Our Village

“The sun does not forget a village just because it’s small”

I sat with Jenn today talking about how much we have learned to love the people around us and how we have inadvertently created our own little village. They have gotten used to some of our weird habits and we have adapted to some of theirs. Each one of these Rwandans has floated into our lives by coincidence or destiny, as if we were always meant to be together.  Each relationship has had twists and turns, but has blossomed into something unique and worthwhile.

Work

Bizimana is on the right on a tour of a feed processor

Bizimana and I started working together almost a month after meeting at church. He was a problem solver and really had a sincere heart.  Our friendship was solidified as we battled and negotiated our way out of a horrible rental with a nutty Congolese land lady. She is one of the few ladies I have truly told off in an ungentlemanly fashion. It was in Swahili, so I consul myself by thinking it was probably more culturally appropriate. Anyway, since that time, Bizimana has been my wing man. We have weathered many logistical storms out to the farms and I have put him in one crazy uncomfortable situation after another, particularly with translating when I have had to argue with people. He is a true friend and a worthwhile ally to have when the Rwandan masses turn on you. He has tolerated and even started to enjoy my music which is a mix of rock, irish punk, and deep rooted country. Over the past two years, he has really taught me the art of stoicism and how to keep my calm when the world falls apart around me.

Landry is the driver for the office and more of a new addition to the team and came on back in September. He has taken it on himself to make sure I learn Kinyarwanda. To be honest, now that I have a working knowledge, it is hard to have any desire to go beyond that. It is a tough language, but Landry makes it fun. He enjoys driving because he sees it’s like playing a video game. When he told me and Bizimana that, it became abundantly clear that as a Bachelor, Landry really is a little less serious about his life than we are. We are now working on getting him married…

Clementine and the girls 

We first met Diane and her two little sisters on the road as we headed to church back in early 2016. It was there that we really started noticing what dire straights they were in. All the girls had glazed, tired looks on their faces from searching for food. We would give them milk once a week, but Jenn kept feeling like there was more that we needed to do. Eventually we decided to meet the mother to see if she would work for us. She decided to and moved to our compound where she now helps as a gate keeper.

Diane

Since then, we've had our fair share of hard moments; growing and stretching moments. Honestly, there was a few months where her mother didn’t want to deal with her anymore and we had her living with us kind of like a foster child situation. All of that time she couldn’t speak a lick of English. We had a little boot camp going at one point and were checking everything from her hygiene to how she was making her bed. if I had been blogging about the back and forth discussions Jenn and I had had about whether to just give up, you would wonder why we are all still together now. But just as I was leaving with Jenn and the kids to do some grocery shopping this afternoon, I watched Diane reading a book to her little baby sister, Liliana. She was healthy, clever, kind and had beautiful braided hair and a bright smile. It such a stark contrast from the hopelessness we once saw and it made everything worth it. We found a good private school almost 7 months back where she could start life over and not be treated like a street kid. The effects have been profound. We see a light in her eyes that was never there before.

Diane and Wamahuru frothing the Christmas tree

Wamahuru is the second oldest and is the miracle girl who should have been dead after being ran over by a car. At this point, she is going to school and I am sure she will pick up English soon. She is kind of favored by her mom and gets away with more than she should, but she has had more visits to the hospital than any girl should as well.

Liliana is the youngest and is probably the most vocal. Her cries break Jenn’s heart which in turn leads Jenn to volunteer me to go outside and discover what the issue is. Oftentimes it is wamahuru taking her book or ball. Our daughter loves seeing her, but they are both pretty strong personalities and about the same age. They both really like to have things a certain way, so we have to watch closely so there isn’t a fight or anything.

Clementine is the girls’ mother and has had to do the job on her own after she separated from her first two husbands. There were times that she spent her time drinking, trying to forget the lack of support coming from family. She never received much education and doesn’t have any outside familial support beyond us but we have seen her make huge strides in connecting with her own children through playing and talking with them.

Jack, Liliana, and Lily playing outside

It is amazing to see her doing what her parents never did. Last week we saw her all dressed up in her African attire to go to a parent teacher conference to talk about Diane’s successes in school. Both of them were beaming with pride. When we first met, we noticed we noticed a complete lack of engagement and intention in her parenting especially with Diane who was giving her more problems than she could handle.  Only a year ago, the only reason she would be called into school would be to deal with her daughter fighting or sluffing the public school she was going to. She used to turn to alcohol to solve some of her problems, but she is really starting to engage with her daughters and we think she is starting to see the value in their education now. We are hoping to get her reading at some point.

Fanny and the girls

Jenn met Fanny at church with her newborn baby and both of them were in a really hard spot. Fanny hadn’t eaten for days and hadn’t been able to find work for weeks as she had lost her job. On top of all that, her husband left her right after finding out she was pregnant with her second child.  Jenn proposed that we hire her as a second gate keeper for the day time when Clementine is out.

