1.
When more than 600 eyeballs are looking at you,
don’t reach in your bag, grab lip gloss and apply it. They will laugh at you J
2.
Students STILL don’t like to get caught
cheating. “Forgiveness” means that instead of giving them a zero I give them an
opportunity to retake it. Not.
3.
That motioning my hand in the manner where my
fingers move up and down against my palm is not just simply a sweet wave here;
it summons people. I can attribute many awkward moments to this cross-cultural
faux pas. I think I am giving a cute wave and a student runs out of the middle
of the lecture to come and see why I have called them. Oops. And oops again.
4.
People speak French to me because I should be
Congolese. Sometimes Swahili because I could be Kenyan. Not American, of course
;)
5.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with staying
home and reveling in the joy of living single, having time to relax, think,
plan, envision and dream.
6.
Jogging will cause the entire campus to come out
and look at you. Jumping rope in front of your house on campus, will attract a
group of students, who will stare while you try not to trip over the rope.
7.
That culture really is the basis of our beliefs
and our truths. I put too much pepper sauce on food here and people stare at
me. Finally someone was brave enough [instead of staring and passing judgement]
to tell me why it is frowned upon to add too much spice. The belief here is
that too much spice is not good for an unmarried woman. To the well-meaning
waiter who informed me of this, I quipped, “Where my blood is from, we cannot eat
without spice and in fact, women there get married. I intend on getting married
too.” Exit Stage Left ;)
8.
Rwanda really is a quiet place. Being here at
this point in my life is needed. Master plans come alive in these spaces.
9.
I can live without rice. Maybe even bread. But
not plantain. I tried and it didn’t work. If my Panamanian crew knew the
struggle I go through to get plantains, they would value Fruteria Mimi. Rwanda
isn’t a tropical country afterall; and plantains are expensive here.
10. Giving
up my short shorts and bikinis for the lecturer look hasn’t been as difficult
as I thought it might be. The beach still awaits me though.
11. I
catch my students sneaking pictures of me; apparently, even if I thought some were
not paying attention, they still find me interesting, I think.
12. Lecturers
can flex on em’. Translation: Educators are respected here. Little ol’ me J
*This blog (Bee's Backseat) is not an official Fulbright Program site. The views expressed on this site are entirely those of its author and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State or any of its partner organizations.
