The Logic of Dirt

I always assumed that the dirt road leading from Ntunga to Agahozo-Shalom and the Rubona Sector was unpaved because of short-term budget limitations. This week, while traveling with family in Kenya, I discovered that driving on paved roads with potholes the size of Rwanda will lead to bumping up and down the height of an ostrich in Maasai Mara. This made me realize that paved roads left to their own fate are far worse than unpaved roads left to nature - dirt roads around where I live in Rwanda suddenly seem to be brilliant long-term planning. But more interesting in Kenya are the actions of citizens in the face of public failure: independent, perhaps desperate but certainly entrepreneurial citizens make their way to the highway and fill up the pot-holes with dirt and small pebbles from the side of the road. Cars passing by tip them for making the journey slightly less rocky and adventurous, and these freelance private roadside repairmen get a bit of cash. As my sister mentioned in the car, "They're filling a hole."All this is voluntary from both sides. Our driver told them he would "come back tomorrow." He seems like a nice guy, so unless he's pressed for cash he probably will.

Nairobi has better street repair. Nairobi, well, has street repair. Unexpectedly late rainfall made its way to Nairobi where the streets were filled with cars whose wheels were completely submerged in water, some wading through the street rivers, but most cars stuck, leading to more traffic jams and even more flooding. There were literally waves rolling through the water, like at the beach. Sewage holes are few and far between. Which made me realize why the dirt road that brings me home in Rwanda has fantastically engineered gutters even as it keeps its sandy, rocky, exterior.

As in Kenya, Rwanda recently received an oddly late rainfall. It was all very refreshing. Muddy, but invigorating. And always a conversation starter.

But enough on the weather. Hear's some more dirt: now that the rainfall is over, people are vamping up the mud-brick making for house building in Rubona Sector. The unexpected rain (promise, last weather reference) seems to have kept them square and ready for stacking. The metal on top of the houses cost around a years worth of primary school teacher pay, so I'm crossing my fingers for them.

But I never really need to: how these houses stay up, sturdy and cottage-in-the-country-looking, is beyond me. But it has given me a whole new appreciation for engineering mud and dirt.

Acting

In a student skit entitled "There is no Problem that God Cannot Solve" a man beats his wife. The wife goes to a sorcerer who gives her powder to put in her husband's drink so that he will love her and not beat her. The husband sees her putting the powder in his drink, thinks it's poison and beats her some more. She then goes to a church minister who quotes what I think was the following from Ephisians 5:25: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church..." Everyone then hugs. Husband stops beating wife. Problem solved.

The quick, unrealistic ending may be due to the short nature of student-produced English class skits - the play's gotta end at some point. Might as well be after reading from the bible. But interjecting slogans of human rights into the wrong contexts can be disturbing. If there is no problem that God can't solve, surely He solves it through human beings with more than biblical quotes alone. Not that the plays themselves seem disturbing while watching them - the creative entertainment of it all makes the whole plot run rather smoothly, and it's hard to realize the absurdity of it all while watching.

In one skit, a girl goes behind her parents back to see a boy. She gets pregnant at the end - expressed with what appear to be a few textbooks tucked underneath a bright African cloth wrap skirt. The audience is meant to learn a lesson about seeing boys behind one's parents' back. But before she gets pregnant she has this great scene where she takes out her heart-shaped red plastic makeup kit and nervously and excitedly puts on some bright eye shadow and foundation before sneaking through the backdoor. She runs off and her father runs into the empty room and has this quizzical, confused expression on his face at the site of the bright-pink eye shadow powder that was loosely fallen on the chair. He angrily brushes the powder off, looks around, and asks where the girl is, before the wife enters in her elaborate traditional East African mama outfit, turban and all, as nervous as her husband.

I am a bit tired of slogans, but the students jazz them up for really sophisticated scenes. They use the whole classroom, and the audience sits in a circle around the "stage" - the center of the classroom - with the actors facing different directions as they pace, speak, run around, pretend to beat wives, put on makeup, prepare meals with breakfast roles from the ASYV dining hall, and liven up the room so that you feel you are in the house with the characters.

The characters and setting are realistic. I just wish the outcome of the plots were, to.

