19 June 2014: First Day

I sit down to write my first post-arrival post just before 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, 19 June. I found my host at the airport, and as we drove home I was happy to hear myself forming complete sentences in Kinyarwanda, almost all of which I think made sense!

We did switch between Kinyarwanda and English; I think we both wanted to practice the language we were less comfortable with, and probably each wanted to impress the other. Also, it definitely crossed both of our minds that if we spoke normally in our native language there was a very good chance the other would not understand it.

We got home to find the rest of the family (wife and two young children, 21 months and 5 years old). It was very nice to see them again. The parents were very welcoming, and the children very curious: they kept wandering into my room, looking around and waiting for their mother to call them back out again. The older one, at least, remembers me from last year, and apparently my name has become a staple of his still-pretty-small vocabulary.

It turned out they had left my room almost untouched, aside from cleaning it up and maybe getting a new chair. There was even a bunch of stuff I left behind because I was worried my suitcase was too heavy that they left there for me. I had been trying to give these things to them—medicines, mostly—but admittedly I didn’t communicate this very well. Other things I guess I didn’t expect them to find use for—an undershirt and a couple of cold-packs, and some other things—but I guess I thought they would just throw those away. I guess I underestimated something about my hosts.

I could, perhaps, have slept more on the plane. My plan had been to sleep 10:00–6:00 or so, but that turned into about 10:30–10:00, or thereabouts. I think I needed it, and certainly felt good afterward.

This morning was my first meal, too. There’s something about the food in a new place, maybe especially a new place in Africa, that doesn’t sit well on the first day; I remember last year I spent my first morning throwing up in the toilet. I think that’ll happen today also—I’m starting to feel a bit off as I type this. I decided that I wanted to get a good night’s sleep, though, so all I had last night was some tea (which I figured was probably fine after being boiled).

Given the likelihood of being sick, I’m going to stay in the house, today. (It’s also been raining since the plane landed, quite dramatically at times.) I have some planning to do: things to buy, places to go, postcards to send, and how to manage my research. But, at first, I’m content to move kind of slowly, at least until I (and my stomach) settle in.