Umuganda

A few weeks ago, was Umuganda. Umuganda is a nationwide mandatory day of service. All shops and public transportation are required to be closed during the morning and typically the banks are closed all day. It occurs on the last Saturday of every month. The idea is to encourage a spirit of unity and collaborative community improvement. Paul Kagame, the president also takes part in the event and it is rumored that he chooses a different village at random to go work with each month. This is supposed to be a total surprise and if someone finds out he is coming, he will change destinations.

Last month was my first Umuganda and it was Katy's first one at Rwaza. So Saturday morning, at 9 o'clock, we left to walk down the road to see what exactly was going on. We were happy to be wearing jeans and a t-shirt without feeling judged for looking scrubby. No one was out yet except for one of the other teachers and the school matron with a student. The student was using a hoe to draw lines across the road every 10 feet or so. Katy and I were hoeless and also clueless as to what exactly the project would be. The road at Rwaza stretches between the church and our school and winds around a big green valley past a Health Center and the entrance to the convent. While walking the road is always a breath taking experience (it offers a panoramic view of the five volcanoes and lush Rwandan hillsides) your view is always interrupted with glances at the road to watch where you are walking. There are potholes and mud puddles every few feet and lose stones and patches of grass littering the way. At any given point the road could have two or three levels, so you have to be careful not to absently trip when taking a step. We were anticipating a smoothing out of the road, though weren't quite sure how this would happen. After standing around for 15 minutes, puzzled by the lone student drawing lines in the dirt, the rest of the students descended upon us in a cloud of boldly printed cloth.

The students are required to wear uniforms everyday of the week except Saturday, but usually they wear them on Saturdays too. The one exception is for the recreation period at 4:30. During this time they all put on long cotton or polyester bottoms and a variety of t-shirts…many of which were probably hanging on a Kohl's rack 5 years ago. My "private dance instructor" wears a shirt that says "Just be yourself…nobody else wants to." Another girl has one that says "I'll do anything for chocolate." My friend Jane posted on her blog a selection of t-shirt sayings that she has seen around her town. My favorite is the 18 year old boy she saw wearing a bright pink shirt that said "Future Trophy Wife" on it…but back to Umuganda.

After school, while they are doing chores or washing, all the students tie big pieces of cloth around their waists or torsos over top of their uniforms. This keeps their clothes clean. The cloth can be found at any Rwandan market and usually has huge prints in bright colors. Depending on what part of Rwanda you are in, a piece of this cloth costs about 2,500rwf which is about 5 American dollars. Unless you are in Kigali, it is rare to see a Rwandan women walking around without some piece of this cloth somewhere on her body. Many just have it wrapped around them, but some wear it in shirt or dress form, or wrapped around their heads. Typical Rwandan dress clothing is a skirt and top combination made from this fabric with elaborate designs around the neckline and sleeves. It is also fairly common for the men to wear shirts or tunics made from this cloth.

While, Katy and I had seen the students walking around the school wearing their cloths, this was the first time we had seen every student in the school together dressed like this all at once. It was striking and also made us jealous of their vibrant attire. We resolved to get our own work cloth the next time we went to the market. As they walked towards us, the cloud slowly stopped and the students broke off to set to work…but doing what, we weren't exactly sure. They were pulling weeds and dirt from the side of the road and casting it down the hill or into the middle of the road. Katy and I awkwardly asked around, trying to figure out what we were supposed to be doing…and how we would do it without a hoe. Eventually some students, delighted by the idea of us working with them, handed us a hoe and stood back to watch us and laugh at the unnaturalness with which we handled it. After several hoeing lessons, we either got the hang of it, or the spectacle wore off because the laughing stopped. Soon, one of the three other teachers who had shown up came over to survey the girls' work and filled us in on what the project was all about. Apparently, earlier in the month, after it had rained, a bunch of muddy water had flowed down the side of the hill onto the back side of one of the teacher's houses. It hadn't caused a lot of damage, but in an effort to avoid further water drainage issues, we were creating a trench along the side of the road for the water to flow into so that it wouldn't fill the road and go every which way it pleased.

Finally, we understood what was going on, though we still didn't understand how the students just knew what to do without ever being given instructions. (Here again is the Rwandan sixth sense). If a youth group was doing something like this in the states, there would have been a huddle formed first. Then one of the adults (the ratio of adults to students would be about 2:5 where here it was about 2:150) would have explained what was going on, where to get the tools, and how to use them. Then, the large group would have been split into smaller groups, each with an adult leader to supervise. There also probably would be a table full of food at the end. Here, it was just a calm chaos, no direction or order and little to no interaction between the adults and students (except for Katy and I). But somehow something got done. I'm not exactly sure if it was actually finished, because really there was just a fizzle in the activity as one by one each person got tired of hoeing and stopped and then after 10 minutes of standing around, headed back to the school.

