The kindness of strangers

As you may have noticed, I am constantly overwhelmed by how kind people are to each other in Rwanda.  In particular, I feel that local people have been very kind to me and I feel quite protected within the local community.  Last week at the market, the assistant at the potato stall suggested that the potato seller should charge me more for potatoes.  I have limited language – but I understood what he was saying.  She looked at me and we smiled and she shook her head at him and said “Oya!” (no) as if he had made an outrageous suggestion.  All around the market, it is the same – I get charged the right price for goods I buy and no one seems to try it on.  Occasionally there are times when bargaining is appropriate, so when I hear the first price I sometimes laugh very loud and tell the vendor what I am pretty sure the price should be.  They laugh in turn, pat me on the back and sell it to me at the price I have given.

My language teacher, Theo, has been teaching me small bits of Rwandan culture.  This week, Mama Blair came to do my washing.  Upon arrival, she looked around the compound and declared that she would also need a hoe and a brush.  We borrowed a hoe from a neighbour and I gave her the rather sad looking brush I had.  When I returned from my meeting 90 mins later, the washing was all hanging on the line, or clipped to the trees, the compound was swept clean of all the leaves that have blown from the trees, and a verge had been dug all the way around the house.  She was partway through cleaning the front and back porches and had spruced up my brush so it was sparking clean.  Before he had left, I had asked Theo how much extra money I should pay Mama Blair for the work she was proposing to do.  He said this would be an insult and in Rwanda, people help out their neighbours knowing that at some point people will help them in return.  Even so, this woman had done far more than I expected of her and it was such a hot day that I was exhausted just walking down the street – never mind doing all that hard work.  I made her a cup of tea and afterwards offered her some more money.  She was taken aback and refused it.  She explained in Kinyarwanda that we were now friends and this is what friends do. 

In a similar situation, my neighbour – Mbabazi – came into my garden the other day with a friend.  They had many big bits of wood.  He had called out to me on his way in, so I went out to greet him.  He explained that he had come to fix the fence (it had blown down in a storm).  I thanked him and asked him what I could give him for this.  He said a cup of tea, with a big grin on his face.  I got the impression he thought this was a bit of a joke.  However, having been brought up in England and with my Irish roots acknowledging that tea is sacred, I went and made them both a cup of tea.  They were genuinely delighted when I came back with it and I was bestowed with many blessings from God.  People here do really just seem to do things for others just because they can.

So amongst all this kindness, I decided that it was time I set to running again.  I am just below 2000m here, so think I have given myself enough time to a) acclimatise to the altitude and b) get completely out of shape.  With a small amount of fear I set off at 5:45 one morning.  I ran along some of the tracks that go around the town and run along the top of the valley.  The views are stunning and the sun was just completing its ascent into the sky, casting a soft light over the landscape.  It really was beautiful and this distracted me from the ache in my lungs as I forced them on my short run.  I passed a few people on my way.  They all stared, of course.  I greeted all of them and they all greeted me back – many sharing a smile as well.  I planned my second run to be on a Sunday morning.  I decided this was a good time to go out as most people would be in church, so there was less chance of bumping into people.  So, having said a few prayers of my own at home, I set off.  It was only 9:30 but already the sun was high in the sky and blazing down.  I ran the same route and at first I saw no-one.  There are so many churches here that I passed one every minute or two and all of them provided me with a pleasant soundtrack to my run.  Then I got towards the main road and saw many people.  Most of them stared and laughed and greeted me.  Some of them shouted what sounded like words of encouragement.  Unfortunately, I managed to coincide the final part of my run with the end of a church service and there were huge crowds on the main road just outside my house.  I had a 100m stretch to pass between the track I was on and my front gate.  Oh dear – buses were passing with everyone calling out the window to me; children ran alongside me as I wheezed like a broken bellows and people were just staring in astonishment.  Then my neighbour called out to greet me and it felt a little better.  I do feel a bit like I am the local entertainment at times!