The North

This past weekend I went to visit Musanze in the north, just in time because cabin fever was setting in. Marvin is a Marylander who has been in Rwanda for nearly a year working for a community health nonprofit called CCHIP. I met him when he was on campus a couple of times for a project to install rain barrels here to increase the water supply, and he invited Laura and me to come visit.  So we drove with Marvin in his NGO’s Land Rover to Musanze, Laura bouncing around in the back with the Rwandan contractor for the water project and a couple of hitchhikers, two women with a young baby.

The town, known as Ruhengeri until recently, is the closest to Volcanoes National Park, the home of the world-famous mountain gorilla. Many tourists use it as a jumping off point for gorilla tracking in the park. I just finished reading a biography of Dian Fossey, the renowned and eccentric gorilla primatologist who was murdered in 1985 at her research center. Dian became famous because of her extensive research on the gorillas’ social patterns, collecting more data and getting much closer to the animals than anyone had before. The book and film Gorillas in the Mist give her own account of her work and her extraordinary relationships with the gorillas. Accompanying her gorilla studies, Dian became known for her grit and tenacity in the wilderness as well as her quick temper, especially surrounding the protection of her gorillas and their habitat from poachers and encroaching cattle farmers. She was known to intimidate, interrogate, and sometimes torture those who would do harm. Although she and the locals did not have a good relationship, the Rwandan government came to understand that the gorillas are an important resource of international investment and tourist income, and Dian Fossey deserves the bulk of the credit for protecting these animals for many years. Her murder remains a mystery, but she had many enemies, and those who knew her were not surprised to hear about her fate.

My own trip to Musanze did not involve gorillas. Gorilla tracking costs hundreds of dollars and must be scheduled way in advance, owing to the scant number of visitors permissible (something like 60 per day). What I did do was see the NGO where Marvin works, go out to dinner, meet a couple of other NGO and Peace Corps workers, and finally go out dancing for the first time since arriving in Rwanda. The place had a bar, a dance floor and a pool table under a tin roof in a courtyard. It was just crowed enough, and we had a great time. I learned that all my lindy hop hip practice has paid off: Rwandan boys/men think I’m a good dancer!

On Saturday, we piled back into the Land Rover en route to Gisenyi, the tiny lakeside town in northwest Rwanda. There was a party hosted by a Swedish woman involved in the apparently lucrative business of extracting methane gas from the lake* and her English husband, who has recently gotten involved with a project refurbishing and selling bicycles to Rwandans. Their back yard was this crazily well-tended garden and patio, and just beyond, a staircase led down through a white metal gate to the very edge of the lake. At first, I felt out of my element in this place of luxury, where everyone seemed to be speaking French, but after awhile I began talking with the other young people and having a good time. I watched the fishing boats go out on the lake, three long narrow boats abreast held together with logs. From the boats extended long arching poles which I think held the fish nets, and the fishermen chanted as they rowed. As the sun went down and the stars peeked out, the boats stationed themselves on the lake and lit their lanterns. Later in the night, a few of us went lake swimming in the moonlight, clamoring precariously over slippery rocks.

Overall, a fun, eventful weekend, but sadly I’ve started the week feeling rather sick with some kind of virus. I’m kind of congested and headachy and fatigued. I tried and failed to take a nap today, but I am drinking weird gross electrolyte salts that really have no excuse for not being flavor-disguised as Gatorade.



*It turns out that if they do not extract the subterranean gas, there is some danger of the carbon dioxide there bubbling to the surface all at once one day, known as a limnic eruption, and killing the whole lakeside population by asphyxiation.  it happened in Cameroon in 1984 and 1986.  Natasha insisted it was highly unlikely at Lake Kivu anytime in the next couple of hundred years without some serious seismic activity.  Currently the gas has about half as much pressure as the water on top of it, but you never know; seismic activity isn't so hard to come by. 

Of Cobblers and Tailors

Today I had no exams to proctor, so I amused myself at home for a while. In the afternoon, Laura and I decided to go into town to see if we could have some dresses made from the cloth we had bought. I’d also had the idea for some time that I’d like to repair a pair of leather sandals Peggy handed down to me. I’d heard rumors that there is a man who comes to school sometimes to repair shoes, but so far, I hadn’t seen him. Just outside the gate on the way to town, there he was, sitting under a tree with a big canvas needle and an entourage of three young ladies getting shoes repaired. I pulled my shoes out of my bag and commenced to embarrass myself awkwardly trying to understand the price he was asking. I have learned my Kinyarwanda numbers up to ten, but gatatu (3), gatanu (5), and gatandatu (6) are easily confused in my head. Laura came to the rescue. He had said gatatu, three. Three thousand francs, around $5 wasn’t super cheap, but it was definitely less than I would have paid for new shoes. I told him I’d be back, and we walked away. At the end of the lane I reconsidered and realized we might be gone too long: we should leave the money with the guard at the gate to give to the cobbler when he’d finished. Luckily, he was pretty smart and understood what I wanted him to do, despite my lack of linguistic ability. [I guess all that practice with pantomiming and mindreading in Cranium paid off—right Rachel? (and Rachael and David) Flying butt-dresses?] So I handed the guard my trois mille, and he called something over to the cobbler. It turned out, to my great embarrassment, that he was asking for 300 francs, not 3000. I corrected the amount I had given the guard, but as we walked away, I suddenly wanted to cry. I couldn’t believe how cheap this service was. I paid about $.50 to a skilled laborer for his time, materials, expertise, and door-to-door service. And I am so rich that I was willing to pay ten times the amount he asked. Both of those things upset me. Yes, the cost of living is less expensive here than at home. But 300 francs still doesn’t get you very far. It is enough to buy a pound of tomatoes, a coke, or a third of a loaf of bread. I don’t know how this man supports his family with such a low value for his skill. Laura tried to help me put it in perspective a little. Many people here rely on subsistence agriculture. So, although 300 francs doesn’t buy much at the market, he might not need to buy much if he has a bunch of avocado and banana trees at home. According to actual (not theoretical) economics, the price of something is determined by the relationship between supply and demand. If the cobbler couldn’t make a living cobbling, he probably wouldn’t be doing it. Anyway, I still feel a little sick over it. He did a really nice job on the shoes, with some skillful stitching and gluing, and I was really pleased to be able to get them repaired--something that warms every fiber of my sustainability-loving soul, yet would probably be cost preventative at home.


On the dressmaking front, we were escorted from one tailor shop to another, a little shop with maybe five or six sewing machines behind the counter and four people busy at work. There was room to walk between the sewing machines, but not much extra. Behind them on the main wall was a rack of wooden dowels where lots of colorful fabrics were draped, creating a very lively backdrop. We handed the woman our fabrics and my drawing and Laura’s printout of the design. There was some more gesturing and resorting to French, but I knew I was I business when she pulled out the tape measure. She said our dresses would be done next Wednesday (or so Laura tells me), so we’ll just see!

