Gummi Bears!

So this is a mix of 2 entries and they may seem all over the place, but oh well...also, I probably have a lot of misspellings and spacing errors... (deal with it Tatts! hahaha, jk)
This Saturday (2/14/09) I have an oral exam where I will be tested on various topics; such as showing a picture of my family and saying their relation to me (used a pic of Mama Lucha, my family pic from thanksgiving given to me by Z. and a pic of my cousins (a very old pic of Neleb and “Is My Daddy home?”), introducing myself to the local chiefs/police, naming various objects (fruit, clothing, vegetables, etc…) and some other basics. I think I will be alright tomorrow morning. The oral exam will consist of three 7-minutes sessions and it is the first of two (I believe) we will have while here in training. In order to be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I need to reach an Intermediate High Level in Kinyarwanda…at least that’s what they tell us. I have been learning the language for about 2 weeks now and I am pretty impressed that I am actually picking up a new language…not that I’m old, but still. I will need to make a new friend who speaks Kinyarwanda when I return home so I don’t completely forget it. The language training is really impressive and a lot of time is devoted to it. Not really, but just trying to be confident! Hahaha Today we have a guest speaker coming in from the Ministry of Health, so I will need to change clothes and put on my Sunday best soon. The Peace Corps came back into Rwanda basically because of The Ministry of Health. The weather here is fantastic and it can get hot, but not very humid at all. I haven’t gotten sunburned, but most of the other people have. We just started spring here and a short wet season began this week. It’s kind of weird seeing lightning throughout the night but not having it rain. The power at our training site turns off from time to time, so most of us have a small flashlight in handy at night. Dj Kev gave me a tiny flashlight and it has definitely been useful since power outages are pretty common here. They usually last around 15 minutes, so it’s not really an inconvenience. It just gives me a break from studying. So I didn’t get a chance to finish my entry because I needed to study for my exam this morning. I just finished all three sessions and I would say out of a scale of 5, I did a 3 on all of them. I thought I would do a bit better, but some words just left my brain the instant it was time to say them, such as grandmother (nyokoguru) and plate (isahani). I was also quizzed on words I never learned in class, such as skirt and shoes. Oh well, I’ll do better next time when we will be quizzed again at the end of PST. Today we will be going to a Genocide Memorial (they have a few here and the one we are going to escapes my mind right now) where we will see bodies preserved in lime. I imagine it will be intense to see. Our Medical Officer said she went to it last week and was able to see 8 rooms out of 24 before she decided she didn’t need to see anymore. There is also a room where they have clothing gathered from mass graves. We are going to go there in a bit. I wonder if we are allowed to take pictures at the place. If we can, I think I may take some…not sure yet. Wow, that was definitely something else. I just came back from playing Volleyball (and getting the ball smacked at my chin) and finally have some time to sit down and type up an entry. We went to one of the most well know genocide memorials this morning where they had deceased bodies preserved in lime. The smell in each room was definitely something I will never forget. I can’t even describe it because it was just so overwhelming to me. They had 24 rooms where they had skeletal remains (craniums, random bones, etc…) and entire bodies covered in lye (it was all white). Some of the bodies had the clothes they were wearing in which they were killed in and most had obvious blows to their head and body, which most likely killed them. The memorial is called Murambi Memorial. When we arrived, they explained to us the story behind the events that occurred there during the genocide. When the genocide broke out, people went to churches and schools to avoid being killed. Over 50,000 people were killed at this site and they found mass graves around the school. They are building a new memorial center to place the bodies inside the center as oppose to having them in small classrooms outside. I am not sure why they would do that since the passing wind helps ventilate the rooms where the bodies are, but who knows how they will control the smell once they put them in the new center. They are planning on opening the new center this year. While we were there, we saw people digging along the entrance and they told us that it was because they were retrieving more bodies/bones. They allowed us to take pictures it turned out and I wasn’t sure if I was going to take any pictures because it seems disrespectful, but I did take a couple of pictures. I probably won’t post them up on this blog, but I’ll have them. I can’t comprehend how people go from being