I won't be eating turkey anytime soon...

September has been an eventful month at work and in Rwanda. I love being here because anything can happen and everything is new, whether it be good or bad. Even being here for 8 months now, the weirdest, funniest, scariest things still happen.

Remera-Rukoma vs. Kirinda Score: 4-2

The Rwandan Partner Organization I work for is EPR and it is a Faith-Based Organization that has established two district hospitals in Rwanda. I work at Remera-Rukoma Hospital in Kamonyi District and a friend (also a PCV) works at the Kirinda Hospital in the Karongi District. At R-R Hospital, we have a soccer team made up of Doctors, Nurses, Administration and Support Staff. They have spiffy blue uniforms with the Hosp name on the back of the shirt and they rotate the uniform between the players. As almost all countries outside North America, soccer is a big deal here. Kids create soccer balls made out of banana leaves and whatever else they can get their hands on and tie it together to play with it. Not a day passes where I don’t see someone playing soccer on my way to work. Anyhoo, my hospital was going to be playing against Kirinda Hospital and I was invited to go along. I initially told them I couldn’t go because of a meeting that was taking place at the same day in Kigali among my fellow PCVs regarding GLOW Camp and I was looking forward to it. (GLOW Camp is a camp that some of my fellow PCVs are planning sometime this year. It’s a week worth of events among secondary school girls discussing various issues, like HIV/AIDS, Life Skills, Counseling, etc…It’s been done in many other Peace Corps countries and we are trying to get it started here.) However, the more I thought about it, I decided it would be better for me in the long run to go with the hospital staff and get to know them better that weekend. While my village is relatively small, the hospital is enormous and I still don’t know everyone’s name or in what departments they work in. There is over 100 staff here. Needless to say, integrating at work and knowing people more personally hasn’t been easy. If I was working at a Health Center, I think it would be easier since it’s smaller but oh well. So I jumped on to go to Kirinda at the last minute and was ready to root for my hospital. When it came time to leave, I knew the hospital had rented a bus to take us so I expected to go with 15-20 other people from the hospital since that’s how many people fit into those buses. As we are ready to go, I see over 40 staff members waiting in front of the hospital ready to go to Kirinda. I had no idea how we were all going to fit into that one bus, so I thought maybe they will take half the group today and the other half tomorrow, just in time for the game. (Kirinda is over 3 hours away from my site and is about 2 hours from the main road on really crappy roads) I see the bus pull into the hospital and I get in with some of my friends at the hospital and then the hospital ambulance pulls right up next to us. The other half of the group piles into there and I start cracking up and asking my friends if they are really going to go in the one ambulance this hospital has. They tell me yes and think nothing much of it. I ask them what if there is an emergency during that day and the next since we won’t be returning till the following evening. They don’t know and hand me a Mutzig. To them, the weekend has started and it’s time to enjoy it. Off we go to Kirinda and I meet up with Christine, Taylor and Madison (all PCVs) at Christine’s site. The ride there was rough because we picked up staff members along the way and we eventually had to fit 5 people per row, even though with 4 people, its already a tight fit. For those three hours, it was drinking, singing and even at one point, trekking. Everyone had to get out of the bus because it couldn’t go up a hill with everyone inside. Good times indeed. My hospital eventually kicked Kirinda’s ass (and Christine’s by association of course) and we won 4 to 2. The ride back home the following evening was even more crazy then the ride there, but that’s for another time. It involved a flat tire, a Doctor threatening to jump out of the car, me and the male staff members dancing to La Lambada (all the females and a few guys skipped out of Gitarama to head back home ‘early’) and almost being run off the road by our very own ambulance. Couldn’t have asked for a better weekend.



