The Last Two Months

Wow, I can’t believe I haven’t written anything in two months! I guess I’ve been pretty busy.

Here in Nyagatare, I’ve been working on lots of new projects since I got back from the U.S. in January. The water project at Saint Leonard is finished, and a new one at Groupe Scolaire Nyagatare is underway. There's also a shipment of books for Saint Leonard on the way from the Darien Book Aid Plan, and details are being finalized for a donation from the International Book Project, which will be for Groupe Scolaire Nyagatare and possibly a couple other schools. I’ve been teaching English at Saint Leonard for the past three months as well, though the schools are on vacation at the moment. At the end of the vacation, which will be in two weeks, I’ll resume teaching at Saint Leonard and will also start teaching part-time at Mary Hill Girls’ Secondary School. I enjoy teaching young students, but I’m really looking forward to working with the teenaged girls at Mary Hill. As this is the school’s first year, they have only Senior One (7^th grade), which is the first year of O-Levels, and Senior Four (10^th grade), the first year of A-Levels. And, there’s just 40 students, which is great, because it means I’ll actually be able to get to know each of the girls and see them all regularly.

Unfortunately, the past couple months hasn’t been all positive. Godfrey, one of my friends here, who was just 28, was killed in an accident at the end of February. He was hit by a car while driving a motorcycle on a dirt road outside of town, and then waited four hours at the local hospital for an ambulance to transfer him to Kigali. I attended the funeral, which took place two days later at his father’s house, about 30 minutes towards the Ugandan border from here. It wasn’t dramatically different from American funerals, other than that everyone just hung out, laughing, joking, and drinking Fanta, as though everything were completely normal, for a couple hours after the ceremony. Which brings me to a funny story.

The funeral took place in a rural area, so, of course, the sight of a muzungu caused quite a stir among the neighbors, namely the children (thankfully, I don’t think I was too much of a distraction during the actual ceremony, which I had been worried about). I was standing outside with a group of friends, and a mass of children eventually gathered to watch me. At one point, a friend of mine came up and put his arm around me, and the children screamed and said, “Aren’t you scared to touch a muzungu?” Of course, he said no, and then had them all shake my hand to show them I wasn’t scary. A little while later, they were still gathered, watching. Finally, my friend gave them money to go buy pineapples, and they ran away, ecstatic, faster than I’ve ever seen kids here run – and probably the only time I’ve seen kids run away from a muzungu. I guess pineapples are more exciting than bazungu.

At the other end of the life cycle, Rebecca, one of my neighbors, just had a baby. His name is Noah, and he’s about six weeks old now. As is customary, she left Nyagatare a few weeks before he was born and went to stay with her parents, who live an hour or so away. She came back with Noah (who, at that time, didn’t have a name) a few days later. The following Sunday, she and her husband held the kwita izina, traditional naming ceremony, at their house. Many of their friends gathered, ate dinner, drank Fantas, and chatted for awhile. Then, each person suggested names for the baby. Naming the children is the responsibility of the father so, at the end of the ceremony, Rebecca’s husband stood and announced the names he had chosen – Mugisha (the Kinyarwanda name) and Eric (the Christian name). However, Rebecca much preferred the name Noah, so now their baby has three names instead of the usual two, and people mostly call him Noah.

In other exciting news, my mom came to visit for two weeks!! She just left, and my house feels very empty right now. But, this update is long enough, so stories from her visit will have to wait until next time.