Walk to Kapgayi

My house-mate Julia showed me how to make a movie.  Here it is; it’s about the walk we went on together which I wrote about in this blog on 13 Feb:

Gnome Survives Hailstorm

This one is for Alis.  Since being found face down following a previous downpour, gnome has been firmly planted in place.  I am pleased to say he is still standing despite enduring hailstones of a size seldom seen in the UK.  Here is the deafening effect on our tin roof (the rain was vertical, not horizontal - the video seems to have turned itself through 90 degrees):

Ikinyarwanda

The one good thing about ikinyarwanda is that it is the first language of all Rwandans (except some of those who grew up in exile and have returned since the genocide).  Rwanda has been a country with more or less the same boundaries for centuries and, while it was handed around European powers a bit in colonial times, they didn’t carve it up.  So if you speak ikinyarwanda, you can make yourself understood everywhere here. 

That’s where the good news ends as ikinyarwanda is a fiendishly difficult language to learn.  You know how French has male and female nouns, so the word for old is ‘vieux’ if applied to a man and ‘vieille’ if applied to a woman?  And how German has male, female and neuter?  Well, guess how many noun classes ikinyarwanda has:  sixteen.  That means that even if you know ‘umunsi mwiza’ means ‘have a good day’ and you know the word for ‘weekend’ is, thankfully, ‘weekend’, you cannot assume that ‘Have a good weekend’ is ‘Weekend mwiza’.  It is in fact ‘Weekend nziza’.  And ‘Did you have a good walk?’ is ‘Watembereye neza?’  So you know there’s going to be a ‘za’ but you also have to learn which of sixteen beginnings to the word is the right one.  There are of course also sixteen words for ‘of’ – 100 Rwandan francs worth of beans and 100 Rwandan francs worth of tomatoes will use different words for ‘of’, because beans and tomatoes are from different noun classes.  Sadly even numbers change according to the noun class.  So I’ve just about learnt to count up to 100,000 (you need the high figures because £1 is 1,000 Rwandan francs), but that’s just the start:  the number three, for example, is ‘gatatu’ but if I want to say I have three sisters, it’s ‘barumuna batatu’ rather than ‘barumana gatatu’.  The number five is ‘gatanu’ but five thousand is ‘ibihumbi bitanu’ as the number five takes on the noun class of the word for thousands.

Numbers are different again when telling the time.  Here, you use Swahili numbers instead, though not for all twelve hours.  And 1 o’clock uses the Swahili word for seven; 2 o’clock uses the Swahili word for eight etc.  It isn’t perhaps so stupid, making 7 o’clock the first hour, as it is the first full hour of daylight in a land almost on the equator, where the time of dawn varies little year round.

I mentioned the word for ‘sisters’ earlier but I must point out that ‘barumuna’ actually means ‘younger sisters’.  There’s a different word for older sisters.  Oh, and if you are a boy, barumuna means ‘younger brothers’ instead.

Some ikinyarwanda words speak volumes about the culture.  For example, a single woman is ‘umukobwa’; literally the person who brings the cow.  This is because when a man wants to marry a woman, he must save enough money to buy a cow, or failing that banana beer or a case of Fanta, to take to the woman’s father.  I have in fact met a man who the previous week had taken a cow to a man to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage.  Until a man can afford a wife, he cannot marry.  ‘Umukobwa’ is also the word for ‘daughter’.  ‘I am married’ translates as ‘ndubatse’; literally, ‘I have a home.’

The word for 'Good Morning' is 'Mwaramutse', which literally means 'Didn't you die during the night?'  If you see someone in the afternoon, you say, 'Mwiriwe', which means 'Did you survive the morning?'  On parting, you say, 'Mwirirwe' (yes, only one letter different from Mwirirwe) which means 'Stay alive during the day' or, if it's the end of the day, you say 'Muramuke', meaning 'Don't die during the night.'

If someone has given you news, either good or bad, which surprised or shocked you, you say, 'Yampaye inka!' meaning 'He gave me a cow.'

Luckily many older Rwandans speak a bit of French and most younger ones speak a bit of English.

Successful trip to market

Made my first solo trip to buy food at the market today.  Till now, I’ve shopped at the tiny shops between my home and workplace, but the market is cheaper and it’s where most people shop.  I was armed with various phrases my Kinyarwanda teacher gave me e.g. ‘I want two hundred francs worth of beans’, ‘I want one pepper for fifty’, and the seemingly obscure ‘I want unpeeled garlic’ – that’s because they usually sell individual peeled cloves. 

