Work/tutoring/village dance/Muchaka

This morning we awoke at 8.00 to go to our construction work even though the 30 Rwandan workers had been there since six. Our bodies are weak and sore from the heavy building yesterday, but we go right into work and start carrying bricks and buckets of cement to the workers. One by one, the American workers go sit on the side and drink water for a break. The Rwandan workers don’t take a single break the whole time nor do they stop to drink water or eat any food. From four in the morning to four at night, they don’t put anything in their mouths. This made me realize that in comparison, the kids at the village have it so lucky even though they only eat seven hours apart.  After a couple hours of heavy lifting, the manager paired each of us up with one of the workers and we learned how to actually build the walls one brick at a time. It was interesting but tough to learn because none of the workers spoke English but I taught them a lot of words like measure, cement, brick, wood, lower, higher, etc. Practical construction words. They returned the favor by teaching me words in kiyarwandan (well attempting to). When our time was done, we left to go shower at the guesthouse. I always feel terrible walking away because I know they have to stay there for 5 or so more hours with no food or water. They all wave to us and stare at us as we leave and I can’t help but feel guilty for a long time afterwards. Even as I write this email, they are still working their asses of! I’ve never seen such hard ,motivated workers in my life, and they only get paid a little over a dollar a day! While shoveling cement, me and my friend Aliza thought that we would try lift up the mood and get people to smile by singing “If I had a hammer.” We sang and goofed around for a bit until one of the workers came up and yelled at us in Kiyarwandan. Of course we couldn’t understand him , but then another worker came and translated for us and told us that “while working we no sing. Is no okay.”  

Today after dinner I went with two of the other volunteers to do art next to the dirt road. One girl at the village came up to me and sat down, looking at my drawings. I gave her my journal and some pencils to draw with, but instead she started reading my journal entries and asking what the words meant. This continued on into a two hour English lesson. Some of the words were tricky to explain, like “soul” and “footing,”but she was focused and learned very fast. When she asked me what “selfish” meant, I said “when you only care about yourself and you don’t care about anyone else,” and she said, “for an example, when house mother walks into home, and I no greet her, I am selfish?”And when I tried to explain what a noodle was she asked, “it’s like a piece of rice but looks like snake?” Because of her obvious different background than me, the way she connects words to her memories and experiences are so interesting. I made work sheets and study sheets for her and she’s determined to find me as much as she can to get extra English lessons. It’s amazing how determined these kids are to succeed and if they see an opportunity to get ahead, they take it without question. They know that they need to be fluent in English in order to make it to university, so that’s why having American volunteers here is so benevolent for them. The kids come in their first year not knowing a single word of English, and by the time they leave most of them are almost fluent. Even the kids who have only been here for a couple of months can communicate with me a little bit.

On Fridays, the village has “village time” before dinner, which is when all of the different clubs and groups present what they’ve been doing that week and they show a clip of what’s going on in the news. Then, after dinner, there’s a dance party on the porch! Now this was interesting and also hilarious. They played mostly American hip hop and rap music, but also some local Rwandan music. Just like any high school in America, the school dance started out awkward: boys on one side, girls on the other.In this setting, however, me and all the American volunteers were isolated in the middle with everyone staring at us, wondering what we’ll do and how we’ll dance. We danced in a circle and tried pulling some girls in that we’d met, but they would blush and get embarrassed. Slowly as the lights dimmed,  more and more kids came out to dance. Everyone finally let loose and the way they danced was so interesting; it was a mix of traditional, African dance and American club dancing. I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in a long time, I had forgotten what it felt like to smile so hard that your cheeks and head hurt. It was extremely fun watching their dance techniques and the interesting boy/girl interactions.. and to be able to partake in such a special event for them.

This morning the whole village woke up at 5.00 in the morning to do an African tradition called “muchaka.” Muchaka stimulated from the Rwandan army, but they use it in many countries in Africa.  Each family stands in three lines and one of the guards at the village leads them in a jog around the village while singing and clapping. I’ve never had so much fun during a run! The chants were in kinyarwandan but I caught on pretty quickly. The jog was very, very slow around the village but when they reached the steep hill that leads up to the school, the speed picked up and even though my legs were burning and I was out of breath, the singing and yelling persevered. When we got to the top, we made a circle and one boy went in the middle singing by himself while everyone clapped and stomped. It was truly a memorable experience.