Good morning, white man!

    That's right, folks, Rwanda has done what Disney couldn't and made a man out of me.  That everpresent word "muzungu" translates into English most closely as "white man."  My favorite moment thus far was late one afternoon, as the sun was setting, when an old guy came up to me, grabbed my hand, and joyfully exclaimed, "Good mornning, white man!"  He was 0 for 2, but I still smiled and shook his hand in return.
    So how has school been thus far?  My students have their moments of brilliance, and their moments when I want to throttle them.  Of course, they are teenagers, so that is to be expected.  I have to be careful, though, lest the weremango get me and transform me into a deliciously juicy fruit.  According to one of my students, "yesterday I had been mangoes."  Thus the legend was born!
    My favorite Rwandlish turn of phrase is "not!"  I'm not entirely sure where this originated, and at first it really drove me crazy, but now I like it.  Perhaps this is an example of linguistic Stockholm syndrome.  Rwandans don't just say "no," or at least if they do, I have yet to hear it.  The nearest explanation I could get is that they are taught that "no" is used with other words, while "not" is used as a negation.  Thus, I have had interactions like this in class:
    "And in America, the temperature can be below freezing for weeks at a time!"
    "Teacher, not! Not!"
It's actually really adorable, especially when fully grown men say it.  Occassionally, I ask ridiculous questions just so I can hear a resounding chorus of "not!"  They are nothing if not emphatic!
    Everyone at my school is crazy about football, and for good reason.  Our girls team has won both their games thus far this season, and has a chance to go on to compete at the district level in Gisenyi.  I was so proud of them, even though my entire contribution to their winning season has been to stand on the sidelines and cheer.  But perhaps the other team was so distracted by the site of a white man that they couldn't properly concentrate?  I already have big plans to teach my classes some cheers and songs to sing at the next match.  Any good suggestions?
    I've been in to Kigali a few times recently, and it always makes me feel like a starstruck hick from the boonies.  For one thing, women in the city actually show their knees.  I was scandalized.  Going into Nakumatt, the Rwandan equivalent of Wal-Mart is an experience in and of itself.  In my village, there are two shops where you can (sometimes) by airtime, pineapple, fanta, and paper--assuming the shops are open, which is always a hit or miss prospect.  There is also a lady that sells tomatoes and avacado from her doorstep.  Sometimes.  So walking into a store that stocks twenty varieties of pasta, real electronic appliances, and refrigerated milk, is a bit of a shock to the system.  I always have to remind myself to keep breathing while browsing the overflowing aisles.
    Earlier this month, I made it over to Rulindo to visit a few fellow PCVs.  I have now officially watched Lion King while in Africa.  I'm not sure if this makes me a good person or a bad person, but it certainly makes me a zen person! And yes, hakuna matata really does mean no worries. Ni byo.
     Okay, friends! I am running low on internet time, and everyone in the internet cafe is watching me type and congratulating me on my speed and efficiency, so I'm going to call this post finished and go to the market to get some avacado and carrots!

Life in the mountains...

Hello friends!  First of all, Merry Christmas and happy New Year!  Sorry that I haven’t updated in awhile—I promise that I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth (or off a mountainside, which is far more likely in Rwanda).         

                I got a bit of a surprise right before Christmas, when I was informed that I was being moved to a new site, not the one that I visited in November.  I got shifted from the deep south up to the mountainous northwest.  Once a northwest girl, always a northwest girl!

                My village is called Rubona, and sits perched atop  a rather steep mountain.  The views are spectacular, and I’m a fairly easy walk from the Nyaborongo river which is, as I’ve been told on many occasions, the source of the Nile.  But despite what some Rwandans will say, there are no crocodiles lounging on its marshy banks.

                The phrase “easy walk” is quite relative here.  Distance is an illusion—as the crow flies, many places are actually pretty close to each other.  However, to get anywhere, one must trek down little goat paths (and then back up them again).  The goats, of course, just laze by the side of the path, munching on grass and flicking their tails contentedly.  The practical upshot to all this hiking is that my calves have become downright spectacular.  I’m also rapidly achieving thunder thigh status.  But I am not yet to the point where I can go vertical up a mountain with ten kilos of potatoes on my head and a baby strapped to my back.

