A stroll through Nyamirambo

While walking to Le Stade Regional de Kigali for football practice last week, of course always trying to kill two birds with one stone, I was having my weekly chat with my mother on the phone.

“Ooh you’re walking somewhere Lauren? Describe to me exactly what you’re seeing right now!”

No one had asked me to do this yet, so I found myself tripping over so many adjectives in a failed attempt to depict what was right in front of me. Had she asked me to do this a month or so ago, I feel that it would have been easier to accurately describe my surroundings. Now that I’ve been here for two months, the things that I used to notice because they were markedly different from Canada, I have now become habituated to. BUT, just for you mom, I’ll try to explain better than that terrible response I gave you.

Robyn walking along a road with Nyamirambo in the foreground

The mud is an ochre-red like you would see on PEI. Consequently, every light coloured article of my clothing now resembles the famed ‘PEI Dirt Shirt’ and my feet are perpetually dirty. There is only one main paved road, which was just paved a few months ago, and the rest of the roads snaking away from it are dirt. There are no street signs or addresses, hence when you ask someone where they live, they just point in some general direction and say ‘over there’. There is a large ditch on one side of the paved road because when it rains, it pours. Vancouver rains ain’t got nothin’ on this! Usually once per day during the rainy season, rivers flow in these ditches and no one goes outside, except the inexperienced westerners like me who at first don’t realize the extent of the rain. No wonder all Rwandans run inside like they’re going to melt whenever thunder starts booming.

 “Are you the only white person around?”

Well, let’s just say that I’m not used to being the centre of attention like this. I’ve seen a total of three other white people in this area of town, one of which is my roommate from Canada. People are staring, not only because I’m a white female, but also because I am dressed for ‘making sport’, the Rwandese phrase for exercise. I get several thumbs up from passers-by, or they mutter ‘courage’ as it isn’t very common for women to play sports here. When I walk by groups of children, they say ‘Good MORN-ing!’ even though it’s 5 PM. Understandable, as this is akin to when I get confused with Kinyarwanda and say mwaramutse (good evening) at 7 AM. I acknowledge their effort with a smile. People are everywhere, sitting outside of their shops or walking very, very slowly as Rwandans do. Ladies and men headed towards the isoko (market) have shallow, wide baskets full of tomatoes or avocadoes balanced on a piece of material folded up to protect the crown of their heads. Even when people have nothing in their hands they walk with boxes, bags, textbooks, even furniture on their heads. Definitely a talent I will strive to attain before I go home.

Some locals heading home from the market

Some women are wearing traditional Rwandese fabrics as wrap-dresses, others are dressed as I do for work, in business-casual clothes. You can’t walk 20 meters without seeing someone wearing a Paul Kagame or an RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) t-shirt. Many people are wearing clothing that they no doubt picked up at the market, where second hand clothes from around the world are sold. Shirts with rap star Eminem are a dime a dozen, as are shirts from popular vacation spots in the United States, and just yesterday I saw a teenager wearing a UBC shirt!

 “I hear horns!” 

Matatus are constantly honking and yelling mumuji!, asking me whether I want to catch a ride to town, even if I’m clearly walking the opposite way. Cars range from Daihatsu pick up trucks to Rav4s to Mercedes SUVs. Much like in Nelson, the Toyota Previa population is unusually high per capita.. what is with that?

A Barcelona matatu sporting pictures of Messi

 When football games are over, people flood out of the stadium wearing the colours of their favourite Primus National Football League team, honking vuvuzelas. There are sounds of weird bird-calls which I learned when I was teaching that no, that isn’t a ringtone you hear, teacher. Stray chickens run amongst the palm tree-bushes. The call to prayer rings out at around 7 PM from the local mosque.

“What about the houses?”