But while there were many differences in the organization of the project, the general spirit was the same one I've experienced while doing work projects in the States (and Mexico). There was some singing and a general "whistle while you work" air about the group. We would take breaks in our hoeing to learn some words in Kinyarwanda and trade laughs with the girls. Last weekend, when Katy and I went into Musanze, we went to the market and got cloth so that we can join the rainbow during the next Umuganda. Two of the three teachers that came out to work with us worked in their dress clothes…and somehow managed to stay spotlessly clean. I think this might be the Rwandan seventh sense: how to repel dirt while wearing a tie. However, Katy and I just can't resist the signature Rwandan look. For us muzungus though, our chameleon intentions will probably have the opposite effect. Muzungus in large print with hoes are too much of an oddity to pass up for a laugh.

Stop Making Sense

A common expression that passes through the lips of the volunteers in our group while we are together is “stop making sense!” Somehow, Rwandans seem to have this sixth sense where they just know things without anybody communicating to them what so ever. For example, a few weeks ago, a change was made to the teaching schedule and Katy’s classes were moved around. No announcement of the changes was made and Katy had no clue of it until she walked into the wrong class one day. But somehow, all of the other teachers whom it affected knew about the change. For some reason, Rwandans don’t need to communicate verbally in the same way that Americans do. In this respect, sometimes communicating in a “sensible” way is no good here.

While the volunteers are sitting around swapping stories, usually someone will tell one that warrants a “stop making sense” quip. Someone said this during training once and the phrase stuck. A few weeks ago I had a “stop making sense” moment. Katy had decided to take an emergency day trip to Kigali to buy a plane ticket to South Africa for the April break. She had tried to do this the weekend before but credit card issues had made it a bust, so she begrudgingly was going back two days later. I had a large package waiting for me at the post office, and decided to go with her so I could pick it up and avoid having to haul it around with me will on a pleasure trip.

So, Katy and I got up early on Wednesday and started the hour long walk down to Mukinga, the town with a bus stop on the main road. As we started walking, the good karma that was owed Katy after her awful time the weekend before caught up with her. Father Bonadventure, a priest from down the road, was driving back home after saying the 6:30 mass for the students. He stopped to say hello and in typical Rwandan fashion, asked where we were going. (After “hello” and “how are you” the next question is always “where are you going?” or “where are you coming from?”). When we told him we were walking to Mukinga, he shook his head with a Rwandan “oah, oah, oah.” “That is very far, I will drive you there.” So we hopped in and after a 10 minute, rocky car ride, which included a conversation about the Detroit airport and Father Bonadventure’s first experience with snow (he had just returned from a trip to Nashville), we were waiting for our bus.

When we arrived in Kigali, Katy and I split up as I headed to La Posita (the post office). I had been told by three different people from our group that I had two packages waiting for me there. Our Field Director had gone to see if she could pick them up since they were send c/o her. However, she only managed to get the smaller one out for me. When I arrived at the package pick-up area, I told the man at the counter that I was there to pick up a package. He asked if I had a package pick-up slip. I had been warned about these. “They always ask for a package pick-up slip, but no one has ever actually received one.” So I told him no, and he brought out a large book of names, which I was also warned about. You are supposed to find your name in the book and provide identification proving that you are that person, and then they go retrieve the package for you. While I’m sure the names are entered in the order that the packages are received, there are no dates stating when the package arrived and having no idea of the volume of package traffic they had, I had no clue where to start looking. After 15 minutes of searching name by name and passing several names of people I knew, I started getting a little frustrated. I knew my name had to be in there (someone from our group had sent me a text message a few days before saying that she had seen my name in “the book.” ) So I asked the man at the counter if this was the only book they had. “yes, there’s no other,” he said. So, I continued looking.

Finally I spotted my name, but it had been signed off by my field director, so I knew that this was the smaller package. I showed it to the man and asked if it was possible if there were two packages under this same entry. “No,” he said. “And this one has already been picked up. If there is another package, this person would have picked it up too. But probably it has not arrived yet.”

“This is impossible,” I told him, “I was told that there were two packages here under my name.”

“If it is not in the book, then it has not arrived,” he answered firmly.

So I continued looking with no luck. Now I was getting really frustrated. “Can you just look in the back and see if there is a package by this name?” I asked. “ No, if it is not in the book, then it has not arrived yet,” he replied. “No,” I countered, explaining again, “When, this person came to pick up the other package, there were two packages.”

