Family Has Nothing to do with Blood

Today I said goodbye to my Rwandan mother, Christine. It was the third time I saw her and she made a special stop at the WE-ACTx house bearing gifts on her way to night school. In Rwanda it is customary to offer your guest something to drink immediately. This typically ends in a Fanta request and man, Christine likes her orange Fanta! I ran next door to get her a "soda" (clearly there is not enough Midwestern influence here...) and when I came back, she was seated with a present, wrapped in beautiful flowered paper and a peach bow, sitting next to her.

For you, she says as she hands me the box. I smile, murakoze chani, as I unwrap the carefully wrapped gift. I've seen people on the sidewalk gift wrapping to earn money, in the market, as I walk through the streets. Shiny ribbons, hand looped bows, glittery paper. Gifts, no matter how big or small, always come expertly wrapped in Rwanda.

I open the box and pull out a handmade quilted purse. Something I would not pick out for myself, but truly, the perfect present. It's small made with a brown and tan patterned fabric. I love it, Christine! Murakoze chani! It's great! She pulls her purse onto her lap and struggles with a much larger gift. As she hands it to me, she says, for your mother, Christine too. This gift is wrapped with the same special touch. A pink and white bow in place of the peach one.

This all started a month ago when Dr. JMV was running late. Christine walked into the room and introduced herself. All I had to say was, Christine is my mother's name. We are forever family now. She was on holiday, but happened to stop into the clinic that Thursday to finish some paperwork. Christine is in charge of ordering ARVs for the clinic. That's the magic of Africa that I look forward to every day. Chance. Luck. As I reflect on my nearly two months in Rwanda, I think of all the things I've seen, and done, the people I've met, the moments that flash through my memory. Almost all, completely from pure dumb luck. The man on the bus to Nyungwe. Laughs in the kitchen, shared with Seraphine. Hiking through brambles looking for giraffes with James. Seeing the sunrise over the misty hills of Rwanda. Watching the children walk to school. Seeing the rainforest before the sun rose. Being punked by a monkey. Helping Candida with her English homework. Making biscuits with her. Hearing Alice's story on a bus ride to the mosque.

We spent nearly two hours sitting in a room together, speaking broken English and even more broken Kinyarwanda. She told me of her children, that she was a widow, also a student. When Dr. JMV finally arrived, she returned to her office and continued her work. Every time she entered the room, she held my hand or slapped my cheek. Hugs and kisses. Then I didn't see for a very long time.

I asked about Dr. JMV after she hadn't returned to work. The words flowed so nonchalantly. Her family was killed in the genocide. She knew they died closed to her home. She was digging a new latrine for her house and finally found them, thirteen years later. Her family. The people she loved. Hacked up and thrown in a giant toilet. People with these stories are too common here. She took extra time off work to file paperwork with the government, have the bodies exhumed, and reburied in on of the many memorials spotting the country. Thirteen years later and the memorials are still left open. There are still fresh burials.

She began telling me about the day of St. Christine, July 24th. In Rwanda, a common first question is, what religion are you. She is catholic and as most catholics here, their saint namesake day is celebrated. That's what the extra gift is for.

This name connection has come up multiple times in the short while I've been here. Christine was not the first. I was looking at the shops in the craft market when my friends introduced me and the woman started hurriedly speaking excited French, hugging me and kissing me. Turns out her grandmother is also Melanie. She held my hand and showed me around her shop as she told all her friends about me. We are family she said as she hugged and kissed me for the final time. Um, nice to meet you too.

I now have a Rwandan mother, brother, and another family member...granddaughter? When you are called family, you are. Its that simple. You are welcome in their home. You are loved. What if we loved each other simply for sharing a name? What if at home we welcomed people into our lives simply for a coincidence? What if, we truly loved others, strangers, for no good reason? Love is a powerful thing.

The Best Plan Ever Hatched in the History of Plans...

