"Why is it the first time [since 1932] that USA is at this stage? They have much money. It is because they use their money fighting other countries?" - a colleague on the World Cup

This is a blog of my daily interactions, or what I like to call “bite se Penny we.” This is not pronounced “bite Penny” but rather “beetah say Penny way”. Italics indicate phrases translated from Kinyarwanda to English.

Scenario One:

Child to other children: Look the white person is coming.

Child: Good-a morning.

Me: Good afternoon.

Child: fine thank you teacher.

Me: um…

Child: when will you come visit us?

Me: where do you live?

Child: up there on the hill.

Me: (scanning the hill with dozens of houses). Oh. I will come.

Scenario Two:

Student and Jehovah’s Witness: Ah sister. How are you?

Me: I am fine. How are you?

Student: No matter, no matter. When are you coming to visit us?

Me: Where?

Student: There at the kingdom of Jehovah’s Witness.

Me: I am not coming.

Student: so maybe you will come?

Me: No. I am never coming. I am Catholic.

Student: So you will try.

Me: No. I cannot. Ok see you!

Student: Ok see you Tuesday at the meeting [of Jehovah’s Witness].

Scenario Three:

(Colleagues laughing and saying something about Amanda. They are either talking about me or bread but nine times out of ten it is me.)

Me: What?

Male colleague #1: They are saying that you cannot be late or your fiancé will find other girls.

Me: Yes, that is possible.

Male colleague #2: That is why you must have others in Rwanda like me or Gerald.

Me: ha ha (awkward… so I open my locker and expose the picture of my fiancé to the staff room)

Male colleague #3: This is your fiancé? Ah how he is big.

Male colleague #4: It’s psychology. Small girls like big men.

Female colleague: So you will have medium children.

Scenario Four:

Child: Something small for my wrist? *

Me: What did I say?... I said NO.

Child: Something small to wear?

Me: You’re not going to greet me?

Child: good-a morning.

Me: good morning.

Child: fine thank you teacher.

* think carefully before giving a Rwandan child a friendship bracelet

Scenario Five:

Rwandan boy/man: Good morning teacher. How are the news?

Me: The news are fine.

Rwandan: I have a question.

Me: Yes?

Rwandan: My English is very poor. How can one find English books*

Me: I do not know.

Rwandan: but what advices can you give me to find those things?

Me: Go to Kigali.**

Rwandan: ah but it is very expensive. One must first find money to go to Kigali.

Me: Sorry. It is not my job to help you find this. My job is to teach…

*can be replaced with learn English, school fees, scholarship, pen pals, computers or a plane ticket to America.

** listen to the radio, go on the school’s wireless internet, etc.

Scenario Six:

Rwandan woman: Look at the white person.

Rwandan woman #2: I see her.

Rwandan woman #1: She is wearing…

(Women stare)

Me: Good morning.

Rwandan woman #1: Yes.

Rwandan woman #2: eeEEEeeeh.

Rwandan woman #3: Eh! She knows Kinyarwanda!

Scenario Seven: (not daily but bi-weekly)

Construction worker at market: Hey look, it’s my girlfriend!

(Men laughing)

Me: Hello! What’s up.

(Men cheering)

Scenario Eight:

Old woman: (takes me hand) Muraho umukobwa. Hello girl.

Me: Muraho neza. A nice hello to you.

Old woman: Jesus save you.*

Me: Yes, thank you.**

Old woman: How is the news, how is the news?

Me: It is good.

Old woman: Are you strong?

Me: Yes, thank you.

Old woman: Strength strength.

Me: yes.

Old woman: May you have many husbands.

Me: I will accept them.

Old woman: (still holding my hand) May god save you.***

Me: Yes. ** Have a nice day.

* This is an approximation of some greeting about God.

**This is a culturally unacceptable response but I do not know the correct one.

*** Again, some approximation of a blessing

Scenario Nine

(Opening my locker, again my colleagues notice the picture)

Colleague: Amanda I think this is your cousin?

Me: No it is my fiancé.

Colleague: Ah! You must buy a strong bed!

Me: (too flustered to comment)

Colleague: And you are saying you only want two children? I am telling you you must have MANY children.

Penina, Kowabuze?

 This morning, while I was cleaning, I picked up some old letters lying around my house. Though all my letters are treasures, one distinct closing line turned my whole morning around. It contained the phrase, “ the possible is always better than the actual”, which was like receiving a slap in the face and $100 at the same time. I found this phrase liberating this time around, this particular morning, hung-over on sad thoughts and ready to shelve them for a while.

