My time in Rwanda has ended and I am currently back at home. As glad as I am to be home (and clean!), it's very difficult to accept that the project there has ended. I wrote this post about our last few days with the kids, while we were away for a week on vacation, but we never managed to get internet access to post it. Two weeks ago, we completed the teaching portion of our Rwanda experience and spent last week traveling around Rwanda enjoying the vacation part of our trip. During my last two days, we spent wrapped things up in Kigali and said our goodbyes. Sometime in the next two weeks, I will probably post at least one more time to this blog (with pictures), as there are still many things I haven't covered.
I don't think Skye and I could have asked for a better ending to our work with the kids. We spent our last two days with the Mwana-nshuti school (the school for street kids and orphans) to finish up with the second group of students in the vocational school that weren't in our first group. Our final group
was even better than the first and we could tell that they were getting a lot out of the workshop.
We finished our teaching Friday morning and took our translators and teaching partners out to lunch. It was really great to be able to have the time to sit down and talk about the entire program with Joyce and Bonheur to hear their feedback. I really enjoyed hearing about their first impressions of us and what we wanted to do with the kids as compared to what they believe now. They were both very skeptical about what we wanted to do and thought we didn't completely understand children or how they behaved. Bonheur even told us that on the first day he thought he was going to quit and not finish the five weeks with us because he couldn't deal with our teaching style. He thought it was wrong for Rwandan children and that we were wasting their time. At this point, their reviews are glowing. You can tell that they have a lot of respect for these crazy, young Americans who want to do things so differently. I always wanted this project to be a partnership between us and the students we hired to assist with teaching. At lunch, I realized that after a period of time, we had really achieved a partnership.
Employment aside, you can tell that the program meant a lot to them. They are both confident that we left a significant impact and that the children will remember the lessons we taught for a long time. Joyce talked about how some neighbors’ children she interacted with had changed completely. After years of stealing from her and occasionally beating her daughter, they came to class with us and behave very differently. We have come a very long way in our relationships with our co-teachers, Joyce especially. On the first day she was very professional and cold but luckily every day since them we have made a little headway with her. Rwandans in general are very difficult to crack. They are extremely private and don't let many people in. At this point, we have a great friendship and are often very goofy together. Skye and I realized that one of our most important teaching tools has been to make ourselves look as ridiculous as possible since it breaks down the barriers between our students and us. The same can be said with Joyce. As we became more and more silly she became more and more open and friendly. She now tells us she doesn't know what she will do when we leave.
After lunch, we returned to the school to say our goodbye to the students. We got them to make pages for our peace book that we are assembling. Over the past 6 weeks, we have asked each of our 220 students to draw or write a representation of peace. At first, when we cut down the hours of our program we had to eliminate the time to do this, but luckily the director of the school was so supportive of our ideas that he gave us another afternoon with the kids. When we had finished collecting the drawings, we went outside for our weekly picture-taking session, which is imaginably chaotic. It never stops being amazing to me how much the kids (and even the teachers) love cameras. For a final goodbye, the kids sang and danced for us. They began to sing. All forty kids lined up to sing and clap together; it was so beautiful that it brought Skye and I to tears. When they had finished and we assumed they had to go back to school, two boys came running up with the school's drum. The two boys began beating it with a stick and most of the group reassembled themselves in a choir while a few of the older girls and boys stood aside. As the song progressed the older students came to the front and began to dance. They performed song after song weaving in and out of choreographed traditional dances and freestyle. It is difficult to describe the joy and energy with which they performed. I will always remember the kids that way, with huge grins on their faces, totally captivated by the music. The burdens and struggles seemed to disappear and they were free to act like teenagers. Despite crying through most of this, I managed to film; so I will try to put it up when I am home.
The music was the perfect goodbye to our program. It's such a wonderful reminder of the strength of the Rwandan people. After the darkest times, life goes on and there is even time for joy, love, and happiness. These students have had extremely difficult lives and struggle with trauma. Yet they still find reason to celebrate being alive.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Nearing the End
We are now over halfway through our final week of teaching. So far it has been an incredible week and I am upset to be leaving so soon.
Last week was probably the most difficult one since we were drained from memorials and class wasn't as rewarding as usual. The kids were good but were less dynamic than previous groups. That was our final week at the Kagarama Primary School, so it was disappointing not to end those workshops on a better note. As much as we didn't feel the same energy, the kids seemed to love it. They were coming in on their week off while teachers graded their exams (basically holiday before official holidays start) which we felt guilty about until we realized that they were more excited to be with us then there were to be at home. When we closed the week we asked for feedback about our program and it was all extremely positive. They begged us to let them come back the next week during their holiday for more class. One girl even told us that we changed her life and she would never forget what we talked about. If these were American children, I would dismiss a lot of the comments as sucking-up, but these children are so genuine that it would be a mistake to not take their praise seriously. They are often afraid to expose their emotions or vulnerabilities so it is touching to hear the group that seemed during the week to enjoy it the least have such positive responses.
This week started on a much more upbeat note since Skye and I spent the weekend in Akagera National Park with our friend Daniel and his new housemate Pat. It was really good to spend time outdoors and recharge our batteries for our final week at school. We were treated to magnificent scenery and many animals. The best part is that the park was deserted; in our 2 days there I can't say that we saw more than 10 people. We left Kigali in the early afternoon and arrived to spend a couple hours driving around the park . You arrive in a vehicle, collect a guide at the gate and you drive around the enormous park on your own, occasionally passing by another car. That first afternoon we were able to see antelope, zebras, giraffes, and monkeys. When the sun started to go down, we set up camp (once again all alone) on top of a hill overlooking a lake shrouded in mist and at night we had an unbelievable moon and quite the array of stars.
The next day we got to see many more zebras, monkeys, and antelope as well as hippos and a rogue elephant. The elephant was all alone (an outcast from the herd) and is said to have a very bad temper and therefore dangerous. At one point we got out of our car and had to go running back into it and drive away because it started flapping its ears (showing it was angry) and walking towards us. The guide was even scared of it, which was alarming in itself. The hippos we saw were mostly submerged in the lake, though we did get to see one get out to eat. Though we went deep into the park to try to find the buffalo and larger herds of elephants, they managed to hide from us, which was disappointing. The views, however, were spectacular. I would have braved all the bouncing around over terrible dirt roads just to look out over the sweeping hills and valleys covered in the tall tan savannah grasses and dotted with twisted acacia trees. Of all the animals we saw in the park, my favorite was probably the impala antelope. They looked most beautiful when we would be driving and they would be bounding alongside the car through the tall savanna grasses.
We showed up to class on Monday with much more energy and better spirits to work at the school for street children that is run by the peace house. This is a one year program for orphans, street kids, and very impoverished children. They go through an intense 3 month training to teach them how to interact positively in society (touching upon some of the issues addressed in our lessons) and continue on one of two tracks. One set of kids will take English lessons and spend the rest of their time learning a trade so that they can support themselves. The other set will take more lessons and eventually be integrated into the public school system (these are the street kids we often had in our classes as the primary school). This week we are working with kids on the former track, which has been different but very positive. We had to shorten the program from 10 hours down to 6 so we can work with 2 groups over a 4 day period. It is especially interesting to work with them considering that they are mostly our age.
They are a lot harder to read than most of the others we have had class with, but Skye and I are confident that they had a good time and enjoyed our discussions. Their conflict role plays (of conflicts from their lives) were fantastic, this was the first group we had that was alive during the genocide and you could tell that reverberations still impact their lives. Of the four groups that did skits, two of them directly addressed tribal issues; one showed a clique of girls who wouldn't let another be their friend because she was from a different tribe and the other was about a Tutsi mother who hated her Hutu husband's family because of the past. In the third skit, a father who drank too much beat the family members and used all their money to buy booze so they were starving. The fourth featured parents who would send only their son to school despite the daughter’s high marks. Genocide was even brought up in this last one when another parent scolded them for mistreating the girl and reminded them that they had killed her own children so they should cherish their own. It is easy to get excited by how great their acting is and how well they show conflict until I realize that these are sketches from their lives. I can easily laugh by how well a young man stumbles around in imitation of a drunk until I realize that it may be an imitation his father.
This group especially loved 'Honey I love you but I just can't smile' and it was wonderful to see them smile and laugh so much. Even though they are all around my age, I get the impression sometimes that they are much older. Their experiences and troubles have made them seem mature simply in their seriousness. Only when they laugh, sing, or dance can you see their more youthful spirit. In those cases, they exhibit a brightness that makes me tear up. It is hard to describe the extent of their charisma.
We met with Jonas, the director of the program, after we finished and he expressed how amazing it was for people to even want to work with these kids. He was extremely supportive of our program and said that we shouldn't change anything for the next class. Even though their first three months at the school touched upon the issues we talked about, he really appreciated our use of games and more youth-friendly activities to teach lessons and spark discussion.
Yesterday we took a break from teaching to throw a party for all of the kids we have worked with (plus the street kids we start with tomorrow) to have an opening for our library and say goodbye. We hired our friend Omar out as a DJ, bought an enormous amount of Fanta (which was quite a production this morning) and bought a football. We invited all 205 of our students (ranging from age 6-20), people who work at AGLI or the schools, and some of our friends from the Cinema Center. Overall we had about 200 people, which was an amazing turnout.
