Take a Shower and Shine Your Shoes...

Hi Beautiful people!
My internet has been limited to say the least so hear are a few updates from the past 3 weeks... Probably a little scattered, but all is well in the land of a thousand hills!! Sorry in advance for how long this posting is. My feelings won't be hurt if you don't want to read the whole thing.

12/09/2010
When I grow up…I wanna be a gorilla.
It has been just over three weeks since I arrived on this magical continent and there’s something new and different everyday. From Stevie’s hut in Chizela, it was a couple days hitchhiking, two bouncy nights on the train through Tanzania (though I got to see an elephant!) three days and two nights by bus to reach Kigali, and thank God Stevie got over her cold in time for our bad ass jungle trek! It still feels like a dream—hanging out with a bunch of gorillas. I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!!! Looking into their eyes, I desperately wondered what they thought of us. Certainly not the first Homo sapiens to trespass in their quiet and peaceful mountains, they seemed pretty indifferent to us and our beaming grins. Standing under a few small trees, staggered on the mountainside, one young playful one jumped on the trees right behind us sending us all forward into the foliage. The trees came down on all of us, sending one woman into a pile of gorilla poop as he just basically climbed over the top of us. I wasn’t sure if I should turn to take a picture, surely putting my in the path of this amazing animal or duck into a fetal position. The whole thing happened in about 4 seconds, but it was SO COOL! And THEN my dream came true and we got to see some little baby gorillas! I have to adopt one now. Not sure how to do it, but it’s pretty much a life goal now. If MJ can have a chimp names Bubbles, I can TOTALLY have a baby gorilla, and if I have to move to the jungle to do so, I’m ok with that.
After an hour of climbing and sliding behind our new gorilla friends, we had to head back down the mountain, but the adventure wasn’t quite over yet. We had a two and a half hour car ride back to Kigali and the Rwandan countryside is absolutely breathtaking—Land of a thousand hills and then some. Everything is so lush here, and the sky hugs the hills in perfect harmony. I don’t think I could ever get tired of views like this, and I know I’ll be sad to leave in October.
The next morning it was back on the 5am bus to Kampala, and Stevie and I had to very sadly part ways. About to miss her bus back to Dar es Salaam, we had an all to fast hug goodbye, and I was on my own in Africa for the first time… a very lonely 10 hour bus ride (See you in December, Simba!). I did ok, until we got to the Uganda border and I couldn’t find my bus. Walking in the completely wrong direction, it took me about ten people yelling, “Mzungu, where are you going?!” to run back the other way. After a fight with my cab driver in Kampala, I finally made it to the SIT group at the Bativa Hotel.


You can feel it all over…
Kampala is completely overwhelming and huge and enormous, but a big group of us managed to explore the city for the few days we were there. One night we ended up at the city center jam, and I was able to get my eager little hands on a microphone (not singing everyday is PROBABLY the weirdest/most difficult thing about being abroad). Anyway, I’ve learned that in Africa it’s unbelievably easy to make fast friends, and the musicians there graciously let me sing “Chain of Fools” and even asked me to do another. Not knowing exactly how much western music they new or even the genres they played, I called out “Superstition,” but the guitar player started playing the horn line for “Sir Duke.” It ended up going surprisingly well (save my non warmed-up and exhausted vocals) and I actually got invited to come sing in this guy’s band. As it works out, however, I’m sure I’ll definitely be too busy with Post-Conflict Transformation studies to establish my African music career—maybe next time I’m in the neighborhood. The next night, a few of us saw some amazing local music and met a professional dancer named Joans.He grabbed our hands to bring us into the circle of African dancing and didn’t even laugh at the fact that none of us new what the hell we were doing. After the set finished, he took us to a dope nightclub, and this boy could MOVE. He had just gotten back from touring with his company in Europe and was about to take off again. Though I was really sad to leave the party early (like 1am), it was a pretty sweet send off, and I was back on another bus to Kigali AGAIN at 6am the next morning. Twelve hour bus rides are MUCH more fun, however, when you’re not crammed in between two large strangers, and I can’t really complain when I get to come back to some place so incredibly beautiful.
It would have been fun to have at least a few more days in Kampala though. The people there are so open and generous. Everyone I met was always helpful and understanding, and I’m sure we could have found some more crazy adventures. After a few days of Kenyarwanda language class, we finally got to meet our host families!

We are the world, We are the children.
Papá Max picked me up and I walked into my new house with the wonderfully epic original video of “We Are the World” playing on my family’s TV—could NOT have asked for a better omen. :-D Lord knows I love me some Michael Jackson. Throw in some Stevie, Brother Ray, and Mr. Quincy Jones, and I’m in heaven… I think one of my favorite things in Rwanda is all the ridiculous and amazing music videos they play every where. I hear “My Heart will go on” at least once a day, followed by a lot of Shania Twain and enough 90’s R&B to fill my heart’s content. Papá then sang along with some Kenny Rogers, and I had this weird “how the hell is this Africa” moment. Though I miss my Americaland family IMMENSLY, my host family is completely sweet, and compared to some of my new classmates’ stories, I think I lucked out. I have 4 siblings: Cyuzuzo (15 and stays at boarding school in Kigali), Kireza (10 and my only sister), Cherbin (7 and feels pretty entitled to go through all my things), and Garneau (5 and a little whiney sometimes but pretty damn cute and showers me with hugs). My host mother’s name is Vestine and she works for an NGO during the day and goes to school for Rural Development in the evenings, so I don’t get to see her very much. She speaks some English, and whenever she talks to me, it’s like her words are always followed by an exclamation point and giggles. It’s pretty adorable. Papá is pretty much fluent in English, and the first night I got here he told me that he was a very happy man because 1) His wife is his best friend (a rare thing for most African marriages) and 2) because they started with nothing and now own this beautiful home. He’s a very kind man, and I’m impressed with how he and Mamá have raised their family. They each lost tons of family in the genocide (or as Papá told me, his brothers and sisters are hiding in Heaven), yet they are always smiling and celebrating unity. Papá doesn’t even like the word “Mzungu” (white person) because he says we are all the same, and that term only creates separation.





