Gabriella Oakley

The trustees are taking a well-earned coffee break.  It is a glorious sunny Sunday, but they have turned collective heart and mind away from the beach and towards Rwanda.  We have spent the last hours in a deliberately darkened room, doing our strategic plan.

Now V, L, L and A have shed their serious skins and become temporary lizards on the balcony, soaking in the urban rays.  Debate and discussion have become conversation and chat.

We are talking about names: our names, surnames, married names, children’s names.  About when we get to choose our names and when they are chosen for us.

V chose her child’s name.  This is not traditional in Rwanda.  “We usually let the village children choose the name for a new baby,” she explains.  The baby has no name for three weeks, and then all the children gather and decide together what to call their new friend.

As V says, “It is the children who will play with the new baby, and later go to school with him, so it has to be a name that they like.  Otherwise the little one might get teased.”

I think of my own school days and wonder if this custom could have saved a few unnecessary tears over “umbrella”.

But naming customs are changing, V says.

“In Rwanda our surnames are not so fixed,” she explains.  “So, nowadays, many people living in exile choose a name that strongly identifies with their clan.  Before, they would probably have just chosen the name of their village.”

Those who fled to neighbouring countries during the genocide often took a new surname from their new home, she continues.  “It could help them to blend in.”

The conversation lulls comfortably in the sun.  It is marathon day in Brighton and from our 5th floor balcony we can see the route snake its way around the streets.  Then we push the sun and chat firmly away, and return to our darkened planning.

But I am still thinking about names as I walk home.  Names as markers of our journey, names staking out the route we have taken.  Of things we have chosen and things we cannot choose.

I meet the last marathon stragglers.  A starfish and a SpongeBob walk the final stretch.

Yesterday:

I was enjoying having the office to myself when V came rushing in.  Unexpectedly.

“Sorry, but I need some purple earrings,” she said, and rummaged on the shelves.  She pulled out two small woven balls of bright colour.

They bob and dance around her face as she dumps her bags and starts opening and emptying boxes all over the floor.  ”I’ve been shopping,” she announces.  ”I don’t usually go shopping but I was so depressed.”  She pulls out new leather shoes.  Purple.  They slip perfectly onto her feet.  A sheer scarf is flung round her neck.  Purple.

Today is the commemoration of the start of the genocide in Rwanda.  V is going to a ceremony in London and everyone has to wear something purple.  ”It is a symbol of remembrance,” she says.

I think of the woman in Rwanda who made the purple earrings, and I wonder what went through her mind when she chose the colour.  ”For people in Rwanda,” says V, “the genocide is not just about history.  It is a fact of their daily lives.”

V rushes out to catch the train on time.  She is a whirl of bags and papers.  She is going to be late.  ”I will be late but at least I will look good,”  she laughs.  I tell her she will look gorgeous, which is the best way to be late.

Today:

I’m writing letters to trusts to raise funds for the projects in Rwanda.  My head heavy with figures,  I start to daydream and my eyes glance sleepily around the room. On the floor under the computer is the box from V’s new shoes.  The model is called “poets heart – purple.”

I think of the ceremony yesterday.  How many purple shoes, scarves, earrings, flowers were there?

How many purple hearts?

V is giving tasks to the volunteers.  “Today we have to name the elephants, ” she says.

M looks at the shelves, where 20 cloth elephants, 3 giraffes and a rhinoceros sit waiting.  V passes me a small purple elephant with white stitching.  “Usually we use Rwandan names, but this one looks like Sunshine to me.”

Sunshine looks at me with endearing embroidery.  I don`t know much about elephants, but this one is definately a girl.

The animals are made by the women`s collective in Rwanda and sold in the UK on Shop4Rwanda.  V says that they sell better if they have a name.  “It is about the story of the object,” she says.  “People don`t just want to buy things.  They want to fill their home with stories.  Every object has a story.”

She passes me a woven fruit bowl, bright with geometric design.  “For example, this is made from a sweet grass that only grows in Rwanda.  Traditionally, people lay the grass in their houses to keep the flies away and make the home smell nice.”

I think of Sunshine`s story.  An empty piece of cloth in Rwanda, formed by a woman`s hands and skill.  Eyes and smile sewn on slightly wonky, perhaps last minute just before she is packed up and sent across the seas to Brighton, where she is first named.  Soon she will be sold, her story in exchange for a home.  And the money that changes hands here will journey back to Rwanda, to the hands of the woman, who will buy food for her children.

