Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Gusura (To Visit)

Part of the Peace Corps experience is getting out into the community and just generally being social. Recently I was yelled at for not visiting our neighbors more- it is the Rwandan culture to just drop on by from time to time– but I have had a hard time breaking out of the American mindset that you don’t visit unless expressly invited. One family in particular started visiting us quite a bit, and Ali and I would sit and play with the girls or feed them lollipops or paint their toenails red (all my doing.) We did so assuming that they were our second host family (we each have a host family at site, and we had only met one) but as it turns out they were just friendly neighbors. They live up on a hill, so one day after visiting them we decided to continue on and make the rounds, introducing ourselves and exploring the “neighborhood.” Since then we have continued to go back and hike further and further, discovering little clusters of houses and stores (even the term “village” seems too big for what they truly are) way off the beaten track.

Eventually we did meet our host family, a mama and papa and very newborn baby. They are farmers who built their house by themselves and generally seem to be good, genuine, hardworking people. (Can you say cliché?) We spent most of the time taking turns playing with the baby, and have already been invited to attend the baby’s baptism later on this month. Last week, the mama came over to teach us how to cook peanut sauce. By “us” I mean Ali was in the kitchen cooking with her and I was outside with the baby and another little girl trying to entertain them with Sesame Street books (in English) and bubbles.

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