If you're happy and you know it...
on Rose Hardman (Rwanda), 12/Jun/2011 13:49, 34 days ago
It has been a busy couple of weeks but very enjoyable. Both weekends, surprisingly have involved long walks that take on a somewhat Pied Piper air about them. The first one was last Saturday when Julia, Judy, Pascal and I decided to go for a walk up one of the hills near Gitarama. It was a four hour walk and on the way we (unwittingly) collected about 15 children. There is nothing like 15 small barefooted children skipping easily up a hill as you struggle to take the next step to make you feel like a sweaty unfit muzungu!Hanging out at the top of the hillOnce we'd returned from our walk we headed to Judy's for lunch where we were joined by (other) Julia and Pauline. Following an amazing meal of chickpea curry, chili, bread, rice and followed by cake and custard, we decided to watch a film. We choseFame, not realising that it was the remake, and that the remake not only doesn't have a story line but also doesn't include the song 'Fame'. Epic fail!On Sunday, Pauline reconfirmed her legendry status and producedbaked beansfor that morning's breakfast. She also demonstrated a very artistic skill in cutting tomatoes. Who knew she had such talents?!Sharing skills, changing tomatoesPre brown sauceAfter a week of donor meetings and gender workshops I headed to Kigali on Friday to stay at Vanessa's. A night at Vanessa's would not be complete without a game or two so the four of us (Emma and Tricia were also staying) spent a wonderful evening giggling through games of 'who's in the bag' and 'colinder of death'. Saturday morning Vanessa and I met up with Christine (after a cheeky episode ofOutnumbered) to head to Burera to see Catherine and Rachel. Saturday afternoon is when walk number 2 happened. Again, it was about four hours long and again, we picked up rather a few children. Each village we walked through another dozen children or so would join us until we ended up with, no exageration, over 100 children accompanying us on our walk to the lake. After about 2 hours we heard thunder. This prompted a singalong of 'I hear thunder' which was then swiftly taught to the children and the 107 of us headed on our way singing and laughing and cheering. On our way back from the lake the rains started. Luckily we were with Catherine and Rachel's guard and home help and they found us shelter in someone's house. When I say 'us' I mean the seven of us plus as many kids as could fit in, oh and some local adults who also seemed to have joined us. We then spent about half an hour singing such gems as 'London's Burning' (which they all already knew), 'Frere Jacques' and 'If you're happy and you know it'. This last one was definitely a favourite and there was screams and cheers of delight when we did all five actions one after another; clap hands, stamp feet, nod head, wave hands, shoutwe are... We were then treated to singing and dancing by the children and a man who we think was the umudugudu leader.Mid-song. I think this was 'If you're happy and you know it...'It was actually sad when the rain stopped and we had to leave but we had a two hour walk back before dark. On the way home we dropped the kids back off in their villages until it was just the seven of us left and the events of the day felt like a dream.Heading homeP.S. Can you tell I've just noticed the italic button on this blog?