The Story of a Former Sex Worker...and an Apology for Feeding the Stereotype

 Today, I interviewed a woman who had previously been a prostitute. She has HIV, 4 children, and a fifth who died this past April.

An Australian couple that I met through one of my former housemates, had mentioned this woman at dinner one evening soon after I  arrived in Rwanda. They told me they were supporting a woman who had been a prostitute, but then became a Christian and stopped. But she has 4 children and no way to support herself. Today she explained to me that she has HIV, and had been washing clothes for about 500Rwf (less than US $1)--hardly enough to support her family, when she quit prostituting. But she has been too weak, despite being on medications, to continue this work.

The couple explained to me the precariousness of the situation. They said it was against everything they stood for because they wanted to help but they didn't want to create a state of dependence that could just make things worse. But they said they weighed the options and realized that if this woman didn't have their support, she literally wouldn't be able to feed her family. And if--or frankly, when--she dies, there will be four children who will have nothing, no one. So what could they do? The husband told me that when it comes down to it, if someone is knocking at their gate--as too often happens--and they're hungry, he can't possibly turn them away. He hopes that if they come back, that he and his wife can start to get to know them, know about their family and their background. You should teach a man to fish, yes--but what if you just can't? What if you just don't have the time to teach everyone to fish? And you're just one person? What is the right thing to do? What is the wrong thing to do?

Our fates are intricately and inevitably entwined with one another.

Every day that you walk in the streets of the city, you're pretty much guaranteed to be asked for money or food from someone. I suppose most cities are like that. One of my favorite quotes is from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet: "

     You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving."
     The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
     They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
     Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights is worthy of all else from you.
     And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life 
     deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
     And what desert greater shall there be than that which lies
     in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?
     And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride,
     that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?
     See first that you, yourself, deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.
     For in truth, it is life that gives unto life--
     while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

Of course, the world of development and foreign aid is learning that just giving isn't enough. Sometimes what you "give" makes things worse. So maybe the lesson here is just that we should not ask ourselves whether to give, but how to give. But regardless, give. Yet be critical in how we do so.

One of my Rwandan friends told me that it wears on him just as much as it wears on foreigners to hear people ask him for money. He said he never turns away a woman. He asks for their story, and he just can't ever turn them down. Maybe it makes him a "softy" but he just can't do it.

Maybe it does make him a softy. And maybe it's ok to look upon the world with soft eyes. Maybe that's what we need.


....Well, I'm afraid I've done it again--yet another story about the plight of the poor in Africa. Stereotypical. I know. I hate it. I really do. I want to give you more of what I see here than just the sob stories, and yet that seems to be all I'm giving you. I come here and I'm filming and I'm leaving with stories about genocide and about an impoverished woman who felt she had no other option than prostitution. I wanted so desperately to be able to come back with something refreshing, something new--a story you haven't heard before, a story that really, really begins to re-humanize our fellow human beings in this tiny little country on this not-so-distant continent.

But I'm afraid that it seems the stereotypical stories are the ones that catch my eye the most. Or maybe they're just the easiest ones to tell because they only scratch the surface. Plus, the other stuff just seems so "regular", so commonplace to me and to you that it seems boring to put down in words on a screen for you to read. I'm afraid I'm not gifted with making the every-day sound interesting.

So maybe that's why they're so "stereotypical" and not quite good enough, in my opinion. But here's the thing: even though these stories are stereotypical, they're not un-real. Maybe the genocide stories have been told before, but these are still real people dealing with its repercussions. And if I don't communicate their whole lives well enough, then it's me, not them. Know that these are people who farm and people who cook and people who fall in love and are prone to hate and who sing in church and dance in clubs.

It's too easy to see people as victims when we hear that some terrible fate has befallen them. I'm just as guilty--I catch myself doing it more often than I'd like to admit, and perpetuating these attitudes when I'm in a position to change them.

Last summer I remember talking to Lindsey and just reveling in how resilient the little girls were where we were volunteering at Hekima Place, the home for girls who had been orphaned by AIDS (my blog from last summer). It wasn't that they weren't affected or that they weren't struggling--they were, but they still weren't defined by this one (or several) thing(s).

I showed my and Lindsey's film about two of the girls (The Story of Beth and Mercy) to a friend here and was talking to him about it, and he said that he thinks it's just that people here don't expect a perfect life. They don't take it for granted that they'll have two healthy parents with them their whole lives or that they'll get everything they want out of life.

But isn't that life for us all? None of us get it all. It's funny because living in the US we seem to have so much more than other people, and yet we don't seem any happier for it. How is that?  Don't get me wrong--I don't think that just because Americans have more money that they should be happier--money won't make you happy. And having money can't protect you from the pains of life and human interactions. But all of us, the world over, would be a lot better off if we could just begin to appreciate what we do have and just "be gracious."

