Spiderman

Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is a lot like being Spiderman. I say that because I just watched Spiderman 2. In Spiderman 2 everything in Peter Parker’s life is going wrong. He is helping a hundred people but at the same time he loses his job, can’t pay the bills, failing his classes, disappointing his friends, and can’t help the people that matter most to him. Living two lives is ruining his. He devotes his life to helping people because he feels guilty that he failed to stop a man from killing his uncle. It is his responsibility because he has the ability to help. He then suddenly starts to lose his powers as well because he has too many responsibilities. Now neither of his two lives is going right. He goes to seek medical consultation where the doctor pretty much tells him that he can choose to no longer be Spiderman. Then he has a dream like sequence where he painfully gives up his guilt of killing his uncle followed by him watching a bunch of crimes take place and him trying not to care then he finally confesses his guilt to Aunt May. Next is the turning point of the movie. Peter Parker runs into a burning building powerless almost killing himself to save a baby. He knows that no one else is going to save this baby, nevertheless another person on an upper floor died. Next Aunt May tells Peter that the world needs heroes like Spiderman. Spiderman gives up what he wants the most and his dreams to help others. He now wants his powers back but they still aren’t there. Next he is in a coffee shop with Mary Jane who is once again professing her love for him, but he just like last time can’t be with her because of his duties. The difference is this time he realizes that he is doing this because it is what is right instead of responsibility. Then they are attacked by Doc Oct and Mary Jane is kidnapped and he regains his powers and saves her and the city.

For a while in college I lived two lives. I had two groups of friends. This was divided between my friends that I made in engineering school and friends that I made at Cornerstone – the Christian group that I went to. These worlds were completely separate when I was a freshman and even more when I was a sophomore. They started to morph together a little junior and senior year, but this also changed because I decided to spend more time with my Christian friends, and less with other friends. I feel like this was good and bad because I grew in my faith a lot because of this, but losing friends is always sad especially if there isn’t a reason for it.

In the eighteen months between college and Peace Corps I hung out with primarily friends from Cornerstone even though I no longer attended. I in no way was trying to alienate others, but that just seems to happen when you try to make your faith the most important part of your life. I also think that no matter what your friends will always change because nothing stays as it is. A couple days ago I attended the monthly Peace Corps bible study where we studied the first half of Matthew 5 for the second month in a row. The month before I had something weighing on my mind that I couldn’t focus very well on anything else also I have been taking a sort of leadership role at these studies where I have been the teacher and not as much the student. The re-up of Matt 5 part 1 was a lot shorter because we weren’t staying the night and a lot more structured which I appreciated because it was focused but not as organic as it has been in the past which I also love. One thing in particular stuck out to me that we talked about; Jesus says that Christians are the salt and the light of the world. This means that they are the best and most attractive part to the world of unbelieving people. This is not true at all. Most people look at Christians and think they are hypocritical, only trying to convert, homophobic, political, and judgmental. What is attractive about that? Christians are some of the ugliest and worst people of the world when they are any of these, and sometimes I don’t know why I would want to be associated with them.

Jesus is saying that if they were to love the way he is telling them to then they will be the salt and light. He also says that when salt has lost its saltiness then it is useless and must be thrown out. To me this sounds like when Christians are not attractive to unbelievers then they are no longer following Jesus. They will be thrown out. Coming to this conclusion of course raises the question of do I attract or repel the unbelievers that I know. I don’t know and I don’t have to worry about it either because I am saved by grace so nothing I do will take away that saving grace, but what good is faith without works and grace comes at a cost which is all of me. That seems so contradictory to me. How is it that I can both never lose my salvation because God loves me eternally but at the same time lose my saltiness if I don’t give my life? It must be because unless you do the later then you don’t love God which is a requirement for the former. Therefore the reason that unbelievers are not attracted to Christianity as a whole in our post-Christian society is because most Christians do this wrong and historically other than ending the slave trade in England Christians deserve this reputation.

I can say that Christianity is attractive to Rwandans though. Whether they do what I stated above is not my position as an outsider to say, but I personally haven’t found going to church very fulfilling other than a chance to see them let loose a little. They seem to party at church more than in any other situation.

What was great about the break is that I didn’t have to work. I got to spend my time either relaxing or with the other volunteers who I have become incredibly close to. I don’t really get to see most of the other volunteers very often, once a month if that, some once every three months or longer. At the HIV/AIDS workshop last week I saw some people that I hadn’t come across since April and seeing them was like seeing an old friend from high school that I had kept in touch with. Why have I become so close to people that I have only known for a short time and hardly ever get to see? There are some people in this group that I would not have been friends with in America, but are my best friends here. We became close during our training that ended almost eight months ago, but I can’t see how that could still be what connects us. It has to be that we are the only ones who really know what we are all going through. Also there is a mutual admiration that develops for everyone else who is still doing this that brings me to like even the people that I used to dislike.

Something interesting that happened multiple times during the break is that other volunteers completely unprovoked told me that I was a “good guy.” There’s nothing too strange about that except that it happened about four times, all from people I hadn’t seen in a while. What might have elicited it is I wrote an article for SOMA the volunteer publication which was an adaptation of an earlier post about the year and a half before leaving for Peace Corps. In it I revealed that I am insecure about if am in fact good. I think when people meet me for the first time they see a goofball and I like that classification and sometimes feel like I can’t keep it up. I feel like I am failing myself if I can’t make that impression on people. When we all showed up in Philly before leaving for Rwanda the next day we went into a room and introduced ourselves by saying our name, where we are from and a fact about Rwanda. I remember a lot of people’s facts were about gorillas or women in politics and that Jeff’s old nickname was mountain. My fact was that Rwanda is in Africa and the only reason that I remember this is because several people since then have reminisced about the day we met and reminded us that that was my fact. There have been a few other things that I have said that people like to repeat and I usually just smile and appreciate that people are still laughing about something that I said months ago. As people get to know me they find that there’s more to me. At some point it comes out that I am a Christian and all of the ideas about Christians that I mentioned above invade their opinion about me whether they form them or not. So maybe now that we know each other well those ideas have faded and we are looking at each other for what we really are. And maybe I am living like the salt and light Jesus talked about. I can’t say if I have attracted anyone else to Christianity, but that isn’t my concern. God converts unbelievers not people and there is nothing I can do or say that will change someone’s heart. The only thing that is attractive about me is what God does and says through me.

