Baking Cakes in Kigali

7

ON SATURDAY MORNING Angel baked two cakes: a round one in two layers for Ken Akimoto’s dinner party that night, and a large oblong one for Dieudonné’s homecoming celebration the following day, both in plain vanilla; the remaining batter made up a batch of cupcakes. In the afternoon, when the cakes had cooled, she settled down in the peace of the empty apartment to decorate them. Pius had gone off in his smart suit to attend the funeral of a colleague—TB, everybody said, although everybody knew that TB was not what they meant—and the children were all upstairs with Safiya, putting together a large jigsaw puzzle that Safiya’s Uncle Kalif had sent her. Titi was keeping Leocadie company at the shop.
Modeste’s other girlfriend had been in labour for more than two days now, and she had still not delivered. While some were convinced that the long labour heralded a baby boy—because boys were difficult even before they came into the world—others speculated that the mother was deliberately delaying the delivery because she feared that the baby was a girl whose birth would mark the end of her hold on Modeste.
“I don’t want to be alone again, Mama-Grace,” Leocadie had said in the small, quiet voice of a child when Angel had been in the shop earlier that morning. “After … Afterwards … I was alone. Everyone was gone. Then I got Modeste and Beckham. I got a family.”
As the neighbourhood held its breath for the news, people found reason after reason to visit Leocadie’s shop for some or other forgotten purchase. For Leocadie—at times tearful, at times brave—business had never been so good.
Angel once again had free rein in decorating Ken’s cake, and she decided that she would use the same colours that she would be mixing up for Dieudonné’s cake: red, yellow and green. Of course, it was possible for so few colours to be boring, but she was going to create a design that she knew would be meaningful to Ken. When she had delivered a cake to his apartment once before, her eye had been caught by a round design on a big black-and-white poster on the wall of his living room. She had asked him about it.
“That is yin-yang,” he had explained. “It’s a Chinese symbol meaning balance.”
“It looks like two commas,” Angel had observed. “Or else two tadpoles: a black tadpole and a Mzungu tadpole.”
Ken had laughed. “Yes, I can see that. A black tadpole with a big white eye and a white tadpole with a big black eye. But it’s supposed to remind us that nothing is purely black or purely white; nothing is completely right or completely wrong, totally positive or totally negative. We need to find a balanced way of looking at every situation.”
“But why do you have a Chinese something on your wall?” Angel had asked. “Are you not a Japanese?”
“Actually I’m Japanese-American. But that symbol has become universal now. I like to sit here and look at it; it can help me to think more clearly.”
So Angel set about re-creating that same symbol now on the top of Ken’s round cake. Not in black and white, but in red and green: a green tadpole shape with a big red eye curving around a red tadpole shape with a big green eye. As she did so, she found her thoughts drifting away from Leocadie to Modeste’s other girlfriend, who was in the throes of a long and difficult labour. What was going through her mind right now? To deliver a girl would be to lose her boyfriend; yet to deliver a boy would be no guarantee that she would keep him. At the time that she conceived this baby, did she know that Modeste had another girlfriend? Did she know that that other girlfriend was already carrying Modeste’s baby? Really, it was a very difficult situation for both of these girls.
Having completed the design on the top of the cake, Angel smoothed yellow icing all the way around the sides of the cake and then, around the bottom of the cake where it sat on Ken’s large round plate, she piped alternating red and green scrolls in a similar curved tadpole shape. Standing up, she inspected the cake from the three sides of her work table that were not up against the window. Yes, it was a very fine cake indeed: a universal cake; a cake that spoke about balance.
Sitting down again, she moved Ken’s finished cake to the back of her work table and pulled Dieudonné’s cake towards her on its board. As she smoothed red icing on to one end of the cake, the quiet of the neighbourhood began to be interrupted by a shout, distant at first, then taken up and brought closer by other voices.
“Umukobwa!”
“Umukobwa!”
