Adjusting... little by little

My front gate

Slowly but surely I’m getting adjusted to the rhythm of Rwandan life here in Kibungo. The call to prayer comes every morning, usually a few minutes before 5 am. I’m often up reading at that hour so it’s easy to mark the time. The sound of the call is haunting and melodic with certain syllables drawn out in soulful supplication. It really is quite beautiful and I now find myself anticipating its arrival each morning.

Just inside the front gate, my house (not seen) located at the back

The calls to prayer – of which there are five throughout the day – are based on light, and, in ancient times, the first call came as soon as the muezzin could differentiate a white thread from a black one in the ambient light (i.e. just before dawn, as one is meant to say their first prayer before the sun comes up).  In fact, Islamic prayer times were originally not based on a clock, but rather on the movement of the sun. *  Since Rwanda is pretty close to the equator, the daylight times are fairly constant throughout the year…. but enough about that.

The house the University has provided me is humble by American standards but certainly adequate for most Rwandans. My house is situated at the back of a gated compound with its own version of a white picket fence – in this case a stone wall with an orange rod-iron gate – directly in front of my little place. In the center of the compound is “the faucet.”

The faucet

My life has come to revolve around this faucet. Don’t let its simplicity fool you. It is the giver of life and without it, my immediate neighbors and I would be schlepping down the road about a half a kilometer to the communal well.

The water comes to our faucet about every three days. When the water is flowing, everyone gathers around the faucet to fill his or her various receptacles for saving this precious commodity.  
I personally have five Gerry cans that are quite heavy when full, and a large plastic storage container in the bathroom.

My house and its proximity to "the faucet"

My life here has been challenging to say the least, with obstacles ranging from no running water at the house to the unpredictable Internet access and overall low bandwidth both at school and at home. The one challenge I had not anticipated is that I seem to be the only white person in this town of some 40,000 people.  Consequently, my comings-and-goings draw attention from all my neighbors as well as the surrounding community.  It’s impossible to walk around and blend in. Everywhere I go, I’m noticed. Some of the children are not afraid to rush over to say hello or exclaim in elation “Mzungo, mzungo!” the Kinyarwandan word for a person with white skin, but most people just watch cautiously as I go by.  This can complicate even the simplest of things such as  going to the market, where I become a spectacle who attracts a crowd with everyone wondering what the mzungo is going to buy and how much will she end up paying. I can now see how the life of a celebrity could be a bit stifling.

However, underlying all the challenges – and there are many – is my complete and total sense of loss without Charlie here sharing all these experiences. Even though we speak every day on Skype, his absence is felt in everything I do here.

* Information regarding the Islamic call to prayer came from bluemosque.com

For those of you interested, here's the Link to the school where I'll be teaching