So I had a plane to take me to
A place so far away from you
Eventually, we began to see
That we could be completely free
And I could get away from you
And you could get away from me
And we could live each separately,
In our cities in the Sun
“Wheels” - Cake
At first, it was all newsworthy. Every thought you had, every observation that occurred to you, every occurrence in your daily life. If you had the access codes to the most sought after and ruthlessly exclusive club on the face of the Planet Earth - the Peace Corps Health 9 mobile group chat (“PC Health 9! XOXO”) - then your thumbs were likely quite sore from all the sharing you were doing over those first few weeks in Rwamagana, Rwanda, with your host family.
And why wouldn’t they be? Everything you had to say was pithy and hilarious, every observation was unquestionably worth everyone’s time. It was a crazy period in our lives; we had officially been transplanted, at an alarming pace, from the comforts of our former life and into the hot and dusty town of Rwamagana with host families that we still had yet to come to know.
But within all this chaos we always had each other, the friends and colleagues in our group; we were all Brothers and Sisters embarking on the same boat, on the same Peace Corps journey. In the early stages, our stomachs were full, our brains were sharp and our minds crackled with the endless stream of novelty that being in a new country brings. Most of all we were all Equals; and everyone’s voice mattered just the same. All comments and responses were full with both the sincerity of genuine friendship and the excitement of a common cause. And in our group chat, we heard from everyone a range of experiences.
There were Terrific stories. Your family gave you a Rwandan name? What was it, I want one! Your family made you help them kill a chicken? What! That is hilarious! Your host mom surprised you with a locally made Rwandan shirt? That is so cool! The housekeeper for your family is a “Good Will Hunting”-style secret autodidact genius striving against all odds to make a better life? That is unreal!
There were Horrific stories. You stepped in what? Inside your own house?? You were harassed on the street, yet again? I’m so sorry. That is not ok. We are here for you. Your host grandma gets sauced on beers all day that she hides under her dress? Well, that’s just funny. Wait so a hawk dropped rabbit intestines on you in the middle of the day while you were hanging out having a beer?** What?
The stories, over time continued to change, but the collective responses we gave, with their total engagement and empathy, remained the same. And most importantly, the responses were there. They were always there. But slowly, patterns began to emerge. Over time, those who told the Terrific stories, continued telling Terrific stories. And those who told the Horrific stories, continued telling Horrific stories.
A new reality slowly began to set in among the group of Peace Corps Trainees and thereby, on the PC Health 9! XOXO group chat.
Could it be the case that, just perhaps, our group of Trainees, who were endlessly devoted to equality of outcome for all, who bemoan at all opportunities the iniquities of the world, have been placed, by the very Agent of that fight against iniquity, in inherently unequal living situations? Could it have been the case in the lottery of Life in Rwamagana, Rwanda, some had, through no particular fault of the their own been placed in great living situations, while others were placed in bad ones?
Impossible. Inconceivable. We are all equals. We are all devoted.
Then another horrific story. Another. Another. The same people. The Usual Suspects. What was happening? As time went on, the reality of the situation couldn’t be ignored. Some people, we had to admit, had it rough. Why is your 3 year old host sibling banging on your door at 3am? Why does your family hold a prayer inside your house every night for hours and why do they find it necessary to scream at God? They fed you nothing but mushy rice and dry potatoes again?
Others didn’t. They had wonderful conversations with intelligent adult host siblings. Host parents respected privacy and graciously helped with language homework. Nutritious meals were always prepared. Yes we were all in this together, but the fact couldn’t be ignored:
All Trainees are Equal. But some Trainees are more Equal than others.
The PC Health 9! XOXO group showed the reality on the ground. In a communication economy where currency is judged in the number of replies to any given comment, raised to the Power of Laughs, the Market was dynamic. We had habituated to the daily life, so common occurrences that had once shocked us quickly lost value. Those who had the Terrific stories watched as the capital dried up. It could no longer be sold; no one wanted to hear it anymore and nary a thumb tap would be paid for it. Even those who had Horrific stories had to go through a new cost-benefit analysis. Is this a shocking low? Is it funny? Is it particularly new?
