9-2-2013
After about two months at site, I had my first couch
surfers. It was kind of exciting to have visitors, and I felt they breathed
some new life into my attitude about living in Rwanda. Without intending to,
they helped remind me about how great it can be here.
I met up with the couch surfers, who were traveling around
Rwanda and Uganda for a few weeks, in a town nearby my village. There was a
celebration there put on by a local NGO to promote AIDS awareness and healthy
relationships, and I was invited by one of my fellow volunteers. I was
surprised that my guests had been interested in going to it, but I was glad
they were. It was nothing special. There were speeches, dances, skits, and
hoards of loitering children. Afterward, we were invited to a reception and
buffet at a nearby restaurant. This was typical, and I didn’t really question
it. My visitors, however, realized that they had nothing to do with this event,
and should not have been invited as a special guest to the reception. I could
tell that they were a little uncomfortable receiving the free meal, but
coattail-riding is just part of the game here.
The surfers were a young couple living in Sweden. The guy
was Swedish, and his girlfriend was Argentinean. They were very kind and
genuine; a really sweet couple. It was refreshing to meet them, as I hadn’t had
any exposure to the couch surfing backpacking crowd in a long time. Don’t get
it twisted, Peace Corps types and backpackers couldn’t be more different. I’m
never sure how much I fit in with either crowd. I get mocked by my Peace Corps
friends for being too much of a hippy, but I always feel a little too clean cut
and “mainstream” among backpackers.
Back in my village, we visited the hot springs near sunset.
It was my first time going there that late in the day and it was beautiful.
With the cooler air, it was also a lot easier to go into that scalding water.
It was a real pleasure to show my guests around my village, especially since
they really seemed to appreciate it. I feel like one of the best way to get off
the beaten track in a developing country, but get a lot out of the experience
would be to couch surf with Peace Corps volunteers. Of course it is just one
perspective, but volunteers who have been in their community for a long time
and can speak the local language can provide great insight into their village
and the country. We are not always easy to reach, but I feel like it would
still be worth it, if you are more interested in learning about the country and
having unique experiences rather than going on tours and watching animals.
That night, I gave them a menu of what kinds of food we
could make for dinner. I had considered buying meat before they got there, so I
could make a nice dinner for my guests, but then I remembered they were
couchsurfers. I was correct in my assumption that they were vegetarians. They
chose to make Ethiopian food. While I had everything to make Ethiopian lentils
and chickpeas, my previous attempt at making injera was a miserable failure. So
we just ate the dishes with rice. It felt like Indian/Ethiopian fusion and was
pretty tasty.
They left the next morning to go to Nyungwe Forest, the
nearby national park. I had only driven through it, and they invited me to come
along. It was tempting, but I had to plan lessons that day, and it would be
difficult to get there and back in one day.
After a busy first month of teaching, I realized I had not
meandered through a random part of my neighborhood in a while. So, that is what
I did with my evening. I met some new people, hung out with some kids and got a
little too close with a drunk man. Again, there is a big dichotomy here between
the people who abstain from alcohol, and the town drunks. The previous
volunteer left me with a game to play with the kids. They used to always follow
him around and yell out names of animals. Then, he would make the animal’s
corresponding noise. I had been invited in to visit a neighbor, when the kids
started playing the game. I would make them make the noises too sometimes. One of
the kids told me to make a rabbit noise, so I gave them my biggest lion roar.
Later, I told them to make a rabbit noise, and they all roared. It was amazing.
On a separate occasion, kids and I were exchanging animal names and noises. I
threw them a curveball, and said, “teacher.” They were all silent, except for
one kid who didn’t miss a beat, and started oinking.
***
Teaching here, as with most things in life I guess, is full
of highs and lows. I had been working with a couple of classes on the topic of
travel. They had been discussing where they had been, where they planned to go
on holidays, and where they would travel in the world if they could go
anywhere. I gave them an assignment to plan a one-month itinerary in groups of
four and then present it. One of my classes seemed to drag their feet through
it. Half the groups did not understand the instructions, and each member of the
group came up with their own itinerary. Worst of all, there was not much
imagination involved. The worst part, though, is that I know I need to blame
myself for their failures, especially when it is due to their lack of
understanding and interest. My other class, however, blew me away. All the
groups did the assignment and were very creative. I was amazed by how varied
their itineraries. The groups in the first class mostly made their itineraries
in Rwanda because they didn’t seem to know what else to write about. This
class, however, had destinations in Japan, China, Spain, Iraq, Congo, Brazil,
Israel, etc. Their reasons were all really interesting too. Evangelism,
pilgrimage, research into development and industry, scientific research, and
joining certain militant groups were all common themes. After the
presentations, the students had questions, and little debates would spring up.
