What I have been doing the last two years: An excerpt from my third year application

Describe the most important things you accomplished during your two years of service.

Providing Americans with a better understanding of Rwanda is an accomplishment of which I am most proud. I have a blog (www.reebinrwanda.blogspot.com) and I update it with pictures, personal experiences, and current Rwandan news; I also post pictures on Facebook and I even started the unofficial Peace Corps Rwanda Facebook Group, which provides information about Rwanda and Peace Corps to new/potential volunteers and to family and friends of current volunteers. These electronic forums allow friends, family, and other interested parties to connect with me in a private interface where they can ask questions and acquire information.

Furthermore, I have a WWS contact (Lincoln Township High School); I have regular communication with Club Interact, a volunteering and community service club that is sponsored by the high school. I am also in contact with a special education school where my friend's mother is a teacher. In addition to communicating with students from these two institutions, I frequently write letters to my family, my friends, and my church community describing my experiences.

All of these groups have told to me that I have played a large role in helping them not only understand Rwanda better, but Peace Corps as well. Many of these groups, in turn, have provided me with support, both financially and morally, to be successful in Rubona, Rwamagana my current site of Peace Corps service.

Providing Rwandans a better understanding of Americans has been a successful objective for my secondary projects. After the first three months in Rubona, I created a pen-pal exchange between neighborhood children in Rubona and the schools with which I am partnered in America. I also have a pen-pal exchange for my adult English class; these pen-pal relationships are between my adult Rwandan students and my adult family friends in Chicago. Fostering these relationships has given my neighbors in Rubona a better understanding of my family, my friends, and the culture of America.

The adult English class I teach four nights a week from 6pm to 7pm also provides me with a venue to discuss American culture with my neighbors. Together we study health topics in English; these topics have included personal hygiene, how to recognize and avoid risk behavior, and the nature of the human body. Every other English lesson, however, is about American history or culture. These lessons may highlight a state or city or they may be about a particularly notable American, such as Martin Luther King, Jr. When the lesson is about one of these topics, we discuss why this person, city, or invention is important to American culture and history.

As a result of creating pen-pal relationships between neighbors and friends and sharing information about America in the classroom, my integration into the community of Rubona has been easy and enjoyable. Through respect, effective communication, and presence at site, I have received an excellent reputation among community members.

I not only enjoy a high level of integration within the community of Rubona, I am also well integrated into the Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) community. I participate in events with fellow volunteers and I have built positive and mutually beneficial friendships and professional relationships with my peers.

I attribute my successes to both village community integration and PCV peer community integration to being reliable, responsible, reasonable, and having a positive attitude; I also overcome fears and apprehensions very easily, which allows me to be more open to new experiences, conversations, and points of view.

Just as sharing American culture with my community has helped me integrate, integrating into my community has helped me perform my primary assignments successfully. I am a trusted member of Rubona’s community and my ability to mobilize and motivate neighbors and health center staff is a direct benefit of this achievement.

As a community, we conduct personal hygiene and work place cleanliness trainings and tutorials. Working with the health center staff members on these projects, specifically, has given them a strong sense of empowerment and accomplishment. The nurses and staff of the health center, in turn, are serving their patients with more efficiency and with greater pride in their work. As a result, a higher level of patient care is being practiced, which is giving the health center more credibility among the community members it serves.

Through our trainings and tutorials, Rubona has made great strides in educating people about disease communicability and prevention. What has made the most sustainable impact, however, has been raising funds to provide Rubona’s health center with running water. With these sinks, hand washing stations, and showers, the community members I teach are putting into daily practice the lessons they have learned. More importantly, because these fixtures are permanent structures, the community will be able to continue their personal hygiene and work cleanliness exercises and tutorials well after I have gone.

My Days Are Numbered

"The Senior Staff decided to move your COS (Close of Service) date from 14 April 2011 to the week of 24-30 March 2011."

About 20 more weeks until I take that big plane home.

If you are sending packages, please DO NOT send them to me after January 2011.

Still waiting to here about my third year application.

Will keep you posted when I know more.

Personal Hygiene

Pictured Here:

Before and after pictures of the newly installed sink in the Operation Room. The other half of 'Phase 2' installed a sink and pipes in the Maternity Ward.

Earlier this month was 'International Teachers Day' and my village had a ceremony for all of the teachers. It was great; we ate, we drank, then we went home.

As I was walking home, I received a text from Madison, another PCV. We texted back and forth until I reached my house. I sent another text to her as I was walking to my outhouse. Well, it is dark in my outhouse and I frequently activate my phone's flashlight ability and balance the phone on my door in order to 'do my business' with some light.

