Greetings from Kigali

(As a note, I predrafted this last night on my laptop and transferred it via flash drive, so it's not 100% up to date but pretty much).

Friday 10/22/10

Greetings to everyone from Rwanda! I regret that I did not have the chance to post anything sooner, but things have been quite busy as you might imagine, and internet connectivity scarce. And just as a note, this entry may be a little dated when I actually post it, as I’m writing it on my laptop on this Friday night, and I’ll save it to a flash drive and post it when I get to an internet café.

Just as a brief rundown, I’ll start with things since arriving here in Rwanda…

The flight and everything was problem free, and we arrived in Kigali and were immediately met by Peace Corps Rwanda staff. After a decent though not overly long wait to get through customs, we got our baggage (none of it get lost, I good omen I’m thinking for the rest of my time here), and then loaded up the baggage on one truck, and the 71 of us then squeezed into three small-medium buses.

After a 40min bus ride, all crammed in on buses (though they were pretty nice Toyotas), driving up and down through the hills of Kigali, we arrived at the Centre we are staying at (don’t recall the name, sorry). And let me just say that Rwanda is beautiful, a truly amazing sight. All I’ve seen so far is Kigali, but the hills are amazing, it is extremely green and the red clay in the soil really adds to the incredible beauty of the hillsides. I’ll do my best to start getting some pictures up here when I can.

Today (Friday) was a really long day, filled with information sessions about safety and security, money and banking info, cultural customs and norms, some languages basics (mainly greetings), and of course, the fun part, a medical information session. This sessions was accompanied by medical consults and of course some fun shots which took place spread out throughout the rest of the day. I received a shot for meningitis and rabies, but I still have to get shots for tD and typhoid (at least I think those are the two I still need).

The food has been excellent, although we have eaten every single meal at the Centre we are staying at. I think they have been trying to ease our adjustment to the local cuisine, though tonight I had my first taste of goat since arriving in Rwanda. Other than that it has been a mix of things including: rice, potatoes, beans, soup (some sort of veggie soup), cassava, plantains, salad, chicken, and today we had some awesome breaded and fried fish during a tea break in the morning. I’ve also realized that I may end up drinking a lot of soda here, because that’s basically what is served with every meal. Though no need to worry, they have supplied us with tons of water in our rooms for now, and today we got a nice look at what our water filters look like and how to put them together…They basically look like big Lipton iced tea taps you would see next to a fountain soda machine.

We were also given our extensive medical kits today, which contain everything from lip balm and insect repellent to cipro and some other intense pill in case you actually get malaria. Did I forget to mention that we were started on mefloquin when we arrived on Thursday? I’m not sure if it was from being over tired or the mefloquin, but last night I dreamt of being chased and by rats, and then I woke up with my hand near my mouth, apparently trying to expel a large insect which in my dreams had somehow managed to fly and get stuck in the inside corner of my mouth. If that’s as frightening as the dreams get, I think I can handle it.

Sleeping under a mosquito net is an interesting experience. In some ways it feels charming, as if I’m sleeping within the confines of some very elegant fabric which is supposed to comfort me. But then I actually look at the net in the morning, and then I think about the fact that it’s main purpose is to prevent me from getting dangerously ill from mosquito bites. It gets less charming very quickly after that….

Tomorrow (Saturday) we will be visiting the Gosenzi (sp?) Genocide Memorial. It’s obviously an incredibly sad thing to go see, but I’m still very interested and I’m sure it’s an important thing to take in during the early part of my time in Rwanda.

I have not had an incredible amount of interaction with Rwandans beyond those employed here by the Peace Corps. That said, the staff here, mostly Rwandan nationals, has all been incredibly nice and welcoming. Many of them are the ones responsible for teaching us Kinyarwanda and helping us to adjust to this new culture, they are called “LCFs” (Language and Cross Cultural Facilitators). Once we get to Nyanza and are assigned to our respective houses for the next eleven weeks, we will be living with at least one LCF in each house, an attempt to help reinforce our language learning since we are not living with host families as PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) do in most countries.