So maybe that's my "rant". But I've had way too many conversations here--or maybe just enough--about how Africans are portrayed in the media--the only looking glass into Africa that most of us in the Western world have. We only see the bad stuff. It sort of makes sense, though--we only have so much time to take in so much information about the world around us, and so we only make time for certain things. It's a circumstance of time, perhaps. There's Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel-Palestine in the Middle East; there's European Union and finance and politics business from Europe; there's human rights abuses and economics from China; and there's war, poverty, and disease from Africa. It's worthy news. It is. But there's a point where all of our news-reporting just becomes mind-numbing, and numbs us to the people we're hearing about. It's a stagnant pool of information. We see victims, we see people who need "saved" and we are quick to cry or to rush out and "help" however we can. It's admirable, I think. Compassion is always admirable.

But I had to laugh when I was standing around listening to a Rwandan man talk about a man he met with a black t-shirt on with the silhouette of an African child crying printed on the front. This man in frot of him was there to "save the African children". The Rwandan man telling the story said he thought to himself, "You have your own children to save. Why don't you go save them?" It was just funny to him, to see this man, so sure of himself, so proud that he was here to "save". But what did this man know of these children? What did this man know of the people he was seeing?

Yes, deep down, we're all human, and we're all caught up in each other's lives. But that doesn't mean we are all the same, or that we should be. There's not one way to be, one moral life to live, one path to being "saved". And there is a difference between compassion and pity.

This was just another funny story told in a gathering among friends. And I hear this attitude all over. And really, it's not that people don't recognize that there are problems in their country and that they could benefit from outside support, but it's the attitude that people come here with. Too many people are more concerned with being the savior than with really helping. I think if I've learned anything, it's that part of helping means admitting you don't know how to help and just sitting down to listen. It also means admitting you make mistakes. A lot of them. A whole, whole lot of them. It's expected, because it is different here.

All I ask is that you remember that there's more than meets the eye--or the ear.

Sex workers and Sugar Mamas

In Rwanda, sex work is legal. There are, of course, a lot of risks--from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (sex without condoms is common, and even pays more at times), to unwanted pregnancy (other forms of birth control are also not always used--for financial reasons as well as social reasons), and violence. But for some women, it's their only option. Some of the women FHI works with start while they're still in secondary school just to pay school fees.

FHI, the organization with which I have been interning this summer, has begun targeting sex work with its Regional Outreach to Address Development Strategies for HIV/AIDS (ROADS) project. They have set up Safe-T-Stops all over East Africa at popular trucking stops to distribute condoms, educate truckers and sex workers about HIV/AIDS and other STIs (some of which can make you more vulnerable to contracting HIV), and, quite simply, to give truckers something else to do in the evenings--like play pool or watch TV. 

A trucking job is a great job to get--it pays about 3x more than the average Rwandan wage. But as a result of the job, these men only spend an average of about 50 days at home per year. And, on top of that, they've got a little extra cash. And the sex workers come to them. It's a choice, yes, but let's be frank-- it's a choice complicated by circumstance and biology. 

FHI has organized groups in various districts around the country to mobilize communities against HIV. They have "clusters" for low-income women--some of whom are former sex workers, some of whom are economically vulnerable and thus prone to engage in sex work, and some of whom are wives of truckers. They've also now begun training current sex workers to be peer educators about HIV, condom use, and other matters of reproductive health, so that they can reach out to their fellow sex workers. Most commercial sex workers are not open about their livelihoods, so peer-to-peer communication is really the only way to reach them.

Truckers aren't the only clients, though. A great deal of the transactions actually happen in hotels, where a sex worker is just a phone call away. Wealthy men and foreigners are the ones who are the clients there. And driving around the city at night, I see women lingering on the corner who are, undoubtedly, looking for their next client. 

So what's the solution? I think the best we can do is try to make it so that a woman doesn't have to engage in sex work to feed her family; that if a woman thinks it's wrong, then she should have other options; and if she does do it, that she's safe. 

Rwanda actually seems to be really targeting women's rights issues. Sex work isn't the only issue where gender and economic inequalities cause problems. All over the country I see billboards like this one:

and this one

discouraging sugar daddies and sugar mamas. I'll admit, the idea of a sugar mama was unheard of to me--but my friend explained that a lot of women lost their husbands in the war and the genocide. And the way to gain respect in the village is to give birth to children, plus they have land that they need to pass on to their children and need children to help run. So they need to have babies. But they are older and not as likely to find a husband. So they attract young men and offer to be their "Shuga Mami". Sexual inequalities--both in Rwanda and in the US--are not always limited to female victims.

There are also ads all over the country urging the fight against gender based violence, as well as encouraging condom use. It all seems encouraging. Women's rights has made huge strides in this country, and it appears that it will continue to do so.


A short but interesting article: Former Sex Workers Fight Prostitution

Walking around Rwanda, this is what I see...

