Speaking Without Words

Another day begins in Musanze. Bird’s songs resonating amongst the trees in the cool morning air, the sun, not yet risen, illuminates the sky in deep orange light, and the town slowly awakens to the new day. Like most days we will start our day with a hearty breakfast of toast, eggs, fruit, and coffee, and end it caked in dirt, sweat, and splatters of concrete, exhausted and hungry from a long hard day -  yet satisfied with the progress we have made.

Gasebeya before

Gasebeya next day

This week we have been continuing our work in Cyanika and have made an enormous amount of progress on the project. We have all of the footers poured on each site as well as half of the columns. The work has been very difficult; however, the workers who show up each day are enthusiastic and able to get the job done on schedule. They are easily able to out-work all of us each day.

Gasebeya leader Ignas digging footer

Let’s take a look at how the site is: think for a second about trying to communicate through hand signals, and how well you think you can do that. Forget it. I came into this project thinking that I could communicate well enough through signals and have proved myself very wrong. Each time something is needed, an intricate dance filled with exacerbated flailing motions ensues, usually ending in zero understanding. It is not only on our side either. The community members will do similar routines to try and say something to us, also prompting blank stares.  Now that we have become more used to each other, the process has gotten simpler, but it is still somewhat of an art form.

Installing rebar

Foundations poured

We only have our one translator, Mezack, to bounce between the two sites and without him we would be completely lost. When he is on a site, it is very easy to get tasks done and for questions on both sides to be answered, but the second he leaves something else will come up leading to the drawn out dance of hand signals that has become so common. If this doesn’t work, and a lot of the time it doesn’t, Mezack will receive a call before he is even half way to the other site, inquiring as to what the other is saying.

Mason Bosco fitting rebar columns

I make the situation out to be horrible, however it is not all that bad, and while frustrating at times, the days still go relatively smoothly. The lack of translation also creates an interesting relationship between the community members and us. We only know a select amount of Kinyarwanda, but just enough to learn the names of the workers and say numbers as well as ‘good job’ or ‘stop’. While being with them every day, we have seen a small amount into their personalities as well and have grown fond of them. They always seem happy to see us and are excited when taking to us, even when we can’t understand it. They have learned my name, but can’t pronounce it quite right so that it comes out as ‘Marrico’. I’m sure they say the exact same things about us after we leave, especially about our pronunciation of words.

Putting up formwork

Pouring column

Being able to work alongside the community members has been a fantastic experience overall and has allowed us to really get to know people we are working with. I am excited for our friendship with them to grow over the coming week and finish up the first half of this project.

Until next time,

Michael