It was a Dark and Stormy Night and….Keksy DESERVES the Cookies

Just a bit before Nicole left, we decided to go to a restaurant.  We wanted a dinner out.  We remembered a place that our friend pointed to and said it was their favorite restaurant, or so we thought.  So we tried to go there.  We sat down just as the rain began to REALLY pour.  They brought us a menu and we ordered drinks.  The waiter came back and told us that a few things on the menu they don’t have.  We told them, of course, that is ok.  We will just try to order things and they can tell us what they don’t have on the menu.  Great says the waiter!

So, we wait for a while and think we know.  I ask for item 4 or something, the quarter chicken and chips.  They write it down.  Then Nicole asked for sambusa with chappati and beans and peas.  They say they have no sambusa.  Oh, darn.  Well, do you have the beans and peas?  Nope.  Oh, well do you have chappati and greens?  No chappati.  Ok….well what about chips and greens.  No greens.  Really?  (It was round about here that we started laughing and couldn’t stop as the whole thing progressed.)  But chips?  No chips.  Now wait a minute, I ordered chicken and chips before.  But you have no chips?  No chips.  OOOOOOKKKKKKK.  Let’s start over.  What DO you have?  Eggs. 

They have…eggs. 

REALLY?  Ok.  We finish our drinks and leave for a much nicer place around the corner where we both have the best brochette we have had in Rwanda, her fish and me lamb, and that is really saying something.

It turns out that our friend who was the one to point at, seemingly, this place, really just meant to point in that direction and the real place was still like a half mile away.  We find this out because Nicole and I take my friend out for dinner before Nicole leaves.

But, what about the inexplicable service and menu at this other place???!!!  I asked my friend if this had something to do with being a muzungu.  She said no, that this just happens sometimes.  What the hell?!!?!?!  It was really hilarious though as the questioning progressed.  The restaurant with no food – LOL!  They regretted it as more and more people “poured” in to get out of the rain (no pun intended).

This happened to be the same night that….

OK, so we arrive home after dark after this dinner and are a couple of beers in and feeling happy and full and tired.  The Austrians and Keksy were still here, Keksy needed a number of things as soon as possible to decide whether she can come eventually to Germany or Austria or Europe anywhere:  many vaccinations and she needed to be chipped.  All of these were an issue because she was still so skittish and afraid.  Even though I spent so much time with her and she behaved, she would still nip at me if I touched her flank, her sore ear, or tried to put the collar on her.

So, the night when the Austrians paid extra to have a vet come and do this at the home was like a nightmare.  First, it was already dark.  Second, they needed to put on a muzzle.  I tried to hide in my room.  It didn’t work:

1.     It was actually a stormy night.  REALLY?  This night has to be thundering?

2.     The power then went out.  It was totally dark.  We didn’t even have a candle, only our cell phones.

3.     The muzzle and collar were on but the Austrians could only cope while the power was on.  So the vaccinations were given already but not the chip which is the harder, the more fiddly, and the more painful for the dog.

4.     The worst is because it would be more painful for the dog, and the Austrians knew it, they were really freaked out and so the dog was more freaked out.  We couldn’t even give cookies because she had the muzzle.

5.     In turns out that both the Austrians have super big problems with shots and had already endured the dog getting like three.  They were already feeling pretty lighted headed.

6.     Although they have both had dogs before, they haven’t had big dogs like me and didn’t feel as comfortable with a stray like me.

7.     Seriously, the veterinarian only had one arm.  I’m not kidding.  He was the one armed vet…

So…they called me.  My stomach turned.  Damnit!  I didn’t want to be a part of this nightmare! 

I come out and give my advice:  We need two people holding lights.  We need one person behind Keksy so she can't back up.  We need one person holding the collar to keep her head still.  We need one person holding the fold in the neck so the chip can go in.  And then we need the vet.

We want to wait because Keksy is totally freaked out.  I advise against this.  She is freaked out now, I said, you should get it over with.  We need to get the muzzle off soon because she will need water and her heart is maybe already taking a lot from being so sick and malnourished and now so scared.  So I tell them, I know this is bad, but it will really be like 15 to 30 seconds of something more terrible than what you feel now and then it will be over.  She can't bite you so the only thing to fear is your own sympathy.  You can't take the pain for her, so end her fear as soon as possible.  We all agree.

I grab the scruff.  Heike is behind, Martin holds the collar, Nicole and Evode hold flashlights, and the vet uses his ONE FREAKING ARM to FUMBLE FOREVER with the syringe.  It wasn’t his fault, he did great.  It was done in about 45 (eternal Keksy writhing and bucking and screaming) seconds.

Then, of course, we couldn’t get the muzzle off because she was too afraid.  In the end Martin undid the buckle and she pulled it off herself.  Then, she got like an entire box of cookies.  Good Keksy.  She is now on her way to Germany and then Austria with her new found family.  If there were ever a dog that didn’t belong in Rwanda, this is it.  If there were ever a luckier creature on the planet to find such good people, I can't imagine…no…I don’t want to imagine it.