I think the idea of having five little girls running around the compound used to stress me out, but today, I can’t imagine not having them around. Fanny really does put a lot of effort into parenting and she has really become a much more happy mother now that she can spend time with her baby while at work. Her oldest girl’s name is Jolie and she quickly became Jack’s really close friend. In fact, there have been times that Jack will set up little play dates where he brings out food and drinks so they can sit around the table to eat together. He is quiet the charmer even though they often times don’t understand one another.

Good ole Theo

Theo helping clean Jack's car for the hill

Theo has been with us from the very beginning. When we moved to our first house, he was there. He had helped with cleaning and security before and had a place outside. The landlady hadn’t given him the memo that we were moving in and that he no longer would be working there (I guess she thought that would be our responsibility). We asked her to tell him, but, for one whole week he stayed there. He cleaned things even though he knew he wasn’t getting paid. After a week I told him he needed to go and instantly got a sick feeling.

Jenn and I told him to stay with us and he has been an amazing help. He is one of Jack’s good friends and I have developed a close bound with him the past couple years and even almost spent a night in jail with him (luckily they just let me get him out instead of staying the night).

We have had our fair share of disagreements and misunderstandings especially since he didn’t speak English in the beginning. He is an amazing help and really is the closest thing to a father figure to the girls on the compound. The challenge we are dealing with now is trying to help him understand that he is a man and should probably look at living outside of the compound at some point. He used to call Jenn "Mama" and that about made her lose it…it always made me laugh. I was telling him again yesterday that he is a man now, but he told me that in Rwanda, you don’t become a man until you are 26. I guess that is just a magic number or something.

Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum

Jenn's Relief Society art activity (Some had way too much fun)

Jenn and I have really fallen in love with our church callings as Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum president. Jenn is also the seminary teacher and I teach Book of Mormon class on Sunday. It has stretched us at times especially since there is not even a semblance of a nursery class. We just pray that our kids will fall asleep at least for one of our classes, which happens at least once every 10 Sundays. The other Sundays, one of us has to wrangle the kids outside or have to teach with them in our classes. This past week I was teaching Elder’s quorum while Lily was drawing on my face with a marker. Making it through church is always a miracle.

Jenn’s Early Birds

To say I was nervous about Jenn deciding to do early morning seminary is an understatement. We told the regional CES coordinator that to have daily seminary was impossible in Rwanda. The students all go to different schools and doing seminary in the evenings is just not feasible with a little family and with the school work the students have.

Phionah, Benedict, and Joshua

Jenn felt inspired to give early morning seminary a shot during the Christmas break. I didn’t expect anything to come of it, but day after day, three students arrived diligently prepared and ready to engage. We had to organize the logistics of getting them to our house and back, but more and more, I started to notice a difference in the spirit that was entering our home. From 6 to 7am, I am with the kids just playing with the kids and teaching Jack Swahili simultaneously. During that time, Jenn gets to interact with the future of the church in Rwanda. It is absolutely inspiring to hear see them tackling scriptures and diving deep into doctrine. Two of them come regularly to my Book of Mormon class and even though they are the youngest in the class, they are often the most prepared and most inspired with their insights.

They are Jenn’s protégé but at the same time, I have watched Jenn truly feed off of their enthusiasm and learn more about Rwandan culture every day. I have watched the tables turn as Jenn eagerly asks her students why things are the way they are in Rwanda. It has blown me away to see the insight and wisdom they bring.

New year safari tradition at Akagera National Park!

Jenn and I forged a deep relationship with Phionah in the battlefields of an LDS nursery in Rwanda! Those of you who laugh have no idea. Only about a month into it, I was slapped and peed on by my arch nemesis, Junior. It had to be the most stressful thing in my life (and I was only helping every other week). Jenn and I dreaded that hot, festering stink of a room, but we always brought toys and things to keep the kids entertained enough so they wouldn’t run amuck in the streets next to the church. At first it was a simple friendship, but it has been funny to see Jenn dealing with a similar version of her sassy teenage self. Looks like we are being prepped for something…

Benedict and Joshua are a breath of fresh air. Their family is from Congo and it is fun to relate to them as foreigners because, yes, Congo is pretty much an alien planet compared to Rwanda with people dancing on the streets, music everywhere, and people having WAY, WAY too much fun. We love their whole family. The mother keeps Jenn on her toes in Relief Society by refusing to only sing one verse even when the time is short for lessons.

Jolie, Liliana and Jack

For us, life in Rwanda has been like traveling among the shifting sands of a desert; the days, months, and now years pass by and it seems like everything is the same. All of our routines, the food we eat, the church, and most everything else stay consistent, so it seems like nothing would change. Then you turn to your left and right and the people you thought would stay the same have completely changed. Even more dramatic, you look in the mirror and you are a completely different person with different views and perspective on life. Change is dramatic and exhilarating in Africa and I think it is what gives us hope and courage to persevere on the hard days.