The Kanombe Pavilion

Of necessity and virtue: the story of a wood case

by Filippo Mastinu

This story begins with the making of the wood box that would be used to transport to Rwanda the model of the pavilion we were going to build there.

I enjoy talking about this box because out of all of us it is the one that travelled the most and spent the most time in Africa, always following whenever one of us had to travel.

However I’d prefer to leave Africa and our work out of the story, and talk about the African people.

We arrived in Kigali late in the afternoon. It was dark. The wood case was with us.

The project had been prepared and checked in Italy according to the idea of Africa each of us had before getting there. We had a daily work schedule and objectives to meet.

We had fifteen days to build the main structure of the pavilion, after which we would hand it over to the various groups that would replace us to complete the task.

However there is always something that can go wrong, some delay, an unexpected event.

In the morning we opened up the wood case and at last the small scale model and some Italian air came to light, mixing in with Africa. The model was intact and could be shown around to everyone.

The case had done its job.

As time passed we filled it up with papers and other pieces of scrap from the trip.

It watched us from a corner of the room.

 We presented our work to the people who were in charge of the centre that was hosting us and immediately ran into a problem: the foundations we thought we could build discrete and invisible would not be strong enough to offer the necessary support and durability. We had to try a different and more difficult approach, taking into consideration the prerequisites that any new building has to be endowed with, even in Africa.

So we made a new design with stones and mortar that would be sunk deep into the earth for ever.

The African workers got busy a few days later, after the rain had passed. They were many, perhaps fifteen counting men and women. They were all busy, the men digging the earth and organising work, and the women, young ebony caryatids, shoeless, looked like empresses without anything. We were all taken in by this way of work.

The task was tough, tiresome and slow. Every once in a while I would join them for a smoke and take a few snapshots.

Everything, without exception, was done by hand. The earth was dug up with shovels and pickaxes and then carried away, past the outline of the perimeter.

All the time we worked on the construction of the structure in the shade that was being offered by the room that acted as both our mess and office.

The case was still with us, and its lid had been converted into a workbench.

The case itself was stuffed with banana bark that would be needed in our work.

We were happy, and bathed in the sound of the chants and drum beats that usually woke us up before dawn.

The women on the construction site were no longer carrying earth: the dig was over and it was time to fill it up with small stones and with bigger stones, all of which were neatly arranged at the bottom of the trench. I checked them out all the time.

We all worked at it, Italians and Africans, and we picked up the local language, Urufungusu. Everyone laughed.

Our thoughts turned to what to pack in our wood case for the return trip. The case listened to us, indulging us.

A week passed, the laying of the foundations fell behind schedule, and so did our work in the shade.

We worked out solutions, and adjusted the design and work schedule accordingly, everything was being done but according to a different, African rhythm. The Africans were unlike us in everything, they looked a lot more relaxed.

The people working on the foundations changed often, and so did the women, maybe because there was enough work for everybody. Not a lot, but enough to go around.

They were precise in everything, stone against stone, iron and sweat.

Finally work ended, almost two weeks had gone by. We always watched them at work, charmed by their barefooted queens. I think we were also a little in love.

They still had to glean what would have happened later, we worked under the shade and kept our planning secret.

Friday came, and the drums of the nearby small church had been playing a beat for some time. The case was preparing to leave with me the next day.

The foundations were ready to welcome the pavilion, the bamboo pillars and the large covered wings.

We too were ready, with new rhythms and objectives. We had become somewhat African but happily looked back on what we managed to achieve. We were a bit worn out.

We knew how to transport anything, we had a lot of manpower, we had African ropes and Italian bolts, we were euphoric and thoughtful.

We had half a day to set everything up and anchor it to the ground and the foundations, ready to be handed over to others.

Suddenly everything changed. The pavilion had been built, the idea had taken shape and left its mark on the ground. In our eyes the foundations set by the African people were all there was to the pavilion.

The toiling of the women, the experience of the men, the reliability of their work, our project and the respect it  was met with all helped to build the pavilion.

Its value is now eternal and will travel from Rwanda to Italy just like the wood case.

What was born as a necessary alternative to our initial ideas, unforeseen and tiresome, became the meaning of everything, the virtue that will support the pavilion project and our endless love for Rwanda and its people.

All that was left to do was to raise the temporary, fragile and ephemeral structure. By nightfall we were done, there were so many of us. We all stood proud. A few workers looked at us from afar and finally I caught the secret.

The case that knew everything was ready to leave once more. It was tired, but pleased.

It knew that it would soon return with someone else, packed with ideas and materials.

Now that it had an African air to it, I was going to take it back to Italy with me.

I wished it a safe journey.