Now that I am once again coming off as holier than thou and explaining the plot of a movie that most people have seen I think I will try to tie things together a little. As a Peace Corps Volunteer I live multiple lives. I live my life in the village where I have a profession and participate in the community, and my life as a United States government employee where I have a hundred rules that I have to follow and friends throughout the country that I don’t get to see very often. It is very similar to how I lived before when I lived the Christian and unchristian lives except now it is more obvious because it is not a condition of the heart (I still live those two lives regularly). It is also similar to Spiderman because I want to spend every chance I get hanging out with my friends or pursue a job offer that would allow me to do exactly that as well as make a lot of money, but I can’t because I have to do what’s right which is stick with my commitment to help Rwanda from the ground up for two years. The Peace Corps staff also puts a lot of guilt on us to fulfill our responsibilities, but that isn’t what keeps you from leaving. You stay because you want to help people.

I draw a lot of attention just walking around.

Fetching water

Our cistern is empty. The dry season has been in session for almost two months. Up till now we have been making it by with the water that collected on our roof, but now even that has gone dry. My worst nightmare has become a reality. Some things have gotta change. Devin and I talked about it a little bit before how we are going to have to only have Anualnita – our maid wash our clothes once a week and also find someone fetch us water from the spring every day.

Finally this morning I was let in on why my clothes that I put out to be washed on Monday were not. Anualnita decided that she wants to wash our clothes all day on Fridays at the spring. I don’t have any problem with this except that its already been over a week since my clothes were washed and since getting here I have lost a bit of weight and I don’t have much that fits me anymore.

Today is my day off so I stayed home from work while Irene and Devin both went to work. After they left I decided that I wanted to see where this mystical water is. I asked Devin earlier in the morning and she told me about two that I would have walked past a hundred times, but never noticed, neither sounded too far away so I wanted to go get it. After I finished washing my underwear I told Anualnita that I wanted to fetch water. She didn’t want to do that though.

In Kinyaranda –

me – “Let’s go fetch water.”

Anualnita – “It’s very far.”

me – “I want to see where it is.”

Anualnita – “Down there.”

me – “I need you to show me.”

Anualnita – “Okay, I’m coming.”

I then went into my room and changed my clothes to get ready to fetch water, but when I was doing this I noticed that the clothes that I was putting on were really dirty. So I changed it up and decided that we would do laundry down there.

me – “We must do laundry there.”

Anualnita – “No, I will do it here.”

me – “No we can do it there.”

Anualnita – “It’s far.”

me – “I understand.”

Anualnita – “I need to cook and Irene said to _______.” I’m not sure what she said here.

me – “Let’s go.”

Anualnita – “I’m coming.”

So I changed clothes again and we left for the spring. The spring was a fifteen minute walk downhill away from my house. Anualnita carried my clothes and I carried an empty jug. Everyone on the way there thought it was hilarious that I was going to fetch water. White people don’t do that, another chance to disprove a stereotype and feel guilty for being white. The worst was a guy who told me that I should carry the water in my car and Anualnita agreed with him. I don’t know why people assume that I have a car. I have never given any indication that I own a car. It would be pretty hard to hide if I did have one. Even though I don’t want people to think that I have a car. I would love to have a car and I would put my and everyone else’s water in it.

We arrived at the spring and did my laundry. Anualnita laughed when I started helping wash my clothes as well as everyone who came by. It didn’t really matter though because everything that I washed she washed a second time. When she was rewashing my clothes I started talking to a guy who was filling up his jugs. His name was Kenety. Kenety fetches water for people for 150 franks a jug (a quarter). I then hired him to bring us two jugs of water every day starting tomorrow.

Once we finished the laundry Anualnita packed it up and I grabbed the full jug of water. This jug of water I think is twenty liters and weighs fifty pounds when it is full. At first I tried carrying it on my head like I see everyone do and I went about a hundred steps and couldn’t go any further. Remember that I said that I said that the path to the spring was all downhill therefore the way back is all up. I have gotten used to climbing up this mountain because I do it every day on my home from school, but I don’t do it with a fifty pound jug of water on my head. I could barely walk with this weight on my head sloshing around. I moved it to my shoulder, then to my hand, then to my other hand, then to my other shoulder. This continued the entire way home switching about thirty times. The fifteen minute walk to the spring took about forty coming back.

I was exhausted when I made it back. Anualnita who carried my wet clothes on her head went right back to work cooking and whatever Irene had told her to do. My back hurts now.

I like finding out more about people’s lives here. Most people don’t have someone to fetch their water or have a cistern to hold it so they have to do it themselves. I couldn’t do that every day, but no one can. I’m sure that I would get really good at it though if I did. I’m happy I went and did that though because now I know what I’m paying for and it is really worth it, both Kenety and Anualnita.

Koboyi watching me walk away with a water jug.

“You’re fetching water? Use your car white man.” If only I had one.

I think I lost more water than what I carried up.

Kenety making his living.

Anualnita making hers.