I walked out of my office today after work and turned out onto the busy road that leads up the hill into the heart of the city. The air is warm and the sky is overcast, but the chance of rain is highly unlikely given that we are in the middle of the dry season. I walk up the hill past the infamous St. Famille church, past vendors with large plastic bowls filled with cookies and tissues and cigarettes atop their heads, past the occasional school-age teen looking over her schoolwork under a small tree in the grass. The sounds of construction work slowly fade as I move farther away from the road-expansion crews further down the hill. A large skyscraper, one of only a few here in the city, stands tall at the top of the hill still under construction as I approach the roundabout. A large fountain graces the middle of the traffic circle, and several streets spoke off from it. Shops line the streets, some with open doors, others with the whole store front open, selling cell phones, radios, and computer parts; dresses and shirts; and any number of other miscellaneous items that you find you need in our modern societies. 

While there are still many open sewers, particularly outside of Kigali, there are many closed sewers as well. That had been one of the government's initiatives was to get rid of the open sewers. The sewers are the reason that plastic bags are illegal in this country. Now, people mostly use small paper bags. The plastic bags clogged up the sewers, whereas the paper bags break down. I hadn't noticed any sewage smells until a couple weeks ago when I was walking near one of the busier parts of the city and there was a terrible smell, and I looked to my side and there was a large open sewage area. Other than that, the odors that fill my nose tend to be limited to the smell of car exhaust. I don't know much about cars, but from what I do know, it seems that cars here tend to have pretty bad exhaust pipes. Looking out over the city, the familiar haze of pollution in the air softens the view.

The city is busy now as everyone makes their way home, some in their own cars, some on moto-taxis, and most in the public taxis (buses which are privately owned by subject to regulations by the Ministry of Transportation), which you'll find completely lining the road for thousands of feet, separated by the areas of the city they service. 

I've come to prefer the motos for their speed and ease, despite their expense relative to the bus taxi. What might cost 200 Rwf (Rwandan francs), or equivalent to about 40 US cents, on a bus might cost me 800 Rwf (mostly because I just don't bargain down as much as I could sometimes), the equivalent of US$1.25 on a mototaxi. Before I came here, I had been told by a fellow American staying in Rwanda that everything was very expensive in Kigali. But I find it quite the opposite. I go to the supermarket and buy tons of vegetables and rice and yogurt and eggs and end up spending about 1/3 or even 1/4 of what it would cost me at a store in the US. And there's a good chance most of the stuff I'm buying is organic and free-range and all those other good labels that end up spiking your costs at the store. Eating out at local restaurants is also very cheap--fast-food prices but home-cooked meal quality--getting a meal of rice and vegetables and potatoes (and meat if you eat it) and fruit and a soda might cost about $4. Going to a more "Western"-like restaurant, or Chinese or Indian or what-have-you, might cost more--but still pretty typical for the US, probably leaving having spent around $10-12 per person.

My favorite indulgence here is African Tea. It's like heaven, and can spruce up any day, make you feel cozy or energized or whatever it is you're needing. It's black tea boiled together with milk and ginger, and then topped off with a little sugar. Best. Thing. Ever. Mmm mmm.

Newspaper article about my trip

Click the link to see the article I wrote for the Crimson White, the campus newspaper at the University of Alabama: http://www.cw.ua.edu/2010/07/15/healing-nation-says-never-again-to-genocide/

So this is an adventure…

Last Tuesday I rode for 5 hours in the back of a truck with Jean-Baptiste, an FHI program coordinator whom I barely know, and Gaspar, a driver I’d just met, through endless hills and winding roads that I swear to you never straightened out for more than a couple hundred feet. Tea plantations covered the earth as it rose up and fell back down into valleys of rice fields all around us. I saw countless banana trees and quite a few monkeys of some sort just hanging out on the side of the road as we passed through Nyungwe National Park. I was going somewhere I’d never been before. I had no idea what to expect at all. And the work I had to do there was pretty much just to talk to people working with the FHI projects. I felt like I had no control whatsoever, no expectations at all, and all I could do was just go. Be. Trust. It was just me. And it was pretty exciting.

We arrived at our destination in the dark, but I could see the lights from the Congolese border about a thousand yards from the balcony of my hotel room. I bathed with a bucket in the bath tub because the plumbing was broken and I ordered the “African Dish without Meat” from the menu, which was potatoes and plantains and beans and spinach and rice…and pretty good.

The next morning I went to the FHI-Rusizi site office and met the coordinators and leaders who make these programs happen. I attended meetings of the youth and low-income women community group representatives. All week I spoke with people working in various roles with FHI’s ROADS program projects and tried to gather a greater understanding of exactly how they all work together to make this all happen and how this model of community programming works.

