Love, From Bungwe

Some of the teachers I worked with this year sitting infront of our administration offices at school.










the kids are playing on what the adults use to move some of the heavier things around town or down the mountains.











Motos are the best way to get around all the huge hills of the "Highlands" in Rwanda. One America Day there happened to be 5 of us roving about the hills all together.











This is a really typical "Highlands" village tucked between hills, shrouded in trees, covered either in dust or mud depending on the season.








These are the fields (crops of corn, wheat, beans, peas, potatos, or tea) and valleys we have to go through in the "Highlands" (so called because we're the hightest elevations in Rwanda--Bungwe is one of the highest in the region at 3,000m)










Leaving Bungwe with all the love and good wishes from my villagers included thanking and regifting a few kilos of sweet potatoes, hurridly eating a gigantic bunch of bananas, and the moto being 30 minutes late.


Since I'm helping for 3 weeks with our newest group of trainees (they've been here 1 month!), I had to pack all I'd need for now, leaving the rest of my stuff locked in my house for my eventual move to Kigali (the capital). That means a backpacking backpack stuffed full of 3 weeks of professional clothes, work out stuff, and the most important things I own, strapped down to the back of my moto, and me leaning against it on our 1 hour motorcycle ride down, up, across, down, and up the mountains.

You'd think its pretty simple: sit on a moto and enjoy the scenery. No. Of course I'm all emotional because I just said good bye to my closest family and friends in Bungwe, and am leaving behind a year's worth of fun, laughter, hard work, and effort. So I start singing to myself ("Leaving on a Jet Plane") and my moto guy decides HE needs to sing too. In Kinyarwanda. Loudly. So, before I know it, we're singing the latest Rwandan pop songs as loud as we can, zooming down the mountain roads, dodging children in awe that there's a muzungu, and startling people as they hear and see a muzungu girl crazily coasting on by singing in their language at the top of her lungs. Phew!


Naturally we have to take breathers to think about the next song and maybe catch a bit of our sanity. In these breaks I hear the hysteric calls of children near the road, enticing their friends to come see the white girl: "Dore muzuuuuungu!!!" (There is a white person!!!). Or elderly people sharing their shock and calling to God that a white girl is on a moto: "Mana yanjye! Reba muzungu!" (Oh, my God! Look at the white person!)

Sometimes our singing was interrupted because of the holes and ditches in the roads. The entire hour ride down, up, across, down and back up the mountains is on a dirt road that may or may not be smooth and/or passable in less than perfect conditions. That's when the nifty little handle on the bottom of the seat is quite necessary so I don't fall of the moto.

Finally, after experiencing some amount of exasperation, joy, fear, sadness, excitement, and meloncholy on my last moto ride through the unbelievably steep and beautiful mountains of Northern Rwanda, we made it to the big city. Byumba has restaurants, internet, paved roads, buses, and lots of people. From here it was 1 rainy hour on a winding paved road to the capital and authentic Chinese food (they ran out of dumplings because their dumpling chef went to visit family in China. Good for him, bad for me).

Only 3 more weeks and I'll be visiting family, too.

Bye, bye Bungwe.

Just another day in Paradise

The road infront of our house.











This is our walkway at the house: my house is on the right, my host parents Gaspard and Donatha live on the left.










The kids love to play on these bike-like things, but the men use them for transporting goods. One of the things I have to dodge on my way to school in the morning.



So for those of you who don't know what its like to live in an African bush village.... We have no electricity, so we have to maximize our sunlight usage, beginning at 5:00am! I'm up just before the sun, going around my little house in the dark to get ready for a run. I leave the house to find the roads surprisingly busy with early morning risers on their way to farm, walking and talking in groups in teh pre-morning sun glow. (They LOVE that I run, always greeting me; one guy even saw me later and thanked me for inspiring him to continue those tough mornings when he just doesn't feel like getting up. go figure!)

After that shockingly cold bucket bath in my living room and maybe some light cleaning around the house, I HAVE to have my morning cup of tea at Brandine's Bar. The 5 minute walk to the cafe usually takes me about 15-20 minutes as I stop to greet, chat, and shake people's hands.

