Ntabwo Nitwa Muzungu (my name is not white person)

6/17/10

Jarod here. So, it has been an interesting week here in the huge metropolis of Banda Village. Let’s see…I want to start off by just telling you what are normal daily routine is here just in case you were curious…hope you enjoy!

6:30…Wake up to the sound of roosters, men beating on drums and shouting at the top of their lungs and birds chirping
6:40…Begin making fire to boil water to have oatmeal
7:10…Finally get fire started
7:30…Eat breakfast
7:45…Get dressed, wash hair
8:15…Read bible and/or study Kinyrwanda
9:00…Head to town
9:25-12:00…Arrive at Kageno, visit nursery school, visit health clinic, visit children in feeding program, play with children at nursery, talk with teachers, walk to town center and strike up conversation with anyone who wants to talk…brainstorm ideas for future projects.
12:25…Start fire again
12:45…Get fire started and start cooking
1:00…Eat spaghetti, soup, beans and rice or PB&J sandwiches if we are so lucky to have PB&J.
2:00…Head back to town, mingle with people, venture around the valley to continue to familiarize ourselves with the community.
4:00…Arrive home, rest from all the walking, read or study, try and get a signal to see if we’ve received any communication from the outside world and then…..you guessed it.
6:00…Start making fire again
6:25…Get fire started and start cooking
7:00…Eat
7:30…Boil water to drink and to shower with
8:00…Take warm bucket back by head lamp or lantern
9:00…Walk Sarah to the latrine to use the bathroom (since its dark out…for better or worse right???)
9:30…Lights out…oh weight, our light went out when the sun set at 6:30.
9:45…Should be long gone asleep by this time…yes we are an old couple…you try and find other things to do here.

In other news, the kids are slowly getting used to seeing our while pale faces here and the word umuzungu is heard less everyday…or so it seems…maybe we are just blocking it We make it a point to tell them our name so they can use it instead of the dreaded “umuzungu”. Now that many of them know our names, they really enjoy shouting it out whenever they see us. It doesn’t matter if we are 2 hills over…as long as they can see the only two white people in Banda walking, they will scream at the top of their lungs “Mwiriwe Sarah or Mwiriwe Jarod”. It is so funny because so many times we find ourselves searching the hillsides trying to figure out where that little voice is coming from and then finally one of us will spot a little kid 500 yards away standing on the side of a hill greeting us. This just goes to show there is no greeting radius you must be in for someone to want to talk with you…especially with the kids. They are wonderful though. Tonight I got to ride on one of their wooden bikes. Well, I say ride…it doesn’t really role very well so another kid pushed me. It was fun until the front wheel fell off and I came to an immediate stop.

Also, this was cool…we were walking home for lunch yesterday day when I hear Sarah say, “Jarod…look!!!” I looked down at the path and there crossing the path was a little green chameleon. It was so neat because not long before we came here I almost bought Sarah one as a gift because she wanted one for a pet and now we were seeing one in its natural habitat. We picked it up and carried it to our house. It was so funny because for some reason the children here and even adults are scared to death of these little creatures. They would literally take off running when they saw what Sarah was holding. Turns out this is because they teach the children (in order to protect the forest and all its creatures) to not touch or harm the chameleons because if you do, you will become like it and walk very slow and if you kill it, you will die as well. For some reason, the slow, creeping speed of the little dude just seems to freak them out. So, of course I had a little fun with that on the way home waving it in the kids faces as they walked by.. Then we sat him down in the front yard, he climbed up a tree and hasn’t been seen since. Our counterpart said that during the dry season we will see many of them here in Banda. They even have the large horned chameleons here…gotta love this place.

The end of the week has started off great. We just got a package #5 from my parents tonight. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to see one of those dudes show up. It is like Christmas every time. This one was packed full of goodies and Sarah and I will enjoy its contents for quite some time. Also, there was a CREAM SODA and another DR PEPPER for Sarah. This was some kind of exciting to see. For about 32 minutes after opening the package I believe we were in some kind of state of euphoria or ecstasy…good stuff. Thanks so much Mom, Dad and Sis. Also, our friend Ryan is coming to visit on Saturday…the first visit from any of our fellow PCV’S although they all say they want to visit the forest and see us. And, there will be a group of about 20 or so Americans coming to stay 4 days in a few weeks. They are all yoga instructors and I am not sure what they will be doing here but we are going to be housing a couple of them…should be interesting…maybe I can work on my reverse warrior pose…who knows.

Anyway, there is more to talk about but this is getting long and I will save some stuff for Sarah. I hope things are going well for everyone back home. Be blessed!