The kids don't often get to see DJ's so this was really exciting, especially since Omar is a fairly chic DJ playing popular night club (and mildly scandalous) music. We all played an awesome game of elbow tag and at some point, everyone just started dancing with their partner in tag and our game broke down into a huge dance party. While I was filming it, Skye was lucky enough to get some dance lessons and was swarmed by kids who wanted to see the muzungu 'try to dance'. I love how the guys dance together, they often dance in pairs side-by-side while holding hands. It's incredibly adorable.
After we all took a Fanta break, Skye and I split up. She gave library tours to small groups while I played 'football' with the rest with the ball we purchased. I can't really convey how exciting it is for them to see a real soccer ball; children here usually play with balls they make themselves with corn husks. Skye and I were astonished at how expensive the ball was, but it definitely seemed like a worthy investment. It's difficult to tell whether they were more excited to see a soccer ball or a muzungu play soccer, but it was a great time. I couldn't really shock them by putting on shorts, so I had to play in a dress. Many of the kids were wearing sandals so took their shoes off to play, but when I tried to do the same (I was wearing dress shoes) they refused to let me because they were afraid I would get hurt. It was a little ridiculous, but I had to do a lot of running back and forth to get the appropriate keys to the house to get my sneakers. When I finally was able to join my team they all cheered and seemed astonished that I was actually about to play. My soccer skills are definitely rusty, but the kids seemed impressed and our game gathered a huge audience. Especially since we cannot speak to each other, it was wonderful to be able to bond with them without the teacher-student dynamic. Even though Skye and I do our best to dispel a hierarchical relationship in the classroom, it cannot be eradicated. Playing football on a dusty volleyball court with a group of all ages was the first time they treated me as an equal. At first they seemed to approach me timidly if I had the ball but by the end they were almost as rough with me as they were with each other.
Football was fantastic, but I regret not also being able to be at the library to see the kids reaction. Skye says that they were ecstatic and wanted to look at all the books. They all promised to come back to borrow them and had to be kicked out so the next group could get a tour. Jonas was especially excited about the books so I am fairly certain that the street kids will use them a lot.
It is so sad that kids have such little access to any books here. We hope to be able to send more as this year progresses. After some research we discovered that U.S. Embassy seems to be willing to ship books for free (thanks Dad!) and we are looking forward to taking the opportunity to collect more at home and ship them here to add to our collection, which will be utilized by several neighboring schools. If you happen to have books that you would be willing to donate, whether they are picture books or chapter books for youth (our collection ranges from picture books to Harry Potter to dictionaries and atlases), we will be collecting them to send. You can either email me or leave me a note here and I will tell you when we hope to send a shipment! I am so excited for the kids to get the chance to read, which they literally do not get here. Books can be found in Rwanda but they are too expensive for most families to afford and the only public library in Rwanda has yet to open. It was scheduled to open next year, but Skye and I passed the building one day and it seems to be nowhere near completion. I took a break from soccer only once or twice during the tours to talk to talk to Skye, but those few minutes were enough to show me how much the books mean to these children. From the little ones to the street kids, they were enraptured. The look I saw on one girl's face as she paged through a Dr Seuss anthology will be hard to forget.
After our party, I am starting to fully realize that we are at the end. As much as I am looking forward to our last day tomorrow with the street kids, I am feeling the sadness of leaving. Today Josine (the accountant at the primary school who organizes the kids for the class) told Skye that she has been visiting students' families during the holiday. These seem to be part of her normal rounds or check-ins with families, but she was telling us what the parents were saying about us. Apparently the kids in our program have been acting very differently at home and in classes and their parents are astonished at their behavioral changes. It is amazing to me that 10 hours with a group of students can have such an impact. Hearing this makes it even harder to leave. It is hard to pack up and go back when I realize how valuable we are.
Last week was probably the most difficult one since we were drained from memorials and class wasn't as rewarding as usual. The kids were good but were less dynamic than previous groups. That was our final week at the Kagarama Primary School, so it was disappointing not to end those workshops on a better note. As much as we didn't feel the same energy, the kids seemed to love it. They were coming in on their week off while teachers graded their exams (basically holiday before official holidays start) which we felt guilty about until we realized that they were more excited to be with us then there were to be at home. When we closed the week we asked for feedback about our program and it was all extremely positive. They begged us to let them come back the next week during their holiday for more class. One girl even told us that we changed her life and she would never forget what we talked about. If these were American children, I would dismiss a lot of the comments as sucking-up, but these children are so genuine that it would be a mistake to not take their praise seriously. They are often afraid to expose their emotions or vulnerabilities so it is touching to hear the group that seemed during the week to enjoy it the least have such positive responses.
This week started on a much more upbeat note since Skye and I spent the weekend in Akagera National Park with our friend Daniel and his new housemate Pat. It was really good to spend time outdoors and recharge our batteries for our final week at school. We were treated to magnificent scenery and many animals. The best part is that the park was deserted; in our 2 days there I can't say that we saw more than 10 people. We left Kigali in the early afternoon and arrived to spend a couple hours driving around the park . You arrive in a vehicle, collect a guide at the gate and you drive around the enormous park on your own, occasionally passing by another car. That first afternoon we were able to see antelope, zebras, giraffes, and monkeys. When the sun started to go down, we set up camp (once again all alone) on top of a hill overlooking a lake shrouded in mist and at night we had an unbelievable moon and quite the array of stars.
The next day we got to see many more zebras, monkeys, and antelope as well as hippos and a rogue elephant. The elephant was all alone (an outcast from the herd) and is said to have a very bad temper and therefore dangerous. At one point we got out of our car and had to go running back into it and drive away because it started flapping its ears (showing it was angry) and walking towards us. The guide was even scared of it, which was alarming in itself. The hippos we saw were mostly submerged in the lake, though we did get to see one get out to eat. Though we went deep into the park to try to find the buffalo and larger herds of elephants, they managed to hide from us, which was disappointing. The views, however, were spectacular. I would have braved all the bouncing around over terrible dirt roads just to look out over the sweeping hills and valleys covered in the tall tan savannah grasses and dotted with twisted acacia trees. Of all the animals we saw in the park, my favorite was probably the impala antelope. They looked most beautiful when we would be driving and they would be bounding alongside the car through the tall savanna grasses.
We showed up to class on Monday with much more energy and better spirits to work at the school for street children that is run by the peace house. This is a one year program for orphans, street kids, and very impoverished children. They go through an intense 3 month training to teach them how to interact positively in society (touching upon some of the issues addressed in our lessons) and continue on one of two tracks. One set of kids will take English lessons and spend the rest of their time learning a trade so that they can support themselves. The other set will take more lessons and eventually be integrated into the public school system (these are the street kids we often had in our classes as the primary school). This week we are working with kids on the former track, which has been different but very positive. We had to shorten the program from 10 hours down to 6 so we can work with 2 groups over a 4 day period. It is especially interesting to work with them considering that they are mostly our age.
They are a lot harder to read than most of the others we have had class with, but Skye and I are confident that they had a good time and enjoyed our discussions. Their conflict role plays (of conflicts from their lives) were fantastic, this was the first group we had that was alive during the genocide and you could tell that reverberations still impact their lives. Of the four groups that did skits, two of them directly addressed tribal issues; one showed a clique of girls who wouldn't let another be their friend because she was from a different tribe and the other was about a Tutsi mother who hated her Hutu husband's family because of the past. In the third skit, a father who drank too much beat the family members and used all their money to buy booze so they were starving. The fourth featured parents who would send only their son to school despite the daughter’s high marks. Genocide was even brought up in this last one when another parent scolded them for mistreating the girl and reminded them that they had killed her own children so they should cherish their own. It is easy to get excited by how great their acting is and how well they show conflict until I realize that these are sketches from their lives. I can easily laugh by how well a young man stumbles around in imitation of a drunk until I realize that it may be an imitation his father.
This group especially loved 'Honey I love you but I just can't smile' and it was wonderful to see them smile and laugh so much. Even though they are all around my age, I get the impression sometimes that they are much older. Their experiences and troubles have made them seem mature simply in their seriousness. Only when they laugh, sing, or dance can you see their more youthful spirit. In those cases, they exhibit a brightness that makes me tear up. It is hard to describe the extent of their charisma.
We met with Jonas, the director of the program, after we finished and he expressed how amazing it was for people to even want to work with these kids. He was extremely supportive of our program and said that we shouldn't change anything for the next class. Even though their first three months at the school touched upon the issues we talked about, he really appreciated our use of games and more youth-friendly activities to teach lessons and spark discussion.
Yesterday we took a break from teaching to throw a party for all of the kids we have worked with (plus the street kids we start with tomorrow) to have an opening for our library and say goodbye. We hired our friend Omar out as a DJ, bought an enormous amount of Fanta (which was quite a production this morning) and bought a football. We invited all 205 of our students (ranging from age 6-20), people who work at AGLI or the schools, and some of our friends from the Cinema Center. Overall we had about 200 people, which was an amazing turnout.
