Books, Babies and BBQ goat

There is a major shortage of books in Rubona and beyond. I was reading a book in the butter milk bar (see previous posts), and forgot that books are a rare commodity just as much as my mp3 player, or even a small portable radio. As I was reading, a boy, maybe around 13 or 14, appears out of nowhere and puts his head in front of the pages of the book, blocking my site, the back of his head brushing against my face, and starts to read out loud. I was reading the non-fiction We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families by Philip Gourevitch on the Rwandan Genocide. He was a pretty good reader. I helped him out with some words. He was happy it was about Rwanda.

I sort of awkwardly shifted my head to the right as his nose was in my book and right next to my face, because Rwandan sense of personal space is very, very small, even compared to Israel. At first, I was a bit shocked, not quite scared, maybe…uncertain? Imagine you are reading and a person just sticks their head in front of yours to read your book. But no-one seemed to think it was strange or was laughing, which people unashamedly do when anything strange happens. So I helped him read for a bit. There are so few books anywhere and a book, if one is around, is like an mp3 player or even a radio – something everyone should enjoy. These kids are learning English and have reading that is good enough to be massively improved with book access, but will never get beyond the reading the comprehension and ability of a nine-year-old without such books. Such individuals may be considered “literate” and everyone will be confused as to why literacy rates improving do not correlate with the same improvement in development.

When I took out my very tiny Kinyarwanda-English phrase pamphlet once, in the middle of a small dirt path surrounded by banana trees, all these kids came running up and peering at the pamphlet, all eagerly wanting to read from it. It was difficult looking up what I needed to because of all the eager reading of the kids, who, as I said earlier, are quite persistent and, well, pushy. The international aid in the area seems mostly for road-building and health and there seems to be a lot in education, but somehow there are no books.

As is obvious, the difference between ASYV and the surrounding area is huge. I don’t think this is a huge problem, because ASYV selects the most vulnerable orphans out of the entire country, many of whom would almost certainly not have a stable life, go to university, have a stable profession, or basic mental health, if it was not for ASYV. And the kids at ASYV are most certainly aware of the gap, and are active in community projects outside ASYV and in the villages they come from. But the huge lack of books, and the fact that ASYV has so many books, many not ever used I was told, seems like an opportunity to allow some kids in the area to get some more reading. I asked someone about this, and was told kids can come and read books, though I need to check if this is true.

And now, for some cute baby stories:

A mama was carrying her baby, and she told me to look at her baby, which was absurdly adorable. I asked the baby in a baby voice "what is your name?", because I have no idea how to ask for a name in third person to the mother. The mother told me the name (I forget now), I said the baby’s name to the little one, and a huge smile appears on the babies face and she starts to giggle. I said the name again and she just was all smiles. This baby could not have been more than five months, so it was impressive.

A little toddler followed me calling me “something something something [in Kinyarwanda] teacher!” over and over again, because I taught him that “good morning” is not said in the evening, something he did not know before (see previous post). These tiny kids are so advanced in their walking and talking and following and general people skills.

Should I try chewing on sugarcane? The kids really seem to like it. And it’s a fruit, right?

On another note, apparently I can’t say good morning at 11:30, at that point I need to start saying Good afternoon. Huh. I guess that makes sense if you get up at 5:30 am every day, and are in bed by 9pm.

I learned that a goat here costs around 15,000-20,000 Rwandan francs, which is between $25 to $33. That is cheap meat. People just leave them tied to a tree and they are walked, usually by little kids - the goats are often bigger than they are. The goats eat grass, so it doesn’t cost much, if anything, to keep them. But no goat milk, nobody would touch that. It's considered icky here, protein deficiency be damned. Could be that most goats can't be milked, but I saw one the other day that definitely could and definitely was not. Goats are also kept in the backyard and sold or killed for bbq, with brochettes costing around 250 froncs, which is less than 50 cents. Another fun fact: traditionally, women did not eat goats meat, it was taboo, something about women growing a beard if they do. Today, women eating goats meat is like women drinking beer, I think - something modern women do. Still weirded out by the goats in the backyard of the bar which are killed on the spot for the brochettes.

Good morning is not Mwiriwe (“good evening”)! And more about butter milk.

There is a meme going around Wramagana, and maybe beyond, that “Good morning” is said in the evening. Today I saw it first hand: “Mwiriwe” I said to a stranger, who responded “Good morning.” Another girl then asked, “What does good morning mean?” and he answered, “It means Mwiriwe.” I quickly interjected that, no, it means “Mwaramutse” and he was very surprised. “Really? It does not mean Mwiriwe?” “No,” I said, “It means Mwaramutse and is only said in the morning.” All the kids and adults – almost everyone – says, “Good morning” to me in the evening. I told this fact to one man in the evening who had said, “good morning” – I said, “Now it is evening, so you should say, ‘Good evening.’ Mwaramutse is ‘good morning’ and ‘Mwiriwe’ is ‘good evening.’” He looked at me like I was crazy and said, “ok… Mwaramutse then,” I think making fun of me, as if I was confused as to what Mwaramutse meant, as opposed to him being confused as to what “good morning” meant. I wonder how far this misunderstanding stretches….I would not care, really, because I want people to speak to me in Kinyarwanda, at least for basic greetings (I hope I improve beyond basic greetings.) But really, all the “good morning!” in the evening is driving me crazy. And some kids with pretty decent grammar and vocabulary, for Wramagana anyway, seem to make this mistake. Which is a shame.

