So, weeks ago when I mentioned that Nicole and I were
creating a list. Well, this is it and
plus and minus things:
1.
You don’t know that you shouldn’t use too much
toilet paper (it doesn’t go down well and there is never enough and you should
really bring some with you everywhere)
2.
You think it’s normal to eat meat for every meal
(it’s expensive and you don’t know where it’s from or how old it is. And when you are here, you WONT always want
to eat the “mystery meat”; it is not that it is not definitely from a cow or a
rabbit or chicken or whatever, but what part it is and the logic used for
cleaning in (is that large heart ARTERY! THAT RUBBERY TUBE THING!!??) or how
long it waited in a non-refrigerated environment to get to you. Best to do like they do and BOIL EVERYTHING
UNTIL IT'S A ROCK but with an excellent sauce!)
3.
You take water for granted (it’s the most
valuable thing in the world. And though
often cheap, it is often very expensive, here, for the most part, I have drunk
the “tap” water. It comes in two forms:
rain water going into the large rubber tanks or rain water coming from the
nation water plant into the large rubber tanks.
As I read from many international “muzungu” sources including PeaceCorp
and the US embassy, etc, it is OK to brush your teeth and shower in this but
you should NEVER drink it. Strangely, my
PeaceCorp friend has been drinking it for years. Two thing about this: first, she thinks that
she like me, had “amoebas” already for a long time, this is code for “DYSENTERY”
btw. Second, even Rwandese think she is
crazy. There are only two ways to drink
water: the first is to boil the water. Everyone has these rather larger (1.5 liter) “tea
kettles” that they use to boil water for almost everything. Though they can still result is a seriously
rancid smell (though I have mentioned before the smell comes from EVERYWHERE)
and also a really visible “cloud” as muzungus call it in the water. It literally took me over two months to see
the “cloud”. Once I did, and long after I
had both had dysentery and my breath even smells like that rancid smell, I stopped
drinking the “tap” water and switched to “bottled”. So, that is the second type. “Bottled” water comes from the Huye
province. Go ahead and look it up if you
want to know what I have been drinking. Like
the milk here, it is irradiated at high temperature and therefore is
strange. It is sold in large 5 liters
jugs. I have been drinking these for 2
or 3 weeks and, in terms of price, they are quite cheap compared to any smaller
vessel. Though, they are really
difficult to drink out of. But, as I have
found, even these freaking STINK like everything and everyone else here. I miss American or European, even Vegas, which
I consider the worst USA water, and so does the American Medical Association (any
water that results in surgery (it has too “soft”, meaning it has too much
magnesium or something and results in kidney stones at a record rate) is bad
water).
4.
You think the West invented or is the only place
that enjoys fine alcohol (alcohol is universally adored. It’s not a western invention and everyone
responds the same way when drunk: happy, angry, sad, but generally ebullient,
and always annoying to a sober person)
5.
You take federal drug or food regulations for
granted and then say we should have less government (is that water really
ok? Is that milk really ok? By that I mean, is it ok to drink milk out of
a plastic sack that has never been refrigerate and does not ask you to
refrigerate it and does not go bad and is therefore a higher temperature
pasteurization process plus irradiation even though it only comes from 5
FLIPPING MILES FROM HERE?! Is there
manure on that tomato? Will you get
salmonella from that meat? Even though
you buy an avocado from your farmer next door, you look at the avocados from
your own tree and wonder why I have worms in mine and you don’t and then second
guess this whole assumption? I am only saying all this as an expert on freaking
dysentery, which I think gives me some real experience to say...anyway…some
things about food hygiene. Also, have
you ever found what could be part of the heart valve of a cow you are eating
and could also be a rolled up piece of skin and could also be a part of a
MEDICAL TUBE in your food and wondered about it?!!!!)
6.
Really?
You have air conditioning?
7.
Really? You have electricity? All the time?
8.
REALLY?! You have internet? All THE TIME?!
9.
When you think you will die without hot
water. (Actually you will. Everyone SINGLE time you pour freezing cold
water over your head about 50 times at 5am on a 50 degree morning, you die a
little.)
10. When
you wear everything that you want to wear whenever you want to wear it. Because you can and either someone else does
your laundry or because you have a washing machine. (Here, you wear something until it smells or
is visibly soiled. Because laundry is
expensive either in time and supplies or in money for someone else’s time labor
and supplies. Additionally, I have
recently found that I am committing a Rwandese faux pa. Here people do their only laundy….in the
bath! They have only a few pairs of
underwear and they wash it when they bathe.
