Saturday afternoon: red, white and blue

What I do all day

The details of my research project are not necessarily very interesting to most people so I usually just say "I'm videotaping kids signing things". Actually, I am slightly more organized than that.

I'm working with four groups of students. I have 4 six-year-olds, 6 11-year-olds, 4 14-year-olds, and 4 18-year-olds. I also ended up including one adult Deaf Rwandan who teaches at the school because he wanted to.

I do different things on different days, but in general each kid does three different things: first, I do a one-on-one session where I show pictures (or for the older students, a word list in Kinyarwanda) and find out what the sign is for the things. The word list is a standard one that linguistics projects all over use. It's called the Swadesh list, named after whatever guy invented it. The one I'm using is modified for signed languages. It still isn't that appropriate; it includes things like "ice" that don't really exist here, and doesn't include some things that are basic concepts in Rwanda but not in the US. So I use that list but am flexible with it. I also have been getting alphabet and number/counting systems from people.

Secondly, each group sits around together and looks at the pictures/words and discusses what the sign is for that.



Sometimes the group comes up with a sign none of the individuals used, and sometimes they all argue about it.



They also argue about what is happening in the pictures, and there is usually a lot of extraneous discussion as well. And bossing each other around about not participating enough. "You're just sitting there! Sign!"



Then lastly, people from the same age group are in pairs and they watch a Tweety and Sylvester cartoon ("Canary Row", again used in lots of linguistics projects all over) and tell each other what happened in it. I ended up doing this part multiple times because the first time around everyone just wanted to watch the cartoon and (especially the littlest ones) couldn't really remember what happened afterwards. By the second and third go-rounds everyone got very melodramatic and descriptive, which is not only good data but also hilarious to watch.




The six-year-olds also decided that whoever was not watching the clip had to cover their eyes tightly so as not to peek.



So the beginning of each time has one six-year-old poking and tapping and sometimes punching another one, who is sort of twisting around doing six-year-old blind dance moves to entertain themselves. (I had them sitting on the floor because the chairs are too big for them). I start laughing again every time I have to look at any of it for editing or compressing or whatever.



At the end, I've been left with some random amounts of time so I have everyone draw pictures. They also all drew for a while at the beginning to get used to me, the room, etc. Then they all wanted to tell the camera about what their drawings are of. This is when I get the most genocide-related narrative. I also have all the drawings. Some of them are really scary. Some of them are really silly. I am inventing new research/teaching project for making books with the kids, writing a story and illustrating it and binding it. Maybe next year.



Then when I get back in the fall, I'm doing an independent study to begin analysis. My analysis will be recording the configurations of the hands that I see using a notation system that my smart professors invented. "Phonology" for signed languages means how you produce the sign. Not related to sound, but conceptually equivalent to phonology in spoken languages, which studies how you produce a word. Basically. I'll figure out what handshapes are the most common, if there are any handshapes in Rwanda that are not in ASL, etc. There are a couple of general theories related to signed languages that will get tested against this data too.

Phonology!

more pictures of things

happy hour

I drink water all the time these days and I don't know why.

All my snarky comments about equatorial weather, before I left, were really just for effect. I knew that Rwanda's weather compares favorably to almost everywhere else, but I like to make dramatic statements regardless of their veracity.

The weather here is, in fact, lovely. It is never colder than 65 and never hotter than 85 (these numbers are based on my internal thermometer, not on any actual statistics. Who believes statistics anyway. Not me.) It sort of briefly rained one day so far. Today was as bad as the weather gets: it was overcast and only 70.

Plus, I never do anything very strenuous. I get up, sit on the balcony and drink coffee, drive to school, sit in a classroom and videotape children, drive home, sit at a desk and compress video, go downstairs, sit on the balcony again and drink beer and watch birds, go upstairs and compress some more video, and go to bed.

So I don't really understand my unquenchable thirst. You might be tempted to blame it on all the coffee and beer, but why would that suddenly cause me to drink two gallons of water a day? I am only exaggerating a little tiny bit. Right now it is 6:38 and so far today I have drunk five liter bottles full of water. Plus some glasses of water too. And only two cups of coffee at 8:00 this morning: not that much!

Partly it is probably because I am not drinking any milk. AT ALL. Normally I drink about two gallons of milk per week, all by myself. I think I would drink more than that if someone else were in charge of grocery shopping, because I also usually run out of milk a couple of times a week and have to go to the liquor store on the corner to buy more. And they only sell whole, which is delicious, but unhealthy. Or so I've been told. I buy it anyway, I need the milk!