There was one group who had a student that wanted to go to Iraq to join
Al-Qaeda. I think most students were surprised as I was. I simply sparked a
little bit of conversation, which turned out to be kind of interesting. I
wished, however, that the boy that wanted to go to Iraq was more able to
express himself in English. The only time I really jumped in was when the class
seemed to be chiding a girl for her desire to visit the birth places of Jesus
and Mohammad. It was unclear whether that was because she was Muslim. To me,
that didn’t matter, since I would be interested in seeing them as historical
sites, regardless of religious background. The baffling thing, though, was that
one of my two classes was that much better than the other. Not only did they do
the assignment well, they all seemed to enjoy it. It felt so good, but the
previous class had felt awful.
***
I made a huge batch of pineapple wine. Unfortunately after a
week, it tasted as if something had gone bad. I spent a few days trying to get
it back in the right direction. I added sugar, bananas and citric acid. It
started to get a little better, but I think only time will tell. I guess we’ll
see in a month or two.
***
One morning I was walking past the beef butcher early in the
morning. They only come out two days a week and I had not bought beef in the
village yet. I decided to go and see if I could get something fresh. They were
still cutting up the carcass in what seemed a surprisingly haphazard fashion.
Huge organs were pulled out and tossed aside, while other parts were slowly
hacked off with dozens of machete strikes. I had always defended the safety of
meat in developing countries. The unnatural meat, mass-produced and butchered
in filthy factories had to be more dangerous than rural Rwandan meat fed with
regular old grass. Their care with the removal of all the organs, though, was
not reassuring. Everything abot the butchering process was about force, not
finesse. Maybe making kitfo, one of my favorite foods, an Ethiopian raw steak
dish, is not the best idea. Then again, what better time to do it than when I
have health care!?
As they were hacking up one animal, they brought in a second
cow to slaughter. It dawned on me that, although I had seen other livestock
killed, I had never witnessed the death of an animal as large as a cow. A man
wearing a Muslim hat entered, wielding a large machete. They tied the cows legs
together, and pulled the ropes until it was immobilized and laying on the
grown. Although they had a Muslim butcher, something that seemed common in
Rwanda, he did not seem to follow any of the halal procedures, to make the meat
acceptable for Muslims to eat. Maybe there was something going on that I did
not understand. The slitting of the throat of the cow seemed fairly painless
and anti-climactic, but maybe that is because I had just recently seen
Apocalypse Now. Remember that horrific cow sacrifice in the last scene? A
friend of mine came up and told me not to buy any meat from the first cow
because it was sick. I don’t know how he knew, but I figured I might as well
wait for the second cow’s meat. The quality and amount of meat I ended up
getting was really impressive. The one other time I got meat was during
training. There was a lot of bone, the meat was tough and full of tendon, and
it was a lot more expensive.
***
One Friday night I had a few Chinese guys over for dinner.
After they had invited me over for tea one night, we had talked about getting
together for dinner some time, so I invited them over. By the time they
arrived, I had done most of the prep work for a curry vindaloo. They brought a
kilo of beef, two pineapples, a box of orange juice, and a big bag of “ginseng
ginger health tea”. What amazing visitors! I have always been blessed with such
great hospitality, but when I try to pay it forward, my guests outdo me! I put
a lot of effort into the curry,
though, roasting and grinding some of my own spices, grinding the fresh
ginger, garlic and onion instead of chopping it. We made a ridiculous amount of
food, but ate a lot. While I worked on the curry, Lee, a translator who speaks
pretty good English, volunteered to take care of the rice. None of the three
guys seemed to know anything about cooking, but I figured Lee would be fine
with the rice. Well, he burnt it, and my pot. The top part, though, was mostly
fine, and we had a great dinner and plenty of good conversation. Lee was a very
interesting guy. He seemed to break some of the Chinese stereotypes when our
conversation turned towards the topic of individualism as it related to
modernity. He had a lot of interesting things to say, and I was glad to have
him as a guest.
***
On Saturday, my English/Anti-AIDS club held a performance
for our school. When I say “my English/Anti-AIDS club”, I mean, the club that
was here when I got here, and now I just manage it. They are impressively
self-sufficient. I mostly just help them by acting as a liaison to the
administration. They want to perform, so I arrange it. After watching all their
sketches, poems and songs, I figured that the performance would be done in a
haphazard and disorganized fashion. I gave them advice where I could, but there
was not much I could do. When it finally came time to perform, I was amazed at
how well it came together. There were so many elements to the performance I had
not even known about. Afterward, I felt the same atmosphere of camaraderie that
I remembered from high school theater. Those that had performed were in great
moods and gathered behind the school where a hired photographer was snapping
pics. Once the excitement died down, I came to the group with some notes that I
had taken during the performance. It really felt like after a theater
performance, when the director gives the cast notes. It was fun to play the
role of the director, and even more fun that I could tell that the cast really
seemed to appreciate the feedback and the fact that I was helping them to
improve their performance.
