I was right! The bunch of little Africans sharing St. Paul with us this week are Twa people (though obviously not the ones we went to visit last week). They’ve been staying here for at least five days now and are all around five feet tall. The women wear beautiful, brightly colored cloth, and wake us up at 6 AM with their joyful humming. (Our windows don’t close here, so we can hear everything that goes on outside our door).
I was walking back from the other side of the compound yesterday when I noticed they were trying to take a group photo. I heard them mumble something, something, muzungu something, and realized that maybe they needed help taking a photo. So I walked up and offered them my assistance, and they seemed glad to have it. I took several photos of the group as well as some individual portraits. Then two of the women started pointing at me and saying muzungu again. I finally figured out that they wanted a photo of me. So I handed the camera over to some guy and before I knew it I was surrounded by a sea of indigenous Africans and being told to say cheese. I really wish I had a copy of that photo… twenty Twa people with me in the middle.
Anyway, later that night I spoke to one of the men in the group, and he told me they are here for an education seminar for the Batwa people. About half of them are from Burundi, and the others are from the south of Rwanda. The majority of them have never been to Kigali or seen so many muzungus before. They really are very nice and like to give us hugs whenever we pass.
I ran into Laura Jordan again today randomly at a craft shop. We had a really nice conversation… I expressed my disappointment in the fact that my volunteer work has not been what I expected it to be. But she confirmed that many short-term programs in Africa have the same issue… you can’t expect nine days of volunteering to make a real difference anyway. All you can do really is make connections with the people you meet, practice cross-cultural communication, and learn as much as you can about your host country.
This morning, we visited the American Embassy for a discussion with a USAID worker. It was a very interesting session… the staff worker actually said: “The current government is not receptive to criticism… you have to tread carefully.” It was refreshing to hear someone say this aloud as we’ve all known it to be true. Very few young Rwandans acknowledge this fact – or ever say anything negative about the RPF for that matter.
Tonight we are going back to the American Embassy to watch the movie “I Love You Man.” Apparently the marines are throwing this get-together and are serving popcorn!!! I’m very excited as I have watched neither a movie nor television in four weeks and am feeling seriously cinema deprived.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Nyamata Memorial
Yesterday, we had a very trying afternoon. We drove to the south to visit the Nyamata Genocide Memorial. It’s a church where 10,000 Tutsis were trapped and slaughtered. Only seven individuals survived.
Normally, I wouldn’t share something this personal or depressing with my online community of followers, but since most of you may never come to Rwanda, I think it’s important to share with you what I saw and felt in hopes that by learning from humanity’s horrific past, we may work to change humanity’s future.
The following is what I wrote in my journal upon returning from Nyamata:
They’ve collected the clothes of the victims and placed them on the wooden pews and around the alter. Piles and piles and piles of clothes collecting cobwebs in this space that was once considered holy. I lean against a brick pillar for support. Our tour guide tells us they tied the most educated Tutsis to this pillar before murdering them in front of the crowd. There are steps that lead to a small white room under the church. In the room, there is a glass case filled with the skulls and bones of countless victims. I had thought that would have been the worst of it…
Out back behind the church, there are stairs to another cellar. I walk down into cool air and am staring at a row of coffins covered in purple and white ribbon. I follow our Rwandan guide to my right (he himself is one of the survivors of this massacre) and find myself in between two long rows of towering shelves filled with human bones. All the skulls are lined up in perfect order and stare straight at me with those gaping eye sockets. It’s the teeth that get to me though… A skull might just be a skull; a symbol of death, or of human evolution. After all, I’ve been in their presence before in the catacombs of Paris. But these skulls are different – they are not blocked by glass or rope. And they did not die of natural causes. The one I look at now is maybe a foot from my face with almost a full set of teeth. These teeth look just like mine. These are the teeth the victim may have bared in a smile or perhaps in pain at the moment of his death.
I have to leave and promptly walk up the stairs and back into daylight. I sit for awhile – not knowing how or what is the appropriate thing to feel. Sadness? Anger? Despair at the utter failure of humanity? Then a Rwandan friend comes out of the hole in the ground and he is crying. These are his people – this is his country. He was a soldier in RPF when they came to liberate Rwanda. But RPF was too late to save these 10,000 victims that were killed on April 7, 1994. And so were we.