In other news, our little household was surprised Wednesday morning with the news that later in the day we would be having a new housemate, “a girl” who was coming for a month. Oh, good to know. Antoinette turned out to be a young Rwandan woman (here, she’ll be considered a “girl” until she gets married) who is here working with Sr. Constance, the bursar, on matters of finance and accounting. She speaks very little English and seems shy anyway. I’m happy that Providence will have someone to talk to.

"Theoretical Economics"

I visited Sande’s home on Sunday. He lives in Maranyundo, which, as it turns out, is the name of the neighborhood/village just up the hill from us. It may actually be the name of the hill. Compare if you will, the economy/standard of living in Rwanda and the U.S. Sande is an ambitious and judicious 27-year-old teacher (and also a master’s candidate). He took out a loan that will take him two or three years to pay back, and with it he built a house. Needless to say, I would not be able to do that on a teacher’s salary back home.


On the other hand, Sande’s house is pretty basic, even with the addition he put on. It is five rooms altogether. The bedroom has a bed and not much else, and the living room has a coffee table, loveseat, and two chairs. The windows are large with wrought iron frames, keeping the house cool and well-lit. In places, you can see that the walls are built up with mud and plastered over with concrete. There is minimal electric wiring, and although I didn’t see the kitchen, there is probably no refrigerator or coffee maker.  There would be light in the evening, although we kept them off since our visit was during the day. There are exposed rafters, which still have the shape of tree limbs, since the trees here are small. You can see all the way up to the tin roof. Sande says he had the ceiling lofted because that is another way to keep the house cool.

Now, I’m not saying I’d like to give up my refrigerator, (and the durability of Sande’s walls bear further consideration), but there is a part of me that is jealous. Why can’t I own property and a place to live with a teacher’s salary and a three-year loan?  My cousin Stephanie just signed a 15- (or maybe 30?)-year mortgage—an enormous commitment. Maybe our “standard of living” has advanced too far if we can’t actually afford it. As far as I’m concerned, it wouldn’t hurt for amenities at home to be scaled back a bit.  I would rather buy a small house lacking some amenities than rent an apartment until I’m 32 and then sign my life away on an eternal mortgage. Who needs lights on during the day anyway?

Finally, Sande lives with a “house boy”; yes, someone to cook and clean for him. I will also NOT be able to afford this—probably ever.

Clearly, this entry is full of what I like to call “theoretical economics” (in other words, made up). I don’t really have the training to think through the relative purchasing power of a salary, the relative cost of amenities, the health and safety implications of housing, and the cost and availability of labor and natural resources in Rwanda versus the U.S.  Undoubtedly, part of the reason costs are higher is the electrical and plumbing infrastructures at home, as well as the need for heating and air conditioning (but then again, I know for a fact that we could be building with natural materials that both insulate and keep cool better than what we use).  Maybe most people at home would prefer the huge investment for the high amenities as opposed to whatever it is you might be able to get with a three year loan. But I also wonder, I just wonder, if we’re letting ourselves be robbed by using more than we can afford.

Without you my life's gonna be forever Tuesday morning.

Somehow it's already exam week, and I can't believe how quickly we ran out of school days.  For the rest of the school, this is the end of the second term out of three, but for me, it's the end.  Because nobody else is leaving, it doesn't really feel like an end.  All this week and next Monday, the girls have two exams each day.  The girls will stick around for a few days extra, when I hope to teach a workshop on notetaking and lead some arts and crafts as well.  I am also hoping some kind of end-of-term talent show performance will manifest.  I was scheduled to proctor only 2 exams all week, though I was asked to be a substitute proctor yesterday.  This morning I'm lying low.

I've been doing yoga every day for the past five days or so, and it really helps my mental state.  I want this trip to be about being present, but it can be difficult when I have so few tasks to figure out what I'm being present to.  If I can't be peaceful and balanced here, then I never will.  I've been using my time to do a lot of reading, talking with Laura, and thinking.  Reflecting on the meaning of peace, considering the conundrum of the haves and the have nots, and thinking about my own future.  How can I properly wrap up my life in Boston?  What will it be like to be in Baltimore again? Where will I find a job?  I could spend my time here answering these questions, but if I wanted to jump right into that stuff, I wouldn't have come here.  So I'm holding it in tension.

One of the books I'm reading is Peace is Every Breath, by Thich Nhat Hanh.  He writes that we are more than our cravings.  This comforts me: I can get very worried over the things I want for the future, and I sometimes also feel controlled by surface-level bad habits like nail biting and snack cravings.  But none of these defines me or needs to control my actions.  Neither the empty compulsions of the present nor the shapeless objects of the future have much to do with my present happiness. 

One of the lessons of Rwanda is this: take it easy.  Your eagerness and your anxiety only hurt you.  What you want, what you need to do will happen in its own time.

On Faith and Rwandanness

Today, I went to church with the girls at the parish. This is the very same parish where the genocide memorial is held. We followed that dusty dirt road past the church and the mass graves. It curved to the left, and we passed the incomplete construction of the new church. It has been that way for years, Laura, says; the parishioners cannot fund the completion of the project. The services are now held is a building that used to be a school. Like most schools here, it is one long brick building, just a row of classrooms with doors to the outside. The walls between the classrooms had been knocked out, so the interior is a long rectangular space.


It hit me at some point that I felt very disturbed to be worshipping God as if nothing had happened in that place. I am not certain of the story in Nyamata, but I know that in many places during the genocide, when people flocked to the churches for asylum, not only were they not protected, but the clergy sold them out, welcomed the killers, and in some cases even encouraged brutality.  How can the people forgive the church? Why do we trust priests? Why would anyone want to commit to a religious life within an organization in which such atrocity occurs? If there was so much wrong in the world that this could happen, and the Church (leaders and members) was just as vulnerable to it, then what makes anyone think it can do better in a more peaceful time? I understand that religion can be a way of making the spirutal tangible; at the same time, maybe it just as often takes the place of a meaningful personal connection with God, morality, or human love.
This makes me think back to a conversation I had with Lydia last week.  In Rwanda, there is no shared family name; both names are chosen for the individual. It bothered me a little, when it occurred to me, that most Rwandans use their Christian names primarily and their Rwandan names less commonly. When they use French and English Christian names, aren’t they downplaying the importance of their own culture and embracing that of a people assocaited with so much turmoil in their country?

I later realized that I have no right to assume that using Christian names means rejecting Rwandan-ness. Who am I to say how Rwandans should wear their own culture? Perhaps a Rwandan name is kept more sacred and intimate by using it less often. Similarly, who am I to say that Christianity belongs to the imperialists and does not authentically belong to the Rwandans? In fact, it is probably more authentic to them than it is to me, (as would be obvious to anyone who has heard me facetiously label myself an “agnostic Catholic.”)
Lydia (a teacher here) explained to me that Rwandans very much separate Christianity from colonialism; the use of Christian names is a mark of their Christianity, but to them it is neither a lasting trace of their colonizers nor a rejection of their own culture. I don’t know how or why they were able to make this separation; Christianity came at the same time as missionaries and colonialism and taught people that many aspects of their own beliefs and culture were flawed. But Rwandans are extremely faithful, and of course in order to be genuinely faithful, they must have made a distinction between the religion and the white people who brought it.  Likewise, they have separated the terrible actions of people in the Church from the faith itself.

