Living Well with Our Neighbours

1Who is your neighbour?

Your neighbours are the people who live near you — the family in the next house, the ones across the path, everybody in your umudugudu. You did not choose them. You cannot send them away. And when trouble comes at two o’clock in the morning, they are the ones who are close enough to hear you shout.

2What neighbours actually do for one another

Watch one ordinary week on Uwase’s hill.

• Monday. Mama Keza has finished her salt. She borrows a little from Uwase’s mother. On Friday she brings some back.
• Tuesday. Uwase’s mother must go to Kigali for the whole day. The neighbours keep an eye on the house and on the goat.
• Wednesday. Old Nyirahabimana is sick. Two neighbours carry her to the health centre; another cooks for her children.
• Thursday. A child is lost on the path after dark. Every door opens. Every torch comes out. She is found.
• Saturday (the last one of the month). It is umuganda. Everybody comes out with a hoe. Together they repair the road, clear the drain, and build a wall for a family that has none. Nobody is paid. The village simply becomes better, and then everybody sits down and talks about what the village needs next.

Not one of those people was paid. They did it because a neighbour who helps today is a neighbour who will be helped tomorrow. That is the deal, and it is a very old one.

Your own part in it is small but real: greet them properly, answer politely when they speak to you, carry their bundle if they are old, don’t throw rubbish over their fence, don’t tease their children, and don’t make wild noise when their baby is sleeping.

3But quarrels still happen — here is how to end one

Even good neighbours quarrel. A goat eats somebody’s beans. A ball breaks a pot. Two children both want the same swing. Water splashes onto a clean floor.

1. Stop and breathe. Gatete’s legs want to run away, and his mouth wants to shout, “It wasn’t me!” He does neither. He takes one long breath and counts slowly to five. His hot head cools.
2. Go and tell the truth. He walks round to the neighbour’s gate. “Mama Ineza, I kicked my ball too hard and it broke your pot. I did it.”
3. Listen. Mama Ineza is angry. She says the pot was old and precious, and that she has told the children ten times to play further away. Gatete does not interrupt her. He lets her finish. (This is the hardest step. Do it anyway.)
4. Say sorry — a real sorry. “I am sorry. I was careless and I broke something that was yours.” He does not say “sorry, but you shouldn’t keep a pot near the hedge.” That word but would cancel the whole apology.
5. Put it right. “I will fetch your water every evening this week until you get a new pot, and I will tell my father today.” His father goes that same evening and helps buy another pot.

Now compare. If Gatete had run away, Mama Ineza would have found the ball anyway, gone to his father angry, and the two families would have stopped greeting each other. Instead, she told Gatete’s father, “Your son is honest.”

So here is the rule — five steps, and they work on your sister, your friend and your neighbour alike:

Stop. Tell the truth. Listen. Say sorry. Put it right.

And if a quarrel is too big for children — if grown-ups are shouting, or someone is being hurt — do not try to fix it alone. Fetch a trusted adult. In Rwanda, when neighbours cannot agree, respected people in the village help them settle it with words, not fists. Words are always the stronger tool.

Try it yourself

Think it through, then check.