There is a fifth year student, Fabrice, who has been sitting in on our class. After the lab on Friday he asked us whether we wanted to go and grab a bite to eat. I was curious what he had in mind and when he said 'omelets', I was like....omelets? I came all the way to Africa to eat an Omelet? Show me some real food! He assured me this was true Kigali cuisine and so I had to see it and *EAT* it for myself :) I had plans to play tennis with my Rwandan Junior player buddy, Hakim, so of course I took another opportunity to hit up the clay courts and decided I could spend a night on the town! One of the best decisions I've ever made.
Fabrice took me to parts of Kigali I had never even heard of (in fact, most of the foreigners that I ask haven't even heard of this place, so maybe I was a bit lucky to get the chance to go there with a native of the city). The town we went to is known as 'Biryogo' and has the nickname 'California', pretty fitting if you ask me. A Cali boy in the African Cali! It is essentially located right behind the university where we teach. It's pretty amazing how this 'new world' has been right next to me this whole time, I just never knew about it. We literally crossed the street and there were people everywhere, I mean everywhere! In the street, on the sidewalk, in stores, looking at things outside of stores. There were people carrying things on their motorcycles, on their heads, babies on their backs tied in this odd way that I swear was not going to hold, but somehow did. There was a woman that had a shirt, but for some reason decided to walk around without it. There were police guards every 10 meters or so. There were kids running all over the place, most of them looking at me and waving.
I had forgotten I was a foreigner until we finally got this tiny house and this man was prepping a fire. Fabrice turns to me and goes "Most Muzungo (foreigners) won't eat it because they think that it's not sanitary enough. Just let me know what you think". I hadn't realized that this was the place we were supposed to eat dinner. To be honest, I was a bit worried. I had forgotten to take my malaria pill the previous night because I was just so exhausted from the week, but also, I just wasn't sure I wanted to take the risk of being sick and being out of commission for the whole weekend and possibly the first few days of class the following week. In my head, I thought, "Wasn't part of the reason you came to Africa to have a cultural experience? Did you really come here to eat the food made for the foreigners who are just too scared to do try something random?". I'm so glad that I finally convinced myself to just go for it. Not only was I illness-free afterwards, the food was AMAZING.
I guess the best way i can describe it is this: Take a tortilla, but
french fries on the bottom of it in a frying pan, but eggs on the top of it and you have this weird potato, tortilla, egg omelet.If that doesn't help, look at the picture on the LEFT (<-----).
Soooooo good.
As I was waiting for my food to arrive, this woman came up to me and started speaking to me in Kinyarwanda. I don't know what she said at first, but the second thing she said was "Amakuru", which I registered as, "How are you" and said "Ni meza", "I'm good". She immediately stretched out her hand in this accepting gesture. My friend turned to me and said, "this woman will not shake hands with any foreigner who doesn't know something about the culture of Rwanda. You passed the test". I was so proud! :) These children also started coming up to me and saying "Good morning, Sir!" (at around 7:30PM) and I would tell them "Mwiriwe", the Kinyarwanda greeting for "Good afternoon, Good Evening". The kids were SHOCKED. lol. "Does he know our language"? Of course, I said I didn't know the language, but I was trying to become familiar with it. Overall, I think I left a pretty good impression on some of the people in Biryogo.
At that point, I thought my night was over, but it had truly only just begun. Fabrice said that he had to go and meet his friend to talk about a project that they are working on. He could either take me back to my house and then go see his friend or I could go with....of course, I was ready to see as much of Kigali as he would show me in one night. To get there, we had to take a Kigali bus and OMG, these things are hilarious. One thing I was truly convinced of this weekend is how much Kigali feels like México. So firstly, they pack as many people in these buses as possible (A trend that I am starting to notice is common everywhere outside of the United States) AND all the buses have names of famous singers in America. I can recall a few: Sean Paul, Ciara, Jason Derülo, Akon, Chris Brown, lol I couldn't stop laughing at the fact that they branded their public transportation this way (Sorry, Julian, no Backstreet Boys).
