You might be a PCV in Rwanda if...

Howdy folks!  Sorry it’s been such a long time since my last blog post, but now that it’s the holidays, I might find myself in more frequent contact with the internet.  October 22^nd marked a huge milestone in my Peace Corps service—one year in Rwanda!  So in honor of that momentous occasion, here is my personal list of things that I have learned, that have made an impact on me, or no longer seem odd.  So without further delay…

You might be a Peace Corps volunteer in Rwanda if…

1.        You refuse to walk outside in even the slightest drizzle

2.       Pooping is your biggest accomplishment for the day…or the week…

3.       6:30 a.m. is sleeping in, and 9:30 p.m. is a wild and crazy night.

4.       And for you, it is somehow easier, in the life, to become accustomed to speak English like this.

5.       You refer to people as “that one there” and it no longer feels even a little rude.

6.       You even occasionally refer to yourself as “this one here” and it just feels so right.

7.       Your tailbone has been ground to dust thanks to hard benches and five-hour ceremonies.

8.       You think that women look drab if they are wearing few than four distinct colors.

9.       You can carry on an entire conversation using grunts and “mmmmmm” noises.

10.   You passionately want Canada to give back The Ben.

11.   You text while riding motos.

12.   Text messages from MTN make you sad, because for a second you thought that you had friends.

13.   All your socks have a permanent burnt sienna hue.

14.   You put on the good-smelling sunscreen to disguise the fact that you haven’t bathed in several days—and that’s basically the only time you wear sunscreen.

15.   You become fiercely territorial when there are unidentified abazungu in your village.

16.   Rather than kill all the creeping and crawling critters in your house, you name them all and invent elaborate soap operas about their lives.

17.   There’s no such thing as too much shine.

18.   The majority of your budget goes toward buying toilet paper, candles, and phone credit.

19.   The nuns at the bar all know your name.

20.   You can keep a straight face even when your headmaster tells you that “you will come in your pants.”

21.   You know that there’s always room for one more person on the bus.

22.   But you have still elbowed someone in the face in order to get on the bus before them.

23.   You feel no remorse about elbowing people in the fact while boarding buses.

24.   The tall people in Kigali scare you.

25.   You are not even a little freaked out when the village crazy runs up to you and tries to steal your umbrella from right out of your grasp.

26.   You are at least one hour late to everything…and are still the first person to arrive.

27.   You pray your god in bed on Sunday morning.

28.   You recognize the four major food groups as salt, sugar, starch, and oil.

29.   Your pillow, mattress, sheets, and hair all have scorch marks from reading in bed by candlelight.

30.   You vow to never trim your toenails by candlelight again.  Ever.

31.   You have witness “Congo butt” in action on the dance floor.

32.   Standing in your yard, staring at the road, is a perfectly acceptable way to pass a Saturday afternoon.

33.   You can open a Primus bottle with virtually anything.

34.   You can eat a jar of peanut butter in two days.

35.   You have a major existential crisis and seriously contemplate quitting Peace Corps when you realize that you are tired of eating peanut butter.

36.   You curse Belgium for leaving behind post-colonial politics but not waffles, chocolate, or good beer.

37.   The only snap, crackle, and pop that you hear is the sound of insects exploding in your candle’s flame.

38.   You hate your serial Mefloquine dreams, but you must know—who will win in the epically gruesome battle between 14^th century Japanese samurai and the New York Yankees?!

39.   You walk around your house with small objects balanced on your head.

40.   Your first reaction to MTN’s free calls after 11 promo was “if anyone dares to call me that late, I will end them.”

41.   You cry at the sight of Cheez-Its.

42.   You find it easier to agree with people that “it is the change in the climate which has made you so ill.”

43.   You hate the dry season, until the rainy season begins.  Then you hate that too.

44.   You no longer think “this country needs more cowbell!” every time the primary school kids ring the bell in-between classes

45.   “It it’s not oozing pus, it is not a problem” is your personal health motto.