Just as I set my phone on the door and was about ready to...um...uh...you know. Madison texted me. My phone (which was on vibrate because of the ceremony) buzzed once, fell off of the door frame, hit the floor, bounced, then went right into the outhouse hole. Nothin' but net.

I got a new phone and a new number the next day.

In other news, 'Phase 2' of the water project in Rubona is officially finished. I just had a meeting with Jenny, the PCV in Rwamagana city who has been helping me with the grants, and we are starting 'Phase 3' this week. 'Phase 3' will concetrate on getting sinks and the appropriate plumbing installed in the men's and women's hospitalization wards. (These wards, like much of the health center, currently have only buckets of water available for nurses and patients to use.) The grant is pretty much finished, we just need to send it in and wait for the confirmation of approval.

In related news, I received a generous donation of soap, shirts, and shoes from Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village. In an effort to keep this blog short, I won't go into great detail regarding the village, BUT I will encourage you to check out the website:

http://www.asyv.org/home.html

Because they gave me 100 bars of soap, I figured the best day to distribute these materials would be on October 15, also known as 'International Hand Washing Day.' So, I invited some PCVs and some ASYV volunteers to help me give tutorials about hand washing at my house on that day. I also invited students from the adult English class that I teach during the week nights to come and translate for us.

Everything went great. Lilly, a volunteer from ASYV, and Tom, a fellow PCV, joined me on Friday to give the tutorials. I had recruited about 15 other volunteers from the village to help us out, most of them being my students from the adult English class. Together we taught almost 100 people: how to wash their hands; when to wash their hands; what to use to wash their hands; and why to wash their hands. Villagers that completed the lesson successfully received their choice of a shirt or shoes. The event last only three hours, but it served almost 100 people; if I had more shirts and shoes to give out, it could have easliy lasted another three hours and served another 100 people.

That is all for now. Peace.

Language Lessons Lead to Love

(Pictured Here: Verene [wearing the red blouse] and Callixte [wearing the grey suit and the red tie] at the Nzigiye Sector Office on their wedding day.)

Yesterday I attended the civil wedding of Callixte and Verene. The ceremony took place at the sector office in Nzigiye, a neighboring sector of Rubona (the sector where I live and work).

Civil weddings are pretty tame; at least, the ones I have attended are pretty low key. They generally take place at a sector office where the head of the sector conducts the marriage ceremony, which usually includes from two to eight couples. Each couple takes turns making the marriage official through the state of Rwanda - the public officials presiding over the group ceremony take the couples' finger prints and have the couples sign some legal documents and swear some oaths.

Civil ceremonies are generally attended by local family members and friends. This doesn't sound like it would be a lot of people, but because up to eight couples can get married at once, the room at the sector office can fill up quickly. These ceremonies, though modern in nature, are traditional in the sense that the civil wedding itself takes place in the sector where the wife's family lives. There is also a reception held afterwards; depending on the family's economic means the reception could be at a hotel or at the home of the wife's family. If the reception is held at the later location, you will probably find more traditional food and drink - these are the best receptions, I feel.

The dowry and the church ceremony usually come after the civil wedding, though not necessarily right away. I have been a part of some ceremonies where the civil marriage happened on a Saturday and the next day was the dowry and church wedding. However, I also know some couples that have had their civil wedding months ago and are still saving up money, and vacation days from work, in order to properly celebrate at a church. The order of these events really all depends on each couple's economic situation and work schedules.

I may have explained a lot of stuff about civil weddings in an earlier blog entry, but I am too lazy to sort through them to check. At any rate, I wouldn't normally even write about a ceremony that, though very important, is so bland. However, this particular civil wedding had a very interesting back story. Well, interesting to me, at least, because Callixte and Verene are both students in the adult English language course I teach on weekday evenings.

Verene is a bio-technician in the lab at the health center I work at and has been a great friend of mine since the day I arrived in Rubona; she has been registered in my class since it began. Callixte is a neighbor who has also been a student of mine for almost two years now. I am pretty sure they knew each other before the class began, but I was told that they really didn't get to know each other more personally until they started studying together. Apparently, they have been 'cultivating the love' (dating) for a while now and have decided to take the next step and get married.

I am not taking credit as a matchmaker or anything. I just think its cool that my English class played the role that it did in their love story.

Verene and Callixte, I wish you many years of wedded bliss. May God bless you both.

Check it out!

http://appropriateprojects.com/node/352

'Phase 1' and 'Phase 2'

The health center in my village officially has running water!

Thank you for your hard work, Jenny!

