Number Eight: Variety and Lack Thereof

Drive down the main drag of any decent sized town in the US, and you have the choice of eating at McDonald’s or Subway or the local BBQ joint or Pizza Inn or Applebee’s or P.F. Chang’s or Zaxby’s or Moe’s or Sticky Fingers or Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s, Thursday’s, or Friday’s.  You want cheap Mexican?  Vamos a Monterrey’s.  You want Italian? Andiamo Capri’s! You want Chicken Fried Rice (no wegeble)? 我们走吧 Hong Kong!  With an indecisive group?  Go to the food court at the mall; there’s something for everyone!

Rwanda lacks this variety.  Do you want a brochette?  Goat, beef, chicken, or fish?  No?  How about a ham sandwich? No?  Spaghetti?  No?  Too bad.  Granted, you can get a side of boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes or French fries or rice with that brochette, but let’s be serious…Where are the sweet potato fries, green beans, baked beans, applesauce, hush puppies, etc? 

As a child, I cycled through peanut butter crackers, peanut butter celery, boiled eggs, and cheese and crackers as the main course of my lunch in my lunchbox everyday (thanks Mom!).  Most people wouldn't consider four lunch options much of a variety, but here I eat beans and rice everyday for lunch.  Though we do get meat and passion fruit juice on Fridays!

So next time you sit down to eat your Zax Snack or your Funkmeister, count your blessings (and think of me!).

Number Nine: Weather

Where I grew up, the weather was relatively unpredictable.  It could be 70 degrees in January and then snow a foot on March 1^st.  There were definite seasons, though.  Hot, humid summers.  Cool, crisp autumns.  Cold, but not so snowy winters.  And beautiful, warm springs.  I had been as hot as I’d ever been and as cold as I’d ever been cheering for the Tigers in Death Valley in the very same short football season.  The length of winter depended on a groundhog named Puxatony Phil.  April showers brought May flowers.

Rwanda is a bit different.  Here in Musanze, the weather is to die for.  While we are very close to the equator, we are also at a fairly high elevation, and thus it is about 80 degrees every day and 55 degrees every night.  Rainy season is upon us, so we get a rain shower or two every day.  Sometimes it rains so hard that you can’t hear yourself talk, but it usually only lasts a few minutes.  My favorite is when the rain starts just as I’m drifting off to sleep at night.  And it sure is hard to get out of the bed when the shower is happening at 7am.  It has occasionally kept me from going on runs, but all in all, I appreciate the rain showers and love the weather in Rwanda. Plus, rain brings about beautiful rainbows reminding us of God’s promises.  

My favorite thing about Rwandan weather, however, is the fact that I can wear my Chacos literally everyday!

Number Ten: Shopping

There are several key differences between Rwandan and American shopping. 

As you all know, America has fixed prices that are generally clearly labeled and sometimes things go on sale for a lower price than is marked.  America has barcodes and scanners.  America has paper or plastic (bags and payment methods). 

At the market in Rwanda, no prices are marked, and you have to bargain for your fresh fruits and vegetables.  We know the market prices and refuse to pay the Muzungu prices we are often given.  We know that a kilo of potatoes is 100RWF (20 cents); a bunch of the sweetest little bananas in the world is 250RWF (50 cents); a kilo of tomatoes is 300RWF (60 cents).  And don’t expect to be able to pay for those bananas with a 2000RWF bill.  Change is VERY hard to come by.

In the supermarkets, you find some prices marked, but many times you ask the cashier (or anyone else who happens to be shopping) for prices.  When you check out, he or she will punch in the numbers on a calculator and show you the final price.  They will bag up everything in brown paper bags—a little bigger than a lunch bag and a tad smaller than a paper grocery bag—because President Kagame has outlawed plastic bags in Rwanda.  Rwanda is way more green than the US could ever hope to be, out of necessity.  (No point in drilling kids with reduce, reuse, recycle around these parts; the three R’s are second nature here!)

In Rwanda, there is no such thing as price fluctuation.  You want a fresh pineapple from the market?  200 RWF (40 cents).  You want to fly to Johannesburg next month? $711.  Want to fly there tomorrow?  $711.  First class? $711.  How about a jar of peanut butter from the supermarket?  3000 RWF ($6).  Today, tomorrow, and always.

Shopping is a leisure activity in the States but is basically only done out necessity in Rwanda.  If you need something, you go buy it.  If you don’t need it, why would you buy it?

Top Ten Differences between the US and Rwanda

Over the course of the next couple of weeks I am going to share with you what I feel are the top ten differences between the US and Rwanda.  Typically I share with you the more exciting events of my Rwandan life or at least things that don't quite fall into the routine, but I really want you all to understand day-to-day life in Rwanda.  The differences between the US and Rwanda are profound and can clearly not be fully portrayed in ten blog posts, but hopefully this will give you a better idea of what I'm experiencing regularly as I live and work in Africa.

Keep in mind my philosophy that just because something is different does not necessarily mean it is bad or wrong.  Sometimes things are just different.  Both countries hold a very special place in my heart for their own reasons, and I hope you can see both the things that I love and the things that frustrate me with both of my countries.  

Keep your eyes peeled for Number Ten!

Uganda

 School let out last Friday for two weeks so we decided to do a little traveling.  We hung around Musanze for a few days then left Thursday for Kigali, woke up REALLY early Friday morning to board a bus, and headed off to Kampala.  Right as we crossed the Ugandan border, we saw my friends at my butchery.

