some cultural observations:

I often wonder what strange and unique facial expressions Americans make. When I was in Kazakhstan, to express amazement you open your eyes very wide and shake your head back and forth for several seconds to show proper shock. And it took me a little longer than I would have liked to realize that when Rwandans raise their eyebrows several times in what we would call a “come hither” gesture it has a definite different meaning here. So the first couple times a moto driver did the eye brow raise at me, I was disgusted and thought that he was suggesting something else besides a ride to work. However, when my very nice counterpart raised his eyebrows at me to set a meeting time to I began to question the meaning, and finally when my host mom raised the brows when I asked if she had eaten I realized I was misinterpreting the gesture. I'm not that in demand after all. An eyebrow raise her actually means, “yes” or “sure, I guess so.” I will have to make sure I don’t pick up this habit because it could get me in some trouble on bourbon street…

Another lovely east African habit is when people apologize to you, when you actually do something dumb. This was a little more apparent in Uganda, than it is here in Rwanda, but for example when I whacked my head on the roof of the matatu (mini-bus) while getting out, I heard a chorus of “sorry, sorry”. And when I dropped my sunglasses on the ground (completely my own fault) and the lens popped out and landed in a dirty mud puddle “oh, sorry” . Or when I tripped on who knows what and almost did a face plant while crossing the street. “sorry”…I am clearly in a sorry state over here. (sorry for that one)

Oh, and while i am blabbing about cultural things, when you greet someone it is the three kiss on the cheek thing. not two. not four. i have had some awkward greetings with people due to inappropriate number of kisses...