Going home / What I miss

In anticipation of my upcoming trip home to the US, I have begun to fantasize about the under-appreciated treasures I will rediscover there, the land of limitless creature comforts and den of unbridled consumerism.

So in honor of this homecoming, I am dedicating this post to a retrospective on all that I have missed about the States, having now spent 5 months here in Rwanda…

I miss…

Bathrooms at the workplace that a) don’t require the cleaning staff to bring buckets of water to manually fill the toilet tanks and b) feature sinks that run consistently and are regularly equipped with soap.

Going to the store and being able to recognize more than 1 out of every 5 brands.

Not having to wish I could read labels in Arabic. (Goods are shipped from Dubai.)

Being able to buy cereal that doesn’t cost $10/box.

Having my choice of cheese. (One can only rotate the local gouda and goat cheese for so long.)

Not feeling like my brain becomes dislodged inside my skull and thanking God for the modern bra every time we drive on dirt roads.

Cable service that doesn’t go out every time there’s a thunderstorm.

Not having to fight armies of ants who march around like they own the place, carrying out crumbs of food in what looks like one long undulating trail of black pepper.

Not being afraid to go into the back bedroom ‘cause I saw the BIGGEST cockroach in there, and Garron could you please kill it when you come home.

Fast, reliable internet connectivity. (Don’t even think about sending me a link to something on youtube.)

Having a car with a CD player.

- Oh well maybe that’s asking too much -

Having a car with a good, working radio.

- Or even better yet –

Just having a car that doesn’t require you to cut off the air conditioning when you drive uphill (to give it more power).

Street signs.

_______________________________

Directionally-challenged

Only a handful of streets actually have names so signs and addresses don’t really exist. In their absence, directions can sound like this:

Lost Person: “How do I get to x?”
Helpful Rwandan: “It’s no problem. You pass the La Fiesta sign and turn left.
“Then you go, you go, you go.
“You pass a woman carrying bananas on her head.
“Turn right.
“You go, you go, you go.
“You’re there.”

_______________________________

Not being constantly stared and gawked at, in the manner of rubbernecking or stopping people dead in their tracks. (It’s only a matter of time before I erupt in a “TAKE A PICTURE WHY DON’T YA?! IT’LL LAST LONGER!”)

Peacefully sleeping through the night without being woken up by the sounds of a mosquito buzzing by my head.

Not having to come home and worry if the featherweight-one-foot-in-the-grave guard is dead when he doesn’t open the gate after 5 minutes.

Not having to feel annoyed when he comes trotting up 10 minutes later, having spent some time getting soused at the little ‘bar’ down the street.

Phone etiquette, the way I’m used to it. (This means a) identifying yourself within seconds of the call, b) not taking calls during meetings, and c) not calling me, letting it ring once, hanging up, and expecting me to call you back – a practice known as ‘beeping.’)

_______________________________

Hello?

Rwandans will always exchange pleasantries before even stating who they are.

“Hello?”
Caller: “Hi, how are you?”
“I’m fine. How are you?”
Caller: “I am fine. How is your family?”
“Oh, fine but Emmanuel is sick.”
Caller: “Oh I’m sorry.”
“Eehh yes, he’s not well.”
Caller: “Eehh, I’m sorry. Ok, this is Concilie.”
“Hello. How do I know you?”

_______________________________

A coffee culture. (I like to take my coffee only one way: with VOLUME. Unfortunately here, outside of the one coffee shop that has been my savior, restaurants rarely serve it and customers seldom order it. And instant coffee – if you can find it – will set you back $10 for a 100g canister!)

Clean money. (No, I don’t mean money that hasn’t been laundered by the mafia; I mean money that isn’t physically DIRTY. I'm often handed bills so utterly filthy, discolored, smelly and flimsy I wonder if they will disintegrate in my fingers and I shudder to think where they’ve been.)

Not having to wonder if this salad will give me amoebas if it wasn’t washed in filtered water.