One time when I was in college I tried to drink a gallon of milk in an hour. I couldn't do it. Then my challengers gave me another half an hour and I would still retain my glory. I couldn't do that either. I made it to maybe one glass left in the jug and then I threw up. A lot. It was disgusting.

I didn't die, though, or have to be rushed to the ER for lactose poisoning. Which convinced me that lactose poisioning was all just a lie invented by Keith to start an argument with me. I'm not sorry, though, because in the end I got a fair amount of glory out of it all anyway.

During the whole episode, a lot of discussion was had about how much of various liquids various people had consumed and/or seen other people consume. And someone claimed that drinking too much WATER would give you "electrolyte poisoning". I semi believe this, because "electrolyte" sounds scientific.

Based on these facts, I am going to switch from water to beer now. I am only trying to use preventative health care skills! I don't want to get any electrolyte poisioning!

pictures of different things

Fanta!

The day before Emily left we had a Fanta Party. It was a very hectic, last-minute arrangement, as are so many aspects of my life.

First thing in the morning, we had set up a meeting with the director of the school to talk about future contact, most-needed items, etc. We hired Sam to interpret between English and French, Emily interpreted between English and ASL, and there was some Rwandan sign language and lipreading in various languages thrown in there as well. At the end, I think we all basically understood each other.

It was 10:00 by the time we were done with the meeting, learning the names of swarms of children, taking group photographs, etc. We had to drive Sam back home, and we wanted to go get a bunch of Fanta for a good-bye Emily party. "Fanta" here is like "Coke" in Florida; it just means some kind of soda. Anyway we decided that we would not come back and teach that day, but deal with our Fanta purchase and come back at 4 when school is out.

Then the excitement began. There are 140 children at the school and around 20 teachers and other staff. So we needed 160 bottles of Fanta.

That, my friends, is a lot of Fanta.

Things, including Fanta, are pretty cheap in Kigali and I was under the impression that I had 60,000 francs on me because we were planning to go shopping at the art co-op place. Which is WAY more than enough for Fanta, even for 160 bottles. Some fast (and incredibly accurate) mathematical calculations led us to believe that we would need 7 cases. A case (24 bottles) is 3,050 francs. So, that should cost something like 22,000. No problem.

The next chore was to go to a place where one might be able to buy 7 cases of Fanta. Emily and I, surprisingly, did not know where to begin. So we asked Sam to come to the rescue once again. Luckily Sam is probably the nicest person on the face of the earth, so he was happy to help.

He took us to a place where it was immediately obvious that Rwandans buy Fanta there, not Americans. From the reasonably car-friendly street where I usually drive, we turned onto a not-so-car-friendly dirt road, dodged some enormous trucks and the ever-present crowds of pedestrians, and parked by a gigantic tower of red crates.

We stepped out of the car and were surrounded by people. Staring at us, not in an unfriendly way, but definitely in a way that made us feel very fish-out-of-water-y.

Sam arranged everything with the head Fanta seller guy. However, it turns out that if you want to buy seven cases of Fanta you have to give them a deposit on the bottles. (Bottles here are more expensive than their contents, I assume because there are no glass-making facilities anywhere. So all the bottles get cleaned and re-used again and again.)

The total for the Fanta was, indeed, something like 22,000 frw. The deposit was 30-something thousand. 30,000. For a total of 52,000 frw.

550 frw = $1 US.

So that's altogether about $100.

Anyway, whatever, we knew we would get the deposit back as soon as we returned the empty bottles. So I went back to the car and locked myself in to deal with my cash.

Whence I discovered that in fact I did not have 60,000 frw. In fact I had 40,000.

So there was some fast renegotiation of everything and we decided to get 5 cases and come back later. The cases were flung wildly around in a way that made me slightly nervous, and slammed into the back of the car, and we were off!

Except we couldn't turn around, because we were in a narrow dirt road lined with people and crate towers and booths of vegetables. So, we went forward.

Forward was a fragile-looking wooden bridge over a deep gully, MAYBE wide enough for one car. On the other side of that was an even narrower alley where Sam wanted me to turn right. Again, lined with even more people and vegetables and fruit, now mostly displayed on blankets on the ground. Eventually I managed an approximately 50-point turn without knocking anyone over or smashing any wares.

You should all be aware that this is a stick-shift, largeish SUV that I am driving, with two passengers and 120 bottles full of soda pop in the back. And that I am usually surrounded by a lot of small children who like to get as close as possible to the vehicle. And that this road was not meant for driving, really, and the difference in elevation between various parts of it is at times over 1 foot.

