Books, Babies and BBQ goat

There is a major shortage of books in Rubona and beyond. I was reading a book in the butter milk bar (see previous posts), and forgot that books are a rare commodity just as much as my mp3 player, or even a small portable radio. As I was reading, a boy, maybe around 13 or 14, appears out of nowhere and puts his head in front of the pages of the book, blocking my site, the back of his head brushing against my face, and starts to read out loud. I was reading the non-fiction We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families by Philip Gourevitch on the Rwandan Genocide. He was a pretty good reader. I helped him out with some words. He was happy it was about Rwanda.

I sort of awkwardly shifted my head to the right as his nose was in my book and right next to my face, because Rwandan sense of personal space is very, very small, even compared to Israel. At first, I was a bit shocked, not quite scared, maybe…uncertain? Imagine you are reading and a person just sticks their head in front of yours to read your book. But no-one seemed to think it was strange or was laughing, which people unashamedly do when anything strange happens. So I helped him read for a bit. There are so few books anywhere and a book, if one is around, is like an mp3 player or even a radio – something everyone should enjoy. These kids are learning English and have reading that is good enough to be massively improved with book access, but will never get beyond the reading the comprehension and ability of a nine-year-old without such books. Such individuals may be considered “literate” and everyone will be confused as to why literacy rates improving do not correlate with the same improvement in development.

When I took out my very tiny Kinyarwanda-English phrase pamphlet once, in the middle of a small dirt path surrounded by banana trees, all these kids came running up and peering at the pamphlet, all eagerly wanting to read from it. It was difficult looking up what I needed to because of all the eager reading of the kids, who, as I said earlier, are quite persistent and, well, pushy. The international aid in the area seems mostly for road-building and health and there seems to be a lot in education, but somehow there are no books.

As is obvious, the difference between ASYV and the surrounding area is huge. I don’t think this is a huge problem, because ASYV selects the most vulnerable orphans out of the entire country, many of whom would almost certainly not have a stable life, go to university, have a stable profession, or basic mental health, if it was not for ASYV. And the kids at ASYV are most certainly aware of the gap, and are active in community projects outside ASYV and in the villages they come from. But the huge lack of books, and the fact that ASYV has so many books, many not ever used I was told, seems like an opportunity to allow some kids in the area to get some more reading. I asked someone about this, and was told kids can come and read books, though I need to check if this is true.

And now, for some cute baby stories:

A mama was carrying her baby, and she told me to look at her baby, which was absurdly adorable. I asked the baby in a baby voice "what is your name?", because I have no idea how to ask for a name in third person to the mother. The mother told me the name (I forget now), I said the baby’s name to the little one, and a huge smile appears on the babies face and she starts to giggle. I said the name again and she just was all smiles. This baby could not have been more than five months, so it was impressive.

A little toddler followed me calling me “something something something [in Kinyarwanda] teacher!” over and over again, because I taught him that “good morning” is not said in the evening, something he did not know before (see previous post). These tiny kids are so advanced in their walking and talking and following and general people skills.

Should I try chewing on sugarcane? The kids really seem to like it. And it’s a fruit, right?

On another note, apparently I can’t say good morning at 11:30, at that point I need to start saying Good afternoon. Huh. I guess that makes sense if you get up at 5:30 am every day, and are in bed by 9pm.

I learned that a goat here costs around 15,000-20,000 Rwandan francs, which is between $25 to $33. That is cheap meat. People just leave them tied to a tree and they are walked, usually by little kids - the goats are often bigger than they are. The goats eat grass, so it doesn’t cost much, if anything, to keep them. But no goat milk, nobody would touch that. It's considered icky here, protein deficiency be damned. Could be that most goats can't be milked, but I saw one the other day that definitely could and definitely was not. Goats are also kept in the backyard and sold or killed for bbq, with brochettes costing around 250 froncs, which is less than 50 cents. Another fun fact: traditionally, women did not eat goats meat, it was taboo, something about women growing a beard if they do. Today, women eating goats meat is like women drinking beer, I think - something modern women do. Still weirded out by the goats in the backyard of the bar which are killed on the spot for the brochettes.