It was a Kinyarwanda word that Angel knew well because she had once had a conversation with Sophie and Catherine about what it meant. The word described someone’s function within the family: it said that the purpose of this person’s life was to bring in a bride-price to increase the family’s wealth. It was the word for a girl.
The door of the apartment flew open and Titi stood in the doorway, breathless and excited.
“Auntie! The baby is a girl!”
“Eh! That is good news for Leocadie!”
Then Titi ran off to share in the happiness of the news with the rest of the neighbourhood, returning briefly later on to report that Modeste and Leocadie were indeed to marry. By then, Angel had already finished decorating Dieudonné’s cake, creating the black letters down the central yellow part of the flag with strips of liquorice from the shop at the petrol station on the corner opposite the American Embassy because there had not been enough of her black Gateau Graffito pen left to do the job. She had used up the last of the red, green and yellow icing on the batch of cupcakes.
No sooner had Titi hurtled off again to spread the news of the betrothal than Dr Binaisa and his daughter Zahara came to visit, bringing with them the photographs of Zahara’s birthday party. The children were still upstairs in Amina’s apartment, so Zahara ran up to call everyone down.
Angel and Amina chatted in the kitchen as they boiled up a big pot of milk, and Dr Binaisa and Vincenzo made sure that the children did not mess cupcake or icing on to the photographs as they looked at them. Safiya was particularly excited to see the pictures, as she had missed the party by being away in Kibuye.
“Mama-Grace, this cake is so beautiful!” she declared as Angel and Amina carried trays of tea in from the kitchen. “Look, Mama!”
Amina looked over Safiya’s shoulder at the aeroplane flying above the clouds with the candles burning behind it. “Eh, Angel! That is a very fine cake! I think it’s the finest you have ever made so far.”
“Everyone at my party said they had never seen such a beautiful cake,” said Zahara. “All the mothers and fathers were asking Baba about it.”
“It’s true,” Baba-Zahara confirmed. “I felt very proud of myself that it was my idea to order such a cake.”
Angel put down the tray and gave her glasses a quick wipe on her T-shirt. “Yes, a parent has to think very carefully about what cake to order for a child’s birthday. You cannot order just any cake.”
“You’re right, Mama-Grace,” declared Dr Binaisa. “Everybody wanted to know who had made the cake and where they could find you. But do you know my colleague Professor Pillay? He teaches entrepreneurship.”
“Yes, I know him, his children school with ours.”
“Well, he brought his daughter to the party and he wanted to know about the cake and he asked if I had one of your business cards!”
Angel laughed. “My business cards? That is not something that a person needs here. Okay, big people have them. But why? Everybody already knows who they are.”
“Exactly. Here you simply ask where to find the person you want, and somebody tells you where to go. A good name shines in the dark. But Professor Pillay said no, somebody without a business card is not a professional somebody.”
Amina cut in. “That professor is wrong! Angel doesn’t have a business card but she’s a very professional somebody. Perhaps the problem lies with that professor, because he doesn’t know how to ask somebody a simple question about where to find the best cake-maker.”
All the adults laughed, and Dr Binaisa said, “When Professor Pillay’s daughter’s birthday comes and she wants a cake as nice as Zahara’s, then he’ll come to me and ask where to find you. Then I’ll ask him if he’s sure he wants to order a cake from somebody who is not professional!”
“He’ll come to Angel because she’s the best,” said Amina.
“And the day that Professor Pillay comes to me, I’ll ask him for his business card!” said Angel.
IT had been a happy day, thought Angel that night, sitting propped up with pillows, hot and unable to sleep, as Pius snored quietly beside her under a blanket. Even though watching Dr Binaisa with his daughter and Amina with hers had made her long for Vinas to be there; and even though Pius had come home from his colleague’s funeral too drained for her to tell him how sharply she had been feeling their daughter’s absence, still it had been a happy day.
