A day in the life...sorta.

I’ve gotten many requests from friends, family and blog readers, asking what a typical day is like here in Rwanda. And I’ve struggled to figure out how to even answer this question, let alone attempt to write a blog post about it. The problem is, no two days are the same. One day I’m insanely busy with work and health center visits, with little time to eat or relax; the following day I may have little actual work or housework and spend my day reading, writing, watching movies and perusing the internet. So…condensing this into a “day in the life” would be difficult to say the least. But as I’ve recently made a life decision to not only embrace challenges, but overcome them, I’ll do my best.

A somewhat ordinary, somewhat un-ordinary Friday:

5:36am – I’m awoken (as usual) by the sounds of my neighbors beginning their days: Babies crying; pots banging; bicycles, trucks and motos passing on the street outside my house; a ball bouncing against a wall. Rolling over, I do everything in my power to fall back to sleep.
6:22am- Awake again. I glance at my clock, instantly excited that I still have 40 minutes to doze and lay in bed. (insert more of “the world is awake and starting their day, you should too” sounds).
7:00am- My alarm goes off, I hit snooze.
7:04am- I remember that I keep meaning to change the snooze time on my alarm to something other than a ridiculous mere 4 minutes.
7:08am- I decide that snoozing for 4 minutes is really unnecessary, turn off my alarm and text my boss to see what time I should meet him at the office
7:10am- I attempt to quietly un-tuck my mosquito net and get out of bed, but she can’t be fooled.
7:10:30am- PiliPili cat begins her loud, obnoxious, “feed me or I’ll die, woman” cry/meow from the living room.
7:11am- I get an egg and a granola bar out of my storage closet and peel the egg while attempting to ignore Pili’s meowing and caressing of my ankles.
7:14am- Back in my room, I switch on music, eat my breakfast and get ready for my day (insert mundane activities such as getting dressed, brushing my hair and teeth, washing my face, taking my anti-malaria pill, putting on deodorant, sunscreen and makeup, etc)
7:40am- Almost ready to leave my house, I get a text from my boss saying he’s at the bank and won’t get to the office until 8:30. I settle into more music and playing with the cat, then get my bag ready for the day.
8:25am- I refill Pili’s water dish, open up a window (Pili’s version of a “cat-door”), lock my house, and emerge from my gate.
8:26am- “Amy, Amy, Amy! Bite? Tuzagusura ryari?!” I receive my usual morning greeting from the neighborhood children (Amy, Amy, Amy! What’s up? When will we visit you?) Three of my favorite girls, Sifa, Deniz and Marvee, run up to me for morning hugs and high fives. I tell them “ngiye ku kazi” (I’m going to work) and wave goodbye.
8:28am- I get to the end of my road, where the waiting moto drivers rush to me saying “Sister, twagiye?” (Sister, we go?) “Oya, murakoze” (No, thank you), I respond, (fighting the urge to say, “But if I am your sister, how is our mother?”) and begin my trek to work.
8:34am- I pass the oogling bicycle taxi boys and make my usual turn onto my shortcut to the hospital. A group of market ladies fall in step beside me, muttering something about the muzungu and if she knows Kinyarwanda. “Buhoro, buhoro” (slowly, slowly), I respond, only mildly hoping that they actually hear me. “AAAAHHH, azi Kinyarwanda!” (Ahhhh, she knows Kinyarwanda!), they exclaim. We exchange the normal greetings and questions (where are you going, where do you work, etc). As we near the hospital the one question I’m hoping they don’t ask is finally uttered: can you give me one hundred francs? Followed of course by my usual response:“Ndi umukorerabushake, simfite amafaranga, sorry” (I’m a volunteer, I don’t have money, sorry).
8:40am- I’m on the hospital grounds now, and pass my favorite cleaning lady, exchanging a smiley “Mwaramutse!” (Good morning)
8:42am- Bertin, my counterpart, is cheerily sitting at his desk when I enter our office. As we haven’t seen each other in a couple of weeks (Bertin’s been on vacation and then I was in Kigali for a couple of days) we exchange hugs and handshakes. I inquire about his wife and daughters (and cows of course), then we get down to business, planning our activities for the next few weeks, bearing in mind my training schedule and the arrival of the Books for Africa shipment.
