One Laptop Per Child in Rubona

Dativa's snack shop's table had two One Laptop Per Child laptops casually lying around in their plastic wrappers, with two small children sitting near them, munching on amandazis (donuts). It is really weird seeing children in rural areas, some with only one torn warn uniform they wear daily, carrying brightly colored laptops.

I tried to help some of the teachers learn how to use the laptops. This thing is, I'm really lost using Apples because they're not PC's, so forget about a totally different "user friendly" operating system. I suppose it may be user friendly, but Windows is just etched into my brain. So most of my "helping" was my usual, "oh no, what did I press? no, no, bring the window back, bring it back" followed by the teacher I am helping pressing a few buttons and bringing the window back, even though the teacher has close to no experience using computers, and then both of us realizing I am only there for moral support. And me also realizing that even with my 20+ years experience using computers, I am still about as good or worse at using them compared to a grown adult clicking away at the keys for the first time.

I did teach him how to save a text document. Yay.

Both of us could just not figure out how to find the flash on the computer after plugging it in. Which is a shame, because flashes are the only way to share anything around here, where internet non-existent or to slow for Dropbox.

The kids are supposed to get internet soon, and then they can use wikipedia. The teacher I was helping was extremely excited about this - the idea of being able to search for anything under the sun and get some sort of answer. I told the teacher he could even add information he knows.

I don't yet know how they are going to integrate the computers into the classroom, but I will keep you all updated. Maybe with a One Laptop Per Child laptop.

Theological Asides from Bank Tellers

For a few weeks I used my Israeli passport because my US one was on an adventure searching for a visa. "Ah, you are from Israel!" was the reply I got from workers in various public and private institutions. "So, you believe in Jesus and accept him as your savior?" they add as an aside, casually, sometimes before adding, "and how's the weather over there?"

I pause and say, "Well, I am Jewish, so...no" and I pause, knowing my answer may have offended them more than their question offended me, and add "butIhaveseenwherehewalkedonwater!" quickly, hoping the last statement will make up for any perceived failings on my part. Most of the time, people think it is absolutely hilarious and confusing that I do not believe in Jesus, but I think it's absolutely hilarious and confusing when bank tellers, school administrators, and shop keepers ask me this immediately after finding out I am from Israel.

After I give my answer, I am assured I will be prayed for and someday I will believe him (Him?)

Which I suppose, given the honest asker's theology, is the best answer I can expect.

I'm back to using my US passport, so now bank tellers just yawn and ask me to please sign here.

Chance to clutch

I went to two fabulous weddings, fabulous in their own way. One was of a colleague at ASYV and another was a cousin of a colleague at ASYV. I did not go to the traditional Rwandan dowry ceremony, so I will focus on the wedding bit - the part that is overwhelmingly influenced by Christian weddings in the West, but with nice Rwandan twists.

But first, off to the salon.

Before the wedding I was in a salon - or "saloon" as everyone writes in Rwanda - looking at all the pretty ladies and gents get all dolled and Kenned up. And it dawned on me: every stylist in the world, when not attending to celebrities or women over forty, does the Prom Look for at least half their clients attending some event. A friend in Jerusalem warned me about this before my brother and sister's weddings. Don't-get-the-prom-look. The prom look is the ten bucks hair style where you straiten out the hair one lock at a time, then curl it with a curling iron, then put all the hair up, and then spray half a bottle of super-hold hair spray. And it has reached Rwanda. One aerosol can at a time.

I think my favorite part about Rwandan weddings is that everything is a ceremony. When it comes to cutting the cake, the MC says, out loud, that the cake will now be cut, that the groom will now give a bite of the cake to the bride, that the bride will now give a bite of the cake to the groom, that the bride and groom, or someone, will now cut the cake and distribute it to guests.

The MC is very important.

One of the kids stories I read at ASYV had a scene where the groom wanted to thank the formerly evil step parents for everything they did for him, after they stopped being evil. He asks the MC, "May I now give a speech?" and the MC gives him specific permission. So he gives a speech. And reading the story, I'm thinking, "Really? On your own wedding day you need to ask the MC first?"

The dancing industry is quite strong in Rwanda. Many people who can afford it hire dance troops to perform at their weddings, including traditional Rwandan dances, and, in the wedding I attended, Burundian and South African dancers. There is no dance floor for the guests, so everyone just gets to watch dancers that know how to dance. No awkward, "C'mon, come dance, c'maaaaaan!" in Rwandan weddings. Just rows and rows of guests sitting, looking at the bride and groom who sit above everyone, importantly, and watch the dancers and speakers along with everyone else.

At one point in the speech of the preacher of one of the weddings, I was told that Europeans don't quite understand marriage, with their high divorce rates. Women, the preacher said, will divorce their husbands and still be supported by them, so women will get married many times to get supported by many men. This was a bit depressing to hear in a country where many women receive no support by the father of their children, but my offense turned into amusement when he noted that, in European families, the dog is more important then the child. But then I was offended again when he said that the child was more important than the woman, who was more important than the husband, and so, in Europe, all is backward because the husband, really, should lead. Ah - and I was not sure if I should be offended or incredulous or amused or guardedly apathetic when he said that men want honor but women want financial support. "Some women want honor, because some women are like men. But they are a small minority compared to the men who want honor."

Finally, a nod to Israel: the bride and groom were advised to take time off after they married. The bible instructs one to not go to war after getting married. In Israel, it is not possible to take a vacation after getting married, because there is always a war and so everyone must always fight, all the time. But that is not the case in Rwanda.

Huh.

And then, the last statement I feel sums up where Rwanda is right now: "Even when the woman has a higher salary than the man, she wants the man to financially support her." In a country with a strong push towards women's empowerment, many women do, indeed, have a higher salary than their husbands. I am happy that I am in a country where the qualification "even if the woman has a higher salary" is put before statements I wish were not said.

The bride's were stunning and the grooms hansom in both weddings. No prom hair. Beautiful.