She fanned her face with the copy of Oprah’s new O magazine that she had borrowed from Jenna, listening to snatches of song from Ken Akimoto’s party at the other end of the building. Tonight some wine-fuelled voices were singing their own version of “Massachusetts”—and the lights all went out in Kisangani—shouting the name of the town in DRC where war was imminent, and then laughing loudly at their own cleverness.
Ken had been very excited by the cake and had declared it Angel’s most beautiful yet. That had been very gratifying indeed. Now she thought about the meaning of the symbol on the cake and worked at applying it to the major event of the day. She would think of the good parts of the situation as belonging in the green half of the symbol, and the bad parts as belonging in the red half.
Modeste was going to marry Leocadie, and they were going to be a family with their baby, Beckham. That was green. But there was a circle of red inside the green, and that was that Leocadie already knew that Modeste was the kind of man who would have other girlfriends, and that he must give some of his small salary to help with his other baby. The other girlfriend’s situation was red: she had lost her boyfriend to another woman and would be raising her baby daughter alone. What could be in that girlfriend’s green circle? Perhaps that her situation was now clear—which it would not yet be if she had delivered a boy—and that Modeste had promised to help her financially with the child. There were not many men who could be relied on for that. If Modeste had power and satellite TV at home, programmes like The Bold and the Beautiful and Days of Our Lives would tell him about a test that could be done by a doctor to see if a man was really the father of a baby, and then if he wasn’t he could decide not to pay. But that test had not yet come to Rwanda; here a man could decide not to pay without even knowing about such a test.
Then Angel tried to think about the marriage of Modeste and Leocadie that would happen soon. That was definitely on the green part of the cake. Modeste was alone because everybody else in his family had been killed. Leocadie was also alone. Her father had been late for a number of years; her mother was in prison in Cyangugu accused of being a génocidaire, and her two brothers had fled into DRC with others who were also thought to be génocidaires. Perhaps it was even possible that members of Leocadie’s family had personally killed members of Modeste’s family; there was still so much confusion, and there were still so many accused whose cases had not yet even been scheduled for trial, that it was not yet possible to piece together the story of every individual death. So for two such people to find love together was definitely green: they were true Banyarwanda. But was the red circle inside that green the history of their families? Or was that so big that it was the entire red half of the cake? Eh! She must not think about it too much because it might give her a headache and she could not go to anyone so late at night to ask for a tablet. Perhaps Ken Akimoto’s symbol was only useful for thinking about things that were small and simple. Perhaps there were some things that were just too big and too complicated. Politics, for example. And history. Perhaps those were things that were not about balance.
She thought instead about how pleased she was that so many people had praised the aeroplane cake that she had made for Zahara. When people praised her cakes she felt very happy indeed—and very professional. She put down the magazine and eased herself down to a horizontal position, careful not to wake Pius, and tried to discern the words of the song from Ken’s party: … did you think I’d crumble; did you think I’d lay down and die?…
A short while later she recognised more words, in a man’s voice this time: … knock, knock, knocking on Heaven’s door…
Eventually she heard the sounds of Ken’s party spilling out into the street and dissolving into shouted goodbyes and the slamming of car doors.
Finally she slipped into sleep.
But not for long.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, she was dragged from her sleep by sounds of screaming and shouting in the street outside the compound. She sat up and reached for her glasses from their usual night-time spot, on the floor under the bed where she would not tread on them by mistake. Pius was already at the window, looking out from between the curtains.
The screaming outside began to be echoed from inside as the children in the next bedroom awoke in fear. Angel rushed into their room, switching on the overhead light and speaking as calmly as she could.
“It’s all right, children. That noise is all outside; there’s nothing bad in here.”
Daniel and Moses were crying; Benedict was torn between being a child and joining in, and being brave as the oldest boy. Faith was still too sleepy to react, and Grace was peeping between the curtains to see what was happening in the street. Titi sat bolt upright in her bed and stared at Angel with very big eyes.
“Auntie, has the war come again?”
“No, Titi, everything’s fine. Come, children, come away from the window. Let’s all move into the living room. Come, bring your blankets. Let’s not catch cold.”
