Update

Wow, it’s been awhile! Life at site has been keeping me pretty busy recently. My time is mainly divided between working at my official job and trying to integrate into my community.

Most of my work is done in other sectors, which means I get to travel around the district a lot. I haven’t left Rwanda yet, but I’ve seen both Uganda and Tanzania! I mostly go to cooperative meetings and to health outreach trainings. Many of the cooperatives are just getting started, so we’re helping them conduct elections and set their procedures. Soon, they’ll start working more on income-generating activities and on micro-savings and micro-lending, which I’m really excited about. The health outreach trainings are mainly for Community Health Workers, religious leaders, and youth who have been chosen to work as peer educators. The trainings teach them about AIDS prevention, family planning, malaria prevention, water hygiene, and nutrition; provide them with resources; and, teach them how to educate others on health issues. I love that this project trains people to train others, because it will be more sustainable and have a bigger impact. My best day in the field so far was a at youth outreach event, which involved performances of traditional music and dance, football games for girls and boys, and speeches from youth on AIDS prevention.

I occasionally work in the office here in town, mostly on computer-related tasks that nobody else in my office can do [efficiently]. I’m trying to take those opportunities to teach my supervisor and other co-workers some computer skills that would be helpful for them. Hopefully, they’ll soon feel comfortable enough with computers that they won’t need my help any more. I’m a big believer that aid workers should aim to work themselves out of a job.

That about sums up my official job, which has been fine, but what’s been a lot more meaningful to me are the relationships I’m developing with people here. As my Kinyarwanda improves buhoro buhoro (little by little), I’m able to communicate a bit more with my neighbors, most of whom speak exclusively Kinyarwanda. But, sometimes I translate in my head things I say in Kinyarwanda. For example, my neighbor’s umukozi (housegirl) went to visit her family in her home village for a while and just returned. Wanting to say, “I’m happy you’re back,” I said, “Nishimiye wavuye hano” – “I’m happy you came here.” Only, I’m pretty sure that’s not grammatically correct, so it probably came across more like, “I is happy you came here.” Great.

Because religion is such a big part of the culture in Rwanda, like in most African countries, going to church is really important for integration. I’ve been going to the Presbyterian Church almost every Sunday and have made several good friends there. Last Sunday, the choir sang a song in English for me – I was so touched!

A lot of Peace Corps Volunteers barricade themselves alone in their houses as soon as it gets dark, which is around 6:00pm here. I did that for about a week before I got really bored and sick of being alone, felt unproductive, and realized I was missing out on a lot. I go out at night now, and it’s very liberating. Because so few people have electricity and there are so many fields, my neighborhood gets pitch dark, so I don’t really go wandering around alone at night. But, I go out with people whenever possible, go to the store across the street, visit my neighbors, and have people over. You can’t integrate when you’re spending 14 hours a day alone in your house, and I’m pretty sure it’s not healthy, so I’m feeling much freer and more social now.