Pender-Topsail Post & Voice, Thursday, June 25, 2015, Page 5A
Newsings & Musings
By Edith Batson Post & Voice Staff Writer
From Rwanda As you may recall, my granddaughter Rachel Hill, recently began her 27 month stint with the Peace Corps in Rwanda. Here’s a little update from her blog. A Day in the Life of an Umuzungu I feel like there is so much to explain to you all about what my past two weeks have been like. I’ve been terrible at taking pictures but I swear I will take some this weekend to post! I think you all should have a good idea of what I have been doing on a broad scale. Part of Peace Corps goals is that I share my experiences with you all back home to create a greater understanding of the culture and lifestyle of where I serve. I think potentially the best way for me to do this is for me to tell a little about the mundane things that Americans, Rwandans, and basically everyone around the world do on a daily or weekly basis. Morning I wake up earlier than I did in the U.S. Here, I set my alarm for 5:45 a.m. and tend to get up out of bed to go run between 6-6:30 a,m. The sun here rises around 5:30 a,m, and sets at 6 p.m. Because I go to sleep before 10 every night, and birds start chirping at sunrise, it’s relatively easy to wake up. My bed is an odd size – somewhere between a full an a queen and is much shorter than a full/queen in the US. The mattress is just a thick piece of foam but is glorious to lie down on after a long day of training. I wake up, untuck my
mosquito net and tie it up, take my Malaria prophylaxis, and go run. I usually run for about 30 minutes and take a different route every day. I know you will hear me say this innumerable times but Rwanda is so beautiful. There are only two roads in town (this is a rather large town – I would guess at least 100,000 people) that are paved – the rest are red clay/dirt. The roads are full of ruts and cow manure – great, right? I get stared at everywhere I go. Rwandans do not shy away from staring. Fortunately it doesn’t bother me. I mean, of course I know I look different from everyone else here. I find the best way to acknowledge the staring and make it less like I’m on stage is to just say “Mwaramutse� or “Good Morning� to every single person who looks at me. Their reaction is always a smile and then the staring stops. After my run, I come home and fill up my jerry can if it is not already full. We have a water source in our backyard beside the kitchen that 3/5 of the time is a reliable source of water. My jerry can is 20 liters so I am blessed that I don’t have to carry it very far. Using the water from my jerry can, I fill up my bucket about halfway. Most Rwandans use ikitenge cloth to cover up to and from the bathroom. The first day, my sister and I went to the market, and I told her I needed to buy ikitenge. She said “oh no, we don’t use that in our family. We use a towel.� So that is what I do. They think it is funny if you wear your clothes into the bath-
room, so we all just wear our towels only to and from the bathroom. (I think this is generally different from much of the US – when we have guests in our house, we rarely walk around in towels and our guests don’t either.) All of my clothes in my room are hung up on two hangers hung on two little plastic hoops on the wall. That is my closet. My room has a small side table and another small coffee table. On my coffee table I keep one of my most important possessions, my water filter. Lunch A typical Rwandan lunch is roughly the same as the Rwandan dinner. In fact, it is generally just left overs from the night before. My friends and I have all figured out that a completely starch meal once a day is more than enough so we opt for trips to the market instead of heading to the restaurants in town. Rwandan restaurants – not including the upscale hotels – serve the exact food you will eat at home. I found this interesting because it seems to me, we eat at restaurants because we want a break from the food we can make ourselves. I have recently discovered a German bakery owned by a Pennsylvanian who is married to a Rwandan. Her banana bread muffins can solve any problem I will potentially face. Once again to and from class, I receive non-stop stares – I just greet everyone I see. Sidenote: I think that not only that saying hello to everyone who stares makes me feel more comfortable
because people who I greet a lot – i.e. my neighbors – have begun to greet me first whenever I walk by. I think it also creates a positive image for Peace Corps and America in general. It is obvious I am American – and everyone makes that assumption anyway. Dinner The first thing I do when I get home from class is close my window of my room – gotta keep the mosquitos out. Tonight I finally made it home from class in time to help out/watch the dinner being cooked. This morning, Mama made me light the imbabura myself, and she wants me to get a head start on learning how to cook. Our house girl from before was fired because she wasn’t a good cook, Mama told me. I had my suspicions about her cooking skills anyways. The lady that is helping around the house now is so great. She is the same lady that told my sisters the first day I was here that I needed to go out around town when they went and not sit at home. She wanted to show me every single thing she did to cook. She make fried potatoes, spaghetti, milk tea, and isombe – a sauce made from cassava leaves. Even the way they make spaghetti is different so I wanted to have the opportunity to observe and see how everything works. Bedtime My routine for bed is definitely different than it is at home. I start by drinking a cup of milk tea – Rwandans live by this, and it has grown on me since I’ve been here. Then I wash my feet and my shoes. This normally takes
