Day to Day Life

     I just got home from Kinyarwanda class with Julie and Vanessa not long ago. Dianne has arranged for Fidele, a 4th year medical student (medical school is 6 years here) to teach for roughly an hour twice a week. I was dreading going to class just because I was a little tired after work, but it ended up being great fun.
     For starters, Dianne is an amazing baker. She had 4 different types of cookies and I was all too happy to try them all. Julie is a fabulous teacher of science/nursing/medicine... but language skills don't come naturally to her. While we've been teasing her for the past month, class is an absolute hoot listening her. We all laughed at each other, but did fairly well. Vanessa's background in Swahili (thanks to her Tanzanian family) gives her a massive advantage. The other participants included Veronica, the pediatric/PICU nurse educator, Stacy and Jeff (and their little tot Sam)-- who are the newest members of the Butare clan having just arrived last week from San Francisco. Jeff is an Internal Medicine physician (and Blue Devil) who has done lots of work in Africa and Stacy is enjoying being a stay-at-home mom with Sam who is 5 months old. Finally of course we have Dianne and DeVon, whom I think I've mentioned previously, but they are both retired from Salt Lake City and DeVon is an Infectious Disease Specialist.
     The biggest surprise learned from class tonight is that everyone says "Rwanda" incorrectly. In Kinyarwanda the 'rw' gives this g-qu sound (it's rather difficult to even explain phonetically this language) resulting in the real pronunciation sounding more so like "Ju-quandra." Mind blown. Fidele is very patient and very kind and is even teaching us cultural aspects that will help us in our transition here. Will report back on my successes and failures as class continues.
     Life here is very simple. I usually wake up just before sunrise at 5:45 am. I should actually re-phrase this. I get out of bed at about 5:45 am. I am actually woken up by roosters at 4:30 am. Oddly enough, my parent's rooster at home starts to crow at 4:30 am too. It must be a universal truth that all roosters decide 4:30 is the perfect time to wake up. I did wonder this morning if the roosters happened to become dinner because I did not hear them at all this morning. We usually head for work just before 7 am (I have to have at least one cup of tea before leaving) and arrive ten minutes later. It is always fun driving to work for a couple reasons... the main street of Butare is nuts. No one uses the sidewalk so there are pedestrians and school children everywhere. The pedestrians are sharing one lane of the road with the bicyclists who have massive sacks of fruits, veggies, and goods to sell at the market strapped down tight. Then you have a lane for cars, motos weaving in and out, and oncoming traffic that in attempting to avoid pedestrians, ends up in your lane headed straight for you. Thank goodness I don't drive. I honestly don't know how Vanessa stays so calm, but you get pretty use to it. I am amazed there aren't more accidents though. The other fun we have in the morning is attempting to guess which route we should take to get to the hospital. They are paving all of downtown and so every day a new section is blocked to thru traffic and of course it changes from morning to evening, day to day. Keeps us on our toes if the caffeine hasn't kicked in yet for sure.
     Once at work my days vary. Sometimes I'm in meetings all day long of various topics, either with Rwandan staff or USI faculty, sometimes I'm in the office working on research and planning, other times I'm on the unit observing and listening to rounds. Today several of us taught the nursing students for two hours basic concepts. I'm still trying to figure out my groove. It's been a little difficult because Emmanuel was on nightshift all last week, but I'm hoping that he and I will get some serious planning done this week. I am enjoying it despite rough and tough situations daily.
     I've included some photos below of a few things, nothing too exciting, but I know that people like the photos. Be grateful as it just took over 30 minutes to upload these... slow internet this evening for no apparent reason. Oh Africa!

Lessons Learned:
1) Kinyarwanda is the hardest language I will ever attempt to learn
2) I should have packed my high school French textbooks.

Julie's newly planted seeds protected by banana leaves

Our massive amounts of lettuce in the garden

The Catholic Cathedral in Butare

Rwanda countryside