Where is the Love

I have been in Africa for nearly nine months now and I miss less of America all the time. I used to crave a burger a lot, but now even though I will always take meat when it is available, I don’t think about it anymore. The best part of restaurants anyways is being able to spend time with friends. For a while I was obsessed with keeping up with the NFL and on the day of the Superbowl I tried to download the Steelers and Ravens playoff game, but after purchasing it on itunes I saw that it was 1.75 GB and would take 50 hours so I gave up on it. I was able to get my hands on some unlimited internet last weekend thanks to Lucy and finally downloaded it. I really enjoyed watching it, but not like it would have been if I was in America with other fans. I used to miss the whole celebrity scene, but that’s really only because I miss making fun of it with my friends. I love keeping up with what is new, but that really isn’t all that hard to do here. Everything that I miss about America really points to who I miss in America. I love going to Pirates games, but I wouldn’t do that alone even if dinner was given to me and I could meet the players after the game. Life is meant to be shared

The things I would have loved to go to America while I have been here include the weddings I have missed and my sister’s graduation. Weddings are so much fun. Drinking and dancing to celebrate the joining of two people. Graduations are also a lot of fun. I love to celebrate others: weddings, graduations, birthdays, and any other ceremony. However Rwandan ceremonies are slow and not fun from my experience. My problem is I couldn’t love myself in America even though I was always surrounded by people who loved me. At my own graduation from college I was discontented. I didn’t want my parents to take me out to an expensive restaurant because I didn’t feel like what I did was that great. I did order something expensive once we were there though. I’m not competitive because I don’t want to win. I don’t want the praise. On my own birthday I avoid telling people that it is happening. That way when people don’t show up to it there isn’t the disappointment. I would rather make it possible for someone else to have fun than the other way around. I think if you can’t love yourself you can’t love anyone else. I had to come to Africa to learn how to love myself. I realize this now because of what is missing. I still don’t have it figured out and I would be willing to bet something else will happen next week that will make me hate myself again. I just don’t find myself loveable.

I haven’t found a lot of love in my village. I try to express love for them, but I don’t feel like I get it back most of the time. Simon is my best friend by far. We joke around a lot and I really enjoy his company. We play sports and watch movies and sing Taylor Swift songs together. I feel like I can also connect with him intellectually better than anyone else I have met here. My roommate Irene is also amazing. She is a lot of fun to hang out with because she is so chill. I think that is because of what happened to her when she was eight. I wish she could walk. I can’t help but think about what she would be like if hadn’t been literally crippled by bigotry.

The love I do get is from other volunteers. Devin is awesome. She has great insight on all kinds of things and we get along great, but even though I think we could have been friends had we met in America I don’t think we would have gotten to know each other too well. That’s part of Peace Corps though – you force yourself to do things that you wouldn’t normally do. Lucy is awesome too. I already see a lot of her, but I wish it was more. She is always helping me to put things into a more realistic perspective. They have both become really great friends. I’m happy to serve so close to them. I don’t get the chance to see the other volunteers as much as I like either. The Peace Corps puts us all together for two and a half months for training and then set us to work at a reasonable distance from each other and we are supposed to never see each other. Whenever we get together we talk about how we wish we could spend more time together like this and complain about the problems we face in our villages. However I do feel loved by them more than I do from Rwandans, and I am tired of excusing that with culture.

The other place I find love is from packages from America: food, games and whatever. BP 50 Byumba Rwanda. Thanks Mom, Jessica and Chris and Christian.

For two years before coming here I lived with Jesύs. He is a really great friend. He would throw really big parties in our apartment and invite over all of his Latino friends. These parties would go until the cops shut them down. We spent a lot of time together when we were living together and I now that I have another great roommate that isn’t American I can really say that I love living with people who are not American. It just adds a fun aspect that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Even though Jesύs and I had a lot of fun together I always felt like he enjoyed his Latino friends more. I am the same way though. I had more fun with my American friends. I always tried to include him in whatever we did and he would often come, but he didn’t always have fun. The one time we went camping and he disappeared into the woods. We didn’t find out where he was until the next day which worried everyone until we found out. Turned out he called a friend to come pick him up. I think I understand what was going on that day a little better now. I like my Rwandan friends, but I would rather be with my American friends. The excitement of being here has worn off. I guess I like being a tourist because when you are a tourist you always feel like doing something exciting. I still feel like doing exciting things, but I’ve run out of things to see in my village and if there are things yet to see I’m not excited about them. And the administration doesn’t want me to travel outside of my site.

Two months ago I expressed my interest to another volunteer that I met a few weeks after coming here. I noticed her immediately because she presented a session to our training group about integrating into the culture. She was joyful and friendly and spoke the language incredibly well. I talked to her at dinner by using the Kinyarwanda that I had learned earlier in the day. I asked her if she had any children and why she didn’t. She then went into a long Kinyarwanda explanation which she had to tell me what it meant in English after she had finished. She said that I should pick a girl and that I could choose whoever I wanted because I’m white. She was still teaching me culture I guess. I thought to myself ok here is my choice. She told this story to someone else when she was explaining how she knew me.

After that we only hung out a handful of times, but I always had a great time. At In-service training I had gotten the idea that she might have feelings for me when she kissed my cheek one night. That at least told me that she isn’t repulsed by me. The next month I told her that I told her that I had been crushing on her, but she didn’t give me an answer right away. In fact she wanted a week to consider it. I thought that wasn’t too much of a request and we still had a great day together, but it turned out to be really hard to wait for her. I felt like I had to keep my composure and do whatever I could to convince her that I was worth being her boyfriend. Also that week I fell off my bike and had a concussion. Also her friend gave birth to an unhealthy baby. We talked about it at the end of this exhausting and painful week. She told me about how she doubted herself when she was with me, and that made me feel pretty awful. She told me no to being my girlfriend but she would like to get to know me better. I lost the composure that I was trying so hard to keep after this and started crying. She wasn’t very comforting, but neither was I.