As were the flickering Christmas lights coiled around the table where the bride and groom sat. I like them. I dunno. They're sparkly and flashy and, in a culture with lots of long speeches, a great diversion for everyone who doesn't really know the bride and groom. Maybe all wedding everywhere have seemingly long speeches if you don't know the bride and groom, and in Rwanda, you are more likely to be invited to a wedding of someone you don't really know.

I also got to use my gold clutch twice.

Ah, and my white stilettos because the owner of the shop where I left the white stilettos returned them to me.

As the father of the groom was given a very serious, moving speech, the pool party outside, in the same hotel, was playing songs my Ms. Jojo, Tom Close (if you miss N'SYNC) and, of course, Celine Dion, because Celine Dion has reached every single country in the entire world and every single country loves Celine Dion. And Beyonce.

Another nice diversion.

That's not nice.

But I couldn't really understand the speech.

All in all, as I clutched my clutch, I enjoyed both weddings immensely.

Crime: Inside versus Outside

Rwanda is one of the countries with the lowest rates of street crime in the world, comparable to Japan as of 2003, and still "really low" according to this (Ann Arbor Chronicle), this (UK government), this (Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs), this (New York Times) and this article (ok, the government newspaper The New Times, which doesn't quite count). According to Interpol in one UNODC document, homicide rates are lower than in the North America. Yet Rwanda also has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the world. The World Health Organization, which may be more likely to take into account unreported suspected murders committed in private, puts the homicide rate at four times as high as Interpol.

This odd combination of safety outside and danger inside is felt.

Street theft is incredibly low. Insanely low. People won't even let you let them steal things. As someone who loses things all the time, I have had strangers run after me, returning my wallet, cell phone, loose change that has fallen out, and an x-ray from King Faisal Hospital that I left at a small grocery store registry. Just four days ago, I had a fabulous outfit for a wedding in a bag that I left in a tiny milk shop, whose monthly profit is almost definitely not more than around 30,000 francs a month, based on the interviews I conducting with surrounding milk shops. The clothes and shoes in that bag, including white stiletto heals (yes, I brought those from Israel), a tailored shirt, and a nice black dress skirt, were probably worth the equivalent of at least one month's income for this man. As I got on the bus, the shop owner ran after me, just in time, to return the wedding outfit, saving me from social mortification inherent in being under-dressed in Rwanda. People yell "ssssssss!" to grab people's attention, and when I hear the familiar "sssssssss!" I usually end up looking back to someone who is waving my latest lost item, waiting for me to go back and get it.

Every time I lose something, the returner says, "You are very lucky, if it was someone else..." followed by a laugh reserved for absent-minded blonds. But it seems that I would have been just as lucky with everyone else.

Sometimes strangers will accompany me on the way home in Rubona. At first, I was sure there was some ulterior motive - money, hitting on me, curiosity, or maybe boredom. But I quickly learned that, if you are walking alone, people will just walk with you, to make sure you are not lonely or feel unsafe. They do this for other people as well, everyone from old women to young toddlers, so it is not just because I am a foreigner.

A few hours ago I did my daily accidental trip over a crack in the sidewalk. A lady walking by gave me a side glance and said, "oooh, sorry." Strangers in both the cities and the villages often say "sorry" when you trip, fall, or drop something. And nobody knows this more than me.

I am a woman who has always, throughout my life, taken the decision to walk home at night by myself both out of principal, impatience and a love for listening to Alanis and Mika while walking alone. After living in Israel, where I have been harassed and even assaulted a number of times, I can tell you that walking around Rwanda I feel as safe walking home as I do walking around at home.

I have talked to young women in Kigali and Rwamagana who like dressing up and showing a little skin, and they tell me that it's all about walking confidently on the street and ignoring the stares. "It's all about walking confidently" is something you cannot say in crime-ridden streets. Confidence, despite what Cosmopolitan tells you, is pretty useless in a lot of places, like East Jerusalem and Harlem in the 1990s. And when I considered walking confidently, at 5:00am, to a taxy fifty meters from my guest house in Entebbe, I was told that I absolutely would be mugged or worse.

In Rwanda, I have noticed that people even return small change to me that I have dropped, that I clearly will not notice is gone - a 10 franc coin, which is hardly anything even by Rwandan standards. Perhaps they return the small change because it hardly amounts to anything, anyways, and the large amounts to avoid being accused of theft. But even if this is the logic, the logic is the mechanism for a very admirable cultural norm.

In public, trust seems to be incredibly high. Neighbors help each other out, personal space on public transportation is non-existent, strangers return lost wallets, the money in tact, and women walk around, alone, at night. Compared to other countries, crime is low.

Outside the house.

Inside, it's a different story.

I have met numerous women who were sexually abused indoors, whether in their homes or indoor public locations, such as bars and schools. Child molestation, rape, and abuse is common. Some people don't seem to be aware that, when the boy is not an adult, it is still rape if the boy forces a girl to have sex. There are many cases of older men sexually abusing girls, including small children, that they financially support, as I wrote in an earlier blog post. Sexual abuse of students by teachers occurs, as well. One former teacher, who is now an unemployed alcoholic roaming the streets of Rubona, told me he needed to stop teaching when he got married because the female students "always wanted to have sex with him." The Light in Our Home project from the NGO Global Grassroots writes about the issue of sexual abuse in schools in Ruhango Sector. One excellent study published with UNICEF and the Rwandan National Youth Council discusses the attitudes of children and teachers regarding violence against children, both in and around schools.

On the first week in Rwanda I heard a child screaming out for help inside a bar that was located less than a meter in front of homes. The police came asking questions soon after.

The average night club seems to be as disturbing as the seediest clubs in other countries.

A man once shook my hand in a club, and refused to let go. He started tightening his hand around my wrist until I felt like it was literally about to break. I tried to pull away but he just tightened his grip until I protested loudly. The man next to him, an American businessman, started to laugh. I started to yell louder until others looked our way and he finally let go.