We break for lunch.  V has brought a typical Rwandan dish to share.  Rice with cabbage and fish.  It is delicious.  We agree that cabbage can be so much more than boiled and soggy.   ”When we were starting the project 10 years ago, we raised all the money by cooking and selling this dish,” she says.  “Lucky that A and me know how to cook!”  The lunch works its magic again, and soon names are flying around and landing on elephants.

There is a buzz in the office today.  R, who knows how to make and sell clothes, is planning his trip to Rwanda to lend a hand to the women`s collective.  He knows how to cycle too, and will do a sponsored bike ride to pay for his ticket.  A photographer has come to take the animals to the studio.

Sunshine and her friends are ready to tell their stories.

V and I have a confession to make.  We have not been doing the strategic planning. We have been eating chocolate and chatting….

V and I are both mothers, and it only took a few minutes before our little ones managed to crawl into the strategic plan.  We agree we love them dearly, even if they drive us crazy sometimes.

V shows me the baby-carriers made by women at the project in Kigali.  Bold patterns sweep across the material, strong arms keeping the baby close.  They are made to sell in Europe so are for carrying the baby on your front.  In Rwanda the baby goes on your back.

“It is something we carry in our DNA,” says V.  ”I was carried by my mother so my body just knows how to do it.  It would never occur to me that my baby could fall off.”

“In Rwanda,” she says,  ”everyone starts their life being carried.”  Umugongo: mother´s back.  The street children who go to the rYico project have named it Umugongo House.

Mothers, we both agree, can sometimes find themselves doing strange things.  It is a thought that comes back to me later as I find myself unable to sleep and for some reason driven to chop vegetables and tidy the house at 3 am.  Whilst the rest of Brighton sleeps, I slice carrots and wonder how many other mothers are stirring the midnight soup.

I decide it is time to tidy out my bag.  Amongst the old till receipts and “special stones” that I have to collect for my son every time we go to the beach, I pull out something unexpected.

It is a necklace of wooden beads.  Some are plain, some red, some blue, some stripy. The blue ones are babies.  Little blue babies with carved faces.  They are beautiful.  V gave them to me last week in the office and they have been in my bag every since. Without realising it, I have been carrying babies on my back.

The necklace is for birth control.  With a bead for each day, women can count round their month and the little blue babies tell them when they need to be careful.

As V says, “For every 100 children we take off the streets, there are 100 more who end up there.”

The necklaces are made by women at the project and have been a great success.  I tell V I think we should sell them here as well as the baby carriers.  A colorful and vivid tool to help with strategic family planning.

V handed me a tiny woven pot, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand.  It was white with a red zig-zag slashed across it.  She opened the lid and I peered inside.  It was empty.

“In Rwanda” she said, “this is a friendship pot.  When you have a secret you need to share with someone, you put the secret in the pot and your friend will keep it safe for you.

“In Rwanda” she said, “no one will ever open a pot like this.  Your secret will be safe forever.”  I imagine secrets in little pots stashed away in corners, behind doors, or displayed in full view on a table.  All safe in their little pots.

I think I might have to get myself a couple of pots.  And, come to think of it, I can think of no better birthday or Christmas present for quite a few people I know…

“The zig-zag,” she continued, “is to show that the path of friendship is not straight.”  Not straight, perhaps, but continuous.  Held strong by shared secrets.

V handed me another little pot.  This one was woven in rings stacked up on top of each other.  Each was a different, strong color.  Red, green, yellow, black, pink.  ”This pot is to remind us that we choose the color in which we see the world,” she said. “In Rwanda, we put these pots where everyone can see them.  That way we are always reminded that it is our choice what kind of mood we are  in.”

I look out of the window, down the streets of Brighton and out over the sea.  Today is definitely a yellow day with perhaps a touch of blue.  It´s a beautiful spring morning and the seagulls are out.

It´s also my first morning in the office at rYico, the Rwandan Youth Information Community Organisation.  V was showing me the handicrafts made by the women´s project at the rYico centre in Rwanda.  All the mood pots were different colors.  Each woman chooses her own design, mixing her favorite colors.  ”They just go crazy with color,” said V.

Crazy with color…  it has such a nice ring to it.  I am going to get myself a mood pot for rainy, grey days so I can see them “crazy with color.”

Hi there,
I’m really excited to be taking part in Vodafone’s World of Difference programme and looking forward to sharing my stories. Check back soon to see what I’ve been up to in my first weeks.