Chapter 6: In which Roberta is stabbed and Chris Doesn't help

We had three days in Kigali before our swearing-in ceremony in which we were able to purchase any items we would need in our new house and explore the city. We were each given about $400 by the Peace Corps in order to furnish our house with. All the furniture volunteers have must be made by local carpenters since there are no real furniture stores, and this can get pretty expensive. We managed to save a hefty chunk of change due to the fact that we each got the move-in allowance and all the furniture we purchased would be shared between us.

The night before our ceremony, at around midnight, I got up to use the bathroom. I was on the top bunk and as I climbed down the ladder my foot accidentally stepped on a book which was on Chris' pillow (a biography of John Adams), and my foot slipped off the book and down into a box of items which we had purchased that day; it included knives. I screamed for help, no one moved. Everyone in the room was in a deep slumber. I kept yelling and screaming, “There is a hanger through my foot!! Someone help me!!!” At that point I was still half asleep myself and the only metal thing that I could think of that might have been able to puncture my foot was an old rusty hanger from the market that the salesman let me have with a dress that I bought earlier that day. It felt like ages before someone actually helped me.

Scott ran over and informed me that it wasn't a hanger and that a steak knife had gone through my foot and was still dangling from it. He quickly pulled it out and he and Ashley lowered me to the floor. Ciara rubbed my hair and called me “baby girl,” Caitlin forced a delicious blue lollipop into my mouth, Amanda told me a story from her past about her cousin and a golf cart, and Aaron finally woke up. All this time I had been asking desperately for Chris, people had been running around looking for him. Where was he???

About 10 minutes (or more) after the knife initially went through my foot, my dear husband casually strolled in to see what the commotion was all about. After letting him assess the situation, me on the floor, the room covered in blood, and 30 people crowding around the scene, I asked him in my delirium “Where were you?? I needed you and you weren't here”. “I don't want to tell you,” he responded. It was soon revealed that he was taking advantage of the western toilets, while playing Jetpack Joyride on his phone, while listening to The Decemberists with his headphones in. About an hour later, the doctor arrived an tended to my wound.

Well, I ended up at Swear-in the next day with my foot bandaged and with a cane. I was very upset because I couldn't participate in the traditional dance, but at least I got some good pictures of Chris and the boys dancing. It has been about a month since my accident, and I am walking fine and don't even have to wear a bandage. My toe hurts if I put too much pressure on it in certain areas, but other than my scar I think I am healing just fine.

We moved into our new house in mid-December. As you may have read in our previous blogs, we are located in a town called Kirambo in the Burera District in northern Rwanda close to the Ugandan border. We have two buildings, one has two bedrooms and a living room, the other has the kitchen, shower room and latrine. Unfortunately, we do not have running water so no showers or toilet for us; however, we do have a spigot of water next to our home so we don't have to fetch water. We live inside a gated compound that has two other houses besides ours. Next to our house is a pen where cows are kept. We live right next to the school which is very convenient, but the market, church, and other stores are a 30 min walk into town.

Chris and I decided that we would like to host Christmas this year because we love the holiday and knew that people, being far away from their families, would probably enjoy being with others rather than alone. We bought a tiny artificial tree in Kigali along with some decorations and made our house as Christmasy as we could. Eight other volunteers arrived at our home on the 23^rd of December. We squished them all into our spare room and thankfully, everyone fit. On the 24^th, we all pitched in and made a delicious breakfast and watched a few Christmas movies. We spent our evening cooking and celebrating with each other. I was very pleased to find out that there is a hotel/ranch in Uganda where a person can ride an ostrich. I have wanted to ride an Ostrich ever since I was little and watched Disney's version of “The Swiss Family Robinson” in which Ernst rides one in a race. I am trying to convince Chris to take me Uganda for our 3^rd wedding anniversary in August so I can ride one.

Christmas day was very fun! Chris and I had some wrapped presents that were sent to us from his parents so we had some real gifts to open. I gave Chris some “James Bond” novels and he gave me a skirt, earrings, chocolate. Chris and I secretly prepared stockings for all of our guests which had chalk for school, some candies, stickers, and a crossword puzzle. Everyone was happy they had a little something to open. Afterword, we had a white elephant gift exchange and then walked into town for a Christmas dinner of rabbit and chicken.

