My life in a nutshell - well in a very long blog post

Before I went to Rwanda I used to spend hours stalking the blogs and social media posts of people I didn’t know living in Rwanda or other African countries doing mission and aid work.I always thought to myself when I am in Rwanda I will make sure I update my blog frequently so that people like me can enjoy “stalking” just like I did a few years ago.Well as you can see I have not been good at keeping up with my blog.

The main reason is because it seems every single person I know in Rwanda and in New Zealand read my blog. And make so many have comments about things I write on my blog, or correct my spelling, or my facts, or get offended about things I write on my blog. Frankly its exhausting thinking about the hundreds of people I have to keep to happy all the time. I guess when I envisioned my blog I thought that strangers and my family and closest friends (who do not make these comments btw and if they did I wouldn’t care because I know they love me and accept me for who I am ) would only be reading it. I didn’t consider that the people sitting next to me at work, the people living with me at my home, and every person I have ever met in New Zealand would be reading it.

So I guess that’s made it hard, because there is so Much I want to say. So much I want to rant about , SO much I want to complain about, so much I want to make comparisons with, and so many comments and opinions I want to share. But I can’t. On MY OWN BLOG. I can’t do that.

And you know what? I know myself. Maybe it’s a good thing.

So just to be safe (for now) I thought I would make a blog writing about all the facets of my life (basically answering the many unanswered questions from my nz and dutch friends about how life/relationship/job is going)

Well its good. Most of the time. Sometimes I check how much a one way ticket costs for New Zealand or check the jobs that are on Trademe and Seek . Othertimes I make plans for my future in Rwanda and don’t allow myself to think about my visa looming date.

My life in a nutshell is : work, church/choir, social life, boyfriend,  home (neighbours), the girls, eating, sleeping, and sickness. So let me tell you a bit more about them all

WORK

At the moment I am enjoying work. I have been involved in a lot of awesome projects and we are working on other ones. A lot of our projects I have been involve in is supporting our parents in increasing their capacity through savings group, business loans, selling products, work opportunities etc.

I hate the handout culture of many NGO’S around the world and I just think at the end of the day people would like to be able to provide for their own children themselves, instead of being given the money to provide for their children. So its refreshing to work for an organization who thinks on similar lines as myself

At work I am part of a Savings Group with about 30 other Caregivers and staff. Every week we contribute around 1000rwf ( a bit less than NZ $2 ) which might sound ridiculous to you all but for me, the longer I live with no income, the more I am starting to value that amount. At the end of one year we will share the money and hopefully make some profit of all the penalties!

CHURCH/CHOIR

Very early on when I moved to Rwanda I joined a church and shortly afterwards I joined the church gospel choir (which leads worship every Sunday.) After about 4 months attending choir practice, and pining away watching the choir perform every Sunday , I was finally allowed to officially join the choir and sing on stage. In my church we occasionally have people of other ethnicities attend church but I am usually the only “white person there” In our English Service we do have people from other African Countries and Occasionally some local People of Indian Descent attend.

My church is everything I wanted it to be . Not a “white church” and not a “poor church”

Let me explain more. A lot of the Christian expat/missionary community here in Kigali all attend the same western styled churches. They go to the same life groups and attend predominantly white conferences together. All of their best friends are their fellow White Christian Expat/missionaries from their churches .

Personally I think when you are in Rwanda (or any other country) you should not surround yourself with people who are just like those from your home country. How can you learn, be challenged, and experience Rwandan culture when you surround yourself with white people and white culture? People always comment that I speak more Kinyarwanda than a Mazungu that has been here for 5 years or 10 years. I am not more intelligent than them. I don’t attend special classes. I just surround myself with people who speak Kinyarwanda.

I also did not want to attend a “poor church” or a church where the leadership and other  people of the church see their white attendees as a solution (giving money) to all of their problems. I have had this experience many times, and even all of my Rwandan friends were very skeptical when I said I had joined a church, they were warning me that they would start calling and guilt tripping me for money. But its been 8 months and they haven’t.

At church I need somewhere for my mind to rest , and to be able to focus on God. I don’t know if I could do that as well if I was just seeing problems around me and if people were stressing me to be the solution to their problems.

I feel very selfish saying this – but its true.

