Single Mothers

I left my gate open for the first time. My gate is very imposing. It is large, rusty brown. Having it closed makes most of my yard invisible to the street and can be read as a huge Do Not Enter sign. In American culture it would just be a – I want some privacy, and I like my alone time. But in Rwanda it feels like more of a Get out of my face, I don’t want to make friends with any of you. Visiting is a big deal here. Everyone wants to visit and be visited, for extended periods of time. Imagine when you are in a place with no TV, radio only if you can afford it, no computer or internet. Conversation is all you have – which is why this culture is so oral. I’m going to encourage reading and libraries while I’m here but I think I can only get them hooked if I read to them aloud. This is my newest ploy for the neighborhood kids and my neighbors you want to learn English. I like reading aloud anyhow so it could be a win-win situation. Signal the end of my tangent.

So I left my gate open. And a plethora of my female neighbors came to visit. I’m very guarded about letting people in my house and I don’t really have furniture anyway so I made them sit on the cement of my front porch. I really love my female neighbors. They stand up for me, and teach me Kinyarwanda vocabulary. I’m going to introduce you to a couple of them.

Meet Tabita (spelling may be incorrect but it’s pronounced Ta-beat-a). She is a big mouth. Tabita is perpetually shouting something and getting herself in your face. At first I was put off by her. This may be because every single conversation I have with her involves her asking me for something. First she wanted to be my housegirl, then my cook, to do my laundry, to clean my house, to fetch my water…and the latest scheme is to borrow my radio during the day while I’m at work. Don’t put her in the same category as Bubba though. She is jovial and generally joking. At least I laugh it off and tell her no as sarcastically as I can. We mainly have a relationship based on body language. I make funny faces to her requests and she plays the role of shocked neighbor. Out of all my neighbors she has the lowest level of English knowledge. She says she understands most of it but can’t speak back – which is the same place I’m in with Kinyarwanda – minus the understanding most part ☺

She is also my greatest cheerleader. Tabita is very consistent about yelling at people to not call me muzungu, that I do in fact have a name, and it’s Kim. Ever since day two when I complained to her that I dislike being called muzungu when they know my name – she has been yelling ever since. I get a kick out of it because she’s a wonderful person as long as she’s on your side of the battle.

Tabita is also a single mother. Her daughter (who is named something close to Bellina) is about 1 ½ years old. She has beautiful, big eyes and likes to call me Kimmy. Bellina also has a bad habit of losing her shoes.

Today was the first time I broached the subject about marriage. Although Rwandans love to ask if you are married, I’m still not used to being the asker of personal questions. Today I noticed she had a wedding ring on – they wear them on the same finger we do. She also had a ring on her middle finger – which is where they put a ring when they are engaged. So I asked if she was married, pointing to her ring finger. She laughed, slightly embarrassed and said no. She proceeded to take off that ring and point to her middle finger and explain that she was engaged. I dropped the subject and watched moments later as she placed the first ring back on her marriage finger. I’m assuming she wears it to give the allusion of marriage. To have children and not be married is scandalous. She is a tall, striking woman who likes to retain her pride when possible.

Claudette also came by. She is my next door neighbor on the other side. She just gave birth to a baby girl. She had the baby on her back. Almost all women strap the babies on their backs when they need to travel, or get work done or the baby needs to go to sleep. I think I’ve figured out the technique so you can try it at home if you’d like. They bend over so their backs are parallel to the ground and lay the baby down with their face towards their back. First they use a towel, if they possess one. They lay it over the baby so just their head is sticking out, arms inside. They wrap the towel around their front like when you get out of the shower and wrap a towel around, but very tight. Then they stand up straight while grabbing the bottom corners of the towel. They make sure it is wrapped around the baby’s butt and tie it in front, letting the feet stick out. Sometimes a second piece of fabric is also wrapped around. If the baby is fussy or sleeping they tie a sheet around their own shoulders so that it lightly covers the baby and creates some darkness. Once you get over the fear that the baby is going to fall out of this contraption, you discover it’s ingenious. You have the use of both of your arms. You can bounce around and tap the baby’s butt if it’s fussy. And much smarter than having the baby on your front, you don’t worry about smacking it into things or having limited use of things in front of you because the baby’s in the way. Of course you must remember not to sit far back on a chair and squish them. All in all, points for the Rwandans for being multitasking and not letting a baby get in the way of work.

So Claudette came by to sit and chat, and mainly to play with my radio, listen to music and sing. I also had another visitor, a neighbor who lives somewhere behind me who is a student at the local college. She is studying to be an accountant.

Apparently every visitor I receive ends with that person helping me clean. I’ll admit I was a slob in America but in Rwanda, I believe even the biggest neat freak would be considered messy. I’ve been ashamed of my yard ever since Claudia swept half of it for me. I’ve slowly been getting to the other half. It still had weeds all over the place and some random garbage wrappers – a huge no-no in Rwanda. Sweeping dirt is a national pastime. Soon Tabita was yelling for someone to bring a hoe and a broom. We all pulled weeds and now my yard is immaculate.

I think I’ll leave my gate open again soon. I have so many lessons to learn here and my neighbors are oh so willing to show me the way. Thank goodness. There’s no better example of how to be an independent woman here than the single mothers on my block.