Most of our guests left the next day, but we all met up again in Nyrangarama for New Year's Eve. Nyrangarama is the site of another volunteer who lives about a 40 min car ride away. Her site is actually a bus stop/motel owned by Rwandan entrepreneur Sina Gerard. He has created many products from bottled water to wine to hot sauce. Well, Mr. Gerard happens to be the founder of the school where our friend works at and he invited our whole group to bring in the New Year with him and all his employees in a very large hall he has on his premises. At the party, there was traditional dancing (Chris got called up to dance in front of everyone at one point), speeches, and a televised broadcast of President Kagame at midnight followed by a feast that ended at 2 am.

Things settled down, and on January 6^th the new school year officially began. Most of the students, and some of the teachers, didn't show up. I will normally teach 14 hours a week but I only taught five the first week. Our headmaster is very excited to have us here, we are the first volunteers from Peace Corps in this district. He and the academic master of our school are making all teachers meetings in English and creating mandatory English training for teachers every week after school. I think this is great!!! They have also requested that I get a hymnal from America and that Chris and I teach them English parts of mass and songs so they can present an English mass to the public within this year. I believe Chris and I are very lucky to be stationed here because we have heard that some volunteers have headmasters that are not too eager to change or collaborate with them.

Some ideas we have for secondary projects that will will start later this year after we are comfortable teaching are to help get an English mass at the Catholic Church we attend, to start a Debate Club that will challenge the schools of our fellow volunteers in the north, to introduce a competitive Ultimate Frisbee league, to start a Board Game Club, start a cooperative bakery, or help with the already established Environmental Club. We have many ideas, what we will do really depends on the wants and needs of our community and what we will have the capability to do with our limited resources.

Chapter 5: In which Chris and Roberta finish training.

At about a month and a half into our training we took our "Mid-LPI" which was just testing how much Kinyarwanda we learned. Berta placed high enough to where she already surpassed the required proficiency level, I scored just under the level. This was encouraging for both of us since Roberta was already passing and I was very close. Additionally during my LPI I was asked "what is Geology?" so a part of my lower score was my inability to describe the field of geology with my conversational Kinyarwanda. from that point on we had about two more weeks of language before we started our model school. This was a two weekend school simulation where children who wanted a little extra practice in English would come and pretend to learn. This went very successfully and I managed to teach my students some phrasal verbs such as "To throw up" and "To hang out." I was particularly pleased when I learned that in the class following mine, when the students were asked to describe good teachers/students; they responded with "Good students do not make out in class" and "Good teachers kick butt." My work in Rwanda is complete.

After that we spent the last few weeks learning a few more things and preparing to leave our training village. Several of us (ie Dance Team) chose to learn the traditional Rwandan cow dance. This was made especially interesting because it seemed as if each of our instructors had a different idea as to how the steps were to be performed. Basically there was a lot of information and opinions being thrown around and it was up to us to decide which one to follow. after about one hour (over the course of three days) of practice we performed our dance at the "Host Family Farewell." This was essentially saying thanks to all the families for hosting and/or putting up with us. After that we took our Final LPI that both Roberta and I passed with minimal trouble. In fact, as it turns out everybody in our group managed to pass the final test. One of the preparations I took was to get my hair cut at the local Saloon. (They add an extra O to the word salon here I guess) It took about two hours and the coiffure buzzed the sides of my head and didn't touch the top of my head except for a circle right on my forehead that he shaved very short. I feel that I can say with out a hint of hyperbole that this was the worst haircut that I have ever had. Luckily with the help of a fellow trainee, we were able to even things out and make me look at least a little bit presentable. Finally the day came where we were to move all of our stuff back to the Peace Corps hub where we had been learning about teaching, the peace corps, etc. After piling all of our things into the back of a truck and loading into a bus we were on our way to Kigali for or swearing-in ceremony.

Welcome back! We would like to to tell you all about the holidays that we have celebrated so far in Rwanda. After we came back from our site visit, October had arrived and all of the trainees were excited about the prospects of a Halloween Party. First though, I knew that I would have to have some sort of celebration for Chris' birthday on the 27^th. Our friends Scott and Amanda had found some birthday hats, candles, and what they thought was silly string but ended up being “fake snow” at a store on their way back from site visit. They brought it to my attention that it would only be fitting to throw Chris a surprise party since he is friends with almost everyone in our group. We knew it would be, difficult to plan, because I rarely was away from him. When the day came, Chris woke up and was a little bit sad because it would be his first birthday without a celebration, or so he thought. He put on his nicest clothes just to make the day a little more special and I even polished his shoes. While Scott and Amanda got everything ready at Peace Corps, I arranged for our friend Aaron to call up Chris and ask us to meet at the bar for an afternoon of boardgames. We met Aaron, ate brochettes, and played “Kill Dr. Lucky” and “Elder Sign.” Aaron then made up an excuse that he had to go to the hub to pick something up, so of course we went along. When we arrived, almost all the trainees were there for the party wearing hats and singing “Happy Birthday.” Scott and Amanda had even baked the cookie into the shape of Rwanda. Everyone was glad to get a small taste of home, and Chris had a great birthday after all! Anyone who knows me knows that I can't tell lies or keep secrets; I was so proud of myself because I think this was the first time in my life when I legitimately surprised my husband.

