The Bus Ride Lottery

Usually when I take a bus into Kigali, I walk down to Mukinga and hop on one coming from Musanze. Since I'm getting on later, I don't have much of a choice about where I sit. I always cross my fingers that there's a seat open in the front, otherwise it's a long, stomach churning hour and a half through the hills. Each row but the last has two regular seats, a bucket seat that folds into the aisle, and then another regular seat against the window. My favorite spot to sit is a non-bucket seat in the row behind the driver. This is because I can put my bag on the floor next to me without anyone having to step over it and I don't have to grip my hands and feet against something to keep my seat from chucking me onto the person next to me. Also, since it's close to the front, I don't get carsick and I can have the driver change the radio station for me if they play Kenny Rogers one time too many. Here are some of my more interesting bus experiences:

The Proposal Ride:

This time I was surrounded by men. A lot more men take the bus and the women who are on them usually don't want to talk with me. But not so with the guys. This time, one started up a conversation with me and after 5 minutes, had asked me to be his wife. That wasn't so unusual, but apparently my other neighbors thought they had a better chance, because by the end of the ride I had rejected four people.

 

The Awkward Ride:

One day I was forced to sit in the very last bucket seat in the back. About 15 minutes into the trip I started to feel sick from all the bouncing around. The bucket seats have a short back that digs into your spine when you lean back too much making it hard to brace yourself against the motion. So usually I lean on the side of the larger seat next to me. It helps with the motion sickness and prevents my seat from rocking out of place on a big turn. This day, I closed my eyes, wishing I could just fall asleep and wake up in Kigali. I must have been tired because that's exactly what I did. But to my surprise, when I woke up, I was no longer lying against the cushioned side of the seat next to me. Hands hanging down to the ground like a monkey's, mouth open and cheek on a stranger's shoulder, I'm sure I looked ridiculous. Typically, not wanting to address an awkward situation, my new pillow never woke me up, so I have no idea how long I had been leaning on him.

 

The Ride Which Lacked Airsick Bags

One weekend, I went all the way into Musanze to catch the bus. I think there must have been a wedding in Kigali or else some kind of ceremonial event because almost every other passenger on board was a village woman with a basket of beans or rice. People from the villages don't ride the bus very often and they always seem to have problems with the motion. It was unusual to be riding with this many of them on board. Not far down the road, the vomiting started. Not having any bags, the ladies would take off one of the half dozen or so layers of clothing that they were wearing and be sick into that. Then they would ball it up and put it on their lap or next to them until they needed it next. Luckily, I had sat next to a window, so I just opened it a crack and stuck my nose out for the rest of the ride, trying not to think of the ball of fabric touching my leg. Adding to that, someone put a covered basket of beans on the floor, unsecured, and it tipped over, spilling several kilos of beans. The whole ride they would slide back and forth and back and forth around your feet as the bus took the hills. I was sitting right behind the step to the door and noticed that there was a small hole in the metal flooring through which you could see the passing ground. Every once in awhile a bean would make its escape through the hole. It was like watching someone play one of those games with the little metal ball that you try to tip into a hole in the cardboard background.

The Ride where I make a friend

Occasionally I'll sit next to someone who wants to talk with me but is not interested in proposing. This always makes for a pleasant passing of the time. One time I sat next to a man who works for World Relief in Masaka, an area of Kigali. He told me about his work turning street kids into students and we found out that we had a mutual friend: he had gone to school with one of my neighboring priests. This past weekend, I sat next to Martin, an English and Geography teacher at the police academy in Musanze. He showed me a picture of his wife and told me about how they're going to have a little girl in a few months. We talked about different social issues in Rwanda, traded favorites in English and African literature, and discussed the plusses and minuses of the two newest phone companies in Rwanda. We traded numbers and hopefully will meet up sometime to exchange some books.

 

The Ride with real Food

Coming back from Kigali I had caught a bus that wasn't express. This means that they will make stops besides Musanze. Since most people's destination is Musanze, it usually only stops once or twice. This particular day, we made a stop and along with the gum and peanut vendors, a man came up to the window with roasted corn! This was the first time I had seen it sold in Rwanda. I wanted to buy an ear, but was having a hard time believing that it was actually okay to eat it on the bus. Hesitating too long, I missed my chance and the four ears he had to sell were soon bought up. As we got back on the road I noticed that the driver in the row ahead of me had bought one and was having a hard time eating it and driving at the same time. "Muzungu!" he called. "Umuchoferi!" (driver) I responded. He handed me his partially eaten ear of corn. He seemed to think that I had never tried such an exotic thing before and that he was going to help culture me. He kept telling me to eat so I took a bite and tried to hand it back. When he refused to take it, I broke it into a few pieces and gave them to a couple of the other passengers and we finished it off. I'm hoping that roasted corn on the bus will become a trend, but I haven't seen it again, so maybe it was just a dream.