Angel switched on the neon overhead light in the living room and ushered everyone in. Grace soothed Moses, and Titi rallied sufficiently to comfort Daniel. When Angel was sure that all of them were going to be okay, she went back into her bedroom and joined Pius at the window.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s all Kinyarwanda and French, so I can’t follow exactly,” said Pius. “It seems there’s a problem between Jeanne d’Arc and that Mzungu.”
Angel peered into the darkness. While there were some streetlights on the tarred road that went past the side of their compound, the dirt road onto which the building fronted was not lit. Angel saw that Patrice and Kalisa, the night security guards, were trying to interpose themselves between Jeanne d’Arc and a young man whose shirtless torso glowed palely in the darkness as he gesticulated wildly. Angel recognised him.
“That’s the Canadian from the top floor.”
“Who is he? Have I met him?”
“No, he’s new. I don’t know his name. He’s come for just a short time, as a Consultant.”
“It looks like he wants to hit Jeanne d’Arc. His words sound very angry.”
Angel thought about all the times that she had watched Oprah in Amina’s flat without sound. Now she read the situation outside her window in the same way.
“Look, Jeanne d’Arc is very upset. I’m sure it’s about money. Perhaps the Canadian is refusing to pay her and she’s demanding the amount that was agreed. But how will anybody hear anything if she cries like that?”
Pius opened the wardrobe and took his cell-phone out of his jacket pocket. “Should I phone the police?”
“The police? But they’ll arrest Jeanne d’Arc because she’s a prostitute!”
“No, they’ll arrest the Canadian because he’s a Mzungu! They won’t believe a foreigner over a Rwandan.”
“But they’ll have to take both of them to the police station because everybody is looking now. That Mzungu can easily pay them dollars to go free, but Jeanne d’Arc will have to pay them in another way. That will be very unfair. It’s best if Kalisa and Patrice can sort out the problem without the police.”
“You’re right.”
“I’m going to make hot milk for the children. Shall I make some for you, too?”
“Yes, thank you. Call me when it’s ready; I’ll keep an eye on things until then.”
Angel went back into the living room, where six pairs of sleepy eyes looked at her in fright and confusion.
“It’s nothing,” she assured them all. “It’s only two people having an argument and forgetting that others are trying to sleep. They’ll grow tired soon and then we can sleep again. Titi, come and help me in the kitchen. We’ll all drink some hot milk and honey and then we’ll feel much better.”
In the kitchen, Titi whispered, “It’s not the war, Auntie?”
“No, Titi, it’s not the war. We’re safe.”
Relieved, Titi filled the kettle with water and set it to boil on the oven-top while Angel spooned Nido milk powder into each mug. Then Angel opened a large plastic jar that had once held Toss washing powder, and from it scooped a teaspoon of thick, sweet honey into each mug. The honey came from the honey cooperative in the road behind La Baguette, the Belgian bakery where many Wazungu liked to sit and have tea and pastries, and where the cakes—many people had assured her—were very expensive and not nearly as nice as Angel’s. She liked going to the honey cooperative, where you could take your own container and fill it from a tap at the base of an enormous bucket of honey. Daniel and Moses particularly enjoyed working the tap and watching the thick, shiny liquid folding into the bottle. Buying from there was a way of supporting the women who farmed bees as a way of earning a living. Okay, the bees could sting those women. But still, it was safer than Jeanne d’Arc’s way of earning a living.
By the time the water had boiled and the sweet milk had been made, Pius had joined the children in the living room.
“It’s all over now,” he told them, “and the police didn’t need to be called. Everyone’s gone home. Let’s drink our milk and go back to sleep.”
But the broken night of sleep left everyone drowsy, and later that morning—much to her embarrassment—Angel found herself sitting in a pew at Saint Kizito’s suddenly aware that she had slept through most of the sermon. In the afternoon, Pius, Titi and the children all took a nap, and Angel settled herself on the sofa, with her feet up on the coffee table, to read Jenna’s O magazine. She had not got very far when Sophie came to visit. Angel made tea for them and they took it down to a shady corner of the compound’s yard where they sat on kangas spread out on the ground.
