Rwandan Ramblings

2007-09-14T16:07:00.000+01:00

Added bits and bobs

I'm aware I haven't written for a while. Here are a couple of articles I have written for various magazines or newspapers in the past 3 months. I will continue the ramblings very soon...

ConnectRwanda – Global Education

Hills rise up either side of the steep valley, bright green but interspersed with dark patches of brown and red. It is more green than brown right now owing to the rain that has for the last month, lashed down uncompromisingly on the tiled houses scattered amongst the fields and cows. In the evenings you will often find men sat around in the local bars sharing a beer; often silently contemplative, often gruffly cackling over some bit of news just heard on the radio. Others watch the football on the TV in the corner, completely immersed in a game many miles away from where they are, but nonetheless vehemently supportive of one of the two sides. And for those not watching, there is always a heated match going on at the local football pitch, even if using trees or jumpers for goalposts.

This is not Rwanda. But it could be.

When I was a child, my family would drive back up into the highlands of Scotland to visit family and friends at least once a year. There are of course many differences between Scotland and Rwanda, but when near the beautifully wild Nyungwe forest, I often think of the towering mountains of my mother’s birthplace and the hawks that circled the sky spying for mice. The national dance of Rwanda involves extending the arms outwards in a graceful imitation of the statuesque horns that adorn the country’s prized cows. How far is that from Highland dancing, where both men and women hold their arms up high, fingers firmly locked into a position representing the noble stag’s antlers? Men wear kilts, and yes, while the tartan may not entirely echo the zigzags of the male Intore dancers’ loincloths, the gesture towards history is the same. And the stomping of feet and jangling bells bound around ankles could even remind one of the clumping of English Morris dancers.

Food, dress, language and accents, politics and entertainment change the world over, country to country, region to region. But some basic elements of life are sufficiently replicated that they can be judged inherent. Sharing a drink with friends, trying to continue your education or get a better job, worrying over your daughter’s safety, dancing and singing during festivities, following the news, rebelling against parents, bemoaning having to do chores; all these happen and more, all around the world. Yet, we can also add ‘being ignorant of other cultures’ to the list too. We are all guilty of demonising, patronising or romanticising customs in different countries without often acknowledging that our rituals and habits are often remarkably similar, binding us as one. The number of times I have seen astonished faces in Rwanda when I say that there are homeless people in Britain equal the number of raised eyebrows of people back home when I show photos of elegant high rise buildings in Kigali or friends wearing sharp suits.

Karaoke in Rwanda is much less about singing, than miming and having a good dance routine. Japanese karaoke involves sitting in a small booth and singing the night away with friends, and British karaoke is made popular by inebriated football teams and star struck “wanted-to-be"s - but the overall objective of each nation is of entertaining the audience and having a good time! There is much to be said for doing in Rome as Romans do, but there is also a need to discuss, share and be proud of our own culture. By discussing the differences we will inevitably find that they are more superficial than the similarities

Letter from Rwanda to Guardian Weekly.

Snaked around the hill is a line of brightly clothed backs, flashing up and down in time to the irregular heaving and plunging of a hundred hoes. Parcels of obedient baby are strapped to backs here and there, blinking in the strong sunlight and bobbing up and down according to the rise and fall of their strong cradles.

It is the final Saturday of the month in Rwanda, and in every town and village and scattering of houses the whole neighbourhood is out for Umuganda; government initiated community work. Blazered but barefoot men and broad teenage boys in vests work alongside military men and tiny weathered women each having brought some sort of tool to help with whichever task has been assigned this month.

Headway is being made – an old ditch is slowly being weeded by the machete wielders and re-furrowed by the hoe brandishers. The next time the rain falls it is hoped the water will slope off here and not score further huge trenches into the partly impassable track. Rattling bikes will find it easier to navigate by the afternoon and when it is levelled next month cars may be able to make the descent too. Not that many people in Sovu own cars but that doesn’t matter.

Umuganda is obligatory – maroon uniformed Local Defence Force guards rap insistently on your door with their truncheons if your household is not represented, though in the larger towns and amongst better-off people who are unfamiliar with hoe brandishing, you often hear the excuse “oh, I do Umuganda at home”.

I’m doing Umuganda at home this month too. Why? Of course it is not the relentless sun, or the stinging nettles or the blisters that burn your hands for weeks after that puts me off. Nor is it the lack of a machete or having to get out of bed early. My problem is that my presence does very little to advance proceedings, and not necessarily for want of effort. Pushing strands of wet hair away from my face and pausing for a moment to regain grip on a borrowed hoe, I realize no matter how hard I hoe little progress will be made with since the majority of the village is gleefully watching my every stuttering move. Two walls of wide-grinned and incredulous onlookers stand tall either side of me, hoes hanging loosely by their sides and machetes resting upon heads.

So for the good of the cars which may one day roll down that road, I’ll do Umuganda at home this month too.

Maggie Murphy

maggie.murphy@hotmail.co.uk

PHARE;

Prevention of HIV and AIDS in Rwanda through Education

Imagine a major personal problem you have had in the last year. It could be something embarrasing to do with your health, or the possibility of losing your job or university spot. Perhaps a pregnancy scare? Or were you afraid at one point that your partner was cheating on you?

Who did you turn to for advice?

If you are male and in Rwanda, there is a strong chance you did not speak to anybody. More than 1 in 5 boys in a recent study in Nyamagabe district said they do not speak to anybody about personal issues. Speaking openly is obviously difficult, but amongst all the boys and girls who do seek advice, 93% said they turn to their friends. This proves just how important activities focusing on HIV prevention, sexual health and life skills are “peer-led”.

The VSO PHARE project (Prevention of HIV and AIDS in Rwanda through Education) demands active participation from students. Across 2 districts, and set to start in 2 more in September 2007, students are now co-leading their anti-AIDS clubs having received training on basic sexual health, reproduction, HIV prevention and transmission, contraception and importantly, peer counselling. They have an experienced trainer to guide them, but they run sessions together, with the aim of eventually empowering the students to run their own clubs themselves, without need for outside help. Sending in a volunteer from overseas or even a Rwandan member of staff from Kigali to facilitate discussions in the middle of the Rwandan countryside would be as useful as an ostrich preaching to a fish in a pond. Both may lay eggs, eat, breathe and eventually die, but they come from vastly different environments, often unaware of the challenges that each other face. Also, by giving ownership to the students, they themselves become proud to be the leaders, proud to teach their peers, and proud to share their knowledge – even leading activities with their own teachers and headteachers!

Since the start of the project funding in September 2006, PHARE has run trainings for headteachers, teachers, students and Anti-AIDS Club leaders, as well as sourced and trained young motivated facilitators who help with following up the good work. A manual was written specifically for use in local schools and published in all three of Rwanda’s national languages to help guide the students. A theatre, music and danse competition was run in both districts to motivate the students and congratulate them for their hard work. The 4 winning schools are set in a few days to perform in Kimironko, Kigali’s busiest market place, as well as in the Union Trade Centre in the heart of the capital. It is hoped that this way, the message will spread even further – not only how important it is to protect oneself and one’s friends from HIV and reduce discrimination, but also that the future of Rwanda is in the hands of the youth...and that they are more than capable of securing a bright one.

2007-08-01T22:00:00.000+01:00

Ringuistic Lifts

“Sorry Maggie, I can’t come round. I’ve come to Kigali because I had a rift”.

I puzzled over this text message, worrying who gentle giant Félix could possibly have argued with and what on earth about. I called him immediately, hoping he’d be able to speak. “Yes Maggie, I left straight away, I was offered a lift”.

Ahhhh. Once again linguistic confusion between Ls and Rs leaves me in the dark.

However, this is not quite as bad nor potentially embarrassing a misunderstanding as happened to one of my friends recently. Her employer was worriedly informing her about just how dangerous he thought the forthcoming nationwide erections in Congo were going to be...

2007-08-01T16:30:00.000+01:00

Karaoke Classics

There are many things I will find hard to miss when I leave Rwanda. I can’t see myself grimacing as I ease myself into a hot bath, and I doubt my mouth will curl up in disgust upon cheesecake passing between my lips. The mere thought of buying a bunch of carrots without an audience excites me. But there is one thing that is sadly lacking from British culture and if only I could, I would transport it in less than a jiffy.

How often do you wince when you realize it is “karaoke night” in your local back home?

Not here. Never here.

Rwandan karaoke is a joy to behold. I say behold rather than listen to because that is where the absolute joy resides. No screeching from enthusiastic, plump wanted-to-be’s with bleached hair. No groups of red-eyed football lads on a boozy night out who see inebriation as a passport to self-embarrassment. No, Rwandan karaoke is all about miming, looking chic and having a good dance routine.

Slick turns, impossible hip jiggles, bendy bodies and dress changes are at the core of this profession. The funniest part must be the seriousness of it all. I guess it really is a job, but since the songs generally revolve around the playlist of the National Rwandan Appreciation Society for Enrique Iglesias, Westlife, Celine Dion and Cheese in its Purest of Forms it does sometimes appear slightly weird to watch these muscular guys gyrating away to a British pop ballad.

It is a shame in a way that you can’t pick up a laminated floppy book of “songs we do”, lying on the bar and sign yourself up with those weenie pencils to communal humiliation as in normal karaoke. This is all performance – no amateurs allowed unfortunately. How I would like to shimmy and shake my stuff on stage for the pure hilarity of it all. You wouldn’t catch me doing it back on the Isle of Wight, but out here people stare enough as it is...

Now personally I think there would be far fewer groans from locals come Karaoke night if the inebriated football boys had to strut their stuff to a Westlife theme tune and try to retain some dignity at the same time. You might even have trouble finding a table.

2007-07-24T20:00:00.001+01:00

Fame

It’s easy to be famous here. I would like to credit my emergence as a regular on various Rwandan radio stations to my electric personality and crafty use of the media to serve my every need but tht would be truly misleading. Journalists just seem to appear every time I’m running something – be it a competition, summer school or a training. And so I give interviews – none of which I have actually heard myself, since they are normally broadcast on the Kinyarwanda stations. Instead people tell me later that they heard me babble enthusiastically about young people and energy and motivation and health on this or that station. I even had the big boss VSO Rwanda Country Director congratulate me for a good 5 minute interview he heard on Radio Rwanda a few weeks back (they obviously couldn’t be bothered with editing any of it...unless I have forgotten that I really was bestowing pure nuggets of golden information upon the nation!).

Shalking hands with participants at the end of a training - as if I'm actualy important...

I’ve even become pretty good at giving nice little catchphrases; “Why have a music competition to spread messages about HIV? Well everyone knows all of Beyonce’s lyrics – these kids too now know their lyrics through and through!”. “Do I think the kids are capable of spreading the message? They have proven today that they are great ambassadors for their schools, and so now they are equally great HIV prevention embassadors in their schools and communities too!”, “The energy in that room is just astounding, enough to knock you out – be careful on entering!”.

The other day Richard, one of my colleagues called me into his office and switched on a 3 minute radio clip he has saved on his computer which has been aired several times a day for the last couple of weeks. It was of course all in Kinyarwanda, but I could get that they were talking about the summer school that is currently going on in my town, with the dates, the people invited and the location...and then I heard the name of my town. It was immediately referred to as “Kuwa Maggie” – “Maggie’s place”. Now that made me feel special!

However, this doesn’t even come close to the fame of one or two VSOs living in the capital city who can count amongst their closest Rwandan friends various DJs, members of the national basketball team, journalists and actors. Two of my friends have recently recorded the new jingle for one of the biggest radio stations in the capital. So their voices will now be aired 50 times a day every day for the next how many months!?!

Ah well, back to the electric personality drawing board for me...

And on the high table whilst singing the national anthem. No, I don't know the words...but the army guy obviously does. The Mayor is right in the middle.

2007-07-09T17:16:00.000+01:00

So there they arrived at the airport looking like they always did.

Unsurprisingly I guess. I was part wondering whether Sue would have checked whether “Safari Style” was in vogue this month and turned up in leopard print wedges with lion tooth motif. But no. You may laugh, but she obviously didn’t realize that footwear appropriate for gorilla trekking up a volcano may not include puma “no-grip sandshoes” or that she might need trousers slightly more rugged than those from Topshop’s “Summer Linen Range”. She can explain that one.

Having 4/7 of the Murphy clan come to visit the 1/7 marooned out here since September last year was actually a treat (and not just for the shampoo, chocolate and cup-a-soups that they brought in a specially designated Maggie Suitcase). Although there was a definite golden lining to the cloud that was our grotty little guesthouse’s tardiness in serving any food on one of the first evenings. I gave up waiting and launched into a ham and lettuce on seeded brown bread sandwich. A little bite of heaven.

It was a whirlwind of ten days, partly since i was still working in preparation for a district competition in dance, theatre and music that I organized and stressed over.

One of the welcome elements of their visit was that they re-opened my eyes to the kaleidoscope that is Rwandan Life. It is very easy to slide into a way of living and forget just how different things are out here. And often it’s nice to know many things are different (I’ve just been called fat again by my landlord).

“Look! A woman with a basket on her head AND a baby on the back”

“Why do prisoners wear pink?”

“If I just say Papa Maggie, they seem to understand”.

“How can he carry a saw on his head?”

“Look at those guys on bikes hanging on to the back of the truck up the hill”

“Why is there a boy hanging off the truck of cows?”

“And why are their tails tied to the canvas sheeting?”

“There must be 30 people in that minibus”

“”God Will Save Us” is written on the back of that minibus roaring around the corner!”

All this whilst my screwed up eyes are identifying the next pothole on the horizon and trying to avoid the crazy kids and awestruck goats in the path of the car. I was petrified for much of the time on the road, I didn’t tell them that I had seen a man killed in front of my eyes in a horrific car crash just a couple of hours before they landed, though now, having been here for a few days it probably won’t surprise them.

Spot the Mzungu. No seriously. He's at the back.

And it was great for them to see my life out here – however short and sweet and skin-deep the visit may have been.

2007-07-05T08:00:00.001+01:00

Sambaza

Another culinary delight in Rwanda. Very small fish, grilled to a crisp.

You’re meant to eat the head (they’re shorter than your little finger) and tail, but I couldn’t really face it.

The glazed eyes are really quite pretty aren’t they?

2007-07-04T10:13:00.000+01:00

And thanks for all the comments. Sometimes you wonder if anyone reads - it's nice to have the encouragement to go on!

In response to some questions;

My contract is until the first week of September so expect to see me back on British soil, eating ham sandwiches on brown bread with mustard around that time!

Tom, I hope you are happy that I safely retuned my "delicate" sister to you. Despite being slapped by a gorilla (maybe she deserved it), I hope you find her in peak condition.

2007-06-11T13:01:00.001+01:00

I don’t know who is more nervous about my parents impending arrival in Rwanda – my mother “Shall I pack a toaster and some corned beef???” or me “Don’t do that, don’t touch that, leave that alone and just keep calm!”. Or Rwanda.
With a Murphy clan about to hit, I am trying to think of some important hints and tips for them. Zingalo was lesson 1 in Kinyarwanda, but here are a few friendly bits of advice I’ll share with them – and with you...

1) When you see me greet my friends, you may think that I am about to get violent. But, three headbutts, one to the left, one to the right, and one back to the left, before a handshake is about as respectful and polite as you can get. It’s not a Glasgow kiss. So don’t try to restrain me.

2) You don’t know my friends well enough to do this. What you guys need to do is shake hands whilst holding your right elbow wth your left arm. Instant good marks for politeness guaranteed.

3) Dessy. Men hold hands here. Do not see this as a threat to your sexuality – just go for it! It’s friendly! You never know, after a little while, you might start to like it. It usually starts with the handshake, which then turns into the hand hold. There’s also the “we’re friends walking down the street” man-hold too.

4) Unfortunately, men and women cannot hold hands....mum and dad, go easy. That’s disgusting.

5) Plastic bags. As soon as you arrive in Rwanda all plastic bags on view will be stripped from your person. This is part of their drive to environmental cleanliness; “Our country is very small. We do not need to choke it with plastic bags”. Unfortunately they will probably all languish in the entrance area to the airport where a growing mountain festers. Dad, this means that you may need to invest in a bag of some sort. They’re fine for Ryde Saints and St Mary’s hospital but plastic bags are so un-chic here...

6) There is no need to buy various khaki coloured three zip trousers, or a beige multi pocketed safari jacket just because you’re coming to Africa. You’ll look like an eedjit. And what are you going to put in all those pockets? Sue, this applies for Nike Air Jerusalems too.

7) Don’t take photos without asking people first! Don’t ask what ethnicity people are! Don’t believe the newspapers!

8) Bring rain jackets. Might be Africa but it rains. Lots.

9) Don’t give food/money to the kids that ask for it. Mag’s policy. If they ask for a bonbon they probably don’t need it...

I promise to entertain you all with just how the Murphy clan copes in the so called heart of darkness. I have been told, that if you prepare them for the worst – the whole trip may just go that little bit smoother...

2007-06-11T12:57:00.000+01:00

ZINGALO...

Is one of the most important words you can learn in Kinyarwanda. What does it mean? Intestine.

It is closely followed in importance by “sinshaka” – “I don’t want”. Put the two together and you have hopefuly avoided a rather unpleasant culinary surprise. Intestine on a stick is not really what you want arriving to your table having waited at least 90 minutes for its arrival. So when they ask you what type of kebab you are after, make sure you know your inyamas (meat) from your zingalos.

2007-06-11T12:39:00.000+01:00

Everything just takes longer.
Washing hair, peeling carrots, sending letters, going to work... I guess here you have a cup and a bucket with which to wash hair, a very knobbly carrot and a semi blunt knife with which to peel it, incredible bureaucracy at work requiring the mayor’s signature and an array of different coloured ink stamps from various different offices (generally vacant) to get the go ahead for any work letter, and a stream of kids dragging ou back from work by hanging on your hand or hugging your thigh. Is anything quicker out here than at home?

Well maybe bus rides around steep hills. I once was on a minibus which overtook a minibus which was overtaking a lorry which was wider at the top than the bottom due to its big banana cargo. Three in a row. Around a corner. Here it’s not about valuing life day by day but second by heart jolting second.

2007-06-11T12:32:00.001+01:00

What do you do when your gate padlock breaks and you can get neither in or out?

No, not a John McGee riddle, but the question I recently faced. So I asked Agnes to help me out. Where in Gikongoro does one go to break open a padlock?

“There is just one person in Gikongoro who can open padlocks. And he is in prison”. Great. So now what?

