Tonight, there was a celebration for education volunteers that are at the end of their service. In particular I had two friends that have finished their service.
In that moment, to see my friends at the finish line, brought tears to my eyes. Why? Because they let me know it was doable. In times we don't think we can go on, we do. In this night of celebration we have experienced being "Black American in Rwanda." While some of our fellow white volunteers were let into the club/bar for free we were charged 2000RWF. People thought they could touch us however they wanted. One friend wound up having to punch a guy in the face. Something so out of her character. Tonight, while celebrating with our counterparts, Rwanda didn't fail to remind us that we were Black American. She didn't fail to single us out. But at the moment I was so blessed to have sisters to cry with. To know that above all, we have to remember our purpose here. My sister Talibah told me, "Your assignment is to heal people through love, even those who don't love you." To see them at the finish line...My God Until Next Time....
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Brace yourselves, what you're about to read is a random compilation of events over the past few weeks... One day, Yvonne, my compound mate said, "Rawls, tonight we are going to have meat for dinner!" Now, Yvonne doesn't speak English and my Kinyarwanda is rough, so there are some other words in there, but my rough translation is, "Let's go get meat!!" I'm completely down for the cause because I usually only get meat in my diet once or twice a month. 5PM rolls around and I'm crazy excited when Yvonne is like, "Let's go Rawls!" Yvonne, Alexis, and I hike up this mountain. I'm breathing hard, Yvonne's breathing hard and I'm thinking, "WHERE ARE WE GOING FOR THIS PROTEIN?!??" We finally reach this house, and this boy comes out the back with two Peter Cotton Tails! I guess we are suppose to choose which one we want because they start passing them around. Alexis says, "Rawls, take it." No need, I don't know anything about picking out rabbits, I'm just learning how to gauge a pineapple. Now I'm totally engaged and confused because I want to know how this process goes! We journey home with our rabbit, the boy carries it all the way to our home. And YUP!! HE SLAUGHTERS, SKINS, AND GUTS IT RIGHT THERE!! You know I watched he entire process because I'm curious and might need to know how to do this one day! By the time I take a bath and luster up in coconut oil, Yvonne has fried that rabbit up like nobody's business. My little cousin Carmelle has a pet rabbit, but if it ever came down to it, *cues music* IT'S THE CIRCLE OF LIFE! A couple of weeks ago, I accompanied my titulaire (supervisor) and a nurse to the school to present about circumcision and why it's important. 1. All over the world, high school students will laugh when a demonstrative penis is pulled out, and I guess I will also but only because 2. It was wooden. Bahahahahaha!!! Ok, you know you laughed. Then my titulaire is looking back at me looking for the translation of "foreskin." (Really I should have named the blog, "My Awkward Rwandan Life") Anywho, this lesson gets cut short because it's starts pouring raining, and you can't hear anything over the rain hitting the tin roofs. So yeah, class cancelled, but we're stuck at the school because we definitely can't moto in this mess. PRESS PAUSE: This grown man sitting next to me on the bus is sleep but can't control his weight. Sir, you too John Brown old to not be able to control your sleep weight, that's for children. You need to wake up if you can't control yourself. PRESS PLAY: So stuck at the school, a couple young men want to practice their English, so they come over to speak. They speak English pretty well, better than I speak Kinyarwanda, but they present the point that they don't get better at English because outside of school they don't have anyone else to practice with, and they don't have many dictionaries in the "library." For the next 3 hours, because it's still raining, they talk to me asking questions, practicing their English. In this 3 hours, my frustrations with post colonization grew to higher levels. When I asked Joseph what he wanted to study, he said, "something minor, because when I look at my colleagues, my English is not as good as it needs to be to study something major." Quickly, shutting that down, I tell him you can do whatever you want to do with hard work. Then I become frustrated with myself because, you see, Rwanda just switched from a Francophone country to an Anglophone country in 2008. Why? Eh, not today. But the national and university exams are written in English, so you have to be proficient enough to do well. Ignorant to how national exams work, I ask a fellow volunteer in the education sector how much national exams mean. Apparently students begin taking them in primary school, once or twice. In primary school the results dictate which kind of secondary school (high school) you can