Packing – Friday, June 6, 2014

It’s fitting that when I opened my personal computer for the first time since returning from my trip [to Mozambique, South Africa and Turkey], I am inundated with pictures of Turkish women. An appropriate throwback to my frantically last minute Google searches while avoiding packing trying to look up “how Turkish women dress” so that I wouldn’t look obnoxiously touristy or come off as completely rude when visiting the Islamic country. It would of course be misleading to allow you to believe that the Google search (and my roommate’s subsequent Facebook appeal for input) are (were) indicative of careful planning and packing on my part.

Oh no. I’m always ready with a passport…I actually keep it in my car so that I never have an excuse to say no to an adventure. But I didn’t meet with my doctor until three days before my trip (granted…mostly due to stoopid health insurance policies), and it was around that time that I realized I knew where I’d be Scuba diving in Mozambique, but not where I’d stay…or how to get from the airport to where I might be staying. And then, of course, the night before my flight (for which I did double check the day of the “00:55” departure time), when I had really anticipated actually packing, I got sidetracked and instead ended up at the casino with a few coworkers. It was past midnight and I was in no state to pack when I got home. Which resulted in me “missing” my ride to work the next day (the plan had been that he’d pick me and my bags up, and another coworker would drive me to Logan…but, of course, this plan relied on me being ready with bags at ~8am), claiming that “I’d just do it later.”

So I was left with those few Friday night hours after work before needing…like actually NEEDING this time… to get on a train to Boston so I would not miss my flight. But then, I was saved when a friend offered me a ride! And suddenly…the time limits didn’t seem so strict…and I felt there was time to maybe have a beer or two.

Which is why I ended up in the airport with a completely overly packed backpack – absolutely no time to assess which items probably weren’t necessary – and two carry-ons – because, like, that’s not going to be obnoxious in Africa, and on the phone with my friend, begging him to please return to the airport because I accidentally left my fleece – my only warm article of clothing – in his car.

And such began my two week vacation, heading back to Africa.

When I told most people I was headed to Turkey, I'm sure they thought of this image. And when they thought of this image, they probably had thoughts around fearing for my safety. Not mine, I had thoughts fearing about what to wear: although modern and casual, her dress is also modest...it covers her shoulders, her cleavage and (presumably) her knees...shit...I don't have any dresses like that! What am I supposed to pack?? 

**Maybe you know, maybe you don’t know, but I very much enjoy writing. The only reason I never took a creative writing class in college is because somebody discouraged me when they told me I’d have to read my classmates’ writings. The fragmented bullets that consume my days at work slowly eat away at my soul until I’m able to send some creatively worded happy hour email, which is usually followed by a mixture of compliments and looks of confusion (I’ll let you decide the balance of that mixture). Anyways, I was not exactly able to keep up a blog during my fast-paced 2 week vacation in Mozambique, South Africa and Turkey (despite many other unnecessary articles – read: coozies – my computer did not make it into the backpack, and even if it had the internet probably would not have allowed for updates to be too regular). I did, however, keep a pretty solid journal during the trip. So my goal now, is to update daily blogs, as if I were on the trip. Friday’s blog represents Friday’s events, 3 weeks ago, and so on. Hopefully I’ll be able to stay true to my feelings at the time, and hopefully you will in some way be able to Enjoy. Cheers J

Miss Me?

Oh hello…so it seems (by Mommy’s order) that I’m back from my little “leave of absence” from the blogging world. My break could be explained away with a variety of excuses (“I was studying for the GMAT”, “I was busy writing the CCHIPs Annual Report”, “I was trying to learn to use a Dvorak keyboard so typing was really slow”, “I was travelling”, “I had no internet”, etc.) but in reality, we all know that I stopped my posting for one reason only: self-gratification.

That’s right. I kept a list of each and every person who emailed/facebooked/texted me about my lack of updates, all of whom will receive their proper thanks in time. And once that list reached a sufficient length for me to feel cared about and missed, I figured it was time to come back to you. (The obvious corollary to this is that I also noted those who did NOT realize I haven’t updated my blog for a month and a half. For no other reason than to be able to rank my friends and family.) So, to those of you who do check my blog more frequently than once a month: hello, I’m back, I’m sorry, I promise to continue to provide you with a tool for productive procrastination in the future. And to the others: I know who you are.

