Sunday visit to Hyacinth
on Geri Skeen (Rwanda), 06/Jul/2011 03:44, 34 days ago
Felicien is our night guard, and Hyacinth’s son. I wrote about their family some months back. Hyacinth and her husband Ezekier invited me over to their house again. Felicien and I walked there together this morning. It’s a beautiful walk along paths and tracks of red earth, past tiny fields of maize, through copses of Eucalyptus where herders watch over a cow or two, past mud brick houses surrounded by banana trees. Hyacinth is in the kitchen, cooking ibigori (maize) in an earthenware pot on a wood stove. Smoke finds its way out through chinks in the tiled roof. Ezekier returns with a load of leafy maize stalks and throws them into the cows’ room, which is next to the kitchen. He leaves the door open a while so I can tell him they are‘inka neza’ – beautiful cows. They are seven months old now and in time will produce maybe half a dozen calves before being killed for meat. One is fudge coloured with little horns, the other brindle and hornless. In French we try to discuss the differences between beef and dairy cows and fail.Ezekier says he’s thirsty and I take the hint and despatch Felicien with money to buy banana beer and Fanta. He returns with an old cooking oil bottle filled with beer, plus a Fanta for me and a Coke for himself. We eat corn on the cob and the beer is passed between Ezekier, Hyacinth and a neighbour who drops in.It’s more relaxed than last time I was here. I guess we know each other a bit better now. We don’t have a great deal to say to each other, but enough that the silences feel peaceful. Hyacinth has cut me two cabbages to take home and soon Hyacinth and Ezekier are accompanying me and Felicien to the track where we say our goodbyes. Felicien carries my cabbage-heavy bag and accompanies me home to Gitarama.