We went to a church near the Milles Collines, and we walked there, as it was a pleasant day, and still early enough that we would not bake to death on our way, or be overheated once we got there – we knew there would not be air conditioning at the church. We made only one slight wrong turn, but we found a security guard who spoke French and he was able to direct us to the Eglise Saint Michel so off we went, and we made it there before the service started. Like good Anglicans, we found a great seat at the back of the church, kind of near an exit, so we could make a hasty retreat should the need arise.
At 9:00 a.m. the choir started singing. The service began about 10 minutes later, and finished at about 10:30 a.m. The service was mostly music, and actually was in English, which was lucky for Linda. There were a few unusual things about it, the most striking of which was that the collection boxes were held by children who fanned out into the aisles around the church and people had to get up to put their envelopes in the box. There were also two collections in the service.
Linda and I made a donation, but we were very short of cash. We were planning on going to a Foreign Exchange the next day. I also had a pile of change in my pockets, so we were also able to make a donation at the second collection. There were not many people of European background at the service. Children shyly stared at us.
On our stroll back to the hotel we encountered many, many people begging for money. Perhaps they were drawn to the church thinking that people would be more likely to be filled with the milk of Christian kindness after a good sermon. I gave money to a woman with a baby before we had even left the parking lot. Later on, I gave money to a man with just one leg (I don’t want to contemplate how he lost the other one) and another woman with some children. That was the end of my readily available change.
We went back to the hotel to freshen up after church and then headed over to the St. Paul to meet our friends. (I should make a brief side trip here: after we moved to the Milles Collines, we noticed that the taxi drivers who waited for fares in the Milles Collines’ parking lot were not disposed to offer reasonable fares to local places. I guess they thought if we could afford to stay at that hotel, we could afford to pay unreasonable fares. A typical negotiation went like this – Me: How much to the Centre St. Paul? Driver: Two thousand francs. Me: That’s too much. It’s less than one kilometer. Driver: Shrug Me: I’ll walk. Driver: Suit yourself. ) After a typically unsatisfactory exchange with a taxi driver, we decided to walk. It was only a fifteen minute walk, and all of it downhill when heading towards the St. Paul (walking back was uphill all the way and at a 30 degree angle). One side of the road taking us to the traffic circle where we would have to turn right to go the St. Paul had no sidewalk and one side had a sidewalk. Linda and I crossed to the sidewalk and started down the hill.
Part way down we saw three men standing in a group looking at something on the ground. As we came closer, they walked away. I couldn’t make out what they were looking at and asked Linda what it was on the ground. We thought it was garbage, and we were surprised because Saturday had just been Umuganda Day, a national day of service, which happens once a month and I was not expecting to see any garbage laying around, indeed, I had not seen any garbage laying anywhere in Rwanda up until that point. As we got closer I saw that it was not garbage on the sidewalk, but rather it was a person. I was more than a little apprehensive. Finally, we could see it was a woman. She had her back to us, and was half on the sidewalk, and half on the grass beside the sidewalk. We walked around to the front of her. I swear I thought she was dead because I could not see her chest rising and falling. I reached down and grabbed her arm and gave her a little shake. She opened her eyes and I was flooded with relief. Speaking to her in French, I asked her if she was ok, which was really a stupid thing to say, all things considered. She didn’t speak French. She didn’t speak English. My Kinyarwanda was really limited, but my lessons did give me the vocab to deal with an emergency! I asked her if she needed help. She said no. I asked if she was thirsty. She said yes. Linda gave her our water. I asked if she was hungry. She said yes. We didn’t have any Larabars on us, and practically zero money because we were headed to the Foreign Exchange. We went through our pockets and managed to come up with about 1000 francs, which was enough for her to buy some food. She was as thin as a reed, and I guess she had passed out on the sidewalk as she was walking. The men that had been standing looking at her had retreated a bit up the street and they were watching our exchange. She got up on very shaky legs and crossed the street clutching the water bottle, with our coins in her hand. Another woman, possibly a beggar, approached her and she turned away from her.
Linda and I then resumed our journey to the St. Paul
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