dance with me tonight

Halloween was my last entry?
Does anyone have any idea what happened between now and then? I barely do… Currently – listening to Aida on the “recently added” mix on the ipod. Note to Charlynn: it’s not too bad.

Ok, so with half the crew in model school, and half the crew doing micro teaching, language classes were all mixed up. In the mornings I was partnered with Jen, who was my roommate in Philidelphia. We tried to ask our teachers about slang, but had a hard time explaining it. In the afternoons, I was paired with Michelle, my friend from Umuganda. Michelle is fun because she gets SO excited about everything. Even when we were still in the states, driving from Philly to JFK, the bus driver started sharing some sight-seeing info on the border of NJ/NY; she ran up to the front of the bus and conveyed everything through the microphone. She thought everything was just Facinating! And she has that energy that rubs off on you – when she’s excited, you want to be excited. I know I’m being repetitive, but #1 I’m tired, and #2 emphasis. Anyway, she learns the language faster than anyone else because she gets so excited about it. She hangs out with the kitchen staff and the LCFs and speaks as much Kinyarwanda as possible – all the time. I love being in class with her because we feed off each other’s energy and she gets excited for me when I understand things. I have been spending a little more time with her and speaking with the HCNs, but I can’t absorb it the way she does. I finally gave in and started cutting up my notebook for notecards I could flip through. Everything is organized by topic and part of speech. Now I just have to use them…

I finished Fury – didn’t hate it. Starting to run out of options among the team here though. I read “Emma’s War”, which is about the British Aid worker who was in the Sudan and married one of the warlords who was part of the civil war in the early 90’s. I also re-read Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Harry Potter 7. I think the coup-de-tas this week was my first Chuck Palanik; Rant. I was excited about the F Scott Fitzgerald book, until I remembered that this was the guy who wrote the Great Gatsby. One of the worst books ever. Oh well, we’ll see how he does with short stories. (pretty sure this makes book 12 since landing in Rwanda)

Saturday (11-7) was an outing day. They went to see the rainforest in the southwest. I opted to save my money because, I hate to say it, Brookfield is an awesome zoo, and I’ve seen monkeys. I spent the day in Butare with Scott. I got to chill at a coffee shop, eat real food, and visit the National Rwanda University. It’s really a beautiful campus, with manicured gardens, a student union, a medical center, and each subject has its own building.

Later in the week I went on a site visit. Not MY site, mind you, but visiting a Health PCV. She lives in one of the smallest town possible, and still has running water and electricity. Her town doesn’t have internet, but that’s still more than reasonable. 9 of us went at the same time, but Megan and I were the only 2 to go to the same place. SO Glad. We bought bus tickets from here to Kigali, where we all split up. Megan and I had to get dropped off (via PC van) at a different bus depot in town and were given money for fare and the name of the bus. We started asking around, but the bus we needed wasn’t there yet. We found some steps to sit on in the shade (because it was very warm and we had backpacks) but we only got to sit for about 5 minutes before some Rwandan men came and started pulling us over to a taxi and trying to tell us that was going to our destination. Now, to their credit, it was going to the district – but I was not about to ride a strange, over crowded, over priced taxi-van that was only guaranteed to take us to the right district. We had enough language to say no, I want the Onatracom bus going to this city. Fortunately, the bus we wanted really did pull up about 5 minutes later (although, standing in the African sun, protecting your backpack for 5 minutes when you don’t know the end time is not really fun) and we asked about 10 people (the driver, a nun that got on the bus, the door guard who takes fare and other passengers and passerbyers) if this was really what we wanted. Between Megan’s French and my (again, extremely limited) KR, we decided to get on the bus. Even though it wasn’t leaving for another hour, where else were we going to go? Plus, we definitely got some of the best seats in the front. Ok, so think size of a coach bus, but accommodations of the El. (all you non-chicagoans will just have to imagine) Megan and I claimed window seats across the aisle from each other. My seat mates decided they needed more room on the aisle than I did next to the window (which opened by sliding horizontally and was open from where my butt hit the seat to just above my shoulder). Fortunately, there was about 2 inches of wall extending up past the back of my seat so I didn’t completely fall out the window – but this wall definitely had a corner, and my shoulder definitely had a bruise by the end of the trip. I did lose a pen out the window. I thought it was clipped to the notebook, but it bounced off.
Ok, so the bus ride was supposed to take 3 hours except as soon as we left the paved road, our rear windshield broke. I thought it shattered from how rocky the road was, but the bus driver and the 2 guys in the front (passengers) got out to look at it and it sounded like possibly a rock had hit it? 20 minutes later, they all come back in and the bus starts. 20 seconds later, the bus stops again and they all get out to talk to the locals who are now lined up on the edge of the street. There was kind of an older guy with a sketch pad, but he wasn’t police and they couldn’t do anything about the window to fix it or anything anyway, so I have NO idea what was going on. Every so often I looked over at Megan, eyes closed and listening to her ipod. I figured, if she wasn’t worried, I didn’t have to be either. Except that during all this my seat mates decided to invite another person on to our bench (this makes 4 now) and my shoulder was definitely out the window.
The other most frustrating thing about African public transportation is that they never tell you where you are. They figure, if you’re going there, you must know what it looks like. There are no announcements and no list as to how far down the line you are. They’re nice to us muzungus though and tell us when to get off, but I was really nervous – what if I was listening to my music and didn’t hear it? What if they didn’t really understand where I said I wanted to go? What if I was asleep and they didn’t bother to wake me? Again, thank goodness for megan. We finally arrived at ~7 and walked the 25 minutes into town in the dark with our host PCV.