Dad-
I need you to read this aloud to Mom. She already knows most of the story, but this is the true version of events in its entirety. Needless to say, when I describe certain things, you should lie, but act natural, and tell her something totally harmless so it doesn't seem like this was the dumbest thing I've ever done. (It was totally freakin' awesome and the coolest weekend I've ever had in truth.) If you don't help me with this one I'll end up with a series of never ending Mom lectures. Then I will file court papers to disown you. Think wisely and choose carefully my friend...
Love,
Mel

This all started with reading. I remember teachers, early in my life telling me how great ideas come from reading. Well, really bad ideas come from reading too and certainly, really risky ideas. And I love to read...and my mom says I'm often lacking in "better judgment/common sense". I was looking through the Rwanda guide book at the house and noticed that Rwanda happens to have the largest mountain rain forest in all of Africa. I'm in Rwanda. I've always wanted to see a rainforest. Hmm...

Friday morning I'm up and out the door at 5:30 with a backpack full of over overnight/rain forest essentials and trudge my way to the bus stop. That's right. Getting on the bus (well the first bus was sold out) for a five hour bus ride (remember those minibuses I was talking about...) setting out on my first solo adventure. [Ok Dad, instead of five hours away from Kigali, you say "45 minutes, in fact you can still see the city. Actually, it was right down the street from the American Embassy. And replace solo adventure with "group organized mediocre events". ]

On the road to Nyungwe National Forest, I hit a bit of a snag as I realize I will need to buy my return ticket in Cyangugu, an hour past my destination of Gisakuru Tea Estates. Travel between Cyangugu and Gisakuru is extremely limited, but lucky me, I'm sitting next to this awesome guy that has the bright idea to telephone the bus company in Cyangugu and have them bring me my return ticket as a bus departing from there passes our bus on it's way in. Great! Problem #1 solved. The other bus passed us up and our bus driver honked madly, waving his arms so fast, they might fly off, then got out of the bus and chased the other bus down. More trouble than I thought it would be, but I got my ticket and thanked the driver.

We also got pulled over by the Rwandan police and had our bus searched. [Again, Dad, you read, nothing eventful happened for the remainder of the ride.] This is actually pretty standard police procedure, seeing as most police are stationed as human road blocks, no cars, and pull people over to check their license and registration. Something wasn't right with the tags from the bus company, so our driver got a ticket. The man next to me said a ticket can cost about $100 USD and a driver is lucky to make $200 USD in a year. The Rwandan government is very good at math, and punishments.

Eventually I make it to the tea estates and walk into the parking lot of the lodge/ORTPN office. I was greeted by a few rangers who took me to the guest house to check in. I meet the man in charge of the inn and am informed they are completely booked. Uh, ok. After a few minutes he comes back to tell me there is an opening because a primate safari group didn't show up, but of course it was the most expensive room.

I moved my stuff in and returned to the office to set up my adventure for the next day. What are you planning to do today? Uh...what can I do today?

Twenty minutes later I'm walking down the main road on my way to a nearby tea estate to go looking for Colobus monkeys in a fragment forest. The whole trip took about four hours and of course, we didn't see the monkeys along the outside of the forest, so the guide decided to take me down a tiny trail into the middle of the forest. After walking down one side, up the other, around the back, down again, and halfway back up we finally spotted a group of them. They were unbelievably difficult to see at first because these monkeys are nearly all black and were hiding in an overgrown bush that was much taller than I am, with branches that hung to the ground. The shadows made it nearly impossible to find them. At first you only see one, then one more, then twenty, thirty. There were a few young ones in the bunch and I watched them for over an hour, jump fearlessly from tree to tree. Right over my head. One monkey came within three feet of me, walking out onto a branch and sat checking me out while he ate. He kept sticking his head out towards me and sniffing. I assure you it's because I smelled good.

After a while they moved on and my guide was off. Racing to keep up, I almost plowed right into the back of him as he stopped and looked into the tree tops. My gaze followed his and I watched as the troupe jumped from one branch to the next like the long jump skiers in the olympics. Arms back, head first. I heard a strange sound around me and thought the overcast sky and started to rain down. Nope, monkey pee as my guide stated so nonchalantly. Great. After walking back out of the forest, I checked myself and my bag...no pee so I'm ready to get back to the guest house.