By then i'm inevitable like 5 minutes late to school, which doesn't really matter because nothing starts on time here (except maybe the buses) so my coworkers are still in the staff lounge, kids are still outside of classrooms. The teaching--if thats what you call laughing and having a good time with a group of teenagers--is awesome! My students are all like 16-22 years old, some older, maybe 1 or 2 younger, but all a blast to be with. They are very bright, curious, easy to laugh at/with, and we've all fallen into stride. They did really well on similes and metaphores looking at Paul Simon's "Bride Over Troubled Water." They caught on to using context for discovering vocabulary and meaning with "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." And they totally blew me away with their song creations about love and friendship.

Usually lunch is at school, a crazy mad dash for the daily beans and potatoes.

Lately I've been having my after lunch cup of tea at Brandine's bar, giving me more time to greet people and bond with the village. Once school ends at 4:30pm, its more dillydallying, greeting, walking down our one street, talking to people, seeing students that have left campus for one reason or another, and slowly making my way home. Usually I'm home by like 6pm, just in time for the sun to set and for dinner to start cooking. I love spending my evenings either hanging out with some of the nurses who live down the street or chatting away with my host mom
(one of the most impressive women I've ever met in my life: farms in the am, school secretary all day, milks the cows, cooks, and cleans in the pm. Studies university on weekends, and has political meetings 2-3 times a month as the women's representative. 5 languages, local leader, yet takes time to talk and bond with me. Love her!)

After the local readio station broadcasts the news in English, and maybe some journaling or reading by candle light, its bed time by 9pm.

One year of this and I've only got a few weeks left. I'm going to miss it so much!







Some of my teacher friends relaxing on our bench outside. Good times and some crazy conversations.

Home, Sweet, Home: Bungwe

Arrived: 30 December 2009
Left: 19 November 2010

One year in Bungwe:

freezing rain water bucket baths
no electricity
stopping in the middle of my lesson because the loud rain on tin roofs
cooking on charcoal fires
milk and tea bar, almost like Starbucks!
muddy roads
squatty potties ie) a hole in the ground
boiled beans and potatoes... every day.

greeting EVERY person in the street
school children staring at me, saying "good morning" at all times, and running up from behind to touch my hair
knowing everyone in my community, and then some
everyone knowing me
children playing in the street, but stopping to run up and hug me
motorcycle rides for an hour through scenery you can only dream of

good eats

Rabbit is a common meat in Bungwe; they're small enough --and quick enough in reproducing-- that you can eat it in a day. Cows would be too much meat and money for our little village. I think I can get goat or sheep meat at our market--Tuesdays only, when I'm working!

In my front yard we planted irish potatoes and carrots under the papaya tree. The dark spots on the left are the holes we dug to put manure (fresh from our cows!) and the potatoes in. On the right are the rows of freshly planted carrots.


Ardo is 100% afraid of my hair (he calls it bugs) and is the cutest little helper. He's the youngest of 4 and loves to help my friend Marita (his mom) peel irish potatoes. At 2 years old.


My mom is cooking dinner! This is a cement stove she uses fire wood with to cook quickly-- quickly compared to the small square stove in the foreground that uses charcoal. The pot is upside down to act as a lid to help the food cook even quicker.



I uncovered the pot! Inside: beans, veggies, and sweet potatoes covered in banana leaves to cook even more efficiently.


Lunch at school: they bring out big pots of beans with the occasional vegetable in it. This is another teacher helping me by holding the pot up while I scoop onto my plate.

My food! Today was my favorite: rice and beans with some lettuce. Yummy!

