Untitled
on Sarah's Blog (Rwanda), 02/Oct/2009 13:47, 34 days ago
'the views expressed in this blog are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of VSO'.Thursday 1st October 2009The morning while still in the house, seemed like any other...things changed when I stepped out of the door...there was an eerie stillness...there were no children on their way to work...no adults milling around or chatting...the place was like a ghost town...all that was needed was a breeze and some tumble weed...there had been talk of the day being a public holiday...but even if that had been the case, there still would have been children outside the schools, as the announcement would have been made over the radio the night before...we arrived at the office to find it open and the generator on...thank goodness! Alexis was in the office and we were closely followed by Francois...who made his exit a short while later. I had been working for a good 2 hours, when at 9.30 Alexis got a phone call informing him that there was Umaganda this morning, it started at 7am and ran until 12pm. Umaganda is like a national community service. Everyone is expected to do it, without exception, usually it is the last Saturday of the month, so on Saturday people had spent the morning working hard on community projects, making mud bricks, clearing the ditches for the rains...which are still nowhere to be seen! Today, it had been decided, was to be an additional Umaganda...EVERONE was to go to Cyamakuza School and help with the laying of the foundations for the new classrooms. Now this would explain why the village had been so quiet this morning...however there were still moto drivers around, which is unusual! It was agreed that we would walk to the school, which is a fair distance, and join in with umaganda...dropping our stuff off at the house we walked with Alexis, who was moaning bitterly about the distance we had to walk, to the school. On arrival at the school, there were children everywhere, in fact the all the children were in, just playing volleyball nicely while everyone worked around them, I say worked...there just seemed to be a lot of people sitting around...including the people from the district office, who had found themselves a nice shady patch of grass to relax on. Once we arrived, a lot of the people who had been sat, or stood around, gathered to check out the Mzungus who had come to take part. We were on stone finding duty...we had to find the stones to fill the foundations...so I got on with the job...I wouldn’t have minded people being interested in my coming to help, had they actually been doing any work themselves...but just standing watching and giggling...did not amuse me in any way!!! And this was even from people in the district office where I work most afternoons! I was filling buckets with stones and then passing them to an EXTREMELY unenthusiastic Alexis to carry to the foundations! After about half an hour we were all called to the main play area and had to line up...lines of children, lines of district workers, lines of people who live within the community...then the National Anthem was sung...(but for some reason not by Alexis!!!) then it was back to work...only this time a lot more people seemed to be working and I could no longer get to the pile of stones to fill the bucket...and I wasn’t allowed to carry them to the foundations either (although I did manage to get in a fewtrips, but I was shouted at by a group of boys, who like many others were just standing around, not doing anything, but shouting thank you Mzungu! I wanted to shout back...but had to stop myself!!!) It was only towards the end of the work that it was explained that I was not allowed to do too muchwork...as it would not be good...(particularly for district staff!!!) if I was seen to be doing more work than them!...explains a lot...but at this rate it will take them 9 years to build the schools for the 9 years basic education...When the work was done at 12pm there was a meeting afterwards, with speeches and a collection...when it was all over...Alexis was very relieved, mostly because he was with us, which meant that he could ask for a lift back and therefore not have to exhaust himself, walking back up the hill (yes...the same bloody one as yesterday!!!) There were a few VERY cross looking faces from the district staff as they saw us in the car...I wouldn’t have minded walking as it was much cooler than yesterday...but we still had to collect our things before heading to the district office! And thank goodness we did...a few minutes before we left the house again...we asked Alexandre to get some bread for us...he returned a couple of minutes later in an excited whirlwind...as he had found someone selling pineapples!!!!! We gave him the money and headed to the office. Everyone was out for lunch and the offices were locked...we sat in the corridor until someone came back toopen them...it was only when I had been in the shade for a while that I realised I had caught the sun...but not in any way evenly...I have burnt my forehead...the top of my left arm...and my right shoulder...quite where the sun was I don’t know...my tan is going to be all over the place...