I then called her periodically to either talk or try to meet up with her, but it never worked out until a month after the last time we talked. In the meantime I talked to some friends about her and what happened and I got a lot of advice about it. The best advice was probably the one that I didn’t want to hear the most from someone who knew her a fair amount better than me; to give up on her. We spent an afternoon together finally but she had a meeting to go to and after took off without saying goodbye. The next weekend I called her for some advice, as someone who has been here longer, with something new that I am going through which I might write about here after it plays out. Her advice didn’t really help me at all and then she told me that she didn’t think it would ever work out between us and I admitted that I felt the same way at this point even though I didn’t want to admit it. I guess she had gotten to know me well enough by then and didn’t like what she saw.

I wanted her to fill the emptiness that I was feeling. I wanted someone to show me the love that I so desperately need here. I turned her into something she’s not. I made her my Jesus. She could never live up to those expectations. I have such high standards and I will never find a girl that meets them. One of those standards is that she needs to love me back.

I imagine I sound really love and homesick at the same time. I have something else that I can’t get out of my head right now. I think that I just wrote this because I wanted to get my mind off of that. All of my sadness is leaking through that into this though. My relationship maturity has a long way to go. So does every other part of me.

The President accepting his urn.

Field Day

I am not an athlete. I do love sports though. I just downloaded using Lucy’s modem with unlimited internet the Steelers and Ravens game from January. In college I went to about sixty basketball games and only missed about four home football games. I am asked a lot what game is my favorite and I tell them golf. Every time that I tell someone that I like golf I hope that they will play it too so maybe we could play together, but that hasn’t happened yet. In elementary school I played little league and would never swing and when I was in the outfield I would sit on the ground and pick dandelions. In middle school I played one season of football. The daily practice killed me. I really had no idea how to play football even at the end of the season. I didn’t even know the rules until I started watching it in high school. In high school I played the base drum as well as other assorted percussion instruments in the marching band and I was also a boy scout. I learned a lot in boy scouts including a love for hiking, but I spent a lot of hiking trips at the back and even alone because I couldn’t keep up with everyone else when we hit those hills.

Last weekend Mulindi visited Rushaki on Saturday for a field day. Rushaki is the school where Lucy works. I was told that I would be playing basketball, also that I needed to bring my camera. Because I work for the school and own a camera I have become the schools photographer. It is easy to feel like I’m being taken advantage of, but I realize that cameras are rare here so I’m just the friend of convenience that they never had before. No different than if I was to ask my friend to help change the oil on my car because he knows something about fixing cars (that is if I had ever owned a car). All the same I still don’t like it when people ask me if they can have my camera or computer or to give them pictures but that’s because I don’t know how to explain that I can’t print them.

After they told me I would be playing basketball with them I kept getting asked if I knew how to play. I told them yes and they would respond with “we will win.” I don’t exude confidence on the court by any means so I don’t know where they got the idea that having a big uncoordinated white guy on their team would give them the win. I told Lucy about this and she expressed what they were thinking by saying that having an American on your team is like having an NBA player. I on the other hand was thinking about all of my experience of playing ball in America that I don’t stand a chance playing with all these black guys. I’m pretty bad among white guys.

I thought that the game would be the teachers of Mulindi versus the teachers of Rushaki, but students were playing too. Before we started I could already tell that we were going to lose because other than everyone thinking that I would be their best player, my team was taking pictures while the other team was doing layup drills. When we did start the coach asked me which position I was and I told him I could play center, but the positions that they were using were more like soccer than basketball positions. There were two “defenders” under the hoop. The center was at the foul line and then the “offence” was at the three point line. According to the coach I was in the wrong position as soon as the game started because I was standing too far back and I was blamed for giving up the first basket and taken out of the game after a minute. I watched from the bench as my team got destroyed because of in my opinion our terrible zone defense. At half time the score was 24 to 6. The coach kept trying to be the gym class hero by taking outside shots and had about ten air balls.

During half time the coach was yelling at his players, which I couldn’t understand so I tried to encourage them to change to a man defense which I had to do in English because I definitely don’t know basketball terms in Kinyarwanda. I asked them if they understood which they said yes, but if they did they ignored me because they did not “man up” like I told them to. I got put back in and this time I bodied up with whoever was near me. I made my presence felt the best I could. I feel like I was playing pretty good defense, but they wanted me out again after five minutes. I told them no because I felt like I probably wouldn’t go back in. I kept getting fouled as well so I started performing for the ref who called maybe five fouls the whole game and three were because I elicited them. I went out at the end of the third quarter after we went 8 – 0. Even though we didn’t score in that quarter we played our best defense.

The final quarter we bled points. The coach finally made one of his desperation shots though. I took over the substitutions at this point to try to give everyone else some more time and get the coach out of the game because he was taking this friendly game way too seriously. The final score was 66-9 I told my friend Sera about this and she asked me the only logical question – “Were you playing the Globe Trotters?” I of course replied with yes and then started humming the song.

After that we got some food with all the teachers and I endured some criticism for not scoring. The ref thought I was a good player though. I told him that he was probably the only one who thought so. I wasn’t the worst player out there but far from the best.

Being so bad at sports has made me very uncompetitive. I used to be pretty competitive at video games, but I gave that up when I started losing at that a lot too. I do enjoy pretending like I’m competitive sometimes, but I rather congratulate whoever beat me than gloat when I win.

The Lakers?

