Pictures corresponding to blog posts

Its the same album as always, but just jump to the end to see the new ones.

Mwezi

End of the week-Meeting with PC

Thursday we had our regional meeting with PC in Kamembe. We left in the morning on the motos and about 15 minutes into the drive, we see a gigantic mass of people on the road. We had seen people running and going in big groups together, but thought that it must be an ubukwe (wedding), but when we saw about 200+ people on the road blocking our path, singing and beating drums, we had second thoughts. Weddings here are usually huge, but don’t take up the entire road! I guess there was so pilgrimage type thing going on with the catholic church and people were walking from my town to who knows where. Well anyways, so we got past the stragglers in the back, but could not get through the masses, so we would stop and wait a while, then ride up to behind the big mass and repeat. Finally we went off onto a footpath and were able to stay on that for a while until we headed them off. While on the footpath, passing people was so funny because 1. there are never motos on the path, and 2. we are white. The look of shock mixed with confusion was priceless. We waved a lot while on that path. It was a beautiful drive and I wish I would’ve been able to get out my camera more to take pictures. When we got close to the paved road, the motos stopped and we had to walk the rest of the way to the town on the road because the police were stopping people up ahead to check for insurance. I think my moto driver is not registered to be a taxi, so he is not allowed on the main road. When we got into the taxi, the police man we were talking to in town got in with us and when we were almost to Kamembe, we pulled up behind this giant truck and there was a boy hanging onto the back. Well the truck was going very slowly up this hill, so the police man jumped out and as soon as the boy saw him, he jumped off and ran into the woods and the police man chased him for a second then got back into the ibisi (taxi bus-its really just a minivan) and we kept going. When we got into town, we went into a shop that has a refrigerator and got cold yogurt and drinks and then went into the market to look at igitenge (fabric used to wrap as a skirt). As soon as we stepped out of the shop, four boys started asking us for money. One of them grabbed my hand and started shaking my arm and wouldn’t let go for the next 20 minutes and followed me all through the market. I just ignored him after the first few minutes and attempts at saying no to him. He finally gave up after we left the market and went to the post office. My favorite driver came and got us and took us to the center where we had lunch and started the meeting. After the meeting, we all went out to a hotel by the lake and had drinks and ordered dinner. The soccer matches were on the TV, so I got to see the US beat Spain and then Brazil beat South Africa. The power went out after the US/Spain game for about a half hour. The hotel didn’t have a generator, so we sat by candle light and with a huge lantern waiting for dinner. The driver and I were hanging out in the car listening to a CD he put in and the Cops theme song came on. I sang the part that goes “whatcha gonna do when they come for you” and the driver said “I’m gonna run”! haha. Then we got into a conversation about how in Rwanda if you don’t drink a lot of beer with your friends they ask “Uri inkoko?” (are you a chicken?) and I explained that that is called peer pressure and we use the same phrase in the US. I split a vegetarian pizza and lasagna for dinner with one of the other volunteers and no one wanted to try the lasagna! I tried to share and pass the plate around, but all the Rwandans looked at it like it was poison. When we got back to the center, the game was on and a bunch of men were all sitting around watching it. I was the only woman. That night, I slept okay, but I woke up to a dog barking like crazy and then the church bells rang for I swear 5 minutes straight at 6am, the bell tower was right behind my building. The center was beautiful. It was located on top of a hill that overlooked the lake and Bukavu, DRC. The conference room was pretty sweet too; it was a circular building with an amazing view. We got really lucky on the way home, we got a ride with PC to the town on the road and the motos were there waiting for us. Saturday we sat around the house doing nothing and then on Sunday, we went for a hike up the huge hill next to us. The hill isn’t that bad, but the path has no switchbacks so it just goes straight vertical! We were dying, but met a lot of people on the way and got followed by a bunch of kids. When we got to the top, the road continued on pretty much on a flat, so we went along that and found a little town. After our sweaty adventure, we jumped into the shower quickly and then the nun took us to visit our resource family (FINALLY!). They live pretty close and they have a 4 month old baby boy. He is so cute. We just played with him and they gave us fantas and some food and we got stuck because it started raining. But if you have visitors and it starts raining they say you are good visitors (abasitsi beza) because you brought the rain.