These individuals and their group members do peer education and community theater programs to teach their communities about HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections, family planning, reproductive health, and voluntary counseling and testing; they do trainings in starting kitchen gardens to improve their nutritional intakes; they participate in income-generating activities so that women who had been sex workers can find other sources of income; and even work directly with current sex workers and the wives of truckers (who tend to be regular customers of sex workers, and thus high-risk to carry HIV and other STIs) to at least educate them about how to stay healthy. FHI provides assistance and funding for these programs, but mostly they focus on building up the capacity of these people in the communities so that the progress they make is sustainable and effective for these individuals and their unique situations. Development funding like FHI’s is tricky and can vanish in a minute, and so, as the country director told me, they just do as much as they possibly can today, give it their all, and hope that tomorrow they’ll be back. But if they’re not, then they can rest with the fact that they did the absolute most they could do yesterday and the day before and that they left these communities with something really worthwhile.

In the mornings as I rode to the office, I watched the fishermen going out in their boats to get their daily catch. And in the evenings, I watched the women walking down the road carrying loads of isambaza (tiny fish) on flat platters atop their heads as Lake Kivu glistened beside them in the warmth of glorious orange sun setting over Congo. And by Saturday I made the 5-hour journey back to the city, and back to the (somewhat) straighter roads.

New beginnings, new neighbors, liberation day.

Yesterday, on the day commemorating the end of the genocide carried out by extremist Hutus against Tutsis, I witnessed people from both tribes coming together to say "Never Again", but in slightly different words that sounded a lot more like "Come on over for the afternoon," and "Here, let me help you."
Liberation Day, sharing its date with the American Independence Day, marks the date of the occupation of Kigali 16 years ago by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the Tutsi rebel group that whose leader is now the current president Paul Kagame, thus marking the end to the genocide in 1994 (violence and killings, though in more minimal incidences, continued to occur in the instable atmosphere of Rwanda for several weeks, months, and years afterward). The “liberation” was from the genocidal regime that had instigated the genocide 100 days prior. The RPF had trained had trained and formed itself in the neighboring country of Uganda, where many Tutsi refugees had fled after massacres by Hutus against them in decades past, including in 1959, 1962, and 1974.

(Ok so brief Rwandan history lesson: The Belgian government had elevated the minority Tutsi population, giving them privileged educations and employment opportunities, particularly within the government, when it colonized Rwanda in the early 1900s. In the 1950s, as Tutsis began calling for independence from Belgium, the Belgians switched “sides” and supported a Hutu rebellion against the Tutsis. Hutus came to power, and violence against Tutsis ensued, thus resulting in the fleeing of many Rwandan Tutsis to neighboring countries, particularly Congo, Tanzania, Burundi, and Uganda. The Tutsis that remained were subject to discrimination and violence. President Habyarimana actually created a law that disallowed the repatriation of exiles, thus ensuring that the Tutsis that left stayed away. That is, until the genocide (which had begun with the assassination of Habyarimana—blamed by Hutus on the Tutsis) ended in July of 1994, when the RPF and their leader, Paul Kagame, took over and encouraged exiled Tutsis to return.)

I had planned to go to Liberation Day ceremonies yesterday at the large stadium here in Kigali which is not too far from where I’m staying, but instead I went back to Mama Maria's home and met her children.
I interviewed one of Mama Maria’s children and his friend--two boys about 18 years old who seemed untouched by the hatred that had plagued their homeland just 16 years ago, and for decades before--and President Kagame was their hero.

Afterwards, I went to what was basically a sort of traditional housewarming party. One of Mama Maria’s older sons, Damascene, just moved to a new home and, in typical Rwandan tradition, invited dozens of his neighbors over. They enjoyed Fantas and Cokes and chatted away. Then several of them stood up and gave speeches, welcoming him to the neighborhood and offering friendly advice. Damascene also stood up and gave a speech, offering himself up to be a good neighbor in any capacity needed. It was an interesting cultural ritual that really revealed a lot about the importance of neighbors and relationships here. So-called "African time", meaning if you say you'll be here at 7 you probably mean 8, isn't about a disregard for punctuality so much as a greater valuing of having people-time, of building relationships. (I wrote an article for my campus newspaper that I’ll put up here soon, and I discuss this some more.)

Independence Day #2

Today I celebrated America’s Independence Day (a day early) at the US Embassy! It was pretty interesting—I’d never been to an American Embassy before. There was good ol’ American food there—burgers, hot dogs, French fries, cole slaw, potato salad, soda, beer, cookies, and cake—oh and a pie-baking contest too! They played American music—a country song was blaring when I arrived…and they played a lot of Beatles songs, as well—just proof , I suppose, that being “American” isn’t exclusive and isn’t about birthplace (The British Invasion! Music from the country we took our independence from??) or political affiliation (John Lennon the Communist, right?), but just about creating a spot for yourself once you get here. The Charge d’Affaires, who is under the ambassador, gave a speech, as the ambassador was apparently out of the country. It was a pretty good speech about American being great, not for her power or economic strength, but for the goodwill of her citizens and their efforts all over the world.