Though no one could probably articulate it at the time, our silly little group chat had evolved to reflect a common understanding. We found over those first few weeks that we had indeed ceded control of our lives, and anything could and would happen. We were, of course, there for each other. But more so than anyone else, we needed to be there for people who didn’t get a good draw. Because, as we learned against our will, it simply happens and no one is safe from it. And no one particularly deserves it or doesn’t deserve it. It’s not to say that the challenges faced can not be over come. But the reality remained that: In Peace Corps, things just happen. When you go into a situation where you agree to “serve under hardship”, you may, and probably will, find yourself Serving Hard.
Draft Day II: The Draft-ening
In the beginning of our Pre Service Training, we received a schedule that had, down to the very hour, a full itinerary of what we would be doing every day over a ten week period. The majority of the calendar was filled with large yellow blocks, bearing the title of “Lang” that we would quickly come to know as the tyrannical language sessions. Green blocks of time meant Technical sessions for learning skills related to our health work, and blue blocks were “Core” sessions like learning about culture and safety and security.
But one block of time stood on its own and loomed perhaps the largest over all of us. In week five, a white block entitled “Site Announcement” took up an entire afternoon, and stood staring at each and every one of us, monolithic and imposing. We anticipated the moment, but ultimately dreaded it, and every passing second brought us closer and closer to it.
All of us were nervous from the beginning about finding out where we were going to live. It’s a singularly service-defining factor in your time with the Peace Corps, and the impact of it can’t be overstated. It is particularly significant in Rwanda, where the four Provinces of the country are so distinctly different, offering their unique blend of pros and cons that may or may not match your expectations for service, or for the country itself.
Despite the fact that none of us had traveled in Rwanda extensively - as we were not allowed to leave the Eastern town of Rwamagana during our 10 week training - we all had gathered tiny shreds of evidence and inevitably drawn our conclusions about what the regions were like, and naturally, where we wanted to be.
The East, we all knew, was hot and dry. It is relatively flatter than the rest of the country, more closely resembling the plains of Tanzania and shares its hot sun and shorter rainy season. The North is at a higher elevation, relatively cold and very rainy, but is fully redeemed by its beautiful scenery and proximity to Rwanda’s famous Volcanoes National Park. The West/Southwest is the furthest away from the larger cities, but greener than the rest of the country due to its more frequent rain, and was desirable based on its closeness to Lake Kivu - Rwanda’s largest body of water. The South, with no particularly evident claim to fame, is understood to be a blend of the West and North, with a cooler climate, relatively frequent rain and good scenery.
In the early goings, when considering where we would be placed, we always knew anything could happen, but we didn’t really think anything would happen. Each time we thought about it, the sheer discomfort of the Unknown was mitigated by a falsely placed sense of reassurance, of just knowing that you’ll be in a good situation. A good region close to all your buddies, a good house, a toilet, maybe even running water. It just had to be.
But as our time in Rwamagana wore on, and the realities of the caprice of Lady Luck set in on us, as reflected by our silly group chat, the mood around Site Announcement began to shift. A creeping fear snuck in on the group. In the days leading up to it, anxieties were high. The Site Draft would be exactly like the Host Family Draft, except now we knew the consequences of the roll of the dice. The realities were that, relatively speaking, some people would have to Serve Hard, while others may not have to. No one’s fault. That’s just how it was, and it was going to happen to someone. So who was it going to be, me or you?
So there we stood in the grass lawn behind our Training Hub, on Wednesday of Week Five. The creep of time had inevitably carried us into the white block on the schedule of “Site Announcement”. After a agonizingly long introduction, where the staff assured of the virtues of psychologically accepting your site no matter where it may be, we were led to the grass, where the 25 trainees stood on one side of the small grass patch while the staff stood on the other, flanked by a large foam map of the country. On the chair that the map sat on was a plastic tin of push-pins, and next to that, 25 small printed out photos of our smiling faces.
As we were called, each of us would come forward in front of the group. We would receive our assignment out loud and then locate our site on the map and pin our picture there for everyone to see for frame of reference. We knew nothing about where we were about to go, and then live for two years. And once we pinned that little picture of ourselves, our happy rested selves from lifetimes ago, onto that map, it was game over. Just as that little pin slid into the foam of the map, so too would you have to slide into your new home and community - although you knew that your slide in wouldn't be quite as easy.
It finally began. The ice was broken when he first name was called, and it cut the weight of the tension that hung all around us. When the first of us pinned his site on the map, the whole of the group whooped and cheered louder than was warranted, half out of genuine happiness that this was happening, and half out of a desperate need to burn off some of the collective anxious energy.
