Cacahouette

During my first weekend at site I was lucky enough to be-friend some university students. It was right after finals when I moved in so many students were on their way home but some live in the town of the university. I was invited to attend the student genocide survivor’s end of the year event. I felt a little uncomfortable at first attending an event like this. I am not a survivor and I stick out like a sore thumb so everyone knows and wonders “why is the white girl here?” But it was not like that at all. The university students are all very nice. I didn’t even get called muzungu the entire day. (Reminder: muzungu means white person.) It was great, there were many speeches which got really boring after awhile but the people here love to talk. They even had a very well planned itinerary with the time each speaker was allowed to talk for. But I don’t understand the point because everyone talked well past their allotted time and the ceremony ended 3 hours after it was planned to end. But of course they feed us and gave us fanta (aka soda) so who am I to complain. After the ceremony the members got together and had a gift exchange. My friend kept asking me if we have this in America. He said they call it cacahouette which simply means gift exchange. After watching this for a while I realized they had done Secret Santa. They drew names out of a hat a few weeks before and kept it a surprise who they we suppose to get a present for. It was really cool to see they have one of the common traditions also done in America.