I was prepared to have to haggle hard not to be taken for a ride.  In the event, the opposite happened.  The first stall I went to and asked for 100 (10 pence) of beans, I was expecting one handful as my teacher had said but in fact was given two.  I bought some tomatoes from these two ladies too for what I know is the right price, 100 for five little tomatoes, and they were happy to give me a small pepper for 50, as I asked.  Then they actually gave me a big onion ‘for my health’ and suggested I shop there again, which I will.  This was all done in a mixture of sign language, Kinyarwanda and French. 

I went looking for ginger and a teenage boy asked for 500 for a large piece.  I suggested 100 for half the piece.  He gave me a very small piece for 100.  I didn’t know the price so didn’t feel I could press him too hard; I paid and put the ginger in my bag.  However, the woman whose stall it was asked to see what he’d given me for 100 and then swapped it for a much larger piece, actually what I’d originally thought I’d try to get for 100. 

I finished my trip by buying a pineapple (30p), two avocados (10p for two) and two little limes (5p for two) – or maybe they’re lemons, but either way I’m sure a slice will go well in my banana gin and tonic this evening.

Town Crier

We have a man who comes round, usually between 5am and 5.45am, six days a week.  He does a drum roll outside our house to get our attention and then shouts things in ikinyarwanda about the forthcoming local elections and other town business.  I am assured he won’t do this so often once the elections are over.  Unfortunately for me, the elections coincided with my arrival in Gitarama a fortnight ago and will continue in stages for another fortnight.  This morning he surpassed himself by coming at 2.45am.

Work

I realise I haven’t written anything here about my work at YWCA, though I have sent some of you emails about work.  Work has been added to the list of things I don’t write about on my blog, for fear of offending anyone. 

What I am prepared to say is that YWCA Rwanda was set up following the genocide in 1994, to support widows, prisoners’ wives and orphans.  It does some extremely valuable work with these people.  The programme for young people orphaned by the genocide or by HIV/AIDS is providing extremely valuable support to young people left in the position of heads of household, trying to look after younger siblings.  YWCA works with these orphans and vulnerable children by grouping the heads of households together in support groups.  These children are shown how to run a household and care for younger children.  They are supported financially so that they have access to medical care and can continue their schooling.  They are supported by YWCA’s four social workers, and also by a mentor chosen by the group.  This will be an adult living in their community.  Each group also comes up with an idea for making money and is supported to set this up. (That is in addition to the cultivation of crops which is something virtually every Rwandan household does.)  One group for example makes greetings cards using banana bark collage.  I met the young man who leads that group; now a confident young man who is supporting other orphans as he was supported.

I’ve not yet agreed with the YWCA manager what I will focus on.  We held a strategy day this week so that will help us establish priorities.  Hopefully we’ll spend some time together next week as a management team analysing that data and drafting our vision, mission and objectives.  It will make fund-raising and focus of our time and effort much easier.  It’s likely I may spend quite a bit of time re-designing their website. 

Another rainy afternoon

Hi everyone.  Julia and I went on a great walk yesterday, Saturday, morning.  She’d been shown a path through the cultivated flat bottom of the valley down the hill from our house and she tried to remember it again.  We found it without too much difficulty, a narrow raised earth path held in place solely by the grass growing up its sides, through fields of maize and then wetter fields of what I guessed might be rice.  I was pointing to it and speculating when some women we’d just been talking to shouted ‘umuceri’ to me.  As I happen to know that this is the ikinyarwandan word for rice, that was gratifying.  Julia put me to shame most of the way though as she has mastered quite a bit of ikinyarwanda since arriving here in September and was able to hold simple conversations that went way over my head.  We saw ibis and heron fishing, and what looked like pelicans.  Eventually we came out onto the tar road which we took back into town, coming off it again to go through Gahogo, our suburb of Gitarama. 

We were almost home when the heavens opened.  We took shelter in the porch of a little shop, along with a couple of other people.  When the rain started blowing onto the porch, the shop owner invited us all inside and we sat on benches in the shop.  After half an hour of solid rain, three children came in, soaked through and looking very upset.  Apparently their house had collapsed.  As no-one went out to do anything, I presume there were some adults somewhere dealing with it who had told the children to shelter.  The boy was shivering a bit and the girl had brought with her what may have been her most valued possessions:  two school exercise books.  They were rather wet and the shop keeper smoothed them out for her.  She didn’t offer them a towel or dry clothes though, just shelter like the rest of us.  The government condemns houses made from mud, and pulls them down, presumably for this reason; but many people are unable to afford proper bricks.

