Grace and her 4 girls
on Annemiek Miller (Rwanda), 15/Feb/2006 09:48, 34 days ago
January 31, 2004Grace and her 4 girlsPastor Félicien invited me last week to accompany him into the countryside just outside the village, to visit some families. He is the parish priest of Kigeme and has decided to take the time at the end of the afternoon to make his visits. One of my initiatives is to invite the forty or so pastors in the diocese to choose one family in their parish whose school aged children are not attending school for whatever reason. I would like these pastors to build a relationship with this family with the intent to perhaps lend them the necessary support to help them get their children to school. This would give insight into 40 families and the specific hurdles they have in getting their children to primary school. Anyway, accompanying pastor Félicien would give me insight into the plight of some of these families. We arrived in the yard of a small hut where Grace was nursing her youngest daughter seated on a bare, dirty, foam mattress in front of the hut. A toddler was close by playing with a small, empty, red tomato-paste can. There were two other children of Grace's, girls, aged 7 and 8. All four children were wearing faded, tattered dresses falling off their shoulders because the sleeves were worn through. Félicien had told me about Grace. Back in September her husband had decided he was too hungry and left for Kigali. He never came back. Grace was left with the 4 children and two goats. She works some fields at a distance from her house. The harvest last October was quite good. Theupcoming harvest will be poor because of the lack of rain. She also had a small pen next to the house where she kept a neighbour's pig. A few weeks ago the neighbour sold the pig, but has never even mentioned giving her money for having used her pen. Grace keeps her two goats in the house with her and the children at night, because bandits come at night to try to take them away. When Grace took one of the children to the local hospital, her health insurance was not valid because the children were not written in on her identity card but on her husband's. Félicien will follow up on this: tracethe whereabouts of the father through his family who still lives in the surroundings and order him back to deal with the papers for the children so that Grace can carry on.At the end of the visit, Grace asked one of her children to say the Lord's Prayer. When she finished, Félicien commented she had more or less included all the elements but that they were a bit jumbled. Then the oldest girl took her turn. Her version sounded more fluid. It was quite funny when Félicien burst laughing and told me she had said instead of “Give us our daily bread”: “We do not know where our food is coming from, but please give us some”. Mother obviously has moments of humour in spite of her hard life.I was able to ask Grace some questions about her children and about her situation. She is a courageous woman, who, although struggling, is able to care for her children and herself. She was thankful for the visits so far and sees it as an answer to her prayers that Félicien has come out of nowhere to help her get identity papers for her children.To be continued.In the mean time I have hit the clothing market in Butare. This is an extensive second hand clothing market where there are piles and piles of neatly folded, very clean but extremely wrinkled clothing. One could easily find some of the discarded clothing that we, in the west have all given away in the black garbage bags. I zeroed in on the children's clothes thinking of Grace's 4 children. I was able to purchase 2 dresses, 2 jumpers, a skirt and 4 Tshirts. Last week Félicien and I went to drop these off to Grace. She was very thankful. I shall keep this family in my mind and in my prayers.