Weaver
outdoors – children who were interested and engaged and hungry to learn, children who are obviously loved. Maybe I was still smiling over seeing the video of a little boy I have yet to meet, yet whom we consider a grandchild, taking his first steps. When little AK was in the hospital, his blood family surrounded him, and there was never a time he opened his eyes that his mom, dad, an aunt and a grandparent weren’t the first things he saw. Maybe I was just angry, having seen so much love for children in recent days, and yet here is someone who loves kids even more than I do, talking about a baby no one apparently cared about. Now, to be honest, I scare a lot of little kids, especially those between about the age of 18 months and three or four years. After that, most tend to consider me a big, hairy, friendly tree who sometimes smells bad and has lots of critters. While I would never intentionally harm a child, or
allow one to be harmed, they don’t know that. I’m okay with this. Most of the kids I know have at least one parent they can run to for protection when the “Wildman� smiles at them. Even though I am harmless, they know where to go in case of emergency. But where, pray tell, can the child next to Daisy’s room run? Who will frighten her boogeymen, sing her to sleep, remind her that even though things hurt right now, they will be better? Who will tell her about Jesus Christ? I wish I knew. I wish I had an answer, but it’s above my pay grade. Watching AK walk, hearing Donna and David’s crowning jewel fuss, listening to Niece Cara babble, as did her older sister Emory Eliza, talking about fishing with my buddy Bella, listening to Josey snore against my chest while I try to understand Beth’s latest joke – I can’t understand how people wouldn’t treasure a child. I can’t understand how, when given the greatest blessing a person
could ever look forward to this side of Heaven, someone can’t take the time to drop by and at least hold a little hand in a hospital bed. How could one have a child in the hospital, and the nurse not even know for sure the last time anyone had visited or even asked how she was doing? I just can’t understand how anyone couldn’t love and cherish the miracle of a child, and even worse, allow her to become just the little kid next door. Maybe she is contagious; maybe someone else in the family is critically ill. There are any number of ‘maybes,’ but in my estimation, none of them matter. A little kid is a precious thing, and should be treated as such. Any grownup who doesn’t recognize that fact deserves to have a boogeyman come and get them in the night, or to cry tears of pain and loneliness and confusion where not even a stranger can help. –Weaver is a columnist with the Post & Voice. Contact him at jeffweaver@whiteville.com.
world, she released a hefty poop and spat at me because I forgot her mid-morning snack. Carla bared her teeth and I noticed that they resembled Chicklets permeated by brown ridges. A smell that could only be described as “zoo� permeated my energy field and shoved me back into the physical world. Glancing up, I soon realized that the bedroom door had been pried open and the “Here’s Johnny� scene from The Shining was being re-enacted by my children. Perhaps my needy family isn’t all to blame. My mind, after all, is special. It’s not like a field of billowing daisies kissed by the sunlight of a new morn. This mind of mine more closely resembles five pm traffic on the LA expressway on a Friday afternoon. So many thoughts are traveling to so many destinations and, as a result, they begin fragmenting my good intentions. And, just as with LA traffic, I’m realizing that the chaos must be calmed before
nirvana is established. Although there are many folks lacking a medical background who eagerly decry attention deficit disorder as an excuse or imposter, medication helps my hot mess of a brain dictate more efficient traffic patterns. Perhaps meditation will allow me to completely release the mental traffic jams, replacing them with a few narrow garden paths lined with roses and an occasional kitten. In the interim, I’m mentally shipping the alpacas to a Peruvian commune and checking into care requirements for river otters. After all, they are tremendously cute and love to hold hands. But, the next priority for the construction of my path to enlightenment is the establishment of an underground bunker where no one can find me. I’m hoping that some peace and quiet will fully prepare me to facilitate world peace, wipe out hunger, or at least have the energy to pick up roadside litter. After all, it takes a village.