Most houses have brick or concrete fences around them with iron gates and barbed wire or broken bottles strewn across the top for security means. Some examples of shop signs: ‘New Clothing Second Hand Store’, ‘Faty Shop’, ‘Splendid Mini-Market’, ‘G-Unit Saloon’ (saloon = salon, a place where I still need to go to see how they deal with hair that is much less coarse than they are used to, and red at that),‘New Happy Restaurant’, ‘Dry Creaner’ (R’s and L’s are apparently interchangeable here, I am often called Rauren, and sometimes even Mauren.)

Friends outside of our favourite chapatti spot in Nyamirambo

I peer into the little holes-in-the-wall stores that are selling sambusas (samosas), chapattis and boiled eggs, all for 100 RWF (20 cents) each. The stores often house a small TV broadcasting the latest English Premier League game for the regulars enjoying an afternoon beer.

Despite all of the apparent hullabaloo going on around me, I feel very safe. Everyone minds their own business, and aside from the brief, intense stares I receive, people return to their daily duties. I would like to think that after being around for two months people in this neighbourhood are getting used to the white person that walks along this road quite often, but I'm not sure that it’ll ever get old.

 It’s going to be a whole other ballgame when I return to Canada with fresh eyes and have to re-experience everyday life there.

Happy Halloween everyone!! It isn't celebrated in Rwanda (and it is kind of embarrassing trying to explain to people here the concept of what happens on October 31st back home..) so I hope you all carve a pumpkin and eat some pumpkin pie for me. Dad, save me some pumpkin seeds for when I get back haha! 

Missing the crisp autumn air,

L

Not all sunshine and lollipops..

So, haven’t done a legitimate blog post in a while (laptop battery post doesn’t count)..

Not to be a pessimist, but people who know me well know that I like to vent so that I can get on with life and make way for the good that is hopefully soon to come.
So on that note, let me talk about some sources of frustration of late:

Work – Going from the highs of teaching to the lows of, well, nothing. KHI is full of really great people but I just got moved to my own office and don’t get to interact with them that often. Combined this with how I was bombarded with (at times too much) human contact the past two weeks while teaching, it made for a drastic change. I am currently working on planning the HIV/AIDS community outreach program which is going to be a huge undertaking. While I am so excited to actually put the project into action, I am discouraged at the difficulties of trying to communicate with the prospective schools (many only speak French and Kinyarwanda) and sort out all of the travel details for sixty people to get to these thirty-six rural schools in a six day period. Thank God for my co-worker, Penda, who is at this point working towards his BSc, is employed by KHI and is helping me with this project, among other things. He's like superman.
‘African time’ is really showing it’s true colours at this point as the funding was promised to be available to us at the beginning of September. That doesn’t stop us from planning. One small problem, though. Everyone who knows me knows that although I usually get the job done, I love to procrastinate until I have so much pressure on me that there’s nothing else I can do. I never want to do a half-ass job so there is even more pressure I put on myself. This explains why it feels like nothing is going on because even when I do try to chip away at planning, I hit a wall and then think ‘oh I can do it later’. Come on Lauren! Thought I moved past them procrastinatin’ days after suffering through them for my whole university career..

Orphanage – We went to one a couple of weeks ago because our friend Egide volunteers there and he wanted to introduce us. The amazing thing about this is that the man who runs this orphanage is in his mid-twenties and was himself orphaned at the age of nine by none other than my next point. The frustrating part is that he and the three other men who run the place have no salary at all, and have to work elsewhere on top of running this orphanage to make money just to live. Any leftover money they have goes towards the orphanage.

Just a couple of children at the orphanage, more pictures to come!

