Every night after school, I either walk to my colleague’s house for my
daily liter of milk or she delivers it on her own time. To the great
disbelief of Rwandans, I cannot drink 1 liter of milk in a day but I
enjoy the cultural routine and the visits with my colleague and her
family. They are helping my Kinyarwanda and my heart. Since it is our
first clear night in a while, the house girl pointed the flashlight at
the sky and told young Ritchie, “look, you can see God.” And he said,
“really? Where is he? Is it really him?”
Tressa spent the weekend with me at my site. It was the perfect way to
celebrate women’s day and 5 months in Rwanda. I also had my kick-off
weekly Sunday morning pancake breakfast with her and Christine. We
spent most of our time sharing our concerns, ideas for secondary
projects, cravings (currently oreos, queso and pickles) problems,
funny stories, frustrations, etc. We joked about l’s and r’s and the
upcoming presidential “erections.” We are both on exactly the same
page in terms of homesickness, adjusting, wanting to give in to
laziness and solitude all the while feeling like we’re not doing
enough. I came to Peace Corps an idealist but my idealism leaves my
head aching with feelings of helplessness and inadequacy. However,
Tressa and I seem to right on track with where we’re supposed to be
emotionally. We’re throwing our hearts into teaching in order to
ignore any negative feelings and we’re already searching for secondary
projects. I felt grounded and prepared for anything that my upcoming
week of teaching would present.
School is going really well (biragenda neza!) and amazingly, our first
term is almost over. I taught my favorite English class today and
since it is international women’s week, I wrote a short text called
“An admirable young lady” about my sister! Women’s equality was a hot
discussion topic today and I plan to devote a blog to that soon
enough. During teachers’ English training, we discussed what we are
most afraid of. I introduced the topic with my fear of spiders but my
colleagues followed with things like death, war, illness and hunger. I
have so much growing up to do. I gave my 11th grade students an
assignment called “A Series of Unfortunate Events” using phrasal verbs
and I received several stories about sexual assaults. This culture is
so complex, troubled.
On a lighter note, my male colleague asked if women menstruate in
America. I couldn’t help but giggle. My male colleagues… delights… and
tricksters. This was today’s conversation:
-So, your fiancé lives in America? But you don’t have anyone in Rwanda
like me, for example.
-Yes, that is true.
-Would you accept the idea of having an American girl marry a black man?
-Yes, I would accept the idea.
-Ah! So you accept!
-NO I said I accept the idea. I can only have one fiancé.
-Why?
-Because my fiancé and I are honest.
- But how do you KNOW he’s honest? … and so on.
I’m introducing more “task-based learning” activities in the classroom
but especially in teacher English training. It’s more fun for
everyone. Today I taught them how to make tomato soup, which was a
challenging and enjoyable lesson but at the end, the men told me, “but
we cannot make this.” I assumed they were referring to the Rwandan
belief that men cannot cook but actually, the problem was much
simpler. Rwandans cannot put milk in soup. How outrageous, milk in
soup! My colleagues are still shocked to hear that I shop at the
market and cook local food for myself. They cannot imagine what a
muzungu would eat here so I will have to cook them a meal or two. My
only hesitations are that they may not appreciate my one-pot meals and
I only have 3 forks.
I’m trying to keep my blogs short, entertaining and themed. This one
was kind of a rambler but I hope you enjoyed. Next month is genocide
commemoration month so be prepared for some light reading… Thank you
for you emails. They are so special to me.
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