“I’ll go and send for him”. Huh?

And lo and behold, an hour or two later a prisoner dressed in the ubiquitous pink uniform donned by every member of the unavoidable Rwandan prison population turns up to my gate, with his very own specially commissioned armed guard. He then sets to work – I was expecting a great big saw and some brute force, but oh no. This was an intelligent job – click, click, tuck, ping! A few seconds work – and he took it away for a day to fix it too so that the key would work again.

We paid him a bit of money – the guard of all people said it wasn’t enough, so we raised it a little. It was only a few days later that I heard the guard stole it.

The prisoners are put to great use out here. Free labour for the government! They are everywhere, hoeing and carrying and digging and building. The track up to my house was de-weeded (and de-flowered) by a band of prisoners for last month’s Umuganda – which was a welcome surprise for the one single benficiary. Me. They are usually out in the fields cultivating the land lazily watched over by a single armed guard – unless the guard nips into one of the small mud houses to treat some poor girl to an unwelcome “visit”. But then you see the prisoners doing the same from time to time too - doing up their unfortunately comical pink pajama-type trousers as they emerge into the light, the girl trailing a few seconds later re-tying her pang. Who are the losers here? The women living in the houses near me are incessantly pregnant and have broods of children – but there are rarely any men around for longer than it takes to empty the fresh batch of sorghum beer.

2007-05-25T09:13:00.001+01:00

And some more...

2007-05-25T08:50:00.000+01:00

Isn't Rwanda beautiful??

Nyungwe Forest.

The Volcano near Congo - where the gorillas live.

Terrassing on one of the 1000 hills in Rwanda.

View over Rubona, Gisenyi. Lake Kivu.

Kigali houses

2007-05-24T18:17:00.000+01:00

And then you fall back in love.

It only takes a couple of days – a couple of smiles, a couple of “Hi Maggie’s” when you’re in the middle of nowhere, a startling sunrise or star-scattered night sky, and a couple of fun exchanges in the market to give you a smack and get you back into the swing of things.

It’s been about a month now since I found myself in a rut. I found work exasperating because the more involved and passionate I got about my project, the less I wanted to accept that setbacks occur more frequently here or that people you work with are not quite as passionate as you. I hated being a novelty. I wanted black skin so I could walk down the street anonymously. News from home served to make apparent how far away I am from those I love - despite internet, telephones, blogs, letters, newspapers, email...

I was in a rut – I tried climbing out of it at first, but then felt content to sit back and wallow in feeling sorry for myself. I’m now climbing out. I still find the gimme gimme game frustrating. I find the ungratefulness of the culture a wall I feel my head banging against. I’m tired of being treated as a plastic human being who can be talked about and laughed at but not have their feelings considered. But now, I’m remembering I didn’t come here because it’d be breeze. And that’s so far from what suits me anyway. And I chose to come here and be the outsider. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. And culture (what does one mean by culture? I hate that as an excuse) really is different. Just because somebody doesn’t say thank you doesn’t mean they aren’t grateful. And if people don’t work as hard as you do – then face up to it, it’s going to happen again, be it London, Ryde, or Ouagadougou.

I’m back in love with Rwanda.

2007-05-24T11:57:00.000+01:00

Just a few stats for you...

A report was carried out by UNICEF in 1995 where children were asked a variety of questions about how they felt during the genocide. These are just a couple of the findings.

88% of the children asked say they saw dead bodies.

16% said they hid under dead bodies to survive.

90% children thought they would die.

2007-05-14T15:36:00.001+01:00

Merryls’ Food mishaps. Part III

So, Merryl and Vicki are in a hurry. They need food fast because Vicki lives on the other side of Kigali, it’s almost 9pm and the small minibuses stop shunting people from place to place very soon. It’s also very dark, and it is not the safest part of town. After waiting about 20 minutes for a brochette and salad, Merryl asks how long it will take.

“It’s coming” – great. No need to leave to catch a bus and go hungry tonight.

5 minutes later – “where is it?”
“It’s ready now”.

Ten minutes after that, Merryl and Vicki catch the sight of a man shuffling into the kitchen holding a couple of carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes. The salad might not coming just yet.

2007-05-14T15:33:00.000+01:00

Gimme gimme gimme

A couple of classic examples of the gimme gimme gimme culture...

A little old man with very few teeth is shuffling up the stony path. I pass by and he grins widely – “Muraho” he says. I reply in Kinyarwanda to which he exclaims in shock – “You speak Kinyarwanda!”. And the convesation continues a little – him beaming wide-eyed in surprise that I can get by in his lanugage. Then suddenly something seems to click in his mind and his face suddenly transforms. The transition between the broad smile and the now baleful - pitiful even, droopy eyes is incredible. The click is the sudden realization he is talking to a mzungu and he really should be able to profit somewhat from this chance encounter.

“My brother is sick. Money.” He holds out his hand.

Yesterday I was driving along the road on my motorbike when I saw a guy ahead of me tumble off his bike pretty badly. I stopped my bike to make sure he was ok. He was lying by the side of the road and had obviously hurt his ankle. I was wondering whether if needed it would be possible to take him on the back of the bike to hospital twenty minutes drive away. Then he looks up at me, registers my skin colour and from the ditch by the side of the road next to his collapsed bicycle stretches out his hand and gives a baleful stare. Then rubs his stomach.

Another time my motorbike broke down. I didn’t even realize – perhaps stupidly since I’ve been riding one for 9 months now – that motorbikes have chains. Well, what do I do in Britain when my bike chain falls off? Turn it over and spend a couple of minutes huffing and puffing and clicking chains back on to spikes. You can’t do that with a motorbike... But I’m learning. So I took off my helmet to a small audience of a couple of bemused women. 1) Motorbiker in trouble. 2) Motorbiker is mzungu. 3) Motorbiker is female mzungu. Makes for an exciting feast for the eyes apparently.

I rest the helmet on the dirt, take off the gloves, squint into the oily unknown entrails of my poor little bike, wondering where to start. The I do. I work out the chain, try to hook it back on to the spoke parts. My hands are covered in oil, I’m not a happy bunny and this is probably more than evident. I look up at the grinning woman as I realize one of them is coming over, maybe to lend a hand.

“Money. I’m hungry. Give it.” She smiles at me, stroking her stomach.

Well, since you asked so nicely...

Don’t think badly of me. I am doing my best by being out here. When I spray freezing cold water over my shivering body at 6.30am in preparation for the day to come, it is easy to wonder why I am here instead of in a hot shower back home, going to a job where things work and you don’t have to schedule in several hours a day for “unforeseen problems”. But I am here, and I work bloody hard. The first time I was running around like a madman coordinating a free training week and weekend for secondary school children on HIV knowledge, reproductive health, and peer counselling. I provided each school with valuable training resources and education materials costing hundreds of pounds. Not a single person came to me to say thankyou. I get paid much less than the guys I work with – they find it hilarious when walking with me – “they always ask you for money even though you have none! Isn’t that funny!?” Actually no. I love my job. I love many people out here. There are some fantastic people doing some incredible work too. Rwanda has a horrific history, one that we can not really come close to understanding. But every so often, a thank you would do a world of good.

2007-05-14T15:31:00.000+01:00

Merryl’s Food mishaps. Part II

So being a veggie isn’t that much fun out here. At least a good old carnivore (such as moi) can tear into the skewered grilled goat in just about any eating establishment (restaurant, bar, hut, shack) on the road, but a veggie has it hard – especially if they are fed up of omelettes (or if there are no eggs in your town that week).

So Merryl asks for a salad. Setting; the same place as the previous egg-related disaster. After, lets say an hour, the salad arrives alongside the goat brochette for the friend. No problem there –aside from often each bit takes ten minutes chewing before it can be swallowed. Seeing as it is just a small side salad, Merryl asks if it’s possible to bring a bigger one – she doesn’t mind paying for it, but would prefer one larger than one that would only sate the appetite of a malnourished Rwandan rabbit. “Na Kibizo” – No problem (there is NEVER a problem in Rwanda. This is a stock phrase).

Ten minutes later the waitress re-emerges with a bigger plate. It is empty. She picks up Merryl’s salad and tips it onto the bigger plate.

“Akira” –“There you go”

Merryl’s incredulous grin grows larger with every day.

2007-04-24T11:08:00.000+01:00

Shalarikalariku!

...and other such titles were on offer at the one and only cinema in Arusha. I had often passed it by 5 years ago, but it always seemed dark, dingy and a sure-fire breeding ground for porn or Jackie Chan ‘classics’ or a combination of both and not much else. But a soggy day and a free afternoon resulted in Max pestering me to the point that I realized he was being serious. After 8 months, this American boy needed a movie. And so for the first time, I didn’t shuffle by the Metropole head down. We checked out what was on offer; a single film, all week and next and probably the week after, which promised the best of India – Bollywood dancing, romantic ponderings and...cricket.

However, first of all we had to make an important decision. Hanging around in the foyer, waiting to pay whoever would take our money, we had just had the misfortune of seeing a huge rat bumble its way into the pitch black auditorium. We then heard the squealing and rustling of what must have been an entire three generations of rat family in the roof, but which sounded more like a small child let loose with a pneumatic drill. Do we go in to the pitch black cinema to watch the film knowing that our legs might be gently caressed by the bristly back of a disease infested beast??

I rolled down my turned up trouser legs, put on a brave face and said “let’s do it”. Max acquiesced. Fortunately we were told to go upstairs where the great unknown seemed a better choice at that moment. The cinema was huge! Upstairs, we picked our spot by the front banister (so we could put our feet up out of rodent’s way). We looked down and saw hundreds of seats in the gloom – who built this place? Upstairs there were at least 200 red upholstered seats too, evenly shared either side of a generous aisle. Did it ever fill? Not with prices such as the ones they gave us (ok, around £2). Nobody would really be able to afford to go and see a film there – and the owners would never be able to buy the rights to show any blockbusters. But the cinema was beautiful! I guess it must have been built in the heyday of colonial occupation and when cinema was new and fresh and one of the only ways to see the outer world.

And there was no need to sharpen elbows to get the pick of the chairs; in this 600 seater cinema, there were just three of us. And the other guy watching was the guy who sold the ticket to us – and he evidently couldnt care less for Indian heartbreak and intrigue. By half way through he was already swinging on his seat and jabbering to himself. Maybe he was trying to pre-empt the Hindi lines, having seen this film countless times before.

And what a film! It touched all the right places – love and beauty, modern marriage and breaking away from family tradition, racism and inter-ethnic racism...and a nation’s obsession with cricket.

Maybe we actually got true value for money – the film was long. There was even an interval (no ice-cream ladies, mind) and we were only too glad to stretch our still propped-up, rat-avoiding legs. And what else could one do when in a huge theatre sized cinema with booming Bollywood music streaming out to its 2 man audience, but give a little wiggle and a shake and pull off our best Bollywood moves? Like a couple of Indian wannabe-star 10 year olds we performed to the watchful eyes of the surrounding shadows of the entire empty auditorium. Boom shackalacka!

But after a little while we wondered why the film wasn’t re-starting. I was now admittedly hooked on finding out just how the bedridden ex-Indian superstar cricketer would watch India in the World Cup final (topical eh?) when he was meant to be undergoing a life-threatening operation, unfortunately being carried out by a cricket-detesting mean and moody doctor. And what about the girl whose new husband was more in love with cricket than her? What would happen now that she had started watching it to try to share his passion – but had ended up sharing it just a little too much by falling in lust with the star cricket player?

Aside from that, we were ready to restart because we were a little out of breath after our attempts at imitating Indian boogying. Why was the interval taking so long? It was only us in there!

“Maybe if we sit down it’ll start”.

We sit. Lights dim. Hey presto.

The guys reeling the film must have been watching us all along, shimmying and sashaying our socks off – and were probably thoroughly entertained by such bizarre mzungu behaviour too!

Long live Bollywood.

And an added bonus...

Here is Max in slightly more authentic and traditional Rwandan dance mode... He takes it seriously that boy.

2007-04-24T11:06:00.000+01:00

Arusha Ramblings...

I spent the last week back in Arusha, a town in northern Tanzania where I lived 5 years ago. I spent the week marvelling at the changes that have occurred since I was last there. I left in May 2002 and returned for ten days in September 2003. At that time I remember being amazed at the new parking spaces that had been painted along the main road. Development in action! This time however, huge new fancy hotels, a new covered market place and a relaxed atmosphere were cause for surprise. The UN has now been here for around 6 years and the changes are marked.

Other welcome surprises were the range of food you could eat – Ethiopian, Chinese, Italian, fast food – all of which had more than one outlet in the town. My surprise can be attributed not to there having been a lack of all this 5 years ago – but a lack of all this for the last 8 months in Rwanda. And the food! So good! So quick! A meat skewer and grilled potato can take over an hour and a half in Rwanda. One timed meal in Arusha (pizza and pasta) took literally 5 minutes. It was incredible – did they read our mind when we walked in the door as to what we were going to order?

I got to catch up with some friends, walk the old paths in the hills I used to know (the stream having been replaced with a roaring river ensuring wading wet legs all round) and visit old haunts. Memories flashed in front of my eyes at times, as though walking into an old photograph. It was such a welcome break.

We also visited the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda – the UN courts which are trying the big players in the genocide. As I shivered in the air conditioned viewer’s section of the court, I thought of the thousands of local trials, gacaca, going on all over the country in the burning heat. It was interesting to see the fear on one witness’s face – a big guy who used to be in charge of one of the northern towns in 1994. He wasn’t even on trial – but his outburst at one point to the judges “You don’t understand how frightening it is to be here in front of you big people – ça me fait trembler!” showed how close the line between witness and defendant could be.

2007-04-24T11:01:00.000+01:00

“I’ll just have an omelette please”

This was the request from Merryl in one of two main eating establishments in Nyagatare one night a few months ago.

“Ok, no problem”. Waitress hurries off. Over an hour later, as Merryl begins to wonder whether they’re birthing the chicken, the waitress returns. “Sorry, tonight we have no omelette”. Merryl asks why they hadn’t realized the distinct lack of the single ingredient required for her meal more than a few minutes earlier. “Sorry”.

“Ok, I’ll just have chapati”.

Chapati is flour and water. Maybe a pinch of salt if you’re lucky. This is then fried up in shallow oil. Admittedly, eggs shouldn’t be too hard to come by, but Merryl was pretty sure that a simple chapati would be pretty easy for the restaurant to make.

Forty five minutes later, the waitress returns, with a shy, slightly embarrassed look on her face. “Sorry we have no chapati tonight”. No flour? No water? No eggs or oil?

Merryl giggles a little but says not to worry, it doesn’t matter. What can she have then?

- Pause –

“Sorry. Today, we have no food”.

Now, you’d think that the restaurant might have known that 105 minutes before...

2007-04-23T12:13:00.000+01:00

I have just realized the completely contradictory tone of the two previous postings.

Like I say, it is permanent PMT here...

2007-04-23T12:05:00.000+01:00

I was all for packing it all in yesterday. If I came anywhere near a Rwandair flight I would have hopped right on and said “home please”. And if not home, anywhere close.

It was a combination of the natural low on returning home after a refreshing week off, of handling a work related phone call within 30 seconds (I kid ye not) of turning my phone on once in the country (I was still by the baggage rail), and of immediately returning to the outstretched arms of Rwandans young and old, (truly needy and handout hungry) wanting wanting and wanting. Then I was called by the son of my little old man house guard, Venuste, to let me know he had just died that very day from some sort of brain infection.

Little did I know that within the next 24 hours I would go on to lose my credit cards, driving licence, money and memory stick. I would also have my translators turn up over an hour late to give me the finished manual – only for me to realize nearing midnight as I frantically tried to format it in time for a publisher’s deadline that it contained glaring omissions. Next week’s training has had to be cancelled which means a couple of hours or so of calling, writing and informing people all over my district and re-issuing invitations that demand hours of time to find the right person who has the right coloured ink stamp to verify that the new dates are approved by the mayor.

Oh, and then there was the matter of a fleet of shiny red and black acid bugs that moved into my house whilst I was away. Their bites burn through your skin. I now share my house with several hundred.

Welcome back to Rwanda.

I wondered in the first few months of arriving here whether I was just imagining a whole different attitude to mzunugus and money harbouring in Rwanda. In Senegal and Tanzania people still begged. Often they were homeless, desperate or crippled by polio. Yet, in Senegal people would not outstretch their hand. It was shameful for them to do so. Instead, as is customary in Muslim society, people who were able to, gave where and when they can to people simply sitting by the street. Here in Rwanda it is not unusual for a well dressed child to saunter over having spotted you and gleefully cry out “mzungu” followed by a single word; amafaranga. Money. If you say no, they’ll reply “bon bon”. No again? “Pen”. Woe behold you if you are carrying something. Even if it would be entirely useless to them, they’ll often ask for it anyway. Yesterday, a bunch of young guys, dressed in baggy jeans, bling chains and basketball vests demanded money from Max for “guarding” his truck for an hour. Guarding meaning that it was parked outside their barber shop. There were about 6 of them – I mean, how bloody demeaning! The going rate for “guarding” a car is about 10p. They didn’t need it. They couldn’t have done anything with it. I just felt like shouting at them to have some self respect.

The papers are littered with articles denouncing the West’s behaviour in the weeks during the genocide. Phrases such as “How can the West/UN/America/France live with themselves?” flit up and strangle the already politically strangled articles. Sorry, who killed who again? Who killed whose wife/child/next door neighbour? Who rounded people up and told them they’d be safe in that school/church/stadium, only to then go and tell the guys with the machetes, grenades and guns?

Yes, I am being unfair too. There is definite fault on France and the UN’s side – and all our sides for not being more aware of the situation as it unfolded, and for not rallying our governments to intervene. But it is so frustrating to be living in a country, working to reduce rising HIV infections, working to improve health and education and then to have a literal hand constantly thrust under my chin demanding something, anything and a metaphorical hand extended outwards in the same place from the government and society as though I owe them something for being white.

Perhaps it is ironically due to the fact there is less of a presence of Mzunugus exploiting tourism, agricultural or mining opportunities. Unlike in Kenya, Congo, South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, the vast majority of Mzungus here are NGO aid workers whose job it is to coordinate handouts from donor countries. Therefore I wonder whether we are all seen as one big handout. Elsewhere, the Mzungus really do make a decent living from what the countries offer. Perhaps they do owe more to the nation they profit off and the gimme gimme gimme game would be found to be less frustrating and demoralizing than to me right now.