Quick update

I walked home with the nun who is a nurse at the clinic and speaks pretty good English, and I asked her about the babies I saw on Monday (she usually works in maternity, so I knew she would know. Also Rwandese's favorite past time is talking about anything and everything and everyone). She told me that it was a spontaneous abortion caused by the mother working too hard. Women here are so strong and work so hard, in the fields and carrying pounds and pounds of produce up and down the hills to the markets. This particular woman had walked all the way to a big town to sell at the market there. The town is almost 3 hours by bus! She got home and felt some pain so she came to the clinic. She was very sad they had died and she will be burying them in her garden. The nun thinks they were 5 months old. If she was in the U.S. they probably could've been saved.

I can’t keep track of what happens

On Thursday, I was helping out with the child vaccination again and one of the nurses came to say hello to me, so I asked where he was working today and he told me he was working in psychiatry that day for people who were affected by the genocide. I didn’t know we had this service, so I asked him if I could come see and he showed me the paper he fills out while talking to people. It went over trauma, mental health problems, asked if the patient has any scars, and a few other things, that I couldn’t translate. He saw people of all ages, from old widows to young girls in secondary school. I am very interested in and elated that we have this type of service. Mental health care is very difficult to come across in lower income countries. Before teaching English and the crazy rain, the neighbors came to visit again and the oldest girl and one of the smaller ones braided my hair into about 10 lopsided uneven braids. I didn’t care. It felt so good to have someone touch my head. I gathered them all up and put them into a pony to go to class.
So, on Friday during the testing of pregnant mothers, one woman came in whose husband was HIV+ and she was not. The nun had me get everyone else out of the room and she shut the door to talk to this woman. She was asking her if her husband uses condoms and the woman said that he refuses and started crying. We tried to console her and talk to her and the nun asked her to bring her husband in and they would test her again and talk to the husband, but I could see the fear and frustration and pain that this woman felt. There is no way for her to make her husband use a condom and she knows that she will contract the virus and die. Her husband is dealing her the card of death, putting the whole family at risk. The children already born will be orphaned and the one in her belly might also get the virus and die, but there is nothing she can do about it. She cannot say no, and even if she does, it won’t help because there is no such thing as rape inside of marriage. I almost started to cry, but my friend came in, so I went to meet her. I tried telling Emily about it, but found that I could not without bursting into tears in front of everyone. Its just so frustrating having no hope, knowing that there is this thing you can prevent, but not having the power to prevent it. I am still so angry about it and so sad for the woman, but know that I can’t do anything about it and she is unable to do anything about it. I just hope that the nun will be able to talk some sense into the husband and let him know that he needs to protect his family; he cannot leave his children without any parents. Its terrible and sad that he has this virus, but it wont do any good for his wife to contract it as well.
Monday, I helped out with family planning and then got the list of drugs in our pharmacy to make a pharmacy sheet. Right now, everything is hand written in a book, as it comes up, so you have to look through what you wrote for the day every time you have another patient (to record how much is being used), so I decided to make a sheet in alphabetical order with a place to record how much is used and the totals for the day. Then we went to the market, ate lunch and went to teach English. While I was rounding up students, one of the girls took me into the birthing room and I thought she was going to check how much one of the women was dilated, but instead ended up pulling out two fetuses and showed them to me. I knew what was it was before I saw them. They were wrapped in paper and put into a box and just sitting on the shelf. I am pretty surprised that I had no reaction to them. I still don’t really. I don’t know how I feel about it. I am not disgusted, or sad or angry. I feel very nonchalant. I don’t know the circumstances around the babies. I don’t know if the mother went into early labor and they just couldn’t survive, or if she was having complications and they needed too be aborted or if she had an elected abortion. I am trying to figure out if all those anti-abortion pictures and videos of aborted fetuses and the ones I saw in formaldehyde during biology lab prepared me enough to be able to see theses babies without feeling, but I just don’t know.

The rain came back!

