3 Nights in a Homestay

Glad it wasn't 3 weeks.

I remember spending 6 weeks in a homestay in Switzerland. I am SO GLAD this wasn't as long. At least the accommodations of my Swiss home were really nice. Alice's home... not so much. To be fair, it was nicer than St. Paul's in several ways:

1. Bigger bed with a comforter

2. Nice furniture

HOWEVER:

1. The bathroom sink didn't have running water, and neither did the shower, so we had to wash with buckets.

2. Cockroaches.

3. The family was too hospitable and made us feel obligated to go along with what they wanted to do for us.

I am SO glad I had Ashley with me (another American). Otherwise I would NOT have been happy. It's so nice to be able to vent about my frustrations with someone. Some people here are VERY unhappy. Ashley, for example, is very depressed because being here has brought back a lot of issues she has with her mother's brutal murder. Some others aren't used to traveling in a developing country via a service-learning program and aren't cool with the accommodations or Jesse's behavior. I'm actually not that frustrated. Compared to how miserable I was in Korea, this is absolutely nothing. Sure, it drives me crazy that my body won't listen to me, but that's really the biggest frustration I have.

Anyway, the homestay was not so fun. I am a VERY CLEAN PERSON. I LIKE TAKING HOT SHOWERS. SHOWERS, not baths. I had to wash my long hair in a squatting position. The first night I waited for the hot water to heat up. The second time I didn't have the patience to wait because I was so tired.

I (and others) are tired very early at night because of how busy our days are. After the bus ride from Musanze, I was ready to eat, knock out, and go to bed. But then dinner ended up not being ready until like 11. We went to bed at like 1am... Ashley and I joked that we probably went to bed later than the others who ended up going out for drinks/dancing. Grrr...

Ashley and I turned our king-size bed into a coccoon each night with our bed net. Didn't want to take any chances. There were some little mosquitoes floating around here and there. I haven't gotten bit much though. I've even stopped using my 98% DEET bug juice (which I hear is toxic... yikes).

Since many children lost their parents in the genocide, it is very common for people to live with aunts, uncles, and/or cousins. Alice lives with her older cousin Emma (who is the male head of the household) and two other cousins. On the first night, Emma made a big deal about wanting us to share a beverage with him in his home. Apparently receiving guests is a big honor to Rwandans, and it's very important to show a lot of hospitality to guests. On our side, it felt a little uncomfortable at times because we were tired and wanted to go to sleep, not have tea.

We didn't have much privacy in the home. Alice and her cousin would just walk into the room without knocking, flop onto our bed, and just start talking to us or on their cell phone. They'd also just take crackers without asking. It's not in a rude way, just very casual way. They became comfortable with us very quickly.

Other people had homestays that were more difficult. Two girls were taken to church where they had reserved seats at the front and were told to stand up and wave to everyone else at one point during the mass. Foreigners ("muzungu") are very special here. Several people had holes in their bathrooms rather than toilets. One group got lucky and stayed with an upper middle class family. A couple girls stayed with a guy who treated his sister like a servant and made her do all the domestic work (this guy works in human rights activism/advocacy by the way).

Note for later: gotta talk more about the house boys/girls.