A Visit to Gisenyi Parish's Patronage

Today at Patronage we walked to Gisenyi Parish to visit their Patronage and engage in a friendly football match. We lined the kids up, wielded our Don Bosco banner and Muhato flag and made haste towards town.

 Really, we were going pretty fast, considering most Rwandans walk at a nice, easygoing, slow pace. But we were a group of about 60 people, and we had to keep the kids safely to the side of the road so the bikes and other pedestrians, and occasional cars and moto-taxis could get past us on these treacherous, rocky, pothole-y roads. The walk took about a half an hour, and we actually collected some extra kids along the way who decided to latch onto our train. One of them was a little girl whom I assumed was one of ours, so I said “let's go, ngwino (come)” and offered her my hand. So she held my hand the whole way. But partway there Sr. Charlotte started filtering out the kids who did not belong to Patronage, and it was then that I discovered that I had picked up a random street kid! But then she said that her sister was there at Patronage, so she was allowed to stay by association. Good, she was very sweet with a cute little smile. When we got there, we formed a big circle with Gisenyi Parish’s Patronage, and did our usual smattering of songs, dances, cheers, and chants, and I was proud to be able to sing a handful of them!

 I jumped and danced and clapped with more vigor today than usual, and it felt great. There was also another muzungu there, whom I met and exchanged numbers with in order to keep in touch! She was with Caritas, and is staying for the whole year with 3 others (all from Italy) and are about my age. So we’re gonna go get a drink one day. Well the football match was spectacular. Each team’s fans sit under a tree and do more cheers and chants during the whole match.

It really reminded me of Camp Randall…we were talking back and forth to the other team’s supporters, and whenever someone scores, the fans all run out on the field waving their arms and screaming for joy. It was great. And Muhato won! 5-2, a nice match. I don’t know how these kids do it…really, I’m amazed. We walk for a half an hour to come here, many of them probably didn’t have breakfast beforehand, then they play for an hour and a half in the hot sun (many players stayed in the entire game, no switching), and they are just wearing sandals or really cheap sneakers, some of them barefoot. Then, we have to walk all the way back to Muhato! Many of the kids had water bottles, fortunately. And when I say water bottles, I mean old plastic containers that look like they once held laundry detergent or vinegar or some other household cleaner. They fill them up at home, where they must fetch water from a public well/pump. They fill up these “bideau (sp?)” which are big 20L plastic containers that kind of resemble gasoline containers. So from the bideau they fill up their laundry detergent bottle, and off they go to play! I was really really exhausted, hungry, and thirsty when we got home. I can only imagine what those soccer players felt like. But boys will be boys, and I guess they’re used to it!

"What do you call a panga in English?" ''Um…a panga."

This is great. Last week in my secondary English class, we went through vocabulary that you find in a house. I drew a big map of a house on the board, and we filled it in with all kinds drawings of things you find inside (bed, table, plate, cup, spoon, etc.). Well, my first mistake was that I assumed that the kitchen should be part of the house. The whole class raised an uproar about how the kitchen must be separate from the house because of fire.

Ok, I said, so we'll re-draw the kitchen over here. Good. I asked for more items that are found in the kitchen, and someone says "fire." "Yes, good!" I say. I was expecting to hear this, since the Sisters have 2 cooking firepots outside where we heat water. But we also have a stove and oven, so I assumed the students would be familiar with these items too. Well, nobody suggested these. We just had a firepot ("trepot," evidently is the word in French…) We also included pots, pans, fork, knife, spoon, food, and other typical things.

Now, here's the good part. Jules, one of the more goofy and eager-to-participate guys, very hilarious, comes up to the board and starts drawing swords on the outside of our kitchen. Yes, things with handles and blades. He makes three of them, and fortunately after the first I realize what they are. Here in Rwanda (probably in most of Africa) all the gardening/landscaping is done by hand. You will not find a lawn mower, gas-powered nor the manual push-kind. The lawn is mowed by guys with machetes who spend hours in the sun whacking the grass with this long, curved blade. Then when they're done they rake up all the bits into big burlap sacks. It is really very inefficient and quite taxing on the laborer, but it does provide work for able-bodied individuals. We have several guys who work for us here on the compound who whack our lawn, and in doing so they are able to support their families. So it’s a good thing. So anyways, Jules draws three blades on the board, each with a different caliber of curvature. As he's drawing, I hear a murmur of agreement coming from the rest of the class, agreeing that they all want to know what these things are called in English.

"Do you say machète in English?" I hear.

"We say machet-EE." I respond, and I see an ocean of confused faces. So I write it on the board with emphasis on the "ee." That seemed to solve the problem.

Someone else asks "What do you call a panga in English?" Good golly…what is a panga? So I start pointing to the three blades that Jules drew in order to understand which image they're referring to. Apparently the longest one with the least amount of curve is the machete, and the one with a medium amount of curve is known as the panga.

"Ah yes, we also say panga." I say very confidently, not wanting to give away the fact that until now I had never heard of a panga. Its best to not let them know that we mow our lawns with highly efficient, very expensive equipment. Mentioning this would only have led to more questions, rightly so, because this is so foreign to them and they are curious. But I did not want to detract from the lesson, nor did I want to add to the already-existing perception of white people as very wealthy people.

They all kind of chuckled at my response to the panga question…I think they didn't believe me but whatev, I just went with it.

"What do you call that one?" They ask as I point to the third one, a very curved, short blade.

"A hook. Good, let's move on." They didn't really question my answer to this one, and I unfortunately did not learn the Kinyarwanda name for the "hook." Its probably not called a hook. My bad. Nonetheless, I find this lesson a delightful example of the kinds of things that just come at you as a missionary teacher in a Third World country.

You just have to put on your thinking cap and roll with it!

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