Surreal Sensation

I am not even sure where to begin to explain the emotions and feelings of today. This was the first day of my internship here in Rwanda. It was more than I could have imagined.

I rose early to be able to take a shower before people started arriving to the office for work. I was nervous and excited. Overall, I was utterly unaware of what to expect.  As people began to arrive I became more and more nervous. How was I going to communicate? What am I supposed to be doing? How am I going to learn all of this?

Our Program Director came in from Kigali today for two specific reasons. 1) To meet me. 2) To be involved in our quarterly meeting. Today was the first day everyone was back from Christmas Holiday and the start of a new quarter. That meant we had to discuss the previous quarter and plan for this coming quarter.

During my individual meeting with the program director I learned how much I am truly going to go be involved in with this project. I am to go to the field every time we are in the field; write all the reports in English; attend all meetings related to health (this is not only on a local level but including national level and meetings with the Ministry of Health).  Carmen is to take me with her to every meeting. They want to ensure I learn as much as I am helping them. Overall, they are all excited to have me; in particular because they have never been able to have an intern for longer than 3 months. They truly believe by being here for 5 months I am going to truly help with the project. (Now get the Visa situation settled to ensure I can stay in the country would be nice).

Everyone was beyond welcoming. They all attempted to communicate with me in their broken English. They joked with me by asking me to lead prayer and read the Kinyarwandan Bible. This started to put me at ease. Furthermore, during the meeting they sat me next to Claire, a Nutrition Officer, who translated the meeting so I could feel involved with what was happening. If she forgot to translate one of the other staff members would remind her. It helped ease the overwhelming sensation of being lost. However, even with translation much of the meeting was lost. I did my best to pay attention to the eternally long meeting in another language.

During morning tea and biscuit everyone told me about my need to drink Rwandan Coffee and we talked about weather difference compared to the US. Although there were many of my co-workers that were occupied catching up with each other and I often did not know what was happening. This all changed by lunch.  During the second half of the meeting I was able to understand enough of the conversation to make a few suggestions to help with decrease program costs; this made me a member of the team.

Lunch was an assortment of different foods prepared by the a young women whom, cleans the building, does the dishes, washes our clothing, prepares food, and even grocery shops when needed for a mere $25USD a month. She along with other local women prepares our hot lunch daily. Today contained some familiar foods with other strange items. It is entertaining portions in Rwanda compared to US. During buffets in the US we take what we will eat and once we are full it is over. However, because I am new they continue to try and keep feeding me. I had tried everything but they wanted me to keep eating. I had to tell them I could not eat anymore; furthermore, then they prepared containers for me to keep for dinner. At first they gave me a large container until I took the smaller one. Several things occurred during this meal that made me think.

The first was the amount of food we had. There were at least 10 dishes and soda for everyone.  First we are provided tea snacks and a huge meal without costs to us. However, I wonder what many of my co-workers home lives are like. I know at least two of the gentlemen have families far away and work here because it is a better job. Do they have the hot water I am allotted? Is this their only meals? All the regular staff including the drivers are given food first and their seconds. Once we have eaten our fill then the security guard and cooks were allowed to eat the food. At lunch the hierarchy became apparent.  The World Relief employees did not really communicate to the cooks unless it pertained to the food; we paid for the food and got the hot food. It seemed as if we were far better off than those cooking and cleaning. The perception is difficult. I would never ask people salary; however, it does make me curious about the living situations about all the different people. I am eager to learn more about each of my co-workers. I am eager to better understand the culture.

After lunch it was hard to tell what was supposed to be happening. It seemed to take everyone a while to get back to work mode. I did not know what I was supposed to be doing. I pulled out my iPad to read documents sent to my school email because my computer would no load them. This however, led to everyone playing games on it instead. Then I pulled out my Kinyarwanda Translation book. Everyone feel in love with the book. They decided they would come to visit me on the weekends so we could work together. They all are eager to learn more English and I am eager to learn their language. They laughed at me attempting their difficult words and the work atmosphere was very playful. It was great to feel like I belonged. In a matter of a day I felt more like I belonged in a place that I can not speak the language than I had the entire time I lived in Boston.

While we joked and worked on my language they asked me to help with formatting documents and graphs in their workbooks. They did not have the computer software or understanding. It was nice to feel incredibly helpful for a simple task.  By 4:00 the workday was done; except for me. Carmen asked me to read, format, and fix the December monthly report. It needed to be submitted by tomorrow. After everyone left for the evening (after a while of working on my Kinyarwandan with them) I began work on my project. This task was not simple. I was to decipher the meaning behind the broken language and analyze how the document was supposed to be formatted. This would have been challenging under any circumstance; however, since I barely understand the projects this was even more challenging than I had imagined.  Some sections were repeated and the previous 2 monthly reports were has each been formatted differently. It was difficult to decide what data went where.  However, it was fantastic to have such a task after mere hours on my first day at work.

Tomorrow I will begin the quarterly report and Thursday will be my first Field Project. I can only imagine what will be occurring with my time here. Today only made me more excited and happy. Carmen asked the security guard “if he was taking care of her daughter” and I am making fast friends with the co-workers near my age. I hope this all continues. Together I know we have an abundance to learn from each other.