My Site

On March 5^th I moved into my new home in the Southern Province of Rwanda! The brand new Peace Corps Rwanda Program Manager for Health accompanied me to my new site.

Driving to my site was incredible! The roads in Rwanda are beautiful, winding, sloping, routes, and we trekked quite a few. I find the roads here always make me feel one of two things: 1) I’m on the top of a hill about to dive into an endless sea of green, or 2) I’m at the bottom of a valley, surrounded by tall hills that confine me. I have yet to experience anything but awe when I get in a car and go anywhere in this country.

Now back to my installation. I was really nervous. Not so much nervous in an excited way (that too), but more in an “I have no idea what I’m doing” way. Now I understand why training is generally between nine and twelve weeks long. In a new country where you don’t speak the language or understand the culture, it takes more than a month to just be able to decompress. I never felt so eager to settle in, but I also never felt so unprepared.

Once I arrived at my site, I headed to the clinic where the old PCV was conducting the last of her three-day volunteer training. Twelve women from the surrounding villages were being trained on how to conduct nutrition lessons in their own villages. It was an incredibly inspiring and exciting thing to walk into, but also incredibly intimidating.

For security reasons Peace Corps does not allow volunteers to post their precise locations on public websites but I as I mentioned earlier, I am in the Southern Province of Rwanda, very close to the border with Burundi, and a relatively easy trip to Butare—a larger city with one of Rwanda’s best Universities and best of all: an ice cream store!

The house I’m moving into is a four-bedroom home owned by the health center, connected to my supervisor’s house, and to the center’s generator. I have electricity! I also have a couple roommates, including a precious 7-month-old baby named Martin. Once the other PCV leaves, I will have two rooms in the house. The other two rooms belong to one of my colleagues, her seven month old, her sister, and her cousin/babysitter. There is also a live in maid that lives in a room off of the kitchen.

Hanging out with my roommate, Martin!

Moving in, I felt very uneasy about the roommate situation. My dreams of personal space were once again being let down. I had a million and a half concerns (some logical, most irrational) about living with people I barely knew. At the same time, I’m definitely not in a position to reject potential friendships, and having Rwandan roommates is probably just what my Kinyarwanda needs. New home, here I come!