2nd week of PST

From Feb 12th...

We started our new language training groups yesterday and people havebeen moved around depending on how well they have been doing inclasses based on the notes of our Language Facilitators and theTraining Director. The Training Director called each of usindividually to his office and spoke with us for 5 mins to let us knowhow we are doing so far and what we can improve on. I was originallyin a class of 4 students and I was moved to a class of 3, so myinitial thought was that maybe they think I need more attentionfocused on me even though I thought I was doing pretty well. Well,the Trainer called me in yesterday and said something along the linesof, 'You are very bright and doing very very well. The LanguageFacilitators (which we have 2 or 3 different ones each day, Mon-Sat)say you ask lots of questions and are very active in class, which isvery good. The only improvement we have noted is pronunciation, whichyou can continue practicing by speaking with the facilitators duringbreakfast, lunch or dinner. You can also practice with your resourcefamily (I'll talk more about that in a bit). You are adapting verywell and it looks like you are from here (Rwanda) based on yourpositive attitude and respecting the culture. I have no doubt you willbecome a Peace Corps Volunteer and we aren't worried about you.' So,if I continue this way, it looks like I will be living here till 2011as planned!So right now, some people went out to play volleyball, while otherswent to a cyber cafe for the internet and the rest of us are in theconvent studying, about to study or just hanging around. It gets darkhere around 7 pm and once it's 7pm, it's time for dinner! We eatbreakfast at 7am, lunch at 12pm and then dinner at 7pm. The food hasbeen great so far and they give us plenty! I have been eating a bowlof soup everyday as the first meal during dinner and then it's somesort of vegetable (carrots, sweet potato, etc…) and then occasionallyrice, beans and for protein, we eat rabbit, eggs, red meat or whateverelse they batch up. I think I've rarely eaten rabbit before this, butfood is food, so I'm not complaining. Then we finish off dinner withsome fruit (papaya, pineapple, passion fruit, banana, a mix of fruitor pudding, which we somehow got one time). So the food has beenpretty good so far during Training, but the real test comes when Ifinally move to my community and I need to get food on my own!Exciting!I just took a quick break and ate dinner. Tonight's menu was soup(squash, I think…), then some red beans, meatballs (a friend said it'slike an American Hotdog because we have no idea what's inside), pasta(very American, I know), karoti (carrots) and red sauce (there isalways some sort of red sauce that adds flavor to a side dish). To topit off, they gave us vanilla pudding (2nd time! Awesome!!). Of coursenot the same like back home, but it was delicious none the less. Istarted to appreciate the small things from back home within the firstweek. A girl in our group broke out a bag of pop tarts (it was a hugeZiploc bag and she said she had one more in her room!) and gave someout because she was tired of eating them! It tasted sooooo good!Aside from food, dinner (and any other time eating together) is spentgetting to know one another and talk about things here and from backhome. Today is movie night and they are going to show a movie that Ialready saw, so luckily, I am not going to be distracted and am ableto study some more. Tomorrow, we have a session on the genocide andsome will be here to talk to us about it. He was involved in a PBSfilm about the Genocide, so it will definitely be an interestinglecture and we will be able to ask him questions. It's against the lawhere to talk about ethnicities and very taboo to speak about theGenocide. I have been getting mixed signals about when I can andcannot talk about it because they remind us that we never know if theperson we are speaking to about it was a victim of the genocide or analleged assailant. I was speaking with one of the staff members oneof the first few days I arrived and she spoke to me about it for anhour (she was around at the time) and I had no idea if I was able tocomment about it. Another instance, I was speaking to another personand she was asking me how I knew about Rwanda and what I thought whenI found out I was coming here. I had to think for a second to find outwhat to say and I carefully said something like, 'They taught usbriefly about the history of Rwanda in class', then I switched theconversation to something else. This person was also scared of a dogthat was in the home we were at and I learned many people here have abad history with dogs. I knew it beforehand, but I didn't think it wasas serious as it was until I got here. Makes it harder to get a dogonce I move to my community, but I'll see! I still need one more shotfor rabies, but I'll have it by then. The mosquitoes here are gettingreally really annoying and just typing outside right now, I have gotbitten twice. The day after it rains seems to be when mosquitoes comeout to play the most. OHHHH, I almost forgot. Today we had a lectureon Safety and Security from a representative from the US Embassy.However, he didn't come alone….a film crew from the Discovery Channelwas following him around because they are making a show about safetyand security in developing countries. It's supposedly going to becalled The Mission, but they said it won't be out until sometime nextyear.Finally, I have to mention my Rwanda resource family. To help usintegrate into our community once we leave here (Training grounds),each of us have a resource family and we met them this past weekend.The main purpose of the resource family is to experience the cultureof the Rwandan people and see how they live and learn from them. Weare able to ask whatever kinds of questions we have (if you have anysuggestions, drop me a comment!) and observe their daily routines(shopping at the market, meeting people, but importantly, learning thelanguage). My resource family is soooo amazing and I couldn't havereceived a better one. We were first introduced in front of everyone(it was a little ceremony) and I saw a fellow male trainee shake thehand of his host mom, so I figured I would do the same since we didn'tknow one another yet. I am one of the first to be called up and ofcourse I go for a handshake, but my host mom gives me a big hug and afriendly greeting with cheek to cheek to cheek greeting (3 xs here).We all laughed at how funny it was considering we both greeteddifferently. My host mom's name is Comselle (but pronounced asConselle) and she is about 25 mins away from the convent I am livingin with everyone else. It's a short walk considering some other peopletake an hour and 45 mins to get to their host family…I got extremelylucky! Comselle's laugh is soooo funny and contagious. She only speaksKinyarwanda so it will definitely be helpful in learning the languagewhile I am here. Some other trainees had families that spoke English,French or a mix of all three. So we went to her home after we met (wehad to spend 3 hours with our new family that day) and considering weonly had a week of language training, the conversations didn't reallylast long and I was pretty much out of things to say within 20 mins!Luckily, I brought my language book and we both looked at it and Ilearned some new words. Comselle is a umuhinzi (farmer) so while welooked at the vegetable/fruit section of my book, she showed me stufffrom her garden! So funny as I tried to find out what certain thingswere. She was very patient with me as I tried making sentences (mainlybroken phrases, but I think she got it). I saw her yesterday afterclass to put into effect the things I learned the day of class and Iam going tomorrow also to learn a bunch of new verbs I learned. Shehas two boys, 1 lives in the capital and the other lives here withher. I believe one is in college and the other boy is around 7 yearsold. She is a single mother from what I understood. I asked her if shewas married and she said no. I asked if she was single and she said noto that. I was told by one of the language facilitators here thatmaybe she was a widow. I haven't learned many words to ask and I don'tknow if I'll ask anytime soon until we develop a better friendshipsince I don't want to seem intrusive. Anyhoo, I really need to study.Time to learn conjugations! Fun!