Family Farewell & Our Swearing-In

In America, at times of increased anxiety, I have a reoccurring stress dream that I own a dog who I then forget to feed. I go about my business completing various dream tasks and then suddenly remember about the poor starving dog that I was entrusted with, at which point I immediately wake up in a panic. Last week I had this same dream, but the dog was replaced with a goat. Not even kidding you. Makes sense, as I am currently in a weird transitional stage where training ends and my service at site begins. Last week we said goodbye to our host families. There was a going away lunch where some volunteers did speeches in Kinyarwanda. Then we "wowed” them with our ridiculous impression of a traditional Rwandan dance followed by celebratory potatoes and Fanta. Good times.

Bre and I at the host family farewell. Twinsies!

It was exciting to finish with the language training and pass the required final test/interview, but separating from our host fams was definitely a bummer. I played one last game of cards with a bunch of  kids crammed into the living room the night before I left, and my host mom made a dish called isombe that I like (it’s like a mash of greens that’s slow-cooked for hours). They gave me a cool piece of igitenge (fabric you can buy at the markets here to have clothes made by a seamstress). And I gave them some photos of the family that I took and then had printed out in town. 

My host familia (Papa Emmanuel, Mama Bernadette, Daniel, Simon Pierre, and Grace)

After leaving the training site we headed off to Kigali where we officially swore in as Peace Corps volunteers in a ceremony at the American ambassador’s residence.That evening a volunteer living in Kigali threw a shindig of sorts, followed by a trip to a local bar which featured a pretty killer mix of American/Rwandan dance music. Otherwise the last 3 days have mostly consisted of purchasing things for my empty house—plastic chairs, food, cooking supplies, etc. And I’ve gotten a chance to try out some coffee shops and restaurants in the area including a killer burger joint, a burrito place where you can order margaritas, and a fancy Japanese spot (which I quickly learned I will never be able to afford again). Tomorrow I’ll be driven from Kigali to my site in a Peace Corps car and then I’ll watch in dismay as they drive away and leave me to fend for myself. Wish me luck, ya’ll. It’s about to get real up in here.

Murabeho (Goodbye for a long time), Mr. Chicken

Some events that merit a mention this week:

The embassy was temporarily closed, along with select others around the world due to recent international events and the interception of terrorist chatter which implied these locations might be the target of attacks. Apparently the U.S. embassy here has a fence instead of a brick wall surrounding it, making it appear to be more vulnerable than others. That being said, I hear it’s a lot more formidable than the previous embassy building which was so small that when the Americans moved out, it was converted into a pharmacy! In response to the embassy closure, Peace Corps shut down their Rwanda office for the week, but this did not affect me since our training site is located outside of Kigali.

On the touristy front, we took a field trip to the National Ethnographic Museum in Butare and saw this old-school Rwandan house:

There were a lot of interesting exhibits about Rwandan geology, agriculture, goods, traditions, and history. One section I found interesting involved divining, or the act of telling a person’s future through various means, such as throwing some small pieces of wood down and interpreting based on how they fall, or gazing into a pile of animal fat/intestines. 

Butare is a larger city, so after our tour of the museum we ate lunch in town and I enjoyed pizza, fries, AND a burrito. Extravagant, I know, but to be fair I went halfsies with a friend. On the return trip we had a random monkey sighting—like a dozen little guys just hanging out near the side of the road. One of our language instructors said that when she attended college at the National University in Butare, the monkeys would come to soccer games to sit on the sidelines and watch. How great would it be to have a cheerleading squad composed of primates?