“That is impossible. Because then she would have taken that one as well.” He was getting visibly impatient with me.

I was getting equally impatient with him. Even though he spoke English very well, I knew that there was some invisible communication black hole between us in which lay the meaning of my words and the unspoken, commonly understood workings of the Rwandan parcels office. And probably my package. I didn’t know how I could be anymore clear that there was another package for me and that it had arrived. And he didn’t know how he could make me understand that my package was not there. I took a deep breath and told him, “No, they told her that she was not allowed to take it. She tried to get both, but they would only let her take the smaller one.”

“…oh… your package is not small?”

“No.”

“Then, it is in this book,” he said, his voice immediately calm, as he pulled out another book.

In my head I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, “Meghan, you just need to stop making sense!”

This new book was much neater, and after about 5 seconds, I found my name three pages back.

If a Rwandan had come to pick up a package, never having set foot there before and never having discussed the procedures of package pick-up, I’m fairly certain that with a glance or two and maybe some eyebrow motions they would have had their package in their hands in under 5 minutes. No wonder my students have such a hard time with critical thinking skills and rationalized communication…who needs those when you’re born with an innate sense of knowing what’s up.

Simfite amafaranga

This post started out as an update about my daily responsibilities here, but somehow came out as my conclusions about the significance of language. So, I apologize, and promise to tell about teaching soon.

I have found that the Rwandans are quite difficult to understand when they speak French. Interacting with them in French tends to be fairly one-sided. I will say something that they understand, then they will respond, I will ask them to repeat what they have said and will get the general meaning by the one or two words that I can pick out through a heavy accent and low voice. At first I thought this was a sign of my poor audio proficiency in French. But one day at the end of training, a member of the Congolese soccer team that was staying at St. Paul's stopped to watch our game of Uno and talk with us. He spoke in French and I was surprised to understand every word he said. It wasn't until a couple of weeks later, while talking with Father Charles, that I found out why there was such a difference in his French speaking abilities and those of the Rwandans.

Most African countries are large and composed of dozens if not hundreds of small tribes, each of which has their own language or their own version of a common Bantu language. (Bantu is a group of languages that are spoken in East Africa. Swahili and Kinyarwanda are two examples of Bantu languages.) When the colonizers came and drew country lines and began to educate the Africans in their schools, it was only the language of these colonizers that the separate nations had in common. The people of small Rwanda however, all spoke Kinyarwanda and so had no use for French outside of school and business with the Belgians. This is why for them, trading in French for English as part of Vision 2020 is no huge sacrifice (except in schools, where all education has been done in French). It is also why French is associated with the well-educated and wealthy foreigners.

Whenever I leave the confines of the school, children and occasionally even adults follow me around on the streets shouting "amafaranga, amafaranga muzungu!" (give me money white person!) To this I can explain away in French or English that I am a volunteer teacher and that I do not have money to give away. Or I can respond with a simple "simfite amafaranga." (I don't have money). The response to the former is usually unimpressed looks. The response to the later is a huge smile and a quick trail of questions in Kinyarwanda to which I may or may not know the answer.

A common attitude that we have encountered here is that if you are Western you have a lot of money. Not only that, but you have the same color skin and speak the same language as the instigators of great oppression and exploitation in Africa. My impression is that our presence here is a reminder to Africans of the unfairness of life. As someone who has come out of the tunnel of fate with the long end of the stick, don't you owe them something?

On an individual level, I don't think that we do owe them anything. However, if we care anything about justice in the world this is where it counts. A few words of Kinyarwanda: this is the mustard seed, the yeast in the bread. I can give what is asked of me to the 12 year-old Rwandan child on the street: namely amafaranga. But, if I want to communicate to this person that I think they have value and that I respect them, a few words of Kinyarwanda is all I need. This situation, this decision between amafaranga and Kinyarwanda seems very familiar to me. I suspect that this same decision is faced every day in different forms and different locations, dressed up in different clothes, by people the world over.

This is why, though I am pleased to be using my French where I can, I have decided to make a dedicated effort to learning Kinyarwanda. And the giant smiles and pleased astonishment tell me that a purposeful "umunsi mwiza" is worth the effort. In fact, it's worth all the amafaranga in the world.

Pictures are here!

Midnight Short Calls

The other night I was cozy in my bed, under my mosquito netting, half nodding off and half reading a book. I would have fallen asleep if it weren’t for a very strong need to “make a short call” (this is Rwandese speak), that I was trying to ignore. I looked at the clock. It was 11:30pm and I was exhausted. Oh how I wished that I had a flushing toilet in the next room. Or even just a toilet in the next room. Or even just a toilet. Thinking about going out into the crisp dark night to my cement stall of a bathroom was making it difficult to do the deed. Finally Nature’s call became too strong and I donned a jacket, shoes, and a headlamp and located my keys (there is a padlock on my latrine so that only I can use it.)

