Music Therapy? The Significance of Song and Dance in Rwandan Culture

"It has often been said that everyone dances in Africa, and that Africa is the festival continent. In fact, an African proverb says that if you can talk, you can sing. And if you can walk, you can dance." 

-Paul Kagame

Regina talked about music in one of her recent postings on our Globemed blog. This is a topic I wanted to discuss further based on its historical importance in Rwandan culture.

Whenever someone even mentions the words “Africa” and “Culture,” chances are music is bound to come up in discussion. But why? Why has music developed the way it has here? What significance lies beneath the surface of beautiful melodies and rhythmic movements?
These are incredibly broad questions that I cannot answer, but I will share with you some of the experiences I’ve had with music here and the observations I have made.

I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing traditional Rwandan singing and dancing on several occasions. I’ve also seen several Rwandans engaging in Western style dancing. When I juxtapose these two images I realize that, although they look very different, the effect is more or less the same. Song and dance serves as a way for Rwandans to acknowledge their cultural roots and also connect with a changing world. Music is multifaceted and incredibly powerful here, especially considering its capacity to connect traditional and modern culture.

I think for me, music has also been about cultural exchange. For example, at the orphanage this past weekend, the children used music to greet us while simultaneously expressing and sharing a part of their culture. It was so interesting to see the kids who initially appeared so shy, expressing their personality through extravagant dance and singing at the top of their lungs. Afterwards, we were caught off guard when they asked us to sing for them and I thought to myself there was no way I could match the passion they displayed to us through their songs. Despite the fact that our singing was quite amateurish in comparison, it seemed as if they genuinely appreciated our gesture.

The most amazing aspect of music is its ability to bring people together. I feel that this especially applies to Rwanda based on its turbulent past. When people talk of Rwanda in the U.S, they tend to focus on the genocide and assume that a nation that experienced that type of chaos could never actually recover and rebuild itself in only fifteen years. This was the point of view I adapted because it was the only opinion I had really ever heard. Being here, my impressions completely changed. There are no visible signs of ethnic tension that I’ve witnessed and for the most part, the scars of hatred and violence have disappeared. Obviously, this is not a byproduct of music, but I just think it’s interesting that music could be incorporated in this healing process by connecting people of different ethnic groups to one common ancestry and cultural history.

Looking beyond this miraculous unity that has formed in a country where ethnic tensions had been building since before independence, Rwanda still has a large number of problems. Extreme poverty is probably the most visible problem in Butare. Every time I walk into the town I see women crawling on the ground, too malnourished to walk, young boys with no shoes begging for money, people with multiple amputations who are staring out into the distance, lost in their suffering. It’s very difficult to see and I wish I could do more than just offer them spare change or a banana to eat. With the amount of international aid that is being funneled into developing Rwanda, it is hard to believe that poverty on this scale still exists.

RVCP’s Malaria Prevention Program and Our Orphanage Visit

With our survey completed, our group had the opportunity this past week to visit four of RVCP’s programs. Eugene, the coordinator of the Malaria prevention program, took us and the BVDA group to watch one of his sessions at Nyanza Primary School last Wednesday. We pulled up at the school and were immediately greeted by a large group of kids. They circled around us as we greeted them with our limited vocabulary. As we pulled out our cameras, many of the children ran away and a few of the bravest moved closer to examine our pictures and pose. Eugene took us to a classroom where older students (9-14) were seated, diligently waiting for their lesson. First, he administered a quiz on basic Malaria facts and prevention. After the students had finished, they left the room while we graded the quiz. After we finished grading, Eugene passed around a geranium plant and explained that it can be placed outside windows to prevent mosquitoes from coming in the house when screens or netting are not available. He then led us to a house where he demonstrated the proper way to put up a mosquito net. We headed back to the classroom where he handed out notebooks to the students who scored the highest on the quizzes. Meanwhile, Regina, Amanda, and I were interacting with the students who were coming through the windows, anxious to get a better view of all the visitors. Overall, I thought the lesson was incredibly well done, and that Eugene did a good job of making the lesson interactive and interesting for the kids.