Umuganda

Something I love about Rwandan culture is Umuganda. Umuganda is a once month mandatory community service in place of taxes. Even though it is mandatory most people skip it. So obviously it is not enforced very well and the people who do show up to participate are more there because they want to help than any other reason, but the police are there and they are supposed to arrest those who refuse to help (except in the cities where it is enforced and that is how they are able to keep them really clean). Living in Pittsburgh, for a long time I volunteered with an organization called the L.I.V.I.N.G. Ministry. L.I.V.I.N.G. is an acronym that I have heard many times, but can never remember what it means. What they do is care for the homeless. They are located in Pittsburgh’s North side and do stuff like provide food, clothes, job opportunities and more importantly in my opinion spiritual guidance and prayer. These guys depend on donations for their salaries and need a lot more help than I do because they don’t have a government that supports them. Instead they need to depend on God to provide for them and while I can live comfortably making under $3000 in a year they live in America where the necessities are more in both cost and quantity. I feel like they are braver than I am because not knowing when you are getting a paycheck is scary. I grew to know everyone who works for the L.I.V.I.N.G. really well after volunteering for them so long and taking every opportunity I had to help them. One of the founders, Mike, who I got to know very well through a discipleship group my senior year, left last year to try to further his education which he told me only one year before that he hated school. I wish I could call him and see how he is doing. His leaving opened up a position for one of my best friends, Jenna, to be the Volunteer Coordinator and I know she is doing a great job. When I was leaving for Rwanda she gave me a deck of cards with their logo on it and a t-shirt that I regrettably left at the Holiday Inn in Philadelphia when I was trying to make my luggage lighter to avoid any kind of hassle when I left the US.

I got involved in the L.I.V.I.N.G. Ministry because my friends were involved with them and volunteering with your friends is fun. They just finished a project last year that they were working on for about four years. It is a halfway house for the homeless. They bought a condemned house and completely rebuilt it using mostly donations and volunteers. When I am doing umuganda I feel like the same way that I did when I was working on that house. The biggest difference is that there isn’t free pizza after you finish working. Since finishing this house they bought the house next door and are making the North Side a better community a little bit at a time. There are a few other organizations in Pittsburgh North Side that do similar work and the difference that they are making is incredible. I would hate to see Pittsburgh without these organizations because I know those people would be completely neglected otherwise.

The first umuganda that I went to at my site I wanted to get stuff done at my school. I saw some work that needed doing so I showed up to that with a plan. First thing was to try to get the basketball court playable. Devin came with me and we took my new hoe that I had just bought because I was planning on gardening, and since then we have with success with carrots and cilantro, but all of the tomatoes died. I organized the students to clear out all the weeds growing on the dirt playing surface. Then we put a hoop on the back board that was missing one. I let one of the students go crazy taking pictures with my camera and I think I already put some of them up here. After that we played some four on four. It was very fulfilling and I felt like I was doing some for real development work, although since then the weeds have all grown back and it is once again unplayable.

The next umuganda I returned to the school where I walked around and helped the students in their normal chores like piling wood and sorting beans. I spent most of my time talking to students who were trying to improve their English. I don’t mind this at all and I even enjoy it most of the time, but it is also my everyday so umuganda just felt like more teaching other than a little bit of bean tossing.

The next two months I skipped umuganda unintentionally but also without remorse. So far both of the umugandas that I had participated in had been for nothing. I didn’t see why I was going to these things if it was going to be the same as every day or be undone in in two months. This of course is not the right attitude to have. I know that every minute I spend with these students could have an impact on them. I also know that nothing lasts forever and no matter what I am doing for umuganda it will eventually return to its original state unless it is maintained. My entire service might result in no change in anything or anyone other than myself, but that wouldn’t make it worthless.

Last month I went to the first umuganda that I have been to that was for the community that I live in instead of at the school. The goal was to carry rocks that were being quarried out of the side of the mountain three miles up hill so they could be used to build a poor family a house. I showed up prepared to work at 8 AM. I brought my empty backpack so I would have something to put the rocks in which is very different than the normal way of carrying the rocks on your head. I made my way to the village center and started asking where umuganda was. The kept telling me I was in the right place and it would start soon. I passed the time by greeting everyone who was out there and offered water to a lot of people. Some of the men I offered water to would tell me no because they wanted ikigage (sorghum beer –the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted, I tell people that it makes me sick which it hasn’t done but I am confident that it would because I do not trust their home brewing). I can’t help but think that they must like to get the party started early if they already want something alcoholic. They invited me to go get drunk with them and after carefully considering their offer I decided that it wasn’t worth risking the reputation that I had built up by drinking at nine in the morning. One of them told me that ikigage is for the morning and water is for the evening.

After finishing my water at 9:30 I decided to return home and refill. I told the housekeeper when she asked me about umuganda that they weren’t doing anything, but that I was going back out anyways. On my way back out a girl whose name I didn’t really catch, but didn’t correct me when I started calling her Ashanti, asked me where I was going and when I told her umuganda. She let me know that I was going the wrong way. Unlike everyone I was hanging out with in the village center Ashanti was on her way to do her civic duty. I walked with her over to the quarry, stopping along the way to give someone who was digging a ditch a drink. He turned out to be my neighbor that is only home on the weekends and hadn’t met yet. When I started loading up my backpack with rocks everyone started laughing after the first rock, then after the second they were seemed impressed, then after the third rock they seemed shocked, when I reached for a fourth rock they shouted at me to stop. I decided they were right and I didn’t need to take that fourth one, but I did carry a small one in my hands. Each of the rocks that I took I wanna guess weighed between ten and twenty pounds and the one in my hands was about five. Ashanti took one that was probably about seven pounds. We walked up the mountain together greeting everyone we came upon. When we reached our destination the people who had already finished carrying rocks up were resting and some of them laughed at me because they thought I had only brought up the one small rock in my hand. I tossed that one on the pile and then removed my bag and unloaded it to gasps and cheers. Everyone was thanking me and my reply was the same to all of them, “Ntakibazo, nkunda gufasha.” – no problem I like to help.

I made my way back down the mountain with Magenzi the village boss and Stan the grounds keeper at the health center. They are the kind of people that I want to be. These guys are running the show trying to develop the community. They both thanked me for helping and I thanked them as well for their organizing.

That night there was another guy who started making fun of me for only carrying up a small rock to which I became defensive about and told him about the rocks I had in my bag. I also visited my neighbor later who saw me loading the rocks into my bag. She told me how impressed she was and that made me feel good. It feels good to be recognized for helping, but I don’t need recognition so for all of the other people who thought I only carried up one small rock I am not going to argue with you if you want to laugh at me, but come on man, I bet I carried up more than you did.

