December 15th to December 17th

Wed. Dec. 15^th, 2010

I walked for an hour. Everyone stared are me – everyone. There occasionally was a more modern-dressed woman who passed who did not stare at me, but everyone else did. The kids followed me, all laughing and giggling and really really really excited and mocking and competing to walk next to me and friendly - a weird combination of reactions. I was told that they learn the faces of the white people who pass through, so mine was just a new one, which is maybe where all the excitement came in. But seriously, they looked at me like I was a ghost. Really, a ghost. Or maybe a celebrity? The kind of celebrity you are just really interested in looking at, not the kind your necessarily a fan of - an infamous celebrity. One very brave little one started to hold my hand, and his father took him and hit him on the tush, really angry. But the rest just look in smiling wonder, and the grownups just stare. If you say “Muraho” and “Amakura” the reaction goes from staring with a blank face to a huge smile and friendly wave, sometimes with two hands. Knowing simple greetings in Kinyarwanda makes all the difference. With old men over 60, I am spoken to in French, and they get confused if I don't know French. But for everyone else, Kinyarwanda greetings are the key. The kids all said “Good morning” in English even though it was 6 in the evening. I imagine this is because, if they learn English at school, school does not go past noon, so all they hear is “good morning” and use this as a greeting. I correct them and say, “good evening” and I once tried to say, “Good morning is Mwaramutse, now is ‘good evening.’ wiriwey (I don't know how to spell that last word)” But my pronunciation of “Mwaramutse” was so bad, and the concept maybe difficult for little kids to get.

As I was walking, and everyone was staring at me – again, everyone, hundreds of people – a huge full rainbow came out. It looked like someone photoshoped it in. At first it just was super thick with all the colors and I was like, “you have to be kidding me” and then I saw that the colors were reflected off the green hills so that there was a rainbow also on the mountains and I was like, “oh. my. God. I never knew a rainbow could do that.” And then it became a full arch, covering the whole sky, and then another rainbow was reflected above it and this rainbow was also reflected on the green hills. It was absurd – I have never seen such a big, chunky, Disney-looking rainbow. The dozens of staring eyes just became not relevant. And being stared out is alright. Weird at first. But then you just get used to saying hi to everyone, which is only way they change their expression from staring disbelief to a smile and a nod. And you don’t feel so much like a ghost anymore.

There are a number of malnourished children. I did not realize at first, but then I saw, when some put their arms up, that their stomachs were very large from malnourishment. The difference between the ASYV and the surrounding villages is huge, as is the difference between Kigali and the villages in Rwamagana, the district, in Eastern Province. A lot of people asked where I was going to, and it was hard to say “a walk” without any particular destination, because people spend hours every day bringing water back and forth, so perhaps walking around to just walk around is not so popular, at least not alone at a fast pace – walking is very, very slow here.

Thursday, Dec. 15^th, 2010.

Last night we went to the local bar, which is of course just a room with a table and a refrigerator, though there was a nice bar-like counter that the mother of the place stood behind (she was very mother-like, and also the ownder), after we found her in the backyard tending the goats they kill on the spot twice a week to serve kabobs. Her 12-year-old son is a bit of a child prodigy who is taught English by a local Peace Corp volunteer who normally works in the clinic. He has almost no accent and sounds American. It is really surprising to hear a perfect (almost) American accent, let alone from a 12 year old. He said that he wanted to help make all of Africa like America. “Not like Europe?” I asked, and he said, “no, because in Africa we need unity. If Rwanda makes tomatoes and Uganda makes [some other vegetable which I forgot] then we can give Uganda tomatoes and they can give us [that other veggie.] I could not tell if what he was saying was, maybe, things rehashed from the peace corps volunteer, but he was a funny, smart little kid, who also has no access to books at all. He knows one of the directors of Agahozo-Shalom, so visits sometime.

We drank Prima, a pretty decent beer that comes in 720 ml. bottles. It’s pretty pricey for Rwanda – 600 frances, which is around $1.50, about how much you would pay in European towns, and about a days worth of work or more.

Later today…

So, because I’m Mollie, I went on a long walk/hike mid-day and forgot to bring water. After around an hour and a half I realized that if I did not get water soon I would maybe die. Well, maybe not die. Ok, yes, I was feeling really really breathless and sick and scared and was an hour from town, or half an hour, or something. And the worst inhabited place in the world to really need water is in a province where everyone has to walk two hours to their water source and two hours back, and where the color of your skin can indicate whether you, to, must partake in this daily four hour excursion to secure water. As a white person, I felt really uncomfortable asking for water. I figured they would give it to me, but when asked a boy where I could get water, I said I would pay them. He took me to a house, and they brought water, everyone laughing and curious and, well, I don’t know how they were reacting - the way you would react if Brittany Spears asked for water and you were one of the people that thought Brittany spears was weird and sad and famous and different and a little bit pathetic, really. The woman brought me water, and the children stared, because that is what they do when they see a white person (as the adults do, but the adults had work to do). After I drank the water I paid with the smallest bill I had, 2,000 frances, which is a little less than $4. It is also around two days labor, if you are lucky. So if you are getting paid minimum wage in Israel, it is like paying around 400 NIS, or $100 for water. But I was really, really thirsty, and I never get thirsty – I was desperate, and I figured it was worth it, because, oh my God, I was sooooooo close to fainting. I gave the kids a pen, pencil and a drawing of a hand I had done, items which probably would have sufficed without the "exorbitant" pay. Which, I know, is nothing, but socially, it looks crazy. I thought for a moment that I was only strengthening the stereotype that white people are all very, very, very rich but the thing is, white people in this area are all really, really, really rich.

I need to learn Kinyarwanda. It’s really annoying. Or, what I think I will do, is carry around a phrase book because there is just no way I will remember things unless I am always surrounded by people who speak no English, which is not the case. A few of the volunteers are language geniuses. Some are playing Bannanagrams, which is a game like scrabble except without turns. They are doing fabulous, because they are language geniuses. I am not (doing great at that game or a language genius.) So a dorky cheat sheet it is. Which they actually use. So maybe it is planning ahead I need to do, not be a language genius.

An old woman on the street gave me what I think was a blessing. You can sort of tell. Like, her face got serious, she held out her hands, bowed her head, bobbed her head in earnestly the way blessing-givers do, and spoke like she was saying something almost poetic and memorized, the way one sounds when giving an official-blessing. I really wish I knew Kiynarwanda.