Cooking is fun, but that doesn’t mean I’m good at it. Especially when you don’t use cutting boards. I was cooking with a friend, Mama Kidumu, and I was cutting some carrots in my hand when I sliced my finger. Whoops. Mama Kidumu kept me away from the knives after that, and I was sentenced to blender duty and to peel the shells off of the garlic.
I can clean, obviously, I am able to. But no matter what I do, it is not up to par with Rwandan standards. Everything is impeccably clean and they pride themselves on it. Cleaning is forever a chore to me. However, many Rwandan homes will have House Help. A boy or girl that they house, feed, and pay, in exchange for doing chores around the house - like a maid or butler. Their duties could include chores such as cleaning the floors, doing laundry, opening and closing the gate to the house, washing dishes, maybe running errands. But this can feel very weird to me. We’ve had a couple of house girls since I’ve been here and I feel weird even asking for hot water so I can wash my hair.
Almost all Rwandan homes, in my experience, have at least part of their yard set aside for farming. At my house we have cassava, a banana tree, spinach plots, chickens, and more. A good number of Rwandese are subsistence farmers, so we are lucky enough to be able to afford what we do not grow. I, on the other hand, wasn’t even able to keep a succulent alive. How sad is that.
And Finally, the Mormons got nothing on Rwandan families. Many people have 6, 8, even 12 children! I hurt just thinking about it. It’s very unusual to have only one child, like my host parents only have Barnabus.
I’m just glad my Nana and Kim Instenes taught me how to sew. The women I talk to are always impressed when they find out, SEW at least I’ve got that going for me.😉