7/2/2019 0 Comments Meeting MumeyaIn the class we took to prepare for this summer, there was one lesson our professors taught us that rose above the rest: Be flexible. Well, last week was quite the exercise in flexibility, and Nick and I have witnessed the immense beauty that can come when you’re open to a little change of plans. Initially, we had scheduled to have our first visit with the PICO Mumeya cooperative last Tuesday. However, the night before we got a message from Father Innocent that the cooperative said a Thursday visit would work better for them. Wednesday night came around, and we decided that we’d leave at 6:30 the next morning. As we were having our pre-dawn breakfast on Thursday morning, Father Innocent walked in to inform us that there had been a slight hiccup in our plans. We’d been invited to attend the opening of a new school that PICO Mumeya members helped organize and build, and since it started later in the day, we wouldn’t have to leave for another 2 hours. Sitting at the breakfast table at 6:30am, Nick and I just smiled at each other and laughed, “Keith told us to be flexible!” Driving to Mumeya later that morning, I was astounded by how different the scenery was from our previous drive to Nyange. While Nyange is located in the Western Province, Mumeya is in the Eastern Province, about 30 miles from the Tanzania border. As our van chugged along we passed truck after truck carrying goods from one of Tanzania’s ports into the landlocked country. The hills are different in the east than they are in the west. In the west, twisting gravel roads hug the edge of the hills so tightly that they almost disappear into the landscape. In the east, the hills are flatter and the red roads wider and more intrusive, like a long carpet rolled out over the waves of land. Outside my window, we speed past hundreds of blurred banana trees. Sometimes the trees would clear away, and I could see the hills drop down into a shallow valley of rice plantations in the middle of harvest. “Wow, it’s a good rice crop this year. Wow! A really good rice crop,” Fr. Innocent chirped with each plantation we passed. Mumeya is a four-hour drive from Kigali, so halfway through the commute we stopped for lunch. Father Innocent pulled into a small dirt clearing at the edge of the hill overlooking a waterfall of greenery. We hopped out, popped open the truck of the van and devoured our chicken burgers and fries. As we ate, men passed with their bare backs hunched over bikes loaded with bunches of plantains (a fruit that looks like an extra-large, green banana). One arm on the bike’s handle bar and the other on the seat cushion, they trudged along as they pushed their bikes up the steep road. After our rest stop, we got back on the road. For the last twenty minutes of the trip, we drove up the road the Mumeya group had created as one of their cooperative’s very first projects. At 12:30 sharp, our van pulled up next to the legendary PICO tree. Seeing the PICO tree for the first time looked like something out of a legend or a fairytale. The tree is simultaneously confident yet welcoming, strong yet unintimidating, still yet dynamic. It’s trunk is wide and twisted and it’s thin leafy layer stretches out like a giant umbrella.
Mumeya was the first community Pastor John ever worked with. Back in 2006, he journeyed out to the area with the hopes of sharing the community organizing model he learned in Oakland with his fellow Rwandans. He tracked down the local leader, Ezra, and asked if he could speak with the community about how he could help them help themselves. Ezra gathered everyone under this tree for that very first conversation, and just like that, PICO Rwanda was born. Working through the PICO framework with Pastor John back in 2006, the community identified their most pressing need: a health clinic. Even has much of Rwanda is developing, Mumeya is so hard to reach that the area is often overlooked. The nearest clinic was miles and miles away, and many people died of treatable complications just because they couldn’t get to medical care soon enough. One of the most common fatalities was mothers passing away during childbirth. While prepping for our work this summer, Nick and I had heard a lot about the Mumeya health clinic, but what we saw that day surpassed any of our expectations. It was massive and incredibly well-managed, all the way down to the landscaping. (The corners of every bush were perfectly squared and there wasn’t a blade of grass out of place.) Within the clinic there were child and adult check-up rooms, sick rooms for men and women, a space for sex education, a maternity ward, a pharmacy, and clean running water and electricity. It took us a good 30-45 minutes to tour the whole thing. The waiting room was packed with several dozen people, and I couldn’t help but imagine the painstaking journey they’d have to go through to get any help if this clinic wasn’t here. Along with the clinic, the cooperative planted hundreds of trees in the surrounding area. Across the street, the co-op built a classroom where it can welcome guests and hold meetings, lessons, and advising. Walking from the clinic to the classroom, we took our seats around a table with PICO Mumeya’s leadership team and exchanged introductions. As providence would have it, we learned during our conversation that the previous day, June 26th, had been the 13th anniversary of the cooperatives founding. After our meeting, the co-op leaders joined us in the van, and we drove to the school’s opening celebration. When we arrived, there were already over a hundred people gathered around the building, singing and dancing to traditional Rwandan music. The women wore vibrant patterned dresses that draped over one shoulder and fell to their ankles, tickling the ground as they danced in circles. As soon as we got out of the van, Nick and I were grabbed by the wrists and dragged out into the middle of the circle. We waved our hands and attempted to sing along as we skipped around with the crowd. As the afternoon continued, students from a neighboring school came out and performed traditional dances and songs. The young girls locked their elbows and twisted their shoulders and wrists in unison to mimic the horns of the native cows while the bells tied around their ankles jingled with every step. It was a gathering of love and hope. It was a local victory, one that served the children and thus the entire community’s future. There was a ribbon cutting, and the elementary school kids flooded into their new classrooms to sit at the desks for the very first time. Local leaders spoke about how the students and their teachers used to walk miles and miles to get to the nearest school. Young children would drop out of school because they refused to do the grueling walk every single day. Now, thanks to the community’s work constructing these three classrooms, they can receive their schooling right in their very own village. The entire celebration lasted over three hours. A couple government officials spoke, including the Vice Mayor who used to grow up in this village and did the long daily journey to school. He promised that these three rooms would not be the end, and the local government pledged to help the community build even more classrooms so that even more children in the area could have accessible education. The sky was fading to a grayish purple as the celebration came to a close, and we piled back into the car. On the 4-hour drive back to Kigali, we had plenty time to reflect on the events of the day. 12 hours earlier, I woke up expecting to spend an hour or so meeting the Mumeya cooperative. As it turned out, our meeting time with them was cut rather short, but instead we got to spend hours with the community in song and dance and celebration. It was one of the most beautiful days I’ve ever experienced, and it’s all thanks to a little change of plans.
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AuthorEmily Fagundes | Marketing Student & Global Social Benefit Fellow at Santa Clara University Archives
November 2019
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