Staff Party in Butaro

Upon arrival in Butaro, Emily whisked us off to the kitchen where serious pre-partying was going on. After all the preparations for Umuganda (we’ll talk about this later) were complete, the party fell under way. Hannah and I were a little overwhelmed since we seriously didn’t know anyone outside of Emily, Oliver, Luke, and our driver. On top of that, hardly anyone spoke French, let alone English. We spent a good amount of time simply learning words in Kinyarwanda and smiling stupidly.

Some interesting observations/events from the night:

• men don’t mind dancing with each other
  
• men don’t even mind holding hands and grinding with each other
  
• the concept of homosexuality is flatly rejected on grounds that it doesn’t exist
  
• When the guy:girl ratio is 30:1, no one cares.  Notice the plethora of dudes in this picture as compared to the two women appearing in the frame.
• the body odor of 35 Rwandese men dancing together in a room with zero air flow is thick enough to cut with a knife.
• Job titles are paramount to all things – especially high-level ones. While hitting on me, a dude told me his name once, and the fact that he was Head of Radiology about 40 times. Later that night, the Mayor of Butaro prefaced a compliment he gave me not with WHO he was, but WHAT he was.
• People really are obsessed with my hair. I had a butterfly clip in that fell out at one point, causing my hair to swirl around and stick to my sweat-ridden face. The men were enthralled enough to try stealing my clip the rest of the night and cop a feel. For the first time I actually felt violated by someone touching my hair. The fact that my hair was slightly wet and sticking together only added to their curiosity.
  
• Dancing occurs in full florescent light. All attempts by amazungu (white people) to turn the lights off were thwarted by a Rwandese man who eventually stood guard over the light switch.
  
• People love Bob Marley so much that they can coordinate an entire room full of dancers to stop dancing to the thumping music that’s playing and sing “One Love” a cappella until the DJ puts it on.
• Warm beer never tastes good – no matter what brand it is.
• The compliment the mayor paid me was that I was an exceptional dancer and that he enjoyed watching me. At least he didn’t try to touch my hair.
• Kissing in public is regarded as highly inappropriate.
  
• Peter, a big-wig at the hospital, sang a drinking song in Kinyarwanda which was totally unintelligible to me, but apparently a big hit among the locals.
  
• Patrick, the other big-wig at the hospital, danced a Merengue with me that caught the attentions of the locals as well. Who knew Haitians can dance Merengue?