46.   You’ve seen every Cecil B. DeMille ever made, dubbed in French with Kinyarwanda commentary.

47.   It’s always a good morning, and you are always fine.

48.   The preschoolers in your village are all trained to hug you.

49.   Hugs become slightly awkward because you failed to realize that preschoolers grow quickly, and that many of their faces are now uncomfortably level with your crotch.

50.   You no longer give clothing the sniff test, because you know that you’re going to wear it anyway.

51.   You refuse to reply to anyone that screams at you from beyond your response radius.

52.   Depending on your mood, your response radius can extend for your entire district, or only as far as your arm hair.

53.   You actively forget umuganda.  Just like everyone else in the country.

54.   It’s weird to see grown men walking beside each other and not holding hands.

55.   You no longer believe that rabbits are cute.  You believe that they should be roasted on a stick.

56.   You sometimes play your radio very softly so that the neighbors won’t know that you’re home.

57.   You are always the sweatiest person in the room.

58.   You’re a little bit in love with your fake fiancé, but you know that he/she is way out of your league.

59.   You own Obama-theme footwear.

60.   You look at a plate of greasy, salty fries and think, “this needs mayonnaise.”

61.   You have found mold in very improbably places.

62.   You frequently eat an entire pineapple and spend the rest of the evening poking yourself in the belly and singing the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song.

63.   You are determine to streak the tea fields.

64.   You do a double-take when you see someone carrying a backpack on their back instead of on their head.

65.   You talk to goats.

66.   Chamberpots are suddenly very practical.

67.   You fade your yego like you were born here.

68.   Everyone knows your routine.  And everyone comments if you deviate from it.

69.   You no longer look at the menu, because what you order is not likely to be what you get.

70.   You talk about anything on a bus because no one can understand you.

71.   It’s extremely embarrassing when there’s a surprise Ugandan on the bus who can understand everything you say.

72.   You have come to accept the fact that, just because it claims to be an internet café, that is no guarantee there will be an internet connection.  Or a computer.

73.   Your favorite game is to see how many Disney lyrics you can slip into everyday conversation.

74.   Your most reliable source of protein is the fruit flies that drown in your coffee.

75.   You wear your tight jeans and discover that your ass can literally stop traffic.

Mk folks, I’ll try to update again soon with actual information about my life… 

My Umbrella

It's raining.  Again.  I have discovered, quite by accident, a surefire way of judging the probability and duration of an afternoon storm.  If, by two o'clock, the humidity has helped me to achieve 'fro status, then yes, it will rain before dark--but in one torrential, half-hour downpour.  If there's a good deal of frizz in the morning, then it will drizzle on and off for the entire day.  And if my hair actually looks normal?  Well, then I am most likely in Kigali, having recently washed (and thoroughly rinsed) my hair with water that doesn't have penguins lurking in its chilly depths.
An umbrella is essential in this country, no matter the season.  My shoulders are constantly peeling from sunburn, no doubt helping to reinforce the myth that muzungu skin falls off when you touch it.  And yet, I just can't bring myself to use an umbrella for shade purposes.  Growing up in Yakima, sunburn was simply a fact of life.  After all, it IS the Palm Springs of Washington.  Hiding yourself beneath an umbrella would be the ultimate admission of defeat.  Before I moved to Seattle, I could probably have counted on one hand the number of times I had used an umbrella--for its intended function, that is.
My umbrella here is in a shameful state of disrepair.  The secret to opening it is to enlist the aid of some ignorant sap, then stand back with a ready supply of bandaids.  I know I'll have to get a new one soon if I want to avoid being captured by the rain for extended periods of time.  My options are, unfortunately, limited to:
     -The Painfully Plaid Print
     -The Giant Beachball Motiff
     -The Assault Against Victorian Sensibilities
The first would make an excellent tribute to my Scottish ancestry, but it emits a faint and alarming odor of haggis when opened.  The second is certainly colorful, but do I really want astronauts to be able to spot me from space?  And the last...well, do I really need a parasol that is pinker and frillier than any underwear I have ever owned?
So, loyal and occasional readers, I have an immodestly selfish proposal for you:  tell me which umbrella to buy.  Two weeks from today, I will be in Kigali and can make the necessary purchase.  I'll even post an action shot with the umbrella on this blog so y'all can see exactly what you've done to me.  Choose wisely.  I'm going to look ridiculous no matter what, but at least this way I can shift the blame onto someone else!