One the way home we passed a school as the kids were getting out. After walking for a bit, I turned around to see who was making all the noise behind me. Twenty kids were following me. My guide told me they were arguing and daring each other to talk to me. So I said hello to them, Muraho. Amakuru? Twenty little voices yell Ni meza! and we all laugh. They followed me all the way back to the ORTPN office and stand at the driveway entrance waiving at me until the park rangers shooed them away.

I ate dinner. The best cream of something soup I've ever had! I climbed into bed exhausted and listened to an episode of Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me! until I fell asleep...it'll be an early start the next morning.

4th of July means something very different here

The fourth of July is a day celebrated as one of the few national holidays in Rwanda. No fireworks, no BBQs. We all woke up very early and left the house around 7 am to hike the half hour to the bus stop. The buses were so crowded the five of us had to split up and we arrived a short time later at Amohoro Stadium for the day's festivities. We arrived along with the rest of Rwanda. To celebrate Liberation Day. The day the RPF took over Kigali, which led to the end of the genocide.

The sidewalks and streets were so covered with people we had a hard time finding a place to walk. The group I was with entered the stadium area and were faced with a mob scene, that rivaled Navy Pier on New Year's Eve for the turn of the Century. We walked from line to line looking for a place to enter and finally settled into a mob of people. The women were taken into their own line so we were all pushed to the front for our standard Rwandan pat downs. This security check would certainly have ended up with plenty of lawsuits if done in the U.S. Every person that entered, even children were patted down and all bags were searched before anyone was allowed to enter.

After about an hour of walking around to find an entrance, a line, and finally making our way to seats, we were inside and ready to watch the show around 8:30. The stadium hasn't been renovated since, I'm guessing the early '70s, judging by the decor. We sat on concreted slabs in the cheap seats section. The festivities didn't get started until around 10:30 when a tiny marching band entered the stadium.

This band was followed by the largest military showing I've ever seen in one place. This was the theme of the day. Liberation Day was about one thing and one thing only...step out of line again and the army will get you. The presidential marching band entered dressed all in blue. The people in the crowd cheered and rose to their feet as Paul Kagame entered. The RPF leader, the hero himself. Now, thirteen years later, the president of Rwanda enters the stadium to watch was turns out to be a military show.

After my time in Rwanda, I've begun to assume the national slogan is "Never again". Personally, being in the presence of enough firearms to level the state of California is more than a little chilling, but not so for Rwandans, the survivors. Members of the military lined the track in block formations while groups of four to ten soldiers displayed their hand to hand combat skills in staged battles. At one point three blocks of soldiers marched forward and put on a coordinated performance of a karate kada I had actually learned for green belt. The statium shook with their movements and their voices echoed in the silence. It was chilling.

The games continued with targets set up in the middle of the field. Soldiers came forward to demonstrate their weaponry skills beginning with knives and ending with machettes. The same weapon, thirteen years ago, that was used to lop off arms, legs, heads...no one seemed to notice the connection. The crowd cheered each hit and laughed at every miss.

The final event was by far my favorite. It very much depicted the situation of the genocide, with an alternate ending. It began with camouflaged soldiers pretending to be hidden. A man and a woman, nicely dressed, carrying a briefcase and purse respectively, walked into the area where the other men were hidden. They were jumped. Both the man and woman threw their belongings to the ground and dove right in to fighting with the attackers. At one point I sat there with my mouth hanging open watching a woman in high heeled shoes run up the side of a soldier, kick him in the face (not connect though) and hang, suspended vertical in the air at his face level. This was an unbelievable show of amazing skill and the entire stadium erupted as the two, seemingly ordinary Rwandan citizens walked off the field victorious. Never again.

