You are wrong!

An interesting, and sometimes honestly frustrating, part of Rwandan culture is the belief that there is only one correct way to do most things.  It creates a great sense of community and you know things will be the same no matter where you are in the country or who you are talking to, which can be comforting when immersed in a difference culture. But can also make for humorous incidences.

The salt shaker is only for salt.

I found myself with serious cravings for black pepper, so I went to a fancy grocery store in the capital and purchased some. Awesome. Now I just needed to find a table shaker to put it in.  We had a shaker container without the lid so I asked three different people if they knew where the lid. They all had the exact same response: That is a salt shaker and we already have one so why would I need another?  I explained that I wanted to use one for pepper, but all three shook their heads and informed me it is for salt.  Eventually I just went out and bought one myself.

There is only one correct way to prepare food.

This one is pretty interesting and I think it might be partly to prevent food borne illnesses. Every time I make pasta the American way, boiled until it is your preferred texture and then drained, I am told I added too much water. That’s because you are supposed to use a specific amount of water and boil it all away, like how you make rice.

For Rwandan salads, beats, cabbage, carrots and onions are soaked in vinegar (to make it safe to eat) after they are shredded. Then they are organized on a tray in sections and topped with mayonnaise covered sliced tomatoes.  I have had salads made by multiple people in different parts of Rwanda and they are all exactly the same. It is definitely a trademark of Rwandan food.

There is only one traditional dance move

Learning traditional dancing

Rwandans have been desperately trying to get me to learn the correct way to dance to traditional Rwandan music. And anyone who knows me understands that I’m a pretty terrible, uncoordinated, unenthusiastic dancer anyways. But you would think that with only one move, I’d be able to get it down. Not so.  The feet seem to be on a count of three while the arms are on a count of four and I just can’t do that. And since there is only one way, they know that I’m doing it wrong, just not attempting a creative interpretation.

There is only one correct answer to a test question

This one kind of bothers me because sometimes students will have the correct answer to a question, but it is not the teacher or book supplied answer so it is marked wrong.

Such as

John will have eaten by 7:00.

 vs

John will __eat__ by 7:00.

Both are correct but only one will get the points. 

Same with math questions. When I was in middle school, if you did everything wrong but simply had a math error (4+4=9) then you would get at least half credit. Here it will be marked completely wrong.