“Did you hear all the noise in the night?” asked Angel.
“No,” said Sophie. “Catherine and I slept in Byumba last night; the volunteers there were having a party. We just got back a while ago. But Linda told us about it. We met her on the stairs.”
“Eh, you’re lucky you weren’t here; you wouldn’t have slept well last night.”
Sophie laughed. “Do you think I slept well in a sleeping-bag on the floor with nine other people in the same room?”
Angel shook her head. “What did Linda say? Does she know what it was about?”
“Mm, she spoke to Dave this morning, so she got the inside story.”
“Dave is the Canadian?”
“Mm. Apparently he agreed a price with Jeanne d’Arc, and afterwards he took the money out of a box in his cupboard and counted out the money that they had agreed, and he paid her.”
“Oh, I was thinking that maybe he didn’t pay her.”
“No, he did pay her. But wait, that’s not the end of the story. Then Dave goes to the loo, and when he comes out again his cupboard is open, the box is open and all his money’s gone—and so is Jeanne d’Arc.”
“Eh? She took his money?”
“All of it—nearly two thousand dollars. So he runs to the window and sees Jeanne d’Arc coming out of the building and he shouts for Kalisa and Patrice to stop her. Then he pulls on his trousers and runs down to the street to get his money back.”
“Eh!”
“Apparently Jeanne d’Arc denied taking his money. She told the guards that the only money she had was the money he’d given her for sex. Dave threatened to call the police, but of course he would never have done that; he wouldn’t exactly have been seen in a good light himself. But anyway, she believed the threat and it frightened her, so eventually he managed to get all of his money back.”
“All of it? Including the money for the sex?”
“And some other money that was hers! And apparently he’s feeling very full of himself today, bragging about getting free sex and how a sex worker tried to … well, excuse my language, Angel, but he’s bragging that she tried to screw him and he screwed her instead. Apparently he thinks that’s hilarious.”
“Eh, this Canadian is not a nice man. How can he cheat Jeanne d’Arc like that?”
“He was stupid. He opened that box of money in front of her and she saw him putting it back in the cupboard. That was throwing temptation in her face.”
“Exactly. Okay, he doesn’t know Jeanne d’Arc. But surely he knows that somebody who is doing that job is not a rich somebody. If he was showing her a box of dollars then he was asking her to take it. Now he hasn’t even paid her for her work.”
“And it’s not like she can take him to court to get her money.”
Angel shook her head and said, “Uh-uh.” Then she took a sip of tea, swallowed it, and said, “Uh-uh-uh,” shaking her head again.
“And he thinks it’s a big laugh,” said Sophie.
“But, eh! What is he doing with two thousand dollars in his apartment? Who is he consulting for?”
“The IMF—the International Monetary Fund.”
“The IMF? He’s working for the IMF and he doesn’t want to give a poor somebody the money that he promised to give? Even after that poor somebody did what was agreed? Uh-uh-uh. He can afford to pay Jeanne d’Arc a hundred times that money and instead he’s made her an even poorer somebody while he puts all the money in his own pocket and laughs at her with his friends.”
At that point the sound of a door opening on to a balcony made them both look up at the building. The Egyptian appeared in the small space next to the enormous satellite dish that occupied most of his balcony, yawned and stretched.
Sophie spun round on the kanga so that her back was to the building and whispered, “Oh, please, please don’t let him see me!”
Taken by surprise, Angel instinctively cast her eyes downwards to avoid any interaction with the man. “What’s wrong?” she whispered to Sophie.
“Is he still there? Can you see?”
Angel made a show of glancing towards the side entrance to the yard, swinging her eyes in a casual upwards arc along the way. In the split second that her eyes took in the Egyptian’s balcony, she saw that only the satellite dish remained there.
“He’s gone back in,” she whispered, “but the door’s still open. What’s going on?”