Not having to only occasionally purchase diet coke as a “splurge.”

Not being constantly viewed as a dispenser of money.

_______________________________

Faranga!

Amafaranga = money, in Kinyarwanda. No need to take a class to learn that one – as a muzungu, you will hear it in constant refrain.

_______________________________

Not having to see children with yellowed eyes from malnutrition.

Not having to witness crushing poverty at almost every turn..............

Zanzibar... the Spice of Life

Some say that variety is the spice of life.

I would argue that vacation is the spice of life.

And a vacation in Zanzibar? That’s like an extra spicy, spice of life.

We spent the first week of 2008 on this exotic isle, one at the intersection of Arabic, Indian, and African cultures, where the influences of all 3 are strongly reflected in the language, people, and food. During its heyday in the 1800s, the island became one of the most important outposts along the spice route, trading in cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, cumin, and ginger.

The highlight of the first few days in Stone Town included the lively outdoor market that starts at sun-down with vendors lined along the waterfront, selling irresistible treats like fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice (made by pressing thick stalks of sugar cane through large cranks) and grilled seafood of every variety on huge outdoor spits. Vendors hawk clothes, jewelry, and spices in vibrant display. The atmosphere is colorful, aromatic, electric, and inviting. Everyone wants to be your friend, and everyone wants to sell you something.

After Stone Town, we spent some days on Kizimkazi Beach in the south, known for dolphins. One morning, aboard a simple fishing dhow with two fisherman who spoke Swahili and a few words of English, I rode out into the vast Indian Ocean, past the point where the water turns from a clear turquoise to an opaque sapphire, to ‘track’ dolphins. As soon as we came upon a family, I sort of wished I hadn’t gone… While they were lovely to see (arcing above the water just like you would imagine and chattering and chortling among themselves), as soon as we were close enough to see them, they would become spooked and swim off… and we would chase them. Something that was more predatory and less of the ‘swim with them and feel healed’ experience than I was envisioning…

Wanting to swap one white sands beach for another (such difficult decisions!), we moved to Nungwi Beach in the north. While Kizimkazi felt a bit sleepy and isolated, Nungwi felt more like a ‘party’ beach with plenty of young people and a healthy variety of restaurants and shops. I spent the remainder of the vacation wishing it wouldn’t end…

Race in Africa

One evening, while strolling along Nungwi Beach at dusk, a young Tanzanian man approached me. By this point, I had become fairly numb to all the local people who try to befriend you in an effort to sell you a tour package or some tchotchke painting or handicraft. And this gentleman was no different, I assumed.

"Eeeehhhh… Jambo” (= hi in Swahili) he says.
“Jambo,” I reply.
“My name is Adam,” he says as he extends his hand.
I shake it.
“What is your name?” he asks.
I answer, still shaking his hand. (Handshakes tend to last longer here.)
“Ok. So where you from?”
“The US.”
“Ohh.”

A long pause.

A furrowed brow.

He steps back in a lazy swagger, stretches his arms out as if measuring the width of a refrigerator, looks me up and down, and asks, totally incredulously,

“Then… Why you look so China?!?” (emphasis on the CHI-na)

Since he didn’t necessarily bowl me over with his salesmanship, I declined his offer to see his little shop where he apparently sells very nice art work that’s “almost free.”

So while he was no different than the tens of other entrepreneurs who approached me there, he did, however, give me a gem of a catchphrase that really encapsulates an African take on race, one that would suggest that race trumps nationality…

In most cases, the Africans I meet don’t find it a satisfactory response when I say “I’m from the US.” They see my face and think that that cannot be the whole story. So, I often feel obliged to answer their puzzled glances or their “but…”s with some explanation. Though this type of reaction is understandable (given most people’s limited exposure to the world beyond Africa) and completely inoffensive, I still rankle a little each time I have to explain myself. And it has given me pause to reflect on how refreshing it is to have grown up in a country where the population is so wonderfully diverse that someone like me is not an oddity but something totally ordinary.