I left early to go meet the mother-in-law of an American friend I have. Her name is Mama Maria and is Rwandan. She lives not too far from where I’m staying right now. I enjoyed her company and she showed me the beautiful dresses and paper-bead necklaces that she hand-makes. She even gave me one of the necklaces as a gift. 

An important thing to know, here, is that it is illegal to ask someone their tribe—a law put in force after the genocide. One of the things that was so confounding about the genocide was that tribal lines were not clear-cut. There are general physical features that define Hutu and Tutsi and Twa, but years of intermarriage have blurred those lines immensely.  (Twa is probably the easiest, as they are pygmies, and much shorter than other Rwandans. Hutus are shorter, more stout, and tend to have broader noses. Tutsis are tall, lean, and much more “Ethiopian-looking”—hence their favor from the Belgians, who argued that they must be related to the superior Biblical race from which Europeans claim to trace their ancestry. Belgians actually went around measuring people’s noses within millimeters when they were handing out identity cards in the early twentieth century… But like I said, the lines were blurred… A complicated history, indeed.)

But there are still other clues to figure it out. Many people I have met have told me that they moved back to Rwanda from some neighboring country sometime between 1994 and more recent years—that’s usually a sign that their family was Tutsi and had fled the country in years past (some as far back as 1959) to escape extremists’ violence against their tribe. Another clue is in the language—all Rwandans speak Kinyarwanda, and many speak Kiswahili, but they usually know another language, too. Rwanda was a Belgian colony, so French became one of the official languages. So most Rwandans—especially Hutus—know French. Most Tutsis who are in the country now, however, had been refugees in neighboring countries, which, with the exception of Congo and teeny tiny Burundi, are all English-speaking. So most Tutsis actually speak English much better than French. (Under the RPF and President Kagame, Rwanda is actually in transition from being francophone to being Anglophone in order to improve economic relations with its east African neighbors.)

Mama Maria is most likely a Tutsi. She lost several family members during the genocide, and has lived in Tanzania since her family fled during violence in 1962, when she was only 10 years old. She told met that she forgives the people who killed her family because either way it won’t bring back the ones she lost. She speaks English, but is taking additional English lessons to improve. She was very sweet, and I’m going to go back to see her tomorrow, which is 

A True Rwandan Experience?

Thursday was a holiday, which meant no work—it was Rwanda’s Independence Day, marking their freedom from colonial rule by Belgium in 1962.  I enjoyed the chance to relax and later went out with a friend to a place called The Manor—a rather upscale establishment that just opened their bar and grill and will soon be home to various ethnic cuisines and a hotel. My friend, who is Rwandan, pointed out to me that so many visitors think that coming to a place like this isn’t “a true Rwandan experience”, when in fact, it is, because how could it not be? This is Rwanda. This restaurant is in Rwanda and Rwandans go here.

But he had an interesting point—something that my class on Globalization had discussed in depth last semester—that when we go to foreign countries, and especially developing countries, we have a preconceived notion of what is “true” or indigenous to that country. Experiences that seem “Western” we consider “a home away from home” (or a cultural cop-out) for us Western-world visitors and yet another example of infringement of Western culture on local values and experiences. And yes, to a certain extent you can see how some experiences might be similar to the experiences I would have in the US, and thus not really a “new” experience, per se, so I might not be so inclined to do that in this foreign country. But that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t still be an authentic experience. But the case is the same if I were to go to England or France or Germany. Maybe the lesson here is that Rwanda isn’t all that different from any of those countries. I mean, it is different, without a doubt, but, in the city (at least, but also elsewhere), it’s not as much as you’d think.  I still couldn’t have had that experience anywhere else, though, because I was with my Rwandan friend, who comes from the background of being a Rwandan—which is unique from my own, but still relatable. But it definitely brings up interesting questions about the mzungu’s (outsider’s) notion of Africa.

***

Today was back to work, but just for a half day (every Friday is half-day). I found out that on Tuesday I am going to be going to an area called Rusizi, near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to do some research/analysis for FHI. I’m excited to see a new part of the country, and I’ve been told it’s very, very beautiful there.

After work I went to visit a man who works for the gacaca courts here in Rwanda. Gacaca is a community-level court justice system that originated as a traditional form of dispute resolution. After the genocide, though, it was modified and “modernized” as a nation-wide network of courts in order to try accused criminals  from the genocide. Only the “less heinous” crimes—committed by those who looted and raped and murdered, but were not involved in planning the genocide—were tried in gacaca. Leaders in communities all over the country who were deemed fair and unbiased were trained to lead these gacaca courts. Alleged criminals were identified and evidence gathered over the course of a few years. In the trials, community members would come forward and testify about crimes they saw or verify someone’s innocence. In the end, many criminals were found guilty, and many others were acquitted. However, in most cases, these individuals, who had been rounded up in the months and years following the end of the genocide, had been held in jail for so long (often about 9 years already) that their sentence had already been served prior to their guilty verdict. So most of these criminals have already returned to their communities. You can see why talk about forgiveness and reconciliation is such a huge and sensitive topic here. People who lost their families are literally living right next door to the people who committed their murders. Justice has been served. Or has it? What is really justice in a situation like this? And does justice bring forgiveness? These are questions I have yet to find the answers for, but I’m looking.