And then middle school happened

I’m coming up on the one year mark here in Rwanda.  With that in mind, I think it’s time for a serious, introspective look back at the last 10 months.  What have I learned?  How have I changed?  Well, if part of the Peace Corps experience is about finding yourself, then I think I would have been better off leaving certain waters uncharted.  I’ve been in Rwanda for a long while now, getting to know the people and the culture, meeting with incredible challenges, overcoming obstacles—all those sorts of things that are supposed to lead one to a fuller understanding of oneself.  So here’s what I’ve come to understand about myself thus far:  I am a 12-year-old boy.  And I’m kind of okay with that.

I can picture you now, leaning away from your computer, scratching your head or beard in consternation, contemplating just how this gender-bending regression came about.  The short answer?  When you live in a place where the thought “I wonder if this means that I have dysentery” is a weekly occurrence, certain things are just inevitable.

The life of a 12-year-old boy is oddly liberating.  Let me give you an example:  back in America, going about my life as a 20-something woman, I would never have even considered waiting a week between washing my hair.  Fortunately, a 12-year-old boy has no such qualms.  Of course, the teachers at my school did manage to call me out on it: “Eh, Katerina, you hair is so smart today!  You have washed!”  It’s a good thing they didn’t see me over the last break.  I had to beat back the OPEC inspectors that kept showing up at my door, battling over the drilling rights to the oil field that was my scalp.

Of course, not all my regressions have been so obvious.  Some I prefer to keep well hidden.  Did you know that you can wear the same underwear four days in a row, using the NI-BI method?  For the uninitiated amongst you, that’s: Normal, Inside out—Backwards, Inside out.  And as far as socks go—well, when they can stand up on their own, it’s probably time to wash them.  Unless I have something better to do, of course.

Food hygiene is another area of my life that sometimes strongly resembles a middle school cafeteria.  Time moves more slowly in Africa, and Rwanda is no exception.  Thanks to this mystery of equatorial gravity, the five second rule has become transformed into the “hmmmm…there are no ants on it yet…” rule.  And that’s not even a rule.  It’s more of a guideline.

During training, we were taught to religiously bleach all of our fruits and vegetables before eating them, preferably while wearing a Haz-Mat suit.  Raw foods were completely out of the question.  Now, I’m not suggesting that it’s a good idea to buy a cabbage at the market and chow down right then and there—although the reaction of the locals would be priceless—but there’s caution and then there’s just paranoia.  I lovingly wash and pineapples and grudgingly rinse my carrots.

On a serious not, maybe that is one of the most important things that I’ve learned in the last year—compromise.  What’s really important?  What’s really necessary?  What do you actually need to do to not just survive but enjoy life in a place that’s so far removed from everything you’ve ever known?  In short, how do you cope?!

That’s when a 7^th grade mentality comes in handy.  Peace Corps does require an incredible amount of maturity and ability to navigate the unknown.  But getting by here also requires that you  acknowledge the absurdities of this life and laugh about things like explosive diarrhea.  I know that the day I can no longer laugh about things like that is the day that I need to go home.  And honestly, I think that 12-year-old boys are best equipped to find the hilarity in otherwise difficult situation.  And I’m proud to be one of them.

Let’s talk about latrines.  When I first got here…well, that scared me.  I thought “no way.  There’s no way I will ever get used to using one of these.  I will simply not pee for the next two years.”  Yes, latrines can be completely disgusting.  But not to the mind of the adventurous 12-year-old male!  After visiting many volunteers, I’ve found that it’s easier to view a latrine not as a petrifying plunge into the unknown, but in the way that an anthropologist might examine a unique or rare artifact.  Thus far, I have encountered:

            --The leaning latrine of Rusumo (Chris)

            --The “Martha Stewart would be so proud” latrine (Ally)

            --The “oh wait, you’ll need a headlamp” latrine (Heather)

            --The “only hobbits can enter here” latrine (Allister)

            --The “go ahead.  Just try to make it in that tiny hole.  I dare you” latrine (Andrew)

And that, my friends, is when a little immaturity goes a long way.

