PHARP Women Rock My Socks

Sometime between October 4th and 6th
For class we visited PHARP which is a peace building program under Food for the Hungry. There was a small office in which there were sewing machines that were used by young women who sewed clothing to sell for income. Then we went to another place that did the same thing. There, we actually got to meet the young women, who were between 15 and 17, I think. All of the women had been impacted by the genocide because their families had been torn apart. They sang for us and then we sang for them. We sang the ever dreaded “Father Abraham” for them because it was requested. I felt like a white fool as my limbs twitched awkwardly. Thankfully, since we paused as a result of our forgetfulness, they started clapping so we were able to stop singing before it was over. Then we sang “Blessed Be Your Name” and forgot which verse went where, so it was rather muddled. But we able to get some harmonies in there. Since we were singing outside, we attracted quite a crowd of people from the neighborhood who stopped and stared and listened. Some children made faces at me and I made them back. Those same children tugged and gawked at my leg hair (yep, it’s been a while and I’m not sure if I should be ashamed or proud). After we sang, we attempted to speak with the young women. Unfortunately, only a few of them knew a couple words of English and only one girl in our group knows French, which is widely spoken in Rwanda as a result of the Belgian colonization. That was the very first time I felt like I really desired that I had learned French. I just remember my friend Nicole from high school learning French and me purposely read her homework with a horrible accent just so she could laugh at me. After all, I was learning Spanish, not French.
Before we left that place, Pastor Anastas, who has been our professor for this class in Rwanda, reminded us of something really good. He said that although it looks like these people are joyous and happy when they sing these songs, we still have to remember the terror they experienced and remember to help them out. They are Hutu and Tutsi who are living together and loving each other. I’d say that this is a true story of reconciliation among the peoples.