“Do you have a father?” is a common off-hand question here when meeting someone new. That, followed by, “do you have a mother?” and then “do you have siblings?” When I first heard it asked, I thought the kid meant “do you have a husband?” but then quickly realized that “do you have a father?” would be a common question here. Everyone I have spoken to so far had at least one member of their immediate family killed or who died of an illness, and a lot who are my age or older had one or both of their parents killed in the genocide.

On another, lighter note: I want to compliment everyone on their beautiful clothes and the little kiddies on their pretty cute faces, but the whole “that’s pretty” is challenging, because verbs have classes in Kinyarwanda, so you say “Uri mwiza” if you want to say “You are pretty” and “Heza” (or something like that) if you want to safe a place is pretty and “Ni Chiza” (spelling that wrong) for some things and not others. I know that “Your shirt is pretty” is “Ishati ziza” or something along those lines. When I was sitting next to the cute three year old decked out in pink, I wanted to tell her she was pretty and I think I used the word “Ziza” and her father smiled and said “You are supposed to tell me that she is ziza” because she was his, and tell her “Uri Mwiza.”

There is no word for “cute.” I was trying to say that the goat that was about to be slaughtered for the bi-weekly kabobs seemed so cute. It was not understand what “cute” meant and I said it was like pretty but for a baby, and he said some really long sentence that described cute. I checked, and there really is no word for cute.

With a country full of pretty clothes and ridiculously cute babies, this is annoying. How will I say “cute shoes?” It’s important.

Ah, butter milk. And the local butter milk bar. It is awesome. It is a small little tiny room, with a table and benches, smaller even than the local proper “bar,” and filled with people who love butter milk. They sell Amandazi, which is really just donuts, and Chapatti, which is just Chapatti, and sometimes hardboiled eggs. And they sell a 600 or 700 ml. glass of butter milk, or Amata Ikivuguto (I think, this might be something else) for 200 Froncs, versus 150 froncs for a tiny little glass of maybe 100 ml. So you go for the 600/700 ml one, right? I got the huge glass, could not begin to finish it, and offered some to the man sitting across from me, who was the pharmacist from health center across the road, which was built two years ago and has a Peace Corps volunteer who also teaches the child prodigy, Leondis, English. Anyways, he used to be a primary school teacher for English and, based on his English, I understand a little why kids think “good morning” is “Miriwe” which, well, I just looked it up, and actually means “good afternoon.” But still. He taught me how to say Ikivugoto and I told him that Chapatti comes from India, which he and the others in the room did not know. Chapatti is very popular here. So, I love the Butter Milk Bar (that is not what it is officially called, it is not called anything, like every other place of rest and relaxation Rubona). It basically serves the purpose of a café, which they do not have, because coffee is not really drunk here.

Today, we were told who our “house mothers” and the “sisters” would be. Volunteers are all “friends of the family” which I think is a very accurate description. The “sisters” are actually councilors. Soon, we will meet the kids who are living in our houses – we don’t call them “students”, because the idea is that Agahozo-Shalom will become like a home to them, which includes a school as only one aspect of many.

Ann Heyman spoke to us about making Agahozo-Shalom more sustainable. One project was improving the hatchery and making it more profitable. Apparently 10 million eggs are imported from Uganda every year and there is a huge problem with protein deficiency among children.

Speaking of protein, I think the highlight of my week was seeing gruff men after a hard days work sit down and get 700ml. beer cups filled with milk.

A break in Kigali and back to saying Hi to almost every stranger in Wramagana

I spent a weekend in Kigali where I don’t stand out, because there are just too many people for anyone to care about one person standing out. I need my hit of urbanity just once in a while to blend into people, and not feel really different. In Kigali, I met some interesting people, mostly what I would call the elite of Rwanda working in law or business. I met a human rights lawyer, who was around my age, who grew up in Congo as a refugee. “Your accent sounds Ugandan” one of the volunteers told him. “That’s not a compliment around here,” he responded. There seems to be a bit of a hierarchy based on what country one fled to (where one lived as a refugee before returning to Rwanda). He spoke a lot of French to his Rwandan friends, though I never got a chance to ask why – if it was because their Kinyarwanda was not as good, or out of habit? Many I met grew up in Uganda. One girl I met just came back from working for a shipping company in Juba, South Sudan and happened to be the niece of one of the house mothers in Agahozo Shalom. On the way back from Kigali I sat next to a man who happened to be the son-in-law of another house mother at Agahozo-Shalom. Small country.

This particular man, the son-in-law of a ASYV house mother, had a cute three year old decked out in pink, including pink sweatpants, shirt and sweater. Even her braided hair had a rosy ting to it and she held a bright purple lollypop, which probably isn’t so smart in a country with next to no dental care, but it went well with her outfit. She dozed off half way through, and her father threw the remaining lollypop out the window. Before she went to sleep I chatted with her, asking what her name was in my oh-so-broken Kinyarwanda. She called me “auntie” and her father said that that’s what girls call the women in their village. He told me she was their first born. I asked if they had other children, and he said he and his wife decided to have only one child, to make sure she had a bright future with a good education. This was a very surprising response for me, as everyone I have met who is married has (or plans to have or wishes to have or wished they had had) at least five children. It was refreshing to meet someone who had decided to only stop at one child.

