The Cow Ceremony

Well, as pointed out by Hyacinthe, technically we didn't attend a cow ceremony. Instead Miri and I attended a Dot ceremony of Jacqueline, which is where the dowry for Jacqueline's family was agreed upon before her wedding on Thursday. Traditionally, the dowry in Rwanda is measured in cows, which means the groom's family must give enough money for a specified number of cows, as well as gifts and champagne.

We arrived at Leonard's house at 8am to be fitted for our dresses - imikenyero - traditional Rwandese celebration dresses. 

We then traveled (in the most rickety minibus ever) to the Tumba registration office for the marriage registration.

Miri, Leonard and I

Promise (Leonard's daughter), me and Christian

Miri and Leonard

Me and Christan

Jacqueline making the vows

Miri and I with Jacqueline

We then went to the house of the bride's family where the Dot was held. 

As well as the speeches and negotiating between the two families (we didn't have much of an idea what was going on) and drinking of bright green and bright blue 'champagne', there was traditional dancing, singing and a procession of the bride and groom. 

Alvin, Miri and Jean-Louis

Family Portrait - with Alvin, Leonard's son

Me and Hyacinthe

 We had a wonderful time playing with the children after the ceremony, taking photos, and having everyone admire our dresses. We even wore our dresses back to Butare to show Hyacinthe and Libby - and Miri and I felt like celebrities as everyone on the street was so impressed with how smart we were.

I'm now really looking forward to the wedding on Thursday - we'll get to wear the imikenyero again! 

Merry Christmas from Rwanda! Here's a Christmas greeting Rwandan style.

Sunday afternoon in the sun

Just a quick round of what has happened over the past couple of days. I'm sitting out in the sun after spending the morning at Church. Miri and I normally go to the Catholic service at Butare Cathedral -

- but this morning we went to Leonard's church. Leonard runs LLCCM, the orphanage initiative where Miri works. He's one of the nicest people I've met in Butare, even though he doesn't speak great English and I don't speak great French! His Church is in Toomba, a 40 minute walk from our house, just outside of Butare.

His Church is Protestant, so there was a lot of 'Hallelujah! Amen!'s again and lots of dancing and music. We had to do a little speech (Rwandans LOVE giving/receiving speeches), I used my very limited Kinyarwanda to explain who I was, where I'd come from and why I was in Rwanda. Everyone was incredibly friendly but it didn't feel like we were guests of honour or anything, which can sometimes make me feel really uncomfortable here. It's nice to blend in as much as possible and try and get people to look past our white skin! (which sadly is still very white, the last few days have been cloudy and cold so the tan has retreated)

After the three and a half hour service we were invited by Leonard to have lunch with him and his family. His family are wonderful - the children in particular were lovely and so well-behaved (especially after what seemed like the world's longest Church service - even I was fidgety!) The food was great and Miri and I were invited to the dowry ceremony of a niece of Leonard's. This tradition is where the dowry from the grooms family is negotiated before the marriage. This is normally how many cows the groom has to pay to the brides family in order to marry her. I think this ceremony is called a Dot but I could be wrong (this is what it sounds like when I was invited!). The Dot is next Sunday afternoon and should be a great insight into the traditions of Rwandan marriage. Marriage is seen as one of the most basic social institutions in Rwanda and the family traditions hold much respect.

Yesterday, Miri and I set off to the market to buy fabric and visit the tailor. I had a piece of the red fabric we used to decorate Inzozi Nziza and so I asked our tailor to make a skirt from this fabric for Christmas. It'll be ready on Tuesday which is excited! Miri also bought some material so she could have a dress made for her cousin back home and have one in the same pattern made for her. I bought some other material which I'd had my eye on for some weeks - 

We stopped off for amandazi and milk and then came back to the house in time for Hyacinthe to make us ubugali (a sticky dough made from cassava flour and water) and peanut sauce -

Hope you like our Christmassy living room! (not pictured: paper chains made from beer labels...)

Umuganda Day

In Rwanda, every last Saturday of the month is Umuganda day. It's a compulsory community volunteer scheme where every Rwanda citizen has to undertake community work such as helping to harvest vegetables, cultivating land or building infrastructure. We managed to persuade Hyacinthe and Paci from RVCP to take us along to a local community where we could take part, and this resulted in sunburn, possible jiggle worm infection and mud EVERYWHERE.

Using my long-forgotten netball skills to volley lumps of wet mud onto the 'scaffold'

Paci, Hyacinthe, Me, Miri

Paci and Miri

In true African style, I think we hindered rather than helped the work because everyone would just stop and watch us work. (Great example in the above photo). I think we definitely made everyone's day when we were carrying the bricks, I have genuinely never carried something so heavy in my life, and have never been laughed at so much in my life when trying to pick them up.

The community turn-out to help build this house was actually incredible. It was so inspiring to see people of all ages come out to lend a hand (and in some cases, feet) and use their individual expertise to contribute skills. The men actually constructing the house were local construction engineers and house designers, and so the whole project was well-thought out and we knew that the house was properly designed and built. People divided up their labour, which meant every member of the community could be involved. I was surprised at the amount of children who came to help, since Umuganda is only compulsory for those over the age of 18. However the community was really keen to get stuck in and throw some mud about for a few hours on a cloudy Saturday.

Speaking of a cloudy Saturday, I ended up getting quite sunburnt. I now have what is known as a Doxy Nose (super sunburnt nose as a result of photo-sensitivity caused by my malaria medication. Great).
I really am going to have to get rid of the fringe at some point if I want an evenly tanned face… As for the jiggle-worms, they're little parasites living in the mud which bury into the skin, which Libby is convinced she has after stomping in the mud. They have to be dug out of the foot which is gross, more updates on this later. 

On Saturday afternoon, Miri moved house! Into the RVCP house! Much excitement and much walking with her stuff from one end of the town to ours. We never did catch the mouse but it did eat the poison (or at least some sort of rodent ate the poison) so either it got sick and died somewhere else or it's super resilient to rat poison. Judging by the size of it, it definitely could be the latter...

More information on Umuganda on the Rwanda Governance Board website: http://www.rgb.rw/main-menu/innovation/umuganda.html