Now, in the self-centered attitude of anybody conceited enough to keep a blog (and a private one at that!), I assume that you are just oh-so-curious about what I’ve been up to for the past month and a half. To make these adventures, which spanned 2 continents and 4 countries a little more manageable, I figured I’d present it in a list of Lessons Learned by Eli Mitchell Between January 30 and February 17, 2011: (and you can just fill in the imaginary rest)

1. Marines do not appreciate being asked “Aren’t you like really over-qualified to be a glorified security officer?”…while they are buying your drinks.

2. It is way easier to get into the US Embassy after-hours for drinking purposes (photo ID required, but not checked) than during the day time for legitimate reasons, like getting passport pages (appointment needed, passport required, photo ID taken as collateral, electronics confiscated during visit, bag checked, metal detector used).

3. Germans obnoxiously follow rules. Obnoxiously. Forget about the dilemma of if you would run a red light on an otherwise deserted road in Texas, a German would not cross the street on such a road unless the crossing signal was solidly green. This matter created awkward situations when my Rwandan attitude of roads existing for people – not cars – and 20 degrees being far too cold to allow oneself to stand outside any longer than necessary caused me to *gasp* jaywalk in a few critical situations. At least I was not called a “Murderer!” as a result (this has happened to one of my friends living in Berlin)…but I did receive more stares than in an average minute in Rwanda. Another point on the rule following: they don’t even have turnstiles to use the subway – they just assume everybody honestly buys a ticket because everybody in the country follows rules.

4. But Germans also like drinking. A lot. I was offered a beer before taking my GMAT at 10am. And everybody at my dad’s office cracked open beers at 6pm on the dot. Work was only kind of over at that point…

5. African/European airlines really really care about the weight of carry-on bags. Probably because they like following rules so much.

6. Former British colonies (Kenya) are really nice to visit because everybody speaks English…but it also means that they drive on the wrong/left side of the road. (Okay, I actually knew this…but my mom learned this lesson…the hard way.)

7. Apparently not everybody in the world eats only potatoes and fried food for every meal. Somewhere during my 6 months here, I had come to consider this completely normal.

8. Rwanda is really really clean. I’d always heard this before, but in my classic pessimism/criticism, I would point out some eensy bit of trash on the side of the road as evidence of it not being clean. Now that I’ve seen Nairobi and Addis Ababa, I will no longer be doing this.

9. Despite cultural values that classify a pleasantly plump Rwandan as “attractive” or “healthy”, Rwandans have a double standard and consider pleasantly plump muzungus unhealthy and unfit for gorilla treks. The extension here is that because my mommy is skinny…the obvious assumption is that she is fit for a FIVE HOUR gorilla trek (usually about 2 hours). Damn double standards.

10. The only thing worse than flying drunk (Who in the world schedules flights at 2am?? Oh I know! Ethiopian Air!), is flying hung over. And the only thing worse than flying hung over is starting a 7 hour flight while drunk...and ending it hung over.

11. African airline security checks are actually hilarious. (I say hilarious because I’ve taken on the attitude that I might as well just laugh about every ridiculous thing I come across in Africa…makes life a lot less bitter.) The evidence of this is being told twice about the same bottle of water that I better “drink it before getting on the plane.” Same bottle of water…didn’t fill it up between flights…obviously did not feel the need to just drink it before getting on the plane.*

12. Muzungu nightlife is the same everywhere in Africa and I can’t dance anywhere in Africa.



*Apparently a lot of my lessons are about flying. This is perhaps because my flights over a 2 week period consisted of: Kigali – Addis – Frankfurt – Berlin – Berlin – Frankfurt – Addis – Addis – Nairobi – Mombasa – Nairobi – Addis – Addis – Nairobi – Kigali. (But at least they were cheap? Maybe? No…no they weren’t.)

Two Fun Facts about Rwandans

1. Rwandans don’t get acne. They just don’t. Therefore, it is completely acceptable to point at somebody when they have a huge zit that they’re obviously trying to hide and say “what’s that?” No societal standards of pretending to ignore zits. None at all. In a 24 hour period, I had every Rwandan on our staff and every Rwandan on the house staff ask me what my zit was. Fabulous. (Life update: still getting acne at 22.)