UNICEF Porta-Potties and Punishment

Two little boys walked out of the principal’s office of a local public school, followed up the vice principal, an instrument of corporal punishment in the form of a bamboo stick in his hand. As the boys ran back to class, darks looks on their faces, I was told they had left the school without permission, running after a car. Running after cars seems to be an irresistible if forbidden recreational activity for small school children during school hours. Their parents were worried when they arrived at the school and they were missing. “What do you do when the older kids go against a rule?” I asked. “We give them work to do in the fields,” I was told. I mumbled that at least they were being productive, and we walked together to a classroom he wanted to show me. Before we entered I peered through a broken glass window to see – on the far end – two electronic sockets. They had been installed in preparation for the four computers the school owned and also in preparation for the new laptops the school is meant to receive as part of the One Laptop Per-Child program. They are still waiting for the laptops after over a year of waiting.

The broken glass I was peering through was the result of a boy with poor aim, a rubber ball, and the boy's over-exuberance for a real, live, manufactured rubber ball. I remember hearing the loud “crash!” a month ago, following by a downward-looking boy making his way to the principal’s office, carrying a note from his teacher indicating his parents would owe the school money to repair the window. At the time, the bamboo stick was not necessary. Paying for the broken window was punishment enough.

Looking at the wall of the school, I saw at least five more broken windows, all to be fixed when the breakers bring money which will take time to scratch up.

Another school employee came to unlock the classroom and we walked to the side of the room with the sockets – two small, modern-looking sockets on a dark, damp, concrete wall, placed under two windows looking out to three sets of bathrooms sitting outside under the hot dry-season sun. On the far left were the new bathrooms, made out of concrete, which are in use. In the center were the old toilets, made from bricks, which are no longer in use. And on the far right I saw six sets of portable toilets –Porta-Potties, PortaJohns, or P-Pots, if you will. Their whiteness gleaned and their modernity matched the new sockets inside. “What about those?” I asked. “They are broken,” I was told. “So why did you bring them?” I asked. Apparently UNICEF donated them and they were convenient at the time, because, well, you just plop them down without the need for any timely building. They were necessary for the students some time ago, before bathroom building was complete.

But suddenly memories of porta potties in the Israeli army flashed before my eyes, and their price tags did to – those things aren’t cheap by any standards. “Aren’t those very expensive?” I asked. The VP nodded. They were much more expensive than the permanent toilets, but there was no money to fix them. I imagine Porta-Potty fixing takes some element of specialization that the traditional toilet/outhouse fixer might not have. So there they sit, rusting, in the sun.

I am happy that, at the very least, the computers have been fixed and the new electronic sockets will be happily utilized. ASYV volunteers recently fixed their computers that had been sitting broken in some back room for the past year or so.

Maybe they will also eventually get more books, printers, photocopiers, or projectors, so teachers don’t have to write entire chapters from textbooks on the blackboard. Corporal punishment can hardly be replaced with repetitive chalkboard-writing (think Bart Simpson opening credits) because extensive chalkboard writing is the norm for any old class.

Entire intricate copies of digestive systems are drawn on chalkboards along with multiple chapters of, say, the history of Ghananian independence. There is no sense of summarizing and outlines in the local Rubona school, and in some ways there can’t be – everyone reading from the board is the only way to read full sentences and learn grammar and syntax.

After having a tour or electronic sockets and UNICEF Porta-Potties I went to say hi to a teacher in the library, and was happy to see that the library was filled with books – all text books, but books. They had just been finally delivered from some other area which had somehow finally received them from some other place that had finally received them from Macmillan Publishers and Oxford University Press. Two-thirds into the school year, but there. The youngest children, in the current government policy, will be reading textbooks in Kinyarwanda, not English. The Kinyarwanda books had arrived as well, all cute and cartoony and age-six appropriate.

I doubt there are enough textbooks for all the six and seven-year olds, or any of the grades, but at least there are enough for small groups to share. Taking textbooks home is not really an option because almost nobody has electricity at home, and it is too dark to read.

Perhaps the smaller kids will read a book during their free time at school, resist chasing cars, and avoid the vice principal’s bamboo stick.

Rape

There seems to be an assumption, among some people I talk to, that rape victims will always find justice – that, if a person is blamed for rape, they will be immediately sent off to prison, a trial will be quickly scheduled with blood tests as evidence, the victim will be believed by the judge, and the rapist will go to prison. I am assured that Rwanda has a very tough stance on rape as an explanation for why the evidence will somehow always overwhelmingly be to the benefit of the accuser when the accuser is telling the truth. When I ask people, “Is there a rape hotline in Rwanda?” I am told the number for the police. “Tell them the name of the assaulter” who will then be tracked down and arrested.

