Don’t congratulate me on going to Africa

So, I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Really, just a lot of things. I suppose I ought to preface this with what I experienced in America before coming here. The perceptions and reactions of others and my own.

So, at one point, I told you I was going to Africa. At one point, I told myself I was going to Africa. I probably told you, though, that I was going to Rwanda (a small country in East Africa, I’m sure I said). You probably had to look it up on a map, and I did too at one point. I can remember calling my mom Fall of freshman year and telling her about this program and how much I wanted to do it. She then proceeded to talk me out of going that Spring, thank god. I remember knowing that the genocide remembrance week activities were going on at Hendrix each April, but for some reason, I didn’t actually go to the events. Even when I had already applied to come here. Because that’s all we know of Rwanda, of Africa, right? Violence, bloodshed, terror. Poverty, small children with distended bellies with flies crawling undisturbed around their mouths and eyes, AK-47s, black people, villages with mud brick houses and thatched roofs, women with baskets on their heads, babies on their back, and colorfully printed dresses on their bodies. No one ever thinks cities with sky scrapers, security guards everywhere, an obsession with cleanliness, French fries for every meal, business suits everywhere (even in the middle of the savannah in a refugee settlement on a dirt road), boarding schools, internally developed development strategies, delicious fruits, gorgeous scenery, music videos, domestic help, and a more exercise than you can imagine.

Back to pre-departure reactions though. The most memorable was also the most hilarious. I told a neighbor’s grandma that I was going to Rwanda…that’s in Africa. Her face completely fell and her mouth dropped open. I laughed. In an old lady’s face. I had to. It was hilarious! “I’m studying abroad next semester,” I had told her minutes earlier, much to her delight! Marvin was with me at the time and had just mentioned that he was going to England. Oh but why can’t I go somewhere safe like that? Another favorite, but not really, was after clarifying that Kigali is one of the safest cities in Africa (which, can I clarify how true this is? Please?), I was told simply (humorously and sarcastically of course, but I know they believed it) that that’s like saying…it’s the best out of entirely terrible options (there was some metaphor, but apparently I’ve chosen to forget it). Well yeah, you could say that, but come on, it’s Africa. And it’s the implications present in Africa that…honestly…they’re just so pitiful. I could call them stupid, stereotypical, misplaced, and completely wrong, but no one realizes that until they come here. They’re just pitiful. And honestly, I can’t really blame them too much. Sure, I can sit here and make fun of misinformed Americans, but I don’t really think I can blame the individuals, as much as I would love to. I suppose I’ll go the route of blaming institutionalized racisim, sensationalistic media, the fact that we learn colonial to civil war American history a billion times but only look up at the rest of the world and go “oh, I guess you’re there too. Whatever” once during our educational career, and a culturally inherent ethnocentrism. America, after all, is the center of the world, right? But really, let me please just tell you one thing.

Africa is not monolithic. It’s an invented concept. It exists only in the mind. Your mind, the collective western mind, and the minds of Africans themselves who are grouped together because the rest of the world has done and continues to do so. I mean, please tell me what Tunisia and Swaziland have in common. And I challenge you to find them on a map. What does Twi (shout out, Kelly!) have to do with Kinyarwanda? What is Africa, and what is an African? Is it a continent or a stereotype? Are they just black people and others don’t exactly count if they’re anything but? Are you *really* not an African man if you didn’t grow up herding cattle in the hills of Uganda (Love you, Muna)?  Africa is not one thing. Africans are not one people. Show me a starving child, and I’ll show you my siblings who turn up food because they don’t want to be fat. Show me a wealthy warlord, and I’ll show you one of my babies with cerebral palsy who lives at an orphanage. Show me al-Shabab or Boca Haram (however you spell those) and I’ll show you the tons of nuns I see every day. Africa is not one thing. There is no “African culture.” There are more than just black people. I’m friends with an Egyptian, Pakistanis, Europeans, Americans, and native Rwandans. Hell, beyond here, I’m friends with white South Africans and black Americans. As my friend Zoe put it, “If I was born in South Africa and then moved to America, does that make me African American?” I mean really. What is an African? What is Africa? Yes, those two things exist. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to promote some sort of cheery global village, “there’s only one race—the human race” sort of idea. I don’t believe in that either. I’ve definitely been made cynical to that idea here. I just want you to realize that the Africa you think you know is wrong. Hell, the Africa I think I know is wrong. No one will ever have the whole picture. It’s the whole “you can’t step in the same river twice” idea. The thing I love most about Africa is… (someone please rewrite the Pocahontas song).

