The grand opening of Bweyeye School

It’s all over, or at least it nearly is. Bweyeye Primary School was officially opened last Saturday by the local Senator (from the upper house of the Rwandan parliament). This was no small commitment from him - he left Kigali in the dark at 4am for 6 hours’ drive to get to Bweyeye and returned there at the end of the day. The hoped-for television crew did not arrive, but we got some coverage on national radio.
I arrived the day before as part of the advance party to help with last-minute preparations. The pickups were laden with the 600 pairs of shoes, exercise books and pens as gifts for the children and other materials not easily available in Bweyeye. We got there about mid-morning to find a buzz of activity at the school – a shelter being built, cleaning and painting under way, last minute touches to the buildings. No children, however – they were to come at 3pm to collect their new shoes and uniforms.
We were clearly going to be struggling to get everything done before Saturday morning, as everything had been delayed by unseasonal rain, but of course there was not the slightest sign of worry, stress or sense of pressure about this.
This was highlighted by the tailors, who were nowhere near finished the uniforms. They had sewing machines running, charcoal irons going and button-sewers working hard, but the uniforms were piled high in chaotic fashion. Several visits backwards and forwards persuaded them to recruit some extra help, but contingency plans for distributing uniforms in the morning were clearly needed.
By the time we got back after a late lunch the atmosphere at the school was electric and the children charged with adrenaline. They had already been waiting for at least 1 hour for us. The distribution of shoes started well enough, but there were simply not enough uniforms available, it all took longer than we anticipated (of course) and as darkness fell (and being Bweyeye, it was DARK), there were hundreds of children still at school. We sent them home to regroup in the morning.
I managed to surprise a few local people by rising early. It’s very unusual to see a “mzungu” who has spent the night in Bweyeye. At 0630 the potato peelers and chicken pluckers were already hard at work at the back of the pastor’s house, but the uniform sewers had been less productive. Fortunately the guests were late, as expected and so the preparations proceeded reasonably smoothly. We started 1.5 hours late, with about 100 special guests, a few hundred others and about 300 children. They were immaculate in their new uniform and shoes and immaculate in their behaviour, too. It was a proud day for the community.
The event itself was less interesting than the preparations. The preposterous idea that speakers should limit themselves to 5 minutes failed to be implemented, but there was nothing excessive. The star turn was one of the pupils who delivered a speech in heavily accented English which was a model of brevity and directness. The rain threatened but came to very little and we finished about 2 hours behind schedule. Meanwhile the cooks had worked wonders with very limited facilities and the spread was fantastic – over 100 people fed in just over 1 hour.
The day will do wonders for the community, giving an enormous boost to morale for all concerned. The new school, new uniforms and books, visitors from outside are all really important for a place like Bweyeye. There is still lots to do – I chatted to a couple of children who don’t go to school, there is always a shortage of teachers in communities like this and the quality of education and school management give cause for concern. Nevertheless, it was one of those days when it is a real privilege to be working in Rwanda.