Market Day and Cooking!

Our Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Where I live we sadly have no market.  There are a couple of places to buy some basic things like onions, and sometimes pineapple, carrots and tomatoes and such.  For the most part to buy vegetables that must happen at the weekly market in the next town over (about a 10 minute, 40 cent bus ride)  That being said I love market days.  I go and look through the 20 cent-$1 clothing piles.  The prices vary based on what Rwandans think are better valued clothes.  Luckily this opinion is different for Americans and the "better" clothes in my opinion are in the cheaper piles.  Anyway, after the clothes is food time.  Here I can buy mango's, white onions and the sweet little bananas, all the things I cannot but at my village.  Anyway this week my new site mate (who moved in December)  and I decided to make mashed potatoes and onion rings.  We bought garlic, white onions, and potatoes, costing a total of 900 francs or about $1.60.  We did not even need to peel the potatoes as it was the light skinned potatoes.  We just washed them and cut them and then boiled them.  Once they boiled for about a half and hour we stopped and let them sit in the boiling water for a bit.  Then we cut the onions into rings made a beer batter using beer, flour and salt.  We heated the oil to boiling the dunked the onions into the batter and then into the oil.  Let the onions sit until they browned which took way longer than expected.  We then, sauted the left over onions and the minced garlic and added to the potatoes with milk and butter and extra garlic salt.  The final result was amazing and we took the onion rings and dipped them into the mashed potatoes not to dirty anymore dished.  It was a great, unhealthy day.  I am aware if i eat like that more than once I may die an early death or have a heart attack but today it was a much needed luxury!    
                                                                                

Onion rings on a paper bag to soak up some of the oil.

Frying up the onion rings

Close of Service

Here I am with the program and training manager who is giving me my Peace Corps certificate!

I just got back from a 2 day Peace Corps conference.  It was the last of three conferences we have during our service.  The first was called IST- in-service training which happens in the first 3-6 months at site.  Then is MSC- mis-service conference which happens after 1 year at site.  Lastly is the Close of Service conference which happens after 90 days before leaving.  I have almost been in Rwanda for 2 years, I arrived February 25,2010.  The time went by quickly and slowly and its really hard to explain.  mostly the days and weeks go by very slowly but months and years fly by.  I can't believe I am almost done with my service.  I have had a lot of really really rough days and months and maybe hated being here more than I liked it.  But in saying that I do think it was a completely worthwhile experience, one that I would not trade for anything.  I met the greatest friends while here, did things I had never done before, and survived.  That is saying a lot considering only 60% of the people I arrived with made it this far in Peace Corps.  Though I may not do much on a day to day basis over 2 years I have had some accomplishments even if the biggest was site development as I am the very first volunteer ever to have been placed at this location.  There are a lot of differences between Peace Corps and other organizations.  Rwandans are very used to having people come in the village spend a few weeks, give money or build something and then leave.  With Peace Corps we are not here to give money or build things but to build relationships and learn about the culture and teach about our culture.  Though I get very frustrated with Rwandans a lot of the time I have built some relationships and taught the people that I was here to stay.  Living in a foreign country for 2 years is no easy feet and I am very proud to say I was able to do it!  

Photos of everyday life in Rwanda

Traditional Dancers at a local organization fair

A cooperative in Kigali that sews cloth bags.