I told him I worked in Agahozo-Shalom, and he said something along the lines of, “It is very expensive there, what about all the very impoverished children who don’t have access to the school?” which is a question I think everyone working in aid asks themselves in almost every development project. I told him that the children accepted do not pay tuition and only the most vulnerable orphans are accepted, though it was, indeed, expensive compared to schools that were not as good. He said he had not known that the school was free before I told him. The fact that it was only for vulnerable orphans also seemed to persuade him a bit. Another good reason to invest a lot in a very well-run program that helps a select few of very vulnerable kids is that oversight seems to be much, much better than aid organizations that attempt to offer minimal assistance to a very large population. In Rwanda, oversight for aid organizations is often sorely lacking, and ASYV has excellent oversight, in addition to being run mostly by Rwandese. And, ah, it is “Rwandese” and not “Rwandan” according to Rwandan passports.

Also in Kigali – they have motorcycle taxies. I took one that, like many, liked to drive in the wrong direction onto incoming traffic at busy almost-highway intersections when this shortened the way. I was taking a “moto,”with others, so he needed to successfully follow the train of motos, which encouraged the driving-onto-incoming-traffic habit. The moment we all get off of our motos – the moment – a moto on the other side of the street comes crashing down and three passengers go flying into the street. This is the first, and hopefully last time, I will see an actual accident happen as it is happening. The passengers get up, brush themselves off, and are not to harmed. So that’s good. But one sat down and had difficulty getting up. An ambulance is called.

I do stand out in Kigali, maybe a tiny bit less than in the rural areas, but standing out is not a reason to get all excited in a city where people are busy, busy, busy. That is what is so refreshing - when people are too busy to stare and contemplate why you are walking down the street.

When we all got to Ntunga, around 9 kilometers from ASYV and around 50 kilometers from Kigali, I decided to walk back in order to have some alone time, listen to music, and see the scenery which, as I have already said, is absurdly breathtaking every single step of the way to and from every single destination in and around Wramagana. Of course, there is no “alone time” in rural villages and the roads that connect them. Walking down the street is an event, like a carnival, every single time, and I am trying to get used to it. I can’t say hi to everyone, there are just too many people, but everyone stares at me as I walk, some stopping what they are doing and others talking about me, so saying “hi” is the only way to not feel like a clown and for me and the other person to sort of acknowledge that I have feelings, too. I don’t jog, I walk, so ignoring is not really an option. And, occasionally, a rare person down does not answer “hi” back to my “Moraho” or other greeting even though they are staring at me. This is very, very rare because everyone seems to hold on to the steadfast rule of responding to a basic greeting – it seems almost taboo to ignore a greeting, even though staring at a person walking down the street is entirely acceptable. (Maybe only a white person, I will need to see if this happens to others). Tiny little two year olds with dutifully answer “Nimezza” in tiny voices when I ask them how they are. Anyway, when someone stares and does not respond, it feels really horrible. But the relief I get from hearing a person say hello back, and smile and wave both hands, is worth taking the risk, considering 99% of the time this is what happens. So it’s this massive difference – staring with a slight frown, or at least a neutral face, and then faces breaking into huge smiles and both hands waved and a happy responses the moment I say a greeting.

Anyway, as I said in an earlier post, large groups of children follow me. It has occurred to me that some are too little to understand that I do not speak Kinyarwanda, so I feel really bad when I cannot answer their questions. Their cute little faces show confusion for half a second and then they jabber on with more questions, and I cannot answer those either. And there are many, many children everywhere. I sometimes say “Oya” which means “no” or “Mibizi” which I think means “I don’t know” (if it doesn’t mean this let me know) because I cannot always remember how to say "I do not know Kinyarwanda) but sometimes that response makes sense and this encourages them to ask more questions I cannot understand.

These groups of kids that tag along are usually between the ages of two and seven, sometimes nine or ten, and come in groups of six to ten, though sometimes twenty or more, in which case I feel like I am walking in a sea of kids, which is, eh, I’m not a kid person, so kind of just weird. I can’t shake them off, because they are very persistent, and that would make me mean. And their confident strides make them very cute. They invariably thin out to a remaining two or three that have the patience and energy to continue walking, and who have not passed another sort of distraction. I don't why they do this - do they expect something? They often start to laugh and chat with each other, so I really do think they are just getting a kick out of the surrounding and trailing me and trying to chat with me.

Today, the kids started toughing my harm and comparing my hand to their hand, a few kind of shocked that my veins are so blue against my skin (which is so white. I really do have bulgy veins, so understandable). At first it was like a curious and daring touching my arm, and then a more meticulous comparing of the palms of hands and fingernails. After a while I asked them what their names were, because this touching-my-arm-and-hand game was getting awkward and they seemed an intelligent group, because they patiently corrected my pronunciation of greetings and how to ask what their names were. Most kids either have no idea what I am trying to say, so cannot correct, or ignore pronunciation problems and just respond.

