Dung

Every week in Agahozo-Shalom there is “farm time” on Saturday morning. I like cows, so I decided to go the area of the cows. And there are two cute baby calves there. They look like chubby Bambies.

But cow work, at that time and location, consisted entirely of picking up cow dung. Because cows are a big part of Rwandan culture, and because cleanliness is also a big part of Rwandan culture, and because gloves and shovels are not available or necessary for this particular task, picking up cow dung is an art here. An art.

You don’t just pick it up and put it in a barrel. You whisk up some surrounding dusty sand onto a small clump of dung, then role the clump on the ground so that it picks up more sand, so that when you pick it up, the sand not only separates the dung from your hands, it also cleanses your hand of any dung that happened to stick to our skin. I know that sand cleans from the scene in Gladiator where Russell Crow, who I would trust with my life, is enslaved and injures himself, and cleans his wound with sand.

There was one girl who was an expert. I started helping out right away, and quickly noticed that her hands were relatively clean compared to mine, and I was very impressed. She looked at my hands, caked with the dark matter, and asked me if this was the first time I had done this, and I told her it was. “Did you do this before Agahozo Shalom?” I asked, and she told she had. “Long before Agahozo Shalom?” and she replied she had done this her whole life. I felt better about the state of my hands. Most of the girls were not involved with the actual picking up of the dung, but helped out in transporting it in barrels to the farm, sweeping up smaller pieces, etc. I don’t know how many girls had experience with this – cows are expensive and sign of status so I imagine most orphans do not have cows, though many children who are orphaned labored for families who did have cows. Some kids are from urban centers.

There was one bit of advice I did give the students, despite my lack of any qualifications. There were bits of scrap metal among the dirt and dung. I asked if I should put everything in the barrel, even the metal I picked up, as everything in the barrel would go to the farm for manure. They said, “yes, yes.” “Even this piece of plastic?” I asked, holding up a meter-long white stick. "Yes," I was told again. I responded, a bit hesitantly, because I don’t know much about farming, “I think we should put the plastic and metal scraps aside, and not mix them into the soil.” I hope this is right – for all I know, plastic and metal just hang around, and don’t necessarily destroy the soil. But it can’t be good.

I don’t know how efficient the little system was of picking up cow dung. I feel like ten hands picking up the stuff and another ten sweeping is not as quick as one person and a large shovel. But it certainly created a sense of working together, and I got to tell the kids the time and location of the debate meeting, chat about the need for a writing club, ask them how school was, and suggest that we don’t bury plastic and metal into farm soil. So I suppose it wasn’t only about collecting manure.

Plus, during the breaks, I got to look at the two calves, with their big teary eyes and curious expressions and lovely soft, shiny fur, standing there after inadvertently providing us the material to grow more and stronger crops.