Finally, here’s my video profile… don’t laugh…
Good to be back in Kigali…
Good things coming to Washington…
TIA
On the day that my shower in Kigali did not provide hot water, my hosts exclaimed, “TIA!” Another time, hanging out with a few American friends at Torrero (an expat tapas bar in the center of town), our waiter brought out the wrong order, and one of the girls sighed, “TIA.” This is an expression I have heard time and again whenever something does not work perfectly - TIA - This is Africa!
It wasn’t until I returned to the states about a week ago that I gained an appreciation for the true meaning of TIA.
After disembarking from another smooth and comfortable twenty-four hour journey on Ethiopian Airlines on which I experienced excellent customer service and copious amounts of food, I was greeted by long lines at US passport control and an hour wait for my luggage. Excited to return home after traveling for so long, I learned that I would need to wait another hour for the Super Shuttle to depart and then I would need to travel through all of Washington, DC to drop off the other passengers before reaching my home.
Finally, I returned to my Adams Morgan apartment, only to find that my internet was down and my cell phone no longer worked. Running errands, I would receive my first and most painful mosquito bites of the summer. Good to be home.
Not that all was bad on the homefront. It was great to see my boyfriend, who on Friday finally took his boards and is now somewhat human again (congrats Zach!); I loved spending some time with my friends and family; and ok, the air conditioning is pretty sweet. And of course, Jeremy and Teen’s wedding was the highlight of the trip and I am so happy and thankful that I got to celebrate their special day.
It was the “after-party,” however, that demonstrated the true meaning of TIA. After the wedding, going on one hour of sleep, I headed off to the Philadelphia airport at 4am to catch my 6am flight to DC which would then be followed by my Ethiopian Airlines flights to Addis and finally Kigali. I paid my cab driver $30 for the ten-minute ride (why doesn’t Philly have moto-taxis?), forked over $15 to check my bag, and went to wait by my gate.
I was drifting in and out of sleep when a United Airlines employee announced that there was a mechanical problem with our plane so we would be leaving 40 minutes late. Not a problem; I had a three-hour cushion in between my flights once I arrived in DC. Forty minutes came and went. Lots of announcements, lots of delays, but no boarding. My friend Amy called to say one last goodbye.
“Yeah, we’re delayed, but it should be fine. Thanks for calling. See you in August!”
Little did I know that five minutes later, I would hear a new announcement, “United Flight 7891 has been canceled. You can pick up your bags at baggage check.”
For most people on the flight, this cancelation would mean that they would have to get a later flight that day to DC or their final destination. For me, that meant I would not be going to Rwanda that day, nor the next day, nor the next day…
Many tears, phone calls, and fights later, I have a new flight booked from DC on Friday. I will (inshallah) arrive in Kigali on Saturday, July 4th, hopefully in time to celebrate Rwanda’s Liberation Day. In the meantime, I am headed to Survivor Corps’ DC office to work on a project so that I’m not wasting a full week.
Long story short, TIA will forever hold a new meaning for me… This is America.
Meet Albert Nzamukwereka, the Country Program Coordinator for Survivor Corps Rwanda. In this video, Albert gives a brief overview of Survivor Corps’ mission in Rwanda, discusses the peer support model, and shares a bit of his own personal story and how it led him to work for Survivor Corps.
The flip camera is still not working, so I filmed it on my digital camera. Unfortunately, editing was not an option, so please bear with my amateur skills and the background noises.
I just got back from a bloody good time with fellow fellow, Laura Gordon (she is working for Survivor Corps in Burundi, focusing primarily on gender-based violence). We met up on Friday in Butare (a small town housing the National University of Rwanda and the National Museum of Rwanda, about 2 hours south of Kigali).
The people I live with were kind enough to lend me their camping equipment as we planned to spend Friday night in the Nyungwe National Forest. Not so fast muzungus. The last bus for Nyungwe left at 8:30am on Friday morning. Change of plans for the fellows.
We dropped our stuff at Motel Gracias (no running water but only 8 bucks each) and headed off for a quick visit to the National Museum. The Museum was quite interesting and gave us an overview of Rwanda’s history, including hair styles, dress - Laura was a bit mift at what the curators categorized as loin cloths - forms of housing, and hunting methods.
Before dinner, we met up with a former ENOUGH intern, Jackie, who is living in Butare for the summer doing some interesting research on reconciliation at the National University. She was heading off to an overnight memorial service the next day and was kind enough to offer up her apartment to us for the following evening. We dropped our camping stuff off in her room and planned to get the key from one of her friends when we returned from the forest the following day.