After a while the kids and I reached a fork in the road and a happy woman came to the intersection and came to greet them. She was in a beautifully tailored blue and white two-piece traditional outfit and headpiece and also thought it was hilarious that the kids were following me, and that a white person was walking down the road with them. She came up to me extending her hand, and we exchanged the few greetings I know in Kinyarwanda, with me again really regretting to myself that I was not making more of an effort to learn the language. She was very welcoming and had the aura of a school teacher in her very crisp way of speaking to the kids and her way of speaking to me very slowly and precisely to help me understand what she was saying (which I still did not).

I went on my way and the kids went on there’s. After a while a small boy followed me, and I looked at his sandals. The entire front part of his left sandal was missing, such that he needed to walk with the front part of his foot before the heel to keep the sandal on. I remembered this from a few days ago, because he followed me then. He had the same very, very dirty, torn shirt and threadbare trousers, though they were not really trousers or trainers or anything at this point, as the pair was full of holes and stretched out. It looked like he had been wearing this same thing the whole year, and trust me, if you see something that has been worn an entire year every day, you can tell. Despite the sandal-induced handicap, he soldiered on, following me, always keeping a slight distance of a foot or so (this is relative distance compared to the other kids), like he was accompanying me. Some of the children are like that – they don’t seem to enjoy following, or not enjoy following, they just act like it’s their job and just something they need to do because, well….It’s like when you are little and you see a pebble on the road and you want to kick it forward, and as long as the rock stays in the middle of the road, you might as well keep on kicking it. The kids see me, follow, and if I am walking really fast or really far, they eventually just go about what they were doing before, but figure, why not follow until then. If that makes any sense.

I passed a very large procession of walking women in b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l toga-like gowns made out of colorful silky pastel fabrics that the women wear in Rwanda and, like all of their outfits, manage to keep perfectly clean. They were all very nice, in great moods, being the first to say “hi” which almost never happens – clearly it was some sort of wedding or really awesome church day because they were all dolled up in addition to being in awesome moods. That was fun and a nice change. They did make a comment about my feet, probably the fact that they were really, really dirty and scrapped up, but by then many had pointed this out, and I just smiled and kept walking.

Everyone asked why in the world I was walking and not taking a moto (the motorcycle taxi I wrote about. Everyone. So this will not change. Which I know. I just wish I could think of a good response.

I still love that delicious butter milk, but there is no refrigeration to keep the butter milk in when at Agahozo-Shalom. In Kigali I experimented with rice, butter milk and sugar, thought I was a genius because it tasted awesome, and then was told this had already been invented and was called rice pudding.

Butter Milk. Wow.

Butter Milk. Fresh. A-May-Zing. Definitely paying more than the market price but I appreciate it more than the average market consumer in Rwanda, or maybe the world? So whatever. And pineapple. I don’t seem to get ripped off with the pineapple. Everyone, Rwandan or not, seems to pay 250-300 Frances, and I pay 300. Maybe I’m paying 50 francs more, but that’s less than ten cents difference.

So I walked back from Rabona with two huge pineapples, happy I had an excuse to not wave to all the kids. If I don’t wave, they blankly and sometimes confusedly stare at me, so I need to wave to just break the ice and not feel super awkward. But not when lugging two pineapples. No hands.

December 15th to December 17th

Wed. Dec. 15^th, 2010

I walked for an hour. Everyone stared are me – everyone. There occasionally was a more modern-dressed woman who passed who did not stare at me, but everyone else did. The kids followed me, all laughing and giggling and really really really excited and mocking and competing to walk next to me and friendly - a weird combination of reactions. I was told that they learn the faces of the white people who pass through, so mine was just a new one, which is maybe where all the excitement came in. But seriously, they looked at me like I was a ghost. Really, a ghost. Or maybe a celebrity? The kind of celebrity you are just really interested in looking at, not the kind your necessarily a fan of - an infamous celebrity. One very brave little one started to hold my hand, and his father took him and hit him on the tush, really angry. But the rest just look in smiling wonder, and the grownups just stare. If you say “Muraho” and “Amakura” the reaction goes from staring with a blank face to a huge smile and friendly wave, sometimes with two hands. Knowing simple greetings in Kinyarwanda makes all the difference. With old men over 60, I am spoken to in French, and they get confused if I don't know French. But for everyone else, Kinyarwanda greetings are the key. The kids all said “Good morning” in English even though it was 6 in the evening. I imagine this is because, if they learn English at school, school does not go past noon, so all they hear is “good morning” and use this as a greeting. I correct them and say, “good evening” and I once tried to say, “Good morning is Mwaramutse, now is ‘good evening.’ wiriwey (I don't know how to spell that last word)” But my pronunciation of “Mwaramutse” was so bad, and the concept maybe difficult for little kids to get.