The military acts were followed by traditional Rwandan dancers and singers, but they were performing with their backs to the crowd, facing instead, the president. The speeches and songs were difficult to hear because the stadium had some reverb problems and the acoustics were terrible.

After the formal celebration, there were to be two soccer games: the business men vs. some other old guy team and the match of the day: ATRACO, the city transportation system vs. the military, Paul Kagame's team. Margot and I peaced out before the games began because it was hot and we weren't really in the mood for soccer. Walking out of the stadium in the mob of people I thought a lot about the day. The message.

People here are still very much afraid, suffering from '94. The promises found in the Geneva Conventions were sadly,not found in Rwanda for the 100 days of extreme violence. The people are put somewhat at ease today by knowing that the leader of the RPF, the man responsible for leading the rebels to victory and thus ending the genocide, is in charge of Rwanda and it's armed forces. Many people I've worked with have commented often over the past month that Rwanda is an incredibly safe country, undoubtedly, the safest country in Africa. It is impossible to walk to the clinic and see under ten men with guns standing at various buildings or patrolling the streets. While their presence doesn't end the flashbacks of the WE-ACTx house cook, nor the stigma faced by the HIV+ receptionist at WE-ACTx, who by the way fought in the RPF and acted as a front line nurse, it gives citizens a sense of security that lets them know, with or without the support of the rest of the world, Rwanda will not let the genocide in. Never again.

Rwandan Wedding, the actual wedding--no monkeys

The Wedding was supposed to start at 4:30 so we left the house at 3:30, arrived at 4:00 and waited for the wedding party until after 6:00. Over eager victims of Rwandan time yet again, but well worth the wait.

The reception is completely different from wedding receptions in the U.S. The chairs for the guests are set up like the church. The groom's guests sit on the left and the bride's guests sit on the right. There are no dinner tables because dinner isn't served. The wedding party, including immediate family, sits on a platform in the front. Theree bride, groom, and their best man and maid of honor sit at a table in the front, with the rest of the wedding party behind them in rows.

After everyone is seated, each side picks a member of their family, typically an elderly uncle or father to finalize the bonding of the families. These two men sit and drink banana beer that is made of a mixture of homemade beer from the towns of both the bride and groom. The two men introduce themselves to each other and sit and talk for a bit. Then the bride and groom come to sit with them and also must drink from the huge jug of beer.

After all of this beer drinking business is done, traditional Rwandan dancers come in to dance for the couple. The women wear tank tops with one shoulder shawl type coverings and a long skirt. The men wear crisscrossed suspenders and a skirt made of dried, long grasses. There is a choir that is accompanied by drummers that provide the music for the dancers. The group comes in and out throughout the evening to entertain the couple and their guests.

They also have the bride and groom toast each other...with Citron Fanta. It's fabulous! Then they make their way over to the cake. The cake has a house on a platform instead of the bride and groom. There are two towers one on each side that are given to the mothers of the bride and groom that are intended to signify the grandchildren they will give them. The friends of the bride help cut up the cake and pass out a piece to each guest. They also give out a Fanta or Coke to everyone.

The best part was towards the end when the dancers came back...bearing gifts. I'm not sure who bought these gifts for the couple, but they are symbolic of the traditional gifts given to help the couple start their new life together. The bride goes first and she was given banana leaf, handwoven floor mats, baskets, and other house related gifts. The groom follows, receiving gifts used to protect his family: a spear, a bow and arrow set, and a leopard skin to display to send the message to enemies that he is a good hunter.

After all the gift giving comes the dance off. That's right a dance off. The dancers start and then one man from each family got up to challenge each other. Guests would run up to them and give money to the best dancer. Everyone was up out of their seats cheering and laughing, watching these men do their thing.

Each relative is given the opportunity to get up and present their gift. Some people decided to make announcements to offer cows, goats, or chicken to the couple. Cows are a sign of wealth in Rwanda and each milk cow costs about $1,000 USD. This couple was given two. Innocent, who took us to the wedding, offered his help to his cousin, the bride, in getting a job.