Before I had left for Malawi, Jenny (a PCV in Rwamagana city) and I began working on getting running water in the Birthing Room, the Lab, and in the main Consultation Office of the health center in my village. Jenny had done the leg work of completing the grant and getting the money and I was 'overseeing construction' - which means I was to make sure that the construction work actually got done at the site.

Before I had left on my trip, the construction was well on its way; when I returned, it was all finished. The nurses are so happy with the results that they have asked Jenny and I to find more money to get running water to the Operation Room and the Maternity Ward. I helped Jenny with the grant application for this 'Phase 2' project and now she and I are waiting for the answer, which should arrive any day now.

If/Once Jenny and I get the money, we'll be able to get 'Phase 2' construction started and begin getting money for 'Phase 3.' I would like 'Phase 3' to focus on getting running water to the two other Consultation Offices on the other side of the health center grounds, the Bathrooms, and the two Hospitalization Wards. I may have to split 'Phase 3' into three parts, which means the Consultation Rooms would be 'Phase 3,' the Bathrooms would be 'Phase 4,' and the Hospitalization Wards would be 'Phase 5'...or something like that...

...sorry, now I am just typing my stream of consciousness.

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed for us!

The one when Emmett goes to Malawi

Pictured Here: (From Top to Bottom)

* Brandon takes a coconut to the face in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

* Trena, on the train from Dar es Salaam to Mbeya, Tanzania, takes in the view.
* Nora hangs out at 'Big Blue Star Backpackers,' the lodge we stayed at in Nkhata Bay, Malawi.

* Me, Emmett, sips some 'Shake-Shake' - a local alcoholic drink in Malawi.

* Malcolm looks out over Lake Malawi in a dugout canoe.

* Kate gets some must needed rest while waiting for a bus in Mzuzu, Malawi.

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Malawi Trip: Play-by-Play

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Saturday, August 7th

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The trip began. Malawi does not border Rwanda, so we had to go through Tanzania. Personally, I had no problem with this; I still had my Tanzania Visa and I wanted to see more of Dar es Salaam anyway.

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We knew that going to Malawi through Dar was not the most time efficient move, but we knew that if we went to Dar, we could then get a train to Mbeya (a Tanzania/Malawi border town). Excited about the prospect of taking a train through South Tanzania, we didn't have a problem with going the long way around.

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The bus we got on that morning was going to take us directly to Dar. It was going to take like 36 hours nonstop to get there, but it was going to get us there. Some of us took the same bus to get to Dar when we visited Zanzibar late last year, so we knew what we were getting into. (When I say 'we' here I mean me, Malcolm, and Brandon, so the girls just had to trust us.)

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Sunday, August 8th

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The bus had left very early Saturday morning. We got into Dar around 11am on Sunday. The bus ride was kind of a blur. All I remember was falling in and out of sleep very often, going down some very bumpy roads at a ridiculous speed, and, consequently, praying for my life - so, I pretty much had the same experience that I had last year when I took the bus to Dar.

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We made it out of the Dar bus station and checked into our rooms at the local YMCA. We unloaded our gear and explored the city a bit. We didn't get much exploring done, though. It was Sunday AND Ramadan was starting in another couple of days, so a lot of places were closed. However, it did feel great to finally be off of that bus!

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Monday, August 9th

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We spent the day hanging around Dar and planning the rest of our traveling specifics to Malawi - the end destination being Nkhata Bay, Malawi. An important part of this planning was buying tickets, which required money, of course.

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Here was my situation: I had about $400 American dollars that my folks had given me, but I still had about $200 Rwandan Francs to convert into Tanzanian Shillings. I did not convert my Francs into Shillings at the Rwanda/Tanzania border because I thought that the exchange rate would be better in Dar.

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When we got to Dar, I learned that I made a big mistake. There was ONE place in Dar that could exchange Francs into Shillings and, guess what, they were not buying Rwandan Francs that day. We spent the better part of this day running around town, trying to convert Francs to Shillings. We must have went to 20 different For-Ex offices. Brandon and I even went to the Rwandan embassy in Tanzania to find someone to help us out. It was a long shot, but we were that desperate.

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Every For-Ex gave us the same answer: 'No.' And when Brandon and I went to the embassy we didn't get any help. The embassy was closed in celebration of the presidential election happening in Rwanda. The guard merely wished us luck and sent us on our way.

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I was so hell-bent on getting my money changed over this day, that I didn't get to enjoy the city. I was kind of upset. I mean, how can a country that borders another country not be able to convert its currency!? I can convert Shillings to Francs anywhere in Rwanda, which is what I should have done in the first place, I guess. Anyway, after an exhausting day of running around, we had dinner at a 'Subway' that was close to our rooms at the YMCA. The meal was delicious.