Education appreciate week Mass/Ceremony/Parade of Students in the Rwaza Valley...the social event of the season! Some local kiddos staring at the muzungu.

Forbidden Fruit

During the first week of the second vacation from school, I headed up to Kampala, Uganda with two other volunteers. On the way up it was a pleasant, 10 hour bus ride passing first through the Northern Province’s misty, tea-filled valleys, and then through the Ugandan countryside. The landscape of Southern Uganda is similar to that of Rwanda, but the hills and valleys are flatter and there are more cows and fewer goats. But the most noticeable difference once crossing the border is the food. I had the same impression when I went to Tanzania during the first vacation. At first you can’t quite put your finger on what’s so different. You think, maybe the people are friendlier here. Or maybe it’s because people are speaking in English. But, while these may be somewhat true, it’s really all about the food.

In Rwanda, you never show food in public. There are a few small exceptions. At a market or inside a store, it can be visible. In a restaurant you can be seen eating food, but preferably with curtains covering all the windows. On a bus, you may eat peanuts or crackers sold by young boys through the windows. But this is only when you are on the bus, never while you are outside of the bus waiting to get on. You may also have gum on the bus, but it is impolite to have some without also buying some for your neighbors. When you go to the store, you must put your purchases in a purse or in a brown paper bag (plastic bags are illegal here). If you eat or drink anything, it will be done at a table, inside your house or at a restaurant. Even drinking water or having a water bottle in public is faux pas. After bringing a water bottle to the teacher’s room one day, I decided not to do it again because everyone either asked why I had it or asked to drink some of it. I once visited a fellow teacher and she gave me a giant squash to bring back with me to cook. I thanked her for it and cradled it in my arm, ready to bring back with me, but she protested. “You must have a bag!!” she insisted. “People will see you!” So I waited for her to hunt through her kitchen to find a paper bag big enough for it and then watched as she carefully stuffed it in, trying not to rip the bag.

At the Health Center, down the road, there is a small shop which sells Fanta. But there is no inside seating area and the returnable glass bottles are valuable, so you have to bring your own replacement bottle if you want to take one away. It would be unthinkable to stand by the shop and drink it outside. I have an agreement with the store owner that I will bring the empty bottle back within two days if I buy a Fanta. This is a special exception made for me because I’m muzungu. One Friday, I was planning a dinner of fries and pop to eat while I watched a movie, but forgot to bring a bag with me when I went to the shop. I had to carry the Fanta orange back home, bare to the world, while I tried to hide it in the crook of my arm. Never will I do that again. I got a few looks from some passing teachers and some serious harassment from some local teenage girls (that is another story altogether).

I’ve found the social food codes to be one of the most frustrating cultural things I’ve had to deal with, especially during long social events. After sitting through 5 hours of speeches and singing, its hard not to sneak a bite of a cracker from a purse, or to stuff a glucose tablet in my mouth. But even this would be inappropriate unless I can somehow sneak off to a bathroom. On a teacher field trip we left at about 4:30 in the morning. We were given a piece of bread at 10am and then couldn’t eat lunch until 3:30 because we had to go to a specific place where we could all eat inside. During the long wait for food one of the teachers looked at me and shaking his head said “Oh, oh, oh, I am very hungry. They need to let us eat. It is a crime!”

In Uganda, as in Tanzania, I found attitudes towards food to be completely different. Street vendors were everywhere selling cookies, watermelon, roasted corn, fried bananas, juice, soda, chapatti, boiled eggs, and meat on a stick. In the city, after it gets dark, rickety tables and benches are set out where you can sit and get a plate of hot rice, meat and veggies. You can order tea or buy a drink from one of the glass faced refrigerators in front of a store. But by far, the best thing to get in Uganda is a Rolex. A vendor selling Rolexes will stand behind a table with a large, machete-like knife. First he will chop garlic. Then cabbage and tomatoes and onions. With one quick motion, he will crack an egg with his knife into a plastic cup. Then another. After that, he will add the veggies and salt. A used plastic water bottle will be on the table, filled with oil and a small hole cut into the lid. He’ll pour some of this onto the hot metal plate sitting on top of the charcoal fire behind him. Onto this goes the egg mixture. After the omelet has cooked, a chapatti is slapped on top. When the whole thing is warmed through, it is removed from the fire and with a flick of the wrist, rolled up and slipped into a bag. It takes about 5 minutes to make and costs about 50 cents.