17/09/2010
I am not my hair… but let’s be real—I’m pretty attached
Ok, my little brother tried to cut off my hair tonight. All three of my beautifully bald-headed siblings were playing with my hair tonight and out of nowhere comes 5-year old Garneau wielding a pair of scissors! Ooooooh no, he did not. Coming home in the evenings has become the time when the door to my room finally gets unlocked and all of my bags can be more or less ransacked. Last night, they found my football, bubbles, and bouncy balls. Tonight, they found my camera, ipod recorder, face lotion (asked me if it was ice cream!), journal, and tampons… It’s safe to say that the situation is escalating. I think they found my ipod too because later they demanded that I give them music, and I just pretended to have no idea what they were talking about. With both their mom and dad still at work when I get home, I’m not really sure how to fix the pattern.
Tomorrow, I’m going with Mamá to a wedding, which I was initially excited for, though I’ve come to find out that it will most likely be me standing around smiling, and not understanding a word of what’s happening for a good 10 hours. My host father is very sweetly sending me with a small video camera so that I can record anything I don’t understand, and he’ll view the tape and go over everything with me—a completely generous and thoughtful offer, though it may very well mean that I’ll just have to sit through everything twice. Ok, I’m being way too cynical. I love weddings, and I’ve been getting pretty good at the whole silently smiling mzungu thing.
I don’t think I can actually complain though because I’m pretty sure I lucked out with my host family. My parents are both incredibly sweet and hard working people. They are completely understanding of whatever I need, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be having any of these issues with the kids if they were around all of the time. We have a house girl, which is a very strange concept for me. She’s very quiet, and I only really see her outside cooking all of our meals. She has her own small room with a mattress on the floor, and she doesn’t speak a word of English. I wonder how old she is and if she has ever been able to attend school. Papá Max, though, assures me that they think of her as part of the family. She was taking care of one of their young cousins tonight, and upon seeing me, the little toddler burst into tears. This adorable boy was utterly terrified of me, and it was a really strange feeling to be feared for no reason. I could easily be the first are just actually the scariest looking mzungu he’s ever seen, but I guess I just assumed that smiles were universal with kids… Maybe I need to think of this as a scary-clown complex, though it scares me to be comparable to those ironic torture devices.

19/09/2010
Happy as the Morning Sun…
Yesterday, my family invited me to the wedding of their adoptive brother. He was orphaned in the genocide, and Mamá’s mother had taken him and his younger sister into their own family 16 short years ago. The bride was also an orphan of the genocide, but she was fortunate to still have some extended family. Though I can’t imagine the hardships these young adults have had to overcome, I find solace in the fact that these two damaged survivors will be able to start their own family that with hopefully never know such pain.
In perfect Africa time, we arrived at the church well into the ceremony, but a booming gospel choir drew me in immediately. I couldn’t understand what was being said, and I had never been to a Catholic ceremony before. Lucky for me, however, the gospel choir was pretty much continuous, though I couldn’t understand why they chose the cheesiest synth setting for the keyboard accompaniment. I made a mental note to absolutely have a giant mixed choir at my wedding. After the ceremony, we were able to see the next wedding party process into the church. The groom was military, so they had an entire military escort and small symphonic band play with they entered the church. As we stood outside watching pictures being taken of the newlyweds, Papá told me that this church was a place where many took refuge in 1994, and every singe one was trapped and slaughtered there. There was now a memorial site for the victims, and even though I’ve very much learned the atrocious role of Catholic churches in the genocide, I couldn’t believe I was standing in a place of God that had just hosted the happiest example of people coming together, yet it had been the same grounds of the most merciless acts. It has been the dual image of Rwanda that my brain has continuously been trying to grapple with for the past two weeks.
We headed to the ceremony, which was held in a fairly new banquet hall. Mamá was part of the wedding committee, so she had been there helping set up all the decorations. The large rectangle room was arranged with the wedding party at a big table in the middle of the room facing out towards the guests., creating a big open space for the traditional dancers. The groom’s family’s table was situated on the left side and faced the bride’s family’s table on the opposite side. Chairs were then arranged like an audience behind the families’ tables and opposite the bride and groom (I don’t know if that makes sense). The entire reception is basically the groom’s family trying to host the bride’s family in appreciation for their daughter, so there are a few ceremonial offerings like a good beer between the male representatives of each family and lots of speeches. Rather than the dinner-dance tradition in Americaland, the only dancing if performed by a traditional dance troop that performed several dances for the bride and groom throughout the night. No dinner is served, but I counted ELEVEN wedding cakes that were cut and served to all the guests on small napkins. I believe the bride and groom were able to toast a glass on champagne during the cake cutting, but I was surprised to see the two of them drinking Fanta when their families were sharing their ceremonial beer. I guess I just wasn’t used to the image of a bride in a white sparkly dress drinking out of a glass bottle of orange Fanta, and my cultural meter was rocked a bit.