Kigali Hash House Harriers

Our first Saturday in Kigali marked a new beginning for us.  Meredith invited us to join her at a “hash” event around 3:30pm.  All we knew was that it is a group of people called “hashers” who get together every Saturday afternoon.  Now, I know what you’re thinking and it’s not what you think… You meet up with the other hashers at a bar where you begin to get to know each other and drink some liquid courage.  As the sun sets you walk down secluded paths to a large tent in the forest.  The tent is large enough to hold about 30 people and looks a little like a circus tent (very funny).   As you approach the tent you can see steam pouring from tent flaps and you soon realize the tent is very warm.  Picture a Rwandan sauna!   After taking off our clothes we settle inside the tent sitting on pillows and blankets.  Once everyone is seated in a circle around the large bonfire in the center of the space, the chanting begins.  “The hashing has begun! The hashing has begun.”  The chant stops once everyone has participated in the chant.  Next a topic is thrown out for discussion.  “If love is really selfless, than it ought to be free.”  After spending an hour in the tent, you begin to understand yourself and life a little better.  Things become a little clearer…like it should be clear to you reading this that a “hash” is nothing like what we’ve described.  Come’on people!! You know us!  We’re not like that!  Naked with 30 other people!  I’m even a little hurt you fell for this as long as you did.  ;-) … … All is forgiven. 

Back to the real story…

Hashing is actually a worldwide phenomenon.  Our best comparison to the Hash House Harrier group is that of a fraternity.  There are “rules” that the group respects.  For instance, using technology on a hash is strictly prohibited.  There are ceremonial traditions like introducing first timers or reprimanding “backsliders” (people who have missed more than 2 hashes in a row) but it is all in good fun.   Most of the time the group goes out to party after a Hash for more bonding time.  There is a $4 fee every time you show up but that covers unlimited drinks and food is always provided.  There is a treasurer and group leaders that run the “meetings.”  To be fully adopted into the Hash House Harriers, you must attend at least 10 hashes (which are hikes) and then you go through an adoption ceremony where you are given a hash name.  Once you are adopted in, you can show up to any Hash House around the world and have a common bond.  Basically, Hashers bond over socializing and hiking.  We really enjoyed meeting new people and sharing in a love for the outdoors.  If you would like to read more about the background of hashing, please check out the link: What is a Hasher? on the left side of our blog.

Our first hash was on the outskirts of Kigali.  We can’t remember the actual name of the area but we do remember that the word meant “the tree of the birds.”  It was an intense hike to the top one of the hills with a steep descent.  The view was indescribable and impossible to capture through a camera lens.  Most hashes last around 1 hour but the entire event, including the hash meeting, can last up to 4 hours or more depending on how long you want to socialize. 

The second hash took place in our neighborhood: Kacyiru.  Michelle went by herself since Nate’s ankle felt a little sore that morning.  This was an eventful hash because Michelle got to witness a “naming ceremony.”  Sandra (a woman from Germany) was the “hare” (which means she is the one who set the trail) and had completed her 10th hash.  It was a very different hash, being that the terrain was in the valley between two hills so was mostly flat and was in the middle of residential neighborhoods.  Michelle got to see a lot of Rwandan homes that were more lower class and an authentic street market.  It was also the first time Michelle witnessed goat intestine served as a dish.  So far we have been really sensitive to taking pictures of people because most adults in Rwanda aren’t comfortable with their picture being taken.  Once we have established ourselves as neighbors and not tourists, we will take more pictures.  We are trying to upload a Picasa album to our blog tonight so hopefully you can view some pictures we have taken so far.

 

Imana ibarinde kandi ibahe umugisha.

Esron: Our beloved inshuti (friend)

When we first met Esron on Thursday, Jan. 14th, we had an immediate affection for him.  His eyes were kind and his smile was warm with hospitality.  He was dressed in a collared shirt and nice pants when he greeted us at the gate to let us in.  He had just come from town and quickly showed us around the house while we waited for Grease (the landlord) to show up.  He laughed easily but sincerely and had a brightness to his spirit that we were drawn to.  Knowing he didn’t speak a word of English and hardly any French was a selling point for this home.  We know we will be more apt to learn Kinyarwanda if we are pushed to communicate our needs in a new language.