Our friends came to visit again on Monday. They came in the house and we sat in the living room in our stupid, uncomfortable chairs. Emily gave them lollypops and I took some pictures and we played with the baby and she peed on the floor.
Tuesday, I helped out in vaccinating babies. I wrote in the baby’s ifishi (medical record) and gave polio vaccine. I also finally got up the soap for the clinic at the handwashing stations by the bathroom. I used a modified version of the tippytap. I was ashamed and thought it to be setting a very bad example that the health clinic did not have soap for people to wash their hands after using the latrines, so I asked the titilaire if there was any money in the budget for soap and she said yes, but was afraid that people would steal it. The genius of the tippy tap helps in many ways, not just to clean hands, but also to keep soap from being stolen! (I’ve posted pictures of the contraption in the Mwezi album on picasa) The boss from AIDS Relief came and we FINALLY got a job description! I am so happy. We ate lunch together with some of the other staff who were with him and it was awesome, having someone besides Emily to speak English to is always great. So, back to the job, we are here to help increase patient adherence to their ARV (antiretroviral) drugs and to make sure they are being taken care of sufficiently. Many HIV+ mothers fail to bring their babies in at the appropriate times to be tested. I knew this is what I was supposed to be doing, but he told us exactly where the clinic is failing, what we should be looking for and showed us the patients records, so we know where to mark these things, what information to look for and to get it filled in if its missing, etc. I am so happy. I enjoy doing all the crazy things they have me doing, but I guess I am the type of person that likes being told what to do. I was always frustrated that I didn’t have something concrete to work on. We had an electrical storm Tuesday night. I didn’t hear anything, just saw some flashing to the south, so it was either that or Burundi was bombing something.
So, on Tuesday, I taught “oh shoot” “dang it” and “darn it” and Wednesday after class the lab tech, a nurse and I went to the school and played volleyball and the lab tech missed the ball and said “oh shoot!” It was awesome.
THE RAINY SEASON IS NOT OVER!!! My goodness the rain came back with a vengeance!! It hasn’t rained in almost 2 weeks and today was a DOWNPOUR, a deluge. I wish all of you could experience Rwandan rain; it is completely inexplicable. The bad part is that it starting during class, so we had to walk home. We didn’t leave the clinic for a good half hour after class when the rain let up a little. I was terrified that I was going to fall again! The classroom was leaking really badly and there was a river, and I honestly mean river-it covered my feet, running through the building. I grabbed the converter box off the floor so it wouldn’t get wet and then went to pull out the plug and electrocuted myself. Not badly, but my arm felt weird for a while. The lab tech whom I played volleyball with on Wednesday while walking through the river said in English “I am swimming”. It was funny. I love it when they use what they learn. My shoes got covered in mud, as did my feet, and I slipped but didn’t fall. When we got to the little shops where everyone saw me fall last time, I could hear them all whispering in anticipation.
Friday, our friend who works in the town with the hospital hitched a ride to our village in the ambulance with some coworkers who had to come do some follow-up at my clinic. I showed her around the clinic and then made her lunch and caught a ride back with the ambulance to her town to stay the night with her. There were 12 people in the ambulance on the way out. We got to her house and made some guacamole and chapatti for a party at her neighbor’s house. We arrived at the party around 6pm and stayed until 11. There was a potluck dinner and lots of drinks and a dance party out on the lawn. It was really fun. The baby was dancing with us (he’s about 1 year) and was so dang cute. There was a little girl baby around the same age and I was dancing with her and she pulled herself into my arms and wouldn’t let me put her back down, so I danced with her on my hip for a long time. When the little boy came back, she let me put her down and she danced with him. We made delicious pancakes Saturday morning and then walked the half hour to the main road and waited for a taxi bus for another half an hour and finally made it into town 15 minutes before the bank closed. Emily and I went to the bank and our friend went to the market and then our other friend who lives in Nyamasheke met up with us in town. The our coworker from AIDS Relief picked us up and brought us to his house where we had a nice lunch and watched a movie. He had a friend in town and has two roommates, so we all hung out at the house a while then went to the hotel by the lake and went swimming in the pool. It was cold, but nice. We stayed at the hotel all night drinking and talking and finally got a taxi back to our friends house around 10. We slept at her house again, had some more yummy pancakes then hit the road to come back to Mwezi Sunday morning. We got to the main road, had to wait a while to catch a bus to Ntendezi, then waited in Ntendezi for the motos for a few minutes and then just decided to start walking. We walked for over a half hour when the moto showed up and took me home. Emily continued walking until it came back and picked her up, which took about an hour from when I left her to when she got on. So she walked about half way home (an hour and a half). We had gotten cheese while in town, so we had grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner!!

