What about your trip

Espacio Google

Things I love about Rwanda

Morning jog in pyjamas

Some things/observations about Rwanda that have endeared themselves to me in my short time here:

1. Rwandan peanut butter. Thick and crunchy. Goes well on toast with honey and topped with a pile of sliced bananas (my current breakfast obsession), and a cup of Kenyan coffee.

2. The eucalyptus trees that remind me of Australia, my first home. I miss my sunburnt country!

3. Frangipani flowers. One of my favourite flowers. Reminds me of balmy summers and Byron Bay. (See image on masthead - a photo I took when I first arrived - of the sweet-smelling flowers)

4. The Eye-Brow Greeting: a phenomenon I've experienced travelling through the Philippines, Thailand and Bali, and gleefully find here. The Eye-Brow Greeting requires one to lift both eye-brows as a silent salutation when passing a stranger. For added expression, the head can also nod up in time to the eye-brow movement, but both actions should be quick and subtle. It may also be used in conjunction with a smile but sometimes that's too enthusiastic for the reserved Rwandans. I can't help but smile everytime I do it, as the act pleases me so much, and nine out of ten times I get a radiant smile (sometimes with a hint of wariness) in return.

5. The moto: the motorcycle taxi. I've always loved the sense of freedom that comes with being on the back of a motorcycle, but there is the added excitement that's fueled by fear. Fear that your driver shouldn't really be talking on the phone while he's driving. Fear that he shouldn't really be gossiping with the moto-driver next to us while we're driving on the wrong side of the rode as a car is heading straight towards us.

I learnt a few lessons and experienced my first true sense of fear today, coming home from teaching my babies.

Lesson one: the younger driver's want to impress Muzungu girls by driving very fast.

Lesson two: the words I learnt to use in my yoga class, "Buhoro Buhoro" (meaning: slowly, slowly or gently, gently) can also be used for the overzealous young drivers to slow them down.

Lesson three: find older, married, more experienced drivers for all future moto rides.

Every day's a school day.

6. My Sunday WE-ACTx children. Pretty obvious why. Cutesville Central. Little faces. Tenderness. Enthusiasm. Innocence. Joy. Energy. I walked towards the stadium this afternoon where they play, ready to teach, feeling more relaxed and less apprehensive than last week, and from a distance, I could see about twenty little faces stop, and look my way. I thought they had seen someone beyond me, something interesting, and their little legs ran in my direction. They were running towards me, screaming, and as they got to me, they stuck to me like a magnet, clutching at my shorts, my shirt, my hands, my bag, my legs. How did they remember me? I felt so much love for each of them, and in that moment, I got another glimpse of what motherhood must feel like, an overwhelming desire to take care of and protect each little soul from harm.

7. The women I've encountered here. Feminine. Strong. Graceful. Good-humoured. Dignified. Wise. Vulnerable. Courageous. Kind. Playful. Humble. Unafraid of life. Real. Beautiful, inside and out. The women of Ineza. Mary. Deirdre.

A quote that sums up the women I've met - especially the women of Ineza:

"Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if, in a sense, beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow."

Dorothy Thompson (Another strong woman. Noted in Time magazine in 1939 as one of America's two most influential women)

26 October 2008

Extract from Eunice Laurel's blog

www.eunicelaurel.blogspot.com

Espacio reservado