A typical day I'll eat a piece of bread with tea (Rwandan tea leaves, water, milk, and plenty of sugar; the African way) that I buy and enjoy at one of our 4 cafes in town. I usually go to Brandine's as she's got the most centrally located cafe (across the street from the health center) she's my good friend (I put her pic up somewhere on one of these blog entries), and EVERYONE goes there (nurses crack me up: they begin work at 7am, then around 8:30 or 9 they just sort of start wandering over like 1 or 2 at a time for tea).
Lunch starts at 12:25 at school, but the kitchen staff usually brings out the food like 1:00. I grab my plate (bought it at a boutique down the street) and spoon, keep them in the desk I'm sitting and grading at, and as soon as I see the food train come in the door, I grab my utinsils, rush over to beat the crowd, and get the "muzungu" status: they don't push me out of the way, but wait till I finish serving myself before slapping hands out of the way and letting hunger get the better of them. Usually (like 99.5% of the time) we have beans and irish potatoes (basically smaller, round potatoes compared to russet). Sometimes we get cabbage, carrots, or shallots chopped up in the bean sauce, too! Or we get ubugali, a flour and water mixture traditionally eaten with the fingers. But, as soon as the kitchen guys bring in our 3 huge pots of food, its a mad rush of teachers to crowd around, push, shove, and try to get food on our plates (and the floors, tables, and chairs...) Some surprises you may find in the beans: stems, sand, pebbles.
If I want a snack later I might get a hard boiled egg, bread, or tea at Brandine's Bar again.
Dinner is with my best friend in the village or my host family: any variety of french fries (potatoes pulled fresh from the front yard, washed, peeled, fried and enjoyed), rice, boiled bananas (also taken from some local source), beans (definitely grown in our back yard), shallots (even I can pick these: they grow on a vine holding up our fence around the house), and some sort of tomato based sauce.
I love it! Its all so simple and I've never been so regular in 2 years (hmmm.... fancy that! The time I've been in Africa= the time I've not been... "regular") I could eat beans, rice and fries every day.
Sometimes we have milk as a snack or soured milk as a meal. yes, soured milk. It is delicious! In West Africa they put some sugar in it, but here they just drink it straight.
Its a simple diet, but delicious.

Use Water Wisely!

We Californians are always being warned of the water shortage, especially in So Cal, and people are advised to cut water usage by running sprinklers at night, turning off faucets, etc. Even my title "Use Water Wisely" is stolen from my 5th grade poster competition to encourage students to conserve water. Oh, California! This is how I now have to get, use, and conserve my water:

1. I put a bucket under my roof to collect rain water.
2. Water is poured with a pitcher into the "inside" bucket, leaving out any bugs, leaves, or dirt that made their way in.
3. An old shampoo bottle (1/3L)serves as my "shower" to best control the flow's amount and aim.
4. I usually leave about 1/8 of the bottle full to effectively wash some underwear.
5. Rwandan women--and myself--bathe in the saloon/living room so that AFTER bathing, we use the water on the floor to CLEAN the floors.
6. On hair washing days, I double the amount of water I use (up to almost 1L!) but am very controlled, keeping it in a bucket. Once my hair is clean, I use the same water to wash like 3-4 shirts. Then wash the walls and/or dishes and/or toilet.

Ok, so to be fair if I were cooking daily (I eat at school for lunch and with friends for dinner) I'd use much more water, but with this method I survive on like 1 liter per day (washing hands or random utensils adds up, too!)

PS I won the poster contest in my 5th grade classroom, continuing to the school district or something. But I cheated. My mom drew the poster, I just colored it in. (ah! I feel much better now that's off my chest! Does my 5th grade teacher read this?)

Grades in Rwanda

First of all, our grades are done by hand. So in the first trimester I had my little print out of all my students (9 classes, 400 students), complete with little scribbles, crossing outs, side notes, and a pronunciation guide (can you imagine trying to call out names like: Ndasengirumva, Umugwaneza, Irakizamugisha, or Nyiransabimana say them: ...oh, gosh, never mind!) Then I was shamed when all the students want to see their grades and condescendingly look at my scrappy grading sheet. But that was the least of my problems.

After weekly writing assignments, reading each of my 400 students' papers individually and giving out grades for all of them, we were asked to prepare grades before finals. Of course. No problem! But because I teach each class for 2 hours a week, the grades have to be out of 20. Oh. Alright, I can understand its a different system. I get it. And I have to give each of my classes' grades to a different teacher: Each class has a teacher that collects the grades from the other teachers, hand copies the students' grades onto one master sheet per class, then gives THAT to the secretary to type into the school's ONE computer. Right. NO mistakes, I'm sure...

Then, after finals, we have to finish administering tests (different tests for each class, as the kids are allowed to take the test with them when they finish writing their answers onto the provided papers) so that kids can't cheat, we have until Monday to turn in our final grades. I was so ready! 20 point scale! Done! I had my classwork numbers added to my exam numbers, averaged out, calculated, and changed to a 20 point scale, hand written for each student, and given to the appropriate teacher. Oh, but they didn't tell me is 20 points for CLASSWORK and 20 separate points for FINAL EXAMS. ARGH! My students already lost or gained points in my changing scales, "translating" numbers, and doing weird math things to it!