Frustrations

I usually paint a pretty picture because it’s usually a pretty picture.  But I guess it’s about time I share some of the things that are less pretty.  Culture shock is bound to happen sometimes, and it definitely does.  Maybe it’s unbalanced to write about it all at once, but it sort of poured out of me this way a couple of weeks ago, so here it is.

The starkness of my room slowly began to drive me crazy.  Plain white and empty.  First I changed my mosquito net to a blue one, but it wasn’t enough.  So I brought in a table, then extra rugs.   Then I hung some fabrics I bought.  Then another time I switched the comforter.  Then I brought in a chair.  Finally, there is some color and life in there, but I realized that all that color, all that stuff, is unRwandan. 

I get tired of cold showers or of waiting for water to boil for hot ones.  I sometimes desperately miss snack food, although for the most part I am satisfied by the wholesome meals.  I would like to continue this way of eating when I come back, because it’s healthy and simple, but the adjustment is not easy.  I am very used to having chocolate or a box of mac and cheese available as a comfort food if I am feeling out of sorts.  Indulgence, I have realized, is a way of life in the U.S.  And by that, I don’t just mean that our standard of living is indulgent (it certainly is, compared to Rwanda.)  But even if you take for granted microwaves, hot water, cheap fast food, and transportation that, on average, respects personal space, there are lots of things that I consider indulgences: sharing a bottle of wine, nibbling a 74% chocolate square, getting my hair done.  They are not everyday things, but they are some-days things, and enjoying them is a part of our culture.  Self-indulgence is a part of how we live, as can be seen in slogans like Loreal “because you’re worth it” and the once-used McDonald’s “Have you had your break today?” and the messages inside Dove chocolate wrappers like “Go ahead.  Have another.”  Here, the things that are special are really special, as in we hardly ever have them.  Dessert is pineapple—twice a week. Cake has happened exactly once, when Andrew and Nathan went home.

I become impatient with how long it takes to do everything.  Nobody is ever in a rush, and everything takes twice as long as you expect.  All of this works out fine, provided you never schedule more than one thing to do in a day.  Church services are delayed by at least 15 minutes and last for two hours—or three!  Classes start late and end late.  Walking into town takes 30 minutes.  Cooking dinner takes over an hour because the vegetables apparently need to be boiled down until there is no fiber left.  If I go out for a meal, I can expect that it will take 30 minutes to get to town, plus easily 45 minutes to get served.  Once, I was just walking to class, and one of the teachers, maybe Valens, said “You are hurrying!”  “Yes,” I replied curtly, “I am always hurrying.  I walk too fast for this country.” 

I’m tired of the scarcity.  There’s always the minimum of things but no extra.  When we ran out of matches, I went to get some from the kitchen, and they gave me five more.  We get toilet paper in packs of 8 small rolls, and we run out in under a week and have to ask for more from the stock, which means going during the work day when staff are there and struggling to pantomime the item one desires.  I dislike having to feel guilty when I print paper handouts for the girls because there isn’t enough paper.  I wish I didn’t have to share one “stapling machine” with 10 other teachers. 

I find myself a little overwhelmed by shopping.  Vendors don’t list prices, which means I can be overcharged anytime because I am a Muzungu.  Negotiating in a foreign language is unsettling at best.  It also puts me on edge to have children constantly yell to me “muzungu!” when I walk down the street.  They don’t mean anything offensive by it, only to express their surprise and in many cases delight.  I understand this, but I have not gotten used to it because in my culture, it is generally inappropriate, if not rude, to a) initiate conversation with a stranger on the street, b) point out that someone is different, and c) make explicit reference to how much money someone has. 

I also become frustrated sometimes with not having much to do at school.  I could be more useful than I am being, teaching more classes, tutoring, leading sports, teaching art.  But the girls’ schedules are booked, and I am here for too short a time to push for Big Changes.  I was invited to be here, so I have to assume that, making myself present and available, I am doing exactly what they want me to be doing, even if that means unvoiced ideas.

Churching it

I accompanied Sande to church this morning.  I was ready at 8:30, since he told me the service was at 9, but I wasn’t surprised that he called me at 8:45 and showed up at about 9.  So we arrived around 9:30 (which, according to African-time, was just about right).  This was the first time I have really gone off the main road in Nyamata.  The church, Anglican, I'm told, was a rectangular building made of orange-colored local bricks, with unprocessed wooden beams and a tin roof.  The pews were sparsely-backed and wooden.  The floor was dirt, and a single electrical wire reached in through the window.  From it was plugged a single socket with one compact fluorescent bulb as well as a keyboard, an amplifier, and a microphone.  Sande later told me they are still in the process of construction. 

People sat to the left and right of the altar table as well as in front.  A 9-year-old boy from the front row wearing rubber sandals led us in praise songs, to which we swayed gently and clapped.  There were women in traditional dress, colorful printed cloths done up into full-length dresses with embroidered necklines and artful head wraps.  There were men in ties, little girls in satiny purple Sunday-best dresses, and kids in grubby tee-shirts.  The pastor began to speak, and after a bit Sande told me that he had welcomed new comers and asked us to stand.  I was one of three.  I stammered something in partial Kinyarwanda, “Nitwa Kate.  Murakoze cyane for welcoming me.  I come from the United States.  I am a teacher at the Maranyundo Girls’ School with Sande.”  Before long, we were singing again, and I was wishing I knew Kinyarwanda and that they had printed lyrics so I could join in.  I was able to more or less follow the readings, and then a visiting preacher was invited for the sermon.  He talked for seventy-five minutes.  I nearly died.  I walked outside to stretch (I was seriously falling asleep) and two hours had passed since the service began.  A group of children lined up in front of me and stared at me.  I shook their hands, said hello, and asked their names, and then we ran out of shared language.  Sande and I left early, after the offertory.  It was 12:30...gah.

Some Mild Trekking

July 1 is Independence Day in Rwanda, and the 4^th is Liberation Day, celebrating the end of the genocide.  Laura and I made big plans to go to Nyungwe Forest, one of three Rwandan rainforests famous for its abundant wildlife, including some sixteen species of primates.  In Kigali on Friday, the buses to the park were full, so instead we rode to Butare. 

We visited the national museum, which, unlike most of the historical landmarks, had nothing to do with genocide or unity and reconciliation.  It was a cheerful celebration of traditional Rwandan culture, chock-full of traditional weapons, instruments, natural garments, and weavings <3.  My favorite part was a life-size thatch hut you could walk inside.  It was maybe 12 feet wide and round, and the floor was strewn with woven mats.  When we left, there were strange things afoot in town.  People were thronged at a dirt track or soccer field; there was a big trailer set up as a stage from which someone was playing loud music.  We wandered around a little, looking silly and lost, and getting asked for money a few times by children.  It turned out there was a car race scheduled for the weekend.  Weird. 