 There were 45 beautiful children there who, thankfully, are all in school (unless they are under 5) and a lot of children who grew up here have graduated thus far and moved on to jobs or university. I asked where the priorities lie as far as financial donations and the director explained that food and school fees are the two biggest problems. Being a still-poor, still-starving ex-student, I wondered the whole time how one could help with this orphanage in a sustainable way. I know that one-time financial donations are not the answer but it was very evident in seeing this place that every bit helps. I think we are going to look into going there once every couple of weeks to just hang out with the kids and maybe help them with school work and play some soccer.
Although most of the children are too young to, a few them are orphaned as a direct result of…

Genocide – I suggest you read ‘An Imperfect Offering’ by Dr. James Orbinski (thanks for the thoughtful gift Ali :) , I’m loving it). His accounts of when he was here in 1988 really seem to capture the essence of Rwanda pre-genocide, and in many ways the way I see Rwanda today. However in Part II of his book he comes to work for Medecins Sans Frontiers in Rwanda in 1994, and the two Rwandas are about as similar as night and day. I get angry reading his description of the inhumane ways the Interhamwe messed with so many people, and especially children. The militia must have had a genuine mentality of hate for others in order to carry out these torturings and mass killings and still be able to live with themselves. No matter how much I read about the subject I still feel so far removed from this situation because I can’t comprehend that such things actually happened here. It is weird thinking that although I am walking among many victims of genocide, I am also walking among people who were part of the Interhamwe and committed these atrocities. The relatively good thing is that it doesn’t matter anymore who is who.

17 year old soccer players – and their unrelenting stamina when I play with them, but mostly because they don’t have to work until 5 PM every day and therefore can attend practice from 2-5 PM, whereas I cannot… my Rwandan soccer career isn’t looking as promising as it did before because of this. The league doesn’t start until December so hopefully I can figure something out by then.

Lack of jokes/understanding movie references – I guess ‘Old School’ and ‘Anchor Man’ don’t translate into Kinyarwanda very well. Unfortunately neither does anything from Arrested Development.

Rwandan sports fans – biggest bandwagon hoppers ever! They booed their own team after they lost a FIFA game and can’t make up their mind who to cheer for at the FIBA tourney because Rwanda didn’t have a very good showing. The fans based their cheering on some crazy Egyptian dude with a flag on his head as a turban chanting in Arabic..

Amahoro Stadium, Rwanda v Benin

OKAY now for some good things (a la Martha Stewart):

Traditional Rwandese dancing – Went to a wedding this past weekend of Robyn’s co-worker’s. Yes, in Rwanda they let random people they have never even met show up to their weddings and it’s totally normal. The only letdown was that they didn’t party and dance like we had hoped (Charlotte, pressure is ON for your wedding. I know you won’t disappoint).

See! No smiling even on wedding day (CODY POIRIER)! Beautiful wedding party.

 Realizing that a BSc in Biology is not enough –This stems from hearing R and C’s (who are both Registered Nurses) accounts of their clinical placements at the hospitals in Butare, Kigali and Rwamagana and understanding that I will never be qualified to be exposed to anything like this until I further my education. This is a good thing because I LOVE SCHOOL! Cheers to resuming my poor, starving student status as soon as I can!

African sports – It was nice finding out that my attraction to the ‘under-18’ basketball players from Nigeria and the Congo was actually okay since it turns out these under agers were really my age. Props for being able to play four of seven games in the FIBA African Basketball U18 Kagame Cup with over-age players and not getting caught until the quarter finals, ha!

Headline from the FIBA Website :

Age fraud : Godfrey Moses (Nigeria, n 14) and Makouana Itoua (Congo, n 4) suspended

Ballin score clock

Le Petit Stade (right beside Amahoro)

Planning trips away from the city – no explanation needed here.

Until next time...
Love L

Language Barriers. Better than any comic strip you'll ever see.

Here's a little Monday reading for all y'all.

Background info: Previous intern Anthony arranged for a laptop battery to be sent to Rwanda from Canada with my friend Robyn.

Email from Anthony to 'Peter':

Hi Jean Pierre,

The lap top battery is with Lauren, the new intern from Canada in the BLS Department. Ask Penda to help you meet her. Hope you are well!

