Muzungu!

‘Muzungu! Muzungu!’ is a cry that we have become used to in Rwanda. Translated literally, the term means ‘One who turns in circles with their head looking at the sky’, which is not awfully flattering. However, there is a certain endearing quality to the way in which we are greeted with the shout by every passing child, who will see us, laugh at us, and wave.

On Thursday 15th, we visited a passion fruit plantation about an hour’s drive from Rwamagana. The road was bumpy, and we drove slowly, meaning that the children who saw the car had plenty of time to identify the UK volunteers as ‘Muzungu!’ and gleefully shout after us. On the way to the plantation, we saw more of the beautiful Rwandan countryside, and also passed by the house where President Paul Kagama lives (the area is easily identified as one his haunts by the way in which the road is lit by streetlights for miles around, in a way deeply incongruous to the surrounding parts).

At the plantation, we helped to pick passion fruits. The plantation is in its early days –the Self-Help Group that cares for it is relatively young- and so it was therefore not very large. Despite this, there was still a yield whose size surprised some of us, and picking the fruit was both satisfying and interesting.

The team picking passion fruits

 Once all the ripe fruit had been picked, we helped to spread bundles of long grass around the roots of the passion fruit vines, so that when rain falls the water will be caught and made available to the roots rather than running away and being wasted. 

Lucy preparing to spread dried grass over the vines' roots

After the work on the plantation was finished, we gave short talks on the life cycle of the plant and on the necessity of faith; the Self-Help Group members spoke afterwards to Ingrid, saying how encouraged they were by our visit, and learning of this was immensely encouraging to us also.

Giving talks at the end of the passion fruit picking

These are the passion fruits that we picked (many of them were not yet ripe). Just before we left, they gave us a big bag of fruits -that's what the brown bag on the right is for- and I can say with confidence that there has never been a better collection of passion fruit on this earth.

Us with the Self-Help Group, shortly before we left: this is a typically-sized Self-Help Group (they range in size from fifteen to twenty)

The chance to go to the fields was of more than usual significance for us, even considering that we were excited to be on our first visit thus far during our time in Rwamagana. The day before, we had visited the house of a member of the community that Lucy had become friends with when she was with the previous team; seeing the difficulties that she and her family faced was very motivating, and we were determined to find a way to make the same sort of impact that previous teams had had. The challenges encountered within the local communities are, in most cases, certainly grave: they are, however, beyond doubt surmountable. Lucy’s previous team had made a large difference to the life of this same member of the community with the construction of a wooden drying stand at her house. This is a very simple expediency, but still capable of making a palpable impact, and it is this sort of efficient innovation that we are looking for in order to make the type of long-term, sustainable effect that we hope for.

We returned from the plantation and went straight to a celebration of the graduation of the acting headmaster of the Centre for Champions. It was a happy but lengthy affair, with a great many speeches, and the day was tiring.

On Friday, the ICS team had an in-house learning session on the nature and presence of injustice in the world during the morning; in the afternoon, Jordon, Sam and Patrick took part in the monthly football match at the Center for Champions. We had been scheduled to play against the staff of another local charity, but they didn’t turn up, so it ended up being a competitive staff v. students match (with us on the staff team; we won 5-3, as is right and proper).

Football Action Shot: I'm actually in this photo (spot the small blonde speck wearing a dress as a shirt). Also look out for Patrick (scorer of the fifth goal), who bizarrely wore a bright red cold-weather skintight shirt, despite the scorching heat. He seemed to manage OK, though, and also (along with all of the Rwandans) coped capably with the strange lack of oxygen in the air

On Sunday morning, we visited a church towards the outskirts of Rwamagana; Ingrid goes to the Kigali branch of the same. This allowed the UK contingent to better come to grasp the nature of African churches, and continued the trend –observed the previous Sunday- of the local churches’ prioritisation of noise levels. The full-bodied sound of the congregation was ably supplemented by the might of the sound system, resulting in a volume probably not experienced by an Englishman since the Blitz was in full swing. Most churches are in the Song business; this one, however, veered from the beaten track and took its services to the Wall of Sound production industry. The songs, when subjected to this treatment, all sounded much the same: the pounding of the drums merged powerfully with the vocal prowess of the choir, and the aural cataclysm was punctuated only by the frequent and insistent shrills of a man with a pink whistle. This whistle was blown with an enthusiastic and large-lunged force, as though used with the intention of giving any migratory bats a terminal migraine. In addition, the service was an unexpectedly sizable four hours long, and many of us (extrapolating from my own feeling) left this feeling rather worse for wear. We were, however, up by a Fanta; there isn’t space here to detail the local attitude towards Fanta, and the subject will have to wait for another day.