Halfway through the 50foot walk to the bathroom building I looked up. It was late enough that the lights from the neighboring housing up the hill were off and there was no noise coming from the school. The night was silent except for a gentle hum of insects and an occasional rustle of foliage from a carefree lizard. It was a clear night, but the smell of the afternoon’s rain still lingered. The dark sky was littered with stars. I immediately spotted my old friend O’Ryan, but could not find the dippers. There are many more stars visible here and picking out recognizable constellations is much more difficult.

I keep my stall pretty clean and smell free and every week or so I’ll go through with a broom and knock down all the daddy-long-leg webs from the corners, but regardless, at night there are always three or four of them crawling around in there. There are also some giant, but harmless wasps that hang out by the latrines during the day. That morning there was a dead one lying on the ground of the latrine, but I hadn’t gotten around to sweeping it out. That night it was still there, but a spider was hoisting it up into a web a few inches off the ground. I realized that a few weeks ago I would absolutely have had a problem with going to the bathroom with a daddy-long-leg preparing a dinner of giant wasp. Now however I just watched with mild interest and a parting bon appétit. Aside from the occasional large ugly spider, I have come to live in a peaceful, mutual disregard with my neighborhood insects. They stay on the walls and I let them live their insect lives. Locking up my latrine I was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of contentment. Yes, if I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I have to walk outside and use a hole in the ground. But I also get to walk outside under a ceiling of stars with the clean, sweet accompaniment of nature going about her business as I go about my business.

In America, we tend to remove as many discomforts as possible and are not okay with sharing a living space with harmless bugs. While I don’t think there is anything essentially wrong with that, I have learned that it is very easy to adjust to life with spiders and lizards and pit toilets. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is something very good about being forced to live with these things. If the exchange rate for flushing indoor toilets is star-filled nights and a more content spirit, I am exchanging happily.

McGyver

A story from last week: When I first arrived at my house, I had no household essentials. After two days, when I ran out of the water that I had brought with me, I had to ask Katy for some from her filter. While she graciously offered me as much water as I needed, I was eager to be able to boil my own. During my first trip to town, I didn't have enough room to bring a pot or electric water heater back with me on the moto, so I had a few more days ahead of mooching from my neighbor. Finally, on my second trip down, I found not only a store that sold a reasonably priced electric water heater, but also room in my backpack. It cost 12,000rwf which is about $23 and way more than what I would pay for the same quality appliance in the States. There was some dirt on the top of it and it looked a bit flimsy, but if I was going to have my own purified water that night, my options were limited.

That afternoon I returned home with a few visitors. Some of my fellow volunteers wanted to see what all the fuss was about. (They had started calling me Rapunzel since I had been trapped up on the mountain for a few days until I figured out how to get a moto to come all the way up here.) After a hike around the neighborhood, we sat down to eat and I decided to make some tea with my new purchase. But, when I pushed the button down to turn on the pot, it snapped right back up. I tried again. Still no luck. "Of course!" I thought, "this is what you get for not shopping around." I tried the button one more time willing it to work…willing it to work a little too much, because I heard a snap and the button swung free from its place. Not about to make another trip into town for the next few days, I resigned myself to Katy's generosity until I could bring the thing in to have it fixed.

The next day, after church, I was trying to put off doing dishes and decided to see what I could do about the water situation. I brought out my Leatherman (thanks Tim!) and unscrewed the four screws that were holding the pot together. After a few trial and errors, I was able to fix the button so that it wasn't loose anymore. Unfortunately it still would not stay down when you turned it on. I determined that this was due to shoddy design and there was nothing that the store owner would be able to do about it. So out came the embroidery floss. I tied it to the underside of the button, pulled out the loose end, and put the screws back in place. Plugging in the cord, I pushed the button and pulled the floss down, pinning it under the base of the pot. Success! The button stayed and I soon heard the water boiling. And so, for now, I can make my own water. Seriously, who needs duct tape when you've got embroidery floss.

Note: Rapunzel has been rescued. I now have a moto guy…Alexandre, he always answers when I call, understands my French, and knows how to avoid the potholes on the way down…a knight in shining armor really. Royal stead, visored helmet and all.

The blue roof off to the right in the first picture is my school, my house is at the bottom end of the structure. These are three of the five volcanoes that you can see from Rwaza. From left to right they are Muhabura (4127m), Gahinga (3474m), and Sabinyo (3634m)