In other news, on Saturday I watched a chicken get murdered. True story. P.C. set aside an afternoon for us to cook a meal for 30 people using only charcoal stoves. We decided to whip up some American dishes including garlic mashed potatoes and fried chicken. The team cooking chicken went all out and purchased 2 live cluckers. Then our Rwandan teachers gave us a crash course on how you procure meat when you don’t live down the street from a Stop&Shop. I decided this was probably something I should witness since I eat chicken frequently, but have never watched one meet its demise. It was pretty weird—way less noise than I expected, a lot of blood splatter, and some creepy squirming on the part of our main course. Needless to say, I don’t feel the need to see that again or to kill my own chicken in the near future. Some people took photos but I felt like you folks don’t need to see that. The phrase “Ignorance is bliss” never seemed more applicable.

Current Events and My Kigali Discoveries

This past week had some intense moments and I want to touch on them, but not make them the only focus of this post. Though I appreciate the seriousness of these occurrences, I’m basically just taking it one day at a time here and making the most of the positives. First off, I am sorry to report that there was a grenade explosion in a Kigali bus station called Nyabugogo on July 26th. From what I know, 3 people were killed and approximately 30 injured. To be honest, I am so out of the information loop here that I probably would not even have known about it if I had not received texts and emails from the Peace Corps detailing the incident and ways to stay safe when visiting the capital. Upon hearing this, I also took the initiative to sign up for travel alerts from the US Embassy in Rwanda, so although I was sad to hear this news for the victims and their families, I do not currently feel unsafe. 

Second thing to note is that there have been some incidences of violence on the Rwanda/Democratic Republic of Congo border recently. I’m not even going to get into the history of this, as it’s a complicated situation that I only loosely understand, and may try to address later in a more extensive blog post. For the moment though, you can find info about the current situation by clicking here for a CNN article I came across. Right now, I’m training in the central part of the country, and my future site, although located on the Western border, is separated from DRC by a very large lake called Kivu. These border incidents are occurring in the North Western part of the country, and not in the area where I am living or will be living later.

Lastly on the sobering news front, Peace Corps gave us the opportunity to visit the Kigali Memorial Center last weekend. In addition to a series of mass graves encased in concrete, the museum site consists of an exhibition chronicling the events surrounding the 1994 genocide. It was an intense experience to visit this memorial and to learn that there are over 250,000 people buried at this site alone. 

There was also an exhibit that discussed other genocides that have occurred throughout world history. The memorial spoke volumes about how far this country has come that they have taken such steps to educate the public and prevent this type of atrocity from happening again. That being said, I have to say that prior to coming here, it was hard for me to imagine how a country that has seen so much turmoil could get back on its feet again. I imagined Rwanda being a very serious place where lightheartedness might be hard to come by. However, I've realized that it's quite the opposite. So far, I have seen in Rwanda a sense of progress and hope that is really fantastic. Although I know there will come a time when some Rwandans close to me may begin to open up about their experiences in a way that may be difficult for me to hear, on the surface it seems that people do not let their past hold them back from promising futures. People go to work, they attend school and church, they invite friends over for dinner, and just live regular lives. And there is such a great sense of community here that people are always generous with their greetings, smiles, and in the case of children, fist pounds. So to close off this post on a lighter note, I’ll talk about the experience I had in Kigali after our visit to the memorial and the pleasant surprises I found there.

Treat #1: A trip to the annual Rwanda International Trade Fair, which showcased some of handmade crafts/goods produced across Africa, booths for local banks and phone companies, Slap Chop-esq gadget demonstrations, and more. I was especially amused to come across this Barack Obama wall tapestry. Score.

Treat #2: A double-decker cheeseburger. ‘Nuff said.

Treat #3: Discovering that there are stores in Kigali that look like the photo below. Check out the variety! I bought myself a notebook with lined paper, which is a rarity here (most notebooks in Rwanda have graph paper) and I gifted myself a pretty sweet travel mug as well. This last one is important because it seems that the concept of getting coffee or tea "to go" in this country does not exist. You have to drink your beverage where you buy it, or B.Y.O.Thermos. lol This store even sold electric tea kettles and fluffy pillows. You better believe I’m getting one of each.

And on that note, that's all for this post. Have a great weekend, folks.