            On Saturday morning Marta, one of the coordinators of RVCP’s initiatives, took all of the volunteers to visit the orphanage that RVCP sponsors. Although it is called "The Orphanage," the kids only come on Saturdays and most have been adopted or have foster families. The kids at the orphanage were a lot more outgoing than the children at the primary school and they sang and danced for us. After they had finished several songs the staff at the orphanage asked us to sing for them. Not knowing we were going to be asked to perform for 40 primary and secondary students, our group frantically tried to come up with a song that we all knew. Finally, with some apprehension, we decided on the popular “Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.” Luckily for us, many of the children knew the song and joined in. Afterwards, we were led outside and the children were separated into groups for recess. I joined the group that was playing volleyball with a soccer ball and taught some of the kids how to head the ball, which they found hilarious. Later, we joined groups and played red rover, duck duck goose, and one that was called Amazi (meaning water in Kinyarwanda) that was pretty similar to red light, green light. Initially, I think our group was nervous that we wouldn’t be able to come up with enough games to keep the kids entertained, but by the end everyone was having a blast. Several of the kids took our cameras and sunglasses. They strutted around the yard flashing peace signs and popped collars, displaying sophistication beyond their seven years.

            While I was engaged in a very competitive game of duck duck goose, a woman who worked at the orphanage approached me. I recognized her from earlier when I had seen her standing in front of the kids, leading the singing. She had an amazing voice and a contagious smile, and everything about her seemed to radiate happiness. She was incredibly kind to me and despite the language barrier, we managed to converse relatively fluidly. When I told her I only had a couple of days left in Rwanda, she grabbed my arms and laid her head on my shoulder, murmuring, “No, no. You can’t leave yet!” She really wanted me to stay with her but I had to explain that I had a family at home and school I had to return to. She understood my reasoning but made me promise I would come back, which I did. This experience definitely confirmed what I’ve observed so far about many people in Rwanda; people are incredibly warm, interested in forming lasting friendships, and genuinely compassionate and caring.

**In other news, I have developed a serious (but supposedly treatable) addiction to mangos. This condition commonly occurs among Western travelers in Rwanda. So far the symptoms have included withdrawal, inability/unwillingness to consume other foods, and vitamin C overdose. Luckily the number of fatalities due to this condition is very small.  

Reflections on Technology, My Last Week, and Rwanda’s Liberation Day

As far away as I feel from my normal routine, I’ve realized lately that I can never quite escape it. Sometimes I wish I could turn off my internet all together so I can stop mindlessly reading people’s statuses on facebook, quit my email addiction and, dare I say it, ban myself from indulging in the New York Times editorials that arrive ever so conveniently to my inbox every morning. I’ve realized how reliant I am on technology to keep myself in the loop, while at the same time I feel that part of the experience of traveling (and I suppose, immersion in general) is letting go of those everyday conveniences. Sadly, I’m guessing that the people at the NPR internship that I am applying for in the fall will not express the same sentiment if I use travel as an excuse for turning in my application late.

            It seems hard to believe, but we are approaching our last week in Rwanda. Now that the project is completed (today was our last day at the health clinic), I feel like we have hit what I like to call “crunch time” (aka trying to pack as many excursions into one day as possible in order to get the most out of our stay). I’m particularly excited about our trip to the Nyungwe National Park next week. It’s supposed to be second only to gorilla tracking in the category of “most unforgettable tourist attractions in East Africa” (even as I write this, I’m wondering how someone came up with a scale for “unforgettableness”). If I’m feeling really ambitious in the next couple of days I may even brush up on my Biological Anthropology notes from freshman year and try to identify one of the 13 primate species that inhabit the forest.

             Last Saturday was Liberation Day in Rwanda, which signifies the day the genocide ended. Although I didn’t see any fireworks, the celebrations that I stumbled upon throughout the day made up for missing the forth of July in the US. That morning, I slept through the 5:00 am prayer but was woken up by the glorious sounds of spirited chanting and singing that was so quintessentially “African,” and served as a morning reminder that I was still in Rwanda despite that fact that my dreams had transported me somewhere else during the night. I began my seven-minute morning routine, which basically consisted of throwing on clothes and lacing up my shoes while brushing my teeth in the garden outside, and headed out towards the main road for a run. About a kilometer down my road, I literally ran into a parade of primary and secondary school students, outfitted in neatly pressed khakis, white button down shirts, and blue dresses. As I passed them, I heard a chorus of “Muzungu” chants in about a dozen different octaves. They beamed as I acknowledged their chants with a smile and replied, “Muraho,” the traditional greeting, as I attempted to navigate my way through the crowds.         

