Names for Baby

I apologize for my delay in putting up another blog post. The internet has been cutting out badly these last two weeks and I’ve also been a little busier than usual. It’s finals week next week so besides writing an final exam I’ve had to finish grading my student’s quizzes and papers from last week, a total of ninety-five quizzes and one hundred and ninety homework assignments (probably less than the average TA has to deal with, but I‘ve never TA‘ed a class so I wouldn‘t know). I have an Excel spreadsheet of all my students’ grades and I decided to copy it out by hand because I wanted them to know their grades before the final and I don’t have a way to print things. Judging by my students’ reaction, this must not be common practice amongst the teachers at my school. At the end of my last lesson I took out the spreadsheet and said that I had their grades recorded there and before I could say anything else my normally well-behaved students had jumped up and swarmed me, pushing and shoving each other for a look at the paper. I told them to form a line and they obeyed for about five minutes but as soon as one student stepped forward, five others came with him and soon I was surrounded again. I finally resorted to drawing a line on the floor with chalk and instructing my students to step over it one at a time to look at the spreadsheet. Fortunately only a few of them wanted to dispute their grades or I would have had chaos again.

I never got a chance to talk about the naming ceremony I mentioned in my last post. It’s a really interesting tradition. In Rwanda, a child isn’t given a name until eight days after it’s born. On its eighth day, everyone in the family gathers together. All the children in the family (and sometimes the adults as well) come forward one at a time to suggest names which are recorded in a list. Then the mother or father chooses one name from the list. Once the name is announced, there is a brief period of drinking, dancing and jubilation, and then everyone goes home.

I expected my friend’s niece’s naming ceremony to be a casual gathering because I was invited at the last minute, but when I arrived at her house I found the entire extended family there, dressed in their Sunday finest. It felt a little like crashing someone’s Easter brunch. I sat down next to someone who I guess was a friend of the mother and attempted conversation while drinks were distributed. We waited for what must have been three hours. Finally, someone stood up and made a brief speech, and the mother emerged with the baby. A hush fell over the room as all the children there, most of them dressed to the nines, lined up single file to whisper names to the mother. Each of them gave at least two names, one Kinyarwanda, one French. Some of them gave as many as four names. Then each of the adults in the room stood up in turn and suggested names. Then the mother gave her suggestion. When the list was complete, we waited for what may have been another hour for the father to give his final decision.

We talked in hushed voices as if speaking loudly would break the father’s concentration and prolong the ceremony. Finally, the name was announced. I never heard what it was because someone immediately burst into song, and pretty soon everyone was singing and half the room had jumped up and started dancing. I tried to stay sitting but someone pushed me off the couch into the middle of the floor so I danced, singing along with everyone to the best of my ability. At some point I realized that while it wasn’t my family and I didn’t even know the names of half the people there, I felt completely at home. It was a similar to the feeling I had at my headmaster’s wedding. People wanted to make me a part of things.

Next week I will be proctoring twelve different exams, I think because a few of the other teachers won’t be in town. I’m tired from grading and a little disheartened because many of my students are not going to pass my class without some kind of miracle on the final. But then I remember things like that naming ceremony and I realize there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. Also, I saw a baby goat sneeze yesterday. How can I not love it here?