One of the conversations I had that morning was with a guy who asked if they did umuganda in America. The obvious answer is no because what we do is different. In America we are required to pay taxes and then we have people whose full time job is to do what they do for umuganda. He also asked me about the machines and told me that they don’t have any in Rwanda. I proved him wrong immediately by pointing to a motorcycle and a truck transporting the newest shipment of tea and asked him what those were, but he isn’t all wrong. America has machinery that unless you are trained to use it you really shouldn’t touch it so that wouldn’t be a good idea for umuganda. Americans do umuganda though. The L.I.V.I.N.G. Ministry does umuganda in a very similar fashion to Rwanda. They don’t have the best tools or materials, but they have people donating their day off to work to improve the community.

The Gorilla Naming Ceremony from in the crowd.

My buddy Jonathan and I at the school’s African Child Ceremony.

Children dressed in gorilla costumes. Still haven’t seen any real ones though.

Me in my gorilla pose.

I am Weak

Not everyone is going to want to read this one. It is a little gross.

I have had a great time in Africa when I have gotten together with friends that I have made within Peace Corps. Peace Corps volunteers are a great group of people. One thing that we can all ask each other is why are you doing this? Everyone has a different reason to that question, but they are usually fairly similar too. I like hearing why others joined Peace Corps. I joined because I wanted to do something exciting, I didn’t want to work in an office, I don’t care about having a career, and I love helping people.

Making friends has never been too hard for me and I have made a lot of friends in my village (which is the one thing the Peace Corps administration wants us to work on the most, it is important that I teach but integration is top priority). One of my friends told me that I am the ‘star of the hood’ because everyone knows me. This was in response to another friend asking me if I could find him a job in Kigali in agriculture. I asked him how I would do that and he replied with, “you’re famous.” I wish I could help him but I don’t know anyone in agriculture or even ever seen anyone on a tractor here. I really like my friends in Mulindi, but I also love my American friends in the rest of Rwanda that I get to see a lot less often than the ones in Mulindi.

Recently every time I get together with other volunteers I become weak. Last time I was brought to them when I fell off of my bike was badly injured. When I was recovering I really should have spent time alone, but I forced myself to be social.

Yesterday I returned from a weekend in Gisenyi where I enticed to come out by the promise of pizza, beer, the beach and friends. All of these promises were fulfilled. Leading up to the weekend I was deemed one of the four horsemen by Steve. Sera decided which of the horsemen we each were and there is a good reason behind each one. Pat is pestilence because he is always intoxicated, I am famine because I have lost a hundred pounds, Steve is war because he is always fighting everyone and Sera is death because she is better than the rest of us and trumps them all with the result of the suffering that rest of us cause. I had a hard month in May so I was looking forward to a good time at the beach with a lot a great friends.

I was really enjoying myself until Saturday evening when we were hanging out by the lake and a fever set in after dipping my feet in the water. I had ordered food that I no longer had interest in eating and the others kept trying to buy me another beer when I hadn’t even finished a third of the one that I had been nursing for over an hour. Hope gave me her fleece to wear after talking about how the bar didn’t give me my change and I revealed how cold I was. After that I got the key to the room from Sera and called it an early night at 9pm by walking the two miles back to the hotel by myself freezing. I arrived at the hotel and climbed into bed after sitting on the toilet for a half hour.

I couldn’t sleep because I was too hot under the covers and too cold without them. About an hour later Hope and Hannah brought Steve back because he had literally drank himself under the table. They put him in the bedroom with me and grabbed me some water. Before Steve fell asleep I called him a mess and he responded graciously with thank you. I couldn’t drink the water they gave me because I felt nauseous and I didn’t want to cause myself to vomit also they used iodine to clean it and I hate that taste. After lying there for a while longer, not too aware, before all of the others returned, Steve peed in the corner of the room even though the bathroom was only twenty feet away. I hope I am not violating his privacy by posting this on the internet, but I’m sure he’ll let me know if I am. This is just too funny not to include in this story.

I felt like I had been lying awake for a long time so when I heard voices in the common room I assumed that it must be morning. Turns out it was still the middle of the night and they had just gotten back from the night that I missed out on. Had I known this I would have just stayed in bed and suffered the rest of the night, but it was good for me to join them. I walked out to a series of symptom related questions and the first one that I told them was that I didn’t sleep at all last night. No one corrected me that it was still night but based on their responses I was able to figure it out. When I sat down I was comforted by all of these great women that before this only my mother has ever comforted me like this (and my buddy Chris’ mother the one time I got sick at his house). They all had medicine to give me. Kayla gave me pain killers, Kim gave me nausea medication, Sera gave me water and another stomach settler, and Genevieve gave me a eucalyptus pad. I took some of the painkillers and put on the eucalyptus pad which together I think induced the vomiting that followed. I threw up more with more force than any time I could remember. If I had been entered into a contest of longest distance for projectile vomiting I would have won first prize because this stuff flew twenty feet at a horizontal at a rate of seventy miles per hour. When it started I tried to cover my mouth with my hand and it was like when you put your thumb over a hose and the water sprays in all directions all over myself and everyone who was there caring for me. I was able to make it to bathroom before I got any more on anyone else to vomit all over everything in there. I went back into the common room and swallowed another handful of pills. Everyone did their part cleaning up after me and Jonathan gave me a clean pair of shorts to put on. Everyone started going to bed now, but I still wasn’t tired. Sera put on a movie for me and I watched it for a while before the drugs finally knocked me out.