And honestly, I don’t even like using the word Africa anymore since it’s lost a lot of its meaning to me. I’ll say East Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa, North Africa, the horn of Africa, Francophone Africa, Anglophone Africa, whatever. Maybe even sub-Saharan Africa, though I think that’s just something people say to politely refer to that place with all the black people and all the problems. I’ll only say Africa when I’m mad, generally. I only really know East Africa. And at that, I only really know a bit of Uganda and Rwanda. And at that, I really only know Kigali. So please don’t ask me how Africa was. I know you’ll be saying it jokingly and just to emphasize that I went to some place “super crazy, dangerous, and undeveloped,” but please. Ask me how Rwanda was. Or even Kigali. Because I can’t tell you about anywhere else.

And so now I have to go back. Or soon, at least. And I have to face the stereotypes again. The monolithic comments. And honestly, I don’t think I’ll handle them as well this time. Last time I laughed knowingly, understanding that people thought I had something to fear. I reassured them when they thought they’d have to send me with a gun and come bail me out of an African jail (love you guys, promise). And see, there it is again. African jail. Not just any jail, a terrible, awful, no good, very bad jail. I consoled them when they worried about my health and safety (there are freaking soldiers on the street here, yall. Armed with huge guns, and they’re everywhere. Kind of terrifying). I can’t say I’ll be as forgiving this time.

But I suppose I’d be lying if I said I never had any concerns myself. I thought I was going to live in a simple house. Cement, I guess. Wouldn’t have been too far off. Only I lived in a Rwandan mansion, essentially. Still cement. I thought I’d have to do my laundry by hand all the time and douse myself in my 40% DEET bug spray. Turns out I have helpers that do literally everything and I’ve hardly touched those two bottles of bug spray. I don’t even really use my mosquito net that often. I wasn’t too concerned for my safety. Any more than I would be in any other big city. I thought I’d rarely have internet. I spend 4 hours in a café every day. I have a ridiculous lunch break. I thought the food or the water would make me super sick. I thought I’d have to follow those iodine and boiling rules to a T or face…the Rwandan version of Montezuma’s (Kagame’s?) revenge. My small pharmacy in my suitcase has largely gone untouched. I thought I would have to dress as conservatively and professionally as possible because that’s what the packing list said, right? God, I miss my nike shorts and short dresses. Pre-Rwanda me was pretty hilarious. And a really terrible packer.

So I’m just going to have to laugh. At the monolithic (I think that’s the nice way to put it) questions when I get back, at the “feed a poor starving child in Africa” commercials (because really? Would you want some old white dude to walk through your neighborhood, just pick your child up out of nowhere, put them in front of a camera, and make up some sort of sob story about them as they walk away? Like really? That seems so weird now. And yes, I know poverty and starvation exist. But really. Just think about it). I’ll have to laugh at the lack of news coverage about positive things happening here, laugh at the terrible and expensive fruit, and laugh at how really, no one is going to care that I came here. I find this hard to believe (because I’m just so damn cool, right?), but that’s what they tell me. And I’ll just have to laugh at how coddled American kids are (and American parents. You have real diapers and 2.5 kids, yall).

Oh, and turns out there are actually mud brick houses with thatched roofs and flies crawling all over the kids. But the former are few and far between (or just in Uganda), and my babies don’t give a damn about the latter. They just want you to keep pushing the merry go round because that is so much fun, sha!!! Oh, and I’ve seen black people. White people are weird. And I am so getting one of those dresses made!

Anyway, back to the title. Don’t congratulate me for coming here. To “Africa.” I’m not brave, I’m not daring, I was just curious. If you want to congratulate me for something (though I’m an introvert and that’s wayyyy too much spotlight for me. Just ask me questions or put up with my rambling), congratulate me for getting into a new culture, congratulate me for not bleeding too much when I did my laundry, congratulate for getting up at 6 every day and going to sleep by 10 like an old person :P Congratulate me for learning to laugh at men who, after approximately 10 seconds of acquaintance, profess their undying love for me or men who fondle my hair (yup, couldn’t think of a better word. Pretty appropriate) as they walk by. Lord, or for drinking milk that tastes like smoke. But not for getting on a cushy plane, living with my family, going to school, and playing with babies. Anyone could do that anywhere. No “but still”s. It’s a place with people and things. If you wouldn’t congratulate someone for going to Canada, south Dallas, or Dubai, please don’t congratulate me for coming here. 