Then again, maybe it is what we deserve. You could argue that we are all here working and earning a living from other people’s misfortune. This is what we ask for.

2007-03-28T14:22:00.000+01:00

I’ll run you through my morning. Today is market day in my little town Gikongoro. I had to take an invitation for some HIV training I’m doing at the end of next month to a school about 40 minutes motorbike drive out west into a rural village which borders the rainforest. As I bend my way around the hills I normally have to avoid scattered gap-toothed goats and small children who play perilously close to the road. But on a Wednesday there are hundreds of new obstacles. These are the bikes that jitter along the roads which if they were cartoons would have droplets of sweat flicking off their agonized faces as they struggle up, down or round the hill weighed down with sacks of potatoes, coal, banana branches, aforementioned goats or squawking chickens. Vested men heave them up and over. They are no cartoon and sweat dribbles down their faces and arms as they watch me sail by on the motorbike. A mass of baby-carrying women balancing baskets of avocadoes or pineapples neatly on their heads and teenagers carrying multiple bags of bread or deep-fried cakes pound the hills surrounding my town, all making for the central market on a Wednesday morning. Old men in blazers but without shoes, smoking pipes saunter along the road to chat and gossip. Some will have walked for hours. Many are carrying a single branch of bananas which once sold, earning less than a pound, but enough for them to tide their family over another week, means they will be on their way back home again. The exodus starts in the afternoon. The same brightly swathed, barefoot ladies and Manchester United shirted boys start the descent back to their hill.
Today, as I rode to the school, I saw a man carrying a saw on his head, longer than he was tall, as he passed by the children playing on the verge around his feet. I also saw a guy trying to strap a stepladder on to the back of his bike. Vertically. These are the little things I see all the time, but I never mention anymore because they are no longer very surprising to me. Most of the time I don’t even notice, but every so often you are reminded that yes, even though I go to an office and I work, and then go home, eat dinner, relax and go to bed, things really are different here. You forget that most people back home needing to transport 20 kilos of coal, would borrow a van from somebody.

It was one of those mornings where I felt really reflective, which is why I’ve been able to write this. For a while now I’ve wondered what I could write about on here, because for me everything is the same, or else I’m busy with trainings and meetings and workshops that I don’t think will be that interesting. But today the sun was shining down on the hills – even though right now, just a few hours later the roads have turned into rivers and the rain is pelting down – and everything looked glisteningly green. I arrived at the school which shares its grounds with a primary school and was immediately swarmed by over a hundred tiny children amazed at the sudden appearance on their turf of a motorbike riding mzungu. I’m sure I came close to running some of them over – they were everywhere! Behind the wheels, in front of the wheels, next to the brakes, touching the clutch, hooting the horn. I gave a little boy a lift down the dirt track at the end and I could see in my wing mirror his mouth wide open in scared glee as he sat, proud as a king behind me.

Then back at the office, I bumped into a couple of guys I haven’t seen for a while. On managing to hold a 4 minute conversation (I’d like to say 5 – but that would be exaggerating!) with them in Kinyarwanda, one remarked –“You’ll have to take a Rwandan name soon, you are almost a national!” To which I replied I already had a Rwandan name – Umulisa, given to me by another friend. It apparently means “A person who makes others happy”, which was very sweet. They laughed and slapped my hand and wished me a good day, asking if they’d see me down at the stadium for football later.All feels like it’s fitting into place. I have been here for almost 7 months. Time is seriously slipping through my fingers. I am enjoying (almost) every moment, loving my job and my small town, and now believe that if I wasn’t returning home to do a MSc next year, that yes, maybe just maybe I would stay another year. My mum will be pleased though that that will not happen just yet...

2007-03-13T13:56:00.000+01:00

Justice?

Agnes came to me last week to tell me my landlord had just been put in prison “for genocide”. Harsh as it may sound this didn’t surprise me in the slightest. He is/was a horrible guy who used to raise his hand to Agnes in a joking manner, and whose iron grip on my upper arm made itself known that anything he really wanted could be got. My roof still leaks. My windows leak. The tap leaks. I never wanted him around my house so I didn’t chase him up over things that didn’t work.

He was giving evidence at a gacaca (local courts that try genocide suspects all over the country. It’s a very slow process seeing as there are hundreds of thousands of cases to be put forward) when somebody pointed the finger at him and implicated him in the same killing. Two days later the police came a knocking and he was put in prison. He’s already served one prison sentence but this was for a separate crime. A few days later he was allowed out to get a lawyer – a huge luxury that only the very wealthiest could even dream of. But Agnes told me today that he’s back in. I have a feeling it will be like this for a while. He awaits his trial, but as Agnes said, “it is very very serious” and he could be given a 25 yr sentence.

Then two days later she mentioned that her dad had just been taken to prison too. He had also been implicated for actions back in 94. This didn’t surprise me either too much – I knew Agnes had spent a year and a half in Congo in 96, which would correlate with when Hutus extremists left - either fleeing the Tutsi insurgance or going to strengthen rebel parties outside the country. Anyway, her father being in prison now adds to two of her uncles (whose wives were killed – possibly by them) as well as two of my guard’s sons. This war affected everyone.

Not a soul could live in Rwanda without knowing the effects. The guys I work with were either in prison themselves or lost some family... or both – it goes both ways.

Agnes said to me “At the moment Gacaca is gaining strength. By July there shall be no men left in the hills. Everyone will be in prison. This is very bad for all the families. My mother cannot cope cultivating green beans all by herself”. The worst thing, she said, is that people who have enemies in the country accuse each other as a sort of revenge – truth doesn’t matter anymore. If you have a land or cow problem with your neighbour then you can tell the courts that you saw him kill a neighbour back in 1994. “My father is one of 5 men accused of killing all the Tutsi on my hill, but maybe he just has rivals”. Who’s to say? Gacaca is definitely needed but it cannot be foolproof. How do you even start to try to attain justice – or even better reconciliation?

2007-03-13T13:47:00.000+01:00

Chez Agnes

Agnes climbs a mountain every month or so and spends the night praying and fasting. This mountain towers above the others which encase my little town and so I decided that we should climb it together sometime – Max included, since Agnes has more than a soft spot for him. I have a soft spot for his vehicle which would knock an hour and a half off the walking time each way.

And so we made a date; first Saturday of January. We made a rough time plan. Morning. We said “See you at your house Agnes!” We did not make a map. But I knew Agnes lived one hill behind the one I can see from my house out North West.
Saturday is market day in my town so before heading out into the country where Agnes lives we stopped off to buy a gift for the family of some food they would not normally buy themselves – ie, anything resembling fruit, vegetables or anything healthy whatsoever. So we loaded up with avocadoes, mangoes, pineapples and green beans and set off on our way. After we had driven for about 25 minutes Max asked whether I knew where I was going. He was not quite so impressed with my knowledge that she lived over the next hill yonder. So I said not to worry, everybody knows everybody here so I called out the window to somebody passing if he knew where Agnes lived. Blank stare. Dont worry, I said to Max, he probably doesn’t understand my Kinyarwanda accent!

Next person...Where does Agnes live? Blank stare. Incomprehensible Kinyarwanda babble back.

Next. Where does Agnes live? She has a brother called Fidelis and a sister called Liberé. (You mean you don’t even know her surname???” said Max). Blank stare.

Where does Agnes live? Agnes? Yes, she lives down there! (smug grin at Max).

Does Agnes live down here? Yes, keep going, just down there!

Where is the house of Agnes? Down there! The road peters out so we have to leave the car by the side of the road. This is after a woman with no teeth directed us to the path. Directed meaning she babbled, pointed and grinned profusely. So I gave her an amandazi – a small deep-fried cake which costs about 3p. She clasped my arms up to the elbow, smiling and thanking me with tears in her eyes. It was more than humbling.

Once out of the car we saw three old men sat in the shade outside their mud hut. I went over and greeted them before asking the same questions about Agnes’s house. They doffed their caps to me (now when does that happen In Britain!) and then sent us down the hill with a small bare-foot boy of about 8 years old.

We tried to keep up with the little boy as he wove between packs of goats and mats of sorghum and beans drying in the sun, down the rubble slopes until we came to the very final hut and he stopped and pointed at it. Of course it would be the final mud hut! It couldn’t be the first!
“Agnes’s house?” He nodded

Then a tiny little old woman came out into the sun, she had a tattered t-shirt on and dirty once-bright cloth wrapped around her waist. She came towards us smiling broadly – wide open mouth displaying very few teeth. She really was happy to see us – I guessed that this was Agnes’s mum who had come to greet us, smiling because of finally meeting the umuzungu girl who had made her daughter the main breadwinner of her family. When she came closer I realized she was blind in at least one eye – one was completely grey, as though a paintbrush had swept over the eyeball, and the other was weeping as though badly infected. She gripped our arms in the formal handshake but went one further hugging us closely to her, muttering happily all the while. Our basic Kinyarwanda didn’t really help, but I looked at the hut and wondered how Agnes and her 7 brothers and sisters could ever have grown up there – indeed, only a few of them have flown the nest. It could only have been one room, was loosely thatched and had a single bucket outside. More and more kids, having heard of the surprise visit had wandered into her dusty yard to watch us. So we played being the living exhibition again, letting them stare, asking questions to which they giggled and shrunk away from us. I wondered if Agnes had already left to try to find us on the main road. She hadn’t come out so she couldn’t have been in.

Then a strange look came over Max’s face...

“Mama, mwitwe nde?” (What’s your name?) He asked.

Pause, as the old lady turns to him still grinning;

“Nitwa Agnes!” she happily exclaimed.

And Max and I just looked at each other, realizing that yes, we had found Agnes’s house, just not the right Agnes. And I felt humble again, at having wrongly guessed she was happy because of meeting the so-called benefactor. And I felt humble for her complete joy at seeing us. And I felt humble because she was probably hoping for something other than a mango on hearing that she had visitors searching for her.

And aside from all that, my smugness dissipated quite quickly, having realized that better directions than “She lives on the hill the other side of that one” are probably needed in future...

2007-02-28T12:07:00.000+01:00

Parties in a police station...

It was not all barbequed fish and frolics during the Christmas break. Prior to spending three days waiting for a boat to fill with beer, I had spent a day and a half in a police station. Why? On Boxing Day I had gone down to the lake for a swim with a few friends first thing in the morning. It was a guarded beach so I figured leaving my things there was pretty safe. Normally I wouldn’t take my phone down but we were trying to coordinate a trip with some others a bit later so thought I’d best be able to be contacted. As for the camera – it was a gorgeous day, still early in the morning so I thought I’d take a few photos of the lake, looking fresh in the morning sun.

Stupid really I know.

And while I was in the water I could see some guys – those who were meant to be guarding the beach – around my things and my heart sank as I realized they were probably not as trustworthy as I thought. When I came back to shore it didn’t even surprise me that much that they had gone. Over the next couple of days I walked from this beach to the police station or back about 6 times – to get the police, to come back with the police, to go with the suspects, to come back, to go to see the manager etc etc.

This is also why there is a lack of photos on this blog at the moment. I’m waiting so seeif the insurers will pay up – but til then I have to beg and borrow photos from friends to put on here!

The guys initially denied stealing, then when threatened a bit (I was impressed to see only a bit of kicking and slapping of the suspects – this might seem ridiculous but when I saw a guy who tried to break into my house in Tanzania, at the police station, he was covered in dried blood as he’d been beaten with sticks and boots and threatened with a rock to his head) they admitted that they might ‘know who did it’. So they were given half an hour to come back. When they returned they said the camera, phone and wallet were probably already in the Congo, which is only another hundred metes away from the police station.

Meanwhile I listened as two other complaints were brought forward, one of which was a man who brought in a guy whp he accused of raping a 15yr old girl. This poor girl was asked to detail everything that happened iin front of several officers, random other people (such as myself) who were there on other business and two suspects for another case. She spoke barely above a whisper and the only interjections made by the gruff police officer were for her to speak louder.

The previous case had involved a man in welly boots who had gone to the market that day searching for the guy he now displayed in front of the officers. A few days before he had apparently bought 10 kilos of sugar off this guy in the market. When he got it home he opened the sack and found that though there was much sugar around the ties on the top of the sack (and the man’s hands in the market had been covered in sugar) the sick contained a good ten kilos of sand. Which wasnt going to make anyone’s cuppa tea any sweeter.

Aside from this short entertainment, I still had to hang around much of the day – and the day after to wait for forms to be signed, stamped in blue ink, stamped in black ink, logged in a register and copied out three times scrupulously slowly.

Rwanda involves lots of waiting. And patience. I am learning fast.

2007-02-28T10:01:00.000+01:00

Stowaways

During the few days between Christmas and New year, my only obligation was to get home early enough to help plan the party that I’d decided Max and Ruth would host. Having spent Christmas next to Lake Kivu there had to be a better way of getting back down South than returning on twisty windy roads back to the capital city and then back down South. I grew up on an island – so of course I was missing water transport!

Unfortunately, all the rich kids in Rwanda hang out in Gisenyi. And the rich kids think nothing of hiring a private speedboat to get around. On £130 a month I couldn’t see the attraction of spending the vast majority of my monthly pay packet on a 2 hour boat trip –the Isle of Wight to Portsmouth is meant to be the most expensive stretch of water in the world – not a paddle in a Rwandan/Congolese lake!

Fortunately, for several reasons, the national brewery is also stationed in Gisenyi. And fortunately Rose, Max and I are blessed with patience. We had heard that much of the national brewery’s booze is shipped from the northern port to the two others, one stationed midway down the lake and the other in the south – not too far from where I live. Perfect – we would just wait and catch a lift on the brewery boat! Seeing as New Year was fast approaching, they would surely have many cargo boats leaving. We met the captain and he said it was fine. It would cost us the grand total of 1000 francs – just under a pound sterling. All we had to do was turn up at 9am the next day. And so we did.

At midday we tried to find the captain. Rose and Max were sulking because they’d gone to ask for some free t-shirts at the brewery to pass the time and had no luck. They then sent me to ask and I was treated (after a little bit of Kinyarwanda ‘shikamooing’, ie flattery and flirting) to a tour of the brewery (well, the mountains of crates and cranes at least), a visit to the head of promotions and a free t-shirt too! Things got a little sour when I mentioned “my friends” wh also wanted them. It would probably have been fine for Rose but the darn French language gives away the sex of your friends, and they weren’t so impressed with the idea of hunter gatherer Max!

Midday no boat.

4pm no boat.

6pm dark. Find captain. He tells us to come at 10am the next day. Go home

9.45. Boat!

11am. Boat. No captain. No beer.

2pm. Boat. No captain. Beer in crates being loaded on. Crate by crate.

3pm. Captain tells us to go to another port. What we are doing is not 100% legal so he will pick us up at the port 100 metres away.

Go to other port. A boat which is struggling to keep its sides above the lapping water is in the dock currently having a thousand or so cabbages thrown on board to be shipped down south with industrious looking bare backed men. We halt progress as people stop to stare at us, we who are staring at the precarious situation of the boat.

Lots of staring.

We can see the beer boat 100 metres away. It doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere. And why would it leave that dock and come to our dock just to pick us up? Isn’t that too much bother?

Yes. Basically we worked out that the captain was trying to shake us off in that Rwandan way of not really telling the truth for fear of it being too blunt and not to our liking. But we were a difficult trio to shake off. So we went back to the first dock. Rose and I used our best flirting techniques to get past the guards. I think we are now promised in marriage to about 5 men each. And we sat next to the boat and waited for the crates to be loaded. Several hours later, the captain having returned and realized the thorns in his side were still there, we were allowed to jump on board and sit amongst the crates full of beer and fanta. And slowly, after about three days of patient waiting and being told the boat was leaving ‘very soon’, we realized we had succeeded – the Rwandan flag was hoisted at the front of the boat, the mother and father and the baby and a teenager who were to be our stowaway friends for our journey settled down and Rose, Max and I couldn’t stop the huge grins on our faces from spreading. Dusk was almost falling as we left the little dock and we could see dry lightening very far on the horizon. We waved to our new friends – waiters at the local guesthouse where we had spent Christmas day a couple of days beforehand – and many a breakfast since then, waiting for the boat to leave.

The sun set as we skimmed along the sides of the lake – it was incredibly beautiful – and well worth it. Worth it because of the wait – we might not have appreciated it so much if it had consisted of buying a ticket from a grumpy man behind a desk, having a cup of stale coffee in a plastic cup from an overpriced cafe and sitting on plush seats complete with sick bags, emergency instructions and teenagers bawling on their mobile phones (take heed Wightlink!). We decided that the only thing you could really do on a beer boat is crack open a couple to sip as you stare at the mountains and hills towering above you.

Night is never as dark as you think it should be. As we sailed along, night fell but we could still see perfectly. We had time to adjust I guess, but from we could see other boats far away in the distance. When we came closer we realized they were fishing boats out for the evening, singing together to keep time for each stroke of the oar. Every so often there would be a stationary one in the middle with a fire burning to give a little more light – and this is the one where they seposited their catch. We had seen these boats come in to shoar that very morning from the previous night’s work, but hadn’t realized perhaps just how long they spent out on the water. I had been eating fish every day since I got to Gisenyi because it was so good! AN dnow I see just how fresh it was – being pulled ashore in the morning and being eaten a couple of hours later.

We arrived at the next port after about 3 hours. Time to pay our pound for the trip and a little more for the bottles and make our way up the hill to find some accommodation for the night. Well worth three days waiting! And I got a free t-shirt...

2007-02-25T19:05:00.000+01:00

Poop

There are several things I had never ever done before coming to Rwanda. Building a road was one, staring a dead pig in the eye was another. And cleaning gorilla poo off my trousers is another.

Last Sunday I became the ultimate tourist in Rwanda by going gorilla tracking. This is the best of Rwanda – people (admittedly those interested in primates perhaps) come from all over the world to see them here. This corner of Africa is the only place in the world where mountain gorillas exist in the wild. They live on one mountain – the west slope is Congolese, the northern slope is Ugandan and the South and Eastern side are Rwandan. In fact, the sign language sign for Rwanda is 5 beats to the chest, imitating a gorilla!

So at 6am I stood ready with my enthusiastic grin alongside Americans and Norwegians who had heavy trekking gear, waterproofs, pocketted hats and trousers (which can be unzipped at the knee and at the mid-shin too – just in case) and little dangly things you put over the ankles of your very expensive beige outfits you bought specially because you were coming to Africa and that’s what you do...