Tanzania has its own equivalent of this: The Zanzibar Pizza. It is dough with egg, onions, cheese, cabbage, tomatoes, and sometimes peppers or garlic inside. It is also made on a grill, street-side. But Rwanda has no local equivalent. Even though all of these ingredients are available just about anywhere in Rwanda (even up on the mountain I can get eggs), no one I’ve seen has ever gotten creative enough to combine them into something that tastes delicious. If you want eggs at a restaurant, you usually have to go to a hotel and pay a pretty penny. The most exotic Rwandan restaurant I’ve been to is unique because they cook their beans and carrots together instead of separately.

My teacher neighbors cook food out in their kitchen when they stay at the school. I’ve stopped asking what they’re making because they always say “Ah, rice and beans, always rice and beans. It is the Rwandan way.” My theory is that the shame about public food stifles creative cooking. It’s hard to appreciate food for being anything other than strictly nourishment if the only time you are allowed to see it is in the privacy of your own home. In Uganda, the air was filled with the smells of barbequed meat and sweet roasted corn. People were shouting food requests on the streets and talking with others while they waited for their rolexes. Wherever you go, eating and drinking with people is a kind of communion, it creates a bond. While people do eat together in Rwanda, I can’t help but feel like something is missing when it happens with such restrictions. What I really don’t understand is why tiny Rwanda (and possibly the equally tiny Burundi) are the only places in all of East Africa where there is this mentality about food.

I will say though that the lack of food floating around Kigali keeps it incredibly clean. The streets of Kampala were full of trash. One night when we were there, we were crouched on a bench on the sidewalk eating Rolexes and talking with a man passing through on his way to Sudan. He was telling about how Kigali was known all over Africa for its cleanliness. “Here, it is not clean. It is good you did not come during the rainy season. You have to hold your nose when you go outside!”

Update

Well, I have a couple posts in the works, but I just wanted to give a quick update. We just started the third term, it will be 10 weeks long, two of those being exam weeks. I am hoping to finish up the national curriculum in the next couple of weeks so that I can use the last few to fill in some holes and do some fun math lessons...Fibonacci, data analysis, logic puzzles...anyone have any good critical thinking lesson ideas?

There is construction going on at the school, they are redoing the kitchen I had a chat with the overseer in French the other day and determined that it has something to do with making it more efficient. The only construction term I understood was "combustion." I gather it has something to do with the huge boilers they use to cook the rice and beans in.

They are also making a new science lab. This one actually has lab tables for the students to stand at. The previous one has only one table so the students have to stand and watch the teacher do the experiment. I'm hoping they'll get more lab equipement to go along with the new room. Right now I'm teaching a physics unit on heat and am bringing in a thermos of hot water, coffee mugs and my digital body temp. thermometer to do experiments with! Also among my teaching aids are a winch made from a pringles can, string, and a compass, and a triangular prism made from a taped up Toblerone box.

In the works is an English club. Also, I'm still collecting graphing calculators if anyone has any they aren't using and want to send my way. I've gotten a few and hopefully in the next few weeks I can give a few lessons to the teachers on how to use them and integrate them into their teaching.

Sorry this isn't a very exciting post, but coming soon: The non-existant Rwandan food culture!!!
Also, here's a little something: I was getting another lesson from the students on Kinyarwanda the other day. Here's what I learned:
umusatsi=hair, umusasi=crazy, umutetsi=cook, umusizi=poet...try saying crazy haired cook five times fast in Kinyarwanda!

Phone Thief

Try as I might to avoid it, a pessimistic attitude towards strangers has crept over me in the last month or so. After being asked by people I don't know for everything from money and pens to shoes and the clothes off my back, I've gotten a bit cynical about engaging in conversation with people on the street. Often it is the same conversation every time, sometimes in Kinyarwanda, sometimes in English, sometimes in French:

Stranger:"Good Morning." (Even at 4pm).

Me: "Good Afternoon, Mwiriwe."

Stranger: "How are you?"

Me: "I am fine, how are you?"

Stranger: "Fine thank you. Where are you coming from?"

Me: "I am coming from Rwaza."

Stranger: "You are going where?"