Friday the 15th was our first night with Esron.  When we arrived at 7:30pm, we saw that Grease had dropped off a packet of words and phrases translated in English, French, and Kinyarwanda to get us started. Shortly after getting our bags inside, Nate had a planned phone call with his co-worker, Savannah, to report back on how things were going.  Esron seemed just as eager to communicate with us as we were with him so Michelle and Esron spent about an hour going back and forth with words in the others’ language, explaining the meaning through charades.  It was quite fun but mentally exhausting.  After a long day of running around on little food, we were ready to call it a night and get some personal space.  Unfortunately we were at a loss for dinner so we ate our last two LaraBars from home and went to bed hungry.

A snapshot of his living quarters:
Esron sleeps in a very small bedroom on the right side of the kitchen in the detached building.  Basically, there is approximately a 5 ft space between the back of the house and a long cement rectangle building.  It feels like a narrow alley since the roof overlaps the two buildings, blocking out the sunlight.  The cement building is only about 4 ft in depth but its length is the width of the property.  The first room you come to is our modest kitchen including a small walk-in closet size pantry.  Next to the pantry is Esron’s bedroom, which makes our UCONN dorm rooms seem luxurious.  The only thing that fits in his room is a single, foam mattress.  He has about a 2 ft wide floor space next to his bed when you enter his room.  His clothes are scattered around the perimeter of his bed and the walls are covered with calendars and posters, which makes it feel very cozy and personable.  One day he showed Michelle a child’s baseball hat and a pair of worn kids shoes from under his bed.  He has 4 kids so we wondered if they were for him to hold on to as a way to feel closer to them or if he bought them to send his sons (who live in Kibuye).  Next to his bedroom is a larger room that is 2.5 the size of his bedroom.  The only two things in that room are a double bed and a large African drum.   Michelle tried to inquire about the use of the room and encouraged him to switch but she quickly learned that’s not how it works since he is the house-boy and his living quarters are set.   Finally, next to the empty bedroom there is a tiny bathroom that he uses. By tiny we mean 4 ft by 5 ft.  From the outside it is only a door.

The first morning in our new home was very memorable.  Michelle woke up early because she wasn’t sleeping well.  She kept herself busy by catching up in her journal entries for the week as she chose to “hide out” in one of the other bedrooms.  There is a door that separates the bedrooms and our bathroom from the dining area so it made it easy.  It took so much energy to communicate with Esron and she was too hungry and tired to endure such a task.  After about 3 hours, Michelle woke up Nate in desperation for food and familiar company.  When we made our way out from our hideaway, we were met with a wonderfully ironic surprise!  Esron had bought a few groceries for us and even set the dining table for two.  There was a full bunch of small bananas, a loaf of bread, margarine, and a thermos full of hot water for tea.  Needless to say, Michelle felt pretty silly and certainly humbled by the whole thing.  Esron was in the kitchen making lunch at the time and saw us through the window.  He immediately came in and greeted us with a BIG smile.  We could tell that it made him happy to extend such kindness.  Our hearts felt soft as we devoured a new kind of breakfast.

The next half of the morning makes us laugh every time we remember it.   Be forewarned, this story might include more information than you want to know.  Esron ended up joining us at the table while we ate.  Once we had some caloric energy to run on, we were able to engage more authentically in the communication process.  We chatted for about 45 minutes before the tea went into effect and Michelle quickly excused herself to the bathroom.  It ended up being a natural break in the conversation because Esron had to return to his cooking in the kitchen.  As Michelle focused on the task at hand, she had failed to remember their toilet paper dilemma from the night before.  We only found one roll of toilet paper that was at the end of its life.  We were determined to make the last few pieces last until we bought groceries at the insoko (market) the next day.  Of course we had planned on heading out to the market earlier in the day but it was almost 1pm at this point and now Michelle was s*** outta luck!! ;-)  In the span of 5 minutes, things turned chaotic.  The bell rang at the gate for Esron to let someone in.  Michelle was yelling to Nate from the bathroom that the toilet paper ran out which spun Nate in a second search around the house while simultaneously leafing through our minimal phrase books for the word toilet paper in Kinyarwanda.   He wasn’t having any luck and now Esron was preoccupied with a customer.   After 5 minutes of searching, Nate threw Michelle a second vocabulary source in hopes that both of us searching would release her from the captivity of the toilet sooner. We finally found the word we needed “urupapuro rw’isuku” (for those keeping track at home) and Nate rushed to tell Esron.  If you could have been a fly on the wall, you would understand why Esron responded the way he did.  He smiled and repeated the word back to Nate with the appropriate pronunciation.  You see, we have been doing this ALL morning so he probably thought Nate was simply sharing another word he learned in Kinyarwanda with him.  After a failed attempt at getting his point across, we went back to the books to find the verb: to need or at least the word “for” so he could say “Toilet paper for Michelle?” NEITHER of the books had those words in Kinyarwanda so we were stuck.   Then we looked for the word “now” so that Nate could try and get around the dynamic of reciting words back and forth by saying “toilet paper now” but no dice.   It turned out that Esron didn’t have any toilet paper in his bathroom either and he wasn’t in a position to go out and get some at the moment with a customer waiting on food. At this point, we were running out of options so Nate decided to take his chances at the mini mart across the street. Meanwhile, Michelle has been sitting on the toilet for a half an hour feeling helpless.  Nate walks into the mini mart and musters up his best Kinyarwanda as the 4 people in the shop stare and burst out laughing.   He smiled and was just grateful to receive the treasured roll of TP that the laughter didn’t bother him one bit. Much to Michelle’s delight, her liberator came through in the clutch.

