I spent Thursday and Friday nights in Kigali, watching football and getting my hair done. My friend Susan is living in Kigali now and stays at St. Paul’’s mission, where is we had our orientation was back in January. St. Paul’s is basically a hostel run by the church and has the advantage of being clean, cheap and very centrally located. The downside is that people staying there tend to arise at 6:00-7:30am and apparently w-40 is not an expense the church is willing to incur. So, Susan generously lets me me share her twin bed, which is amazing for me, but it does mean that no matter what time we go to sleep, by 7:00AM doors have been creaking for an hour and the room is hotter than the surface of the sun. I decided to spend Saturday night in Nyanza to catch up on some sleep and get things ready at home for the week.
Sunday morning 10:00 AM. I was woken by a knocking on my door. I dragged myself out of bed, singing praises that I was able to sleep so late, and saw Alodie my house girl at the door. She came in, clearly shocked that I was still asleep and started speaking in rapid kinderwanda. I didn’t understand what was going on, but it was clear I was supposed to go with her. So I dressed quickly and followed her out. Basically, I do whatever Alodie tells me to do. We ended up at a church where one of my colleagues, Leticia, the only other female teacher, was arranging flowers. Her English is not great, so I was made to understand that I would go with Alodie to Leticia's house and then something……
So Alodie and I walked out of “town” and into the hills of Nyanza. My town is hardly a bustling metropolis but the hills surrounding “town” are quite rural. Part of the strangeness of living in Rwanda is that the genocide pops into your mind at random moments. Although we aren’t allowed to say “Hutu” or “Tutsi” you still think them. As we walked along the dirt path, I realized that the vast majority of the people we saw must be Hutu, and all the implications that go along with that. We sat down in Leticia’s house and were served Fanta by her daughter. Then, she came home and we went through the family photo album (number one visiting activity in this country). It became clear that she has 4 children, all of whom are alive. I started thinking that they must be Hutu, because there is no way they could have lived in Rwanda during 1994 and not lost anyone. I asked her what her husband did and she explained that after the war he had gone to prison and now he could not get a job so he worked in the fields. She also talked about how she was trying to learn psychology so she could work more and earn more money for the family, and admitted that life was easier before the war.
Then her husband entered, a gentleman in a blue button down and black pants. He seemed perfectly nice, spoke perfect French and tried to speak to me in English, and the entire time I spoke to him I was thinking You hacked someone to death with a machete. As he had gone to prison for “many years” this was confirmed…. not even speculation. But he seemed so nice. This is the topic that many of the books on the genocide deal with, how can perfectly nice people suddenly start killing their neighbors? This was the first time this situation happened to me. Usually, someone asks me about my family and when I reciprocate, they say “Oh, I had 8 brothers and sisters but they died in 1994” leaving me feeling like a giant heel. Sitting in the living room of a smiling, cheerful convicted killer is a very different kind of feeling.
One of the many many things I adore about Alodie is she is a quick visit kind of person. She will actually tell people to leave my house (Amazing!) and in this instance, after the cake and Fanta, she explained I had work to do and that we must leave. I was given an entire cake to take along and we said our good-byes. We walked down a different dirt road for 10 minutes and then Alodie announced “Inzu, me” (My house). Yay!
I met her mother, father, sisters and some random teenagers who I couldn’t quite figure out the relationship. Alodie’s family speaks no English or French so they are clearly uneducated, and its hard for me to get more details than that. Their house was similar to mine, but smaller and shabbier. It had concrete walls and pictures from the 70’s featuring white babies and phrases like “God is love and people who love are beautiful” (in English). There was one toddler in the house, who started to scream bloody murder when I tried to wave to him. One of the girls took him out and calmed him down. When they came back, Alodie motioned for me to hand him gum. I did, and he took it, looked at me for 2 seconds and then threw the gum back at me, hitting me in the chest, and started to scream. Alodie’s family gave me a plastic container of milk from their 2 cows and then Alodie walked me home. Now its 2:00 PM and I am left with more milk than I can drink in a week and a cake. Coupled with the fact that I am now completely helpless with out Alodie’s cooking, it seems I am forced to consume these today and put aside my pre-bathing suit season healthy eating intentions.
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