Keeping her voice low, Sophie said, “I’m just too embarrassed to greet him. God knows how I’ll behave if I meet him on the stairs or end up at a dinner party with him.”
Angel was very confused. “Why? What has he done to you?”
“Oh, it’s an embarrassing story, Angel. Actually, I don’t know whether to laugh or be angry.”
“Then you must tell me the story,” insisted Angel. “Maybe I can help you to decide.”
Sophie smiled. “Well, yesterday morning, around noon, I was getting ready for our trip up to Byumba in the afternoon, and waiting for Catherine to come back from the Ministry, when his maid came knocking on my door.”
“Eugenia.”
“Eugenia? Oh, I didn’t know her name, but I recognised her as Omar’s maid.”
“Omar? That’s his name?”
“Mm. Anyway, she said that her boss had sent her to me … to ask for some condoms!”
“Eh? Condoms?”
“Can you believe it?”
“Eh!”
“I mean, I hardly know Omar! We’ve just greeted each other on the stairs and that’s all. If we were friends, then maybe he could ask me that, or even if maybe we’d had a discussion once and I’d told him I was teaching the girls at school about HIV and AIDS and using condoms. Maybe.”
“Eh! For a man to ask a girl for condoms is not a polite thing. Uh-uh. More especially when you’re not even his friend.”
“Mm! So I was really shocked and all sorts of things went through my head. I thought maybe he fancied me and was trying to see if I was available. Because you know, there are men who think that if a woman has condoms it means she’s available for sex with anyone.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that. One of my customers told me of a case in South Africa where a man was going to rape somebody and she was afraid of getting AIDS from him so she told him that she had AIDS and she made him wear a condom. She gave him that condom herself. Then the judge decided that that man had not raped her because she had given him that condom; it meant that she had consented.”
Sophie shook her head. “That judge could only have been a man!”
“Eh, but I’ve interrupted your story now. So what did you do?”
“Well, then I thought that maybe Omar wanted to have sex with this woman, with Eugenia, because we’ve seen him coming and going with one girlfriend after the other. So I thought he was maybe insisting on sex and she was insisting on a condom and she came to me as another woman to ask for one. So if that was the case, then I couldn’t refuse.”
“You’re right, Sophie. Under those circumstances you cannot refuse. Uh-uh.”
“Mm, and all of this happened in my head within about a second, and as soon as I’d decided that I couldn’t refuse, then I was stuck with another decision. She said Omar had sent her to ask for some condoms. Not a condom: some condoms. So how many was I expected to give?” “Eh!”
“Everybody knows that when a neighbour comes and asks you for some sugar, you give a cup of sugar. That’s the etiquette. But what’s the etiquette for condoms? How many do you give? There are no etiquette books where you can look up something like that.”
“I can see that that is a very difficult thing to decide. Obviously when somebody has asked for some, you cannot just give one. But how many is some?”
“Especially with someone like Omar. Catherine’s bedroom is directly above his and she can hear how … well, how active he is, especially at weekends. His bedroom window is always open, and I’m sure nobody does it more loudly than him. So he might have been expecting or needing a huge number. But then, he has his Land Rover sitting outside in the street and it’s nothing for him to go and buy some condoms any time. That pharmacy opposite BCDR is open 24/7. But, anyway, this was Saturday morning and loads of places were open. So I could have given him just a small number to tide him over and then he could have gone to buy more.”
“So what did you decide?”
“Well, eventually I decided to give him one of those packs of Prudence that Catherine gives out at her workshops. There’s a strip of three or four in there.”
“I’m sure that was a good decision,” assured Angel, casually glancing up at the Egyptian’s balcony again to satisfy herself that he was not standing there listening to their conversation. “But I can understand why you don’t want to greet him now.”
“Mm, what’s he going to say to me: Hello, Sophie, thanks for the condoms, I really enjoyed them?”
