September 2, 2006
Plumbing Rwandan Style
Some time ago, I wrote about the problems we have with plumbing in the house. Like so many things, it is a never-ending saga. The “plumbers” have been out at least four times to fix the same issue with the toilet. The toilet leaks from the tank into the bowl and if it runs long enough the storage tank outside empties and we are left with no water in the house when the city water is off (which is frequently days at a time but at the very least some hours each day). We call the owner. He sends the technicians. They piddle around in the bathroom then proclaim the problem fixed. The toilet runs. Recall the story of the flood in the bathroom. Anyway, they came to the house once again on a mission to piss me off because they have proven that they absolutely cannot do plumbing.
This time the owner has instructed them to install a new toilet and maybe the problem with leaking will go away. Makes sense, right? This is one of those moments where the reader asks himself – okay what went wrong. Here’s what happened. I was sitting in the living room when they arrived. Our living room has large picture windows that cover most of two walls so I can sit on the sofa and see visitors walk or drive down the driveway once they are inside the gate. The supervising plumber walks in first carrying a medium sized cardboard box. He’s followed by the worker plumber who comes walking down the driveway with the toilet seat balanced on his head and held in place only by his fingertips. I would have laughed had I not already been annoyed with these guys.
I know from previous experiences with these guys that the best strategy is to let them work and stay out of the way until they say they are finished; check to see if the thing works and then send them on their way. They come into the house and I walk them down the hall to the back bathroom, they set the toilet on the floor and I return to the front of the house. So, I’m in the front doing whatever I was doing at the time and these guys are in the bathroom banging and clanging like nobody’s business. In the meantime, Ken sends me a text message that our household goods have arrived and he’s on the way home with them. The plumbers are still here when the guys arrive with our shipment so now I’ve got quite a bit of commotion going on. I was walking down the hall to show the guys where to put the boxes and happened to turn and look into the bathroom. I was astounded to see a hole in the floor where the one good toilet used to sit. Yes, that’s right Two Stooges Plumbing strikes again – they’ve removed the wrong toilet. I could feel a meltdown coming on. We had suffered thru food poisoning, I’d learned to live with the horrible curtains; we fired a guard who stole from the house; the gardener and I were finally on the same page but this was surely the last straw. How on earth could they have made such an error when they’d been out to work on the leak so many times? Was I being punished for some crime I’d unknowingly committed in my distant past? That day I really and truly wanted to go home.
I called the owner’s representative and explained that dumb and dumber had struck again, he spoke to them in their language and I don’t know what was said but the guy looked quite distressed. Two more hours of banging, sighing and what I’m sure was cursing and the good toilet was back in place. I was in the dining room when from the corner of my eye, I saw the plumber slipping out the front door. Not a good sign. I caught him outside the door and asked if he had finished and he said he would come back tomorrow. I’ve come to know their work ethic so I had him wait while I went to check what he had done. Sure enough, the toilet was not working. Now we had two broken. I made him understand that he could not leave before at least one of the toilets worked. Another hour of banging and sighing and the original toilet that should never have been removed was working again.
They were to return the next day and begin the job they were supposed to accomplish in the first place. Anyhow, to make a long story short, they did return the next day. They replaced a part in the first toilet, took away the new one that was never installed and now the one that originally worked fine leaks. We just have to decide when it’s worth the aggravation to have them come again. The owner doesn’t get it. These guys clearly don’t know what they are doing when it comes to even the most minor home repair and we can’t exactly go to the yellow pages and call a plumber. We decide as we go along which battles are worth fighting.
Puppy Update
We have new members of our household! Actually, there are two. I mentioned in the last edition that we were looking for pups and our disappointment when the German shepherd we thought we would get went to another family. Incidentally, that family changed their minds about the puppy and it died shortly thereafter. My friend Jessica sent me a few weeks ago that the owners of a local restaurant had a litter of pups they wanted to give away. Of course I was beside myself with excitement and called Ken. Three hours later we were on the way home with two pups – male, brown, Labrador retriever mixed. They were born on June third and their names are Sampson and Mongo. They are the cutest little things and we’re very happy to have them.