Not that my life is filled exclusively with potty humor.  That’s only roughly 80% of what I laugh at.  The other 20%?  Well, myself.  Coming to Rwanda, I definitely expected to be confronted with a fear of the unknown.  And that hasn’t been so hard to manage.  More difficult to face has been the fear of being the unknown.  That might sound contradictory, but let me explain.  I am the unknown quantity in my village.  I’m white, I have freckles, I speak English, I hike, wear pants, and have a tattoo.  Basically, I’m weird.  I’ve been in my village since January, and some people still look surprised to see me when I walk to school each day.  Some days it can be difficult to even leave my house, knowing that I’m to be stared at, or harassed, or treated like a zoo attraction.  But other days, I barely leave my gate before a preschooler runs up and hugs me, or an old lady greets me with an enthusiastic “Komera, Katerine!”  Being the unknown is so much more terrifying than facing the unknown.  Talk about stripping you down to your most basic insecurities—the last year has been filled with those sorts of encounters.  I’m still figuring out how to deal with it.  I’m sure I probably will be until the day I leave.

So I take those little moments of ridiculousness and embrace then.  I’m immature.  It helps.  A few weeks ago, I attended a three hour mass celebrating assumption day.  After being crowded in a church, on a hard bench, the smell of incense clogging my pore and sinuses—well, I think all my fellow PCVs know exactly how I was feeling.  Then Chris and I discovered something magical, the sort of thing 12-year-old boys revel in the world over.  According to the calendar, the German equivalent of Mary’s Assumption day is…Maria Himmelfahrt.  Say it aloud a few times.  We sure did.  And we laughed.  A lot.  And when it’s time to Himmelfahrt again next year…well, I’ll be ready.

Because it is that one there

There have been certain times in Rwanda when I have thought to myself, “oh dear god, I am about to die.”  Up until last weekend, all these moments involved public transportation, cows, cows interfering with public transportation, lit charcoal stoves interfering with my left foot, and a small tube of what looked deceptively like toothpaste but, upon closer inspection, was most definitely not.

On Saturday, however, I took doom into my own hands and headed up Bisoke with a group of other PCVs.  For those of you with scant knowledge of Rwanda’s geography, the northern region of the country is more ruggedly mountainous than the others and is home to Rwanda’s five volcanoes.  We set out for Virunga Park early Saturday morning, with high spirits and a zest for adventure.  I imagine the Donner party felt the same at the beginning of its expedition.

Waiting for us at the information center was tea, coffee, traditional dancers, and an eclectic mix of white tourists is various states of serious hiking gear.  I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt.   I did not wear a hat.  My pants were not duct-taped into my tube socks.  I do not own tube socks.

While guzzling cup after cup of coffee (partly because it was so cold, and partly because I wanted to be able to say that I have peed on top of a volcano), we turned our attention toward watching the dancers.  Or, more truthfully, we watched the tourists watching the dancers.  It was meta-tourism at its finest.  I’ve come to a conclusion about white people in Rwanda: we’re awkward.  At the end of each number, the tourists would give a hearty round of applause.  This is not how we clap in Rwanda.  In general, we do not clap.  But when we do, it is in perfect unison, often accompanied by soft trilling.  The essential thing is that every claps at the same speed and volume.  As a colleague once told me at a ceremony, “In Rwanda, it is important to crap together.”  Even after nine months of living here, the easy interchange of “R” and “L” always finds new ways to amuse me.

We eventually got our guide and ventured forth into the park via the worst road ever created in the whole history of human existence.  At the trailhead, we picked up a couple of armed guards whose job it was to keep the wild buffalo at bay.  For the record, I did not see any buffalo.  However, there was ample amounts of buffalo poop along the trail.  At least someone in this country is managing to get fiber in their diet.