What is interesting is that a lot of feminist rhetoric is used to defend the status quo – rapists should sit in jail for decades, which is why they just do, I am told. Girls in Rwanda should stop being shy and embarrassed, stand up for themselves, and know that they are not to blame – they should go to the police because it is their right and because the police will make sure that the rapist is jailed. Because the sentiment is that law-enforcement always works, there are also those who express a belief that rape can be prevented – if you feel you are under threat, calling the police will lead to gathering of evidence, and those suspected will be stopped. So be strong, don’t let anyone abuse you, and run away and call the police. To do otherwise means you made a mistake.

It is not a matter of blaming the victim so much as assuming the victims had options s/he did not or does not necessary have.

This is not a blog entry about Rwanda. Even with the most perfect law-enforcement, the principle of innocent until proven guilty would prevent some rapists from being convicted. Even in Law and Order and CSI, not every rapist sits in prison before the closing credits pop up. Imperfect, human law enforcement would therefore surely make many rape victims think twice before calling the police, especially if the rapist is a family member or acquaintance, if the rapist is financially supporting the accuser, and/or threatens if the rapist threatens with violence should the victim go to the police.

Even as I am told by some that rapists will be caught if their names given, others express values of “forgiveness” to rapists. In many fiction stories written and sentiments expressed by students, the message is one of forgiveness and moving on in the event that the rapist is not imprisoned. In one story I read, the rapist marries the victim and they live happily ever after.

I am disturbed by both the assumption that justice works perfectly and the assumption that, when it does not, we should forgive the guilty and move on. I understand that Rwanda has a very different context for the issue of forgiveness, but few in general, officially or otherwise, want to extend this value to all cases of violence.

There is no doubt that Rwanda has made tremendous and unprecedented progress in the area of women’s rights and rights to protection from abuse – I am not just writing this to sound less critical, I honestly feel honored to be in a country where women are the owners of most of the businesses I come across and where there is a concerted government effort to assure that women are financially independent, educated, and empowered. Walking around, you see results on the ground – women leading public forums, schools filled with girls, and female policewomen and soldiers. But realizing the limits of all legal systems can help us address why some rape victims do not speak out or go to the police. This is not just true in Rwanda – it is true anywhere, but we should be honest about admitting that the resources to collect evidence are more limited in the developing world. If the rational reason for not calling the police is that the accuser may be threatened, perhaps for their entire lives if the guilty is not found guilty, then protecting the victim, regardless of what they choose to do, may be one step to empowering women to speak out, press charges and, in at least some cases, find justice.

Bicyclers

Sugarcane, benches, metal rooftops and small children are transported via bicycles, like in most of the developing world. Bikes are one-size-fits-all but one size does not fit all, so small children who are just old enough for the manual wheels sit on the rail which attaches the seat to the handlebars, their legs to short to sit on the actual seat, and awkwardly yet skillfully petal.

When going down-hill, speeds are equivalent to that of a car zooming along, so in hilly Rwanda bikes save significant transport time. Occasionally, an overly-anxious or over-ambition rider will see his entire load of goods fall over. Those passing by will help re-load.

Ever since attempting to go back to riding bikes in Tel Aviv and getting nearly run over by cars and motorcycles, and myself almost running over old ladies, I have been both afraid of bikes and impressed by those who ride them. And carry their houses on them.

Growing income and the number of motorcycles will probably diminish the number of cyclers and people’s impressive balancing skills, as has happened in South-East Asia. But for now, I get to walk around in awe and watch the magic.

One Orange Orange Odd Outsider

Local oranges are always green on the outside, and orange-colored imports can only be found in Kigali for six to ten times the price. So this little gem really stood out in the Rubona market. Can't someone plant the seed of this bright outsider and make more of them? I suppose that is not how it works.

I met a Kigali man in a shop who was visiting his friends who were on a business trip from Kigali. "What are they doing here?" I asked. They live in Kigali but apparently come to Rubona and the surrounding towns, collect locally grown food, and re-sell it on market day in different rural markets, including here in Rubona. The day of the markets change, so it's possible to work a few days a week. They work professorially in resale.