I have been having my friend do my underwear with my laundry. I was ashamed when I learned this and told
her. She says, na cyabazo (no problem!)
and for two reasons; first, I am her muzungu friend and she understands. Second, she says I am the cleanest person. (REALLY?!
I have never felt dirtier in my life.)
My clothes are never “dirty”, she says.
Really?! I tell her yes, but I sweat
all the time and Rwandese don’t! She
agrees, but says that sweat is not so dirty.
If you sweat then you wear them one time all day and wash them. But because Rwandese who don’t do really hard
work, that is those in the field, don’t sweat so much, they wear the clothes
over and over again and so they are really dirty. I don’t believe her that my clothes aren’t dirty,
but I am always grateful for her grace. In
fact, though this is so hard to put as a parenthetical moment, it is because of
her that I have really experienced, first hand, the meaning of both the terms “grace”
and “peace” because she has both in abundance.
In fact, these characteristics in her both “surpasseth all understanding”).
11. You
think that “sand” is not a normal part of your diet. (If you are at a restaurant or at home and
you chew one piece of “grit”, you think nothing of it. But if you are at home and you are eating
your own washed lettuce and you get even TWO pieces of grit, you throw it out. Because you know you didn’t wash it
enough. If you get TWO pieces of grit at
a restaurant you send it back, because you know THEY didn’t wash it
enough. If you are in Rwanda and you go
out and you buy a package of pre-contained pasta yourself and give it to your
cook and they cook it and almost every SINGLE bite contains grit, you think
nothing of it but, if you are a muzungu, you worry a little about your teeth in
the long run and consider the amount of blackness / redness (claylike) that you
pull out of your nose every day. And then,
you say, oh well…and just keep eating. Because
EVERYTHING you eat is full of grit of some kind. You stop asking yourself within the first week
exactly what the grit is. It could be
bone or gristle or sand or clay or fingernail…you can't care. You know it's been boiled and you just stop
caring and remember home fondly knowing that your cook, because you should
KNOW, is a good one. And I KNOW mine is
a good one. And yet, every day, I eat
sand.)
12. You
think that mosquitoes at twilight will crawl all over you in the “nice” months
and eat you up and leave giant welts all over you that will itch for days but a
nice frost in the northern states will rid you of these pests but also rid you of
the use of your yard. (Actually,
mosquitos are a sort of mixed comparison.
First, in Rwanda, there are no real “seasons” even in the ways that a
Texan might think of them. There is the short
rainy season and the long rainy season. The
dry seasons are hotter and drier, of course, and predicate the necessity for
heavy drapes in most houses. But!!!! There are more mosquitoes in the cooler and
rainier seasons. But!!! They are almost ONLY existent in the twilight
hours (2 hours between 6 and 8pm here.
Second, there are WAY more mosquitos here. You think you might be carried off? I mean this is only comparable to Louisiana
or something. Third, and on a strangely
positive note, the mosquitos here are really small and make really small
bites. I mean, they are all over you,
but they leave a small bit that itches, and I am not kidding, ONCE. You scratch the lump and then the lump itches
no more and then it goes away. Again, on
the negative: well, there really are a lot of them but they are only in those
hours for sure. But really, these are
the smartest mosquitos in the WORLD. I live
in NY and have also lived in FL and TX. They
are similar in all three places but the seasons kill them off in NY and so that
is nice. But, I have also lived in
Alaska. There, the mosquitos are NOT
designed for small mammals but for the abundant large mammals that live
there. Deer and moose and bears. Thus, the mosquitos in Alaska are HUGE and
they leave HUGE welts that itch for DAYS, but they are also the largest and
dumbest and slowest things alive. All you
have to do is pay attention and swat them away or grab them. But here, not a chance of swatting them or
grabbing them. They are too small and
almost look like what we would call gnats.
In addition, Rwandese mosquitos are also attracted to light and heat in
a way that I have not experienced in the USA.
So, as it turns out, my computer, while I am encoding data 24/7, is
usually a sufficient decoy. And, though I
get tons of bites every day, they itch for the first time and then never again
and the welts go away RIGHT AWAY. What polite
mosquitos. Last, and the most severe
negative, of COURSE, they carry freaking MALARIA!!!! So, I am taking malaria medication once a
week. This particular variety has the
effect, while not of the stomach variety for which I am infinitely grateful
particularly because of my history of stomach problems….hallucinations!!! Thus, I often think that there are mosquitos
around me which are not actually there.)
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