It probably will not surprise you that dog food is not sold in Rwanda. Rwandans don’t have dogs and many are very afraid of them. In the absence of commercial dog food, I prepare their food – rice and beef with raw carrots, cucumber, zucchini and beef bones. They seem to be healthy and thriving. Fortunately, there are vets in town and at least we were able to get them the shots they need for the first year. We have a friend in Birmingham who is sending us some pet supplies – thanks Kodi! Hopefully once the shipment arrives Sampson and Mongo will chew on something other than their rug, outdoor plants and our lawn chairs.
Genocide Memorial Museum
I went with some friends to visit the Genocide Memorial Center here in Kigali this past week. The center was opened to mark the tenth anniversary of the 1994 genocide. It is the mass burial site for 250,000 of the victims in Kigali. This is the final resting place and memorial to all who were murdered. Family members and loved ones come to remember while other visitors come to learn. There are three permanent exhibits on display. One documents the 1994 genocide in this the capitol city, the second is a children’s memorial and the third documents incidences of genocidal violence around the world. The grounds are hauntingly and peacefully beautiful. The architecture rivals that of any such building in the States and the exhibits have obviously been prepared and presented by professionals.
The visit started with a guided tour of the outdoor grounds by a young Rwandan man. Our first stop was a wall with the names of individuals and families interred at the center. It looks like a smaller version of the Viet Nam memorial. We walked past a covered garden to an open crypt where we could see a coffin covered with white lace and a simple wooden cross. Our guide told us that one coffin can hold the remains of up to 200 people. One of the first displays inside the building talks about colonial times in Rwanda. The Germans first arrived in Rwanda in 1895 and the country was occupied by Belgian troops during World War I. The League of Nations was granted a 1923 mandate to govern Rwanda that turned into colonial occupation that lasted until the country gained independence in 1962. The Rwandans tried unsuccessfully to resist colonialism by fighting the Germans in 1875 but of course colonial powers were greater.
According to the exhibit, the primary identity of all Rwandans was originally associated with 18 different clans. The categories Hutu, Tutsi and Twa were socio-economic classifications within those clans and could change with the individual circumstances of a person’s life (i.e., a person’s economic status could change from Hutu to Tutsi due to individual effort). Under colonial rule those same distinctions were made racial, particularly with the introduction of the national identity card in 1932 which identified the bearer as Hutu, Tutsi or Twa. Colonialists made it a rule that anyone with at least ten cows was a Tutsi and those with less than ten were Hutu. This distinction applied to that person’s descendants as well. Based upon this incorrect classification by Belgian authorities, Rwandan society was broken down as follows: 15% Tutsi; 84% Hutu and 1% Twa. These imposed identities set the stage for a society that was bound to self-destruct. As was the case in so many examples, Rwandans had lived peacefully for generations before colonialism. If you would like to learn more about the Genocide, I recommend “We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families” by Philip Gourevitch.
Visiting the memorial had a profound emotional impact one me. I can vaguely remember watching news reports about the Genocide when I was in the states 12 years ago. However, I have to admit that any thought I gave it was fleeting at best. When I knew we were coming to Rwanda, I read everything I could find to try to educate myself about the history of this country. Even after the reading and research, the deaths were still numbers instead of individual people to me. I guess what I am saying is that it did not really touch my heart until I walked the halls of this museum. They had video clips of survivors telling their stories, pictures of mutilated bodies, copies of faxes that were sent to President Bill Clinton about what was happening and imploring him for help and vivid testimony to man’s inhumanity to man. I read each panel and watched each film with quiet sobriety and felt a deep sadness. As I returned to the spot where our visit began our guide was there and asked me if I had seen the upstairs exhibits. I said no and proceeded to the second floor. I entered a gallery where the walls were covered with photographs of babies and small children who had been murdered. I was literally frozen in my tracks struggling for breath for what seemed an eternity but in reality could not have been more than a few seconds. On shaky legs I approached the exhibit and realized there were descriptions of how these babies had died. I wanted to look into each of their little faces and I couldn’t. I closed my eyes and imagined their voices laughing and playing as children do. I couldn’t do it; all I could hear was their cries and I had to leave the building for air. I wanted to understand but something inside would not let me. I was afraid that if I understood I would find mitigation on the part of the perpetrators and lose some of my own humanity in the process. I needed it to not make sense. Maybe if it made sense then I would have some type of connection to the people who did this since we’re all human beings and I needed there to be a huge chasm between them and me. I guess there’s a part of me that never wants to understand how a human being can pick up a machete, look into the eyes of a two-year-old and slaughter him like an animal. I don’t get it and I’m okay with that.
