Are they actually listening to me? Oh, and I ripped my pants

On my way home from work on Thursday, a secondary school student stopped me on the road and said she has seen me walking often and that she likes white people and wants to be my friend. Her English was really good and we had a nice, short conversation and exchanged numbers. It’s school break right now, so she was heading to Kigali to stay with her family during break and when she comes back we’ll hang out. Friday, I went and hung out with Richard and Elizabeth at their house for a bit before Adam came. We met up with them again Friday night at the bar and then 3 of Adam’s friends from Kigali were there on their way to Bujumbura for the weekend, so we all hung out together and then went to the club. While Adam and I were dancing, the pants that I finally got around to fixing this week (I got them taken in because they were too big) ripped right up the back! All the way! So, he helped cover me and I took off my over-shirt and tied it around my waist and we just went home. The pants are completely ruined; no way can they be fixed. The rip is a good foot and a half long from the waist to the thigh! It was so embarrassing, but hilarious. Saturday, we watched some football and then Richard and Elizabeth met up with us and a lady whom they gave a ride to earlier in the week called and met up with us at the bar. Turns out she is CRAZY! We all were just in shock at her and couldn’t wait for her to leave and then had a good laugh about it. She said something about Richard and Adam being spies? Haha
Ran into Canisius, a nurse from the clinic in Mwezi who is now at a health center in Simbi, about a half hour from Butare. He called me when he got in, but I didn’t hear my phone and just happened to see him on the road. It was funny. I think his English has gotten even worse than when he lived in the village because we spoke only in Kinyarwanda. It was good to see him. Monday morning, as I was walking to work, I heard “Ali!” and turned and saw Nepo walking, so we said hi and asked how each other were. It’s nice, I feel like now I am starting to be part of the community. Having people to talk to on the street and such. Monday and Tuesday, I went into the field and gave the post-test for the nutrition lesson I gave. I also read over their monthly reports and answered any questions they had and then gave a short refresher on the nutrition information. Monday, someone asked me what to do if the mother is sick and she is breastfeeding. I told her that even if the mother is sick, she should still breastfeed before 6 months of age. There are not good replacement foods here and the ones that are good (the Nestle formula) are way too expensive for the majority of Rwandese to buy it. I also told them that if the mother cannot produce milk while she is sick then they should give the child goat milk instead of cow milk, which is more common practice. Goat milk is much more nutritious, but isn’t as commonly used. The problem I have though is if they will really listen to me and take me seriously. I can just be saying these things and answering their questions, but they may just be like “yeah, okay muzungu” and not change their actions. I try to explain to them why they should do this or that, but when there are deep-seated traditions or ways of thinking, it takes a lot more than just one session with someone to change their ways. Even if they believe that it is better, the community might think they are being strange by doing things the new way and so they won’t do it. It takes a long time for behaviour change and it takes many people changing their beliefs and ways before it becomes a common practice.
Tuesday, I did the same with the other group of youth community health agents and there weren’t as many questions. I don’t know if they were just not asking or if they really didn’t have any. It’s hard to tell. I did get asked what food category urusenda (chili pepper) is in and I said, none really, its just kind of for taste, then one boy said something and everyone giggled. My driver translated for me and I guess it’s said that if you eat urusenda then your sex will be hot. Hahaha. My driver loves to make jokes and always has to explain them to me afterwards. On the way to the meeting with the youth health workers, he told me that one of the mountains was called ibisi by’umucecuru (unfertile land of the old lady, or something like that) and he doesn’t know why. He thinks that an old lady must have lived on that hill. We forgot to tell the CHA’s that they needed to come back tomorrow for a lesson on growing mushrooms (we started a mushroom project to help get more protein into a persons diet) and so we drove up the path they were walking on and he yelled out to two of the guys, “hey, give me that money back!” (we give them money for transportation when they come for a training) and the guys looked so sad and started to reach into their pockets. He then told them he was joking and they all had a good laugh.
After work, Trish and I met up and went shopping for gifts to bring home. I am so poor now! Bought way too much (awesome) stuff, but still have more things to buy! I want to bring home coffee so people can taste it and the tea and I just have so many things I want to share that I just keep buying and buying. One more week and then I’ll be in the US!