            I feel like I am romanticizing this experience a bit too much. It was great to run through the parade and, in general, Rwanda’s terrain makes for a great and challenging run. However, I really must preface this by saying that people here do not run. Because of this, they really do not understand the concept of running for exercise and definitely would not expect to see a woman running down the road. So now factor into this equation a white woman in running shorts, and you’ll have some insight into how incredibly awkward my experiences of running in Rwanda are.   

            After I had passed by the parade, I cut off onto a less crowded side road that lead to the health center. There were still a ton of people walking down the street and everyone- women carrying baskets on their heads, the babies strapped to their backs, children playing with rubber tires on the side of the road, men on motos, farmers harvesting their crops- stared at me as I passed. Some thought it was absolutely hilarious that I was running and laughed and shouted at me as I passed. Others looked kind of disgusted. Some people had a look of astonishment on their faces. I might as well of had six legs and purple skin; I probably would have gotten the same reaction. To avoid the stares, I quickly cut down the first dirt road I could find and was relieved that the pathway was completely vacant for as far as I could see. I reveled in my solitude for about fifteen minutes, taking in the breathtaking views hills of the impossibly green hills that surrounded me on all sides, until I came back to reality and realized that I was quite lost. I made a few quick turns, ran through a cornfield, was chased by a group of small children, and finally made my way to a clearing where some fifteen men in military attire were standing. As I passed over a hill, I realized that I had run into the Liberation Day National Ceremony at the Huye Stadium. Thousands of people were standing in the stadium and around it on a dirt path, singing harmoniously as the late morning sun became increasingly intense. I stopped running and stared, mesmerized, for a couple of minutes at the celebration. As I stood there, absorbing the passion that emanated from the melodies and tried to decipher the words of the song, I regained consciousness and realized how ridiculous I looked standing there in my running gear. Finally understanding where I was, headed up towards the main street that lead back to the volunteer house.

            I have to say that despite everything, this is one of those experiences you can’t really forget. I’ve run several times since Saturday but have not run into any more celebrations. I’m getting a little more used to the stares, and maybe it’s just me, but I feel like fewer people have shouted at me. I guess it will be a while before the more traditional Rwandans here understand the concept of exercise for women, and until then I’ll just be known around town as “Umuzungu w’igitangaza" ("that crazy muzungu").  

Visiting the National University of Rwanda and Our First RVCP Meeting

            Last Friday, we had the opportunity to visit the National University of Rwanda, which is located in Butare (about a 20 minute walk from our house). RVCP member Jean D’amour and his friend, Jean Claude, (not to be confused with Jean Claude the RVCP coordinator, better known by our group as JC) picked us up at the house and we headed out on the main road towards the university. There are about 12,000 students studying at the University from all over Rwanda and also neighboring countries (Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, DRC). It was interesting to hear about different academic programs from RVCP members who all study at NUR (some of the most popular are agriculture, medicine, and pharmaceutical studies).

            The moment I arrived on campus it felt like I had stepped into a different country. At first glimpse, NUR did not seem that different from any small liberal arts university in the United States. The main campus was isolated from main street Butare and the overall atmosphere was relaxed but with an undertone of academic frenzy. We shuffled in and out of groups of diligent looking students as we walked past the academic buildings, gymnasium, and dormitories. At the gym, I started to watch a pickup basketball game and was grabbed by a student in a white doctor’s coat who asked me if I knew how to play billiards. I told him with complete honesty that I really wasn’t very good but he handed me the stick anyway and directed me towards the table. I guess he figured it would be almost impossible for me to lose anyway considering I only needed to get the 8-ball in and my opponent still had four balls left. Apparently he misjudged my abilities (or lack thereof). I did end up losing the game for him, but he was kind about it. In traditional Rwandan fashion he tried to get my number out of the casual four-minute interaction. I replied (again, with complete honesty) that I didn’t know my cell phone number and our group headed towards the exit.