The three of us sat down to dine at the classy Hotel Ibis and gained some additional company. Aliza, a PhD student at the University Wisconsin doing research in Rwanda for the summer, introduced herself and joined us for dinner. We swapped muzungu stories and traveling tips over brochettes and Primus.
The following morning, Laura and I woke up early to catch the first and only bus to Nyungwe National Park. We were not sure how we’d get back as we were told our best bet was to stand by the side of the road and hope some poor soul picked us up, but we took our chances and boarded the bus. The bus from hell.
We were the last two to board, so Laura got stuck sitting in between two seats with a pole digging into her back and a man hitting on her until he got too car sick to continue. I got placed in between a woman with two children - one squeezed inbetween bags on the floor and one breast feeding on her lap - and a man who refused to allow me to put both of my feet on the floor as it would have forced him to give up a small amount of his space. As the bus pulled away, the man collecting the money also squeezed into our row, pushing my arm against the woman’s breast which she proceeded to leave there for the duration of our two hour ride.
About an hour into the journey - which, by the way, was full of gorgeous rolling hills which I could not in any way appreciate - the bus pulled over to the side of the road. Instead of letting people out, they shoved another woman into our row. Glorious.
An hour of pins and needles later, Laura and I were dropped on the side of the road in the middle of a beautiful park filled with monkeys, chimps, birds, and incredible wildlife. During a three hour hike, our guide, Richard, told us about the different trees - some were used to build the roof of the king’s house, others are used by the chimps who hit them to alert fellow chimps of their arrival, and some are used in traditional medicine to relieve cancer patients or induce abortion. We also saw monkeys, tons of birds, and some frogs. The views were absolutely breathtaking.
Luckily, when we returned to camp, we found muzungus with a car, and they were kind enough to give us a lift back to Butare, rescuing us from another trecherous bus ride. Back in town, I gave David - the person holding the key to Jackie’s room, containing the camping equipment lent to me by the people with whom I live - a call. “Number not in service.” Grrreat. No answer on Jackie’s end either.
Laura and I had the brilliant idea to ask the managers of Jackie’s room to let us in, just to get our stuff. That idea didn’t go over so well. After demanding evidence to prove that we knew Jackie and much back and forth, we agreed to rent a room from them, and they agreed to “look for” the key to Jackie’s room. About an hour later, Jackie and David called. A few panic attacks later, we retrieved our camping equipment and headed out to a delicious dinner at “The Chinese Restaurant.” As we were drifting into a Primus-induced slumber in our extra sketchy room, we heard a loud rapping on our door. The manager had located the key that we no longer needed. Thanks for scaring the crap out of me.
Overall, a weekend with some excitement, a bit of frustration, new friends, beautiful scenery, and a great time. More photos here.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit Women for Women in Rwanda. As readers of this blog know, I sponsor a woman in the Congo, and I absolutely love this organization. Up until yesterday, I had only seen the work Women for Women does from the US perspective - the amazing letters I get from Jeanine (and last year from Saverine) - so visiting Women for Women in Rwanda was a special treat.
Peace, the Program Manager in Rwanda, welcomed me with open arms and told me all about the work WfW does in Rwanda. Every Tuesday and Thursday morning, women from Kigali (or within an hour-walking distance) come to the offices for various workshops. The other days, the WfW staff head out to the different provinces to work with women who live too far to come into Kigali.
Peace also explained the complex process WfW uses to select participants and the rigorous training programs that the women go through to gain skills and build confidence. WfW creates groups of women from the same village that go through the year-long process together so that they have a network of support when they graduate from the program.
Peace was kind enough to set me up with a translator who took me from workshop to workshop, introducing me to the women, explaining the skills they were teaching and the questions the women were asking, and finally translating questions that the women had for me. I visited four different workshops - Domestic Violence, Women’s Rights and the Rwanda Constitution, Women and Voting, and Nutrition - and at each session, the women warmly welcomed me, thanked me for sponsoring a sister, and at my last workshop, sang to me (see video above).
The women were not shy about asking questions. Several times, I was asked if I experience domestic violence and how women in my country fight against it. They asked about my husband, and when I told them I didn’t have a husband, only a boyfriend, they had even more questions. We had a bit of trouble communicating the fact that I live with him out of wedlock. The women asked if they could come to my wedding and said that I should marry soon (and I thought my mom put the pressure on!). When I showed them a picture of Zach on my digital camera, the women were delighted! I don’t think Zach ever thought he would be such a celebrity!
Visiting Women for Women was an amazing experience. I would urge everyone to check out Women for Women’s website and consider sponsoring a woman. I can’t think of a better way to spend a few dollars a month.
Check out the rest of the photos here.
Lastly a special thanks to Patty, Ricki, Danuta, Priscilla, Peace, and the Women for Women gang that organized such a special day.
