At Site

Yesterday was my first day as a Peace Corps Volunteer working with the Access Project in the Northern Province. I’m placed at a small village about an hour away from the capital Kigali to the north with a population of about 19,000. The district here supports 2 district hospitals and 19 health centers, three of which I visited yesterday, as part of an audit round with the Mutuelle managers (Mutuelle, is the national health insurance provider in Rwanda).

The north is known for it’s high mountains and cold weather. In the background from my new house is Mount Kaboye (aver 8,000 ft high). My plan is to hike mount Kaboye’s peak which takes about 3 hours one way from the base.

Other attractions include the Gorilla National Part which is about 30 minutes away as well as the volcanoes (45 minutes away).

My village itself has little to offer other than the welcoming people and the beautiful nature. The market is open only 2 days a week and there’s only one decent restaurant on the main road, which turns into a truckers’ stop at night. There’re two or three other restaurants that I’m yet to visit.

Swearing-In Ceremony

Last week marked our transition from Peace Corps Trainees to Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs). On Wednesday, April 15th, 2009, 32 PCVs were sworn-in in a small ceremony hosted by the US Ambassador to Rwanda. Our group thus became the first PCVs to return to Rwanda in 15 years. The ceremony was attended by government officials, representatives from global NGOs and other local organizations, returning PCVs, as well as PC/Rwanda staff. The ceremony was also covered by members of the media on both TV and radio (a picture of me and other volunteers was on the cover of the local paper).

http://rwanda.usembassy.gov

The next day we were treated to a picnic on Lake Muhazi (about 1.5 hours east of Kigali) before we are dropped off at our sites. The picnic was a great stress relief and offered us a lot of fun activities starting with playing soccer and volleyball, to meat and fish brochettes, and finally with the US marine guards taking us water boarding on the lake.

Peace Corps Trainee to Peace Corps Volunteer

Tomorrow I, along with 31 other trainees, we get sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers. We spent the last 10 weeks in training. We trained in the language, kenyarwanda, cross culture and healthcare in Rwanda.

This week we're in the capital and preparing for the swearing-in ceremony, which will be held at the Ambassador's office. I'll be moving to my site this Sunday, which is really exciting. I'll be working with an NGO called Project Access. I'll be working with healthcare centers and hospitals on improving services. In addition I'll be working on other HIV/AIDS programs.

I'll write more in a future post. For now I'm looking forward to the swearing-in ceremony

Amahoro (peace)

Earthquake

So I experienced my first earthquake here in Rwanda (third in a life time)!! So the country of 1,000 hills were formed through a series of earthquakes that continue on regular bases. The earthquake registered 6.1 and was about 200 miles away. the quake was strong but short it lasted about 30 seconds. By the time I realized what was going on it had stopped. but it sure was interesting.

Kinyarwanda Vocabulary

Due to popular request here are some vocabulary for your reference. In general, kinyarwandan words end in e and is pronounced like in spanish (muramutse is muramutseh)

Murakaza Naza Welcome
Muraho Hello
Muramutse Good morning
Mwerewe (pronounced Merewe) Good afternoon
Bite se? (beates) What's up?
Beragenda? how's it going?
Murabeho Good bye

Yego Yes
Oya No

Sawa Ok

I'll continue to update this on regular bases but feel free to ask me

My Assignment

So I have two more weeks left on my training then we go to Kigali, the capital for 1 week. Peace Corps has a graduation ceremony followed by a swearing-in ceremony for Peace Corps volunteer at the ambassador's house, which is awesome.

Following the swearing in, we all move to our sites. Mine is at a place called Gankeke (pronounced Gashenhh). It's a small village about an hour north of the capital and about 30 minutes from the second largest city in Rwanda, Musanze. Gakenke is known for some attractions mainly mount Kaboye, the tallest in Rwanda and one of the tallest in Africa it sits about 12,000 ft. My plans are to hike mount kaboye every chance I have. Musanze is actually a tourist attraction with many hotels and cool spots. The main industry is focused on the national parks and the forest where the gorillas reside. It's a popular area and was featured in the national geographic. They also have other large mountains and popular trails.

I'm looking forward to it for sure. Gakenke supports 2 district hospitals and 19 health centers.

The NGO I'll be working with is called Access Project (www.theaccessproject.org). They're affilisted with Columbia University and work in 4 regions around Rwanda in addition to their office in Kigali. They provide management and technical support to health clinics in meeting operations and quality indicators, improving services and access to care. One of their latet projects involves building a new health clinic and a youth center. The NGO staff is amazing and I'm very excited

My Weekend Adventures I

In a previous post I gave a picture of a typical day for me in Rwanda. Some people inquired about how I’ve been spending my weekends. Here’re some weekend activities:

Friday, March 20, 2009 – The Rwanda Music Awards took place at the National University here in Butare. The tickets were 2,000 RWF ($3.5). A group of us decided to go that night and I’m glad we did since it ended up being a cool event with the big shots from Rwandan pop culture present. We managed to find our way to the front row of the theatre hall. The atmosphere was full of vibe with hip hop and pop performances. The awards ceremony was a mini MTV music awards with the best teen artist for 2009 seated two seats down to my left. Next to him was the 2009 best Hip Hop Female artist! Right behind here was the P Diddy of Rwandan music (2009 producer of the year). It was fun being in the presence of celebrity without all the hype…the performances were great especially hip hop. The sense of fashion of celebrities is worth mentioning. Bling bling is well presented here with thick jewelry around their necks. Animal print shirts (leopard, zebra) with flared cuffs is big here I came to notice.

Saturday, March 21, 2009 – Part of our three months training involves culture exchange in addition to Language and technical healthcare lessons.

The culture exchange lesson this time involved Rwandan Kitchen. The day before, for one of the language lessons the teachers focused on words and phrases common to cooking. This past Friday we broke into 4 groups. Each group had a shopping list and were tasked to go to the market and purchase the items on their list (all in kinyarwanda). My list consisted of:
- 5 kg of meat
- 20 kg of potatoes
- 5 kg of sweet potatoes
- 2 kg of bone!!

The full list included live chicken (5), fish, greens, various vegetables, and more. On Saturday morning we started our day at 8:00 to start cooking Rwandan food in a Rwandan kitchen. A quick note on Rwandan kitchen, Rwandan kitchen has no stove or any of the electronics commonly found in the US which made for a fun and long cooking experience. The highlight for me was slaughtering two of the five chickens. I must say that a sharp knife would’ve made it less of a horrifying experience but the chicken died in peace!! Others were in charge of peeling and chopping 44 Ibs of potatoes for the frensh fries!! Others scaled the fish and prepped it to be fried! Overall it was quite a cultural experience!!