The kids don't often get to see DJ's so this was really exciting, especially since Omar is a fairly chic DJ playing popular night club (and mildly scandalous) music. We all played an awesome game of elbow tag and at some point, everyone just started dancing with their partner in tag and our game broke down into a huge dance party. While I was filming it, Skye was lucky enough to get some dance lessons and was swarmed by kids who wanted to see the muzungu 'try to dance'. I love how the guys dance together, they often dance in pairs side-by-side while holding hands. It's incredibly adorable.
After we all took a Fanta break, Skye and I split up. She gave library tours to small groups while I played 'football' with the rest with the ball we purchased. I can't really convey how exciting it is for them to see a real soccer ball; children here usually play with balls they make themselves with corn husks. Skye and I were astonished at how expensive the ball was, but it definitely seemed like a worthy investment. It's difficult to tell whether they were more excited to see a soccer ball or a muzungu play soccer, but it was a great time. I couldn't really shock them by putting on shorts, so I had to play in a dress. Many of the kids were wearing sandals so took their shoes off to play, but when I tried to do the same (I was wearing dress shoes) they refused to let me because they were afraid I would get hurt. It was a little ridiculous, but I had to do a lot of running back and forth to get the appropriate keys to the house to get my sneakers. When I finally was able to join my team they all cheered and seemed astonished that I was actually about to play. My soccer skills are definitely rusty, but the kids seemed impressed and our game gathered a huge audience. Especially since we cannot speak to each other, it was wonderful to be able to bond with them without the teacher-student dynamic. Even though Skye and I do our best to dispel a hierarchical relationship in the classroom, it cannot be eradicated. Playing football on a dusty volleyball court with a group of all ages was the first time they treated me as an equal. At first they seemed to approach me timidly if I had the ball but by the end they were almost as rough with me as they were with each other.
Football was fantastic, but I regret not also being able to be at the library to see the kids reaction. Skye says that they were ecstatic and wanted to look at all the books. They all promised to come back to borrow them and had to be kicked out so the next group could get a tour. Jonas was especially excited about the books so I am fairly certain that the street kids will use them a lot.
It is so sad that kids have such little access to any books here. We hope to be able to send more as this year progresses. After some research we discovered that U.S. Embassy seems to be willing to ship books for free (thanks Dad!) and we are looking forward to taking the opportunity to collect more at home and ship them here to add to our collection, which will be utilized by several neighboring schools. If you happen to have books that you would be willing to donate, whether they are picture books or chapter books for youth (our collection ranges from picture books to Harry Potter to dictionaries and atlases), we will be collecting them to send. You can either email me or leave me a note here and I will tell you when we hope to send a shipment! I am so excited for the kids to get the chance to read, which they literally do not get here. Books can be found in Rwanda but they are too expensive for most families to afford and the only public library in Rwanda has yet to open. It was scheduled to open next year, but Skye and I passed the building one day and it seems to be nowhere near completion. I took a break from soccer only once or twice during the tours to talk to talk to Skye, but those few minutes were enough to show me how much the books mean to these children. From the little ones to the street kids, they were enraptured. The look I saw on one girl's face as she paged through a Dr Seuss anthology will be hard to forget.
After our party, I am starting to fully realize that we are at the end. As much as I am looking forward to our last day tomorrow with the street kids, I am feeling the sadness of leaving. Today Josine (the accountant at the primary school who organizes the kids for the class) told Skye that she has been visiting students' families during the holiday. These seem to be part of her normal rounds or check-ins with families, but she was telling us what the parents were saying about us. Apparently the kids in our program have been acting very differently at home and in classes and their parents are astonished at their behavioral changes. It is amazing to me that 10 hours with a group of students can have such an impact. Hearing this makes it even harder to leave. It is hard to pack up and go back when I realize how valuable we are.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
On Genocide
Last Thursday, Skye and I made a trip to the tourist bureau to try to get more information about national parks. While we were waiting for an available teller, we started talking to a blonde British woman who had come in just after us. She wanted to know immediately what we were doing in Rwanda, and persisted with abrupt questions as to the nature of the curriculum and examples of our activities. We did our best to give the clearest picture pretty quickly and when we were finished she asked, “So you basically talk to them about the genocide?” I was appalled At such a precipitous mention of genocide. As Skye tried to address the delicate nature of bringing it up, I refused to talk and checked around the room to make sure no one else had been listening. I realized then that I have come to treat discussion of the genocide much like many Rwandans. It is something buried deep within me that I am always aware of, but does not often come out in the open. I do not think I have ever brought up the word genocide unless it was first said to me. For the most part, we rely on little glimpses of the past here and there to serve as the only means of understanding.
It has become almost a mental game, a puzzle that needs to be worked out. As people around you let more information slip, you can begin to piece together their stories as past. You can always start by asking if someone has always lived in Kigali. There's a piece. Someone doesn't have parents, someone lost five siblings, another doesn't have any family at all. Another piece. The number 15 has been burned into my brain because of how often I subtract it. 28 years old-15 = 13 years old. Another piece. Other times you are given no pieces at all but are forced to use your imagination. On weekdays as I walk to the bus, there are often men in orange suits working on the gates outside of the technical school. I can't help but look at them and wonder, where were you fifteen years ago? Could you have been outside this very gate? Could the fence you are working to rebuild be one that you broke down before massacring the 3,000 inside seeking safe haven? There is always some reminder to start the game; in Rwanda you cannot escape the echoes of the past.
In the past week, there has been more in the open. But unlike the conversation with the tactless British tourist, stories from survivors about the genocide have been difficult and heartfelt. Testimonies have been hushed and reluctant, but exposed nonetheless. It is difficult to write what I have heard over the past week and especially today because it is far beyond the reach of my comprehension. I cannot ever imagine the extent of the horror that people experienced, nor do I ever want to. Already, what I have taken away is too chilling. Skye and I have talked recently about whether or not it's futile to write about something we can never truly convey. I think, however, that whatever you glean from this, it is probably better than nothing. For those of you who have seen Hotel Rwanda, or really any cinematic depiction of the events in Rwanda, I can assure you that Hollywood did not need to embellish the stories. The accounts that have been related to me have been horrible to the point of unbelievable, so I will try to convey them as simply as possible to avoid unneeded decoration.
Last Saturday, Skye and I attended the film festival's genocide panorama. All of the films that were played related to the genocide, and though they barely got through the many that were on the schedule, it was overwhelming. It is impossible to describe everything that we saw or watched, but what has stayed in my memory most vividly was a piece of footage that was in one of the documentaries. This documentary featured a journalist who was in Kigali during the genocide and managed to capture on film six people being killed at a roadblock in the streets of Kigali. These six people were the only ones out of nearly a million whose deaths were documented. I don't think I will ever be able to forget the fuzzy picture of a man kneeling in the road with his arms up, pleading with god and his killers, with his teenage daughter bent-over praying behind him. Nor will I ever forget the deliberateness in the way that the men strode over and cut them down with machetes.
There were two oral testimonies given in addition to the film presentations. One of them was given by a young man who told a long and vivid story about his flight and unlikely survival. Soon after the death of President, the young man fled with his parents, brother and sisters to the woods near his village. Rumors began circulating that women and children were not being killed, so the children left with their mother to try to seek safe haven with a friend in the village so food and water would be more readily available. Unfortunately, the interahamwe came to the house and moved the mother and children to an area where they had rounded up many Tutsis. They soon made it very clear that the rumor about the safety of women and children was false. The young man told us that he knew that his sister had been raped along with all the other young women when they were taken away and brought back naked and crying. When the interahamwe announced that it was time to die, the young man said his mother didn't even try to shield them or hide them. She told her children that it was time to die, and told them all to pray. They were taken next to a mass grave, and the young interahamwe boys were allowed to randomly choose who to kill first. One of the older killers picked out the young man and told one of the boys he knew from school to kill him. The schoolmate resisted, but was eventually persuaded to hit the young man in the head with a club.
The young man regained consciousness in a mass grave surrounded by bodies. He struggled to keep as close to the top as he could as new bodies were being dumped in. When the killing had finished and the killers began to cover the grave with dirt, the black hood of his sweatshirt protected him from suffocating. His movements caught the attention of the interahamwe still left by the grave and they suspected that he was alive. They began to throw rocks into the grave to finish the job and one hit the young man on his already wounded head. The young man slipped into unconsciousness again and this time awoke to the bodies of his father and his neighbor being thrown on top of him. Exhausted and weak, he quickly gave up his struggle and his movements slowed.
After the young man had lost hope, he was saved by the reluctant schoolmate who had beaten his head and some other young members of the interahamwe. They brought him milk and food and kept a lookout for patrols. When the area was clear, the young man was able to escape the mass grave and fled to a handicapped school where he posed as a handicapped child until the genocide ended.
I will not relate the second testimony here as well. But keep in mind that this story is not exceptional. It is just another genocide survival story. There are too many Rwandans who have similar burdens.
Though I was fully expecting the genocide panorama and our visit to the memorials to be depressing and moving, it is impossible to anticipate their effect. Although I braced myself as best I could for what I was going to witness at Nymata and Ntarama, I could never have adequately prepared myself. After church on Sunday, Skye and I crammed ourselves into the bus to Nymata and headed out through the glorious countryside.
