Murakoze

Due to some techinical difficulties this blog is going up quite a few days late... so, the timing is just a little bit off.

Yesterday I went to the project for the first time. It is in such a wonderful and beautiful place. One might say an enchanted forest (which looks spookily similar to the temperate costal rainforest of BC) in the middle of hills which stretch on seemingly forever.

This blog posting will account for what all we did on this first day at the poject, how it is going, what it looks like... but I must also recount for you two legends. These are almost irrelevant, and will not provide any factual information about the project. However, I think it is important to also be adding important aspects of the Rwandan culture to this blog, so that you, the reader, may also partake in my experiences of learning about the wonders of this culture.

The first legend was being joked about by the women while they were hoeing today. Mushuru, the RVCP coordinator of this project begged me not to write down this story, but I told him I must. So Mushuru, if you read this, I am sorry.

There is an old Rwandan myth that men used to enforce in the olden day about the making of honey. Men, to protect their monopoly on beekeeping from women, used to say that if women were beekeepers then the bees would run away from the women and leave their hives. This made it so women were not allowed to do any bee-keeping, and kept them away from being able to make any income in this way. I guess what I liked most about the fact that the women were continuing with this project (despite the existence of this legend) is that it shows even more empowerment to these widows then would be percieved from the naked eye. It just made me really happy that these women were so excited to work so hard for a project that is traditionally only for men.

The second legend is one about the mountain, nagachecheru, where the project is. The houses for the hives are very very high up. In fact, it is like being near the top of the Nagachecheru mountain which is just outside of the Muhonguey, well, you can at least see the top...

This legend makes the storyteller in me very happy...

There once was a women who lived on the top of the Nagachecheru mountain. She was very well of, and controled the mountain. You could even say she was the queen of this mountain. One day, the King decided that he wanted to have control of Nagachecheru mountain, so he sent all of his soldiers to attack the woman and take her mountain for his own. However, this woman was also great with magic. She trained a magical snake to protect her and attack the king's soldiers. So, when the soldiers went to attack the mountain the woman sent down her magical snake who ate all the king's soldiers.

Disappointed about his loss, the King tried to think of a plan of what to do so that he could get revenge on the woman. He sent her many many goats, presenting them as a peace offering. However, the goats began eating the forest. And as the forest was being eaten, the snake followed the forest. Then without the protection of her magical snake the woman the King was easily able to attack and take her mountain.

Now the forest, the forest where the houses for the bee keeping project are being build, is said to be an artificial forest.

The project is going extremely well. The women were so wonderful to greet and work with. There is already one house built, and the second house was given it's metal roof today. The big project the women worked on today was hoeing the land for the third house to make it even. This ended up being a phenomenal bonding experience, at least for me, as we hoed all together. I learned some new Kinrwanda words as we gusiza (flattened the land), worked around a mighty deep rooted tree in the middle of the land, eventually pushed it over and then down the hill to screams of joy and dancing. I'm sure clearning some land was nothing interesting for these women who have done this for their entire lives, but for me it was such a wonderful experience to get to do some good old fashioned manual labour and then get to admire the work when it was done. Even the blisters are worth it!

The second instalment should be coming in through so we will be adding the metal roofs and then building the next house next week. The women only come to the project twice a week because, of course, they are also heads of households and have to go and take care of their many many children. I spoke more with two of the women on the walk home today, both were 35 and had three to four children each. Many of the women looked between 25-40, but I have a very hard time being able to tell in Africa. There was one women who did not look much older than maybe between 21 and 23. I can't imagine being a 23 year old with not only children but also no husband. I don't know how many of the women have babies, but there was only one (extremely) cute baby at the project, who slept soundly on his mothers back while she hoed.

The hives will be coming in hopefully some time by the end of the month. All the women are extremely excited and came to the project wearing their fancy bee protecting hats, even though there were no bees to be protected from at this point. Their greetings were extremely warm and welcoming. It's hard to tell if it's the Canadians who are more excited about this project or these women. They kept saying marakoze! marakoze! (Thank you! Thank you!) to which I would respond with Hoya (no)! Marakoze! Marakoze! Everyone is so excited, you can really tell how much effort and hope is being put into this project, and I definitely think it will succeed. It makes me feel very

honored and slightly guilty to be the representative of End Poverty Now because there are so many compliments people are making, and I get to be the one hearing them all first hand. Nevertheless, I am very excited to be showing this project to you from so far away.