They call me Mukundwa

Written May 9th

A little about my last week in Nyanza…
I celebrated a friend’s birthday at my other friends host family. We all went to their house together and taught them how to make grilled cheese and tomato soup. It was a really fun time but think they doubted how well it would turn out because on the side they also made beans and rice. Then later that week I had dinner with my host family. I hadn’t really spent as much time with them as I should have but they were a really awesome family and extremely nice but spoke no English so it was very difficult to communicate. I did find out however that the dad was a construction worker and also the boss of the village/umudugudu. The mother owned a fabric shop in town which I frequented a lot. They had 4 children but one I never met because I think she was at boarding school. I learned that the dad used to live in the area I am moving to before 1994 but everything was destroyed and he moved to Nyanza. This was all in Kinyarwanda and with actions so it was hard to handle and I can be sure before of the slashing actions he was showing me. I didn’t really know how to react to such a statement.
That night I got to cook dinner with them. I peeled potatoes, and tomatoes. Broke string beans, Cut potato’s simultaneously cutting my finger as well. So then I sat out on the rest but dinner was really good. We had cow meat, rice, fries, tomato sauce, green beans, and banana wine. They had me sit at a large table with me the father and mother. The kids had to sit outside and as far as I can tell they are only fed the left over’s. This does make me extremely uncomfortable but everyone says that’s how it is at their host families also so it’s just the norm here. A friends of the families came by and took like 15 photos of me eating. Then a few more with me posing with the family. They gave me a kinyarwandan name. Here it is tradition to after 10 days of birth to be given a name. Mine is now Mukundwa meaning peace. Then they gave me a gift. At first I thought it was fabric which is what I love so I was ecstatic. I took it out of the bag to find a dress that she had my umudosi make for me with the measurements she already had from the dress she made me before. It was super cute and I love it dearly. The next day we had tea and a goodbye ceremony with all of our host families. I got to wear the dress and I think that made my host parents very happy.