Being here is starting to wear on my mental health. I will be sad to say goodbye to the friends I have made, but am looking forward to a change of pace. I will be able to walk away from this experience a changed person, with a better idea of why we must fight for human rights and put a meaning to the term “Never Again.”
Normally, I wouldn’t share something this personal or depressing with my online community of followers, but since most of you may never come to Rwanda, I think it’s important to share with you what I saw and felt in hopes that by learning from humanity’s horrific past, we may work to change humanity’s future.
The following is what I wrote in my journal upon returning from Nyamata:
They’ve collected the clothes of the victims and placed them on the wooden pews and around the alter. Piles and piles and piles of clothes collecting cobwebs in this space that was once considered holy. I lean against a brick pillar for support. Our tour guide tells us they tied the most educated Tutsis to this pillar before murdering them in front of the crowd. There are steps that lead to a small white room under the church. In the room, there is a glass case filled with the skulls and bones of countless victims. I had thought that would have been the worst of it…
Out back behind the church, there are stairs to another cellar. I walk down into cool air and am staring at a row of coffins covered in purple and white ribbon. I follow our Rwandan guide to my right (he himself is one of the survivors of this massacre) and find myself in between two long rows of towering shelves filled with human bones. All the skulls are lined up in perfect order and stare straight at me with those gaping eye sockets. It’s the teeth that get to me though… A skull might just be a skull; a symbol of death, or of human evolution. After all, I’ve been in their presence before in the catacombs of Paris. But these skulls are different – they are not blocked by glass or rope. And they did not die of natural causes. The one I look at now is maybe a foot from my face with almost a full set of teeth. These teeth look just like mine. These are the teeth the victim may have bared in a smile or perhaps in pain at the moment of his death.
I have to leave and promptly walk up the stairs and back into daylight. I sit for awhile – not knowing how or what is the appropriate thing to feel. Sadness? Anger? Despair at the utter failure of humanity? Then a Rwandan friend comes out of the hole in the ground and he is crying. These are his people – this is his country. He was a soldier in RPF when they came to liberate Rwanda. But RPF was too late to save these 10,000 victims that were killed on April 7, 1994. And so were we.
Being here is starting to wear on my mental health. I will be sad to say goodbye to the friends I have made, but am looking forward to a change of pace. I will be able to walk away from this experience a changed person, with a better idea of why we must fight for human rights and put a meaning to the term “Never Again.”
Monday, July 13, 2009
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Gacaca short
On Saturday, our group was allowed to attend a gacaca court. I had been looking forward to this experience ever since landing in Entebbe, but to be honest, it was a bit anti-climactic. Gacaca is a traditional justice system in Rwanda where in the past, the accused and the accuser would sit on the ground together and discuss the crime committed. After the genocide in 1994, there were so many perpetrators that the jails were overflowing. So in an effort to speed up the judiciary process, gacaca courts were reestablished. Gacaca has also been said to be Rwanda’s way of dealing with injustice… some say the ICTR is a form of neocolonialism.
We didn’t sit on the grass. We sat on wooden benches in a cement floor room with Paul Kagame staring at us from his portrait behind the judges’ desk. We had translators (everything was in Kinyarwandan), but even they were confused sometimes. The man on trial was probably in his fifties and had been accused of training young men to kill Tutsis. His story was obviously bogus; he kept contradicting himself – even our Rwandan translators said they thought for sure he was guilty. We stayed for three hours, and were informed that it would probably go on for another three, so we left at the halfway mark. It would certainly have been intriguing had I understood Kinyarwandan. But nevertheless, I’m glad we got to see part of a trial.
