A few days ago the GO team was having lunch in Muhanga. Costa (our host) gets up before the food arrives and wanders off. He shows up as we are finishing our food and sends his food back for something else. When that comes out he tastes it, tells them it is no good, and orders something not on the menu. That comes out and he starts eating, and we tell him that we are already late for our meeting with the mayor. When he finishes eating we walk to the mayor’s office, about 45 minutes late. Bart mentions on the walk over to the mayor’s office that it was “kind of a rock star move.” After thinking about it, Costa is absolutely a Rwandan rock star. Here are five illustrations of Costa's rock starness.
1. I am sitting in Costas living room, having never met him, but he invited us over to a graduation party at his house. Family members slowly trickle in and reassure us that Costa will arrive soon. We are shocked when Costa walks in wearing a cap and gown. Thirty family and friends sit in a circle feasting in the yard using various levels of English to converse with us. Costa tells stories in 3 different languages, translates many things for us and cannot stop smiling.
2. During a ten o’clock dinner, Costa tells us that he spent the day checking up on a recently placed orphan two hours away. The orphan has been put into a family as a week trial before Costa asks if they like the family. The orphan approves of the family, but Costa must be at the office at 8 clock the next morning (leaving at 5 AM) to get a stamp so that the adoption can be official.
3. While Eve and Denise tried to teach me how to do laundry and speak Kinrwandan (I cannot say chicken or get shoes clean), I learn that Costa’s wife is their older sister. They watched their mother be murdered in the genocide in 1994 while hiding above the ceiling. Two orphans live with the family, children of those who murdered the family’s parents. Costa met the orphans and upon noticing their struggles asked them to join the family in Kigali.
4. I wake up early, and Costa is frantically tying his shoes. He explains that his friend’s child is very sick and to tell everyone he would meet us later. Costa rides the kid to the hospital on the back of a bicycle. Then, he gets in an argument with the mother who is convinced that he is cursed, not sick. After the positive TB X-ray Costa convinces the doctors not to let the child leave until he is healthy. On the way home he calls a friend to go to the hospital and stand guard.
5. Costa convinces a friend who owns a mini-bus to drive for a family outing to a genocide memorial. Nineteen people fill the minibus; many have never been to this memorial and had families killed in the genocide. After many tears and emotional moments we pile back into the bus and drive to a soccer game. Bart, Costa, Kyle and I are thrown into the action and at the end Costa brings out 1300 pens, a trophy and a soccer ball for the kids.
Early in our friendship with Costa, he said that he was not the best man in Rwanda. I told him a few days ago that I have not met very many Rwandans, but it will take a lot to convince me otherwise. I find it hard to not support people doing amazing things for their community.
More blogs and pictures here.
http://groundworkopportunities.tumblr.com/