Many of the towns here remind me of ones from old western movies, where a 'downtown' consists of a few large building with facades on one main street and open fields and dust surrounding it. We got out of the bus in a setting like this and asked the man sitting next to Skye where we should go to get to the memorial. He told us that despite the fact that he lived there, he had never been and didn't know. So he pulled aside another boy getting out named Africa who lived very close to the memorial and agreed to walk us there. We walked with Africa down the road and up a path to the gate of the church. It was a fairly plain looking brick building surrounded by a white fence draped with purple flags. We tried to thank Africa and say goodbye, but despite our protestations, he insisted on waiting at the gate until we finished. Charles, a tall young man, introduced himself to us, apologized for the state of his English (which was actually very good), and ushered us into the church to begin our tour.
The inside of the church was dimly lit with small pinpoints of light coming in through the roof where there were punctures from the grenades. The low benches were covered in clothing. Untouched for years, they were covered by cobwebs. An almost with blindingly white set of tile steps descended into a gleaming chamber. A statue of the Virgin Mary in white clasped her hands and seemed to sadly look down at the debris. Purple and white flags adorned the pillars and were strung across the room.
The stories that Charles told us in that room were horrific. He spoke about people who had their arms chopped off with machetes that the perpetrators held up to use to 'wave goodbye' to the people they were about to kill. He spoke about children who were forced to play soccer with heads that were chopped off before they themselves were slaughtered. He spoke about pregnant woman who were put on the altar and had their babies cut from their stomachs. Long after Skye and I had started crying, he seemed to run out of steam and stopped talking. He told us that he could talk for hours telling us all of the terrible things that had happened.
He brought us to the altar and showed us a machete that had been left behind as well as one of the identity cards that the Belgians had mandated in 1935 to tell Tutsi from Hutu. The little slip of lamented paper served as a death warrant for so many people. He informed us that people who didn't have identity cards on them were judged by their height and noses. It was only when he gestured to his own nose and stature that I began to understand.
Over 10,000 people were killed in that single-roomed church and in the yard. Charles was one of the 7 survivors. He didn't tell us the entirety of his story, but pointed out the corner where he had stayed alive. After so much silence I did not expect narratives by survivors. At the panorama, I expected just films. At the memorials, I expected just tour guides. I never would have guessed that people who had suffered such trauma in a church would chose to come back day after day and relive their experiences time after time. Charles admitted that he couldn't give tours everyday, that sometimes it was just too much.
Charles continued our tour and led us down the white steps and into the chamber which houses skulls, bones, and a window in the floor to a lone coffin far below. As I stood in the bright-white crypt with the bones and the coffin, I have never felt such a sense of wrong. Standing there, watching Charles as he told of the horrors that poor woman in the coffin had been subjected to (which are probably too graphic to write here), I thought my legs were going to give out. It is hard to describe how strongly your body reacts.
We followed Charles out of the church where we met up with Africa. The four of us continued in silence to the patio in the back. Two sets of stairs let to two different crypts. The first one took us down into a narrow chamber filled with coffins. They rested on wooden shelves draped in purple and white cloths. I was surprised at first by the relatively small number of coffins (maybe 50?) despite the number of dead, but Charles soon showed us the reason. He took us to the far end of the chamber, pulled a coffin forward, lifted the cloth, and removed the lid. It was packed with skeletons. As I looked again at the coffins, the enormity of the number finally began to sink in.
We emerged in the sunlight only to descend into the second crypt. This one was similar to the first except that half of it was missing coffins. Instead, the skulls and bones sat unprotected on the wooden shelves. Charles began to pick up some of the skulls to show us how they had died. This one had been beaten with a club filled with nails, this one's head was sliced open with a machete, this one had been blown apart with a grenade, this one had been burned. As we turned to walk out, Charles saw that I was crying and lightly put his hand on my shoulder. I will never forget that small gesture. Nor will I ever understand why he felt the need to try to comfort me. In that crypt, I was looking at bones of people who I had never known. Charles was looking at the remains of his family, friends, and neighbors.
Before leaving the church, we signed the guest book and gave donations to the fund for survivors. It was really surprising to Skye and I how few people actually come to the memorial. We couldn't really decide whether it was a good thing or bad thing that it wasn't on the normal tourist circuit. When we left, Africa came with us.
Africa walked with us out of the gate and began to speak to us. He talked slowly with long pauses but astonishingly openly. He began without much of a prelude or explanation and simply began to talk about what it was like in 1994. He pointed out where men were when they launched the grenades. He talked about how he had hidden under the dead body of a little girl and had managed to escape death. When we had entered the church, he stayed outside because it made him afraid. He could not enter the church and it was even hard for him to be in Nymata. His trips home from school in Kigali are plauged by anxiety and fear.
He offered to take us to visit his family with him, said that there were a few survivors. Skye and I were too emotionally drained to take him up on it, though we were both really torn. Even after we turned down his invitation, Africa walked us all the way down the road back to town. He told us that the best way to the memorial in Ntarama was by moto and even brought us to the motos to help negotiate a price for us. I still cannot believe that the man from the bus managed to pull aside one of the seven survivors of the church. It is also beyond me how kind and open he was with us. Skye and I have witnessed so many acts of kindness on the part of strangers. We are often overly skeptical of people's intentions, and many help without expected reciprocation of any kind. Such was the case with Africa. He was willing to guide us and share his story with us, asking only for our email addresses.
Our visit to the second sight was much more brief. Charles spoke about the easy days and the hard days for survivors. I think it was one of the more difficult days for the woman who gave us the tour of the second sight. Even though her French narrative was much briefer and less detailed than Charles, it was extremely powerful. 5,000 people had died. It used to be a Catholic church. Here were their clothes. Here were all of their belongings. These were the pews they died on. The gaping holes in the wall were where the grenades hit. This is the outbuilding where all of the children were slaughtered. The vast bloodstain on the wall marked where the infants were thrown to be killed. This is the kitchen. This is where the women were burned as they cooked for their children.
You could tell from her tears where she was that night. While Skye and I walked into the kitchen she stayed outside, wiping her eyes hastily as I emerged.
Since Sunday, I have slipped in and out of depression. Every night I take pills to ensure that I sleep too deeply to dream. It is difficult to really believe in humanity. How could people do such things to fellow Rwandans? To neighbors? To former friends? As I struggle to regain hope as we march through another week with the children, I wonder at the people who were here in '94. I cannot begin to fathom how survivors continue to get up every morning to live. How can you ever recover from an experience like that? How can you stay in the same town? And worse- how can you watch some of the perpetrators come home and become your neighbor once again?
The most incredible thing about post-genocide Rwanda is that throughout Rwanda, people have returned to their original communities. When many minor players in the interahamwe were pardoned or released, they returned to their towns where they live near those whose families they killed. AGLI does a lot of mediation work (especially in a project called HROC) with survivors and the people who killed their families. I can only guess how difficult that must be and wonder about the degree of success. How can those wounds possibly be healed? Skye and I have talked a lot this week about forgiveness (especially in the context of the American documentary we saw, As We Forgive) and I really wonder whether true forgiveness in a conventional sense is possible. I do not believe that a state of forgiveness is the culmination of hard work, I cannot think of it as a goal. Like Charles's ability to return to the church, I can imagine it is a day to day challenge that continues to occupy much energy. Forgiveness seems to be a journey that will continue as long as life does. Especially after the past week, I do not think people should be forced to forgive, nor do I think everyone can. I cannot begin to imagine how survivors of such horrific experiences could ever forgive. I have such respect and reverence for those men and women able to even begin to recognize the humanity in participants.
Our work is quite a bit easier as Skye and I don't have to deal with the extent of trauma and prejudice that adults would have. Though you can only guess at all of the backgrounds of the children, the majority of them (the exception being the street kids) have their earliest memories in a post-genocide world. I do no believe, however, that our job is any less important. When I am in the classroom, I do have hope for this generation. Despite the suppression of feelings and the reluctance to talk about conflict, they show enormous potential to create a unified Rwanda. I think the biggest challenge comes in obtaining conviction in something to such an extent that they would be willing to disagree with authority figures. We try to push them to question the opinions of their parents, teachers, and leading politicians. Blind obedience played a large of a role in the genocide, on the part of killers and victims. And though Rwanda is rapidly increasing stability and progress, it cannot stay as it is forever. Communities are often still broken, families won't let their children play with children of perpetrators, and censorship reigns rampant. Hopefully this new generation can always remember the genocide but with enough detachment to truly achieve peace, not only in Rwanda, but in the Great Lakes region. I think that work like HROC with adults is absolutely indispensable but I really wish that more NGO's would work with young people. I have come to really believe in this project and the amount of progress we were able to achieve with just one week. I only hope that we find a way to make it more sustainable, to leave Rwanda and not completely close the door behind us.
It has become almost a mental game, a puzzle that needs to be worked out. As people around you let more information slip, you can begin to piece together their stories as past. You can always start by asking if someone has always lived in Kigali. There's a piece. Someone doesn't have parents, someone lost five siblings, another doesn't have any family at all. Another piece. The number 15 has been burned into my brain because of how often I subtract it. 28 years old-15 = 13 years old. Another piece. Other times you are given no pieces at all but are forced to use your imagination. On weekdays as I walk to the bus, there are often men in orange suits working on the gates outside of the technical school. I can't help but look at them and wonder, where were you fifteen years ago? Could you have been outside this very gate? Could the fence you are working to rebuild be one that you broke down before massacring the 3,000 inside seeking safe haven? There is always some reminder to start the game; in Rwanda you cannot escape the echoes of the past.