abasuri, impinja na ubukwe (visitors, a baby and a wedding)

Thursday, we had a meeting with the community health workers. We were told the meeting began at 8am, we never usually get to the clinic before 9 because the staff meeting goes until 9, so we showed up around 8:10 and the meeting didn’t begin until 8:45. I introduced myself for a whole 30 seconds and then sat in the corner over 3 ½ hours! Being stuck in a meeting sucks, but its soo much worse when you cant fully understand what is being said. I know they talked about nutrition, hygiene and the mutuelle health insurance, but that’s about it. We finally just got up and left (which is not an uncommon nor a rude thing to do in Rwanda, but its difficult for us being American because I feel that it is extremely rude and it took me about an hour to build up the courage to just go). After the meeting we had lunch and Emily took a nap. I sat outside and finished my book and had my first real visitors. I was sitting reading when I heard a child’s voice yell “mwiriwe!” I yelled back then went to the gate and there was a young girl there with an older girl. We tried to communicate, but it didn’t really work and we just stood around not talking for a while and then I tried to get them to go because I wanted to shower and I had to write my lesson plan for the day, but they didn’t get the hint and when I came back out of the house, they were still there, so I asked them some questions and I told the little girl to climb the mandarin tree to pick some and we stood and ate oranges together and then I told them I would come visit them tomorrow, so they pointed out their house to me and left after being here for an hour. Imagine my shock when they show up again an hour later with three more children! I was bored out of my mind and figured they were too, why would they want to come back and endure that awkwardness again?! But Emily was up by then so we all sat out on the steps and “talked”. There was a baby this time and he was super cute. He enjoyed playing with my toes and water bottle and pen. He also peed on the steps (they don’t have diapers here). Two of the girls left after a while and then Emily painted the oldest girl and the younger girls toenails. It was cute. (I was able to get a shower in between the first and second visit).

