Monday, June 14 2010

Every day normal, sprinkled with bizarre on top

It seems as though my patterning of showering dictates when I write. This is about right though, as writing and showering occur about every three days... That being said, I am lying in bed, clean, and tired. This morning I went for my first run with Damascene. We were gone for an hour, running/walking up and down hills dotted with fields of crops and tiny paths. Only towards the end did we find ourselves on main roads, or for that matter, any road wide enough to fit my feet side by side. It was hot, and exhausting, but it was exercise, and it was good. Before coming here, I had schemed to initiate a ritual of running to a specific spot, where I would bury a journal and a pen, and return often to sit and draw/write. After today’s run, I realize that is unrealistic. I will just have to find a spot around here...which might mean our room if it is to have any privacy. Rwanda, which is about the size of Maine I believe, is populated by 10 million people. In other words, there are people everywhere, and the concept of personal space is non-existent. Speaking of Exercise though, yesterday Carolina and I did a pilates pod-cast in our room. Slightly hilarious, but sort of beneficial.

Aside from Exercising, we have been working to figure out the boys schedules. It is confusing, because some of them go to school in the morning, and come home in the afternoon, and some of them do the reverse. The kicker is that this switches everyday, and there are 30 of them. This morning, however, we finally arrived at a completed schedule of when we will work with the boys. We divided the boys into 4 groups according to their age, and we will meet with each group one day a week from 5-6 pm, and on Saturdays we will meet with each group again for 1 1/2 hours. We have yet to secure a translator, and so our work this week will be basic, butIt will be good to start!

A few days ago, we accompanied Damascene to a small lake in a village called Morhororo, which sits across and adjacent to Byiamana, our village. This was an adventure planned on our last visit, and as it never happened, Dama was excited to go as soon as we got here! The walk/hike was nice, and the lake was beautiful. We saw two boys fishing with bamboo poles. They had a string of small fish displaying their prize!

Along the way Damascene showed us many plants, including coffee. One of the highlights though, was seeing a Twa woman making traditional pots. The Twa represent 1% of the population, and have been here the longest. They are known for the beautiful pots they make, but we managed to pass our whole previous trip without seeing any of their art. On our walk through Morhororo, however, we came upon an arrangement of beautiful pots, just made. The artist was a Twa women who sat diligently working in the background. On our way back, we found the courage to ask to take a picture. At first the answer was “amafaranga,” which means, money, but when we declined a man, assumed to be her husband, convinced her, and we were allowed to take some photos:

Saturday was an exciting day as well! The traditional dance troupe practices at Umuryango, and there were a bunch of kids here singing, drumming, and dancing. It was really neat to watch them! Emmanuel, who is the cook for Umuryango, is also the president of the troupe, and earlier in the day, he had expressed excitement about teaching us how to dance. I was intrigued, but not prepared for a lesson in front of everyone, which was apparently his intention. We managed to communicate that we would rather not, and so tomorrow I will have a private traditional dance lesson with Emmanuel.

We have surprisingly been eating a decent amount of fruits and veggies. Bananas are certainly reigning in that role, but pineapple is a close second. We have also had green beens and cabbage on several occasions. This increase is likely due the summer season we are here during on this trip. We also eat a lot of eggs, and white bread (often stale and/or assuming the shape of a hot-dog bun on steroids), rice, noodles, and tomato sauce.

We have also been working on learning the language. Kinyrwandan is very difficult, but we are adding more phrases to our vocabulary daily. Aside from the basic “hello,” “How are you?” “Good-bye,” etc., we can now say more complex things, like: “where are you going?” “what are you doing?” “what do you like?” among others.

Yesterday I dug out the guitar from the musty storage closet, and proceeded to string it surrounded by about 10 boys, all trying to get as close as possible. It is a dinky little beginners guitar, I think from Target, but it plays! I am hoping to work with some of the boys to play some music. Music is ever-present here, and a couple of the boys are especially interested in pursuing it as a career.

While the above mentioned manages to convey a decent idea of our normal day-to-day, We have had some odd experiences as well. Today when we were running, Dama almost stepped on a small green mamba! He told me that lots of people around have the medicine for snakes though, so I should not worry. It was still freaky.

Another bizarre incident I will mention now occurred on our trip back to Byiamana from Gitarama. We went there Saturday morning to access the internet. The mode of transportation used most often from village to village, is taxi bus. These are basically long vans, and they are typically stuffed with more people than they are intended to hold. On the way home the other day though, we sat for about 3 whole minutes, already crammed in a row of four, while another large women tried to fit on the end. It was literally impossible. Dama insisted that we hold our ground, which we did, ultimately resulting in being shoved over and over, with nowhere to go! In the end, the woman next to caroline was replaced by the larger woman...and the money collector. After literally shoving us without success, the money collector proceeded to sit on the woman, who was sitting on caroline!!! It was beyond bizarre, and comfortable. We made it though, in time for a late lunch, and likely a nap!