In case the video above doesn’t work, check out this link.
Resurrection
In 1993, when Eugine Mussolini was fifteen years old, he stepped on a landmine while trying to join the RPF forces in Rwanda’s eastern province. Doctors performed successive operations on his left leg, amputating more each time. Today, he must replace his prosthetic leg yearly to avoid further infection, and he must pay for this out of his own pocket.
“My first thought was, ‘I am crippled. My world is over.’” Mussolini told me yesterday afternoon as we sat in the restaurant at Chez Lando. “But after talking about my challenges, I faced my problems, and accepted how I am. There is nothing I can do but overcome.”
And overcome he has. Besides working full time for the Ministry of Finance, he runs the Association of Landmine Survivors and Amputees (ALSA) on a volunteer basis. ALSA does not have the money to hire staff, open an office, or create brochures and advocacy materials. Despite these significant setbacks, a group of over 30 ALSA members meets every Saturday to support one another - they have begun using the peer support methods they learned during Survivor Corps’ recent training - and contribute whatever amount each can give.
I will be working with Mussolini to develop a business plan, create a budget, design a web site, and strengthen ALSA’s advocacy efforts.
Mussolini ended our meeting on a high note. “Life continues,” he said, “When we can change a survivor’s mindset, teach that person to overcome, and to help himself, we call it a ‘resurrection,’ both for the him and for us.
“The fruits of gacaca may not come until the gates have long closed,” the Director of training and mobilization at the National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions, Denis Bikesha, told me yesterday. “Reconciliation is a gradual process and it might not bear fruit for quite some time.”
Denis began working for the government, specifically on gacaca, immediately after graduating from law school. Today, he monitors and evaluates the process, suggests alterations to make it more just, and when the process finishes (he estimtes by the end of July), he will oversee the publication of a report on gacaca. Oh, and he also decides if interested muzungus (i.e. yours truly) can go and observe a gacaca trial.
During our hour-long meeting in the hottest room in Rwanda (please note: I wore a suit), Denis laid out the recent history of gacaca. Gacaca had traditionally been used in Rwanda to resolve disputes in villages. After the genocide, Rwandese wanted to see genocidaires brought to justice, and the process in place - international tribunals and ordinary courts - was too slow. When trials began in 1996, there were only 13 chambers available to try 120,000 suspects.
To speed up the process and to ensure that evidence could be properly collected, Rwanda decided that trials should take place at the community level, hence the birth of gacaca. After a pilot phase beginning in June 2002, gacaca was fully launched later that year.
Anyone who has followed gacaca knows that it is controversial. Some believe it is the only path to reconciliation; others think that it is unfair, while some, such as Denis, claim it is patriotic.
“Rwanda has been challenged and now, we have an obligation to search for strategies to fight these challenges. That is gacaca.”
Denis laid out gacaca’s four-fold mission:
- Find out the truth about what happened in 1994
- Speed up the justice process
- End the culture of impunity
- Determine if reconciliation is possible
Today, gacaca has tried over a million cases with three categories of suspects: those who looted, those who carried out the genocide, and those who planned and executed the genocide. Judges are elected by the community on the basis of “integrity,” and both men and women judge and are judged.
When I asked Denis if he thought gacaca would bring genuine reconciliation and was the best way to bring genocidaires to justice, he replied, “What I am doing as my job, I believe I am supposed to be doing. I am one person, so I cannot do one thing and think another. Every person has his or her own feelings, but I was chosen to be among those who ensure peace.” At one point during our meeting, Denis, a member of the RPF party, told me that “President Kagame is our Moses.” It was Kagame’s army, the RPF, that brought an end to the genocide and it is his goal - through gacaca - to bring peace and prosperity to Rwanda.
Today, after having my photo taken, getting forms from the Office of Emigration and Immigration, submitting a copy of my passsport, and returning to wait in Denis’ office for an hour and a half, I have a permit to visit gacaca in July. To be continued…
Candlelit Lunch with the Nzamukwerekas.
Today, I had a wonderful improptu lunch with Albert’s parents! His mother and father warmly welcomed me into their home (with the traditional three kisses), introduced me to their cows, and stuffed me to the brim with potatoes, peanut sauce, beans, and cabbage. When I told his father, Bernard, that my grandfather was also named Bernard, I got three more kisses!
Albert warned me that his mother would offer me a very large glass of milk and that it was rude to not finish it. Uh oh… I asked Albert it would be ruder if I ended up puking all over their home. Albert kindly declined his mom’s milk offer for me.
We waved goodbye and promised to return soon. In typical Rwandese style, his parents thanked me for having lunch with them.
