Mango Season

28 December 2012

One of my personal side projects at my site was making wine. Part of the reason had to do with the fact that I was hell bent on using as many mangos as possible in the short, six-week mango season. There were different levels of effort that one could use to make homemade wines. Anywhere from using specialty ingredients, and serious equipment, to simply throwing fruit and sugar in a bucket and waiting. My approaches have been a little closer to the latter than the former. The only fancy thing I was doing was getting some actual champagne yeast and campden tablets. I had them sent to a volunteer that was visiting America and she was able to bring them back in the middle of January. I was not sure, though, when the mangos would stop showing up at the market, so I made my first batch without the fancy ingredients, hoping for the best. A bunch of mangos, sugar, water some tea, and citric acid was all I used. Between the jam and the wine, sugar was almost certainly my biggest expenditure since arriving at site. I made a huge mess and needed to mop my floor after. While the mango wine was able to start fermenting on its own, without yeast, it went very slowly. Weeks later, I would add some bread yeast, which supposedly would result in a bad flavor, but it was a risk I was willing to take. Time will tell I guess.

***

One day, when I was riding home from the market, the pedal on my bike simply fell off. I thought I had lost a nut or something, but upon closer inspection I saw that the threads on the crank had simply become stripped. It was further proof of what I already knew: this bike looks nice, but it is just a piece of crap. I walked back to town with my stupid bike, and a drunk guy talking at me the entire way. He kept telling me that he was an electrician and wanted a job at the cement factory in town. It took me a minute to realize that he was asking me to get him a job. I explained that I was not a Chinese cement factory worker, and that I was just a volunteer English teacher. He understood, but didn’t care. Somehow, with my light skin, I would be able to get him a job at the factory I had no association with. Whatever I said to assure him I had no power there did not seem to get through to him. This was the first of several times that people would come to me looking for work at the cement factory.

Back in town, I went to the bike mechanics, hoping they would have some solution for me.  One of them, who was something of a Rastafarian, told me that he could not fix it, but that he would take me to a guy that could. We walked around the corner to the local welder. I was skeptical, but what else could I do? He welded the pedal back on and we walked back to where the bike mechanics work. The Rastafarian noticed that my back break was disconnected. This was because the break was jammed, and I just hadn’t gotten around to adjusting it. This guy insisted on setting it right. I allowed him, thinking that a hundred francs was worth not having to deal with it myself. I quickly saw that he had no idea what he was doing, and was figuring it out as he went. After twenty minutes of fiddling, a moto driver came up, took a look at it and had it fixed in just a couple of minutes. I tried to commandeer my bike before they went classic sketchy mechanic on me. The Rastafarian kept a hold of it, and started tightening every allen wrenchable thing on my bike. I saw that he was just making up work for himself so he could jack up the price. I told him to stop, and I finally had to forcibly remove the bike from his grip. He told me I owed him 1000 francs. I was bracing myself for an inflated price of 500. I got angry and told him it was ridiculous. The moto driver started speaking in English, and asked me how much it would have cost back in America. I wanted to tell him that if I went into my friendly neighborhood bike shop they would probably have just done it to be nice. Instead I just told the Rastafarian that I would never come back there again. It was a silly thing to say, since I really didn’t have any other option in town. I got on my bike and rode away. Three rotations later and my pedal snapped off again. I think at that point I was more angry than I ever had in this country. Back to the welder. He reattached it again, for no extra charge, but I knew it was pointless. Long story short, I have never been back to the bike mechanic, because, with one pedal, my bike has been rendered useless. Officially, I have to take my bike all the way back to Kigali to get it fixed. I don’t see myself having the time to make that journey for a while, plus I don’t know how I will get my bike on the rackless mini buses.

The next day I would be leaving for New Year’s celebrations. So I spent the evening making mango liqueur, a recipe that I made up, to take along with me.

***

I left in the early afternoon to get to my nearest town. Everyone from my group of volunteers was meeting up in one of the lake towns. I might be the only person in the country that could not reach it in a single day. So I met up with Luke and Caitlan in our regional town so we could continue on the next morning. The hotel we stayed in was shockingly expensive. None of the other volunteers seemed to know of a cheaper option. Considering, however, that it was one of the nicest rooms I had ever stayed at in Africa,

I would assume that the town would have at least one divier option. We spent the evening eating roasted pork (southwest Rwanda’s best dish) and playing pool. When we went back to the hotel, I was tired, but I wanted to enjoy the room some more. So I took a shower, read a little and watched some of a movie. I regretted that we would have to leave so early in the morning, since I wanted to enjoy the comfortable room I had paid so dearly for.

