Today, July 4th, is Liberation Day for Rwanda, the day the Genocide ended in ‘94. I asked Dany how do I say “Happy Liberation Day” and he taught me how to say it out loud, but I clearly didn’t know what the words were. The one thing I am finding out about Kinyarwanda is there is a huge disconnect between how it sounds, what I hear, and how it is actually spelled. Letters and sounds seem interchangeable and it makes it tough. So I wanted to write down how to say it, and I did so phonetically as a game, and then was going to get Dany to write it for real. So in my leather journal in Dany’s writing it reads: Umunsi Mwiza Wo Kwibohora. And right above it, my phonetic attempt: Amonce Meza Woaqueebohora. Dany thought it was hilarious.
We checked out of the hotel, but Lama was expecting we’d come back to Nyamirambo so he wasn’t packed. So when he and Cassim picked us up, we went back to his house first to get his personal affects. I’m glad things unfolded this way, because we got to meet some of Lama’s family: his mother, his niece, his uncle and his adopted step-sister. They were great, and Lama’s mother was asking us questions and since we’re constantly practicing our Kinyarwanda, we answered Ego or Oya questions from her with help of Lama translating the questions from the other room while he packed.
We still wanted to pick up a few things, but EVERYTHING was closed for Liberation Day. We got to the Chinese Market, and the usually packed streets were deserted save for the guys who sell knick knacks to tourists. Since we were the only people around they all approached us, and to break the ice Kara tried out our new phrase, “Umunsi Mwiza Wo Kwibohora” and they burst out laughing, and Lama translated their response “What the hell are you talking about Happy Liberation Day? We’re working our assess off!” The door to the market was open, so we walked in but it looked quite closed. The owners came out and said they weren’t open, but we explained we were from out of town and needed some stuff, so we got to spend about thirty minutes of totally private shopping with them helping us the whole time. It was actually way better than the usual shopping experience.
Then we went to eat at Bourbon and surf the web, and we met up with Joseph to talk. He told us about his experience 14 years ago and how he was shot in the chest. He was 16 at the time, and they didn’t remove the bullet until 2002. We left from there to the bus station and took the Cramper-van to Kibungo. We had to get there because we had scheduled a conference call with Sheila Hall, the Emily Carr teacher responsible for putting this internship together.
We had some technical difficulties but eventually we were able to skype with Sheila for about an hour. It was great to touch base with her and fill her in how the internship is going so far, and actually explaining the last three weeks allowed me to see how great things have been going. We’ve experienced so much, made a lot of wonderful contacts and really got our feet planted for the next two months. It helped put things in perspective.
Regina was with us at the computer lab, and so after our call the 4 of us went to St. Joseph (the guest house in town, between our house and UNATEK) for dinner. It was typical of all my dinners in Rwanda: The service was slow, the conversation was great and I was dead tired by the time we decided to leave. We all went to bed when we got home. Even though we didn’t stay in Kigali for the major Liberation Day party, which in retrospect I wish we would have, I still had a pretty good day.