After traveling from here to there trying to find a place to live, the Austrians found a place that will accept Keksy.  The only issue is that there are some children at this place and, like most stray and afraid dogs, Keksy doesn’t like kids.  My dog also.  They lunge.  It's not whether they cause damage.  Usually it's just a dominance display and not real harm, but that is almost always enough for parents.  I understand where they are coming from. 

The latest update is that they actually found some lovely German girls here who wanted, together, both a pet and a guard dog and so have muzungu standards about keeping a dog.  They will be staying for just over a year.  When they leave they have agreed to “sponsor” the trip for Keksy from Rwanda to Germany.  All of the tests will then be done and Keksy should have all the right paperwork.  But, they can't keep her in Germany.  This suits the Austrians just fine because they now do not feel that they can live without her.  So, the Germans will sponsor the trip as if Keksy were their pet and then the Austrians will actually have a year to save up the money to pay for Keksy’s shipment over airlines.  It's really nice when things work out.

Also, the bunnies are huge and have now adult proportions just in a small size.  There is an agreement now between the house here and some farmer from the USA or something but who lives in Rwanda to take the bunnies away from here.  Not sure when it will happen.  Hope it's soon, those babies are really crammed in there.  They no longer live off the mother but eat real food.  It's super cute.  They are let out much more often so this increases the Narnia like aspect of where I live.  There are cute bunnies EVERYWHERE you look.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

I was considering the triple meaning of Thanksgiving in the USA the other day, before the holiday.  This came in handy as, not wanting to spend the holiday alone and wanting to share the best of the three, and of course the most abstract and generalizing of the three, meanings, I invited favorite friend (you know her) out to an “expensive” dinner with me on Thursday.  I asked her about a week before.  She wanted to know the meaning of the holiday and I told her this should be our Thanksgiving dinner discussion when we went out to dinner and she said she thought this was an excellent idea.

I took her to Sol e Luna.  For three reasons:

1.     This is the place I know most well and that we could even walk to.  But, in the true spirit of the holiday, I asked a driver to take us instead thinking that this was even a part of the treat for her.  I have little to give but this I can give.

2.     I crave the pizza there like crazy.  Seriously, this is the best pizza I know outside of Rome, and I have said this before.  So, even if I were at home I would be craving this pizza.  I even knew which one I would get…

3.     She loves the pizza there as well, though it is not a part of her Rwandese flavor pallet.  She still wants it.  She told me she has eaten there twice in the 8 years she has lived in Kigali.  The last time was two years ago.  I said this is TOO LONG!  She completely agrees.

So, we go on Thursday evening for this dinner.  She perused the menu of 89 pizzas and got uncomfortable.  She asked me what she should order.  I asked her what she remembers getting before and based on this I advise her, she should get the 04 – Nobile pizza with ground and spiced beef over oyster mushrooms and onions and garlic and tomato and tomato sauce with goat and mozzarella cheese.  It is one of the more expensive items on the menu.  She LOVED it.  I knew she would.  I told her the name of this “flavor” of pizza means lord, like king.  She seems proud of her taste as I tell her she should be.

I order the 26 – Beatrice.  “Ground” or more like shredded, to the extent that you can, salmon over tomato and goat cheese and mozzarella and tomato sauce.  I ask for shredded basil on the top even though it will cost extra.  They come and tell me that they are out of salmon.  I could have cried.  I got “thon”, tuna, instead.  The pizza was good but you can never substitute tuna if you want salmon nor the other way around.  My friend asked what Beatrice means.  I tell her it is only a muzungu woman’s name but explain that the origin is in Latin, which necessitates the basic history of the west in order to explain, and that the base root of the word means “good” as in “beatitudes”.  She likes this and thinks that yes, she is noble and I am good.  I feel pleased.

I order a glass of the house red wine, the cheapest, and I end up drinking three glasses.  She orders an orange Fanta but sips some of my wine.  She has not had a good red wine before.  I explain to her before to ready her tongue.  That this is not like other drinks.  She said she tried another alcohol before but that it made her tongue feel weird.  So this time I prepare her.  How do I do this:

Rwandans do use vinegar for things.  Various things.  Like cooking cabbage or for a salad.  But while Nicole was still here she and I went in on the price of balsamic vinegar, which is REALLY expensive here.  My friend thinks this is the best vinegar and is complicit in me drowning my salads in the stuff.  So, I tell her, think of the taste of that balsamic vinegar.  It's so good, right, but not something you would like to drink.  She agrees.  I tell her that red wine is similar and even has a similar preparation process but that it is sweeter though not sweet and therefore is best served with food.  I tell her especially with her beef she should take a bit of food and then a sip of the wine and enjoy it.  She says, then why don’t you just put it on the food instead.  Hmmm, she really is so smart.

Anyway, she asks me shouldn’t I drink more, at the end of our meal, because I cannot eat more (she thinks I eat too little!) and at Thanksgiving, as she understands it, is a time of excess.  I agree but it's too expensive and three is plenty.  Then I explain about body weight and drinking, particularly in public.  Again she tells me I am like a soldier.  I am coming to really appreciate her comparison of me with a soldier.