The only bus that connects the lake towns of Kamembe (our regional town) and Kibuye supposedly left at 6 or 7 in the morning. So we left on foot at 5:30 AM. I think we all knew that we were being a little too urgent, but when there is only one bus per day, you can’t take chances. It was funny how comfortable I was waiting for an unknown amount of time. This is what I was used to. On the other hand, the buses leave my site on an hourly schedule. They are almost never on time and it drives me mad. I would rather show up and not know when the bus is leaving than to have a schedule that doesn’t really matter.

For the first time in Rwanda, I got to ride on a real bus. It was a real monster; decrepit and rugged. Luke looked at it and said, “well, at least it is less likely to tip over.” When going through the winding forest roads near our site, he was sure that we would flip our mini-van. Little did he know how unstable this ride would really be. It started out, innocent enough, on a paved road going into the hills that bordered the voluminous Lake Kivu. Within an hour, though, the pavement gave way to dirt and mud roads. What followed was five hours on the worst and most dangerous roads I had ever experienced in a bus. The work to pave this road had started a couple of years before, but little progress had been made. The distance between the two towns was only 130 km (80 miles) but it took six hours. To travel between the two towns, most people preferred to stay on pavement and go to Kigali first, then to Kibuye. This would add about three hours to the travel time, but for some it was worth it for the comfort and safety. And this ride was as exciting and adrenaline-rushing as it was beautiful. That is to say, very. Whenever taking blind, hairpin turn on a cliff at a rapid clip or making and dangerous pass on a narrow highway, I am usually calm. I know that the drivers do it all the time and they know the risks. This road, however, had me on edge. Rwandan drivers, I have noticed, are relatively cautious, especially compared to their Congolese counterparts. Our driver was doing the best he could but the roads were just too steep and muddy. There were multiple times when we were slipping and sliding on steep hills with steep cliffs a couple feet away from us. Even the Rwandans were getting scared. Maybe it seems I am being dramatic, but I will say that it was probably the second scariest drive of my life. Later I would hear stories of the buses on this road tipping over in the mud. One of my fellow volunteers who lives along the road says she refuses to take that bus, since she saw one go up on two wheels.

When we got to the edge of Kibuye we stopped in a place that looked nothing like a bus station. I knew we were in the edge of town, but I assumed we would make another stop in the center, since not many of the people got off. I confirmed with somebody sitting near us by asking if we were going to town. He nodded in agreement. I would later find out that the bus was continuing to Kigali, which can also be referred to as “town”. The bus continued on, and suddenly we were on a paved highway. When the ticket collector passed us and asked where we were going, we said Kibuye. Her eyes got real wide and just walked on. I got the sense that we had already left Kibuye, but she would not tell us what the problem was. She did not speak English, and assumed we did not know Kinyarwanda, so she didn’t bother to tell us the problem. When we realized we were quickly moving away from our destination, I made the bus driver stop and let us off there. We were at least 10 km outside of town by now. They suggested walking back, but I had no desire to do that. I assumed some bus or car would stop for us. After five minutes of walking, a white SUV came around the corner. I waved my hand and they stopped. I ran to the vehicle and found that it was a Chinese construction worker and his driver. He immediately gave us a ride in his car. I was happy with or luck but not all that surprised. I knew something would happen. The funny thing about the situation is the bad (or mixed maybe) reputation that the Chinese have been getting for their work in Africa. However, I know that if the vehicle had been from a major NGO there in Rwanda for “selfless” acts of development, there is no way they would have stopped for us. Once, when I was an intern for Catholic Relief Services in Ghana, we denied a ride to two guys who had just crashed a motorbike on a bush road. They were not critically injured, but they needed medical attention and had enough blood on them to make it the excuse of the drive not to give them a ride. They’ll get blood on the seats.

So the Chinese guy and his driver not only took us to town, but they drove us all the way to the hotel that we would be staying at. We walked in finding about ten of our fellow volunteers sitting outside enjoying some afternoon beers. Although we had only been apart for a few weeks, I was happy to see them. After sitting down, though, I felt overwhelmed. Everyone was loud and I felt our group was making a scene. I had to ease myself back into the idea of being in a big group again. I was relieved when a drizzle of rain came and most people went inside. A few others and I stayed out, knowing that it was just passing by. As much as I felt uncomfortable socially at the moment, I felt I might still be in for a good holiday weekend. 