10:19am- While I’m working on a memo to the Executive Secretary regarding further requirements for the library, Bertin suddenly tells me that he’s going to go see if the internet is working. Huh? Excuse me? Can you repeat that? I must not have heard you correctly. Apparently the hospital finally got wireless, but the signal doesn’t quite reach our office. I go back to my music and memo writing, anxiously awaiting his return.
10:56am- And Bertin’s back, with excellent news! The wireless does work; he was able to get a very fast signal while sitting in the hospital parking lot, under a grove of trees.
11:04am- Yep, he wasn’t lying about the grove of trees, the internet signal is quite impressive. I check my email, I check facebook, I check the news and download a few documents I need.
11:52am- Freezing from sitting in the shade with the cold Musanze wind whipping around me, I retreat back to our office to finish my memo and see what the plan is for the rest of the day.
12:10pm- Lunch time! I head home (fairly uneventfully actually) and get started on some lunch (totally gourmet pb&j) and chores (insert mundane activities such as bleaching water, washing dishes, sweeping, watering my plants and gathering my dirty clothes to wash)
1:51pm- Lunch is finished, chores are finished and I’m waiting for Jessica and her parents to finish their gorilla trek so that they can stop by and see the house, cat and babies; I switch on Harry Potter 4 and lie down for some relaxation time with the cat.
2:46pm- Bored with movie watching, I decide to rearrange my room, something I’ve been meaning to do ever since Mosquito Invasion 2k10. Of course, rearranging my room turns into sweeping and mopping the entire house, in anticipation of Jessica and her parent’s arrival.
3:35pm- Jessica calls, they’re on their way!! I return to my movie and start texting with Jenny, relishing in the fact that with Tigo each text is a fraction of the amount it used to be when I used MTN.
4:37pm- I hear commotion outside my gate, and then a quiet knock. Upon opening it, I see Jessica and her parents, with at least 20 neighborhood children swarming around them talking and laughing. “Jessica ari hano!!!” (Jessica is here!) Yes, kids, I see that.
4:38-5:28pm- Pandemonium. Children in the avocado tree, children in the garden, children in the trash, children in the latrine, children talking to Jessica, children babbling to her parents, children asking for photos, children looking at photos, children dancing, children screaming, children singing, children piling avocadoes into two warring piles much like they would snowballs before a snowball fight, children reading magazines, children speaking incoherent Kinyarwanda to me about the pictures in the magazine.
5:29pm- Silence. The children have departed and Jessica, her parents and I settle into the living room to talk about their visit and allow Pili to come out of her usual hiding place to be fawned over and told that not only is she a teenager, but she’s also a princess. On cue, Pili jumps into “her chair” and assumes her “princess pose”.
6:03pm- Jessica and her parents depart, leaving me with a hungry cat and a strong desire to wash off the kid germs from my hands.
6:24pm- Princess Pili has an egg in her bowl and a new flea collar around her neck. I press play on Harry Potter 5 and receive a text from my next visitors of the night, Jessi and her friends, who will be arriving from Gisenyi a little after 7 for dinner and a (free) sleepover. I lose myself in the world of Hogwarts.
7:25pm- Jessi texts, they’re at the post office, a mere 4 minute walk to my house!
7:29pm- There’s a knock on my gate and I open it to three smiling Americans, backpacks on their back and hunger on their faces.
7:45pm- After a quick costume change we’re out the door, heading to Volcana for pizza (Yes, my town has a pizza place! For $8 I can get a personal pizza with salami that in no way reminds me of Red Rocks in DC, but still satisfies my occasional pizza craving)
8:09pm- Pizza’s ordered, fantas are on the table and conversation moves from my December vacation with my parents and brother, to my 2012 European adventure with my brother, to the differences between Uganda and Rwanda)
8:53pm- Pizza arrives, commence eating.
9:22pm- There isn’t a crumb left on our plates, as we pay the bill and head home, not before being stopped by a random Rwandan saying “Amy!” in the parking lot who I must have met at some point (not that knowing my name in my town automatically means that we’ve actually met). Yes, Kevin, I’ll be sure to return to Volcana to hear you spin music one day…maybe.
9:34pm- Back at my house, we all get ready for bed, tuck in our mosquito nets and turn off the lights
Sometime before 10pm- I am passssssssssed out, exhausted from another wonderful day in Rwanda.