Eventually, with some deep breathing techniques, I made it to the next block where I was turning right again to get back to the main road. At the intersection between this road and the main road was a cliff that I had to drive up.

I'm not sure if my perception was totally accurate, but it seemed like a 30-degree incline. Decorated with 2- and 3-foot-diameter boulders. In a stick shift, surrounded by children, onto a street with two-way traffic and no signal.

That involved some more deep breathing.

Then we went home, and discovered almost one case worth of Fanta under the sink. (Since when do my parents drink soda pop?) And ate lunch, and went back and bought another case, and drove to another part of town to exchange some American money, and went back home, and sat on the balcony, and drove back to school.

Did I mention that all of the main roads were under construction that day? Roads that are normally one-way were suddenly two-way and roads that I usually drive on were suddenly covered in huge patches of wet tar. And there are confusing methods of traffic control in this country involving police guys standing around laughing at me when I make a lot of mistakes. Which happened a lot of times in a row, holding up traffic and causing a fair amount of ire in other drivers. Ire and honking.

We made it to the school, where all of the children were swarming and signing and telling us their names and asking us if we remembered how to spell their names (we mostly did not). The high school girls did a dance to drumbeats which was incredibly beautiful and the 2- and 3- year old little tiny boys gave Emily a present. Then we drank Fanta.

school pictures

whirlwind

Now that Emily's gone, all I do is hang out with a bunch of wealthy expats. The "international" crowd is kind of weird. Last night I had dinner at the American Club. Some of you may remember this club as the one with the sign that said "No rude or obnoxious behavior will be tolerated."



They've taken that sign down but it's still the same place. Friday is Movie Night. The Marines show a different movie each week and dinner is served and the Marines run the bar which raises money for them to have a Marine Ball.

Because heaven forbid the Marines raise money for any of the people who live on less than a dollar a day, all over this country. You know that bumper sticker about schools getting all the money they need and the army having a bake sale? Well, this is sort of similar I guess. Except instead of "a bake sale" they are having "a bar" and instead of the schools getting all the money they need, the schools still aren't getting any money. Bake sales for everyone!

Whatever.

To get into the American Club you have to either be a member or pay 1,000 Frw. That is a little less than 2 USD. Last night the issue was raised about whether or not I might be able to get a one-month membership. I didn't really care except that I really want a membership ID. Come on! It is a laminated card identifying me as a bona fide member of the Kigali, Rwanda AMERICAN CLUB! CLUB AMERICA! Woot.

After that, I drove around in the dark, BY MY SELF, to go to a hotel out by the airport. I was meeting a bunch of Canadians we met at the gorilla park. They are not wealthy expats, they are non-profit workers running a program for kids in Tanzania. We watched the France v Togo game on a movie screen and drank beer. It was very fun.

Now, today, I am going to play bridge with The American Ambassador. Then we are going to some Greek restaurant with some other bunch of people.

So as you can see I am extremely busy and important and well-connected. Meanwhile, Emily is enjoying her weekend of jet-lag in Minnesota and not playing ANY card games with ANY ambassadors. Sucks to be you, Emily!

luck

This morning I was interviewing a bunch of 14-year-olds. My research project is about phonology (yes, of a sign language. Maybe I'll talk more about that later). But my data collection is basically just getting kids to talk about stuff. During the part I was doing this morning, they were in a group looking at pictures and telling me the signs for various things.

The point of the group was to see if they would agree or disagree about vocabulary and/or sign production.

And they did. So it was a very productive session, in which I got exactly what I was hoping for.

And a lot more that I was really not hoping for at all. Some of the vocabulary items I was trying to elicit were kinship terms. Or for those of you who complain about linguistics people, "names for family members". Mother, father, sister, brother, etc.

A friendly dispute arose over whether a certain sign for "father" is a REAL Rwandan sign or if it is an ASL sign. This led immediately into a general discussion about everyone's family members, and who was alive, and who was not, and when and why they had died.

Of that group of 4 kids, none of them have 2 parents. One has a dead mother and the other three have dead fathers. One died of AIDS last year, two died in the 1994 genocide, and one died in a 2000 uprising. All of the students also listed multiple other family members who died either during the 1994 genocide or since. And I got some graphic descriptions of what "genocide" means, and the difference between that and other violent deaths which are not related to genocide.

So I learned the Rwandan sign for "genocide". It's the same as ASL for "electricity".




These aren't the 14-year-olds, I just wanted to close with something cheerful.