A Very Happy Ayyám-i-Há

This year Ayyám-i-Há included an entire weekend, so we had to host a party on Saturday! (But what, you may ask, is Ayyám-i-Há?  I will answer that at the end of this post!)  For Saturday’s party, I made meatballs from a piece of meat from the leg of a cow, which I put through our meat-grinder.  I added some grated broccoli and cauliflower stems, eggs, breadcrumbs, herbs and spices to the ground meat.  I also added some olive oil to the mix, since Rwandan beef is so very lean.  I made sauce from roma tomatoes from the market, and herbs from a neighbor’s garden.  Josephine prepared a big pot of boiled green bananas (igitoki) from our back garden in a delicious sauce.  We made egg salad, rice, yoghurt, coleslaw, and a salad of fresh avocado and sliced tomatoes.  I made a pumpkin dessert using a fresh pumpkin from the market.  Since I only have one pan that is like a pie pan, I decided to make the “pie” in a large cake pan.  For a “crust” I made a mixture of oatmeal, butter, chopped walnuts, sugar and spices.  I pressed this into the bottom of the pan, then poured the double recipe of pumpkin pie filling over it and baked it for about an hour.  The end result was delicious.  There was very little food left at the end of the meal.

We had invited about twenty people who live near us, but of those, only seven came.  A group of neighborhood children had come for our Saturday children’s class, so we invited them to stay.  While Josephine and I served the food, Anne did a wonderful job of entertaining our guests.  For activities, there was “keeping balloons in the air”, story-telling (we took turns wearing the Story Beads and telling an amusing story, preferably in Kinyarwanda.), and singing.  Later, we went outside for more balloon play, dancing and “Frisbee” using a round, woven place-mat.  Everyone had a great time, and Anne declared it the best Ayyám-i-Há party we had ever had or attended.

How many balloons can we all keep in the air? (And get into a photo!) 

Josephine putting on the "Story Beads".

Dancing with Balloons.

Ayyám-i-Há, which translates as “Days of Joy”, or “Days outside of time” is a Baha’i celebration which precedes the nineteen day fast.  It is a time of celebration, gift giving, acts of charity, and social gatherings.  Another name for this period, which is four or five days long, depending on the year, is the “Intercalary Days”.  You see, the Baha’i calendar has nineteen months of nineteen days each, which gives us 361 days.  So, in most years, we need four extra days to complete a year, while in leap years we need five.  These celebratory days come just before the nineteen day month of fasting.  During that month, which began today, (March 2, 2015 in the popular Gregorian calendar, or, in the Baha’i calendar, the First of `Alá’, which means Loftiness) we abstain from food and beverage from sunrise until sunset. 

“Fasting is of two kinds - spiritual and material. The spiritual fasting comes first, and is the soul’s refusal or denial of all kinds of evil actions and habits - this is the important fasting. The bodily fasting or abstinence from food, is a sign or witness to the inward fasting, and is of no value by itself. But when both kinds of fasting go together, then the effect upon the soul is as ‘light upon light.”
— 
- Abdu’l-Bahá

The last day of the month of fasting is the day before the Spring Equinox, which for us is the first day of the year.  Since each day in the Baha’i calendar begins when the sun sets on the preceding day, the last day of the fast is followed immediately by the celebration of Naw-Rúz (translated as “New Day”: our new-year’s day). 

Our service to the people of Rwanda

One of the observations that I had shortly after arriving here is that Rwanda and her people have an evident need for the Baha’i Faith. 

Most people in the US and the EU know about the terrible days of 1994 when a million Rwandan people were killed in one hundred days.  These events were an example of inter-tribal warfare: the Hutu tribe, which was in the majority and which controlled the government, was encouraged through government run media to kill all members of the Tutsi tribe, which had been in power until they were deposed by the colonial government before Rwanda gained independence.  The current government has made unity of all Rwandans one of the central themes of the development of Rwanda.  As you may know, the unity and oneness of all of the people of the world is a central theme of the Baha’i Faith.   The name of this blog is from one of many verses that express this theme:

 “…Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust?  That no one should exalt himself over the other. …it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet, eat with the same mouth and dwell in the same land, that from your inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest.”