I think this phrase is very relevant for PCVs who may be suffocating in their ambition to do good while missing their homeland. For me, it is a reminder to be present and to be realistic. My daydreams of my past, others’ presents and our futures are not constructive but destructive. They are addicting, like staying inside and hiding from what I am afraid of. Today is my “dry season cleaning”, another Saturday at site that I will just love. This Saturday brings the market, laundry, sun, Tressa and time to observe my community and myself. Saturday is my favorite day of the week as it seems to shield me from the abrasive staring and instead bring me peace. I’ve let the dishes, stacks of letters and cobwebs accumulate: it’s time to take care of them.

(The dry season has replaced the wet season and sorghum has replaced all the corn)

At our recent In-Service Training (IST) in Gisenyi, my headmaster told me I was “umukobwa mwiza”, an endearing term meaning “good girl.” Along with this, he told me how every single headmaster that attended the training was happy with their PCVs. This was very reaffirming for all of us who struggle with lack of feedback and feelings of inadequacy. IST was the most fun I have had in a long time. During this week with my American colleagues, I found that freedom I have been craving at site. If I wasn’t laughing with other PCVs, my mind was brewing new ideas to take back to site. All the volunteers were able to share horror stories, common complaints, common struggles and teaching feats. We had trainings in teaching techniques, language lessons and presentations from outsiders including an incredible morning with the foundation Project Wet. A big topic of discussion was our secondary projects. Every Peace Corps volunteer is expected to initiate a sustainable secondary project apart from his or her primary responsibility. I have not settled on one yet but I have some ideas. That aside, these are some of the projects I will start/have started at site:

-       Weekly office hours

-       A “pamphlet project” where I use students in the English Club and the Anti-Aids/HIV club to make educational pamphlets in English and Kinyarwanda to pass out to villagers at the Saturday market. I would like to thank my Uncle Dave for sending me the paper to do this!

-       Using Appropriate Projects (check them out! INCREDIBLE RESOURCE!) I plan to install hand-washing stations at my school and the primary school.

-       Commit to teaching the Primary School teachers

-       A new Books For Africa shipment is also in the works

The last thing I want to share about IST and my Rwandan life is this: PCVs are the finest people in the world. I have been surrounded by outstanding people in my life but never have I been with a group of such kind, good-intentioned people. Their hearts are so big that I admire and adore everyone single one of them and adore beyond words. If you’ve caught my smiling recently, it was probably because I am so in love with my colleagues. Or because it’s 6:30 pm and children are screaming “Good-a morning teacher!”

1. My Rwandan boyfriend! just kidding I'm not a shuga mami.

2. My students marching through town during our school's Genocide Commemoration Week

3. This was the trench for installing a fiber optic cable to provide my village with wireless. Maybe next they can give the villagers electricity and running water. 

 

4. My students at our commemoration ceremony.

"He was going to hang his clothes to dry but he was short man." - Student

This is not a serious post. For heavier reading, see earlier posts. This is in fact a list of similarities between the lives of the infamous Robert Pattinson and me, a Peace Corps Rwanda volunteer.

Rob Patz and Penny We
1. We are known for and recognized by our pale skin.
2. We cannot go anywhere without being met by staring, pointing and sometimes shrieking. 3. This forces us to stay inside for hours at a time.
4. We are constantly approached by people we do not know.
5. We have problems with the opposite sex. Rob constantly has women asking him to bite them whereas I constantly have men asking for private English lessons.
6. Neither hats nor sunglasses do the trick: can’t disguise these faces.
7. Our careers are acting.
8. We have a new understanding of “freedom” since our entry into stardom/Peace Corps.

*If you are interested in seeing my facebook albums of Rwanda pictures, email me. 

My Coljaction agrees like a dog*

Each blogtown entry I try to give a theme. I’ve been feeling so much these past weeks but have difficulty expressing it and therefore difficulty in settling on a theme. The strongest emotion I’ve felt recently is love from my community so we’ll go with that since it has curtailed my criticism of myself.

I experience it everyday and it is a gentle reminder to smile. I see it in 3 year-old Divine who waits for me in the street in the morning with her arms open wide. And I feel it in her small, soft hand as I take it in mine. My heart is warms when I see the community’s approval of my Kinyarwanda attempts and they pay for my bus ride. I see it when I visit my neighbors in the evening and the youngest children run around the yard like chickens  clucking “Good morning Peacher!” (A mix of teacher and my nickname Penina.) The oldest boy, who dreams of being the “Chucken Norris” of Rwanda, sings to me, “Low low low low your boat gentry down the streeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaa.”

