This Time: Collapsible Wooden Coat Hanger

17-2-2013

We had some sort of Peace Corps meeting in mid February. I didn’t know much about it, but it seemed out of character. Our administrators were traveling to different regions to accommodate everyone. My region was the least accommodated, since we are the most remote. Others were annoyed by this, but I don’t mind traveling long distances, especially if it gives me an excuse to miss a couple days of school. In fact, I was one of two people in the country that would have to spend two nights away from my site, and miss three days of teaching in order to attend a five-hour meeting.

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So I arrived in Butare in the late afternoon, with plenty of time to explore before this meeting. It was really one of the first times I felt that I was truly traveling freely and alone since I had arrived in Rwanda. It felt great. I had been given a few suggestions from fellow volunteers, but they were the exact kinds of advice that I don’t bother with. Over-priced hotels, western restaurants and nice bars. This was one of the few times I could be anonymous in Rwanda, and I wasn’t going to waste it on doing what Rwandans would expect of me. After finding a much cheaper hotel than the one a volunteer recommended (I mean, come on, we’re Peace Corps volunteers, we don’t have any money, right?), I went next door to have, what I thought was, a well-deserved beer. The bar was the “El Dorado” or “El Dolado”, depending on which sign you looked at. Kinyarwanda doesn’t differentiate between the letters “l” and “r” to such an extent that people regularly interchange the two letters in their own names.

When I sat down in the bar and realized there was a man there with an eye patch, sitting at the next table, I knew I was at the right place. I really needed this. I don’t go to bars in my village, and usually when I am in a town, I am with fellow volunteers and we stick together and don’t interact with the Rwandans as much as we should. Finally I felt like I was acting more like I normally do when I travel. I hung out for a while, ate a brochette and watched the second half of a football game with the crowd.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening wandering town. It was Sunday, so the central market was low key. I could tell, though, it would be good the next day. As Rwanda’s “second city” Butare’s center of town is heavy with western restaurants, hotels and expat-oriented grocery stores. I steered clear. I walked the opposite direction and, just past the market, I wandered into a street that seemed like a ghost town. It was bizarrely deserted, even though we were just steps away from the center of town. I was getting the impression that this town, although large and relevant, still had a long way to go in the new, refurbished Rwanda. My nearest town, Kamembe, is actually a new, soulless town, built above the old town of Cyangugu. In Butare, you can see how one town is being built right on top of the other. Just past multi-storied malls, there is about 300 meters of abandoned shops and buildings. Literally, every single storefront and building was completely abandoned. Except for one. As the sun set, and the dusty street got even more deserted, I suddenly heard a familiar sound echoing from somewhere nearby. It was the call to prayer, and it was coming from what appeared to be an abandoned pharmacy. I saw the faithful gathering inside, spreading out their mats oriented east, toward Mecca. Next door there was a barber shop with a painting of a man pointing at the words, “SHAVE TIME!”.

At the end of the road, I saw some enter an iron gate, beyond which, appeared to have great views. I entered the gates confidently, since I wondered what was going on there. I immediately saw pristine lawns, manicured gardens, and a good view of the hills beyond. And a security guard. He smiled at me, and I knew that if I kept my confident air, I would be able to walk right past him. But now that I had seen the view, I just wanted to know where I was. It turned out to be the world’s largest training center for students of tae kwan do. No, it was actually just a technical school, but that is incredibly boring.

