A True American Hero?

Awhile back in Tanzania, I bought some ibitengi with Obama's face on it.  It came in two pieces-- I'm saving one for when I get back to America but have been using the other as an all-purpose wrap for doing "works at home."

I'm torn as to whether I should feel patriotic or treasonous while wearing it.  One the one hand, you can't get much more American than wearing your president's face around your house all day.  But on the other hand, I am frequently wiping my dirty hands, spilling food, or sitting on Obama's face.  Hero or traitor?  This could very well be the Supreme Court's toughest case yet.  I can just picture it:

In the case of Howell vs. America, the prosecution will now present its evidence.  Witnesses state that the defendant did willing, and repeatedly, make remarks and actions of questionable patriotism with reference to her wearing of the president's likeness on her posterior region.  Some examples highlighted include, but are not limited to:
1.  On January 18th, 201, the defendant did unthinkingly wipe her avocado-smeared hand across the president's face, followed by fully three minutes of helpless laughter by the realization that a particularly large green glob was positioned directly below the commander in chief's left nostril.  The defendant was heard to remark aloud, "Why Mr. President, snot a smart look for you!"
2.  On February 7th, 2012, phone records show that the defendant send a text message to an unknown recipient, stating "I'm stargazing on Obama's face!"  The Secret Service was quickly alerted, only to discover the president safely in a cabinet meeting.  Satellite imagery later revealed that the defendant was, in fact, sitting outside on her ibitengi, gazing up at the constellations.  Still, the cost to the taxpayers of mobilizing the Secret Service for such a false alarm cannot be overstated.  The public cries out for justice.
3.  On February 13th, 2012, the defendant did, while using her ibitengi in the course of ordinary domestic chores, spill a small portion of bleach across the president's likeness.  The prosecution acknowledges that such an accident is not, in and of itself, worth mentioning; however, inside sources reveal that the defendant then comtemplated sending a text message to the aforementioned unknown recipient, reading "Hahaha, I just made Obama white."  Furthermore, the same source can authoritatively state that the defendant was only prevented from taking such reprehensible action by a lack of airtime.
4.  Finally, the prosecution has irrefutable evidence that on February 21st, 2012, the defendant did, while wearing her ibitengi as a cape, spend fully thirty minutes standing next to a hole in her wall, killing termites with a shoe and gleefully proclaiming, "Captain America demands that you die!"
The prosecution rests its case.

I don't think the defense can make an adequate rebuttal in the face of all that evidence.  I just hope I can keep up with my blogging from federal prison...

Muffins and Musings

Next week marks the 16 month anniversary of my arrival in Rwanda.  I know that some people read Peace Corps blogs expecting tales of adversity and epiphany...well, this week I had my own moment of quiet reflection, and thought I would share.
It came from what we PCVs like to call "student gems."  That's when a student writes something that isn't quite correct, but is still somehow true.  As I sat at home, grading exercises on antonyms, I stumbled upon this unexpected revelation: "A ship is not the muffin."  It was such a profoundly simple statement, yet so profoundly...right.  You can't argue with its logic: a ship IS not the muffin.  Why, just a few weeks back, I bought a muffin in Kigali and sat staring at it in utter bewilderment for fully five minutes.  Should I butter it?  Should I set sail on it?  What if pirates try to snatch my muffin?  How will I defend it?  What if I want my ship toasted?  Can I outfit raisins in the hull?  And why is it A ship and THE muffin?  Is there only one muffin that a ship cannot be?
So, this little blog post goes out to all my fellow Ed 2 PCVs.  Here's to the last sixteen months--sometimes we love out jobs, sometimes we want to quit, sometimes we find inspiration where we least expect it.  And sometimes, just sometimes, if we're lucky, we can have out ship and eat muffins too.

