In Living Color by Ciara C.

Ciara Christian
Ngoma District, Eastern Province

Upon accepting my invitation to serve as a volunteer in Rwanda, one of my greatest anxieties was serving in Africa as an African American.  “Doesn’t it help you?”  “Aren’t you able to blend in better?”  are among the numerous questions asked by my colleagues who don’t share my race, and in many ways, my experience.  Having been to other African countries, I already anticipated that my darker hue would correlate to my being treated as a host country national woman.

Again, many would think that being identified with Rwandan women would be beneficial to me.  The reality is, this occurrence has proved not only frustrating, but challenging.  I, and other volunteers of color, especially women, am held to higher standards of conduct.  Rwandan gender norms are projected onto us. I can only speak from my own experience, but I can say with certainty that many of we “dark girls,” we women of color serving in the Peace Corps Rwanda community, pride ourselves on our fierce independence; on our ability to accept and reject the societal norms of our choosing; on shattering the prescriptions for gender that our own societies have for us in the western world.  So, when very rigid and conservative gender norms are forced onto us, norms we might choose to reject, it can cause problems for our integration and acceptance.

Single young Rwandan women don’t live alone, I do.  Single young Rwandan women don’t dine alone in bars, I do.  Due to these and other differences in gender norms, I’ve been told that I’m both a woman and a man by colleagues in my community. Though people see my skin and assume I’m Rwandan, I’m a single, young, western woman with western ideas and behaviors.  This leaves me with the burning question: how do I share ideas of gender equality with a community that often appears uncomfortable with my rejection of their traditional gender roles?

I have found the answer to this question to be: through personal relationships.  It can generally be said that in sharing and exchanging cultures, personal relationships allow for the most impact.  In my experience with the intersection of my race, sex and gender, it holds especially true.  I live in a community where conformity (in regard to gender norms) is seen as right. I share the face and features of many women around me, but I stand out.  Because of my aesthetic commonalities with them, I feel that I have a greater responsibility to them in regard to gender equality.  In my unwillingness to be anyone other than myself, in conjunction with the personal relationships I’ve forged, I am enabled to share my notions of gender equality.

The young ladies in my classroom and in my GLOW camps see a woman who looks like them, but who feels no inferiority to men.  Through our relationships, I am able to encourage, and hopefully empower the young ladies in my sphere of influence to feel the same. I, in no fashion, mean to say that Rwandan gender norms are “wrong” or “bad” or anything of the sort.  I, myself, actually embrace and enjoy SOME gender norms that are considered traditional.  That is, however, my CHOICE, and I try to exemplify to the women around me that it can be theirs, or not.