The wedding introduction

We were invited to one of these in Kigali recently. There is no real equivalent in our culture – “engagement party” does not even begin to describe it.
The event is hosted by the girl’s family and its purpose is twofold – to negotiate how many cows the boy’s family will give and to introduce the engaged couple to the wider family on both sides. As it happened, the happy couple definitely played second fiddle to the cow discussions!
There were about 150 people there, equally divided between the two “sides” and facing each other, with a space in between for a sofa and chairs, later to be occupied by the couple plus attendants. We started an hour and a half late with a meal and then proceeded to the most important part of Rwandan events – the speeches.
The bargaining was carried out by a senior male relation from each family, with one or two advisers on either side and was very good-humoured, lots of jokes (we had a translator to give us the gist). After the opening speeches and some verbal sparring, the boy’s family eventually offered 8 cows. They were asked to confirm this and then the girl’s family said “that’s 8 plus 8 then?”. Much hilarity.
They went to 9, then 10 and finally, after about 1 hour, the sides agreed on 11. By this time it was about 1 hour away from dusk and I wondered if we would even be able to see the couple when they came!
I thought we were finished, but the discussion now turned to how to divide the cows between the couple and the girl’s family. This was shorter and ended up as 5 for the couple, but the boy’s family had a nice twist to their negotiations and insisted that the couple should be able to choose ANY 5 from the girl’s family stock. Finally, a request to describe the 11 cows was declined and they agreed to go and see the cows together to complete the transaction.
The couple showed up to great applause, greeted the families, exchanged gifts and then disappeared after about 15 minutes without saying anything. Since darkness was imminent, the party dissolved rather quickly : the wedding is in 4 weeks’ time, anyway.

Temperature rising

In the wake of the French judge issuing warrants against several senior Rwandans and the expulsion of French ambassador, there is a real buzz about the affair. The Rwandan “Sunday Times” had about 4 pages allocated to it. We spent the week-end in Kigali and quite a few people talked to us about it. One was a guard at some shops – he said “the French killed our people during the war”. We missed the demonstration in the capital, but apparently there was also one in the streets of Kamembe on Friday afternoon.
Of course, there are individual repercussions for the diplomatic spat. French-funded aid projects may be closed, the Franco-Rwandan Cultural Centre and a French-funded school in Kigali have been closed and the guard told us his sister, a student in Paris, had been expelled from the country.
All in all, it has been a reminder of how volatile things can be. It has also been remarkable how the country has united against France. This shouldn’t be too surprising – I have been trying to get a Rwandan perspective on this. The nearest I can come up with is this – imagine in the 1950s if Rwanda had accused de Gaulle of war crimes against the Germans. It would of course be unthinkable that France would even entertain such a suggestion. The “New Times” claimed that the events even had a racist tone to them and I can see what they mean.

Frustration - good for the soul?

The starting point for this is a very frustrating week, not the first since I came here! However, this is the common, if not universal, experience of Westerners visiting Africa. Frustration levels rise. We say that frustration is not good for our blood pressure, but I wonder if it can be good for our soul.

This is more of a personal confession than a general principle for spiritual growth. I don’t recommend seeking frustrating situations (although you only have to commute with Scotrail for a short time to come across quite a few!). The value is in what we learn when we cannot do or get what we want, when our wills are crossed by others or by circumstances. It reveals what is really important to us and as is often the case with self-knowledge, it is painful, because the causes of frustration are often very petty and show how self-centred we are. It’s all about my time, my priorities, my plans.

It’s certainly not always wrong to get frustrated. Jesus was clearly frustrated by his disciples’ slowness to learn spiritual truth, by the Pharisees stubborn refusal to accept him and by Jerusalem’s rejection of him and many of the prophets before him. In sharing our humanity, God understands what it is like to be frustrated – He does not get all He wants, either.

No cow for us

Tonight we were at a ”lottery” organised by our bank. Every 3 months they organise a draw for customers who have savings accounts – the prize being a cow. Unfortunately we were not lucky this time. It’s a shame - we know a few bachelors who might have offered us a good price, as cows are still the “bride price” here.

Conversation with Theogene the butcher

I met Theogene through a mutual friend and last week we got chatting about his work. At first Theogene was bemused and amused that I was interested, but I learned a bit about the meat trade in Rwanda.