A Very Unlucky Weekend

Superstition has it that bad things happen in threes.  In Rwanda, irksome things happens in threes.  To my face.
Somedays, the universe sends  you an unequivocal sign that you should just crawl back under your mosquito net and stay there all weekend.  I received one such omen last Friday and foolishly chose to ignore it.
Rwanda is excellent bird-watching territory.  There's a dazzling variety of colors, shapes, and sizes flitting about.  Some volunteers are proud to have identified as many as 13 different species.  But what the guidebooks unanimously fail to mention is that the birds of Rwanda are equally adept at spotting you.
The back window in my living room room overlooks the nearby valley and banana groves.  In true Peace Corps fashion, I can spend hours standing there, staring out it, watching the mist come in and recede across the hills.
It's also the best source of light in my house, so of course I lurk next to it while doing my morning hygiene routine.  Apparently, my lurking skills aren't quite up up to skulk, because last Friday I was viciously attacked.  In the face.  By a hummingbird.  On the plus side, I decided to claim it as a new species.  So next time you're in Rwanda and a hummingbird dive-bombs you, you my dear friends, have just positively identified the Howellus Intheface-us.  Most bird-watchers go their whole lives without catching so much as a glimpse of this rare and dangerous avian.  For those who do encounter it, its sharp feet and pointy beak often it the last thing they ever glimpse.
The trials of my face continued the next day at the Ministry of Justice.  I'm involved with a really awesome program to teach English to the judges and staff at the Supreme Courts of Rwanda.  And it gives me a perfect excuse to shout "lawyered," even if only in my head.
So there I was, revising prepositions of location, with a room full of professional adults, feeling quite professional (if slightly precarious myself) in my high heels, when the fold-out whiteboard abruptly collapsed.  Into my face.  It was, however, a great teaching moment.  Howe often can the phrase "the whiteboard is on my face" be both true and applicable to the lesson?
By Sunday, I was firmly gripped by paranoia.  And I was going to be spending most of the day on buses.  Vomit seemed likely to be the crowning glory of my unholy trinity of facial unpleasantness.  But I made it back to my village completely unscathed.  My nose didn't even get sunburned.  I got smug.  Complacent.  I let my guard down.  I made tea on my petrol stove.  A giant fireball exploded in my face.  Thankfully, my eyebrows remained intact, even if my dignity was slightly singed.
So, I will no longer scoff in the face of superstition.  Monday passed without a single facial incident.  It would seem my bad luck has run its course...for now, at least.  Although I did stub my toe on a goat this morning...

A Public Service Announcement

I think that it has happened to all of us in Rwanda.  Your phone rings at 4:30 in the morning; you blearily answer it only to find yourself being yelled at in incomprehensible English.  You hang up and check the number.  It's not one that you know.  Then it hits you...you've been NARGed.
Nonsensical Anonymous Repeat Greeting (NARG) can strike anyone, anywhere, at any time.  Don't be fooled into thinking that you are safe.  Anyone can be a victim of a NARG.  Take this real-life testimonial, as recounted by one brave survivor of a brutal, unexpected NARGing:
    
"I was walking home from the market one beautiful Friday afternoon, enjoying the cool breeze and the scent from the gently swaying pine trees.  The sun was just beginning to sink behind the ridgeline...basically, it was the kind of afternoon when you really feel at peace with the universe.  Then my phone started ringing.  Well, I was expecting a call from a friend later that evening, so it didn't even cross my mind to be suspicious.  I dug my phone out of my pocket and saw that the call was from an MTN number that I didn't recognize.  I remember that the last two digits were 88.  Something, some little voice inside my head, whispered at me not to answer.  But I guess I thought I was safe--who expects to be NARGed in the open like that, in plain view, with the sun still shining?"

The harrowing events that followed can serve as a cautionary tale we must all take to heart:

"I can still recalled almost every detail of the NARG.  I hit the answer button and said, 'Hello?'  The voice on the other end shouted at me, 'Are you so okay?'  There was no static--he might as well have been standing right next to me.  I managed to stutter out a feeble 'y-y-yes' before he exclaimed 'Thank God!' and hung up.  I was left standing stunned and speechless, his words and the hollow beep of the ended call echoing in my head.  I was too shocked to move.  Somewhere in the distance, a goat bleated."

