Leaving Rwanda

Oh, I really, really don’t want to do it, but the contract is up, I am expected back in Montana, and I have used up that year of leave. Therefore, tomorrow I am leaving Rwanda. Time certainly does fly especially, as the old saying goes, when you are having fun. There were many things about Rwanda that I had hoped to find the time to write in depth write about, but now have run out of time to do so. Therefore, I would like to add a few more tidbits about this lovely country before leaving and so that you are not wondering why I am still blogging about Rwanda from Montana.

Illegal Contraband

Plastic Bags: They are illegal….yep, how cool is that? Why the rest of the world can’t get with this simple concept is beyond me. It is strictly paper or bring your own here. Before coming here I had read that you may have your luggage searched upon entering the country and have any plastic bags confiscated as outlawed items, but I thought it was a bit of a tale told when it did not happen on the way into Rwanda via the airport. However, upon returning by bus from Burundi every bag on the bus was taken off, officially searched, and all plastic bags seized. I was delighted! I was delighted even when it meant dumping out the contents of my own plastic bag into the mess that was innards of my backpack.

Now having said all that a few things are packaged in plastic. Things such as pillows, electronics, and various other items from China so a bit of plastic does make it through, however, these bits of rogue plastic that slip through the cracks are not to be found laying around or blowing like flags in the wind because they are useful, or at least used. Read further.

Footballs: Rwanda is a place where one finds few spoiled kids. Rather the children here are responsible, polite, industrious, and inventive. I believe they are many of these things for many reasons, but they are inventive as they do not have much that is given to them. One does not see any commercially made toys or the million pieces of gimcrack that adults give children in North America for those shimmering few moments of happiness that plastic cars, guns, or windup toys are meant to provide. The few toys I have seen are the classic found circular object to be rolled and controlled by a stick and homemade footballs (Yes, I mean soccer ball, but come on let’s get with the rest of the world and call it by its proper name-shall we? It’s embarrassing!) These footballs are made with whatever plastic, string, cloth, or the like that can be found and put together or attached to create a sphere. They are widely used and I have seen a new trend where kids will be walking home from school with one of these homemade footballs fastened to a longer piece of string tied to their wrist so that they can kick the ball home without chasing it. Brilliant.

What would happen when I wanted a photo of games being played.

Games Kids Play: Speaking of which one of the things I really, really wish I had properly written about are the many games kids play here and the way in which they play them. Because I am a teacher who has had her fair share of playground duty I can honestly say that the students here are more inventive with their games, fairer with one another, and more able to self regulate and supervise their own games. In fact, I think everyone here would be roundly disturbed at even the thought of playground monitors. Two of the games I have watched in fascination are a wild version of cricket/dodge ball and the other a rhythm game, I am not even sure I will be able to describe.

The wild version of cricket-dodge ball has about ten people either standing in a circle with perhaps six or seven rocks in the middle or standing a bit further back on opposite sides of the rocks. People take turns standing in the middle trying to dodge a homemade ball and when there is time stacking rocks from one pile to another and counting how many you are stacking before having to dodge the ball again. You are out if you are hit by the ball and then another person steps in. I never did get if they had teams, winners or losers, or if it was all about stacking rocks for your personal best.

 Okay this next one was a fascination to watch and was played, as far as I could tell, by only by girls. It was a mix of clapping, stamping, falling back into the arms of others, and being tossed back up again. I think, what was happening is that a rhythm was being stamped and clapped by one person to another and if they got it right they got to fall back into the arms of others in the circle to be tossed back up to create the next rhyme for another person in the circle. It would happen fast and seemingly with a random pattern so I am not exactly sure what I was watching other than a sort of beautiful dance that on many levels had to be really good for the brain.

  

Oh, just one more…clump of greens for hacky sack. This definitely was a version of hacky sack, but it was played with a little spray of fresh green foliage knotted with a piece of grass and not in a group but on your own. 

School Lunch: I did not realize upon arriving in Bugesera District that it was one of the few districts, if not the only one, that had a school lunch program. I enjoyed many a lunch with teachers at various schools consisting of beans and corn mash prepared over a fire in the school’s kitchen. Each with just hint of wood smoke flavor-delicious. Because teachers do not eat with students the students are left to self monitor and regulate lunch. Wonderfully the students carry, serve, and clean up the lunch themselves with no adult supervision. I did not initially know that this program was a result of a drought in the district some years back into which the World Food Program had stepped. As a result of this program more students began coming to school and parents were relieved of the strain of finding more food for their children in a time when that was challenging due to the drought. Unfortunately this program is being phased out with the hope that parents will begin to pay for their student’s lunch. This has not been the case and on the days when lunch is not being served there is a significant drop in student attendance.



Teacher's Lunch Time



Singing: People here love to sing and they sing well. As a guest entering a classroom the students will often stand up and sing you a song. It is lovely and having spent the past six summers in Newfoundland I wonder how these groups of students would do in the international choral competition that is held on the rock every few years. They sing beautifully together without any great efforts put into the practice, so one wonders. I also like that when the power goes out...and it often does the world of electronic boom-boom music is replaced with neighbors and families singing together. It is beautiful and makes one wonder also why it does not prevail over the electronic boom-boom music. Then again this type of music is usually played and played loudly, by young male youth.

Getting Clothing Made at the Market: Buy some cloth, suggest a design and watch them work their magic.  The cost?  Between four to five dollars.  This may be one of the things I miss the most.  The other thing that these pro-league sewers do is alter any clothing bought at the market. Why oh why can't we have something like this?  Clothes that fit you!   I will definitely miss this.  Pure magic.

I know that there were many more things I would have liked to have written about, but I get on the plane tomorrow and have some final details to take care of. I am not anxious to leave Rwanda and would encourage anyone who gets a chance to visit this or another place in Africa to do so as I think it is no small number of North Americans that have some erroneous perceptions of this country and this continent. Misperceptions that do none of us any good. I am thrilled to say that my time here was more than I could have hoped for and that my memories will indeed be sweet. I also have new learnings to struggle with from my time here. In particular, the issues around money, charity, and sustainability.

Many thanks to all the support from home and here in Rwanda. Until the next adventure. Adieu.

P.S. Just as I am flying home to the United States my brother Tim and his wife Denise will be flying across the pond to take up a post as a visiting teacher in Edinburgh, Scotland. The link to his blog recording his Scottish adventures is:

http://timscotland.blogspot.com/