A break in Kigali and back to saying Hi to almost every stranger in Wramagana

I spent a weekend in Kigali where I don’t stand out, because there are just too many people for anyone to care about one person standing out. I need my hit of urbanity just once in a while to blend into people, and not feel really different. In Kigali, I met some interesting people, mostly what I would call the elite of Rwanda working in law or business. I met a human rights lawyer, who was around my age, who grew up in Congo as a refugee. “Your accent sounds Ugandan” one of the volunteers told him. “That’s not a compliment around here,” he responded. There seems to be a bit of a hierarchy based on what country one fled to (where one lived as a refugee before returning to Rwanda). He spoke a lot of French to his Rwandan friends, though I never got a chance to ask why – if it was because their Kinyarwanda was not as good, or out of habit? Many I met grew up in Uganda. One girl I met just came back from working for a shipping company in Juba, South Sudan and happened to be the niece of one of the house mothers in Agahozo Shalom. On the way back from Kigali I sat next to a man who happened to be the son-in-law of another house mother at Agahozo-Shalom. Small country.

This particular man, the son-in-law of a ASYV house mother, had a cute three year old decked out in pink, including pink sweatpants, shirt and sweater. Even her braided hair had a rosy ting to it and she held a bright purple lollypop, which probably isn’t so smart in a country with next to no dental care, but it went well with her outfit. She dozed off half way through, and her father threw the remaining lollypop out the window. Before she went to sleep I chatted with her, asking what her name was in my oh-so-broken Kinyarwanda. She called me “auntie” and her father said that that’s what girls call the women in their village. He told me she was their first born. I asked if they had other children, and he said he and his wife decided to have only one child, to make sure she had a bright future with a good education. This was a very surprising response for me, as everyone I have met who is married has (or plans to have or wishes to have or wished they had had) at least five children. It was refreshing to meet someone who had decided to only stop at one child.

I told him I worked in Agahozo-Shalom, and he said something along the lines of, “It is very expensive there, what about all the very impoverished children who don’t have access to the school?” which is a question I think everyone working in aid asks themselves in almost every development project. I told him that the children accepted do not pay tuition and only the most vulnerable orphans are accepted, though it was, indeed, expensive compared to schools that were not as good. He said he had not known that the school was free before I told him. The fact that it was only for vulnerable orphans also seemed to persuade him a bit. Another good reason to invest a lot in a very well-run program that helps a select few of very vulnerable kids is that oversight seems to be much, much better than aid organizations that attempt to offer minimal assistance to a very large population. In Rwanda, oversight for aid organizations is often sorely lacking, and ASYV has excellent oversight, in addition to being run mostly by Rwandese. And, ah, it is “Rwandese” and not “Rwandan” according to Rwandan passports.

Also in Kigali – they have motorcycle taxies. I took one that, like many, liked to drive in the wrong direction onto incoming traffic at busy almost-highway intersections when this shortened the way. I was taking a “moto,”with others, so he needed to successfully follow the train of motos, which encouraged the driving-onto-incoming-traffic habit. The moment we all get off of our motos – the moment – a moto on the other side of the street comes crashing down and three passengers go flying into the street. This is the first, and hopefully last time, I will see an actual accident happen as it is happening. The passengers get up, brush themselves off, and are not to harmed. So that’s good. But one sat down and had difficulty getting up. An ambulance is called.

I do stand out in Kigali, maybe a tiny bit less than in the rural areas, but standing out is not a reason to get all excited in a city where people are busy, busy, busy. That is what is so refreshing - when people are too busy to stare and contemplate why you are walking down the street.

When we all got to Ntunga, around 9 kilometers from ASYV and around 50 kilometers from Kigali, I decided to walk back in order to have some alone time, listen to music, and see the scenery which, as I have already said, is absurdly breathtaking every single step of the way to and from every single destination in and around Wramagana. Of course, there is no “alone time” in rural villages and the roads that connect them. Walking down the street is an event, like a carnival, every single time, and I am trying to get used to it. I can’t say hi to everyone, there are just too many people, but everyone stares at me as I walk, some stopping what they are doing and others talking about me, so saying “hi” is the only way to not feel like a clown and for me and the other person to sort of acknowledge that I have feelings, too. I don’t jog, I walk, so ignoring is not really an option. And, occasionally, a rare person down does not answer “hi” back to my “Moraho” or other greeting even though they are staring at me. This is very, very rare because everyone seems to hold on to the steadfast rule of responding to a basic greeting – it seems almost taboo to ignore a greeting, even though staring at a person walking down the street is entirely acceptable. (Maybe only a white person, I will need to see if this happens to others). Tiny little two year olds with dutifully answer “Nimezza” in tiny voices when I ask them how they are. Anyway, when someone stares and does not respond, it feels really horrible. But the relief I get from hearing a person say hello back, and smile and wave both hands, is worth taking the risk, considering 99% of the time this is what happens. So it’s this massive difference – staring with a slight frown, or at least a neutral face, and then faces breaking into huge smiles and both hands waved and a happy responses the moment I say a greeting.