2. I recently learned that “Rwandan time” is actually different than “American time,” or however you would call time that means midnight is 12am/pm. It turns out that conveniently…1am Rwandan time actually coincides with 1am EST. This is because in “Rwandan time,” the day starts at first sunlight, around 6am. Hours are counted from there, so 7am is actually 1am, one hour after sunrise/the start of the day. This actually makes sense to me, yet I only learned about it after 3 months of being in Rwanda. What’s coolest about it is that according to America-time, Rwanda is 6 hours ahead of EST  I’m now on east coast time!

Muzehes and Biddies

Rwandans are ageless: all Rwandans between the ages of 15 and 45 look exactly the same. This fact hit me especially hard when the adorable “15 year old” that I sometimes play football with showed up on a moto one day and started chatting with me. As you have to be 21 to drive a moto, I did not even recognize him at first. Suddenly our relationship turned from fun football games to oh-my-god-please-stop-calling-me-please.
The one upside of this fact is that children less than 15 and adults over 45 are easily recognizable – if not distinguishable from each other. The latter are commonly referred to as “muzehes” (“old man”) – and, as I’ve spoken about in other blogs, just about every house “comes” with a muzehe. It seems entirely acceptable to call an elder “old man” to his face. I have yet to determine if this is because the word “muzehe” signifies respect, or because elders are not respected. The former, I’ve decided to call “biddies,” because that is what they are.

Each has a pretty strict dress code to adhere to:

Muzehes wear faux suede cowboy hats, oversized blazers, and tuck their pants into their rain boots. They also carry a thin walking stick. This is without fail. Sometimes they carry a radio with them too.

Biddies would be quite fashionable in the US: they wear their school uniforms (sweater vest, button downs, adorableness) and croc-like foam green sandals. (It is illegal in Rwanda to not wear shoes – a law that has created a challenge for my fondness of doing sprints without shoes.) Sometimes they wear one soccer cleat and one green sandal – while their friend wears the other cleat.

And each has a pretty predictable set of daily activities:

Muzehes walk. Sometimes they stop to listen to the radio with other muzehes, and then they continue walking. They all secretly/not so secretly have a drinking problem.

Biddies go to school. (Sometimes – I just learned today that Rwanda has a “shift” school system with half the children attending in the morning and half in the afternoon. They switch every week if you attend morning or afternoon. The smarter children take advantage of this system and just don’t go to school at all…but that’s okay because they have to be smart enough to figure that out.) And then they roam the streets in groups, looking for fun. They usually find it hidden in the form of burst bicycle tire and a stick, some string and old newspapers, or the closest muzungu (that’s me).

Similar to how every muzehe is associated with a certain house, every group of biddies seems to be associated with a certain muzungu. I’ve felt a little left out…in my first 2 months here…I did not manage to acquire a group of biddies. Every time I left the compound with another muzungu, their group of biddies would excitedly run up to them and hug them and then just kind of stare at me, as if to say “you haven’t said anything yet, but I know that you don’t like children and I can tell that the only reason you want me to hug you is so that you can have a cute facebook picture of hugging a Rwandan child. So…I’m not going to do it.”

But it turns out that my aversion to children, and their subsequent aversion to me couldn’t actually last that long. I’m not sure if it’s the biological clock, or the simple fact that I need a break from living with the same five people that I work with, but *gasp* the children have started to look legitimately cute and adorable to me; and me to them. As a consequence, I am proud to report that I have found my group of biddies.

Their leader’s name is Victory. Yup. Victory. He may not be their actual leader, but he’s the leader to me because he speaks incredible English. The only other name that I caught was Solonge. She’s the one with the volleyball sweatshirt (See blog: “so hot right now”). We first met a few weeks ago when I was doing a sprint workout down an alley. Victory challenged me. I was in a rare happy-with-children mood and decided to turn my iPod off, rather than turn it up louder. We raced. I won. My happy-with-children mood became happier. Victory (no longer a fitting name) went off to go get some boys who are “really good at sport.” They came back…we raced…they beat me. I forgave myself because I’ve reached “that age” when being 10 years older than your opponent in a physical is no longer an advantage. (I hope I could still beat them in a mental contest?)