The trail begins easily enough, passing through pyrethrum and potato fields, gently sloping upwards and filling you with a sense of outdoorsy benevolence and general well-being.  It’s not until you clamber over the stone fence and begin the real ascent that Bisoke starts to show its true colors.  Its true colors are pain. The guide told me that the park remains open year-round, but I can’t imagine doing that hike during the rainy season.  I slipped several times and had very much the dirty on my pants.  And ankles.  And shoes.

When I wasn’t busy becoming one with the mud and actually got a chance to check out the surroundings, it was pretty spectacular.  For most of the hike, the vegetation was dense and jungle-like.  The occasional viewpoint/ “oh dear lord I’m about to die whose bright idea was it to make this mountain so tall” viewpoint provided spectacular vistas of the Ruhengeri hillsides.

Then we reached the cloud-cover near the top.  Until this point, it had been sweaty work going up, and I know I looked a hot mess.  As Deverna so astutely observed, “I feel like I’m struggling, but then I look over at you and feel so much better about myself.”  I would have been offended if it hadn’t been so true.  But once we got under the cloud cover, things got cold.  I never thought my lips would turn blue while living on the equator.

We reached the top, or as near it as we were allowed, and stopped to rest and admire the crater lake.  With the sparse vegetation and rolling fog, the area looked oddly like the Scottish highlands.  I kept waiting for a bagpiper to come wandering out of the mist because really, who hasn’t fantasized about shoving a bagpiper off a volcano?

After a few photos and snacks, we began the treacherous descent.  I’m fairly certain that every person fell at least once.  I think that even Matt’s pants had so much the dirty by the time we were finished.  Near the bottom, we got to see some wildlife.  The guide stopped us and pointed out the ten or so golden monkeys romping about in a nearby field.  Then it was back in the car and back on the worst road ever created in the whole history of human existence (which had somehow managed to become worse during the last five hours).  Back in Musanze, there were showers (hot), beer (cold), food (Italian), and dramatic apologies to muscles (sore).

So in conclusion…was it fun? Yes.  Will I take my family when they come to visit?  No.  Will I chuckle with malicious glee when other PCVs say that they are going volcano climbing?  I think we all know the answer to that…

My attempt at the creativity

We all have one in our life.  It’s the place on the main road where you go to catch a bus.  It’s the place where you wait for hours and hours, and then for a few more hours.  It’s the place where the hot sun slowly drains away your will to travel, and you begin to doubt your reasons for ever leaving your village.  It’s the place that makes you happy to squeeze onto a twegerane and put up with the vomit therein entailed.  My place is Cyome.

Today’s post is the end result of the worst day of travel I have ever had to endure.  Any day that starts with a two hour wait in Cyome is bound to go badly, and fate did not disappoint.  In an attempt to alleviate our boredom and save our sanity, Alanna and I started singing the blues.  Literally.  So, readers, here’s a rather poetic slice of life up in Ngororero district.

The Cyome Blues

Been sittin’ in Cyome for a long while.

Gonna be sittin’ in Cyome for a long, long while,

watching the crazy guy wanderin’ by,

swingin’ his level and scythe.

His shoes don’t match:

sandal on the right

rainboot on the left,

ready for anything,

but only halfway.

Waitin’ in Cyome, not a car for miles.

Watchin’ the river flow by for miles and miles.

Watchin’ the people watchin’ me.

Kids playin’ football in the street,

avocado pit ball—

Saturday’s market

bouncin’ quick off pavement

and cracked bare feet.

Sittin’ in Cyome beneath that sliver of shade.

‘Safe journey’ ‘Welcome to the west’

faded letters above my head.

Sun on my shoulders

sunburn on y mind

women with umbrellas go walkin’ by.

Down in the fields,

idle gossip busy hands,

no breeze to be found,

sweat and turned earth in the air

clingin’ the bicycles pedalin’ past

on tires worn bare.

And time shimmers still in these afternoon miles

the way life’s gone on in Cyome for a long, long while.