We spent the night at a nice little motel set back from the main road, with rooms looking out on a central garden.  I had the best shower I’ve yet experienced in Rwanda, with water that a) came from a showerhead above me and b) stayed hot.  My fellow westerners, we take so much for granted at home.  In the morning, we checked out the cathedral, which was built by the Belgians when Butare was selected as the capital.  It was quite impressive in comparison with buildings nearby, with high arched ceilings and that traditional nave/apse design with the side chapels.  We were there at just the right time of day to see the brick seem to glow red with the sunlight. 

Then there was the bus ride to the forest.  We ended up on a small one, crammed four across the seat for over an hour.  Just before we drove into the forest, we picked up an extra passenger. For the next hour and a half, Laura was scrunched on the front four inches of seat, getting her shins burned by the metal in front of her, while I was wedged in the corner, propped up on one butt cheek.  Luckily, the scenery was breathtaking.  We had really gotten up into the mountains by that point, and as we rounded bends, you could see out across the forest.  The roads were impossibly windy and full of potholes, but the trees were tall and beautiful, and the woods were so thick you couldn’t see into them from the road.  Once a family of baboons crossed the road right in front of us. 

Although the bus was destined for a town some ways past the forest, we figured out that it could drop us at our destination.  After much conferring among the driver and the frontseat passengers (who were looking out for us), the bus pulled over.  The sign said the place was the conservation society, but nothing about lodging.  I should explain that tourism in Rwanda is really kind of a fledgling industry.  We’d had a difficult time trying to figure out how to get to the park, where to buy passes for how much, where to stay, and how to reach the trailheads.  At this point, we had been driving past pretty much nothing but forest for miles and miles.  According to our Bradt guidebook, the options for lodging were three—one restrictively expensive and the other several miles behind us.  We climbed out, taking it on faith that we were in the right spot and wouldn’t have to walk for hours to a place to stay! 

Right away it felt like we were in a new country: Touristland.  The place was built up, with lovely walkways and a hillside full of flowers and hummingbirds.  There were all kinds of muzungus—British, German, French, American—and all of them had booked ahead (something which, as far as we could tell, is not very Rwandan, but then, this was Touristland.)  So they were booked and we were out of luck—in the middle of nowhere.  The man staffing the place, Oliver, was kind to us, and he quickly got on the phone to his boss to try to find us a room somewhere else.  Before long we were marching down the hill to find this other place, and much to our surprise and delight, there was a little town where we could not only sleep in a bed, but also buy things like water and reasonably priced food for the hike. 

We spent way too much on dinner at the main lodge that night, but really enjoyed the time talking with the muzungus.  There was a Frenchman bicycling across Rwanda as well as a couple of students from India/Florida and South Africa who were studying international development for their master’s degrees in Scotland.  Back at our hotel, which was really more of an annex to someone’s house, I chatted with a bunch of medical students doing a travel rotation in Rwanda from Belgium and the UK.  

We got ourselves up to the lodge early to buy passes, settling for the waterfalls hike.  From this side of the park, we had a choice between the waterfall and the primates tour.  Of course we would have loved the primates hike, but it seemed that those passes had been sold out.  Our guide introduced himself and his two assistants, both university students studying tourism.  We were instructed to tuck our pants into our socks to avoid bites from the ubiquitous red ants.  The tour began by cutting through the Gisakura tea plantation, which I hadn’t yet seen in Rwanda, although it is a primary export.  The hills here were very steep, but the tea bushes, rolling on and on and on, had no trouble with that.  Sometimes the path became so narrow that we were nearly swimming through tea bushes as high as my neck.  The tea is picked by hand by local workers; they must be careful to avoid the brand new baby leaves but choose those leaves new enough to be light in color. After two years or so, the bushes must be cut down and cleared for new plants. 

After maybe 30 minutes, we reached Nyungwe Forest.  The landscape changed immediately from the tea plantation, probably because the tea was planted on what used to be forest.  Inside the forest it was both dense and lush, and the trail was full of switchbacks.  The plants were unfamiliar, but it felt to me not so very different from being on the Appalachian Trail.  The guide pointed out 5-meter fern trees and several avocado-like fruits eaten by chimpanzees.  The waterfall was beautiful—about two storeys high, but with an awful lot of force.  As for the amazing diversity of wildlife, I think perhaps our group of twelve or so was too big and loud to see it.  I saw only a couple of birds and a gigantic earthworm.  When I asked who maintains the trail, I learned that the government pays local people to do it.  It they don’t receive economic benefit from the park, they will not respect it, which leads to problems like poaching and deforestation.  On the way out of the forest, back in the tea plantation, we did spot some monkeys swinging around in the trees at a distance.  Take that, primate tour people! 

When we returned to the lodge, it was only about noon.  For our entrance fee, we could have taken an afternoon walk in another part of the park, but we did not have a way of getting there or getting back from there to someplace to sleep.  We were lucky to be offered a ride to Butare with Verity, Lou, and Nick, a British family from our hike.  They are just getting settled in Butare for a two-year stay as Nick will be teaching at a law institute there. 

Late into the afternoon, we relaxed at the Motel du Mont Huye and finally decided to just have dinner there.  This was our first really bad travel experience.  When we paid 5,800FRw for our bill of 3,800FRw, we waited for 20 minutes, then asked for our change.  The waitress patently refused, claiming we had given her 2,800FRw.  It got messy, involving the other staff, who believed the waitress who had stolen from us.  When one of them handed our waitress money out of her own pocket, Laura refused to take it and we went to bed upset.  In the morning, the table on our patio had disappeared; we assumed we were being denied our complimentary breakfast and left. 

It was July 4, Liberation Day, when Rwandans celebrate the end of the genocide and the coming of the Rwandan Patriotic Front government.  We bought bus tickets, and as we sat down to eat, we watched a huge procession of schoolkids parade down the street past us, first one way, then the other, some of them carrying celebratory signs.  We followed them to the field near our hotel that had begun playing music on huge speakers before we left.  The whole town was arriving there, sitting under tents or standing on the grass, facing a drum line of young men and boys.  We could only stay for a few minutes, so we felt very sheepish when a man herded us into some seats that looked like they should be reserved for local leaders. 

We bused it back to Kigali uneventfully, where we did a couple of errands before returning to Nyamata…to take a nap.

A Rwandan Wedding and Ensuing Shenanigans

Providence was invited to a wedding this weekend for a friend of hers from church, and Laura and I were welcomed to tag along.  It was nearly 1p.m. by the time we got to the wedding because there was an umuganda, or national day of service, scheduled.  This traditionally means that roads and public transport are shut down while volunteers clean the roads.  (I learned that only certain people participate in this, upon invitation.  Otherwise, I would have been in the midst of it.  You might know how I love neighborhood cleanups!) 

