Spice Girls go to Market

"To market to market to buy a fat pig..." it was the only line of that nursery rhyme I could think of yesterday and it is STILL bothering me.

So, off to market we went - an "open air" market, by which they mean a "very crowded series of stalls and tables under a roof with no doors or walls which is not designed for those with claustrophobia." Our group, and thus the dynamic, will change about every two weeks as new volunteers arrive and some of us leave, but we got off to an awesome start. The five girls (three plus us), known collectively as the Spice Girls, are:

Margaret (Maggie May), originally from a town very near mine in Massachusetts, spent a few years in DC and had the good sense to flee - we have a lot in common. She is interested in coffee and microfinance, and for that and many other reasons is AWESOME.

Tsufit, also a DC refugee, just quit her job in NYC as an assistant at a non-profit! and seemed to have a similar experience in that role to mine. We came all the way to Africa to meet a former DC girl turned recovering assistant, and a former DC girl from Boston. Also came all the way to Africa to: listen to Dolly Parton and Celine Dion (played with alarming regularity) and meet a girl getting her degree from UMass, which we will get to. We have a lot of "we came to Africa to" moments.

Lindsey (C-Note), from Canada, and this is not her first rodeo; she worked in a refugee camp in Ghana, got herself sent home in a wheelchair from Thailand, and seems to have been everywhere in between.

Ian, currently our lone male ranger (he doesn't appreciate his nickname so I'll keep it out of the blog - for now) is 20 years old and left a job working with the homeless to travel the world for a year. He reminds me of Fred, looks like Will, and therefor calls up an irrational and unearned affection. Also plays the guitar (EARNED affection!) and speaks British fluently.

Told you guys you'd see your names in print!

We got lost on our way to the market (ahemian'sfaultAHEM) but it allowed for really ridiculous exercise we all felt deep in our muscles this morning, and also allowed us to accidentally pick up what can only be described as two street urchins. We turned around and there was one, clearly the ringleader with an impish little face, hanging on to C-Note and babbling excitedly to his friend, who was trudging along unwillingly. When next I looked the instigator was holding Maggie May's hand and had one arm wrapped around his friend's shoulder to prevent escape. They were still talking, and I assume the conversation went something like this:

Instigator: No, this is awesome! Crazy white people, who knows what they'll do? Maybe they'll cast a spell or eat someone!
Friend: I want to go home.

They didn't ask us for money or food and eventually ran off.

We met a nice young man on the way, Frances, who's father (I believe I got this right) is the minister of Rwandan coffee - just about the best job ever. He had a tattoo of a basketball player on his arm ("It's not Jordan! It's ME! I'm learning his moves from the internet."), has a brother in college in the United States, and spoke perfect English.

When we got to the market we went on a rampage for fruit, haggling over prices and collecting anything we couldn't identify with almost unholy glee. A woman told me not to take pictures in the marketplace, and we realized later she may have been trying to help me out - a woman tried to charge me $1 (500RWF) for taking a picture of the biggest pile of garlic I had ever seen (and I have seen BIG piles of garlic). There were bunches of green bananas taller than my knees all over the aisles, huge piles of beans, live chickens in the back, and men trying to sell us grocery bags even though we had clearly brought one. We got papayas, mangoes, passion fruit, tree tomatoes!, a giant pineapple, two avocados, tomatoes, and an onion for less than $3. Trip to future travelers: the women start you at a more honest price than the men, and if they see you effectively haggle with someone, they get pretty honest, and you can just go down the row. I made the mistake of trying to haggle a woman who was actually giving me a fair price, not realizing that we were being treated like people who knew what they were doing! We haven't gotten to the crafts yet but we'll be back - some of the other volunteers have picked up beautiful jewelry.

We got one of the best compliments we could ever receive in the market. A woman told us we "dress Rwandan". Rwandan women dress conservatively but very nicely, and saying that was like telling us we fit in and were dressed respectfully - which is all we want!

We went on a coffee rampage on the way home but couldn't find any. Tea is abundant here, and delicious, but only a few westernized places will sell you a cup of coffee. But I noticed that everyone was drinking giant, frothy mugs of something white. We stopped into one last place and asked for coffee. They didn't have it, but an older woman pointed to the benches and motioned for us to sit down. An invitation from an elder is an honor - we sat. We tried a few words of English - nothing. We tossed out some French - no response. We tried the four words of Kinyarwandan we knew - oya, nothing. Well, we're out of ideas. I pulled out my Kinyarwandan translation sheet in desperation, and the older woman pointed at it, nodded to the women in the shop and said "Kinyarwandan." As in, that's the nonsense the Muzunga is spouting. Somewhere in this, I accidentally ordered a glass of the white frothy stuff in the midst of trying to ascertain what it was. I was informed it was milk and they set one in front of me. I knew I might regret it later but there's enough things to be careful about so I took a sip. Oh, milk alright - fermented milk, tasting a lot like yogurt. Cold, and actually really weirdly good. Most of the girls tried it and my partner in crime split it with me with enthusiasm.

A girl in the corner (the entire cafe was the size of a bathroom in the US) spoke up shyly in perfect English, and we all got to talking. Her name is Cossy and - go figure - she's getting her online degree at UMass! She asked what we thought of Rwanda and we fell over ourselves describing how beautiful the country is and how much fun we were having. She did what so many Rwandans have done when we answered that way: humbly thanked us for appreciating her country, and told us that it was "not as good as yours." She kept suggesting "nicer", western places for us to see in the country than that particular neighborhood, which is poor, and we kept explaining to her that this was incredibly fun and beautiful. We traded numbers and she wants to have us over for tea, which will be awesome.

She then informed us the women spoke Swahili.

Three languages to grab-bag from is going to have to be enough - until we learn enough Kinyarwandan to haggle effectively, we can't tackle a fourth!