Then my name was was called about halfway through the pack, as my last name entails. “Alexander Jones!”. I walked up apprehensively, waiting to hear my fate. Halfway through the assignments, the foam map with the smiling faces pinned to it showed that, while there was a good amount of scatter throughout the country, the Southern Province of the country seemed to have the largest cluster of my fellow volunteers. But, as I saw it, the pattern that preceded me of several people in a row being placed in the South had already come and gone. I summoned all of the statistical terms that I don’t understand in order to try to comfort myself. Don’t get your hopes up Alex, it was all an outlier, an anomaly, you could have chosen the right mode but you were a goddamned standard deviant and your R-value just didn’t cut it this time. Oh well.
“Southern Province!”. I was taken aback. I grabbed my pin and my picture and stuck it into the board, close to the rest of the smiling faces, and found that my own face, in real life, was smiling. I walked back to the rest of the group, lost in thought as I considered the implications. It looked as though I got a good draw, but there were still many questions to be answered. The condition of the house, the community, the access to decent food. There were simply too many questions that weren’t worth worrying about. I knew that I would have to wait and see.
You Know I’m Headin’ Down ***
Eugene, my coworker and host during the week of my site visit, didn’t have a single chair or couch in his one bedroom apartment. So while he cooked and took visitors, I often just sat on the floor and observed his habits, as I knew I would have to adopt some semblance of the same ones if I were to stay alive when I moved into my house in the following month. The other thing I couldn’t help but notice, of course, was the constant buzzing of my phone in pocket that began at the beginning of site visit week, and hadn't stopped when I finally sat down to address it on the final night of the week. The group chat was naturally teeming with stories and comments, laughter and strife.
While I would normally rejoice at the chance to contribute a joke or a comment of solidarity, the week of site visit I was conspicuously absent from the discourse, and it was for one simple reason: because I had learned the rules.
Going through the week at my site, I was prepared to cringe and be devastated at every turn. As my experience in Rwamagana taught me, it was advantageous to assume a self-protective posture of preparing to experience all but the very worst that the country had to offer. But instead what I found was almost the exact opposite. In almost every regard I was pleasantly surprised at almost each juncture of my new life.
My health center is right in the center of my little town, and by every account runs smoothly and efficiently. My co-workers are lovely people who were welcoming and nice. My house has consistent electricity (not something to be taken for granted), has a water source on the premises, was functional and clean and has a great view of the hills. Though I am in a legitimate village amongst the rural people, by relative standards I am exceedingly close to the nearest large city where I can find a few restaurants and even a modern style supermarket. And most of all my greatest fear of not having access to decent food was assuaged. The local market has a plethora of choice, including meat (sometimes), that outstrips my very modest cooking abilities. The community is nestled onto a thin hilltop that offers great views of the country side in both directions. The valley marshlands offer scenic views of lush farm plots with ever-present farmers working the land with large hoes.
So as I sat on Eugene’s cement floor reading the messages coming in, the Terrific as well as the Horrific, I kept my mouth shut. I knew in the end, no one wanted to hear it. I knew that it was now incumbent on me to lend my support to my friends who had been dealt a bad hand. But what I also knew, was that despite all of our pre-conceived notions about where we wanted to live, and the small snippet of information we gathered from our site visit - none of us would really know how life was going to be there until we lived there. Recently a friend who had dreaded with such fervor the horrors of living in The Barren Desert East has found, no further than 10 minutes from her house, a beautiful oasis of a river with a gazebo that looks like something out of a Nicholas Sparks joint. You simply never know what you’re going to find.
If the Peace Corps has taught me anything at all, its that we all severely underestimate how much we can deal with. This is apparent to me every day when I cease to think twice about bucket bathing or bend over at the waist for hours to scrub plates in a bucket and cook food. I have seen my friends and colleagues cry their eyes out one day, merely to show up the next day stronger and more resilient. Life during Pre Service Training was a largely sleepless, hungry and irritable slog, but none of us had been defeated and all of us found reason to laugh everyday. Yes, site placement is a roll of the dice, and an important one at that, but those who manage to accept it are the ones who will end up doing good work here in Rwanda.
But I can’t say in good conscience that it doesn’t feel good to start off by rolling a 7.
**True Story
*** Per Peace Corps Safety and Security Policy, I’m not allowed to say in the blog exactly where my site is so I will have to be fairly vague in my location description