Developing a Culture of Reading

One of my International students in English began a great discussion in class with one of her paragraphs and the discussion has continued in a number of other contexts. The subject was the lack of a culture of reading. She focused on Burundi, her home country, but the ensuing discussions have revealed that the same lack of culture is a struggle in other developing African countries. Her paragraph below will give you a frame of reference for the beginning for this ongoing discussion.

She wrote, “Reading is a challenge for educated people in Burundi. Actually, there is not a culture of reading in that country. For example, the rare bookstores which exist don’t have customers, and books stay in the bookstore for years. That situation can be explained in three reasons. First of all, there is a lack of libraries. The only good libraries that exist are in big cities of the country, and it’s expensive to get registered in them. The second reason is that there are no local publishing companies to promote local authors and to promote reading in the same way. The third reason is that the elite don’t read even newspapers or books. So the verb” to read” is spelled the same way as the verb “to drink” in Kirundi. A lot of Burundian intellectuals prefer drinking beer instead of reading.”

Since her writing, we have discussed why this is the case. Beyond the writer’s suggestions, many think that because the culture was an oral one before colonization that has set a frame of reference for the people. Others have suggested that the expense and the difficulty of getting books have discouraged reading. Others have suggested that the struggle with language and which is the preferred language of the countries is the cause. Most people learn the local language, be it Kirundi or Kinyarwanda or Swahili, but few books are published in those languages, so the reader is left to choose between French or English or some other alternative language, a language that is not as familiar and is more difficult to read. No doubt it is a combination of all of these reasons.

Present library at PIASS

The real question is what to do about this. Is it possible to change a culture? I’m proud to say that PIASS thinks it is. As this discussion has been going on in the classroom, the administration has been wrestling with it in the context of developing the programs of the college. The decision was that in order to develop the programs, we much also develop the library. At present it is small, with a mixture of French and English texts, mostly in theology. As the school expands with programs in Education and Development, more books are needed. As the teaching moves to English rather than French, there is a need to expand the English holdings but there is also a desire to encourage good Kinyarwanda writing. With the help of International partners, PIASS has launched a plan to more than double the size of the present library and more than triple the number of books. But one of the most exciting features of the new library is the proposed children’s section that will be open to area school children and will encourage them to come and use the library, to help foster an attitude and aptitude for reading from the earliest age. It is a beginning in developing a culture of reading.

The Bamboo

The burned bamboo stand in August

 In August, you heard me lament the cutting and burning of a beautiful, mature stand of bamboo in my front yard. The motivation for the cutting and burning was to rid the area of fleas that were suspected of living in the bamboo. The whole process of “deforestation” of the bamboo took about 3 weeks and left a gaping exposure to the passing world. When I voiced concern to the administrations, they ordered the cut bamboo be trimmed to size to make fencing and I had a semblance of privacy again, for which I was grateful.

But one thing that I know about bamboo is that it is fast growing. That was my only comfort during the cutting process. The rains came in November and the bamboo began to grow again. I watched with fascination as the shoots sprung up almost overnight and began to mature into saplings and then a young stand of bamboo. At first, the charred sticks stood among the new growth. The new shoots grew among the destroyed remains and gradually overtook the old stalks.  By Christmas, I had shade again from the ever-growing bamboo. No, it is not yet mature, but each day it is expanding and filling in. It has swallowed the fence in its growth, so that the fence sticks of bamboo can no longer be seen, lost among the green of the growing forest in my front yard.

New growth just 4 months later

As I daily watch this replenishing, I am reminded of what God does in his creation and in our lives. Among the charred remains of the destruction that we bring, he brings life and new growth. He renews and strengthens. He refreshes and redirects. He does that with plants and trees. The Bamboos is testimony to that. I remember seeing the same new growth happen in Yosemite National Park in California after a forest fire destroyed acres. He does it in our personal lives when situations deteriorate and dreams and hopes die. That is certain the cases for me, having to leave Malawi but finding new hope and dreams here in Rwanda. He does it with nations. I look at the reconciliation and rebuilding that has happened and is happening here in Rwanda after the genocide. There is new life everywhere.

As I listened to a PCUSA webinar about the fighting and destruction happening in South Sudan, I looked out my study window on my growing bamboo grove. I prayed for the folks facing the disaster there. I prayed for the God of life to intervene and bring new life to such a desperate situation. I am confident that God can work his miracles of life there as he has in Rwanda. That is my prayer and my trust. The bamboo is a witness to that truth.