The first part of a traditional Rwandan wedding takes place at the home of the bride’s family.  The walkway was designated by something like pine brush, and the yard was set up with three tents: two long ones on either side of the aisle and facing it, and one smaller one in the middle for the wedding party.  Of course everything was in Kinyarwanda.  Providence explained that in the beginning, the bride’s family accuses the groom’s family of being dishonest, and the groom’s family must defend itself and convince the bride’s family to allow their daughter to be wed.  This dialogue took place between the fathers, slightly moderated by a sort of emcee character who was very funny (judging by the laughter he received).  We were on the groom’s side, and applauded several times when dear old dad seemed to be making headway.  This went on for maybe half an hour; I wondered if they had practiced these speeches or if it was off the cuff.  Finally, the bride’s family agreed that their daughter could marry the guy.  (Whew!)

The next stage was a ceremonial and theatrical transaction to seal the deal.  You guessed it….the giving of cows!!  Unlike the day before, where the cows were very, very real, these cows were only symbolic, but Providence says that the groom’s family probably did actually give about 200,000 francs to the bride’s family, which is roughly $1000.  For this part, the emcee guy and another friend were draped as shepherds and wandered around the center aisle, singing the praises of cows, and even adding some “mooooooos” for effect.  This got a laugh every time they did it.  The mood was jovia; it felt like this was an essential but not-to-be-taken-too-seriously part of the ritual, like incessantly clinking forks for the new couple to kiss or tossing the garter and bouquet. 

Only then could the bride and groom actually enter, with major pomp and circumstance.  The groom and entourage entered first, with gold and red capes and ornate staffs.  For the bride, there was an armed guard (yes, with spears) along with a maid of honor, an army of bridesmaids carrying all manner of baskets and boxes, and sweeper girls (like flower girls, but with brooms).  The bride’s dress was a deep red wrap with gold running through it, and she wore a beaded band across her forehead.  The bridesmaids’ dresses echoed the bride’s red in a big floral print over cream-colored silk.  Just wow.

Then a second army of bridesmaids served us plates of delicious plantains and beef and beans and rice and vegetables at our seats.  Then there was a little more talking and a tradition of trying to make the bride cry over leaving her family.  She managed to eke out a tear or two, but it felt a little like watching Hillary Clinton trying to cry.

Part two of the wedding was at a protestant church in Kigali.  At this point, there was a bit of a hullabaloo because Laura and I were anxiously attempting to procure from Providence the etiquette of Rwandan weddings.  We didn’t have a gift: did we need one?  Could we give cash?  What would be an appropriate gift or an appropriate amount to spend?  Should we go to the church or would it be better not to since we are strangers to them?  Would it be worse to show up at the church late but with a gift or on time but empty-handed?  As far as I could tell, it turned out that none of these things mattered or needed to be fussed over.  The church was crowded and restless, with about three times as many people at the church as there were at the house.  People kept wandering in for about twenty minutes after we got there, (and we definitely took some time to fuss around in the store before Provi got frustrated and we left without a gift.)  Nobody especially cared who was or wasn’t there or when. 

The bride was in a white gown this time, and all the bridesmaids had changed as well into cream-colored dresses with blue and gold trim.  It was pretty incredible.  This must have been an expensiive affair!  We did get a chance to greet the bride and groom and give them some cash in a collection basket at the end of the ceremony.  By this time it was 7p.m., and Providence decided that she had better head home to her brother’s instead of going to the reception.  This sounded crazy at the time, but now I think she may have been right on: the wedding party was going to take pictures before arriving at the reception, and since Providence goes to bed at 10 o’clock sharp every night, she might have had to leave before they arrived.  At any rate, I was disappointed, because of course I wanted to go to the reception, but couldn’t very well attend without Providence, (right?).

So Laura and I walked in search of the One Love Guest House which wasn’t too far away.  It’s run by a pretty cool Japanese NGO that raises money for prostheses for disabled children.  Kigali is a weird city.  Its many hills are steep enough that there are large swaths of highway you can walk along but not build along.  It isn’t unsafe, but it doesn’t feel very friendly or interesting in those stretches because there’s not really anything to look at.  In Manhattan, by contrast, you are always walking through something interesting even as you go from something interesting to something else interesting. 

We found the place, though there was no entrance from the street where you could see it, and then we had to pass through a labyrinthine (and poorly lit) bridge-parking lot-restaurant complex to actually find the guest house from its entrance.  The patios and walkways were and lovely gardens, though nearly deserted, but the room itself was slightly creepy, big and red and empty except for a ramp up to a dwarf entrance to the bathroom.  I had an actual hot shower, after some hilarious challenges with the overzealous shower nozzle.  We fell asleep to the lullaby of a pack of wild dogs.  I slept well, then woke up this morning to a trifecta of roosters crowing, cars passing, and someone sweeping outside.  The wonderment never ceases!  Also, we discovered a menagerie of several caged tropical birds and about a dozen cats within our guest house/labyrinth.  We decided that the place would be really great if there were more people around. 

Don't worry: I didn't go to bed at 8p.m.  The guest house host, Daniel, recommended a restaurant called Car Wash.  We needed additional directions on the way but were a little creeped out by the groups of men we kept passing, so we asked the nearest woman and immediately afterward realized she was most likely a prostitute.  She was impressed with Laura’s Kinyarwanda, and we paid her twice what she asked, enough for two Fantas.  So there’s another big one to list on my Adventures CV: patronizing a practitioner of the world’s oldest profession.  I think I’ll put it between the all-night fence-a-thon in college and jumping off a bridge high enough to bruise my tailbone in Durango. 

But I digress.  Back to Car Wash.  Laura and I were welcomed in by a musungo (white) guy who I thought was a manager, then a creeper, but then luckily I was right the first time.  The place was big and open, with colorful neon lights, two bars, a big courtyard, and three different semi-sheltered areas.  There was also a stage, and before we knew what was happening, we were watching some insane lip sync/dance performances.  We giggled because one of the dancers looked exactly like Providence, if she ever wore spandex and honed her chest thrusting skills.  We were in time to catch the last 20 minutes of the Rwanda/Canada soccer game, an exhilarating but scoreless match.  Needless to say, we both rooted for Rwanda.  Fortuitously, we had some company because we ran into John, the teacher at Geshora High School, and two young women on holiday from Belgium.  They were all staying in a hostel at a church.

And I just have to assume that everything that happened this weekend was completely normal, even though my head is still spinning. 

A Day of Fame and Fortune

Several unbelievable events stacked on top of one another on Friday.  At about noon, a group of visitors arrived.  I had been told a family of potential donors was coming.  I shook the hands of three extremely cute and impressively articulate kids and their parents, as well as a British woman with them who introduced herself as Opheila Dahl.  This name registered as I shook hands with the other men—whose names I barely heard.  The Ophelia Dahl!  The Executive Director of Partners in Health!  I read about her and Paul Farmer, PIH’s founder, in Mountains beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder, a great book about the organization and its struggle to bring medical access to developing nations.  I was so starstruck, I didn't know what to do.  I ran into the teachers' lounge and kind of freaked out and tried to explain to everyone that she was kind of a big deal.  Then I kind of followed them around with a camera, because I was asked to document the visit, but also because I was suddenly transformed into the paparazzi.  I followed them on their campus tour, and the girls sang to them (I was so proud!) 

