• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Byers Without Borders

My WordPress Blog

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Blog

Faces of Rwanda

December 18, 2018 by byerswithoutborders Leave a Comment

Colorful Women of Nyangwe

We hold certain cultural norms inviolate, assuming that the entire of humanity must believe as we do. The taboo against staring is one of these. I first ran across this cultural difference decades ago in India. A long hard stare at something or someone is not considered impolite or aggressive. In fact, staring at something that strikes your interest sounds pretty reasonable on the surface. But when you’re the object of that gaze, and you’ve grown up in our western society, these hard looks can make one twitchy.

Rwanda is turning out to be one such culture. Here the hard stare is coupled with another phenomenon, smile rationing. History has taught Rwandans to be wary. Smiles are not handed out willy-nilly to all-comers who happen to catch your eye on the street. The people of Rwanda do smile, but those smiles must be earned. Stella sharing polaroids with her subjects, my stumbling attempts to speak Kinyarwanda, Jen bargaining for an avocado, these have earned us happy faces and smiles.

Curious faces

So our first weeks, as we nervously learned to negotiate Kigali, was a time of hard stares and uncomfortable walks through the city. But now we’ve learned the secret. With just a word or two, Muraho, Amakuru, the stares dissolve and the faces open up, curious, friendly, proud. It’s then that we see the true faces of Rwanda.

Newfound friends

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

DOWNtime

May 1, 2020 By byerswithoutborders Leave a Comment

COVID Response Team

April 25, 2020 By byerswithoutborders 24 Comments

Luang Prabang

December 3, 2019 By byerswithoutborders Leave a Comment

Train Trials

October 25, 2019 By byerswithoutborders Leave a Comment

Airport Schooling

October 15, 2019 By byerswithoutborders 3 Comments

Categories

  • Adventure
  • Africa
  • Bhutan
  • bus life
  • Bus Life
  • COVID-19 Response
  • Events
  • Family
  • For Parents
  • Health Volunteers Overseas
  • Hope
  • kids yoga
  • Kids Yoga & Mindfulness
  • Medical Volunteers Overseas
  • Mom Blog
  • nomad life
  • Rwanda
  • skoolie
  • transportation
  • Travel
  • travel with kids
  • Uncategorized
  • Volunteer

Archives

Footer

Latest Posts

DOWNtime

COVID Response Team

Luang Prabang

Train Trials

Airport Schooling

Follow Our Adventure

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

© 2023 Byers Without Borders · Developed by Renaissance Web Solutions