Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Couchsurfers and Animal Noises


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. 

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