Anyway, to cut to the chase, we had two military guards with us who cut through the bamboo forest as our guide communicated by radio to the professional trackers who had been out searching for the gorillas since 5am. There are many different groups – and there are many rules too. 8 to a group, once you get there, you stay for an hour only, and you cannot get within 7metres distance. Keep quiet. Don’t point because the silverback might think you’re pointing at his hot bit of stuff. And we all know how jealous males can get...

So after almost 2 hours of hacking through bamboo forests, tredding in gorilla faeces (“fresh this morning!”) and climbing down river gorges and being hoisted up the other side (this is about as inelegant as you can get) literally by the seat of your pants, we came to a clearing. With a munch and a chew and a grind we came accross this family of wild gorillas, happily stuffing their faces with the leaves and grasses surrounding them. There were 22 of them – including the silverback – a mean looking beast who apparently ‘stole’ this family by beatng off the silverback who was in charge before he took a fancy to the lovely ladies that make up the group. There was even a 1 week old baby, and plenty of young ones running around, falling out of trees and beating their chest. Every so often one would wander near us, and the guard would hiss at us to get back, keep our distance – just in case. Meanwhile the gun was cocked – again, just in case.

The funny thing? They were so human! Staring at each other, swatting away the flies, the inquistive stares at us, these strange beings that had come along to watch as they ate, the young ones giving each other a slap when they got annoyed.

These brilliant beasts share 97% of our DNA!

2007-02-15T19:55:00.000+01:00

I built a road the other day.

I have mentioned Umuganda a few times before. Hands up who remembers what it is...

Every final Saturday of the month the whole village population meets in the market place and is told by the local head what community work they will be undertaking that day. This could be planting trees, cleaning schools, cutting bushes, clearing the road side of weeds etc. So I went along with Max and a couple of other friends to where he works – a small village called Sovu, which is much smaller than Gikongoro where I live.

When the villagers saw us turn up they looked a bit nervous. Well, we didn’t have any machetes or digging tools after all. I mean, were we inspectors? Nervous men and woman shuffled past us as they set to work levelling a grassy, weedy footpath. Then after speaking briefly to the army chief, a set of hoes was presented to us.

And then the villagers broke into big grins. Some doubled over and hooted. My Kinyarwanda was enough to set up the giggles, but then they saw me heave my hoe up above my head and bring it down with a thud on the baked ground in front of me. But I worked at it! I soon had a rhythm! Heave, hover, thud, pull. Heave, hover, thud, pull. Heave, hover, thud, pull. Wipe the brow. Heave, hover, thud, pull.

I do wonder though just how positive our effect was on the creation of that road. I mean there were four of us muzungus getting hot and sweaty, battling with heat and hoes - but whenever I glanced up, I could just see a wall of staring people with huge incredulous grins on their faces watching these strange white people getting down and dirty.

And after a while I really was making a road. The path was being levelled, widened and flattened to allow all the cars to go down it. The fact that there are no cars in Sovu doesn’t matter – Umuganda doesn’t have to be practical, it just needs to involve the community to make sure they are well disciplined and work together. Social cohesion and all that.

It really is interesting, these social cohesion projects though. A couple of months ago Rwanda abolished the death penalty, and rather than the decision be taken from high up above they sent people into every tiny village all over Rwanda, sat people down under a tree or in the market place or at the football pitch and asked their opinion. And the whole village decided together, and told the representative who then went back to the larger town and told the district leader and so on, Yes, ok a form of election – but it was a discussion rather than a straight out vote. It allowed people to properly ask questions – and have them answered rather than just be given a slip of paper and told to tick a box.

So, although I had blisters on my fingers and an aching back for a few days, I’m glad I helped build a road in Rwanda. That’s my contribution to social cohesion – integration of mzungus on every level! I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty...

2007-02-15T19:36:00.000+01:00

The Place To Be.

My house is busting at the seams. You may remember that right back in the beginning (almost 6 months ago now!) that I hated the fact that I was all alone in a big house on the hill, opposite the prison. I was far from the village centre and had three rooms in the house that I just never went in. This house is beautiful – windswept and cold, but it’s actually a lot better than brash, burning heat or humidity that hangs on you like boiling mud.

In January everything changed. Number 1 arrival came in the form of a French girl, Morgane. Now this is good for several reasons (we’re talking tactics here, let’s not be pussyfooting around and saying it’s nice to have ‘company’). As a French girl, she has a French mother. Now, as we all know the French believe that their cuisine is 'tellement extraordinaire', that McDonalds in Paris attended a cordon bleu course before serving up his patties. This also means that her mother rates Rwandese cuisine just slightly above British cooking – and so regularly sends food packages to her daughter who cannot be coping without her snails.

On a serious note, it is very nice to have company!

Then a young lad came a knocking. He’s been accepted into the secondary school just down the road from me, which is a pretty good school. Only problem is that they accepted him on condition that he was an ‘external’ pupil – that he didn’t stay in the dorms. Here, every secondary school is a boarding school because kids are divided and shuffled and separated and allotted schools depending on their grades. So, seeing as I live in a big old house with an out house he came asking. So Valence now lives in a room out the back of my house. He’s 22 and brought me three eggs the other day to say thank you! Very sweet (I accidentally then broke one of them immediately. Heartless and cruel. Or just clumsy?).

Then two days later a friend of his also joined the gang. He’d been asked to leave the dormitories because there was not enough space for him. He’d been sleeping 3 to a single mattress so I couldn’t exactly turn him away. I think he’s 21 (yes, people finish school here very late because they often go a couple of years where they can’t get the money to pay school fees, or maybe they failed and retook the year or had to stop because the parents died so they looked after the young ones until they were old enough to look after themselves and then they return).

Then today I find out that my landlord has just been sent to prison. Any of you who have spoken to me will know how much I hated this guy anyway. He was a really sleazy guy, and used to grab me by the arm in a ‘friendly’ way but he was so strong I remember thinking that there is no way that any woman could stand up to him. Anyway he was accused last week in the local genocide courts and is now in prison awaiting his trial. I’ve been told it’s serious, which could be a 25 year stint.

It really is all go. Work is extremely busy at the moment because I’m coordinating the project in the whole of the district as well as writing a manual on sex education, reproductive health, personal and social health, decision making, human rights and HIV to be used in Rwandese secondary schools. Oh, and then my project manager quit two days ago. Leaving the entire project in my hands and the hands of another volunteer Merryl who lives on the opposite side of the country to me, coordinating a completely different district.

So everything is busy busy, but it is a challenge. I am absolutely heartbroken Andrew is leaving because he is probably my best Rwandan friend, and an absolute star - the only person who gets things done on the project. But it is a challenge, so I have to do it. Get over it, start again, take on more responsibilities. (Yes this may sound like my own personal pep-talk. I still haven’t quite figured out how we’re going to cope!)

So that is me now up to date with today, but I still have things to report back on from the last few weeks...

2007-02-07T08:05:00.000+01:00

New Year’s Eve involved being stood over a bucket of dead body trying to figure out whether you could eat a pig’s nipple.

I had kindly offered to host a New Year’s party at somebody else’s house. Max and Ruth were obliging when I told them this – and then Ruth found herself a visa and scuppered off on some fancy safari in Kenya – leaving Max, a researcher who had not a single connection to VSO prior to September 2006 hosting a party for 25 very energetic volunteers – as well as friends from Butare town.

That day Max and I had kindly been donated a gift of “some meat” for the party. Now nobody in Rwanda would ever turn down such a generous gift. Meat is for the wealthy out here. We built a charcoal grill from bricks, encasing coal and paper soaked in kerosene and put the grill on top. Then we started on the meat...

4 buckets of body parts was our gift.

I could not make out any remaining flesh on billy the goat. I found a heart (found in so much as it was lying on top of the liver and kidneys) and identified its haunches. Though there was little more than gristle on its hind legs the joint was still able to swing back and fro – as if galloping up a Rwandan hillside.

Then came the pig. The pig head. I don’t think I have ever stared out a dead pig. It’s eyes gazed up at me and there seemed more than a hint of chesire cat smile on its lips as if to say “Well here I am – whatchagonna do?”. And what was I going to do indeed. Head intact but there was no way I was delving inside. Then beneath the head were three or four layers of square patches of skin and fat. The skin was extremely hairy and the fat very fat. The nipples lay unobtrusively on top. I couldn’t touch them. They were too...lifelike.

Meanwhile Max next to me was repeating a mantra to his Jewish grandmother “I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry”.

We washed our hands and went for it. Find the flesh! Find anything edible! After about an hour and having created three measly kebabs of fat we gave up.

The smiling pig had his way.

The party went very well thank you. We danced, drank, ate, sang Old Lang Syne all night (not all at the same time). And nobody minded the lack of meat. Most VSO volunteers are bloody vegetarian anyway!

2007-02-07T07:52:00.000+01:00

5 gold rings!!!

Singing at the British Embassy just before Christmas. Rose is also getting into the spirit of things with her glitzy antlers. No shame!

2007-01-25T21:04:00.000+01:00

By the way - don't cheat.

You can't read about Christmas day before reading about what happens first! Go back to where you left off - otherwise the gruesome bits won't follow on properly!

2007-01-25T20:56:00.000+01:00

Christmas day was honestly a very civilized affair

– I went to an amazingly colourful church in the morning with three friends. There was bunting strung up from beam to beam over the small wooden benches which were packed bottom to bottom. Babies bound to the brightly clothed backs of women – and girls. Clashing colours mix on the same patterned cloth that is wrapped around the waist. But they are always incredibly well-tailored to exact measurements with incredibly flouncy sleeves and intricate waistbands. Skirts are flared, fishtailed or tubular, short or long and tops are sleeved or strapped, laced around the neckline or sliced straight across. The mix of bunting, baby and blaring colours created quite an intense atmosphere inside, doubled, if not trebled by the vibrant singing and dancing shared amongst choir and congregation alike. Anyone who has been in an African church will probably be nodding their head as I mention this. I don’t want to labour a point – partly because I don’t want to step into the arena of patronising exoticism – yet sometimes just listening to the deep voices bandying about beneath the church’s corrugated-roof gives you that fluttering heart-expanding feeling.

We joined up with some other friends over on the other side of the bay, where I produced possibly the most exciting and necessarily element of the day – Christmas crackers and mini mince pies, courtesy of a package from mum. There were 12 mince pies and twelve volunteers (a set of parents and a UN worker were deigned to be unworthy of receiving one). Six crackers worked out perfectly – though I did threaten to steal a hat if I didn’t actually win one (It’s ok, my strength and natural skill at Christmas cracker pulling shone through despite little festive practice this year and I didn’t have to commit the first sin of Christmas day).

We went swimming in the lake before feasting upon tasty Nile perch and sharing the small Christmas presents we had bought for each other, Secret Santa style. In fact we were so comfortable in this small lakeside restaurant we didn’t really leave – we were playing charades in camp-fire light right up til about 11pm (which for us is massively late out here!), most of us having been able to speak to family too back home.

This is just really to prove that I can do classy. Because the next few days couldn’t really be classed as being too chic...

2007-01-25T17:47:00.000+01:00

Then, comes Christmas Eve. A bunch of us volunteers (and aquaintances) had travelled out west to Gisenyi, a town on lake Kivu which borders the Congo, right next to Goma (which is unfortunately in the news quite often for the unrest there). I say “travelled’, but that’s like saying “travelled” to get from Southampton to Brighton. It’s not even as far as that, though trying to reach your destination, stuffed between sweaty armpits and suckling babies on a bus sometimes makes it feel like you’re trying to find a Catholic church during Mecca. Complications, halts, problems, lateness, cancellations, wide-eyed incredulous looks that you're not flying by in an air-conditioned 4x4 like the other muzungus...

Anyhow, Christmas Eve evening I was sat with Max and Jean-Pierre, a Rwandan friend, in his uncle’s house. He’d invited us for dinner and whilst the others went out for cocktails (worth about a 20% of their weekly pay), we thought it’d be nice to spend the evening there – and/or rude to refuse. Max had mentioned Jean Pierre’s family were also pretty well renowned for being good cooks.

Which is why the intestine came as a bit of a shock.

Have you ever tried to eat something so obviously recognizeably a part of a body which is more used to digesting than to being digested? It had small suction bits on it. It was a very pale white-pink as though the blood had been sucked out. It seemed to have a fleshy rubber band wrapped around it.

I forgot to mention that these entries – especially around Christmas time, are probably not for the vegetarian. Indeed, perhaps not for those of the weak stomached. Those who this does not apply to, may now continue...

I rolled it around on the plate. Past the chunk of brown goat liver. Indeed. Not a favourite either. But if you douse it in chilli sauce you can either make the taste go away (and your eyes water), or you can start coughing and pretend you poured on the sauce completely by accident and now it’s too hot, silly you, for a mere muzungu mouth - and thus avoid having to eat it. Just make sure that the dish from whence it came is already finished, otherwise you might find a friendly fresh fat dollop on your plate in recompense for your ‘stupidity’ – and a smiling host eager to see your pleased and satisfied face as you roll it around in your mouth. I sponged it on to the fork, raised it to my lips, closed my eyes, and thought of how I could convince myself that it was beautiful garlic and lemon encrusted calamari. Nope. Squidgy intestine it was.

Now, there are some beautiful things that friends can do for one another. Friendship can be unfairly seen to be loosely based around having a natter over coffee, the lending of a couple of quid, a pat on the back when one has done something to be proud of.

Prior to Christmas Eve of 2006 I had never thought that friendship could include the spearing of one’s second portion of intestine and eating it to save you from having to do so. Thankyou Max.

I admit this was a noble thing to do. I must have been obviously struggling. Personally though, I do wonder whether its value has decreased with the number of times I have been reminded of this act of friendship...Any time I refuse or complain about shutting the door, or washing up I have the wonderful “I ate your intestine for you” thrown back at me.

And how can you refuse to soap a couple of cups after hearing that??

2007-01-25T17:40:00.000+01:00

So, which bit to start with?

A few days before Christmas, I was stood in the British Embassy courtyard supping (in a very genteel manner) from a glowing glass of mulled wine. I even munched upon a mince pie! I sang Ding Dong Merrily on High. I laughed, and chattered and giggled away – as far away from Rwanda as you almost possibly could be. When mum heard about the invitation to all Brits to come and be festive at a Christmas carol servie she gave possibly the best advice one could give to a VSO volunteer; “Make sure you take a doggy bag!”.

I didn’t need to be told twice.

Unfortunately, last year’s VSO volunteers (of which there are still many still here) had probably received the same advice, and I am positive that as the trays of canapes (yes, really!) came wandering around, there was a distinct swerve away from our huddled mass of volunteer vultures. We came in droves – free food and drink! Oh, and of course the urge to be festive and get merry. But it was unfair if they really did swerve as much as I think they did. We were officially the Life and Soul of the party. Seriously. I don’t know what getting a large salary (ridiculously inflated as regards a local rate), does to your personality but these guys working for the UN or for the British Department for International Development or whoever else, refused to really get into the spirit of things. I mean, if you can’t shout and holler at the “Five gold rings!”part of the twelve days of Christmas, then you either are stupidly self-conscious or are overly aware of your boss standing just inches away. The true value of being a volunteer I guess.

Anyhow, I’d been working right up til that very day – the 22nd or 23rd and was about to take my first few days of holiday since I got here back in September. I was very up for a good old shin-dig and managed to comfortably stuff myself on a large mince pie in the process. Mulled wine has never tasted so good (as when it tastes not really like it should??).

2007-01-11T09:27:00.000+01:00

Umwaka Mwiza! (Happy New Year indeed)

Christmas has involved a long whirl of lake swimming, eating fish and intestines, becoming a stowaway on a boat jammed with crates of local beer, sorting through a pig's body trying to find edible flesh from nipples and hearts, spending a day and a half in a police station and pulling Christmas crackers kindly sent by my mum. All in all, there is a lot to say, and I am aware I have fallen behind. This is just to let you know that these adventures are all to come ( I know how you must all be on the edge of your seats after all...) and that I have not forgotten you. My absence has been partly due to the aforementioned police visit (don't worry, it wasn't me being knocked about for bad behaviour) but rest assured I shall be back with a bang.

Hope all your Christmases and New Years were jolly affairs.

2006-12-21T09:51:00.000+01:00

Road Trip
Here is little Emanuel and his tiny sister trying my motorbike out for size. It excites Emanuel so much to see me scooting out of my house, that he usually runs after me trying to clamber on – so in the interests of public health and safety I usually stop, let him climb aboard and then drop him off about 30 metres along the dirt track. Makes him happy for a moment (and stops him asking for biscuits too).

On Sunday, Max and I decided to see how roadworthy Mookie the moto really was. Well, more likely to see how roadworthy Maggie was as the bike seemed to cope fine and Max got to just sit on the back and enjoy the views whilst my brow was furrowed as I dodged the gorges hacked out of the mud roads; roads which become rivers in torrential rain and then repeatedly bake to a crisp when the sun emerges. Not that I was complaining, it was a beautiful day when we left and the sun shone down on the terraced hills. Our arms became tired from waving to so many people strolling along with bales of fronds or bags of potatos and coal on their heads, and children scampered after us, relishing in having been the first to have spotted the mzunugu, not least two who spoke Kinyarwanda to them!

We were aiming to get to a small town called Kibeho. I call it a town, but it was 1 hour 45 minutes from a tarmac road (and that’s with an exceptionally competent driver too I may add) and consisted of several huge churches and a few shacks selling fanta and that was it. Why the huge churches? Between 1981 to 1989 (and some say since then too), several apparitions of the Virgin Mary were recorded, generally to school girls – in fact, it was the first place in all of Africa to have recorded appartitions, sitings verified by the Church too (though how you ‘verify’ an apparition I don’t know). It has become a site of pilgrimage and dotted around the area (and can I reemphasize just how rural this is) there are small handmade signs which I assume point to where the visions were.
There are two huge churches, one which is extremely modern and packed with tiny wooden bences the width of a very small bottom which are probably jammed on Sunday morning. The other has a sadder story – during the genocide it was badly hit, burned down with people inside I believe. Kibeho is also the site of a huge old refugee camp which was important for all sorts of political reasons. To look at it today you would never know – just a small dusty town amidst rolling hills.Unfortunately we then heard the equivalent of a BBC weather forecast – rumbling in the distance. Turning we saw a bank of huge black clouds rolling ominously towards us. The rain is bad for bikes – not because (as I though at first) it gets wet and it doesn’t appreciate that, but because of the aforementioned transformation or road into river. And being almost 2 hours from tarmac we had no choice – race the rain. If we sat it out we’d have had to stay overnight until the sun had a chance to bake the road dry again. I estimated that we could be safer if we perhaps took a different track back which was technically longer, because it took us out close to the Burundi border, but meant we would be on tarmac sooner.