It's Christmas Time in the City.

23 December 2012

To celebrate Christmas, I went to my Luke and Caitlan’s house. We were not sure about transportation to each other’s sites. Officially, It would require a two hour bus, followed by a 45-minute moto ride. This seemed far too complicated, so I asked around about whether there were back roads that could get me there easier. As the crow flies we could not have been more than 20 km away from each other. Indeed I was able to find a moto driver that would take me there for a reasonable price.

The ride, which was entirely uphill for almost an hour, was incredible. There were deep, green ravines off to my left. We rode dangerously close to the edge as my driver, Pussy (like cat), made a call on his cell phone. I was amazed to see homes on the other side of the ravine. I wondered how they reached the nearest town, as they seemed completely cut off.

Deep in the hills, at an elevation at least a couple thousand meters higher than my home, I arrived at Luke and Caitlan’s site. When I walked into their house, I was delighted to see the work they had done to make their home not just clean and livable, but even cozy. When I had seen it when they moved in it looked depressing. A grass mat, some decorations on the walls, clean floors and some Christmas lights went a long way. They had even made a paper Christmas tree to put on the wall, next to their paper fireplace with paper stockings. It was awesome. I was so glad I was able to go there for Christmas. I think that just about all of our training group was getting together in a few different locations. Our Christmas party would definitely be the smallest and most low key. I was glad for this though. It felt very family-like. We spent most of our time hanging out and cooking.

Christmas Tree, Mantle and Stockings. Just like home.

That day, though, we had been invited to lunch by one of their friends in town; a fellow teacher named Samuel. He was also the owner of a restaurant, called “Healthy Resto-Bar”. We ate in his home, however, which was a single room about half the size of a small college dorm room. He pulled out a small, yellow jerry can and poured us each a glass of homemade banana beer. As we waited for the food, I am assuming to be delivered from his restaurant, we listened to music from his “OLPC” laptop. Do you remember that organization, “One Laptop Per Child”, that was trying to distribute simple, durable laptops to children in developing countries? Well, Rwanda was one of those countries, and I have heard only stories of those laptops being in the hands of people other than students. It makes sense when you are here. If a school got a shipment of 20 laptops, they wouldn’t possibly just give them out. First, there would not be enough for the hundreds of students at the schools. Second, the teachers, at least some of them, would certainly manage to snag them and keep them for themselves. The schools don’t even have books, and sometimes not even electricity. Giving laptops seemed to show poor judgment and misplaced priorities. Anyway, lunch was good, and I was served the biggest piece of liver. It was dry and livery, but not the worst I had ever had. Even though it was only noon, Samuel kept topping off or glasses of banana beer, until the jerry can was empty. He was a cool guy, and we invited him to dinner the next night.

On Christmas eve we started to get in the Christmas spirit. We cooked all day and listened to Christmas music. We made fried rice with pork and pineapple for lunch. For dinner we were making Mexican food. I was making my cochinita pibil, and while it marinated, we went to the market. We were on a search for ugly Christmas sweaters. It was last minute, but we knew it was possible, as we had seen people wearing them on occasion. We found one, plus a Christmas-themed Betty Boop shirt.

That night Samuel came over for our Mexican Christmas Eve feast. Caitlan made tortillas and guacamole. Plus we made a huge pot of Mexican rice. I was worried that Samuel would not like the food. Previous experiences with serving non-Rwandan food to Rwandans had shown mixed to negative results. Samuel, however, loved the food and ate a lot. I had also made a vanilla mango liqueur which he also liked. The final test, though, was whether he would like my spicy tequila. I had bought some tequila back in Atlanta, then infused it with chilies at site, and was finally breaking it out for the special occasion. It was a big treat. Best of all, it was not wasted on Samuel. He seemed to tolerate, if not enjoy, it.

