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.
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