I haven’t been here long at all, but in some ways it feels like weeks. I can’t explain why, and it certainly doesn’t imply anything negative at all, it’s just the way it feels. I expect it’s the jetlag and lack of legitimate sleep, coupled with all the various different sessions and such we’ve been sitting through….I’m eager to get to Nyanza and begin actual training, but I know once I do it’s going to be one long eleven week blur (but we do get one day off a week…). For now that’s all, I wish everyone the best…..

Learned a few things lately....

So here's a couple things I've learned recently:

1. There are 71 people (including myself) in the group scheduled to depart for Rwanda on October 20th. About 50ish are English teachers, with remainder teaching math and/or science.
2. For my pre-servivce training, I will be living in Nyanze (less than 60 miles outside of Kigali)
3. During pre-service training I will be living with other volunteers in a house (with an undetermined number to a house), along with our language/cultural instructors
4. I will not be living with a host family during pre-service training or at my final site placement (though I could be living with other staff from the school I work at, or something like that)
5. The school year in Rwanda runs from January to the beginning of December, with about a 5 - 6 week gap between the end of school of December and the beginning of the new school year sometime in January. This is apparently a prime time for vacation and travel home.
6. The Peace Corps (PC) Education Program in Rwanda is basically two-pronged: teaching students directly, and working with teachers themselves. The first year is apparently focused on direct student teaching, and then, after you have experience, you will be asked to do more work with assisting in the training of teachers.
7. This is only the second group of education volunteers being deployed in Rwanda, and the first group was only 23 volunteers (but there have been a couple other groups of health volunteers). There were also about 14 transfers from Mauritania (PC pulled out of Mauritania last year). What does this mean? It means for nearly all of us in this group, we will be heading to sites which are new and where PC volunteers have not served (at least not since pre-1994).
8. At first, packing seemed like something that could be kind of fun. I was totally and utterly incorrect.
9. Time does not pass at a constant rate, anyone who believes it does is just plain wrong. The question for me is, at what rate will time pass starting from now until about January 1st, 2013?

>3 Weeks

So it is exactly three weeks from yesterday that I will be boarding a plane from JFK Airport to fly to Brussels, and then on to Rwanda. Less than three weeks! It seems like just a few days ago that I was trudging through day after day of teaching tennis on Nantucket, with seemingly no end in sight and no word whatsoever from the Peace Corps.

And now, I'm nearing my final few days in Arlington staying with Ashley and Mishka, Ashley's self-proclaimed "canine substitute" for me during my two year stint in the Peace Corps. A cute little six week old Vizsla (pronounced "Vee-shla"), I'm counting on him to help soften the impending difficulties of my departure. While nothing can necessarily make this time "easy" (read: not miserable) for Ashley and I, hopefully having someone to come home to will bring some comfort.

So how does one get prepared to leave for two years? I've thought about this, and I've concluded that you really cannot get fully "prepared", because with the Peace Corps, you really don't know what the hell you are getting prepared for. I don't know which city I'll be living in for pre-service training (the 10 week training period before I am shipped off to my "permanent site" which is where I'll be working and living for the next two years), and I certainly do not know where my final site will be. What will my community be like? Where will it be located? What will my living conditions be? (I don't really care at all about my living conditions, whether I have running water or electricity or whatever. The only thing I really would like is consistent internet access so I can stay in touch better. I think Ashley would strongly agree with this...Am I wrong Love?). Will I be living with a host family? What will my internet access be like. What ages will I be teaching? (For anyone who didn't know, my primary project is teaching English in a secondary school. The most detailed description I have received up until now is that I will be teaching the age equivalent of 7th - 12th grade in American schools, which only reflects the age of my students, for I have no idea how basic or advanced their English language abilities will be. In 2008 Rwandan schools switched from using French to English....If you are realllllyyyy interested, here's a couple articles talking about the switch http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/14/rwanda-france and http://www.buzzle.com/articles/229555.html and http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h5vwAUGsnmZmLHPpGRBtL0j7HROQ