Victory made me promise to meet them for sport in 2 days, at evening. Two days later I was not in a fun mood and really did not want to play with children. I poked my head out of our gate around 5:30pm and quickly receded at the first sight of a child. A week later, Victory found me: “YOU DID NOT COME PLAY SPORT!” “Yes I did…I swear…I was there at 5:30…” “YOU DID NOT COME! TOMORROW – YOU COME AT 17o’clock. I will see you there.”

I was stunned. But also excited.

And at 17o’clock the next day, I left work 5 minutes early to change into my sport clothing and grab a soccer ball and then ran back to the office to nervously ask if they thought the biddies would like me. I was greeted by “why are you actually leaving the office at the end of the workday?” stares, and quickly ran off to the children…hoping they might be more fun.

And they were! We played volleyball until it became too dark to see the ball. Our group ballooned to more than 20, not including spectators. The only downside was when one small bystander was hit with the ball and went running off, crying to her mother before I even had time to react. I felt like a bad babysitter or something. But the rest of the time was great fun; and I have since had many more enjoyable interactions with Victory and his biddies.

Since Victory lives 2 houses away from me, these interactions are mostly when I’ve stopped a run to walk home and he yells at me “you’re not doing sport right!” I’ve learned the final response to this: “So Victory, how are your grades in school coming?” Bahaha…I’m finally on the other end of the spectrum and can start getting enjoyment out of asking seniors in high school if they’re into college yet, or asking seniors in college if they have a job yet…

So hot right now.

Style in Rwanda can be described as: old meets older. By that I mean… Rwandans have found a chic way of mixing second hand market clothing with traditional Rwandan fabrics, keeping in mind that second hand market clothing is usually the clothing that isn’t sold within a year at Salvation Army. A common sight is a woman walking down the street, balancing a jug of water on her head, wearing a traditional Rwandan skirt and a shirt that advertises SPAM.

I often have to remind myself that, for the most part, Rwandans don’t know what the clothing they’re wearing really means. For example, when group of kids surrounds me and one of them is wearing a Eli Manning or a Buffalo Bills jersey (there are an unfortunately large number of Bills jerseys here…I guess nobody in the US wanted them??) – he immediately becomes my favorite in the group, for no more reason than his mom selected just the right shirt at the market to win over my heart. There’s also a man that’s often at the track wearing a lacrosse sweatshirt. I just wish it meant he actually had lacrosse sticks and that we could play together.

I’ve been slowly coming to remember this (after an interaction telling a girl that she couldn’t play pick-up volleyball with us because she actually plays and would be too good…only to eventually come to realize that the volleyball sweatshirt she had on was not her team’s gear), but last weekend, I spotted the love of my life: he was wearing madras shorts and polo shirt, collar popped in a bar in Kiagli. As I explained to the girls with me…you don’t pop a collar on accident. He totally knew what his outfit meant. They rolled their eyes and went along with me, and then pressured me into talking to him. I worked up the courage to tell him “You must know what your outfit means to me.”

I got distracted on my way over (it was salsa night) and by the time the screaming group of girls got my attention, the preppiest Rwandan in Kigali was out the door of the bar, and out of my boarding school clutches.

A few minutes later, one of the girls pointed out that a similarly dressed man had entered the bar. Oh no way! Two preppy guys in one evening! But I looked over in the general direction and was disappointed to see…nothing…just a few guys wearing bedazzled jeans and one wearing an Abercrombie polo…no idea what she was referring to as preppy. So my night ended in disappointment and a reverted back to speaking to the one other white guy in the bar.

Maybe it was for the better that the love of those five minutes of my life left the bar, but I believe I will always remember him as the one who got away.

An Inventory of Birthday Presents

Because everything in my life must be a competition, I’ve decided to create some awards for my birthday presents:

1. Most relevant to blog readers who will now be able to look at pictures instead of read words: Digital Camera

2. Most confusing: A skimpy but cute and comfy leopard print dress. In classic Mitchell family fashion, I “wore what I got” and put it on this morning, after much worry about if it would be appropriate to wear to the office. I decided it was fine, so long as I didn’t leave the office. When my mom called me around lunch time to cry and check in with me, I told her that I was wearing the dress. “That’s a bathrobe” she told me. Hmm. At least I now know that a bathrobe is appropriate to wear to work.

