From Rwanda to Montana

I was able to go home again for Christmas this year, and it was a tremendous blessing. Seeing family, friends, Ryan, and his family was wonderful, and it was especially great to reconnect with some friends I hadn’t seen in over two years.

Compared to when I went home last December, I felt less overwhelmed and was less shocked by the general living standards and the availability and variety of, well, everything. Part of this was definitely because, as the school year ended in late October, I had been away from Nyagatare more in the weeks leading up to my vacation. I’d spent more time than usual with other volunteers, speaking English and relaxing. I’d been in Kigali more, as well as in Gisenyi, and, because of that, had had more Western food than usual. On top of that, a few other general improvements have increased my standards a bit. I got more into cooking for myself last year, and have been eating better and healthier food in general. Internet access in Rwanda has improved over the past year, mainly due to affordable “unlimited” options now offered on modems. Plus, the Peace Corps office now has a hostel for Volunteers to stay at when we’re in Kigali, and it has hot showers. Apart from all that, I think going back and forth between the developing world and the developed one probably just gets a little bit easier each time. So, all in all, the U.S. was less of a shock to me than it was last year.

There were still plenty of things I had missed about the U.S., though, and the lessened shock in no way reduced my excitement. I thoroughly enjoyed every clean load of laundry, trip to the gym, trip to the bookstore, flushing toilet, spinach salad, vegetable pizza, peppermint mocha, glass of wine, glass of tap water, not to mention the consistent electricity, hi-speed Internet, unlimited text messages, and so on.

More than any of that, however, the most glorious part was that people didn’t scrutinize my every move. I wasn’t constantly ridiculed for trying to speak a foreign language. I didn’t get phone calls at midnight, or 3:00am, or 6:00am, and I didn’t get calls from people I don’t know (usually male) claiming they “want to be friends” or “need to discuss something.” People didn’t get mad at me if, heaven forbid, I happened to miss their phone call. Nobody watched to see what time I woke up or left my house in the morning, how much time I spent at home during the day, or what time I locked up for the night. Nobody went anyplace just to look at me, told another person to go anyplace just to look at me, or asked another person if they had gone someplace to look at me. For two weeks, I was able to relax and just…be.