Burera District

Blogtown
It doesn’t get much better than…
1. Hanging out with my host mom
2. Fajitas and queso
3. A sleepover with Tressa
4. Phone call from LIZA, SAM AND ROWAN!
5. Language class with Valens
6. Learning the verb “to lie and your back (and look at the sky)”, kugarama
7. Fanta before lunch
8. Pasta and peas for lunch
9. LEARNING MY SITE!!!!!!!!

After language class, we stormed the basketball court outside the center and one by one, went to stand in our newly-announced site placements on a huge chalk map of Rwanda. I am going to the Burera district up north and could not be happier. I’m teaching at a secondary school in the district. Regional market, too.What’s more, I’m next to beautiful lakes, Mount Kabuye, volcanoes and gorillas. And I’m near Tressa, Nicole and other wonderfuls. I know, you wish you could be so lucky. We are so incredibly fortunate to have stunning sites along Lake Kivu, near the volcanoes, in the forests of the south… Everyday is a privilege in Posh Corps, Rwanda.

We’ll learn more about our sites on Monday (electricity, specific teaching requests, compound or house) and then will be sworn in next Saturday at the ambassador’s house. Just thrilled. I wish I could express my excitement in Kinya but the language is adjective-challenged, so all I can say is “ndishimye cyane PE!” I’m very happy.

Before I close, I want to try to vocalize some thoughts on happiness and solitude, my constant companions in Rwanda. I normally write emails, blogs and letters when I am either extreme but the reality is somewhere in the middle. Every day I have my struggles and some days they are much bigger than others. Irregardless, everyday they are much smaller than the struggles on my Rwandan neighbors. About once a week, I wake up committed to having an awful day. Days like today, I run everywhere because I’m too excited to walk. What makes me happy somedays, like speaking Kinya with my favorite tailor, is a chore the next. Teaching, which is the biggest and also most unexpected source of my happiness here, can be so draining. (And Zak, you ask about the 2 year commitment?) The openness of our two year commitment is daunting and motivating. Suffering keeps coming up in my readings (oh Shantaram) and conversations. I am not suffering, especially in comparison to some of my fellow Rwandans, but I learn, struggle and grow everyday from the intense guilt I feel about being a muzungu.
Thank you for reading. Love love. Come visit my new home and see my garden, rabbit, colleagues and neighboring gorillas.