I am currently sitting in my room, in the dark with my mosquito net draped around me. I can hear the crickets chirping their night song, a cow mooing and voices outside my window (my night guard/s).
My house is a MUD-HUT with four rooms and a row of outhouses outside - one being the kitchen, the other the washroom and the last the toilet - in actual fact, they are just bare huts with nothing inside them, other than the toilet which is a bottomless-pit (often surrounded by flies) with two foot pads next to it - not the most pleasant of experiences.
I have no running water - so there are no taps in my house, nor in the outhouses. There is a water-tank 50m away from my house but I think I have to pay to get water from there. My TTC which is about 15mins walk away has free water but that does mean carrying it for ages - thankfully, some students did that for me today.
I am trying to make my house as 'homely' as possible but it is hard when most of the things I want/need, I cannot get in my village. I suppose I just have to learn to live a simpler life.
Other things I must get used to: creepy crawlies. I am not a fan of spiders and flies - but my house is full of them and there is not much I can do about it - so I must learn to live with them! :(
The rainy season is upon us here in Rwanda which means that I am often wading through masses of (red) mud. I wish I'd bought some wellies - my yellow crocs are a bit useless for keeping out the mud...there are no paved roads/pavements here
Today I watched a football match between my Teacher Training Centre (TTC) and the adjoining secondary school. My TTC won 3-1 but it was amazing to see the whole village out supporting...there was no booing or hissing (actually people hiss to get each-other's attention here...so there was hissing but it was not done in a malicious way.) Afterwards, we went back to the TTC church-hall and par-tayed! - it was a celebration of many things; the football win, welcoming me into the village but mainly to bless the local priest who is moving to another district and to welcome his replacement. It was conducted in Kinyarwanda which I obviously found hard to follow. Still, there was food, alcohol (everyone either drinks beer or fizzy drinks here - whenever I ask for water, I am always asked, 'why do you not drink beer?'), music and dance - and as much as I protested, I was dragged onto the dance floor and taught some traditional moves.
I am truly out in the sticks. There are buses out of my village every Monday and Friday but if I wanted to catch one, I'd have to be at the bus stop (which I'm not sure where it is) at 5.30am! I can walk around my whole village in about 20 mins - it's small but still pretty lively. Every other house seems to be a bar and strangely enough, there is but one convenient store that sells everything from electricity to padlocks to bread. Life here is very different!!!
For now, I will leave you - hopefully I'll get some photos uploaded soon! Thank you for reading!
Prayer:
- That I may find a church to call home - there are a few churches in Cyahinda but they are predominantly Catholic churches.
- That I may be able to access water easily.
- That I might adjust to the limitations that I am experiencing and extend grace where it is due.
Thank you!!!
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