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Tuesday, August 10th

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We spent Tuesday morning looking for a place to exchange Francs into Shillings. Before we started the adventure, however, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was not going to be able to convert my Francs.

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This trip was not starting well for me; instead of having $600 for this trip, I now only had $400. Was it even possible to do this trip with only $400? I was going to find out.

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After briefly searching town for a place to change money, we made our way to the train station in Dar. We hung out at the station for a few hours, got on the train at about 5pm and started for our next destination: Mbeya, Tanzania.

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Wednesday, August 11th

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The train was great. We reserved a second class car that fit the six of us pretty well. The beds folded out from the wall and the train staff provided us with some blankets and sheets. This was a good thing because Tuesday night was pretty cold, actually. On a side note: we were told that the train went through one of the national parks in Tanzania, but it was too dark to see anything when we went through it.

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We arrived in Mbeya on Wednesday afternoon. We got off the train and got public transport to the Tanzania/Malawi border. We crossed the border into Malawi that afternoon and made it as far as Nkaranga, a Malawi town a few hours South of the border.

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Once in Nkaranga, Malawi we got a place to stay and went to dinner. After dinner we called it a night.

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Thursday, August 12th

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It wasn't until the next day that one of our party members realized that she had left her purse at the restaurant. An employee at the restaurant had brought the purse back in the middle of the night. Nothing was missing...except for $350! We went back to the restaurant to investigate where the missing money went, but our leads were not promising. Luckily she was able to get some money wired to her a few days later, so it wasn't a horrible emergency, just an expensive inconvenience.

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We left Nkaranga well rested, but a little bitter about losing some of our funds. We pushed on farther South, however. We caught public transport to Mzuzu, Malawi and from there we caught another bus to Nkhata Bay, Malawi - our final destination!

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Just a quick geography note. Nkhata Bay is right on Lake Malawi and is about half the distance between the Malawi/Tanzania border and Lilongwe, Malawi's capital city. I provided a map on the previous blog entry; you might be able to find Nkhata Bay's location.

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We arrived into Nkhata Bay just after dark. We checked into our lodge, 'Big Blue Star Backpackers,' and hit the lodge bar immediately. We spent the night drinking and, let me tell you, we needed the release. At this point we had been on the road almost nonstop since Saturday morning; we were exhausted! We made great time, however; we got into the Bay a full day earlier then we thought we would. So, to celebrate this small achievement, we had a drink or two.

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Friday, August 13th

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We didn't really do much on Friday. I don't know what everyone else did, but I slept in. After catching up on sleep, I did my laundry and walked into town to explore the market.

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I was really blown away by our arrangements at Nkhata Bay. The backpackers lodge was really cool. It was right on Lake Malawi and the lodge had space for tents, if you wanted to camp, and it also had dorm rooms and smaller bungalows. The bungalows were the most expensive arrangement at about $7-$8 a night; we rented three of them.

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The lodge also had a full bar, restaurant, kitchen, beach, computers with Internet access, and a lounging area (complete with T.V., cable, DVD player and DVDs). All areas were open to the guests. They also had canoes, rafts and snorkeling gear to rent for free; it was great.

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Saturday, August 14th and Sunday, August 15th

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Honestly, these day were really the same. We just hung out and relaxed; nothing crazy to report. We did meet some Peace Corps Malawi Volunteers on Saturday and on Sunday one of them took us to a local beach.

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Monday, August 16th

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This day was pretty eventful. I ate my first Chambo (a type of fish) and had my first drink of Shake-Shake (a local alcoholic drink). Both were delicious. Well, the Shake-Shake was pretty bad for the first couple of sips, but, like all alcohol, it doesn't taste as bad the more you drink.

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The backpackers' lodge organized a boat trip that day that took us to another beach further down Lake Malawi. The boat trip was cool and the beach was beautiful. When we had first arrived to Malawi, it was very cold and very windy. Monday was a bit warmer and definitely not as windy. Therefore, the conditions were great for going out on the lake.

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The conditions were also great for feeding the Fish Eagles. These are just what they sound like - big Eagles that eat fish. I had seen Fish Eagles at Akagera National Park in Rwanda, but I had never seen one as close as I had this day.

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We were out in the boat and one of the local guys that was maneuvering the boat told his partner to cut the engine. So we sat in this boat for a little while and the one boat guy began putting two little fish on each end of a stick. He then began to whistle to the Fish Eagles, calling their attention. Apparently, feeding the Fish Eagles is something that is done pretty often by the employees of the backpackers lodge. The Eagles are 'trained' to come at this call because they know that they are going to be fed.