Friday, I went into the clinic and helped with the pregnant mothers again and while I was measuring bellies, a nurse came running in and said a lady was giving birth, so the nurse I was working with told me to come along. I’ve never seen a birth before so I was pretty excited, but after hearing the nuns tell me that I would become one of them after seeing one, I was a little nervous. When I got into the birthing room I saw a teeny, tiny lady on the table with a bucket of bloody gauze below her. Two of the nurses decided she should be moved to the other table, so one took her under the arms and the other grabbed her legs and they moved her to the other table while she was moaning out in pain. I wont go into the gritty details, but my goodness, birthing is not pretty. I stood at her head because I didn’t want to see what was going on below and I was in sandals and didn’t want to get junk on my feet. Even that didn’t do the trick and after a while I got a little nauseated and light headed and had to go sit down. The nurses laughed at me and I tried to smile then they sent me to get another of the nurses. As soon as I got out into the fresh air, I felt better. I brought the other nurse in and ascertained that the lady was having complications, the baby’s heartbeat was slowing and she needed to go to the hospital, so the nurse than came in last checked her, wrote some stuff on a piece of paper and went to call for the ambulance (we do not have a car in our village, so the ambulance has to make the hour and a half drive to the clinic to pick someone up, so all in all it takes about 3 hours for someone to get to the hospital if need be). So, I never got to see the baby, just a woman in pain and some nasty stuff, not exactly what I pictured for my first birth.
I got home late and was starving and nauseated and had to eat quickly and get dressed for a wedding. One of the drivers was getting married and we were invited to the wedding. It was a hot day, and my dress up clothes are not the coolest ensemble, so I was sweating pretty badly when I got to the church. The ceremony didn’t take place in the church, everyone just met there before proceeding to the couples house, where a canopy and a million benches were set up. The procession of people came singing down the road. The first group of people to come in were carrying things on their heads. They all carried the things down and then people made a production line to bring the things into the house. Then they started seating people. The poor bride and groom had to stand in the sun until everyone else was seated, which was a LOT of people! We then sat and some songs were sung, speeches given by both fathers, and banana beer from a gourd was shared among the families. Then some fantas and beers were given out and plates of food were handed to people. They made me and Emily a plate with eggs on it instead of cow. I hate and love that they cater to us (hate because I feel bad and don’t want them to make special arrangements for me, but also love so I don’t have the awkwardness of turning down food). We ate some and then passed the plate to others who didn’t get good food (there was definitely a hierarchy to whom got what food). I also gave away my sodas that I didn’t finish, when you hardly drink soda its hard to have 3 in one sitting! Then came gift giving time. Here, when you give a gift, you have to get up in front of everyone and hand your gift to the person and give a little speech or sing a song. I was too embarrassed to do so, so I just waited and gave them the gift later. The Rwandans around me were laughing at me and telling me to go up and give them the gift, but I refused. It’s so awkward and Emily pushed it onto me. She had the envelope but gave it to me to do! The wedding was pretty long, but it was interesting and fun. The bride is a good foot taller than the groom, so that was pretty funny. The house was a good half hour walk from our house. We were told it was close, so Emily wore high heels and my shoes decided not to cooperate, so we both got home with many a blisters and were big bags of complaints.

Saturday morning I was awoken around 3:30/4am to my second earthquake! We had one while in Butare during breakfast one morning. They are pretty small, but scare me a lot because I live in a cinderblock house. Not the most earthquake friendly structure. It was pretty quick and small, so I didn’t even bother getting out of bed and there were no aftershocks, but my heart was racing for quite a while afterwards and it was difficult to go back to sleep. We had some more visitors Saturday evening. They live near us and came over to say hello and introduce themselves and tell us that we shouldn’t stay cooped up in our house all alone, that we should go out and visit our neighbors. I know this is true, but it’s so nice to sit and read a book and do my laundry and not be stared at and talked about. I like having the weekends to be alone. Today, I borrowed watering cans from the nuns and we watered the garden. Our timing was totally off on the whole planting process. As soon as we finally plant something, it stops raining. Hasn’t rained all week! It is not easy watering a giant garden with only little watering cans. Took about an hour I think. Wish I had a hose with spray nozzle!

Sunday, I awoke to drumming. The catholic church had some kind of feast and there was a procession from the church to a place on the hill next to ours. The drumming was consistent and did not stop for longer than 10 minutes at a time for the first 4 hours of the morning (7am-11am). Then it stopped for a half hour and began again at 11:30, by noon, it sounded like they were in our back yard, so em and I decided to go check it out and as we were walking down our path, we see the priest in full white gear go running past from the nuns house down past the water tank. We got to the end of the path and looked in the direction he ran and saw HUNDREDS of people all gathered about 100 yards away. While we were peeking around the bushes at all the people, the head nun came walking up and caught us. She told us we were free to join them if we wanted. We decided instead to go into the cows yard and look through the fence at the people. We also found out that there are rabbits next door also. I thought we just had cows and pigs, but there are some rabbits too. We just went back into the house and listened to the drumming and singing, my goodness noise carries well here. The singing and drumming finally ended around 2pm. The girls who visited earlier came over again and took us to their house. its pretty close, on the hill next to ours. we sat in the house a while and they cut up some pineapple for us and then we went outside and played the "iki n'iki" game (whats this) and then emily and i decided we wanted to see what was on top of the hill. So, they all walked with us up the hill. it was WAY steeper and more difficult that I imagined, but the view was AMAZING!!!!!!! We are going to do it again someday when i have my camera so you can see. it is like death going up that hill though. i think i lost a year of my life. and i am pretty conditioned to climbing, i do it everyday and have been doing it every day for the past few months, but this hill is VERTICAL! I'll climb it again soon so you can see photos.