On Christmas morning, we opened our gifts, which were nestled under our paper Christmas tree. Caitlan had made Luke a big poster collage. It featured a lot of pictures from magazines of different places in the world. It said, in big letters, “Not all those who wander are lost.” It was very cute. Luke made Caitlan a backgammon set. He had found some thin pieces of wood and glued them into a real backgammon board. He used paint to draw the board. He had gone around the local bars to ask for bottle caps for the pieces, but they didn’t understand him. So he dug them out of the dirt around the bar. He also carved a couple of dice out wood. On the opposite side of the backgammon board, he painted a checkerboard. The board featured poetry very in English by, I want to say T.S. Eliot, and in French by…a French poet. It was a really cool, and romantic gift. When they were traveling together in Eastern Europe, they had taken a backgammon board everywhere they went. They had a tradition of writing all the places they had played it right on the board. They gave me a jar, which was basically like giving me a new jar of jam, and a whole bunch of candy that they had gotten in a care package. Little Butterfingers and Reese’s were a great Christmas morning appetizer. I was saving the Hershey’s bars, though, for making s’mores. I gave them pairs of tire sandals from my market and a jar of my mango chutney. I learned that Luke’s mom and my mom have the same Christmas morning breakfast tradition of pull-apart bread (monkey bread). So we made it. Well, I think Caitlan mostly made it, while I just started the charcoal stove. It was delicious. Although I was far from home and missed my family, it was still a really special Christmas. 

Our presents nestled under the tree.

For lunch we ate some of our huge amounts of leftovers, as well as easy cheese and (on) summer sausage that they had gotten in a care package. For dinner we made breakfast. It was very influenced on their Midwest/southern upbringing. Biscuits, gravy, eggs, and hash browns. Hint to everyone: while I am not a bad cook, never put me in charge of hash browns. I don’t know what I did, but they were mostly inedible, unless you’re Luke. Afterward, I went to town to pick us up a round of beers from the bar. Part of me wanted to go into town to enjoy the day with everyone else, but it was so relaxing at home. I was glad that I got a glimpse of what was going on, though. Since it is a very Catholic town, everyone was freely drinking at the bar. There was a DJ, Christmas decorations, lots of drunk people and even more kids running around. It was an interesting scene. I imagined that this was probably a lot more raucous than whatever was going on down in my much bigger, though much more protestant town.

I was planning on leaving the day after Christmas, but I was tired and they said that I could stick around another day. I still felt like I was violating that rule about visitors being like fish; they start to smell after three days. Well, I was probably smelling anyway. Their site, unlike mine, is too cold for cold showers. Not much happened that day. Lots of games of yahtzee and backgammon. Then we watched Forrest Gump, which we decided can happen on every holiday.

The next day I made the journey back home on a moto. I felt a little ripped off, though, since the driver only had his motor on for about 7 minutes of the hour ride. The rest was just coasting down the hill. Now that I had a new jar, and had emptied another one, I spent that evening making mango cinnamon jam. It was so good that I wondered why it wasn’t more common to put spices into jams. Fools!

Unfortunate Bikes. Unfortunate Barbers.

Still in December 2012

Having my Peace Corps-issued mountain bike, was bittersweet. I had owned a typical steel, cheap African bike in Ghana and it was good enough to get me between home and work on flat, decent paved and unpaved roads. I was in a Rwandan, village though. The roads were unpaved, covered in rocks, and full of hills. I recognized that this mountain bike could be an advantage in this terrain and I was grateful for it. However, the attention it gives you is pretty obnoxious. I already turn heads while walking around my village, but when I am on my bike it is like I am in a parade. I feel so self-conscious about my wealth. Plus there are the constant requests from people to borrow it. I wonder if the Rwandans that do have those old, black, steel bikes are constantly asked by other people to borrow them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. I wonder, though, if they do loan them out a lot. I hope not, because I would feel even worse if they did.

One day I went to my market town on my bicycle. It was nice to avoid the hour-long walk, but when I got to the crowded town, I almost regretted riding my bike. I found a post to lock my bike to. In the time it took to get off my bike and fish my lock from my bag, I had a crowd of about twenty boys and men around me. As I fiddled with the combination, I tried to send glances to the men to imply that it was impolite to look at the number on my lock as I undid it. I am sure they weren’t being malicious, but my emotions got the better of me and I got angry and northwest-style, passive aggressive. I threw my lock back in my bag, shot everyone dirty looks and pushed through the crowd in a huff. I went to the outskirts of town, which was, arguably, a worse idea, since the bike would actually be very easy to steal there. The lock that was issued to me had a cable about half the width of a pencil. I could have chewed through it.

