Hero's Day

Rwanda has two major holidays to commemorate the Genocide: Hero's Day and Genocide Memorial Day. One is for celebrating those who fell, and the other is a national day of mourning. We are lucky enough to be in the country for both, and today was the happier of the two occasions. Clemence, who has replaced Peace as our Girl Friday translator and is absolutely fabulous, took us to the equivalent of the local town hall to be part of the... let's call them festivities. This "town hall" is one room with long benches and, we got the impression, a kitchen or prep room in the back. The 60 or 70 people in the small room ranged from about 12 yrs old to what looked like 70.When we got there (late - just like Rwandans but it is beyond awkward to interrupt such a solemn occasion) they led us right to the front row. After the first speaker finished, a man got up and explained in English that the man has been discussing Rwanda's three kinds of heroes, heroes he had known, and how the youth could step up to be heroes. Then they began to dance.

They were doing traditional Rwandan dancing, which we've been lucky enough to watch a lot of and even take a few lessons in from our friends at Ivuka, the art co-op. The men have stronger motions and more rhythmic stomping, while the women move more gently and weave together intricate arm positions. Halfway through the second song, they began pulling all of us, the volunteers, up to dance with them, and if we embarrassed ourselves they were very kind about it.

After the dancing they pulled out bottles of Fanta (they love this here), Coke, and beer, and passed it around, and followed it up with what looked and tasted like tiny delicious pizzas. These are people who celebrate their fallen heroes with beer, food and dancing - who doesn't love that?! If I were ever a hero, that's how I'D want to be honored.

While we were eating and drinking, they kept the music on and the accompanying videos as well. We couldn't understand why all the videos were of men in uniforms dancing until "Rwandan Military Band" flashed across the screen. This is the best military band EVER. It's like a cross between a giant boy band, traditional Rwandan dancing, and the army. It's phenomenal.

By this point, we had made some friends. The RAs were talking to an incredibly kind man named John, who looked tired and sad but was eager to make conversation. Everyone asks us what we think of Rwanda and we always say the same thing - we love it, it's beautiful. When we told him he said, "Good. Please spread the word to others." I feel they do a truly amazing job here of balancing the twin duties of acknowledging the past and trying to move forwards, and on the day of honoring the old, this man was thinking about the new. Ian had made a new friend as well, who wanted him to drink a banana beer. It's just what it sounds like - beer from fermented bananas - and it's drinkable but awful. The label say 15% alcohol but the locals know it's always more than that and random tests generally show it to be about 25%. By the end of the light lunch Ian had finished one - did we mention it was not yet 1pm? - and they were looking for one of us to say a few words about why we had come and what we thought. Ian, as usual, is in many ways our best representative, and he got up, threw out the few words of Kinyarwandan he knows, thoroughly charmed the crowd, and made a ridiculous speech that included phrases like "The food was really good, and the drink as well." We hope the woman who translated caught the spirit of the message and maybe not it's exact, word-for-word meaning.

There a few new volunteers but only a few of them are staying for longer than two weeks. There's a concert tonight at the stadium, which is right behind our guest house, and we're all going to try to go. Rwanda has one major popstar, Medi (sp?), and he has apparently been the special guest at EVERY concert since Ian arrived, so we're all hoping to see him tonight. We know every word of his songs, since there isn't much else to play around here except gospel hymns (we know all the words to those too). As of tomorrow, the RAs will be coming to you LIVE from Gisinye for one week. Gisinye is the town we went to our first weekend here (beautiful beach, giant holes to fall into etc). FVA has programs out there so they're sending us to work with them. We are so excited for a week of meeting new and amazing people, sitting on the beach, and drinking the touched-by-Jesus 100RWF chai tea we found in a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant down an alley.