We have potatoes

The rainy season is officially over! It hasn’t rained in 3 days. The weather has been absolutely perfect, warm and sunny with a slight breeze to cool you off when hiking up the hill. I forgot to add that while swimming, I lost my toe ring again. This time it was not found, but luckily I just received a new one in my birthday box from mom, so no naked toe for me! I have a cold that I think I picked up from one of the people at the party. Not sleeping probably had something to do with it also. Oh, and I burned my leg on the hot water pipe in the shower at the party also. I forgot how to use hot water and when I leaned forward it caught my leg and burned me, not a bad burn, just a little red line across my thigh.
Our girl who cleans the house is helping us to plant carrots, so she came today and dug up the garden and found us some potatoes! I made curry fries tonight for dinner with them and they were delicious!
We had a visit from PC on Tuesday and the driver who is the one that drove me here to drop me off brought me chocolate from Kigali! We became friends very quickly when we met (he’s a new driver, hired on right before we all left to site, so I didn’t get to know him during training at all) and I think he is the coolest person I have met so far. One of the first things he said to me was “don’t let them give you any shit” and that totally threw me for a loop! How did he learn that phrase! He lived in Kenya and South Africa for a few years, so he has had a bit of western influence and it is hilarious. Wish I could see more of him, but he lives and works in the capital and I am just too far.

this is how expats party

I went into the clinic on Friday and ended up doing prenatal exams on pregnant women. I got to measure their bellies and feel for the head to determine if the baby was fixed or not. I actually caught an at-risk birth; the baby’s head was fixed, but not in the birth canal, so I called the nurse in and she felt it then called in the other nurse to come feel it and they had to send her to the hospital. I felt like a real maternal nurse that day, it was awesome. I saw about 15 patients. Then the nun sent me and Emily home to eat lunch and rest (they think we are weak muzungus), so we came back and packed our bags and sat around for a few hours until the motos arrived to take us to the main road for the OAF party. I had to ride with the accountant who is a TERRIBLE driver! He doesn’t really know what he is doing and he acts like a teenaged boy. He goes really slow because hes not very confident on the bike but then he has to prove his machoness by gunning it the next second. It was not a fun, relaxing ride like I usually have with Ambroise, the main driver. We got picked up at the main road and driven to the house. We had a delicious dinner complete with salad with macadamia nuts and goat cheese!!! There were 12 expats in the house, it was crazy. 11 from the US, 4 were RPCVs from West Africa and a Kenyan. It’s like heaven going to their house with all the good food and fun things to do. We had a dance party that lasted all night and the next morning (or more accurately, afternoon) we had a yummy breakfast and then went to the lake for swimming and picnicking and we played some Frisbee and volleyball. It was a beautiful day. I swam out to the floating dock and lay there a while listening to the kids on the shore yell at me (they can see me no matter how far off I am). When we got back we had another amazingly delicious dinner and more alcohol and dancing. We played taboo and UNO and I won both! (well, I won one hand of UNO which ended up being the last b/c we were playing where I got the points from the cards still in peoples hands and I caught everyone when they had a million cards, so I got all the points in one hand! And in taboo I was on a team, so it wasn’t a solitary win, but still!). During the day, Tricia and I practiced some acroyoga, which we began to do in Butare. It is really fun. I’ve always wanted to be in circle de soleil and acroyoga is kinda like that. It’s a lot of partner acrobatics. I am the flyer and Tricia is the base. I’d like to try to be the base, but I don’t have anyone smaller than me to fly. We showed the others and Tricia ended up flying two of the other people also, so we started a movement of acroyoga in Rwanda! We did some more Sunday morning after another amazing breakfast and then we watched a movie, Lord of War, which was pretty interesting, on their giant projection screen with surround sound! We were driven home late Sunday night and slept in Monday morning and just went to the market and to teach English in the afternoon.

Volleyball!