A moto-taxi sunset, a lawyer in a bar, and everything in between

Today on my ride home from work on the back of a motorcycle taxi (moto-taxi, or just moto), I watched behind me as the large, deep orange sun slowly nestled itself behind the endless hills of Kigali. An overwhelming feeling of warmth and contentment and exhilaration sprung up inside me, and I wondered how I could even begin to describe my experience here so far without just simply writing a  book. That's not to say that my week here so far is worthy of a memoir, but there's so much here that is new and exciting to my American eye and humanitarian heart, and I tend to lack conciseness. I also tend to lack patience for the description I feel is due, hence my avoidance thus far of this blog. But I'll try to keep it short so that I can keep myself motivated to come back--though this one may still end up being pretty long since I've got a lot to cover. But I'll try.

So let's take a step back. I got here last Tuesday night, totally exhausted. But I only have 6 and a half weeks here total, so I wanted to start my internship with FHI right away. Wednesday and Thursday I mostly just got oriented with FHI, which I'm more and more impressed with every day. The work they're doing, the attitude and effort they bring to the field, and the completely community-oriented, community-implemented, community capacity-building programs they support. The work environment is just absolutely fabulous. On top of the fact that everyone seems to actually enjoy their job, everyone is incredibly friendly. People will walk past my door and then backtrack to say hello, ask how my day is going, how my weekend was, etc. There's also an office-wide "game", so-to-speak, called (or rather, pronounced) ka-ka-we-te, which I suspect, but don't know, might actually be the word "cacahouette"--French for 'peanut'. The "game" is that everyone's names are written on little pieces of paper and crumpled up, and then you each choose a name. And then for the next month you leave little treats or little notes (like little peanuts?) on that person's desk. And at the end of the month, there's a tea party and everyone's secret person is revealed. It's like Secret Santa in July. I'm told we do it because we're all so busy. What a great idea : )

My office is great. I have my own office with an open window and an open door directly to the outside so the breeze comes in and out all day long. I just hook up my laptop and get to work from 8 in the morning to 5:30 in the evening, minus 45 minutes for lunch and trips back and forth to get tea from the tea tray that is set up every day by the staff. Outside in the compound is pretty beautiful--green and trees and just a lovely little courtyard area and gazebo, despite the fact that we're smack dab in the center of the city. There are three buildings that we're all in, and it looks like a 4th is being built. FHI has expanded its programs immensely, and it seems they're just trying to catch up with their workers.

Every Friday is a half-day. How great is that, right? We get done at 1. So Friday morning I did a little reading and then went off for the rest of the work day with some other FHI staff to observe one of their training sessions. They had community members from various parts of the country in the city for a 2-week training in Peer Education for HIV/AIDS prevention, for referring people to counseling and testing, etc. and training in what they call "Magnet Theater". Basically, magnet theater is a community theater program where role play and theatrical shows are used to engage people in a conversation about HIV/AIDS and prevention. It's really awesome, and I actually learned a lot about facilitating a conversation from them. They really know what they're doing, and it's really, really good work. And everyone was very enthusiastic about what they were learning, which is definitely a good sign. I really hope I will get to see one of these magnet theater performances--perhaps on one of my site visits, which I'll be doing a lot of. (More to come on that soon!)

After work, my colleague Olivier (O-lee-vay) invited me to a meeting for her sister's wedding. In Rwanda when someone is getting married, the bride's family gets together (with the bride) and goes over the budget for all of the wedding festivities and expenses, which include the type of house items that in America you'd typically register for for your wedding shower. Different family members (mostly cousins and siblings in attendance at this meeting) commit to pay for a certain amount, and then they "go to the uncles" to ask them to cover the rest. This happens over a series of meetings. They were meeting right near where I'm living, and Olivier said she wanted to introduce me to some of her cousins so that they could show me around the city, so I went. I couldn't really understand everything that was going on because they were mostly speaking Kinyarwanda (the national language that every Rwandan speaks), but they threw in some English here and there and their body language and facial expressions kept me interested. It was sort of fun to watch, actually. And I'm invited to the "Introduction" towards the end of July, when the families get together and ask questions and settle any disputes and pay the dowry--but the dowry is actually paid by the husband to the wife's family--opposite of any dowry situations I've ever heard of. The wedding won't actually be until the end of August, after I'm gone. But apparently the Introduction is "the fun part".