PIH has two hospitals in Rwanda, Ophelia apparently knows Sr. Ann (my boss at the Paraclete), and the Cambridge friends she was travelling with apparently gave some money to get this school started, so it might not have been surprising that she was there...except to me.  The sisters even asked me and the other American teacher to sit down to lunch with them.  I should have asked a lot of insightful questions, but it was all I could do to speak in complete sentences about the school.  Ophelia was unassuming, down-to-earth, and friendly.  She is in Rwanda for a short visit of the hospital sites nearby, then she will head off to another site someplace else in the world, maybe Peru or Haiti.  

The mind-blowingness of the day continued after lunch.  Sr. Juvenal was eager to get on the road because the Maranyundo School for Girls was being given five cows at a special ceremony.  It turns out this is a BIG DEAL in Rwanda.  Cows have long been associated with wealth.  They mean food security and are a major part of the culture.  In love poems, a beautiful woman’s eyes are compared to cows’ eyes.  The word describing the slow and graceful procession of a bride and groom down the aisle is the same word as a cow’s walking.  Many dances and songs are dedicated to the important event of a gift of cows.

The gift was made possible through Heiffer International and maybe also somehow through the Rwandan government, which gave cows to a number of genocide orphans and widows some time ago.  The program specifies that the first calf of a gift cow must be passed on to another deserving person.  So now it was our turn to receive cows!  The girls’ dance troupe and chorus had packed into the vans two hours before us to get ready at the site of the ceremony, along with several prefects (student leaders) whose job it was to select at random the name of the person whose cow they would be taking home. 

The crowd was seated under a tent on a grassy yard, looking out on the speakers at a single microphone and about 20 cattle just beyond, grazzing and mooing and occcasionally excreting.  Women turned out draped in colorful formal silk dresses.  The girls, festively attired in leopard prints and headbands, sat in their own tent, which was decked out in woven wall hangings and a low table with gira, traditional vessels for amata (milk). 

There was a lot of rejoicing and hugging as the recipients were paired with their benefactors and introduced to their cows.  Sr. Juvenal gave one of the speeches.  I took an amazing video of a man, costumed as a shepherd, brandishing a staff and singing the praises of the cows.  At one point, the girls ceremoniously passed around the gira to share the milk.  Laura and I were proud again to see how they shared with the dust-covered children from the neighborhood who gathered around.  The girls’ concluding performance was brilliant, with slow, flowing movements, practiced hip twists (they’d be great at lindy hop!) , and frequent arms-extended gestures en homage to the cows’ graceful horns.

After the ceremony itself we piled with the girls into a van.  I expected us to head back to school, but no such luck.  Instead, we bumped along a dirt road for 40 minutes or so behind our inka (cows) to the place where they will be kept.  Then we threw a sort of housewarming party for the inka; there was a big fuss about getting them off the truck and into their stalls; we watched them eat, brushed them with hay, patted their noses, fed them corn husks, and sang to them.  I kept looking around me thinking this is completely normal, trying to convince myself it was absolutely true in this context!

It was well after dark when we returned.  The cows are young and not yet giving milk, but one is already pregnant, we are told.  I asked Sande how the milk will get to school each day, and he said that we could hire bicyclists to do it without great expense, though I suspect that bumpy road and all that milk will still be quite a handful for our milk courier!

Finally back at the house, we ended the night with what was probably the most intense thunderstorm I have ever lived through.  The rain was heavy enough that it poured in through the wall vents, and I had to move my wooden desk away from the wall.  At one point, our door was blown open by the wind; our floor immediately became a lake, and the curtain in front of the door waved dramatically in the wind, the lightning pulsing behind it menacingly.  After hesitating, Laura bravely went out to close it, facing substantial headwinds down the corridor.  She and I proceeded to do such fearful things as: preemptively turn off the lights and get out our flashlights, take inventory of our fire extinguishers in case of a lightning strike, sing “My Favorite Things” on repeat for 20 minutes, and huddle together in the hallway in the middle of the house.  The girls told us later they were likewise terrified.

icyumweru (the weekend)

On Saturday, Laura, Providence, and I went to Kigali again.  We wandered around trying to find the Dancing Pots, a tourist attraction that involves dancing, pots, and the Twa, people of the third and smallest Rwandan tribe.  We didn’t find it, but we did walk past some embassies and NGOs.  By the cathedral, we met two small children who pleaded with us for money.  “Ndashonje,” they said.  “I am hungry.”  On the streets of Kigali, the people begging are clearly doing so for a reason.  We saw a man with no hands and no feet sitting out.  I have never felt so dirty about charity as I do here.  Laura agrees with me that you can’t feel good about yourself after giving away money like that.  Those kids will still be hungry again later and that man still needs someone’s help for the most basic of tasks.  It’s funny how giving charity can be dehumanizing, but it really can, both for me and for the recipient.  Instead of uniting us a human beings, it just creates a stark contrast between my having and not their having, which is softened only a little if I ask their names. 

 On Sunday,
I did basically nothing all day.  Actually, I cleaned up the kitchen and the back yard, did a “dance off the inches” salsa workout video with Laura, and read the first half of Genesis.  I also have a copy of the girls’ Christian Religious Education text, which is actually from the Kenyan curriculum, and I am looking at it to see what they are learning.  I also talked to Dad and Rachel.  Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

Midterms

Light workload this week as the students were taking their CATs, or midterms.  I mostly relaxed, proctoring some exams here and there. 

Tuesday morning I did an English lesson with Sr. Constance.  We did some reading of an article about the latest in the battle against AIDS, which was in a copy of The Economist I bought in Kigali for 3,000 francs.  The article was advanced for her skill level, but was a good starting place to seek understanding and jump off into a few concepts, like spoken numbers (first, second) reporting on charts, and verb tenses used to describe the situation.

I also worked with Nathan on making papersifted fibers from a bucket of water on to a screen, then added a layer of apyrus and wings and wings and wings of the rainbugs, then finished with a second layer of fiber. 

The students invited me to join “sports” and I played soccer for awhile, leaving the game to go get the ball from the other side of the fence.  The girls stopped the game for me until I told them to start again, even though it was a hike to get back around.  I then joined some girls who were stretching and showed then, on a whim, Simon Says.  They are so very obedient.  It was hard to tell if I had just burst in unwelcome and held them hostage or interrupted their otherwise mundane moment with a novelty.

Tuesday night Sande invited the whole gang out to Savanah.  We were seated out on the lawn around two tables moved there especially for our big group, missing out on the sort of tiki pagodas this time, but with an incredible view of the full moon.  In conversation, we asked Sande about how nice the girls are to each other.  Insightfully, he explained that they are extremely cautious, particularly in how they treat one another, and in particular, they refrain from teasing each other because of any physical characteristics—all because of the genocide.

Laura and I went running on Wednesday morning.  We went up the hill near where Sande lives and turned out to the main road.  We passed the school I visited with Andrew and Nathan last week and a bunch of kids followed us!  It was a little hilarious, because clearly they found us completely absurd. 