3. Most confusing to others: A framed picture of my family’s faces’ (including the dog) superimposed on another family’s picture.

4. Most useful for anybody in Rwanda who appreciates country music: iPod blaster

5. Cutest: Definitely a toss-up between the birthday cards from my little twin cousins and the hugs I got from Dr. Nathalie’s little cousins who got all dressed up and SKIPPED SCHOOL today because “their muzungus” were coming over to play and they didn’t want to miss it.

6. Most made me feel right at home: Email chain with Lesley, Jargote, Skoo, KTL, and Frannie. Miss you guys!

7. Most useful: Frontline flea medicine.

8. Most made me want to cry: Letters from my grandparents about how each of them spent their 22nd birthdays.

9. Most African: Witnessing two goats being slaughtered, hung up, and then skinned in preparation for the goat brochette that we’ll be having at my party this weekend. Only slightly more violent than killing mice when I worked in a research lab.

10. Least surprising: The pants and skirt that I tried on with my mother and then gave to her to send over because they wouldn’t fit in my suitcases.

11. Second least surprising: Surprise party thrown for me by the CCHIPs staff. It might have been a surprise, if it had not followed the same exact pattern of the surprise party the day before, when I had been the person in charge of keeping the guest of honor out of the house for the setup. We went to La Palme to use the internet and then had an “emergency meeting” back at the house. This also might have worked, had the internet at the house not been working, and the internet at La Palme working.

12. Guiltiest: FB posts from Lizzi Blayney and Abbie Randall – THEY ARE SO GOOD AT REMEMBERING BIRTHDAYS – I don’t care if facebook reminds them about it – THEY ARE SO GOOD.

13. Most classic Bray-Bray present: Lace tank-tops that are supposed to be cute sleepwear, but are mostly just impractical.

14. Hottest: 17 Again, featuring Zack Efron.

15. Best sounding: James, Nannie, Gramps, Uncle Dougie, and Grandma Susie all left voice mails on my US phone that I could listen to. I’m still holding out for the other siblings...but Justin Usle would definitely win if he called and sang Sweet Caroline a-la 21st birthday party at Murphy’s.

16. Most heartwrenching: We were supposed to visit Dr. Nathalie's family to play with the children for a little bit after work. FIRST, I was given permission to drive the care. AND THEN, Dr. Nathalie's family actually cooked us dinner and everything and got all dressed up for our visit. It was actually adorable. Our cook had made a dinner by my request at the same time, so we thought that maybe we could do two dinners. This turned out to not be possible, as the family did not stop piling food onto our plates. I'm pretty good with rallying when it comes to overindulging in food, but this presented a challenge even for me. Oh yeah...and they invited over like the entire extended Musanze family so that they could all meet us. Absolutely adorable.

17. Yummiest: Fried eggplant. Definitely a reminder of being at home.

Apologies

But ever since our internet at the house has been fixed, we haven't had any. And ever since the rainy season's gotten really started, the internet at the hotels has been frustratingly slow. So my blog postings are currently on a weeklong backlog of blogs (say that 5 times fast) written but not posted...

3 Plus Week Point

At some point recently, I hit the milestone of “longest time ever spent in a single country (not the US).” I actually think this milestone was a week and a half ago, because I spent 2 weeks in France with my grandparents the summer after 6^th grade. Above all, maybe this fact shows how particularly unprepared I might have been packing my bags for Rwanda for a year.

The second thing this fact shows, I think, is how quickly I’ve assimilated to life in Rwanda because the milestone passed so seamlessly, without me even realizing it happened. (Yes, sorry, this is going to be a reflective blog. They have to happen every once in a while amidst the humor. If your name is Isabelle Schless, stop reading now or forever live with the knowledge that I am capable of expressing emotion.)

Yes…I’ll be the first to admit that I’m living a pretty cushy life in Rwanda. If I was working 100 hours a week in NYC, I certainly still wouldn’t have my own cook or maid (unless I was living with my parents in the Dirty Jerz…love you mom). And I only today learned how to count to 10 and conjugate to be in Kinyrwandan because I haven’t had a need to know it. And our secluded compound was fittingly dubbed “Americaland” by the local Peace Corps volunteers.