In the past week, there has been more in the open. But unlike the conversation with the tactless British tourist, stories from survivors about the genocide have been difficult and heartfelt. Testimonies have been hushed and reluctant, but exposed nonetheless. It is difficult to write what I have heard over the past week and especially today because it is far beyond the reach of my comprehension. I cannot ever imagine the extent of the horror that people experienced, nor do I ever want to. Already, what I have taken away is too chilling. Skye and I have talked recently about whether or not it's futile to write about something we can never truly convey. I think, however, that whatever you glean from this, it is probably better than nothing. For those of you who have seen Hotel Rwanda, or really any cinematic depiction of the events in Rwanda, I can assure you that Hollywood did not need to embellish the stories. The accounts that have been related to me have been horrible to the point of unbelievable, so I will try to convey them as simply as possible to avoid unneeded decoration.
Last Saturday, Skye and I attended the film festival's genocide panorama. All of the films that were played related to the genocide, and though they barely got through the many that were on the schedule, it was overwhelming. It is impossible to describe everything that we saw or watched, but what has stayed in my memory most vividly was a piece of footage that was in one of the documentaries. This documentary featured a journalist who was in Kigali during the genocide and managed to capture on film six people being killed at a roadblock in the streets of Kigali. These six people were the only ones out of nearly a million whose deaths were documented. I don't think I will ever be able to forget the fuzzy picture of a man kneeling in the road with his arms up, pleading with god and his killers, with his teenage daughter bent-over praying behind him. Nor will I ever forget the deliberateness in the way that the men strode over and cut them down with machetes.
There were two oral testimonies given in addition to the film presentations. One of them was given by a young man who told a long and vivid story about his flight and unlikely survival. Soon after the death of President, the young man fled with his parents, brother and sisters to the woods near his village. Rumors began circulating that women and children were not being killed, so the children left with their mother to try to seek safe haven with a friend in the village so food and water would be more readily available. Unfortunately, the interahamwe came to the house and moved the mother and children to an area where they had rounded up many Tutsis. They soon made it very clear that the rumor about the safety of women and children was false. The young man told us that he knew that his sister had been raped along with all the other young women when they were taken away and brought back naked and crying. When the interahamwe announced that it was time to die, the young man said his mother didn't even try to shield them or hide them. She told her children that it was time to die, and told them all to pray. They were taken next to a mass grave, and the young interahamwe boys were allowed to randomly choose who to kill first. One of the older killers picked out the young man and told one of the boys he knew from school to kill him. The schoolmate resisted, but was eventually persuaded to hit the young man in the head with a club.
The young man regained consciousness in a mass grave surrounded by bodies. He struggled to keep as close to the top as he could as new bodies were being dumped in. When the killing had finished and the killers began to cover the grave with dirt, the black hood of his sweatshirt protected him from suffocating. His movements caught the attention of the interahamwe still left by the grave and they suspected that he was alive. They began to throw rocks into the grave to finish the job and one hit the young man on his already wounded head. The young man slipped into unconsciousness again and this time awoke to the bodies of his father and his neighbor being thrown on top of him. Exhausted and weak, he quickly gave up his struggle and his movements slowed.
After the young man had lost hope, he was saved by the reluctant schoolmate who had beaten his head and some other young members of the interahamwe. They brought him milk and food and kept a lookout for patrols. When the area was clear, the young man was able to escape the mass grave and fled to a handicapped school where he posed as a handicapped child until the genocide ended.
I will not relate the second testimony here as well. But keep in mind that this story is not exceptional. It is just another genocide survival story. There are too many Rwandans who have similar burdens.
Though I was fully expecting the genocide panorama and our visit to the memorials to be depressing and moving, it is impossible to anticipate their effect. Although I braced myself as best I could for what I was going to witness at Nymata and Ntarama, I could never have adequately prepared myself. After church on Sunday, Skye and I crammed ourselves into the bus to Nymata and headed out through the glorious countryside.
Many of the towns here remind me of ones from old western movies, where a 'downtown' consists of a few large building with facades on one main street and open fields and dust surrounding it. We got out of the bus in a setting like this and asked the man sitting next to Skye where we should go to get to the memorial. He told us that despite the fact that he lived there, he had never been and didn't know. So he pulled aside another boy getting out named Africa who lived very close to the memorial and agreed to walk us there. We walked with Africa down the road and up a path to the gate of the church. It was a fairly plain looking brick building surrounded by a white fence draped with purple flags. We tried to thank Africa and say goodbye, but despite our protestations, he insisted on waiting at the gate until we finished. Charles, a tall young man, introduced himself to us, apologized for the state of his English (which was actually very good), and ushered us into the church to begin our tour.
The inside of the church was dimly lit with small pinpoints of light coming in through the roof where there were punctures from the grenades. The low benches were covered in clothing. Untouched for years, they were covered by cobwebs. An almost with blindingly white set of tile steps descended into a gleaming chamber. A statue of the Virgin Mary in white clasped her hands and seemed to sadly look down at the debris. Purple and white flags adorned the pillars and were strung across the room.
The stories that Charles told us in that room were horrific. He spoke about people who had their arms chopped off with machetes that the perpetrators held up to use to 'wave goodbye' to the people they were about to kill. He spoke about children who were forced to play soccer with heads that were chopped off before they themselves were slaughtered. He spoke about pregnant woman who were put on the altar and had their babies cut from their stomachs. Long after Skye and I had started crying, he seemed to run out of steam and stopped talking. He told us that he could talk for hours telling us all of the terrible things that had happened.
He brought us to the altar and showed us a machete that had been left behind as well as one of the identity cards that the Belgians had mandated in 1935 to tell Tutsi from Hutu. The little slip of lamented paper served as a death warrant for so many people. He informed us that people who didn't have identity cards on them were judged by their height and noses. It was only when he gestured to his own nose and stature that I began to understand.
Over 10,000 people were killed in that single-roomed church and in the yard. Charles was one of the 7 survivors. He didn't tell us the entirety of his story, but pointed out the corner where he had stayed alive. After so much silence I did not expect narratives by survivors. At the panorama, I expected just films. At the memorials, I expected just tour guides. I never would have guessed that people who had suffered such trauma in a church would chose to come back day after day and relive their experiences time after time. Charles admitted that he couldn't give tours everyday, that sometimes it was just too much.
Charles continued our tour and led us down the white steps and into the chamber which houses skulls, bones, and a window in the floor to a lone coffin far below. As I stood in the bright-white crypt with the bones and the coffin, I have never felt such a sense of wrong. Standing there, watching Charles as he told of the horrors that poor woman in the coffin had been subjected to (which are probably too graphic to write here), I thought my legs were going to give out. It is hard to describe how strongly your body reacts.
We followed Charles out of the church where we met up with Africa. The four of us continued in silence to the patio in the back. Two sets of stairs let to two different crypts. The first one took us down into a narrow chamber filled with coffins. They rested on wooden shelves draped in purple and white cloths. I was surprised at first by the relatively small number of coffins (maybe 50?) despite the number of dead, but Charles soon showed us the reason. He took us to the far end of the chamber, pulled a coffin forward, lifted the cloth, and removed the lid. It was packed with skeletons. As I looked again at the coffins, the enormity of the number finally began to sink in.
We emerged in the sunlight only to descend into the second crypt. This one was similar to the first except that half of it was missing coffins. Instead, the skulls and bones sat unprotected on the wooden shelves. Charles began to pick up some of the skulls to show us how they had died. This one had been beaten with a club filled with nails, this one's head was sliced open with a machete, this one had been blown apart with a grenade, this one had been burned. As we turned to walk out, Charles saw that I was crying and lightly put his hand on my shoulder. I will never forget that small gesture. Nor will I ever understand why he felt the need to try to comfort me. In that crypt, I was looking at bones of people who I had never known. Charles was looking at the remains of his family, friends, and neighbors.
Before leaving the church, we signed the guest book and gave donations to the fund for survivors. It was really surprising to Skye and I how few people actually come to the memorial. We couldn't really decide whether it was a good thing or bad thing that it wasn't on the normal tourist circuit. When we left, Africa came with us.
Africa walked with us out of the gate and began to speak to us. He talked slowly with long pauses but astonishingly openly. He began without much of a prelude or explanation and simply began to talk about what it was like in 1994. He pointed out where men were when they launched the grenades. He talked about how he had hidden under the dead body of a little girl and had managed to escape death. When we had entered the church, he stayed outside because it made him afraid. He could not enter the church and it was even hard for him to be in Nymata. His trips home from school in Kigali are plauged by anxiety and fear.