Anyway, I explain to her over dinner about the three levels of meanings of the American version of Thanksgiving.  First, what children are taught: the lie about the pilgrims and the “founding” of America.  She argues that wasn’t it a war that started America?  I say yes but that was the founding of the government, the USA and that was about 150 years later.  I tell her what children learn and what they do in elementary (primary here) school in the USA for the holiday – arts and crafts!  She thinks this is so nice for the children and also for the story.

Then, I tell her the second version of the story that people generally learn, but in not so many correcting words, in high school or so, though nowadays usually in college in my generation or older: the truth.  Genocide, disease, religion (freedom and oppression on both sides), etc. and the history of the Native Americans.  I explain that it was like the Twa.  They were here before the Hutu and Tutsi.  I explain that it is like the Hutu coming in and saying, yes we are friends, and then stealing their land and giving them diseased blankets because they believe that the Twa are savage and from the devil because they do not believe in Jesus.  She gets upset, and rightfully so.

Then I explain the third level of meaning.  What does Thanksgiving mean now?  It means to be so thankful because you make WAY too much food, usually of a Native American variety and I talk about turkeys and how many people they can feed (she thinks there ought to be more turkeys in Rwanda) and all the rest.  She says it sounds delicious.  And also alcohol or games or whatever and family and friends.  The tradition is all to get together and to thank god and each other for what you have.  Both in terms of food and drink and time but also to be thankful for each other.  She says that she thinks that Rwanda should have a holiday like this.

At the end, I thank her very heartily for being my best friend and confidante in Rwanda and for taking care of me just like she cares for her own family.  She thanks me for being her friend and for being so “giving” in her words and also for taking her for dinner. 

When we arrive home I ask her to translate for me to the night watchmen here, with whom I have shared so many silent (he doesn’t speak like ANY English) and yet meaningful moments, about the basics of Thanksgiving and then to thank him personally for me for all that he does here.  He shakes my hand rapidly and heavily and says repeatedly, after this translation, “murakoze, murakoze, murakoze, cyane cyane” (thank you thank you thank you much much).

I walk back to go to sleep in my room and at last my friend gives me a big hug and says to me, “You know how I love muzungus?  Well, I love Americans best.  And don’t ask me why, because you are always asking.  Good night.”

She is right.  I am always asking why.  But, I am happy for this.  I am thankful to both of my parents and the rest of the Mitchells in particular for encouraging my questions.  Those questions led me here.  And I am happy.  Thanks.

 

The soundtrack for this post includes the following song, in particular my aunts will like it I believe:  The Avett Brothers – The Weight of Lies.  Here is the link on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F2zl4LqSlg

What I most thankful for about being in Rwanda, apart from my friend, that I was truly running to something for the first time in my life and not also running away.

Hiding in/at the Papyrus

On Friday night I went out with an Egyptian and two South African telecommunications workers to a night club complex called "Papyrus".  It was just breathtaking.  It was the best night club I have ever been to in terms of atmosphere. 

Here is a photo of the overview of the compound.  Of course, I didn’t take this, but it was the best I can provide.

 

Additionally, here is a review on my favorite Rwanda blog, I have linked this blog before, and it is my go to for finding places to go in Kigali:

http://www.livinginkigali.com/reviews/kigali-restaurants/papyrus-3/

 

We arrived at 8pm and went, from the side of the hill we were on, up stairs to the “second” floor of the complex, or the top floor.  There is a ground floor and a “basement”, again depending on which side of the building you are on. 

Here is a photo of the first floor which contains the restaurant.

 

We go straight into the “lounge” area.  It has the VERY best furniture for sitting and chatting I have ever seen.  Of course, I didn’t take a photo and I can't find one online, but really.  It is all over sized and very comfortable and made of the heaviest and gnarliest and most beautiful cut wood trunks for tables and planks for the couches.  I adored it immediately.  The view was extraordinary and the lighting was so good that I honestly can't remember the light themselves.  They were ambient and didn’t call attention to themselves but lighted everything intimately and perfectly.

 

 

We sat down and ordered beers and commenced rapid fire talking for HOURS!  I really loved these guys.  Some of the most interesting people I have met here.

The music was like manna from heaven straight to feed my sad starving ears…soul and rhythm and blues from the 1960s in the USA.  Oh my god.  I was so happy!  After a few beers and a more lubricated conversation where the Egyptian and I told the stories of our lives, professional lives really, in brief, then he ordered a drink with this Ugandan millet gin.  I have been told about this already, but it smells lovely, like a stronger juniper and fruitier gin.  We mixed this with a little coca cola and a lot of ice and a ton of lemon peel.  It was divine, and much more alcoholic than I thought after I had had two.