A farmer cooperative proudly standing in front of their land

Deforestation of tree's in my own village :(

Rwandan children loving each other

The heavy rains of rainy season

Close up of the little fishes or in kinyarwanda isambasi

My neighbor laying out little fishes to dry

Some cow skins for sale at the local market

21 Months

Well, Friday marks 21 months living in Rwanda. I am very excited to be finished kinda soon! On dec. 5 I will have exactly 5 more months. My training group started with 37 and now has 22 making our Group- (Health 2) have 40% early termination rate. Most of my closest friends have left not making things easier for me. I got very very close to going home also. But I decided to stay for a number of reasons, the biggest being friendships, new travel experiences and the goal of just finishing.
So what am I doing now?
I am trying to keep myself busy and trying to stay in my village as much as possible. My organization lost a lot of its USAID funding and is now as a loss for what to do. For now they seem to still be paying staff and paying rent but as for all the activities, they have to be cut. It doesn’t really make much sense to me what’s going on; I think they are trying to do what they can with as little money as possible. Personally I think it’s for the best, they were getting too much money before anyway and not really doing anything useful with it. So now I get to be a true “community development & health volunteer”, which gives me a lot of freedom to do anything. The problem is knowing what is needed and where can I help. Lately I find myself hanging out at the health center. Here I can talk with women and families about hygiene and nutrition. (They never realize how good avocados and carrots can be, instead they by glucose biscuits and fried bread for the same cost.) There is a nurse there who is really good in English and can translate for me. I can say it very simply in Kinyarwanda and he then goes into detail. I talk about when hands should be washed and how children should not run around bare foot (if they can afford shoes) which almost everyone has a least cheap foam shoes, ect. Then when paperwork/names are being filled out I play with the babies and keep them occupied using my phone, my house keys, and sometimes even my earrings. After work I hang out in the town center, usually with my bike (as I have to ride it to the health center). Everyone wants to take turns riding it around so I usually let them for a short time. Then I head to a shop to take some tea. Last week I somehow managed to spill a mug of hot tea all over myself, the guy next to me, the bench and the floor. It caused quite a mess, but the shop owner happily cleaned it up and gave me a free new cup of tea. I had to sit and drink while everyone who came into the shop got told the story of how I spilled tea everywhere. But I do love Rwandan Tea. I also recently “designed” a number of dresses that I had a tailor make for me. They all came out great!
The school year is over now but I will maybe start teaching English again in January at the primary school.
In December I head to Zanizbar for a second time (because its just that amazing) and Zambia to see Victoria Falls!

Training Teacher’s to be Child Friendly

Lately my job has been going to different schools in the area and teaching about child-friendly schools. This is basically showing teachers other ways to teach besides lecturing the students for 8 hours a day. My co-worker and I taught teachers how to use teaching aids and about the active learning method. We talked about using role play activities, puzzles, and the game of BINGO. That was training number 1. A month later we went around to all the schools again evaluating and checking if they had tried to use any of the teaching aids. We then discussed how the process went and how to make things better. Most of the teachers had tried to use these aids and the ones that tried had little to complain about. Sadly in one of the schools not a single teacher tried any of the methods. This was very discouraging for both me and my co-worker. It meant that the hours we had spent before training them were pointless. They said they could not use teaching aids due to lack of time, too many students and a lack of materials. We attempted to resolve these problems and taught four more teaching aids; board games, word blocks, letter blocks and the around the world flash card math game. The teachers seemed to like all these ideas and promised to try at least one in the next month. It was really fun teaching these games. The teachers had never heard of or played a board game before in their entire lives. So I made a simple board game to show them how it works then had them all come up with their own games. This also involved teaching how to make a dice out of paper. The word blocks games is a packet of cut up English words, a team of 4-6 people receive these letters and must make as many sentences as possible with the words provided. The team to come up with the most correct English sentences wins. The letter block game is similar. Each team is given a packet of letters and must spell the word said the fastest. All in all I have really enjoyed my work the last few months teaching Child Friendly Schools in Rwanda.