In other news, I discovered yesterday that I am in horrible shape.  This was not necessarily an unexpected revelation, but the timing could have been better.  Learning of your incredible patheticness while climbing up a volcano is not pleasant.  But I'll blog about that another day...

Cock-Blocked!! And other animal adventures...

Last week, some nice folks from Engineers Without Borders posed this insightful question: what is the most exotic animal you’ve seen in Rwanda?  The honest answer is, of course, other white people. But Rwanda is not without its own unique set of creeping, crawling, flying, scuttling, and bleating creatures.  So it’s time for an all animal edition of my blog!  For those of you who are not such fans of the cute and fuzzy critters…well, you’re in luck.  Those do not exist here.

Many of my fellow PCVs have adopted kittens or puppies. I too have acquired a pet.  His name is Brandon, and I spent the first week of our cohabitation making futile efforts to stab him with a knife.

Imagine a large brown strawberry.  Now picture eight spindly legs coming from it.  That basically describes Brandon.  The first time we met was when I rolled over in bed one morning and found my nose mere inches from whatever passes for a nose on a spider.  Needless to say, I tried to kill him.

After several days of increasingly Shakespearean stabbing attempts, my arachnicidal tendencies began to move in the direction of blunt force trauma.  I had the perfect shoe for it.  It had recently been washed, all the better to show the splatter.  There was one slight problem.  Despite his size, Brandon is fast.  I quickly realized that there was no way I was going to get him.  Instead, we soon fell into a comfortable routine.  Before blowing out my candle at night, I would pick up my shoe and make a few half-heartedly swipes in his general direction.  Brandon would just sigh heavily, and saunter nonchalantly to a new location a few inches away.

Right now, he is hanging out next to my shopping bags.  He doesn’t even pretend to move when I grab one of them.  We’ve basically become an old married couple.  As least I don’t greet him with a resounding “Honey, I’m home,”…yet…

Four-legged animals are mostly limited to goats, sheep, and cows.  Back in March, the mama goats started popping out babies, and the hills were filled with frolicking little goat kids.  There is nothing cuter than two little baby goats curled up around each other in a sunny meadow.  It’s so sweet, it might even make Walt Disney vomit.

There are a few varieties of cow in mooing around Rwanda.  In my village, we have the more traditional variety: stick-thin, with giant horns and a thirst for human blood.  I was walking home from school one afternoon, innocently enjoying the warm sun, when a little girl ran past me, screaming.  Now, my presence does sometimes provoke reactions  of terror  from children, but this seemed excessive.  And the fact that the dudes in front of the barbershop were yelling too…well, I figured that something bad was about to go down.  I turned, just in time to jump out of the way of the young bull that was barreling down the road, horns blazing.  Following him, shouting wildly, and waving a giant stick, was the village cattle wrangler.  Fortunately, the bull was caught before he did any damage other than the psychological kind.

Occasionally, the pigs appear in the compost pile.  There are also rabbits, but I mostly only see them as Alice is hacking one to bits on the back porch.  That doesn’t really bother me so much…although, I do wish she wouldn’t look quite so happy while doing it.

We also have geckoes in Rwanda, but not so many live in my village.  One day, during umuganda, some girls found a chameleon lurking in the bean field at school.  Batiste, one of the science teachers, showed the students (most of whom wouldn’t get near the thing) how it change colors depending on the background.  I was tempted to hold it up to my skin and see what would happen, but I resisted the urge.

So, those are the major land animals that live in or around my village.  But Rwanda also boasts an amazing variety of birds.  Most of them are quite small, and come in almost every color imaginable: bright orange, emerald green, dark blue, electric yellow—you can always  catch a glimpse of some spectacular hue flitting around amongst the trees.

There are also larger birds like hawks and ravens.  I have a bit of a personal vendetta against the latter.  They like to sit outside my window and pontificate at all hours of the day.  “Gwark?” one will inquire.  “Gwaaaaaarkkkkk!!!!” the others will agree.  Then they will fly up onto my roof and riverdance for awhile.  Just try to sleep with a group of ravens stomping around above your head.  Just try.