One club has a special drawer in their back room, reserved for passports that are discarded by thieves who steal wallets. The fact that there is a drawer for passports suggests that crime is not particularly organized. In Barundi on ASYV staff member had her passport stolen with the gang calling her up and asking for money. Passports in other East African countries are worth a lot, as they are manipulated and sold in an organized black market which does not seem to exist in Rwanda.

Some claim that low levels of public street crime is due to the tough stance of the government against crime, or the high quality of the police force. It is fear of the police, not exactly trust of others. This definitely is part of it. But I really think that not stealing in public and returning what is not yours is something deeply rooted in Rwandan culture.

There has been much discussion on the rising levels of theft and violence that occurred even before the genocide, which would suggest that the post-1994 government had something to do with the current low crime rate. You might have read Jared Diamond's take (you can read an excerpt from Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed here). He points out that "even before 1994, Rwanda was experiencing rising levels of violence and theft, perpetuated especially by hungry landless people without off-farm income." However, it may be that crime before the poverty that rose in the late 1980s was always relatively low. One Encyclopedia by from 1987 by George Thomas Kurian notes that, "Data concerning crime are not available, but law enforcement problems are believed to be minor." You can read a snippet here.

When the crime does not directly harm another person, such as narcotics, it's not as low. The Rwandan police reports have noted this: drugs use is on the rise. If crime is low from people helping people who want to be helped, then this really would not help those who are addicted to drugs. After two volunteers returned from Kenya and told me about the widespread glue-sniffing of street children there, I started to notice the street children in Kigali sniffing glue, the bottles up their sleeves or in brown paper bags. They were around the center of town, where there is a heavy police presence. Women still sell clothes illegally on the street, and have become excellent sprinters, running from the police, taxes, and potential fines and prison sentences. When I see police running after them, they need to run incredibly fast, and often can't keep up. If other crimes that don't directly harm others are still widely found, it may not be fear of police alone.

I hope, one day, the rate of domestic crime and violence is as low as street crime.

Quality Control in the Milk Industry

I cracked open another carton of Ikivuguto. Or butter milk. Or fermented milk. Either way, it was spoiled. The third time in a month. Despite the strong push to encourage quality-assurance through factory made butter milk, the cartons that come in matching colors and labels have proved a disappointment. Part of the problem is that apathetic store owners don't bother to take down the spoiled milk from their shelves. Small business owners who only sell milk in large jugs fermented at home, along with tea and donuts, will not hesitate to tell you, "I would serve you the milk, but it's gone bad." They know that, with strong competition and not much else to offer, spoiled milk can mean one less regular customer. Rwandan fermented milk shop owners may not serve with a fake smile, forced "how are you?" and top-notch customer service, but they will not serve you spoiled milk. It might be a bit warm at times, but still drinkable.

Walking through Nakumat, the multinational super market chain store that be found in other major East African cities, I came across ten cartons of fermented milk that were part of the same shipment that carried the spoiled milk I had bought two weeks ago. And a week before that. "How can I help you?" a store worker asked me. "This is not good, right?" I asked him, pointing to the milk. He did no understand me for a moment, and said, "Yet, it is milk," and started to hand me a carton to buy. I looked at the milk and looked at him with a nervous expression. "It is old, isn't it?"

He shook his head and responded with, "Yes, it is three weeks old. It is not good. We will get more later." He did not think to take the cartons off the shelf. After all, he only worked there. They lay there, ready for more customers to buy them and not drink them once they were opened.

One reason that quality assurance does not have such an added-value is that there seems to be, in general, a high level of public trust. Which I already wrote about in an earlier post. People who own shops will tell you if their milk is bad. Walking back home with my family, when they were here visiting, we stopped at a shop of a woman who had waved to us an hour earlier. She had a genuine smile and seemed happy when we came by her shop. I asked for milk. She nodded and told her friend, who translated from English, that the milk was a bit old and not fresh enough to be served.

If individual shop owners are not out to rip you off, then you can assume, to an extent, that the product will be decent, and quality assurance is not as necessary. If quality assurance was just an extra precaution, I would be all for it, but it seems to often be mutually exclusive with individual shop owners taking precautions to assure quality goods. If you have a brand you can complain to about spoiled milk, the buck is passed to a large company, and the individual shop owner is not blamed. Some small fermented milk shop owners also serve long-lasting milk, produced by one the two large factories, and their milk is sometimes bad. It's honestly hard to blame them.

With their own locally produced milk, you literally see them pouring the large jug into a smaller jug, and can see the texture of the milk, smell it if you try, and even have a taste, just to be sure. You can't "have a taste" with a closed carton, or even see if the milk is really chunky.

And no matter how much you think fermented milk is icky, it's nowhere as icky as chunky milk from a long-lasting milk carton that you just opened.

Don't get me wrong: I think the existence of long-lasting milk throughout Rwanda is excellent, and quality controlled factory long-lasting milk is necessary. I just don't see the need to have fermented milk, which lasts longer than non-long-lasting fresh milk, put under the same centralized quality control. The sharp competition, with ten fermented milk shops within a one kilometer radius is some parts, combined with general public honesty about goods sold, does the job.

Monocrops Far From the Main Road

I got on the back of a seemingly comfy pillowy mattress-like motorcycle taxi seat. Over ten-kilometers later, I realized the fluffyness was an attempt to make up for the most painful, bumpy moto ride I have had yet, down and up incredibly rocky dirt roads built by chance rather than engineers. I was bumping up and down, in the air at times. There was a miniscule bar in the back to hold on to with one hand, the only means of staying on the bike.

When I got to the other end, I met a woman who, nine months earlier, had given birth moments after riding such a motorcycle ten kilometers in the other direction to the nearest clinic. The baby had started pushing its way out as she was riding on the back of the moto.

She lives in a place where buffalo run around. We saw one being chased by a dog. The buffalo won, and the dog was seen slowly trotting back home. The closest neighbor is around fifty meters away, fairly far for Rwanda, which has a high population density.

