Laundry

I would like to start out by saying that Rwandans are obsessive about keeping things clean.  For example, people always take their shoes off when going on any rug in a person’s home.  Every weekend we spend cleaning the concrete floors by pouring buckets of soapy water onto them.  

Rwandans care very much about the appearance of their shoes

Westerners have the stereotype of not caring very much about their appearance and I definitely contribute to that.  I’m pretty sure they wonder what my mother did wrong to let me become so unconcerned with my appearance.  I tend to think something is clean if there is no visible dirt and it smells nice.  Although, you can often see the dust on my shoes; a Rwandan would never let that happen.   For the first time in my life, I’ve tried to care about it but it is difficult when my day is filled with chalkboards and dirt roads.

So my Rwandan roommate took pretty seriously the job of teaching me laundry.  And I’m pretty sure she found me a disappointing, unmotivated student.  There are no washing machines here so all of the laundry takes place in this little area next to the house.  So the following are step by step directions.

1   Fill a little bucket up with water (I’m fortunate enough to have running water, not all are so lucky and must fetch it from the nearest source).

2 Then I pour the little bucket of water into a bigger one with soap until the big bucket is full. There are two types of soap.  Powder soap is mixed with the water to create all the visible sudsing.     

3 In the bucket you can see the bar soap that is scrubbed into clothes for an extra onslaught against the dirt. This soap is extremely effective at removing all dirt and oil, including that in the outer layer of my skin.  It is so effective that the water tends to turn a pale color of my clothes, especially with jeans.  I tend to do the washing stage one time only and then move to the rinsing step, but once while laundering in the presence of Rwandans, they took over and proceeded to repeat the cycle another two times.  Not kidding.

4 Once everything has been cleaned to the washer’s satisfaction, the smaller bucket is again filled and used to rinse the clothes before they are put into the line.  It is actually difficult to determine when a garment is no longer soapy because by now my hands tend to be a little irritated from the soap and everything feels pretty slippery.

5 I am a big fan of using clotheslines, but there are a few drawbacks.  The line is made of wire, rather than rope.  Metal +water=rust.  So only parts of the first few lines are usable.  I still haven’t been able to figure out why we use wire.  Another drawback of no dryers is that clothes can get pretty stretched out.  And in a wet climate, it often rains before clothes are completely dry.

As inconvenient as this may seem, I can’t find a reason to complain and I never dread doing laundry.  It gives me time to completely focus on something so simple, yet satisfying.

My 24th birthday

One card is from my roommates and another from a Senior Two classes. (Two classes also coordinated among themselves to sing Happy Birthday to me)

To celebrate my entry into my mid-twenties, I got two cakes, three bottles of banana beer, a box filled with biscuits (cookies), a hunk of cheese, a vase of flowers, and Fanta to my heart’s content.  As well as sweet potato chips (fries) for dinner because they know that is my favorite.

I got two cakes for my birthday!  The frosted one was bought from a local baker.  Prepared cake is a very expensive treat in Rwanda, likely because most Rwandans do not have an oven.   However, I’m lucky to live next door to nuns who do know how to bake, consequently the second, unfrosted cake!  I walked in before dinner to about 10 women singing happy birthday to me, including several of the nuns.  A very unique birthday!  They even had three candles lit for me to blow out.  

After dinner my roommates sang happy birthday to me again, this time in Kinyarwanda, and we dug into the cakes.  They both tasted a bit like very sweet cornbread (I think they must have used maize flour).  The frosted cake had the consistency of cornbread and the homemade cake was sweeter and had a lighter cake-ier texture.  Both cakes are now gone!

A teacher bought this banana beer for me in the capital, Kigali.  It cannot be bought in Nyamata because it is too expensive for the average person here and thus does not sell.  I believe it is about a $1.50.  The drink could not really be described as a beer, although that’s its name, because there are no hops or bitter taste at all.  Perhaps I could describe it better as a cider?  But it has a chalkier consistency and alcohol content similar to red wine.  The taste is pleasantly fruity but the alcohol is perceptible.

Glucose biscuits do not have the sweetness of Western cookies but are more similar to Vanilla Wafers or Graham Crackers.

Rwandans don’t really eat cheese, which should be surprising because they drink so much milk and dairy is such a part of their culture.  But cheese is fairly pricy So this is a very special gift.

Vase of Flowers

People LOVE Fanta here.  They drink that over Coke.  I actually took this picture at a wedding to demonstrate how popular it is.  In the US it seems it is more of a children’s drink but here all ages enjoy this very sweet soda.

Brain Injury Awareness Month- My Recovery

Let me continue on.  In the last post I shared how I fell off of a scooter (such a lame way to sustain such a badass wound), was rushed to the hospital and then luckily woke up with a full functioning physical body, even if my mental attributes were severely damaged.  I do not remember any of this.  After only 3 days in the ICU (much faster than any medical professional predicted), I was transferred to an inpatient rehabilitation facility to get intensive physical, occupational and speech therapy.  

