First, I was recently asked what I missed from home. One thing I've noticed lately is MAIL! We take that daily trip to the mailbox for granted. Here, we have a gate and guard and NO mailbox. If something is shipped to us, we have to know in advance and go in search of it at the central warehouse. We've instructed our family to avoid sending anything to us here. I never expected to miss our daily dose of junk mail!
But on to the narrative:
Last month we travelled to see the Golden Monkey's near the border of Rwanda and the DRC. That area is now closed to Americans, so I'm glad we went when we did. We had a great time and it felt good to get away (with another senior missionary couple, the Cravens) for a few days.
One of the attractions in that area is called the Gorilla Protector village. A Humanitarian-minded conservationist recruited poachers of the highly endangered Mountain Gorillas to make money off of tourists instead of killing the gorillas.
It's a little compound where they perform native dance in "native" costume, demonstrate basket weaving, grinding sorghum into flour, herbal medicine and a few other local interests.
There is a replica of the king's palace and they dress up the customers in "royal" fashion. (The clothes and headdresses do indeed match the photos of previous Rwandan Kings.)
They also perform a "traditional" wedding, but for some reason, our guide didn't direct us over to watch/participate.
I didn't like the place at all. When we arrived, a howling, grinning, eye rolling, head rolling, spear toting man screamed at us in (I assume Kinyarwanda). Dancers with spears and false yellow straw wigs danced and screamed.
I wanted to turn right around and go find something else to do. Even knowing it was a show, it gave all the bad feelings such behavior is intended to engender in an enemy.
I REALLY wanted to skedaddle when I found out that the admission charge, even with our residence cards, was $35 dollars APIECE! We went ahead anyway since that was all we had planned.
Because we've toured much of the country, we've seen native dances performed many times already. They would have been more exciting to a newcomer. But we enjoyed seeing and participating in that proceeding when that crazy greeter wasn't leering or howling in our faces.
We moved on to the second phase of the site where there were interpretive huts. The first one was Rwanda History. But the history ended in 1985. (Thirty years before the gorilla village was built.) All of you reading this know what the most famous episode in Rwandan history is. That happened in 1994. So they just ended the story early enough not to have to report anything so off-putting or explaining what Rwanda is most famous for.
We enjoyed shooting the homemade bow and arrows. I think Elder Craven hit the target!
We've seen basket weavers, (they're everywhere). We've seen wood carvers. Again to a newcomer, it might be interesting. Grinding the sorghum on a rock with a rock was fun.
They had a beehive woven of rushes.
They hang them high in the trees. They also had a giant basket with a lid for holding about half a ton of potatoes. Cool!
The herbal medicine booth was manned by a man dressed like a witch doctor. He gave us a sample of folk medicine. . .some of it true, but lots of superstition too. It felt more depressing than informative.
The woman attending the King's palace replica had such poor hygiene I wanted to say something for her sake. There again, it's not an uncommon problem, but there are some elements that put "organic" over the top. If there's anyone in the tourism industry reading this, spread the word. A little bit of hand sanitizer in the pits goes a LONG way.
After that, they ushered us to the donation hut, where they asked us to donate money to give the poachers a goat or some chickens. He pointed out the word, "non-profit" on the placard. We had paid $70 per couple less than an hour before! In my mind, somebody made a BIG profit! We are hardened enough against the constant plea for donations that we declined to add more to our generosity.
The gift shop had all the traditional gifts. Hand carved animals, hand made baskets, aprons and shirts made of kitenge cloth, leather covered hand made drums. Stuffed kitenge animals. They're cute. I might buy some of those before I go home.
Since I'm collecting cool handmade baskets while I'm here, I bought two. I paid a total of about $15 for the pair. Here they are, hanging on the wall of our apartment. (I took down a couple of things I was less fond of.)
An interesting twist about Rwanda is that the tourist center gift shops, the prices are very reasonable. Downtown, there's a huge market with tons of competition and hawkers trying to get your business through any means possible. You pay about the same price at a museum gift shop.
If you have plenty of time in Rwanda, I recommend visiting other cultural sites for a better understanding of the national character. If you're flying in for a whirlwind tour, the Gorilla Guardians village is a maybe. Go to the King's Palace, Akagera National Park, and in Kigali, the Kimironko market and the Genocide Memorial for sure. Walk the neighborhoods. Greet the people. Rwandans are generally sweet and friendly. Laugh and wave when they call "Hey Muzungu!" Decline to give money to beggars but be generous to vendors. Tip generously at restaurants, even though natives don't.
A note on Missionary work: Now that the Beloved Birds (the seminary and Institute senior couple) have finished their mission, we have been assigned to take over some of their responsibilities. There are no replacements in the portal.
Add to that, the Church is piloting an English Language learning program for the missionaries in our Area. It's more involved than it has been previously and will take several hours a week to coordinate. Plus we're now working as support for the YSA. (And by the way, can you organize and train a YSA choir for the District conference in May?"
Luckily, I have vast musical training. . .as I wrote previously.
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