Little Victories

I tend to think in movies most of the time. I’ve watched too many for a lifetime, and there is one movie

line that has been looping in my head since I arrived.

The line is from Blood Diamond (if you haven’t seen it you should) where Leonardo DiCapiro who plays, Danny Archer, meets Maddy Bowen, played by Jennifer Connelly. Archer is trying to figure out who Maddy Bowen is, and why an American is in Sierra Leon. He rattles off a list of reasons why she would be in a West African country during a civil war. Eventually he questions if she is Peace Corps, and says the line:

“Peace Corps types only stay long enough to realize they aren’t helping anyone.” Ruling out that she is not part of Peace Corps.  

I would’ve thought that was an overly harsh statement before joining. While the experiences are not comparable, the line still runs on loop in my mind due to several circumstances.

The major circumstance at the moment, how do I put this correctly? Rwandan culture is, well, I can’t think of another word other than slow. Everything happens at a pace that it is half the speed of America if not slower than that. It is common for an important meeting to start an hour or two later than planned, or for important things to get pushed till tomorrow. The saying “don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today,” would be laughed at. Likewise, my coworkers would respond with: “why not put it off till tomorrow?” or “be patient” the most common saying in Rwanda.

It tends to be extremely hot in the afternoons at the H.C. (health center). So usually the health center is dead after twelve with nothing to do. I often bust out Uno to make the hours pass faster, and to create bonding time with my coworkers.

Uno is the best icebreaker I found during the integration process. It’s easy enough to explain without any language skills, you can use visuals to explain the object of the game, and Rwandans love it.

So it is a typical weekday afternoon, I am playing UNO with my coworkers and someone comes into the H.C. profusely bleeding. I’m thinking farming accident. The nurses see the bleeding person and say, “let’s finish this game first.” The person waits patiently. I freak out, tell my coworkers they need to do their job, and it’s more important than Uno. Then they have a discussion on why the American is freaking out. This is a typical workday, and the epitome of Rwandan culture. Furthermore the person didn’t complain, just sat quietly and waited.  Didn’t seem to mind.

Don’t get me wrong, for the most part I am a fan of the culture, but they could speed it up a tad. 

I have my worries and frustrations about accomplishing anything due to the utter slow speed Rwandans tend to move. And that line from Blood Diamond, does not help. So when I accomplish anything I take a sigh of relief, as I am constantly battling the response of “tomorrow, we will do it tomorrow.”

Two weeks ago, I hit my two-month mark, and In-Service Training is now only three weeks away. So far, I have two concrete things to show for my two-month mark.

Last week the Ikibaho (e-chi-ba-hoe) or blackboard was finally finished. Since the moment I arrived the community has been begging me to teach them English. I’m excited to teach English classes, but have been putting it off because I want to learn more Kinyarwanda first.

 I’m often envious of the Education volunteers. Peace Corps: Rwanda has two volunteer programs: Health and Education. I’m a health volunteer. Education volunteers have a concrete schedule, lesson plans, and work at a school. How fun! I think to myself whenever I hear about what they’re doing. And I often wonder why I was placed in a Health Center. What part of my resume made you think I’d be good at this, PC Washington? 

I’m sure that the grass is always greener phrase applies here, and Education Volunteers don’t have it as easy as I make it sound. But I came into this experience wanting to teach, and teach I will. After weeks and weeks, about a month actually, of asking when this was happening. I stumbled upon three men making an ikibaho (black board) one Saturday morning.

I’m excited to start teaching English, but my hope for this blackboard goes much farther than English classes. I want to create a Healthy Living Education Program, teaching the community about good hygiene and health. Everyday malnutrition becomes more apparent and necessary here, so I want to implement a Nutrition class as well.

My second small victory is a survey I made a while ago. I wanted to know where the problem areas and areas of improvement were in the eyes of the H.C. staff. I also wanted to know what they wanted from me. Like I said above, unlike Education Volunteers, Health Volunteers don’t have a set schedule or lesson plans.

At the end of August, I created a survey for my coworkers to fill out. I explained that I could conduct interviews with them, and they are always welcome to talk to me directly, but I usually don’t understand the response. A written form is always nice, and I tend to understand languages better written then spoken.  

The survey had questions like:

What are your expectations for me?

How can I help you?

What do you want to see improved?

Name the three biggest problems of the community?

Name five projects we can do in the community to better the health of villagers?

And so on, and so forth. I handed the survey out August 24, 2012, asked for it back by September 14, 2012, fully knowing that wasn’t going to happen. And by September 27, 2012 I had full 100% participation of surveys received.

While some of my Coworkers wrote things like: I want you to get me a car, or I want you to get us more American friends. The majority of the surveys provided great information, and gave me a good starting point.

The results:

1. Food security. Way way too many malnourished people in one small area.

2. A better way to distribute A.R.V.’s (Anti-retroviral drugs).

3. A way to prevent HIV/AIDS from spreading, and becoming a bigger problem than it already is.

Thanks Coworkers. And to think, they have no idea that their information is being shared from across the world.   

.