The personal-life liabilities of pursuing a Pulitzer Prize
About a month ago, I realized that my apprehension about talking to men here was impeding my work. The feeling, I decided, was an…
Read Morecross-cultural communication
Maybe Kinyarwanda is actually the universal language
I was sitting in the bus station in Butare and four Asian men walked in. A tall guy in an Indian-style tunic went to…
Read MoreI’m getting a reputation
I met up with a friend in town today, and somehow wound up talking with him about my trepidation at dealing with the gender…
Read MoreMissing signals that aren’t even cultural
Here’s a little intermission from my genocide memorial posts, which you can anticipate more of this week… For the record, I realize that with…
Read MoreIs this what they mean by pidgen English?
I went with a roomie to Gisenyi today, just a quick day trip, mostly with just enough time to go down to the lake…
Read MoreLanguage Lessons I
I have been taking Kinyarwanda lessons for almost three weeks now. Thank God I studied Swahili for a year; I can remember almost none…
Read MoreGreetings, or “What am I supposed to do with your hand?”
Anyone who’s ever left the States–hell, anyone who’s left a small hometown for a big city, or vice versa–knows that awkward squishy feeling of…
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