Day
5
After some of our routine tasks,
like eating lunch at Yvone’s and visiting Covaga, we get a chance to play
sports in the community. Lindsey brings a Frisbee and one of the basketball
team member’s brings a couple of basket balls.
“Cracked cement, faded lines on a
court, rotting wooden backboards and hoops without nets greeted us when we
reached the basketball court after working at Covaga. We didn’t even have a
basketball. We weren’t sure what we had gotten ourselves in to. No one else was
on the court so we just started to throw a Frisbee between ourselves and two
local kids who had been absorbed into our group. After a while of people slowly
trickling in, there were 40+ people using the combination basketball/volleyball
court. Finally, the director of youth recreation rode his bike up to the court
with his basketballs bungee cabled to the back of his bike. The other team
started to warm up, while slowly, with no shade to protect us, the WWU students
became drained of all moisture in their bodies. Warm ups and stretching turned
into a friendly half-quart scrimmage which eventually became a full blown, full
court match: the Western Vikings (plus Rogers, of course) vs. the Gashora
Cougars (so named because Washington State University had been in Gashora the
previous week). The final score was 19-20, and we went home defeated, but happy
to have finally done a physical activity.” –Jon Kaimmer
With the assistance of Rogers, Sara,
and Carrie, Lindsey sets up a Frisbee drill for some of the kids who have
gathered near the basketball courts. Children in second-hand clothing covered
in the dust of Gashora rush over to throw the disk. Rogers helps mediate between
Lindsey and the kids to get all of the kids in a line. Their throws are wobbly
at first but they get better quickly. They clap when their friends catch the
disk and we teach them to say akazi
kanoze in English, “Good Job!”
At dinner, we decide to get beers.
The first beer we try is Mutzig and compared to beer in Bellingham, it’s pretty
weak. We also taste Cedric’s beer, Turbo King, which he says is beer for men.
Therefore, we like it a lot. Cedric takes us out to a local hotel that plays music and has
an outdoor dancing area. We hear the music when we’re still half a mile away
and can see green and pink lights glowing.
We’re excited that there are real
toilets at the hotel even if they don’t have proper seats, because we won’t
have to squat and aim into a small hole in the ground.
No one else is at the hotel, but we
take up three plastic white tables in the middle of the yard. We all order
banana beers, because we were told we had to try it. They gather a round of
banana beers from some shed out back, and return with weathered green bottles.
”Why didn’t anyone tell us it was
so awful?” It’s kind of salty, dirty, green, gross, sewage-like…
We follow Cedric’s and Rogers’ lead
to dance like Africans with lots of hip movements and stepping. They’re hard to
keep up with, because dancing is such an important part of Rwandan culture. We look pretty
ridiculous doing the lawnmower and the robot. Big Dog shows up for a while,
hopping around the grass with one hand behind his back and the other pointing
forward. He holds onto a smile the entire time and then leaves because he has
school the next morning.
When we look up to the sky, the orange moon,
with all its pocks and holes visible, reminds us that we’re in Africa.
Day
6
A sleepy day. More teaching at
Covaga, more basketball (our team wins and we leave with red faces and sore
legs), more smiles.
Day
7
In the morning, Steve and I go to Gashora primary school to observe an English lesson. Upon arrival, Big Dog peers out from his classroom to wave hello and present us with his indescribable smile.
In the morning, Steve and I go to Gashora primary school to observe an English lesson. Upon arrival, Big Dog peers out from his classroom to wave hello and present us with his indescribable smile.
When we enter the classroom, it’s
dark and cool, almost melancholy, and we notice that there are three or four
kids to each desk. But the children snap their fingers and wave their hands in
the air when they want to answer a question, “Teacher! Teacher!” The teacher smiles, and clearly enjoys his
job. Even though he’s still learning English, but he teaches it with confidence
and energy. After completing an exercise, the kids are happy to have us grade
their papers. Despite the difficulties in switching from teaching French to
teaching English, the teachers and pupils have positive attitudes.
After the English lesson, we visit
a kindergarten class, where tiny faces rush to hug our knees. The teacher shows
us the materials she uses to teach them English, and we ask if we can teach the
kids a basic lesson. She suggests a song, and the only one I can think of is
“head, shoulders, knees, and toes.” In no time, I’m circled by kindergarteners
trying desperately to follow along with the words and the movements.
After attending the school, we meet
up with the rest of the group at “Gashora Girl’s Academy: School of Science and Technology,” a high school-level
boarding school funded by Costco. The school is a huge cement compound placed
on a beautiful plot of land near Lake Milayi. Half of the property is used for
agriculture and includes: pineapples, tomatoes, carrots, papayas, mangoes, avocadoes,
bees for honey, and corn. Some of the food feeds the girls at the school, and
surplus is sold to the market to fund the school.