This is really the government and money-ed set for Kigali.  I met the owner of MTN, the cell service I use, and some people from various ministries.  Though, the culture in Rwanda is one to keep your private dealings private so I will not mention the ministries they are from.  Also, the people there were so beautiful.  They dress to the nines there, as I was gratefully informed before I went.  There was every kind of person from every kind of place wearing every kind of gorgeous and colorful, from flowery to severe, article of clothing.  I felt about the coolest I have ever felt in my life.  Especially with the company I was keeping who were all pretty much beautiful.  And as for me, I dressed as well as I could with what I brought without being TOO sexy (I am MARRIED!).  But, the way people talked to me and looked at me.  Instead of being stared at, I simply felt like one of the beautiful people.  I want to go back there and feel that again…and again... and again…for the rest of my life.

Then we, after we had begun dancing basically in our chairs to the music, went downstairs to the “basement” night club where the dancing happens.  We made a pit stop in the courtyard on that side of the hill to get some chicken brochette, we should have had the lamb, it's cheaper and tastier because a grill will always gouge the drunk.  The courtyard also had pool and other games.

The dance club afterwards was packed and dark but with many colored lights.  We ordered a beer there which I cold hardly drink after that gin upstairs.  The music was all good stuff, either stuff I know that was muzungu, stuff I don’t which was muzungu, or Rwandese and other African stuff.  But all of it was good.  The only problem – the convention here of playing only 30 seconds to a minute of a song and then switching, with absolutely no segue, to another great song.  We danced and dance, until…

The power went out.  LOLOLOL!  Seriously the power went out in a packed basement night club!  Everyone made a big noise like OOOOOOHHHHH and then started laughing.  Because we were all dancing and had been moving in some direction or another before the lights went out, we all bumped into each other.  There is more laughter.  After about 30 seconds and groping and trying to, drunkenly, figure out which direction you want to go and where your people are, people begin to light lighters.  But in this darkest of dark places with so many bodies and so little reflective surfaces, the lighter would only light an eye or a nose or a hand and a part of someone’s shirt or something.  This added to the extreme psychedelia of the experience.

Then the power came back on with a whump and the lights were all going and the music was blaring and everyone started to laugh again.  All this laughter was so giddy because this is a, truly, inherently dangerous situation.  But now it's over and the party goes on with just a bit more intensity!

After a while I was concerned because I realized that I had lost track of time.  I told my husband that I would call him when I expected to leave which was, at the latest time, almost an hour before.  Damnit!  I thought and rushed to leave.  I called my car and got home and blathered drunkenly to my husband about a nice time and how sorry I was not to have answered his call and not to have called him earlier.  It was a REALLY good experience.  I might even have it again if I feel up to that level of energy next weekend.  I think only if I finish my Gacaca work this week, which is more than a possibility.

P.S. You know I can't finish such a great post without a bummer:  most of the people who survived the direct impact of the genocidal movement in Rwanda was by hiding in the papyrus marshes.  Hence the title of this post.

I hope you all had the best Thanksgiving possible!

Rwanda Photo Mayhem!

Today and one day only...I am going to try to spend a lot of time, and I do mean a LOT of time, posting some photos today.  Hopefully it works out well.  Especially as I now have two weeks left.  The countdown begins....

This is a photo of someone at a training course for home workers ("my house girl" or "guy" as people say) so that they can make more money.  They take this training and then they have some sort of certificate saying that they know the basics of how to run a Rwandan home and then they can ask for a higher salary.  It's a really good deal.  This woman is making cassava.

This photo is of one of the couple of Rwandese beers I have tried.  This one I think would be my husband's absolute favorite.  It's called Turbo King and has a picture of a lion on it.  I think this is the funniest of all Rwandese beers.

This is my favorite beer here, called Tusker.  I love the elephant and understated label and the flavor was best to me.

 

This stuff, called sun sip, is some kind of fruity chemical disaster that the Austrians and others like to put diluted into water so that they cannot taste the really bed taste of the water here.  Unfortunately, I still think that this stuff tastes like shampoo.  You know, it doesn't taste like it smells.  Like you are drinking passion fruit flavored Herbal Essences.  Yuck.

 

 

This was a particularly delicious meal that my friend made for me of beans and cabbage and many, many spices over rice.  You can see how much she tries to feed me and how much I eat.  Also, that night I had a dream that I was pregnant because I was experiencing SUCH gas pains.

On a walk out to dinner with Nicole and my friend, we saw this....a compound just like the one we live in, but this one, instead of barbed wire surrounding the top of the walls, there was....BROKEN BOTTLES!  This is so serious.  I started cracking up and had to take a photo.  I mean, it IS cheaper than barbed wire.  But, if I wanted to get in, and I don't, I would just crush the glass or something.

This meal has become relatively common around here since the Eqyptian was here.  It is more expensive to make chips, but oh how good they are when my friend makes them.  The potatoes are cheap but oil is expensive and there is not much option for saving the oil so it is a big waste.  But, again, how good they are.
The trick is to chop up the salad (tomatoes and onions and sometimes cucumbers) really small and mix it with balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper, and then some mayonnaise and ketchup and then use this as a "relish" over the chips.  Its to die for. 