Continued from page 4A bump in the night. Little kids shouldn’t have to go it alone. Maybe I was hyper-sensitive, since were finishing Vacation Bible School at church, and I’d been surrounded by young’uns for days. Even though we have no children of our own, Miss Rhonda and I love kids, and VBS is one of our favorite times, for that very reason. It’s kind of a tradition at our church for everyone, whether they are a teacher, a helper or an adult student, to thank the moms and dads for loaning us their most prized possessions. Some of the parents looked like they might have considered extending the loan, since school was out, but that’s neither here nor there. Maybe I was still on a bit of a happy rush from helping out at a summer day camp being run by my buddy, Charlotte Alameda, where I had the opportunity to spend time telling kids about the
Hill
Continued from page 4A inner cheerleader. Silence is the first step in effective meditation, so I locked myself in my bedroom and yelled to my family that the welfare of orphans in a battle torn city in Europe was dependent on their full cooperation. Chopra advises that true meditation can only be achieved by ignoring negative thoughts or visualizing future dreams. As the latter presented many opportunities for the movement of my mental mountains, I decided to start there. I have always dreamed of owning a small herd of alpacas, so this seemed a reasonable catalyst for my initiation into transcendental meditation. With legs crossed and sacrum opened, I visualized myself brushing Carlamy baby alpaca. The wind was blowing through her dappled hair as she nuzzled my ear. As I began to let go of the chaos of the physical
at least thirty minutes. I just put on some music, soak my feet and start scrubbing. The red dust gets everywhere. After that, I wash my face, brush my teeth (using water from a water bottle of course), and do all that jazz. I get in bed and tuck in my mosquito net. Not only do mosquito nets protect you from malaria and mosquito bites in general, they also keep out other unwanted critters like spiders, cockroaches, and mice. (None of which have been a problem yet for me!) I guess I should also add that power has gone out four times in the past seven days. My host brother asked me if that is common in America too. Uhm. Not quite so often. Washing clothes Lastly I wanted to touch on washing clothes. This task takes about two hours for me to wash two weeks of clothes (mind you, I re-wear a ton of my clothes before washing too). Rwandans have a special technique for washing clothes. Basically, it’s all in the flick of the wrist – not just simply hand washing like we do for our delicate clothing. Rwandans have some different views on hygiene
than Americans, i.e. Rwandans wash their sheets at least once a week if not every three days. Shoes are washed every day. Work clothes and play clothes don’t differ in style but rather in cleanliness, i.e. business casual here can be jeans and a t-shirt as long as both are clean and free from holes and tears. Rwandans cannot tell when Caucasian hair is dirty, therefore, I could potentially go this entire time without washing my hair and it would have no effect on the respect that you gain from being “clean/hygienic.� (Don’t worry, I won’t though.) Rwandans also think that having a clean and organized room is part of hygiene. Most Rwandan women keep their hair short, as do men who also are almost always shaved as well. Hope this gives you all a small sense of life in Rwanda! I promise next time I will share more about what I’ll be doing after training ends. 12th Annual NC Blueberry Festival With activities going on Thursday night, Friday
Continued on page 15A
THE KING’S TABLE RESTAURANT at Castle Bay Golf Course Open 7 Days a Week
“Hampstead’s Finest�
15% OFF
*Dine In Only *Alcoholic Beverages Not Included. ,INKS #OURT s (AMPSTEAD .# WWW CASTLEBAYGOLFCOURSE COM ay Castle BClub y r t n u o C Summerhip s Memberia Spec l
Now Under New Management
• $1000 Initiation Fee Waived until July 31st • New PGA Professional Staff • Monthly Dues $120 monthly for Single Memberships and $160 monthly for Family Memberships • $500 annual Social MembershipsIncludes renovated pool amenities, ďŹ tness center, and tennis courts Pool Opens Memorial Weekend-October. • Fully stocked golf shop with all major manufacturers • Flight Scope golf club ďŹ tting analysis and professional club repair now being offered • Renovations to the golf course practice facilities • Professional instruction and Video analysis offered for youth through adults
$5.00 OFF RACK RATE (Week & Weekend)
107 Links Court • Hampstead, NC 28443 910.270.1978 www.castlebaycc.com
Huntington HEALTH & REHABILITATION 4IPSU 5FSN 3FIBCJMJUBUJPO t "TTJTUFE -JWJOH t -POH 5FSN $BSF
DEDICATED TO CARING Huntington Health Care has Made lots of Changes. New Short Term Rehabilitation Unit and New Management. We Feel it is Important to Provide Care Near Family & Friends. Conveniently Located across from Pender Memorial Hospital. Call to Schedule a Tour Today! 910.619.1999
ĂŽÂŁÂŁĂŠ-°Ê >“LiÂ?Â?ĂŠ-ĂŒÂ°ĂŠUĂŠ Ă•Ă€}>Ăœ]ĂŠ ĂŠUʙ£ä°ÓxÂ™Â°ĂˆĂ¤Ă¤Ă‡