Later, I washed a load of laundry by hand for the first time.  Ouela, one of the two “house girls” with whom I often laugh and smile and try to exchange words in our respective languages, seemed displeased with my progress.  I wasn’t sure at first whether it was because I suck at scrubbing or what.  Washing machine? She asked.  Yego. (Yes).  In the end, I think her concern was that I didn’t have enough soap.  Oh well.  The clothes are clean enough for me, though I don’t love hand-washing.  It is really quite labor-intensive, and I’m a little insecure about my wringing skills.  Won’t it rip, or at least stretch, the fabrics? 

The sisters came by for a wonderful farewell dinner for Andrew and Nathan.  We said grace before and after the meal (I got to sing the Lord is Good to Me) for the end one, and had pasta/salad and plantains and potatoes and meat and even cake!  Dessert is a rarity; this was my first here, unless not counting pineapple, which is a pretty standard last course. 

On Thursday I videotaped an incredible black beetle that was in the sink outside when I went to fill a wash bucket.  I swear the thing was two inches long and as round as a lady bug.  It was like a tank!  

I have been practicing my Kinyarwanda, especially while I proctor exams.  For one, I wrote up on the board the start time and the stop time, along with the current time.  As I studied, I erased “Time now” and wrote, “ni gihe ki?” which means “What time is it?”  The girls giggled, appreciative of my attempt to learn their language, and then went back to their work. 

On Thursday, I went along for the ride to Kigali to bid Andrew and Nathan bon voyage.  We will miss their fun, relaxed presence.  They left behind some great art materials to do with the girls, plus a skype date with a professor and her young students in Korea!

Also in Kigali, Sr. Juvenal visited a primary school taught by the Benebikiras and Laura and I took a tour of the school with Celeste, the school secretary for headmistress Sr. Ana Beata, who was apparently the first Benebikira sister to some to study in Boston.  I recognized her from a picture hanging in the third floor dining room at the Paraclete. 

On Friday, after classes ended, during “sports,” I pulled out the paints and half-finished globes for the students to work on.  We have some really nice-looking ones by now with bright colors. 

Kigali Weekend

On Saturday, we finally got out of the house around 3 and taxied down the hill on bikes for 100RWF, or about 15₵.  I couldn’t believe how cheap that was, though it’s not far and it’s downhill.  Laura and I climbed into a 14-passenger van labeled “Excel Tours” to Kigali.  I was smushed on a seat with three other adults, one of them holding a cute baby, with my butt falling into the crack between the real seat and the fold-down seat.  It cost us about $1 for the 40-minute ride.  I was surprised at how, as we got in toward the city, passengers would knock hard on the ceiling and yell something to the driver, then we’d pull over, and the person would climb out.  I had no idea where we were getting off.  Luckily, I had Laura, and it turned out to be easily identifiable--the place where there were lots of these van things. 

We hadn’t walked far before we met Emmanuel, a friend of Laura’s who was involved with a project connecting Maranyundo students to tutoring students at another school in Nyamata.  Emmanuel, it turns out, is studying to be a dentist, which requires a four-year bachelor’s degree.  After he completes it, he will go where the government sends him.  In this developing nation, the president has a lot of control over what’s happening in the country.  This might be a good thing; after all, Rwanda’s rate of development is apparently quite remarkable. 

Emmanuel helped me bargain for a phone charger (about $2!), then led us to the fabric market to find the perfect print for Laura.  I bought two more, but saw just so many beautiful ones, it left my head spinning.  As it began to rain, Laura and I checked ourselves into the Sky Hotel, listed as “budget” in our guidebook .  Our room had crazy shiny green bedspreads, “bonus flip flops” on the floor, and like most Rwandan spaces, uncarpeted floor (this was tiled), and a crazy beautiful view of settlement in the valley around Kigali.  When we came back after dinner, buffet-style with hot tea to warm our wet bodies, we found that the rainwater had flooded in from the balcony onto the floor.  There was just nothing to block it, with the open balcony designed like a tub and the door an inch from the floor.  We transferred rooms, not because of the water, but because the balcony door wouldn’t stay closed in the wind.  We retired to a much bigger room with blue sheets, a busted television cord, and a bathroom featuring a creepy window out to the rest of the room.  The shower stayed hot for about two thirds of my shower before the water cut off completely for a few disappointing soapy minutes, then went cold. 

When they say developing nation, they aren’t messing around.  What struck me was how sad it seemed.  I gave the people the benefit of the doubt that they wanted to provide a quality experience.   There is just not adequate infrastructure or money to sustain reliable plumbing or replace broken appliances. 

This morning, we had a very weird breakfast in the basement of our hotel room.  They keep lights mostly off during the day, but this room was dim enough, even with the windows out to the below-ground courtyard,  that there were several chandeliers with one lit fluorescent bulb.  I ordered “African tea” which turns out to be mostly gingery whole milk in thick thick curdles.  There was also some flat egg (omeletlike but plain) and bread shaped like hotdog rolls.  From next door, we could hear singing and shouting, which we figured was a church service.  Weirdly, "Iron Will" was on the tv. 

We walked south along the road (Ave de Justicia) into the colorful shopsy district, Nyamarambo.  I took some pictures of the mosque.  We also walked by the Kigali Health and Tech Institites, the Russian embassy, and the pres res.  We went into the memorial site for the Belgian soldiers who were defending the prime minister when all of them were assassinated in 1994 at the beginning of the genocide, in the hopes that the UN would pull out.  It worked.  The memorial was the stark buildings full of bullet holes and a bulletin board where the soldiers’ families had written their lamentations.  

We found our way eventually to the crafts market.  CRAFTS!!!  There were tons of merchants in the coop, representing tons more.  I bought a ton of cards, a bowl, salad tongs, some jewelry.  After purchasing a couple of things from a man named Jean Baptiste, I asked him which items were his, and he showed me the wood carvings, which I had not noticed.  They are stylized, expressive, and made of a sturdy olive wood.  I told him about Joseph’s, Mom’s store, which had sold statues from Italy and Spain.  The blessed mother statues struck me as especially beautiful, and I chose one to take with me.  As we talked, Jean Baptiste showed me an email he had received from a man in the US who had purchased a few nativity sets a few weeks back.  The man was missing a couple of pieces, but international post is ridiculously expensive.  Jean Baptiste asked me to take the pieces home with me and mail them to Virginia.  I accepted, feeling incredibly lucky to be a part of this international mission.

We grabbed lunch, some Indian aloo something burgers, where we were surrounded somehow by Musungus (white/rich people).  It’s funny how I sometimes feel like it’s cheating to be around people of my own culture, like that’s not the real Rwanda experience.  Other times I watch three episodes of Friends in an evening.

We ran into Bienvenue, Nathan, and Andrew on our way back home, stopped for a drink (that’s what you do!)

