Laughing Over Spilled Milk

I would like to introduce you to my families Umukozi, Elise. Before I continue: An Umukozi is a house worker in Rwanda. Umukozis are very normal in most households in Rwanda since most parents must work long hours and/or commute long distances and do not have time to cook and clean when they come home. Many umukozis also take care of the children when they come home from school. Almost, all umukozis live in the house and are considered family. Elise cooks and cleans every day for my family and has a living space off the kitchen. She takes care of my little sister, Tricia (4) when she comes home from nursery school and has taken a new role as my teacher. She plays Uno with us most nights and is always there to joke. Although she only speaks a few words in English, Elise is the person who has taught me how to wash my clothes in a bucket, boil water for my bucket bath, peel a potato with a knife without cutting myself, and so many other basic skills that are now new to me. Elise is 19 and I would describe her as very sassy and she absolutely loves to dance and sing around the house. She’s never far from a radio and is extremely patient with my terrible Kinyarwanda.

Today I came home a little early with the assignment to learn to cook rice (the Peace Corps making sure we will be able to sustain ourselves alone). I walked into the gate and Tricia came running to greet me (like every other day). I was successfully able to tell Elise in Kinyarwanda that I was going to cook rice for dinner in Kinyarwanda (a huge accomplishment for me). Elise began to show me how to chop onions and grate carrots to put into the boiling water to cook with the rice. As I slowly chopped, she quizzed me on words for different foods in Kinyarwanda, I surprisingly knew many of them. She also showed me how to make Igikembe, which is a porridge drink made from a powder and boiled milk (not really sure what was in it, but it tasted good!). I continued to help Elise cook dinner and slowly peeled potatoes and plantains (I’m still not comfortable peeling things with a knife).

While we cooked dinner, my sisters and Mama came home, we began to fill our jerrycans with water for the week. This consists of bringing all the jerrycans into the mud room (American term) from our water storage room outside. We do this once a week since our house gets running water on Thursdays and it has not rained enough to use our rain collection tank. This means our house looks like this for a day.

During all of this, the milk was delivered for the day and Elise and I began to boil it (all milk must be boiled since it is not pasteurized). We began talking about her family (using the new words I just learned in Kinyarwanda) and learning more vocabulary in the kitchen when we heard yelling from the house (I forgot to mention the kitchen is separate from the house). We ran in and found the floor throughout most of the house covered in water. We forgot about the jerrycans. Elise and I were having so much fun we completely forgot that we were filling the jerrycans in the house and the jerrycan overflowed all over the house. As we began mopping up the water Elise ran back to the kitchen with me trailing behind her. We walked into boiled milk all over the stove and floor. We forgot about the boiled milk. Elise and I looked at each other and started laughing. Who knows how long we were laughing, but eventually Mama and my sisters walked in to Elise and I hysterical on the floor. I’m still not sure why this was all so funny, but it doesn’t matter.

Tonight, I was able to fully connect with someone who doesn’t speak any English and was so shy she couldn’t look me in the eye my first night here. We have quickly become friends and she has taught me most of my adulting skills here in Rwanda, despite the very large language gap. We have just started to learn about each other as I learn more Kinyarwanda to communicate, but the language isn’t what’s important. We have the ability to communicate with each other and learn from each other without speaking and tonight, we were able to quite literally laugh, over spilled milk.