After the wedding reception, the real party begins as guests move on to the couple's new home and carry in all their new furnature and food for everyone. It was getting too late so we weren't able to stay to go to the house, but I heard it's a good time for all. There's an impromptu dance party that starts and everyone finally relaxes without much formality. An interesting twist to the wedding, and as someone who's moved too many times, much appreciated!

Best plan ever...

I'm going out of town this weekend to visit the Nyungwe National Forest. It's a little known, hidden Rwandan treasure of a rainforest that houses troops of Colobus monkeys that are as large as 400 in number and habituated groups of chimpanzees. I'm leaving very early tomorrow morning for the 4 hour bus ride to stay at the Gisukuru Guesthouse for a night at the tea plantation. Hopefully I'll get some hiking in tomorrow afternoon and then it's Chimp trekking at 5 am Saturday morning!

Each hiker is given a guide as part of the park fee, so someone from the ORTPN (Rwandan national parks service) will help me out both days.

I should have some good pictures from my little excursion. I'll finish posting more stuff when I get back!

I went to a wedding and this is what went down part 1

Last Saturday a friend of mine at the clinic, Innocent, invited me to his cousin's wedding and needless to say it was incredibly eventful.

Figuring out what to wear to an American wedding can be quite a tricky task, but Rwandan weddings require a great deal of effort. My roommate Margot decided to wreak havoc on our closet and turned the morning into a rousing round of dress-up. I decided to wear a dress I had made here earlier in the week, but mention Margot's mess solely to bust her chops. You couldn't see our floor or beds because they were covered in discarded cloth, wrap skirts, and traditional garb.

Innocent showed up at the house to pick up Nina, Margot, and myself at 3:30 with the wedding reception starting at 4:30. We arrived at the hall around 4 and found out the wedding party was running very behind. Surprise! Innocent decided to help us pass the time with a tour of the grounds and explanation of the site. Turns out that the location of the reception was inhabited by some pretty interesting and mildly entertaining creatures. This facility is owned by a Catholic group that rents out the hall for weddings and houses priests and nuns who teach at the local schools. We walked around to the side of the hall where we stood in a wooded park area and listened to Innocent tell us about the property and his family.

As we're standing there I look towards the dormitories and see something vaguely familiar, yet totally out of place. There's a monkey hunched over sitting in the middle of the path leading to the back of the property. Yes, I was wearing my glasses. I just stood there staring at it when Innocent started laughing. Is that a monkey? You've never seen a monkey before? Well only in the zoo. They don't look different when they're in zoos. Thanks Innocent...

This was a truly bizarre experience. I've watched enough Jack Hanna and read enough Zoobooks to know that monkeys live in Africa, but still, I was completely caught off guard. My first instinct led my feet to move me directly towards this thing and my second instinct was the voice in my head saying, um you didn't get the rabies vaccine...hmmm...

This little monkey, about the size of a cat, came running towards me so fast, I thought he would be lucky to skid to a stop as he crashed into my legs, but at the last second he veered off to one side and flew into a tree. He stood perched on a low branch staring at all of us. I was watching him watch me when I see a flash of tan flying past me and realize we now have double the fun! Two whole monkeys. Fabulous. The other interns and I watched these two little guys for about 20 minutes as they chased each other around the clearing and up and down the trees. They were a riot.

The trees around us were filled with some very hard leaves that looked like they had started to develop into fruits, but got bored and quit. I found some green ones hanging close enough for me to pick, but too far out for the monkeys to get to and still remain in the tree. I picked the first one and dropped it at monkey A's feet. He snatched it up, scampered away and seemed to enjoy his treat. He came back and sat at my feet staring at me, so I picked another one and he took it from my hand. I turned around and the other interns were laughing. Looking around, I noticed that monkey B is jumping up and down making monkey noises reaching his tiny hand out to me. Ok. I'll see what I can do.

