Amanda in the Landa...

Thousand Hills

Today is hump day! Half way through training! An event to celebrate for sure. I celebrated the day by teaching the past simple to 60 6th graders and then learning how to cook Rwandan-style with my host Mama. Mama Kaliza is a wonderful teacher, patient with slow diction and hundreds of new words every day.

As I bent over the little metal firefood-stove and stirred our mélange of freshly deconstructed chicken, tomatoes, onions and thyme, chickens pecked at my feet and smoke clouded the mud and concrete kitchen. I thought, “I’m in (expletive) Africa.” In my comfortable compound and daily shuffles between Kinyarwanda school and English school, I forget about the beauty and toils our Rwandan friends live every day. As calming and fun as cooking was today, I cannot imagine spending two hours cooking every single meal every day. Yet this is what I hope to do at site.

Though Agathe and her children are very friendly and welcoming, the cooking lesson was very uncomfortable at times. To begin, I nearly started hyperventilating when Pascale was sharpening the knife and I thought I was about to witness my first slaughter. Luckily, Agathe brought me inside for some amata meza. Milk. When it came time to eat the cassava paste and sauce, we washed our hands at the table and my family began to show me how to roll the paste into small spoons to scoop the sauce. This went reasonably well but I had more sauce dripping down my arms than everyone else. I became really uncomfortable when I tried to pick a small chicken leg but they insisted I take the largest chunk of chicken meat. I eat meat two times a day every day but this family eats meat maybe once a week. And they insisted on sharing so much with me. So much, in fact, that I couldn’t finish my portion of meat and sauce and the children sat flabbergasted as my food went to waste. I was so embarrassed. And felt awful. Every day I try to live as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Rwanda I still buy sweets, eat well and complain about what is lacking. The guilt and embarrassment I felt at Mama Kaliza’s house is something I will continue to experience through my whole two-year stay so I will need to channel and transform that negative energy towards the positive things I will be doing. Of course, Mama Kaliza had no hard feelings towards me and was sad to see me leave after our 4 hour visit. I told her my mom may visit this summer and if so, we will visit her and she was TICKLED. Arashimye. Happy.

Thank you for reading. Love to you.

Amanda