Outside, the grass is mostly not green, but a light beige, in contrast to more fertile areas only kilometers away.

They live near a swamp. A recent law bans the growing of traditional crops, such as cassava and potatoes, in the swamp area. Instead, all plant rice in this area on the small plot of land, roughly 40 by 50 meters, allocated to each family.

Cooperatives of around six to ten members sell the seeds to the farmers, who grow rice and sell the rice back to the cooperatives for 230 francs a kilo, the price after the deduction for the seeds. Around 100 kilos is expected to be grown each month for a profit of 23,000 francs a month.

Nobody quite knows if the rice will grow and what they will do if it does not.

This is clearly a government-mandated, not market-oriented, approach. The commentary on this policy has been, in many circles, quite critical, such as this article by Manuel Milz.

The only defense of the policy I can think of: with very limited land resources, and a need to provide nutrition for the population to assure healthy people and lower medical costs for the government, it's necessary to utilize the land the best way possible. If there is a swamp area that can grow rice very well, and another area that can grow beans very well, and a country lacking in nutrition that only these crops can provide, it makes sense to require harvesting those crops in those areas. Healthcare is not market-oriented, it is provided by the government; so to cut costs in health, it is necessary to alter the market in favor of eating healthy things.

However, if rice really can produce a greater profit as the government claims, then farmers will choose to grow rice. If they do not choose to grow rice because of the risks, but the government mandates that the long-term profits and health benefits as a whole will outweigh any individual economic and health risks, then the risk should not fall on the individual farmers without their consent.

But this is all classic, old news: my biggest concern is with the cooperatives.

The cooperative purchasing rice in this area are registered for the government. I was told they needed to do this "in order to get the ok" to buy the rice. If there is any bureaucracy involved in creating the body necessary to sell seeds and buy back the products, that creates even less competition in the market. Cooperatives are an excellent way to promote transport and resale of goods, but if there are laws limiting what farmers can produce, there should at least be plenty of multiple buyers so the farmers have some sort of negotiating power.

The distance from the main road and the expense of getting there means farmers can hardly compare different markets and find the market willing to pay the highest price. Multiple cooperatives approaching the farmers could mean a more fair price. And by "fair" I mean enough to live on.

Because the distance also means additional jobs to supplement farming are difficult to come by. Primary school teachers also make only 24,000 francs a month, but if you are teaching and farm, the total income is more than the equivalent of 24,000 francs a month.

To make matter worse, the low population density and distance from the main road means there is no lower secondary school where students can improve their job prospects, and eventually leave the area.

This particular family has chickens. They wobble in and out of the house, attempting to squeeze their feathery bodies under doorways to reach smaller rooms where they can lay their eggs in private, with around ten eggs total laid each day. "ssshhhhhh!" family members yelled at the chickens until they ran outside the house, wandering back in moments later. The eggs, at least, provide some protein.

While the agriculture on the outside and prospects for the future are uncertain, the inside of the family's house had a sturdy furniture and the best interior design the family could come up with, given the circumstances. The floor, covered with a traditional straw mat, is very flat because the dirt is mixed with cow-dung, which hardens the ground. It also attracts thousands of flies, tempted by the cow dung only they can smell, but forever blocked by the straw mat. The flies fly upwards to the food at meal time.

The insects contrast sharply with the careful, almost Victorian set up, with a complete living room set of couch and three arm chairs with comfortable pillows, all surrounding a nice, wooden stylized coffee table. Over the back pillows lie little ivory-colored embroidered cloth napkins which match the curtains hung over every door way, themselves also embroidered with pastel flowers - nothing too bright, quite subtle, very tasteful. The coffee table has a matching cloth napkin under a vase filled with plastic flowers. The cow-dung really does create a very flat, hard dirt floor under the smooth mat. If you are wearing heals, they make a clicking sound.

If I took a picture and Photoshopped out the flies and multiple wasp nests in the corners, it could really be something from Martha Stewart. Or at least Ikea.

I put the baby almost born on a motorcycle on my lap. "No, don't hold it, he will urinate on you," I was warned. Just in time, I picked the baby up and quickly placed it on the floor. "Do you use diapers?" I asked. "They are too expensive. Soap is expensive."

Soap is expensive in the area because it is far from the main road, an extra 200 francs (roughly $33 more) so babies clothes are changed if they have an accident, rather than their diapers.

The motorcycles picking us up were late by three hours, despite calling to remind them.

"I will tell them we will take another moto."

That, clearly, did not speed things up because there are no other motos.

Even if children do find the energy in them to walk twenty kilometers a day to the nearest secondary school, the school is a private one, so most cannot afford the 300,000 francs ($500) a year school fees. The local primary school has no English speaking teachers so the classes are in Kinyarwanda. As a result, it is not possible to take the national examinations, which are in English, and which can mean a scholarship to a public secondary boarding school.

In the outhouse in the back there was an old English test, placed conveniently there for toilet paper. The marks were ok, but the level not much higher than grade 2, though the children were much older.

There are plans to create a more conveniently located lower secondary school in the area. I hope those plans are implemented as fast as the Crop Intensification Program. And I hope an engineered road and vehicles will some day connect them to the main road for easier access to markets, clinics, and more pleasant birthing experiences.

Cheap Chinese Clutches, Ice Cream and the Expo

I made my way to the Kigali Global Trade Expo 2011, which is where Kigalians go to spend way to much money on stuff from China. And Syria. President Bashir Al-Assad was staring down at me from a very large number of stalls that sold special Syrian herbal remedies for urinary tract infection and a slowed-down love life. There were some stalls that sold Iranian silver. The Rwandan stalls mostly sold stuff from Asia at twice what you would pay in New York. There was some Rwandan art stalls. Some stalls sold Masai crafts and Tanzanian trinkets.

