life & love: Beautiful Widows and Stunning Vistas

There are 700 widows involved with The River – Rwanda organization. They live all over the country and have been organized into local support groups. The River – Rwanda has helped these women find ways to provide for themselves; some women are involved in farming, some basket weaving and others jewelry making. The River -Rwanda tries to do what they can for these widows when they have money and when they don’t.

I have had the privilege of twice visiting one such support group. To get to them we must drive up a steep mountain along a dusty dirt road. We pass women carrying baskets on their heads and babies on their backs, men pushing bicycles loaded with water jugs or supplies, and children waving and shouting, ‘muzungu, muzungu!’ upon seeing me. Once the road ends, we take a dirt trail through a sea of banana trees to a small mud home on the mountainside. The view from this spot is nothing short of spectacular. But upon looking around you realize this isn’t prime real estate. There are many impoverished people living here, toiling out a basic existence. A common misconception in western nations is that people such as this don’t work hard enough or have done something wrong to land themselves in extreme poverty. But reality is exactly the opposite for most of these people.

We enter the yard of the mud home and one by one greet the widows who have gathered together. Some are wrinkled with age and likely lost their husbands and children in the genocide. Others are young with small children so perhaps their husbands have recently passed away from sickness and disease. Either way, I find them instantly charming and lovely. They are so welcoming and allow me to take photos as they work at their weaving or bead making. Jackie and James (The River – Rwanda founders) converse with these women to find out how they are doing and how we can help them. They tell us they are low on supplies for their jewelry and basket making and are also struggling to find fair trade for their creations. They are frequently forced to sell their wares locally for a dollar or two above the raw material cost because they have hungry bellies to fill and basic needs to provide.

I ask one lady to teach me. She kindly shows me step-by-step how she makes a beautiful basket from dried grass, plastic strips and thread. A large basket will take two days or more to complete. So much care and precision goes into this work and I’m certain I can’t replicate their talents.

I brought some Canada stickers with me on the second visit. The kind you get at the dollar store - a simple page of stickers. I thought the kids would enjoy them, which they did. And the women enjoyed them just as much. They wanted to put these stickers on their best blouses, their special clothes reserved for church on Sunday.

Their gift to me is a fresh papaya just cut down from a nearby tree. But they have given me much more than that. This is an experience I will never forget.

After spending a couple hours here, it’s time to return home. I don’t want to leave. I enjoy being here so much. I feel privileged to interact with these women, to watch them work. They work hard and they have a sense of humor. Even though they have many troubles in their lives, their eyes are filled with hope. They are so beautiful!

We spend some time in prayer all together and then we leave in a trail of red dust, a throng of kids chasing our truck and waving goodbye.

I spend the ride home thinking about how we can help. What can The River –Rwanda do to give these women a steady income, not a handout; to empower them, to give them the ability and opportunity to provide for themselves and their families? Thankfully, it’s not all up to us. This is God’s business and He can do infinitely more than we can think, ask or imagine!

Jackie and James