My first memory after my accident is in the bathroom in rehab with a nurse helping me wash up.  I do not remember feeling uncomfortable with this lack of privacy, but only an intense focus on maintaining my balance and doing the job sufficiently.  It would not be an overstatement to say washing took all of my effort.

Every day while in rehab I woke up and had therapy for several hours.  In therapy I had to relearn how to walk and balance again, resharpen my cognitive abilities, and practice using my face since the left half was completely paralyzed.  It was HARD.  I can’t even exaggerate how hard it was.  Think about expecting and so badly wanting your body to do something it had always done and suddenly no longer could.  At the beginning I had such little short term memory loss that I would ask a question over and over again.  I can only imagine how difficult it was for my parents, who had lost their fiercely independent, driven, degree holding daughter to this girl who asked regularly what had happened to her and once tried to completely undress in front of them because she felt hot.  

I’d hit the left side of my brain and then in the impact my brain had bounced off the skull and hit the right side.  The left side, more affected, is the primary speech processing region, while the right side controls your emotions.  I’d damaged both. It was a blessing I was able to speak at all.  You know that feeling you get when a word is right off the tip of your tongue?  I experienced that frustration several times an hour in addition to my memory deficits.  My emotional intelligence was almost non-existent and I was unsustainably, irrationally ecstatic, probably in large part due to Percocet.  In fact, one of the big things I remember is how much I loved my new Rihanna haircut.  So cool.

It required such perseverance.  Of course, it was very difficult to think at the same level and in the same way as I had pre-injury.  Sometimes I felt like I was navigating a world in which I did not belong.  Every time I discovered another deficit in my abilities and was filled with self-doubt, I forced myself to try harder and longer with the goal of returning to my pre-injury abilities.  It was unacceptable and unthinkable to me that I would not achieve the goals I’d had pre-injury.  I’m so blessed with the resources I was offered.  My therapists took a special interest in me (I was undoubtedly the star patient) and never let their expectations falter.  Most importantly, my parents were there EVERY minute with me (the institute, realizing they weren’t going away, even provided them the other bed in my semi-private room).  They were there to help me to the bathroom because it would be faster than if I had to wait for a nurse.  They were there to take walks and play games with me, when I had the ability to do that. Just their presence made such a difference. I also had friends and a boyfriend to come visit me and see how I was doing, which made me feel very loved.  

After only 2.5 weeks in inpatient rehab I was released, much ahead of when doctors had predicted.  Outside of the structure of the hospital I found it much more difficult to deal with the injury’s effects.  I still needed to go to therapy three times a week and that took about an hour’s commute.  I was constantly exhausted, sleeping up to 16 hours a day.  Unable to drive or be independent at all, I was now living with my parents, which I hadn’t done since high school, and it was a huge frustration for me.  I had such high expectations for myself but was not always able to fulfill them.  For example, I wanted to get a job again but just going to the grocery store felt like too much pressure because I felt so anxious when requested to find an item.  How am I supposed to know what aisle it is on!?  How am I supposed to scan the shelves to find it?! Too much information! Embarrassing to struggle! Ugh!

I had decided my diagnosis was completely irrelevant to my life and to ignore what people expect me to accomplish and do whatever I am driven toward. By now, I was off the Percocet and my partial face paralysis did not seem like a weird little fluke anymore.  I wanted it to start moving again!  I was tired of feeling ugly or being treated differently or people not quite reading my emotions (although in their defense I didn’t really grasp my own tumultuous emotions either).  And I was angry at myself because I’d never even thought to appreciate the ability to smile until it was taken away from me.  So much anger and frustration.  For a while my phone was deactivated and my days consisted of sitting at home, watching TV, wishing someone would call me and scouring Facebook.  On Facebook I found people getting promotions or first jobs, spending time with friends and…smiling.  I wanted to feel successful again.

Literally pouting on the floor

Practicing taking pictures where I could find my face acceptably attractive

When I would share my frustration and jealousy, people would often tell me it is just a interruption in my soon-to-be successful life.  That I have extenuating circumstances and I really can’t compare my life to that of others. I would deny this outright and explain that it’d had already been ____ months without any improvement in my life mobility.  And they would rightly point out that I’d shown a lot of improvement overall.  Finally I decided it was time to delete my account.  Hindsight is 2020 and they were right, it was not fair to compare my story and situation to anyone else’s.

One day Justin shared this little passage with me:

If the cocoon fits, wear it- sometimes our lives contract before they expand.  Like a caterpillar that confines itself to a tiny cocoon before it grows wings and flies, we may be experiencing the darkness before the dawn.