Anyway being a part of church and choir is a massive commitment. Like seriously we had a conference last week and we were expected to be present and singing every night and ALL DAY SUNDAY. I Just don’t have that kind of endurance or strength and seriously a few hours wipes me out.

I have also made some good friends in choir. Its so good to surround yourself with girls, who love God, who encourage you and challenge you in the best kinds of ways . I have an amazing group of friends in New Zealand who do this so its lovely to start getting a new group that does the same here in Rwanda.

Social life

This one is short – because I don’t really have a robust social life.

I occasionally visit a few friends and their families or they might go visit me.I occasionally “do sport” with my friend who is a business owner down the road. I occasionally spend time with my colleagues outside of my job. I occasionally attend weddings (but the last 5 weddings I was invited to I didn’t attend), baptisms, 1^st year anniversary and birthday parties. But mainly I stay home and cook and hang out with the girls and my neighbours, or stay in bed watching movies and playing Candy Crush.

Boyfriend

For those who haven’t heard on the grapevine. I have a boyfriend. We met about 8 months ago (like my 2^nd week in Rwanda.) He is a Rwandan guy called Jack. He’s very intelligent and has his Masters in Law and he’s a very good person.

I have never been in a serious long term relationship before so it is teaching me a lot of things about myself and what I need in a relationship.Being with someone from another culture is definitely not simple, and both of us have difficulties with each other (culture) sometimes.

One major difference between our cultures is that in Rwanda many relationships are private. For example we have a friend who regularly visits our home, we have talked boys so many times. She never said anything about having a boyfriend and always acted like she was single but just the other day I found out she has had a boyfriend for the last 1.5 years, and when asked she confirmed it.

Many (but not all) people keep their  relationships secret (especially from family) until you are engaged. Anyone from New Zealand/other western countries would find this a major red flag and very concerning if someone was keeping their relationship secret.

This means no PDA, no talking about your boyfriend, no introducing your boyfriend to your family (unless you are engaged), not attending events together until you are engaged . And also means not spending crazy amounts of time together. Like its normal for people who are dating to not see each other for a month or 2 even if they live in the same city. I find this absolutely crazy and again this would be a major red flag in New Zealand if I was in a relationship with someone and I didn’t see him for one month. In New Zealand there is definitely a lot more focus on your romantic relationship than your family. Here you can find husbands and wives living basically separate lives but spending all their energy and time and money on their families (parents, siblings, aunties, cousins etc)

Don’t worry this is definitely not the case with Jack and I , I am very fortunate that he is very open minded, well read and educated and he respects my cultural norms. But there are still obvious issues that come with this.

Home (neighbours)

I love being HomeI love my landlords and my neighbours. We are totally safe. We can leave the keys with our neighbours, money with our neighbours and never have to worry about something going missing. They are good good people who always have our backs. My little home is perfect but I do miss Running Water and our toilet takes like 20 litres to flush properly. Which when you have to walk up and down the stairs with a 20kg Jerry can of water (20 litres) just to get water to your home , is very annoying.

The girls.
As you may know I live and do life with 2 girls who I have known for about 7 years. One is at university, studying teaching (computers) and one is at college working on her GSCES (she does Cambridge)

We have had some great times. For example I went to Uganda with the girls  by bus over Christmas/new year and we had an amazing time.  We have been able to experience the highs and lows of life and support each other through it.

Sometimes I take the role of mum, or big sister and sometimes I am the one who has to be advised or reminded or put into place. Definitely keeps me on my toes!

Eating.

As you may have guessed I love to eat (the extra 10kg I carry probably gave that away). I love food all different kinds , and especially trying new things.

In Rwanda things are very limited in terms of food. Meat is quite expensive and you can’t find chicken breast, sausages (only a super spicy chorizo like sausage)m bacon or snitzel. There are huge chunks of meat and then there is mince. And often the mince is not very fresh at all.

I used to cook every day with chicken or bacon  or sausages and now I cook maybe once a week with meat.  Which would be fine if we had the ingredients that we have in New Zealand to make delicious vegetarian meals (like nice cheese or curry ingredients or lasanja sheets etc etc.) but we don’t.

Every party I attend in Rwanda has the same food. Chips, salad, rice, sauce with meat, peas, maybe pasta. Every Wedding you go to has the exact same food.