Mwaramuke,

Anthony

Subsequent email from 'Peter' to A:

hahahahaahah, mwaramuke!!! u just say MURAMUKE instead. Thanks for the consideration, It's now easy to get the battery from Lauren. It is fortunate to hear that she is "her" to mean a woman. Is she a girl still. Let me hope that I can have with her a deal which is beyond battery. have a say on that? hahahaha I wish u were so near that we can share some  PRIMUS.

 

But, tell me: have u started work there? or are u in process to continue studies? I hope things are going alright to u.

 

My regards to friends and family

He has since asked me to share said Primus. Hopefully he noticed that yes, I am still a girl/woman, not a boy or man, and that a deal beyond battery is probably not in the cards.. haha

I'll write a (hopefully) more intellectually stimulating post soon, although this is one of my favourite topics.

Missing the crisp autumn air of the Maritimes! Yet also loving the 20-plus degrees...
Much love,
L

PICTURE TIME!

Morning scene in Kibuye (the island is in the middle of the sky!)

Fishing boats where the dudes catch sambezes (tiny fish!) every day

Sambezes, onion and avocado. SO delicious.

Room in Kibuye, the mosquito nets are like the canopy I always wanted from the WishBook but never recieved....
Oh Santa.

Typical dish that I ate in Kibuye.. Avocado, carrot-cabbage deliciousness, potatoes,beef..NOMS

Look at the professionalism of this medical imaging master, Didakus. No wonder they told us we had a bun in the oven.

Look at how happy these students are to be seen with me... Rwandans don't like to smile in pictures?

First Impressions Piece

This is a piece I submitted to the Nelson Star and the Nelson Daily online about my first impressions in Rwanda (I had to do it as one of the Coady and CIDA's media requirements..). Hope you enjoy it :)

Friends and Family. Sushi. Salmon. Multigrain bread. Running water. Fresh air. My university. As I look back at one of my journal entries from the beginning of September, these are some of the items under a heading ‘Things I miss most about Canada’. After having been in Rwanda for a month, almost 14,000 kilometers from home, my first impressions are endless and yet I find it quite difficult to paint the picture of what life here is really like. As a foreigner, I will never know what a typical day in the life of a Rwandese is like, but I am trying to integrate myself so that, at least, I can learn.
            My placement at the Kigali Health Institute involved, for the first couple of weeks, a 7:30AM – 5PM work day which is short in comparison to the permanent employees who arrive at 7 and don’t leave until around 7 PM. I was trying to organize an HIV education initiative and make lesson plans for the first course I would be teaching, analytical chemistry. Although these were very busy times, I found the most prominent lessons in Rwandan culture came outside of the workplace.

Conversations with people tend to revolve around asking what it is like in Canada, and the differences between there and here with respect to food, religion, politics, money and marriage. Some people speak about the genocide in passing, as it has affected the entire population, but others are willing to speak about it in more detail. One of my co-workers, a beautiful woman standing at a mere 5’0”, is 24 years old and was left an orphan with two older sisters after her parents and brother were killed in ‘94. Her sisters sacrificed their own education to work in order to pay for her post-secondary education, a fact that she feels guilty about. She told me about her friend who was left an orphan with no siblings because of the genocide, and explains how she feels blessed that she had her sisters with her. The fact that she can step aside and feel as if her experience was not as bad as another person’s truly astounds me. Any ‘problems’ that I have seem vastly overshadowed when I hear stories like this one and, boy, does it make me appreciate my family. 

Contrary to popular belief, I am one of thousands of westerners in this city. Westerners like to fill the local ex-patriot restaurants and clubs, which tend to run at prices comparable to Canadian prices, and therefore have become a treat I only indulge in once in a while. I like to stick to the places where locals go. Kigali is like a typical western, big city, in that there are people everywhere, but on the other hand is not so akin to a western city, for example the unconventional modes of transportation. I take a moto-taxi to work, which costs about $1 CDN for a ten minute (exhilarating, I might add) ride, and a matatu home from work, which is about 30 cents. The difference between the two is that the moto is a dirt bike made for two (sometimes three), and the matatu is a bus crammed with thirty people and has the music blaring like a party on wheels. Similar motives exist between the two: pass whenever possible in order to get to the destination quicker. As you can see, there are not many rules on the road. For example, I’ve seen less traffic lights in a city of about one million people than we have in Nelson.