We got home to no water and no electric.  They turn off the water when it rains hard because it stirs up sediment which takes more chemicals to deal with, hence making it more expensive.  Water had flooded our two spare back bedrooms, soaking the mattresses on the floors.  Not much water in my bedroom this time, presumably because of the wind direction.  The thunder and lightning resumed.  By 6pm it had stopped and the electric came back on.

Sunday morning.  Still no water.  As I’ve realised that it tends to rain in the afternoon, I went for a walk first thing.  I’ve learned that when people ask me a question ending in ‘He?’ it means they’re asking me where I’m going, as He means Where, and comes at the end of the sentence.  So I now answer ‘Nhaho’; the first syllable is supposed to be said in a nasally way.  That means Nowhere.  I then say ‘Ndimo gutembera,’ which means ‘I’m going for a walk.’  Gutembera means to go for a walk just for the sake of it, rather than to get somewhere.  It’s great because that makes sense to people and that makes me feel less awkward walking through their lives.  A woman with a baby on her back, outside her house, wanted to show me her cow.  She knew the English word ‘cow’.  I did my best to tell her I thought her cow was a very fine one.  Back by mid-morning.  Put the mattresses out to dry in the sun. 

It’s been raining all afternoon.  Thunder and lightning again for a while too.  Electric went off again.  Water is still off.  Had a nap. Electric came back on so made a cup of tea and filled our flask with hot water in case it goes off again.  Played my guitar.  Perfectly pleasant way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Guitar buying in Kigali

Rachel who works for VSO in Kigali phoned her friend Masimamgo, who runs a guitar school, and he offered to take me to buy a guitar.  I waited at the appointed place and time, not expecting a Rwandan to be punctual.  After half an hour he rang me to say he’d been arrested, but still to wait for him.  After another hour he rang again to say he’d been released.  Hey, I only just realised typing this now that that’s the latest song I’m learning:  I Shall Be Released.  Anyway, he did turn up and took me to a shop which had some very big amps and a few electric guitars and two acoustic guitars, one with those bits inside which you only need if you are going to plug it into an amp.  I asked him to tune the fully acoustic one, which seemed to take him a very long time.  Mind you, it was hideously out of tune, and we weren’t helped by the fairly loud music playing in the shop or the fairly loud street sounds (the shop didn’t have a door).  I tried playing it but it sounded so dire I asked if we could look elsewhere.  We went into another shop which only had electric guitars and that seemed to be it.  So I suggested we try the guitar with the bits inside.  This time I tuned it myself, not easy given the noise around, and played it a bit and it seemed to stay in tune and certainly didn’t sound as awful as the other one so I thought this might be as good as it gets buying guitars in Rwanda and Masimamgo and I discussed how much we might be able to get the price down by.  We settled on 95,000Rwf, which is about £95.  Then I asked about cases.  They got down a very dusty one and brushed it off and tried to fit the guitar into it, with Masimamgo and I trying to explain to them that as it was a case for an electric guitar, mine wasn’t going to fit.  So they found an acoustic case, again very dusty and we tried that but the zip was broken, so they started trying to stuff the guitar into another electric guitar case.  At this point I suggested we leave. 

I got the bus back to Gitarama with my shopping bag (I’d bought exotic things you can only get in the capital like wholemeal bread and peppercorns and olive oil) and guitar on my lap, wedged in beside a woman with a shopping bag and toddler on her lap. 

It’s actually not a bad guitar; nowhere near as nice as mine in the UK but perfectly playable.  Now back to I Shall Be Released.

Birthday in Rwanda

I really enjoyed my birthday this week.  I came home at lunchtime – as it’s only a five minute walk, I always do unless we have a meeting over lunch – and unusually Rose and Julia were here too.  They appeared with a candle and a present, singing me happy birthday.  The present is a beautiful woven basket, big enough to put all the bits and pieces in that are still in my suitcase, so I will finally finish unpacking this weekend and put my suitcases away.  It is locally made and is typical of the beautiful handicrafts people make here.  Here it is:

After work we got in some wraggi – the local version of gin – and some bottles of Rwandan tonic.  Room temperature as our local shops have no fridges.  No ice or lemon but what the hell.  Julia and Rose and I ate together as usual and they sang me happy birthday again, this time in ikinyarwanda.  Then we settled down in front of the laptop to eat chocolate and watch a couple of episodes of Outnumbered.  A low key but really nice birthday.