Gihinda Muyaga

Church leaders, my watchman in the center

Sunday I had the great blessing of preaching at a village church outside of Butare. The congregation is an evangelistic outreach of the large Presbyterian Kinyarwanda congregation near PIASS. This worship space is up the mountain from the city (but then in “the land of a thousand hills,” everything is up the mountain or down the mountain). The congregation is served by a student from PIASS and he is the one who invited me to preach. He and my watchman escorted me as we traveled on the back of motorcycle taxis off the tarmac road, onto a dirt road and then to a dirt trail up the mountain about 7 miles. I have taken motorcycle taxis around Butare, but never up into the mountains. This in itself was an experience.

The church building

Once there, we could see for miles around us. The student pastor and the senior elder escorted me around the grounds the church owns and explained the history. In 2010 the senior elder and a few of the elders from the main church, including my watchman, gathered with a few Christians from the area for worship and then house to house visitation. Soon they had 25 believers and began worship in a small house they rented. When the numbers grew, the owner of the house evicted them, saying they were too large a group for the small house. They continued the evangelistic outreach as they sought another house for worship. As their numbers swelled to 50, eviction came again. They determined that they needed a place of their own for worship. They found land and took a loan from the Presbytery to purchase it. As they paid off the loan, they worshiped in the open air, but on their own land. No one could evict them.  All the time, their numbers were growing. With the first loan paid for, they took another to build a church for worship. The walls, roof and windows are now complete. They have a few wooden benches and a table for a worship center. When there is an overflow, as there frequently is, they sit on mats on the floor. They now have over 100 members and 3 choirs (a sign of growth and commitment). The elder, my student and my watchman were so excited to share worship with me. I was thrilled to be there.

Praise of the women's choir

There is no vestry, so we organized the service and I robed behind the church building, in the open air. They hope to build a free-standing church office in the future, but that is not the priority now. Now their goal is to pay off the loan and then cement the floor, build more benches and bring electricity to the area. We entered the building to great singing and dancing by the choirs. The service was filled with praise and joyful singing. As one of the choirs led singing, I looked closely at the choir leader. She smiled at me. It was my housekeeper, Josephine. I learned later that she comes down the mountain every weekday to care for me and my house. I was humbled to see the commitment and leadership of both my house staff in this small church. After the Spirit-filled 2 ½ hour worship service, we had a meal together with the elders and I heard more of their plans for the future. They have such faith and optimism about what God will do in them and through them in this area. It is not just the building, but the outreach and fellowship. The elders and deacons have begun a savings and loan group to help each other develop their lives. Part of this is tithing to the church as well. They are forming a caring community on the side of the mountain. Many of these things are happening in many places around the Presbyterian Church in Rwanda. What impressed me was the spirit of joy. It is reflected in the name of the church. Before, the site was know as the place of wind, because of its location on the top of the hill. Now it is called Gihinda Muyaga, place of praise. They praise God with their whole beings.

A Christmas Eve Journey

                Some of you have read my January Prayer Letter and some have not, I know. In it I wrote about the woman behind the Christmas Eve journey. Here I would like to share with you the journey itself.

               Christmas in Kigali had none of the accompanyments of Christmas in Connecticut or even in Killarney (as the old Bing Crosby song extols) but it has its own special accents that mark the presence of Christ in a powerful way. There are no silver bells, no Santa, no snow and only a few artificial trees in a few of the stores where Westerners shop. Flowers are in bloom everywhere – poinsettia shrubs, geranium hedges, rose bushes, bougainvillea vines in profusion. It’s not the decorations or the weather that make Christmas. It is Christ’s presence in our lives. That is what I experienced this Christmas. My colleague Meg Knight (yes, it is Knight and Day in Rwanda) arrived the middle of December. Since her apartment was not ready, she was staying at the EPR Guest House. I couldn’t think of her begin alone, since she only knows a few people so far. So I suggested that I go to Kigali for Christmas and she come to Butare of New Years. She agreed, but neither of us knew what God had in store for us.

            Our colleague Anysie, the finance director with EPR (the Presbyterian Church of Rwanda) asked us to go with her to her home village on Christmas Eve day for a time with the children in the village. We eagerly accepted. We met her at the guest house at 8 a.m. She had exchanged her Rav4 for a sturdy Toyota 4x4 and a driver from EPR, an indication of the rigor of the trip. The back of the 4x4 was loaded with boxes of fruit juice and Rwandan donuts. She had also invited two teenagers, Olivia and Lisa, daughters of her childhood friend who is also now living in Kigali. So, the six of us set off. About an hour down the tarmac road we turned onto a rutted dirt road that wound up into the mountains. We followed the twists and turns through three trading areas and deeper into the mountains for about two hours. Then we turned onto a steep single-lane dirt trail and climbed for another half hour. The distance wasn’t that far but the terrain was so rough that it was slow going, at times with a sheer drop-off to the right and a mountain wall on the left. We crested a hill to see a small brick church that seemed to pulsate with drums and singing. We stopped and got out. We had arrived at Mugano Parish. Inside the church, 223 children sang as they had waited for 1 ½ hours for our late arrival.

