Children. Everywhere, always. Sometimes welcome, sometimes driving me up the walls.
Bananas bananas bananas (food, primarily. things being nuts, secondarily)
Students crying out "Teacha! Teacha! It is too difficult!" HahaHA
Rain pouring down so hard it creates puddles throughout the house (or school) and makes being heard absolutely impossible (thus also making teaching absolutely impossible). If this happens at home, it can be amazing, not only for the peace but for the endless buckets of water to be obtained!
Long Rwandan ceremonies- weddings, funerals, meetings, church, doesn't matter. It will be long, and you will be sitting on a wooden bench the whole time. But there might be food after 6 or 7 hours!
Crammed into tiny buses. How many people can you fit in a 15 passenger van? At least twice that. Plus luggage.
The joy of a real shower, standing up with water pouring down from above. Hot or cold, doesn't matter, its glorious.
Cups of steaming African tea- milk, tea, spice, mmm.
The walls of my house covered, and I mean COVERED, in children's drawings.
The ridiculousness of Kinyarwanda. 16 noun classes, really?
Daily screams of "muzungu muzungu!" Come on, I've been here a year, you know my name.
Trekking down into the valley with the kids to get water, then struggling back uphill together.
Being a visitor in a new church and suddenly having to stand up and SING, in Kinyarwanda, with only 3 other people and a MICROPHONE in front of the ENTIRE church. And not knowing all the words :-P
Vacation. Camping in Uganda, 35 hours on a bus to Tanzania, lounging on the beaches of Zanzibar, eating street food...
Shocking the socks off of anyone who watches me cook American food. What in the world is she doing to do with those potatoes and that milk? She can't, NO, she's...mixing them??
Stomping the ground in wild, frenzied church dance parties
Fresh avocados and bananas whenever you want... bread and eggs a rarity
Explaining for the billionth time that Americans also farm, because we too must eat food, and no not every American is as rich as the ones you saw on that music video, we also have poor people. And no, they do not speak Kinyarwanda in America, but yes, I will try to teach it to them when I go back. And yes, there are many black people in America, and they are also Americans. And we have all the same kinds of foods as you, except for plaintains and cassava and sorghum. Oh and no banana beer, either. And in America its not nice to tell someone that they are fat, but thank you, I guess, you are also looking fat today.
....
I could go on and on but I need to get out of Kigali and back to my village, where all these wonderful and sometimes trying things happen, seemingly daily (except for the showers). I've been traveling a lot during this break, visiting the hometown of a student and fellow choir member of mine, seeing other volunteers, and going to Tanzania and Zanzibar. In the next month I hope to stay mostly in my village, playing with the kids, hopefully planting my garden at long last, singing those Kinyarwanda church songs, and visiting neighbors. I also need to finish writing my proposal to build two giant rainwater collection cisterns at the primary and secondary schools, try to get some bookshelves built for the school "library", and work on a curriculum for the coming school year. Phew, got my work cut out. And somehow there is only one more year left...yikes.
Peace and happy holidays, eat pumpkin goodness for me!