As I was walking, and everyone was staring at me – again, everyone, hundreds of people – a huge full rainbow came out. It looked like someone photoshoped it in. At first it just was super thick with all the colors and I was like, “you have to be kidding me” and then I saw that the colors were reflected off the green hills so that there was a rainbow also on the mountains and I was like, “oh. my. God. I never knew a rainbow could do that.” And then it became a full arch, covering the whole sky, and then another rainbow was reflected above it and this rainbow was also reflected on the green hills. It was absurd – I have never seen such a big, chunky, Disney-looking rainbow. The dozens of staring eyes just became not relevant. And being stared out is alright. Weird at first. But then you just get used to saying hi to everyone, which is only way they change their expression from staring disbelief to a smile and a nod. And you don’t feel so much like a ghost anymore.

There are a number of malnourished children. I did not realize at first, but then I saw, when some put their arms up, that their stomachs were very large from malnourishment. The difference between the ASYV and the surrounding villages is huge, as is the difference between Kigali and the villages in Rwamagana, the district, in Eastern Province. A lot of people asked where I was going to, and it was hard to say “a walk” without any particular destination, because people spend hours every day bringing water back and forth, so perhaps walking around to just walk around is not so popular, at least not alone at a fast pace – walking is very, very slow here.

Thursday, Dec. 15^th, 2010.

Last night we went to the local bar, which is of course just a room with a table and a refrigerator, though there was a nice bar-like counter that the mother of the place stood behind (she was very mother-like, and also the ownder), after we found her in the backyard tending the goats they kill on the spot twice a week to serve kabobs. Her 12-year-old son is a bit of a child prodigy who is taught English by a local Peace Corp volunteer who normally works in the clinic. He has almost no accent and sounds American. It is really surprising to hear a perfect (almost) American accent, let alone from a 12 year old. He said that he wanted to help make all of Africa like America. “Not like Europe?” I asked, and he said, “no, because in Africa we need unity. If Rwanda makes tomatoes and Uganda makes [some other vegetable which I forgot] then we can give Uganda tomatoes and they can give us [that other veggie.] I could not tell if what he was saying was, maybe, things rehashed from the peace corps volunteer, but he was a funny, smart little kid, who also has no access to books at all. He knows one of the directors of Agahozo-Shalom, so visits sometime.

We drank Prima, a pretty decent beer that comes in 720 ml. bottles. It’s pretty pricey for Rwanda – 600 frances, which is around $1.50, about how much you would pay in European towns, and about a days worth of work or more.

Later today…

So, because I’m Mollie, I went on a long walk/hike mid-day and forgot to bring water. After around an hour and a half I realized that if I did not get water soon I would maybe die. Well, maybe not die. Ok, yes, I was feeling really really breathless and sick and scared and was an hour from town, or half an hour, or something. And the worst inhabited place in the world to really need water is in a province where everyone has to walk two hours to their water source and two hours back, and where the color of your skin can indicate whether you, to, must partake in this daily four hour excursion to secure water. As a white person, I felt really uncomfortable asking for water. I figured they would give it to me, but when asked a boy where I could get water, I said I would pay them. He took me to a house, and they brought water, everyone laughing and curious and, well, I don’t know how they were reacting - the way you would react if Brittany Spears asked for water and you were one of the people that thought Brittany spears was weird and sad and famous and different and a little bit pathetic, really. The woman brought me water, and the children stared, because that is what they do when they see a white person (as the adults do, but the adults had work to do). After I drank the water I paid with the smallest bill I had, 2,000 frances, which is a little less than $4. It is also around two days labor, if you are lucky. So if you are getting paid minimum wage in Israel, it is like paying around 400 NIS, or $100 for water. But I was really, really thirsty, and I never get thirsty – I was desperate, and I figured it was worth it, because, oh my God, I was sooooooo close to fainting. I gave the kids a pen, pencil and a drawing of a hand I had done, items which probably would have sufficed without the "exorbitant" pay. Which, I know, is nothing, but socially, it looks crazy. I thought for a moment that I was only strengthening the stereotype that white people are all very, very, very rich but the thing is, white people in this area are all really, really, really rich.

I need to learn Kinyarwanda. It’s really annoying. Or, what I think I will do, is carry around a phrase book because there is just no way I will remember things unless I am always surrounded by people who speak no English, which is not the case. A few of the volunteers are language geniuses. Some are playing Bannanagrams, which is a game like scrabble except without turns. They are doing fabulous, because they are language geniuses. I am not (doing great at that game or a language genius.) So a dorky cheat sheet it is. Which they actually use. So maybe it is planning ahead I need to do, not be a language genius.

An old woman on the street gave me what I think was a blessing. You can sort of tell. Like, her face got serious, she held out her hands, bowed her head, bobbed her head in earnestly the way blessing-givers do, and spoke like she was saying something almost poetic and memorized, the way one sounds when giving an official-blessing. I really wish I knew Kiynarwanda.

First Few Days

Wed. 8/12/2010

I got on the plane for Rwanda, where I will be volunteering for the year at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in the Eastern Province, right next to a town called Rabona.

On my first day, I get to the Kigali National Airport, find out they lost my suitcase, and say, “whatever” because I was way more stressed about finding out that I forgot something than finding out someone else forgot something. I have called three times yesterday to check if they found my bag, and once today. The guy who answers the phone said, “ah, Mollie, how are you?” this morning, because now he remembers me. It was the morning and my voice was still scratchy, so he also threw in, “oh, are you ok? You sound sick!” It was 8:00am, which is practically mid-day in Rwanda, where people get up before 6:00am and where the school I will be working in starts at 7:15am.