But, if I focus on only material things, I might not be giving myself enough credit. I do, after all, currently have fleas.

I have been living here for almost four weeks; it has not been entirely easy; and I think I should give myself, or Rwanda, some credit for not even realizing that I passed the milestone mentioned. My conclusion so far is that Africa – and especially Musanze, Rwanda – represents so much of what I crave as a small-town, New England girl that I’ve been able to assimilate and appreciate, rather than criticize and isolate.

Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa, so Musanze is by no means a “small town”, but the simplicity of life is exactly what I have always imagined to still be hiding somewhere in the hills of New Hampshire and Vermont. It seems quintessential to me that people here recognize each other in a slightly bustling metropolis (driving back to Musanze one day, Gabby recognized a former volunteer’s mother from behind and pulled over to give her a ride), that everybody takes the time to fully great each other (“Muraho” “Amakuru” “Ni meza” is an obligatory part of any conversation – even if you are just asking directions), and that there exists an impressive level of trust (I sat next to a hitchhiker today on our drive to Kigali…whatevs).

Unfortunately/fortunately, so much of this attitude can be credited to the lack of modern technology. Children are not rushing home to videogames; they are creating games with sticks and yarn, forming deep friendships at the same time. Women cannot disregard their peers, who could create the community that cares for them/fetches water for them/prays for them in a time of need. I almost fear that along with incredible knowledge and incredible speed, the new fiber optic and electric projects will bring with them a spell that might break the community and the bonds. But it’s possible the community will survive amongst the people – that is why, at any rate, we muzungus will always be muzungus, forever recognized as outsiders, onlookers onto the perfectly quintessential community.

So, given that Hanover, New Hampshire seemed a little too large and overwhelming to me at times, it is only natural that I have already fallen in love with a country/district/village that embodies all that I have imagined a truly small town to be...except for actually being small, of course. 

Not a Normal Day

Inspired by Peace Corps Jenny’s blog (creatively titled “Not All Who Rwanda Are Lost” – she gets more points than “Eli Goes to Africa”), I decided that today I would do a “Day in the Life of…” entry to give you all a better idea of what exactly it is that I do over here. However, it turned out to be not a normal day at all. Mostly because I spent four hours at a funeral. I really wrestled with the idea of changing the blog to instead talk about the funeral. On one hand, not concentrating on the funeral might be disrespectful. On the other hand, I think it captures that no day for me is quite “normal”, especially because I wouldn’t be able to write a “Day in the Life” entry until next Tuesday…assuming that that turns out “normal.” So, with apologies to the departed:

6:05am – Decide that I’m too sick to go for a run and go back to sleep.
6:40am – Hear chirpy voices outside. The first staff members have started to arrive. Damn it.
6:45am – Drag self out of bed, put on pink pants and purple sweater (decide that my clothes need to compensate for my lacking energy), start boiling water for oatmeal and tea, wash face, make oatmeal and tea, grab backpack, walk across the driveway to the office with breakfast in hand.
6:55am – Arrive late. Sit and brood, wondering why everybody always shows up before 7am without fail.
7-7:30am – Realize that the only news of the day is that so far __% of the votes have been tallied and Kagame is winning by 9__%, so I spend about half an hour blitzing with Jen Argote who is watching very subpar, late night TV back in the states.

7:30-8:30 – Get a crash-course on website design because I’ve been promoted and now have permission to edit the WWHPS website without going through a middleman! (I think because the middleman charges $$ but we’ll pretend it’s because I’m brilliant.) Thank Hany Farid from the bottom of my heart as I don’t look like a complete idiot and even begin to navigate some of the html code even though it’s not necessary.

***CHECK OUT THE WWHPS WEBSITE @NOW: http://www.wwhps.org. It will be changing in the next few days so I want feedback! Feel free to leave any (anonymous) suggestions in the comments section too! Thank you! (I expect to see a peak in site traffic today.)

