November 28- January 3: Officially a Volunteer!!

A lot has changed since my last update!  For one thing, I am no longer a Peace Corps trainee but an official volunteer!  For another, I now live in my own house, far away from my training group and my host family.  Finally, I am less than a week from being an actual teacher with my very own classes.

Training ended on a very positive note.  I passed all my exams and had a great closing interview with the staff.  It was very hard to leave my family and all the neighborhood kids who came over almost every night to watch Harry Potter on my computer.  Kim’s sisters and my sisters walked us all the way to the training hub to see us off as we left for Kigali for swear-in.

The swear-in ceremony took place on December 15, at the ambassador’s residence.  It was a very nice event.  It was attended by all Peace Corps staff, some current volunteers, other American and Rwandan government workers, and some members of the host families, including my father.  Mary, our country director spoke, then the ambassador, and then a representative from the ministry of education.  Speeches of thanks were given by my training class in English, French, and Kinyarwanda.  After, we had some delicious food and time to talk with the guests and take pictures.

Site installations began the following day, but since my site is far from Kigali, I had an additional three days to hang out at the Peace Corps headquarters.  This gave me plenty of time to buy everything I needed for my house, eat burgers and pizza, and explore the city.  The day came for Tim, Nick, and I to get installed, so we crammed a Peace Corps vehicle full of all our stuff and headed out.  When we arrived at my site, my house had just been painted so I spent a night in the convent.  The sisters were so welcoming and told me that even after I moved into my house I could come eat with them whenever I want. 

The next day I settled into my house, which is way nicer than anything I could afford in the States.  I am very spoiled for a Peace Corps volunteer.  I have a big main room, two bedrooms, and a shower space inside, then an outside kitchen and toilet.  The nuns also provided me with all the furniture I could need, and Christa, the volunteer I replaced, left me a ton of great stuff.  I am really happy with my house, not to mention the gorgeous view of the lake and mountains from my backyard.  I even have running water behind the house some days, so I got a big barrel from the nuns that I fill up on days when it is running so that I have it stored for days when it is not.

Transitioning has been difficult so far because I no longer have the support group of my training class in the same village.  It is a challenge to get out in the community when you are the only person being stared at, but if you don’t make yourself present in the community you will never get over that obstacle, so I make sure I get out every day, greeting people on a run, going to the market or shops, or just taking a walk.  It probably didn’t help that I hardcore wiped out on a run on market day last week, and literally went flying in front of a ton of people headed to the market, but I guess that did force me to laugh at myself which is important for being ok with it when other people are laughing at you. 

The sisters have been an amazing support too.  I have lunch with them almost every day, I’ll stay to help wash dishes and then a couple of them will walk me back to my house.  Many of them have pretty good English.  This has worked out well because they are so impressed whenever I understand Kinyarwanda, which is a nice confidence boost, but if I don’t understand something they can explain it to me in English.  They are fun and intelligent women and I really enjoy hanging out with them.

I went in to the Peace Corps regional house a couple days before Christmas to meet up with some other volunteers and get a little bit of the American Christmas spirit.  I came back to site the day before Christmas so that I could go to mass with the nuns the next morning.  The service was nice, and there was even a rendition of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” (in Kinyarwanda so I could only sing along at the chorus), but I did get pooped on by a bird during church.  Out of the 1,500ish people that were there, I could not believe that I was the one that this happened to.  After mass, I went home to clean up and bake brownies for the big Christmas meal at the convent.  We had a great feast and the sisters loved the brownies.  I had a good day, despite being a little sad about being away from home for Christmas. 

Last Friday two of the sisters were celebrating one year as nuns, and I was very honored to be invited to their private mass and then to a dinner party with all of the sisters and priests.  It was such a fun night and ended with some traditional Rwandan dance, and they made me get up to try to imitate them, which everyone thought was very hilarious.  I love that the nuns are always celebrating something.

On Saturday I went to Kamembe again for New Year’s Eve.  Some of the volunteers who have been here for a while took me to a birthday party for a couple of their Rwandan colleagues.  I was very excited for my first Rwandan house party, but as we predicted, because Rwandans really love their speeches, that is what most of the night consisted of.  It was still really good to make connections with cool people in Kamembe, and we had a lot of fun dancing between the speeches.

Now I am back at site and preparing to start teaching next week!  I still don’t really have any idea what’s going on-- I don’t know what days or what hours I will be teaching, but other teachers have started showing up at school, so that is a good sign that we will probably have a meeting sometime soon.  I am pretty nervous about getting started, but I know I am going to be really happy when we get into the swing of things!