How different can things be ....

I am now for 4 days in Kigali and it’s more shocking and enriching from cultural perspective than 13 months in Belgium. In just 4 days I found out so many differences that I feel I am living on a different planet. Let me tell you some of them …

On Friday I attended a “Career Day” event – the biggest organized by AIESEC in Rwanda so far – and I noticed some things. One of them is the protocolar environment around the event; for example the university has a group of students who are part of “Protocol” which are doing reception and socializing with the important guests of the event; sometimes they are asked for events outside university like the ones organized by government. Another one is the way students reacted when a company was saying that they want to recruit graduates and they are interested in the students present there; students were cheering and claping J. The morning session lasted for 3 hours without break and almost no student left the room in this period …

Now I really feel like sharing about today which is one of the most shocking days I ever had. First of all at 10 I was supposed to have a meeting but because the person was sleeping we only had the meeting at 1:30, with a small delay of 3h30’ :D. Next to that at 2 I was supposed to have a meeting with the MC but we only started at 3, a small delay of 1 hour :D. As you ca imagine time here has a different meaning J

Furtheron, in the evening I went for dinner with Julius (former MCVP in Uganda now doing an internship in Rwanda). We went to a restaurant and when we arrived we realised there was a wedding happening but we could still take a table and have dinner. So I ordered … banana chips (meaning fried bananas in the same way as potatos) with fish brochette (frigarui) and Maracuja juice (passion fruit juice) while Julius ordered rice with vegetables. The waiter brought 2 brochettes on a plate, the rice on another plate, the banana chips on another plate and 2 empty plates, one for me and one for Julius. We only ordered 1 brochette but he brought 2 in order for my companion to have one as well and the rest of the food was on different plates … here they really encourage you to try the food of the other person you are with J. Another interesting thing is that if you just ask someone “are you hungry, do you wanna go and eat?” means you are inviting that person for dinner and you need to pay for him/her as well.

About how weddings happen here … first of all when a couple decides to marry the parents of the girl will ask the boy some things (objects, animals. etc) as payment for the girl. If the boy manages to bring all those he’ll most likely have the approval, if something is missing he will get a “fine” so he’ll be asked to bring even more to the girl’s family. Once that is settled it comes the financial part of the wedding, the event itself is free for all the guest and you can expect uninvited people to show up. In order to cover part of the costs the couple makes wedding meetings before the wedding itself where they invite friends/relatives/colleagues and they present their plan for the wedding and ask them to contribute in order to cover the budget. Once this is settled the wedding takes place and usually ends around 10 p.m. Once they are married there’s a very low chance they will divorce! Since I was so excited about the wedding I wanted to take some pictures but I was hold back by my friends telling me that it’s not OK to take pictures if I’m not a guest; furthermore it’s not OK to take pictures of the government’s buildings or people I don’t know …

So we left the wedding place and went to a cool terasse and ordered an Ugandan beer. Here is some other cool facts about drinks in Rwanda: they call Fanta any sort of soda drink so in case you want to order a Cola you need to ask for a “Fanta Cola” and the bottle has 30 cl. Beer you can find in bottles of 33, 66, 72 cl while watter in bottles of 56 cl!!!

Now let’s talk about beauty … here has a slightly different meaning. For a man an important characteristic in order to be considered beautiful is the height, the taller the man, the better, women appreciate that. For girls big hips is a good thing, contributes to beauty =))

People also talk different … instead of saying “I’ll give you a missed call” or “I’ll beep you” they often say “I’ll flash you!!!” They pronounce “word” and “world” in the same way, idem for “walk” and “work” so many times I am confused of what they mean J

In order to relax a bit I wanted to play some pool but again I had some surprises: the white ball is smaller than all the others and the holes are smaller than the ones I am used to …

Just imagine myself doing something, anything; it will most likely be different from the way I’ve done it before. Seeing all these differences I am wondering if I’d be in the situation to stay here if I’d adapt to this whole new way of doing and perceiving things. In case all the things are not enough for you to understand how different things are you should know that even white people look at me in a different way, like I am the weird one for them!!!

I’ll keep you updated!

From Nyamirambo, Kigali

Dan – Muzungu