However, because I have roughly the matury of a 7^th grade boy, my favorite animal in Rwanda is the cock.  Oh, the times I have explained to Rwandans that “rooster” might be a better word to use.  Of course, then I would lose the opportunity to hear things such as “Does the cock exist in America?” or “I think, in America, the cock grows larger.”  One day, as I was walking to school, a rooster ran into the road in front of me, impeding my progress.  I had to laugh, because I had literally just been cock-blocked.

So, on that delightful note, I think I’m going to wrap things up for now.  But readers, I have a question for you!  What do you want to know about my life in Rwanda?  I feel like so much happens in my life here that to really explain it all would take ten pages and be painstakingly tedious.  So, aspects of Rwanda do ya’ll want to know about?  I have no shame, so ask about any topic.  Food? Religion? Markets?  Things I have used for toilet paper?  Let me know what you want to know, and I will do my best to answer your questions in my next post.

p.s. I wrote most of this blog while wearing a Burger King crown.  Thanks mom and dad!

From point A to point B, with mild detours to points C, G-P, and R-Z: A tale of Rwandan transport.

I've heard it said that it's the journey that counts, not the destination.  Such a statement was probably made as a sort of desperate rationalization of the Rwandan transportation system, given that here, the destination is not always reached, and the journey can stretch so long as to provide one with the opportunity to indulge in the entire pantheon of human emotions.  Excitement, hope, awkwardness, frustration, rage, exhaustion, despair, and finally resignation--just try to travel anywhere in this country without experiencing at least half of these emotions.
I've blogged a bit about the buses here before, but today I want to take you all with me on the harrowing, uncomfortable, and often hilarious trip from my village into Gitarama.  Every time I travel this route, something happens to surprise me, scare me, or just plain bewilder me.  There's never a dull moment, that's for sure!
The average bus here might not be quite street legal in the U.S.  There are larger, Greyhound-esque buses that run between the major cities, but they very rarely venture out to my main road.  Instead, I usually take a twegerane (translation: "we squeeze") as far as Gitarrama, where I can get a slightly more reputable mode of transportation into Kigali.  As much as I dislike riding on the twegeranes--they are more than aptly named--they certainly do provide ample opportunity for entertainment.
All the twegeranes have the same basic body.  They are more or less glorified vans, with 20 seats.  The number of seats is in no way related to the actual number of people that can fit in side.  One of my favorite things about twegeranes is the way that they are decorated.  I can't believe I was ever capable of functioning in a country like America where public transport didn't involve tassles and wall-paper and beads.  Some of the decor looks disconcertingly like the inside of a slightly seedy New Orleans brothel.
Obviously, each bus has its own name plastered across the windshield in bright letters.  About half of the names are religious themed, and most are in poorly conceived English.  Jesus is caming? Er...sure.  Many of the rest have something to do with celebrities or sports.  I am still waiting for the day when the Chris Brown bus crashes into the Rihana bus.  And my life will be complete the day I see the Kanye West twegerane cut off Taylor Swift in traffic.
Legally, the buses can only hold as many people as their are seats.  Side note: it was very difficult for me to type that last sentence, as my fingers were hampered by my spasms of uncontrollable ironic laughter.  Space is an illusion, bus space doubly so.  This leads to an interesting litte conspiracy between the bus drivers, the bicycle taxis, and the traffic police.
As the buses trundle recklessly down the road, usually with passengers practically hanging out the windows, the drivers signal to each as they pass, especially if there is a police check point coming up.  If there is, the bus pulls over and unloads passengers until the legal limit is no longer exceeded.  Often, these excess passengers will hop a ride with a bike taxi, or be forced to jog down the road and meet up with the bus again once it passes the check point.  It's quite possibly the most obvious things in the world, and makes me laugh every time.
There's usually about a fifty percent chance someone will vomit on the bus, an old lady will start screaming about her smashed tomatoes, the entire bus will be delayed several minutes while passengers bargain for pineapples out the windows, or you will either sitting on someone or having someone sit on you.  The one advantage to this form of transportation?  It's cheap, and it sure makes you appreciate walking!