Here is a photo of one the pizzas I have had at Sol e Luna.  This is number 17 out of 89 possible pizzas: the Quattro formaggio.  Goat cheese and mozzarella and something else and...wait for it...tellagio!  A divine splurge even in the USA.  This pizza was SO good as are all of the pizzas I have had there.  You can see on the bottom the top of my quiz for that night.  See the title........I'm lonely.

This is a photo of Heike that shows what it is like to do laundry here.  Intensive work is what it's like.

Quick side note before the next photo: just another thing I LOVE about Rwanda, the singing.  I have mentioned before that I hear singing often around me, from church choirs to funerals to gatherings with a guitar to the ladies nearby whose lovely singing voice either soothes their babies or their own minds as they do dishes or cook or sweep.  But since it is so ubiquitous, that means I CAN SING TOO!  I love to sing.  This is a culture of music and I feel at home, even if they don't know my music and I don't know theirs.

Next photo, this photo is of Heike after she was shoving bunnies back in their cage and caught her shoulder on the sharp edge of the corrugated metal "door" of their cage and ripped a giant tear in her shoulder.  This was a whole story here.  First, she faints at the sight of blood.  Second, no one else was here but me.  She asked me very calmly if I could help her with something, I walked outside to say yes and there she was almost falling over on the stone step with blood beginning to really POUR down her shoulder.  I got toilet paper and water to clean her and some of her juice infused drink to sooth her and told her not to look at it as I held the gaping wound and cleaned it and then pressed on it.  I called for my friend and they brought gauze which we taped to her.  Later on her partner brought her to the nicest hospital in Rwanda, King Faisal hospital.  This is the examining room after the torture of 3 or 4 REALLY LARGE stitches were put into her at her great emotional expense.  The wound has healed fine as she has had all her shots.

 

This is the architectural mock up of what the new Kigali Convention Center will look like.

This is near to what it looks like right now, and I see it everyday on my way to work.  Its huge and interesting.  I like it.  Visually, apart from the great old cities and landscapes I have been to like Rome or Paris or something, Rwanda and Kigali in particular is one of the most visually dynamic places I have been to.

This is a photo taken near the Imihingo place, you remember that Rwandan art place, where they have what is really the "traditional" traditional Rwandan houses, before brick and other types of construction came.  These were still in use around the country up to the genocide.  after that, not so much.  Many places still have the thatch roof technology but that only makes it through about one long rainy season so you end up having to replace your roof once a year.  So, there is a VERY heavy preference for corrugated metal roof.  Even though the metal is expensive, it is cheap in terms of the labor and valuables it saves year after year, essentially forever.  Though it has the new effect of basically baking all inhabitants inside on a hot day.  :(  But the cold nights in the valleys and during the rainy seasons are now toasty warm.

This is the completely gorgeous Rwanda Parliament building.  What you cannot see very well and that I hope to capture some time in the next two weeks is the gorgeous terrancing structure that holds the many "toes" of the hill.

OK, so really, that took like 3 hours to do.  I have some more photos and things I want to tell you about but now I am worried that I will lose what I have done so I am going to go ahead and post this now.  More photos to come, today even, perhaps.

Rwandom Rwanda

I just don’t really have the energy to do the long awaited photo post, especially with internet like it is.  When I have more time, when my job is done here, I will do.  I have lots now.  Speaking of job – I think I have 4 or 5 more days or real work at Gacaca now.  But, I will be here encoding videos until the 15^th getting everything ready for the transcriber.  17 days left then home!

This will also be the very first Christmas that my husband and I will spend alone together, owing to lack of funds for travel.  On the one hand, I am bummed not to see family.  But on the other, I am sort of excited to be just us.

And my dog….I didn’t really think that I would miss my dog.  But it turns out I miss him desperately.  I can't wait to put my arms around his neck and keep him from desperately trying to lick me.

So, some stuff about Rwanda.  People run here.  I do not mean that they jog for exercise, though some do, or that they often just run from here to there because they are in a hurry, though some do that as well.  But…how can I explain this:

Remember when you were a kid and you and your friend were sitting in the living room and you wanted to show them something that was in your room but you wanted to stay in the living room?  You ran to your room and back.  Remember when you were outside playing and your mom called you in for lunch or whatever and you ran inside instead of walking, even though you could have walked?

Now remember how, somewhere along the way, you were taught to stop running.  Some of this was from direct orders:  no running in the house!  No running at the pool!  No running in the hallways!  And some of this was just from learning unconsciously about the norms around you.  Ever see someone run inside the sociology department?  Law firm?  IT department?  Grocery store?  No, you haven’t.  Not unless you work in a hospital or something.  Remember Star Trek, even?  They never freaking ran.  The universe is being sucked through a singularity in engineering and all the officers are walking as fast as their feet can carry them to the turbo lift (on that point, why not just use the transporter?  Anyway…).  Adults do not run in the USA.