Childrn singing to welcome us

            The evangelist for the parish (it is too small to have a pastor) and four Sunday School teachers had led the singing as they waited, Some of the children had walked two hours over the hills to get to the church. They were more than willing to wait. We were greeted by songs of welcome then introductions. By age groups, the children presented songs and dances. One of the Sunday school teachers told the children the Christmas story in Kinyarwanda and gave a short message of application. Then Anysie stood and engaged the children in a discussion, explaining that she was originally from that region and asking them if they knew why she didn‘t come back more often. Finally one of the older children answered that she no longer had family there. She explained that all her family had been killed in the genocide, so she no longer had a home there, but her heart was still there because it had been her home. She was 16 at the time of genocide and was away at school, which is how she survived. What she wanted them to know was that they were part of her because they came from the same area and that the only way to overcome the past was to care for one another in the present. That is why we had come, to bring them a small expression of caring.

            With that, we went to the vehicle and unloaded the juice and bread. As 223 children sat patiently, we, the 5 women from Kigali and the Sunday school teachers, distributed cups of apple juice and donuts. For many of the children, this was their first taste of such a sweet treat. After consuming it, some became impatient for more, showing they were true children. It was fun to watch their new appreciation of this goodness. This was a true Christmas treat. For a little while, they were enabled to see God with them.

Anysie supervising the drinks

            After the children were dismissed with singing and a blessing, Anysie met with 30 women from the parish who had formed a savings and loan group, with Anysie’s assistance in organizing and training them. They reported progress of the purchase of seeds and goats that have helped them raise their standard of living so that some have been able to purchase mattresses, a sign of prosperity. Others are paying school fees for their children. Others are implementing new small income generation projects. They are all benefitting. Then she met with 10 individuals who are ready to begin a goat breeding project in January. Anysie has worked with them in training and preparations. All of these projects, from the trip and treats for the children to the goats, have been financed by Anysie personally, She has saved her money  and has made and sold items to raise money to be able to do these things. This is her way of investing in reconciliation and peace for the future. The adults in these groups include survivors and perpetrators of the genocide, who are learning to work together again because of a genocide survivor who wants to make a difference in her home area.

 After a meal prepared by the evangelist’s family as a thanks to us, we said our farewells. But we were not finished. There was one more stop to make. We went down the steep trail then turned up the next ridge, through a market area and stopped at a Catholic church. On the right of the vehicle was the church building and on the left was a genocide memorial. Anysie got out of the car and looked from one to the other then quietly said, “My parents were baptized here, confirmed here, married here and died here.”Anysie’s parents and her four siblings fled to the church for sanctuary when the genocide began. They and 5,000 others were murdered in the sanctuary of the church. All of her family is buried at the memorial. In the memorial, she showed Olivia and Lisa a picture of their cousins who were killed with Ansyie’s family. This was the first time the girls had been to this area. It was as new and overwhelming for them as it was for Meg and me. The entire trip had been a pilgrimage for Anysie to pay respect to her parents’ memory and their lives, to offer children who lived in the poverty of the remote village and in the shadow of genocide, a taste of another way of life, a sweet life of peace and security, offered by one who lived the horror of genocide but survived to share peace and hope, and to share it with those who had not experienced genocide first-hand. This was a Christmas gift of presence – Emmanuel, God with us.

The 3 ½ hour trip back to Kigali was a quiet one, as we each reflected on the experience of the day. The reflection was broken up for a short time by a roadside tailgate picnic that Anysie had planned. We stood by the car and ate sandwiches and fruit and drank juice as the local farmer and his neighbors watched us in curiosity. Passersby stopped to observe. By the time the meal was over, about 10 people had gathered to watch us. It didn’t stop us from enjoying our picnic then sharing some of the leftovers with the observers. Everyone moved on satisfied. Within an hour darkness settled in and the driver adeptly maneuvered around the ruts and curves in a deep darkness, but above, the sky displayed millions of stars. As we drove, I listened for sounds of shepherd. It seemed there should be some near on such a night. I heard none, but I still had the powerful sense of Christ’s presence – Emmanuel.