It was like a new dawn had come!  This was exactly what I needed to hear.  I had read Senator Gabrielle Giffords’ book (the congresswoman shot in the head) and had finally been able to express what I’d been embodying that last several months: “Perseverance conquers all”.  This reminded me that just because I was out of rehab and the ‘hard’ part was over, more was still to come.

I cannot think of a more appropriate principle than perseverance and I have worked to embody that idea for others since the accident.  March 19 is my birthday.  I no longer take the day for granted.  I’m lucky to still be here and able to function similar to how I did two years ago.  We have very little time in our lives and we need to make the most of it.  Recovering so well from this forced me to re-evaluate my priorities and persist toward a greater sense of meaning and purpose in my life.  I was still on this Earth and intended, more than ever before, to persevere to make a difference in the lives of those with whom I interacted.  I thought back to what I really wanted to do.  I have always been fascinated by the world and planned since high school to live abroad.  It wasn’t until this incident that I started truly working toward that goal.  So now I ask of you, appreciate your birthdays and the people around you as much as I do mine.  Do not allow yourself to be complacent.  There will be struggles but if you want something badly enough it is worth the risk.  

Now I am in Rwanda doing something my childhood self could have only dreamed of.  Yes, my accident still affects me in ways that are often invisible to others.  But life is a verb.  Go out and pursue your dreams and don't let anything hold you back.  I am.

Brain Injury Awareness Month- Day of my Accident

March is Brain Injury Awareness month.  I know as first glance this has nothing to do with my experience in Rwanda but it has had so much impact on my life that there is no avoiding its influence. The condition has been getting more attention lately from so many soldiers and NFL players suffering its effects.  My experience with my traumatic brain injury gives it a special place in my heart.  I was inspired when I read these stories, so I thought I would share my story as well.

It prides me to think that I have persevered throughout my recovery to the point that I’m now living independently, contributing back to society and many people would not even know about this incident.  I must note that no two brain injury stories are similar and nothing is ‘normal’ when considering the brain.  The brain is such a new frontier for science and in addition to its physiological importance, there is psychological, emotional, and mental value to the brain.  All of these components of life can be (and in my case were) affected from a head injury.  

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Disclaimer: All of the anecdotes from the day of the accident comes from other’s stories they have told me;  I do not remember the first few weeks after my injury.  On November 25, 2012 I was wrapping up a Thanksgiving visit with my family and decided on one last scooter ride with my brother before heading back to DC.    I was wearing a bike helmet to protect my head and went full speed, about 25 mph, and then for some reason...I just fell.  The initial impact was to the left side of my head because I did not put my hands out to catch myself.  I slid across the road and was unconscious as my brother tried to rouse me.  My dad looked out the window and saw him trying to wake me so he ran out and yelled to my mom to call 911.  Meanwhile, my other brother went to get help from a neighbor who is a highly skilled nurse.  But he politely waited for her to finish what she was doing and then struggled to explain the enormity of the situation, instead explaining that I had fallen.  He wasn’t able to convey until he mentioned I was unconscious and bleeding out of my ear.

xray before my surgery

xray after my surgery, notice the staples in my head

At this point I was attempting to physically wrestle my dad away while the volunteer EMTs and my neighbor agreed I needed to be helicoptered to the nearest neuro-surgeon.  Once I got to the hospital they did surgery on the left side of my head (the point of impact) and while I was in a medically induced coma, they told my parents they would have to wait and see.  Over the next few hours either I would start to recover or they would need to do surgery on the right side as well because there was clotting or I would worsen so much there was little they could do. 
 

I am blessed that it was the first one.  If they had had to operate on my right side they’d have had to cut into my brain and who knows what type of person I would be now.  But instead I was released from coma after about 18 hours, and although I was a stubborn, grumpy patient who didn’t want to listen to the nurses, I was alive, able to move all my limbs (my face was a different story) and verbally responding to EVERYTHING.  I honestly don’t view this stage as very difficult for me.  The uncertainty was dreadful for my loved ones, but I had mostly slept until now and did not have enough brain function to really comprehend or stress about the extent of the situation or how it would affect me in the future.

This is a very long, heavy post, so I’m going to make a second tomorrow about the struggles from my recovery.

Eating Advice

Can I mention that I'm obsessing over whether this picture makes me look fat?

I wouldn’t normally be one to talk about comments on my body, but they come so often that it is a notable part of the culture here.  I’m not sure if people feel more comfortable with discussing my looks because I’m a foreigner or if it is just very common to discuss people’s bodies and eating habits.  So far I have heard:

Comments on my eating habits:

You must eat more, are you trying to get skinny? (my plate was very full)

You have a good appetite. (my plate was equally full)

Now I know why you are so thin, you eat so little

You are going to travel, you must eat a lot today. (you can’t exactly stop at McDonalds)

He is tall, he must eat a lot.

