A Delightful Gang Outing

When I arrived home from School today, there was a lot of buzz among the gang about “MTN, Musicky, Ma Muji, Janie” which translates roughly to “Jane, there is a big cell phone company bus playing music in the town square.”
Robertson and Robert asked me to go with them and I agreed, but insisted we take Bertrund and Alieze even though the older boys said they were too small (No, Janie, No, abana, abana/ No Jane, they are small children). I was feeling like a softy so I stopped at a store and offered to buy them candy but they requested biscuits (crappy cookie like things) instead. As we walked, they wolfed down biscuits but I was struck how fair they are. When one child had a empty hand, they would point to him and gesture for me to give them a biscuit STAT. When we got down to the last three, Robertson suggested we save for baby Gloria and her sisters who had not been able to come. Everyone agreed and I put them in my bag for safekeeping.
I carried Alieze for the last few minutes of our ten minute walk to town and when we arrived the square was packed with people. MTN (the major Rwandan cellphone company) had converted a huge bus into a stage. There was an emcee playing music and bringing crowd members up on the stage to dance.  My kids were the only ones over 3 with adult supervision. The front of the crowd was all little raggamuffins in torn and dirty clothes being chased by a security guard and dodging his wooden stick. I often feel the acute differences in the USA and Rwanda when around children. In this crowd, they were being pushed and manhandled by a guard and I had to stop myself from yelling at him. Instead, I kept my kids close to me,  put Alieze on my shoulders so he could see, and held the hands of Bertrund and Robert. We were soon joined by Jalique who had apparently been alone or lost the boys he came with. He seemed a bit freaked out by the madness and grasped my bag strap when my hand wasn’t available.  The older boys, Robertson and Robert, really looked out for the young ones and always made sure they were close to me and that they could see.  After 20 minutes everyone was ready to go and set off home all holding hands in a long line.
As we were walking home, I remembered something that Sue had said. She remarked that there were too many children and not enough supervision. It’s true that parental supervision can be somewhat undercover, but these kids have learned to supervise and watch out for each other.  It’s just a different, more independent kind of supervision. Last night, I went out with our Kinderwanda language trainer, Felicien, and he told me that he had heard I was “being invisible” and that I should be out making more local friends. The truth is a have local friends. They are just younger than he had in mind. 20 years younger but friends nonetheless.

Bertarnd in white, Alieze in tan directly in front of me. These two are brothers.


Alieze

Robertson and Janie

Bizmani, Robertson, and Robert

Jalique