Later that night, I visited a place called, “Bar Tekano”. It was modestly signed, but looked interesting. I sat up at the bar, which is something I never do. I figured I would have one beer and go back to my room to sleep. Then a few friendly guys arrived and we got to chatting. One of them, the most talkative, was far more outgoing than most Rwandans. I found his company refreshing. We started with Kinyarwanda, then moved to French, and finally settled in English. He was fluent in all three. His name was Jean Paul and he had the bartender play his favorite songs, mostly pop songs by Backstreet Boys and Craig David. He wanted me to try to translate them into Kinyarwanda, which I did my best at. He was an interesting guy and well-traveled. He had done work in Ghana, Cameroon, Congo and most countries in East Africa. In the midst of our conversation, he offered to buy my next beer. I accepted. He did it again after I was finished. Then, after all our conversation, things got a little stranger. He wanted to borrow some money to buy another beer, even though he wasn’t finished with his yet. I thought it was strange, since he did not come off as a scammer at all. He was well-traveled and obviously wealthy (with his blackberry and iPhone that he flashed around occasionally). Then again, those things could have been cause for alarm. I said that I would just pay for my beers and he could pay for his. I paid for my beers, and after ten minutes, had not received my change. I started to sense the camaraderie between him and the bartender as something a little more sinister. I requested my change again and promptly received it, as if they were just testing me. Then Jean Paul invited me to a party at his girlfriend’s place. He was making promises of a great time, with girls and booze. Promises that were shockingly inconceivable. He started to get a little too enthusiastic. I am usually the one to be open-minded and want to say yes to things, but this invitation wreaked, at best, of dishonesty, and at worst a dangerous scam or setup. I was really disappointed. I have met few Rwandans that I have connected with, and this guy seemed to have a rare personality that I found refreshing. In the end, though, I knew I couldn’t trust him, and I went back to my room.

The next morning I had a lot of work to do. There was a whole town to explore, and I only had a matter of hours before some of my fellow volunteers would begin arriving and the day would be lost. I spent most of the morning at the market. I had some errands to run and things to buy. I finally found a large strainer and a large funnel (tools for my winery) and got a pair of sandals that were a little more formal than my tire sandals. Footwear seems to be a serious point of judgment here. Your shoes better be nice and clean. Every time I pass strangers, they don’t greet me, they just look me up and down, usually settling their eyes on my feet. If my shoes are dirty, I might hear them say something to their friend about this fact. My filthy tire sandals, which don’t even match anymore, do not leave a good impression. So I splurged on some slightly nice locally made sandals that, hopefully, would not bring me shame in public.

The hardest thing to find was a locally made collapsible wooden coat hanger. They sold them at the markets in Kigali, and, supposedly I could find them here, but they were nowhere to be found. I asked around all morning and was pointed in all different directions. Someone told me to go to the lumber yard, which I had walked past earlier in the day. That made sense. On the way there, I ran into an older man I had met before. He offered to help me look for the coat hanger. Like most people in town, he thought we could find it and we went to the lumberyard. On the way, I saw some people yelling in the distance, and a little commotion erupting. This seemed especially odd in Rwanda, and it momentarily reminded me of a similar commotion I had seen at a market in Ghana once. In that situation there had been a thief and a mob had formed to give him a beat down. This street justice is standard practice in most African countries. During training, I had asked if it happened in Rwanda, and everyone thought it was a ridiculous question. Well, it turned out that this commotion was over a theft. Someone had tried to steal a woman’s bag. As we turned the corner, we saw a crowd around a young man, who had been thrown to the ground and looked scared. A soldier soon arrived and I assumed he would take it from there. When we passed by again, minutes later, I saw the soldier was gone, but the crowd was marching him back towards the market area where the crime had been committed. I asked my companion what they were doing. He said that they were taking the man back to the girl to apologize. Nice street justice, Rwanda.

While I never found the coat rack, the search did take me through some pretty interesting areas. I found two massive wood-working areas, where people were mostly making furniture. There was also a big metal-working area, where people welded and painted things like colorful bike racks and, well, whatever else people needed made out of metal.

Spending the better part of the day wandering around Butare revived me. The city had a little more atmosphere and ruggedness than the new Rwanda is supposed to have. Some of the cities have changed so much in the last decade that they have become soulless. I know that is the case with the nearest town to my site. There is an old town, down on the water, which is now only useful for its post office and port, while the new town is up above on the hillside and was basically created in the last decade or two. Butare is definitely in the process of redeveloping itself, but you can still feel what it used to be like. Its couple of dirt roads and crowded market lend it a slightly more chaotic atmosphere.

