First Week at Site

Well, I’ve been in Nyagatare for just over a week now, so here are some first impressions and a look at what I’ve been doing.

As I mentioned before, my assigned organization is the Presbyterian Church of Rwanda. Here in Nyagatare, the church has three employees who do community development work – one in charge of health projects, one in charge of education-related projects, and one (who is officially my supervisor) in charge of cooperatives and business development. (In the complicated world of development aid, it’s sometimes kind of hard to know what exactly is going on. But, from what I can tell, the church’s education and business work is partially under a nation-wide USAID project, and the health projects are under Population Services International, a well-known NGO based in the U.S.) Anyway, I’ll be working with those three employees, as well as the church’s pastor.

Unfortunately, my house was not ready when I arrived last week. So, for the time being, I’m staying at the church’s guesthouse. But, I did get to see the house! Like many other Volunteers’ houses, it’s much bigger than I need. It has three bedrooms, along with a sitting room, a storage room, and (believe it or not!) an indoor bathroom (though I’m under the impression the water doesn’t actually run, so I’ll probably be getting most of my water from the communal spigot in my area). The kitchen building, along with a shower room and latrine, is out back. My favorite thing about the house is that the yard is filled with plants, flowers, and vegetable gardens! I really wanted to garden here, and, since I have no idea what I’m doing, I’m thrilled that I won’t have to start from scratch! Also, like many houses in Rwanda, mine is completely fenced in – I hate how things feel so closed and walled off in many parts of this country, but most Rwandans seem to think you’re only safe with a fence/gate surrounding your house. Anyway, staying at the guesthouse and having the opportunity to hang here has allowed me to meet with a lot of people, which has been great, but I’m anxious to move into my house and get settled!

Most of my time since I arrived in Nyagatare has been spent getting to know the town and making visits to other sectors (the administrative equivalent of counties, I guess, only much smaller). One day last week, we had some visitors, a couple from Switzerland, who were representing a church in Lausanne that has a partnership with the Presbyterian Church of Rwanda. I went along when my supervisor took them to visit a church and cooperative in a rural part of Gatsibo (the district south of here). We looked at their crops (evidently they were good – maybe someday I’ll be able to tell!) and talked to them about their women’s empowerment projects and income-generating activities.

Another day, I went to a very rural part of my district with one of my co-workers, the head of health projects, for a training session. He led the session, which was for half of that sector’s community health workers. (Every umudugudu– the smallest administrative division, which can essentially be a neighborhood in urban areas or a village in rural areas) – has at least three elected community health workers, including one male, one female, and another who focuses on maternal and child health. These workers are volunteers, and their main responsibilities are to treat very basic health problems and to conduct community-based health education programs. This idea of having health workers in ever area appears to be a really great idea, and it seems like more countries should adopt it.) Anyway, the training was on “Behavior Change Communication and Social Marketing,” a fancy term for health education and outreach. Basically, it was about how the community health workers can educate their people in their umudugudu about malaria prevention, HIV prevention, and water sanitation. The entire meeting took place in Kinyarwanda, which made it a difficult but very useful listening exercise!

Another recent outing was with Cecile, an agronomist from Rwanda’s Ministry of Agriculture, who regularly comes to Nyagatare for work. I met her while she was staying at the church’s guesthouse, and we quickly became friends. She invited me to accompany her on her inspections, so I tagged along and we went all over the district, inspecting crops and meeting with farmers.

When I’m not busy with other things, I spend most of my free time walking around town, greeting people, talking to anyone who’s interested in talking to me, and trying to become a familiar sight to people in my community. It’s been really great to meet people, and I’ve had some interesting conversations and gotten to practice a lot of Kinyarwanda and use some French. The day I arrived in Nyagatare, I was walking through town when a girl came up to me and said, “Hi. How are you? I’m Angela. What’s your name? I saw you, and you’re the only white person I’ve ever seen here, and I really like your pants, so I knew I had to talk to you.” (As a side note, I was wearing jeans, as was she, so I’m not sure why that was so interesting.) Anyway, she was extremely friendly, and we got along right away. It turns out she’s a student at the technical university here, so she took me back to the student-housing building she lives in and introduced me to her friends. We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting and getting to know each other, using (since some of the students are from Rwanda, but many are from Uganda or the DRC) a mix of Kinyarwanda, English, and French.

Since my primary responsibility as a Volunteer these first couple months is to integrate, get to know people, and assess my community, all this counts as me doing my job! It’s like taking three cups of tea.