Sunburns and dirt tan lines

So, Butare has been quite an experience. It’s a fairly small city by American standards, but it’s a college town and a major city in the area, so it’s pretty nice. Except for the lack of free wifi or functional internet cafes. A week without internet has been interesting. I’ll probably camp out at Bourbon for a day when I get back (which is probably when I’ll post this!).

One of the highlights of this week since my last post was visiting the artificial forest and the fish farm at the university. The forest is artificial because it was planted back in the 30s instead of grown wild, but I could hardly tell. It was absolutely gorgeous. The trees were super tall, and every once in a while, we’d run into students just camped out on a fallen tree or blanket just studying. Seemed like a great place to do so. The walk through the forest took about an hour, then we got to the fish farm. Bosco, the Rwandan with us (because otherwise we’re just lost muzungus) had to do some negotiating to get us in, but eventually with the promise of a few thousand francs, they let us in and showed us around. They had pond after pond of fish in murky water, a stable of pigs, hutches of rabbits, and cows. We were trying to figure out how ethical/humane the whole place was (I mean, I can give the American vegan campaign against it no problem, but this is Africa, and we were trying to think in that context). It was interesting. The pigs smelled terrible, but they had their own stalls, which were clean. Must just be smelly animals. Anyway, we walked back home, which took about another hour, and I’m pretty sure I took the best shower of my life—even with the complete lack of water pressure.

You end up getting really dirty here in Butare. There is dust and dirt everywhere, buses and motos stirring up dust, and plenty of dirt and cobblestone roads, so by the end of the day my shoes and feet are five shades darker. Not to mention my jeans, you really can’t get multiple wears out of them here. They get dirty so quickly.

Today (Friday), we had my two favorite lectures so far—one on theater and drama in Rwanda, and one on traditional and contemporary music in Rwanda. Both of the instructors were really great and interesting, unlike some of our lecturers here. Then we saw a traditional dance group and the only all-female drumming group in Rwanda perform, and then we had both a dance and drumming workshop with the leaders! The drumming I picked up pretty quickly (we did Rwandan, Senegalese, and Burundian beats), but the dancing was a lot harder than I thought. American bodies are just trained to move so differently. But it was a lot of fun :) Tonight, we’re going to watch a hip hop group from the university perform, and then tomorrow we head back to Kigali.

We also finally got all of our paper assignments (further proof that I do actually go to school here), and it looks like I have plenty to keep me busy.

Oh, also, there’s an ice cream place here. It’s affordable and amazing. And we had grilled cheese for breakfast. You really just miss the simplest foods when you’re so far away.