A South African Dream

The three days in Uganda was just not a long enough vacation. So I took a weeklong trip to South Africa to visit some of my friends from my semester abroad. I flew into Johannesburg and meet up with a friend before I headed to my destination. Walking into the airport from the plane was very overwhelming. There were shops and restaurants everywhere and people of every race. I didn’t know where or how to even begin. There were so many things I could get here that I cannot get in Rwanda, choosing something on a menu at this point was too much for me. I sat down at Mugg and Bean where I was to meet my friend and told the server to bring me anything cold because I could not decide. He brought me a delicious strawberry cheesecake milkshake and I was in heaven. It only took an hour to get out of culture shock and enjoy South Africa and all it had to offer. After chatting for hours with Sarah my Johannesburg friend it was time to travel to Durban, the home town of my best South African friend Kirstin. I had been here before during my semester abroad, I spent a week here during a vacation from university. Durban is South Africa’s third largest city on the east coast with a population of 3.5 million people. Durban also has the largest concentration of Indian people making it the best place to get bunny chow a south African Indian specialty involving a half loaf of bread hollowed out and filled with beans, meat and curry stew. One day one my friend and I and her cousins drove around Durban to a small not well known Lion Park. It was a short drive around safari where we were able to pet huge elephants. We also saw a dozen lions trying to catch a monkey that was in the top of a tree. This is the first and only time I will probably every see a full grown lion climb a tree. Sadly the lions did not succeed in catching the monkey. He was too quick for them and jumped from tree to tree. It was very entertaining for the tourists though. I also saw a lager, a mix between a lion and a tiger. Yes, they really do exist! The next day we went shopping in a 3 story mall! It was crazy and amazing! Then it was time for some wave surfing. At one of the malls in Durban there is a wave machine. So for one hour we bungee boarded and surfed on a wave machine. It was more fun than can ever be explained here but I do believe I have a video from it that would win on America’s Funniest Home Video’s of a complete wipeout by me. Another day we went to the new Moses Mabhiba Stadium which was built for the 2010 world cup. Now they have a lift you can take to the top to see a great view of all of Durban. The rest of the time was spent relaxing, catching up on GLEE episodes, and eating amazing food!

Over to Uganda for the weekend

A few months ago I took a vacation to Uganda, boarding the north of Rwanda. I went with a friend and we squeezed a week trip into 3 days. First stop was Sabinyo volcano. It has a jagged top with 3 peaks. The third peak is at the border of Congo, Uganda and Rwanda. To get to each peak you have to climb up and down ricked wooden ladders because of how steep each peak is. In Kinyarwanda Sabinyo means bad or old teeth which is a very fitting name because from a distance the top of the volcano looks just like that. We spent the night in a hostel right at the bottom of the volcano. Then bright and early at 7am we woke up to begin the daunting climb. Funny story here, we did not know there was a time change as we are merely 1hour from Rwanda directly north, but yes indeed there is a one hour time change and therefore we had not set our alarms for 7 but 8 instead so we had a very sudden awakening by the staff who knew we were intending to climb the volcano that morning. We made it to the base by 7:30 only 30 minutes late and began climbing. We were accompanied the entire way by an armed guard in case of elephant attacks mostly is what we were told. We did see elephant tracks and elephant dung but no actual elephants sadly. We reached the first peak at 1:00ish and then it was onto the second peak going down first and then further up the summit peak two. Unfortunately during our climb it was foggy and rainy and we had absolutely no view. As we climb onward to the third peak all I am thinking the entire time is please let the fog clear so we can get a few. At 2:30 we summated the third and highest peak of Sabinyo and got to stand in 3 countries at once, Rwanda, Uganda and Congo. The third summit is 3669 meters high. The climb in total is 14 kilometers and took about 8 hour’s total. To say the least by the end of the climb we were absolutely exhausted, sore and completely wet by the end of this climb but there was no time to rest as next we had to go white water rafting and bungee jumping. We took a bus, rested at our hostel on Saturday and on Sunday morning, took a 44 meter leap of faith off a ledge over the Nile River with a bungee attached of course, then took on the white waters of the Nile River. It is said to be one of the world most spectacular rafting destinations in the world. And I must agree. In the morning we took on four class 4 and 5 rapids one being a 15 foot waterfall that yes we went down it and survived and did not even flip the boat which most of the other boats that did hit ended up flipping. (By the way the highest level rapid is a class 6 but those are deadly, the highest rapid that can be rafted through is class 5.) There is a way around the waterfall for wimps. Then it was lunch time, which was amazing by the way chicken and ham and fresh vegetables wrapped in chapatti with hot sauce. This may not sound amazing to those living outside Africa but let me tell you the vegetables are limited in Rwanda and it is amazing when there is a buffet full of them. After lunch we hit 4 more rapids flipped in one of them. Flipping is really the adrenaline rush with rafting. You get sucked under the water for a few seconds by the rapid and it is scary but really fun to do. We tried to flip more times but just didn’t hit the rapids quit right to cause a flip. Yes that’s right flipping is a skill you have to try for its not as easy as it seems to flip. So then it was time to return that night to our beloved home of Rwanda. In three days we were able to trek a volcano, bungee jump and whitewater raft and it was an amazing weekend.