Rwanda Swear In

Congratulations to the brand new Peace Corps Rwanda Health Volunteers!  On July 13^th, eighteen Peace Corps trainees became volunteers at the American Ambassador’s residence in Kigali. My return from South Africa coincided with the event, so I was able to attend the ceremony, which was lovely. The trainees even arranged a traditional Rwandan song and dance routine!

Although the group had been training in Rwanda for ten weeks, I had not had the pleasure of meeting any of them before. Most of the new volunteers have been placed in the Southern Province, and several of them will be living in my district, so I was anxious to get to know what my new “neighbors” would be like. They’re wonderful.

It feels like just yesterday, and also a lifetime ago that I loaded the bus from Hamdallaye to Niamey with my fellow CHARM trainees, Tondi driving and everyone singing along to The Beatle’s “I get by with a little help form my friends”.  It’s been eight months since my swear-in. As I watched the new volunteers deliver their speeches (English, French, and Kinyarwanda) I thought a lot about my training group, now dispersed across Africa, Eastern Europe, North, and Central America. My heart sank as I thought about the various events and ceremonies my stage cannot do together. I miss you all so much!

At the same time, speaking with the new group fills me with hope and excitement. After the ceremony, they had lots of questions, and I realized I was semi-qualified to give some advice about work and life in Rwanda. Finally, I am not the new kid in country! This group is Rwanda’s fifth group of trainees, but the first group to have lived with host families during training (not including my mini-group of four Niger transfers). They are energetic, passionate, and dedicated. I am so excited to be in Rwanda with them.

Things I did in South Africa

• Meet amazing volunteers from other Peace Corps countries. Two other volunteers from Rwanda, also PCVs from Zambia, Lesotho, Malawi, Cameroon, South Africa, and Madagascar. The PCV from Madagascar started her service in Niger! I also met three Cornell alumni who now serve in South Africa. That brings my total Cornellian count to seven serving as PCVs in three different countries.
• Enjoy time with former Peace Corps Niger Volunteers. Although I was unable to visit their sites, the three volunteers from Niger who transferred to South Africa were in Pretoria for their In Service Training and I was able to visit with them briefly. It was fantastic to see them, reminisce about Niger, and also hear about their successes and challenges in South Africa.
• Attend mass in Spanish. You read that correctly. I attended a Catholic Church service, in Spanish, in South Africa. This was thanks to a wonderful couple also staying at the Rose Guest House, also for medical reasons, who also generally work in Rwanda. The husband works for the U.S. Treasury Department in Rwanda, and his wife is Bolivian. I don’t consider myself a religious person but I really enjoyed the mass. Sitting there, in South Africa, with people from across the world, speaking in Spanish… it put a whole new perspective on how small of a world we live in.
• Go to the movies. I saw Transformers 3, and laughed through the entire movie, although I don’t think it was intended to be a comedy. Still, going to the movies was awesome.
• Eat Sushi. Delicious. No explanation needed.
• Spot Zebras from the Highway. Within twenty minutes of landing in South Africa. I’m not sure if that’s normal, but it was awesome. 
• Bird Watch. I’ve never really cared about birds, but the birds I’ve seen in Africa are incredible. I’ll wait until my new binoculars arrive for a more detailed post on my bird watching adventures.
• Use a Washing Machine. Never take for granted running water, or the fact that you don’t have to wash your underwear by hand.  
• Play with Lions. The picture really says it all. They liked my hair. 
• Visit the Apartheid Museum. A very enlightening experience. The museum is very dense—a lot of information, which I am still processing, but I’m really glad I went. I bought a copy of Nelson Mandela’s memoir A Long Walk to Freedom that I am now preparing to read.
• Feel incredibly lucky, and conflicted, about my privileged access to amazing health care. I’ve been joking about how lucky I am to have needed a root canal during my service: free trip to South Africa! But it’s a strange reality I am living where I see malnourished children everyday and offer them "counseling"; the United States Congress debates how many millions of Americans should have their health insurance benefits cut; and yet my relatively painless tooth allows me to travel thousands of mile to receive some of the best dental care of my life.