As painful as this account is, it presents us with a textbook NARGing, one we can all learn from.  There are three (3) main points we can draw from this lesson:
1.  When in doubt, wait it out.  NARGs often happen when the victim is distracted.  In this example, the victim was expecting a call from a friend, thus  rendering her more likely to answer her phone, even to an anonymous number.  But remember, the classic NARGist will usually call many times in a short span.  Has the same number called you 15 times in the past five minutes?  Chances are, the caller is attempting to NARG you.  Wait for a text message offering some form of identification.  This is one of the surest methods to keep yourself safe from a NARGing.
2.  Speak the language, spare the anguish.  Answer your phone in Kinyarwanda.  This throws the potential NARGer off balance and allows you to gain the conversational upper hand.  Let's review the dialogue from our case study:
        Hello?
        Are you so okay?
        Y-y-yes...
        Thank God!
Most NARGers operate under the assumption that their victims only speak English.  Most NARGers do not speak English.  By speaking in Kinyarwanda, you may be able to downgrade the NARG to a mere AARG (Annoying Anonymous  Repeat Greeting).  While the effects of an AARG can still be debilitating, most people agree that AARGs are far less devastating in the long run.
3.  Keep it secret, keep it safe.  Most victims have only met their NARGer briefly or--chillingly--not at all.  The NARGing community is more widespread than many of us would like to acknowledge. Numbers are passed from person to person, to the extent that you could walk right by your NARGer and not even know it.  Don't let this happen to you!  Just because you sit next to a person on the bus for twenty minutes, you are not obliged to give him your number.  By limiting the number of people that have your contact information to those people with whom you actually desire contact, it is possible to dramatically reduce your likelihood of being NARGed.

So let's learn from this example and work together to create a NARG-free world!  Spread the word, my friends!  Just don't call me about it.  Chances are, I won't pick up.

Christmas!

Rwandans occasionally find me somehow androgynous.  It might be my short hair or perhaps (more likely) as one Rwandan put it, while gesturing emphatically at his own chest, “I did not know, because you do not have here.  Why?”

Well, the Tanzanian government, apparently determined to one-up its neighbor, made it official.  According to the visa that I got on my recent vacation, I am a 51 year-old man.  Not only did I get a new gender, but I got an awesome pseudonym to go along with it: Patrick Richard Guyver.  Luckily (and perhaps also a bit frighteningly) no one at customs and immigration seemed to notice this very obvious discrepancy.  But don’t worry, Mr. Dick Pat McGuyver (as we dubbed my exciting new alter ego), I didn’t do anything too questionable while using your identity.  Aside from snorkeling with the mafia, that is…

Alanna and I had been plotting, if not actively planning, our trip to Tanzania, for several months.  Finally, December 17^th rolled around.  Picture, if you will, a crowded bus stop at 5 a.m., filled with bleary-eyed passengers about to board the bus for a 30-hour jaunt to Dar Es Salaam.  Feel the dread and resignation in the air, clinging to your skin as palpably as the early morning fog.  Alanna and I visualized this for about five seconds, then decided to fly instead.  I was still braced for a long and difficult journey given that we had a layover in an airport so closely resembling Dante’s 7^th circle of hell.  Well, Italian poetics aside, things went off without a hitch.  I got to Dar  in one piece, was issued my fake ID without any problems, and was more than ready for my long-awaited holiday to begin.

Dar was a shock to the system.  From the heat to the architecture, the lack of hills and the abundance of street food, it was a wonderful but sometimes disorienting shock to the system.  Or maybe it was a wonderfully disorienting shock to the system.  Things in Rwanda that once seemed complicated and confusing are just part of ordinary life now, and as Alanna so aptly put it, “I need to go places where I don’t know what’s going on, so I can figure it all out.”

So, what did we figure out in Dar?

1.       1.  Pants are not appropriate.  It’s hot in Dar.  We were not adequately prepared for how swampy pants can get after five minutes in 90 degree heat and 90 percent humidity.  Within 10 minutes of arriving at the hotel room, I became a strict adherent to Alanna’s “no pants in the room” rule.  I adhered to that rule with a religious fervor seldom witnessed outside of Dateline investigative specials.  The next day, I bought a flowy dress and amended the rule to “no pants.  Ever.”  The one time I broke it, fate was quick to administer retribution.  Word of warning to the fair-skinned: If you wear pants with holes in the in a tropical climate, be certain to apply sunscreen to ALL relevant areas.

2.     