What I was saying before? Oh right, not being able to actually prepare for leaving. But I suppose I should qualify that statement, because it is true that you can prepare in the physical sense (well, kind of. I don't think you can prepare for inevitable traveler's diarrhea and random sicknesses. And oh, awesome side effects from anti-malaria drugs, I hear that I should start getting prepared for some tripped out dreams). But in the psychological sense, you can only do so much. How does one prepare to leave family and friends (and of course youuuuuu Ash) for so long? Or mentally prepare for indefinitely trying hardships, but which you cannot possibly imagine? The hard times every volunteer has with loneliness, lack of visible progress from the work they've done, difficulties assimilating within one's community, etc....I could go on and on with a list of things which all fall under the heading of what I like to call "shit that will be difficult to deal with" (poetic, nay?). The best solution I've come up goes roughly something like "getting mentally prepared to deal and not flip out when shit becomes difficult".

Anyway, if anyone is interested in a few of the specifics I have right now.....

Staging (read: fly to the same city as all other Rwanda volunteers leaving at the same time as me and go through some pre-service orientation stuff, talks and exercises to help you prepare, etc). Staging will be in Philadelphia on October 19th - 20th. I will fly to Philly on the morning of the 19th, and then take a bus on the 20th from Philly to JFK Airport (I think it's because it's cheaper to put us up in Philly then NYC for staging, but it's much easier to fly from JFK).

Pre-Service Training: October 21st - Dec 29th, 2010. I'm not sure which city in Rwanda this is being held in yet. But during this time, all the volunteers in my group will be in the same city. Training includes intensive language training (in the native and universal Kinyarwanda language), safety and security training, health training, training to help you acclimate, and of course, training for your primary project (for me, learning how to actually teach a classroom ha...). I'm sure there will be other parts I haven't listed....

Service: Dec 30th 2010 - Dec 30th 2012. After pre-service training, I will officially "swear in" as a volunteer, and then after that I will be sent to my permanent site, probably in some rural community (though I do not know how far from Kigali or another larger city I will be, it varies a lot. I've read a lot of blogs from volunteers right outside of Kigali, so who knows). This is where I will remain for my two years, and where I will actually be able to begin settling in and trying to become a part of a community...

Home: Any day after Dec 30th 2012. Given how long it takes to travel, I'd say it's unlikely I'd be back on U.S. soil to celebrate the New Year, but I should be back sometime shortly thereafter...

And at some point during these dates, I will have vacation time to visit home and to travel. I accrue 2 vacations days for every month of service (this does not accrue during the pre-service training in Rwanda, so I only start earning vacation time in January 2011). I can use the vacation time however I want, I just have to inform Peace Corps Headquarters in Rwanda and get it approved (it's a security protocol). And of course, visitors are always welcome :). The only exceptions are no visitors during the first three months of my service, or the last three months (I'm pretty sure at least. And I don't believe I can travel during these times either).

Anyway, that's enough for now I think. I'll try and start posting more regularly, and adding things like how to send me stuff (and how to do so while minimizing the chances of it getting lost or having all the items inside ransacked), and where my pre-service training city will be, etc....

One month to go....

So this blog entry marks the beginning of my chronicling my adventures as a Peace Corps volunteer in Rwanda. On October 19^th I will fly to Philadelphia for what is called “staging” (basically, a pre-service orientation/meetup where we go over basic things, get fun immunizations, and get to meet everyone in our group before we fly over to Rwanda together), and on October 20^th I will fly to Rwanda along with the rest of my group.

It has been about four weeks since my invitation to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Rwanda. The news came as somewhat of a shock, as I thought I had narrowed down the likely assignments, and Rwanda was not among the possibilities I thought likely. My first reaction was a total mixture of emotions: excitement, anxiety, confusion, shock, apprehension, and every other possible emotion. I’d also be lying if I said the decision was an easy one, even though this is something I had been planning on doing for quite some time. The reality is, no matter how many times you run through scenarios, it is never the same until it’s actually real and the time has come to make decisions. I think I may have slept a total of 4 hours during a period of about 3 days…

Anyway, I have since accepted and will be departing in about a month. I’ll be using this blog to keep everyone updated on my time in Rwanda and give some insight into what my everyday life is like. Access permitting, I’ll be updating this as frequently as I can…