Imigongo Workshop

Having been working fairly intensively over the last couple of weeks it was a refreshing change when 8 of us headed down to a district right on the Tanzanian border to take part in an imigongo workshop.

Imigongo is the art of cow dung painting which stems back to when people were too poor to decorate their houses so discovered the idea of using the natural materials they had available and started to use the cow dung to create decorative patterns in their homes. Then using the colours, red from the clay soil, white from kaolin and black made from the sap of the aloe plant mixed with the ash from banana peelings they started to create a series of geometric and concentric patterns which now form the traditional imigongo art.

As you can see from the photograph this particular co-operative was formed after the genocide by a group of widows who wanted to preserve the dying art and this is now developing into an international export.

One of the volunteers who has been living and working in the district for some time now has become very involved with the co-operative and it was through him that we were able to organize the workshop.

We were to be a trial group to see how practical running a workshop of this kind, over a two day period, would be. We caused great joy to the bus company we were travelling with, as 6 muzungos got on their bus at the bus station in Kigali while they ran around the other bus companies ( of which there are many) as if they had won the cup final! And so we arrived in Nyakarambi, to get shown the co-operative where the women worked along with some of their spectacular art which was on display and available for sale. They were keen to demonstrate to us that they were now experimenting with some more modern pieces of art and moving away from the traditional work and no longer sticking to only three colours. The women were also very happy as they had just received a large order for 14 large pictures from Japan.

Step one was to think about the design we were hoping to create and we had the option of drawing out a template or just going straight to the cow dung and piece of ply-board we were to construct on. I have to say it didn’t smell too much and had the consistency of play dough although it was noticeable that some batches were of a more crumbly texture that others and we all found it incredibly difficult to get the straight or curving lines to look as delicate as those of the professionals. However by the end of the morning we had all created our initial basic stage masterpieces, a mixture of modern and traditional, ready to dry out in the sun.

After a leisurely walk into town for the usual mélange lunch, we got back to discover our pictures were not yet dry enough for the next stage so we were allowed to design another one. We all found it very therapeutic sitting crouched over our work benches for so many hours with our boards and lump of dung and it was amazing to see the intensity of concentration as we painstakingly tried to keep all our ridges straight and smooth so it was with some relief at 5 o’clock when we packed up for the day and returned to the volunteer’s home for a bit of a party. Some of the ladies from the cooperative joined us for an Indian meal, made by a Pakistani friend and we ended up having a cultural exchange of Rwandan, Pakistani and British dancing and singing (can you believe we taught them the Hokey Cokey!!!)

Charged by our evening of revelry, we returned to the cooperative the next day to discover that our designs were still not sufficiently dry to move on to the next stage, mainly because we had all been too heavy handed with our cow dung. Instead the morning was spent willing our pictures to dry out, to allow us to sand them down and attempt to smooth out all the wrinkles before the painting process could begin. Fortunately some of the children from round about who were obviously fascinated by all these white people huddled together decided to come and entertain us with some songs. It was also lovely to watch some of the women’s children doing their own imigongo. We were also able to watch some of the women who were decorating the traditional style round house with thatched roof with some imigongo art work.

Finally after much airing and re- positioning to follow the sun, we were able to start sanding and apply the first coat of undercoat, which again had to dry before applying a second coat. We were then faced with the important decisions about top coat colours, which also had to be applied in two coats. It was then we realized we were going to run out of time and daylight to complete our pictures with the care and attention that they deserved, particularly as the final process is to define all the ridges with a very fine black line. The suggestion that we took them home and finished them off with a black felt tip pen was greeted with distain.

One of my masterpieces which I named “Land of a thousand hills” or “Mountains of Scotland” looked as if an earth tremor had hit it and it was ready to disintegrate so for the cost of buying an authentic piece of imigongo art for a mere £5 - if I bring my pieces home and put them on display – will you be able to tell if they are made by my own fair hands or not?