Normal (Is there more than one way to be?)
on Rose Hardman (Rwanda), 19/Oct/2011 08:27, 34 days ago
I haven’t written a blog for a while and my excuse is that everything has become ‘normal’ to me and so I don’t know what to write about. Whilst this excuse is lame, it is true that what started off as being novel has become the norm. And what I took to be normal in the UK, is not always normal now.Today’s events made me realise this and so inspired a blog post.Two things happened to me this morning on my way to work:1. I was escorted part of the way to work by a small child, who could not have been more than 3 years old, holding my hand and leading me, without a parent in sight.2. I saw a dog.It was only after these two things happened to me in quick succession that I realised what is normal to me now is not what it used to be.1. For me this is normal. The small child in question is my neighbour, Simbyumva. In English this means‘I don’t know’ or ‘I can’t hear’. You may be thinking that he just hasn’t understood when I’ve been asking him what his name is but I have checked with his older sister Chance and his name really is Simbyumva. Every morning Simbyumva, and often his younger brother, Claude, and sometimes Chance and a gaggle of other children too, come to greet me on my way to work. With excited whoops they run at me, arms outspread, until they run full force into my legs. They then hug my legs until I prise them off. At this stage each takes a hand (sometimes they have to share, which normally means each of them taking a couple of fingers) and they escort me down the road. At a certain point they turn on their heels shouting ‘byeeeee’ and race back the way they came. This point is always the same point. I think I have mentioned before that all the children seem to have boundaries thatthey are allowed to go up to. Sometimes at this point Simbyumva and Claude’s roles will be taken over by some other children, namely Bertie and his friends. Bertie and his friends aren’t always there though and Bertie sometimes is extremely nonplussed at seeing the muzungu and sometimes overexcited so it depends what mood you catch him in as to whether he will escort you to work. I very rarely see the parents of these children and when I do they seem perfectly at ease at the fact that their children are disappearing from sight with a strange muzungu.2. This is not normal in Rwanda. For various reasons which I won’t go in to here, dogs are not common in Rwanda. Those dogs you do see are guard dogs and most definitely not roaming round free. So when I saw the dog this morning at first I thought I had imagined it. Then I realised it was real. Whilst it looked perfectly friendly and wasn’t particularly heading towards me (and fortunately wasn’t foaming at the mouth!), I freaked out and joined all the Rwandans, who were also freaking out, as far away as possible from the dog (which considering we were on a dirt track, was not very far at all!) The dog carried on its way not having even noticed us andwe all breathed a sigh of relief. And that was when I realised that normality to me has changed. Seemingly abducting small children is acceptable, dogs going for a walk is not!Here are some other things that have changed on my spectrum of‘normality’.NormalRecognising children by the clothes they are wearing because they only have one outfit. This outfit may be a school uniformEating before you go out for something to eat because the food will probably take 2 hours to appearHolding a conversation in 3 languagesWatching a conversation which consists solely of the noise‘ehhhhh’ and eyebrow raisesPhoning someone then hanging up so they have to call you back. Doing this to someone you’ve only met once, or maybe not met at all, just to say hello is also acceptable.If it’s raining, stay at home.Lying so as not to hurt someone’s feelings is encouraged, even if they will find out you lied (I must make it clear that I still don’t lie to people but I accept when it happens to me much more easily now!)Getting excited when we have electricity or water, and thinking all our Christmas’s and birthdays have come at once when we have bothGoing to bed at 8pm because the electricity has goneNot being able to hear anything because of the rain bouncing off the tin roof of wherever you areNot normalDrinking or eating in the streetShowing shoulders or knees, regardless of how hot it is (although this rule is becoming more relaxed the longer I’m here)Not seeing colleagues for a whole week and not knowing where they areWomen in barsMuzungus (I have started muzungu spotting myself!)I will no doubt add to this list as and when!