Me: "I am going to Musanze. Where are you going?"

Stranger: "Me, I am going to Musanze also…You are coming from where?"

Me: "I am coming from Rwaza."

Stranger: "No, no, no, what country?"

Me: "I am from the United States."

Stranger: "The ewnited tates?"

Me: "America."

Stranger: "Ah, America…"

3 minutes of silence

Stranger: "How can you help me?"

Me: "How can I help you?"

Stranger: "Yes, how can you help me?"

Me: "I don't know how I can help you."

Stranger: "But I want to speak English very, very well and I want to go to America. What can you do?"

Sometimes I can change the subject and talk about school, but most of the time I have to walk awkwardly with the petitioner walking in step next to me in silence, sometimes trying again to get something from me. Almost always they ask for my phone number. At first I thought it would be good to stay in contact with one or two people and try and make friends with them. But befriending at random turned out to be a mistake. I still get an occasional phone call at 4:30 in the morning from someone I gave my number to in January and haven't talked to since.

After 7 months of going through this same conversation, or a slight variation of it, several times whenever I leave the school, my inclination towards politeness has diminished. It's easiest to give one word responses, avoid eye contact, and walk faster. But with the rising of my irritation at these encounters, I've also realized that in some ways, you can't blame people for trying. Usually it's only the less educated people who ask me for English lessons, or money. And, really they're just trying to help themselves. So, when I started out for town last Sunday morning, I prepared myself to be patient and engage with people who tried to talk with me.

The walk was a long one (two hours) and by the end, the sun and exercise had me sweaty and tired out. By the time I made it to the main road, I had chatted with a few kids and one or two adults. But at the main road, I picked up a follower. When he saw me coming, he left his position of leaning against a building and started walking the same way I was, walking faster when I met up with him so our strides would match. At first everything was fine. I found out that he was an electrician and was taking some classes somewhere about something and that he had been taking them for some amount of time. But then he started asking me for things. When he asked for my phone number it took a bit of resisting to get him to drop the issue.

As soon as this man gave up and parted from me, another one pushing a bike came to take his place. The conversation was almost identical. Eventually he turned off the road to go to his friend's house, but within 5 minutes, someone else had matched paces with me to try to chat me up for some favors. This pattern continued, me getting less and less patient with every new encounter. Eventually I made it to town, had some breakfast and then went to church. The service was in English and many of the people there were used to interacting with foreigners, so I wasn't a big novelty there. I left in a good mood and newly motivated to be friendly to whatever other co-walkers might be passing my way that day.

After lunch, I made my way to Caritas, an artist co-op which teaches crafting skills to street kids and helps pay for their school fees. I was going to buy some cards to write some letters. On my way there, a young boy started chatting with me. After asking for money and a pen with a negative response, he started answering my questions about what he was doing and how old he was and where he went to school. He was very talkative and cheerful and told me that his name was Dieudonne ("God gives" in French). A teenage girl had joined us, listening to the conversation, and I started to enjoy the company. When I turned off to go to the co-op they waved goodbye and smiled. After buying my cards I turned towards the street. I was going to go to the hotel across the street and use the internet before heading back up the mountain. As I exited through the gate, Dieudonne bounded up to me and pointed across the street to the hotel. "You are going over there?" he asked. "Yes," I replied. And the next thing I knew he had taken off in the other direction.

"That's odd," I thought. "I wonder why he asked me that and also why he didn't keep walking when I went in to Caritas." But I didn't think much of it. About 40 minutes later, as I was packing up my computer at the hotel, I reached in my bag for my cellphone. It wasn't in the pocket where I usually keep it, so I pulled out everything from my bag to figure out where I had absent-mindedly put it. But it wasn't there. It didn't take long for me to realize that it had been stolen. I had a friend call it and found that the number was unavailable. Now Dieudonne's strange comment made sense. He had been turning my attention to the hotel so that the girl could grab my phone from my bag.

I was furious. All day I had been battling with myself to show some respect to people. I had been really nice to Dieudonne. I spoke with him in Kinyarwanda. I told him about my job and America and had asked him about his school and what subjects he enjoyed. I had done everything I could to convey to him that I was a Muzungu living a (semi) Rwandan life among Rwandan people, not a rich tourist coming to take photos of the poor hungry African kids and the gorillas. I was even dressed like a Rwandan woman on Sunday (button-up shirt and dressy skirt). I didn't even really care about the phone. It cost me less than $20 and I had another one with all of my numbers on it (one for town, and one for the mountain).