                I really like living out in a more remote area.   It’s hard to get a variety of food in my village, but there are two larger towns nearby that have markets twice a week.  Going to the Cyome market can be a slightly harrowing experience, at least for someone as clumsy as I am.  You must ford a decently large stream by hopping from slick rock to slick rock until you reach the equally slick mud on the other side.  I, in true form, failed miserably and all my oxen drowned.  It was a tragedy that resulted in mud up to my knees.

                At least it was a good show for the Rwandans who were hanging out by the stream.  I am rarely without an audience—the other day, I was running late for school and skidded down the hill outside my house, falling and bruising my knees.  The only witness was an elderly man who paused and shrieked, “yes!” with a completely disproportionate amount of enthusiasm.  I felt like the Rwandan judges had just given me a perfect ten.  And deservedly so: it was one of my more graceful falls.

                Even when I’m not falling down mountains and into streams, people love  to watch me.  The children here have excellent eyesight…it must be all those carrots!  I can be walking down a deserted road, all alone, with no one else around, when suddenly I hear it echoing through the trees:  “muzuuuuuuunguuuuuu…”  It’s a good thing the Catholic church no longer uses castrati choirs, because these kids have some of the most naturally harmonious voices that I have ever heard.  And I rarely see the children, but they certainly see me, often from another mountain.  I blame my Irish ancestry for making me so conspicuous.  Trying to explain freckles has been another interesting undertaking.  One person thought that the water was making me orange, while another assumed I was covered in mosquito bites.

                But there really aren’t any mosquitoes up in my village, thankfully.  There are, however, lumberjacks.  I was absolutely floored when I saw that my village has both banana trees and pine trees.  We’re definitely at a pretty high altitude if pines can grow so close to the equator.  And where there are pine trees, there are also lumberjacks.  I am beginning to suspect that mountain men are the same the world over.  Rubona is the first place in Rwanda where I have seen men with beards.  I want to teach them the lumberjack song from Monty Python…is that an acceptable form of cultural exchange?

                Right now we are in the short dry season, which lasts for most of February.  The downpours here are brief but torrential, sometimes accompanied by thunder and lightning.  In the mornings, it is often so foggy that you can hardly see more than five feet in from of you.  Some mornings, I get up early and go running, and it’s almost a surreal experience.  But don’t worry—I stick to the main road so I won’t accidentally run right off the mountain.  And running here is a challenge!  There is virtually no flat ground.  I now understand why African runners always win marathons; after these hills and altitude, anything else would be a cakewalk.

                I share a house with two Rwandan women who work at the village health center.  Rubona doesn’t have running water or electricity yet, so we do all our cooking by the gentle glow of the Imbabura.  I have developed a love/hate relationship with Rwandan food.  On my first day at site, I told them that I liked pineapple, and this was somehow translated into the firm belief that I must eat an entire pineapple every day.  The housekeep is a bit of an inanasi nazi, and once chased me around the house with half a pineapple skewered on a fork until I gave in and ate it.  At least I’m in no danger of getting scurvy!

                However, my most shocking food choice is to drink tea without sugar.  Possibly my favorite quote from the last month: “but we cannot make tea!  There is no sugar!”  It took a few weeks, but they now accept that I really do like my tea unsweetened.  But now I am introduced to new people as: “This is Katerina.  She does not put sugar in her tea!”  As far as notoriety goes, this seems like the mostly harmless variety.