I turned back to the tree and reached up to grab another leaf. This one was tough and took me a longer time to break it off. I finally freed the weird fruitish thing and turned around looking for this monkey. No sooner had the words, "where'd he go," come out of my mouth, than that stupid monkey ran up behind me pinched the back of my ankle and ran away. Both of us screaming like little girls. Despite my instinct to chuck the hard leaf at him and smack him, I walked over to the tree he was in, reached out my hand, and offered him the treat. He took it as I looked up to see that a crowd had gathered to watch the mazungos playing with the monkeys. Needless to say everyone was laughing hysterically, including my intern friends.

When Nina stopped laughing, she looked at me straight-faced and said, "Dude, you were like, where'd he go? And I was laughing to hard, but really wanted to yell, "He's on your leg."

And that was how I got punked by a monkey...This is already the best wedding I've ever been to, and it hadn't even started yet.

some stuff

So I didn't add the picture web addresses as direct links. This has been brought to my attention as a source of some confusion so I thought I'd post a brief instruction.

All you have to do is copy the whole address for each set of pictures, one at a time and paste it into the address bar at the top. It would help to open another tab first so that you can still get back to my blog easily if you want to view all of the albums.

I hope that makes some sense, though my explanation sounds a little generic and confusing to myself so good luck.

I love the ordinary moments most of all...

"You've gotta know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run." This was the music playing in the car on the way to pick up Dr. JMV before heading off to Nyacungu to spend a day at the rural clinic. That's right. Kenny Rogers. This was followed by a rousing tune by Dolly Parton and some other guy, clearly a fabulous remake of the Sylvia and Mickey song: Love is Strange. I couldn't make this up if I tried. Nina and I are sitting in the back of the WE-ACTx car on a dirt road while Freddy, our driver, listens to a mix tape of old school country. "Do you like country?", he asks me. Oh man, do I ever! Freddy and I continue singing Kenny's gem of a song when it comes on a second time. Well I was singing, Freddy was screaming out what he thought the song lyrics to be. I couldn't have asked for a better start to my day.

We get to Nyacungu and see a handful of patients. Nothing too serious today, until this old woman walks in. Sorrowful face, sullen expression, hunched over, settles into the chair beside Dr. JMV's desk. I watch as she tells Dr. JMV something and he responds. This continues for a few minutes until the woman's eyes light up. She sits up straight and begins talking, quite animatedly, arms flailing, loud voice. What is going on?!?! Dr. JMV explains when she's done having her moment. She was tested for HIV this past October and the results came back positive. The woman was returning today for a standard 6 month follow up treatment, and today I was there when she found out the test results were wrong. She is in fact HIV negative. With one sentence back in October her life changed, seemingly forever, but today, with one sentence she her life did a complete 180. I can't imagine the heaviness of her diagnosis in October, but I was there to see the weight lifted, which is not a cliche description in this case. Dr. JMV continued to translate her words for us.

She was a genocide survivor, but her husband was not. She never remarried and swears she has never been a prostitute. She has spent the last 8 months trying to figure out how she, a celibate, church-going old woman, could have gotten this disease. She thanked and praised God, Dr. JMV, along with Nina and I. I swear, she danced her way out of the room. Until that moment I have yet to see such a spectacular moment in a person's life. Something so private. And I was there.

So how does it happen? Careless mistake? Could be. Rwandans don't have surnames that are passed from generation to generation like we do in the US. Instead, they are given Kinyarwanda surnames by their parents. Commonly, their first names are Christian names and so it is highly likely that there will be some people with the exact same name, certainly similar names. Most of the patients I've encountered here don't know the exact date of their birth, and are lucky if they can tell me the year they were born. The blood is drawn, labeled (sometimes sloppily), and then taken to the national laboratory for testing. Here samples are frequently mixed up due to the similarities in name. When the results are taken back to the area from which they came, they may not be for the right person.