So, unfortunately, some of my grades, well like 99% of them, were WRONG on students' report cards. I'm only totally embarrassed, but the KIDS are haranguing me about what the proper grade should be, and "Teacher! What's wrong with my marks?!" when can they be fixed? how will you fix them? and on and on! And I don't blame them! I'd be totally upset if my grade was lower than what I actually earned in any class!

This trimester I'm ready. I've planned out how many quizzes to give to fit the 20 point scale, when to give them to best prepare students, and just be on top of my game! 5 quizzes this trimester, 4 points each, no problem. Until they just asked for the first quarter of the trimester grade reports. Sigh. Really? So my kids have just one quiz, tongue twisters (graded on pronunciation, capacity to adjust with my help, volume, presentation, and composure). 4 points. So I had to readjust my scaling. Again. Wow.


The good news is that the kids just think I'm a funny American and are pretty forgiving. Teachers must think I'm totally incompetent. And at the end of the day I'm still laughing... at myself!

Just a try

So, I'm jsut throwing this out there: if you want a high school pen pal in Rwanda, there are hundreds--and then some-- that would absolutely LOVE to have someone to practice their writing with!

(Now I don't have to lie when they ask if I've tried or not... ;)

Memorial Week in Rwanda

We're at the end of our 2 weeks of spring break. I wanted to go traveling, but from April 7th to the 13th we also had the National Week of Mourning for the 1994 genocide and I wanted to be in my village with them to experience it and support them. So some of the other PCVs went to Ethiopia, Kampala (Uganda), or others' villages, but I enjoyed just being in the village with my local friends.


Every day for a week people could only work in the mornings, each afternoon people would group together according to oumoudougoudou (say it: oo-moo-DO-goo-do, all the same "ooo" vowel sound, it means neighborhood) and local officials (like my host mom, the district secretary!) would read things from the government that prevent, fight against, and deal with genocide and its lasting effects. This year's theme was fighting against trauma, which they say 2/3 of the population suffers from.

I was told by my neighbor that our village is a Hutu majority (not the group targeted in the genocide) and they were almost all in refugee camps abroad during the majority of the war so very few people were killed from our village. This means there were no traumatic outbursts from people during the memorial week, unlike the majority of the country where people would randomly start screaming, crying, throwing themselves down, and remembering the horrors they went through. There are a few of my friends in the village NOT from Bungwe, but married local men or moved here for work; these women are the ones that HAVE suffered and some of them told me their story. Wow. I don't know how they have found the strength to continue, but somehow they do, and they're even doing really well. For this I really admire the strides this country and these poeple take to rebuild themselves and find new meaning in life. It's obviously really hard still, but they put a great smile on thier faces and continue on so well!




Since I hate being alone all the time and once the sun goes down (at like 6:30pm) I'm all alone in my little house, I spent the night at my friends house (a local house for the un-wed female workers far from home, like a boarding house for professional women) each night to hang out, cook, eat, and be with them. It was really fun to live with locals again! Then every afternoon I went to the oumoudougoudou discussions with a few of the other women in my neighborhood. During the day it was so weird to walk around our usually vibrant village and find it totally empty, like a ghost town. Maybe one or two little kids playing in the road, or a man carrying wood on his head, but basically barren.

So after the Memorial Week I hopped on a litte motorcycle--the only way down the mountain-- (as pictured here) and came to the capital city of Kigali:


no more locally farmed beans, potatoes, or carrots; no more papaya from my front yard for breakfast, no more milk and tea from our little restaurant (as seen here!) for snack. We have wireless internet at this little Americanesque cafe where we can order hamburgers, fries, cookie dough ice cream, pizza and beers! Have a happy day!