I stumbled upon a women’s soccer team at a stadium near my house, and they are apparently the best premier team in the country, with the players making up most of the national team. I have to say that it has been quite the experience learning to communicate on the field in French and Kinyarwanda. The team has quickly welcomed this foreigner, although I am very aware of the conversations that happen in Kinyarwanda at my expense, hence the laughing and staring at me. This is quite far removed from the old days of Nelson Youth Soccer.
            At present, the political situation feels extremely safe from the eyes of a Canadian, demonstrated by the overwhelming crowd of support I stood in at the inauguration of Paul Kagame on September 6th. One can see, however, through the likes of news stories about the recent findings of Burundian casualties washing up in rivers, that there is turmoil all around this country and undoubtedly within it. However, like any political situation in the world I can only speculate as to what is really going on.

Through all of these experiences, I feel like I am getting a unique view of Rwanda, but it is just the tip of the iceberg. Six months is barely enough to get my feet wet. Now that I look back on that list of mostly material things that I miss about Canada, I realize that there are many privileges that most young Canadians have that go unnoticed, such as running water, an extremely high standard of education and health care services, and endless opportunity. Nelsonites in particular have it very good in this sense, combined with our unparalleled surroundings and way of life. I can now say that I am compiling a list of what I will miss most about Rwanda when it comes time to go home in February. Having said that, I could really use a breakfast sandwich from Oso right about now…

Pictures soon to come... for reals this time, I actually have a good internet connection for once.

Teacha, Teacha!

Kibuye, the Nelson of Rwanda (The similarities stop at the extremely deep lake and the hills)

So, this is where I have been living for the past week, except for a brief hiatus to Kigali for the weekend (more on that later...). I just started my second week of teaching this intensive course in analytical chemistry, which I soon realized is more like general chemistry than analytical, i.e. when I assumed that the students had taken a general chemistry course sometime in their secondary school careers, I was wrong. You know what they say about assuming... Anyways after a few hours of totally revamping my notes, I am (somehow) a mwarimu, AKA a teacher. AND as you can see, I have the internet at home! I also have HOT water, and a television that features channels such as Qatar TV, Oman TV, Saudi TV and CNN Mexico. A tad bit of a random mix if you ask me? It has been PARADISE here. The weather is wonderous, and I've had the chance to get some fresh air and see the countryside. So on my first day, I showed a slide-show of many things Canadian, and with the help of Wolfram Alpha (thanks Evan S..), I found some interesting comparisons between Rwanda and Canada/ BC:
-Rwanda could fit into BC thirty-six times!
-The population density of Rwanda is about 400 people per square kilometer. Compare that with 4 people per square kilometer in Canada..
-The median age in Canada is 40.4 years old. Rwanda's is 18.7. This discrepancy is so huuuge because of the genocide.

Anyways, then I showed them some typical Canadian landscapes and animals which resulted in many ooohs and aaahs. For some reason the same reactions came with when I showed them pictures of me and my roommates at university, and of the Manor boys... (D'Arcy, they didn't understand the apostrophe in your name. Try explaining THAT!).

I also showed them some pictures of my family, they loved my nephews and niece and asked if my mom was my sister... and if my brother was my dad (sorry Chad). I met a couple of Americans who have been in Rwanda for 2 years with the Peace Corps, and I most definitely should have used their advice of "Always tell your students you are at least 25, and that you have a fiance back home". Unfortunately this advice came AFTER my first class, where I told them I was 22 and no, I did not have a fiance. They all lauuuughedd and laughed, mostly because I'm younger than most of them and apparently I should be married by now...

