On the human body

During our preparation for service, we were constantly reminded that Rwandans dress conservatively and it would be in our best interest to do the same for purposes of integration. Peace Corps staff told us that Rwandans dress for respect, not fashion, especially in more rural areas. We were told that men wear button down shirts and trousers, and women wear long skirts and dresses, and going “full Peace Corps” would not be taken well by our communities. For those who are unaware, full Peace Corps would involve any or all of the following: not showering for many days at a time, growing long and unruly facial or head hair, not washing clothes and dressing very casually – ripped jeans, no shoes, think Urban Outfitters.

Since arriving in Rwanda, I have found this advice to be only somewhat accurate. Men and women dress nicely every single day, and their clothes and shoes (especially their shoes), are spotless. A favorite compliment is “wambaye neza”, directly translated to “you dressed nicely/smart”. Women do wear longer dresses and skirts, and you will catch very few wearing jeans or even pants in my village, but I don’t think it is fair to say that they do not dress for fashion. Women in my village take their fashion seriously, arriving for each vaccination day or appointment, rain or shine, in sickness or health, in full igitenge matching outfits – shirts, skirts, cover-ups and head wraps. I spotted one of my friends in village wearing a matching, on trend tracksuit last weekend, and if you think she didn’t put a lot of thought into that outfit you are very mistaken.

Dresses and skirts here, although longer in length, are by no means conservative. They show off every curve a woman has, regardless of the shape or size of her body. Women wear these outfits under the blazing sun, while walking miles and miles to reach their various destinations, all while carrying an infant – or small child – attached to their back with a combination of bath towels and igitenge. Igitenge is a fabric with very little give, and I find walking up one hill in my skirts and dresses to be utterly exhausting.

At the end of our pre-service training, Peace Corps hosted a farewell party for all trainees and our families, to say thank you and celebrate the accomplishment of making it through PST – both for us, and for the families. We all got dressed up in new igitenge dresses that we had made at local tailors. I wore a new mumu style dress, that I was told by a fellow trainee made me look as if I was headed for Easter Brunch. He captured my style perfectly! Needless to say, I loved my dress – it was comfortable and flowy, easy to walk and dance in, and had “J. Crew magenta” (thanks Gabby) and Easter aesthetic (thanks Taylor). After the ceremony, my friend Kerong came up to me cracking up, and told me that her host mother had asked her if I was pregnant. She did not ask because of the appearance of my body, but because of the style dress I had chosen, as if to say, why would somebody who wasn’t pregnant not show off the shape of her body? That night, I snapped an epic photo (shown below) with Emmacule, a language and cross-cultural facilitator, in our pregnancy dresses. Only one of us is pregnant.

As many of you saw on my Instagram, a few weekends ago I had the opportunity to watch local children participate in a singing and dancing competition at the local Catholic Church. Each team had a wide age range of children, from approximately three or four all the way up to teenagers. Watching these children dance and perform without fear was inspiring and I believe it says a lot about Rwandan culture. Children from a young age embrace their bodies and know how to move them in a way that I can guarantee the vast majority of American children do not. When every four-year-old has better control over their hips than you do, it’s a truly humbling experience. The children were confident, poised, proud and some were even dancing so hard that their little rubber sandals flew off. Nobody stopped to find their lost shoes, or the bells that flew off their ankles – everyone kept dancing until their performance was over.

This experience allowed me to reflect on how differently Americans interact with their own bodies. I have experienced a different appreciation for the naturalness of the human body here. Women breastfeed freely, regardless of their physical location or who is in the room with them. There is an appreciation for the work that bodies, especially women’s bodies, do for them, from lugging jerry cans of water uphill, to carrying babies on their backs for the two-hour journey to the health center. Men and women dance, praise and sing freely in church without fear of being judged for their outward expression. Malnourishment isn’t praised here, like it is in Western media. Here, women and children who are underweight are told to eat, and are given fortified food to encourage weight gain. Maybe we as Americans – a culture that prides ourselves on being liberal, free and progressive – are the ones who have gotten it wrong. Girls will dress in literal bras and underwear to attend a music festival but need three drinks in them before they will dance in public. Boys avert their eyes from the sight of a woman breastfeeding her child but speak with their friends with a vulgarity that would have you publicly shamed here.

A few weekends ago, my friend Gabby (also known as Mutesi, or “spoiled one”) came to visit me in my village. I had told some of my coworkers that she was coming to visit but was still shocked by the warmth and hospitality they showed to her when she arrived. The nutritionist who I work closely with, Xaverine, waited at work until after 6PM on a Friday night to meet her. Everyone from my coworkers, to the nuns, to the woman who sells me vegetables, to the kids who shout “Grass-ay, Grass-ay” every time I pass, welcomed Mutesi with such kindness – I couldn’t have been more proud of my site and the people who live here and look out for me on a day to day basis. Many of my coworkers also found out that my host family and many other host parents called me “Mukobwajana” in Rwamagana, a traditional Rwandan name meaning “deserving of 100 cows for dowry”. They got a kick out of it to say the least, and a few of them have stopped calling me Grace all together and have chosen to refer to me as Mukobwajana only.

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind, and I feel as though I am getting to know my community better each day. I now see a tutor at the local secondary school. Asinapole is an English/French/Kinyarwanda/Literature teacher, and is also an awesome friend, and we spend our brief tutoring sessions laughing and exchanging cultural information about our respective countries. He and I are currently scheming to start an afterschool club to teach girls about health, and girls leadership and equality. At the end of our last session, he told me everyone here would be very sad when I leave in two years. As many of my closest friends and family members know, my life in Rwanda isn’t always easy and oftentimes I wish time would speed up. The culture shock is as real as it gets, and after every day of stumbling through Kinyarwanda and trying to understand exactly what I will be working on here, I find myself physically and emotionally drained. I find comfort with the fact that this seems to be a fairly common feeling among new volunteers. I am focusing heavily on integration and can still confidently say that my weekly visits with the nuns – hoping this becomes tradition – are a highlight of my week. As I become more comfortable at work, I find myself being more helpful and have finally started teaching mini lessons to patients visiting the health center. Wish me luck as I try to get started on independent projects!

Living in a Catholic community and working at a Catholic health center, I have found faith and religion to be a much larger part of my service than I ever could have expected. I joke with the priests that by the end of my time here, I will know all the “Christian” Kinyarwanda words, such as “Imana iguhe umugisha” (God Bless You), “Imana ni ziza ibihe byose, ibihe byose imana ni ziza” (God is good always, always God is good), “Amahoro ya Christo” (Peace of Christ) and “Yeza ashimwe” (a church greeting). My friends joke that I may even become a nun. Jokes aside, I have found the built-in community at church and the Catholic school where my tutor is a teacher to be incredibly supportive and calming during my first few months of service. Relying on some measure of faith – faith in why the heck I made the crazy decision to move to rural Rwanda for two years – has been one of the most encouraging tactics to combatting the most overwhelming moments.