Poor testing procedures? Maybe. There are some sights that do their own form of rapid testing where they use whatever testing kits are available to them at the time. The rapid test is pretty self-explanatory. It's a fast test for HIV, in the US it takes about 30 minutes. Dr. JMV explained that there have frequently been cases of people using expired testing kits that lead to greater false positive results. Keep in mind that while HIV/AIDS has been around and identified since about 1986, testing in the catchment area of Nyacungu started this past October.

That's right. October, 2006. And still the argument is made that Sub-Saharan Africa is receiving plenty of international help in dealing with the epidemic. How very George W. of us. Just ignore it and it'll go away. What you don't know won't hurt you. That's exactly right. People go away here every day and the international community continues to ignore it. It won't hurt us if we don't know. Hey, it's not like we're going to get AIDS. It's this exact ignorance that's killing Rwandans. Africans. Haitians. South Americans. Indians. The Poor.

My day didn't end there, though my preaching does for now. I came home after seeing a few more patients and found Seraphine, the woman that cooks for us during the week, preparing dinner in the kitchen. I was done for the day with my WE-ACTx duties, so I decided to step a little farther out of my comfort zone, right in my very own kitchen, and try to cook with Seraphine. I say 'out of my comfort zone' because I do not cook, nor speak French, both of which Seraphine does flawlessly.

I come in and ask her if she needs help. She tilts her head and squints at me like I'm completely nuts. I try again, remembering that she knows some English. Can I have a job? Job, she repeats. Yup, job. I pick up the knife she's using to chop vegetables and mime cutting. Oh! Job! she says. At this point another intern comes in and translates Seraphine's questions for me. Do you know how to cook rice? I reply, how hard can it be? It's just rice. Jocelyn translates. I get another strange look from Seraphine and she hands me a knife and a pineapple.

I've never sliced a pineapple before, but I'm now assuming it's easier than cooking rice so I hold the knife up to it to get a confirmation from Seraphine that I'm doing it right. Seeing me, the knife positioned in the middle of this daunting fruit, she takes the knife and the pineapple and makes the first cut horizontally across the top. Apparently, I should have stuck with the rice. I make exaggerated Oh I see faces, which I doubt very much actually convinced her that I have in fact, held a knife before. I cut the pineapple and soon, I'm in need of another job.

I get a look from Seraphine that tells me she was hoping I'd stay occupied with the pineapple for the next few hours while she finished her cooking. It was in that instant that I saw myself as the pain in the ass kid who needs a 'job' helping mommy in the kitchen by staying away from the real work. But I'm tenacious and so I pick up a knife and help her skin tomatoes. These tomatoes are smaller than the ones back home and the insides are very sweet, but the skins are very bitter and not commonly eaten. This is hard. The naked tomatoes are squishy and slippery. I spent more time picking them up from where they fell in the sink than actually skinning them. I look up and notice that Seraphine has been staring at me for a while, as she's shaking with silent laughter. You too slow tomato. She hands me a grater and a hunk of cheese. I'm banished to the dining room and I laugh my way out the door.

Now, I've made enough taco dip in my time to be able to work a cheese grater. Finally, success! I'm able to navigate my way through half a block of cheddar and as I hand the plate back to her, she laughs and says to me, you make me happy today.

I'm happy too, Seraphine.

The story of my life in Rwanda...

Today I went to children's support group. I almost killed Burtan...the group supervisor. I get there and it's the hottest day of the season so far. It's so hot that the kids can't play. Over 100 kids between 5 and 18. Rounding up small children is difficult enough when I speak the same language as them, but forget it here. It took about 45 minutes to get them all seated, but that's only half the battle because now we need to get their attention.

Burtan gets up and starts yelling. They ignore him for a bit longer. Then he begins to quiz them about the lectures he has given them in the past. They talk about HIV, associated infections, nutrition, and healthy attitudes. I'm listening to Nyla, a trauma counselor, as she offers her hand at translation and randomly hear my name, look up, and see Burtan smiling with a million little hands waiving in the air. Uh-oh...

