Benefits of a small town

A small town:

In these past few days I have learned both the up and downsides of living in a small town, and by small town I actually mean tiny village. It’s hard to be anonymous in a small town, but harder still to be in a small village when you are one of 6 white people (muzungus) and the only one with red hair. My notice here is somewhere between the sideshow’s bearded lady and Paris Hilton. I am sure that if camera phones were more popular my picture would be snapped and passed around just as quickly as the latest gossip rag. There are weird moments to be sure. People carry screaming babies up to me in the street to touch their hands (hopefully the babies aren’t crying because they are afraid of me but most likely they are), bikes almost hit me as their driver’s crane their necks for a longer look and almost all children under the age of 9 follow me as I walk past. The children I love though and they are innocent enough usually only wanting to hold my hand or walk with me. Sometimes they try to imitate the way I walk (Muzungu’s walk very purposefully I’ve been told) so when they do this I begin to dance or skip and the whole situation dissolves into a lot of silliness. The unwanted attention comes from all age groups however. Old women approach me to try and talk, young boys cat-call, old men stop by to introduce themselves and invite me to tea at their homes and a certain subset of teenage girls are clearly jealous.

            Despite the increasing difficulty of getting used to this extreme amount of attention it has surely had its upsides. For one I got lost on my very first night in Kabande (the village I live in) after dark – and dark here is DARK.  I was beginning to panic when a boy of about 9 ran up to me shouting you belong to ** (my host family)** grabbed my hand and escorted me home. Apparently the search party had been alerted to my absence and all the playing children had been told to look for the redhaired Muzungu, small town the rescue.

            Additionally, my key task during Pre-service Training of integrating with the community and reaching out to as many people as possible has been considerably eased by the attention of the children. By introducing myself to whoever is following me at any given time I seem to extended my reach considerably. Only 3 days in and almost every child I run into already knows my name (and I definitely haven’t met them all), which immediately makes it easier for me to meet and gain the trust of their parents.

            Lastly, this small town vibe saved me from a serious taboo with my host mother this week. After 3 days in Africa I was feeling quite ill, I’ll spare you the gory details but lets say sicker than you’d want to be in a place with only mud floored latrines. When I informed my host mother of this and the fact that I did not want to eat I set off a whole host of cultural taboos and prays to Jesus for my speedy recovery. I later learned it’s a bad omen for a guest in your house to refuse your food but feeling as awful as I did at the time I put my foot down and would not eat. Even the next morning my host mother was furious, yelling at me in Kinyarwanda and telling me she didn’t sleep all night because of it. Clearly this was bad. Luckily for me she was at the house of another volunteer the next afternoon who had heard my side of the story and was able, through a host parent who spoke English, to better explain my predicament and all was forgiven. Who said gossip was always bad? All in all the attention is overwhelming but I have to say I am starting to enjoy the feeling that a whole village of people is concerned for my well-being cause we all know I probably need it.