After my night in Kigali for my medical reasons, myself and a few other trainees headed out to a friend’s site further North to celebrate the Christmas holiday. We left Kigali early because we knew that public transport on the day before Christmas, in any catholic country, was bound to be a nightmare. Nybogogo (the main bus station) was a lot like what I imagine hell to be like. Luckily, however, Rwandan transport is known for being much better organized than its surrounding neighbors – which isn’t saying much – and our reservations were held and respected. We grabbed our tickets and hopped on our bus moments before it was set to depart.
We spent the two days of our visit cooking good American food, drinking beer and generally being merry. Some of the highlights:
-The two Santa hats I bought in Kigali which were present throughout and passed around between everyone, until one got stolen by one of the Rwandan guests.
-Cooking Tacos and Spanish rice because we could even though they are not the most Christmas-y of foods
-The constant blue skies, 80 degree weather and banana trees
-When one of the nice female neighbors and about 20 children came into the compound to help us cook and laughed at how we peeled potatoes
-Giving the kids glow sticks after it got dark one night – they went absolutely nuts but were very sad when they stopped glowing in the morning.
-The 2 adorable children who we let stay and eat our tacos with us
-Some rousing games of Trivial pursuit
-Everyone sleeping on the hard concrete floor and thus being very overtired
-The constant chorus of “eat this you need the calories” leveled at me after I revealed that I was malnourished.
In general it was just incredibly nice to all be together, doing things in the most American way we could to celebrate the holiday. And it was nice to hear that everyone has been struggling at site in their own way, despite their personalities, language abilities, living situations etc. Every site is hard. Every site has challenges and realistically we will all get through them together. And every now and then we will congregate in our own little Muzungu world and eat Tacos and pretend we are not in Rwanda.
The volunteer we were visiting lives in a much more urban area than myself and upon arriving I was pretty shocked by the surroundings. I would not have been able to live there. Props to this volunteer because after two days there our official diagnosis was that he lived in a village full of assholes. People stared far more openly and in much closer proximity to us than anyone in my village, I was asked for money more, and I just felt downright unwelcome. Children banged at his gate and peered in his windows almost the entire time we were there (and apparently they do this even when just one muzungu is present) and his neighbors let themselves in constantly and invited themselves to stay for food. Luckily this volunteer is one of the more laid-back and kindhearted of our group and thus handles the situation beautifully, but I personally don’t think I could do it. It was a bit of a relief to see someone else’s site and realize that the particular challenges of my site are well within my limits as a person because clearly there are some things which would not be.
So despite missing family, friends and tradition it was a wonderful holiday. A big thank you to everyone who came and made it special and to our host for allowing so many of us to crash at his house despite having no furniture and very few days to prepare. You probably won’t read this but you’re a champ. I hope everyone back home’s Christmas’s were equally enjoyable. Noheri Nziza. Merry Christmas. And a happy new year.
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