            We passed through a small forest on the outskirts of campus where students studying agriculture conduct research and, according to Jean Claude, “take their lovers,” and headed back towards the main road. As we were walking to the Medical Facility for the weekly RVCP meeting, I was tapped on the shoulder. A guy who looked vaguely familiar to me shook my hand and said, “nice to see you again, Emma.” I smiled and shook his hand as I frantically searched my memory for any glimpse of when or where in the last two weeks I had met this man.  He must have sensed my bewilderment, because he asked me if I remembered his name. Instantly it hit me. His name was Livingston and we had talked on the way back from Gitarama the week before. It was a rather awkward conversation mostly because it had been really hard to hear him over the chatter in the back of the bus and the engine drone, but at the time, he seemed genuinely kind, intelligent, and interested in my travels. “Of course,” I replied. “Livingston, we sat next to each other on the bus.” It was enough to convince him that I had remembered him from the beginning. Amanda on the other hand, was not convinced and started laughing.

            We approached the Faculty of Medicine a little bit after 5:30 and waited outside for the rest of the RVCP members to arrive (the meeting technically started at 5:30 but we were early according to “Rwanda time”). After the majority of the members arrived, Jean D’amour started the meeting. The coordinators of each of the five projects introduced themselves and briefly gave a description of the projects they had been working on. We heard from the coordinators of the water and sanitation, HIV prevention, malaria prevention, income generation (which is made up of several microfinance projects), and the pyramid project for women’s empowerment. Since our group had been spending the majority of our time at the health clinic, it was interesting to hear about other RVCP projects from different members. 

Murambi Genocide Memorial

Last Tuesday, Jean Claude took us to the Murambi Genocide Memorial. The Memorial was once a technical school where tens of thousands of Tutsis were sent for protection in April of 1994. They were told that French soldiers would protect them there, but for days they lived without electricity and water and only had access to stones to defend themselves in the case of an attack. On April 21, French forces left the compound and Hutu militia attacked, killing 50,000 Tutsis in one of the most horrifying massacres of the Rwandan genocide. The bodies were dumped into mass graves, and left there until the memorial was created. 

When we arrived in the late afternoon, there was a thick layer of fog covering the mountains surrounding the compound. Because Murambi is situated on a large hill, all the surrounding villages were visible in the distance, appearing shockingly green and lush in the fading light. I found myself feeling guilty for thinking the view was beautiful in contrast to the hideous brutalities that had taken place within the walls of the site.  A solitary purple banner marked the memorial, commemorating the horrific deaths of the thousands of innocent Rwandans that had been murdered on that fateful day. Like many African cultures, color symbolism is incredibly important for signifying happiness and sorrow in Rwanda, and it was interesting to hear that purple, not black, is a symbol of death. 

An older woman greeted us as we approached the main building. She was very kind to us, but her expression was stern and her face was weathered by age. She didn’t speak English, so Jean Claude served as our translator as she took us around to the different buildings in the compound. First, we approached a long and narrow building with about 10 identical doors. She opened the first one and I was immediately taken aback by an excruciating smell that seemed to fill my entire body within seconds of entering the room. As my nose adjusted to the shock, my eyes finally began to focus on the scene around me. Dozens of skeletons were scattered across tables. There were many large skeletons, but I was shocked to the skeletons of babies and children as well, some still wrapped in their parent’s arms. Many were missing arms and legs. Others had dozens of bullet wounds on their bodies. Some skeletons didn’t have heads.

Our guide told us that her husband had been killed at Murambi, and after the genocide ended, she decided to stay and work at the memorial. I thought about how difficult it must have been for her to live in the place where she had lost the people she loved the most. As we walked from room to room, everything seemed harder to bear- the smell, the bodies, and the darkness. The number of rooms seemed to be infinite and I realized after we had viewed our last room that we had only seen a tiny portion of the thousands of people who had lost their lives.

