One Hundred Days in Rwanda - part one.

Please note that VSO is in no way connected with or responsible for the content, comments and observations in this blog: these are solely my own in a personal capacity.

Additions to this list are welcomed from present or previous Rwandan volunteers etc. Just add them as a comment or email them to me at roheithir@gmail.com

You know you are in Rwanda when ......

... asking for a cold beer causes stares of incredulity
... goats are a hundred times more common than dogs
... the number of orphans in a school class outnumbers those who have both parents
... there are crowds of prisoners clad in pink working in the fields
... people become genuinely distressed if you tell them you don’t believe in God
... hostels demand to see a marriage licence before they will allow you to share a room
... men walk hand in hand everywhere but men and women never do
... you never see a married woman out socialising without her husband
... your choice of English-language newspaper is the New Times or ...... the New Times
... the police always smile at you and are very helpful
... you can’t post your parcel home because there isn’t enough surface area to stick all the stamps on
... you can walk the streets at night and feel perfectly safe (and much more so than at home)
... people laugh hysterically if someone falls down or has an accident
... people sympathise with you when they hear you are single
... the government announces that Russian is now the official language .... and everyone immediately starts learning it
... it’s cheaper to buy the cloth and get your clothes handmade than to buy them off the shelf
... beef costs less than chicken
... a primary school has five toilets (well, pit latrines) for 1200 pupils (and no water)
... if you get up at 0630, you are really sleeping in
... people say ‘Sorry sorry’ if you drop something
... the longer the speech, the more people seem to enjoy it
... the time the meeting is supposed to start is the one time it won’t
... important meetings that have been planned for months are scheduled for public holidays
... the government announces at 10 p.m. that the following day is a national holiday
... everyone on a motorbike wears a crashhelmet
... the fatter a man is, the more women find him attractive
... twenty cigarettes cost only 70c but still most people can’t afford to smoke
... there is always a picture of President Kagame staring down at you from the wall




You know you are getting used to Rwanda when ......

... you can tell which body odour belongs to whom on the taxibus
... you can always tell the difference between bedbug, flea and mosquito bites
... seeing a square metre of untilled ground makes you uneasy
... a meal without plantain, chips, potatoes, pasta AND rice seems somehow incomplete
... picking your teeth in front of everyone just seems normal
... you hiss at people to get their attention
... virtually everyone you see over the age of 15 was directly involved in the genocide as either perpetrator or victim and you just accept it
... you hope the bus is overcrowded rather than half empty so you won’t get thrown around as much on the bad roads
... you feel outraged if you see someone eating on the street
... you get suspicious and uneasy when you see other white people in your area
... DEET smells as good as perfume
... a man walks by with a table and six chairs balanced on his head and you don’t notice