I asked him, "Why are foods so much cheaper in the early morning?" My catering friend Joseph said what I already thought - because who wants to get up at 5am? Demand must be lower around that time of day. But this Kigali salesman - he personally sells second-hand clothes in Kigali - said that farmers are the ones who generally sell at such early hours, while the rest of the day is filled with salesmen like his friends, who live off the income they make from selling and so are less flexible. Subsistence farmers sell to get a bit of pocket change, was more or less what this man said, and so don't care to much if they are charging a bit below market value. I don't know how much logic there is in this explanation, but it's interesting to know that's what he thinks. Another explanation I have heard before is that those coming from outside Rubona show up later in the day, and also pay for fuel costs, so the extra expense raises the price.

Oddly, in Kigali, the large super markets only sell the pricey orange orange imports. I guess wealthy elites who frequent these establishments value orange outsides six times as much as the green siblings in the countryside.

Obama Pens, Bic Pens and Appreciating Pens

"Give me a pen!" many children on the street will say after they see that "give me money" does not usually yield results. If "give me a pen" does not work, they will say, "give me water" which I usually have in my water bottle. I don't have a water bottle full of easily replenishable pen, unfortunately.

I skipped off to buy some pens for the school in Rubona's town center and opted for the Obama pens because they were a steal and funny. Funny to write with, to, as they seemed to dry out every other pen stroke. They were just lying there in the little grocery store, right next to the Colgate toothpaste. Now we only get Bic pens. "Donate pens" is a cliché for anyone who has ever worked in development in Africa, as children will not learn how to read and write without them and they are unaffordable to many.

Simple and cheap ball-point pens have always been my neurotic doodling instrument of choice throughout high school, the army, and university. In the art room at ASYV, which is filled with different art mediums, I showed some students how to draw elaborate shadows and reflections using a cheap ball-point pen. I honestly think free time to sit and access to simple pens and pencils, not expensive art material, are a few reasons students in the developed world learn how to draw earlier than in Rwanda. There are some talented students but, as a general rule, you will find more developed talent in the United States. Also, based on very unscientific casual observations, it seems that the boys I have met in Rwanda, both in and outside of Agahozo-Shalom, are better drawers and painters than girls. Part of me suspects this is due to the carrying of water and household chores which girls are subject to, which means less free time to practice.

In addition to doodling with pens, I also have a talent for loosing them, a habit I have dramatically curbed since arriving in a country where pens are valued so highly. If you are reading this blog, there is a high likelihood I have lost your pen at some point in my life. Let me know. I can give the pen I owe you to a child who needs it. Or perhaps you have lost many pens, don't know to who, and feel bad. Or are afraid of pen-loss karma. I can get a pen in your name and you can pay me back the next time I arrive in a country where pens are unappreciated.

Wine, Religion and Religious Wine

“The white man does not fill up the wine glass all the way,” Joseph the catering student told me, “because his nose is longer.” I touched my very long, pointy, carrot-looking nose, feeling, intuitively, like this was a somewhat racist explanation but perhaps with equal credibility to the classic and classy "we-fill-halfway-to-aerate-the-wine." Doesn't that reek of after-the-fact pseudo-science? “Is that what you learned in school?” I asked. “Yes. It’s in the text book they use to teach us.” He got up from the bench he was sitting on in the milk shop and pulled at the side of the bench. “You pull the chair out when someone wants to sit down,” he went on, “and then, when they sit, you push them in.”

“Also, it is not important to greet the white man” when working in a hotel or restaurant because it’s not clear, at first, what language he speaks. “Wait for him to talk to you first,” Joseph said, “and then respond.”

We were in Giramata’s milk shop, which has profited greatly from ASYV staff and volunteers choosing her shop as their favorite place. Her greater profit allows her to buy more products to sell, making it even more their favorite place. And truffles – she has truffles. Sort of. They are a little bland, don’t have much coco in them, and are one notch below Hershey’s in quality. But still…truffles.