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It was pretty cool. Once a Fish Eagle was spotted, the guy whistled very strong, then held up the stick with the two small fish on either end and threw it a few yards from the side of the boat. The Fish Eagle would see the fish, dive down from the trees, and snag the fish-stick (literally). The bird would then fly back to the trees and eat its gift. It was really cool to see them up close; they have an incredible wingspan. We fed them as we were going to and coming from the beach.

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Tuesday, August 17th and Wednesday, August 18th

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These days were fun, but they consisted of pretty much the same activities: eating and drinking. Ha! I ate so much fish these two days and I drank so many Carlsberg beers - I know I gained weight on this trip.

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Just a side note: Carlsberg is really the only beer you can find in Malawi; the company has a 99 year production lease or something like that. One of the PC Malawi guys was explaining it to me, but by then I had too many Carlsbergs and I couldn't keep up with/remember much of the conversation.

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Thursday, August 19th

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This was our last full day in Malawi. What did we do? We ate, drank, and hung out on the beach, of course. This time, however, we borrowed the lodge's raft and stayed at the lodge's beach. In the afternoon we went into town and bought more Shake-Shake and Power. Power is a popular hard alcohol and it is most commonly sold on the street in little packets. We went into town and bought two full bottles of it along with some drinks to mix it with. That was a great afternoon/evening.

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Friday, August 20th and Saturday, August 21st

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I woke up that Friday morning feeling a bit sick...okay, okay...hungover. At any rate, we packed up our gear that afternoon and checked out. Well, all but one of us. Brandon decided to stay another day or two and hang out, but the rest of us needed to get back.

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We left Nkhata Bay and made it to Mzuzu that afternoon. The bus we were to take from Mzuzu was suppose to leave at 12 midnight, but it didn't show up until 2am! It was soooooooooo cold waiting at that bus station for all those hours...so damn cold. But we survived.

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We made it out of Malawi on Saturday and we were pretty much taking the same route we took to get to Nkhata Bay, but in reverse. We would have done it exactly like that too, but we got stuck in Mbeya, Tanzania. The train we were going to take that afternoon from Mbeya to Dar es Salaam was delayed until the next morning. So, we had two options, really. We could sleep at the train station and take the train back to Dar the next morning OR we could stay the night in town and take a 10-12 hour bus to Dodoma. We chose the second option.

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Dodoma is Tanzania's capital city. It is North of Mbeya and closer to Rwanda than Dar. In fact, if we went to Dar we would be going a bit in the opposite direction. We thought that maybe this was for the best. Skipping Dar, we thought, would shave some time off of our trip back too.

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Sunday, August 22nd

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We left Mbeya and went North to Dodoma, Tanzania. This bus ride was pretty cool because it went through one of the national parks and we did see some animals, specially Giraffes, Baboons, Warthogs, and Antelope.

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We made it to Dodoma with no problems and we were thinking we could get a bus from Dodoma to Rusumo, the border town of Rwanda/Tanzania. Wrong. We got to Dodoma and could only get a bus to Kahama, a city closer to Rwanda but still 5-6 hours East of Rusumo. This bus to Kahama, however, didn't leave until the next day, so we stayed the night in Dodoma.

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Monday, August 23rd and Tuesday, August 24th

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Exhausted reading this thing yet? Try living it.

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Anyway, we made it to Kahama and spent the night. On Tuesday we got up, took a bus from Kahama to Rusumo, and took a bus from Rusumo to Rwamagana. The End.

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Notes:

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Though I felt as though I spent just as much time in Malawi as I spent getting to and from Malawi, it was still a pretty awesome trip. The transportation wasn't all that bad, really. The fish in Malawi was delicious, the beaches were beautiful, and the people were very chill. I would totally visit Malawi again, though I want to go with more money in my wallet. I only spent like $400 total - that includes travel and everything. I was never able to change those Francs into Shillings. I didn't even try to convert my Francs into Kwacha (Malawi's currency); I knew it would have been a lost cause and I wasn't about to waste any more of my trip worrying about it.

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I know it seems like all we did was eat, drink, and travel, but some stories you just can't translate onto a blog. The story just doesn't make sense unless you were there and a part of it; I tried writing some of them out, but they didn't come across as funny or as entertaining as they were for us. I suppose that is because I am not that strong of a writer.

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Just another update before I sign off: the construction at the health center is finished apparently. I heard through the grape vine that the health center in my village now has running water in three of its facilities. I have heard that everything went so well, that they want to get the rest of the health center set up with plumbing. Giddy up!