The girls that attend the school
are the best in the country. Their days begin with cold showers at 5am. The day
consists of classes and study halls that go until 9pm. We tour some classrooms,
and Filimon points out that the anatomy they study is something he just studied
in college; Jon says the same thing about the physics they’re studying. The busy day is broken up by recreational
time, clubs and meals. We are fortunate enough to join the girls for lunch. We
stack our plates and fill bowls with fresh papaya from the gardens, which gleam
orange. We relish in the fact that there is drinkable water.
We all sit with a different group
of girls. The girls speak English very well. On top of that, most of them speak
French and Swahili in addition to their native tongue. They ask questions about
what we want to do for our careers; some of our majors sound pathetic when they
express their dreams to be pilots, engineers, doctors, and astronauts. They ask
about the books we read; they love The Hunger Games. Some girls ask Carmelle if she’s going to
marry a man from Rwanda or Burundi, and how many kids she wants to have. They
ask “why Rwanda?” They ask if we bought our own plane tickets, and we further
realize the extent of poverty in Rwanda, as well as how privileged we are.
There are mixed responses about how
much they enjoy the boarding school. While it’s a great place, ripe with
opportunity, they miss their families. Also, they wish they could go out more.
When we tour the grounds, we see
the trenches they’re digging to irrigate the fields; they’re working with what
they have. We learn that hippos used to come out of the lake to eat the crops,
until they got a light near the lake which is a natural hippo deterrent. I can
picture the hippos waddling up out of the lake and lugging their huge bodies to
the field, ears twitching in the night.
To learn more about the Gashora
Girls Academy, you can visit the following links:
After visiting the girls school, we
take bicycle taxis back to Covaga to teach more. As our bikers lug us through
town, we are an entire train of Muzungus. The back of the bike that Carrie is
on doesn’t have handles and she has to squeeze her thighs to hold on. One
bicyclist plays music, and we’re thankful to not have to walk in the heat.
Still, even the bicyclists have a hard time lugging the 6’1 muzungu, Jon
around.
During class that night, we discuss
sustainability of foreign projects and aid. We talk about the importance of
whether or not projects create jobs and how they work with the local culture
and community. We’re starting to think about how to form the best project, as
well as what will work well with the Gashora community.
Day
8
Today is a national day of service
in Rwanda called, Umuganda. Everyone in the country must work on a project
needed in their area, only women with several children to care for are excused
from the service work.
We walk into town and stop at
Covaga to grab tools. Three of us leave with machetes, and many of us leave
with hoes. We walk to the service area where residents seem surprised to see
us. We toil in the dirt and machete bushes behind the local “cell” building.
One man holds up his hand and begins to machete one of the bushes to show us
how it’s done. He completes the same amount of work in one minute as three of
us completed in 15 minutes.
After a little bit of work, the
Rwandans want us to stop so they can sing us a song. They gather in a circle
wearing matching blue work uniforms. As they sway side to side, one lady begins
singing. After the singing, we learn that she was making up the song as she
went along. It said something to the extent of, “We are happy to see you, we
weren’t expecting it,” and we feel appreciated.
Then, they ask us to sing them a
song. We try to think of a song that we all know that sends a similar message. We
come up with “Lean on Me.” You can probably guess where this is going…We stood
in a line, swayed, sang out of tune, and their reactions were…well, I’ll just
stop there. Rwandans have rhythm, we’ll say that.
After the clean-up, it’s a race to the
showers.
Then a large van transports us to a
local genocide memorial side in Nyamata. It’s not a place you want to stay in
long. Although churches served as a place for protection when Tutsi’s first
started experiencing persecution, genocidaires eventually began storming
churches where Tutsis were seeking refuge. At this particular church, the
Catholic Nun who was protecting the Tutsis was eventually killed, and two years
later, the genocidaires attacked the church which was filled with over 2,000
people.
The group agreed that a more
abstract portrayal of the experience would be more appropriate since it’s so
difficult to put into words:
Nyamata
Genocide Memorial
Mary,
in peaceful posture, looks over
piles
of bloodied clothing, tears
stripes,
human life still visible
beneath
dust and pain.
We’re
walking on death.
“This is just to show.”
A
stained sash covers the alter
behind
which human heads hid,
before
the grenades, guns, and pangas,
flung
shrapnel toward the ceiling,
human flesh
toward the bricks.
“This is
just to show.”
The
woman in the casket,
raped,
raped, raped, impaled
with a
sharpened stick and strung
together
with her baby, who was swung
against
the wall. Crack.
“This
is just to show.”
A
fever of silence.
A
cellar, not a cellar, but a mass grave
filled
with hairs from visitors’ necks,
and
the stench of bones with bullet-holes.
“This
is just to show.”
Now, there
are people in the country-side,
singing
and dancing, with ravines
on
their cheeks, from tears.
Children
chase notes in the choir
and
chirps ride on wind. The birds
have
returned.
This
is just to show.
-Ali Beemsterboer
Nyamata Memorial
We will never leave Nyamata,
the blasted black iron
and red beaded rosaries
where hopes and prayers
were placed, pews piled
with shredded shirts; "I swear
I saw that dress on Alice yesterday."