He offered to take us to visit his family with him, said that there were a few survivors. Skye and I were too emotionally drained to take him up on it, though we were both really torn. Even after we turned down his invitation, Africa walked us all the way down the road back to town. He told us that the best way to the memorial in Ntarama was by moto and even brought us to the motos to help negotiate a price for us. I still cannot believe that the man from the bus managed to pull aside one of the seven survivors of the church. It is also beyond me how kind and open he was with us. Skye and I have witnessed so many acts of kindness on the part of strangers. We are often overly skeptical of people's intentions, and many help without expected reciprocation of any kind. Such was the case with Africa. He was willing to guide us and share his story with us, asking only for our email addresses.
Our visit to the second sight was much more brief. Charles spoke about the easy days and the hard days for survivors. I think it was one of the more difficult days for the woman who gave us the tour of the second sight. Even though her French narrative was much briefer and less detailed than Charles, it was extremely powerful. 5,000 people had died. It used to be a Catholic church. Here were their clothes. Here were all of their belongings. These were the pews they died on. The gaping holes in the wall were where the grenades hit. This is the outbuilding where all of the children were slaughtered. The vast bloodstain on the wall marked where the infants were thrown to be killed. This is the kitchen. This is where the women were burned as they cooked for their children.
You could tell from her tears where she was that night. While Skye and I walked into the kitchen she stayed outside, wiping her eyes hastily as I emerged.
Since Sunday, I have slipped in and out of depression. Every night I take pills to ensure that I sleep too deeply to dream. It is difficult to really believe in humanity. How could people do such things to fellow Rwandans? To neighbors? To former friends? As I struggle to regain hope as we march through another week with the children, I wonder at the people who were here in '94. I cannot begin to fathom how survivors continue to get up every morning to live. How can you ever recover from an experience like that? How can you stay in the same town? And worse- how can you watch some of the perpetrators come home and become your neighbor once again?
The most incredible thing about post-genocide Rwanda is that throughout Rwanda, people have returned to their original communities. When many minor players in the interahamwe were pardoned or released, they returned to their towns where they live near those whose families they killed. AGLI does a lot of mediation work (especially in a project called HROC) with survivors and the people who killed their families. I can only guess how difficult that must be and wonder about the degree of success. How can those wounds possibly be healed? Skye and I have talked a lot this week about forgiveness (especially in the context of the American documentary we saw, As We Forgive) and I really wonder whether true forgiveness in a conventional sense is possible. I do not believe that a state of forgiveness is the culmination of hard work, I cannot think of it as a goal. Like Charles's ability to return to the church, I can imagine it is a day to day challenge that continues to occupy much energy. Forgiveness seems to be a journey that will continue as long as life does. Especially after the past week, I do not think people should be forced to forgive, nor do I think everyone can. I cannot begin to imagine how survivors of such horrific experiences could ever forgive. I have such respect and reverence for those men and women able to even begin to recognize the humanity in participants.
Our work is quite a bit easier as Skye and I don't have to deal with the extent of trauma and prejudice that adults would have. Though you can only guess at all of the backgrounds of the children, the majority of them (the exception being the street kids) have their earliest memories in a post-genocide world. I do no believe, however, that our job is any less important. When I am in the classroom, I do have hope for this generation. Despite the suppression of feelings and the reluctance to talk about conflict, they show enormous potential to create a unified Rwanda. I think the biggest challenge comes in obtaining conviction in something to such an extent that they would be willing to disagree with authority figures. We try to push them to question the opinions of their parents, teachers, and leading politicians. Blind obedience played a large of a role in the genocide, on the part of killers and victims. And though Rwanda is rapidly increasing stability and progress, it cannot stay as it is forever. Communities are often still broken, families won't let their children play with children of perpetrators, and censorship reigns rampant. Hopefully this new generation can always remember the genocide but with enough detachment to truly achieve peace, not only in Rwanda, but in the Great Lakes region. I think that work like HROC with adults is absolutely indispensable but I really wish that more NGO's would work with young people. I have come to really believe in this project and the amount of progress we were able to achieve with just one week. I only hope that we find a way to make it more sustainable, to leave Rwanda and not completely close the door behind us.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Liberation 15
It has been an incredible week with yet another set of amazing kids. I am starting to feel the end approaching too quickly. If the kids weren’t leaving for their vacation anyway next week, I would be sorely tempted to cancel our traveling portion and do another week of classes. On Friday when we talked about what they liked about the week and what we could have done better, the only suggestion they had was to let them come all day instead of only half a day. They were very reluctant to say goodbye and leave us, and even asked for our email addresses so that they can get email accounts just to keep in touch.
Saturday was interesting as we were able to experience a Rwandan-style national celebration as well as an American one back-to-back. We went to the stadium to celebrate the Liberation day with the Rwandan people, which was an especially exciting event as it was the 15th anniversary and then strait to the US embassy for the Independence Day party.
We woke up at the crack of dawn and left the house to catch a bus by 6:30 so that we would get to the stadium early. Buses were filling quickly and it was difficult to push your way into one since everyone in Kigali was rushing to get a spot at the stadium. We brought our friend Minani from the film crew with us which I am extremely grateful for since we would have never made it without him.
Never in my life have I been so terrified of a crowd. With buses arriving from all corners of Kigali, the relatively small stadium was quickly overwhelmed by the number of attendees. The military had to search every individual who entered, so they were seriously limiting the flow into the stadium. It was clear very early on that most of the people outside would not actually make it into the stadium, and the competition was fierce to get in. The gates surrounding the stadium were guarded by soldiers who were using sticks to beat back the crowds. Gates would suddenly open to let a small stream of people in, so everyone would run to it and start pushing to get in before it closed. It became viscous pretty quickly. I actually saw a woman go down in the middle of a mob that had just shoved through a gate and people continued running while you could hear her screaming on the ground. We had to run back and forth to different gates in the masses of people. It was extremely chaotic, we were shoved, Skye practically fell in a ditch next to the road (but luckily grabbed onto some barbed wire to break her fall) and things would have been much worse if Minani wasn't there to try to keep people away from us.
After a lot of this running back and forth, we were pretty convinced that we weren't going to be able to get in. We were approached by a man in a white t-shirt that hundreds of people seemed to be wearing who decided to take us under his wing. He must have been some authority figure in the shirt-wearing movement and seemed to have some power, as he was able to bring us to the front of the lines. After yelling at the soldiers for a bit, he got them to open the gate just for us, and brought us to a group of 5 muzungu that he had also helped usher in. Our Rwandan guardian angel pushed us to the front of even more lines, brought us through the security checkpoint (making sure that we got female soldiers to pat us down), and went so far as to go in to the section in front of us to secure seats together for us before disappearing into the crowd completely. If it wasn't for our mysterious helper there is no way we would have gotten in. Skye and I both felt awkward that we were able to get in because of our skin color (especially for a national Rwandan celebration) but we were both so relieved to get out of the crowd that we put the guilt aside.
The event itself was like no celebration I have ever seen in America. Those in their seats were engaged in choreographed chants as the masses poured into the stadium. It involved a lot of yelling about bravery, waving your fist (or mini Rwandan flag) in the air, and clapping. My favorite part was when the MC who was down on the field directing the chanting actually noticed us. He was pointing at different sections to make sure we could all properly demonstrate our pride in Liberation Day. In all of the thousands of people, he pointed to our section and was excited that the muzungu were joining in. When he came back to our section the next time we weren't quite on top of our game with the fist punching so he made the whole section do it again for the muzungu.
When the stadium filled up you could see that a whole side was made up of people in either white, yellow, green or blue matching t-shirts. They were placed in such a way that they spelled out Kwibohora 15 (Liberation 15) in green, yellow, and blue on a white background. I cannot believe that in all the madness and chaos outside the stadium that they were actually able to coordinate this. The lines forming the letters were perfectly strait and many in the yellow, green, and blue even had hats that matched their t-shirts.
The ceremonies really got underway with the entry of the military. Brigades of soldiers, police, and two different bands all entered the stadium and did a bit of marching around. At some point some were demonstrating how fast they could walk. It really amazing me how excited people were about this and how much they clapped when the soldiers marched or turned. After a good hour of this, the dignitaries began to arrive. The prime minister of Ethiopia as well as the presidents of Uganda and Rwanda were the ones who were given special entrances. All of a sudden, a motorcade would appear and the big black cars would pull up to the VIP box. The presidents and their wives would be escorted to a little platform on the field where they would stand while their national anthem was being played. The president of Uganda was wearing an amazing cowboy hat over his suit.
When Paul Kagame arrived, the stadium erupted. After the Rwandan national anthem played, he had to inspect the military, so he walked around the stadium before taking his place in the box.
They began awarding medals for Campaign Against Genocide and National Liberation to the president of Uganda, prime minister of Ethiopia, the wife of the former interim president of Rwanda, and the daughter of the former president of Tanzania.
The speeches were long, in English, and for the most part talked about why that particular person helped Rwanda in vague generalities. My personal favorite was the president of Uganda's speech. He had a seemingly well written speech except for the fact that a lot of his sentences ended in “you know” or “something like that”. He mentioned several times that he didn't really remember something because it was too long ago and forgot the names of people or places he went. The whole thing was really confusing because he was reading this speech so it wasn't clear to us if he would have actually drafted all of the “something like that”s. Kagame's speech was most interesting, not because of content, but because of the crowd's reaction. The speech was in English at first, which meant that a large portion of the audience wasn't able to follow it. Despite the fact that they were dead quiet during all of the other speeches, general conversation rumbling began seriously in the middle of Kagame's speech. When he switch to Kinyarwanda, the crowd responded enthusiastically, but went right back to talking. I still have no comprehension as to why the crowd lost it during his speech. He didn't say anything of great interest, talked a lot about Rwanda's progress and journey. The most interesting thing he said was that people outside Rwanda are often blinded by their own arrogance as to what was best for Rwanda. Regardless of content, he is still their president and they always cheer so enthusiastically for him.
