Kwishima

Rwandans love their verbs, and seem to have a verb for everything, but one of my personal favorites is kwishima, which is the verb for “to be happy”. None, ndishimye chanye. (Today, I am very happy)

Happy (belated) St. Patty’s Day! It’s kind of amazing to think where I’ve been the last few St. Patrick’s days. This year I spent the holiday in Nyanza and Butare, enjoying a milkshake that was actually just cold milk (but still exciting and delicious) and pizza which miraculously tasted like pizza. Last year I was in Delhi with Sam, trying to explain why the holiday is so exciting and why you need to wear green. The year before that, I was in New Orleans drinking margaritas on Bourbon Street, even though I had strep throat and tonsillitis. All three have been fantastically amazing experiences, and I’m so lucky to be able to share it with such great friends. And now that I think of it, there are really a hundred little things every day make me so happy. Here are just a few of them;

1. The hundreds of butterflies that like to fly around Nyanza en masse
2. Waking up to the sound of the rain hitting our tin roof
3. The sun tattoo that AJ drew on my foot
4. The genuine smiles that the old women here give you when you’re trying to speak Kinyarwanda
5. The gorgeous view of the countryside that you get when you walk up into the hills
6. How clear the sky is after it rains
7. The millions of stars that come out every night
8. Hearing “good morning” from the neighborhood kids every night as we walk back from dinner
9. Reading on our front porch
10. Sunday afternoon yoga

And a hundred other things that make me so glad to be here.

A couple days ago, my housemates and I went to Blue Bar to get away from everyone for a while, and decided we should give everyone a superlative, just like in high school. I was voted most likely to fall down all 1000 hills in Rwanda. Kind of depressing, but it’s probably true. So far I’ve fallen down one major hill and the steep bank leading into the market, and tripped over almost everything else, but aside from the scraped toe, there are no major injuries. Good job me. Saturday, however, we are visiting a national park to hike around and see the animals, so there is lots of potential for falling. (wish me luck) This is not to say that all my moments have been clumsy. Yesterday Jenny and I were talking about handstands and headstands and she said that she can sometimes do a pretty good yoga headstand. I was a bit skeptical about my ability to do it, especially when she said that if you’re doing it right, your feet just float up; well, imagine my surprise when I did a marvelous headstand! Score!

Yesterday we went to an ISLG (internal saving and lending group) meeting, which some people hated, but I thought was pretty interesting. A number of community members will get together every week or two and give some set amount of money that they put into a communal savings box. This type of community saving usually only takes place in very poor and rural areas, where people don’t have access to banking or other social services. The group we visited put 200 Rwf per person every two weeks (not quite 50 cents) in the savings fund and 50 Rwf in the social fund. Those community members can then borrow that money for whatever purpose (medical expenses, school supplies, buying a goat, etc.) and then must repay it three months later with 5% interest. The group also grows carrots, beans and onions that they sell in the market and put the money into savings. At the end of the year, the group either decides to divide up the money between all the members, or to keep it in their account to continue building on the next year.