We were lead to another part of the compound where the mass burials were located. A large wooden sign marked where French soldiers used to play volleyball right next to where the bodies were thrown into mass graves. We were also lead through a room where the clothes of genocide victims were on display. As we started to walk back towards the main building, I tried to imagine what Murambi would have looked like in April of 1994. I attempted to put the number of deaths into context, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine what 50,000 people looked like, but alone put together an image of that many people struggling to survive.   

(Our group posted a video of Murambi on youtube. Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq7TOXrc3Mw)

Weekend in Kibuye

Friday afternoon, after finishing up our interviews, we left the clinic a little early to head back to the volunteer house to pack for a weekend trip to Kibuye. We had heard from other volunteers and RVCP members that Kibuye, which borders Lake Kivu, is beautiful and a good place to vacation for a weekend. Lake Kivu is located in the Western province of Rwanda and extends past the border into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is considered one of the Great Lakes of Africa and is also one of the three “exploding lakes” in the world due to volcanic activity. For more information on the lake, I recommend wikipedia as a scholarly and reliable resource.

So Friday afternoon, tickets in hand, we walked over to the bus station and attempted to board a bus to Gitarama (where we would catch another bus to Kibuye). As we approached it, we were pushed to the side and told to wait. At that point, an older Rwandan man approached me and told me to buy a bus ticket (apparently I looked lost and confused to him). I tried to tell him as clearly as I could that we had already purchased them, using a series of simple gestures to emphasize my point. He insisted on directing me towards to station office, uttering, “buy ticket, buy ticket there,” at which point I responded that I had one and was waiting to get on the bus. After about five minutes of this exchange, I gave up, and walked back towards the rest of my group members who were clearly amused by my how unaware I was that my message had been lost in translation right as the conversation had began. Admittedly, it was not my first attempt of the trip to “converse” with someone who knew absolutely no English, all of which began and ended awkwardly and consisted of mostly desperate gestures. 

The bus to Gitarama arrived shortly after and, upon boarding, I was surprised by how comfortable and spacious it was (we realized shortly after this leg of the trip that this mode of transport was a false hope for what was to come). The bus glided effortlessly over rolling hills and I watched the dusty, flat roads of Butare morph into paved streets, overlooking coffee and maize farms that extended as far as I could see. As I stared out the window, I lost myself in the scenery as the undulating melodies of Rogue Wave and the Shins on my ipod harmonized with the movements of the bus over the hills. 

Abruptly we came to a stop, and I heard the murmur of passengers in the front and some faint laughter. A woman practically jumped off the bus and ran over to the woods. In case we hadn’t picked up on the fact that the woman was carsick, a man to the right of our group said in a very model sounding French accent, “she’s going to vomit.” We burst out laughing, as the situation was pretty clear to us without the English translation. Some things always translate. 

As soon as everyone was back inside, the bus continued to Gitarama. We were dropped off on the side of the road at what looked like a strip mall with no buses in sight. Using gestures with a couple of the shopkeepers, we managed to find our way to the station which was filled with old 1970s tour buses, refurbished to act as taxis to the neighboring villages.   We were directed towards a bus that was already filled (or so it appeared) with passengers. Regina and Caleb were lucky enough to locate one seat and the guy motioned for them to share it. I was directed towards the back of the bus (where 4 people were already seated) into a small space that could not have been larger than 6 inches. Sitting in the back of a tour bus for 3 hours in a quarter seat was not exactly the experience I was hoping for so I managed to get myself out of the bus, hoping to get at least a third of a seat if I waited. Sure enough, Amanda and I were directed into the seat with Caleb and Regina as two boys climbed through the open window into the 6-inch seat I was previously directed towards in the back. I have no idea what the capacity of that bus was but I’m pretty sure it was less than the 22 people we fit into it. As the last of the passengers struggled to situate themselves on top of other passengers we shut the doors and the driver headed out for the main road.

After about 2 hours of winding streets and bumpy, unpaved roads we arrived in Kibuye. We were greeted by a motorcycle driver who offered to take us all to a nice hotel for a very cheap fare. The driver, whose name we learned was Ignatius, was kind and spoke English very well. After dropping us off at the hotel, he gave us his cell phone number so we could call him whenever we needed a ride into town.