If they can afford it, many people within Rwanda seem to be just as interested in buying Masai crafts as western tourists. When local salaries in Rwanda mean bus rides to Kenya are few and far between or non-existent, giddy and sometimes romantic excitement over rural African tribes can be just as poignant as the giddy excitement of western safari-goers. Maybe it has nothing to do with the price of a bus ride to Kenya. It could be that the Masai trend reached Rwanda via Europe, the same way the Palestinian (Jordanian?) Kafia reached Israel via Europe. I'll ask around.

I wandered the stalls with the daughter of a staff member at ASYV. As she was negotiating a price for a nice wall hanging with biblical quotes on how to live a deep, meaningful life. I was negotiating the price for a sparkly gold clutch. Which I paid $10 before realizing they cost $5 on every New York City street corner. $10 for this purse was considered insanely cheap for Rwanda, where ready-made anything is really expensive.

I walked past the Rwandan baskets and traditionally woven purses, that cost half the price, guiltily realizing I just really wanted a pretty gold clutch because I miss places with lots of pretty gold clutches on every street corner. When I return to lands of lots of pretty cheap Chinese clutches I will really want a Rwandan basket or traditionally woven purse. This is the problem with being for extended periods of time in places with decent traditional art: you don't appreciate it and end up buying stuff from Asia. Which is fine when you are in Asia.

I learned that getting dresses that are already made can cost three times the price of tailored dresses. Ready-made new dresses are a luxury for the super-chic, while tailored clothes is more, well, homely. Nicer than second-hand clothes, but nothing to write home about. Though I am. This funny reversal of fashion industry roles is due largely to the higher import taxes and transport costs on ready-to-wear imports from Kenya, Tanzania, and Dubai.

The food section of the expo was limited to sugary watery "ice cream" and very swanky mini-sandwiches that nobody could afford. In other words, there was no food section, really. Grownups buy ice cream and in a very big city Kigaliness they don't finish their ice cream. In Rwanda, outside of Kigali, I have never seen an adult who personally paid for their food not finish their food. It's very chic, isn't it? Not finishing your food? I remember looking at old oil painting from Victorian England at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where aristocratic families of past showed left-over food in their still lives to show the world they could afford to not finish their food. In Paris they do that all the time. And in all the developing world. It's a sign of development and food security. Because nobody really needs to finish ice cream. At the expo, the two Rwandans I was with gave their leftover ice cream to kids passing by. It was a very fast hand-off, really. Not a cute display of affection for children who want ice-cream, just a hand-with-ice-cream held out until a kid grabbed it, as he was expected to.

I still can't get over how much people were willing to pay for plastic rings.

Though everyone was laughing at the Syrian herbal remedies.

Sexual Abuse and Rape in the Home

There is a phenomenon in Rwanda of children and young adults being sexually abused, often in their homes, by those they depend on for food security and education. As a A UNICEF report notes, increasing evidence "suggests that sexual abuse within the home has increased since the genocide." A paper by Siaens, Subbarao and Wodon for the World Bank note that sexual abuse is one of many problems orphans were more likely to face.

At the same time, numerous schools in Rwanda refuse to readmit any pregnant girls, regardless of the circumstances of their pregnancy. The result: girls raped and forcibly impregnated are expelled from school. This not only sends a message that being rape will result in punishment on the side of the educational institution, but on a practical level it decreases their job prospects for the future, increasing the type of dependency that can lead to further sexual abuse.

I met with a girl who lives over ten miles from the nearest middle school (lower secondary school). We will call her "Alice." In an earlier blog post I wrote about her experience taking a motorcycle taxi while in labor to the nearest health clinic, ten miles away. Her baby is the result of being raped by an older male family friend. After Alice completed primary school she stayed at home, like all of her seven siblings would do, because there was no public secondary school in the area, the closest primary school being over ten kilometers away. The man, in his thirties, asked her mother, "Why is she staying home? She can continue her education."

He paid for her school fees for a year, and she would walk, by foot, for over ten kilometers to the school and ten kilometers back. She finished her first year of lower secondary school and right before beginning her second year the man told her and her mother that he could provide a place to stay in his house near the school, near the main road, so she would not need to walk. In the middle of the school year, he came home drunk one day and raped her. She did not say anything to anyone, afraid of the shame. While she protested to him to stop, she did not scream, she says, because she was worried of how she would be judged.

When the man found out she was pregnant, he fled, I was told. "How do you know?" I asked. The mother of Alice told me they searched for him, and he was nowhere to be found. "He probably went to Uganda, where he was from."

"Did you go to the police?" I asked. They did not. Their logic was that they could not tell the police to arrest him if they did not know where he was. "Can you go now to the police, so they can search for him?" I asked. "It is to long ago." The assumed the police would not help, because they had waited.

The girl still nurses her son, a very cute, small, fidgety little nine month old boy who bravely sits on any lap and looks through any purse. He rarely cries, unless he thinks his mother is not around. He cuddles in the big, warm arms of his grandmother, who talks to him in the universal language of babies, mostly limited to "da da da da." He has a low, exited stutter when he is happy, such as when tasting the mostly-sugar pineapple juice I had in my bag. He stares at roosters, mesmerized by them, and is excited as his young uncles and aunts when an antelope runs by.

Alice wants to go back to school, her only concern being the lack of milk in their home. I am trying to raise enough money to help pay for her school fees and food for the baby, with the goal of reaching $2,500 to cover the first three years of school fees and some food.

Money is not the only solution - a better government policy is. The law must ensure that those who press charges are protected. And "protection," at the very least, should mean assurance that school is free and close enough so that girls do not need to rely on older male relatives and "family friends." Fear of leaving school, and not being readmitted due to lack of school fees and the pregnancy itself, discourages girls from pressing charges, encouraging more abuse.