       2.  Rickshaw drivers are dubious after dark.  At one point, Alanna and find found ourselves somewhat stranded late at night without any immediate source of transportation.  We couldn’t really walk far, as my shoe had just broken.  The only solution was, of course, to flag down a rickshaw driver.  The conversation that followed, or failed to follow, was undoubtedly influenced by one or more illegal substances.   As we watched the rickshaw weave unsteadily away from us into the night, Alanna summed up the encounter nicely: “Do you think he realizes we aren’t actually in his rickshaw?”

3.    

       3.  The long way is the only way.  I have never claimed to be good at reading maps.  When it comes to that, I am functionally illiterate.  Alanna reads maps at about a sixth grade level.  To only compound the problem, our guidebook’s map had the level of detail barely exceeding that of a cereal box treasure map.  So we were lost.  Frequently.  Luckily, we are both fond of wandering, and often ended up in interesting if unexpected places

      

      But after two days in Dar, we were ready for some quality beach time on Zanzibar.  We had originally planned to go out west to Arusha and poke around Kilimanjaro, but a lack of money or desire to spend ten hours on a hot bus made us opt for island life instead.  Zanzibar, and especially Stonetown, might be one of my favorite places that I’ve ever visited.  The old heart of Stonetown is a labyrinth of narrow winding streets, none of which go where you think they will.  It’s easy to get lost, but only if you make the mistake of having an actual destination in mind.  It was far better to just wander, and we did.

      

     Of course, sometimes you set yourself up for failure.  On the ferry ride over, Alanna and I flipped through the increasingly suspect guidebook and picked out a lovely sounding hotel.  Then, we spent an hour and a half trying to locate it, only to eventually learn that it no longer exists.  Even Dick Pat McGuyver couldn’t rig up a GPS to find it.  But eventually we ended up at a very nice hotel—with airconditioning.  I am not ashamed to admit that I draped myself all over the thing, on multiple occasions.  It was an almost religious experience, and I send many prayers of thanks to Our Lady of Perpetual Air-Conditioning.

      Stonetown was a fascinating  mix of locals—with Arab, Indian, and African cultures—and tourists—mostly beautiful Germans.  Walking down one street, I would see women in saris or full burkas, men in prayer robes, brightly color kanga prints, and little girls in pigtails.  The variety of food was equally amazing.  Oh, the seafood.  I’ve been eating sardines from a can for the last year.  Needless to say, my standard for good fish had sunk  to fairly shameful depths.  One week in Zanzibar was enough to float my culinary nautilus back up the surface.  The night market was a great place to get fresh, delicious seafood, and a prime location to people-watch.  Each evening, as the sun began to set over the Indian ocean, dozens of vendors would set up their stalls in the waterfront park.  Lobster, prawn, shark, tuna, barracuda—if it could swim, it could be grilled on a plate.  There was also an intriguing dish called “Zanzibar pizza”, which featured meat or fish, onion, egg, and mayonnaise all fried up in a crepe.  The dessert version nutella and banana.  I’m pretty certain that it shortened by life by a few happy, fattening years. 

      Despite my firm belief that fish belong in my stomach, Alanna and I went snorkeling one morning.  The boat we rode out in was called “The Gladiator.”  Less mature people would have made many jokes at this.  We went with a group and beautiful Germans and a branch of the Spanish mafia.  Our first stop was at Prison Island, where we got to get up close and personal with the island’s giant tortoises.  The Spanish mafia, of course, sat on the tortoises while the beautiful Germans, huddled quietly next to the sign that read “Do Not Sit On The Tortoises” were politely horrified.

      

      After the tortoises, we hitched up our skirts, remounted the gladiator, and headed back out to sea.  In a moment of collective stupidity, neither Alanna nor I had put sunscreen on our backs that morning.  As I paddled happily amongst the coral, watching the rainbows of fish that swarmed around me (and wondering how many people the Spanish mafia had sent to sleep with these same fish), the sun was shining steadily overhead.  Let’s just say that no one rides the gladiator without getting burned.

      For Christmas, we headed out to Jambiani on the east coast.  The guidebook (which by this point, neither of us trusted) described Jambiani was a “village.”  False.  It had a post office, an internet café, and more than one shop.  That, my friends, is a town.  It was a wonderfully quiet and relaxing time, and one the rare occasion I could peel myself out of the hammock, the warm waters of the Indian Ocean were just a few feet away.