We finally made it to the end of the bus route and we were at.....the foot of a mountain? Huh? I thought we were going to go and visit Fabrice's friend....apparently he lived somewhere up this mountain. I don't really know how to describe where we were. It's a placed called "Mount Kigali", but it's not like I had to climb the mountain to get to his friend's house (though that would be cool too lol). There was a clear path up the mountain that cars and motorcycles went up every few minutes. I guess it was more of a hike up this mountain, but there was a sort of mini village there that I really didn't expect. I think I was the first foreigner to ever be seen by these people, I swear. Children ran up to me and shook my hand, so happy to see me. I wonder what kids are told here about foreigners (aside from the fact that they "have a lot of money").
We finally found Fabrice's friend after a number of phone calls and when he met me he said, "What kind of beer would you like?". I said, "Amazi (water) is fine, thanks". He was a bit shocked that an American man wouldn't accept a beer (again, I wonder what people are told about foreigners here). When we got to his house, I was like WHOA. It might have been in the middle of nowhere, but the house itself was nice. Comfortable furniture, decent sized TV, a sound system, nice tiled floor. I could totally see myself hanging out in the mountains of Kigali with a pad like that! We sat and watched Rwandan music videos for a good hour. The influence of American music here is so funny (as I alluded to with the branding of the Kigali buses). First off, artists have such interesting names, like King James or Miss JoJo. Secondly, they try so hard to look just like American music videos and the themes of the music are all the same, mainly, attempts to 'get the girl'.
As we were walking back to my house, some interesting things happened. First, people kept coming up to me and saying 'Nǐhǎo'. At first, I was like, these people can't be speaking to me in Chinese (their tones were pretty terribly, but I knew what they were getting at), but then I realized that these people actually think I'm Chinese. Not sure why, but I at least I can talk to them in Chinese if they want. :) Then I heard Fabrice yell out, "El Señor!". Of course my brain registered that as Spanish, but I was like, there is no way that this guy's name is really 'El Señor'. Apparently, he goes by Gustavo (even on facebook) and he is a Rwandan that truly has a passion for the Spanish language....and his pronunciation is pretty good. I was blown away by everything he knew. He could carry on a pretty decent conversation for awhile. I couldn't stop laughing when he said 'murciélago' (which means bat in English, like the flying ones). I just thought it was so random, of all words to know, how the hell did you come to know 'murciélago' lol I hope that we can continue to bond over the Spanish language :)
That basically ended my Friday night as I made my way home, but I went to bed pretty excited for the Football match we were going to the following morning. It was for the final of the Peace Cup here in Rwanda. The Police were up against the Army (yes, they each have their own separate team here in Rwanda...and both came out to cheer their teams on). We had another experience with the Kigali buses as we made our way up to the stadium. It was only 250 Francs to get us pretty far (that's only about 50 cents in American Money)! Even better, the football match was only 1,000 Francs (that's about a $1.70)! Why can't everything i
n America be this cheap!?!?!?! The stadium itself is pretty nice, it's bright yellow and green, the colors of Rwanda. It was designed by a Chinese architect too! The match itself was pretty exciting. We all know that I'm a HUGE tennis fan (by the way, WIMBLEDON is going on right now!!! GO DJOKOVIC!), but there's a tiny place in my heart for football, especially since it brings me back to the days that I was out on the field myself (LONG time ago). People are so into football here, though, in a way that is really nothing like it is in America. It's all pretty interesting.In the end, Army beat Po
lice, which was pretty sad for my friend, but I actually wanted the Army to win. Their crowd was so much more energetic and apparently, they have more fans in Rwanda than Police. I even told my housekeeper, Kandita that I had gone to the soccer match (I also went to church with her that same morning) and she asked me, who did you root for. When I said Army (APR is the name they are known by throughout Rwanda), she immediately gave me a high-five! lolEnjoy these other pictures of the match!
That's essentially how the weekend went. It was lots of fun and excitement and also a lot of work as we got ready for the lectures and labs that we would giving this week. I hope this gave you a taste of my life here in Kigali.
Much love,
Will
awesome entry Wlll!
ReplyDeleteAmazing post!
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