Guns, germs, and bar fights

Late on Thursday night, Kara found herself confessing that two of her teammates were at the police station while everyone else was mingling at a British High Commission cocktail party…

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Earlier that day, Andrew, Kara, and I were finishing up the geotechnical assessment at the ROP land. Although we contracted out most of the assessment through KIST, we collected some samples for simple tests that we performed in our backyard with the help of jars (to look at the sand, silt, and clay layers as the soil settled in water) and sunshine (to measure water content).

Collecting and weighing soil while innocent children play nearby.

While we worked, the usual group of small children gathered around us in fascination, and one of them in particular seemed extremely intent on going through my bag. I tried to stop her multiple times, but in the last five minutes before we left, she managed to take my wallet out of an inside pocket in my bag. When I realized this back at the house, Andrew and I hopped on motos and zoomed back to the site before darkness fell. We recruited a worker from the ROP, Alex, to join us on the quest to find my wallet. As we turned the last corner, still about a quarter mile from the site, people started tagging along—everyone had already heard all about this. By the time we reached the little girl’s house, we had accumulated a crowd of over 50 people, and it was complete chaos. The girl had given the wallet to her father, who we later found out headed straight to a bar with five of his friends and blew through all the Rwandan francs (about $100) before heading to his job as a security guard. When Alex first called him, he denied knowing anything about the wallet, but the rest of the community went up in a roar of anger and several people called him back to yell at him. I desperately wished I could understand Kinyarwanda as Andrew and I stood on the sidelines listening to the shouting. Hours later, Alex and the wife took off on motos to the husband’s work to convince him to return the wallet. Andrew and I sat outside in the dark, still surrounded by people. Another worker from the ROP showed up and called the police, and within half an hour, four giant camouflaged men with AK-47s stealthily appeared in the crowd. I was watching the road the entire time and didn’t see them approach. Meanwhile, Alex managed to get my wallet back, without the money, from the gun-toting security man who was “very, very angry”—this was before we found out that he was also drunk. Alex said he had to be “careful.” He and the wife returned just when the police truck showed up to collect us. We perched on the back and held on for dear life as the truck lunged down the dirt roads. Although we were freezing and hungry, Andrew and I still had the capacity to enjoy this exhilarating ride. We arrived at the police station and were ushered into a room with dirty walls and a single light bulb hanging from a wire. After I wrote down my statement, the police left to find the husband again.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group was at a party at the British High Commission, where at an after-party at a nearby pub two Ugandan women ended up in a hair-pulling, name-calling, table-throwing fight. Needless to say, some of our teammates retired early and everyone had many stories to tell at the end of the night.

The police managed to retrieve most of my money. We found out the next day that the man was thrown into prison until he paid off the money he spent in order to set an example for the rest of the community. The ROP director, Celestin, visited him to tell him about the school we are building for families like his who can’t currently afford to send their children to school. Today I received a call that the rest of the Rwandan francs have been paid off and went to the police station again to retrieve the money. It was a fascinating experience mostly because of the way the community handled the whole affair—they easily could have defended their neighbor and deny knowing anything, but everyone participated in helping me get all of my belongings back. This would never happen in the US.

On Friday, we said goodbye to Steve, who returned to the states despite our continuous begging for him to stay. We miss you, Steve!

Yesterday was “National Work Day,” a day dedicated to community building throughout Rwanda, which Matt will write about soon. Stay tuned! So today is our first intentional “no work day.” We are taking time to lounge, catch up on news, read, and talk to family and friends. Oh, and of course… work out!

Matt trying out the make-shift weights we found in our front yard.

-Sonya