The church and the gym.

Two ways I got involved this past week and hope to continue being involved!

Last Sunday, I went to church with my family.  We wandered slowly through the streets of Nyamirambo, despite already being late, and carefully dodged puddles and big rocks as we passed many people also on their way to pray.  The service was held in a big warehouse of sorts, sparingly decorated but full of incredibly joyous people.  Our program had informed us that religion is pretty big here in Rwanda and that most likely, we, as exchange students, would cross paths with religion quite often.  It made a lot of us a little nervous because religion is such a contentious topic in the US and being “too religious” is often looked down upon.  Yet, attending the Assemblies of God service with my family just reaffirmed my personal belief that religion can be a beautiful, wonderful, inspiring thing.  I give credit to my Unitarian background when I say that any church, regardless of language (i.e. God-talk, the humanist approach, reading any and all religious texts, etc.) mostly seems to be celebrating the same thing.  It’s all about coming together to give thanks for what people find valuable and holy.  It gives people hope and something good to look for in the world.  Who can argue with that?

Mostly there was a lot of singing—mainly in Kinyarwanda but some were in Swahili, I think.  The pastor gave the sermon completely in Kinyarwanda, so I couldn’t gain much from that; however, a group of school boys sitting near me offered their children’s Bible, written in English, so I could at least read some holy text in spite of not understanding the preacher’s verbal holiness.  It was a great place to meet people, though—it gives them a connection to you rather than just seeing you as “muzungu” (white person).

The gym, heh, well.  It was an experience.  Ariane and I entered a large room, the air literally drenching us with humid heat, to see two circles of people jumping up and down to blasting, poppy music.  They were yelling and singing, running in place all as one, with an instructor in the center yelling out encouragements.  The running-in-place activity seemed to be the warm up because after awhile, we switched to aerobics, stretching, and yoga.  Clearly a muzungu had never set foot in that place before because I got sooo many stares and hearty “Welcomes!”  Behind the big room, they also had some pretty well-worn exercise equipment.  I’m now a member so I hope to go more often!