Quaker Meeting in Rwanda

I’m just back from attending Quaker Meeting with my F/friends here in Kigali. This was like no Quaker Meeting that I’ve ever experienced before! As you might know, there are unpastorized Meetings (silent Meetings like ours in Louisville), and pastorized Meetings (like the one Richard Nixon attended, led by a pastor). This meeting was VERY much unlike either one of them!

Solange Maniraguha, the 27-year-old Assistant Coordinator of the HROC (Healing and Rebuilding our Communities) program of the Quaker Peace House (more on that program later) picked me up in a taxi this morning, and we drove to the Quaker Peace House. Other than the few main paved roads, the roads in Kigali
are the worst I’ve ever seen. I’m lucky that I have little or no fear response because there were many times I thought our taxi would flip over!
No amusement park in the world has anything on the driving experience here. This city is a city of steep hills, and it’s even worse during the rainy season because then the roads are flowing rivers of mud. Now, when it’s dry, the VERY deep ruts and what look like rutted riverbeds are simply left as the rains formed them and people just drive carefully.
Traffic is made even more chaotic by the facts that there are people walking everywhere, there don’t seem to be many traffic laws, and, on all but the main arteries, there are no road signs.

Just before we drove through the gates of the Quaker Peace House, a little boy of no more than 5, who was walking along the road with his mother, pointed at me and shouted in amazement, “ Umuzungu!” That means, “white person.” Despite the many foreign workers here, I guess we’re still somewhat an unusual sight to many.

As we settled into the Meeting room, which was the same room in which last week’s transformative mediation was held, I noticed the first difference between their Meeting and ours: the chairs were all facing front instead of in a “hollow square,” or all facing into the center. The second difference became evident almost immediately: this was definitely NOT going to be a silent meeting. I knew that in advance, but I wasn’t expecting such jubilance! The service began with three different choirs in succession, starting with the children’s choir. With each, there was not only singing, but dancing
as well – as ebullient and joyful as the singing.
David leaned over to me and asked if I had my camera with me, and encouraged me to take pictures throughout the service. “No problem,” he told me, a phrase I’ve heard many, many times since arriving here.

With Solange graciously interpreting for me (the languages varied from Kinyarwandan to Swahili to French, depending on who was speaking), I learned that introductions were next – of all who were new to the Meeting. When it was my time to stand up, Solange encouraged me to speak in Kinyarwandan, so I used what I’d learned and here’s what I said: “Amahoro. Muraho! Amakuru? Nitwa Jan. Ndi umuzungu. Ndashaka amazi. Murakoze cyane.” Everyone laughed, clapped and shouted out responses to my primitive introduction of myself. I had said, “Peace. Hello! How are you? My name is Jan. I am a white person. I need some water. Thank you very much.” It’s a good thing no one had taught me parts of the body yet, or I would have recited those, too!

The service lasted 2 and a half hours (!), with evangelical-style preaching, dancing, deep praying,


shouting,
offerings,
and so on. Throughout the service, small children would peek at me through through the window -- I must have been quite a site to them!

All the while, the room was getting hotter and hotter because like most buildings in Kigali,

this one was roofed with corrugated steel or tin. No one seemed to mind, and since they DID get me a bottle of water, I didn’t either (a fact which those who know me will find astounding).

Abruptly, it was over, and as we all began to file out, many of the children came up to me and grabbed my fingers to hold as we walked. At one point, I had ten small kids hanging on, one to each digit, and many more holding on to my skirt as we made our way down the walkway. I spend the next half hour photographing them and then showing each of them their photos in playback mode.

When I used to travel to foreign places, I always brought a Polaroid camera and plenty of film so that I could photograph the children and give them each a picture of themselves. But Polaroid has stopped making their film now, so I’ll e-mail these pictures to David and he can distribute them. How new millennium.

I’m now back in the room thinking about what I just experienced. What strikes me is the contrast between the people in that hot Meeting room and many whom I see attending houses of worship in the United States. These Rwandan people live their faith. They are earnest, loving, accepting and humble people and not duplicitous at all. When they praise their God, they really mean it and appear to be truly thankful for their lives, their neighbors, and whatever they have, which isn't much at all. They don’t have to be convinced to walk their talk. Many in the States (not all, of course!) seem to have no trouble at all separating out their faith beliefs from those that govern their lives.

I had lunch in my room so I could work. I’ll be finishing the final prep for my work that begins in earnest tomorrow. I didn't have the time at home to finish all of what I needed to do to get ready so I'm happy to have the time to "make it happen," as Tim Gunn on Project Runway would say. The staff here continues to be caring and attentive, and it's probably helping that I'm beginning to speak some Kinyarwandan with them. I learned their names the first day, including the women who obsessively clean my room, so they would know that I know that they're human beings. One of my staff members (you know who you are!) says that I'm pathologically inclusive, but I know from my reading about Rwanda that so many of the citizens here felt like less than animals as they were being slaughtered. So anything I can do to make them feel like human beings is a good thing and they do seem to respond well to that.

They continue to bring me baskets of fresh tropical fruit, and I remember that anything that I can peel or boil, I can eat.
I don't think the Rwandan Quakers meant to do this, but they happened to have chosen a hotel where, while primitive in some respects by our standards, everything they cook is organic and grown or raised right here.

Comments

[kenhomer]

Hi Jan,

I just love getting up in the morning and reading your blog posts!

Your description of the Meeting transported me to your side - and the pix of the children are beautiful to see.

While some - they know who they are - might label you pathologically inclusive, I just see that great heart of yours doing its healing work in the world.

Keep the entries coming - I've sent the link to dozens of friends.

Love and blessings to you and all your Rwandan hosts,

Ken