When I left the airport I got into a “bus” which is actually a monit sheirut if you live in Israel or a mini-bus perhaps in English, but without laws limiting the number that can fit in. Developed countries have this to, but the squishing is in the standing room – the New York Subway, the Underground, Israel’s Egged Buses at 8:00am and 18:00. In Rwanda it is mini-buses with special fold-up seats in the isle, so squished sitting can be maximized, because mini-buses are too short to stand in.

Has anyone ever read the piece by the Cell Phone Anthropologist? In it, he talks about how money remittances are done over cellphones through talk-as-you-go calling cards in much of the developing world. You just buy the cards and send the number over to another stall anywhere in the world, and they re-sell the cards to someone else who needs a calling card and give the money gotten for the card to the receiver of the remittance, with a commission. So they do that with internet in Kigali, to – you find an “MTN Hotspot” (MTN is one of the cell phone providers) and you send a text with your password from your cell phone to MTN, and MTN can see the calling-card number you have, and re-sell the time from the number in proportion to how much time you spend (or how much you download) from the internet . So you sign into the internet with your cellphone number and the password you sent them. I am not sure this is exactly the same thing, but the fact that it is done through a cell phone, rather than a credit card, is pretty cool.

People dress well here, which is exciting, because I really think people should dress well everywhere. Suits, nice shoes, the works. An occasionally tasteful traditional dress, usually tailored with fabulous shoes. This fact has slightly increased my frustration of not having found got my suitcase yet, because I am finally going to a country where dressing nicely is ok. I do realize that haggling will be even more difficult if I dress well – if being white makes things 500% more expensive (I’m not exaggerating – I spent 500% more on carrots than I do in Israel, so I was probably spending at least 1000% or much, much more on the market price) then dressing well may make things even more expensive.

My Israeli phone can’t change a sim-card because it is locked. I went to a cell-phone store owner, who has prices on the cellphones he sells. At first, I thought maybe I am not getting ripped off as much as in the market. But there just aren’t enough non-Rwandese in Kigali for me to think that the prices listed are only for tourists and do not serve some sort of initial negotiating start-off point for the store-owner when haggling with Rwandese. I was like, there is just no way that the initial stance is 1,000% above the market rate every time a Rwandese walks into the store, that would just take too much time to get to an agreed upon price. But my phone, a “Rwandatel” phone, cost me 11,000 frances, which is around $23, and that’s how much I pay in New York – no way that the cheapest phone in New York is the same as the cheapest phone in Kigali, right?

The only two countries I have lived in at the United States and Israel, which are number #1 and number #2 when it comes to massive income differences. So if you come from a middle-class family in the US or Israel, and you don’t mind going where the very-much-lower-class shop, you can buy things at developing-country prices. You can find good jeans for $5, t-shirts for $1, etc. In Rwanda, I can’t do this because of the lack of written prices. I went to the one western grocery store - I don’t know who really shops there, I suppose tourists or wealthier Rwandese. It is open 24 hours a day, which is very, I don’t know, New York? Apple Store in New York?

There are tall shiny window buildings going up everywhere. Kigali is absolutely stunning – really stunning. It is a proper city but without too many high buildings, which means it is still very very green and has lots of roofed houses, but still very urban. I wonder if the urban planning can keep any of this beauty as it develops. In general, I am for lots and lots of tall building at the expense of scenery, because that’s how you can keep housing prices lower and because the taller the building, the less transport is needing, saving time and environmental damage – if you need to take a car for ten kilometers away, it becomes just five kilometers if each tenth of the kilometer has a building that is a tenth of a kilometer tall. I think. Not the best at math. But you get the idea.

Saturday, 11 December 2010

I moved into Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village which is in the Eastern Province near Rabona, where I will volunteer for a year.

Yesterday, I went to the funeral of the daughter of one of the staff members at the school I will be working in in the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village. There were at least a hundred people, perhaps more, at the site. In Rwanda, four out of every ten babies die at childbirth - I do not know if the death was caused by the same medical conditions that lead to a high rate or infant mortality, but I imagine it is not totally unrelated. The director is at least middle-class for Rwanda, so this surprised me. At the funeral, all the women sing songs, and the nurse from the hospital is one of the speakers that explains what happens – an interesting tradition. I can’t imagine living in a country where, upon becoming pregnant, there is an almost 50-50 chance the baby will die after you give birth to it.

The funeral reminded me of some habits I see in Israel. One man answered his cell phone in the middle. Another woman was pressing cell phone buttons and some were chatting. It was not so disrespectful because of the many, many people at the funeral. Everyone was dressed immaculately, as everyone seems to be dressed in Rwanda who is not in the middle of manual labor – and even then, buttoned down collared shirts are common. Stilettos clicked against the rocky, stony rode going through the cemetery.

After the funeral, chicken food was picked up for the chickens. Ilan, the director of the village, asked Solomon, who heads the farm “How many eggs do you get per day?” and they had a discussion about the kilograms of eggs per day, per week, expected in the future, how much each egg would sell for, and how cost-affective it would be to transport all the eggs to Kigali to sell. Ilan had bought a pinapple at a grocery store, which was 700 Rwandan Frances (around $1.25 or around 5 NIS), very overpriced. Solomon said he sold the pineapples at the village for 250 Frances (around 50 cents?) and Ilan said that was under-priced. Ilan emphasized the need for planning and training in business, so that Solomon and others on the farm could make enough money to not depend on others, such as donors, which the eventual goal.

