Umuganda

Not sure if I spelled that correctly but the last Saturday of the month in Rwanda is called Umuganda. It is when no one is allowed on the streets (in cars) between the hours of 8-12. Each person in the community is to report to their community director in the morning to find out what the "chore" is for the day. It is often related to fixing the roads, or trimming back trees and bushes, things like that. We opted to stay on the property of our missionary friends and help them do some projects around the house. I helped Rich organize his storage room for all the equipment and medical supplies for the different ministries that they do. It was uneventful except for the huge rat that was hiding in there and ran out. fortunately I was outside the storage room at that point and I just heard Robin yell and then the dogs went crazy! I guess it was a pretty big rat. I'm glad I didn't see it myself. YUCK!
Later in the afternoon we headed out to the same village to do another outreach there. We were actually surprised to see that there were about the same number of people there as last night. The children were all waiting in the church building. We divided them into groups and did crafts with them....simple things, like paper airplanes, stickers and crayons to decorate paper plates and balloons. They had fun and when it was time to start the worship we had all the kids line up and as they left the building we passed out toothbrushes and a small treat to everyone. Once the music started my buddy and dance partner from the night before found me and led me into the crowd. I knew it was one of my last opportunities to dance with my African friends so I danced until the music stopped even though my body was saying "stop". We showed a Veggietale video and as it was nearing the end we felt a few raindrops so we had to kick it into high gear and get all the equipment packed up before it got wet and ruined. It made our goodbyes very fast and for the most part it was ok but my friend Diane came up to me as I was getting ready to jump in the vehicle and she pointed to herself and then to the car. She wanted to come with me. OUCH. I had to say "oh yah", which means "no" in Kinyarwanda and while I have said this phrase many times this week...this was different and hard. All I can do is pray.