Well. Quite a lot has happened since my last post. And I'm sorry I can't reply to everyone's emails... I feel guilty spending a lot of time in the internet cafe, and this is really the first free hour I've had all week! They keep up pretty busy here. But to everyone (Granny, Dad, Mom, Melissa) who has sent me emails and updates, I enjoy reading them, so keep 'em coming! As for everyone else, PLEASE send me an email - I want to hear about your lives!

Also, my phone is being ridiculous. I can't send international texts (but it charges me for them anyway..) and sometimes the sound doesn't work. It's questionable, but I think it will work if you, meaning anyone, call me on my Rwandan number (this is EXACTLY what you would dial from a US phone): 011-250-782-16-0930. I am working on getting the phone fixed... but it may be a while before I get to that.

I am living with a Rwandese family now, and that has been a trying adjustment. The first night with them, my parents, sister and I went to dinner at a nice restaurant in Kigali. My parents insisted I get a beer, so I ordered the same one my mom was having - Primus, which is pretty good, as it turns out. A waiter then placed one very large fish one our table, and I was told to eat. But I didn't see any silverware, or any plates for that matter, so I asked my mom to take the first bite, hoping to come off as polite, not completely confused. My mom reached forward, grabbed a huge hunk of white meat, bones, and skin, and put it in front of me. The fish was pretty good, but it took me a second to get over my initial shock and recover a smile... I'm sure my mouth dropped when half a fish plopped down on the table before me. But oh no, the new eating experiences did not end there. Apparently, I am deathly thin in the minds of my African family, and they are bound and determined to force-feed me until I am not so "weak," as my mom is fond of calling me. My brother prefers to say that I am "just learning to eat, like a baby." My mom also told me, "You shall eat until you are as big as her!" (referring to my sister, who is a bit shorter, and probably 15-20 pounds heavier, than I). My solution (without making my stomach explode)? Sneaking potatoes to my brother when my mom isn't looking, and taking my second, maybe even third cup of tea - probably 50% sugar - to the bathroom and pouring most of it into the sink.

But that brings up another point - the water! I have it! Some SIT students' families don't have running water, so they take bucket showers. And pee into a hole in the bathroom. While I have a nice sink, toilet, and even a SHOWERHEAD! No hot water, but it's great. It did take me about a day to figure out the toilet, though; they keep an old gasoline can filled with water in the bathroom, and you pour that down the toilet to flush it. You probably don't want such a graphic description of my bathroom adventures, but oh well...

My family, despite the whole eating thing, is incredibly nice. I have 10 siblings (6 brothers, 4 sisters), and they all actually speak to me a little now! That is quite the accomplishment. The first night, only my incredibly socially awkward 22 year-old brother Robert said more than 2 words to me. Now they all love me! Probably because I gave them free reign with my camera - taking pictures of everything in sight, including filming the TV for 20 minutes - but still. I'll take it. My parents speak English very well, enough to discuss the importance of teaching history in schools to prevent something like the genocide from happening again, and I've even gotten to help my youngest brother with his English homework! Which made absolutely no sense, by the way. His teachers are American, and they assigned him this sentence, with the instructions to change the noun (calves) to singular: Amanda the biggest calves is the whole school. I didn't really know what to do with that. They all LOVE the TV and watch it all the time - during dinner, after dinner, while doing homework, right when they wake up, etc. But it does play the Rwandan news in English (after it plays the EXACT SAME news in Kinyarwanda and French), so that's nice. And they wake up at 6 am or earlier. Every morning. And turn on the radio and the TV and talk, so I get up then, too! I have absolutely no idea when they shower, but I guess it's even earlier than that, because it's always free when I want it. But we all have to shower every morning and wash our feet at night (which I never do) - they think you are literally insane if you don't. So Dad, no worries about me never showering in Africa... I actually shower here more than at home!

Other than homestay family life, our days pretrty much revolve around the school lectures. We ride the taxi in the morning, or walk if it breaks down like mine did today, and usually head to Bourbon Coffee or the internet cafe to avoid too much culture shock.

But the other day we visited Gisozi Memorial, the largest genocide memorial in Rwanda. It's a very we4sternized, museum-type memorial, so I think we all kept ourselves together better than we would have in a more unfamiliar setting. The exhibits went through the history of the Rwandan genocide - before, during, and after - and other genocides around the world: the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, Herero genocide, Cambodian genocide, and others... though it didn't mention our treatment of Native Americans, which I would consider genocidal. The most harrowing part, though, was in honor of the Rwandan children who died. Families gave the most recent picture they had of their children killed in the genocide, and below the pictures, there were little plaques with personal tidbits: their favorite foods, their favorite toys, their best friend. One child had his last words on his plaque. While waiting to die, he said only to pray. Another boy's last words were even worse; he was comforting his mom that UNAMIR would come and save them; the UN surely wouldn't let them die.

I could write for hours about that experience - the guilt, the sadness, the awe at the efficiency of this horrible "work" and at the resilience of such a traumatized country - and I think it's important to recognize how awful it was, and to recognize our part in allowing it to happen. But more important, I think, its recognizing that life does go on. We walked away from that memorial, where 258,000 people were buried - that is only 1/4 of the people killed in those 100 days in 1994. We walked away, went home; we ate pizza that night for Pete's sake. But so did Rwandans. They experienced that tragedy, and they have to go on living, every day, with those memories. Some with the memories of a loved one dying, right in front of their eyes, some with the memories of taking a machete to the head of their neighbor, even wife. Every survivor wonders why he is left, why he survived, when so many others didn't. But they do have to go on - even with those who killed their friends...that takes an incredible kind of strength. I think I would feel more guilty if I allowed my far more petty sadness and guilt to keep me from living.

Sorry for the sad ending...
your mzungu friend