Anyway, as I said in an earlier post, large groups of children follow me. It has occurred to me that some are too little to understand that I do not speak Kinyarwanda, so I feel really bad when I cannot answer their questions. Their cute little faces show confusion for half a second and then they jabber on with more questions, and I cannot answer those either. And there are many, many children everywhere. I sometimes say “Oya” which means “no” or “Mibizi” which I think means “I don’t know” (if it doesn’t mean this let me know) because I cannot always remember how to say "I do not know Kinyarwanda) but sometimes that response makes sense and this encourages them to ask more questions I cannot understand.

These groups of kids that tag along are usually between the ages of two and seven, sometimes nine or ten, and come in groups of six to ten, though sometimes twenty or more, in which case I feel like I am walking in a sea of kids, which is, eh, I’m not a kid person, so kind of just weird. I can’t shake them off, because they are very persistent, and that would make me mean. And their confident strides make them very cute. They invariably thin out to a remaining two or three that have the patience and energy to continue walking, and who have not passed another sort of distraction. I don't why they do this - do they expect something? They often start to laugh and chat with each other, so I really do think they are just getting a kick out of the surrounding and trailing me and trying to chat with me.

Today, the kids started toughing my harm and comparing my hand to their hand, a few kind of shocked that my veins are so blue against my skin (which is so white. I really do have bulgy veins, so understandable). At first it was like a curious and daring touching my arm, and then a more meticulous comparing of the palms of hands and fingernails. After a while I asked them what their names were, because this touching-my-arm-and-hand game was getting awkward and they seemed an intelligent group, because they patiently corrected my pronunciation of greetings and how to ask what their names were. Most kids either have no idea what I am trying to say, so cannot correct, or ignore pronunciation problems and just respond.

After a while the kids and I reached a fork in the road and a happy woman came to the intersection and came to greet them. She was in a beautifully tailored blue and white two-piece traditional outfit and headpiece and also thought it was hilarious that the kids were following me, and that a white person was walking down the road with them. She came up to me extending her hand, and we exchanged the few greetings I know in Kinyarwanda, with me again really regretting to myself that I was not making more of an effort to learn the language. She was very welcoming and had the aura of a school teacher in her very crisp way of speaking to the kids and her way of speaking to me very slowly and precisely to help me understand what she was saying (which I still did not).

I went on my way and the kids went on there’s. After a while a small boy followed me, and I looked at his sandals. The entire front part of his left sandal was missing, such that he needed to walk with the front part of his foot before the heel to keep the sandal on. I remembered this from a few days ago, because he followed me then. He had the same very, very dirty, torn shirt and threadbare trousers, though they were not really trousers or trainers or anything at this point, as the pair was full of holes and stretched out. It looked like he had been wearing this same thing the whole year, and trust me, if you see something that has been worn an entire year every day, you can tell. Despite the sandal-induced handicap, he soldiered on, following me, always keeping a slight distance of a foot or so (this is relative distance compared to the other kids), like he was accompanying me. Some of the children are like that – they don’t seem to enjoy following, or not enjoy following, they just act like it’s their job and just something they need to do because, well….It’s like when you are little and you see a pebble on the road and you want to kick it forward, and as long as the rock stays in the middle of the road, you might as well keep on kicking it. The kids see me, follow, and if I am walking really fast or really far, they eventually just go about what they were doing before, but figure, why not follow until then. If that makes any sense.

I passed a very large procession of walking women in b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l toga-like gowns made out of colorful silky pastel fabrics that the women wear in Rwanda and, like all of their outfits, manage to keep perfectly clean. They were all very nice, in great moods, being the first to say “hi” which almost never happens – clearly it was some sort of wedding or really awesome church day because they were all dolled up in addition to being in awesome moods. That was fun and a nice change. They did make a comment about my feet, probably the fact that they were really, really dirty and scrapped up, but by then many had pointed this out, and I just smiled and kept walking.

Everyone asked why in the world I was walking and not taking a moto (the motorcycle taxi I wrote about. Everyone. So this will not change. Which I know. I just wish I could think of a good response.

I still love that delicious butter milk, but there is no refrigeration to keep the butter milk in when at Agahozo-Shalom. In Kigali I experimented with rice, butter milk and sugar, thought I was a genius because it tasted awesome, and then was told this had already been invented and was called rice pudding.