New House!!!

So, we’ve finally moved into our new house!!! And it’s wonderful. It took us forever to find though. It’s just Ben, Katy, and I here, so it was difficult to find something within our price range. Tameshia is staying with her homestay family like she told us months ago (which, I can’t blame her. They have a fridge and a microwave and an oven  and a stove and their house is freaking gorgeous), but the other two backed out on us at the last second, so that was a bit of a financial setback. But it’s ok, because we found the most wonderful house! It’s in Nyamirambo , which is like the ghetto/Harlem of Kigali, I hear. Basically, it’s the most alive and awesome part of the city. It’s also old Kigali or the old city center, so it has a lot of character. There are actually lots of people out at night, the streets are lined with stores (alimentations, dress shops, clothing stores, music stores/studios, milk shops, fruit stands, street food, etc.), and it just has such a great atmosphere. And the buses there are super cheap. It’s the Muslim part of the city as well, which is great because every night twice a night we hear about ten calls to prayer from different mosques nearby. One has to be maybe a quarter mile away, it’s so loud. It’s wonderful :) We also live fairly close to the Baha’i Center, which I really want to check out sometime. Baha’is are like the UUs of the middle east, in a sense, so that’s awesome. And for those of yall who are as worried as my mother (love you!), we have a security guard and a gated, glass shard encrusted, walled off compound, so we’re safe. Stop worrying.

So the house! It has a big open living room/dining room/kitchen area, spare room which currently holds our shoes, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a balcony. The balcony looks out over this gorgeous view of several hills and neighborhoods. We’re hoping to get a good sunrise or sunset in soon :) It’s all furnished, so we have a tv, dvd player, fridge, oven, stove, a table, chairs, couches, beds, and bedding. It’s basically heaven. And my bed is super comfy. And I have my own bathroom. It’s incredible.

We’re definitely enjoying cooking for ourselves too. So far, we’ve made coffee, tea, omelets, toast, rice, green beans and carrots with angel sauce (what we’ve taken to calling this peanut-tomato sauce), and green plantain chips. I’m making stir fry tonight because, guess what—I found tofu!!! That’s right. Dream protein in Rwanda. I’m super excited. It’s at Simba in the produce section just in case anyone else is interested.

My helpers taught me how to cook last week, which was great. We made matoke (green plantains), tomato and peanut sauce, rice, ugali (corn flower and water cooked into a really thick…mound, for lack of a better word), and…maybe something else. Cooking in Rwanda makes me realize how many cooking tools we have in America. Here, a knife suffices for pretty much everything—peeling, slicing, chopping, dicing, everything. The part that took the longest though was definitely grinding the peanuts for the sauce. We used this giant mortar and pestle, crushed them for a few minutes, poured them over a sieve, sifted out the powder, poured the rest back, and crushed them again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Several, several times. But it was all delicious and so definitely worth it. 

Commemoration Week

So, I suppose I finally ought to post about this. Commemoration week marks the first 7 days of the genocide that occurred here in 1994. Of course, I'm officially supposed to call it "the genocide against the Tutsi," but I really hate sounding like I'm overlooking the fact that thousands of others were killed as well, so I'll find other ways to say it. The government *really* doesn't like you to deviate from their official version of history (read they'll accuse you of genocide denial and throw you in jail), so I'll try not to say too much about that til I'm back in America (you're welcome). Anyway, so commemoration week began on Saturday, April 7th. The Thursday and Friday before that, I noticed a lot of Peace Corps. volunteers leaving for their vacation time, which I thought was weird since they'd be leaving for one of the most defining weeks in Rwanda commemorating the most defining time in recent history. But now I understand. It's quite possibly the most ostracizing week a foreigner could experience in Rwanda.

