Site Visit+Birthday

So, this is the first blog Im writing as a 23 year old-- yes i know, its a corny thing to say but im easily entertained. Anywho, my birthday was a lot of fun. I started out by going to a wedding, which actually turned out to be the dowry ceremony. In Rwanda, an engagement comes in several parts. I dont know all the details, but there is always a dowry ceremony some time before the actual wedding. From the time I arrived there with the woman who invited me to the end of the ceremony took about 2 and a half hours. It was held outside in someones front yard. There were about 100 people there, so sizable but not big by Rwandan standards. In Rwanda, you dont need a formal invitation to attend a wedding, people are generally ok with just someone walking by and joining at the last minute out of curiousity. I didnt get cake, but they did serve Fanta (like they do everywhere). The way the dowry ceremony is set up is that the family (and friends?) of the bride sit together on one side and the family and friends of the groom sit on the other. Both are separate from the audience. The two groups take turns talking to the other, presumably telling stories or wishes of good luck. My kinyarwanda is not good enough yet to say for sure. There were two sets of dancers, the first were young men and the second were women. They danced in the traditional Rwandan style, which I really want to learn-- its beautiful. After the two dance sequences, the "groomsmen" and "bridesmaids" walk in with the bride and groom. I was surprised to see a white guy and an asian in the groom's party. The woman who brought me to the wedding told me that the groom is from Kenya, so maybe theres some relation to that? Im assuming Kenya has more expatriots and is more multicultural/multiethnic than Rwanda, but thats just a guess. Hopeuflly nothing Im saying is offensive, its always a risk anytime race or ethnicity is mentioned. Anyway, the bridesmen and groomsmen all drink jugs full of milk which I correctly assumed symbolize fertility. Two cows were presented as the dowry for the bride, and after some time, groomsmen and bridesmaids leave, ending the ceremony. Quite an interesting and enjoyable experience.

It was easy to put something together for my bday that evening since Im still in training with all the other PCVs, and it was on a Saturday night, when we all eat out anyway (the nunnery doesnt provide food on Saturday). So we all went out to dinner and I had a few beers. Other stuff happened, but well, this is a public blog so I'll keep that information to myself ;).
Im really going to miss everyone here, its hard to believe I have less than a month before I swear in as an official PCV. Last week was spent at my future site. I got to see my house-- yes, Im 23 and I have my own house! I've never even lived alone before so this should be ineresting. I could get used to having a whole bunch of space to myself. My house isnt furnished yet, and the construction workers (or whatever they are) are still putting the finishing touches on it, so I didnt stay in my house during my visit. But it's super cute. It's painted turquoise on the outside, with a front and back yard. So I have a few little trees to admire from my window, running water, an actual toilet (that flushes!), electricity and a real shower-- not a faucet! I took pictures but due to the speed of internet here (which I always complain about) it would take me over an hour to upload a single photo, so unfortunately I probably wont be able to show anything on here :(

I stayed with a pastor's family. Turns out Ill be working for him (I dont know if im allowed to name the organisation im working for, so for now I just wont say). He seems like a fairly decent man. He speaks French and some English. He's well traveled and fairly well known; he's going on his second trip to America soon. My future house, the pastor's house, his church, and the organisation's building are all right next to each other, which is both good and bad. Its good because it means that I can easily go back and forth, if i have a question or if I need something. I do think I might start to feel a little claustraphobic, especially since Ive come to realize that this culture doesnt really consider privacy, at least not the way we do in America. This is also a very conservative society, so if I have a visitor, especially a male visitor, I might turn into the talk of the neighborhood, and be judged. It's already odd to many people here that a little white American girl is going to be living in a house all by herself, since no one lives alone in Rwanda. You either live with your family or your spouse, which i guess is the same thing.Ill have to figure out how to respect Rwandan culture while still living my life. Maybe its immature, but Im used to my freedom, and I definately think my respect of the culture will have to be compromised in order for me to be happy, thats just the way it is.

