January 10, 2008 in Voices

Party lets refugees celebrate homeland

Sara Morehouse The Spokesman-Review
 
Photo by Felicien Rwangano, Corvallis, Oregon photo

Left to right, Yvette Ineza, Christine Mulindangwe, Cecile Mukandekwe, Cyprien Baributsa and Claudine Hategekimana. Photo by Felicien Rwangano, Corvallis, Oregon
(Full-size photo)

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It takes 150 people eight hours of eating and dancing to bring Africa to Spokane. At least that’s what a New Year’s Eve party at the New Community Church showed.

African refugees from as far away as Oregon and Idaho celebrated the coming of the new year in the style of their homeland, at the church at 1003 E. Trent Ave.

“The party was good because it was our opportunity to interact with Americans and to show Americans some of our culture,” said Nickson Hatungimana, a refugee from Burundi who has lived in the U.S. for about seven months.

Most of the refugees at the get-together were originally from Rwanda and Burundi, but some were from Tanzania and Kenya. Of the 150 partygoers, only 20 were not from Africa. A few of those were friends brought by the refugees, but most were regular attendants of New Community Church.

“It showed us how Americans are supporting us because they were there dancing with us, even though the music wasn’t in their language,” Hatungimana said. “We count them as our families since we have been here.”

Hatungimana lived in Burundi until he was 16, then spent 11 years in a refugee camp in Tanzania. Coming to the U.S. has been “challenging because of the new language and environment.”

“It is scary sometimes, but I make it anyways,” he said.

Hatungimana works at World Relief, a nonprofit organization that assists refugees coming to the U.S. More than 300 refugees have come to Spokane from Asia, the Middle East and Africa in the past year, he said, and about 50 of those are from Rwanda and Burundi.

Evariste Mulindangwe, a Rwandan who came to the U.S. because of the war and genocide in Rwanda and civil strife in surrounding countries, has lived in Spokane with his wife and four children for more than seven years.

“We are finally in a place where we are feeling really safe,” he said.

Brent Hendricks, director of refugee ministry at New Community Church, said he appreciates the emphasis that Africans put on community.

“You don’t see that very much in America,” he said. “It (the party) was a good opportunity for them to get together and experience a taste of their home again.”

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