The recent theft and return of my camera showed me what the community thinks of me. The family that returned the camera to me invited me into their barren house – no cushions on the couches – and told the story of its theft. I tried hard to follow but all I really caught was “camera… shoes… I really like her… small white person.” It was a typical Rwandan conversation in that every 20 words spoken in Kinyarwanda somehow equated to only about 5 in English. This is to say, it was a long conversation. In the end, I gave them the equivalent of $20 for returning the camera to me and not selling it in Kigali. Judging by the barren walls, dirty children and missing cushions, this would be a lot to them.

And it meant a lot to me. The Mama spent the last 5 minutes talking about how much she likes me even though we had never met. The Mama, her name is Gloriose, said, “this little white person (akazungu) is like a child (umwana), how can you steal from her? It’s a shame. (Mama weeeeeee!)” I am often confused as a child here because of my size and this was the first time it did not upset me. The Mama is a vegetable vendor at the market who now sends me home with a heavy bag of my favorite food: Rwandan corn.  My new house guard brings me corn, too. There is nothing in the world like grilled corn from your friend’s field.

I spent Saturday harvesting corn with my neighbor and the following day, she invited me to participate in a women’s march for development. Little did I know I was one of the guest stars of this national holiday. I sat with the mayor and some of the strongest Rwandan women I know as we heard testimonies about women’s development in our district and watched live performances. Rwandan traditional dancing is beautiful and shows off the female body without making it sexual. When I joined in, all these women whipped out their camera phones (I know! Development!) to take pictures. The mayor spoke about women’s rights and said, “I know some men here do not like what I am saying but as long as I am mayor of Burera, no man may beat his wife.” I was so happy this day, surrounded by big mamas and progressive-thinking males that I was brought to tears several times.

I know there has been a lot of negative press recently about Rwanda and the upcoming elections. I want everyone to know how safe and accepted I feel in my community. We are hoping the elections will pass with minimal violence, the tensions will subside and we’ll continue to kick it Peace Corps style. That is to say, Chacos, the inability to speak any language correctly, cramped bus rides, large spiders to keep us company in our solitude and catchy Rwandan pop music.   

* The title of this blog comes from a game of telephone. The original sentence was Michael Jackson laughed at the ugly dog. That is what a student wrote. 

“When you return to the States, people will ask you if you are sick. You will say, ‘yes, I am suffering from Africa.’”

Am I suffering from Africa already? It’s possible. I’ve begun to walk slower. My work ethic has become worse. I give a non-committal “eh” when I mean yes. I stare at white people. And I arrive late sometimes. Oh and yesterday, I accidentally punched a hole in my window. I swear it was accidental. Some kids were tapping on my window and trying to enter my house so I “tapped” back a little too strongly.

This blog is about an incredible organization called Books for Africa. Peace Corps Rwanda was lucky enough to be contacted by Books for Africa and most of the ed volunteers received large shipments of books to their primary schools. I honestly am not sure where the funding came from. Going through the books was a delight and these were just a few of the jewels I found:
George and Martha: One Fine Day
A Sherman Alexie book
Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
10 Ten Most Influential Rappers
Spanish books about killer whales and sharks (I’m keeping those)
Phantom Tollbooth
Goosebumps
Glow and Gleam
A book about the life of Angelina Jolie
A book based in Littleton, Colorado

My high from receiving all these books was instantly crushed when I had a conversation with officials and teachers from the primary school. They appreciate the books but need dictionaries to understand them and shelves to house them. They won’t be read while they collect dust in boxes. The school has no money for either of those, nor do I. There are two ways to look at this dilemma. I am using both viewpoints now as I decide what to do.

The first way of seeing this problem is this: “I can show you the way but it is up to you to go.” I can bring you food, but it is not by job to feed you myself. So I’ve helped you receive these books, here, it is a gift but now it is up to you to build shelves and see that they are used. The opposite way of looking at this problem is that I have ultimately failed them. And this is how development often fails Africa. I have facilitated this delivery of English books to meet the need of their new English curriculum but without a dictionary, how can they understand them? Without shelves, how can they use and organize them? Without instruction can they use them? Though my primary responsibility is teaching at the secondary school, I will make an effort every week to see that there is progress with the library. I will hound people (headmasters, education directors) about shelves and dictionaries. I will see that the books are stamped, organized and USED by the teachers and pupils. In this way, I’m finding the middle ground between those two outlooks on the shipment that I talked about above.