      Our hotel was staffed exclusively by Rastafarians.  I reached by Bob Marley threshold after three days.  I also realized that my manners have become increasingly African in some regards.  Take two examples:

1.       At the post office/minimart, a nice older (probably German) tourist was attempting to mail some postcards.  Rather than wait in line behind her, I did was felt normal:  I edged in front of her, demanded two water bottles from the shopkeeper, paid, and left without apologizing.  Only as I was walking away did I realize that this behavior could be construed as rude.

2.      On the way back from Jambiani, Alanna and I rode a dala-dala, the Tanzanian  equivalent of a twegerane bus.  As more and more people piled on, we were forced to squeeze closer and closer together, much to the discomfort of the Germans riding with us.  I had an old Tanzanian mama on my right and a German man on my left.  My arm was draped over the mama’s shoulder, while her hand was resting gently across my knees.  This felt comfortable.  There was a clear line of demarcation between me and the German.  We did not touch.  This felt uncomfortable.  Alanna and I both got off the bus laughing, but wondering how we are going to manage to go back to a world where personal space is so rigidly define and easily violated.

So, to make a long and rambling story short, Tanzania was wonderful. It was good to leave Rwanda for awhile, and it was good to come back, too.  School “begins” on Monday, so my lifestyle of leisure must come to an end.  Well, a merry very belated Christmas, and a happy somehow belated New Year!

Kevin in triplicate, and other bits of life

Sometimes, things get lost in translation.  This phenomenon probably accounts for at least ninety percent of my failures to communicate in Rwanda.  But sometimes, even when you say all the right things, the response is still completely nonsensical.
Rwandan children are the masters at this sort of subtle mind game.  Case in point?  The Kevins.  My housemates' five young children have been visiting for the past month.  Normally they live in Gisenyi, but came to Rubona for part of the Christmas holidays.  As three of them clustered around my door, watching me unpack from two weeks of GLOW/BE camp (see previous post for a full explanation as to why I was already in a fragile state of mind), I asked them their names.
"Kevin!" the first boy chirped.
"Wowe, wi twande?" I asked the second boy.
"Kevin!" came the immediate reply.
At this point, I probably should have just cut my losses, closed my door, and gone to bed.  Instead, with a growing suspicion of inevitable failure, I turned to the little girl.
"Wowe, wi twande?"
"Kevin!"
Now, it doesn't take a sharp investigative mind to deduce that at least one person in this scenario was not being entirely truthful.  Sure, the truth might have been out there, but my bed was nearer.  So I politely wished the Kevins a good night, schooed Brandon away from my pillow, and went to sleep.
Speaking of Brandon, he has recently gone through a growth spurt.  I think he might be entering the rebellious teenage years, as he has taken to sulking near my scarves.  I just hope he doesn't start bringing home any lady friends.  I am not ready to be a grandmother.

It's been raining something biblical in Rwanda the past month, and I was dismayed, if not entirely surprised, by how much of my mountain had eroded while I had been away.  Thankfully the main road is still perfectly passable, if a little worse for wear.
One beautifully sunny morning last week, I decided to trek down to Rusumo and go to the  market.  This is more or less my weekly routine; by now I know all the shortcuts and goat paths--I just put my feet on autopilot and my brain on pause for the hour it takes to get there.
The path to Rusumo isn't necessarily bad or treacherous, but it certainly qualifies as rustic.  Especially the wooden bridges.  Wooden bridges that are essentially a few (or just one) tree trunks.  Wooden bridges that I have crossed dozens of times without a problem.  Until suddenly, there was a problem.
The most worrisome of the bridges sits about seven feet above a muddy, rocky stream.  It is hastily composed of two wooden logs, spaced just far enough apart as to make it impossible to cross comfortably.  I've crossed it in the rain, in the mud, wearing flip-flops--so on this sunny morning, wearing hiking boots, I got overconfident.  They say that pride comes before a fall, but I didn't expect such a literal demonstration of the old adage.
One moment I was happily skipping across the bridge, the next I was lying flat in the stream, murky red water running rampant over my new jeans, and profanity and hysterical laughter running rampant out my mouth.  Looking back, I can tell that I've been in Rwanda for far too long.  My first thought wasn't "oh no, I hope I'm not hurt" but rather, "oh no, how am I going to walk through town with all this mud on me?!"
Fortunately, my tolerance for abject humiliation is fairly high, and there was no way I was walking an hour back to my village just to get clean clothes.  So it was off to the market, looking like a creature from the lagoon, and feeling like one too.  But don't worry mom and dad, aside from my ego, I only had a few minor bruises on my leg and shoulder...

