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Favorite things about serving in Rwanda:

The climate

Rainy season view of Kigali

Compared to many places the climate and everyday average weather is pretty good; it could be worse. Rwanda has two seasons that happen twice a year.

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 63^rd United Nations General Assembly, New York, 2008.

For more about women leadership in Africa and Rwanda click here. 
  
Imigongo

Examples of Imigongo

Or art made from cow poop. Cow dung is taken and mixed with water to form a clay like substance. Then geometric shapes are drawn out of cow dung on a gridded wooden panel. The shapes often have some form to them, and are three dimensional. The cow dung is left out to dry for three days and then the geometric forms are painted over, usually in black and white. Why do I love this so much? It only comes from one tiny area in the whole country, the south east region called Rusomo. Likewise, it was almost lost during the 1994 Genocide, but the women in this area fought to bring it back. It baffles me how one area can be so artistically creative with natural resources while other areas are void of any creativity.   

Worshiping the Cow and the Cow Dance 

PCVs dancing the traditional Cow Dance at their Swearing In Ceremony

In Rwandan culture, the cow is king. Nothing is idolized more than the cow so much so that there is a beautiful traditional dance for the cow. At our Swear In Ceremony our language teachers taught us the traditional dance and we performed it. A major part in the dance is to raise your arms up over your head and outward to mimic the horns of a cow. 

Rwandans dancing the traditional dance

Agatogo

Plantain stew. Boil plantains together with tomato paste, tomatoes, sometimes onions and green leafy vegetables. If you are wealthy or if it is a special occasion, you would add goat or cow intestines in the stew. Agatogo has an incredibly thick consistency, and makes you never want to eat again; its glue for your stomach. One bowl can fill you up for at least a day if not two, and you are not having any bowl movements during that time either. It is a delicious filler upper that makes you forget about eating for a while.  

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!