On Saturday, my parents went to the stadium for the big remembrance ceremony. I almost went, but ended up waking up too late (plus I was a little discouraged given that it would all be in Kinyarwanda and I had just survived my mom's graduation ceremony). Later that afternoon, Ben, my brother Omar, and I went to the Walk to Remember  (not to be confused with the movie like I did)--a youth led walk from parliament to the stadium where more commemoration ceremonies took place. Thus begins my experience of feeling completely inadequate and out of place. We met up with the bazungu (the other SIT group here) and basically spent the entire walk catching up with them. Terribly inappropriate, I felt, but we hadn't seen each other in forever, and it was kind of awkward otherwise. At the stadium, we all sat together (a group of muzungus in a sea of Rwandans) and listened to the speeches and songs all in kinyarwanda, of course. I really felt that the language barrier was a huge inhibitor of us being able to truly grasp the magnitude of what was going on. Because we couldn't understand, we just sat there with our lit candles and played with the dripping wax until the one song in English caught our attention. It was this really mournful solo performed by this one guy calling out "no more genocide" over and over again. That was when I finally felt like I could grasp a fragment of the sadness of that week. Shortly thereafter, a lady started having a breakdown somewhere behind us. A bunch of ushers at the ready for instances like this, apparently, came and brought her down, gave her some water, and comforted/restrained her as best they could. Apparently this happened all over the stadium. In a country where so many people lived through so many horrific and traumatic events (to put it academically and abstractly), I could only imagine this being commonplace this week. Apparently hospitals are just clogged this week with people suffering from trauma.

And then Sunday was Easter. Talk about awkward. From what I gather, Easter is not a big deal in Rwanda. And even the small big deal that it could be is more than trumped by commemoration week. My family didn't even go to church together. I went with my sisters to English/American church, and it was kind of awkward for them to be playing such upbeat music with drums and guitars during such a somber week. That's not really supposed to happen. But it was Easter, I guess. They did talk about commemoration week and about the genocide though. And they worked the themes of death and rebirth into the sermon, linking the Easter story and the genocide. It was interesting.

During the week that week, work was the same. Life still goes on for the babies, I guess. The most noticeable differences were on my off hours. There are billboards up all over the city displaying the theme for commemoration week, "Learning from our past to build a bright future," and all the cafes and bars were playing either the news, commemoration events, or commemoration songs. That's right, genocide songs. During the genocide itself, there were pro-genocide songs. Now, there are unity, reconciliation, and commemoration songs. Music videos too, by the way. This country loves its music videos (your music is of no value here unless it's in video form), and apparently commemoration week is no exception. They're...interesting. They show the memorials, young people singing, skulls and bones, burial sites, etc. They were definitely sad. It was almost a relief to have them gone and replaced with the typical top 40 videos and Rwandan music videos (they're a whole 'nother post) the next week. That's all that was playing on the radio too. There's this one song that we dubbed the genocide anthem that played all the time. Again, these songs and videos probably would have had a much more profound impact on us were we able to understand, but because we can't, they unfortunately have no significance to us other than what we can ascribe to them given what we know of history and remembrance. It's terrible, but it's unfortunately true. We cannot relate to what these people have gone through at all, and so we're just left sitting here feeling inadequate and knowing that we should probably be sadder than we are.

My siblings, at least the younger ones, don't like this week. As my younger sister put it, "I hate memory genocide :(" Smiley (frowny?) added for effect. The kids all get that week and the following week off, but that week is filled with an imposed sadness, no music (top 40 music is their life, yall), and nothing to do (since you're not supposed to do fun things that week). And it's all about a history they know but never lived. I'm not sure how my two oldest siblings feel about it. I figured out that my sister was 4 years and my brother, 4 months. They lost their parents and now live with my parents, who are really their aunt and uncle. My brother knows no different really, and he loves his now parents and calls them mom and dad. My sister on the other hand, I don't know. It's not the sort of conversation you just strike up (especially given that I rarely see her), but I do know that she's rebellious by my parents' definition (just another contemporary 20 something by mine) and she never comes home.

I don't really know what happened to my family exactly. I know my dad was in Uganda (presumably meaning his parents fled an earlier "mini-genocide" in the 60s or 70s) and that my mom was living south of here near Butare and lost everyone but her sister (whom I've met and who has a deep machete scar on her forhead. There's also another guy from my dad's church that has a machete scar across one of his eyes from his forehead to his cheek. Evidence is everywhere). But that's all I have, really.