We raced back. The roads being better meant that rather than 10k an hour, we managed to stretch Mookie’s legs a bit – hair streaming out behind us (the straggly bits that poke out of the helmet that is), and Max has hair about 1cm long, so maybe not his either. Racing rain is difficult enough at the best of times, but when black clouds hover menacingly, eating up the air between you at them, you could be forgiven for claiming unfair advantage – as you circle around hills, down into valleys, around the cows picking their way along the track, across bridges made from skinny logs linked with twine, and between the kids that in their excitement nearly end their days.
Twice we had to stop and ask for directions – as soon as the motorbike slowed, thirty, now forty people leapt up to help, crowding around us on the bike. As I chattered away to a bright-eyed woman with four teeth, proud thatI could explain what we’d been doing and where we’d come from all in Kinyarwanda, I assumed Max behind me, was having as much of a ball with his toothless but hatted old men. Until I felt a dig in the small of the back and heard a hissed “Lets go Maggie...LETS GO” through gritted teeth. I believe the old man’s alcohol soaked breath had offended him as much as the demands for money and the grabbing for my camera. So we zoomed off again, over the hills and far away, and with the last twist of the road, and over the final log bridge we saw tarmac – we heard a clap of thunder and the pattering of rain on banana leaves that got louder and louder as the clouds got closer and closer and then overtook us. It was nice of them to wait. We still got an absolute drenching as we were down by Burundi, 30k from Butare town, but at least the wheels didn’t slide and slip through muddy marsh. Visor down, whoops of joy at being in the heart of sunny Rwandan country having subsided, teeth were once again gritted, brows furrowed and jeans soaked on the final leg home to a nice cold bucket shower.

Scooting past houses...

....waving to all and sundry like the queen...

2006-12-21T09:45:00.000+01:00

I now have 22 school headmasters wrapped around my little finger.

Myself and Andrew, my Rwandan boss who runs the HIV prevention project from Kigali ran a meeting 2 weeks ago to outline the plan for 2007, get all headteachers on board, ask some controversial questions (such as whether you could talk about condoms in church schools), and basically get them to like us as much as possible so that they’ll help us out when required. Headmasters are the key to making things happen.

So we ran a workshop outlining the importance of the work we do (HIV prevalence in Rwanda being about 250,000 which was 31 times the number of secondary school students and teachers and headmasters in our district), and what activities we think are important. We then got them to discuss and prioritise them so that they have ownership of the project. This is not about us coming in and doing things – this is about them deciding what they want to happen and helping to enforce it. Though I received the mandatory smiles by introducing myself in Kinyarwanda, I spoke in French for the rest of it and Andrew – whose English is better than his French because he grew up in Uganda, spoke in Kinyarwanda. We carried out a bunch of activities and group work, ran some games to waken them up and facilitated some discussions and presentations. On one activity, I tried to make them think about all the problems we would face such as cultural values (eg, polygamy, the reticence to talk openly, the practice of a widow being married off to her brother-in-law) religious problems, or logistical problems (size of the district, the rainy season etc). To show them what I meant I drew a chart on some paper and stuck it on the wall of the room. An arrow-head whose stem started with ‘current situation’ and whose head ended with ‘ideal situation’. On top we would draw the challenges and on the bottom we would mark in what we already had in our favour. But to lighten the mood a little, I chose a different sort of project; “Le Projet Maggie Marriage” which had them all immediately giggling, marriage being more than a hot topic here. I started with outlining how the current situation was that I was 23 and without a husband (shocking indeed). I asked them what the ideal situation would be and drew their suggestions; “You need a husband!”, “And children!” – ok, a boy or a girl? “Both!” (in unison). Then I asked what challenges I faced – “You have no money!”, “You are far from your home culture!” “You do not speak kinyarwanda!” – and Andrew chirps up from the side with a smile on his face “Maybe you’re not beautiful...” I had to hold them back, jokingly saying “ok, ok, you are finding way too many challenges for me!”. They made up for it though by finding a few things that I had to my advantage – being “dynamique” was one, having been to school was another.

Since then, I’ve spent two weeks going over all the feedback from the session, the plans for 2007 we made, and constructing a breakdown of all the info to write up in French for them. Today and yesterday I’m acting as a courier and biking around some of the schools to hand over the letters. It has been really really nice however going into the schools – which are shut at the moment for the long holidays – and having the headmasters leap to their feet; “Maggie! How are you! What news have you of your family... etc etc”. It was great to be active and run my own sessions, making them as lighthearted and interesting as possible, with games and group work, especially since here, meetings are very much the same as in a classroom. You sit, you listen and when you are asked you may perhaps respond to the question, effectively you listen to what’s decided without deciding for yourself. This will often last 4 hours. Having said that, I see much improvement from the old days 5 years ago in Tanzania where it was even worse. Rwanda are making some fantastically huge steps. All credit to them.

Here I am with my wonderful 'powerpoint' presentation...Rwanda-style.

2006-12-19T21:10:00.000+01:00

Here's some hip wriggling action from World AIDS day 2006..

2006-12-19T20:59:00.000+01:00

The morning after Agnes broke down crying, I woke her up just before 5am. After saying a round of prayers she left to find her sister. It was still dark and would be for another hour. She had a look of determination on her face and I remembered how she’d said the night before; “Tomorrow I will look for my sister. Tomorrow I will find my sister”. Agnes’ strength and awareness continues to surprise me. Though she lives in a small hush-hush polygamous community where shame descends upon the woman, not the man, even when a victim of rape she is fully aware of the wider picture. She knows that it is the man “who has many faults” and she sighed; “my sister is not the first to get pregnant. And of course she will never be the last”.
Agnes’s sister has since been found. She returned to the village – but aware of the shame heaped upon a single female like herself she is now staying at the house of the father of her soon to be born child. Her parents – and Agnes are not happy with this, not least because “How can a poor man have two wives? It is difficult enough to care for one and her children”. Her father is going to go to the village chief on Thursday if Liberé (ironic eh? “Liberated”) does not come back to her family home. Agnes says that the problem is a little better – if only because they at least know now where she is.

2006-12-19T20:37:00.000+01:00

There is still so much to say! I feel as though I write for too long, I worry about boring you. I wonder who actually reads this. I try to judge which paragraph is the one which sends you back to the kettle, or diverts to more interesting things such as flossing your teeth.
And yet there is so much to say! I can ony ever write a smidgeon of what I do on this blog. Plus, lots of the time, it would be too dull to detail.

I have never mentioned the conference of young Rwandan writers that I participated in back at the end of October, run by VSO. Every year there is a competition run in all the schools to encourage kids to be creative in their writing – education here is very much old-school – copy from the board, do as I say, learn by rote and repeat. Every kid can accurately identify an adverb of time or place or manner - but ask them to describe their family and blank stares ensue. This was a conference rejoining winners from the last few years and finding out what people were up to now – it was incredible. One girl who’s published two novels this year, a guy who works for the English language paper and reports on the radio too, several who were now working for French or Kinyarwanda papers. But these guys are the lucky ones – their language skills were great and could easily converse in French and English, the girls were articulate and bold – they didn’t shy away from talking to me as the headmistress of a secondary school did here in my district. In the afternoon people took turns to read poetry or prose that they had composed, others sang – I had a song dedicated to me – and when the young guy with baggy jeans, converse trainers and a beenie hat started rapping, the whole room went crazy - “No way! That’s him! I never knew!” – It was Rwanda’s number one hip-hop star, a rapper called Adolphe (he has a stage name too don’t worry!). I was star-struck too, a singer at number one in the music charts dedicating a song for little old Maggie. Blush.

I also had fun running some sessions for the VSO World AIDS Day activities on the 1st of this month. The Rwandan national theme centred around the responsibility of the family to break the silence which strangles progress in the fight against HIV. Household members of all the staff who work in the Kigali VSO office were invited to an all-day awareness-raising training which used activities and stories and one of the HIV positive group leaders also shared her experiences of the virus, the stigma and the problems she has faced - and faces on a daily basis. But running a session about breaking silence inevitably starts in silence. Mothers, brothers and sisters arrived and quietly sat alone as they waited for the session to start. An awkward silence and sense of apprehension settled in the room. I too was apprehensive – because I was in charge of breaking this silence with an icebreaker. Less than ten minutes later the whole group were giggling away and some wiped tears of laughter from their eyes. I had decided to introduce myself by writing my name with my hips only and then getting everyone around the circle to do the same (i’s are very fun). The silence began to fall away and the more serious subject were broached. And hopefully the silence will continue to fall away.

2006-12-19T08:06:00.000+01:00

This is a copy of an article I wrote for a VSO publication trying to attract new volunteers by showing what type of Christmas they could be enjoying next year...

I am not Rwandan. I have no Rwandan relatives. I had not a single Rwandan friend to speak of prior to my September shipment courtesy of Flight VSO-YfD. But I know exactly how Christmas day will unfold on every slope of this thousand-hilled country and what ingredients will go towards making it the most Rwandan of celebrations. A few thousand years ago Mary may have ridden a donkey to Bethlehem, shepherds may have watched over their flocks by night, but every Rwandan knows that wise men keep cattle not camels.

On passing each other in the muddy quagmires, sometimes known as roads, that wind around the hills from village to banana tree grove to town all over Rwanda, little old men in tattered pinstripe blazers or bent-backed old ladies break into toothless grins. They grab each others’ elbows, touch foreheads three times and say “Amashyo!”- “have herds of cows” to which the other replies “Amashyongore!” -“have herds of female cows!”

And in the market place, never before has buying a bunch of carrots been so exciting for the crowd of thirty spectators watching an umuzungu (a trouser-wearing female no less) giving Kinyarwanda bartering her best shot. But on being given yet another vastly inflated price, the popular exclamation which will guarantee gasps and giggles - as well as a reduction of at least 5p is “Yampaye inka!” – the very ironic ‘He has given me a cow!”.

Christmas day will necessarily involve the cow dance. The cow dance is the traditional dance of Rwanda and Burundi, and as such is technically reserved for special occasions. But any occasion can be judged special enough if it means a green light for public cow worship and so it is practically a staple of any community gathering. Girls have the serene job of swaying from side to side, arms held up in a V shape mimicking the horns of the cow. The guys have slightly more fun - protecting their hypothetical cows they stomp and jump, jangling - and breaking the bells strapped to their ankles. They creep and shriek, wielding spears and shields and flick their necks from side to side, to which are attached billowing blonde wigs. All this is performed to the thumping and pounding of an array of drums made from hollowed tree trunks and goat hide. Every so often screams and hollers of praise for their herd sound out followed by threats to steal the cows of their adversaries. These shrieks serve as a war cry which triggers stomping which is twice as animated.

Now, the second most cherished activity in Rwanda is going to church. Sunday masses last at least three hours– but if that does not satisfy, there are nightly prayer sessions, daily choir practice to attend, and there are more religious denominations than you can shake a cow bell at. Here, a little Rwandan artistic licence is taken as regards general Christian worship. The drums are out and people sing and clap – as is usual in many parts of the world, but then, just after the consecration of the Christ, Rwandan hands stretch above heads and the congregation instinctively and communally starts swaying from side to side, arms waving in a graceful V shape which is suspiciously reminiscent of the horns of the cows wandering outside.

Cows are not just milk and meat. Cows are dowries, gifts, tokens of persuasion or blackmail, status symbols and even markers of ethnicity as ill-judged by the Belgians early this century in what was to have dire consequences. Ten cows or more and you’re a Tutsi. Less than ten and you are obviously Hutu. Cows are not ushered away from local football pitches – they become the third team, an extra obstacle in case the dust ridges, gaping holes, ditches and clumps of stone are not enough of an impediment to scoring that winner. Cows, Christmas and Christianity complement each other and all will be necessarily involved come the big day. But just as in the market place, screams of pleasure not that different to the dancers’ threatening wails, will sound out on Christmas day when the umuzungu is naturally pulled up in front of the crowd to replicate the homage being paid to the cows. Funny though, my arms as graceful horns may not translate too easily and look more like electricity pylons, but I have stumbling around on hooves rather than feet just about down to a tee. Merry Christmas.

2006-12-19T07:57:00.000+01:00

Well you can imagine my excitement. Receiving two small packets from my Mr Post Office Vincent, which, on the custom’s tag declared “Seasonal fare” in my father’s scrawl (sorry Dad, but it is). Seasonal fare! All kinds of images flooded into my mind – roast turkey (not big enough), stuffing (would it survive?), a Yule log (surely melted), glass of mulled wine (probably spilt by now)... But imagine then my frustration! Even though my eyes and nose were just as upturned and sniffing as the bisto kids’ I had to drag myself through a meeting lasting the whole day, with all the local govt officials and aid organizations such as the Red Cross etc. We were creating the Nyamagabe District HIV reduction strategy plan for 2007. Sometimes for these meetings you are very very lucky to be offered a lift by somebody extremely unreliable. Because this means that you will not have to sit through the ‘opening words’, nor perhaps the VIP’s introduction. But only if you are very very very lucky. My lift was probably less unreliable than actually very astute. We arrived an hour and a half late, and they had only just sat down. The rest of the meeting was ok, I had to rely on sparse translations but I did get a round of muffled cheers and smiles when I introduced myself and gave the basic outline of VSO’s project in Kinyarwanda.

Anyway, back to the important business. Food.

So, exciting it was indeed, and when I got back home I tore into the parcel (‘tore’ is perhaps a bit generous. Tree conservation is not high on mum’s list of priorities, nor is she prone to economizing on roles of selotape) and lo and behold it was my merry Christmas day! A tiny wee Christmas pudding! Wow! One to share with at least 8 on Christmas day methinks – that’s if I can find the means to cook it. There were lots of little sachets of this and that, some crisps and chocolate. But of all the things in the parcel, there was a little something whose unsaid but implied significance was immediately evident to me – a small packet of Scottish full butter shortbread.

“Don’t forget your roots Maggie – and make sure you come home!” the piper on the front seemed to smile at me.

2006-12-14T20:20:00.000+01:00

Agnes

How do you console a girl who’s just had everything she ever based her life on turned upside down?

I have rarely felt so useless as just now when Agnes, my house girl broke down crying and a story tumbled out which with every twist and turn got darker and more dispiriting. Each time I thought that was it, that there couldn’t possible be another fold in the story, another event or fear was voiced, and tears welled. I don’t know if it is a Rwandan way of telling a story – parts are repeated over and over – and then comes the next part, which is repeated once or twice, before the next twist is uncovered but it makes for a wild-eyed audience, and I had a lump in my throat. She is in the room next door to me, she said she had too much ‘sorrow’ to go home but that she will leave at 5am. She started by saying she has not seen her eldest sister since Sunday. Then it turns out she was pregnant. She left her parent’s house in the middle of the deep country after dark. She stayed a few nights at a friend’s house in the town, but then today this friend, Godasse told Agnes that she was no longer there.All she knows is that she wanted to go to the river, but Godasse tried to stop her.
All this was being recounted in broken French. It’s almost a type of French pidgin we speak together. I break down my French grammar to make it easier for Agnes who never finished secondary school, and so some of the sentences are always slightly contorted. And several times I had to ask exacty what that meant in a Rwandan sense, such as ‘going to the river’. Agnes wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me. Instead she just looked away and said it was a big big problem and she was very very afraid. The tears were still there but stubbornly not slipping over.
Agnes’s sister was not married. If Agnes is anything to go by the family are very religious. My house is currently adorned with messages and pictures drawn by Agnes telling me God loves me, and with various biblical quotations. She goes to church at least three times a week and is in the choir and runs the prayer sessions –all this at the age of 21. Last week she spent the night at the top of the highest mountain you can see for miles praying with 3 friends, on a mini-retreat. So perhaps having an unmarried pregnant sister would have brought shame upon the family. Were the parents angry? “Yes but now they are afraid. They ask where their child is and nobody can answer”.

Only then did Agnes say that her sister had been raped.

But far from removing the shame, this merely increases it. How can a 28yr old woman not be married? Was she asking to be raped? Who would then want to marry a soiled woman? The man who raped her then apparently asked her parents whether she would marry his younger brother – at this point the parents knew nothing and said yes. This was 6 months ago but the sister kept herself hidden and didn’t let anyone know about her condition – apart from Agnes and a few close friends. Then Agnes mentions how the rapist, Fas, who lives amongst them still is already married, and has 5 children.

Something went wrong with the idea of marrying the brother, so then Fas, the rapist, offered for Agnes’s sister to become his second wife. Can you imagine marrying your rapist?

“Maggie, now I know that all men, all all men, all of them are bad”.

Aged 21, Agnes has lost all faith in half of humankind.

And then it continued. This man turns out to be the church leader in the very church that Agnes devotes half her life to. He is the co-leader of the prayer groups and the choirs. “How can this man, this Christian do this? I don’t understand”. And so her belief in the church is now tainted too. This Christian leader, with 5 kids and a wife, a so-called respected member of the community rapes a girl, and then (the story continues to unfold) threatens Agnes with the same fate. Since Agnes wants to stay out of trouble, he then tells her parents that Agnes is ‘fooling around’. When she goes to prayer group she speaks to all the men. And she spreads propaganda. Bad things all about him (ie, if you ever hear anything bad about me in the coming weeks it’s all lies and nothing to do with me).

I am sure the story will continue to unfold. But what makes it wose is that it isn’t a story. And yet here I am writing about it. I have no idea what to do. I have a sobbing girl in the other room terrified about where her sister has ended up. And all I can do is write about it. And that makes me feel ashamed, as though I am using it as some great ‘scoop’ or something when in fact I just have no idea what to do. I think I find writing quite therapeutic, but will it help she who needs help most?

2006-12-13T08:19:00.000+01:00

Timecheck.

Sorry, just a quick aside. I’ve just heard on the BBC World Service that Take That are top of both the album chart AND the singles chart too. What’s going on? Are we back in 1992?

2006-12-13T08:11:00.000+01:00

Ok, I lied.