The youth village does its own farming and the goal is to eventually not be dependent on any donors. This would be a huge challenge – it would not only mean having enough to live off of, but also having enough extra profit to pay for teachers, administration, maintenance, etc.

My suitcase, according to Simon’s computer (Simon is the man in Kigali International Airport that is in charge of my lost suitcase), has changed its tag number and is waiting in Adis Abbaba, Ethiopia, where I flew through. Every day Simon says it will be on the next plain, and every plain that comes in does not have my suitcase, which is filled with all my clothes, bras, contact lenses, etc. The bras and underwear are the most annoying part. I used to think it was so awesome that there was an entire second-hand clothing industry in African countries, and I thinks it is absolutely fine that a market can be built on something someone else doesn’t want as much on the other side of the world. But bras second hand? No. Just No. So I may have to pay a fortune for new ones that probably won’t have underwire, because bras don’t seem to come with underwire here. I’ve already splurged on new underwear.

If there is one country to give you perspective about the tininess of importance of a lost suitcase with all your practically and emotionally necessitous items in the world, it is probably Rwanda. This is partly because of the history (the obvious), the present (I went to a funeral of a baby of a middle class family my second day here for the death of an infant that is a normal, four-out-of-ten-babies-born occurrence). It is also because the view at AGYV and Kigali are absolutely, incredibly, oh my god stunningly beautiful. . And the weather to support the perfect greenery is the occasionally heavily shower that lasts for a convenient twenty-to-thirty-minutes, waters everything in site to make it green, then stops, proceeded by a breezy sunniness. So past and present tragedy combined with perfect view and weather is helping me not be to obsessed about the lost suitcase, though the number of sentences I am devoting to it in this post suggests the opposite.

Uuuuuuuurgh !@#$%#% Ethiopian Airlines!!!!

We had a discussion today with Elaine, the deputy director of the youth village. Elaine was born to a Rwandan mother and a Belgium father. He basically told us the history of Rwanda through his family, which included members responsible for what occurred under Belgium colonization. Elaine moved from Congo to Canada at, I think, age 15. We had a very frank discussion with him about the different opinions in the village staff regarding the teenagers dating. Because Elaine lived in both worlds, he was very good at answering questions.

The issue of dating which we discussed invariably includes the issue of what to teach the kids. I won’t get into this now, but, in general, the students have clear access to condoms outside the – this has nothing to do with village, just the general policy of the Rwandan government. There are billboards all over Kigali (well, not all over Kilagi, but y’know) with big condoms to promote the use of protection. It’s like, your driving down the street and then suddenly – wham – two big condoms in your face.

Smoking is non-existent here – I have yet to see someone smoke. No money, I guess. It’s very refreshing.

Monday, Dec. 13^th

Today was the first day of the Rwandan Staff-organized seminar. You could tell they were trying really hard to make it more “engaging and participatory” as probably recommended by participants of the last two years. Most of the seminar was – and there really is no other way to say it – incredibly, well, you needed a lot of patience. Not patience, maybe maturity? It was long speeches interspersed with open-ended questions whose answers were so incredibly non-controversial as to make them, well…. Like, we gathered into groups to answer the question, “How can you assure education at Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village?” or something of the sort. The answers were around the lines of “being a good role-model” and “teaching them to be polite.” When listing values of education, the answers tended to emphasize everything not connected to critique or asking questions, or debate. In fact, they called the discussion a “debate” even though not a single person disagreed with anything anyone said, or said anything that anyone could possible disagree with. Except – and this was actually really exciting for me – one councilor asked a question I had been dying to ask but just could not as an outsider: “There is a rumor”, she began, “that Agahozo-Shalom’s school puts greater emphasis on exact sciences. But what if everyone is not good at exact sciences?” The principle answered, “That is not a rumor, it is true, but Agahazo Shalom is part of the larger picture of Rwanda today.” He said that science and technology were the most important factor in developing Rwanda. Ah, and then he said that other subjects were available for those who “were not strong in the sciences.” You would think that, fifteen years after a genocide, subjects like history and literature and philosophy and psychology would be as important as exact sciences for Rwanda, and not only subjects for those who were bad in Sciences. The national policy seems to run along the same lines – university scholarships, I was told, are given in the sciences, but not in history or literature – though as of a few weeks ago, those are no longer available either. I was happy that Agahozo-Shalom has councilors (or at least one) that raised these questions and have successfully studied non-sciences and are just really smart people. Who did not study engineering or math or physics.

The day before we did a walking tour around Kigali, taking a fifteen minute walk from the slums to the area around the president’s house. The university we passed is open to poorer residents of the area, which is better than Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which does not give automatic access to residents of Isawia in East Jerusalem.

At the seminar, the principle of the high school gave a two and a half-hour speech which was very dramatic, though the translation did not seem quite to express the drama. The many “ts…ts…ts….” were heard when something sad was said, which I liked, it added a bit of character to the whole room. It was not the “ts” that Israelis say when they are pissed off, it was more like a shake of the head and many, many closely strung together “ts”s to indicate “shame, shame.”