School of Hard Knocks – Knocking out HIV one child at a time

I finally did what I thought Peace Corps would be all about, but haven’t had the chance to really do up until then. I spoke to Secondary School Students about HIV/AIDS and took part in the creating of materials and lesson planning. Sonia, a friend and fellow PCV in Kigali, works at a Secondary School in Nyamirambo and was going to put together a talk regarding HIV/AIDS. She asked me and two other friends/PCVs, Rachael and Chrissi, to help out and present topics of discussion to her students. I was looking forward to it because this is what I initially thought I would be doing all the time but I have been working more in Program Development at the Hospital. At first, the lesson at Sonia’s school didn’t seem like it was going to happen due to funding issues. Sonia wanted to supply her students with drinks and snacks. I didn’t think we needed to since we were only going to be talking to them from 10AM till about 3PM…plus, it was going to be over 100 students. I have participated in two health presentations to primary school students for CHAMP and both times, we didn’t give the kids drinks or food. We just gave them 500 RwF(about $1) so they can buy soda (300 RwF) and whatever snack they wanted to get with the remaining 200RwF. All the students end up happy. Since Sonia wanted to actually buy the food and drinks for the students since she said there was nowhere near the school for them to get these stuff (I thought she was lying, but once I got to the school the day of the presentation, it was really in the middle of nowhere), it required lots of labor and even more money. So for a while, we didn’t think the HIV/AIDS lesson was going to happen since we planned on doing the talk within a few weeks of discussing this. In the end, we eventually got Peace Corps VAST funding for the amount Sonia requested to put this presentation together. I created posters regarding who is effected by HIV, the Biology of HIV/AIDS and how it affects the immune system, myths/facts about HIV and a game about the different levels of risk certain sexual/non-sexual activities are associated with in terms of HIV transmission. Sonia also helped with some of these presentations above. Rachael presented on Nutrition and the types of food they should be eating for a healthy balanced diet. Chrissi made up an activity regarding stigma of HIV and a demonstration using coca cola and water bottle about the viral loads contained in various bodily fluids. All in all, it was great and I learned what worked well(transmission game) and what needs to be worked on more (Biology of HIV and how it effects the immune system) so it is easily understandable. I also learned that Rwandan men do not eat pumpkin because they see it as a woman’s food only. I will say though that these kids were out of hand at the start and they were NOT happy with water, bananas and peanuts as snacks. Rwandans do not like drinking water at all (I also hated it, but now I actually love it), but Sonia wanted to encourage her students to drink it more than soda. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do this some more. Afterwards, we all headed to the East Side to hang out with other PCVs and eat lots of Guacamole, Chapatti and Sambousas. Plus, I wanted to get a free haircut.





Random stuff around here and Kigali

I think all the mentioning I do in this blog about not having electricity in my village was heard by someone because a Chinese Organization has been in my village recently digging holes and preparing to put wires along the main dirt road here. Word is, we will have electricity by next January. Hope so.

My Hospital was mentioned in the radio recently. I wish it was for something positive though. All I’ll say is that money got misplaced and unaccounted for. I am sure this isn’t the only place this has happened in, but you know for it to be on the radio, it had to be quite a large sum.

My resource dad here has flown the coup. He helped me meet people and introduced me around when I first arrived. He also invited me a few times to his house in Kigali to meet his family and even killed one of his turkeys for me to eat RAW! No, just kidding. It was cooked of course. He always asked me when I was going over to his house again to eat more turkey. Well, he quit his job here last week as Hospital Administrator and I was totally caught off guard. He didn’t say goodbye to anyone and just disappeared after submitting his resignation. Is this connected with my previous paragraph? I have no idea, but people talk of course. He was a cool guy too and I am sure he still lives in Kigali. Still haven’t called him to say Bon Voyage or whatever. It will be awkward if I even call him. I’m sure I will, probably not till next week though.

A fellow PCV had a Birthday Party in Kigali at an Art Studio and it felt like a real American party. Great music, good drinks and ok food. While eating a burger, I noticed it was sort of undercooked and pink inside. I knew I should haven’t eaten the rest of it, but whatever, I am in Africa. I also wanted a burger since it’s rare here (bada bing!). Anyhoo, about half an hour later, I was pale and felt like I was about to faint in the backyard. Started great and ended not so great. Oh well, still good to see everyone and enjoyed doing something in Kigali.

Bought my ticket to Egypt and I’ll be enjoying some delicious KFC within 2 weeks! Booyah! I’ll be meeting up with my folks for 10 days of vacation. I’m looking forward to not being gawked at or being hissed by someone trying to grab my attention for no real reason.

A group of 34 or 37 Peace Corp Trainees (Education Volunteers) will be arriving in Rwanda within the next few days. They’ll be going through training for the next 3 months. Can’t wait to meet the group. Since Rwanda is so small, everyone will be within an hour of another volunteer I am guessing.

Even though I feel completely safe at my site, there are still times when I get creeped out. The other day as I was going back to work from lunch, I saw a crowd of people gathering outside the hospital entrance and huddled together making noise. My first instinct was to turn around, go home and lock the door. But, I just played it cool and started humming to myself and passed the group and into the hospital. As I passed, I saw that everyone was gathered around someone selling clothes and shoes. That is completely random since the sellers usually sell their goods on Saturdays at the market located in the next town over or at a smaller market located in some woods. I don’t think I’ll ever get over the feeling that anything can happen at anytime without much notice while being here.

Libros para Rwanda

Read below. This is a project some of us are trying to get going in each of our sites. More info to follow.