BY: CHELSEA
FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
First impressions: If I don’t write them down, they’ll fade. And these tidbits may be interesting for any of you with cultural curiosities or who want to picture, more tangibly, what our first couple weeks in Rwanda have looked like. The reflections below are not exhaustive, nor are they in any particular order. They’re also mine — Wade might share some sentiments and feel differently about others.
(What are Rwanda’s first impressions of us? We wish we knew!!)
The land:
The hills are lovely. I love topographical change, and Rwanda is nicknamed “the Land of a Thousand Hills.” I’m happy that our walks to the supermarket or to church always involve a view. Terra cotta colored roofs; paved roads and dirt roads; banana trees; hazy horizon lines. Some days I have sat, for a few minutes, on the ledge outside our driveway just to look over at the distant red dirt road that climbs up the hill south of us. People and bicycles navigate up and down slowly, just dots on the landscape. It’s calming to watch.
(I try to imagine what the land was like before it was developed and cultivated. That’s an era of the past. The city is abuzz now, and growing. Construction is everywhere. Things change quickly here. But there is still green on the hills, and agriculture in the valleys, and that is good!)
The walls:
For security purposes, almost all the properties here are walled and gated (including our house). This is a sad reality for me. I love physical and social openness, and some of my fondest memories of our home back in Illinois involve the shared yard space we had with our neighbors, who were also dear friends. The days when the neighbor kids could be outside at any time, ready to have impromptu conversations or help Evie get on a tricycle, feel like a bygone era — one we treasure. For us now, it is brick walls and padlocked gates. I don’t know what to do with this opacity yet.
The streets:
Anytime of day, there are people walking the streets. I love this; it makes me feel more connected with a living, moving community. Some people are walking to work, others to the store, others to I don’t know where. On main roads, lots of motos [motorcycle taxis] and bicyclists navigate alongside vehicles. Driving feels like more of an art than a science.
The work:
In Rwanda, many things are done manually, and labor is cheap. The people impress me — the men stacking bricks; the women with babies on their backs and a basket of produce on their head; the men meticulously cutting dead vines out of chain link fence so that it can be re-used. People walk down the streets with long stacks of empty buckets on their heads like they are just carrying a purse. Our first week, I saw a wheelbarrow strapped to a bicycle as the cyclist whizzed down the hill. Around here, it’s work just to get to work. (Of course, there is white collar work here, too, and lots of other people simply drive to their offices each day. There’s a lot here we haven’t seen yet.)
The temperament:
Last October we visited Rwanda for a week, and at that time I found the people to be very serious. In part, I think this is because it’s what I’d heard; they’re serious, they’re reserved. And there is an element of truth to that. From what we understand, the people of Rwanda place a high value on dignity, and on holding oneself in a dignified manner.
However, now that we are here I see a little more: for one thing, the mask mandate that was in place last fall is lifted, meaning I can see people’s whole faces now, including their smiles! Second, I have come with a specific desire to see, in this serious culture, when and where their joy and laughter and smiles emerge — because they do. And finally, this time we’ve brought Evie (read on!).
The people and Evie:
People in Rwanda love Evie so far. We knew that having a toddler would attract the smiles of people anywhere we went, and that Evie would help break the ice on the mission field and such. But precisely because we find ourselves in a more serious culture, I’ve been especially delighted by the affection expressed toward Evie. On the streets, in the stores, Rwandan people smile at her and make funny faces. (At first, Evie was shy. More recently she’s started joining in the game.) And it’s not just the women who do it — men, too. Old men and young men. The other day our waiter at a restaurant smiled at Evie and pinched her cheek. The man in uniform who looked intimidating to ask directions from grinned and started to play peek-a-boo with her. It’s very sweet.
In some ways, we wonder if children give the people here an excuse to be silly.
The supermarket:
It takes trips to several supermarkets to gather a well-rounded supply of food. Inside the small stores, butter is hard to find (it’s probably just us newbies), and salt is expensive. I have learned you are supposed to bag your eggs, just as one would do with produce in the U.S.. (Except here you put your both your eggs and produce in brown paper bags, and then you end up with a lot of brown paper bags at home. I don’t know what everyone does with these, since Rwanda doesn’t seem to have recycling. So far we keep ours for catching cockroaches.)
Overall, supermarket pros here: delicious, inexpensive local produce! I love tropical fruits. Here, I can get 10 passion fruits for under a dollar, and finally, we’re in a place that sells avocados at a reasonable price. 🙂 Also, fresh bread!
Cons: it’s a slow learning game of what’s available where, what’s never available, what’s right under your nose in different packaging in a different language, etc. It makes me feel vastly less competent in the world of cooking. It will just take time for this to pass, and that’s okay. I haven’t found many fresh greens close to home; I miss that, and I’ll have to branch out farther if I want a regular supply.
Daily life:
We don’t have real schedules yet. Not structured, regular ones, anyway. Each day we get up, remember we live in Rwanda, and have breakfast (usually eggs, passion fruit or bananas, and some kind of bread). We read a psalm together, and talk about what needs to get done that day. So far some of the tasks have included getting cell service, getting electricity, buying drinking water, obtaining a gas canister for our stove, sitting around waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for the electrician or the people who said they’d deliver our fridge, spending 4.5+ hours setting up a bank account, figuring out how to transfer funds to said bank account, spending 3 hours with the mechanic to fix our broken car key… Oh, and being good parents to Evie and good partners to each other! Not to mention beginning to look outwards toward meetings with people we’ll be doing ministry with here.
Some days feel manageable, and we feel a sense of pleasure and accomplishment. Other days we cry because we miss people — family, friends, our church. Certain days have felt like ocean waves that keep pummeling us and challenging our balance. Recent days have felt more stabilizing. We’re grateful for the truth that God is with us, regardless of whether we’re feeling upbeat or worn down.
Moments of encouragement:
We feel a lot of feelings these days, and one of them IS encouragement! Below are a few moments that I have treasured so far. All involve Evie, which is sweet because it brings me fresh perspective and shows me that she, too, can do well here:
- Rwanda has no berries (except on coffee trees!), which sort of breaks my heart. But before Evie quite understood what a passion fruit was, she pointed at the seedy interior of one that I’d cut in half and said “more berries!” Well, I am a tad obsessed with passion fruit (so is Evie), so… maybe things will be okay after all.
- When we walk or drive after dark here (which really means anytime after 6:30pm), we see the hills of Kigali twinkle as if adorned with Christmas lights. To my delight, Evie has taken to imitating us and saying, “Pretty lights!” when we see the a view of the hills after dark. Her latest comment was, as we meandered in and out of view of the hills while walking home: “Lights playing peek-a-boo!” <3
- Lastly: a week and a day after we arrived to Rwanda, we pulled into our driveway after spending an evening at a new friend’s house. As I waited for Wade to open our gate, Evie said softly from the back seat, “Home.” Did I tell her we were returning to the house? Or did she recognize the turn into our driveway, the pause on the slope, the sound of the gate opening — the new normal? Whatever the case, yes: home. Home, home, home. Finally, after a year+ of slowly pulling back from our lives in the States and dismantling our physical homes there, we are here, in all its bittersweetness, and home.