Angel started laughing and Sophie joined her, and soon their laughter was echoing around the compound’s yard. But it stopped suddenly when they heard the noise of a balcony door. Angel’s eyes shot upwards and, despite herself, Sophie swung her head round to look.
Titi stepped sleepily out on to the balcony of the Tungarazas’ apartment and waved and smiled.
“There you are, Auntie!”
“Hello, Titi,” called Angel. “Is everybody okay?”
“Yes, Auntie, they’re still sleeping.”
“Sawa, Titi. Please make more tea and bring it for us. Thank you.”
As Titi went back into the apartment, Angel turned to Sophie and said, “Eh, I’m glad that Titi was not the Egyptian! Even I won’t know how to greet him now.”
“At least you’ll just have to try not to laugh. I’ll be so embarrassed and I’m sure I’ll turn scarlet, then he’ll think I’m blushing because I fancy him and he’ll be convinced I’m ready for sex with him because I have condoms ready and waiting.”
Angel laughed. “I’m sorry, Sophie, I know I shouldn’t laugh, because this could be a serious something, but I can’t help it.”
“It’s okay, Angel, you’ve made me laugh about it, too.” “Then you’ve found the answer to your question!” “What question?”
“The question about whether you should laugh or be angry about this story.”
Sophie smiled. “You’re brilliant, Angel. What would I do without you to talk to?”
“Eh, you have many friends to talk to,” said Angel, “and I’m happy to be one of them. But I’m sorry to be giving you tea without cake today. I made many cupcakes yesterday but there were many visitors.”
“That’s okay, Angel. Actually, that’s what I came to talk to you about. You’ve fed me so much of your delicious cake this year, and now at last I’d like to place an order.”
“Eh, Sophie, is your birthday coming?”
“No, no. Actually, the cake I’d like to order is only part of what I’d like to ask of you. Perhaps I should tell you everything before I presume to place my order. You might not agree, and then I won’t need the cake.”
Angel looked confused. “Sophie?”
“Okay, let me put it all into context for you. All this year I’ve been trying to encourage the girls at my school to think about their futures. They don’t know how lucky they are to be attending secondary school—most girls in Rwanda never go beyond primary level.”
“Yes, and not just in Rwanda. Ask anyone you meet from any African country and they’ll tell you it can be like that at home, too.”
“Mm, a girl’s only a temporary member of the family; she’s going to grow up and marry into somebody else’s family, so educating her is seen as a waste of money. So these girls are very lucky to be getting a secondary education—especially in a school for girls only, where they aren’t going to be harassed by boys. But there are very few jobs available in Rwanda, especially for the girls who aren’t academic enough to go on to university, so I want them to think about creating jobs for themselves.”
“You mean they must become entrepreneurs?”
“Mm!”
“Do you know that professor who teaches entrepreneur-ship at KIST, Professor Pillay?”
“Mm, he’s coming to speak to the girls this week.” “Oh, here’s Titi with our tea.”
Titi was edging sideways down the steps into the yard, trying simultaneously to watch where she was putting her feet and to keep an eye on the mugs of tea that she was balancing on a tray. Sophie jumped up from the ground and went to meet her at the bottom of the stairs. Taking the tray from her, she said, “Asante, Titi. Thank you.” It was one of the few things Sophie knew how to say in Swahili.
Titi beamed at her and then went back up the stairs as Sophie carried the tray over to Angel.
“So, anyway, some of the girls have at last understood what I’m on about, and they’ve formed their own club, and to flatter me as their English teacher they’ve given it an English name. It’s called Girls Who Mean Business.”
Angel clapped her hands together. “Eh, that’s a very good name for that club! And that club is a very good idea.”
“Mm, and once every two weeks they’re going to invite someone to come and talk to them after school. Professor Pillay will be the first, and he’ll give them some background on the whole idea of entrepreneurship. Then after him they want to ask women who run their own businesses to come and tell them their own stories.”
“To give them some steps that they can follow themselves?”
“Mm, and to inspire them generally.” “That’s a very good idea.”
“So, Angel, will you come and inspire them a fortnight after the professor?”