The catering course is going to learn how to make wedding cake soon. They are currently learning “conservation”. I explain to some who care that “conservation” is usually for trees but “preservation” is for cakes. Not like in French. I think. I asked the important question: “Are the cakes you make going to be sold?” And I got an answer: “We sell all of the food we make.” The food is sold in the little booth in front of the school which I thought was a very lax guard booth until now. Profits go to buy ingredients for the next time the students learn how to cook/bake something. I thought this was a nice self-sustaining system. And an excuse to buy cake. What? I’m supporting local education and development.

Joseph started to talk about other foods they make, and then foods they don’t make but that Muslims in Rwanda make during Ramadan, and this lead to a theological discussion on religion. Joseph asked, “What religion do Jews believe in? Are they Christians, Adventists or Muslims?” I told him that we had our own religion and gave a very rough general outline of it. The man who was overhearing us told Joseph that he had heard that some Jews don’t believe in Jesus. I said that, as a general rule, Judaism don't. Luckily, Rubona has a sizable Muslim population and is fairly tolerant towards different religions. Well, sometimes. Joseph, on a Thursday when he was wearing his Muslim prayer robe (what is the name for these?), changed into jeans and a t-shirt when walking with me from one side of the street to the other, saying that some people did not like Muslims. But, in general, there is respect towards different beliefs, so my Jesus-less theology was taken with a polite chuckle, followed by a casual, “You cannot accept what is in your own family,” as Jesus was Jewish.

I learned that the local nun’s “wine” – actually passion-fruit and pineapple-based – is actually made in Kigali and brought over to be sold in Rubona. Until now, the church’s adorable little garden and tiny little sales booth made me envision the nuns in their nun wear growing, squishing and mixing the passion fruit and pineapples by themselves, then gluing the labels to the bottles, which they fill while chatting about the weather, floral choices, and I suppose God. Perhaps knowing it's Kigali origins will make the wine taste less sweet and more refined. I'm tempted to fill my glass half-way.

$40 teacher salary. Sort of.

The starting wage for a teacher in the Rubona Public School is 24,000 francs a month, which is now exactly $40 to the dot according to all the online currency converters. Quick. Check before it changes. So how do you live on $40 a month? You don't. If you don't have to. Here are some ways they get some extra income:

1) A really adorable little tea house was opened by some teachers on school grounds. It sells tea and amandazis to staff members. Amandazies are just donuts. Not like donuts, they just are. The deputy-principal of the school asked if I was familiar with them, telling me they were Rwandan. And I said, "deep-frying flower in oil and sugar is not Rwandan." Nor are sufganiot Israeli. I'm sorry, someone has to say this. Anyways, five teachers in 2008, when the school opened, also opened this little business, and I don't know how well it's going, because I just found out about it.

2) Tutoring students after school. Students pay 5,000 francs a month, and get taught in groups. So the more students, the more extra pay.

3) Loan rotations. And loans. Which is not getting extra income, but kind of is, because everyone seems to be in some sort of debt all the time. I was surprised at learning that there are loan rotations amongst the teachers at the school. Not surprised. Impressed. They take a lot of trust.

4) A tiny little itsy-bitsy plot of land is cultivated in the school. It sometimes grows really small greenish carrots.

5) If they are lucky, money remittances from family members doing better than they are, though one teacher in the 24,000 franc bracket actually needs to send money to two sisters.

5) Did I mention the tea house? It's really cute. In a mud-brick kind of way.

Property Rights, Governance, Hospitalization. And a dress I like.

A paralyzed woman that the ASYV students were helping had her land – it was in her name – illegally sold, with none of the money going to her. At a recent meeting that ASYV students took part in, representatives from the local government discussed logistics of caring and providing for the woman and the children while she was in the hospital. Which made sense – immediate, practical concerns should have come before issues of property rights. But if her property rights had been protected, the immediate, practical concerns would be much less pressing.

The issue of property is very much relevant for a lot of the students at ASYV who are getting legal advice on what to do to re-obtain property illegally taken from them.

The head of the local Committee for the Promotion of Women was present at the meeting, and she volunteered to collect food donations for the paralyzed woman. The committee head had on a very smart-looking, perfectly-tailored locally made traditional blue dress, along with a matching turban made out of the same complicatedly-patterned bright blue and yellow cloth. She was very tall, towering over all the other attendees. She had perfect teeth. And perfect facial expressions to respond to what everyone is saying – like she could do really well running for office, which she perhaps did to obtain her current title. I was shocked when

I was told she was a builder, once – today she owns a shop in the center of town, and she looks much more like a woman who owns her own business and heads a Committee for the Promotion of Women. You can see her in the photo, where I did not show faces for privacy reasons, but where I felt it was absolutely necessary to show that dress. Though maybe not in the context of a very serious discussion on property rights, women's rights, and hospitalization. I can't help it.

