Culture shocks and cleaning gel.

Muraho, amakuru? (yes, my vocabulary is expanding!) 

Last week I started working at Gahanga, the home for disabled children and youngsters. I visited the institution on Sunday together with Sister Steven, to get an idea of what I would get myself into. And no, I did not expect to see what I saw…  

We entered a room where all the children sat in a wheelchair or were laying down on the ground with a blanket on top of them, very immobile and not really able to do anything, except for a few of them. A lot of them had deformed bodies, which allowed them to only take on one single position, others were able to move their heads and arms, but that was about it. Communication was a huge barrier for me, as I know only a few words in Kinyarwanda. I looked around and didn’t get a lot of words out. I was very shocked by the first impression of the institution. I mean, I think it’s wonderful that there’s such a place for abandoned, disabled children, but I couldn’t get my head around how they would be activated throughout the day. 

As we took the bus home, I didn’t say a word. The idea of working there was constantly going through my mind, thinking of how I could be of any use there. Not beating around the bush, I wasn’t all too excited and I was worried of how this would turn out. Eventually, I got the message that there were two German volunteers working there throughout the week, which lit up my mood, knowing I wouldn’t be alone in this. On Monday I arrived, got to meet the other volunteers and saw a whole new context of the institution. Apparently, a lot of the kids were able to learn basic things, like connecting images to words, spelling words using cards with letters on them, enhancing their motor skills by divers board games, there was even one kid that wanted to learn how to read the clock! I was relieved to see that throughout the morning, they were activated by doing educational activities. 

Also, every two days, the kids would receive physiotherapy to loosen up their muscles and joints. There was also an autistic boy, Emmanuel, who wanted to learn in English ánd in French. When I talked to him in one of these languages, it became very clear that he really understood me, which was great and admirable, not letting his physical and mental state hold him back from learning new things.

By lunchtime, we had to feed all the children, together with the nuns and the caretakers. Huge bowls of food I wouldn’t even be able to finish (and trust me, I can eat quite a lot), so what about some of these tiny kids? I took my time to feed the kids that were assigned to me, but when I was looking around, some of them were being fed like you would see a duck being fed at the foie gras factories… Some of them threw up and then the caretaker would clean it up and continue feeding the child. I just did not get it. I asked one of the caretakers to teach me the Kinyarwandan word for “enough”, so I could ask them in time.

Why cleaning gel? Well, most of the kids were drooling a lot. When you would be busy with one kid, another would be looking across your shoulder and you would suddenly feel a few drops of drool coming down. I’m not a prude and it’s not like I can’t handle the dirty works, but at one point I really thought I was starting to get mysophobia. My bottle of cleaning gel was getting empty pretty fast. Not only that, but there was also one kid, one of the funniest ones around, who was infected with the HIV virus, so I had to watch out for possible wounds on my hands when being in contact with him.

After one week of working at Gahanga, I was able to conclude that I’ve had a good time, it had been a huge eye opener and I’m glad I was able to help when necessary but I figured, in general, I wasn’t of a lot of use. Sometimes I would be sitting there, not being able to do anything and that didn't feel good at all. So on Friday, May Day, I visited the nursery and primary school Mana Mfasha, founded about ten years ago. I will be observing on Monday and on Tuesday to see if it would be useful for the children and for me, to teach English and French there. Evidently, I will keep you all updated on that soon.

Mwiriwe neza.