Umuganda

Jan 26th

The good news today is that my stomach has quelled. Hooray! Wonder if I’m getting some degree of immunity from the bugs?…. Glad, though, that I haven’t arranged anything energetic for this weekend. I want to use as many of my weekends as possible to explore this little country, but on this occasion it’s definitely time to chill out.

Very odd thing this morning. Woke up to no traffic outside the flat, very few people. Shops all shut. Even the hairdressers wasn’t broadcasting reggae to the nation. Everything was quiet and subdued. What was up?

Then I remembered. The last Saturday in every month is Umuganda day. Umuganda is when everyone is supposed to do community service for a morning. Picking up litter, clearing drains, general tidying up. All houses are allocated to little cells called umugudugu, with a leader/organiser who allocates tasks. Tom hasn’t found out who our cell leader is yet, so we decided to keep a low profile for as much of the morning as possible. We don’t want to cause offence by being seen too ostentatiously avoiding work (even though it’s largely the poorest Rwandans who do the work; the richer and smarter ones always seem to have a good reason why they can’t get involved).

Dropped off some things from Kigali at Cathy’s house. On the way back a police car pulled up alongside. Oh oh – am I about to be arrested for avoiding Umuganda? Then a voice from the back of the car yells “muraho, Monsieur Bruce”. It’s one of my colleagues at the District Office, showing off to his police friends that he’s a friend of the muzugu. So it’s handshakes all round; I’m offered a life in the car but I’m so close to home it’s not worth it. Some puzzled locals, though, trying to work out how the police have pulled me over but not taken any action!

Spent the rest of the morning pottering round the house out of sight, sorting out laundry, all the silly little things you need to do. Late morning Tom and I took the laundry up to the FHI guest house where Janine works. It’s a lovely looking building and will be ideal for family coming out to stay in Gitarama later in the year. On the way back called in at Karen’s house and collected a spare armchair. Got all sorts of funny looks as we walked back home carrying it – people here aren’t used to muzungus doing such manual work. We now have three armchairs and our lounge is looking slightly less like an empty warehouse! Just in time, too, because Tom’s got a couple of visitors coming out from Kigali for the afternoon.

There is a ruined building right in the centre of Gitarama we all call the acropolis. If you look at my photos you’ll see why. I think it was a government building and the scene of heavy fighting in 1994, and has never been rebuilt. Well, this morning they’ve put up a fence around it. Either it’s being redeveloped or else they’re just going to disguise it ready for Friday….

Friday is “Heroes Day”, a national holiday, and the word is that “PK”, President Kagame, is coming to Gitarama to celebrate it here. Certainly we’ve been warned there will be ceremonies which we’re expected to attend. Security will be mega tight; we’ve been told not to bring mobile phones even if they’re switched off. Apparently, the last time “PK” went somewhere, the locals were frantically hiding their mobiles under bushes to avoid having them confiscated; after “PK” left there was pandemonium as most people have similar looking mobiles. Nobody could recognise their own phone and could only sort out whose was whose by seeing which numbers were stored in the memory! Everyone’s warning me that these events involve waiting around for ages, but it’ll be pretty cool to meet the President after only a couple of weeks in his country. (Mind you, in “Long Way Down” Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman met him after about 2 days). Anyway, watch this space and I’ll tell you what happens!

We all (except Tom) descended on Cathy and Elson for lunch (well, we had all been invited!). Just got there and it thundered and rained all afternoon. Spent the afternoon moving the sofa to dodge drips coming from the ceiling, and having to sit closer together to hear ourselves speak above the noise of rain on the corrugated iron roof.

Met Antonia, a long-term VSO based in Butare. Then discovered she comes from Netherbury and can remember the Saunders and Harvey families in the village. Rest of the group watching in amazement as we realise we lived within a hundred yards of each other for a few months in 1983…..

Also met Han, Mans’ wife. There’s quite a sizeable Dutch VSO component tin Rwanda, and with Geert we have three in our southern province.

Lovely long, relaxed lunch. I’d wanted to spend the day getting some photos of the Gitarama people and around the town, but the rain was so intense and it got so dark there wasn’t any point. In fact, we had to order taxis to get us home afterwards. The driver didn’t know where our flat was, and couldn’t speak much French and no English, so we had a farcical twenty minutes driving round and round mud roads while I tried to look for somewhere I recognised in the town. At least it meant I saw the backstreets, albeit in pouring rain and with ruts in the road so deep they shook the car to the extent that my head was bouncing off the window!

Back at the house Tom still had his guests; they were asking him to go over their business plans (Tom’s job is helping people start up small businesses in Rwanda), so we tried out the banana loaf I’d bought in Kigali. Wonderful! – just like home cooking. Everybody needs an extravagance now and then………

In the evening went to Raina’s house with Cathy and Elson for dinner. (Yes, two meals out in one day. My, my, we live the social whirl here in Gitarama!) We were all convinced that Raina wanted to persuade us to do some teaching work in her private primary school, and had rehearsed why we couldn’t possibly commit ourselves at this early stage in our placements, but instead it was purely a social evening. We ate very well, and she regaled us with tales of her time in Rwanda. She is one of those fascinating people you find in places like Gitarama. Bulgarian in origin, a high-powered lawyer working with the U N, she came to Rwanda in 1995 just after the genocide and worked in the prosecutor’s office. When her tour of duty ended she was asked to go to Kosovo, but decided she’d had enough. She bought a farm, built her own house, set up and built a primary school which she now runs on a shoestring. But it’s the best equipped primary in the area, and she’s a formidable presence in the town. A good friend with no-nonsense advice. She roared with laughter when I told her some of the silly things I’d done in my first week here.

We walked back home through the darkened streets at ten o’clock – unheard of lateness here. It was still raining slightly and not just chilly but positively cold!

Best thing about today – just feeling no pressure, relaxing, eating like pigs.
Low point – realising I’m almost out of cash. Hope to goodness my cheque book has arrived at the bank!