I was wishing I could meet up with Dieudonne and give him a tongue lashing. I imagined it in my head. Something about having respect for yourself and others, maybe another bit about how if you don't want people to treat you like a beggar and thief, then you shouldn't act like one. I remembered the time a few weeks before, when a taxi driver in Kigali refused to give us the correct change. My friend Mitesh had very solemnly told him he should be ashamed of himself and that he should perform his job with integrity and honor. It was brilliant. Pure act of WWJD if you ask me. Got us our money back too. I saw myself having a conversation like this with Dieudonne. After which he would hang his head and give me my phone back. Then I would give it back to him under the condition that he never steal again. And thus I would have saved a child from a life of thievery and crime. But unfortunately, I probably will never see Dieudonne again. Also he probably is not exactly destined for a life of crime, just an occasional pick-pocketing when it's an easy job.

On the moto ride back home, I remembered something from when I was a kid, when I would get in a fight with my brother or sister. "MOOOOMMM!!!!" we'd scream as we ran down the stairs to stand before Mom's judgment. Usually she'd just say: "I don't want to hear it. Go sit on the bench."

"The Bench" was a wooden bench in the entryway which held winter hats and gloves and scarves in the seat. We knew the drill. We had to sit on it with our current enemy and either talk about the fight or sit in silence until we got to the point where we could give each other a hug. It didn't matter who was in the wrong. Every plea of "But Mom, it's not fair, she started it!!" was met with the response "Life's not fair, figure it out."

I thought about Dieudonne. It's hard to tell from the way he looked, but probably at least one of his family members has died in his lifetime. It's also possible that he won't ever get a full education. Maybe there are some days he doesn't get enough to eat. Dieudonne probably already knows that life isn't fair. And like everyone else, he's just trying to figure it out.

 

UMURERWA

Here’s something I found that I wrote a few months ago:

This afternoon, after classes were finished, my students in S2B had a naming ceremony for me. The naming ceremony is something that Rwandan parents do when their children are a few weeks old. People come to the ceremony with a name and offer them to the family. The parents then choose one of the offered names to give to their child. The ceremony usually includes dancing and singing and is often done in conjunction with a baptism or christening. The meaning of this name is suppose to be representative of some part of the child’s future character. There are no last names here, just the Kinyarwanda name given during the ceremony and usually a French name as well.

When Katy was doing training for Peace Corps, they were assigned to local families for the 3 months they were in Nyanza to visit with and to get to know. At the end of their time there, they had a naming ceremony for them. When Katy and I are out and about town and people ask us what are names are, everyone has a hard time saying mine. Katy usually gives her Kinyarwanda name (UMUHOZA, which means “one who comforts”…she loves to give hugs). It’s a huge hit when she gives them this name instead of her muzungu one. One day after saying my name three or four times to someone and still getting a puzzled look, I commented to Katy that I wish I had a Kinyarwanda name like she did. She told me she’d work on it for me.

Katy also teaches S2B, so she talked to them about getting me a Kinyarwanda name. Apparently they came up with a list of about 15 and then voted on them. The one that got over half of the votes was UMURERWA (pronounced u-moo-rlare-gwa). This means “one who is well-educated” but really doesn’t translate quite as directly as that. It’s more like one who has been brought up well, whose parents have taught them a lot, and who is well-behaved and disciplined.

The students had decorated their room (It’s amazing what they can do with wildflowers, fabric and paper) and they had Katy and I sit down behind the ornamented teacher’s desk. A few of them had prepared some speeches for me (Rwandans are all about the speeches) and then I was serenaded by a student singing a song by Meddy, a Rwandan pop singer. After she was finished, she solemnly explained to me that the song was about a man who cheated on his girlfriend and was begging for forgiveness. Then there were more speeches and I was pulled up to join the students in a Rwandan cultural dance. To end, I was asked to give a speech to tell how I felt about my new name.

Not only am I pleased to have a new Kinyarwanda name to give when I meet people, I’m also pleased to have such enthusiastic, welcoming students…

…I’ve enjoyed wearing my new name for the past three months. Now, when the ticket man at the bus stop sees me coming, he smiles, waves and starts filling out the ticket with my name…UMURERWA.