First Day

This is from a letter:
The first day of school I got up at 7am, got ready, and at 7:45 I asked my host mom if she was ready: school starts at 8am! But, she was gone! Did she go that early to school? Without me?!! So I ask my host dad and he says she left, but we don’t have work until 9am: it’s the first day of school after all, so everyone goes in late. Ok. So I wait. At 8am my mom calls me, saying let’s go. We get there, she goes to her office since she’s the secretary, and I’m lost. I don’t have a schedule, I don’t know where the classrooms are, I’m ready to teach, and have NO IDEA what’s going on. I tell this to my host mom and the Counselor/ vice principal, saying they have to tell me exactly what I have to do because the first day of school in America is (already) really different. The VP says I have to prepare lessons and teach. HAHA.
I’m sitting in the staff lounge when the other English teacher comes in so I tell her I’m lost. She explains to me the big chart on the wall: my classes! I’m supposed to teach 15 hours a week, with Mondays off—according to our contract and the principal. But I’m only teaching 6 hours! I ask her what we’re doing today, she says we look at the curriculum for our classes, make a syllabus, and prepare our lessons. But I did that 2 weeks ago! And the classrooms, they have no labels! WHERE do I teach?! She says she’ll show me.
Finally, ready to admit defeat for the day, I just ask, “Will I teach today?” She says, “No.” students are either at the bank paying school fees, cleaning out the classrooms and dorms, or still making their way here. Teachers are getting their class schedules, looking at the national requirements and preparing their lessons. I’m confused. It’s the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! I’ll just call it the first day of PLANNING school. I was so ready to teach!
It only took us 2 weeks to get into the swing of things! School “started” February 2nd, and by Feb 16th we had a schedule. February 24 we had a final schedule.
So, kids stay in THEIR classrooms, teachers rotate to them on the bell (an old tire rim and a rock) every 50 minutes with no passing period. Just go and show up. If you find another teacher in the classroom still, it is proper etiquette to just wait until they finish. You never kick out another teacher! Oh, and if it’s raining we don’t teach! This morning it was raining before school started and I was worried that I’d be late to school. I got there at 8:10 with another teacher, only 10 minutes after classes start…. We were the first ones there. If its raining, teachers don’t come! They say they can’t teach over the noise of the rain on the tin roofs! I just gave my students an essay so they don’t have to hear me, just sit and write.
If I’m not being the “strange/cool/funny muzungu English teacher” in front of my 40+ students (in one class) then I’m in the teacher’s lounge: all 22 of us teachers share one room 6 yards by 8 yards, 5 tables, 4 benches, and cubby boxes for each one of us. We can plug in our phones to the one power strip, type (not print or surf the web) on our 1980’s reject computer-donation from Germany (I just deleted some company’s back up files—all in German) We usually listen to 1. Religious songs in Kinyarwanda cheesey videos, or 2. Pop songs in Kinyarwanda with sexy videos. Usually the SAME song will play for like 20-30 minutes. Daily. The SAME one! (I thank God I don’t understand Kinyarwanda that well). This is our only teacher space, so we sit, prepare, talk, eat lunch, grade, EVERYTHING in this room. We get teacher lunch every day but it costs 1,500F, about $3 a month.
We also have to wear white lab coats to teach in. And bring our own chalk. If I have to erase anything on the board, one of the kids hops up, gets the eraser from me and erases for me! Kids usually have one text book per class, one is in charge of it, writes the assigned pages on the board, and the others will copy down what s/he writes into their notebooks. They just copy text books into their notes! That’s all they can do! Kids are also in charge of their own cleaning: sweeping classrooms, cleaning bathrooms, maintaining the grounds, cleaning everything. Usually the poor kids that can’t afford school fees work off their debt. So Wednesday afternoons we have off: I find many kids digging, planting flowers, sweeping, etc. They all have a job, including one lucky kid that gets to ring the bell each day…aka hit a big rock against a tire rim in the middle of the school yard every 50 minutes to mark the beginning and end of each class.
I love it!

Our school is on one of the thousand Rwandan hills, but lovely!















]

All 20 of us teacher share this "teachers' lounge": we keep our books, papers, and supplies in the cupboards on the left. This is our only space so we share benches and tables to plan lessons, grade papers, eat our meals, EVERYTHING. See the white lab coats we have to wear?!


This is our 80's reject computer in our lounge. I just deleted some back-up files for some German company to try to clear up the mess. We have no internet and no printer (not that they know how to use either one...) so we use it to watch music videos (over and over and over again...they put it on repeat for like an hour at a time!): usually a religious one with cheesy effects or a pop video with a woman in a leotard, shaking around, trying to be sexy, and singing "oh, la, la! ma cherie!"




Our school has pigs! Just next to the 4th year students' classrooms. There are apparently some cows and fields the next hill over.






March 8th was International Woman's Day! All of the student clubs (and there are MANY) prepared something, so these are girls doing traditional Rwandan dances. Their arms are up to represent the cow--Rwandan (and it seems African) symbol of wealth.

This is my neighbor's house, one of the best made homes in the area: rocks, read bricks, roofing tiles! A veritable palace!









