Day 76 ~ The Excellent Life

This weekend was special. Craving the ‘village experience’ that we haven’t really been able to obtain through work, Jordan found an organization that offers a rural Rwandan cultural experience for interested foreigners. One can pick from a number of experiences such as making banana beer, learning to make a mud brick house, learning to weave jewellery and other objects with banana leaves, traditional drumming and dance… the list goes on.

I am usually rather weary of these canned ‘cultural experiences’ designed for tourists. And when Jordan suggested it I agreed to do it only because he’s been such a good sport when it came to the things I wanted to do. Well, I have to admit, Jordan was right. The Azizi experience was a truly wonderful one, most definitely one of the highlights of my time here.

After a one-hour bus trip south from Kigali we arrived in Muhanga where we were met by a young man in a large SUV wearing a shirt that said JAMAICA!! Once at the Azizi Life Office we met with Jean Claude who gave us an introduction to the organization beginning the explanation of the name, Azizi is the Swahili word for Excellent. He explained that we would be spending the morning with a collective of women who make much of the handicrafts that were on display in their shop. We would be helping them to build a mud structure at the home of one of the women.

As we arrive at our destination just 20 minutes from the Azizi Life office a group of 12 middle-aged women came out to greet us. Each of them embraced us in turn and welcomed us warmly. We then walked down the hill to the house passing many banana trees and a stick structure housing a few snorting piglets. As we walked the women began singing and dancing. They continued to sing and dance once we reached the courtyard of the small mud house. We all stood in a circle and danced while they sang and occasionally one of the women would dance into the middle of the circle and bust out her best moves to the yelps and whoops of the rest of us. The song was beautiful – we are told afterward that it was a welcoming song. I felt truly warmed and welcomed.

We then moved into the main space of the house, a dark room, each wall covered with at least 3 images of the Blessed Mother Mary and/or Jesus. One by one the Women introduce themselves. They are all between 45-55 and most of them have 5 children, with the exception of one notably thin woman who professes herself a widow. She’s 45, I examine her sunken cheeks and wonder to myself if it was the Genocide or HIV that took her husband from her.

Jordan and I introduce ourselves and Isaac hides behind me while I introduce him. (Ever the shy one.) Next it is time to get dressed. The women fashion a skirt for me by deftly wrapping some fabric around my waist. Next they tie a scarf around my head. Next they tie fabric, Fred Flintstone style, around Jordan and voila! We're Rwandan.

Now it’s time to fetch water. We all grab old plastic jugs and start the 3km walk to the nearest water source. We fill our jugs and say hello to the other people who have come to do the same. Isaac gets right in there and fills as many jugs as they’ll let him.

While the jugs fill Jordan and I, dutiful SFH employees that we are, ask the women what they use to treat their water. All of the women have heard of Sur’Eau and say that sometimes they use it, but many people are thirsty by the time they get to the well so they just drink it right from the source. Ok.

Isaac asks if he can drink some. That would be an emphatic ‘No’ sweetheart. Here, have this bottled-by-Coca-Cola water that I brought with us.

Now it’s time for the 3km walk back. The women deftly place their jugs on top of their heads and head up the steep incline back to the house. I try my hand, or rather ‘head’ at carrying my jug the African way and am amazed at how easy it is!

No. Not really. It’s next to impossible and it really hurts. But for these women, who have been carrying much larger parcels on their heads since they were children, it’s a breeze. At one point they even start dancing while walking uphill with the jugs on their heads. Show offs ;)

On arrival back at the house we mix the water with some dirt that has been loosened from the ground. One woman kicks off her flip-flops and does most of the mixing work with her feet. I make the comment that she actually dances to make the mud – once this is translated for her she actually starts dancing, her feet schlook-schlooking in and out of the mud.

Once the mud is the proper consistency Jordan and I are put to work packing handfuls of mud into a wooden frame. In ten minutes we’ve made 3 bricks, one of which might be useful. These bricks now need to sit in the sun to harden for two days.

We head back to into the courtyard of the house where we find a pile of previously dried bricks. We begin stacking them, using more fresh mud as mortar between the bricks. We work for another 30 minutes and make the beginnings of a coop for the sole chicken that is running around the house.

Now it’s time for lunch. We all gather in the main room and large trays of food are brought in. Large baskets lined with banana leaves are topped with boiled sweet potatoes, beans boiled with leafy green vegetables, and fresh avocadoes. We all eat with our hands from the same platter. It is delicious. Truly. There’s nothing like fetching water and making mud bricks to build up a girl’s apatite.

While we ate, the women (through our interpreter) asked about our lives. When they heard we worked for SFH they asked we had any information for them about family planning. What about these women they hear of who get birth-control injections and then experience very serious health complications? I answer that it’s possible, but very rare. And when one considers the very serious complications one can have from having too many children or children too close together… the risk is negligible. The women smile. They’ve heard this, they know this.

I tell them that the best, most effective and safest form of birth control is for their husbands to have a vasectomy. They all speak up at once – I know exactly what they’re saying. And respond before the interpreter has time to interject. “But your husbands are maybe not willing to…?”

They all burst out laughing. “No.” one says. “They are terrified of that.”

One woman tells us she’s been on the pill for 20 years. She’s 51 and wondering if she can stop. Twenty years of birth control pills! 51 years of age! I tell her it’s probably safe to stop taking them now, and instantly feel the jarring ‘WACK’ of the Social Work Code of Ethics to the back of my head.

You are NOT a medical professional Naomi. You should NOT be meddling with these women’s lives and giving medical advice! What if this woman stops taking her pills and falls pregnant at 51? What systems are in place to help her with what would no doubt be a high-risk pregnancy? For that matter, what systems are in place to support the needs of a down syndrome child? I back peddle. “You should talk to your doctor about this before you stop taking your pill.” I am told that doctors are too expensive. I suggest that she speak with her community health worker. Turns out she IS the community health worker.

Oh dear.

In those five minutes I learned more than I have in the last three months about the state of the average Rwandese woman’s life, the depths of the need for the work that SFH does, and how quickly and easily a misplaced word by a well-meaning foreign social work student could produce disastrous affects.

I’m still haunted by this. I don’t think I actually did damage, but it was close. I am reminded of my first day at SFH. I was speaking with Alex, the administrative director about the messages that SFH imparts. He was telling me about the myths surrounding birth control that they work to combat. Myths such as birth control causing weight gain, acne, mood disorders and sterilization. I thought it interesting at the time as many of those “myths” I believe myself, mostly through personally experienced others I’ve witnessed in close friends and family members. In talking with these women I had to bite my tongue against agreeing with them when they voiced their concerns about side effects.

After lunch we went back outside to make banana leaf crafts. The women sang as they worked and we chatted and played. Jordan shared pictures of his family and his girlfriend with one of the women.

I tried my hand and banana leaf jewellery creation, fashioning a necklace for Isaac with much help from the women around me. After an hour the collective had created two banana leaf balls for Isaac, and a bracelet each for Jordan, Isaac and me. Isaac, tuckered out from his first morning of “hard labour” had fallen asleep during lunch and slept through all of this.

We gathered the sleeping boy up – said our good byes and headed back to the Azizi Life office for Part Two of our Excellent Life Experience.