January 12, 2013
We had a regional meeting for all the volunteers in my
district and our neighboring district. I traveled the couple of hours to our
nearest town and we met at the home of a third year volunteer who is in the
town. A bunch of people were picking up care packages, so I scored a bunch of
cast-off items like dried fruits, crayons and candy.
After the meeting we were celebrating two birthdays so we
went for a late lunch and some beers. I had to run some errands in town and
wasted about an hour scouring markets and shops looking for items that couldn’t
be found. Really small tubing, a really big funnel and strainer to match. I
guess that was too much to ask for in my town. Back to the restaurant. I was
glad that the older volunteers had formed strong relationships with the owner
at this restaurant because he treated everyone to a free round of beers to
celebrate the birthdays.
Later that night we went down to a lakeside bar. None of the
moto drivers were able to give us an honest price, so someone in our group
arranged an alternate ride. The bar was crowded and it seemed that there was a
wedding reception going on in the big green lawn, but we were still welcome. I
kept trying to rally our group to go swimming, since we were right next to the water.
Someone in our group tried to walk on the trail down to the lake. Suddenly she
was stopped by three soldiers who appeared out of nowhere and sent her back. It
was a quick reminder that we were still just a few hundred meters from the
Congo, and security was a big issue.
Late in the night when we finally decided to head back, the
moto drivers were being extortionists. I said my price and when they refused, I
told Luke we needed to just walk away. I was sure they would call us back. We
kept walking and heard nothing. I guess there were enough of us to keep the
prices high. Suddenly I realized we were about to make a long trek uphill back
to the hotel. It was pitch black on the road, but we had a great view of Lake
Kivu, and the lights of Bukavu, Congo. About halfway back a car and a moto
zoomed past us, stopped, then drove off. I didn’t think anything of it, until,
suddenly one of our fellow volunteers, who we had met that day, came running
towards us. I am still unclear on what exactly had happened but he had been
kicked out of the car he was in. We started to walk together, and eventually
another taxi came by. We flagged it down. I started to negotiate the price but
it was ridiculous. I was about to send him away, but this other volunteer jumped in and started talking to the driver. Suddenly the ride was
free. I’m still unclear on what that was all about. It was a weird night, but
fun.
The next day we had breakfast tea at a little tucked away
café with triangle shaped candles and lots of bees. On Sunday morning, this
little Muslim-owned café was the only thing opened and it had a lot of
character. After that, I wanted to get people to go swimming, but nobody was
interested. Someday. I remembered that this was why I usually didn’t like doing
things in groups. I need to learn how to re-detach myself here and be a little
more independent when I need to be.
At the bus station I picked up a small package that a fellow
volunteer had sent me. The bus companies act as domestic post offices here. The
package was the champagne yeast that I had had sent to her house when she was
visiting America. Now, just in time for the end of mango season I had the key
ingredient.
The next day I taught my classes, then spent the evening
brewing a big batch of mango wine. I had about 40 mangos and almost nine pounds
of sugar. I found it odd that nobody found it odd how many mangos and bags of
sugar I would buy. I guess they were just happy for business. It was a very
busy night, peeling and pitting mangos, mashing mangos, and boiling water and
sugar. I had two buckets of must (fermenting fruit) amounting to almost 20 liters. I don’t know
what I’ll do with it all, but I hope I get a lot of visitors to help me with
it.
I had heard of volunteers in Cameroon doing beer-brewing
projects where they would set up a co-op for disadvantaged women to make local
beer. It sounded cool, but I really don’t think it is the right kind of project
for Rwanda. Cameroonians, it seems, are great at drinking beer. The jury (Joey)
is still out on Rwandans.
On one of my visits to Mama Jeanette’s house, I found her
and Jeanette working with corn. They were sitting among a huge pile of it,
which they had just harvested, and were removing the kernels from the cob. I
sat down and started helping. It was tricky at first, but I eventually got the
hang of it. They told me my fingers would be too weak. I laughed and said I had
strong fingers. They knew better. After thirty minutes, I had broken blisters
on both my thumbs. I laughed it off, but those wounds would be incredibly
obtrusive and painful for days. Mama Jeanette gave me a corn cob, which was
actually useful to remove the corn from the other cobs.
The next day I went up to visit a couple of volunteers that
live not too far from me. One of them wanted to borrow my tent, and I wanted to
borrow some rhubarb. One of the volunteers lives with nuns, and they grow
rhubarb and make jam out of it. When I arrived, I was invited to lunch with the
nuns. This was a real treat. It was Rwandan food, but prepared with a lot more
care than is typical. It was a refreshing meal, plus the nuns gave me and the
volunteer, Claire some beer with our lunch. Most of the people I know in my
town are against drinking, but here I was being served a mid-day beer from
middle-aged women of the cloth. I don’t know if I would want to live with nuns
for two years, but it had a lot of perks. Their gardens were incredible. A
large portion of their food came from their own gardens. When I saw their
banana trees, I joked that they were brewing their own banana beer. Turns out
this was exactly the case. Claire had made some delicious banana bread and gave
me a small loaf along with a generous bag of rhubarb.
We walked over to the other volunteer’s village just down
the trail. We found him in his classroom watching music videos on his laptop
with his students. This seemed to be a common thing for him to do in his spare
time. He basically lived on the school grounds, so he was very well-connected
with it.
Then it was time for me to head home. Two days later, I made
my rhubarb jam. It was delicious, but could have had a little more of that
rhubarb tang. Maybe too much sugar. It is difficult to measure when you have
nothing to measure with. I came out with two jars. I didn’t actually have any
free jars, so I had to put them in plastic containers. Luckily there is enough
sugar so it won’t go bad too quickly. I am writing this three weeks later, and
it is still looking good.
That night I decided to make one of my favorite things in
the world: rhubarb coffee cake. It is the kind of thing that I preach against.
Striving for those nostalgic foods, when you don’t have the capacity to do it
right, and you have more practical things right in front of you. Well, I had
come up on some rhubarb, and I couldn’t help but try. I knew it could never
compare to Mama’s. I used the so-called “Peace Corps oven”. It is basically
using a big pot with sand in the bottom on a charcoal stove. I have a huge
15-liter pot that I use for this. I put the batter in a rubber bread mold
(which I am still shocked that I actually bought) and set it on empty tomato
paste cans in the pot. There was too much batter for the mold to hold. With
just a little bit of heat, it started to collapse, spilling about a third of
the batter onto the sand below. It was slow-going. At 11:30 at night, after
four hours of cooking, I gave up. It was kind of done, but not really. It was a
very firm goo. It was five or six hours of my time that I spent to learn, once
again, that I am a terrible baker. I like my cooking, but I can’t think of a
single time where I have been happy with something I have baked. The coffee
cake, provided about three days worth of occasional picking and snacking, then
feeling terrible about myself. Gooey baked goods, somehow, feel much less
healthy. It is like you can really feel all the butter and sugar in the most
real way.
No comments:
Post a Comment