neighbors one day to killing their neighbors and friends the next day. We had several talks about the genocide from survivors and they all recall how instantly people turned on one another. They described how people were raped, tortured and killed…from children to the elderly. Some of the bodies at the memorial site had adults clutching little children to their chest. Just something people need to see if they ever come to Rwanda. The site is located on a hill and the scenery is beautiful. It’s scary to think how it looked like during the war with people coming up and down the hills. My body is aching right now and I am starting to get a headache. Not sure if it’s because of the ball smacking my face or because I am a bit dehydrated. I haven’t really been drinking much water today now that I think about it. The nuns close up the kitchen convent Saturday evenings until the next evening so they can have a break from having to have clean water for us and also cooking for us. I should go into town and buy some water soon before I feel weaker. I seem to have a habit of starting entries and then having something come up and not finishing it. I grabbed some drinks and dinner with two friends last night at Hotel Ibis. I ate spaghetti (3000 Rw Franks = $6) and the spaghetti seems to be the best thing to order here due to its portion size and because the meat is just so good. The local bottled beers (Primus and Mutzig are the local drinks here) are cheap (400 RwFranks = Less than $1) while the imported drinks (Amstel for example) cost twice the price of a local drink. Peace Corps gives us an allowance every 2 weeks and it is more than enough to get by right now considering we get fed breakfast, lunch, dinner at the convent almost every day. They gave us some money the first week arrived in an envelope and I hid it so well that I forgot I stashed it away, so when they gave us more money this past Friday, I found the first envelope and realized I never used it. So yeah, I am doing just fine with the money they give us and I haven’t needed to exchange any money. I will probably not be using my bank cards or credit cards while I am here…except for excursions, such as going to see the Gorillas! Everyone here tells us that we need to be careful using the ATMs here because of ‘sketchiness’, such as identity theft, passwords being stolen and having money being taken out of their accounts at a later time. Not that it only happens here in Rwanda, but it seems to happen in a lot of the neighboring countries as well. After dinner, we walked back home and the stars at night were so amazing and beautiful. It reminded me of the time back in college when SP and I would watch the stars from the boulders at the Sports Complex. However, I have never seen the sky lit up with so many stars and I was even able to see constellations like never before. We must have spent 20 mins just gazing at the stars. I wish I could take a picture of it and show it, but it wouldn’t be clear enough obviously….just one of those got to be there moments. Every Sunday we take pills (mefloquine) to prevent us from getting malaria and so far I haven’t seen any major side effects from the pill. Some people are definitely feeling it, but I haven’t experienced anything crazy like vivid dreams, exhaustion, etc…I am one of the lucky ones I suppose. One of the Trainees here just came down with Malaria (yet she still played Volleyball with us the other day, what a trooper!...of course she didn’t know at the time she had malaria) and she needs to take an insane amount of pills, like 24 within 3-4 days to combat it. They gave us mosquito nets and we all use it to sleep in it, but apparently if we take the malaria pills within 3 hours of any other supplemental pills, it reduces the effects of the malaria pills (which happened to the Trainee with Malaria now). She is going to be alright, she just needs bed rest and take it easy a few days. The Medical Officer is amazing and has been taking care of us really well.
We received our evaluations from the oral language exam we had this past Saturday and surprisingly, all the instructors gave me a 4 in each session (out of 5). I may have been a bit hard on myself I guess, but just more motivation to do better. After all, once we go to our community and placed with an organization, we'll most likely be working with people who speak Kinyarwanda more so than English (especially if I get placed in a rural setting like I hope). Lastly, I have Skype now (easier to communicate over the internet than my cell phone here). My Skype username is EdisonGReyes. If you have it, add me as a buddy and we can chat for free whenever we are both online! I almost forgot, we had a special guest during lunch today....the US Ambassador to Rwanda. Yeah, that's all I'll say for now. Continue leaving comments! I appreciate them all! Thanks again!

Also, thanks sooo much to Darbooze for that package! The Gummi Bears were perfect and the Emergen-C packs as well. For those wondering, it cost 13 to ship it in a yellow bubble wrapped envelope a bit bigger than a regular piece of paper….thanks again!