Last weeks in Nyanza

The last few weeks of training proved to be fairly uneventful. We had random projects to do, a whole lot of language, a few more useless tech sessions, and even some useful classes, of course taught be other volunteers. It seems a little sad that the best training we got was when they were taught by other volunteers. Oh well. It's over now so there isn't much I can do about it. The last couple of weeks were a little stressful trying to prepare for our Language Proficiency Interview which technically determined if we would be able to swear in. Basically it's an oral test with two of our teachers asking about scenarios in Kinyarwanda and us sitting there trying to desperately remember random vocabulary and trying to keep tenses straight. We had to score a high intermediate on the test in order to qualify to be a volunteer. Thankfully everyone passed even though there were a lot of questions about the validity of the scoring and the arbitrary nature of how they placed us. It was all a little ridiculous and caused a lot of people frustrations.

Nyanza was finally starting to feel like another home. It was such a comfortable place, it was really difficult to leave. Especially saying goodbye to Elijah, Mama Odeli, and Parisa. Even though I never really had any conversations with the people that helped run things around our houses, there were still great to see everyday, always welcoming and smiling. It's strange to see how people touched our lives for such a short time but had a huge impact. They are some of the few that make excited to start my actual work here. They showed us love even though we could barely say two sentences in their language.

One fantastic thing about all of us being in Nyanza for 2 and a half months, we finally were no longer mazungus. We were just those white people that always walked through town. It's amazing how quickly you forget what being mazungu here is. The constant pleas for money, being the side show whenever you happen to be walking through town, and the laughs you get when you stumble with Kinyarwanda. You get so used to ignoring the random shouts that you forget that that makes you come across as cold-hearted, ignorant, selfish foreigner.