The next morning all I had for breakfast was half a roll and yet I spent more time in the bathroom than out of it. I finally called the doctor and told him all about what I had been going through while sitting on a toilet that was missing the seat (a step up from the hole in the ground that I use at my house). He told me that I needed to drink a lot of water because I was losing it all to the diarrhea. After everyone finished breakfast I caught the bus back home with Sera. She gave me another water and more medicine that put me to sleep for a lot of the ride. We then made it to Kigali where I would go north to Mulindi and she would go south to Nyanza.

I made it to Mulindi around seven thirty and went to my neighbor’s house because a week before I promised I would come and let them use my camera, but I only stayed long enough to finish the tonic water they gave me and told him that I needed to go home because I was really tired.

Today I am taking the day off from work to try and recover. The doctor has me taking really strong diarrhea medication and is calling me periodically to check on me. Since I am on such strong stuff I feel like I can go ahead and eat something so I ate a whole box of Special K with chocolate pieces in it that my mom sent me. Now I just have to worry about throwing it back up.

Being put into these situations of where I can’t be myself because I’m injured or sick are humbling. My friends kept saying that they wished I wasn’t sick and even though I felt really terrible I was extremely apologetic. I felt awful that my feeling terrible was making others feel bad. When I am this way I want to be alone so I don’t concern others. I love to help others, not the other way around. Although there are times when I desperately need it I don’t want others to help me. I don’t want others to help me because I don’t to be seen when I am weak. I don’t want to be seen when I am weak because I don’t want to be weak. This is my struggle. I have so much pride. God keeps putting me through these humbling situations so that I will be humbled. I hate being humbled, but I need to be humbled. I am weak.

I am very grateful to everyone who was there this weekend and took care of me. I have developed a bond with the other volunteers that is unlike any connection I have made with any other group I have ever been a part of. We are sharing such a hard and special experience. I have been able to be completely open and vulnerable with more of them than I have been able to be anywhere else. The reason they are were so prepared to take care of me like that is that they had ALL gone through the same thing already. Maybe they didn’t vomit on their friends, but their symptoms might have been worse and they had to deal with it on their own. Our training had a freshman year feel to it and once we had all gotten the chance to know each other we started working separately, but in close contact. I love them all and each time I get to see them I am reminded of why. I really hope that I didn’t contaminate the rest of them with whatever I have.

Praise God it Wasn’t Serious

Last week I had the worst injury of my life. I fell off of my bike going down a hill around a turn on my way to the Lucy’s house, which is about a thirty minute drive from my house. A lot of the roads that I was riding on are full of big rocks and erosion from all the rain, but the road I fell on did not look bad like these other ones. I blame the loose gravel that made me skid, but it was really my poor cycling ability and thinking I could handle it when I couldn’t.

I hit the ground hard. Upon impact I lost consciousness. When I came to after a moment the first thing I noticed was my prescription sunglasses were broken. I started to panic because of this. I had to find the lens that came out. I was scared thinking, “What am I going to do if I can’t see?” I remembered that I had my regular pair in my backpack so I pulled them out and put my broken sunglasses in the case my glasses were in. Before I could put my glasses on though I somehow wandered thirty feet away from my bike and stumbled into a ditch. After I was able to climb back out I once again had lost my glasses, this time the other pair. I put back on my sunglasses with one lens and found the good pair and replaced the broken pair. After putting my glasses on I realized that my vision was still blurry.

My panic turned into a realization at this point; maybe I have a concussion. I decided to sit down next to my bike and started to nurse my wounds. Although the original fall didn’t attract too much attention the second one drew a large crowd of about fifteen tea farmers. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I don’t think that is because of a lack of Kinyarwanda knowledge. I don’t think I would have understood them even if they had been speaking English. There was one word that one of the Good Samaritans did keep saying that I understood which was umutwe – head. The same guy directed one of the nearby tea farmers to bring me water and commanded me to drink it. I drank it without considering the consequences of drinking something that I didn’t know the condition of. I also poured it on my arm and leg to get some of the dirt out of my wounds. I sat there for about half an hour trying to recover before I decided that I didn’t want to continue to be stared at and talked about by the concerned locals so I gathered my things and got back on my bike with my vision still blurry after thanking the man and woman who helped me. I rode about fifty yards before my caretaker was shouting at me because I had left my keys. He came running after me to return them to me. Thinking about it now if I had seen this happen to someone else I would have called an ambulance and not let them get back on their bike and ride away, but the people who helped me didn’t think to do this although I don’t think this is because they wanted to let me hurt myself more.

The rest of the trip was full of more concerned locals. I had to push my bike up a massive hill, but I think I would have had to do this even if I hadn’t been injured. I acquired an entourage of two other cyclists who were transporting potatoes. They took it upon themselves to see to it that I made it to my destination. When we would come to the top of a hill after pushing for a long time they wouldn’t go without saying to me first, “Tugende Muzungu” – let’s go white man. As I rode past people and they saw me bleeding they covered their mouths and gasped “Imana We” – Oh God. There were some kids who kept asking me to let them ride my bike, but other than that everyone was showing great concern. I wasn’t in a lot of pain for the rest of the ride either, but I assume that’s because of the adrenalin.

I reached Lucy’s house and she was really surprised that I had ridden my bike to her house. She was laughing until she saw all of my wounds. Then she laughed some more (she isn’t malicious, I admit that I am a clown and when a clown gets hurt it’s funny. I also admit that I was trying to make light of the situation). She called me crazy for making that trip and she was right. I finally had the chance to evaluate the damage at this point. I still had a headache, but I was no longer dizzy or had blurred vision. I had large abrasions on my right arm, leg and on the right side of my back as well as a small wound on my left hand. My helmet had a big dent on the right side and the back had blown out and my shirt had a big hole in it. I cleaned all of my wounds in Lucy’s back yard using her spigot with running water that I am extremely jealous of and grateful for. Lucy helped me to clean the one on my back. She then played doctor and disinfected and bandaged my cuts.