Sorry. I did. In my defence, it was only a part lie. Yes, I get up, go to work and come home. Often that’s just how it is. But actually, there are not many times I go to work back in Britain and you’re in front of 300 villagers in the middle of nowhere who have been waiting for you for days, give them health info (‘disseminating’ being the development operative term – I’m learning so much jargon), receive questions, and then be treated to several cow-dances. These guys were great, I’m sure I’ve described the dance before, but it’s basically where the guys wrapped in bright cloth stomp their bell-adorned feet both joyfully (in praise of their cows) and threateningly (“we’ll steal your herd of cows if you don’t watch out!”). The women sway gracefully. But these guys were good. The best I’ve seen. There was a troupe of guys, but some of the best were these tiny boys, no more than 8 years old who faux fight against the old men, wielding their spears and shields and flicking their blonde wigs aggressively. They were fantastic. Like I say, Rwandans need no real reason to do their national dance. If they can find an excuse – be it a HIV awareness session in preparation for World AIDS day then fine, go ahead.

We were a good 45 minutes away from anything resembling a tarmac road. I’d created a bit of a stir rocking up on the motorbike.Uunfortunately when the final closing comments were being made myself and Dany, a Congolese guy who works for the Red Cross, having spied rain ahead, and knowing we’d be trapped on our bikes if we didn’t flee right away, made to leave. Doubly unfortunately, I don’t think half of the three hundred crowd ever heard what the village chief was saying in his closing remarks, because a large proportion of it shifted over to the patch of dirt where I’d parked my bike. I have a magnetic force which draws people generally close enough to touch me but without actually giving them the courage to do so. You can’t be self-conscious out here. I had over a hundred people watch as I (fascinatingly) strapped my helmet on, put on my gloves, checked the sky for rain clouds, started her up and kicked off. It was actually quite difficult what with trying to avoid the forty kids within inches of the tyres. It didn’t stop there. The kids came streaming down the stone strewn path after me, trying to touch the bike – or me – as we made off to race the rain home.

The day had consisted of giving information about HIV, how it works in the body, how to prevent it, where to get tested and how to get drugs to lessen the effects. We had one woman give a testimony, talking of her own experiences. The person giving the testimony rarely comes from the area because the stigma would be so bad that they would be marginalized from the community. HIV is seen as a dirty virus for amoral people. Who cares if you contracted it through birth from your mother who was gang raped? Who cares if it was your husband who gave it to you because he likes ‘the sweet stuff’ too much to receive it from only his wife? Nope. Somehow HIV is either got from having too much sex out here and or it is God’s revenge on bad people. Either way, you’re going to find it difficult to have neighbours’ children playing with your kids if you are HIV+.

In this tiny village, far from cars, TV, health centres, hospitals, it was difficult to justify trying to persuade these people to watch out for themselves in such a way. Why spend 5p on condoms when that 5p could be enough to feed 6 of your children with cassava that day? How can you preach abstinence to women who have absolutely no power over what happens to their bodies nor who uses them? It’s a daily conversation I have with myself, but then HIV is so destroying, it is linked to these same factors of poverty, orphancy, lack of food because of being too ill to work in the fields, rape, gender inequality, state insecurity etc etc. So actually, it is as important as feeding your kids. Otherwise you may not be able to feed your kids tomorrow. Nor when you’re dead.

These kids were the kids of a charity appeal’s dreams. Bloated bellies full of air, bare feet, muddy faces, gape-tooth smiles, torn clothes, traditional tribal dancing...you name it, Geldof would have had his camera out. All in the middle of nowehere. But it’s not always like that. Not at all. I will have to take photos of the skyscrapers in Kigali, or the fancy architecture of the banks or embassies. Or of the rich Rwandans licking their ice creams, in a cafe with blind beggars at the doors. The contrasts are incredible. Also there are plenty of people at work who cannot believe that I sit contemplating the world on my front step – it is after all, a front step, and I am a person who has been to secondary school. I must sit on a seat! And they probably think I am more than unhygienic for picking bits of cake up in my hands. Where is the paper serviette!

I’m off on a tangent once again. Returning to work. Indeed, I often sit in an office, tapping away at a computer. I have lunch, go home and do it all again. But yes, I agree, there are those incredible moments when you realize just how far away you are. And ok, I agree, that maybe then people can be right to say that things must be ten times more exciting over here.

I’m perfectly content at the moment out here. Rwanda is exciting, challenging, frustrating, boring all in one go. But at least it makes the boring far from monotonous! Yes of course I will miss friends and family at Christmas, and yes, I would love a hot shower - or even a cold shower so long as it's not a cup and a bucket, yes a ham sandwich made from wholegrain granary bread with loads of lettuce and ground pepper would make my day, yes it'd be great to stroll down the street once or twice without a thousand eyes following my every move. But I'm perfectly happy.

Not least because I’m avoiding short days and too much electronic “Dashing through the snow” ringing out in Woolworths all over Britain right now.

2006-12-11T13:46:00.000+01:00

"Anyway, this must all sound really pretty dull, compared to what you’re up to".

Wrong. You have no idea how captivating tiny titbits of news have become to me. I am more excited than ever about what the WI were selling at their jumble sale on the weekend, or whether the annoying woman with the big brown hat ever gave her daughter any rest on the coach trip, or whether dessie’s learnt to boil an egg yet, or whether the feuds over church flowers were ever settled or whether a certain football manager has quit again and who’s fault it is this time. True, this might not ever have captivated me before, but because I can imagine the gossiping going on, or my friend’s indignation at not being asked to a certain party, or the hesitation of a friend who’s walking an interview process which will lead him to a career he doesn’t care about, all this becomes fascinating for me. This is why I hate the phrase above which people right way too often in emails to me. This must be dull compared to what you’re up to.

Nope, I get up, I have breakfast, I go to work, I sit in an office, I joke with my colleagues, I have lunch, I go home, I eat dinner, I read, I go to bed. The only difference being that I’m doing this in Rwanda.

So, no more apologies please! Thatcher’s burning down opposite my house on the island was just as exciting for me as for you!

2006-12-08T14:23:00.000+01:00

About two weeks ago I was given a curfew. I think my last ever curfew existed of not staying over at Cristy’s house past 10pm, when I was about 14. So, to be given another one, of 10pm as well seemed a bit strange. (But am I a woman or a girl after all??)

“Mum, if you see anything about Rwanda in the press in the next few days, don’t worry, I’m safe, everything’s ok, please don’t worry”

Suffice to say, mum slept well. She had no idea of anything going on at all. Whilst French and Canadian friends were having long, urgent daily phonecalls, the floorboards at Redworth remained untrodden. Little emerged in the British press. Meanwhile Rwanda was plastered all over the French front pages, and those in Canada and Belgium.

The reason I was given a curfew was not for bad behaviour. It was not because the streets were abounding with terrorists or ASBO benefactors. No. I was not to walk the streets of Kigali past 10pm in case somebody thought I was French.

The French were forcibly ejected from the country two weeks ago. The embassy has shut down, the French school has locked their doors, the NGOs have closed. Even Radio France International has been taken off air. The Rwandan embassador in Paris has returned to Rwanda. Many of the 240 French expats have left.

This is because a French judge issued a warrant for the arrest and trial of 9 of the top govt officials claiming their implication in the assassination of the president in 94 which sparked the genocide. He has also implicated our president, Kagame but because he is the leader of the country he cannot be hauled in front of the courts (French law, not Rwandan law). It is actually a delicate situation whose history is very very old. There is no evidence for the French judge’s claims. In fact, reading the report, there are some very basic errors, even with regards to the spelling of key players which – for the strength of the accusation – devalue much of it. What’s more, the French had quite a horrific impact in the genocide, funding the Hutu extremists, supplying their weapons with which up to a million people were killed with in 100 days. The school opposite my house which was in the British papers recently (see the link below) was ‘safeguarded’ by the French (between 40 and 60 000 were macheted to death there). When things calmed down a bit, the French soldiors used one mass grave as a volleyball court.

I don’t want to appear as though I have been brainwashed by the incredibly indoctrinating Rwandan media. (Letters here run something like; “I must congratulate the wonderful government for all the hard work....the great President for his.... the wonderful nature of......oh, and please would people stop spitting in the street?”). The pictures I saw in the French media of 50000 demonstrators brandishing placards were true but false at the same time. Yes, 50 000 pounded the streets all over Rwanda including in my little town. Demos were held in stadiums countrywide. Placards called for immediate French departure. The French were ‘genocidaires’ and guilty of complicity. Yet, speaking to friends, the turth is that many were forced out at 7am to demonstrate. Local Defence Forces came storming houses to pull people out to do their duty to their country and their president, a bit like for the community service days. It’s not voluntary, you do it because your country demands it. People were in tears at being forced to demonstrate.

I don’t want to comment too much on what happened or is happening. There are no truly safe places to talk of Rwandan politics. All I know is that 2 new VSO volunteers are not coming in January because they are French and their visas will probably be denied, and the girl who may be moving into my house may not be able to stay after her visa runs out which is on the 2nd Jan. Many Rwandans working for French NGOs have lost their jobs. I don't speak in French in public. I have been challenged as well, all fizzling out when I said I was British. Rwanda is losing out. But, importantly, the French have been extremely arrogant, and are perhaps treading dangerously if they don’t want to be taken to court themselves...

We’ll see all in the news. Or not, if you’re in Britain! (So watch this space instead)

2006-12-08T14:04:00.000+01:00

I need a man.

Apparently.

People’s faces overshadow with obvious perplexity and concern when they ask if I really truly live alone, without a man. It seems that the mere fact that I can breathe outside of marriage is a wonderful feat of westernization. Sometimes I am even consoled; “Don’t worry Maggie, we will find you a husband” with the touching reassurance; “even if you are almost 24”.

It’s a strange thing, marriage. Amongst the top five questions that are asked of me* is the confusing “Are you a girl or a woman?”. In what sense I might wonder... It is sometimes asked because the level of respect you give to somebody depends on it. And apparently you are not a woman (ie, worthy of respect) until you are married. When I replied to somebody that I was a woman last week, a friend listening in burst out laughing, grabbed my hand in front of the other guy and said “Maggie! You are so funny! Of course you are not a woman! You are a girl!”. Absolutely hilarious indeed.

I thought I was meant to be propositioned night and day, suitor after suitor begging me to ease the way to my dad so that my hand in marriage could be sought for and gained. Not so:
“Maggie, do you have a friend who might marry me?”.

Is it because I am not the highly prized blonde? Is it because to marry me would really be beneath them? Are they confused about my gender? I mean, I not only hurl myself around on a motorbike and wear trousers but I also don’t shirk a tackle on the football pitch. What am I?

Maybe my problem is that I am too fat. “Maggie, you are sooooooooo fat!” said my nice employer, the District Directrice of education. “Oh yes, so so fat!” with such glee on her face it makes me swallow my pride and limply reply ‘Thanks. That’s...very kind”. All intended to be complementary. I’m still hoping it just means ‘healthy’ in an African sense, seeing as by now, I’m actually used to being called a fatty by Tanzanians and Senegalese alike.

So maybe that’s not the reason for the lack of marriage proposals. I’m hoping it is from finally having broken some sort of boundary to the point where they know me as me and not as Issue 1 Type Muzungu. Who knows.

*The other four questions/demands consist of;
Give me money.
Donne-moi l’argent.
Where are you going?
Where are you coming back from?

2006-12-01T08:21:00.000+01:00

Happy World AIDS day everyone!

I haven't been around on the blog for a while because of meetings (endless meetings), training sessions, trips to Kigali, security advice (more info soon!) etc etc...

But I will write soon. Promise.

So get out there with your red ribbons and support World AIDS Day!

2006-11-21T18:14:00.000+01:00

Today is National Tree Planting Day. Therefore nobody is at work. The shops are shut, the market place empty, the post-office closed. But people are nevertheless industriously busy, stomping around carrying small saplings to be planted in a mass gardening session all over Rwanda. Everyone is involved. Everyone is planting. It’s just like an extra day of Umuganda this month. I mentioned earlier about this community day on the final Saturday of each month when people pour out onto the streets to build walls, or paint buldings, or clear weeds or chop down trees as one huge community service session. The Local Defence Force ensures that everyone takes part by checking to see that at least one member from each house is present. Once again I start to wonder whether MP Andrew Turner, back home on the Isle of Wight would be very successful in issuing a radio announcement declaring that all Wighters had to be out on the streets at 8am sharp on a mass litter-collecting day.

Last week there was a national meeting on Saturday morning. Again, everything was closed, and all members of the community assembled in the market place or in the stadium or by the river to hear what news was being brought from Kigali. I find it difficult to find out about things because all the info is passed by radio, and all in Kinyarwanda. Occasionally on a weekday, word goes out at 6am that the day is a national holiday and muggins here turns up to find the offices locked and nobody about. Just as the French enjoy a good monthly strike, national days are frequently arranged with very little notice and very little reason. Today tree planting, last moth, patriotism day, before that women’s day - next week is National Industrialization Day. Yes, in a country where 95% of the population are substinence farmers...

The meeting last weekend appears to show that the government really are interested in decentralizing power, and hearing what people have to say. I am often so stunned by how democratic it appears to be – or is trying to appear to be. It is obviously difficult for people living far away from the capital to make their voice heard but here was an attempt to listen to what people living in the middle of nowhere thought about national government issues. The subject of the day? Whether Rwanda should keep or get rid of the death penalty. Each person was allowed to express their views and there was an open vote and discussion. This is a particularly complex issue because of all the people technically on Rwandan death row because of their actions during the genocide. Apparently the overwhelming vote was to abolish it for being inhumane and a violation of human rights.

It is difficult to judge exactly how democratic these meetings are though – many of the genocide survivors live in absolute fear since they are still having to live next door to those who dismembered or killed or raped their brothers and sisters. Yet the people on death row are the brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters of the community making the decisions today. Many of the victims are of course dead so their vote will never be registered, and yet the government - the majority of which are from the ethnic group that were decimated - still seem to be (at least on the face of it) attempting to achieve some sort of social cohesion by listening to the opinions of the population who killed their families. There is no way 1994 will be forgotten – it is too ingrained in the psyche of every Rwandan, but there is a need to be able to live together and look to the future. The right steps seem to be being made – but it will take decades before people will actually be able to put it behind them.

2006-11-20T10:35:00.000+01:00

Fancy footwork

The president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, has just introduced a new law which demands that all schoolchildren wear shoes – or at least flip-flops. Fair enough I guess – looking after their feet - even if cynically you can see this as another part of his drive to make Rwanda ‘esthetically pleasing’ for outside donors who come for a week and for whom a good impression needs to be made. The shoe enforcement had already been in place for a while in Kigali the capital city, and is there are regular clear-ups of street kids and beggars to make Kigali look ok. Clear-ups to where - nobody is really sure...

Unfortunately, there are now an inordinate number of kids wearing shoes on their hands.

Why? Shoes are massively uncomfortable for many kids in the rural areas who have reached the age of 15 without ever wearing shoes before. They are too expensive, and anyway, why wear shoes when you’ve been scrambling along ok as a kid all your life anyway? When you walk in the country nobody has shoes, not even the old women huddled under their huge baskets of potatoes, nor the tiny old man with a torn blazer and tattered pinstripe trousers.

The kids have taken to wearing the shoes on their hands so that if the Local Defence Force comes along they can quickly drop them on their feet and avoid being fined or hauled off to some court or be ‘cleared up’.

And then I was thinking, surely that’s the same as suddenly being demanded by Mr Blair to wear gloves at all times – looking after our delicate hands because England is a cold country. Just as you might not be able to write a letter very clearly or eat a hard boiled egg, the kids now find themselves clumsily picking their way up hills which they were practically able to skip up before, getting the best grip by feeling every stone and rock beneath their toes.

2006-11-20T10:28:00.000+01:00

Kinyarwanda is weird. A lot of the time it sounds like you’re rolling your tongue around your throat – fine if you are Rwandan – Not so good if people are already laughing at you purely for being female and wearing trousers. Add to that your newly contorted face as you screw up your mouth into all sorts of weird shapes to try and make the right ‘rgh’ sound. Try and say r and g at the same time. Hmmm, difficult eh? Just another letter in the Kinyarwanda alphabet...

Now replace all ki’s with the sound ‘ch’. Therefore the capital city Kigali becomes “chigali’.
L and R are the same letter. L and R can interchange and it makes no difference. I was reading the scores of the European football the other day and couldn’t understand how they’d let in some Brazilian team; Riverpoor into the competition. Yes, L and R may sound completely different to you and me, but then ‘ejo’ with raised eyebrows and accent on the first bit means ‘yesterday’. “Ejo’, lowered eyebrows and softer tone means tomorrow. V complicated and leads into all sorts of temporal difficulties. Instant respect gained though when you do manage to contort your face and scratch your vocal chords just so.

Plus it means that you can have a serious conversation about the relative merits of a certain Wayne Looney...

2006-11-13T10:43:00.000+01:00

This is a BBC story about the school I can see from my house. The story is shocking, the numbers incomprehensible.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/rwanda/story/0,,1946300,00.html

2006-11-09T21:32:00.000+01:00

And this is just for laughs...
Me having just been dragged up to perfom the sacred cow-dance. Sacriligous indeed.

2006-11-09T20:55:00.000+01:00

Knut asked for more photos - he offered an old one of me, but I thought I'd use this one instead; me being swamped by the kids in the refugee camp - save yours for another day Knut.

I know photos make the world go round and brighten up my rants but it takes an absolute age to upload them and my internet connection isn't generally good enough but I'll keep trying!

2006-11-09T20:46:00.001+01:00

Permanent PMT is one way of describing your emotional state here. Not in a constantly cranky sense, but more in that you cannot judge how you will react or what will set you off – will you be beaming in 5 seconds or bawling? Take a normal morning. I leave my house and the kids start screaming ecstatically “Maaaaggggie!” and run up to clutch my leg. Sweet. Now beaming. I walk 5 paces and then some guy will hiss ‘mzungu’ with intimidating glare. Maybe demand some money. Frustration. Anger. Then guilt at feeling angry. 50 metres on, meet a prisoner working in the fields. Chat for 30 seconds, all in Kinyarwanda. Pride, sense of ease. Then old lady. Demands money without talking. I’ll reply no in Kinyarwanda. Then she just starts berating me, mocking my Kinyarwanda, shouting things about me to the other people passing by which I don’t understand. Others start smirking, and reply, the only word which I understand is mzungu. Talk about being an outsider. Then another 100 metres, on to the tarmac road. Looks like heavens will open any second unleashing a torrent of rain. Great, it does. Trudging up the hill up to the district offices. Hear a car coming up behind me. Jealousy. Trudge on. Aforementioned car rumbles to a halt next to me, throws open the door and tells me to jump on in – and it’s Eve, or Innocent, or Muhire or Pascal or Dany, offering me a lift, laughing about the weather, wondering why they haven’t seen me for a day or two, congratulating Spurs for beating Chelsea, asking how the work’s going and whether I’ll come out for a drink later... And the beam is back.