The snacks are peanuts, samosa and amandazi (like a doughnut), fruit, and plain biscuits. Nothing else. So if you are going somewhere where there will be snacks you can expect that.

But because of the limited food I have developed a new appreciation for a lot of foods that I used to not  like a lot , or like at all such as passionfruit, milk tea, fish, peas, Yoghurt, Juice.

Sleeping.

At home I sleep obviously.

Sleeping is not great for me here. I used to always sleep through the night (like my whole life I have done this) without waking once. But now I wake up every night about 3 or 4 hours after going to sleep. Sometimes I fall back to sleep quickly and othertimes I lay awake for 2 hours (like last night)

Also Mosquitos buzzing keep me up most nights. I usually spend 10 minutes trying to catch mosquitos before I go to sleep. I have given up now because there are usually too many of them.

I could sleep under my mosquito net but I find this hot , stuffy and uncomfortable and the mosquitos are still buzzing-just not right beside my ear.

If I could change two things about Rwanda it would be running water and no mosquitos.

SICKNESS.

I feel like a lot of my social, private and work life has been revolved around sickness.

I work with a lot of the kids with medical problems at my job, so I get to be involved in helping kids get surgeries they need, new prosthetics and everything in between.

Also when someone is sick in Rwanda many people come and visit them, and someone stays with them at all times (especially if they are in hospital.) A lot of my social life is visiting people who are sick in hospital. Either they are for people I know or of relatives of people I know. I have visited two death beds (where the patients both died a few days later) of relatives of people I know, and have spent a few days in hospital with one of my girls when she had a case of severe tonsillitis.

Also in my personal life I am sick all the time. I have had malaria. I have had the flu. I have had about 10 different tummy bugs/food poisoning. I have had headaches and dizziness. And so many other things.  Right now I am not feeling well. I think I might have a fever.

I feel like generally I eat healthy. I am outside a lot. I go to bed early. I drink a lot of water.

I have no idea why I get sick all the time. But I wonder if my body is just getting used to the bugs etc  in the water and food.

In conclusion,

I feel like this is a basic overview of my life. It’s the stuff that I would someone I just met. The other stuff (if you read between the lines) are stuff that I would rant about in a private message if I knew you very well.

Finally.

I try to limit asking for things but as its my birthday in about 6 weeks (turning 27 –gulp) I thought I would swallow my pride and ask for your help.

I am wondering, and hoping and praying if you could help me by contributing to the school fees and University Fees for the 2 students I support.

My University Student that I support will have to pay for her 2^nd year of University when it begins in September, so we would keep the money in a special bank account set up for her University fees.

My boarding school boy has just started a new school, in his 4^th (out of 6) year of college , and I had to use money that I didn’t really have to pay for his first term and start up costs. All money I get for him would be towards reimbursing myself for 1^st term costs and for the 2^nd and 3^rd term costs, which would be put in special bank account.

Both of these students are Orphans and don’t have any other people in their lives who have capacity to pay for these school fees.

THE BREAK DOWN of costs –just because I want to be fully transparent in everything that I do

University School Fees

2^nd year university Fees  400,000 rwf

COSTS BOOKS ETC 20,000 rwf

Total cost : 420,000

Boarding SCHOOL FEES

1^st term – new student (and transport, school books, mattress etc)  170,000

2^nd term (including school supplies like soap etc) – 115,000

3^rd term  (including school supplies like soap etc)  – 115,000

TOTAL COST : 400,000

COST OF BOTH : 820,000 RWF

This is approximately $1420 NZD including the $15 It costs to transfer money from New Zealand.

If you feel like you want to support these young people, or do something kind for me for my birthday I would so appreciate if you are able to contribute to this. If you want to contribute but don’t have my bank details feel free to either give or send  someone from my family the money,  ask my mum the bank details, or to send me a message on Facebook, or an email on kimkje_123@hotmail.com. Please title any bank payments “school fees”

I will update my blog later to inform you how much I received and also if I received more than the amount, what I will do with the remander of money.

Thank you so much for all that you do and continue to do for me.

It’s a privilege and an honour to  be here and it’s a privilege to be loved and to have people to love and miss in other parts of the world.

Take Care,

Kim