BUT, adults DO run in Rwanda.  At my office there are about 20 total people working.  And sometimes, they run when they are going somewhere else in the building.  Sometimes people on the campus I am at are just running back from lunch.  For apparently no urgent reason, they run.  They run across the room to someone else’s desk.  This is so strange to me.  Playful though, I love the energy that it makes me feel to be near.  Additionally, I think this compliments the fact that Rwandese walk so slowly.  You can tell a muzungu with dark skin even amongst similar looking Rwandese because they appear to be power walking in comparison to those around them.  And the same is true of me.  Any walk any where is an act of bobbing and weaving through a crowd until I remember to just slow down.  Am I really in a hurry?  No.  Also everything is uphill everywhere, so...just slow down and try to sweat less.

Also, when it is the rainy season, it pours, in my life at least.  I am desperate to go home.  And my breath smells.  It's from the water.  When I first came here I noticed it on everyone else.  Now I can smell my own breath.  Because all water, though sanitary enough after being boiled, still smells awful.  I don’t know what it is but it seeps into your body and then seeps out.  I only feel better about it because everyone else smells that way, too.

So, on top of all that (if anyone says “first world problems” here, I will slap you) yesterday I felt something weird that felt like it was attached to one of my back top molars.  I was like, what could that be?  So I was digging into my mouth and picking at this thing with my fingernail when it came loose and came out.  I looked at it.  It looked like it could be, I don’t know, plaque or something.  Gross I though and got rid of it right around the time when I realized that there was now a GAPING hole in the tooth I had been picking at.  It took me a second.  Perhaps you understand right away…I’ll give you a moment while I tell you a story:

I have great teeth.  I was blessed with them.  My parents both had terrible teeth but in different ways.  Though my teeth were, like my fathers, designed to be so crooked, I was also blessed with braces at the right moment.  My teeth are a good color.  I have no problems with loosening and they don’t stain easily and they get whiter easily.  I don’t even floss.

When I was about 7 or 8 I went to the dentist and there were some problems in my teeth.  They filled the three spots and since then, apart from the receding gum line on my front bottom teeth as a result of a permanent retainer (I am supposed to have a gum graft – I can't think of anything more disgusting – at some point in the future when I am not traveling imminently to a developing country), my teeth have been perfect regardless of what I do or do not do to or with them.

Got it figured out now?  Yesterday I inadvertently pulled out one of my fillings.  REALLY?!  IN RWANDA!?  RIGHT NOW?!

I ran outside and told my friend who laughed hysterically.  Though I had to explain about fillings.  She says they are uncommon and that most Rwandese do not go to the dentist.  How then can you explain that fact that so many Rwandese I see have, seriously, sparkling white teeth and breath that only smells as bad as mine?  Maybe whatever that smell is, is good for teeth.  I doubt it.

Then I called my husband who has already made an appointment for me with my dentist.  What the hell!

Another thing, there is so much literature, and it is usually either literature or what passed for normative racial pseudo science around the turn of the 20^th century, arguing about what darker and lighter skin means.  Let me tell you some of the things that having darker skin means in a day to day way:

1.     Blemishes just look like bumps and not so much like the PLAGUE that it appears on white skin.

2.     Woolier African hair doesn’t like to be dried out, my friend tells me, so while they do use something to clean it and it always smells and looks nice, they only have to wash it once a month and they think I am crazy for washing it every other day.  I explained that my grandmother’s generation felt differently about this and about the excuse to turn down a date because you needed to wash your hair.  She assures me that this is still a common excuse in Rwanda.

3.     Very dark skin refuses to obtain a so called “farmer’s tan” or “red neck” so prevalent in my own national heritage.

4.     Dark skin looks good in every single color.  Every single one.  Whereas I am a “winter”.  Really?  Pink is my best color and I basically refuse to wear it.

5.     And last but not least of this short weird and opinionated list, darker skin doesn’t show hickeys.  Why is this important to me?

Not because I have a hickey.  In fact, I have what is commonly called among the Irish a “strawberry mark”.  In fact, I have two of them.  One is directly on my forehead and comes from a long family tradition of weird forehead marks that only come out until extreme stress or bodily upset (as in crying for a long time).  My grandmother had what looked like a V on her forehead coming straight up from between the eyes up to her hairline.  We joked that this made her look more evil when she was really, really angry and therefore suited her.  My grandmother said it was a V for Victory as in her generation’s victory in WWII.  My mother has a check mark.  It's the same as grandmother’s except that she is missing part of one of the stems of the V.  And this is how we all know that my mom’s OK.  The joke was that when she was born, god came down to check her out and see if she was a bad egg but god said, nope, this one’s OK.  And I … I have a question mark.  Seriously, I have a question mark on my forehead.  This my mother loves.  She says that god came down and said, “I don’t know about this one…”

But this isn’t something I encounter often, not so much to cry about these days (knock wood).  But the second of these strawberry marks in on my neck.  If you look at it dead on it doesn’t look like much.  Like maybe I just scratched it a bit or something.  But at an angle, which is how most people look at this spot because it's on the side of my neck, and it seriously looks like a hickey.  It isn’t always there but sometimes it is there.  My friend was asking me about this…where did I get this “love bite” she says?!!?  Oh god, it's not a love bite.