I know I spent a lot of time just talking about the bus ride out there, but that was honestly the most intense part of the trip! What did I Do at site? Slept well for the first time since I got to Africa. Went to the market and bought ingredients for guacamole (in KR) which we ate with 4 meals. Watched like 10 episodes of Scrubs. Read about a third of Vanity Fair. Took naps. We did walk through the hospital, but that took up about 30 minutes.

I know this sounds like a pointless trip, but I was really glad I went. It was good to see that I can survive on the language I have now, even if it’s not phenomenal. I’m glad I got to experience the bus system with a partner the first time. We also learned how to make this really delicious meat sauce that is SO EASY. Very helpful.
I think the most important part of the trip for me is how I felt riding out of town. I know many of you were confused / hurt when I said a while ago that I didn’t feel gone yet – but keep in mind, I’m “gone” from most of you, most of the time. When I’m in FL, I’m not in Chicago. When I’m in CO, I’m not in FL. And I’m almost never in CA. so while I miss all y’all, I feel like I’m at college or at camp or something similar where not enough is different to matter. I left Chicago to pack in CO. I left CO for PA. I left PA with 36 other Americans and haven’t left their side since then. This dorm of Little America is great, but I don’t recognize it as some exotic or distant land yet. Except for the 3 days of my site visit. Leaving everyone behind really gave me a taste of how it will be when I go to my own site. I didn’t have roommates to talk to. There wasn’t a crowd of kids listening and dancing to music in the evening. There wasn’t anyone to vent to at the end of the day or to tag along with between classes. It was different. I finally felt like I was in the Peace Corps.

And then I remembered that I don’t like to sleep in a house alone. Oops.

Next life lesson – what it’s like to be a laundry woman from the turn of the century.
I have honest to goodness blisters and knuckles that are rubbed raw. Stupid jeans. And the sweaters. And the most frustrating part is that you never can quite rinse All the soap out. I think I’m the only person who likes when it rains after I do laundry. I figure – extra rinse. I definitely sunburned my back during the last episode though. All my roomies have begun to notice and tell me how bad it looks.

*News Flash*
Duct Tape does not fix everything. Like the ear hook on your headphones. Dammit. I dunno, Chris says she has superglue. Maybe that will actually hold the pieces together. These are the airplane earphones too – my real earphones from home only play out of one speaker now, which is a wiring malfunction. Also not duct tape fixable.

Model school.
I am not a fan of the idea of switching between classes and having to create a lesson for a group of students when you know Nothing about them. So I checked with two other teaching to for a team that would stick with the same class all week. At least then we can build lessons on each other and we know what our students have heard. This morning was pretty fluid. Pretty impromptu for some of us (me), but fluid. Avery taught formal v casual, introductions and requests. I taught formal titles, and did listening activities on formal v casual. Scott closed it out with “how to write a letter”. Tomorrow is “no chalkboard” day. I have no idea what I’m going to do. I’ll figure it out in the morning…
You know the phrase “those who can’t do, teach”? That especially applies to me. I can tell you how to do a perfect plie, and how your toes should be pointed – but I would fall on my face if I tried it myself. Pick a skill – I can correct it better than I can do it. This, unfortunately, applies to teaching as well. I can tell you how to make great lessons and keep the kids in line, but I forget half my own advice when it’s my turn on the stage. I didn’t get mad, and I didn’t yell, but I did whistle at them to get their attention. The first time, they were confused, the second time, they giggled. The third time, they laughed and kept talking.
The first time I whistled, I remembered that it’s taboo for girls to whistle. The second time, I remembered that they used whistles to trick fugitives to come out of hiding during the genocide. The third time, I wanted to tape my mouth shut. Oops. I guess it went ok though. Scott called out all the slackers to read in front of the class.

Ok, short blog this week. I’m falling asleep again and the power just started flickering. Happens from time to time. Sometimes it means we don’t have to pay for internet. =)

Love you all.
Comment on things! Let me know how life with you is!
And I will try and post pics around swearing in time in Dec.

Ps. heard Owl City playing in a store in Butare. How crazy is that!