jeffff!

Jeff and I are writing this blog together…YAY! After 37 hours of travel, Jeff made it to my site, Bumba, Rutsiro Disrict, Western Province, Rwanda. When we were waiting for a bus to my site there was a crowd of about 25 people (mostly kids) crowded around me, Jeff and all our bags. It was funny and awkward at the same time and I had Rainy’s care package that I got in Kigali so I gave the kids some tootsie roll pops. What a mistake. They all started fighting over them and some guy tried to pass them out in an orderly fashion but it was mayhem. Jeff gave away his sunglasses from India and 2 kids almost fought over them with one picking up a rock to throw. It was an eventful wait.



Even though I didn’t do the long trip like Jeff, I couldn’t sleep Jeff’s first night and with his jetlag also, we were up at 4 am starting the day boiling water for drinking and just doing household chores. Once the jetlag and afternoon naps subsided, we began to venture out and see some of Rwanda. We went to Kibuye for a night and hung out with 10 other volunteers at the house where I spent New Years. It was nice to have wireless internet and show Jeff the lake up close, but sleeping there was horrible. There was a hole in the mosquito net and I was freaking out the entire night. On our first leg home from Kibuye we packed into a van with 20 other people for a 30 minute ride. When I say packed, they really jam you in there. These vans are the size of VW campers. During this ride our driver hit a goat but he was able to run away. No one else even flinched! Ha!

After a few trips around my site and other cities in Rwanda, Jeff realized that being a Peace Corps Volunteer is much more challenging than he anticipated with the crowds, language barriers, and cultural differences and decided I earned a few more care packages before he leaves for Albania! WIN! But he also decided I hadn’t spent enough time studying the local language and I got a scolding and needless to say, the last few days we have been dorkin it up with our language flashcards. I passed the language test he gave me! J Oh yea, we are both taking Mefloquine for malaria and it can cause crazy dreams and weird stuff and one night Jeff woke up yelling, “Where the fuck am I? What the fuck? Where am I?”. Yea. No lie I was a little bit nervous.


Fresh food was a little scarce for a few days as we went to town last week and bought eggs, bread, and carrots and then went out of town. On our way back to my site we had anticipated being able to get something to cover us until market day but all the stores were closed. Now I know not to try and shop on Saturdays! So Saturday and Sunday was pretty limited with food and we pretty much just ate care package goods like beef jerkey, macaroni and cheese, premium crackers with peanut butter, Pringles, peanut m &ms, and bananas. I know, really good diet. Today we walked to town and the market and it seemed to take forrrrrrever. It was hot today also and it was market day so there were hella people out. My favorite. NOT. A 16 year old chatted us up and walked with us all the way to the market and helped us navigate through the veggies and the herd of 30 kids following us. We bought Patrick Rwanda’s version of donuts and milk to say thanks and we also got some. OMG is all I have to say about the milk. I have tried it once but the guy poured us this huge mug and it is so gnarly. It’s really chunky and not cold and I watched Jeff try to drink it and his lips and hand were shaking. Seriously nasty. Last time I checked you weren’t supposed to chew your milk. I gave the milk to the next customer that came in. Jeff says,” I think I’m coming down with something. Some African virus and I’ll be out of commission for like 3 weeks.” He is fine though. His thoughts so far are that I have a nice setup, nice neighbors, and a nice view. We actually filmed a video for everyone at home of my site and Jeff turned it into Rwanda Cribs and it’s awesome! He’s going to upload it to facebook or youtube so make sure to peep it.



On Wednesday we went to the genocide memorial in Murambi which is about 3 hours away from me. It took us 6 and a half hours to get there so as soon as we were finished we had to turn back. I wanted to show JeffNyanza also, but there wasn’t enough time. Murambi is the memorial I wrote about before where there are bodies there still preserved in lime. It is super shocking to see and something hard to put into words. 50,000 people were killed there in 2 weeks and to see some of it still is just crazy. And when we were driving back we saw prisoners, most from the genocide, walking on the roads or working in the fields. Weird.

Yesterday we came into Kigali to have some good food and meet up with some people before Jeff’s departure tomorrow. We had to wait for the bus for an hour and a half and like usual, we had a little crowd around us, mostly kids and teens. I can understand enough to chat with them and hang. Anyway, so one starts making these fighting gestures and stances and is alluding to the fact that Jeff must do karate because of his arm muscles. They were even looking at his knuckles for battle wounds. It was hilarious. Then 2 others were showing off their arm muscles also and Jeff decided he was still in first place! Way to shatter dreams!! Then the topic of a foot race came up and the kid said let’s go but Jeff pussed out. He didn’t want to create a scene which I understand, but it would have been amazing! The kid was banking on winning Jeff’s shoes. Haha.


So we get to Kigali after a long morning, walk to St. Paul’s with all our stuff in the blistering heat, get a room, get some waters, and walk up to the mini buses to get a ride towards Peace Corps. These are the same vans as before, where they smash 20 people in. Jeff sat behind me and it was already hot compounded with other hot bodies. Gross.A teenager gets on and sits next to me and closes the window! In my head I’m like COME ON! What the hell is this kid thinking?! So we leave and the kid has his head down in his lap with the window closed. It’s obvious he doesn’t feel well but I’m still dwelling on the closed window and how I am sweating. He begins puking in his book bag and I make it known the window needs to be opened. A different guy reached over and opened it thank god. So he’s sitting with his puke bag and I feel something drip on my foot. I turn to Jeff and tell him oh my god something is on my foot. I tried telling myself it was sweat from my knee or something but I knew it wasn’t. I guess the kid took notice because he looked at his bag and there was orange throw up dripping through it. FML. We got off at Peace Corps and yep, I had orange puke on my heel. Jeff said I did such a good job of not freaking out. Good job me! 

Not much else to write...Jeff encountered one of the big spiders at my house but it wasn't as big as the others. He tried to kill it with his sandal and I told him watch out they jump and sure enough the spider jumps and Jeff lost him! I don't know what I was thinking trying to let him be the hero. He also tried to catch numerous lizards and on one occasion it ran up the wall and then Jeff jumped at it and then the lizard fell down and Jeff got scurred. It was good stuff. Sad he's leaving tomorrow but it's been awesome.