A Day in a Rwandan village

March 11. Rwanda

7:20 AM. I was awoken by my alarm. Breakfast was served at 7:30 which consisted of bagels, honey, toast, and eggs. We met a translator for Azizi life and she told us our plans for the day’s work. We were going to hoe and make baskets.  We left early for the Rwandan village in Muhangi. We learned the language on the way of how to say Thank you, Good morning, and good afternoon. After riding on a bumpy road for a good 30 minutes, we finally arrived in at the village. Half of us split up and the other half went farther down. I was apart of group 2 with joey, haden, and kara. We started off introducing ourselves to the family in their kitchen. Their kitchen was about the size of a normal size dining room table. We visited it first. It was very primitive, with only a few bowls and a small pit where they lit fires for cooking. There was no more humbling experience than sitting at the table and listening to this woman speak to us and translate for the other women. First we went out to get food supplies from the farm. We went to hoe a bit to turn up the soil. I almost broke my hoe. After this, we used this machete looking type of knife to cut the grass. Needless to say, I wouldn’t want t it in my house.

After hoeing, we cut down carachores (sp_. They were roots and tasted similar to potatoes. We worked out in the farm almost all day before returning to the back of the building. The host picked me a fresh carachore to eat raw, which I did, I hope that doesn’t make me sick!!! Anyway, we fed their cow and pig, and then washed our hands before lunch. Kara went crazy when she saw the Rwandan 4 month old baby.  Luckily me and Pauva got some picture of her with it. Lunch consisted of carachores, fresh avocados, plantains, and beans. It was, different. They had fresh pineapple for dessert which seemed to be everyone in group 2’s favorite. After lunch and many questions later, we met up with group 1. We hiked to their village. After about 10 minutes of formal Rwandan greetings, we went outside to basket weave. There wasn’t running water at these places, so we had to go to a house that had a pit in it to use the bathroom. Another VERY humbling experience. Each family member picked a GCP participant and helped us make necklaces for our selves. It was more like, they would watch us screw up repeatedly, so they decided to take over. Everyone in our group has these necklaces and wore them to dinner later that night. After basket weaving 101, we went and learned a dance of their village. We taught them the Macarena, although I thought Teach me how to dougie was more appropriate. At the end of the afternoon, the translator told us what the women were saying about us and about how we are welcome back anytime because we’re now family. This made all of us tear up. We said our goodbyes, and headed back to Azizi life. All of us showered when we got back and went out to a wonderful dinner after the severe rain that hit us.

When we returned from dinner, the lights were off. No worries, we decided to play AFRICAN TEAM UNO, which if you don’t know what that is, you’re really missing out. Zane hooked up his flashlight on his phone and we played uno on the dark for about 2 hours. All in all, another amazing, captivating day in Africa.

- Mary Harshman