Iherezo

Muraho mwese! About three years ago today, I completed my application for the U.S. Peace Corps and began a process that would take me to the tiny East African country of Rwanda for two years that would affect the rest of my life. In this, my last post, I’ll look back on my time in Rwanda and how it will help shape me.

The great thing about doing the Peace Corps is that you really get a chance to know a country. You aren’t just a visitor who comes and experiences it for a short time, either falling hopelessly in love or hating everything about it. Instead, the Peace Corps gives you a chance to both love and hate a country, something that most people only get to do with their native country. Rwanda gave a lot of things to love and hate.

First, I’ll share with you the things I loved. The first thing most people notice about Rwanda is its physical beauty. There are beautiful verdant hills everywhere and stunning vistas, but for me the most beautiful things were the sunrises and sunsets (of which I saw both nearly every day) and the clear night skies filled with so many stars you felt enveloped in a bath of them.

The second thing I appreciated was how people would run around with you to help you find something without expecting anything in return. I was especially grateful for this in my role as the materials manager for the youth camps we conducted. I remember going to look for chocolate bars to make s’mores for one of the camps. I went to a fairly large market, expecting to find them there. I asked for them at one small shop, only to be told they didn’t have them. A man outside the shop heard what I wanted and led me from store to store. We ran out of places to look in the market and eventually made our way through downtown Kigali to another area where I found the chocolate bars. The whole process took a good 30 minutes, but he was happy to help and just went on his way after I found the chocolate.

Finally, I love the way that mothers care for their babies. I mentioned in the post on family that the love a mother shows for her child seems to be the greatest when it is a baby. I like the way that women wrap blankets around their babies to strap them on their back, and I think this constant proximity of mother and child is one of the reasons why mothers dote on their babies so much. In a culture where outward signs of emotion are not often seen, seeing a mother coo at her baby is a great sight.

Now I’ll cover the things I didn’t like about Rwanda. First, I hated always being observed. Never in my life had I been a minority, but I was the only white person in my village and one of only a handful anywhere I went. No matter what I was doing, people were always watching. I remember one instance when I stepped out of our bathhouse wearing only a towel. Looking up I noticed a small group of women who were walking past stop and stare.

Secondly, I didn’t appreciate how I was seen primarily as a source of money. There were numerous people I would meet who, after finishing the greeting formalities, would ask me for money. This was discouraging, especially when I felt like I was making real inroads into solid relationships and understanding of Americans.

Finally, the one thing to which I never fully adapted was the elasticity of time. Things never happened when they were scheduled to do so, and I couldn’t adjust. There would be a meeting scheduled for 11 and it would invariably be 1 or 2 before it started, but I was always ready at 11.

This list of likes and dislikes about Rwanda would be different for any Volunteer, but the point is that there is good and bad to everywhere in the world. In the U.S., for example, I love the diversity and variety of things to do and foods to eat, but I don’t like the increasing obsession with technology. After my experience in the Peace Corps, I think I’m better able to pick out what I like and mitigate what I don’t so that I can live a healthy, happier life.

I could write pages and pages about Rwanda, the Peace Corps, and how I think I’ve changed, but I don’t want to bore anybody. If anyone has any questions at all about Rwanda, the Peace Corps and whether I would recommend it, or anything at all, please don’t hesitate to contact me at mattbmw@gmail.com. I would be more than happy to share my thoughts with you. Murabeho!