One of the house mothers explained the role of the family in promoting education for the children in traditional Rwandan society. The mother was described as someone who taught the girls to clean and take care of the house, and the father teaches the son how to “be a man” and protect the house. The aunt was the one children go to in order to discuss issues they do not feel comfortable speaking with their parents. I was not sure if she was saying that this was why the family was important. It bothered me a bit, but I just sort of wrote it down as something vaguely interesting and – at last – something I could cling to as slightly more controversial, and therefore interesting, compared to the oft-repeated “we must be role models to the children.” Plus the woman who said this seemed like a very strong, dominant mother, not passive at all – these mamas make motherhood look like the height of feminism. She emphasized the need to make sure that girls were not submissive to their husbands and the housemothers in the village are very strong, opinionated women. And they all play soccer and dance really, really well.

We also had a getting-to-know you game, the kind where you randomly talk to people you otherwise would not have talked to. We were told to say two things we liked and two things we did not. All the Rwandans said they liked things like “peace” and “love” and hated “war” and “anger.” The Israelis and Americans said they liked “chocolate” and “dogs.” And maybe “I hate broccoli.”

After this we did a walking tour of the village. It started to rain. We ran through the rain to the nearest shelter, with the Rwandan women in their fancy beautiful stilettos and very smart suits and other outfits, all of which remained perfectly creased and clean and white, somehow, even though I was a mess.

When we got to the farm, the women seemed excited to see the cows eat and so many baby chickens at once, which made me feel a lot less pathetic about getting giddy at seeing the animals. Lots of “Ish! Ish! Ish!” were called to the cows, which is what you say to cows in Rwanda to get them to come to you. Not exactly sure this works, but they told me it did. They seemed to wander over to us. One female cow gave a bull a shove with her head when the bull came over to us, even as the female cow was backing up, afraid and suspicious. Cows are just so cute.

And then at night – this was beyond awesome – we had a mingling thing from 8-10. It started out with everyone awkwardly sitting around the room, each person sitting on a chair pushed up against the wall. People made small talk to the people next to them, and I chatted with the councilors, who are all around the volunteers’ age, about Kinyarwanda questions. I also skimmed a Kinyarwanda phrase book and was really happy to learn that work for “bad” is “Bibi.” The only word I won’t forgot. That and “Ikawa” for coffee, because I really miss my mourning coffee. (breakfast is delicious porridge and the occasional deep-fried muffin thingy whose name I forgot. My phrase book says, “Amandazi.”) So donuts for breakfast is awesome. Anyway, suddenly, they put music on. We still continued to sit around, some people getting drowsy. Some nice speeches are made. And then, music again, and then, suddenly people start dancing. Actually, Jasmine, a volunteer from Israel starts to dance, and then an older house-mother gets up and starts dancing to. Soon, everyone is dancing to hip-hop, including the older house mothers, who can dance to modern hip-hop as well as the younger councilors and volunteers because, well, this is Africa. Or just Rwanda, but I think this may be the case in many countries in Africa. What is awesome is that everyone dances and feels comfortable, including people who were not exactly star dancers of the life of the party. There was no feeling of awkwardness.

So here I am, in my room, with my suitcase. Yep, got it from the airport. I thought I had loads of clothes that would make me look as together and smart as Rwandans, but I don’t come even close. Oh well. Interestingly, and this is sort of off-topic, the women I see on the street are way more curvy than their husbands, who are way skinnier than what I see in the US and part of Israel. Being curvy for women is in here and tailoring is really good here, so curvy women with well-tailored clothes are to be found everywhere, and they are pretty toned and in shape from bringing water back and forth from their houses. I suppose this will change if food becomes more plentiful and being slightly larger is not an indication of wealth? Trends in trendy weights is not exactly a pressing topic – about as pressing as my lost suitcase was – but of course this interests me because, well, it’s related to fashion.

I will, perhaps, make a “fashion in Rwanda” blog. We shall see.

In all, it is inspiring/sad/I don’t know to speak to Rwandans my age, who have also sort of recently finished university, who also like to buy nice shoes, and who have had both their parents and siblings killed in the genocide. This is not something that happened a generation ago, in happened to them just fifteen years ago. I don’t really know what I can write here. It is just, well, you don’t think about how there are girls who care about university, their careers, boys, clothes, not getting wet in the rain and who maybe regret wearing stilettos on the mud roars, have also, by the way, survived genocide and had their families killed fifteen years ago. And have that mentioned in the conversation a few minutes after talking about the stilettos in the mud getting ruined and what they studied in uni.

Ok, off to sleep. I will get up at 6:30, probably, just because that’s when I naturally get up now. It’s kind of awesome. I got up at 6:00am the first day I was here, and there is no time difference with Israel. Crazy. There is something about perfect silence at night, followed by slight chirping at 5:00am, followed by a gradual increase in hundreds of bird species chirping, that luls you to get up gently and nicely. Now I know how humans did this for thousands of years before urbanization (which I am grateful for, but wow, you sure don’t get a good nights sleep with all the cars…).