After the meeting I went out with her cousin, Sonny, who's an editor for one of the pro-government newspapers here (as they are all pro-government). He took me out and introduced me to his friends--some Rwandan, some Western (American, British, etc). One of his friends was a commercial lawyer in the city but had actually spent most of his life in Uganda, and I had a really interesting conversation with him about the Rwandan and American governments and politics in the countries and all sorts of things, really. I met some other Americans doing different work with different non-profits and also got to see a bit more of the city. It was a really fun night.

Saturday I just chilled out and read and continued to recuperate from my jet lag. Sunday morning I went to visit a woman named Domina, who's probably a few years older than me. Another American, whom I haven't actually met but has been very helpful in connecting me to various people in Rwanda, connected me with her. I went to visit her at her home, where she lives with 2 of her sisters in a small 2-room building in a compound with several other families. There was a communal toilet area (the hole-in-the-cement kind) and communal area between the buildings where people hung clothes to dry and cooked over hot-coal stoves and just hung out and listened to music. They had electricity in the house and a radio and Domina and her sisters each had cell phones. Domina even got internet and email on hers. Domina told me their rent cost about $60/month. Domina studied to be a teacher but hasn't found a job yet. She hopes to get a job in immigration next month, and hopefully as a teacher at the beginning of the next school year in January. If you pass your secondary school exams, you can go to university on a government loan, essentially, but you have to start paying back your university fees as soon as you get a job. It's not the picture that typically comes to mind when we think of developing countries or people living on rather small incomes, is it? But I guess that's the point, isn't it? There's just a lot we don't know.

I had porridge and mandazi (a fried sweet bread), just like I had in Kenya last summer, as Domina and I sat on the mattress where she and her sisters sleep in the back room, which besides the mattress and a few suitcases had no other furnishings, and she told me about the history of Rwanda, the education system (which she had studied in her undergraduate degree), and her boyfriend, who's in the military and currently deployed to Sudan. Her father and step-mother and her step-mother's children live in a village a few hours away, but she has some other relatives in the city, whom she and her sisters were living with until they moved here about a week ago so that her sisters would be closer to their secondary school and wouldn't have to pay the taxi (public transportation) fees to and from school every day.

After lunch with Domina and her sisters--ugali (like a moist bread dough) and a vegetable dish of groundnuts and carrots and tomatoes and green tomatoes that was really, really good--I rode a moto-taxi home for the first time. I had been sort of nervous, but it was so simple and the drivers actually drive pretty safe, other than the fact that they cut in between cars in the middle of lanes, but the drivers seem to expect it and there never seem to be any close-calls. I took a nap that afternoon (unintentionally, but I obviously still needed it in my recovering from traveling) and then went out for a few hours to the KBC, where there are restaurants with burgers and a popular coffee shop, with Sonny, my colleague's cousin, and discussed the gacaca court system--the community level justice system that has been used to try the "less heinous" crimes from the genocide. I'll tell more about that soon, as well.

I think that's enough for now. I definitely have more to share--and probably some more interesting stuff to share, but that's at least the groundwork for what I'm experiencing here. Next entry, I'll discuss the language (English? French? Kinywarwanda?), interesting things I've been hearing about the state of this post-genocidal society, some of the really cool things (like kitchen garden training) that I've been seeing FHI doing, and more about my daily life! Also, tomorrow is a national holiday because it's Rwanda's Independence Day! So we'll see what that's like. No work tomorrow--but that's all I know so far. More to come--in briefer anecdotes : )

Love.

Rwanda, Rwanda

On June 20, I began my adventure to the land of a thousand hills--le pays de mille collines.
I left Atlanta for Frankfurt, Germany, where I spent most of my 12-hour layover exploring the city, including time spent in the home of the famous philosopher Johann Wolfgang Goethe, lunch and apfelwein (apple wine) on a boat-restaurant on the Main River, relaxing in Romer-- the old main town square, and lighting a candle in and admiring the Cathedral of St. Bartholomew, also known as the Dom, which was the site of the coronation of many kings and emperors from the 14th through 18th centuries. Next I stopped over in Brussels for another 12 hour layover, where I had a rather unpleasant sleep--I wouldn't recommend it. I'd probably only give it one star--and that's just because it was clean (I know because they were vacuuming around me as I tried to sleep...). But then I grabbed the last leg of my trip--straight to Kigali. 


Physically tired and mentally exhausted, I was more than relieved how easy it was to pick out the friendly woman who came to pick me up and is renting me a room for the next month (the last two and  half weeks I'm staying somewhere else.) because for six and a half weeks, I will be working as an intern for the public health organization Family Health International (FHI) whose whole mode of operating is to build capacity within communities by engaging community members to actually implement and help tailor the programs to their specific needs. FHI just provides technical support and funding to start up the programs--that way, if FHI loses its funding for that project/program, the communities are not left with nothing and will actually be able to continue in some manner without FHI.  It's a much more sustainable type of community development (some would even say it's the only sustainable way). (This way of thinking of civic engagement and community decision-making relates directly with the work I've been doing over the past year in my Community-Based Research Internship, a collaboration between New College at the University of Alabama and the David Mathews Center for Civic Life.) My internship at FHI this summer is part of an independent study I will be completing, looking at public health and strategies to address public health in Rwanda.