I – “Do you have a butcher’s shop?
T – “I kill the animals, then people from the Congo take the meat and sell it in Bukavu”
I – “In English, we would call that a slaughterhouse”
T – “We do not have a house, we just kill the animals outside”
I – “And when it rains?”
T – “My job is very difficult then. I have to take the animals inside the house” (!!!)
I – “”So you cut the throat of the animals?”
T – “Yes, of course”
I – “ And what about the blood?
T – “It falls on the ground”

I explain the Scottish idea of black pudding, made mostly from blood. Theogene is very surprised. “In Rwanda only dogs eat blood”.

I – “So how did you become a butcher?”
T – “I needed to make money and some people near where I live were butchers”
I – “Did someone teach you how to do it?”
T – “No, I just watched others”
I – “But someone must have taught you how to kill an animal!?”
T - "No"

Armed robbers foiled in Kamembe

Apparently a gang of about 6 Ugandans tried to rob one of the new banks in town. The police caught them, one was shot dead and two escaped. One version I heard was that the gang had bribed one of the guards, who had then informed the police. When the gang arrived at the bank, they had knives and in the fighting one of them was killed.

The group I was discussing with agreed that these criminals were not over-endowed with intelligence. Kamembe has no obvious escape routes - the lake is on one side, the Congo border with its security guards close by, Burundi to the south (again there is border security) and lastly there is the difficult road through Nyungwe, with patrols by soldiers. How they planned to get back to Uganda, or even get rid of the money, is anybody’s guess.

(Note to friends and family - the events took place in the middle of the night and are as rare for Cyangugu as they would be in the UK, or any other part of Rwanda. We are quite safe here and crime rates are very low. Our bank manager said to me that he was not planning any new security measures as a result of the raid).

Banda - moments, insights, questions

Banda is 1 hour’s drive off the tarmac road through the forest. There is no electricity there and no phone signal. Some moments from my last visit, some insights and some questions.

Standing in a newly-finished house of mud bricks, praying with the family, the builders, the pastor and the diocesan visiting team. Appreciating anew how our shared faith can build bridges between people with very different lives. Understanding that there are links much stronger than those made by communication.

Listening to a young woman describe how her husband of 13 years has recently been sentenced to 12 years in prison for genocide crimes. She is left with 6 young children to look after and a half-built house. What does justice mean in this situation?

Climbing for 40 minutes on steep and narrow footpaths to visit a house being built with mud bricks for a young man and his mother. What will “development” look like in this area and for these people?

I still can't believe it

Modeste is our day-guard. He arrives at our house at 8am each morning and is there until after 5pm, doing odd-jobs and looking after the property. This is a 7-day-a-week job, with 1 month of holidays per year.
For this he is paid 10,000 Rwf (£10) per month by the Diocese. We pay him a samll supplement to this.

We had an old table which we offered to Modeste and I offered to deliver it to his house.

It took us 20 minutes to get there in the Toyota pick-up, it was more than 10km. The walking distance, which he covers twice per day, is slightly less than this, but there are a couple of steep hills on the way (inevitably).

I've spent some time thinking about this and perhaps I'll write later, but toady I leave the bare facts, which I still can't quite believe even after having made the journey twice.

6 kinds of bad road

It’s no longer enough to say “the road is terrible”. For the record, there are several kinds of bad road around here:
> The road with difficult geography. Even where the surface is OK, the road through Nyungwe has an unnerving number of sharp bends and very steep hills. We average 30km/hr on the tarmac. This road is notorious for people being sick in public minibuses.
> The tarmac road with potholes. You can never relax when driving on this, because you have to swerve or slow down at short intervals to avoid suspension-wrecking bumps.
> The stony unpaved road, which shakes your bones and introduces all kinds of creaks and squeaks to the vehicle. One version of this is the rutted road, where the water drains across, giving an effect like driving across corrugated iron sheets.
> The muddy road, where the tyres soon get a thick rim of compressed mud and lose almost all grip. Even with 4-wheel drive, our Toyota pickup slides going downhill and sometimes gets stuck going up.
> The “barely a road”, where there are unexpected slopes, dips and bumps.
> My least favourite – the road with scary wooden bridges.

This is not by way of complaint : I like driving here. Like many other aspects of life, it’s unpredictable. It’s also the most tiring work I do. It’s guaranteed that after a day with more than 3 hours driving, I will be falling asleep well before 10pm.

Finally, some travel advice for anyone planning to drive in Rwanda – the road from Ruhengeri to Gitarama is NOT paved for the whole way as suggested by the map. There is a large gap in the middle where you will find, as we did, at least 3 kinds of bad road.