After the speeches, we were treated to a brief performance by the National Ballet (which was not ballet but the traditional Intore dancing), some drumming, singing, and a short theater piece. We were pretty far behind schedule at that point, so we decided we had to make a break for the exit while we could. Even though we ended up leaving at the end anyways, we were able to at least get down from our seats (which involved climbing over people since they stairways were also used as seats) ahead of the crowd.
This is when the real hell broke loose. There is a rule in Rwanda in which you aren't allowed to leave until the president does, so the soldiers were blocking the exits until Kagame was safely away from the stadium. We were not the only ones making a move towards the exit, so as people poured towards the area it got pretty rough and Skye and I were almost pushed down the stairs several times. When they finally let us go, we had to practically run down the stairs to avoid the pushing behind us. I won't go into the gory details, but I don't think I have ever felt more uncomfortable in a crowd in my life. It was really terrible without Minani by us to keep people away. There was so much pushing and I was grabbed inappropriately too often. Skye and I held onto each other and with a lot of running and jostling we finally made it free of the mob. As much as I felt disgusted by the inappropriate physical contact with many men, there seemed to be at least two good men for every bad. A group of guys behind me at one point seemed decided to become our protectors. They literally pulled people off of me twice and kept a strict perimeter, pushing and yelling at people who got too close to the 'muzungu'.
Skye and I grabbed the first taxi we saw (which took quite a while) and practically fell into it. We booked it to the embassy and made it there 45 min before the scheduled end of the party. By the time we arrived, we were exhausted and dazed from the crowd experience and acted accordingly. As soon as we could, we made a beeline to the food and haphazardly filled our plates with as much American goodness as we could. I never would have guessed I could appreciate a hamburger, fries, and pasta salad so much but the monotony of the meals here is killing me. Skye and I managed to make quite a spectacle of ourselves. We sat by ourselves instead of mingling and networking, moved from a table to the grass and then back to a table in the course of our meal, managed to drop plates and spill food, and eat an entire plate full of cake. At some point we realized how absurd we seemed and how many people were staring at us, which caused us to break out into exhausted, hysterical laughter that only increased the attention that we got. I am absolutely convinced we looked like heathen. Even the ambassador could not contain himself, and when he made his rounds to greet everyone, the only kind words that he could spare for us were, “Your lips are blue.” In our defense, our lips were only blue because of the amount of food coloring they use on the icing of the American flag cake. But we still made quite the picture.
We managed to avoid almost everyone (and there was actually a sizable crowd) and talked to three people we knew before we visited the beautifully flushing toilets, and left. After the mess in the stadium, a little bit of comfort and security at the embassy was just what I felt I needed since I was pretty shaken by our journey out. Though we basically ate and left, that was pretty much all I could take at that point.
I will talk about Sunday in my next post. It was a very difficult day- we went to visit two memorials just south of Kigali and I don’t think I’m able to write about it yet.
Saturday was interesting as we were able to experience a Rwandan-style national celebration as well as an American one back-to-back. We went to the stadium to celebrate the Liberation day with the Rwandan people, which was an especially exciting event as it was the 15th anniversary and then strait to the US embassy for the Independence Day party.
We woke up at the crack of dawn and left the house to catch a bus by 6:30 so that we would get to the stadium early. Buses were filling quickly and it was difficult to push your way into one since everyone in Kigali was rushing to get a spot at the stadium. We brought our friend Minani from the film crew with us which I am extremely grateful for since we would have never made it without him.
Never in my life have I been so terrified of a crowd. With buses arriving from all corners of Kigali, the relatively small stadium was quickly overwhelmed by the number of attendees. The military had to search every individual who entered, so they were seriously limiting the flow into the stadium. It was clear very early on that most of the people outside would not actually make it into the stadium, and the competition was fierce to get in. The gates surrounding the stadium were guarded by soldiers who were using sticks to beat back the crowds. Gates would suddenly open to let a small stream of people in, so everyone would run to it and start pushing to get in before it closed. It became viscous pretty quickly. I actually saw a woman go down in the middle of a mob that had just shoved through a gate and people continued running while you could hear her screaming on the ground. We had to run back and forth to different gates in the masses of people. It was extremely chaotic, we were shoved, Skye practically fell in a ditch next to the road (but luckily grabbed onto some barbed wire to break her fall) and things would have been much worse if Minani wasn't there to try to keep people away from us.
After a lot of this running back and forth, we were pretty convinced that we weren't going to be able to get in. We were approached by a man in a white t-shirt that hundreds of people seemed to be wearing who decided to take us under his wing. He must have been some authority figure in the shirt-wearing movement and seemed to have some power, as he was able to bring us to the front of the lines. After yelling at the soldiers for a bit, he got them to open the gate just for us, and brought us to a group of 5 muzungu that he had also helped usher in. Our Rwandan guardian angel pushed us to the front of even more lines, brought us through the security checkpoint (making sure that we got female soldiers to pat us down), and went so far as to go in to the section in front of us to secure seats together for us before disappearing into the crowd completely. If it wasn't for our mysterious helper there is no way we would have gotten in. Skye and I both felt awkward that we were able to get in because of our skin color (especially for a national Rwandan celebration) but we were both so relieved to get out of the crowd that we put the guilt aside.
The event itself was like no celebration I have ever seen in America. Those in their seats were engaged in choreographed chants as the masses poured into the stadium. It involved a lot of yelling about bravery, waving your fist (or mini Rwandan flag) in the air, and clapping. My favorite part was when the MC who was down on the field directing the chanting actually noticed us. He was pointing at different sections to make sure we could all properly demonstrate our pride in Liberation Day. In all of the thousands of people, he pointed to our section and was excited that the muzungu were joining in. When he came back to our section the next time we weren't quite on top of our game with the fist punching so he made the whole section do it again for the muzungu.
When the stadium filled up you could see that a whole side was made up of people in either white, yellow, green or blue matching t-shirts. They were placed in such a way that they spelled out Kwibohora 15 (Liberation 15) in green, yellow, and blue on a white background. I cannot believe that in all the madness and chaos outside the stadium that they were actually able to coordinate this. The lines forming the letters were perfectly strait and many in the yellow, green, and blue even had hats that matched their t-shirts.
The ceremonies really got underway with the entry of the military. Brigades of soldiers, police, and two different bands all entered the stadium and did a bit of marching around. At some point some were demonstrating how fast they could walk. It really amazing me how excited people were about this and how much they clapped when the soldiers marched or turned. After a good hour of this, the dignitaries began to arrive. The prime minister of Ethiopia as well as the presidents of Uganda and Rwanda were the ones who were given special entrances. All of a sudden, a motorcade would appear and the big black cars would pull up to the VIP box. The presidents and their wives would be escorted to a little platform on the field where they would stand while their national anthem was being played. The president of Uganda was wearing an amazing cowboy hat over his suit.
When Paul Kagame arrived, the stadium erupted. After the Rwandan national anthem played, he had to inspect the military, so he walked around the stadium before taking his place in the box.
They began awarding medals for Campaign Against Genocide and National Liberation to the president of Uganda, prime minister of Ethiopia, the wife of the former interim president of Rwanda, and the daughter of the former president of Tanzania.
The speeches were long, in English, and for the most part talked about why that particular person helped Rwanda in vague generalities. My personal favorite was the president of Uganda's speech. He had a seemingly well written speech except for the fact that a lot of his sentences ended in “you know” or “something like that”. He mentioned several times that he didn't really remember something because it was too long ago and forgot the names of people or places he went. The whole thing was really confusing because he was reading this speech so it wasn't clear to us if he would have actually drafted all of the “something like that”s. Kagame's speech was most interesting, not because of content, but because of the crowd's reaction. The speech was in English at first, which meant that a large portion of the audience wasn't able to follow it. Despite the fact that they were dead quiet during all of the other speeches, general conversation rumbling began seriously in the middle of Kagame's speech. When he switch to Kinyarwanda, the crowd responded enthusiastically, but went right back to talking. I still have no comprehension as to why the crowd lost it during his speech. He didn't say anything of great interest, talked a lot about Rwanda's progress and journey. The most interesting thing he said was that people outside Rwanda are often blinded by their own arrogance as to what was best for Rwanda. Regardless of content, he is still their president and they always cheer so enthusiastically for him.
After the speeches, we were treated to a brief performance by the National Ballet (which was not ballet but the traditional Intore dancing), some drumming, singing, and a short theater piece. We were pretty far behind schedule at that point, so we decided we had to make a break for the exit while we could. Even though we ended up leaving at the end anyways, we were able to at least get down from our seats (which involved climbing over people since they stairways were also used as seats) ahead of the crowd.
