The Artists's Workshop and The Benebikira Mission

First day –

Friday September 6: Part I

Our arrival in Kigali on Thursday evening was a familiar combination of watching the lights of the city as we landed at the airport, feeling the soft embrace of the warm evening air and waiting in lines of quiet, weary travelers to show passports and pay for visas. A Primate Bus crew competently packed our luggage and welcomed us on board for the ride to the Serena. It was a delight to register at this welcoming hotel!

The first task we took on in the morning was choosing a gift for the Benebikira Sisters from the Maranyundo Initiative on the event of the Jubilee Celebration. Kathy Kantengwa was our guide, both culturally and logistically, for this weighty assignment. We first visited a gallery near the hotel , which she knew. The baskets, art work and textiles were artfully displayed…appealing to a Western sensibility of order and worth.

But Kathy had anther suggestion. She guided us to an artist’s workshop in the city. It was the workshop for the artist ----- and the group of young artists who worked and learned the craft with him. His son is among those novice artists  and he helped us select a large painting to be featured in the STEM Center at MGS.

The studio was quite amazing. It was a place of color, symbol and the vitality that expressive artists can lend to their work…and the viewers experience. The outside walls of the courtyard became palettes of color as the artists blended shades with acrylic  paints. Another wall featured the “alphabet” of symbols used by African artists to express the cultural truths. The painting we chose featured these symbols in a softly glowing representation of textiles in gold and ochre. And we also visited a framer to choose a frame.

We chose a painting that could be featured in the STEM/library building because the school is the place that symbolizes our partnership with the Benebikiras. It is the site, the collaboration through which we have known and admired them.

We have also collected contributions to purchase beds that will be comfortable for the elderly members of the Order. Our gifts reflect the essence of the Rwandan spirit exemplified by the religious women. Grace and beauty of ideas and vision coupled with practical solutions to real world challenges.

All this writing about the Benebikira Sisters celebration made me remember what I wrote about in October, 2009 when I first traveled to Butare. We had had a lovely meeting with the Sisters about school matters, had lunch and then prepared to leave.  That was when we saw the Woman at the Steps.

 At the stone steps leading down from the street sat a woman and her two children. The sisters told us that people come to the convent right after lunch because they know that the Sisters always share the food that is left over from lunch. This woman, young and seemingly quite lame with swollen feet and ankles was holding a baby perhaps 10 months old. Sitting at her feet was a little girl, probably between 5 and 7, looking very sad, anxious, hungry. She had on one of the school uniforms, bright blue, which I had seen on the road as we came from Nyamata.

One of the Sisters came from the kitchen with a pot of rice. With a spoon, she first fed the baby. She leaned into him as he sat on his mother; she smiled as she guided the spoon. He ate eagerly. Grains of rice.  Then she asked the mother, “Why is your girl not in school.” In Kinyarwanda, mother replied that she had begun school, but the school needed a new fence and has required each family to contribute 500RF (about $1). The mother did not have the money. “We will pay the fee,” assured the sister. “We will check to make sure your girl is re-enrolled at the school. She also convinced the mother to take the children and go to the local health clinic.

The Sisters do not only feed the people, they care enough to ask the questions that seek to find out how to better their lives. They have an unwavering belief that people can be saved.  Not only will they check to make sure the child in re-enrolled in school, they typically give small jobs to the mothers. Perhaps this mother can pick beans in the convent garden, or do light chores.

The mission of the Benebikiras is to emulate a mother's love for people in obedience to the Blessed Mother. In the case of the woman and her children at the steps, they fed this family and asked those critical questions that can potentially improve lives. As Headmistress of Maranyundo, Sister Juvenal reflects this mission when she says the girls at MGS "are my children." And she sees the students as a caring community, a family, to be nurtured and educated. And these girls are being educated to Respect, take Responsibility and Leadership.  

The members of the Maranyundo Initiative are surely  thankful for the Sisters and their good works…they are helping us all by caring for so many communities in complete and utter devotion to their faith.