Road to Rwanda----Umuganda

 

It is Saturday.  I am thankful for Saturday.  When you are retired, Saturday is the same as any other day, but as a working person, Saturdays are precious.  I find this one particularly precious. After a week of teaching, I find that I have been absolutely exhausted every night walking the mile home.  I nap, and then go to bed. Lol.  I also have been concerned why I am panting so hard by the time I get to the top of the stairs to my classroom. Although not in excellent shape, I am not used to panting.  However, yesterday as I was praying about this, God brought to mind that I am at over 7,000 feet where we live!!  Well, no wonder I am tired and panting at times.  I feel better now….not physically,  but emotionally.

 I was up at 5 this morning, like usual, and got the brownies baked for the company I am having for supper.  (If I thought they would come through to me, I would beg someone to mail me some baking pans.) Ovens and the paraphernalia needed for ovens are not too common here. I have some silicon pans left for me by people leaving last spring, but the small silicon pans are unwieldy and not cutting it.  I do have one pan that is about 8x10 and two that are almost cookie sheets.  I have scalloped potatoes in the 8x10 pan now at 11 a.m. and will empty the pan to use for the sweet and sour baked chicken for later, etc. etc.  The brownies are sitting in two silicon pans and I am trying to figure out how to divest the brownies from the pans. But, alas, it is completely impossible to actually mail anything really to me : customs, airfreight costs, supply chains, etc. etc. make it unreasonable, and I will just figure out how to make this work. Another issue is that there are no markings on the thermostat dial for the oven, just dots.  You have to guess how hot is hot.  I was given a therometer, so am trying to figure out what dot means what.

I also got up this morning to a reminder on Whats’App from the school  that today is the last Saturday of the month and thus is Umuganda, which means Community Work Day.  Everyone is expected to gather in their neighborhoods and clean up and do other work projects.  Wow!  Although foreigners are welcomed, it is not mandatory for us.  (Good thing, because I had forgotten all about it and was back in bed napping by about 8 a.m.)  What a wonderful tradition. (There is a dark side to the tradition of Umuganda that relates to the genocide of the 90's, but they have gloriously redeemed that horrific tradition to mean something healthy that blesses the community.) It means one knows that if you litter, etc., you personally or your neighbor is probably going to have to pick up. They usually have a community meeting afterwards to discuss issues, too.  I have mentioned previously what an exceptionally clean country this is, and this is one of the main ways that they maintain it.  No cars or mototaxis are allowed to run until after 11:00 a.m. either.  We just went out at 11:15 to find some of the vegetables I need to cook for tonight and everything was still closed down tight.  I wonder if/when they will open and if I actually can serve my planned meals without any shopping? I am just having the other VVA (our school) staff who live in our apartment complex for supper, a Zimbabwean with her daughter, a young man from Kenya, who was educated and worked in Indonesia (!), and the Rwandan gentleman who has helped us purchase so much. What fun.  My table is small enough that 6 people around it is more than enough.

Please pray that I am not so exhausted, that I solve the baking pan dilemma, and that I can find what I need to prepare the meal for tonight. ( I don’t mean to only write about problems, but I feel like writing when I am wrestling with some of the situations.  We truly are content and happy and the first week of school was very easy.  Nice students.)