Books for Africa is an incredible organization. They sent containers of used/new books to Africa and the recipients must fund 25% of the shipping cost. We are currently working for a new order for our secondary schools. The need is great at my school because the school has many books for “ordinary level” (S1-S3, provided by the government) but has little to no books for the advanced level (S4-S6). Teachers at my school have had to skip whole sections in their curriculum because they do not have the books to teach. We hope to overcome this problem by the end of the school year in October. Support Books for Africa if you can!

See this article about Tressa's school and Books for Africa: http://www.newtimes.co.rw/index.php?issue=14243&article=28496 

"I'm going to the market to selfish"

I've been working on this blog for a while. It's called... Note to self(ish): 

Don’t do hundreds of push ups and then expect to be able to write on the chalkboard the next day. 

Don’t tell a Rwandan male that your back hurts or they will assume you were making lots of sexual intercourse. 

Don’t leave clothes outside unattended for even a second. 

Your mood swings are giving the neighbor kids whiplash.

Don’t expect there to be class just because it’s a Monday.

Boiling spoiled milk doesn’t fix the problem. 

Don’t assume everyone has parents. 

Rwandans can hike for hours without food or water. Which leads to the next… Don’t travel without snacks. 

Stop bringing up homosexuality in class. They weren’t ready last couple times and they won’t be ready anytime in the near future. 

Don’t touch your eye. Do you know how dirty your hands are? 

Don’t show your knees at school. 

The word amazi (water) should never follow the verb kugira (to have). 

Sometimes the thing that you want to do the least and the thing you must do are the same. Like bathe. Leave your house. 

Don’t wear tennis shoes with business attire. Don’t worry, I didn’t make this mistake. 

Don’t ignore people that try to flag you down on the road. They could be your good friend’s mom, the leader of the Women’s Equality Association, or both. 

Now that you know what goat’s butt looks like, you can avoid eating it next time. 

Carry your cell phone in your right hand so if a man tries to shake your hand directly after urinating, you can offer you wrist. 

Even if it’s posh, Peace Corps is still hard.

What does 16 years mean?

Yesterday marked the 16^th year anniversary of the start of the genocide in Rwanda. Though the violence lasted a decade, we are specifically commemorating the 100 days of slaughter that began April 6^th, 1994 and led to the deaths of close to 1 million Rwandans. The theme for the commemoration this year is “Let’s remember the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi by uniting more in the fight against trauma.”

 

At least 2000 villagers crowded around our town’s small genocide memorial today for the five-hour ceremony of speeches and prayers. I was the only white person.  It’s more than taboo to mention ethnicities in Rwanda so it was shocking today to hear those names.  A group of widows placed flowers on the memorial and I continued to watch them throughout the ceremony. I wanted to monitor their sorrow and exhaustion so I could understand how much pain 16 years had erased. Their faces were the most expressive that I saw but we’re talking about a culture that is averse to showing emotion. As I watched people’s physical and emotional responses to the event, I began to question what 16 years means.

How much do you remember and how much can you forget in 16 years? What do you hold on to but what have you let go? Does it depend on how well you knew the killers? Or how large the massacre was? What’s 16 years when people lived in constant fear from 1990-1998, when the country only became “normal” in 2003 and when there is still intermittent ethnic violence? What does 17-year old Fabian think of the 16 years he’s been an orphan? How were those 16 years if you could not share them with your loved ones? What’s 16 years when the Parliament still bares battle scars?

I cannot gauge it. Is 16 years a long or short time? Seeing the rapid development in country, you would imagine it’d been a quarter century, at least. Hearing people’s monotone descriptions of killings makes it seem like they’re telling their grandparents’ stories. But if I think about losing half my family, unborn nieces and nephews, and schoolmates, I think those 16 years would have been too dark to do anything more than slowly crawl through the wreckage. 

After 16 years, where should the country be? Well, I think they’re ahead of schedule. They are full of forgiveness and I am full of admiration.

I cannot believe I am here.

__________________

I am revisiting this blog post after the commemoration week ended. A fellow volunteer read my post and asked a colleague if 16 years was a short or long time. He said that 16 years is neither: when it’s something you’ll never forget, 16 years is just 16 years.