So today, the Eleanor Roosevelt Family traveled to Rugalika in Kamonyi District, to the site of Jeannette's burial. (The girls have been raising money for a gravesite improvement all term.) We were planning on contracting with local laborers, which turned out to be Jeannette's uncle. A couple weeks ago, there was a pretty tense scene when I was supposed to negotiate labor costs with the bereaved family and maybe didn't drive a hard enough bargain, but in the end it all worked out okay.
Today we got up early and headed to Rugalika. It was a couple hour ride over some pretty rough roads and we were pretty cramped in the van:
1/5th of me, Happiness and Jeanette. Grace and Yvonne are practicing the song in the back row.
For various reasons (some Rwandan and some universal), we arrived about one hour late. For me it was a hard day, but ultimately it was a success. I was very nervous about all the details. Death rituals are cultural and leaving so much up to an outsider made me feel we might leave out something essential or inadvertently offend someone. Jeannette was in the ASYV family for 4 months, and in her biological family for 15 years, so showing up and taking over felt stiff and forced.
Going over those 'roads' in the van makes me think about how terrible her last hours must have been. So sick. Vomiting and septic. Her guardians realizing in a panic way too late just how sick she was. Struggling to get off that steep hill and get to a 'health clinic' that couldn't do a thing for her anyway. It just rips me up.
The girls had prepared a whole ceremony with an MC, prayers, songs, poems and speeches. They all cried their little eyes out and hearing 15 girls sing through tears is heart wrenching and must be some special Priority Mail® type of prayer.
The Agahozo Shalom Youth Village Founder, Anne Heyman, was expected to attend, but fell ill this morning and sent her apologies. In her absence, Jeannette's family decided to lavish undeserved praise on the only white person within 30 kilometers, yours truly. The entire ceremony and speeches were all in Kinyarwanda and while I was able to follow the general tone of course, I had no idea what was going on. You can hardly imagine my surprise when Jeannette's Aunt, a catholic nun, whipped out some perfumed oil, lunged across the room and started washing my feet. Jiminy fing Cricket!!! My face contorted into a wildly inappropriate tight smile that is my 'go-to' a lot these days when wanting to run and scream but not appear socially insensitive. My mind was racing. I wanted to strongly reject the Christ imagery and the notion that I was deserving or superior. But I didn't feel I could communicate in delicate way that I was rejecting the overture because I felt it was unnecessary and not because I was rejecting the Aunt.
In the end, maybe just due to he path of least resistance, I just went along with it and the ceremony moved on to the next agenda item before I had fully wrestled with what this meant, what it implied and how I should react.
I was later called on to speak and it was difficult. I was struggling a bit, and then in some way that I am culturally blind to, it 'became time' to serve the Fanta, so while I was talking about Jeannette and the ongoing impact she'll have on me and girls in Eleanor Roosevelt, someone was walking around with an opener and a crate asking "Orange, Citron or Coca?" and that somehow made it all so much easier. This is sad, and grief is grief, but there is Fanta to be had so we will have it now thank you. Life goes on.
In the end, as sad as the girls seemed, it is probably healthy for them to have some ceremony to commemorate Jeannette's death and to be able to participate. Hopefully this was a purposeful step in the grieving process.
Here's the Before:
And a few of the After:
The new gravesite is finished in concrete that will hold up much better in the Rwandan rainy seasons.
The large cement cross has a space for a photo you might recognize:
The ride home was long and hot and cramped and the girls were tired. I was tired. I am tired. I am going to bed.
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