In my department people have asked me, who I am close to, occasionally, how I feel about showing off my sex life in front of my students.  Seriously, it's not a hickey.  And being as white as I am (I am not so much white, either.  Even the famous, though you probably don’t know it, song from the very famous musical Hair says, “”I’m pink…” though I would say it was more like being depigmented (which in fact is the reality) and that I am more see-through than anything else) it's like I am hyper-colored.  You touch me and I change colors.  I scratch my face because the soft water here makes me itchy along with the changing humidity all day long and whatever I scratch looks like I have some skin disorder.

A couple more things while I am on a roll…

The day before yesterday I was walking into my office when a police officer came up to me.  He was tall and young and dark and good looking.  He carried, like all police, a loaded AK47 that always faces both at the ready and away from people, to the side and diagonally up.  We chatted for a moment, first in Kinyarwandan, what little I do know, and then in Icyongereza (eecheeyongahrezah or English).  Then he asked me out on a date.  I don’t mean to belabor the ethical problems with asking someone on a date while you carry a loaded automatic weapon.  But…what a racket this guy has!  I apologize in English and Kinyarwanda and perform all necessary, both female and general, performances of apology and humility and that of being flattered and appreciative and say, no, I am married.  Thank god I have this handy dandy ring on my finger.

Side note: even if I wasn’t married, cause this guy seemed nice and smart and good looking, I would have said no on principle because of the gun.

I’ll leave you with a couple of short lists (can you tell I like lists?  Huh?  Huh?!  This is seriously how my brain works) I am beginning and hope to continue.  List of my favorite Rwandan words because they look and sound absurd and are therefore really fun to say:

1.     Dodo (that spinach like stuff)

2.     Nyabugogo (a bus station that I frequent)

3.     Umudugudu (I think this is how it is spelled, the word for like the community or townships or villages or something along those lines)

4.     Gatandatu (the number 6, however you think to pronounce it, though it seems obvious, is probably wrong.  Emphasis is EVERYTHING in Kinyarwandan).

5.     Also, I can't remember the exact words right now, but Rwandese have no words that mean extreme version of descriptions.  Like, for the word tiny, you mean something like very little.  They actually say “little little”.  This is the same for very slowly, you say something like “slowly slowly” which results in repeated multi syllable fragments at the end of the same multi syllable word.  I like these words, they sound funny and cute.  The word for slowly slowly is gakegake which is pronounced gachAAgachAA.  I have not yet figured out the convention for when a k is a k and when a k is a ch as in Gacaca which is pronounced gachacha.

An addendum to my last post on sex, I wish I had this info before so I could have posted along with that one.  Hilarious condoms.  My friend here, who I have yet to tell you about and with good reason, though you will know more soon, recently went to a military hospital in order to learn more about HIV preventative medicines in Rwanda.  Here he received these, these best of all possible and most hilarious of things:

 

Quality military condoms!!!!  OMG, I still cannot stop laughing about these, be warned, the next bit is offensive but I can't help it:

1.     First, are they bullet proof?!?!!?  Protect your thing even when your government cannot afford Kevlar!  Foreign aid only cares about protecting the “little man”.

2.     “Are you armed?”  Ahahahahah!  Are you “third” armed?  Hahaha.  This is actually quite clever, underneath.  Are you armed?  Are you a man?  Do you have your “arms”?  Your “gun”?  Your “weapon”?  And if so, then are you “armed” with your condoms for your defense of your “weapon”?  If so, then you are a “real” man, the most manliest of men, a soldier.

3.     Are the actual condoms camouflaged?!  Protect your thing, have sex, even in the JUNGLE!  On combat maneuvers?  That’s ok, we have you “covered” during your “maneuvers”!

4.     “Protect yourself from HIV.  Protect the nation”.  This cracks me up.  Does the USA have propaganda condoms like this?  It should say, “Protect yourself WHILE you protect the nation”.  And of course, in true sociological advice from me, it should not say nation but state or country.  I can't help but think that just a slight change in the wording increased the incidence of rape during the genocide.  “Protect yourself, protect the “nation”” where nation means ethnicity.

5.     The comic book cover cracks me up.  There was an artist out there who came up with that!  Were they commissioned?  That’s hilarious!  If not, were they doing something else and then it was coopted for these condoms?  Equally hilarious!  It looks, as another friend of mine noticed, like the cover for an original NES game.  I think the game would be called “Arm your Johnson III”. 

6.     Also, my friend here reminded me about the enlargement of women’s “sex” here.  Maybe they have a “for her” version as well.  You could engage in your own personal battle of the sexes!

7.     What about all those stamps on the bottom!  These are so OFFICIAL!  Just like my bureaucratic letters that get me in places!  I LOVE IT SO MUCH!

