Spring Cleaning? Not!

Some mornings, my first though upon waking is "I should bathe today."  This is almost immediately followed with another though: "But why?"  I'll leave it to the perceptive reader to guess which though presents a more persuasive argument.
Whenever I finally do get around to making the hygiene, I enlist the aid of my trust partner in grime, Baldric the Basic.  Baldric is your standard-issue Rwandan basin: fire-engine red and big enough to sit in.  Baldric helps me to do unspeakable acts of hygiene.  He is my bath, my sink, my cutting-board, my rain-collector, and my occasional conversation partner.  And, when I'm feel particularly Rwandan in my pronunciation, I refer to his as Bardlic.  Then I picture a scene straight out of a scandalous Elizabethan palace drama:
     "Didst thou espy the latest play by that rakish Will Shakespeare?"
     "Aye. Verily, that's a bard I wouldn't be loath to lick."
     "Tis true, 'tis true."
When you live along with no computer, no electricity, and an ever-shortening attention span, you get a lot of time to sit around with your imagination.  Obviously, things can get weird.
Making the hygiene in Rwanda is a constant process.  During the dry season, dust runs rampant, coating everything and everyone in a thin layer of red.  I always feel so disillusioned after my weekly bath, as the dust comes off to reveal the fact that I am not actually tan.  And even after you bathe, the dirt is quick to reassert its superiority.  One time, after an especially satisfying hair washing, I shut the door of my shower shack only to have a large chunk of mud-brick fall directly onto my head.  The dirt here blitzkriegs you, and there is no appeasement.
In the rainy season, the dust is contained but the mud more than makes up for its absence.  The red mud here is composed of three parts dirt, one part glue.  I've arrived at school with mud half an inch thick clinging to the soles of my shoes.  And this phenomenon never seems to affect my Rwandan counterparts.  I suspect they know how to hover.
It's safe to say that Baldric and I have our work cut out for us.  The dishes are piling up, the hair needs washing, and the underwear sure ain't cleanin' itself.  So here we go once more into the breach, armed with soap and bleach.  Wish me luck.

Walk Like a (Wo)man

Gutembera is one of my favorite verbs in Kinyarwanda.  Literally, it means to walk, but that's just what the black and white pages of some dictionary know.  Gutembera is to walk, to stroll, to amble, to lallygag, to hike up steep hills and slide on your butt down muddy slopes, to have feet stained red with dust, to hop on rocks across trickling streams, and to practice coming back from market with a bag of avocados on your head.
Rwandans like to ask me "where are you going?" every time I leave my house.  The beauty of gutembera is that you don't need a destination--you can just go.  There are some wonderful hiking trails, perfect for an afternoon gutembera, and the various conversations that ensue:

"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to walk.  I like to see the hills."
"Yes, very."
"Mmmmmmm."
"Mmmmmmm."

"Katerina, you are walking."
"Yes.  You are washing clothes."
"Yes, my child's clothes."
"Mmmmmmm."
"Mmmmmmm."

"Katerina, you are walking."
"Yes.  It is a good day to walk."
"But you have not for many days."
"Mmmmmmm."
"Now you are fat."
"Very."
"Mmmmmmm."
"Mmmmmmm."

"Katerina, where are you going?"
"Nowhere."
"Where are you coming from?"
"Over there."
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing.  I'm just walking."
"Mmmmmmm."
"Mmmmmmm."

The best gutembera is one that shakes me out of my daily monotony.  The best gutembera is one with a quirk, a twist, a little glimpse into the unexpected, or an unexpected reminder that life is beautiful.  One of my frequent gutembera encounters is with Goat Man.  He's one of those classically Rwandan character that is difficult to explain to anyone that hasn't lived in this country for awhile.
Goat Man wears the standard old guy uniform--tattered suit jacket, baggy blue pants, dusty orange foam flip-flops.  He's choses to forego the usual fedora; instead, his wiry hair sticks straight out, the odd gray strand providing a sharp contrast with his deep brown skin.
His eyes don't quite focus and his hands tremble, but his grip is like iron.  Handshakes with Goat Man end if and when he chooses.  The only English he knows is "Good Morning" and "Come Here," both of which he will shout at you while capturing your hand in a death grip.  And wherever he is going, he always leads two goats on a tether.  He scared the living bejeezus out of me the first time we met, but now I begin to to worry if I go a week without seeing his blissfully smiling face and faithful goat companions.
So friends, come gutembera my mountains with me sometime! You never know what you'll find...I'm sure that somewhere out there, there's a Rwandan with a story about how he was out walking in the hills and met with an orange-haired strangers wearing pants and picking daisies...