The climate
Rainy season view of Kigali |
Rainy season (September – January, March – June): cooler, unpredictable weather. It rains here about once a day and the length of rain varies from day to day but is usually not more than a couple hours. The roads and area become incredibly muddy; too muddy to walk on or take transport in and out of the village.
Dry season (January – March, June – September): hot, dry, barren, everything dies off and becomes brown. The area becomes overwhelmingly dusty, so much so that I am usually constantly covered in a layer of dust.
Overall both seasons have their pros and cons but the weather is average, and most days you can’t complain about extreme heat, extreme cold, too much rain or too much sun.
The food; especially amatunda (passion
fruit)
You don’t have
to eat anything too strange here. In fact it is quite the opposite. Rwandans
usually chop, peel and cook their vegetables so much so that they lose their
original flavor, texture, and nutritional value. Goat is a common and popular food
here, and it is common to eat brochettes or grilled goat on a kebab. The strangest foods I’ve encountered: goat
intestines (that stuff just wouldn’t go down) and these bugs that look like
worms with wings (they really do taste just like chicken). But Rwanda has
wonderful fruit, avocados, pineapples, bananas, and passion fruits. The first
time I ever ate a passion fruit I thought to myself: you know, I am going to be
okay here as long as I have some of these in my life every day.
Women In Office
Women hold 64%
of the seats in parliament. And Rwanda as a country works hard to promote
gender equality. It’s a thing. “With
regards to empowering women and promoting their socio economic and political
participation, we continue to make modest progress. We believe that, besides
improving gender relations in our country, this marks healthy progress towards
realizing our vision of a united, democratic, and prosperous Rwanda.” President
Paul Kagame at the 63rd United Nations General Assembly, New York,
2008.For more about women leadership in Africa and Rwanda click here.
Examples of Imigongo |
Worshiping the Cow and the Cow Dance
PCVs dancing the traditional Cow Dance at their Swearing In Ceremony |
Dressing Smart
And I don’t mean
dressing smart for the weather. Dressing smart here means you look nice. If you
are a woman, your knees and shoulders are mostly covered and you are wearing a
nice dress, skirt, or jeans and a top. It is completely fine and normal for
women to wear jeans and a nice shirt here. Dressing Smart also means that your
shoes are incredibly clean, even the insides of the shoe must be clean! I have
problems with this, and the levels of extreme this is taken too, but I also
respect the time and attentiveness people take to make themselves look nice.
There is something to be appreciated about people who value presenting the cleanest version of themselves (this is especially difficult and time consuming in a developing country) and also value each other for cleanliness.
There is no word for please
There is no word
for please, simply put you would say: Listen, I want… in a store, restaurant etc. Rwandan culture can
be incredibly passive aggressive, and there is something about the
non-passivity and the absence of the word please in a store or at a restaurant that makes me feel a bit more sane.
It reminds me of the New York hustle and bustle, it reminds me of home.
Picking your nose
Totally
culturally appropriate. Biting your nails is very bad culture but picking your
nose in public is completely fine. You can have full length conversations with
people who will be digging for gold up their noses while speaking to you. And there is something about this that puts a smile on my
face, especially when trying to have a serious conversation.
Bibaho (Bee – ba – hoe)
That’s the way
it goes. Bibaho translates to English as: that is the way it goes. It is my
favorite saying here because nothing can trump it. After you say bibaho the
conversation is finished. Also you don’t have to explain things after a bibaho
either. For example, my answer to the
constant question of why I don’t go to church here. I simply say I have been a
few times but it is not in my culture, and then I end it with a bibaho. Done.
Finished. There is nothing another person can say after that. They will shrug,
nod and walk away or change the subject. It is the perfect way of ending
subject matters that can get culturally dicey and complicated. Bibaho!