Monday, July 16, 2011

A brief update on the past few days, and some cultural thoughts.

Psychologically, I feel like an infant almost, totally deskilled, and dependent on other people for everything. I don't even know the basics like how to get a phone card, or where anything is, or how to get around, or what is safe and what isn't. I insisted that eric teach me how to buy a phone card, rather than get it for me. How much worse it must be for immigrants, particularly poor ones, who are in my position but without power and privilege, and more at stake.

Sunday i want to church, following up my afternoon with the men. I found the service, it was a Catholic service quite moving. Although it was in french, and i only got the gist which seemed to be that you could die at any time, so you had better relate to jesus. That was not the moving part. The moving part was the solemnity of it all, the significance for the people. I remember one very tall very somber black man, dressed in a dark suit, staring ahead at something serious that I couldn't see, and then going up to stand in a line to receive communion. I was one of two mezungos there (white people) but there was a time to shake hands with your neighors and every one shook hands with me.

But before I get too idyllic I do have to say that there were more women and children there than men. Eric says the men stay home, living virtue and piety to the women. This is a generalization; not all men do this. And afterwards when we were in the car getting ready to drive off, a beggar knocked on the car window, wanting money which I guess he thought was better solicited after church.

I applied for my visa today and it went smoothly which is to say that only a few things went wrong. The big problem was the price of application. Eugenie said it was 50,000 rwandan francs, which is what i was prepared to pay. The sign on the wall, which eric noticed, and the visa officer confirmed, was 100,000 francs, and i was supposed to go back and pay more. However, it turned out, maybe that I didn't have to pay anything because there is an understanding between the national university and immigration that visiting scholars aren't charged for the visa. But maybe this is incorrect. In any event they have my passport which they will keep until this is staightened out, and i end up paying something or nothing. I'm beginning to not take this personally, at least not too long, and tell myself this is just the way it is.

One more cultural note. Rwanda as a culture of suspicion. The norm is that you don't talk about the details of your life, because in some way they may be used against you. Eric says a good friend is someone who won't do this, and sometimes friends are better than family. An example of suspicion: sometimes a caller will ask the person calling their location, and the person being called won't be specific but will say something like "I don't know exactly." It makes it hard to make arrangments. And sometimes people play tricks. The caller will be in the same place as the callee, and the caller will ask the person if they are free. The callee might say something like: I'm sick and can't go out, and the caller will say: but i see you three tables away.

I don't think we should idealize communal societies. Perhaps the culture of suspicion - the examples aren't always humorous - went into the making of the genocide.