But sometimes, this can be more serious. My work depends on people being motivated enough to change their behaviour to avoid getting HIV. Yet, I was nearly ready to throw in the proverbial towel when chatting to two university students last week. University students. This means they are in the top, I don’t know, maybe 2% of the country. They are educated people. People who will be driving Rwanda onwards. People who have the capacity to change things, to continue the good work going on so far, to promote education and good health and to safeguard the precarious future of their own citizens. Yet, on hearing about my job they ask what the point is of protecting themselves from sexual diseases.

“Do you believe in fate Maggie?” I replied no, I think we have the power to shape our futures. ‘Eh??! No we don’t. It is already decided. If I choose one partner - if I sleep with many, God has already decided if I shall have HIV or not”. I replied, that there are many things he can do to avoid getting into situations where that would be a problem. “But why do that, when HIV is God’s punishment to African people”.

What?? Where on earth has he got this from? What poisoning text or person or organization has he been indoctrinated by to believe in such fatalistic and dangerous ideas? Punishment for what? For being treated like dirt by colonizers who rape and pillage their soils and people, who exploit their resources, take and then tut disapprovingly when asked for simple help when it comes to medication or condoms which will save millions of lives. Africans are no more promiscuous than any number of people in Britain. We are just able to avoid the consequences that disable these societies. I ask him, tongue in cheek, and expecting a rebuke whether God decided they should be poor too. “Yes! Of course! God decides all. He chose for us to be poor. He chooses that we suffer, we must accept it. We cannot change anything. If we work hard or not, we cannot change God’s will”.

Listening to these educated Rwandan guys made me realize just how much work there is to do – but is it even possible? How can I start convincing people to take charge of their lives when they don’t even believe that they have any power over them?

And then Permanent PMT Syndrome returned yesterday...
I was out in the field, in a tiny rural community on an information and training day in preparation for World AIDS day on December 1st. We were a team of 5, my VSO colleague and I were just observing, but there was a health professional, the coordinator and a person with HIV who were going to speak to this community. It took 2 and a half hours to get there, by four wheel drive, and there were points when I never thought we’d actually get through. It was more pond and craggy mountain than road. It was so muddy at times that the wheels just skidded around sounding like a huge electric toothbrush. Sometimes the water covered the wheels. I was freezing – Africa’s meant to be hot isn’t it? It was all about covering up and 4 layers. The village was in the middle of nowhere. It was raining and dreary – when we arrived there was a strip of closely packed in mud shack houses with corrugated iron roofs directing the gushing rain into nicely regulated chutes, smacking down onto the mud track. This was the ‘town’.

The meeting was called in the local office – this was a mud hut about the size of a classroom with an earth floor, and in which had been lined a bunch of wobbly pews, probably borrowed from the local school or church. People were called to the community meeting by the local leader, and soon people started filling up the room, pressed between each other on the benches. A proper community meeting – old men holding themselves up with sticks, young guys draping their arms around each other, girls pulling up their wraps and stealing glances at me, women younger than me with baby on back and one at the breast, then older women seemingly chewing upon their three teeth. It took a couple of minutes to adjust to the darkness, and after a while there must have been about 200 people crammed into the room. It made me think about just how important the community was here. Can you imagine somebody going out in the streets near where you live, calling all your neighbours to a community meeting – about whatever subject it might be that day? I’m sure it used to happen, though I can’t even think what the closest equivalent might be nowadays.

The trainers talked about HIV, how you become infected, how to protect yourself and where to go get tested and get medication and the reasons to know if you’re HIV+. All this in Kinyarwanda, and using local terminology – such as ‘the sweet stuff’ for sex, but I had Andrew my colleague there to translate for me. But above all the most interesting aspect came with the questions. When Fred the health pro told the men they needed to use the services more because women outnumbered them easily, one old man got to his feet and hoarsely cried out that ‘Them women, them women go to the health centres more than us men because they are the ones who sleep around!’. Cue lots of hooting and laughing from the male members of the crowd – but this is such a dangerous aspect of society – the women are always blamed for spreading HIV – it’s easier to point the finger at weaker people. The truth is that something like 70% of women infected has only ever had one partner – their husband – in their whole lives. It’s the men who go wandering. I wondered what would happen – women here never speak out, I have never seen such meek people. I was thoroughly disheartened after meeting my first female headmistress of a secondary school. She could not even look me in the eye and spoke barely above a whisper.

And then a women, stirred. She stood up slowly, having given her baby to the women next to her, retied her wrap around her and calmly replied amid the expectant hush; “I don’t know who you think we go to for the sweet stuff. Do you think we women have sex with ourselves? Can you explain to me mister how there are men with this virus too? Humph.” I cannot even explain how brave this woman was to stand up and say this, especially in direct response to an old – therefore respected- male member of the community. And more questions came and came – sensible ones – people wanted to know. If malaria can be passed by mosquitoes, why not HIV? And if HIV is also passed in blood, can I get HIV from eating meat or slaughtering goats? And is wearing two condoms twice as protected? I just wished Jean Marie – the university student could have been there so I could tell him – look at this. Count how many people here have shoes. Listen to the rakish coughing of these young men signalling probable tuberculosis. See these flimsy rags the kids are wearing which are soaked through because of the rain. And now see how they are ready to learn, how they want to learn and see how they are ready to change their ‘fate’. Now, go back to university and do something for them.

Permanent PMT like I say. From seeing Rwanda as a hopeless case last week I was back to beamingly positive yesterday.

2006-11-02T21:32:00.000+01:00

Looking out to Congo
from Nyungwe forest. I'm only just getting the hang of being able to upload photos, so this is perhaps the first of many...or it could be a flop.

2006-11-02T21:16:00.000+01:00

So, Mr Friendly at the Post Office has a name. Vincent. I know this because he always plays centre back on a Wednesday and always wears orange shorts – he makes my life easy by doing this. Many of the others enjoy seeing me squirm as I try to remember whether they’re Innocent, or Alphonse, or Benedict or Olivier or Muhire. It’s actually better to guess that his name is Jean. If you need to hasard a guess, and you’re in a slightly awkward social moment – just go for “This is Jean, ahem’ (cough cough, tickle in the throat, choke slightly, gesture for them to repeat their own name to your friend as you gag- as soon as it is repeated find that the frog in your throat has mysetriously hopped on its way) There are many Jeans (this is a Catholic, ex-French and Belgian nation after all) – Jean Marie, Jean Baptiste, Jean de Dieu, Jean Jean... I hate the question “have you forgotten my name?’ Well of course I bloody well have! I’ve met you once, and I meet 40 people a day!
Anyway, Vincent is lovely. Vincent is my bringer of good news. The most exciting thing that happened to me two weeks ago was receiving my first ever letter. Here you buy a postal box at the local post office and a lock to loop through the metal catches so you can check it at will. For the first couple of weeks I didn’t dare even try to see if my shiny key turned ok in my brand spanking new padlock because I was sure I’d disappoint myself in the process. Opening up your box and seeing its naked inside can be quite a tragic and humbling experience. Not so two weeks ago when cheeky Vincent with a gleam in his eye notifies me at football that I have a certain letter, airmail, from a male friend; “Maggie, his name is John, I see on the outside!’. John Smallwood – you may have inadvertently created a mini scandal out here in Rwanda without even knowing it! I tried to assure him it was a family friend but the gleam in the eye didn’t fade.
Even though John’s letter must have caught good winds and arrive after just 8 days, two days later I received two birthday cards (only 5 weeks late) and a Guardian weekly newspaper dated from a month previously. But that is fine – I managed to catch up on all the controversial news surrounding the pope’s inflammatory comments. In about three months I might mention the mid-term American elections...

2006-11-01T11:37:00.000+01:00

NYUNGWE RAINFOREST

About an hour and a half up the road from where I live is a huge rainforest – which is the final set of mountains that make up the Rift valley that starts in Kenya. I went for a 6 hour trek through these the other day, clambering along mahogany lined paths, negotiating our way past wide waterfalls and over little bridges made by strapping skinny tree trunks together, and spying upon cheeky monkeys dangling from enormously tall trees. There are chimpanzees in the rainforest too, though you have to be up early to see them – we saw a chimp nest, their hiding places and some chimp poo too, presented neatly on the path. It reminded me of a certain story involving my little brother Dessie...(he can explain)

The views were stunning – at one point, you saw ten, twenty mountain peaks stretching out before Lake Kivu, with the Congo peeking out from behind – and five minutes later, having navigated your way around the curve of the slope, you see the elegant mountain slopes of Burundi, standing tall. Both Burundi and the Congo are strictly off-bounds for VSO volunteers for safety reasons, so it was nice to allow our eyes to break the rule and gaze away!

Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail.

2006-10-31T06:05:00.000+01:00

FOOD
Rwandan food is definitely not bad ( I think I ate the best pineapple of my life the other day though it was almost beaten to the title by the one I ate today). The passion fruits are also amazing, slice them open half way and suck out the pips and juice. Bananas are of course everpresent. As are rice, sweet potatoes and normal potatoes, beans, avocadoes, tomatoes and pasta. But there are some great vegetables too – green beans, spinach, carrots and tiny weenie celery which though are the length of a nail (I kid ye not) have an incredibly concentrated taste and so are used more like herbs. Cassava root and green bananas are another (yet another) source of carbohydrate, tasting generally like potato though you get strips of cassava root stuck in your teeth... I generally eat porridge for breakfast, then rice and potatoes, green beans and a sauce made from tomatoes and peanuts (it’s great, honest) for lunch and then bread and jam or ‘le cake’ for dinner (sweetish stodgy bread). If I’m in the big town, or if I’m eating out for lunch then Rwandans eat a ‘mélange’ which involves piling your plate as high as you can with food from a buffet table lined with big silver pots full of at least 5 different carbs (potatoes, rice, chips, spaghetti, boiled green bananas, baked cassava root etc), then some spinach, cabbage, boiled cassava leaves or beans, some watery tomato based sauce and some lumps of meat. This costs about 50p without meat, 60p with. The meat is generally goat, and either rock hard and will take a day to chew (and yep, you might find bits of it in your teeth three days later), or really succulent and juicy. And no, you can’t tell just by looking at it. So sink those teeth right in...
Drinks-wise, you can order a ‘fanta orange’, a ‘fanta citron’ or a ‘fanta coca’, or go for passion fruit juice which is actually a bit more like Robinson’s squash syrup with added sugar (50%). I have a water filter at my house, which leaks into a bucket – thus probably anulling any filter factor! There are a couple of bottled beers for about 55p which are almost a litre in size, Primus and Mutzig. However I do admit that one of the most thoughtful things an existing volunteer friend did quite early on was bring an imported bottle of wine to a picnic we had – it was decanted out into tumblers and plastic cups and shared between 8 – what a luxury!

CHURCH
“What do Rwandans like to do generally – you know, at weekends, or after work? Sport? Music? Dancing?”

“People in Rwanda...people in Rwanda, they like to go to church”.

This was the conversation I had had on the phone just a few days before I left, with a Rwandan lady who Seb’s mum had put me in touch with. She’s been living in London for 10 years already and so was my first touch-base for Rwandan culture. And it is true. Rwandans LOVE going to church. Services last 3 hours, the sermon lasts at least half an hour. It does feel more than a little self indulgent sometimes, and I wonder what the response woould be like in St Mary’s if Father Caitlin decided to do the same. It is all in Kinyarwanda so I have free rein to imagine or guess what is being said. Which can be a good thing. And a bad thing. There is a lot of music- apparently God cannot understand the spoken word (apart from the priest’s sermon) so everything is sung. The choir are good, and everyone joins in – there are no hymn books but everyone knows the words since the music that fills restaurants, bars, buses is usually religious. People have been hearing these songs since they were children. It is very different from the hip hop that filled Senegalese buses. There is a lot of clapping and at the final part of the mass a lot of waving arms around.

However, this arm waving may be evidence of a little artistic licence taken by the Rwandans as concerns general Catholic worship. In Rwanda, the cow is a sacred animal, sacred and to be worshipped. In fact, one greeting is literally ‘May you have many cows” to which the reply is something like ‘Let them be female and very fertile”. The cow-dance is a hugely important aspect of Rwandan culture – for every important guest/event/day there will be a troupe of dancers who staomp their feet in time to the pounding of a huge array of drums, who wave their arms in an extended v shape above their heads to represent the horns of the cow, and whose male members shout and holler their praise of the cow, and their threats to steal the cows of their adversaries. It’s quite a spectacle – I love it, but this has had a set of unfortunate consequences; my obvious fascination - tapping my feet in time to the drums and gawping at the dancers’ muscular calves as they twist, stamp and jump - has led to being pulled up from the crowd to join in. Bran, Ferg and Ken might remember the positive repurcussions of me being pulled up – if you jammily manage to make it look like you know what you’re doing. Unfortunately, this is not yet the case here. The hardest thing is the stomping aggressively, but elegantly swaying your hand-cow horns above your head at the same time. My attempts to match their twisting stomping bodies are once again very warmly welcomed as a hilarious form of entertainment, not only for the Rwandan dancers, but also for every other giggling spectator. It is a good thing my I have thick skin, and enjoy a bit of a wiggle and clomp.

To be honest, these guys twirling around in their skirts and headresses aren’t that far different from men wearing kilts and holding their arms aloft in the shape of antlers is it?

Any other questions??!

2006-10-31T05:17:00.000+01:00

REFUGEE CAMP

If somebody were to ask you the first 5 images that come to mind when you say Africa, what would you say?

A separate project which I’m involved in with VSO, over and above my HIV prevention work is one called ‘Global Education’ which aims - in broad terms - to confront the common stereotypes which instigate prejudice. Importantly the project focuses on prejudices held both in the developed world as well as the developing world. We all tend to generalize. Is it not true that in the UK we often ‘tragidize’ African nations as being ravaged by disease and famine, wracked by poverty, ruined by corruption and prone to suffering at the hands of dictatorial leaders? It is the same out here. If somebody sees a Muzungu, or mentions talk of the USA or Britain, the automatic response is to think money, opportunity, technology, half naked celebrities and maybe Arsenal football club. Few people here could comprehend the idea of a western nation having a bank of poor people, or even containing a population who do not all drive around in 4x4s or girls who do not want to take their clothes off at every opportunity...
Just as we often forget (or more likely, do not know of) the skyscrapers, chic nightclubs, karate clubs, rich businessmen, Italian restaurants and African humanitarian workers all over Africa, people here are often unaware of the poverty in Britain and/or our important social values - they are somewhat badly conveyed by blockbuster films and MTV.
This Global Education project involves not only my work with ABK students back on the Isle of Wight, but also students out here. Last Friday I went with the Rwanda Global Ed’ committee to Byumba refugee camp in the north east of the country, where plans are already in action to raise awareness of the reality of the situation in the camps (of which there are many in Rwanda. I live just ten minutes away from one containing Burundian refugees, the one in Byumba was a Congolese one). A video will be produced to be used for advocacy purposes but a team may also do some teaching workshops there. I was there for the moment just to see the situation as it stands.

We were welcomed by Maurice, a Jesuit priest whose Catholic NGO works with the UNHCR (UN High Council for Refugees), and whilst the current committee members were in their meeting, the new kids on the block (ie, me and 4 others) were shown around.

The camp is large – approx 19 000 refugees live there, 11 000 of which are under the age of 18. Of the rest, at least two thirds are women – the guys often get fed up and leave, dissipating into the Rwandan hills, hoping for something better. My feeling is that often these guys will be deceived and dissapointed by what they find. The camp is no California dream, but there are schools, a health centre, shops and facilities found in all Rwandan towns – the difference being that the UN pays. It wouldn’t be ridiculous to suggest that the camp has better faciltities than the average town. Psychologically of course, it’s not easy to be living in a camp, knowing that you cannot legally leave and try to make go of living in a foreign country, nor that you cannot return home without facing violence. The Congolese do not regard the refugees as Congolese, nor the Rwandans as Rwandan. Yet, what struck me (and this is a very personal point of view, which the others had less of an issue with - I am the only one working in HIV prevention) was what I believe to be better provision of health facilities. The camp has free HIV testing (as do many Rwandan towns) and also supply free ARV drugs which lessen the effects of HIV and AIDS on the immune system.

These ARVs are also technically available at no cost to any Rwandan citizen, if they have tested positive. Yet, in the whole of my district, which takes at least 4-5 hours to drive in a pick-up truck from top to bottom along the ‘main roads’, there is just one single hospital which supplies ARVs. Thus, it is a several day trek to get there for the average citizen to get there, they then have to camp outside the hosiptal gates for a few weeks and then have to return there once a month for the rest of their lives. This is basically impossible for most people – if not because they have no transport, or could not afford to take the weeks off work or from harvesting, then because their absence would result in their social death, since neighbours would identify them as being HIV positive and subject them to stigmatization. It often feels slightly like a government ploy to be able to tell international donors of their free ARV policy so that they can get continued funding for other projects – or maybe that is my cynical mind. Maybe they just cannot afford to decentralize provision of these life-prolonging drugs. Anyway, ARV availability is low, even if they are free, and yet, here on the camp, this population of 19 000 citizens have access at their fingertips.

It’s a complex issue and I am not suggesting that the camp citizens shoud not have such access – it would just be nice if the same opportunities were available all over the country – as they are in the West.

The kids in the camp were astounding. Bright, cheerful, and excellent communicators – their grasp of English and French was of a much better standard than that of any of the kids in my district down south, and appeared to substantiate the belief that both the Congolese and the Burundians are much better at language learning than the Rwandans. They were very excited to see us – there can’t be that many visitors in the camp, and though the skies opened and treated us to an absolute torrent of rain, soaking us through they stayed with us, skipping along, singing, giggling as I made out as if to grab one, and laughing hysterically when I nearly skidded right over in the yellow-brown gooey mud (Of course I did it to entertain – not at all because of inapproprate footwear or lack of balance...).