                Being a vegetarian has also raised a few eyebrows.  I had a roomful of doctors kindly offer to cure me of my “meat allergy.”  I politely declined.  Rabbit tends to be the meat of choice, as I discovered one day when the housekeeper brought in a fuzzy bunny for me to admire.  Then she took it out to the back porch and slaughtered it.  So, I eat a lot of rice, beans, and potatoes.  I’ve promised to make mashed potatoes one day, because I’m pretty sure they didn’t believe me when I explained that Americans like to put butter and milk in their spuds.  One day, I’m going to rock their worlds with grilled cheese sandwiches.   There is a bakery in Rusumo (about 5 k and one mountain away) that makes decent bread.  Sometimes the loaves are shaped like starfish or dinosaurs.  Cheese also makes sporadic but highly anticipated appearances in town.  It’s no Vermont sharp cheddar, but with a little onion and avocado, it sure does hit the spot.

                One of the more intriguing foods I’ve encountered thus far is ubugare, or cassava bread.  It’s incredibly simply to make—you just mix cassava flour and water together over the Imbabura, then stir until it forms a thick dough.  Then you eat it by pinching off chunks with your fingers and dipping it in sauce.  It’s not bad, especially if you’re in the mood for something quick and easy.  And I’ve gotten to the point where I no longer spill copious amounts of sauce on myself when I eat it.

                One Rwandan specialty I have not yet tried is urwagwa, the local moonshine made from bananas.  Frankly, the stuff scares me.  It is literally made by fermenting bananas in a canoe.  I’ll try it one day when I have a whole weekend to devote to being horribly ill.  So I stick to water instead, a beverage that almost no one here drinks.  My big hit as a standup comedian is to say “water bottle” with an outrageous American accent: “wadder boddle.”  It always brings down the house.  I’m saving the Texan accent for when I go on tour.

                Callie, you will be please to know that the jeans you gave me are regarded as “smart” by all Rwandans who see me wearing them.  I wear skirts to teach, but it’s nice to come home and thrown on a pair of trousers, not in the least because they disguise my sasquatchy legs.

                I know I’ve blogged about it before, but the clothes here deserve another mention.  I’m determined to acquire a pair of “Obama new style” jeans no matter the price.  But I suppose I could settle for the Obama flip-flops instead.

                The men here wear shiny shirts and short ties on special occasions.  I went with a colleague to the Pentecostal church one Sunday, and shiny shirts were in abundance.  Red is usually the favored color, but I’ve also seen silver and black.  Pentecostal church was certainly an experience—ten hours of singing, dancing, shouting hallelujah, and watching the shiny shirts shimmer in the African sun.

                I haven’t gone ibitengi-crazy yet, mainly just from sheer laziness.  Ibitengi is the Kinyarwanda word for fabric—you can buy it at the market and bring it to a tailor to be made into virtually anything.  A lot of women also use it as an apron wrap or a baby sling.  The best part about ibitengi  is the variety of colors and patterns.  One of my coworkers has a pink and green shirt with a toothpaste motif.  It reminds me of mod art.  I’m just biding my time until I find an Obama ibitengi that I can have made into a cocktail dress.

                Keeping clothes, and myself, clean can be difficult.  Because we have no running water, we use basins that function as combination bathtubs, washing machines, and dishwashers.  Keeping your clothes looking presentable is essential—kindly old ladies have stopped me in the street to pint out a tiny speck of mud on my pants.  And the old ladies here?  They take the Rwandan custom of shaking hands to a whole new level and shake your boobs.  I’m not entirely sure why, but I think it had something to do with the fact that I am not yet married.

                My standards of hygiene haven’t taken too dramatic a plunge—at least, that’s what I thought until I noticed an odd rash on my neck.  I was freaking out, until I realized that it was, in fact, a thick layer of dirt.  I now refer to my neck as “the permagrime zone.”

                The lack of electricity means that I go to bed not long after nightfall.  Staying up until ten?  That’s a wild and crazy night!  I have developed a nighttime bathroom song, to be sung to the tune of singing in the rain:  “peeeeeing in the dark, I’m peeeeing in the dark!”  Unfortunately, no amount of musical theater can save me from walking into closed doors at the ends of dark corridors.

                Okay friends, on that happy note, I will end this mammoth blog post!  I promise to update again soon, and fill you in on school and, of course, my students.  One of them is a weremango.  Stay tuned.