Site Visit

 

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October 1, 2012

After four weeks at our training site, we got to leave for the first time to visit our future sites. Our first step was to go to Kigali for a day of meetings. We went to a conference room at a nice hotel. We enjoyed simple luxuries like juice, coffee and hors d’ oeuvres. The first order of business was to meet our headmasters, who had all come to Kigali. My headmaster, David was a short man with character to spare. He had more energy and upbeat personality than most Rwandans I had met. Part of this could be because he was originally from the Congo, where the people have a reputation for their loud, outgoing personalities.

The day of meetings dragged on, and finally at 4:00 we were given our first taste of true freedom. We had a full six hours to ourselves before we had to go back to the Peace Corps head quarters for the night. I teamed up with Luke and Caitlin, a married couple that would be at a site a few hours from mine, to get into the city. Without too much trouble, we found a minibus into the city center. Kigali seems like a difficult city to navigate because it consists of nothing but winding roads that traverse the city’s many hills. Getting directions was a tricky game, too, since I was never sure which language to use. I quickly found that my limited Kinyarwanda was not as helpful as either French or English, as everybody seemed to speak one of the two. I approached one woman with French, and she responded, “Please, speak English.”

When we arrived at the “center”, it seemed that we could have been on any of the city’s major boulevards. A man from our bus helped us up a steep and narrow dirt path and through a series of streets to reach the central part of Kigali. The first place we went was to Nakumatt, a department store that caters to expats and wealthy Rwandans. It was a bizarre experience after spending a month in a village where the only packaged foods the  small shops have are sardines, biscuits and mayonnaise. This place had everything from sporting goods, to electronic equipment and all sorts of imported foods. It was all very strange, and it is the kind of place that I usually avoid going to. Luke and Caitlin were looking for pillows, though, and I needed to get a jar of peanut butter for the volunteer I would be replacing. Then we went to Simba, another import store with an attached restaurant. Luke and Caitlin ate there, but I was saving my appetite for the supposed West African food that I heard exists in the neighborhood of Nyamirambo. Unfortunately, though, when we went to the bus stop to go there, there was a huge crowd waiting, and all the buses were full. We were running low on time, so we decided to just stop by a nearby bar with a balcony and enjoy a couple of cold Primus beers. That turned out to be enough of a dinner for me. We took a minibus back to the Peace Corps headquarters. Although I didn’t get to go to the neighborhood I had wanted to visit, I was happy about my first chance to get into the city. We managed to navigate the public transport easily and get where we wanted to without hassle.

The next morning we had another meeting with our headmasters. Then we were supposed to leave immediately for our sites. Unsurprisingly there was a hold-up with our travel money that delayed us a couple hours. My headmaster and I didn’t leave the bus station until 12:30. I was in no rush, though. Luke and Caitlin were also on the bus with their headmaster.

The drive, of course, was beautiful. The playful Rwandan hip-hop that filled our ears was perfect background music for driving through the rolling hills and watching rural life fly by us. Halfway through the first six-hour leg of our drive we passed by a refugee camp that was taking up a major part of a hillside. The houses, although constructed from wood frames and white UNHCR-issued tarps, looked surprisingly sturdy and the camp seemed to be in great condition for what one expects of a refugee camp in Africa. I later learned that the camp was only a few months old. It housed about six thousand refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A new wave of the long-running conflict in Eastern Congo had flared up with the birth of a new rebel group called M23.

Notice the hillside in the background covered with UNHCR huts for refugees.

They look sturdy, but they are just basic wood frames with white tarps for walls. Still, much better than in a lot of refugee camps.

The Nyungwe Forest, one of Rwanda’s few areas of preserved rainforest was the highlight of the drive. Suddenly the endless settlements of Africa’s most densely populated country ended and we were in an impressive expanse of pristine rainforest for two hours. I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to come back here to go hiking. And at the same time, I feared the terrain and the humidity. Jungle, they say, is like green hell.

When we got to Kamembe, the nearest town to Luke, Caitlin and I, they stayed behind because they would not be able to reach their site by dark. Peace Corps travel policy forbids travel at night. However, my headmaster and I pressed on to our town. I was glad to be arriving after dark. I am sure I have said it several times before, but there is something captivating about waking up to a place you have only seen at night, and letting the new day inspire you.

Jeff, the volunteer I would be replacing was hanging out outside a boutique in the center of the village. He was tall, blonde and bearded. American, although of 100% of Dutch decent. And the village kids still mistook him for being Chinese. This is because the only non-Africans most people see in this village are the Chinese, who own and run the huge cement factory. For whatever reason there is the occasional Indian, but Jeff is the only true white man in the village.

I said goodbye to the headmaster and walked with Jeff to his home, which was right next to the cement factory. I had a great first impression of Jeff. He seemed generally happy; perhaps because he seems to be constantly giggling. His house, my future house, was surprisingly modern for what I had expected for Peace Corps accommodation. He had electricity, running water and a western style bathroom. I was happy about the electricity, indifferent about the water, and quite disappointed by the western style bathroom. I like my squat latrines and bucket showers. The toilet leaked, as did the sink, and the showerhead was broken off and there was no curtain. I felt like there was no reason to strive for these western comforts when they would be uncomfortable, and even a burden, especially when latrines and bucket showers get the job done just fine. I had been looking forward to a very African housing setup, with a courtyard, an outdoor kitchen, maybe some place for gardening or chickens. Not at this place though. Since it was owned by the cement factory, most of the space outside was made of cement. My house was behind a big gate, and was connected to a few other units that housed military. I am still not sure if the military base next to the factory is incidental or for protection of the factory itself. We are less than 10 miles from the Congo border after all, so it could be one of several reasons.

