Kigali Life

Now that I've extended my service for a 3rd year as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I'm working in an actual western office in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. I work 8am-5pm at CHF International, an NGO (non-government organization) in operation all over the world. In Rwanda, we're working on the Higa Ubeho program:




Over the life of the program, orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) and people living with HIV and AIDS and their families will be encouraged to utilize the available community-based services to live a more productive life. This includes helping vulnerable youth to access life skills education, and peer mentoring activities that will enable them to go to school, to stay in school, and to perform well in school. USAID/Higa Ubeho plans to work with 240 schools in 10 districts to help vulnerable youth to set personal goals for their future, and to identify and reach out to trusted adults and peers for support to overcome key challenges.



I develop materials to send out to these OVC to inspire them: we're working on after school empowerment clubs for these youth, along with different "summer camps," newsletters, radio programs, and comic books to reach communities all over the country.

My typical day (such a change from the bush village in the middle of nowhere--where I lived for the past 2.5 years) includes the rush to get on a 21-seater van, with elbows flying and people in business suits slyly trying to squeeze you out of their way. After securing a butt cheek on a squished seat, I have to really pay attention to where we are or I may miss my stop. I have to look out the window, recognize my stop, knock on the window with a coin so they know I want to stop, they pull over, people have to get up out of their seats to let me by (think of those long car trips with kids in the back, back seat...), I pay the 120 francs (about $0.25 US dollars) then have a short walk on a dusty drive.

Our office is an actual, Western office where we dress well, have meetings, luncheons, email, post documents, update our partners, and negotiate the terms of things. All very official business.

My home--the Bungalow-- is a small, 3 bedroom, white-washed house on a family compound. I even have electricity, running water and....A SHOWER! Like I said, a real step up from the mud brick house I've been living in.

The coolest thing is using my past experiences in ways that even my colleagues can't share. Because I've lived and taught in rural African villages, I can share the challenges that local teachers, students, and community members face, making me capable of describing the viability of our proposed projects and materials. (you see how official office language is getting to me?!)

Meanwhile, I keep in touch with my friends and family in the village, getting all the latest gossip and visiting with close friends.

Each step in my Peace Corps life has prepared me for the next, making me a more productive and informed team member. I look forward to what's next!

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.