We got back just about in time for the storm.  It rained and rained and rained.  What Laura calls “the stupid bugs” were out IN FORCE.  They come up from termite mounds, flutter about frenetically, often into the mouths of geckos or into human beings, then eventually land, shed their wings, walk a little more, and promptly die.  I didn’t believe it, but two came in as we were watching tv on the couch, then two more, then two more, moving down the hall.  Ick.  I lowered the princess canopies and tried to shoo them out of the bedrooms.  I think there were about 20 of them dead when all was said and done. 

the Art of Peace

On Thursday, I tutored Sr. Constance in the morning in English, then assisted in computer class.  After classes, I supervised the 8 or so girls in the “media club” as they read headlines on the internet. They report out to their classmates on current events at assembly Monday and Friday mornings.

Andrew and Nathan worked with a group of students to paper mache some balloons to make bowls.  After classes, I helped them peel papyrus for paper-making.  They harvested the papyrus from the river nearby.  This was the very river where thousands of bodies were thrown during the genocide to be swept out of the country.  I think that for Nathan, creating beautiful art from the papyrus of this river is an act of reclaiming the local environs for peace. 

Today, Nathan and Andrew led the girls in some more paper mache globe-making and paper making.  I missed it because I had teaching to do!  I did a lesson for the Senior 1b’s about see, hear, taste, and smell, which, it turns out, are special verbs because they take the present simple conjugation even when the meaning is continuous.  For example, you say “I smell oregano,” not “I am smelling oregano.”  They practiced these by writing stories in groups about some interesting pictures I found in my travel magazine.  I also did a tutoring session on direct and reported speech with my senior 2s.  This turns out to be complicated as well!  The girls are studying hard this weekend for their CAT exams (like midterms). 

Andrew, Laura and I stayed up until nearly 2 talking and drinking and playing cards.  It was a great time in our sheltered little environment of the faculty house. 

Basketball and other minor victories

Today, I tutored Sr. Yvonne in computers for an hour in the morning.  She is a warm, smiling woman with a big sense of humor, and it is fun to sit with her and play around with the silly features of Word, like clip art and fancy fonts.  “I am a big happy dog,” she typed, just to create some text on the page.  Ever since then, Andrew has started referring to her as “the big happy dog.” 

Andrew and Nathan went to Kigali for most of the day with Sr. J. and Sr. Constance, where they visited all kinds of paper stores to get materials for their projects.

In the afternoon, I watched and played along a little with Bienvenue and Valens on the keyboard.  They are both extremely musical and really got into some praise music they were doing.  Laura giggled at the faces Bienvenue made as he sang and played. 

Then was the faculty-student basketball game.  The girls had challenged the faculty to a showdown.  With me, Laura, Bienvenue, and Valens, we were short a player, so we borrowed Amelie from the students.  Laura was great and Bienbien and Val were wonderful.  The girls swooned as Bienvenu ran up and down the court like Michael Jordan, tall and lean and fast.  I tired out fast and scored only once thw whole game, but thanks to MJ, we won!

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

I went for a run in the morning along the dirt road.  I made a baby cry, just by being white, and by doing this weird thing, running, in these weird clothes.

I spent the morning with Sr. Martha, Nathan, and Andrew visiting three other schools in the area.  Andrew took some crazy videos of the primary school children gathering around us, just swarming to get a closer look.  “Witwande?”  “What’s your name?” we kept asking them.  We went into five different secondary level classrooms, greeting the students and introducing ourselves, thanking them for letting us interrupt class.  I felt a little uncomfortable pushing ourselves on them as though we were celebrities, though we were a hit, especially when Andrew said he liked to sing and the students asked him to do so.  We did a few bars from “Let It Be,” which was actually a lot of fun, and needless to say the kids erupted in applause.

The Geshora School, the third school we saw, is a high school, levels Senior 4 through Senior 6.  It is a new facility, an American built school, like ours, but it is built 40 minutes further out of town on an incredible lake.  We were told that they can’t use the lake because there are hippos and crocodiles!  We met several Maranyundo graduates there and also talked with the headmaster (a Bostonian named Peter) and one of the American teachers (they have three).

After school, I tutored my senior 2s for the first time.  I have 8 students, which is a lot in that small tutoring room!  I asked them to draw their home and talk about it, as a way of introducing themselves, to assess their skills and just get them talking.  They were reluctant to begin drawing with pens, without rulers.  A few of them made their drawings with tentative dotted lines.  Afterward, they asked if they could meet on Friday as well. 

The Nyamata Genocide Memorial

Immediately after my nap today, I got word that Nathan and Andrew were being escorted to the Genocide memorial.  I have known that this is something I need to see, but have been dreading it, and had hoped that I could go with one of the nuns.  I felt very much un-braced for the experience, having just woken up, not preparing for it, and going with Teacher Ernest instead of one of the sisters. 

The Memorial is a Catholic church, and it stands as a testament to some of the most brutal events that have ever and could ever occur in human history.  In 1994, Tutsis throughout the area flocked there for asylum when their neighbors took up machetes and violence began to escalate.  10,000 Tutsis crowded there, but counfd no asylum.  The interahamwe (militia) came for them, first with machetes and hand weapons, then later with support from the army, guns and grenades.  There was no real door on the church, only a barred metal gate.  Our guide showed us how the original gate had been blown with a grenade, but I could imagine that long before the militia could reach the gate, thousands would have been slain outside.  For more on the Rwandan Genocide, this article isn't bad.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1288230.stm

We walked through one of the mass graves.  First we walked down a narrow ladder into the crypt.  There were shelves on either side, stacked to twice my height.  The shelves contained coffins, which we learned had about twenty people in each.  Beside the coffins were human bones—shelves and shelves of skulls and longbones. 

Afterward, Nathan and Andrew asked the guide some questions, and I listened—or didn’t listen—silently, feeling strongly that only silence could pay any tribute to what I had just seen.  I felt that I could only bear witness; there was nothing more to be said in that moment.  I felt the rawness of Rwanda and the vulnerability of having such an event in their past.  How exposed they were, letting us strangers see this atrocity.  Of course they want to keep it from happening again, of course they wanted to honor their dead.  But how could they be sure we’d understand?  How could they know that we wouldn’t judge their country as violent and inhuman?  Because after all, how could we really understand what happened, or why, or truly believe that there but for the grace of God go we?

Later, at home, Andrew and I debriefed with Providence about the experience of seeing the memorial.  My sweet Providence told her own story.  She explained that during the genocide, when she was only 8 years old, her family fled to a church near their home, where their neighbors, the interahamwe, pursued them.  Her father, uncle and cousin were pulled out from the church.  They begged for their lives but were killed anyway, with machetes.  This may have happened in front of her eyes: I’m not sure.  She says that only by a miracle were the rest of them saved, but she wouldn’t go into detail. 

This history, I think, is integral to the identity of this place, because when a people have hit rock bottom in atrocity and in grief, there is nowhere to go but up.  It is this very tragedy which I think inspires the people of Rwanda to the remarkable and widely noted development of the past decade and a half.  I think, too, that bearing such loss allows people to hold humanity close to them.  I see this in Sister Juvenal, in Providence, and in others.