It was suggested that food be collected in the neighborhood and that the municipality and/or ASYV pay for the transport of the food to the woman in the hospital once every two weeks or so. It feels odd that the most cost-effective way to do this is to send someone once every two weeks, at around 4,000 francs for transportation each time, to bring her the food, which will be collected in the neighborhood the woman is currently living. Why not just use the transportation costs to buy food near the hospital? Why are there no cheap hospitals with food – doesn’t economy of scale help out at all? I understand the logic of having every patient provide for themselves, and pay less to stay in the hospital. But if patients are coming from all over Rwanda, surely everyone has an interest in just pooling their food budget while in the hospital? And not just food - sheets, soap, etc. are all brought hand-carried by public transport.

Maybe people’s good will towards close-by neighbors and local organizational initiatives mean food just gets donated quicker if you donate to the person you know will personally bring the food over.

But it does make me really appreciate hospital food. From an economic standpoint.

Vintage Sale!

This week there was a sale. But I resisted buying second-hand skirts for 200 francs. This was easy enough because everyone’s pushiness blocked out the appeal from the salesman who was yelling out the prices at the top of his voice in a very un-reserved un-Rwandan manner. I was back in Israel, almost. Pictured to the left is most definitely not the sale, but full-priced second hand clothing that looks so much prettier, with all the pants, including the sweats, carefully ironed. Note the row of cloth for locally made tailored clothes in the middle.

In Kigali, in the middle of a very impoverished area with chickens flocking around, children with torn clothes, and mud houses, I once saw a man carefully ironing his dress trousers with a thick metal hand iron, perhaps made around the same time as all the 1970s radios.

I can’t decide if second-hand clothing or clothing made from scratch is more popular – people wear both, sometimes mixing them together. Second-hand clothing is much cheaper than tailored clothing, which can be around 4,000 francs for a skirt, versus the 400-500 francs for second-hand clothing. When people talk about stopping the importation of second-hand clothing to help the Rwandan economy, it drives me crazy. Before coming to Rwanda I was always very strong supportive of allowing second-hand clothing to make its way to African countries, even when the second-hand clothing leads to initial unemployment in local apparel industries, because second-hand clothing creates just as much employment, if not more, as it takes away, not to mention allowing for tons of creativity from all the mixing and matching and tailoring and altering. And wow does it bring out the Loud Yelling Salesman in Rwandans. Now that I am in Rwanda, I still think the same thing, but realize also how insulting it is to local designers to suggest they aren’t good enough to make it with the competition from second-hand clothing. It’s also insulting to the local culture which has its own design aesthetic that it can’t easily import from the West, and which people are willing to pay almost ten times as much money for.

Yeah, people like their Dockers and who would turn away a 500 franc (less than $1) Bannana Republic skirt? And almost no one can afford to. But those puffy-sleeved, brightly-colored, locally made women’s dresses are just as much the rage. In fact, the fact that they are more expensive to make may make them a status-symbol and only add to their popularity.

Sewing machines are everywhere. On market day five to ten or even more women and men are lined up with their sewing machines, in back of the tomato sellers and in front of the banana and sugar cane sellers, fixing up second-hand clothing to fit like a glove or hemming torn skirts and trousers. These are in addition to the at least four tailor shops, each with three or four tailors – one has eight – in each shop.

There is a massive difference between children’s clothing, which are torn and match the dirt roads perfectly, and adult clothing, which is often impeccable. Many workers, including the builders in Agahozo-Shalom, put bags around their shoes to keep them clean. I stopped by the shoe repairmen today to get my usually super-sturdy tire flip-flops fixed and the woman next to me had the cleanest broken shoes I have ever seen in my life. Mine were caked in mud as were quite a few other pairs, which the shoe men carefully cleaned with a piece of metal, taking out the dirt from every tiny crevice on the bottom of every tiny shoe. Seeing him meticulously, carefully take each strand of dirt from my shoe made me think of all the times I just dunk them in water or dirty rain puddles to clean them off. Oh well.