Sipping Bourbon in my Cadillac at the Carwash.

Rwanda is a stunningly beautiful country, but it is an epic trip to get there. From Atlanta, to Washington, D.C., to Rome, to Addis Ababa (capital of Ethiopia), to Uganda, and finally to Kigali, Rwanda, the entire trip took over two days to complete. My fellow volunteers and I arrived in Kigali exhausted, dehydrated, disoriented, and understandably nervous. After a couple days, we settled into an intensive two week orientation program and began to explore Kigali. Our days were thankfully well balanced between classroom time and free time, and that free time allowed everyone to adjust to Kigali at their own pace in their own way. At the same time, it was wonderful to meet a new group of companions and colleagues who face the same challenges as you and are willing to laugh at those challenges, too.

Kigali itself has become a noisy, bustling, fast-paced city in the past few years. Construction is occurring everywhere, and streams of people, cars, motorcycle taxis, buses, and trucks constantly rush through the city’s well paved roads. Although foreign aid still dominates the Rwandan budget, there is a decidedly forward-looking and development-minded mentality among people in Kigali. Signs and indications of increasing wealth are everywhere – like brand new European SUVs -- although it is unclear to me how Rwanda’s dramatic and ongoing recovery from civil war and genocide is affecting those at the bottom of society. Corruption and crime are low, and there is a healthy respect for legal authorities (like the dark blue-clad federal police), the Rwandan military, and especially President Paul Kagame, whose slight frame is almost comically incongruous with his powerful and effective leadership style.

In fact, the general impression of Rwanda back home is so different than the reality in country. Rwanda is not war ravaged, or especially destitute, or riven by civil strife. With that said, Rwanda is a country filled with ghosts and unspoken tension. Although the civil war and genocide ended fifteen years ago, the legacy of brutal ethnic violence and near complete social and economic implosion is always simmering under the surface. Memorials to the dead dot the country, including a very well done museum in Kigali, and the traditional Gacaca courts continue the arduous process of trying defendants incarcerated for crimes committed during the genocide. As part of our orientation, we visited two memorial sites: the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center with its stunning, tiered gardens filled with showy palms and bright flowers, and the Nyamata Memorial located about forty minutes outside of Kigali. If you would like my observations and reflections on these two sites, please email me at zach.l.fox@gmail.com.

During our third week of training, our entire group traveled to Nyanza, located about ninety minutes east southeast of Kigali, to complete a teaching practicum. The school which hosted the practicum is also hosting one WorldTeach volunteer for the entire year. Departing Kigali, the road to Nyanza snaked through Rwanda’s tremendously hilly terrain, and the views from the bus were spectacular at every turn. So much of the land is under cultivation, and homes line hilltops or ridgelines. Farms fan out below the houses down the hillsides in cascading terraces. It is a remarkable feat of engineering given the extraordinarily steep slopes and the absence of mechanized equipment to grade and level the steps. Smoke rises from these homes where electricity and running water are unavailable, as the majority of cooking is done with charcoal.

Unfortunately, it seems Rwandese either also love staring out of their car windows at the scenery or attend the most peculiar driving schools. The roads in Rwanda, while generally in good condition, can be either pleasant or hair-raising during the day, depending on your driver. Riding in a vehicle at night, especially outside of a major city, can be a deadly proposition. A free-for-all is not an inapt description, although there are some generally acknowledged codes of conduct and a peculiar sign language on the road that seem to mitigate potential disasters.

Pulling into Nyanza, one also suddenly realizes what it truly means to be an umuzungu (or white foreigner) in Rwanda. Unlike the United States, where blankly staring at a stranger is considered rude and uncomfortable, in Rwanda it is socially accepted, and expected if you are a foreigner. Yelling out umuzungu or abazungu, roughly the equivalent of yelling “Hispanic immigrant!” or “Chinese person!!” or something similar back home, is also more or less accepted practice. Although I have adjusted to the stares, it still strikes me as funny that dozens of people will stop dead in their tracks and stare intently as I walk by. Our situation in Nyanza only multiplied the stares due to our abnormally large group, but the teaching practicum was successful and I do feel better prepared for the coming year. Perhaps more importantly, it was important to see what 95% of Rwanda is actually like. Kigali is so radically different than the countryside or any other city, one can easily forget that Rwandese are predominantly farmers or pastoralists.

Those farmers grow mainly bananas, cabbage, potatoes, rice, beans, tomatoes, corn (or maize), and onions, which are the staples of the Rwandan diet. Rwandese are also heavy meat eaters when they can afford to do so. Goat, beef, and chicken are the primary meats eaten, usually in some sort of stew, boiled, or grilled in brochette form (like a kebab); pork seems, sadly, to be nonexistent here. I’m accepting any and all deliveries of whatever pork products you think will ship well to Rwanda. Dairy products are usually few and far between, and expensive to boot. Thus far, the food has been rather staid and predictable, but not overly sickening!

For many people, relocating to a developing country, even one so stable and relatively corruption-free as Rwanda, is a daunting task. Food is just one part of the equation. Nightmare scenarios about crime, exotic illnesses, bizarre customs, and myriad other fears create a formidable mental picture. In reality, the move to Rwanda has been much less intimidating and far more interesting than I had imagined. Certainly there are some transitional challenges and significant lifestyle changes, but one quickly finds the rhythm and pace of life. As my service advances, I am certain that Rwanda will seem at times incomprehensibly illogical and absurd, but with a bit of perspective and patience I’m confident everything will work out for the best.

Okay, signing off for now. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you want more details or have questions. I’m happy to answer them, but please be patient as I wrangle with the internet situation. Please also generally ignore post titles, they are more for fellow volunteers. I’ve found that our group of volunteers are a funny bunch, a good trait to have in what will be trying conditions:

Evan (my new roommate): [paraphrasing] I’m definitely going to try and build up a tolerance for the tap water once we get to our site.

Zach: Your tolerance for the water will be determined by the explosiveness of your diarrhea.