After a 10 hour bus ride, we arrived in Kampala, Uganda at about 3pm local time.  We meet a Swiss guy as we got off the bus who told us about a sweet hostel, and the 7 of us headed to Red Chilli Hideaway.

I took advantage of the sweet location and awesome food and stayed in and relaxed for the evening while everyone else went out on the town.  Saturday morning we hopped in a taxi and rode to Entebbe to hop on a ferry to ride to Ssese island.  On the boat we met two very interesting people:  the captain and the marketing manager of a resort on the island.  We got to ride partway to the island upstairs with the captain and his crew.  The marketing manager cut us a deal on his resort, and we had a great 2 nights there.  We spent most of Sunday down by the water reading and resting…

And watching the pigs…

And the monkeys…

And the ostrich…

(Note that Kat is cowering in fear.)

We watched Liar Liar and Oprah on TV…in the middle of Africa.  We had our own personal housegirl who served us breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner.  We were very well taken care of!

There was a spectacular sunset over Lake Victoria that night.

We woke up early again Monday morning to catch the ferry back to Entebbe.  We rode in a taxi back to Red Chilli and rested.  We went to a Thai restaurant for dinner and had AMAZING spring rolls, pad Thai, and mango sticky rice.  That’s not something you see everyday (or any day) in Rwanda!  It was quite a treat as our last meal in Uganda.

We woke up the next morning and hopped in a taxi for the bus station.  We barely made it in time!  The Jaguar bus was not nearly as comfortable as the Kampala Coach bus we took to Uganda, so we were quite excited to arrive in Kigali to get off the bus and bathe and finally relax at home.  After a few errands in Kigali this morning, Peyton and I headed back to Musanze, our real home.  I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight, but I’m even more so looking forward to going back to school on Monday!

Mbanda's Consecration

Warning:  Some pictures are sideways.  After fighting with blogger and my computer for three hours, I have surrendered to the technology.  Just turn your head to the side (sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left) and it will be just like the pictures are right side up.

Last Sunday we had the pleasure of attending Mbanda’s consecration as the new bishop of the Shyira Diocese.  Here I will illustrate the day in pictures.  Hopefully it will give you a taste of a pretty typical Rwandan ceremony.

There was very tight security because the President was rumored to be in attendance.  We arrived and went through a metal detector for security.  The girl running the metal detector removed our cameras and took pictures of us with them.  I guess this was to make sure they weren’t bombs!?

We wandered through the crowds to the VIP tent.  Here is my view of the stage from said VIP tent.  Pretty VIP, eh?  Not completely sure what makes me a VIP, but I can offer a pretty good guess.  It starts with a  Mu and ends with a Zungu.

The entire service was in Kinyarwanda, so I had to entertain myself in other ways.  I read an entire book (Gifted Hands by Ben Carson… excellent story), and Peyton read Deuteronomy.

One of the Sonrise High School choirs sang for entertainment.  They are fantastic, and it was nice to see some familiar faces be a part of such an important ceremony.

Finally, two and a half hours after the consecration began, President Paul Kagame arrived.  He received a very warm welcome from the thousands of people in attendance, many of whom probably only showed up because they heard Kagame would be there.

And then the rains came.  Here are Bishop John (the current bishop of the Shyira Diocese) and President Paul Kagame under the same umbrella!

Thousands of people were viewing the consecration without a tent over their heads.  Many opened up umbrellas to keep themselves dry.  Others ran to the church for shelter.  Some just got wet.  Others got resourceful.

The rain did not stop the entertainers from entertaining.  These are various clergymen from all over Rwanda dancing in the torrential downpour.

After about five and a half hours, the ceremony came to a close, and we walked home to a house full of new guests.  Perhaps I will tell you about them later. 

We are thrilled that Bishop Mbanda will be the new bishop of our diocese and look forward to the wonderful things he will do for the Rwandan people!

Way to Use Your Head!

My main responsibility here in Rwanda is to teach English to some of the greatest kids in the world.  I try to cram their heads full of useful information.  Sometimes I think their heads might explode.  Like this week, for example:  exams started yesterday, and they will be finished next Thursday.  My children have SEVENTEEN exams in six days.  Count them:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 exams.  Their heads are filled with little tidbits of chemistry, math, Christian religious education, entrepreneurship, physics, English, French, Kiswahili, Kinyarwanda, leadership skills, literature, biology, fine arts, political education, history, geography, and computers.  Can you even begin to fathom the stress they feel in their little heads? 

While some of my students take such a great institution as Sonrise High School for granted, most of them are quite grateful for their educations. I hope to instill in all of them an appreciation for the blessing of a good education and to enable them to rely on their own heads to succeed in life.  I pray they will utilize their heads and their education to become things like teachers, doctors, pilots, and business people who will use their heads everyday to better themselves and their country.

On my two-mile walk to school this morning, I snapped a few pictures of the locals.  Some were children on their way to school.  Some were children who work rather than going to school.  Some were grown-ups doing their daily chores.  Some were grown-ups headed to work. While they may or may not have had the blessing of a good education, they all had one thing in common:  they all knew how to use their heads.

So whether these people use their heads to solve the development problems of their third-world country or to carry their well-toiled-after goods to market or to come up with major medical breakthroughs or to eke out a living to feed their families, I admire each and every hard-working Rwandan person I run across in my daily life.  I’d like to propose a toast in honor of each and every one of these beautiful people.  If you will all please raise your glasses with me…. 

"To using your head!"

“To using your head!”

“To using your head!”

“To using your heads!”