Bodies below ground, roses above,
remains of a heroine to remind us:
never forget Nyamata.
-Anonymous from our group
Nyamata Memorial
We will never leave Nyamata,
the blasted black iron
and red beaded rosaries
where hopes and prayers
were placed, pews piled
with shredded shirts; "I swear
I saw that dress on Alice yesterday."
Bodies below ground, roses above,
remains of a heroine to remind us:
never forget Nyamata.
-Anonymous from our group
To read more about the Nyamata
memorial center, you can visit the following link:
For dinner, we go to a place in
Kigali which serves pizza. The path up to the restaurant, which is on top of a
small hill, is lit with several lights. When we enter the restaurant, we’re
surprised to see tables full of white people and a wood-fire oven. Carrie talks
with missionaries from Orange County, California, can’t help but judge them “hard
core” and makes sure to speak Kinyarwanda in front of them, just to show how
much better WWU is. Lama explains that typical Rwandans, including Rogers and
William, can’t afford this type of Muzungo dining, another reality that we have
to face as financial superiors.
We hear a dog barking from the
fenced-in yard next door. I assume that Westerns live next door, because in
Rwanda, residents don’t typically have dogs. Before the genocide, dogs were
kept mainly to defend houses and not as pets. Our group has joked several times
that Rwandans would freak out if they saw how we dress and walk and cuddle our
pets. One of the girls at the Gashora Girls Academy laughed about how she saw a
dog in a car when she was in Seattle.
After the genocide, dogs fed on the
dead bodies which were scattered across the country decomposing. Because of
this, dogs became a symbol of the trauma which the people of Rwanda faced, and
they eventually eradicated dogs.
On a lighter note, we eat pizza by
candle-light complete with all the right spices, pineapple, mushrooms, peppers,
and CHEESE. After such a rough day, we deserve it.
Day
9
At 6:30AM, we head to Amahoro
stadium in Kigali to celebrate, 50:18,
50 years of independence for Rwanda, and 18 years since liberation from the genocide.
We wait in line amongst the Rwandans who stare at us ceaselessly. It’s hard to
get used to the fact that staring is not taboo in Rwanda.
When we enter the stadium, we sit
on cement bleachers with no seat backs. The celebration doesn’t start until
11AM, so we read, play cards, and watch as the people filter into the stadium.
Some of us nod off, because we had to wake up so early. Eventually we’re
sitting knee to knee with each other and some Rwandans. There’s not a single
bit of misbehavior in the stadium. Rwandans sit patiently through the hours of
waiting and listening to speeches, barely even squiggling anxiously.
Two young boys, probably around
nine or ten years old, plop down in front of us. As we pass snacks around, they
peek over at us, hunger in their eyes. Tim holds a bag of potato chips out to
them and they each grab a handful. Later on during the celebration, one of the
boys creeps his hand toward a chip that fell to the ground, clearly ashamed. I
nod at Jon, and he opens a bag of chips and offers the kids more. We have
enough to share, at least with the two boys.
Our position in Rwanda, as ethnic minorities
who are financially superior, is hard to get used to. We want to give all that
we can, but we realize that we cannot sustain anything beyond community
service, beyond building relationships.
After hours of sitting, the
celebration begins with a parade of the Rwandan Patriotic Army and the police
force. One of the sections of the police
force is made up of all women, a representation of females that’s typical for
Rwanda. We wave our paper Rwandan flags as the army marches and the sun beats
on our backs. Only us Muzungus need sunscreen, and we’re thankful for every
gust of wind.
Traditional dancers wearing silk,
pink dresses move to the beat of a drum. Other dancers, men with long blonde wigs
join in, flipping their hair in unison to please the crowd. After some
important visitors make it into the stadium and take their places beneath the
canopied area of seats, Paul Kagame and his family pull into the stadium. Paul
Kagame walks across the field, passing the members of the army and police
force. He’s tall, skinny, and walks with confidence. We feel lucky to see him,
the man we’ve read so much about, in real life.
The ceremony focuses on reflection
of the past to build a brighter future, rather than sustained celebration.
Kagame’s speech, which he reads in slow, articulate English, addresses Rwanda’s
past, and their hope to continue developing independent of international
interests. The Rwandan government faces a lot of international criticism for
the authoritative actions despite elections and exponential improvement of the
country. The post-colonial and post-genocidal era has been a struggle, but
Rwandans are hopeful. At lunch, Rogers says that citizens of Rwanda trust that
Kagame’s decisions will reflect what is best for the country. Despite the
government’s heavy-handedness, Rwandans are happy to be improving.
To read Paul Kagame’s awesome speech,
you can visit the following link:
To see videos of the celebration,
you can visit the following links:
Day
10
At dinner, Brooke asks the waitress
for “Top Up,” the Rwandan version of ketchup. Instead, she receives Turbo King,
a local beer.
Close enough.
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