Monday came, and was highly productive and informative. We dealt, in short order, with the cataloguing of the school library: the previous team had done the vast majority of the work, and we were quickly able to polish off the last shelves. Throughout the day, though, we befitted from the new idea of questionnaires, asking the partner organisation’s (AEE’s) project supervisors for specific advice on how we can best help them. This gave us a good amount of information, and several useful ideas.

Yesterday –that is, Tuesday 20^th-  we visited a nearby banana plantation. The plantation was only planted a matter of months ago, and the banana trees were still very small. These were the same bananas that the previous team –also under the leadership of Lucy- had planted in October, and it was great to see the long-term impact that previous ICS units had had.

This is a photo from the plantation in October: pretty much empty- certainly not a banana tree in sight.

And then we have the field now: the banana trees aren't breaking any records for size yet, but the difference made is visible.

 Upon arriving, the first thing we did was to seize up our hoes and help the Self-Help group members to finish the fence that they had already begun planting. They had apparently all been working since six that morning (we arrived at roughly nine), but we would never have guessed it- they were absolute dynamos with hoe in hand. They were the Ferraris and Porsches of the hoeing world, by comparison with which we were a beaten-up Ford Escort which, frankly, has no business whatsoever passing its MOT. 

Hoeing the ditch into which the branches would be planted

The fence that we built was of a simple but ingenious design. A small ditch would be dug, into which would be put the ends of a branch from a durable, rubbery plant of unknown name; the trees then grow in the freshly cut up earth, twining together and creating a very effective barrier against cows, which are seemingly the greatest mammalian threat to banana plants. 

Jordon planting a branch. It's just a stripling now, but it'll be a strapping young fence in no time

Before the fence had been completed, we helped to hoe a large pile of manure onto the banana plantation (it had previously been outside the fence, and needed to be inside, and available for use, before the fence was closed). This was pretty exhausting stuff, and again the Self-Help Group members showed most of us up despite their (often) considerably more advanced age. 

Spreading the manure pile over the field

Once all physical effort had been concluded, we delivered talks on nutrition and, following on from that theme, on the Biblical idea that ‘man does not live by bread alone’.

Ingrid, giving a talk on nutrition at the banana plantation. This was a full Cluster Level Association (made up of several Self-Help Groups), and this photo doesn't do justice to the number of people- roughly fifty, plus a good two dozen (at least) children. It's also worth noting the peculiar qualities of the eyes of the man in blue (with the hoe), which left gimlets standing for sheer piercing-ness.

That evening, we were introduced to the tricky and controversial topic of Love in Rwanda. For starters, the Kinyarwandan word for ‘I love’ and ‘I like’ –‘ndaguknda’- is the same. One would imagine that this would lead to all sorts of difficulties (the classic high-school film line, ‘Do you like me? ‘Like you? I think I love you!’ would, of course, be impossible), but it doesn’t, for the simple reason that (at least according to the In-Country Volunteers) nobody uses it. Declaring love, whether within a family or in a romantic context, is taboo. For the younger generation, any desire to say ‘I love’ or ‘I like’ is satisfied by a switch to English or French, both of which languages are apparently recognised as being insincere. ‘Ndagukunda’ is binding and serious, and is only used at times when nothing else will do. 

Such as –one would think- marriage proposals. Not so fast! In order to avoid the use of this loathed word, your standard marriage proposal in Rwanda runs something like ‘So, I’ve booked the church hall for this time next year. Do you think you’ll be able to find a dress by then?’ To which the woman’s response is –we’re informed- ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow’ or even, somewhat more nerve-rackingly for the man, ‘I’ll tell you in a week’. The marriage ceremony is long, and also involves a chap described to us as 'the man speaking on behalf of the cow', whose sole office in the proceeding is to moo. Once in marriage, ‘I love you’ is still never said, let alone in a family to children or to parents- the idea brought our ICV girls to fits of laughter. It’s very easy, as  a UK volunteer, to forget about the cultural differences between the UK and Rwanda –or even, as the girls were surprised to learn today when advised against wearing shorts on field visits, between the capital Kigali and the more rural areas- but they are very definitely there. So, that was all very interesting.

Thanks to all for your prayers and encouragement- it does make a difference! Please do continue!

PS- This blog post would have gone up on Wednesday, but due to internet problems, it's had to wait till now. Sorry.