I then called the Peace Corps doctor. The Peace Corps doctor is an amazing man. He cares a great deal for us, has an excellent sense of humor, and has a wonderful sounding French accent. He decided to drive up to meet me. While I was waiting I had the chance to watch The Lion King while Lucy made some lunch. I didn’t want to but she insisted that I sit down and did nothing. I called a few others to tell them what happened to me and to let them know that I would in Kigali for a little bit. The doctor made it to my house call and examined me. He removed my bandages and had me stand with my feet together. He asked me if I had been drinking to which I replied no. He also laughed a lot at my broken bicycle helmet and said it was a good thing that I was wearing it or that could have been my head. We left Lucy’s house with my bike in the back and drove to my house. The driver carried my bike up to my house and put it away for me while I packed a few things and changed clothes. I then had the most comfortable conditions that I have ever had on my way to Kigali in great discomfort. We made it to the Peace Corps office and we let the driver go home. The doctor then took me in his car to the hospital where I had a CT scan. The scan revealed that there wasn’t any bleeding in my brain and I had sinus congestion that the doctor was concerned about. Therefore there was not any permanent damage. I was very relieved that that one percent chance of me having permanent damage didn’t beat the house. I’m sure that I didn’t help my odds by getting back on my bike so soon after falling off of it.

Next he drove me back to the Peace Corps office and gave me pain killers. I then limped down around the building to the brand new Peace Corps hostel the Case de Passage. Case de Passage is supposed to be pronounced in a French way of speaking like Cause de Pa-sauge, but I like to call it The Case of Passage, case – like a case of beer, of, passage – like you have gained entry or moving from one point to another. Either way you say it I was really grateful that they had put this together for us because I went straight to bed. At least I tried to. I only got about two hours of sleep. I didn’t get any more sleep the next day either but I did stay four nights so on the third and fourth nights I slept fairly well. The next day I was able to get my sunglasses fixed and some drugs for my sinus congestion.

I told the doctor that I am happy that this happened to me here and not in America. I have the best healthcare of my life right now. I told the doctor that I thought it would have cost me $2000 in America and he was saying that would be outragous, but after thinking more about it, an ambulance, a house call, a CT scan, transporting my bike, a bedroom for four nights, getting my glasses repaired, and drugs. I think the bill would be closer to $15000. Regardless of the crazy prices of healthcare in America, the doctor spent about nine hours with me in two days and no bill, at least not made out to me. When I called him I told him that I wanted to wait to come in on Friday, but I am really happy that he came and got me because those days that I would have stayed at my site would have been exceedingly painful. There is no way I could have even made it to work let alone taught anything.

The following days were interesting for me. There were people coming in and out of the Case, but I was there with Brittney who was changing sites and Emit who just extended for a third year and his site wasn’t ready yet either for the whole time. We built a puzzle and ate ice cream and Chinese food. I saw a lot of my friends that I was very happy to see and I led bible study on Saturday too. Most of the people who came in were there to run a marathon and a few to watch it. There was a carbo-loading dinner on Saturday at the administrative officer’s house that I did what I could to help prepare for it. Although this sounds like it would be a lot of fun, when I was in large groups I had a hard time participating in the conversation for very long. I felt distant because the only thing I could think to talk to people about was my injury. My usual wit wasn’t anywhere to be found and I was probably the most boring person to hang out with this last week. I think there are many reasons that I may have been like this, but I know that the pain I was in didn’t help my social skills. I kept getting asked why I was being quiet. I wanted to be alone, but I didn’t want to admit that I wanted that. I care so much about what people think of me and I never want to miss anything which is why you often see me still there at the end of the party even if I am not having fun. I hated feeling this way and when I finally talked to someone on Saturday night about it I cried. There were other emotions that went into my weeping, but I feel like this was building up in me for a while and it felt great to finally release it.

Sunday was a lot better because I got to cheer on everyone running in the marathon. I kinda felt like a party crasher being there with all of the people who were supposed to be there, which is part of the reason I left for home that evening instead of staying another night even though my friends were trying to convince me to stay. The other reason is I missed Mulindi. It really feels like home now. Pittsburgh will always be home, but I feel very connected to Mulindi now.

When I made it back home Devin was there and she asked to see my wounds and we talked about my week. I also received a facebook message from my best friend here saying that he was worried about me. I showed up to school the next morning and was welcomed by the Secretary who I haven’t had much of a relationship with. She hugged me and asked me if I had recovered. I told her yes and she said “Imana twishimwe ntakibazo” – Praise God it wasn’t serious. The headmaster greeted me and he asked how I had been and to see my wounds. The other teachers were all happy that I have returned especially the two that I talk to the most and the librarian. I displayed some of my wounds to my classes to the same gasps that I had received nearly a week ago when they were fresh. I sat in my usual silence when others were speaking Kinyarwanda faster than I can follow and thought to myself how sad I would be if my accident had been serious and I did have to leave. I felt self-centered and apathetic towards everything else. I get scared at the thought of if it was serious then what would I become? Would I be totally self-absorbed and never care what others are going through? There were so many people that supported me through this and I am grateful to every one of them. They displayed selfless love for me, from the guy yelling umutwe to the teacher who asked for my phone number because he would have tried to call me if he had had it.

I am really just happy that this is over. I have other more important things to worry about. Now I can get back to teaching and back to being myself. As long as something like this doesn’t happen again I will be fine, but realistically something to this scale could happen any time I leave my house.

These pictures were taken by Lucy soon after I arrived at her house. On my face are my broken sunglasses, not an eye patch. Yarrr! Go Pirates!

I met up with Lucy yesterday and she gave me these pictures. She told me that people are still talking about me at her site. “How is your friend, the one with the wounds?” And when they say wounds the make a a motion of blood gushing out of my arm and leg.

After I was bandaged up.

I’m pretty sexy with my shirt off and white I guess.