Baha’is in Rwanda, and all over the world, are learning specific types of actions that manifest the signs of oneness.  These actions, also referred to as “paths of service”, and “the core activities,” are taught through a curriculum which has been created, tested, and eventually published by The Ruhi Institute in Columbia:  http://www.ruhi.org   The curriculum is taught through Study Circles, where a tutor, who has been trained to facilitate the study circles, leads other participants in the study of the books of the Ruhi Institute.  It is through study circles that people learn both the spiritual principles and the practical aspects of following the other paths of service.  A letter from the Universal House of Justice, the elected body that leads the Baha’is of the world, describes these activities succinctly:

“The activities that drive this process, and in which newly found friends are invited to engage—meetings that strengthen the devotional character of the community; classes that nurture the tender hearts and minds of children; groups that channel the surging energies of junior youth; circles of study, open to all, that enable people of varied backgrounds to advance on equal footing and explore the application of the teachings to their individual and collective lives—may well need to be maintained with assistance from outside the local population for a time.”

Anne and I came to Muhanga to offer our assistance in initiating and maintaining these activities here.  Since we don’t speak Kinyarwanda, and most people here are not fluent in English, we have had much help from members of other Baha’i communities in Rwanda.  (There are several large and growing Baha’i communities in different parts of the country.)  They come to tutor study circles, and accompany people as they take their first steps along the various paths of service.  So far, we have three children’s classes, four junior youth groups, and several study circles.  We still need to encourage the establishment of some regular devotional meetings! (That will have to be my next project.)

We are at a point now where we still need tutors to come from other parts of Rwanda to lead study circles in Kinyarwanda.  It is our goal to have several residents of  Muhanga trained as tutors before we go to the United States in July.  That will help the local Baha’i community to be self-sustaining.  God willing, we will return to Rwanda in August, but we can’t be certain of anything.

A new beginning

I have decided to forgive myself for not writing here for so long.  It has been so long, and posts have been so few and far between that I have decided to call this a new beginning. 

Anne and I have been in Rwanda for about 18 month now.  We love living here in Muhanga Town.  We love the weather, we love the friendly culture and the people, and especially we love the friends that we have made here. For both of us, the main motivation for coming here is to serve.  Anne provides a special service to the people of Rwanda by training people to provide better medical care, what is called “evidence-based practice”.  The people she is training include students who are just learning to be midwives, older students who have been nurses and/or midwives for a while but want to achieve a higher level of education and skill (some of these are clinical instructors and want to be able to instruct their own students in more modern, evidence-based ways of giving care), and staff at two health centers and a hospital maternity unit.  She also has a few “twins”: people with whom she works so that when she is done here they can take her place as trainers and advocates for evidence-based practice in nursing and midwifery.  Anne’s twins include college nursing and/or midwifery instructors, hospital staff, university managers, and hospital managers. 

The service I do is to facilitate the growth of the Cause of God in our town.  As Baha’is, we are working to build community in a new way: We are introducing spiritual, service-based models of community interaction and mutual support.  This process is still at an early stage of development in most parts of the world, but we are seeing considerable advances in some communities.  Here in Muhanga, we are just getting our feet wet, taking the first steps, then seeing how things are working and how to improve, then taking a few more baby steps, etc.  Last week the local Baha’is met and created a plan for the coming year.  My role is to make friends, to encourage progress through the study circles, children’s classes, junior youth groups and devotional meeting; to act as host for gatherings in our home, and to prepare and provide food when that is needed.  My service is also to support Anne in any way that I can so that she can provide her more challenging service.

We also take breaks to enjoy this beautiful land we live in.  Last week we took a drive through the countryside, enjoying and photographing the beautiful scenery. 

Since this is a new beginning, and since I have decide that this blog does not need to be too deep and philosophical, or extremely important in any way, I have given myself permission to write about whatever I want to write, as long as I write regularly.  So, I’ll write to you next week!