Monday, I helped out in the pharmacy, counting pills and putting them into baggies (they don’t have pill bottles here, just baggies) with the nun and this one guy came in to get some medication to treat syphilis. Well, the nun was furious and started yelling at him in Kinyarwanda and I couldn’t understand enough to figure out why she was so angry. When he left, she told us that he had 4 wives and didn’t bring any of them to get treated. She threatened not to treat him until he brought his wives in and held on to his meds for a little while. She yelled at him a second time and then gave him his medication. That evening, I taught phone vocab, one of which was “off the hook”, I tried my best to explain the slang meaning of this phrase, but failed miserably. I thought it was so funny and was giggling every time I read that phrase, so I thought it would be only fair of me to explain why I was laughing, but it just doesn’t translate.
I went into Kamembe on Tuesday because we were flat broke. I went to the bank which only took 10 minutes, which is unheard of in Rwanda (we’ve been known to wait 4 hours before), so I was pretty stoked about that. I then went to the market and bought some peas and carrots, which are unavailable in my village (I’m gonna teach the importance of variety in ones diet) and then sat around. One of the other volunteers in Nyamasheke said she was coming into Kamembe that day also, so I texted her to see when she was going to arrive and found out that she hadn’t left yet, so I decided to make the trek down to the AIDS Relief office to see if I or em had any mail. I was walking down the hill and decided I better ask someone if this was the correct hill, so I turned around and asked this guy who said yes, this was the right way, but heres a short cut. My goodness that short cut was STEEEEEEEP. We went traversing down this vertical muddy footpath first through houses and then through the forest. It was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. I am flabbergasted that I did not slip and fall. I finally made it to the office after about 25 minutes and went to the post with one of the staff to see if there was any mail. I got a box, Emily got an envelope and Tricia got a box. It was a good day. While I was waiting for the other volunteer to come (she was going to give me a ride back up the hill because now I had a large envelope and box to carry along with my moto helmet and backpack), I opened my box and read some Newsweek. That lasted about an hour, then I got on the computer and checked my email, played some solitaire and played with this electronic dictionary that has French, English, German and Spanish. Then I made some tea and sat outside looking at the lake and Congo for a while and then after about 3 hours of just sitting at the office getting in the way, I asked if the driver could take me up the hill. He was on lunch, but could take me when he got back. I finally made it to the top of the hill around 2:30 or so and went to the taxi stand to get a taxi back to the town on the road. The taxis don’t leave until they are full, and since my town isn’t very popular there was only one other person in the taxi when I asked, so I decided to eat something first. Ordering food in Rwanda always takes a long time, but this I know. It took about an hour to get my food and pay and then I had to sit in the taxi another half hour until it filled up before we could go, so I didn’t get moving until 4pm. It took an hour to get to my town because of all the stops we made along the way, so the moto driver was trying to beat the sun on the way back and my goodness my legs are sooore from gripping onto the bike.
Wednesday, I helped pass out mosquito nets to the people in the sector who cannot afford one. It was madness and I thought of a million different ways to increase the productivity of the day. I taught English later in the day and after went to play volleyball at the primary school. It had rained that day, so there were huge mud puddles on the court and my arms and hands were a different color by the end of it. I played with boys and girls and teachers, so it was a good mix and really fun. A lot of people on their way home stopped to watch the abazungu play (to pluralize people in Kinyarwanda, you change the prefix instead of adding an s on the end, so umuzungu, becomes abazungu when theres more than one).
Thursday, emily talked me into staying home to make chapati for lunch (it takes a long time), so I did some laundry, taught english to the one nun, fixed the clothing line and read. it rained around 1 and then again at 3. it finally stopped around 3:45, so we were late going to teach, but it doesnt matter because they're always late coming in. during the night, there was an electrical storm in which one flash was so bright i thought something exploded and then the thunder was so loud that it stopped my heart and my whole body got goosebumps for about 10 minutes. I have never been so scared of thunder before in my life. I cannot explain how loud and scary it was. I was shaking and covered in goosebumps and on the verge of tears. i feel silly saying that, but this was like nothing i have ever heard before and the flash was so bright and scary, it just added to the terror. I'm okay now, but my goodness that was scary!!!