A week later, we celebrated Halloween! Chris was in charge of the music and he put together a playlist that included “Elvira's Halloween Party,” “Swingin' at the Seance,” and really any song that was even remotely halloweeny. We had “bobbing for oranges”, face painting, pumpkin carving, very cute costumes and decorations which were made out of paper. Scott and I made a pumpkin pie from scratch using the scrap eye and mouth pieces from the jack-o-lanterns as a trial run for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was our largest holiday we celebrated during training. Everyone signed up for different food preperation duties. The day before, we sent a group of trainees to Kigali to purchase the supplies. That afternoon, we killed 8 turkeys (Chris killed a huge white one) and we started preparing them in brine. That night, Scott and I baked 10 pumpkin pies and the Turkey killing crew put the turkeys in a pit at about 2 am. The next morning, all the volunteers came and we started cooking mashed potatoes, banana bread, mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, apple crisp, deviled eggs, and green beans. It was so delicious and everyone had a lot of fun. Some of the volunteers made decorations and headbands for the rest of us. I am particularly pleased that now Chris knows how to kill and clean a bird, so now our holidays will be a little more special.

Chapter 1: In which the Connors Get to Rwanda (Barely)

So here is the missing first chapter that was having uploading issues last time I tried


Welcome back everyone. At this time Roberta and I are stationed with our host family in the Kamonyi region of Rwanda. We are situated on top of a mountain and it is one of the loveliest sights I have seen. I'll get back to all that later, right now though I'll go through our ordeal in getting to where we are now.

We set off early in the morning from Ashland and after swinging through McDonald’s for one last breakfast burrito we were on our way. It started to rain after we had been on the road for a while but cleared up as we arrived in Duluth, MN This is where the trouble began. After Saying our goodbyes to Roberta's mother and grandfather, we checked our bags in and waited for our flight to O'Hare and then on to Washington DC. Duluth is not a terribly big airport and so we were privy to the functions of the other Airlines. Due to the fog that had been left by the rain the Delta flight in front of our had been canceled. However our flight was still scheduled to go. A little while after that it was stated that it was delayed. Then, about 6 hours later it was finally canceled and we were forced to hire a taxi to ship us out to the nearest hotel. So instead of arriving in DC around 4:00 and having a wonderful night, we were in the airport Econolodge. We did, however, have a fairly nice time, we ordered pizza and watched an exceptionally strange movie that was entirely instrumental and featured a sailor dancing with Arabian themed cartoons. After waking up at 4:00 AM and arriving at the airport, we were told our new flight had again been canceled due to the fog. So then, after talking to the government travel agency, we were told we had to find a way to get to Minneapolis which was about 3 hours away. So it looked as if we would have to hire a taxi that would have cost about $300. Luckily enough, while waiting for the taxi to arrive, we, along with another couple, were able to hitch a ride to Minneapolis with another displaced traveler. As it turns out he was actually driving a company car so he wouldn't accept any payment from us.

The trip down was enjoyable, and as soon as it opened we called the Peace Corps to tell them we would be arriving late for our staging event. As soon as we arrived in Minneapolis we ran as fast as our little feet would carry us and were able to find a plane bound for DC. This plane actually managed to take off and we were soon in our nation's capitol. We quickly collected our luggage, hired a taxi, checked in at the hotel and ran to the Peace Corps Staging event. We only arrived about an hour late, and managed to get most of the important information. I suppose I don't really know what we missed, so I choose to believe this. Afterword we ate dinner at the Chipotle and went back to the hotel to change. We then wandered around until we ran across a CVS, where we bought some stamps, and returned to the hotel where we watched little television before we retired for the night. The next morning we hit up the post office before boarding a buss and heading to the Dulles international airport. We had thought that we were finished with airport shenanigans, however, we were wrong.

After arriving at the airport, handing out our snazzy new official Peace Corps Passports (which look just the same as a regular passport, but who's keeping track?) we piled into line. And found out that in addition to the stipulation that our checked bags needed to be fifty pounds or less, our carry-ons had to be 25 pounds or less in total as well. Luckily we were able to jam most everything into on of our carry-ons that was now becoming a checked bag. We managed to meet the surprise criteria and even managed to have enough room to help out the other married couple get their bags evened out. Some folks were not so lucky and had to pay large sums of money to the Royal Dutch Airlines.

