The Rwandan Way

Here is it, my rant about my biggest pet peeve in Rwandan culture: a country wide epidemic of always needing to be write. It is an indisputable fact that there is only one way to do anything in life and that is the Rwandan way. 

-You want to wash your clothes once with soap instead of three times? Too bad that's incorrect.

-You want to wash your shoes delicately so they dont get destroyed in the first 2 months in country? Sorry scrubbing the shit out of them is the only acceptable protocol.

-You cut potatoes on a slab of wood instead of in your hand? Incorrect, you must be stopped.

-You don't set up your blackboard in 3 sections like every Rwandan teacher was taught to? Your students will not understand.

There is literally nothing that I do in my life where a Rwandan, usually from my host family but this happens in all spheres of my life, doesn't attempt to stop me and correct me. Its a country suffering from some serious OCD. I mean shit I was functioning perfectly well as an adult in America doing things very differently. There are certain situations where you just give in and do things there way, resistance is futile and quite draining. But on several key aspects of my life I have held my ground. The main two are on how  I set up my chalkboard and how I wash my clothes because 1. my students will learn the critical thinking skills to take notes in my class with out being force fed them - giving them a crucial leg up in a country where I swear critical thinking is almost non-existent and 2. I refuse to stretch out and ruin my clothes in the first months in country. The stress of constantly being corrected - and may I add in the most condescending of ways and with many accompanying obnoxious facial expressions and tongue clicks - is really just an added burden to my day. This mentality is a roadblock that volunteers run up against constantly here in Rwanda and I'm not looking forward to two years of asserting that I know what I am doing and there is more than one answer. During a moment like this the other day where a waitress made us all stand up and rearranged our seats the way she wanted them I made a quip which I've decided is very telling of the experience here:

"Time, the truth, and the meaning of words are flexible but there is only one correct way to arrange chairs, or anything else for that matter."