During the next week, we spent a lot of time with Esron. We met his friend Pascal who works next door for an Indian family. Pascal can speak English fairly well so when he is around, we can ask more detailed questions about Kinyarwanda. We also learned about Esron’s family who live in Kibuye (key-boo-yea) which is a town on the western part of the country. It rests next to the largest lake in Rwanda called Lake Kivu (key-voo) and is suppose to be stunningly beautiful. He has a wife and 4 kids, 2 of which are twin boys. We don’t have the vocabulary yet to ask him if he misses them or when he saw them last, but we look forward to hearing more about his loved ones as our language skills develop.


From what we gather, Esron works for Grease in Kigali in order to support his family by sending money home to them. To put this in perspective, he makes the equivalent of $60 a month. That is only $2 a day! Can you imagine living off of $2 a day, let alone supporting a family of 6 on that salary?!! I know it might seem irrelevant since our economy back home seems so different compared to Rwanda, but Nate and I have already struggled to conserve money here with transportations costs being so high and food being moderate but not cheap. Plus the cost of not living with the people you love is more than I would ever want to bear. On top of that, I have never seen someone work so hard for such little pay. It is a different world for sure.


Grease pays him to look after the house and cook for her employees at the three shops she owns in Kigali. People come to pick up food on a daily basis so he is busy in the kitchen almost every morning. This has been particularly fun for Michelle as she spends most mornings watching him prepare meals and learning how to cook on an open fire. He is a wonderful cook but uses way too much oil for our taste. Part of our contract is to split the $60 with Grease since he offers cleaning, laundry, and grocery services to us in addition to maintaining the property.  As I mentioned before, we aren’t fully comfortable with him serving us to that extent and yet we want to support him in his job so we are trying to find the balance. So far, our MO is to learn alongside him.  That means we are cooking, cleaning, and washing with him rather than expect him to wait on us hand and foot. Our preference is a team dynamic rather than hands off service where he does all the work for us.  We are just taking it slow and will see how it goes.  People have told us that washing clothes takes all day since you hand wash everything in a bucket line and hang it out to dry in the sun.  When we start working more structured hours through our jobs, we might run into time conflicts where needing help with laundry might actually be necessary.

Some of our most endearing moments with Esron have been praying together before meals.  When we sit down to eat a meal together and he always bows his head and prays out loud.   We don’t know the full extent of what he is saying but we are picking up more and more as our ears become more attentive.  He truly has been a source of joy in our lives and we look forward to the memories to come.  My first prayer request since I have been here is for his health.  Sadly, Esron had to go to the Hospital 3 times this week because he contracted Malaria.  The first day he waited all day to get a blood test to assess what was wrong.  He had come down with flu like symptoms very quickly so he went to the doctor right away.  The second day he went back to the hospital to have a follow up visit after the blood work confirmed his malaria and to pick up his medication.  The poor guy was terribly weak and could not cook or do anything for the past 3 days. On Sunday he went back to the hospital after waking up with a strange rash on his back left shoulder.  We still don’t understand what it was from but out best guess is a reaction from one of the 3 pills he is taking.   Please pray for him to recover fully and quickly.  It is hard not being able to communicate our care and concern for him during this time.

