone else.  I wanted to talk to him this morning, but he wandered off.  I wanted to tell him, “Jean Paul, I don’t ever want to leave Rwanda, but I also want to get on a plane tonight and never look back.  Is that strange?”

He would have responded, “Na-na-na-navuze ni umuntu mubi cyane na ndababita iyo bafata ibintu byange byose.” He’s always talking about people beating him or taking his things even though I’m pretty sure he owns nothing other than the clothes he has on.  I can only imagine what he’s been through.

The day after I got back to site I visited Uwizeyimana, a girl who was in one of my S2 classes. She stopped showing up about three weeks before exams.  Every time I saw her in street I asked her why she wasn’t coming to class anymore and she never gave me a straight response.  I only recently figured out why she stopped coming – her reasons are too personal for my blog, so I’ll just say it’s health-related. Before I left for COS I promised her mother I’d come visit her at home.  If not for that verbal contract, I might have gotten cold feet.  I had no idea what to say to her, no words of wisdom or comfort that seemed adequate. 

Uwizeyimana lives in a three-room house made of mud and thatch.  Her mother, older sister, younger brother and three other children also live there.  When I arrived she brought out tea and food she’d cooked specially for me.  We spent a lot of time talking around her “problem” in mixed Kinyarwanda and English.  I told her that every day I took roll call and found her absent, it hurt my heart. She smiled, hid her face and said, “Teacher, I’m sorry.” I told her she had no reason to be sorry, I was just happy to know why she couldn’t come to school.  I said I’d come back to visit her so we could keep speaking English together. “It’s important to learn any way you can,” I said.  She smiled again.

I told her I’ll be leaving Rwanda in November.  She said, “You will forget me.” I said, “That isn’t possible.”

Nearly four months before leaving, I’m already regretting things I haven’t been able to do.  I wish I’d visited more students at their homes, given more of them individualized attention.  I wish I’d given them more than just an English club, GLOW Camp, office hours and the lyrics to “Lean On Me.” Luckily there’s still time left, as long as I can muster the courage to keep on going.

To keep waking up in Rwanda.

Gihara on market day

Jean Paul in the convent garden

*Umusazi means “crazy person” in Kinyarwanda.