Rwanda, post number 4 (March 24th)

Missed another day, but this one is long so I won't do two days in one.

March 24, 2010; 16.06 CST

Today we finally started working. This morning we learned how to make the shelves that we are building for the mothers, and we were separated into three groups in which we will build said shelves. They’re like an Ikea-style bookshelf, three shelves and a top. Very simple – six boards, 12 nails, one piece of backing and approximately 24 finishing nails … and an amazing amount of planning.

Because it is so humid here, wood warps very easily and a lot. At least half of the time we spend making the shelves is making sure that the back is flush, that the shelves are straight (and we are working on surfaces that are not level, so a level is useless), that we don’t nail into a knot, etc. We are eight to ten in each group, and the first one we made took all of us an hour and a half and was so crooked that we had to do it again.

After you build the basic shelves, you sand it down (three levels of sanding), attach the backing and then we will stain it. We are building them at a sort of home-base, one of the mother’s houses near the other houses where we will deliver the shelves. When we deliver them is when we will stain them: just outside the house where they will stay.

My group is comprised of Mme Doche, M Rondeau, Myriam, Carol-Anne, Roxanne, Renée, Will and Dan, and when we headed back to the inn after our first hour and a half of work we found out that one of the other groups, the one working closest to the Centre César (and therefore closest to the wood), had finished three in the same time. Mme Doche, being incredibly competitive, was not pleased – so after lunch, we snuck back to do a couple more in the time we had before we were supposed to go help clean the Centre for the grand opening tomorrow. We had 26 minutes and had left under the pretence of going to clean up since we hadn’t had time. We split into two groups of four (I had forgotten Roxanne was in our group and had not told her we were sneaking off, so we were only eight of nine) and managed to complete two sets of shelves in 26 minutes, with a couple mistakes to fix each. That’s only banging them together, though – no sanding and no backing and no stain as those were not available yet.

We presume that it will take approximately 40 minutes for one group of four to finish one set of shelves, and if we have 90 minutes to work in the morning, that means four sets of shelves with ten minutes’ leeway. Not bad at all. We only have 150 to make. (Oh, and apparently at least one of the sets of shelves that the other group had finished was no good so they will have to do it over. :D) If our group does four every hour and a half, and say the other groups do three every hour and a half, then it will only take twenty-two and a half hours of work total. If we all do four sets every 90 minutes, then it will take eighteen hours and forty-five minutes. If we can make it to three people per group (doable), then we get six every 90, meaning twelve and a half hours total. That’s doable.

... Anyway. After that blitz of building, we went back to the Centre and cleaned chairs and tables for the grand opening the next night. After the cleaning, a few of us finished off the first set of shelves that we had started that morning as a demonstration, putting the backing on and sanding it (the piece of backing was not cut that morning). It looks really nice. There were groups working on decorations for the grand opening tomorrow night, and working on something at the Centre’s food bank as well.

Around five, I think (time is nearly nonexistent here), we headed back to the inn for dinner and practice for the evening’s activities. Wherever we walk in Kigali, we are constantly being greeted, mostly by the younger children (maybe 13 and under, definitely 10 and under). They cry out “abazungu!” or “umuzungu!”, meaning “white people!” or “white person!” in a non-derogatory fashion. The littlest ones are absolutely overjoyed when we, such strange ghost-like people who can barely speak their language but who smile lots, give them hugs or hold their hands or say hello in Kinyarwanda (“muaramutse” in the morning, “muiriwe” in the afternoon, “muraho” in the evening), ask them how they are (“amakuru”, the reply being “ni meza”), or ask them their names (“witwa nde”).

Many of them will call out in French or in English to us, and then run up to us and grin. Sometimes they ask for things, but not very often. They are mostly just happy to see us, and feel special that such weird people would come around and be nice. They think we’re novelties, in a way. We’re very much the minority, and the kids seem to be fascinated by us and love it when we pay attention to them. On the way to the Centre this morning, we started playing soccer in the road with the kids, and they were just over the moon.

Some of them have tried to speak to me in Kinyarwanda, since I have a pretty good grasp of the pronunciation and a bit more vocabulary than most of us, so I speak quickly and easily and they seem to get the impression that I speak their language – so then I have to pull out “simbyumva”, meaning “I don’t understand”, and they laugh. The mothers of the children laugh so hard when their kids come up to us and leave bouncing with joy. They’re so incredibly cute, the kids …

At dinner, as at other meals, I noticed the lack of preservatives in the food. We had lamb tonight, and it looked sort of burnt, but when I bit into it, it was not burnt at all but rather encrusted in pepper. Very spicy (but very good as always), and kind of tough as most of the meat here is. I wondered about this, and realized that it might be because there are no preservatives – so they use natural preservatives, i.e. spices. That made a lot of sense, and made me slightly uncomfortable as I was unsure of the quality of the food, but it is all very good and I am not sick (unlike a good dozen of us over the past couple days), so I am not worried.

Before dinner we practiced the songs and dances that we were going to do this evening for the Visionaries at our joint-hosted evening. I sang my song, or rather sang it halfway since I totally blanked on the words (and felt like a total idiot and spent the next half hour making sure I knew it by heart, which I did before); Janique, Janelle and Roxanne sang a Madrigaia song; we all sang a French-Canadian song, L’histoire d’Antan; we did the Boot Scoot ‘N’ Boogie; and a French-Canadian folk line dance. The Visionaries loved it all this evening, and learned the Boot Scoot ’N’ Boogie so well that they danced it once themselves … and then the second part of the evening was Rwandan dancing, just a sort of social dancing where we learned what we could and they just danced and danced and danced. They never seem to run out of energy, the people here! I was tired after the Boot Scoot ’N’ Boogie, but they did it again and then kept going!

Breakfast is at 7.15 and I still need to do my devotions, so off this goes.