Lauren as teacher?

Some other interesting things that have happened in the past little while (I can't seem to add pictures because the connection is super slow here so I'll add a bunch next week):
- I had an epiphany on Monday and realized that teaching is probably one of the best/most challenging things ever. Especially when I have to constantly switch between French and English to be understood, which is no easy feat especially with chemistry terms like 'solubility product constant' and 'tris-hydroxymethylaminomethane' (shhh, I'm not supposed to be teaching in French. The Rwandan government changed the official teaching language from French to English last year, solely because English is spoken more widely in the world. But it helps when students actually understand the content...). Following my first class, where I taught for 2 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon (exhausting), the students said "Teacha, we don't usually have class in the afternoons". SCORE! I realized quickly that afternoons off did not equal free time, and have a new found appreciation for how much preparation teachers and professors have to do. Especially since I am experiencing cramming a whole course into two weeks. Impossible is RIGHT.

- A visiting lecturer stayed in 'my' house last night as he was teaching the first year physio students. He is currently studying to get his PhD in Sports Medicine at the University of Capetown, South Africa, after attaining his BSc and Masters in Physio in Rwanda. After we got talking about life, obviously I told him about my several injuries and asked him if he is working with any sports teams right now. Turns out he is a former national football team player, and now is their team therapist. He knows the coach of my future team really well! He also works extensively with the Rwandan National Basketball Association (R-NBA? Almost as good as the NBA?). Possible perfect future career for a certain lanky man with a Kinetics degree from X..

-This weekend featured me pretending to be a legitimate laboratory associate at the East African Expo, where all of the universities and many secondary schools set up booths for students to check out. After testing people for malaria, getting an ultrasound (my medical imaging friend exclaiming "YOU'RE HAVING TWINS!" while he is on his cellphone, all professional-like. I'm NOT pregnant, don't worry, it was just a (not so) funny joke...) and measuring prospective students' blood glucose levels, of course R, C and I found time to have a beer or two with my boss and colleagues at a place called CarWash. It was my co-worker's 23rd birthday so we obviously had to celebrate in style, where else but at a place called 'SunDowner', which was not as much of a downer as one may perceive..
- I've been going for sporadic runs (my last encounter with the soccer team was less than ideal, fitness-wise), which have been a great way to pass time after work in Kibuye since there is not much else to do. It isn't uncommon for me to be running alongside giant bulls being herded from pastures to their pens. BAD IDEA wearing a red shirt. I slow down to a walk when I see these creatures with horns as long as my forearm. I also run by goats every few minutes, and they seem to stare at me just as bewildered as the local people (Are they colour blind? I guess even if they are I still stick out like a sore thumb). Children walking home from school run along with me in little bits, until the novelty of demonstrating their superior fitness and laughing at me struggling to catch my breath wears off.
- Ain't neva eaten nine eggs between three people before (please refer to Robyn's blog). Aside from my haven beside the lake in Kibuye, I think R, C and I may have found our 'special place' in Rwanda. It only makes sense that it would have a large part to do with food.


Next time I write I will have given my first exam to students, gone to my first male FIFA match (Rwanda vs. Benin), and attended my first Mutzig BeerFest. I guess it will have been Thanksgiving in Canada by then, so I wish you all a happy long weekend, and hope you all think about everything we have to be thankful for in Canada. I will post my first-impressions piece I submitted to the Nelson Daily and the Nelson Star and you will see that there is much I have figured out lately that I am extremely thankful for. I'll miss the enormous consumption of turkey/mashed potatoes/candied yams at Auntie Val and Uncle Don's, and of course the tryptophan-coma that Syd, Mairi, myself and all of the cousins suffer from after said meal.

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this (and by you, I mean Dad, because you're probably the only one still reading...)
xoxo Lauren (Sorry I had to, I'm going through GG withdrawal)