We didn’t sit on the grass. We sat on wooden benches in a cement floor room with Paul Kagame staring at us from his portrait behind the judges’ desk. We had translators (everything was in Kinyarwandan), but even they were confused sometimes. The man on trial was probably in his fifties and had been accused of training young men to kill Tutsis. His story was obviously bogus; he kept contradicting himself – even our Rwandan translators said they thought for sure he was guilty. We stayed for three hours, and were informed that it would probably go on for another three, so we left at the halfway mark. It would certainly have been intriguing had I understood Kinyarwandan. But nevertheless, I’m glad we got to see part of a trial.
Visit to the Batwa Village
I had wanted to write more about our visit to the Twa village last week. The Rwandan government calls these people “the community of potters” (because ethnic terms have pretty much been outlawed), but they have also been called “the people who were left behind by history” and “the people who have been here from the beginning.”
The Batwa people are the descendants of pygmy tribes that used to live in the rainforests in the south of Rwanda. But when the government claimed that land for national park use, they moved north toward Kigali and have been living on the mountain where we met them for 30 years.
Getting to the village was an adventure in and of itself. We hadn’t gone too far on the main highway – maybe 20 minutes or so – when we turned off onto a dirt road. Then we spend another 20 minutes bouncing around in our little van until we decided it would just be safer (and faster) to get out and walk. The landscape was breathtaking and it was nice to have some fresh air (they’ve been burning plastic near St. Paul’s, and the fumes are not pleasant). We walked in single file along a small footpath – taking great care to watch our step as the way was rocky and several of us were wearing flip flops – until we spotted some small huts over the next ridge. I was in high spirits; it felt like quite an adventure and some people were singing songs from The Sound of Music. As we descended upon these mud and stick huts (the Twa village), we were greeted by the village chief. He was a tiny old man with a huge smile who embraced each one of us. Then some of the elder women came up to greet us, and hugs were given all around. (Note: the Twa are not nearly as short as I thought they’d be… the chief was probably around 5’2’’). We were then lead down the hillside until we ran into a small group of other Muzungus who were walking up the hill. We ended up forming a circle on the slope and listened as the leader of the group, Dr. Karl, told us about the Twa people and his work in their village.
Facts:
The child mortality rate in the village is 47%. Dr. Karl says lots of children get worms (because they don’t always wear shoes) and that they are severely malnourished/don’t get enough protein. People do raise goats, but rather than using these animals for food, they sell them for money—with this money, they can buy food for a week (sweet potatoes and cassava). The health center is only two miles away, but it takes an hour to walk there across the rough terrain. When Dr. Karl taught a class on hygiene, no one knew what soap was or how to use it. Water is so scarce that they can’t afford to bathe. It takes an average of two and a half hours to get water every day. They walk to a spring which is so weak that they can only collect it one cup at a time.
***
We didn’t take a tour of the village because a baby had died early that morning and the community was making preparations to bury the body. Dr. Karl said that if the baby’s mother could have been transported to the medical clinic, they could have saved the child; but how is a pregnant woman supposed to walk 2 miles while in labor?
Anyway, we started to head back to the bus and I saw an American participant hand a bottle of water to a child. I immediately reached for my bottle as well, but made eye contact with another US delegate (we had talked about the politics of giving earlier in the week) and decided to ask Dr. Karl if it was okay. He took the bottle out of my hands, thought for a moment, and then handed it back and said “we’d actually prefer it if you didn’t – unless you have 150 bottles to give out.” So I walked away with this full bottle of spring water, and just started crying. An immense feeling of guilt and helplessness overwhelmed me – it was so easy for our group to turn around and walk away, but the Twa were stuck there for good. We were headed back to Kigali where there were showers and bottled water and grocery stores. And then I thought about how in a couple days, I would head back to the United States where I’m even more spoiled. The contrast between my life and the lives of those in the Twa village was so evident, so absurd. It didn’t help that I couldn’t get the images of dirty, skinny children in rags out of my head.
I apologize for sharing such a depressing story – take comfort in the fact that Dr. Carl and his team are working to improve the lives of these individuals. They were recently able to provide shoes for the children in the village, and they are currently helping to build terraces on the hills which should reduce soil erosion and increase agricultural productivity.
