Jehova’s Whiteness

Rwanda is a predominantly Christian country. Catholic, Pentecostal, Methodist, Baptist… all here. Last week, I ran into a Jehova’s Witness.

I don’t think words can really describe how absurdly hilarious the situation was.

It’s Sunday, and I’m walking up the dirt road to try and find a carpenter to make me a chair (which, by the way, I failed at). I have three kids holding onto each one of my arms and four more behind them fighting for a touch of my ghost skin.

I see a very well dressed man with a child’s tie and a small brief case walking towards me. He greets my roommate Grace, but not me until I say “Mwiriwe!”

“Good afternoon” he responds to me in English. “Where are you from?”

“Ndi umunyamerika kazi,” I respond in Kinyarwanda.

“Oooooh! America! Your country has many WHITENESS!!” he says enthusiastically, emphasis on the whiteness.

At this point in my Peace Corps career I’m pretty used to being reminded constantly of my whiteness, America’s whiteness, France’s whiteness, and Obama’s blackness. In this situation, like most others, I just laughed and responded affirmatively, “yego!”

To my surprise and confusion, the man continues, “I am a WHITENESS! JEHOVA’S WHITENESS” and hands me a pamphlet that sort of looks like it could have been the cover of a sci-fi book and says in Kinyarwanda Mbese iyi si izarokoka?, will this world survive?. The back of the pamphlet had an even weirder image of a smiling farmer who looked straight out of Sound of Music.

Incase you were wondering, the pamphlet was printed in Pennsylvania.