Officially, the government supports some sort of re-admittance for all adolescent mothers. In this sense, those specifically pregnant from rape would have the right to return to school. Two governmental reports of the past five years have expressed strong support for readmitting girls into formal education. In 2008 the Ministry of Education Girls' Education Policy cites the Education For All (EFA/Education Pour Tous) policy as aiming, among other goals, to "sensitize women to go to school at all levels" which includes "facilitating girls who become pregnant to go back to school after delivery." (p. 7). In addition to the EFA policy promoting re-admittance of pregnant girls, affirmative action policies have specifically been discussed as needing to "place special emphasis for re-entry for girls who become pregnant during their education." (p. 15) The 2009 Evaluation of the Implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Programme of Action discusses the issue of pregnant adolescent girls. According to the report, in Rwanda "...no girl is excluded from school due to pregnancy." Another section of the report states that "In Rwanda, pregnant children are not chased out of school; besides, married women can attend school."

"Girls," the report states, "are readmitted in schools after delivery."

In some ways, this appears to be consistent with a growing trend in Africa as a whole, where legal protection of pregnant girls allows, at least officially, for their readmittance. As a World Bank report by Esi Sutherland-Addy comments, Botswana, Zambia and Malawi allow girls to go back to school after delivery. Closer by in Kenya, a "Gender and Education Policy developed in 2003 makes provision for the re-admission of girls who become pregnant while still at school, even allowing them to seek a place at a different institution to the one they originally attended." Eliud Kinuthia from the Kenyan branch of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), which lobbies for girls education throughout the continent, noted that though the Kenyan policy was pronounced, the implementation was still "left at the discretion of the head teachers and school boards to decide whether to re-admit the girls or not. In the event that the head teachers or school boards do not value girls' education, then the girls seeking re-admission suffer."

However, there are key differences, on even a policy level, between Rwanda and Kenya regarding the issue of readmittance. The wording of Rwanda's policy suggests that girls may have the right to continue education, but not the same education they started prior to pregnancy. Assuring "re-entry for girls who become pregnant," the EFA policy wording, does not specify where they will be readmitted to. It is not clear if girls have the right to continue studying for the national exams in the subject they began, or for the national exams at all. While "no girl is excluded from school due to pregnancy" it may be that all pregnant girls are excluded from most schools. While Kenya, at least officially, allows girls to choose between staying in the same institution and moving to a different institutions, Rwanda's vague policy wording suggests that pregnant girls can return to some institution, regardless of whether this institution is anywhere near the home of the girl.

In Alice's case, there is no public school available, and the closest private school is still ten mile away. Boarding school is the only option and, in her case, because her mother is ready and happy to raise the baby, the only thing missing is money to pay school fees. But most will never find this money.

A lot of the rhetoric surrounding abuse is discouraging girls from giving in to temptation and encouraging them to fight against manipulation. Billboards throughout Rwanda show girls fighting temptation from "sugar daddies." The campaign, sponsored by USAID, is called "Sinigurisha" or "I am not for sale."

But what if the abuse is not about irrational, short-term weakness? It could be outward rape - forcing someone to have sex with physical force. More important, even if there is no physical force involved, there is a problem with the assumption that the girls are being manipulated into taking decisions that are not in their interest.

It is in the their interest, and public policy should be designed so that it isn't. These girls are smart and they are not weak. Many girls are rational, and not manipulated, as the bill boards suggest. They are strong, and their strength should be recognized by providing school fees and living expenses, and not public service announcements warning against dangers which everyone is perfectly aware of.

An article on IRIN, the humanitarian news site for the UN, hardly discusses the economic needs that lead to sugar daddies. Their only concrete example is one school girl who tells us, "When children can't get something at home, like a cell phone, they go to these sugar daddies and sugar mummies and get it from them." Another example is university students who finance their studies with sugar daddies.

Cell phones. That is the example given for "economic needs" of secondary school students. While food security is high, Rwanda is still a country where most struggle to pay for fees after primary school, and all I have talked to struggle to pay for upper secondary school fees. It is not only university age students, it is younger girls who are meant to receive the most basic of lower secondary school education for free, but who often cannot.

Don't get me wrong - I think the Sinigurisha campaign may be effective in decreasing cross-generational sex. As this article by Kristof rights points out, the campaign may save the most lives per dollar by decreasing the cross generational sex that leads to HIV. But it does not necessarily protect the most rights per dollar and prevent the type of rape and sexual abuse that has become so prevalent in East Africa.

It is good that there is a campaign to warn people against dangers, if only because if fuels public discussion on a topic that was previously taboo. But the discussion needs to shift away from warnings and focus on the lack of choices many girls have - both because they need to pay for school fees, and because many are raped by the guardians who supply the most basic necessities of food and shelter. One article on the campaign says that cross generational sex is "wrong, shameful and risky." And this kind of rhetoric prevents girls from speaking out when they are raped or abused: because cross-generational sex is "shameful."

From the same, Alice says she never left the house the entire time she was pregnant, and still rarely does, nine months after the child's birth.

I have seen multiple cases of girls who still depend on older male rapists even after it becomes clear that they are in danger. In Alice's case, her rapist was not someone she relied on for food and she has a mother who takes care of the baby and a rapist who fled, presumably, to Uganda. While I hope I can find the funds to assist her return to school, a government policy that recognizes the lack of choice, and not only bad choices, is necessary.

There are many girls who wish to return to school after giving birth to children the result of rape. For now, I am collecting money from friends and family and giving it to them, with monitoring done by the girls' reliable adult friends and family who are helping raise the children. School fees for one year cost $500 and food, clothes, and other expenses another $500. If you would like to help Alice or others in this specific situation, please send an e-mail to me at helpingalice@gmail.com.

Play

In December 2009, Rwanda considered revising it's penal code to criminalize homosexuality. At the time, after campaigning from civil rights groups, the Minister of Justice Tharcisse Karugarama concluded that homosexuality was a private matter, and so there were no plans to criminalize homosexuality.

