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Published: August 7th 2007
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Truck Repairs
The general idea is to put the broken piece back together with bits of metal and strips of rubber inner-tube. Dang Papa Jean is small! Chris Anderson (Mr. Big Boss Man of the Anderson Association) arrived here on Saturday the 7th, around 6pm. Within twelve hours (i.e. at 6am) Chris, Faustin, Gad, Fidel, Madine, Irene (the mother of a youth who came last year, who also arrived on Saturday) and I were preparing like crazy for a trip to the boonies. Another hour or two, and we're off.
We headed to Gishanda, the first village I visisted and wrote about (though I may have been mistaken as to its name...I will check the entry and edit any errors later). We took massive amounts of materials; books, videos, posters calendars cards key-chains and other gifts from Nepal (where Chris currently lives), candies, etc. etc. etc. plus stuff for eating and sleeping at the house in Muhazi on Sunday night (we took all the keys...no "What do you mean, you don't have the keys??" this time)
We stopped at Muhazi first to dump the food, cooking stuff and bedding, as well as Madine, in the house, then off to Gishanda! On the road we stop a few times to pick up Baha'is from a few villages and random spots on the road, and arrived in Gishanda with the
Hiace van PACKED.
here was already a large number of people at the Baha'i Center when we arrived (Faustin called the night before to say that we were coming), so we were well greeted by many people and TONS OF KIDS!!!!
We started off the program by showing a few home videos of activities and meetings that the Anderson's attended and video-taped during their ten years living here, giving time for everyone to arrive. The TV runs off the car battery, through a transformer. After about half an hour we turned the TV off and Chris started telling stories to the multitude of people about his life and the Baha'i community in Nepal, using printed 8 1/2 X 11 pictures as a visual back-up.
After Chris was done this we dove into some Baha'i topics while Gad took the children outside for a children's class and memorized-prayer recital (some kids there memorized over 20 prayers!)
Afterwards we went to the House of Gad again and ate a very late lunch (4pm-ish). During "lunch" Chris encouraged the Gishanda Baha'is to help out a few, smaller communities nearby (saying all the right things...Chris knows all the ins and outs of the people
here). After lunch we all jumped back into the Hiace, took a bunch of people back to their villages/random spots on the road, and then off the Muhazi.
We arrived, settled in, ate dinner and talked about plans and experiences and the Rwandan community late into the night (while getting eaten alive by bugs because we were outside on the veranda. Why we were on the veranda, I DON'T KNOW!)
Monday morning its up early, eat breakfast (mmm, mmm good food!), and start doing a refresher on a few Ruhi books. "Ruhi" is a series of books published by the Baha'i community and used to study spiritual topics, ranging from The Life of the Spirit to teaching children's classes to running Ruhi study circles. Ruhi books are studied in groups with a "tutor" guiding the process. Anybody of any religion, race or age over 15 can study the books. The books use Baha'i Holy Scripture to teach spiritual topics, and have questions for the participants in study circles to answer, quotes to memorize and activities to do after finishing each book. There are currently 7 books.
At noon we commemorated the Martyrdom of the Bab, the fore-runner of Baha'u'llah, the
Catch the Morning Sun
Fishermen on Lake Muhazi founder of the Baha’i Faith, with some local Baha'is. After the commemoration (prayers and a brief story about His martyrdom), Chris told his Nepal stories and showed his pictures again, and gave many little gifts to beaming recipients.
After that we had lunch and did more Ruhi, as well as planning for the rest of the week's activities. Then we packed up and headed back to Kigali.
That night, while Chris and I were eating "dinner" (a bowl of pistachios, which is what he calls "Chris' cooking"), Chris told me many stories of the the Rwandan Baha'i community. They were amazing. Some were about triumphs, some about failures and difficulties. I admire the Anderson's for there perseverance, living and working here for ten years. Though Rwanda is moving onwards and upwards, the going is slow, inside and outside the Baha'i community. There are a lot of politics that Chris and Safieh (his wife) have learned to deal with, plenty of games to be played in order to get anything, multitudes of connections to be established an used to gain respect and help from the people and the government. But they have played the games, made the connections and gained a
very good reputation, and it is because of their diligent work (as well as their crazy kids' stories and nagging) that I am here, and have things to do.
The crazy busy program continues tomorrow when we head to Cyangugu for a couple days, and then to Kamashi on Sunday, and then a few days of planning the rest of the summer, and then Chris returns to Nepal, leaving Irene and I to our own devices.
Today we are in town, doing crazy busy prep for the rest of the week. The only reason that I have time to write anything is because we have finished everything that we can do in town and are just waiting for the Hiace to come out of the garage after having the damage caused by the Gishanda trip fixed.
From Equatorial Africa, from the Heart of Africa, The Land of a Thousand Hills, the.....uhhh....the Place....no....the....ummm....well, you get the point,
This has been The Ramblings of Kevin.
Peace.
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non-member comment
St. Paul-no videos.
Hi Kevin, thank you for your great report on your visit to Gishanda. I am very impressed by your activities and not surprised at your tiredness. You are St. Paul and this is your most recent Epistle to the Canadians. Although I do wonder at your packing your donkey with candies and videos. St Paul would not have either but he would have taken a bottle of wine. No, he wasn't a drunk, but he did say that a little wine was good for the tummy. You say that Candies are good for the tummy and the psyche. I am still bothered by your visit to the shrine where the Rwanda holocaust is commemorated so graphically. You captioned the piece, "They ceased to be human". The ironic and tragic thing is that they didn't cease to be human, they just let their humanness get a hold on them. The human condition is one of "fallenness". Man is capable of greatness, of love, of intense charity and brotherly love. But man can also show the beast side he has inherioted all these generations. He can turn into a beast and we have had all too many examples of how this has happened in our very own lifetime. Adam and Eve had a beautiful garden to live in. The myth maker, story teller, tells how they were given the "keys" to the garden but told not to eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. This is what they quickly did and were expelled from the garden. Their two sons, Cain and Abel competed strongly, one was a shepherd and one was a farmer/gardener. And Cain rose up and slew Abel. And God caught him out and asked him where his brother was. "I don't know", he replied, "am I my brother's keeper?" We all have our "garden", our innocence, our greatness of spirit", and we sometimes choose to be expelled from it. It is our " fallen" nature. And so the Christians and others say you must be "born again". You must get a new chance to go back to the garden and leave behind the fruits of original sin. And that willfullness is the original sin. Sometimes we can express this willfullness in our sexuality but sexuality has nothing to do with original sin per se. The Africans of the holocaust were no less human than all of us, darn it. Sorry to be so preachy, but, that's what I used to do. Good luck to you in your journeys. The Bahais in Rwanda are so fortunate top have the Andersons living with them and to have a visit from St. Kevin. Dom't forget to dance for them. You should have the Kigali Elephant Hop down cold by now. I trhink you have a spelling mistake in the name of the next town you are going to visit. You say Cyangugu. Surely the name is Cyangogo. I would not want you to make a faux pas in your visit. God bless all of you. I am so impressed.