The hotel, called the Bettany, offered two types of rooms. The first type for 10,000 Francs a night was very similar to what we had in Butare. The second type, for 30,000 a night was like a palace. The expensive rooms were situated in a large four-story house, overlooking the lake. Walking into the building, I was greeted by marble floors and air conditioning, both of which seemed foreign to me after a week of what I considered, “luxurious camping,” in the volunteer house. The bathroom itself looked like something fit for Paul Kagame and I smiled at the thought of being able to use a real shower. It all seemed too good to be true, but we decided, without “reservations,” to book the room for two nights.

As you can probably already see from my last post, the room was too good to be true. While we were there, the hotel experienced a problem with their water and the lovely marble and granite shower served no other purpose but as something to admire. Because half of our room was useless to us, Amanda and I decided to move into the 10,000 RFW room on second night, trading our tempurpedic mattresses for cushioned boards and air conditioning for a mosquito nets.

Side note: I would like to admit something that most people reading this would never imagine of me. I managed to fit everything for three days into one backpack. One small Northface backpack, nothing else. I understand that packing light is not exactly something that most people associate me with, so I just had to throw that one out there. 

Our trusted driver, Ignatius, met us the following morning and took us around town. He ended up staying with us the whole day, and we all really enjoyed talking to him and hearing his stories. We learned that he was a Congolese refugee and had recently come to Kibuye to work in order to provide for his wife and five kids. He and his family had spent a significant amount of time in a refugee camp near Kibuye and he told us that the living conditions there were horrible and that he was funneling all the money he could make into getting his family out of the camp. I was so amazed that, despite everything he had been through, Ignatius was constantly smiling and willing to show us around while expecting nothing in return except for a small motorcycle fare. During the day he took us out to a small island where we were able to swim. All I could think was that it was three hours he could have been driving people around and he chose to forgo that to help us out. After taking us around, we invited him back to the hotel to have lunch with us. It was the least we could do after all of the help he had provided and we knew from before that he would rarely be able to eat more than one meal a day after buying food for his family and paying the rental fee for his motorcycle. Listening to him talk and hearing his stories of how he was rejected from jobs because of his refugee status (even though he knew five languages that he had taught himself and spoke English better than anyone else I had met from Rwanda), I felt like I had entered into a movie or a novel. His story seemed unreal, and yet the experiences he spoke of were so incredibly potent.

On Sunday we had breakfast in the morning and headed back towards Kibuye to catch the bus home. Ignatius was at church, so we decided to walk to the town instead of taking a motorcycle. About a mile outside of the town, we saw him approaching us on his motorbike, grinning. He told us that he had his family and wife with him in town and that they wanted to personally thank us for the little bit of money we had given him the previous day for all of his help. He even brought us a picture of his family with a thank you note written on the back. Receiving that note and all the gratitude that was behind it was one of the most incredible experiences of the trip so far, and something I will always remember.

His five children were very shy but incredibly sweet. We took a couple of pictures with them but his youngest child, Norbert, was very afraid of the camera (you can tell from the pictures- he is hiding behind the motorcycle). Even though they were young, I could tell that they understood how far the little bit of money that we gave him would go. We all have Ignatius’ email address now and I hope that he continues to update us on his life and it progresses, and hopefully, becomes easier.

I can’t say that the ride back to Butare was that eventful after a crazy weekend. Again we were crunched in the back of the van and again the driver drove so fast to the point where I was almost convinced we were going to drive off the edge of the curving road. We did come across a van, similar to our own, that had flipped on the side of the road. Our driver pulled over and people began to murmur things quietly and stare. Nervous that some people might have been hurt, I asked the first person that passed our bus if everyone was Ok. “No one been died,” he replied. It was good enough for me. Our driver continued at a much slower pace towards Butare. 

Pictures From Week One

   

                         

 

1,2,3) Motorcycle ride from Huye to Butare

4) Outside the RVCP orphanage

5) "Muzungu!"

6) National Museum of Rwanda

7) Amanda, Regina, Caleb and I outside the health clinic