A Day in the Life
I thought I’d give you a little insight into what my
day-to-day life is like here in Rwanda. Right now, I’m in the very last week of
our 10-week Pre-Service Training (PST). I’ll be swearing in as an official
Peace Corps Volunteer at the US Ambassador’s house in Kigali on Wednesday, and
then permanently moving to my new site, in Rusizi district, in the far
southwest of Rwanda near the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I’ll be living
with 7 amazing Franciscan nuns, and I’ll have a completely different schedule
working at the community health center there.
My group of 23 (Health 4) is in training about an hour west of Kigali, the capital. Then we’re further divided into Kinyarwanda language groups (3-6 people). We have intensive language lessons on Mondays, Wednesday, and Thursdays. Tuesdays and Fridays are our “Hub Day", so we come together at the Peace Corps building in my town for technical training (ie about the health system and public health in Rwanda). So without further ado, here’s what a typical weekday is like for me right now.
7:00 am: wake up to sounds of roosters outside my window, or
my family blasting Rwandan music on their radio.
7:30 am: bucket shower! The first few weeks I was here, I
would shower every other day and I’d use about a half-gallon of collected
rainwater. Now it’s the dry season and our rainwater storage has run out. There
isn’t enough water to shower and cook every day, so I can shower only once
every three or four days. Gone are the days of luxurious hot showers and baths
with unlimited clean running water…
7:45: Quick breakfast of icyayi (Rwandan tea: very sweet and mixed with milk from the cow that’s 10 feet from my bedroom) and possibly a piece of stale sliced white bread. This has definitely been an adjustment for me.
7:55: Walk to either my Language and Cultural Facilitator
(LCF/Peace Corps looooves acronyms)’s house to get Kinyarwanda lessons, or to
the Peace Corps “Hub” for health training.
8-10 am: Class.
10:00: Break! There’s a little store across the street that we go to for a cup of icyayi, a banana, a hardboiled egg, or a cheche (kind of like a less sweet and much drier scone/muffin, but basically the closest thing to a pastry you can find here). Prices are very cheap: any one of those things cost about 10-25 cents (US).
10:30-12: more class…
Noon: If it’s Hub Day, they bring food in for us. If it’s a
language day, we walk about 20 minutes to the next town to go to a small
restaurant, where we get a full meal for $1. It’s my most nutritious and
fullest meal of the day, although it’s bland and repetitive (variations of rice,
pasta, cooked cabbage, beans, plantains, potatoes, and fries).
4-6 pm: Freedom! Depending on the day, I either hang out
with a couple other PC volunteers at one of our houses or at a little café (ok,
ok, or the bar : ), or I head home to be with my family. Sometimes the kids and I go for a run
around the village. An umuzungu running around with no real purpose except to
run is a little confusing for some Rwandans. They ask me why or where I’m
running to, and usually kids will start running with me. I’ve had 40 or 50 kids
all running after me at one time. It’s fun, but solitary….not so much.
6-9 pm: Family time! We do chores (cooking, washing dishes
or clothes, cleaning) and then I play with the 3 kids. Some of their favorite
things are hopscotch, memory match with my card set, and dancing to the radio
in our living room. We often study together too: I help them with English and
they help me with Kinyarwanda. It’s often by lamplight, since the sun goes down
around 6:30 and our electricity only comes on for about 2 hours occasionally,
around 8-10 pm.
9 pm: Dinner! It’s still a bit hard for me to eat this late. I’m usually really hungry at about 7, and I burned through my trail mix supply a long time ago. Dinner always features potatoes, plantains, or rice, and sometimes beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes. My family rarely eats meat (I don’t partake in it…I’m confident that seeing a Rwandan butcher shop can turn even the most voracious meat eater into a vegetarian). Dinner can sometimes be a little awkward since I’m still learning Kinyarwanda. But complimenting the chef is always a safe bet in any country!
9:30 pm: I brush my teeth (while the rest of my family lines up to watch me, even after 10 weeks of being here!), wash my feet and shoes, write in my journal, and practice some yoga in the 4 feet of available floor space in my room. And if I’m not too exhausted by then, I’ll read a little using my (now-broken) headlamp for light.
10:30 pm: Go to sleep underneath my mosquito net, with earplugs in so I can’t hear the mosquitoes buzzing outside my net or the cows and goats outside.
Claire
I will send you a pensive the next time we send you a package
ReplyDeletelove, Paul