This was my first time spending upwards of sixteen hours on a plane, which wasn't that terrible. On the flight up there I listened to Picture of Dorian Grey and watched the second Ip Man film (In which Ip Man shows the Britts who's boss). On the second half of the trip I finished up Dorian Grey and slept/watched Django Unchained. Eventually we arrived in Kigali not too worse for the wear. I'll stop talking now since this is fairly long. Eventually we will upload more but I make no promises as to when that will be as our internet situation is kind of spotty.

Chapter 3: In which the Connors visit their school

Hello again, hopefully I will be able to adequately sum up what has happened in the last month and a half. From where we last left off, we were studying kinyarwanda and learning how to be teachers. At about week we got to visit the site that we will be living and working for the next two years. We started off by going to the Supervisors Conferance in Muhonga which was a little west of where we we living. We got to stay in a nice hotel with running water. We we very excited to take a hot shower, but unfortunately the shower was exceptionally cold. We managed to make due with the bathtub hand held shower thingy which was warm to slightly hot. It did however end up spraying funny colored water all over our bathroom, which over the course of the few nights we were there, slowly crept into our bedroom. Later we met with our future headmaster, Evariste. He seems very nice and enthusiastic about having us at our school, Group Escolere Jean De La Mennais. The meeting was long and mostly for our Rwandan bosses, strangely enough there was a forty-five minute discussion about what to do if our students believe that they have been bewitched (The solution is to get some old witchy-looking lady to say that she un-cursed them). Us, and four of our friends played Dungeons and Dragons that night, because we are the cool kids.

After the conference Evariste took us up to visit our site and our school. We are in the Burera District which will be re-named “New Wisconsin” as Four out of the five PCVs in the area are from the good old Badger State. The closest town that would be on a map is called Karimbo, additionally we are between Butaro (Where the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation built a giant hospital) and Base where we will probably be buying lots of things we can't find in Kirambo. It rains a lot due to us living in the rainforest and if the sun isn't shining it's wonderful sweater weather. While we were there we stayed at the local Parish with the priests and monks. It was wonderful as they had just refurbished the place so we had a very nice room. There cook was wonderful and we got to eat food that was different than just beans and rice. In between visiting the school the monks showed us around the compound and Berta stated that she thought the bunnies were cute. The Priest heard this and so the next night we ate those bunnies that Berta had pointed out. I suppose there might have been something lost in translation there.

The school was very nice as well, we have a small library and a copy machine (which is a rarity in Rwanda). G.S Jean De La Mennais is right next to the local teaching college, which is run by the same order that was giving us room and board. Evariste had work to do, so it fell to Brother Phillipe to show us around the school. There is a choir that wants Berta to teach English songs to them, an English club that we will probably be in charge of further down the road, and various other clubs that we might grab the reigns for. All in all we had a very good visit and are excited to return permanently in December.

Getting back to our host family was eventful. We had been toying with the idea of meeting up with our fellow colleagues who live fairly close to us. We would have had to go Musanze which was a little out of our way but too terrible. So we left for Base early in the morning by taxi. When we reached Base our driver lept out of the car bought us tickets for Kigali and shoved us onto a buss. Aparently our headmaster had givin him directions to get us on our way. So we reached Kigali very early, ate our lunch of boiled lungs at “Mama Boy”, got hot and board and decided to leave for our host family. Unfortunately the term I was told for our region was not correct and so we got a little unexpected buss tour of Kigali until we arrived right at the same buss station that we had left. This had taken enough time that now our friends were getting into the city as well. So we spent most of the rest of the day and a coffee shop/restaurant. We were out on a balcony when it began to rain, so the staff put several tables together and had us all sit in the parking garage. It was strange and very fume-y but we had hamburgers and all was well. We eventually tried to get back to our town which ended with us all in a “twege.” The term Twege comes from the verb “To Squeeze” which is exactly what one does in the things. For some reason (ie. Rwanda) we were sitting in the buss and the buss station for about 45 minutes while peddlers tried to sell us underwear, biscuits, somebodies passport, a book about rape, fruit, and a wire with about twenty phone chargers taped to the end. After the driver finally showed up, and we were on our way. Unfortunately to trunk kept popping open which put all of our bags in danger of spilling out onto the road. We finally managed to get home safely with all of our things still in the trunk.