My time visiting Jeff, and my future home was interesting. For the most part there were only things to be excited about. The school seemed great. The town had a basketball court and a tennis court, thanks to the factory. There were hot springs a 45 minute walk away. Jeff also had a great, supportive community. He had gained the respect and trust of everyone there, not an easy task in this village. My biggest fears were that he was a hard act to follow. He was a regular at the Methodist Church, where he played guitar in the band. Everyone would ask me if I would be taking his spot in the band. They always seemed disappointed by my “no”. If anything, I would say that this community could be too stable and well off to need a Peace Corps volunteer. There did not seem to be as many of the glaring problems in the school or community that I heard from the other people when we got back from site visits.

A lot of our time was spent on visits. I didn’t always know where we were going. We just always seemed to be walking on the muddy little paths around the village, and would eventually arrive to someone’s home. We would sit, and Jeff, with his impressive level of Kinyarwanda, would make conversation for a while. Then, suddenly, we would go. This reminded me so much of the visits I would go on with Awine, when I was living with him in Ghana. Some nights he would just ask if I wanted to go on a walk. I would follow him to these far off homes, we would hang out for a bit, then suddenly return home. In both cases, I didn’t understand what was being discussed, but I was glad to be on these little visits. The second two nights I was there we visited families for dinner. The first night was the family of a good friend of Jeff, a boy named Baia. They lived in a basic home with a mud floor. Jeff said he liked this family because they were one of the few to decorate their walls with something other than a picture of Jesus or President Paul Kagame. I couldn’t see much in the dark, but they seemed to have random homemade decorations and even drawings on their walls. We ate a basic meal of rice, pounded and boiled greens, and little dried fish. It was surprisingly delicious, but then again, I think the welcoming atmosphere had a lot to do with it.

The next night we went to the home of Bizinette, one of Jeff’s friends who plays bass with him in the church band. He was a driver for the cement company, and by the looks of his home and all within, he was doing well for himself. It was one of the nicest homes I had seen in Rwanda. It was loaded with expensive electronics. We only stayed for tea, because we were heading to one of Jeff’s favorite family’s houses for dinner. It was Mama Jeanette’s house. Although they lived close to Bizinette, and some of the family was involved in the choir and band, Mama Jeanette’s family was one of the poorest I had met in Rwanda. At the same time, I felt much more comfortable sitting on a flimsy wooden stool in their mud hut in the dark than I did on Bizinette’s couch in his nice living room. I could relax at Mama Jeanette’s. The whole family is so sweet and they don’t put on airs. They served us ubugali (cassava porridge) with beans. It was one of the most basic of Rwandan meals, but somehow they made it more delicious than any meal I’d ever had at my, relatively well off, host family. 

One of the best parts of my visit was getting to play with the basketball club. Jeff had started a GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) Club at our school to promote female empowerment. One of the side projects was a basketball club for the clubs. As basketball is my favorite sport, I was more than happy to hang out and play with them after school.

As I mentioned before, this town is also blessed with some beautiful hot springs. One day, Jeff and I walked out to them. I was expecting a few hot little puddles, like most natural hot springs are. I was in for a surprise to find that not only was it a large pond, but also that the area around it was developed and landscaped like nothing I’d ever seen at a natural hot spring. We probably should have had to pay to get in, since it seemed like it should be a state park, but it was free. The grass and gardens were well-manicured and there were concrete gazebos circling the pond. The maintenance of it was paid for by the cement factory, as far as I know. Am I going to have to reconsider my stance on Chinese business in Africa because of some beautiful hot springs? I guess I have a couple of years to decide. We were also lucky enough to have rain while we were in the water. The water was obviously hot, but so is the air in our village. We live in the part of Rwanda with the lowest elevation, and therefore it is also the hottest and most humid. So the rain almost seemed necessary to enjoy the spring.

There are lots of rice fields in the valley below my village. They make the place look a little like the Philippines.

Because my site is farther from Kigali than anybody else’s, I decided to get a head start on getting back to our training site. The day before we had to be back, Jeff and I took a bus to our regional town. Luke and Caitlin had the same plan and they walked the three hours to town with the volunteer they are replacing. That night we stayed in the Peace Corps’ regional house. Because we are the farthest region away, there is a transit house for us to use for these kinds of situations. Unfortunately they were shutting it down at the end of the month due to budget concerns. We were glad to enjoy it for a night, but it was bittersweet knowing that we would never get this luxury again.

The next day we headed back to Kigali on the (relatively) long bus ride. Only because we had left a day early were we able to get back to our home stays in time for our 6:30 curfew.

Coming back from site visit was hard. We now had an idea of what we were getting ourselves into, but did not want to sit  through another two months of training. We had gotten a taste of freedom as well as a glimpse of the interesting life we would lead in what seemed like the much too distant future.