The camp reminded me of the idea of relative happiness. I heard a story about people in The Gambia who told a British doctor that they had no idea that they were poor until white people told them so. I don’t mean that since the kids were happy there is no reason to help, no need for access to health and education and freedom. I don’t mean that in any rose-tinted condascending colonial type fashion. These are basic human rights which should be attainable – not just attainable but the natural possession of every person on this earth. It is a testimony to these kids who remain cheerful without their father around, living for ten years with plastic sheeting instead of a roof, without toys, without stability, perhaps having seen members of their family macheted to death...
Of course, there is relative poverty and despair in Britain on an equally devastating emotional scale too. We’re often really not that far apart.

I’m aware that if I carry on like this I might lose a reader or two. So I’ll reply to some questions I’ve been asked. Feel free anyone else to ask questions and I’ll try and reply.

So...

2006-10-17T20:22:00.000+01:00

I’ve just become aware of the fact that many of you might start wondering whether I actually do any work out here or whether I’ve just enroled myself in an ‘alternative’ sports camp...

Well actually I’m pretty shattered at the moment from all the moving around I’ve been doing. I’m conducting some research into the levels of HIV awareness amongst secondary school students in my district. Most schools have “Anti-AIDS clubs’ and I am meant to be supporting them with training, peer education and peer counselling. But before we begin, I am trying to find out what they already have in place. Generally not much. Yep, ok, so it’s maybe a more serious type of school club than we’re used to, and they also have “Human Rights Club” and a “Gender Awareness and Female Empowerment club” (a friend working in one school noted that the girls that made up their Gender Awareness club didn’t really know what to do with themselves during their weekly meetings so used the time to clean their school. The irony).

This means that I’ve been buzzing around my district visiting schools, talking to headteachers, club organizers and the students themselves. Buzzing is probably far too industrious sounding a word. I do buzz – I go everywhere on my delightful motorbike (named ‘mookie’ by aforementioned American friend which is apparently the name of a deceptively small basketball player who is actually very powerful and makes up for size in attitude) but the roads are generally dirt tracks, or full of potholes that jar your back as you stumble and bumble along. Also, Rwanda is just a set of hills so you’re generally chugging up or down – it’s not always hair streaming out of helmet, and eat-my-dust-Africa.

I do love the bike though. It’s great to be able to whizz along (on the good roads) and drink in the beautiful Rwandan countryside. It really is stunning. Dusk setting in when the sun casts a warm glow on the hills is just the most beautiful time in the day. Importantly though you can get away from the constant peering eyes (most of which I have to admit are friendly, it just gets a bit too much sometimes) and the herds of children that follow you. It’s great because people often turn to watch the bike go by – then note the white skin, and you hear the common hue and cry signal go up; “MMMUUU-“ but you’ve already gone past them, and they’re just a tiny turned face in your mirror when the “ZZZUUNNNGGGUUU’ falls out of their gawping moouths.

Anyway, the school visits have been great, it’s nice to be out on the road, and talk to people about what they need in their schools. I’ve also been visiting health centres, which is actually a lot more difficult. Generally, I walk in and people assume I’m important because I’m white and even if there are more than 200 weary looking mothers with screaming babies on their backs, I’m often ushered in to speak to the people who work in HIV testing and counselling. These guys are so overworked, and seem as weary as the mothers outside who have travelled for miles in the hope they’ll be seen (yet often without a hope of ever being able to afford the medecine that the doctor will prescribe).

Today I was in one of only 2 hospitals in my district – and met a doctor whilst he was on his ward round. The ward wasn’t as overcrowded as the other hospitals, but a child made tiny by disease and formed seemingly just of skin strapped to bones lay in one bed, not moving as his grim-faced mother sat by him. I guess it happens all over the world. But this child would have been seen a lot sooner than out here. Fearing medical costs nobody goes to the doctor until it’s too late. And I’m sure it was too late for this kid. Quite often you see people walking through the town carrying bodies, generally corpses, in homemade stretchers made from tough grass stalks.

Anyway, it’s not actually all doom and gloom, so please don’t think it is. I hitched a lift with the American friend (God damn it, Max, there! He has a name!) up to a remote part of the district as I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be jarring my back on the bike for two hours. As it was I now realize that the point of bikes is that they actually jar your back less than a car – the bike can weave in and out of the craters, Hank the truck just has to plough right on through... Anyway, most people can only get about on foot – but because of the hills, it takes hours even if just to visit the next town over the crest of the hill. So people are constantly asking for a ride, and since Hank the truck has not only a backseat but a bit on the back for people to cling on, it soon became The Most Popular Truck in Nyamagabe. At one point there was myself and Max in the cabin bit, 4 in the back (including a breastfeeding mother and a very hungry sounding suckling baby), and 12 (I kid ye not) in the bit at the back, holding on and cadging a lift over the hills and far away. Despite the danger involved in hauling so many people over potholed mud tracks, it would be quite impolite to say no to people asking for lifts when they’re haggard old women, a charming guy on crutches and three smiling military men with AK47s. Jump on in!

2006-10-13T12:30:00.000+01:00

The power of football continues! The post office here are renowned for being moody, uncooperative and inefficient. Each letter must be weighed separately, even if they are all going to the same country and consist of the same A4 sheet of paper. I have been told that a visit to the post office is not a 5 minute ‘nip down the road’ affair. If you have a letter to post, put aside at least half an hour. If you have 6... put it down in your diary as a full day’s work. So the day after my inaugeral kickabout with the mayor, I head up to post a letter to a friend in Tanzania, but needed to buy an envelope. I politely greeted the guy behind the counter in Kinyarwanda (asked if he passed the night in peace, asked what news he had, were his family strong...), then asked if I could buy envelopes there. He gruffly retorted ‘no’ as if I’d just asked if I eat his mother. So, I asked if he knew where I could buy envelopes. ‘Not here’ he growled. Charming. Suddenly I hear “MAAAGGGGIIIIEEE! HOW ARE YOU! MAAAAGGGGIIIIEE!”. This takes me by surprise, as I didn’t recognize the other guy working in the post office but guessed that it’s not difficult to learn the name of the new white kid in town. Then, still with a beaming smile on his face, this guy proceeds to babble away enthusiastically (asking if I passed the night in peace, what news I had and if my family were strong), then says, “football was good yesterday eh? You play good, you are coming next week, yes? What did you want, yes? An envelope? Yes, we have, I can get for you’ and walks away, gets a nice big brown envelope from the personal post office store, and just gives it to me without wanting any money for it. Beautiful. Made turning around to have the sodding letter weighed by Mr Grumpy just so much more satisfying....

So, admittedly sometimes it’s fun being a novelty. Football has meant everyone in the town now knows who i am (an american friend living in a town 40 minutes away got talking to somebody the other day, who dropped in the fact that there was a muzungu female who happened to play football in a particular small town in the country...I have no idea who he was though). It’s also fun when I reply to questions in Kinyarwanda as they don’t expect me to know any.

BUT, when I go the market, to buy one single sodding bunch of carrots, and I have 30 people crowd around me to watch the entire (unexciting) process, i just can’t help but think come on...i’m really not that interesting, am i?

And, when I walk from my house to the main road, I become a pied piper to the area’s kids, and I don’t even have a musical instrument. Again, come on kids... I’m not that interesting! And the novelty factor doesn’t seem to be wearing off. Though I did make massive progress the other day. As I left my house, taking a big breath for the onslaught of thirty tiny kids scrambling up to me shouting ‘MUZUNGU!’, I start to walk down the track, and there they are, the pounding feet, the silly grins, and the cry goes up (I’m sure they do it to warn the next bunch of kids at the next twist in the road so they too can get overly excited about me passing by, and then shout out for the benefit of the next bunch of kids and so on)...but what’s this? “MMAAAAAGGGGGGGIIIEEE!!!”. And suddenly it’s me beaming a silly grin, as I realize that finally, the kids have learned my name. Progress.

I haven’t felt that successful since I managed to wash my hair in a bucket containing only 6 cups worth of water.

2006-10-08T11:11:00.000+01:00

Many of you will know I am not the most patient of people.

Please realize therefore just how hard it was to make it through a meeting on Friday. It started one and a half hours late. It lasted 3 hours 45 minutes. It was all in Kinyarwanda. I understood nothing.

2006-10-05T18:19:00.000+01:00

The delights of football

You’ve just gotta love football.

Sorry mum, one day, when the legs don’t work any more I’ll get round to the sewing, but seriously. Plonk me in China, or the middle of the Amazon, or with the Inuit and I reckon I could probably raise a few laughs and conquer the old language barrier – on the condition I had a football.

Work last week was S L O W. Nothing happened, I was getting bored of reading Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, and had read enough about ways to tackle HIV propagation to make me sign up for a lifetime’s subscription to prozac. So when the dashing mayor of my district invited me to the weekly sports afternoon on Wednesday I asked...

a) was there football
b) as a female could I play
c) could I wear shorts

the answer was positive to all three! And if I ever needed a better way to network in a small community this was how to do it. Be white. Be a female. Play football. Hold my own on the pitch. I hesitate over saying pitch because it was part sand, part grass clump, part ditch, part cowpat. And that was for the first half hour. Then the rainy season started and it absolutely bucketed down for about an hour and a half (MENTAL NOTE; never wear white in a conservative country when the rainy season could hit at any time – especially if people stare at you enough as it is!). A few mere men ran for cover, I stayed, and avoided the lake in the middle of the pitch for the most part since I was playing in the knee high forest out on the right wing. Still, it didn’t suit the skilful nature of my team – we were easily 2-0 at this point, but they brought one back.

I’m still smarting actually from the fact that ironically with just a few minutes to go the aforementioned dashing mayor happened to score the equalizing penalty. Hmmm... What could the keeper do? More than his feet were on the line!

Next day I wander on down to the stadium again. Delight of all delights, there is a women’s team in the area (despite the fact I’m in a rural district, and the poorest province of the whole of Rwanda), and not only that, but they are currently in the semi-final of the national Rwandan cup and (since they are mostly students) have already won the secondary school national cup. I still have to admit that I thought they would consist of a few lethargic teens without much skill but making up for it with a bit of clout. I had images of big Tommy from Dover Park primary school, aged 8 booting the ball as hard as he could...and therefore being the best player. I had images of swarms of bees around honey. So I too turned up late, nonchalantly strolling on down, trying to converse in the international language of shrugging with the group of kids that tag along wherever I go and who have become a bit of a permanent feature. Time to pull up my socks though, as 24 young fit students were stretching in a circle, with their manager surveying and their coach giving a team talk. All had boots, except one, but you wouldn’t have said she was playing in bare feet the way she was running around.

And they had skill! Little turns, back heels, knock-ons...and they had the clout too. You can’t go in half hearted in a tackle here. Oh, and they love defensive footie –Ann Harvo, you’ll understand when I say that much as I love the old defensive playing it around the back, this actually scares me. Little one-twos with the keeper, and the back-heels around the box!

Anyway, I could go on, but I’m aware mum is still wishing I had the knitting needles out...

What’s best about that is the fact that for a couple of hours I don’t need to be able to speak Kinyrwanda and yet I’m socializing, these girls are great, they find any attempt to speak the language absolutely hilarious, they include me, they think it’s amazing that any white person would actually want to get involved. And it’s all down to footie!

The pitch is near my house down a dodgy dust track, and sometimes there’s a passing mini-truck which the girls get to stop, and then we all climb on the back, yes, all 24 of us. Precarious, and seeing as I’m the first off I sit at the back and enjoy the least comfortable ride possible, whilst my hand is held on to by some of the girls so I don’t actually fall out. Nice. But it does create a scene and everyone in my area now knows that the muzungu who plays footie is their very own novelty-factor neighbour...

2006-10-05T18:04:00.000+01:00

Community

In Britain where mindless rivalry still exists between Germany and England to the point where ‘the war’ gives justification for fistfights, bottle launching and joyful defecation on their flag after a mere football game (and you know how importantly I take football too!), it’s any wonder how Rwandans, just 12 years on, are living side by side with their family’s killers and rapists. But maybe it’s a question of necessity. There is no other alternative, but every single person who talks about the situation reinforces this national need by reiterating that they must live together, they must work together and that one day Rwanda will be as peaceful as it is often vaunted as being prior to colonisation, and the Belgian decision to create ID cards in the 1950s which divided and separate on often phoney ethnic terms.

It’s for this reason that the people I come into contact with almost most often in my area are the prisoners. I live next to the prison in Gikongoro and every day pass them as they work in the fields. The prison uniform is a delightful pink, so you can’t miss them. Just imagine a bunch of guys in a field, toiling with hoes and spades wearing pink pyjamas and that’s just about the situation outside my house. I don’t know whether this was an intentional effort to emotionally emasculate them or whether pink is not seen as a feminine colour here... after all why should it be? Surely red and white are both powerful strong bold colours... And why do we wear black to funerals in Britain?? Here the colour of mourning is purple.

So the prisoners work outside the prion, and I’m often shaking hands with them and trying to respond to their Kinyarwanda questions. You see them in town every so often on their way to a job – with a military man with a huge gun. They are responsible for building most of the public buildings in Rwanda and the prison is not completely closed off. After all, a good proportion of husbands, brothers and fathers wouldn’t see their families if they couldn’t come and exchange a few words in the fields.

This community feeling is also evident in the monthly ‘Umuganda’ sessions. I was sent a text message last Friday night demanding that i do not forget to get out there first thing in the morning to lend a hand with building fences, cleaning the town, preparing food for the toiling men... basically community service without robbing an old woman and having to wear a tabard like in the States, or Britain as John Reid would probably have.

2006-10-04T05:33:00.000+01:00

SCARS

It was always going to be difficult to gage the scarring left after the ‘94 genocide before actually arriving here. The scars are physical, mental and now appear to run deeper into the Rwandan society. It’s difficult to talk in generalizations and of course I have been here less than a month so I cannot be taken as any form of authority. I also must state that I speak for myself and nobody else and I speak as though to friends and family to whom I give this blogger address.

It is perhaps easier to talk of the physical scarring I see all around me. Beggars in Tanzania were formed mainly of street children, those in Guadeloupe appeared ruined by rum, those in London/Oxford/Portmouth were the homeless, and those in Senegal appeared wracked by extreme poverty or disfigured by polio. In Rwanda, the vast majority who tap at bus windows and reach out on the streets of Kigali are seemingly healthy and often young. Save two lost limbs. Two hands no fingers. Eye sockets no eyes. Arms to elbows and no more. Stumps for hands, elbows, knees, fingers. Crutches. Walking or dragging oneself around on hands as legs have been cut off at thigh level. These people are healthy save these mass intentional disfigurements and can only have been caused by machetes, blades, knives and mass frenzy. Who can ever know the internal scarring? Who can know the real story behind the laughing woman on my bus last Friday who had a two centimetre wide scar running from ear to mouth?

The less visible scarring appears to have resulted in a type of ‘English stiff upper lip’ syndrome. We are advised and asked not to ask too many questions, not to go to local trials, not to ask ‘divisionistic’ questions about ethnicity or political leaning or actions. People talk in terms of ‘before’ and ‘after’, sometimes mentioning ‘the war’. The word genocide never existed in Kinyarwanda before 1994. People are firmly Rwandan, not Hutu or Tutsi, though I have heard the term ‘Hutsi’ used once. They are often shy and reserved – lacking the vivacity of the Congolese or the openness of the Tanzanians here. Once again, I speak in generalizations all of which have exceptions and will be hotly debated, especially as despite the reserved nature of many, there is an intense self-awareness and I have often been keenly asked how I find Rwandan people – and my response – whatever it may be is often analysed and related in terms of genocide.

MEMORIALS

I promise not to dwell, but I want to note this, even if just for my benefit. As part of our in-country training we went to the main memorial site in Kigali – with thirteen mass graves, a museum and witness accounts, photos and heart-wrenching videos. It is easy to think of war or violence in terms of figures, economics and blame. Lives lost, numbers trialled, guilty parties, important dates... However, the memorial used this kind of almost blasé style of reporting in their memorial devoted to children’s lives lost to incredible effect.

Name; Agnes Age; 4 Favourite food; chips How killed; Macheted whilst in mothers’ arms.

Or, stabbed in both eyes then heart, or, as with a 9 month old baby; slammed against a wall. But, with this raw basic style of reporting, the starkness only makes it more shocking. The question of how though hovers over everything.

2006-10-04T05:30:00.000+01:00

First impressions

So, it is now a month to the day since I took the train back to the Isle of Wight from London, having been at a wedding in the Tower of London followed by a champagne cruise down the Thames. I now sit here in Rwanda, night having fallen over my house in rural Gikongoro, gently blurring the outlines of the hills that surround me. Rwanda is also known as “land of a 1000 hills”, each one seeming to be carefully combed and parted into well-groomed terrassed sections. Rwanda also has the highest population density in all Africa meaning every scrap of land is cultivated as far as possible to yield as much as possible. You are never far from anyone here and eyes are always fixed upon you.

Two worlds. The wedding was courtesy of Helen, a friend from my Tanzania days. It nearly exactly coincided with the 5 year anniversary of my tearful departure at the hovercraft, on my first venture into Africa. Now I was doing it all over again. But the wedding was just one assurance that great friendships would be formed, that great experiences were to be had and that I would be doing a lot of learning once again. And that my family, my relatives, people from Ryde, my friends from the Island, and those from Uni, and those from Tanzania were all behind me once again and showed me such huge amounts of support.

I’m not wishing to wax lyrical, so I’ll get on with it!

Arrival

Landing in Rwanda a few things struck me. Firstly – without wishing to get too political – how incredible it is that whilst Tesco spews out plastic bags to go round thrice-wrapped packets of biscuits, and Bush claims to doubt the existence of global warming, I could not enter the terminal building without stripping my world map of its plastic tubing; “We are a small country and we do not need such things to choke our country. All plastic bags must be left here before you can enter Rwanda”. Wow. Just inside the terminal entrance was a stash of plastic bags, collected from those entering the country by plane. Several weeks later, these stop-searches would start up by the borders to Uganda and Tanzania, with large swathes of plastic bags being dumped inside the other territory. Rwanda wouldn't have them, but Uganda and Tanzania weren't about to clear them up either.

We were also given a hero’s welcome by the VSO staff, who seemed almost to outnumber us though there were 17 of us (and we were only just becoming aware of how many we were as casual conversations started up around Heathrow, Nairobi and Kigali terminals).

In-country training ensued...

Here we were given practical advice on opening bank accounts, work related issues, cultural differences (pointing with lips being de rigeur apparently) and workshops on gender, HIV and education issues.