By James Sam

EARLY MORNING A child spends his morning recreationally at a muddy field

In the southern province of Rwanda, I spent two weeks living in a town just off the district of Kamonyi, known by the locals as Prefegitura ya Kibungo.
A small locality detached from the ongoings of Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, Kibungo lacked constant electricity, filtered water, and many of the marketed goods we have come to know and love.

Homes were built out of a mud-clay concoction, with their stability upheld at the mercy of Mother Nature. People living there donned tattered or secondhand clothing, with the trend of being barefoot because inevitably, as rainwater poured over the town, the roads would descend into mud. Behind each home was each respective family’s livelihoods, from mounds of corn to husk, to fields of wheat and potatoes to reap. Many men dedicated their time to construction and, despite an inability to maintain absolute confidence in their buildings, these Rwandans pushed for progress and improvement.

As an outsider given the opportunity to immerse myself in the community, hosted by a gracious family, I committed to providing assistance wherever I could and to ingratiating myself with the locals. My days typically began with a battle of speed, swatting the mosquitoes that would greet me in the morning with sharp kisses.

A breakfast of boiled potatoes was paired with whatever fruits and vegetables were gathered, stored, and prepared the day before. Meals were stale but nutritious enough to keep a human running. And with that, we were sent to work.

Construction was vital to the community. During my time there, I worked on two homes, spending countless hours spreading the mud-clay concoction across floors, building up and flattening walls, and taking over the workload of anyone in need of a break. A miniature garden purposed for farming, which was just as important to the community, we built three layers stacked on top of each other in order to maximize space and for full efficiency.

On a particularly bright and dry day, some of the locals, who had been with me during our labors, took me out to a shaded field far removed from the town and, under an abundance of trees slightly taller than the homes we had built, many of them were equipped with rusty machetes. My task for the day was to harvest sugar cane.

MEANS OF LIVING A woman husks corn in front of her home

Prior to that day, my only knowledge of sugar cane was its regular use in soft drinks outside of the US. As we harvested the crop, chopping down stem after stem, the locals educated me on how they ate sugar cane by simply peeling back the outer layers, creating bread, and even converting it into sugar as a compliment to their meals.

Our days were long but felt rewarding. I say this because I did not consider the time spent building homes, harvesting crops, and walking around in the blistering heat or pouring rain as a laborious struggle, but as a cooperative effort to live our days to the fullest.

On the final day of my first week in Kibungo, the locals gathered together on a large recreational field. A celebration and welcoming party, we took part in dance and song, with the men of Kibungo even organizing a football match. Frankly speaking, it is the fondest memory of my 22 years of life.

Rwandans, akin to Filipinos, are a hardworking and jubilant people. Church congregations, held in the tallest building in town supported by thin wooden poles, were incredibly lively. The gathered crowd, including myself, watched in shared excitement as a select number of people celebrated their faith on the elevated stage. Processions of song and dance were followed by live exorcisms, and as the main orator announced each selected persons’ recognition of true faith, the target of the exorcisms would passionately react, with supposed evil spirits being compelled to leave their bodies. The town’s youth displayed an interest and affection one can only have when encountering something, or someone, completely novel. My skin being fairer, facial features foreign, and language unknown, the children in particular flocked to me with wholesome curiosity.

There maintained an appreciation of the surroundings and environment that these Rwandans beautifully portrayed in their everyday routines. In the face of what many first-world citizens would deem as struggle and hardship, the locals enjoyed day to day in a consistently uplifting manner. This is my biggest takeaway from the time I spent in Kibungo: the appreciation of the mundane, to enjoy the things that I do, and to love what I have, regardless of whether there is more to be had.