Our house guard's name is Racondo. Don't ask me if that's the official spelling - it's phoenetic. He speaks Kinyarwandan and a smattering of French and English words, which can be helpful somedays because, well, none of us in the house speak a drop of Kinyarwandan.
Racondo is a super sweet guy, though. You can just tell. When Denise and I were checking out the house before we moved in, I caught him picking dandylions from the backyard and twirling them around. Now, he's just very nice, rather quiet, and basically our live-in helper. Though it's a bit peculiar to know the guard who protects your stuff sleeps in the back sometimes at night, and sometimes in the day, and his radio is blasting at all times, so you know when he's awake. He sings really high, so he kind of sounds like a male soprano, or Christoph Willem.
Somedays we play a game when I point to something and say English/French words to see if he'll tell me the word in Kinyarwandan, and he's usually pretty good at figuring out what I'm trying to ask. Or rather, what any of us asks. When we were going between a number of maids for a time, he was happy to help us clean our laundry and dishes for us while we were out. I suspect he was scared because he noticed a revolving door of maids, and he wasn't sure he was going to make it through with us, either. He scrubbed the living daylights out of some of my clothes, to the point where they're a bit faded. But, I really appreciate the effort. One night, we saw him scrubbing his life into our clothing, for hours. But he's always smiling and looking a bit shy or timid, tucking himself away into our front lawn.
He helps us run errands sometimes, too. I'll point at a soda (the tonic called Krest here is fantastic), and I'll grunt to him, shove some money in his hands, smile, and wave. Five minutes later, he creeps in with my tonic. If I'm in the middle of a cooking spree on the weekends, I'll also send him to fetch eggs for me (amagi) so I don't waste time.
Today, Denise and I are preparing for a group of friends and colleagues to come over for a St.Patty's Day dinner. And she needed a dozen eggs. I don't know the word "12" or "dozen" in Kinyarwanda, but I decided I'd try math on him. I came over to him, slurred "Amagi?" and he nodded knowingly. Then, I started signing numbers. 5-5-2. 1-2. 5-5-2. 1-2. His eyebrows furled, and a slow nod finally came from him, as I knowingly puy way too much money into his hands.
I went off to do a few things, and he was taking a little longer than usual. But I hear him walking into the house, and my jaw dropped. He came in with a bucket load of eggs! Dozens of eggs! He had a look on his face that implied, "I don't think I got this one right..." Oh no, I thought, I hope I didn't pay for these all. I started to chuckle, then laugh, and he started to laugh. And Denise came in, and started laughing. It was a pretty comedic scene in our living room. A man with a bucket of eggs, and us just gawking at the volume. It finally came to our understanding that he could bring the remaining eggs back, and we could choose the eggs we'd want to use. So we pulled out 12, he brought back the buckets, and returned the balance to the funds.
Sometimes, it really is a Lost in Translation scene. It's like a hit or miss with Racondo, he even is super smart and figures it out, or we all mess up and something funny happens.
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