After a simple buffet lunch, some friends began to arrive. Luke and Caitlan were first and after checking into the hotel, we promptly went to Bar Tekano for some afternoon beers. I was happy to find that the stuffy room at the front of the bar was not its only seating area. There was a sizable outdoor area out back that suited us well. When we entered, we were greeted, or maybe socially attacked, by a large man whose boisterousness quickly gave him away as a foreigner. He gave us big handshakes and bear hugs, spouting something about “love and piss for everyone!”. He was clearly beyond drunk, and after exchanging greetings, he did not want to let us go. He was affectionate, but in a nearly violent way. He clutched my arm tightly as he rambled on about, who knows what. All I managed to get out of him was that he was from Kinshasa, the capital of Congo. This fact, however, would have been assumed even if I had not asked. Throughout the afternoon, any time he saw us, he would get in our faces, grabbing our arms, trying to make friends, but he only made us uncomfortable. His demeanor also seemed to bother the other bar patrons. On the other hand, I appreciated that his personality provided a little more color to the bar’s otherwise drab social atmosphere. I also appreciated that the bar’s urinals were in plain view of our table, and I could wave at my friends while peeing.

Dan arrived soon after, and we decided to order some food. We were pleased to hear that they had rabbit on the menu. For less than $5 we soon had a whole grilled rabbit on our table. It was absolutely delicious and had a surprising amount of meat on it. As often as I complain about the flavorless Rwandan cuisine, the bar food here can be spectacular at times. Every time we get tasty brochettes or grilled pork, we wonder why they don’t do to the rest of the food what they do to the bar food.

Later in the evening, we were joined by a few more volunteers, and an American who works at a local NGO’s ice cream shop, and we eventually moved to a different bar. We had hoped to go dancing, but it seemed that the only bar with that kind of potential did not stay open on Mondays. One can only be disappointed rather than surprised by this situation.

It was the first time in a while that I had seen anyone from my training group, and we made the most of our short time together. As the night progressed, people dropped off slowly, and eventually it was just Dan, Luke and I doing slap shots after midnight. We stayed there far later than we should have, but even when the bar had to kick us out at 2:00, we didn’t really want to go.

The next morning, of course, was a real blast. Caitlan woke us all up at 8:45, about 15 minutes before we had to leave for the meeting. There was no time to contemplate our condition, we just had to throw everything in our bags and get out.

A thirty minute bus ride took us to a fancy hotel where we had our meeting. It droned on for hours. While I really like the Peace Corps administration, there was very little room to make the meeting enjoyable.

Afterward, the Peace Corps was kind enough to give us a ride back to our regional town, since ours was the farthest away, and we wouldn’t be able to make it back before dark on public transportation.

Even with the ride, Luke, Caitlan and I would not be able to make it to our sites before dark, so we had to stay in town. We had a dinner of roast pork and bananas at the hotel. Caitlan went to bed while Luke and I had a beer. After we put the money for our bill on the table, Luke got up to have a cigarette, and I followed him. When we came back, we waited for the change. After ten minutes, we got up and asked the waiter where our change was. He said that he had never received the money. We told him we put it on the table. He asked around and said nobody had seen it. Volunteers had been loyal to this hotel for a while, and I felt there was a trustworthy relationship. I didn’t immediately think they were guilty. There had been a table of middle aged guys sitting at another table, but they had left. We could only assume that they had taken it. The waiter, however, seemed like he had no intention of forgiving our payment, since it had been stolen by somebody. We begrudgingly paid again. I regret not making a bigger fuss, but this was a situation I had never been in before, and had never expected to happen, especially here. This place was not a dive, and the men sitting near us were not poor. They were drinking expensive beers (nicer beers than ours) and eating meat. It was a disappointing end to an otherwise great weekend.

This Time

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Collapsible Wooden Coat Hanger

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