I’ve decorated my bike with the U.S. and Rwandan flags. I bought them at Ace Flag on Transit Road when I was home at Christmas. The Rwandan flag is quite attractive with a larger band in a nice shade of blue atop smaller bands of yellow and green. In the blue band, there is a symbol of the Sun. The flags are attached to my bike with electrical tape, which no volunteer should be without.
February 1 is the ‘Heroes’ Day’ holiday in Rwanda. No school! I used the holiday to do a lot of wash, write a grant and to visit my nearest Peace Corps neighbor, Sandra, who lives about 10-ish miles from me. Because I had to protect my skin from the Sun, I didn’t leave until after 4 p.m. What a rocky road out to Nyarabuye (sp?)! I had to stop a bunch of times to ask “Nyarabuye?” Most people didn’t understand but a few did and I finally got there. As ‘Ol Sol was setting when I finally found Sandra’s house, we just had time to have a quick chat, snap a photo and refill my water bottle. I made it back to Kabarore in a little of an hour with the help of the moon and my bike light. So many people along the way were excited to see me and I must’ve said “Muraho” and “Miriwhe” a thousand times. Even though this is a rural part of Rwanda, there are people everywhere. Glad my bike and my body held up to make this trip.
‘Umuganda’ is the community service work Rwandans do on the last Saturday of every month. I do this community service at the school I work at with other teachers and students. This week when I showed up for umuganda, there were no other teachers around, so I decided to do my community service with something that was bothering me – litter! Our school has several fields where a Catholic nun, Sr. Yevgeny (sp?), grows vegetables. Interspersed in these fields are discarded bits of plastic, water bottles, surgical masks, shards of pottery and the like, so I went to clean them up. The Rwandans looked at me like I was crazy, but I was satisfied in that a student and I collected two bags of mostly single-use plastics. (Now the sad ending to this good deed is that these bags and their contents will probably be burned.)
One of the joys of living in other countries is that you get to see things and use services that are pretty much gone from the U.S. Kabarore has many tailors, so I went to one (with my colleague Claudine doing the interpreting) to get a suit of clothes made in the Rwandan style called ‘imigongo’ (sp?). For about $35, I got a matching gray pants and long-sleeved shirt. The shirt is a little tight as the Rwandans are all so lean. I wore it to school this week and the #1 comment was that I looked “smart” (British English).
Each Monday before classes begin, the dean of students, Jean Nepo Nsabiyabarezi, has a student assembly to give announcements and congratulations to the students.
Santa also visited Mr. Manzi (Melvin) with a game of Boggle. He is so smart! He took out all of the cards and read them. There were just a few words that he didn’t already know.
