Funeral and Umuganda

I figured I'd combine two traditional events into one entry, especially since both events happened during the same weekend.

The housemaid for my counterpart's family is a woman who I've never gotten along with, but when I found out that her husband had just died, I knew that I had to got visit her and express my condolonces.

This is not the first funeral I have been to since arriving in Rwanda. I live close to a very large cemetary that was recently built, and it's just a fact that people here in Rwanda die younger than those back home. It's common for people to not make it past their mid 50s.

Still, this event felt a little different since it involved someone I actually knew. When I arrived at the mud hut, there were many people, but mostly women and children. Some were outside, some sat inside in a circle, singing religious songs. My counterpart (the pastor)'s wife was there, and so were his daughter and nephew. They ushered me into another room, and they asked me if I wanted to "see it". I looked down at the bed, and the long, bumpy form that was covered by a thin sheet, and immediately told them that I did not. I have seen bodies of the deceased before, both people I know and people I don't, but it's just not something I like to experience. They seemed weirded out by the fact that I did not want to see the body. Hopefully I didnt offend them. I ended up seeing it anyway, as the put the body in the coffin and then put it in the center of the living room. A pastor (reverend?) led prayers over the coffin, and after staying for an hour I decided to leave. Maybe I'm a wimp, maybe I'm disrespectful, but Im just not comfortable in situations like that. I guess seeing or even touching a dead body is nothing unusual in this culture, even for kids. This was a sad, moving, and eye-opening experience.

On a brighter note, when my friend and fellow PCV Edison came to Kigali for the weekend, we decided that we would participate in Umuganda. Umuganda is a longstanding, country-wide tradition that takes place the last Saturday of every month. Basically, it's 4 hours (from 7 AM until 11 AM) of the community getting together and cutting grass or doing other things for the community. Its also a way for people in the community to get together and become closer with one another.

Since I've always worked Saturdays, I had never participated in it, and wanted to seize the opportunity. I got up early, found out once again that there is absolutely no water in my community, foudn a guy to fetch me water, negotiated a price, and handed him my two jerry cans to fill (it's too heavy and too far for me to carry two jerrycans full of water up and down a mountain, so I pay out the ass everyday to get it). On my way back to my house, I saw a huge group of people coming down the road, clapping and singing. I was told that they were doing it for umuganda, so I assumed they were making noise to wake everyone else up to participate. Edison and I joined the crowd, where we of course stuck out like sore thumbs. People were really nice to us, and even wanted us to be in the front of the line and lead songs and dances. We danced and sang for over 2 hours, all while walking down the path until reaching the cemetery between my house and the school. There were a few police officers among us, and it was quite entertaining to see them doing traditional dance in full uniform.

I began to think that umuganda was more like a party than anything else in my umudugudu (village), what with all the singing, clapping, whistles, and dancing in a circle. However, the woman leading the group (who is a nurse), told me that the umuganda for the month of July is very special, since it is the first umuguanda after the 100 days of the genocide. Across the country, umuganda is led by people hired for the day as sort of "cheerleaders" to motivate people to get together and have fun, to bring solidarity in an effort to never repeat what happened in 94.

After about 2 hours of this, Edison and I were getting very hungry, thirsty, and tired, and decided that since all we were doing was dancing and singing the same songs over and over, we might as well call it a day and go home. We felt a little guilty since right when we left, a truck arrived with machetes and hoes so that people could finally start cutting the grass and cleaning up the cemetery. Oh well, I still think it counts for something! We regretted not bringing our cameras along with us to document the event, but maybe its all for the best because we may have been viewed even more as outsiders.