For more information about the Batwa, visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQSGEzrO1EM&feature=PlayList&p=EE8545F0720BF74B&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=35
The Batwa people are the descendants of pygmy tribes that used to live in the rainforests in the south of Rwanda. But when the government claimed that land for national park use, they moved north toward Kigali and have been living on the mountain where we met them for 30 years.
Getting to the village was an adventure in and of itself. We hadn’t gone too far on the main highway – maybe 20 minutes or so – when we turned off onto a dirt road. Then we spend another 20 minutes bouncing around in our little van until we decided it would just be safer (and faster) to get out and walk. The landscape was breathtaking and it was nice to have some fresh air (they’ve been burning plastic near St. Paul’s, and the fumes are not pleasant). We walked in single file along a small footpath – taking great care to watch our step as the way was rocky and several of us were wearing flip flops – until we spotted some small huts over the next ridge. I was in high spirits; it felt like quite an adventure and some people were singing songs from The Sound of Music. As we descended upon these mud and stick huts (the Twa village), we were greeted by the village chief. He was a tiny old man with a huge smile who embraced each one of us. Then some of the elder women came up to greet us, and hugs were given all around. (Note: the Twa are not nearly as short as I thought they’d be… the chief was probably around 5’2’’). We were then lead down the hillside until we ran into a small group of other Muzungus who were walking up the hill. We ended up forming a circle on the slope and listened as the leader of the group, Dr. Karl, told us about the Twa people and his work in their village.
Facts:
The child mortality rate in the village is 47%. Dr. Karl says lots of children get worms (because they don’t always wear shoes) and that they are severely malnourished/don’t get enough protein. People do raise goats, but rather than using these animals for food, they sell them for money—with this money, they can buy food for a week (sweet potatoes and cassava). The health center is only two miles away, but it takes an hour to walk there across the rough terrain. When Dr. Karl taught a class on hygiene, no one knew what soap was or how to use it. Water is so scarce that they can’t afford to bathe. It takes an average of two and a half hours to get water every day. They walk to a spring which is so weak that they can only collect it one cup at a time.
***
We didn’t take a tour of the village because a baby had died early that morning and the community was making preparations to bury the body. Dr. Karl said that if the baby’s mother could have been transported to the medical clinic, they could have saved the child; but how is a pregnant woman supposed to walk 2 miles while in labor?
Anyway, we started to head back to the bus and I saw an American participant hand a bottle of water to a child. I immediately reached for my bottle as well, but made eye contact with another US delegate (we had talked about the politics of giving earlier in the week) and decided to ask Dr. Karl if it was okay. He took the bottle out of my hands, thought for a moment, and then handed it back and said “we’d actually prefer it if you didn’t – unless you have 150 bottles to give out.” So I walked away with this full bottle of spring water, and just started crying. An immense feeling of guilt and helplessness overwhelmed me – it was so easy for our group to turn around and walk away, but the Twa were stuck there for good. We were headed back to Kigali where there were showers and bottled water and grocery stores. And then I thought about how in a couple days, I would head back to the United States where I’m even more spoiled. The contrast between my life and the lives of those in the Twa village was so evident, so absurd. It didn’t help that I couldn’t get the images of dirty, skinny children in rags out of my head.
I apologize for sharing such a depressing story – take comfort in the fact that Dr. Carl and his team are working to improve the lives of these individuals. They were recently able to provide shoes for the children in the village, and they are currently helping to build terraces on the hills which should reduce soil erosion and increase agricultural productivity.
For more information about the Batwa, visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQSGEzrO1EM&feature=PlayList&p=EE8545F0720BF74B&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=35
Friday, July 10, 2009
Field Trip Day
We took a break from our volunteer placements today to go see a play on family planning (very interesting, but it was in Kinyarwandan so I missed a lot) and to visit a Batwa village (the "Twa" people are an ethnic group that make up less than 1% of Rwanda's population). The Batwa village was especially emotional - they live in abject poverty - but I will write more about it later. I must go to sleep after posting these pictures (I save my favorites online incase my computer dies or is stolen) because we leave early tomorrow morning to go see a Gacaca court (traditional court system where perpetrators of genocide are judged by their peers). And as soon as we get back from Gacaca, 
we take a bus to Lake Kivu where we will spend 
two nights.