Your stomach looks small, did you eat this morning?  (guilty as charged, I had not)

You are sick, you must eat a lot.

Miss Rwanda contestants- very varied body types!

Comments on my body:

You have a nice shape, like Miss Rwanda (Ms. Rwanda is not as stick thin as American celebrities)

I want thighs like you. (literally never been told that before)

I want your butt, I can’t eat more. (I’m constantly jealous of Rwandan women’s nice butts fyi)

You are going to get skinny if you don’t eat more.

Pre-accident, no scars, no asymmetry

 Comments on my overall appearance:

What is on your face?  (referring to my scars, no one has noted that I have a crooked smile though!)

You looked so beautiful (past tense, talking about a picture taken before my accident)

You are smart (this is a common one talking about how I am dressed)

I will clean your shoes for you

You definitely can't be self conscious about your appearance if you are in Rwanda!  There is this obsession with not being too skinny and I think there are a few reasons for this.  The most obvious is that Rwanda is a ‘low-income, food deficit” nation.  Chronic malnutrition stands at 43 percent according to the Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis.  In fact, it is estimated the effects of undernutrition cost the country $820 million annually (11.5% of the GDP), although all the figures I just shared are much improved over just a few years ago.

I see very few overweight people here which is surprising because the human body is constantly trying to store extra fat and most of the middle aged adults I’d seen in the other developing countries were definitely a bit clinically overweight.  In the United States there is gluttony of food and it is healthier to be thinner.  Here it is healthier to have a bit of extra fat.

I still can't decide whether this honesty is refreshing or indelicate.  And in the end, I suppose it doesn't matter, because it will happen no matter what I think of it.

Developing World Problem #2: Water

This is kind of a long post, mostly because I think it is very important.  I will start the second part of my 3+ series again stating that I’m being unreasonable with my complaints if you compare my grievances with those of the average Rwandan.  I would love to moan and groan about the lack of water pressure and heat for hand washing and showering.  The pictures basically speak for themselves. In the US, I look forward to showers, spend about 20 minutes drenching myself in the scalding hot water.  When I first arrived I was very sick and miserable and I fantasized about steam during my showers, which obviously was not possible at Maranyundo.

Notice the squeegee.  There is no lip to prevent water from escaping so at the end of a shower, the user squeegees any water toward the drain to clean up after herself.  The bucket next to it is filled with water to be scooped over yourself when the water pressure does not cooperate for the shower head.

Usually I don’t use the shower head, for obvious reasons.

 Instead I use the spigot and partly fill the bucket.  It takes a lot of perseverance to wash and condition my hair!

The hand washing sink can be similarly frustrating

But let’s move on from my hair and onto the more important matter of safety and health.  Maranyundo has a few different water systems.  Rwandan tap water is not safe to drink and usually must be boiled for thirty minutes before consumption.  This has obvious negative environmental impacts, particularly for deforestation and pollution as wood is burned to heat the water. 

That is where Maranyundo is really special.  This smart contraption delivers filtered safe water right into my water bottle (it can be seen in the bottom right corner to shower how big the tank is).  The water goes through a triple filtration process before being dispensed into the tank and is as good as any other water I’ve had.  

At least once a day someone from the house go to the tank, conveniently located in the lunch room, and fills up a jug similar to these with water for cooking, drinking or toothbrushing.  Embarrassingly, I find the activity of collecting water extremely exhilarating and Rwandan.  However, the fact that we only have to walk about 100 meters is somewhat abnormal.  Many rural people must go to the town center to get water, which then must be heated before it can even be used.

Maranyundo also has a rain collection system (the black tank in the background) used for washing and gardening.   This one drains into this drainage pond to water the garden.  In Rwanda, sanitation is very important and of course, much of this cleaning requires water.   In first grade we all learned the importance of washing out hands and that is even more important in a country where people live close together, there is sometimes poor sewage and people have little disposable cash for healthcare.  The girls consistently mention the importance of hygiene in their assignments, ranging from a poem about what they will teach their daughters to a paragraph about why Maranyundo is the best school in Rwanda. 

However, how are people supposed to stay healthy without water?  According to UNICEF 25% of the population is unable to access safe drinking water and 26% have no access to improved sanitation facilities.  The numbers vary but it is not debatable that diarrhea from nonpotable water sources is a huge and deadly problem. UNICEF says it is one of the top three killers of children and the childhood mortality rate here is almost 1 in 5.  Unacceptable.

However, the government and NGOs are working hard to improve these statistics.  The Millenium Development Goal is to reach 85% water supply coverage by 2015.  A big challenge in developing countries are the “one and done” projects initiated by some international organizations.  For example, they might send an American engineer to set up a pump and then the engineer leaves.  There is no one in the community or possibly even the country with the ability or finances to maintain and fix the pump.  

So where does that leave the community?  Exactly back where it started.