So in addition to that....I also have a video camera.

I will again be embarking on making another short documentary film for the Documenting Justice program through the Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility at UA. This will become my 3rd short documentary--the first (The Story of Beth and Mercy) I made last summer in Kenya with Lindsey Mullen, and the second (Fixing the Road) I just completed back home in Alabama with Will Schildknecht. We'll see how this one turns out... I haven't started filming yet--hopefully this weekend!

So, Rwanda--I know what you're probably thinking.

...isn't that where the genocide was in the 90s?

Yes. 1994. 
100 days of violence and hatred and murder. 
Most estimates show that 800,000 people were killed in that short amount of time. 
No one seems to be able to rationalize it--how it happened, why it happened.... but I really am not being idealistic or naive in saying that many Rwandans (not all, but many) are growing from it and learning to let it be "in the past". A friend from my work today was explaining to me that you can't forget. It's impossible for most people. But we have to say "it is in the past and let it stay there". He was in Burundi studying at a university during the genocide, as were his parents. But all of his cousins, aunts, uncles--everyone else in his family--were killed. And yet he wants to move beyond. He knows he must. He needs to. And stories like that are a really large part of what attracted me here. 

Really, I wanted to come to Rwanda for several reasons. There's something strong drawing me here. I've been slightly drawn in the direction of Rwanda since I started my college career. My freshman year in college I did a research paper on the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda (ICTR) in my International War Crimes class. And my sophomore year in my Music and Activism class, I focused on the use of music in the propagation of the genocide and then in the reconciliation efforts following the genocide in Rwanda. During my research, I discovered a lot about the reconciliation processes happening now on the ground, and was truly touched by how one woman described how spending time with a man who had killed her loved one and singing and talking together had allowed her to finally see him not as a murderer but as a human being. And I just can't even imagine that. What strength to be able to find the humanity in someone who has torn something so essential to your own life from you. I in no way imagine that that is an easy task to accomplish. But it gives credence to the concept of ubuntu.

Ubuntu is a Zulu word that describes a worldview common in many African nations and spoken of frequently by notables such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Ubuntu in Kinyarwanda (a native tongue of Rwanda) means 'human generosity' or 'humanity' or 'human's essence'. In Zulu, a South African language, it comes from the phrase umuntu ngumuntu ngabuntu, meaning "a person is a person through other persons". It is the notion that our humanity is tied up in each other's humanity. That we are all interconnected. That to harm another is to harm ourselves. That to hate another is to take something from ourselves, for in hating we are choosing to ignore the humanity, to ignore our own selves, in each other. And I think that it must be an attitude like that that allows people to do this sort of forgiveness. And honestly, it's an attitude that I think would make a lot of us feel more whole in this world.

I was also moved by Carl Wilkens's account of his experience and the lessons he learned in Rwanda during the genocide as the only American who remained in the country when the genocide began, when all but a few abandoned Rwandans. Carl came to speak at a banquet that my student organization Apwonjo hosted in the spring of 2009 (Make the Connection). He spoke powerfully about the power of human connections and relationships.

There's also just a lot of really good and innovative things happening in Rwanda in terms of economic development. ("Rwanda is one of the few nations in the developing world that spends more on education than on the military."; "The country is secure and the World Bank's Doing Business report recognized Rwanda as the greatest reforming nation in the world last year." from "Nothing Good Comes out of Africa") President Kagame has been getting a lot of flack lately for restricting free speech. But so far everyone I've met says that may be so, and that yes, he does run an authoritarian government, but that maybe that's good. That he doesn't seem to be abusing it like so many others do. That he's really just trying to rebuild his country. That maybe that's what is needed right now. I don't know enough about Rwandan politics or international politics or building a government, but it does seem like he's helping this country really and truly rebuild, so you can't argue too much with that. (Presidential elections are actually coming up in August, two days after I leave. Kagame is expected to win again.)

Anyway, so I'm here working for a health and development organization. Health is just absolutely crucial in development, and here in East-Central Africa, we're at the heart of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But a lot of people are doing really amazing work, and I hope to learn from some of them this summer. 


So consider this blog as a trail of bread crumbs of my stay in Rwanda. Here I will post about what I am doing here, what I'm learning, what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing. I'll also occasionally post about what I'm reading (I have a long reading list) and what I'm watching (films related to Rwanda).

Read as you wish. Skip over parts that are boring. Ask me questions. Leave me comments. Read at your leisure. As you wish.