A Common History

Around the middle of the nineteenth century large groups of Europeans (mainly British, German, and Dutch) left their homes due to political and religious prosecution. They got on boats and set off for unknown lands. Upon arrival, the new settlers took land from the indigenous people and began farming. Years passed and the settlers, they settled. Their numbers grew, as did their crops, their conflicts with their new indigenous neighbors and their old European ones.The settlers were spread out across the vast teritory they had landed on and not well organized until they fought their former nation states in Europe for independence, and eventually won. As war victors, the settlers felt further entitled to all the land and pushed indigenous people out of their homes and away from the fertile lands, which were reserved only for those of European descent. Civil conflicts followed, including periods of violence and lots of repression until finally the Constitution was amended and “equality” was proclaimed.

Did you think I was talking about the United States? This is also part of South Africa's. (My apologies to history buffs for oversimplfying and generalizing here).

The New York Times recently published anarticle on one of the townships outside Johannesburg. Crime, drugs, and violence are a large part of everyday life in Diepsloot. For Americans, it's easy to criticize and comment on the troubles of less developed countries, but lets not forget our own. If you take out proper names, I think Diepsloot and Southeast Washington DC have more in common than they have differences. Just like the destitute rural villages across South Africa don’t sound all that different from a lot of the Native American reservations across the United States.

It’s true that most countries in Africa need a lot of help, more help than people in developed countries. But developed countries like the United States or Spain are far from perfect. So far my experiences have taught me, more than anything, the value and the power of community. As a volunteer I strive to integrate into “my community”, but the truth is I am a visitor. I am learning the skills to create and affect change, which I hope to do here, but more importantly to continue in my own community, wherever it may be.

Things I did not do in South Africa

• Get Medically Separated. In other words, I did not lose my job! I saw an amazing dentist who was incredibly friendly, helpful, and skilled. He was able to “re-do” my root canal without having to extract my tooth, allowing me to return to Rwanda. I am very, very lucky.
• Taste South Africa’s version of donuts. I did try the meat pies, which were delicious, but not quite the fried dough experience I was looking for. Next time.
• Go to KFC. I’m not sure why or how, but South Africa has an enormous number of KFC’s. I’m not really a huge fan in America, so I figured no use trying Africa.
• Travel. I had set high expectations for my trip. I wanted to visit PCVs in South Africa, see Cape Town, and go on safari. Unfortunately a medical evacuation is not quite a vacation, and the PCMO informed me overnight trips were not allowed.
• Mind Anonymity. In fact, I loved it. Being treated like a spectacle in Rwanda is exhausting and also dehumanizing. Walking down the street in South Africa without being stared at, grabbed at, hissed at, or yelled was truly amazing.
• Accept a Marriage Proposal. This is nothing new or unusual, except for the fact that after I refused to give my phone number, email address, or hand in marriage, the persistent stranger asked if he could look me up on Facebook. I think this would be weird even in the United States, but in South Africa it was just bizarre.
• Feel too cold. It is currently the “coldest” part of winter in South Africa, which felt like October in Ithaca. The fresh air and cool wind felt great.
• Enjoy the shopping malls. I did enjoy some of the items inside the malls that had been missing from my life for the last nine months (i.e., oreo cookies, movie theaters), but I did not like the feeling of sterile air and general indoor-ness. I take for granted how much time I spend outside in Rwanda, but it’s wonderful.
• Get Used to the Driving. In South Africa they drive on the left hand side of the road, like the British. There are also lots of roundabouts in Pretoria. Now many of you are already aware that I am pretty bad at crossing the street. Well, wrong-direction-roundabouts didn’t help much either.
• Miss a single breakfast at the Rose Guest House. The bed & breakfast where I stayed was wonderful, in great part due to the amazing staff. I’m not sure I would recommend the lodge to someone looking for an adventurous, backpacker experience, but if you want is some good rest and recovery time, the Rose Guest House certainly does the trick.