8:30-11:30 – Discuss Community Survey Final Report. The community survey was designed and conducted before I arrived, but I got here just in time for the analysis and write-up. It contained the average (for a dev econ major who has read many surveys conducted in developing countries) gamut of questions about demographics, family, health center usage, and a few medical anthropology questions. Kelly, the DMS student who designed it, left on Monday – so I’m now working with Musanze’s former mayor on writing a final report. He’s a sociologist. I’m an economist. His report draft was 90 pages (double spaced). Mine was 3 (single spaced). We had a long philosophical argument about how long the report should be. He’s now a professor and I came to realize that I would, without a doubt, fail his class – but I forced myself to think of him as a colleague, not a superior…I was arguing for what I honestly thought was best, not about a grade. I hope and pray that we agreed on 10 pages with an extensive appendix. After the argument, I read through his report and then re-wrote my part to highlight what I thought were the most pertinent conclusions and recommendations.

10:30-12:30 – Meet with Lauren to discuss Health Center Assessments. These are the tools that we’re designing to actually measure our impact in our 5 project areas. Right now we can show how the health center improved, generally, but nothing that shows exactly what CCHIPs did. This is no good when looking to potential donors for support. The challenges of the HC Assessment tool is that it really forces us to define SMART (points if you know what that means) goals (as opposed to easy/vague ones). It also forces us to determine what the “ideal” is for many situations. Just to put it into perspective: the US hasn’t quite figured out how to measure MD performance…so how are we supposed to do it?

12:30-1pm – Lunch! Macaroni and cheese with sausage…mmmmmmmmmmmmm. (If you’re sending a care package, a 5lb brick of Cabot cheese + pepperoni both travel well and would be *amazing.*)
1pm-5pm – Change and go to funeral for one of our staff member’s brothers. The short summary of the funeral (remember I was planning a whole blog on this):
- Bright colors are still good. Just like the wedding…I wore black and stuck out.
- Muzungus are usually more interesting to stare at than the preacher.
- I LOVE JEANNE D’ARC (CCHIPs Project Director) who held my hand throughout the whole thing, whispered translations to me, and just in general helped me not look like an idiot.
- It was easy to look like an idiot because the funeral was outside, in a garden/field, where all the brothers buried the body. And then (I love this part) planted on top of it immediately…from death comes life…
- From my “compare this to situations I know” estimate, over 500 people were there. He died yesterday…I have no idea how so many people even learned about it in that time.
- I could figure out some words to the songs! Comeza = “go forward” because that’s what we say to moto drivers…therefore the chorus “comeza a dieu” = “go forward to God”! I sang along to those parts.
- Overall I was incredibly impressed with the community support and the process of the funeral. I think it was a great place for somebody to mourn and be comforted. People around me felt free to cry their hearts out…but then praise God in the end.

5-5:30 – Skyped with Mommy and Poppy 
5:30-6:30 – Football time! I wasn’t going to go because I felt sick, but then I heard the ball being kicked around outside and immediately felt energetic. We played with our Rwandan friend Patrick and a few others.
HIGHLIGHT: I SCORED!!
     Lowlight: On my own team
HIGHLIGHT: But we won anyways! (because we had more Rwandans on our team)
6:30-7:30 – Dinnertime! Rice and beans and lots of akabanga sauce. Fabulous dinner table conversation with Lauren, Marvin, Zack, and Travis.

7:30-8:30 – Decided to not watch whatever gory movie with the rest of the group…instead got excited and worked on the website. Then I remembered that I’m not getting paid, so maybe I don’t have to be working past 8pm? Simultaneously (slow internet) studied for the GMAT and researched potential testing centers. Help me choose: Kampala, Nairobi, Dar Es Salaam, Lusaka, and Addis Ababa are the closest. Ohhh where should I go?
8:30-9:30 – Mourned the loss of my kindle by writing an obnoxious email to my parents and another CCHIPs volunteer in the Upper Valley (begging her to bring me a charger when she comes back to Rwanda), and wrote this update.
10pm – Ummm…I woke up at 6…and I’m planning on waking up at 6 tomorrow (need to get in a shower before work…don’t know if you noticed no shower after soccer)…BEDTIME

My House/Compound!

Using the amazingness of modern technology, my impeccable sense of direction even without road names, and Google maps...I've managed to find a satellite image of my house/compound. Plus I bet you're all bored of my lack of pictures because I didn't bring a camera...so this is your break from my writing: