September 20- September 25: Getting accustomed

Tuesday was a Hub day, so all the volunteers got together at the central site for safety, medical, and technical training.  We were all very happy to see each other after our exhausting first couple days with our host families.  It was nice to be understood and to understand what was going on for a change.  In the afternoon we had more language training.  By now I was able to at least say “Hi my name is Kari.  I’m a Peace Corps volunteer.  I’m from the state of Michigan in the United States” in Kinyarwanda: “Muraho.  Ni twa Kari.  Ndi umukorerabushake wa Peace Corps.  Ndi umunyamerika; nturuka muri leta ya Michigan”.  

The rest of the week was back and forth between Nonci’s house for language lessons and the Hub site for group sessions.  I was really enjoying training time and felt like I was learning a lot quickly.  A volunteer from the previous training class was here to explain the Rwandan education system and how our work fits into it.  She seemed very confident and happy with her teaching job, which makes me so excited for getting my assignment in three months.

The homestay has been a real struggle for me because I hate feeling clueless all the time.  It gets dark here around six so I am stuck inside from then until I go to sleep.  The family is so incredibly nice, but I just feel so overwhelmed all the time.  I know I am learning the language quickly, but it is not fast enough to be able to share myself with them or to even understand most of what they say to me.  Also, I have never been the type of person to just sit around the house for hours, so the evenings really drag as we just sit around the lantern night after night.  The most difficult thing, though, is the constant comparison I feel with the previous trainee that lived in the house.  She was very much a part of their family and they talk about her constantly, and I think she must not have been as reserved as I tend to be when I first meet people, so they seem confused that I am not more outgoing.  I talked to one of my training staff about this, and he was very understanding and told me I need to just stop comparing, be myself, and don’t be so concerned about how the family reacts.  That’s what I’m working on now!

Saturday we got to experience our first umuganda.  One of Rwanda’s policies for promoting peace and forward-thinking is a day of community service where all people of a village are asked to pitch in with some sort of work.  About ten other volunteers and I headed out with shovels and hoes to build a new back road.  It was so much fun working alongside the Rwandan people and making new friends.  I was able to use the introductory Kinyarwanda I had learned during the week and had a good time learning new vocabulary and teaching some English vocabulary to those who asked.  We finished the entire road and then gathered together in a big field to listen to some very, very long speeches given by some community leaders.  After two hours of talk that we understood none of, the other volunteers and I set out in search of food.  We had a great afternoon together relaxing, telling stories about our homestays, and just unwinding for once.  We were able to pick up our bikes from the Hub site too, which we were very excited about.

Today I had the opportunity to go to church with my family.  The service was very lively and I loved the music.  A family friend did some translating for me.  However, after about three hours of service, Synthia and I left and headed home, because one of our cousins was coming into town.  He is an English teacher, so we talked a lot about our shared profession and language learning in general.  I’m planning on taking a bike ride this afternoon to see some of the villages where other volunteers are living.  Later I will study my Kinyarwanda work so that I’m ready for lessons this week!

September 13- September 19: Getting started!

Peace Corps staging is a time for volunteers who will be training together to meet each other, get a debriefing on their project, and find out logistical details about the twenty-seven months they will be serving.  I was incredibly nervous in the days before training, thinking that the other thirty-six volunteers would know much more about Rwanda and English teaching than I did.  However, when I arrived at the conference center in Philadelphia, my nervousness disappeared.  I met a group of awesome, adventurous people, some of whom did know way more than me and others who knew even less than me!  Together we were able to discuss our expectations, anxieties, and fears, which made everyone realize that we were pretty much all in the same boat and made us very comfortable and relaxed with each other.  That night a group of us went out for the perfect last US meal: bacon cheeseburgers.

The next morning, we bussed to New York for our flight to Brussels.  After eight gate changes and an hour delay, we finally were able to board.  However, due to some problem, we had to stay put for another three hours!  Because of this, we missed our connecting flight, and the next one to Kigali wasn’t until the following day.  Being the flexible people that all Peace Corps volunteers must, we were ready to take full advantage of our European detour.  As soon as we checked into our hotel, we headed out to the Grand Plaza to have fries, chocolate, and waffles.  We had the chance to tour the beautiful basilica and to take pictures with the famous Mannekin Pis.  I was happy to now be able to say I’ve been to Europe!

On Friday we flew out of Brussels to Kigali, this time with no problems.  When we arrived, Peace Corps staff was waiting to take us to headquarters, where we would be staying in their hostel.  We enjoyed two more days of electricity and running water while we went through interviews with the doctors and training staff.  It is so beautiful in Rwanda; everything is so green and flowers are in bloom everywhere.  There are breathtaking views of rolling hills anywhere you look.  We really enjoyed our stay in Kigali, but had not yet gotten a taste of rural Africa.

On Sunday we loaded up the vans and headed to Kamonyi, where our training takes place.  As we travelled further from the city, the views became even more beautiful.  We climbed higher and higher into the hills until children began to stare and chase our vans because they so rarely see Americans. We arrived at our Hub site, where we met our Language and Culture Facilitators.  I was placed in a group with Janay and Charlie, with our awesome LCF Nonci.  She taught us key Kinyarwanda phrases, so that we would at the very least be able to greet our host families.   Groups of three volunteers were scattered throughout the district up to four kilometers away, but we were placed right down the street from the Hub site, about a five minute walk.

I met my amazing host parents, Francois and Benilde, and three of their nine children, Diane, Rosani, and Synthia.  The others were older and had moved away.  They greeted me with much enthusiasm, beginning with a prayer.  I felt bad that I could not communicate more effectively with them as they chatted away to me in Kinyarwanda.  Synthia, who is eleven, is at an intermediate English level, so she could translate some things and give me some instructions.  My family is so nice, but it is hard to get comfortable when you have no idea what is going on, so I got overwhelmed very quickly.  The family and I stayed together in the living room until dinner time at eight. They taught me numbers and body parts and kept trying to quiz me, and I continuously failed.  Dinner consisted of rice, beans, vegetables, and a tiny bit of goat meat.  I am proud to say I ate it all, despite only liking about ten percent of it.  The food will take some getting used to!  For dessert they gave me pineapple and boiled, sweetened milk from the cow that lives in the backyard.

Many of the families here are very poor and live in tiny houses, but mine is better off, as my father is chief of the village.  I have my own room which is only a little smaller than my room in the US.  The kitchen and latrine are in the backyard.  Most of the homes do not have their own water source, but mine does, which is nice, because I don’t have to leave to fetch my water.  The house is wired for electricity, put currently it is not running, so we use kerosene lanterns at night.  I also will be taking bucket showers for the first time in my life!

Today we began our intensive Kinyarwanda training, and I can already see why past volunteers have said these are going to be the most difficult three months of my life.  Charlie, Janay, and I met at Nonci’s house at eight to begin our studies and took a lunch break at noon.  From one to two thirty we went to the Hub site where we learned about what we will be doing for our technical English teaching training, and then we headed back to Nonci’s until five.  At the end of our language lesson, she had us go try to talk with some boys in the street, and they clearly thought the abazungu (foreigners) trying to speak their language were pretty ridiculous.  However it is very fun to greet everyone to greet everyone in the streets with a “Mirirwe!” or “Amakuru?”  They like to see us attempting to integrate.   I especially love the little children who run up and think it is the most amazing thing just to touch my hand.  It is pretty disconcerting to always have people staring at me like I’m a freak though!  Back at home the barrage of vocabulary continued but today it was not as overwhelming.  Mama and Synthia taught me a song in Kinyarwanda and I sang a song for them in English.  Their homestay daughter from a previous training class called and I was able to talk to her, and she was very encouraging.  Again after dinner I was exhausted and headed to my room to relax for the first time today.