Typical Rwandan hills. You can see the early morning fog, all the little houses made of mud bricks, and banana trees.









This is my kitchen: home made mud bricks, eucalyptus branches for the frame, and zinc roofing.









Inside our very typical kitchen: we have 2 cement based stoves used for cooking with fire wood, 2 portable metal stoves for cooking with charcoal, our fire wood in the corner, and a bench for sitting on. Since everyone stays in their homes at night, I spend most of my evenings (after 6:30 pm when it gets dark) in the kitchen with my host mom peeling, chopping, cutting, washing, stoking the fire, talking and laughing. I love it!









My friend's host mom and I are eating the food of our labor: ubugali (say it: oo0boo-garr-ee), a totally Rwandan dish made of flour and water, traditionally eaten with your finger. You dip a bit in a tomato-meat sauce and enjoy! Most westerners don't really like it, but I absolutely LOVE it. Maybe because it reminds me Mauritania (eating with the hands) AND Latin America (like masa or tortillas!)

I want to start a library in Apapeduc High School where I'll be teaching English for the next year.

I am still a Peace Corps Volunteer, but I've relocated from Mauritania to Rwanda, East Africa to teach English. The national government has recently changed the national language of instruction from French to English and you can imagine the chaos that has ensued (imagine the USA decided one year to change all schools from English to Chinese, it'd be crazy!)

Following the 1992-1994 Civil War that culminated in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi minority, the current Rwandan Government has made ambitious goals in order to modernize, stabilize, create lasting peace, and promote reconciliation within the country. “Vision 2020” includes environmental, hygienic, and educational reforms, including changing the national language of instruction from French to English last year, obligating untrained professors to teach un-exposed students in a language no one knows. Which is where I come in: I am teaching English in Bungwe (say it: BOON-gway), a small hubbub community in the mountains of northern Rwanda.

In my quest to promote English education, a love of reading, exposure to new ideas, and an appreciation of global affairs, I realize I cannot do this alone. Though locals and my fellow teachers support my ideas and are beyond grateful for the giving of my time and skills, they are limited by illiteracy, lack of electricity, means and funds. Parents themselves show intense interest in their children’s education as every Saturday finds them voluntarily carrying bags of sand and rocks—on their heads—from the quarry to the site of new classrooms being built. With the guidance of paid engineers, the community is literally building their classrooms. The government gives some monetary assistance, parents build schools with their own hands, I am offering my skills, and students are willing and (so) excited to learn. But it's not enough.

If you feel that you would like to be part of our team effort to educate, facilitate peace, and promote understanding, do not (yet) give us your money... we need books! The “old school” ink and paper has yet to infiltrate rural Rwanda, has not yet blessed a population with the wealth of knowledge held within. Bungwe has an elementary school and two secondary schools (high schools) serving thousands of students and locals, yet has no library, no books (besides sub-par text books in French). Literally any book in English will contribute to Rwanda’s goal of learning this international language, and my hopes of a profound appreciation of learning.

Thank you for considering Bungwe, the development of young minds, the hope and future of a recovering country.

Feel free to look at my blog: bololam.blogspot.com
or call/skype me: 00 250 78 597-9354
(be patient, the network is horrible!)

Sending with a flat-rate box (available at the post office) is cheapest:
Michele Hernandez, PCV
Apapeduc Secondary School
P.O. Box 72
Byumba, Rwanda
East Africa

Include a list of costs and it can be tax deductable!

Bungwe (say it: BOONG-way), my new home is fabulous so far. It's amazing for me to see what good land does! I just moved into my new house: it has three bedrooms, a living room, two-room outdoor kitchen, out door toilet, and out door shower room. This is the family toilet, which is just like mine: planks of wood, mud/poop brick walls, tree branches supporting zinc a roof, and half sheets of paper for wiping (usually we have printing mistakes or graded papers--my favorite is graded papers as they're much softer:) ) My house is in the same compound as my landlord and his wife (the school secretary) and so far I've been eating with them too. Their food is so good! All fresh, farmed on their land, and cooked by the secretary. We have corn, beans, and peas in the fields down the mountain where others work the land for them; carrots, onions, thyme, and more corn in our front yard, along with one giant avocado tree; and in the BACK yard is more corn, veggies, banana trees (heavy bunches of bananas are ripe like 5 times a year), avocados trees (in season NOW!), tree tomatoes (disgusting), papayas (I've never really had fresh papaya before Rwanda), peas and beans growing up the stalks of corn (that we pick at 11am, prepare at noon, and eat by 1pm!) and the most gorgeous view of the valley thousands of feet below us (The mountainsides are checkered in contoured lines of farms, fields, and growing foods... Uganda is only 3 hilltops over... and this is all in our backyard!)