At a theater festival in Kigali on August 5th, where various theater troops presented short, original plays in a local community center, the French text from a penal code concerning homosexuality flashed on a screen. I believe the text was from the Penal Code in Barundi which was revised in 2009 to make homosexuality a criminal act, but it flashed on the screen too quickly for me to see. A single actor came on stage and acted in a very effeminate, stereotypical gay manner, telling stories of his love life and more. He concluded with, "I love my country but my country does not love me." The entire time, the audience's reaction was mostly laughter, gasping, and more laughter. Especially when he did anything very traditionally effeminate, like a loud high-pitched scream or gasp, or throwing his scarf over his shoulder. I could not tell if the play was meant to be dark humor in pursuit of human rights or humor making fun of those pursuing human rights. Or a little of both.

Either way, it was strangely refreshing to see a short play on the topic.

You are getting fatter and fatter

In a carefully planned experiment to gauge cultural reactions to different body types, I have intentionally decided to have my weight fluctuate up and then down and then up. The never-ending comments of "you are getting fatter and fatter" - which echo in my head to become "you are getting fatter and fatter and fatter and fatter and fatter" - are, um, perfect.

"You are fat" is one thing. It could just be a compliment. The equivalent of "you are thin" in countries and cities with over-abundant food supply. But "you are getting fatter and fatter" is like someone telling you "you are getting thinner and thinner" - it rings of truth, of actual observation over time, of being one way and then not being that way and then really not being that way. It's almost scientific. And a check-up with a nice nurse at the King Faisal Medical Center scientifically confirmed a plantain-and-beans induced rise of around five kilos from my previous I'm-sick-of-plantains-and-beans induced loss of five kilos from a few months ago.

And just in case I'm not sure, someone will give me a detailed description of how I was especially thin, say, when I came back from Botswana. And then wasn't. And then was and then, oh, no, wow, you are getting fatter.

I have been trying to gauge if "you are fat" in Rwanda is the same as "you are thin" in developed countries. I have concluded that it is not. Put political correctness aside, and read on:

Pervious studies have found that, in mate selection, the more wealthy a person feels, the more they seek a thin mate, and the poorer one feels, the more they seek a fat mate. Being thin in the US is cool because starvation is virtually non-existent and obesity is very high, especially among the lower-class. Perhaps if you can afford to take time to work out, you are probably wealthy, and so thinness is seen as attractive. If Rwanda was the reverse - obesity non-existent and starvation very high - then maybe being fat here would be like being thin in the US. But that's not necessarily the case. Food security is high, close to 100% by some accounts, and while obesity seems extremely rare, lower and middle class adults are usually not very thin. It may be that the average lower-class person in the US is far more over-weight than the average lower-class Rwandan is underweight. In New York City, women reared in the lowest socio-economic class were seven times as likely to be obese. A very quick check of Rwandan BMI certainly finds a prevalence of under-weight adults, but a very un-scienctific casual glance seems to indicate that the prevalence of under-weight adult Rwandans in rural areas, which tend to have lower incomes, is not much higher than in cities.

I have asked Rwandans if "you are fat" is a compliment. They all tell me it is not. It's not an insult, either. Just a fact. An observation. I asked Ugandans my age if being fat in Uganda is a good thing, at least in Kampala. One friend told me, "well, before you are married it is good to be thing. But you are expected to be fat when you get married." "You are expected," I asked, "or it is good to be fat when you are married?" "You are expected to be fat," I was told, "it's not really good. It's not bad, either."

I plopped myself down next to staff member who had grown up during her formative years in Kampala. "I want to be your weight," she said, "but without the collar bones." I told her that collar bones were considered attractive in much of the world. Or at least the world that does google searches on google.com. Type in "collar bones are" in Google, and the Goole Automatic Search will finish your sentence with "hot" and "attractive"and "beautiful." Because, apparently, lots of people want to reaffirm their aesthetic beliefs by Googling them.

"You have not gained weight" she assured me, when I told her I did not want to. "Well," she continued, and then said something worse: "Maybe only in your arms."

An arms race towards skinniness in the US probably increased the trend of being thin, leading to anorexia and other eating disorders. So it's not just a factor of how much food is available - it's how people relate to each other and compete, as well. And if people are trying to emulate an ideal shown on the media, then the arms-race may be quicker then in a less media-heavy country. Either way, "you are fat" is not, I think, the direct equivalent to "you are thin" in developed countries.

I learned that for Francophone Rwandans, as a general rule, sort of, being thin is a little better, and for Anglophones being curvier is better. With thick calves. This may be because the cultures France and Belgium happened to colonize had those differences, and it had nothing to do with the culture of the colonizers. But, yes, my initial reaction was "Ah, like the skinny French. And not really skinny British."

A short-term volunteer told a man his wrists were thin. He got upset and said, "When a disease comes, I will be the healthier one and I will live!" My older brother, when he was a chubby eleven year old, used to defensively respond to taunting by saying that if we were starving in a forest, he would outlive me, so there.

Finally, Jessica Simpson says that, when in Uganda, she was told she was like a cow as a compliment. In Rwanda, "you are a cow" is not a compliment so much as "you are like a small cow" is a compliment. So you have some meat. But are, you know, small.

And getting fatter and fatter.

TsTsTs hoyahoyahoyahoya Ashkwishwishwish iyiweiyiweiyiw rekarekarea

When Ugandan President Museveni came to visit Rwanda, a very long line of cars came roaring down the street, stopping traffic, and preventing one pedestrian from crossing the street. In a rush to cross the street, he shook his head and went "ts ts ts ts ts ts ts ts," an expression I had previous assumed was reserved for finding out an unwed girl was pregnant or one's mother was ill. The "Ts" is not so different than the Jewish/Israeli "Tzs." I think.

Some other communicative sounds used as alternative to words:

When you want to say "no" but really really want to say "no," rather than the classic "oya" which just means "no," you say "Hoyahoyahoyahoyahoyahoya." "It's 'oya' in the infinitive," I was told. "No it's not," another student told me. "It's just what you say when you really want someone to understand 'no.'"

Alternatively: "Ashkwishwishwishwishwish."

