7/31/2019 0 Comments A Week in the LifeMy life here in Rwanda exists at the horizon line of a familiar sky and a spontaneous sea. My days and weeks operate in a pretty regular routine, but within the blank spaces of that routine have been some of the most unexpected, chaotic, comical, and memorable moments of my life. Our community visits to Mumeya and Nyange are typically on Thursdays and Fridays, so our Mondays-Wednesdays consist of visiting new cafés and working on our laptops to research literary sources related to our work, prepare for our upcoming visits, and develop PICO Rwanda’s upcoming crowdfunding site. Kigali Art Café is one of our favorite spots to grab a meal, coffee or smoothie, and sit for hours working through our to-do list. The Women’s Bakery is another favorite. It has some of the best bread I’ve ever tasted, comfortable chairs to sink into while staring at our laptop screens, and it’s less than a five-minute walk from where we live. Mondays often mean trivia night at Sole Luna. We got second place our very first time which means-drumroll-free drinks! We haven’t been quite so lucky since then. On Tuesday nights we have weekly Zoom calls with Ron and John, the big bosses out in Faith In Action’s Oakland offices. Each day we decide if we’re having dinner at Centre Christus or going out to eat. The kitchen staff at Christus are the sweetest people ever, and Nick and I are definitely going to miss the spread they prepare for us. Mornings consist of croissants with peanut butter and a hazelnut spread, coffee, and bananas. Lunches and dinners are some combination of a soup, rice, fries or potatoes, beans, peas and carrots or some other vegetable, some form of meat, and of course, our favorite, passion fruit. A monkey named Kao lives at Centre Christus, and she has crowned herself queen of the Centre. During breakfast and lunch, she skips up to the dining hall to snag some bananas, and she’s very particular about her bananas. She always stops at the door to check if the kitchen staff is around. If it’s all clear, she’ll hurry in and jump on the table to reach the banana platter. She always leaves with exactly two bananas. Sometimes, the kitchen staff will catch her, and she’ll stand on her hind legs to face off with them. One time during a stare down, the chef tossed her an orange, and she let it roll by her without breaking her gaze. He caved and threw her a banana; she grabbed it but still didn’t leave. Finally, he tossed her a second banana, and she snatched it then scurried out the door. Kigali has some incredible options for food. Aside from Sole Luna and all the cafés, we’ve especially enjoyed Kamiko, Casa Keza, Bamboo, 360º Pizza, and Pili Pili. Two of our friends from SCU are working at Kigali’s Heaven Boutique Hotel, so we are lucky enough to get a 30% discount at their restaurant and have taken advantage of that quite a few times. Speaking of Heaven Hotel…this past week Nick and I discovered our true calling as commercial actors for luxury Rwandan hotels. Yes, you read that correctly. We helped out our friend on one of her projects and modeled for one of the hotel’s new promotional campaigns. Final video coming soon. Thursdays and Fridays are the longest days of the week, but also my favorites. On Thursdays, I typically wake up between 5:15 and 5:45am to leave by 6 for our visits to Mumeya. Friday’s are a 6:30 wake up call and a 7am departure-time to Nyange. Nick and I meet our translator/friend Kiki and our driver/friend Claude in the Centre Christus parking lot, pile into our van, and head out. Since it’s a 3-4-hour commute, we spend part of the ride transferring the meeting notes we’ve prepared from our laptops to our moleskins and discussing our plan for the day with Kiki. While long commutes may normally be considered monotonous or boring, our car rides have quickly become one of my favorite parts of my experience here in Rwanda. Claude plays all the best Kinyarwanda and Swahili music. Special mention goes to Diamond Platnumz, as he’s easily our favorite East African artist. Y’all should check him out. I’ve had the hardest laughs of my life on those car rides. Last week I literally had to pull out my asthma inhaler because I laughed to the point of being physically unable to breathe. One day when we were driving home, Claude pulled over to the side of the road. He said he bought a rooster, and we all laughed along jokingly. Next thing I know, he’s knocking on my car window and throwing a literal, living rooster onto my lap. We named him Ituze, and he sat with me for the whole two-hour drive home. We even took a nap together. As much as I love Ituze, my animal obsession since coming to Rwanda is baby goats. We pass countless of them on the side of the road during our drive, and they are literally the most adorable creatures I’ve ever seen in my life. My fascination has led to an array of inside jokes among the four of us, as has my tendency to end up accidentally falling asleep on every single car ride.
Usually we get back from our field visits between 3-5pm and head straight to the kitchen for a late lunch. However, as our time in Rwanda approaches its end, we’ve been taking time to stop in the middle of our commutes for lunch with Claude and Kiki. On our way back from Mumeya, we ate in Rwamagana at an art studio, and coming from Nyange we stopped at a hotel in Muhanga for a delicious buffet. Once we’re back at Centre Christus, Nick and I snag one of the Centre’s meeting rooms and type up all of our notes from the visit. We’ve found exciting ways to fill up our days off. We took a weekend trip to Lake Kivu and the Nyungwe Forest as well as a day trip on a safari to Akagera National Park. In Kigali, we’ve participated in the bi-monthly car-free day and the monthly community service holiday called Umuganda Day. July 4th isn’t only a special day in the US. This year, July 4th marked the 25th Anniversary of Rwanda’s Liberation Day. We headed up the street from Centre Christus to Amahorro Stadium where President Kagame was present along with dozens of other foreign dignitaries to witness the military parade, music, and dancing, along with a speech from the President himself. I truly cannot believe that we are already halfway through week SEVEN of our eight weeks here in Rwanda. We spent so many months preparing for our time here, that I never really stopped to think about the fact that eventually that time would come to an end. It has been the quickest 7 weeks of my life, but also some of the most jam-packed. I’m so thankful for the memories and friendships that I’ve formed over this summer. I’m especially thankful to the Nyange and Mumeya cooperatives for all they’ve taught me about resilience, determination, and the limitless possibilities of what we can accomplish when we work together. I wish I could hit the pause button on this next week, but I’m excited to bring the lessons I’ve learned about community-building, relationships, humanity, and about myself back home to California with me, and to see how they will shape my life moving forward.
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AuthorEmily Fagundes | Marketing Student & Global Social Benefit Fellow at Santa Clara University Archives
November 2019
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