Chapter II: In which the Connors get adopted and bid farewell to flush toilets

This actually skips forward a little bit as I am having issues uploading the part of my blog that details getting from Wisconsin to Rwanda. Hopefully, this is acceptable. we will upload that when we can.

Once we arrived in Kigali, we made our way through customs, and were met by Peace Corps Rwanda staff.  We all climbed on a bus and were transported to the Peace Corps Transit house.  The compound (and compound is as accurate a description as any due to the high walls and armed guards) contains a few bunk-beds and our last chance to enjoy western toilets, though we were warned “to be gentle with them”.  After we were fed and sent to bed, we found out we would have to share the bottom bunk due to lack of spaces.  We spent two days at the Transit House, getting shots, filling out paperwork, buying cell phones and setting up our back accounts, I took the opportunity to buy a small jug of yogurt and Berta bought salt and vinegar chips (which, sadly, ended up exploding all over the floor before they could be devoured).  Then, we all hopped in the bus again for the Kamonyi District where we would meet our host families.  

            There are 34 people in our Education 5 group and with the exception of married couples we each have a different host family.  Chris and I are only a 5 minute walk from the “Peace Corps Hub” where our group meets a few days a week for teacher training, safety and security lessons, and other general information.  Some other folks aren't as lucky and have to be bussed in on school days.  Our family has electricity 24/7, however many of our friends do not so they have to charge electronics at friends homes or at the hub. 

           Our Kinyarwanda language classes have been going well.  Our language training is very intense as there are only two or three students per class with one teacher and sometimes these last for eight hours.  Chris and I have different teachers and it is obvious that his class learns faster than mine because his class is ahead of the rest of ours even though all teachers are supposed to be teaching the same lesson every day.  Chris loves using the language at home and our family loves it!!  However, because Chris tries to speak and I do not, they have the impression I don't speak at all or do not understand them.  I just usually have nothing to say.  Also, our host parents speak French which is confusing because sometimes when we ask them questions, they respond in french and we think they are speaking kinyarwanda; then we go to school and our teacher tells us we have been learning vocabulary in french not kinyarwanda.  And sometimes our family just speaks in French/Kinyarwanda so we really don't know what is going on.

              The people here are very nice and welcoming, they always have time to chat or at least say hello.  The children really like to talk to us, they constantly are asking what our names are and fist bumping; they also ask for money I wonder how often that works for them. Today I passed a child and she was so scared of me she started crying.  Children also like to touch our skin and hair because it looks different. In church the kids will flock to you and fight for who gets to sit next to you.  Every day you will see children wandering the streets alone; it is very common for adults to leave children at home while they are at work, even if they are only 4 or five years old.  Usually it is the responsibility of the eldest daughter to take care of the younger children during the day.  The host family we live with does not have any little kids.  We live with Papa Francois, Mama Bernilde, and their daughter Rosine.  They have 6 other children but none of them live at home, some are grown and some are at a boarding school. 

             Our diet here varies little.  Everyday we eat rice and beans but it is always accompanied by at least one other item.  We have eaten fried potatoes, fried plantains, meat in tomato sauce and green beans and carrots.  There is not anything really sweet here besides Orange Fanta and Coke.  It you want to find things like potato chips, candy, or chocolate you have to go to a large city like the capital, Kigali.  There are two types of locally brewed beers one is named Primus and the other is Turbo King.  Chris likes Turbo King “Inzoga y'abagabo” (The Beer of Men) mainly due to the fact that it is named Turbo King, it tastes good too by the way..  We have also heard a story that Turbo King has such a high alcohol content that when it was made in larger bottles like Primus is it would tend to give people alcohol poisoning.  Therefore, Turbo King launched an advertising campaign promoting their new, smaller bottles that wouldn't make you end up in the hospital. We'll stop here for now and hope we can find a way to upload this in a timely manner.

       Feel free to ask us any questions in the comments section of our blog and we will do our best to answer them to the best of our ability as our internet connection allows.

Prologue:

In which Christopher tests his blog.

 

 

Welcome everybody, to the start of our blog detailing our adventures as Peace Corps volunteers in the African nation of Rwanda. After leaving my hometown of Genoa City, Wisconsin a little more than a week ago, Roberta and I hauled a large portion of our earthly belongings up to the lovely Ashland, Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior. We have had a wonderful time saying goodbye to her many family members.

Due to severe procrastination on my part, I am only now creating the blog. But honestly, can I be blamed when the siren call of Minecraft lures me away from other pursuits? It looks as if we will be heading out the airport in Duluth, MN bright and early tomorrow morning. Berta and I need to get our beauty sleep. I will try to post again from the prestigious Holiday Inn Central/White House.