On a brighter note, yesterday was Esron’s 29th Birthday! We have been really looking forward to his birthday since we found out this past Saturday. It has been exciting for us to have an excuse to celebrate one of our dearest Rwandan friends. Now, some creativity and gathering information was in order. There were no “Happy Birthday” phrases found in either of our two limited Kinyarwanda dictionaries and we haven’t been here long enough to know any Rwandan Birthday traditions.  We decided to do our best and celebrate the “American way.”

Luckily, he started feeling better yesterday morning as he felt well enough to cook his meals. We discovered that Birthdays in Rwanda aren’t a big deal but we wanted to pass on some TLC for Esron especially given the past few days.  We picked up a cake and candles while we were in town so we could sing to him.   We also bought him a Kinyarwanda-English dictionary as a gift.  Books are actually a rare thing in Rwanda.   We learned that there are only a handful of bookstores (including libraries) in the whole country!  Apparently Rwandans don’t read like we do so the book stores really cater to muzungus (white people).  When we got home, Esron was sleeping but woke up once he heard us walking around.  You could tell that he was rallying but as always, his great smile shone through.  We told him we had a surprise so we brought out the cake and sang.  He was absolutely delighted and immediately lit up with joy. After eating the very dry, almost bread-like cake (without icing might I add), Nate went to our room to wrap our gift in newspaper and bring it out.  It was a touching moment for us all.  Esron opened it with curiosity and then gasped.   He hugged Nate and cried in his shoulder for a few minutes as he repeatedly said “Thank you! Thank you. Blessing from God.” Or “Praise God!”   At least that is what our limited Kinyarwanda knowledge says. =)  We would both agree that in this case, the “giver” walked away with as much joy, if not more than the receiver. Our hearts were so moved as we shared in that vulnerable moment with him. It was a night we will never forget.

Imana ibarinde kandi ibahe umugisha.

Our First Week

 

Our first week in Rwanda has been a very exciting and exhausting experience.  We often find ourselves with information overload, which is wonderfully invigorating and of course overwhelming at the same time.  Each day has been so full that it feels like we have been here for 3 weeks already.  Yet it is still surreal at times.  During our first 48 hours, we would randomly look at each other and say “Can you believe we are actually HERE?!”  Even though our environment is drastically different, it is still hard to believe we are starting our Ubuzima in Rwanda.

When reflecting back on our first week in Kigali, three words come to mind: STARVATION, ENGAGEMENT, and GRATITUDE.  Most of you know that Michelle cannot go too long without food or adequate meals and when it comes to knowing where to eat, what to eat, or how to even ask for food, we are in the dark.  However, we bond over the excitement of learning new things.  Every day we have a choice to engage in the culture around us and though there are times we want to hide inside to avoid the attention of being a white person, we find ourselves taking the risk and putting ourselves out there.  Most importantly, our hearts are overflowing with gratitude despite the struggles and discomforts.  There is much to be thankful for in Kigali! 

When we first arrived in Kigali last Tuesday night, we immediately made connections to other folks in the airport.  Our travel companion and Nate’s co-worker, Meredith, lived in Rwanda last year and is one of the friendliest people we have met.  As soon as we landed, she started connecting us to other friends of hers in the airport and to new friends she met on our flight.  The first person we met was Stewart, the American Ambassador in Rwanda.  He was a very extroverted man that knew everyone of course.  Then we met a girl named Amy who is helping out at an orphanage and school outside of Kigali.  She is from Georgia (Maria, she went to school in Athens) and this is her first time to Rwanda.  We then met Sarah, as in Doctor Sarah from Partners In Health (PIH).  This was an especially fun connection for Michelle since she has heard all about Dr. Sarah from Grace King who traveled to Rwanda in November with her mom and brother.  Grace is one of our 6^th grade friends from fifty6 (at Trinity) and Grace’s mom Lesley worked with Michelle at Trinity Church.  She is on the Board for PIH and shared pictures with me from their trip in November.  After our introductions we met up with a driver named Banner, who drove us to our temporary home.  We were SO grateful for Banner because we quickly learned that there are hardly any street names or house numbers to tell taxi drivers where to go.  You are just supposed to direct them to your destination, which for us is basically impossible at this point.  Not to mention we were delirious from our lack of sleep during our travels.  Once we arrived at the house, we met Katie and Shanel who live there.  They were very kind and had our room all set up for us.  Our main challenge at their place was the slow internet connection and therefore we weren’t able to send emails.