attend. Boarding school (the best), private, government, etc. Similar to how me have magnet, math and science, private, public, but an exam in primary school doesn't dictate which one we can go to. Students take the exam again in Senior 3, where the results tell them what subjects they can study for the remainder of high school. There's a science block: Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. There's a language arts blocks: Kiswahili, English, and Kinyarwanda. And another block with History, entrepreneurship, and something else in it. They test again in senior 5 I think. I believe, this exam determines if you get to stay in your current school and study block. You take the exam again senior year to graduate. After graduation you take another exam to get into university. If you were already in secondary school when the country underwent the language change, you drew the short stick. So Joseph is semi-right, you must know enough English to do well on these exams. Furthermore, if you always wanted to be a nurse but don't score well on the exam in Senior 4, you won't be able to take the science block containing the chemistry and biology you need in order to go to nursing school. Grasping this was hard because I come from a culture, where even if you're not suppose to succeed, the confidence is cultivated so deep in you that you know better than to believe anyone that tells you that you can't. Somehow this conversation turns into Joseph saying, "Europeans and Americans are smarter and more beautiful that's why everyone wants to be like them." Of course I ask, "why?" Joseph is no fool and is able to explain colonization to me, he can explain that people use skin lightening creams, oils, etc. but still unable to tell me why he still thinks Europeans and Americans are "better." I have to use the whole, "I'm American and have the same skin color, and [worse] texture as you, so what makes me better?" I am relieved when his funny friend chimes in, "So you want to marry Rawls?" I'm like, "WHEEEEET?" Ya'll I kid you not, Joseph goes on for like 3 minutes of why he can't marry me. "Well I don't think that would be possible because she's already out of school and university, and she's already established. We are at different levels." 4PM rolls around and everyone's going home and Joseph bids me farewell. I'm finally dropped off back at my home to sit and think about my days experience and conversation... Education and the freedom to do whatever we dream of doing is something we take for-granted in America. We also take fore-granted the natural confidence we were born with or that was passed down from our ancestors. Even the person with the least drive in America, knows that, if they really wanted to, they could do whatever they wanted. Last Sunday, I went running through my village and other villages for the first time. Although I almost died because the person I was running with is clearly an avid runner, the run was somehow liberating. You won't find grown women exercising for leisure in the rural areas. As I ran, everyone stopped what they were doing so see this grown woman running and keeping up with my running partner, a man. Maybe more women will join me. At the end of the run, my running buddy said, "I will call you 'Soldier Girl' because you are tough!" Well yeah, my father is a war vet and my mother jumped out of airplanes. That day, I felt so great, a little culture exchanged happened. Yes I am a woman, and I run! I also laid on my floor for almost two hours afterwards. HA! Until Next Time, Live in Love
Words from the Wise: "I take it from my fence, but now there are gaps." -Ashley, when asked where she's been getting the bamboo to make her arts and crafts. America has never been one to care about how anyone viewed her. She stands tall, crown on her head. Thick thighs, and donkey booty, unapologetically sashaying around the world. Her captivating eyes stare into the souls of everyone but her own. America, she's 6 foot 3 inches, with heels on, and demands attention as soon as she walks in the room. She's the best dressed, best looking thing in the room, and she knows it! Now, one thing that can make or break a big, bad woman when she walks in the room...her eyebrows! If those eyebrows are a shame before God, her credibility drops drastically. Drawn on, shaded in too thick, concealer all kinds of the wrong shade, no home grown eyebrows to begin with, just all bad. This takes her from the baddest chick in the room to the biggest clown in the room. Not to mention that her lip-liner is all outside of her natural lip line, something that can take you from FLOTUS status to lady of the night! CLOWN...but, she still has the attention, everyone's attention. She's still 6'3", with heels, still slim in the waist, still thick in the thighs, and yes, still dragging that wagon. Her makeup is just...horrible, just down right nasty. Even though she is a "bad-mama-jama," people can't help to wonder what is going on on her face, like what happened with those brows?!