Somehow not like American camp...

Sometimes you teach so hard your pants fall down.  That’s why it’s important to always wear long t-shirts on days when you can’t find your belt.  And make sure you have clean underwear.  Unfortunately, here in Rwanda, clean underwear is something of a luxury, especially at Camp GLOW/BE.  So hitch up your trousers, ladies and gentlemen--it’s time to spend a few weeks at holiday camp.  Are you ready?!  Well, no worries, we sure weren’t…

First, allow me to set the stage.  Imagine a quiet hilltop, almost devoid of human life.  It’s rained recently, and the grass squishes and squelches with every step you take.  A few cows amble by, seemingly impervious to the cold and damp.  On three sides, the hilltop is surrounded by lake Burera, whose blue waters have turned steely grey from the thunderclouds looming overhead.  A handful of red brick buildings lay scattered across the field—the classrooms, dorms, offices, and cafeteria of E.S. Kagogo.  And standing in the middle of the field, awkwardly trying to look like they know what they’re doing, are a group of Peace Corps volunteers.  Welcome to camp.  There are no buses out.

Camps GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and the wisely abbreviated BE (Boys Excelling) are camps aimed at educating Rwandan secondary school students about leadership, goal-setting, HIV/AIDS, and life skills in general.  We decided to go for the complete set, and held one of each, back to back, for two straight weeks.   And here’s the thing—it was a crazy, disorganized, stressful two weeks…but the students never knew.  They had an awesome time, learned a lot, and went away with new skills and hopefully a desire to start clubs at their schools.

Life was medieval for two weeks.  It started with the flea-infested dorms, and while I never quite got around the instituting my chamberpot policy, the slippery slope down to the latrines made it more and more tempting with each rainstorm.   I somehow managed not to fall down once during the entire camp, and yet I was still covered in mud by the end of every day.  The Rwandans, of course, all looked immaculate.  Even after a year, I still don’t know how they manage to repel dirt from their clothes and shoes.  This is a mystery that deserves further investigation, and perhaps its own Discovery Channel special.

By the end of the first night, everyone was so covered in bug bites that we all looked like the survivors of a nasty chicken pox epidemic.  But we soldiered bravely on!  The Rwandans that we were working with were absolutely amazing.  We invited teachers from our schools and junior facilitators (Rwandan students) who had attended the camps last year.  The junior facilitators especially were an inspiration.  It was so wonderful to watch them step into a leadership role and really blossom as they worked with the students.  Seeing them interact with the kids, and the way that the kids began to look up to them as role models, more than compensated for the bug bites, mud, rain, beans for every meal, and the rats.

Well, maybe not the rats.  Continuing in the medieval theme, our boys camp had a few uninvited guests.  Apparently, after the rats ate all my peanuts, they decided to move on to bigger and better prey.   Peanuts are too easy.  They just sit there, being salty.  People, however……Fortunately, there is a shot for rabies.  Unfortunately, there isn’t a shot for the trauma of watching a rat jump out of your bed one morning. 

So, what else was interesting about camp?  I went a week without washing my hair, and was complimented on my style.  We had numerous dance parties (if and when the power was working), and I realized that even the students from the blind school and the deaf school can dance better than I can.  For the talent show, the deaf girls performed a dance by putting the speakers on the floor and feeling the vibrations.  It was one of my favorite moments from camp, for sure.

Another golden moment was doing condom demonstrations with the boys.  You haven’t really lived until you’ve watched a Rwandan teacher trying to get a student’s attention by poking him with a wooden penis and shouting “Umva, umva!” over and over again.  Teaching the kids how to do paper mache was also a lot of fun; I think over half of the boys made airplanes, which they then painted the colors of the Rwandan flag.  That’s right, Camp BE was the official founding of the Rwandan airforce.

Mk folks, I’m heading off to Tanzania next week for a few weeks of adventures and relaxation at the beach.  Happy holidays!