I don't know. It was an awkward, interesting, and alienating week. It's just so interesting/crazy to walk by people walking around with machetes (to cut the grass or something) and think that just 18 years ago, they would have been going to kill someone, to walk by a church everyday and think "oh, a massacre happened there" as people go in to pray, to go to a conference at the Mille Colline (Hotel Rwanda) and enjoy how nice it is, to read books referencing where something happened in 1994 and thinking "oh, yeah, I know where that is. I've been there." It's just...an odd time in Rwanda.

Mom's graduation and life in the meantime

So, a few weeks ago, my mom graduated from ULK--Kigali Independent University (why they retain the French acronym and use the English full title is beyond me) along with...I don't know...maybe 2,000+ other people? About as many as I graduated from high school with, right? Only in high school, they didn't have scheduled arrival times for different sorts of guests spaced half an hour apart, nor did they have several never ending speeches. In short, it was not six hours long. I, like any good American child, brought a book and my iphone for entertainment. My siblings? They brought a can of pringles and a box of biscuits (cookies). Rwandan children are apparently expected to fend for themselves in any and all things. My siblings don't have any toys or books at home (unless you count the xbox...for real. And the books I assume one of them borrows from school), so entertainment consists of beating each other up (like any good Rwandan/Ugandan child), whining, asking for my computer, or talking non-stop. Ahem, 7 year-old. And so this is basically how the ceremony went. For six hours. There were two other muzungus sitting near me (a nun and some dude), and both brought books with them. We were the only ones that did so, and lord did they come in handy. Something about our raising, I guess. Lord help these kids if they ever have to go on a long car/plane ride...

So anyway, after the ceremony, we took pictures then headed back home for the party. My mom's graduation (oh, by the way, she studied Administrative Sciences, or something of the like) party basically consisted of moving the living room furniture out into the front yard, surrounding that with lawn chairs, and then sitting there for hours as people gave speeches and gifts to my mom. And sang and danced. Even my 21 year old sister who never comes home was there with her friends. Birthdays aren't really that big of a deal here, so i assumed graduations wouldn't be either. Just kidding. I went to bed before everything even finished. I go to bed at 10 here, it's crazy. Anyway, we had a first round of starches (lunch) when we got home and a second round (dinner) half way through the speeches. They brought in extra helpers and made (super super fresh) chicken. Pretty sure I saw almost the entire transition from a bunch of chickens running around the back yard to pans full of chicken waiting to be eaten. Me? I ate fries and matoke. Nom. And of course, Fanta. What special occasion would be complete without fanta?

That aside, I've just been feeling really homesick lately. It comes and goes, and right now it's gone, which is nice. Sometimes, I'm glad to be here, to take the bus, to live with a family. Sometimes, it doesn't bother me at all when people stare at me or say muzungu (like when I had a herd of small children follow me through Nyarutarama (this fancy neighborhood) for about 10 minutes trying to give me flowers and profess their love for me. They learn early). But there are also some days when I just can't handle it and I'll stop dead in my path and stare back at someone til they look away, mouth "what??" to the dude across the aisle at church who has stared at me for HALF AN HOUR STRAIGHT, laugh at the kids who ask me for bon-bons, quip back to the young guys who go "we, muzungu!" that "my name is not muzungu." Or even better--the guy that fell down the hill, stood up, and told me that I was sexy, to which I replied "that's a really rude thing to say to me when you don't even know me." Not that they can understand my words, but hopefully the disgust translates well. And really, at that point, I don't care to speak Kinyarwanda. Though, it's funny. Just when I'm feeling as out of place as can be, I'll walk into an alimentation, carry on a short greeting conversation in Kinyarwanda, then ask for what I want, and the Rwandans there are just blown away that I can speak so much Kinyarwanda and I've only been there three months! It's pretty funny. And I feel like I hardly speak any at all. The two year olds at work speak more than I do. But really, three months is enough. I'm ready to go home. Yeah, it's hitting me that we only really have a month and a half left and that we're moving out of our host homes next weekend (fleedommmmm!!!) and that we still haven't been on more than one big trip while here, but honestly, I'm ready to go home. I'm sure I'll miss it once I'm back, but right now... The other group is only here for 3 months and they did their homestays for about 2 months as opposed to our 3. We each think the other has the better program, but honestly, 3 months sounds great for me.

Oh well. In the meantime, thank god for pringles and snickers. And Mr. Chips and the crazy awesome american dude that runs the place.

Oh, also, it's memorial week here. Genocide memorial week. I plan on writing about that once the week is over. It's been an interesting experience.