To Market To Market

Friday, Nov. 30th, 2007

I think we have packed so many experiences into our time in Rwanda, that it’s hard to believe we only left one week ago today! Each day here includes more people to meet, more stories to hear, more children to hug, and more adventures to be had. Today was one of the more relaxing days in the trip. Well, I guess that’s true for the women at least. The men started their conference tonight, so I know they spent plenty of time in prayer and preparation for this evening. But we’ll get to that in due time.

Today I had my first experience shopping at the nearby market. I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t what I experienced. I’ll try my best to describe it. Try to imagine a Costco. Do you have a picture of that in your mind? Now take the roof down a good twenty feet or so, and in every side aisle imagine tall shelves down the center (thus cutting your walking space in less than half). Now cram every inch of all the possible shelving full of wood carvings and baskets and fabrics and drums and fruit and vegetables and toiletries and bags and sewing machines and kitchen items and shoes and…(the list truly goes on and on). Imagine rows and rows and rows of these aisles. Add some heat, a few hundred beautiful African people (who really can’t raise their hand if they’re SURE), the slight feeling that you are like an animal on display at the zoo, top it off with a foreign language and viola! You now have a tiny glimpse of what our market adventures entailed! It was actually pretty fun to experience something so…well I guess “foreign” is the best word. We got to practice our bargaining skills and our Kinya-Rwandan verbiage (basically consisting of the word “oiya” which means no). Boy, were we thankful to have Obed and Jackie (one of the cooks at the Guest House) with us to guide us through the entire Market process.

We also got to enjoy our first stuck in the mud experience today. I say enjoy because it really was quite entertaining to see some of our men out pushing the van out of the mud. The tires were squealin’, the mud was flying, but in the end the brawn of our men saved the day.

As I mentioned above, the men kicked off their men’s conference tonight. As I am not a man I will defer this description to our favorite male blogger—Timothy Keene.

Thanks Lynn (I feel like I should be wearing a suit and some clever graphic has just appeared in the corner of the screen). The opening night of the men’s conference proved to be an incredibly powerful evening. Charles Buregeya (the man behind the vision that is African New Life Ministries) delivered an amazing sermon about men’s roles in society. Craig then shared his testimony which helped the audience to get an idea of how the next day was going to go. In Rwandan culture many issues are thought of as taboo and are therefore rarely discussed. That was not the goal of this conference. Craig focused on purity and the struggle both he and most Christians have with it. It was an intense beginning to an undoubtedly intense conference. And now to Lynn in sports! (Well not actually sports but fun girlie activities).

Thanks Tim. Let me just say that when the men are away, the women do play! The women on the team were in for a special treat tonight. We went over to the Esther Home, a place built for young adult women who are sponsored while pursuing university. Despite the difference in countries and culture, this was a true Girls Night Out! And let me just say that on our team, LuLu knows how to bring the party. She got us all learning names, and playing games—we even tried playing the game “telephone” which takes on a whole other life when there are two languages in the mix. These beautiful young women, ranging in age from 17-26, performed a traditional Rwandan dance for us. After this they taught…or attempted to teach us the dance. I couldn’t exactly say that this was a huge confidence builder as far as our dancing skills, but we had plenty to laugh about together and had a blast giving it a shot. When asked to teach them a traditional American dance (gulp), the best we could come up with was the Electric Slide, the Macarena (which by name alone surely can’t be American), the John Travolta disco finger point, and the YMCA. Ahhh well, so traditional dancing isn’t America’s strong suit. We LOVED our time with the Esther home women! Each girl in this house is unique and beautiful in their own special way. We’re thinking a future team should definitely arrange an Esther House slumber party! LM & TLS