we take a bus to Lake Kivu where we will spend 
two nights. First photo is of me on the mountain we had to climb to get to the Twa village. Second photo is of a boy at the play who was staring at Jesse's father. (Jesse is our program director and his father has a house in Rwanda and lives here part of the year). Not only was Jesse's dad a muzungu, but he's also pretty old, and to be perfectly honest, there just aren't a lot of old, white people in Africa.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
It's a small world (and other stories)
I forgot to tell this story when it happened, but I suppose better late than never! During my first week in Kigali, some of the participants and I decided to grab lunch at a place called “Simba Café.” We had just sat down and were getting ready to order when three people entered the restaurant. I noticed two of the three were also Muzungu (white folk). And as I looked closer (as I always do when I pass another Muzungu), I started to think that one of the girls looked really familiar. And then it dawned on me – the girl walking toward me was none other than Laura Jordan; the ex senior chairwoman of the Richmond Rowdies (fan club for Richmond’s sports teams). She had graduated a year above me, but I knew her because of Rowdies and because she was friends with my friend Jessica Harkness. Actually, Jessica told me Laura was in Rwanda teaching English at a Missionary School, but I had no idea she was in Kigali. (Technically, Laura’s school is just outside of Kigali). Laura and I got to chat for a bit, I met her Rwandan boyfriend, and I may go and visit her school before I leave Rwanda. But seriously, how random is that??? She could have picked any café in Kigali… it really must be a small world.
Other possibly interesting bits of info:
Apparently, I’d make a great Rwandan wife because I’m ‘quiet’ and I ‘sip my wine slowly.’ One of the Rwandan delegates told me this a couple nights ago and I didn’t know whether to be freaked out or flattered. He’s now calling me several times a day… like some people have told me before, I'm too polite for my own good...
People here are very touchy feely. Guys that are friends will hug and do the kiss the cheek thing on a daily basis. There is also a ton of hand holding. And at first I was okay with it, but the other day, I got in one of my moods (sometimes I get cranky when people try to hug me) and may have offended one of the Rwandan delegates…
I ate an entire jar of Nutella in 24 hours… yeah I’m a little bit ashamed of that. I duno how it happened really – I went to the grocery store yesterday looking for some lunch and all I could come up with was 4 cucumbers, a box of “family crackers,” and a jar of Nutella (hazelnut/chocolate spread). Not only did the Nutella run out roughly 24 hrs later, but I also ate it all without a spoon. Valerie took a picture of me holding the empty jar. Impressive or disgusting? You decide.
Two of the eleven American delegates have decided to drop out of the program early, so we’re now down to nine…
Other possibly interesting bits of info:
Apparently, I’d make a great Rwandan wife because I’m ‘quiet’ and I ‘sip my wine slowly.’ One of the Rwandan delegates told me this a couple nights ago and I didn’t know whether to be freaked out or flattered. He’s now calling me several times a day… like some people have told me before, I'm too polite for my own good...
People here are very touchy feely. Guys that are friends will hug and do the kiss the cheek thing on a daily basis. There is also a ton of hand holding. And at first I was okay with it, but the other day, I got in one of my moods (sometimes I get cranky when people try to hug me) and may have offended one of the Rwandan delegates…
I ate an entire jar of Nutella in 24 hours… yeah I’m a little bit ashamed of that. I duno how it happened really – I went to the grocery store yesterday looking for some lunch and all I could come up with was 4 cucumbers, a box of “family crackers,” and a jar of Nutella (hazelnut/chocolate spread). Not only did the Nutella run out roughly 24 hrs later, but I also ate it all without a spoon. Valerie took a picture of me holding the empty jar. Impressive or disgusting? You decide.
Two of the eleven American delegates have decided to drop out of the program early, so we’re now down to nine…
First photo is me with my Certificate of Completion for the learning workshop (remember the 1st week here was the workshop and the 2nd and 3rd weeks are volunteering). And the second photo is of Valerie doing Yoga at St. Pauls (our home)!
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