I had a meeting with the pastor and two of the women I will be working with. The two woemen barely speak any English, so it was pretty much just the pasor and I engaging in conversation. The building He works in has three rooms from what I could tell. A large office, a meeting room lined with benches, and a room full of sowing machines where women make clothes, mostly school uniforms. Even after my meeting with the pastor, Im still not sure where exactly I fit into this equation. I know that he wants me to teach English to the adults who work there, and to conduct these lessons in the meeting room. He also wants me to help sell women's handbags and handmade cards. Im not clear on what the money for these items would be used for, and until I do Im not very pleased about this part of the job description. Ive never really liked customer service/sales, and I know that people here generally look at whites/Americans, and assume that we have money or connections to big money. They're not completely wrong with their assumptions about Americans and American culture, but most people here take it to a rediculous extreme--I'll explain more about that later.
Im not sure what the pastor wants me to do with the women who sow sweaters, but generally it seems like he wants to use my knowlege of English to get grant money and interpret documents his organization recieves. He said that he only wants me working about 3 or 4 days at the school, which saddens me because I would rather spend the majority of my time teaching. I dont want to be a teacher as a career choice when I get back to the U.S., but what I like about teaching is that its something established. There's a set schedule that everyone's familiar with, and the objectives are clear. I wouldnt have to do much organizing, just setting up lesson plans and developing a teaching style based on what my students need. I already started teaching while I was there, which surprised the the other PCVs since it seems like most of us only toured our town and (possible) workplaces. I think Im pretty lucky. I like the principle of my school, hes a nice (and attractive) 30 year old. He speaks French and fairly good English, even though he doesnt think so. The school is about a 20 minute walk from my future house, and its what i would call a middle school and high school combined. The school is small, and fortunately, so are the classes. I dont think there are 5 different classes, and none of them exceed 25 students. I thought I would just be teaching English, but Im apparently teaching computer science as well, which is what I taught while I was there. Im a little uncomfortable teaching computer skills--Im pretty ignorant when it comes to technology. When I told my friend Shaun in the U.S. that id be teaching computer classes, she laughed and said "they must be desperate". Yeah, they kind of are. The school has two computers, one of which works and, due to the frequent power outages, only works if the generator works. I could go into more detail about teaching--its going to be difficult but i actually really liked it. Instead, you can ask me personally. If youre reading this blog, you have my e-mail.

That Friday night I met up with some other PCVs in Kigali, which was A LOT of fun. We talked about our different experiences, and ate American style food which we greatly miss. Rwandan food is good, but its also fairly unhealthy and very repetative. We met up at Nakumatt, which is a large 24 hour Target/Ralphs type store inside a mall. I hate to admit it, but I almost jumped up and down for joy when I went inside that place. I could spend hours just admiring the alchohol section alone-- not that its huge, but huge by Rwandan standards. Its definately a hotspot for the "abazungus" (whites/foreigners) to go. It made me realize how materialistic I am, but so what? It was nice to have choices, and products Im familiar with. I bought shaving cream and an ice cream sandwich, I was on cloud 9. Its hard to find ice cream, especially ice cream that actually tastes like ice cream here. I spent the night in Kigali then took a 20 minute cab ride back to my site. I was then almost immediately whisked off to a huge wedding reception, or rather, the dowry ceremony (once again). This one was HUGE-- much larger than the one i went to before. It was held, oddly enought, inside a school auditorium. There were maybe 1,000 or more people in the audience, I have no idea how they managed to have enough food to feed us all at the end of it, but Im so happy they did since it lasted about 4 hours! It was fun comparing this ceremony to the previous one. It was fairly similar-- still the two groups from each side, still the wedding party of groomsmen and bridesmaids with the drinking of milke. However, since this ceremony was held indoors and in an urban area, there were no cows presented. Instead, there was a fairly comical episode of a man walking up onstage wearing black and white poka dots to represent a cow. While he spoke, the recording of a cow mooing would periodically be played. I have no idea what he said, but the audience cracked up a lot.


Well, thats a huge blog entry. Bravo if you made it this far, and sorry for talking your ear off. Once again, I want to reiterate that I'm happy here and I made the right choice in joining Peace Corps.