Burtan called me up to the front and informed me that the kids wanted me to give a lecture on Vitamins, nutrition, and healthy eating. Fabulous...let's all enjoy a good laugh about that...the future physician that openly detests fruits and vegetables has to explain good eating habits to a group of kids that are generally malnourished. I slowly walk to the front of the group and wait for Alice to translate for me. Alice is a great person with a huge personality, but nearly inaudible voice. Here's the scene: Me, standing in front of 100 kids, screaming "how many of you eat one piece of fruit each day" followed by Alice's hushed murmur of a translation and a sea of confused faces. Uh...ok. Once the kids got the general idea of my talk and my question, only about half of them raised their hand. I kept asking about their diets, following the same line of questioning and each time less than half the kids raised their hand.

After my quick polling, I started to lecture on the two fruits, most important for their immune system: oranges and bananas. About thirty seconds after I opened my mouth I leaned over and quietly asked Alice if they even have oranges here...it was going to be a long day...Once I had a list of culturally appropriate food, I started telling them about how to eat a little from each food group and what things were best for staying healthy while HIV+ and came to realize that even though Burtan claimed to have taught them about the immune system, they had no idea what I was talking about. So I back tracked a little and explained about the part of our bodies that fights off disease and protects us. At which point I had kids making gun motions and smacking each other. Not going well...I look around for Burtan to maybe help me out a little and he's no where to be found.

Ok, so let's move on. I get a suggestion being shouted at me from the back of the mob. It's another intern trying to convince me to tell them about the benefits of antioxidants in tea. Um, if these kids don't understand the immune system, I'm pretty sure terms like 'antioxidants' are going to be a bit more elusive. Eventually, I got across a couple of main points: bananas and oranges are good. Milk is good. Eat some fruits and vegetables each day and try to eat some meat. This is really quite a big joke because I've seen these kids eat and I know that if meat is available, there's not a chance in hell, they're going to pass it up. If they could maintain healthy eating habits, they would because anything is better than not eating and fruits and vegetables are cheaper than meat. There is virtually no chance of obesity, diabetes, or heart disease for this community.

My brief vitamin/nutrition lecture concluded with a question/answer session. This is the most important part of the discussion and I got in a fight with Burtan because he tried to cut it extremely short. He informed me that in Rwanda students are lectured to and not allowed to ask questions, so he felt that as long as I covered what he asked me to (which was pretty vague to begin with...vitamins, go!), things had been adequately accomplished. Well, the kids had quite a few good questions about sugar. I had to laugh because, despite their limited diet, kids love sugar. So I asked how many kids like Fanta. This time everyone raised their hand. So I tried to explain the little nutritional value held by soda and stressed the importance of milk and water. The day eventually concluded with Burtan volunteering me as the guest lecturer each week on a different health topic. This is only funny to me because it's so typical of my experience here. You're supposed to teach 200 kids english...last minute change to health topics two weeks earlier than your lectures were supposed to begin. I always felt like a pretty flexible person, but I now feel 100 percent justified in considering myself to have quite a bit of adaptability. Most days I'm flying by the seat of my pants...and yet it always works out.

Pictures Pictures Pictures

Since my blog has been misbehaving...really, it's more like me taking far too many pictures and then the poor blog gets overwhelmed and it yells an error message at me and I scream back and then we end up exchanging a few obscenities...I've found a way to show everyone my pictures with captions. Hopefully this works.

Gikongoro and Murambi Genocide Memorial:
http://luc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2068687&l=da2fa&id=20003653

Traditional Rwandan wedding:
http://luc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2068686&l=1ee03&id=20003653

Day of the African Child:
http://luc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067233&l=7d7dd&id=20003653

Rwanda Misc.:
http://luc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066262&l=f77a6&id=20003653

Children's Support Group 1:
http://luc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066253&l=47475&id=20003653

Children's Support Group part 2:
http://luc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066260&l=ddc03&id=20003653

Kigali and Icyuzuzo:
http://luc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2065982&l=b08ac&id=20003653

I will try to post the links again each time I add new photos. Please let me know if this works. Enjoy!