Angel had been about to take a sip of tea. She put her mug back down on the tray and looked at Sophie. “Me?” Then she clapped her right hand over her chest and asked again, “Me?”
“Of course you, Angel! You’re a woman! You run your own successful business! You’re ideal!”
“But what would I say to them?”
“Just tell them how you started your business; maybe tell them about any mistakes you made or any important lessons you learned along the way.”
“Eh! I remember at first I didn’t know how to calculate how much I must charge for a cake. I only thought about what the customer would think was a good price to pay. I didn’t know about counting the number of eggs in a cake and calculating how much I had paid for each egg and what-what-what. It was a while before I learned how to make a profit!”
“You see? That’s exactly what the girls need to hear! And you can tell them about your successes as well, and show them your photo album of all the beautiful cakes that you’ve made.”
Angel was warming to the idea. “And I can speak to them about what it means to be a professional somebody.” “That will be wonderful, Angel.”
Then suddenly Angel stopped smiling and looked at Sophie with a disappointed expression. “But, Sophie, how will I be able to tell them anything? I don’t know Kinyarwanda! I don’t know French!”
“No problem,” assured Sophie. “Their English is okay; not great, but okay. I speak enough French to help out if there’s anything they can’t follow, and I’m sure some of them will understand if you want to use a few words of Swahili. We’ll all translate for one another and everyone will understand.”
“Are you sure it’ll work?”
“Listen, if people want to understand something, they find a way to understand it. I know those girls. I’m sure they’ll all be very interested in what you have to say.”
“Okay. And I can show them my Cake Order Form, the one you typed for me. That speaks many languages.”
“Good idea. Practical stuff is what they need, not just theory. I suspect Professor Pillay is going to be a bit too theoretical, so they’ll need loads of practical stuff after that. And that’s why I want to order a cake from you; I want them to experience your product!”
“That’s a very good idea! Of course they must taste my cake! And of course I’ll give you a very good price because you’re a volunteer.”
“Thank you, Angel. And thank you for agreeing to come and inspire the girls.”
“I’m happy that you invited me, Sophie. And I’ll be happy to meet your Girls Who Mean Business. Now, what is their cake going to look like?”
“Oh, I’ll leave that to you, Angel, I’m sure you’ll have much better ideas than me. There’s still two weeks to go, so there’s plenty of time for you to think about it. When you’ve made a decision and calculated a price, just let me know and we can fill in a Cake Order Form and I’ll give you the deposit.” Movement on the stairs into the yard caught Sophie’s attention. “Grace! Faith! Hello!”
“Hello, Auntie Sophie,” said the girls as they took turns to bend down and give her a hug.
“Grace,” said Angel, “before you sit, please run up to the apartment and bring Mama’s diary and a pen.” As Grace turned and dashed towards the stairs Angel said to Sophie, “I must write this in my diary now. Eh, imagine if I forgot to come and talk to your girls! That would not be a good example of a professional somebody!”
Sophie laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you forget. Now, Faith, would you and Grace like to come and play on my laptop upstairs for a while?”
“Ooh, Auntie, yes, please!”
“Are you sure, Sophie? They won’t be in your way?”
“Of course not. You know I love them; they remind me of my nieces back home. And Catherine’s out with her boyfriend, so they won’t be disturbing her.”
“Okay, let’s all go upstairs, then. There’s no need for Grace to come down here with my diary. Go and tell her, Faith.”
Faith shot off up the stairs as Angel and Sophie gathered their four empty mugs on to the tray, shook the red soil from the kangas that they had been sitting on, and headed back up towards Angel’s apartment.
“Eh, Sophie, by the way!” said Angel, stopping a quarter of the way up the flight of stairs. “I know another woman who runs her own business. Perhaps you can invite her to come and inspire your girls as well.”
“Great! Who is she?”
Angel paused for a moment, then looked at Sophie and said, “Jeanne d’Arc.”
The two women laughed all the way up the stairs.