Yet again I find myself exhausted, physically and mentally, from another incredible day in the Village. Today was our first day doing our service project. We are building a huge storage unit so that the smaller houses currently acting as storage units can be converted into vocational schools for the kids to be trained in marketable skills. When we arrived at the site this morning, we met the construction workers who had started digging the foundation. In order to better the larger community surrounding the village, ASYV hires hundreds of local laborers to do construction, work in the kitchen, etc. We are building with about 20 of these workers who earn, as Ido, the volunteer in charge of construction, told us, about 1000 Rwandan francs a day. This is roughly $1.50.
We started working around 8:30, moving giant rocks from piles to the perimeter of the maze of pits dug to create a foundation, mixing cement by hand (there are no cement mixers in Africa), walking with several-gallon jerry cans to different water taps throughout the village, trying to fill them and bring them back, on our shoulders, to mix with the dry cement powder and dirt. By 9:15, I needed some shade and some water. This happened every half hour or so: work in the sun, feel lightheaded, have a back ache, take a short break, and get up and keep going. We had half an hour (from 11 to 11:30) to walk back to our guesthouse, fill up water bottles, grab a quick cracker or spoonful of peanut butter, and then return to the building site. Never once did I see any of the workers take a break. They never stopped for water, for shade or even for a breath. They remained hunched over their rocks and cement, digging furiously and shoveling impossibly heavy dirt piles into wheelbarrows. They are truly some of the hardest-working people I’ve ever seen; most wake up at four o’clock in the morning to walk to the Village (it can take up to three hours to walk here, for some) and begin working immediately. Only a few speak English, but the head worker, Ciprier (Seep-ree-ay), speaks French, so I can talk to him and translate for the group. He, too, told me to slow down while speaking to him in French. Oops.
About midway through the day, a group of schoolgirls from a nearby town came wandering down the road that leads to the village. Where we’re building the storage unit is next to the fence that separates the village from the town, so anyone walking on the street can see us working. Well, once they saw us, the “mazungu” (white person), they all stopped and began to wave. They looked about 8 or 10, and I then noticed that the ties on the sides of their school dresses, instead of being tied behind them, were tied to each other, so they were walking in a line and no one would get lost. When one shifted, they all did. They remained by the fence for what seemed like half an hour, watching us work, waving and asking us our names. This then became a community gathering; tons of people came to the fence, reaching for our hands. However, when we tried to take pictures with them, they turned and ran away; they don’t like cameras. So, lesson learned.
After six hours of hard, manual labor, the foundation is essentially finished. Where there were ditches and dirt piles this morning there are now cement and rock patterns filling the holes, ready to support walls and eventually, a roof. Our goal is to complete the structure by the end of the month.
This afternoon, I went to my first Enrichment Program, yoga. Unfortunately, it began to rain about twenty minutes into yoga class, so we packed up our mats and went inside. Now it’s nearly dinnertime; tomorrow is an early day. I start teaching at 7 AM, and the school is up a huge hill (the highest in the village). Wish me luck on my first day!
Love,
Elana
Here are some new words I’ve learned in Kinyarwanda:
Muraho – hello
Marakuze – thank you
Vuba Vuba - fast
Bahura Bahura – slow
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