America has two fugly eyebrows that, unfortunately, take her from Crown to Clown. I really wish America would fix her eyebrows so I can stop being addressed about them everyday. Donald Trump and Police Brutality are sitting dead at the top of America's face. Uneven and just wrong. Thanks to media outlets people everywhere can #StayWoke. And the only things they want know about are Trump and Police Shootings. Really, America, do you even know that these are the first two things that come to mind when people learn I'm American? Oh, and I'm Black American...my goodness. One eyebrow of the life-failing pair, Donald Trump... "How do you feel about Trump?" "Look what I just read on the Internet." "Trump said this." "Well are you going to vote for Trump?" "Well, you should because Hilary is the devil and well, she's...a woman" "I think he should win because he's a strong man." "I think he should lose because he's a bad man." "He only likes white people." "But he should probably still win because he's a man." "America is in trouble." YES!! I can agree with them there, America is in trouble. Although, sitting asymmetrically on the other side, is the the other eyebrow, Police brutality and shootings. "Did you know Terence Crutcher?" "Did you know Keith Lamont Scott?" "Did you know Alton Sterling?" "Philando Castile??" (Because I'm suppose to know every black person in America personally) "Rawls, look at this article about America" "Rawls, is it safe for your family in America?" "Rawls, is this why you came here?" "What's happening? They say America is only killing black people and America want to get rid of black people." "I can still go because I'm African, not black, right?" (Another day people) "Rawls, you should probably just stay here." (Not that I'm treated any better) No one is asking about anything else in America, expect a select few. The tunnel leads to these two topics. And, yes, I'm tired of talking about it on almost a daily basis. Who I look like? Johnny Cochran?! My answers now are, "I don't know." and "Oh, I haven't heard." Sometimes, depending on the person, I engage and answer some of the tough questions. How do you explain the biggest idiot of all idiots running for the most powerful office on this side of Heaven? When talking to students or "liberals" I can respectfully disagree with them. The man is not more qualified just because he's a man. And some would say we are in a situation of voting for the lesser of two evils. Hilary being a woman does not make her unqualified, in my opinion, it makes her more qualified. I mean women just handle stuff, we keep shit together. Furthermore, after explaining that all Black Americans don't live in the same area in America, (kind of like how people think Africa is just one big country, folks, it's an entire continent, with 54 different countries), how do I explain police shootings? Explaining a justice system that was designed when Black Americans weren't considered humans is beyond my daily capacity. Then there's their little doubt, "Surely not in America." Yes Bruh, in America, plus or minus a few details added or omitted by the media. Similar to those old "Feed the Children" infomercials that had you thinking ALL of Africa was barefoot, dirt roads, shacks, and hungry children, images of protesters in the streets, police dressed as if going to combat, and smoke and tear bombs makes the scene that much more UNBELIEVABLE! America walks in the room, just as fine and attention grabbing as she wants to be. She thinks her face is "Beat to the Gaaaawds," but her eyebrows have killed it for her. AH! But don't forget she STILL grabs everyone's attention. Honestly, America you aren't concerned about upcoming elections in Ghana and neither are other countries, but they are concerned about us! So, America, whether our makeup is flawless and compliments everything else we have going for us, ooooooor our eyebrows are jacked and ruins everything else, we STILL have the attention. We have it in a different light, but nonetheless, we still have the floor. Right now our eyebrows are JACKED! As people look into our eyes that captures their souls and reflects their dreams, they can't help to notice those God awful eyebrows. In fact, they are distracted from everything else. Donald Trump and Police Shootings, the raggedy eyebrows that have stolen the attention. Donald Trump and Police Shootings, the first thing people think of when America walks in the room... Until Next Time, Live in Love |