For when something is bad or sad or annoying: an alternative to "ts ts ts ts ts" is "iyiweiyiweiyiwe." I love this one, because in Hebrew when something is annoying you can either say "iyiyiyiyiyiyiy" (uyuyuyuyuyuy) or "weiweiweiweiwei." In Kinyarwanda the two it's-sad-or-bad noises are combined.

Alternatively still: rekarekarekarekareka.

And if all is good but something is stinky, I was told I can say, "ahe ahe." But that just may be transliterated or dramatized gagging noises.

Because the line of cars before and after Museveni and Kagame seemed to go on forever, and there were occasional gaps in between them, the policemen told some of us that we could cross if we ran really, really quickly across the street. The cars, though, during these presidential processions, drive at full speed without stopping for anyone, honking the whole time as warning. I crossed but practically got run over, a scary experience.

Ts ts ts ts ts ts ts. I think.

Money, Models and the Millennium Village

“It’s a model,” our tour guide at the Millennium Village Project (MVP) told us. To be copied by others. The MVP is a model village built with both foreign aid and local government investment to “help people transform their lives through tools and interventions that promote clean water, sanitation and other essential infrastructure, education, food production, basic health care, and environmental sustainability.” The village, consisting in Rwanda of around 25,000 people split into five "cells", is meant to serve as a model that can be scaled up and applied to the entire country. Some of the replicable strategies to fight poverty and promote universal education include warm meals at school, providing better prenatal care and maternity wards, and free, better seeds to farmers.

Saying free warm meals to kids at school is an educational and poverty-reduction model is not so far from saying that eating food to not die is really a great way for kids to learn how to read. And a maternity ward with beds for mothers who have just given birth is a great idea, but not a model: it’s an idea anyone who has ever given birth could have thought up, but just couldn’t afford. And free seeds? One farmer we talked to who initially received the better-quality sorghum seeds no longer has to buy them because he is largely producing them himself from the sorghum he grows. So I suppose it is money invested for long-term sustainability, but it's something that he perhaps could have done with lower-quality seeds if someone had bothered to give those away before. In other words – it’s as much an intervention as just giving people money is. Which, by the way, I think is fine. Sometimes just giving money is, in fact, a really good idea. Something that is sometimes taboo to say in the world of aid and development.

My favorite “long-term sustainable development” idea: “Micro-finance.” You know what people in Africa call micro-finance and micro-loans? Loans. All the small-business owners in Rubona I talked to who have taken out loans had someone co-sign their loan through a private bank, or worked hard to gain collateral to get a loan from a private bank, or used their predicted future income as collateral towards a loan. One woman worked as a farm hand for half year on 50,000 RWF a month before using some of the money towards rent for her new drink and snack shop and the rest towards collateral for a loan. None of this was through "micro-finance institutions." Others use loan-rotations where everyone pools their money every month and a different person gets all the money every month. These are not new ideas development specialists thought of. They are obvious ideas that were just lacking in money before. If you want to help, co-sign a small-business owner’s loan because they don’t have collateral. But don’t call it a new idea – it’s an old idea with a new person who can afford to implement it. Yes – it’s giving money to people who need it, not a model for people to copy or a strategy they hadn’t thought of before.

The Millennium Village is supposed to be a small model to scale up. You don’t need to build a “model” village with hot meals at school, contraceptives, and better seeds to realize that money should be spent on hot meals at school, contraceptives, and better seeds. Why is it only politically correct to give foreign aid for basic necessities if we pretend that the government of the recipient will realize, “Wow, what a good idea!” and spend tax money on the same needs? Especially when the Rwandan government was already spending money on a lot of similar but watered-down versions of these projects on a national scale before or during the implementation of the Millennium Village. The cooperatives, health clinic, new classrooms and small class sizes I saw in the Millennium Village looked familiar - almost identical projects had begun being implemented in other villages in the Easter Province around the same time, if not before, the MVP began.

One study fondly calls the village a "proof of concept." I am shocked that aid donors seriously need a "proof of concept" to be sure, 100%, that kids eating lunch is a good idea and that building more classrooms for the same number of students will lead to fewer students per classroom.

The goal of the MVP is to provide evidence-based sustainability and provide “tools and interventions.” We like the word “tools” because it reminds us of the proverbial fishing rod. We like “intervention” because it reminds us of rehab – something needed for a little bit of time before people get back on their own two feet. Not a hand-out. But calling subsidized loans a "tool" is hardly changing the model. We like things that are “evidence-based,” to, a phrase used to describe the aid provided in the MVP. I suppose if you took a representative group of all human kind for all of history, having food to eat does increase standard of living and job prospects, seeds do grow food, and contraceptives do, in fact, decrease birth rate.

The reason money was given for MVP was because of the rhetoric of “tools” and “interventions” and “evidence-based approach.” But the reason the MVP is a success is because money was given. And sometimes, good old-fashioned money spent wisely on things we already knew work works just fine.

It's not that aid cannot be given to promote a new model. Sometimes new strategies really do have the potential to work, and a proof of concept is necessary and the aid program really can be implemented in other locations. At the Millennium Village a farmer showed us how, if you cross the stems of a Cassava tree before planting it, such that the underground seeds on one side of the stem are facing upwards to the sky and other seeds are downwards to the earth, the roots and stems will both sprout and be stronger. At ASYV the model of having no punishment but only "DNA" (Discuss, Negotiate, Agreement) needed a proof of concept to show that disciplinary problems would actually be less prevalent. Other schools have expressed interest in adopting the model.

But because some models work, there is often an assumption that all aid has be given with the intent of establishing a "new" model to be copied, as if the reason the model was not prevalent until now was because nobody thought of it, rather than nobody being able to afford it.

Spreading techniques and tools supposedly empowers aid recipients more, because they are taught to utilize tools to create their own income. But when aid recipients need to pretend they are getting "tools" in order to receive aid, when in fact the tools are obvious strategies they are already aware of, it is putting recipients in a position where they have to pretend to be students, and not partners.