8.     Did you notice that they were VANILLA FLAVORED!  Ahahahah!  It makes sense to flavor them nicely because you don’t know what people would use them for and it's nice to have nice flavors for your partner.  But really, that takes away from the hardcore “little” soldier aspect.  Really, it's in the upper right hand corner?

 

What do you think?  Any other good names for the NES game associated with the condom cover? 

Let’s Talk About Sex (and Blood)

Let’s just start right off with something less than usually publically appropriate.  My friend here told me that the reason that Rwandese women are not bodily shy, though they are intensely modest (they are different) is because of their mothers and a particular cultural traditional practice that, while falling out of fashion, is still prevalent enough:  giant clitorises.

It used to be, my friend told me which has been corroborated elsewhere, that mothers would begin with their very young girls just at puberty, and tug on their “sex” to make it bigger and longer.  Later on, so I have been told, girls now, in addition to the everyday exercise of tugging on it, they also use “medicine” to make it bigger.  I don’t know what that means.  Are they using some Harry Potter engorgement spell-like lotion?  Are they taking testosterone and growing them?

Anyway, my friend tells me that men often think that without a large clitoris and labia minor that you are not really a woman.  How different this is from the USA.  The purpose of this stretching and enlargement, apart from aesthetics, is to INCREASE sexual pleasure for women and men are taught foreplay with regard to women’s genitals as a result.  It looks like some cultures get it right.  If you want to make a woman pregnant, studies show that she needs to climax and this causes the cervix to dip down during orgasm’s contractions and it pulls in more semen.  Thus, unprotected sex that results in a woman’s orgasm is more likely to result in pregnancy.

If you want to read a tad more about these practices, the best place to start with something you know nothing about is always Wikipedia, so here it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labia_stretching

Part of this article, and my further research has shown, that all studies categorize this practice as “modification” and not “mutilation” as it has no ill effects on women unless she is lied to about the benefits.  With one exception, my friend says.  You should make it X long and not Z long, and she uses her finger to show me.  She says her mother and other women told her this measurement, because any longer and it can obstruct birthing and the doctor may be forced to mutilate you in the process to get the baby out.

I told her that all cultures have some practice like this.  She says that she thought I would be shocked at this Rwandan cultural practice.  I told her no.  and she says, see, but you still think it's funny.  But you don’t think it's bad because you are very smart.  Anyway, I told her about the extraordinarily ubiquitous practice, in the USA, of decreasing the amount of body hair on women including on their sex.  She thought this was odd until I told her of the various methods of doing so.  Then she thought it will downright silly.  She said, HOW EXPENSIVE!  I agreed.  She said, how much time to spend!  I agreed.  She said, yes but it's not natural!  I agreed but told her also that labia and clitoral stretching is also not natural.  She is forced to agree.  But then she tells me, when you remove hair then you have problems with spots.  She means pimples and blemishes and in grown hairs.  I agree.  She says, HOW HORRIBLE!  I agree again.

OK, now that this is out of the way, more on a more general note:

This is totally crazy.  I have repeatedly received emails from an email address listed as coming from Saul Garlick and an organization called Think Impact.  Maybe some of you sociologists out there have also received one for travel to developing countries to do various kinds of work.  Anyway, staying at the house with us now is a woman who is almost 10 years younger than me who is a freaking co-owner of this company with whom I have previously considered employment.  It really, really is a small world.

Here is the website for what they do:

http://www.thinkimpact.com/about-us/

More on Rwandan culture and family:  people here often refer to various other people as brother and sister and mother and etc.  But they are not related.  Before and after the genocide it is common here to “adopt” people into your family.

People here drink each other’s blood to seal “family” which is oh so important, especially after the genocide.  They are “blood” to one another.  Lest you think this is another story of dark skinned weird and exotic cannibalism, I did just this sort of thing growing up with my dark skinned compatriots in elementary school and junior high even.  You think that tribe means something here?  It's the same in the USA.  The thing is, a rose does not smell as sweet if you call it something “different”.  The whole concept of Orientalism.  I reference here again that article on the Nacirema.  The way you describe things, if you already think they are “different” or “exotic” makes a difference.

Someone I know here recently told me their story about the genocide.  A good friend you will remember.  She was only about 9 or so when it happened.  Her father never came home again.  She said that she couldn’t even trust her closest friends that weren’t family after that.  That she went through a long period of crisis and trauma where she couldn’t even be around men who were wielding the normal implements of life in Rwanda (a machete, a garden hose, a knife, a stick (there are many special “sticks” used for various things here that were also used as murder weapons during the genocide) etc.).  It was painful to try to imagine the common utensils of life suddenly being forever linked with, not just death, but, the death of a loved one and the threatened death of yourself.  My friend now has many of members of her “family” and this includes a great love for muzungus in whose hands you can trust most implements, she says.

I am still trying to get around to posting more photos, but the rainy season has started to really live up to its name and internet is even harder to come by – thought the rain is exciting and the temperature completely comfortable.  It's night time now and I am wearing a sweater at the equator!