The Art of Rwandan Cooking

If the first few weeks in Rwanda were an adjustment for me food wise, then the first few weeks in Rwaza were near starvation. Maybe that’s a bit dramatic for the situation, but I was surviving on food that I had brought from home and crackers and peanut butter and there were several days where my stomach was shouting “feed me” the whole day through. Most of this was because I had no cooking utensils, no mode of heat production, and no access to food. There are no stores up here (well, we realized later that there is one where you can buy oil, toilet paper, fanta, and tomato paste.) and you have to go into Musanze to get to a good market. Since I didn’t know how to get into town for a week or two after arriving, I had to endure many less than passable meals. But now that I have a hot plate, a pot, a pan, and a decent stash of non-perishable food items, I’m on my way to becoming a Rwandan Rachel Ray.

One of my former roommates had a passion for food that tastes good and is also good for you. Another had an uncanny knack for taking whatever happened to be in the fridge, about to go bad, and turning it into something that you could serve to your mother-in-law. Thanks to the many hours in the kitchen with these girls (shout-out Sarah and Andrea!) I’ve been able to adjust to my cement room of a kitchen with relative ease and success. When I go visit my volunteer friends who live in town, with buffets, restaurants and tea hubs nearby, I often get asked “what do you eat up there?!”

After a lot of exploration, Katy and I have got a pretty good system going for middle class food gathering. Veggies and fruit from the market in Musanze will stay good for about a week, and as we each make a trip into town about twice a month, we manage to limit our “American reserves” days to a minimum. Potatoes stay good for a lot longer, so fries or boiled potatoes are always a stand-by.

We also have a fruit and egg man. We never manage to catch his name when we ask for it and even after preparing in advance with a few minutes of noses to our Kinyarwanda dictionaries, he never seems to have any idea of what we are saying. It’s a mutual feeling. He comes about once a week, but we can never be sure what day he’ll show up or what he’ll bring. At the moment we least suspect it, we’ll be hunted down by a student or fellow teacher telling us that our egg man is here. And sure enough, right behind the messenger is our friend, bent over under the weight of the twine bag filled with fruit and eggs. Usually he brings us a dozen eggs, a pineapple or two and some passion fruit. Occasionally we’ll get some bananas. Even though we’re experts now at negotiating, quantity, quality, and prices at the market, with our fruit guy it’s another story. Usually we just end up handing him some money and he’ll make a pile of things that he’ll give us for that amount, with us shaking our heads or nodding at each piece before he adds it to the pile.

Most days I eat lunch with the teachers in the staff room which is beans and either rice, sweet potatoes, or umugali (a tasteless corn meal mush the consistency of mashed potatoes). But all other meals are up to me since there’s no place to go buy a meal up here on the mountain. Using what I can get here with a few things I brought from home, I’ve figured out some pretty good meals:

Omelettes: you can throw an egg or two over just about any kind of vegetable and it’ll taste good. My favorite is sautéed onions and boiled potatoes in an omlette. Parmesan cheese makes it taste even better.

Pasta: Tomato paste, water and oregano with peppers, tomatoes and onions make a good spaghetti sauce, and for lazy days when I’m feeling frivolous, I just eat tuna with pasta.

Soup: Lentil soup is the best, thanks to some soup packets from the good ‘ole US of A, I don’t have to use the seasoning packets they sell at the market here.

Pancakes/chapatti: I adjusted a pancake recipe so I can use powdered milk and honey instead of liquid milk and sugar and they taste like they do at home! If I’ve recently gotten a package in the mail, I can even make chocolate chip pancakes! Chapattis I make with flour, baking powder and water. I fry them in oil and eat them with honey or jam…mmm. (Honey is produced all over Rwanda). I usually add oatmeal or wheat flour to my pancakes and fry bread to make it a little healthier and more filling.

Popcorn/fries: They sell popcorn in cans here and I go through a can a week. I make it like I do at home in a pan and then shake it up in parmesan cheese and ranch dressing seasoning mix (thanks mom!). I do the same thing to my fries.

Tropical fruit salad: There’s a fruit here that’s called a Japanese plum aka a tree tomato. They’re really sour and have a strong flavor, but I found out from the Sisters that they’re full of iron and really good for you. They suggested mixing it with banana. So I tried and it’s phenomenal. The sweet mini-bananas neutralize the sour tree tomatoes. I add in whatever other fruit (pineapple, passion fruit, oranges) I have around that’s about to go bad and it makes a good fruit salad.

Other than that you can always sauté veggies or pull out a packet of ramen noodles. And in the words of Katy “Lwry’s seasoning salt makes everything taste good.” So that is what I eat up here. But even so, the sight of Vision 2020 buffet in Musanze and the prospect of a ready-to-eat meal is always welcome.