On normal — and whether it can mean turning that radio down?

I’ve been writing a lot about normalcy lately, it turns out.  Somehow it emerged as a theme in my peacebuilding work, in particular in this post about Sierra Leone’s progress since its own terrible war.  And one thing I keep stressing to friends and family is how normal Kigali was the night of the grenade attack.  That doesn’t seem to translate…

It’s an interesting perspective for me.  I grew up reading the kind of news wire reports that were filed Wednesday night, and for a long time they were all I knew of the places they were about.  To be here, and see this incredible gap between what you think you’re reading in the news — violence! chaos! — and what is actually happening is eye-opening, to say the least.  I don’t blame journalists for this, by the way.  The literary genre that is breaking news does not have a lot of flexibility.

Meanwhile, life in Kigali plods on.  It’s dry and dusty and I’m told sideways that Rwandans are laughing at all us Americans insisting on walking around in our sandals, and when I take mine off and I have to rush immediately to the bath tub and wash my feet, I know why.  But the weather is crisp and cool and perfect (sorry America, where I know many of you are baking), and sometimes if you’re at an outdoor cafe and the wind blows right, you can catch this special smell in the air at dusk.

My cultural struggle of the week — yes, this week, which sounds so dramatic in the news — is about the radio.  This man who plays his radio so loudly is driving me bonkers.  And it’s a cultural confusion, because I’ve been told that to speak softly is a sign of respect here.  Sometimes this is hard for an American like me, because we don’t know how to hear people who aren’t almost shouting.  So when someone is being very respectful, we also have to work very hard to listen.

That’s speech.  Radio appears to run by an entirely different set of rules.  The guard here has the radio up full blast, which means it’s scratchy, and at 8 am, it was on some sort of Phil Collins loop, which is horrifying enough any other time of day but especially when you’re doing the groggy morning thing.  It usually comes on at about 5:30 am, then shuts off, and then back around 7 am, and off, and then full blast from  8 am forward.  I know this because it wakes me up every time it goes on, and I will myself back to sleep, which works until it comes on again.  Sometimes I wake up spontaneously and think, “It’s time to get up!”  But then I realize it’s quiet, and I decide to celebrate this special time by getting a little extra sleep in silence.

But no, I don’t want to ask him to turn it down.  It keeps him company.  I’m only staying here a few days, and I can hack it.  This is more his place than mine.

Though there was just a woman shrieking on the radio, and I thought it was real.  I rushed to the kitchen, where this lovely Rwandan lady is getting ready for some cooking, and said, “This woman?  Is she ok?  She has a problem?  You hear it?”

She said, “On the radio?  Atch, Emmanuel, he is giving music to the whole neighborhood!”

She shouts a few things…and now suddenly…silence.

Which can only mean?  A small nap.