We also have a cow, her (recently impregnated) daughter, and a 4-month old calf. The cool thing, besides having fresh milk DAILY, is that this cow makes 9 liters of milk A DAY. So every morning a representative from my host mom's milk cooperative comes around and buys the morning milking from her; after the evening milking she uses the milk for us, to sour it (like yogurt!), to make oil (rich, pure oil!), butter (fresh and delicious), lotion (actually just butter but they use it as body lotion...gives you an interesting smell being covered in butter), or cheese (I taught her how to make cheese!) either for us to use or to sell to the neighbors.



Ok, so the common practice is to let your beans and peas grow and dry in your field, pick them, then bring them home in big bundles, set them on the ground and beat them. Since the shells are dried, they fall right off, leavingh the beans/peas behind and easy to collect. With all of the food stuffs we produce, our household is literally self-sufficient! The only things that my host mom has to buy are clothes, shoes, meat, and trasportation!


Oh! Transportation! To get here today, to this computer in Kigali (the capitol), I walked to my neighbor's house, found the bicycle taxis infront, got on the little padded seat behind the rider, and we coasted down the mountain to the next big town. I did have to get off at one point where everyone walks for like 20 steps until we get over a little up-hill portion of the road. Then I hopped on this motorcycle (VERY common way to travel) for 45 minutes to the neareset major city (bumpy dirt roads, hugging the mountainside, with sheer cliffs in some places, towns in others, and random people walking everywhere), walked to the "bus station" (a big empty dirt lot in the middle of town), asked for the bus to Kigali, then sat and waited inside of an 18-seater van filled with 21 people. Countless curves, elbows in my face and sides, and one hour later, we arrived in Kigali. Ahhhh! But only for a second! Everyone immediatly notices the two muzungus (moo-ZOON-goo) aka white people, arriving at this bus stop (another empty dirt/mud lot just outside of town) and we are totally bombarded by taxi drivers, yelling people, and confusion as we try to hold on to our bags, make our way to the bus we KNOW we need, and make sure we stay together (I'm with my friend Charissa).

And voila! We are in our Peace Corps office! Enjoy!

Being in Site

You know when you think of Peace Corps that its like this idea of living in some bush village in the middle of nowhere, with witch doctors, straw huts, half naked people, and bugs for breakfst? But then many are dissapointed when they are are set up in a real cement house with running water, electricity, a cook and cleaner? Well.... I'm somewhere in between: my house is made of mud and cow poop bricks. We have one spigot for the neighborhood (20 liters of water cost 25 francs, about 2 cents). The sun is up at 5:15am and down at 6:30pm, (that's my light!) then we use a gas lamp to eat dinner by. Everything we eat is harvested by my host family: potatoes, onions, tomatos, beans, peas, carrots, avocados, and bananas. That's what we eat. Every day.

So, I'm supposed to have my own little house but its not ready yet. For the next two weeks I'm living with my landlord and his wife (my school's secretary). Their house is on the same compound as my little house, so I get to look at my little house every day, but not move in to it yet! There's a cow (she makes 9 liters of milk a day!) and she has 2 babies; two teenage boys that have been sent by their families to live with and work for my host family; and we have a garden in the front yard.

Ok, Bungwe (say it boong-way) is my village: literally just the top of the mountain crest, running the entire length of it. One road across the center of the crest and a row of houses on either side of it. I'll be teaching English in one of the 2 high schools, giving lessons to the primary school teachers, nurses, and locals. I was thinking about helping them start their library: they're getting it built, but have NO books. (Want to donate some? Just send them over!;) )

Its really cold, so good for making cheese (I made some last week!); we only cook by charcoal and/or wood, so it warms me up; and its GORGEOUS in Bungwe. Fields, trees, all kids of vegetation on the mounain sides, 30 minute walk to Uganda, 9,000 ft elevation, (oh, that reminds me! the other night I watched lightning roll in... to the valley BELOW us! Lightning was at my eye level, we're so high up!) and so far so good.

I don't know what that nun was thinking of!