There were a lot of things I was looking for in the market that day, but I found little of it. The biggest success was finding Christmas gifts for my friends Luke and Caitlan. I was trying to turn them onto the virtues of tire sandals, and I found some cobblers doing some very impressive work. Tire sandals, for whatever reason, seem to be a dying art in the developing world. I have never seen the fabled “huaraches” of Mexico, and the “Afro-Moses” of Ghana, for the most part, are now relegated to the most rural villages in the north. Even in Mali it took days of asking around to find someone to make a pair. So the last place I expected to find an oasis of tire sandal production was in all-too-formal, shiny-shoe obsessed Rwanda. What’s more, these tire sandals had style, in one of the less stylish places I have been. The creativity that these cobblers were putting into their kicks was impressive. First of all, the sandals were two-layered. The bottom layer was the rugged tire rubber. The top layer, though, was a softer rubber that was what you would expect to find on cheap Tevas. It was in ingenious mix of comfort and ruggedness. The kicker, though, was the strap. They didn’t simply use tire tubes or nylon straps. I don’t really know what they used, but on top of it they sewed different kinds of fuzzy fabrics that they had probably scavenged from somewhere. So I got Caitlan a pair of fuzzy, shiny-blue tire sandals. I got Luke a pair too, but I felt the flashy, fuzzy kinds were for the girls only.

My hair was getting long, and I had been wanting to get it cut for a while. I kept putting it off though. One day, when I was walking through town, a guy asked me if I wanted a shave. I thought about it, and asked what he would charge for my whole head; haircut and shave. It was less than a dollar, so I went into his shop. While they don’t do the straight razor in this part of Africa, it is impressive how much effort they put in with the clippers. He probably spent almost an hour on my head. Most of the volunteers did not trust the local barbers to cut straight hair. I wanted to say that they were being judgmental and they shouldn’t judge since they don’t know. But then again, I had actually never had a haircut in black Africa, so I wouldn’t really know either. I really felt, though, that this guy would give me an awesome haircut and I could gloat to the people that went to expensive barbers in the capital. I was only half-surprised that this guy didn’t have scissors. I had figured they could come in handy at some point for some hairstyle. So he went at my mane, with an amazing confidence, with the clippers, slowly trimming away bits and pieces haphazardly. There were moments where it looked like it would be a great haircut. Then there were moments when I started to develop a mullet. When he was finished, he asked if it was ok. My bangs were completely jagged. It might have been the first time in my life when I have asked the barber to adjust something. I usually can’t wait to get out of the chair. But I looked ridiculous. He managed to even up the middle part of my bangs, but he left me with what would come to be known as “fang bangs”. On either temple my bangs extended about two inches longer than my hair in the middle of my forehead. When I pushed my hair down, the hair framed my face and it looked like my bangs had fangs. He proceeded to work on my facial hair. I said I wanted him to get rid of everything. For whatever reason, though, he left the mustache. What was he implying? I told him to get rid of it, so he trimmed it up a little bit. I repeated that I wanted it gone, no mustache. He went even shorter, but it was still there. This barber really wanted me to have a mustache, so I gave in and planned to shave at home.

After paying for the haircut, the barber invited me to his house for lunch. He put his hair products away and closed the shop. His name, I would find out, was Mwizerwa. He had an energy about him that I had not seen in anyone else here. Wherever he went, whatever he did, he seemed to be doing it at double speed. I tend to walk faster than most Rwandans, but I almost had to run to keep up with Mwizerwa. As much as I appreciate when people slow down and don’t take life so seriously, I found something admirable in Mwizerwa’s energy. It was like he was just that excited to get where he was going that he would move that fast. We arrived at a small house where some young women were sorting beans in the yard. His grandmother, who he referred to as “umucecuru”, or old lady, was sitting in the doorway. We sat at a small table inside next to a bed and his grandmother brought us a plate of beans and plantains. It was actually nice to be served in a communal dish. This was something I found odd about Rwanda. Eating communally, especially with the hands, seemed to be seen as passé. I really liked his grandmother and the atmosphere of this house. Plus, they seemed to understand my sense of humor. After eating, Mwizerwa said we were going to his house. I had thought we were at his house, but there was no time for questions. We were on the move! There was no after-meal conversation or relaxing, and I barely got to say goodbye to the old lady. We were off! After ten minutes of slogging behind Mwizerwa, we arrived at his bachelor pad. It was a little house with a small living room, small bedroom and small bathroom. But it was his own. Like his barbershop, the walls were adorned with posters of rap artists and Bollywood stars. It was fun to visit a Rwandan who lived as a bachelor. He reminded me a little of Awine, my roommate back in Ghana. He brought out some mangos and gave me one to peel. When he saw that I was too slow to peel it, he grabbed it and peeled it for me. Conversation with him was difficult, though, since he spoke as fast as he walked and my Kinyarwanda abilities were still…under construction. As soon as the mangos were consumed we left. He showed me that he had two pigs in a pen behind his house. This made it seem even more likely that we would develop a friendship.