The rest of the week was focused on some basic necessities for getting settled in Kigali such as finding a place to live, setting up our cell phones, getting an address at the Post Office, etc.  As you might imagine things are not as efficient in Rwanda as they are in The U.S.  There are no realtors to help you find a home to rent.  Meredith had been searching for homes for 3 weeks before she came to the states in December and hadn’t found anything close to our price-range that would be suitable.  But she starting asking anyone she talked to like taxi drivers, employees at hotels, or friendly people on the bus.  So your best bet is word of mouth and then you spend ALL day getting to different parts of the city only to arrive and then wait for the landlords to show up.  This is where Michelle’s starvation comes in!  We didn’t have any groceries so we sparingly ate bananas and bread from Katie’s house for breakfast and then would be out literally all afternoon meeting up with people and looking at houses for rent.  It was not unusual to sit down to eat a lunch of sorts until 3pm in the afternoon.  Plus, we would walk miles to save on taxi fares, which I kid you not, would be $6-$8 a ride (one way) to the next neighborhood in the city.  When you add up all the transportation costs in a day it easily gets to be $20 a day.  But we were at their mercy since we don’t know the bus system yet and we have to get around somehow in order to get things done.  The other challenge with getting food was not knowing where to go once we were hungry.  Everything is negotiated in Kigali and all prices are inflated for white people because it is assumed that you are rich so it is best to have a Rwandan friend negotiate for you.  However, when we are on our own that’s not possible and then we are stuck with not having the money (literally Rwandan Francs) to pay for the food.  This lasted for about 4 days until we went grocery shopping for the first time.  We can’t remember the last time we felt this hungry for an extended period of time.  It did however make some of the local food (i.e. Goat Brushette) taste amazing even though it was very chewy and a low quality meat.  It has been amazing to know the limits of our bodies though.  Now, we can confidently say we have a learned a lot about food (where to go, how much to spend, and what to get) so the coming weeks won’t be so painful.

The biggest highlight of our week was finding our home!  We met up with a man named Parfait at the Serena Hotel (we think it is the only five star hotel in Kigali) through Meredith’s connection.  His cousin has a house in Kacyiru (ka-cheer-oo) ready to rent that is furnished but a little higher than our price-range.  The location is PRIME being a 12 minute walk from the Ministry of Education (the office building Nate will be working in) and American Embassy.  Location is our biggest priority considering transportations costs are so high.  We want to be able to walk as much as we can.  Our neighborhood is very safe considering the Police Headquarters are just down the street and there is a little mart that sells fresh milk right across the street from our house.  It is a quaint home with 3 small bedrooms, 1 full bath, 1 half-bath, a dining area, and a detached kitchen.  There is also a gazebo in the front yard, which is so random but a nice touch.  One of the things we are most excited about our home is the guard or house-boy named Esron.  It is very common in Kigali for all the homes to have a man live on the property and manage the house.  This has definitely been a challenging dynamic for us as we never intended to have a “servant.”  We are trying to be open and have been eager to learn more about this part of the culture so that we know how to navigate the delicate line we feel is present.  We have learned that this is more of an opportunity for employment rather than a lower class system where he has fewer rights.  Esron only speaks Kinyarwanda and we of course are just learning so communication is rocky considering we interact with him all the time.  He is our go-to-guy for everything related to the house but our landlord, Grease speaks English very well which is comforting to know things are not lost in translation when signing a contract like a lease.  Most of our engagement has been with Esron as we are actively learning Kinyarwanda and teaching him English at the same time.  It has been really exciting to pick up the native language and to know we are helping Esron out too.  Knowing how to speak English for a Rwandan could be a major life change as it opens up doors to better employment.  We will write more about our friendship with Esron later as there is way too much to cover in this post.

Lastly, our gratitude is what has carried us through our first week.  We are grateful for the smell of the air, the warm weather, safe travels, friendships that we miss from back home, new friends that help show us the ways in our new world, provisions like housing and food, prayers before meals, the breathtaking Scenery, and each other.  Moving forward, our biggest sadness is being so far away from our family, friends, and community.  There is definitely something missing in our lives without that love and yet the pain from that absence reminds us we are blessed.

Imana ibarinde kandi ibahe umugisha.