This is when the real hell broke loose. There is a rule in Rwanda in which you aren't allowed to leave until the president does, so the soldiers were blocking the exits until Kagame was safely away from the stadium. We were not the only ones making a move towards the exit, so as people poured towards the area it got pretty rough and Skye and I were almost pushed down the stairs several times. When they finally let us go, we had to practically run down the stairs to avoid the pushing behind us. I won't go into the gory details, but I don't think I have ever felt more uncomfortable in a crowd in my life. It was really terrible without Minani by us to keep people away. There was so much pushing and I was grabbed inappropriately too often. Skye and I held onto each other and with a lot of running and jostling we finally made it free of the mob. As much as I felt disgusted by the inappropriate physical contact with many men, there seemed to be at least two good men for every bad. A group of guys behind me at one point seemed decided to become our protectors. They literally pulled people off of me twice and kept a strict perimeter, pushing and yelling at people who got too close to the 'muzungu'.
Skye and I grabbed the first taxi we saw (which took quite a while) and practically fell into it. We booked it to the embassy and made it there 45 min before the scheduled end of the party. By the time we arrived, we were exhausted and dazed from the crowd experience and acted accordingly. As soon as we could, we made a beeline to the food and haphazardly filled our plates with as much American goodness as we could. I never would have guessed I could appreciate a hamburger, fries, and pasta salad so much but the monotony of the meals here is killing me. Skye and I managed to make quite a spectacle of ourselves. We sat by ourselves instead of mingling and networking, moved from a table to the grass and then back to a table in the course of our meal, managed to drop plates and spill food, and eat an entire plate full of cake. At some point we realized how absurd we seemed and how many people were staring at us, which caused us to break out into exhausted, hysterical laughter that only increased the attention that we got. I am absolutely convinced we looked like heathen. Even the ambassador could not contain himself, and when he made his rounds to greet everyone, the only kind words that he could spare for us were, “Your lips are blue.” In our defense, our lips were only blue because of the amount of food coloring they use on the icing of the American flag cake. But we still made quite the picture.
We managed to avoid almost everyone (and there was actually a sizable crowd) and talked to three people we knew before we visited the beautifully flushing toilets, and left. After the mess in the stadium, a little bit of comfort and security at the embassy was just what I felt I needed since I was pretty shaken by our journey out. Though we basically ate and left, that was pretty much all I could take at that point.
I will talk about Sunday in my next post. It was a very difficult day- we went to visit two memorials just south of Kigali and I don’t think I’m able to write about it yet.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
A Day in the Life
Today is Independence Day in Rwanda, though I will have to do more research as to exactly what that means. Normally people go to the stadium for the state celebration of the event, but this year it will be held in conjunction with celebratory activities on Saturday. July 4th is Liberation Day which celebrates the RPF ending the genocide and 'liberating' Kigali from the interahamwe.
Since I last wrote, Skye and I have had a very busy past couple days going to the final events of the film festival and starting another week of classes. We went to a very moving and difficult genocide panorama event on Saturday, which I won't get into in this entry but will discuss at more length another time. The official closing was on Sunday night when we got to see Flow, for the Love of Water, a documentary about the availability of clean water to various communities in the world and the effect of the privatization of water sources. Guest of honor Danny Glover made an appearance and gave a speech in which he failed pretty miserably at saying anything of substance. He admitted openly that he tried to back out of being there, demonstrated he knew nothing about the Rwandan film industry, and in praising the documentary called it “Flow, for the love of money”. It wouldn't have been as disturbing except for the level of excitement the Rwandans had for his presence and the amount deference that everyone paid him. It wasn't the ending I would have chosen, but the festival is nonetheless over and we have been trying to catch up on rest since then.
Our new classes have started and it has been interesting to see the variation and character of class. We found out yesterday afternoon that one of our classes is actually 9-11 instead of 12-14 as it should be which explains a lot of the differences we saw Monday and Tuesday, especially in their ability to discuss. Things are going really well, despite the fact that the groups are admittedly not quite as profound as our first group.
I've been asked to describe my daily routine in more detail but have thus far been too busy explaining new events. So, I have put together what a 'normal' weekday would look like:
Every morning Skye and I set our alarm to either 7:30 or 8 in hopes of sleeping that late. Practically every morning we are awake between 6 and 7 because of the presence of people in our living room, which is right off of our bedroom. Rwandan's seem to wake up early and have no qualms about having loud conversations in other people's houses. I can never figure out completely why so many people are always in our house. Sometimes it is clear what kind of connection they have to the house (usually they are related to David somehow) but occasionally people will sit in our living room without any introduction and then leave.
Breakfast happens around 8 and usually consists of bread, some kind of egg dish, and fresh fruit. I have rediscovered my love for passion fruit, though there is a different kind here than they have in Latin America. It's red and much smaller but tastes remarkably similar. Skye and I have also become addicted to the peanut butter here, which is actually used almost exclusively for muzungu. Everyone eats dry, roasted peanuts that they even sell on the street here but peanut butter is usually for tourists. We can't seem to give it up so we eat it almost every morning on our bread.
If you ignore the giant buckets of water in the middle of the floor, our bathroom appears to be a normal bathroom with running water. The sink and toilet have pipes connected to them that would indicate that once upon a time, there was running water. There is even a shower (just a basic for the floor and a shower head that obviously doesn't work) that we use for our bucket showers. To the horror of Francine, we shower only every other day mostly because we can't be bothered to deal with them on a daily basis. When we do, we are given a practically boiling bucket of water to take into the bathroom. People here seem to actually use water this hot but we always have to dilute it as much as we can with cold water, attempt to let it cool as long as we can, and still end up scalding ourselves. Bucket showering is actually quite a production. Given the amount of the red dirt that we accumulate (our feet are practically rust colored at the end of everyday) it is a challenge to come out clean.
Around breakfast we usually brush up on our lessons and leave between 9-9:15 to meet Joyce and Bonheur. When we leave our garden and gate, we walk down a little alleyway, across a volleyball court in front of a private English high school that AGLI runs, in front of a Friends Church, and to the offices close to the gate of the big compound. Joyce, Bonheur, Skye and I meet in our library to go over plans for the day, get any materials ready, and delegate jobs. At around 10:00 (though this week at 9:30 because of scheduling changes) we walk across the street to go to school. Despite the fact that we walk there everyday, when we walk through the schoolyard we are still surrounded by throngs of school children. The ones that we don't know yell “muzungu” at us or tell us good morning, but the ones we have had in class generally yell our names and give us hugs. They never seem to have both names down, they only ever yell to one of us. At first they could only ever remember Skye's name but it's been about even since we switched to calling me Kristen (it pains me, but it must be done) to make it easier for them. Adults and children alike simply cannot pronounce Kirsten and generally get called things that range from Kristen to Christian to Christina (except for David who continues to call me Mandala and very often The Mandala).
The schools is made up of 3 buildings which consist of several classrooms back to back. There are no hallways- the doors to the classrooms are from the schoolyard. It is not really clear to me what actually goes on in the classroom during the day, the kids always seem so unruly. They crowd around the windows when we walk by and watch our games when they are outside. Recess also seems to occur several times a day and there are almost always a pack of kids playing in the yard.
Normally we teach from 10 to 12 (though this week we are doing 4 days of 2 ½ hour blocks because of the national holiday today) and our program changes depending on the day. We always break for snack time at around 11:30 when the school's accountant brings us food for the kids. It always consists of some kind of bread, fruit or egg, and either soda or milk (which is more like cream or yoghourt). Snack time is almost always dead silent and takes about 15 minutes, more if they are having eggs or milk. We always try to through something upbeat at them after snack time to dispel the awkward silence.
At 12 we leave to walk back to our house for lunch. If our timing is right, we pass the private schools just as the kindergarteners are getting out. This is still one of my highlights of the day- they always start running at us as soon as they see us and give us huge hugs. One boy named Christian always walks with us all the way to our gate holding one of our hands and waves goodbye to us as we leave. Francine always has a huge amount of food waiting for us, usually rice and beans, some kind of meat, peas, and potatoes or plantains. We get about an hour to eat and relax, talk about lessons and what we want to do or change for the afternoon, and head back to school. When we meet Bonheur and Joyce back at school to start our next group at 1:15, the kids are always waiting at their desks for us. The program is either the same or completely different than the morning (depending on whether or not we have the same age group) though snack occurs at 2:15 which slightly changes our schedule.
Several times a day during our lesson the janitor or the accountant will have to come and beat kids away from the classroom with sticks. They all crowd around the door and climb on the windows to watch our lessons which is fairly distracting for our students. Even highschoolers (who are actually around our age) walking back through the yard from private school crowd around. Despite the best efforts of the janitor and the accountant we almost always have a large unintended audience. This week especially has been bad because students have been in exams and when they finish they are free to run around for hours on end.
We generally end school at around 3:15 and walk back to the library to drop our supplies off. What we do in the afternoon has fluctuated a lot. We have spent a lot of the time in the past weeks at the film festival, shopping for supplies, going to the internet cafe, having meetings, etc. Things will change a little in the next couple weeks as we have hammered out our curriculum and the film festival is over. We will probably have more time to go into town and explore different parts of the city.
If we are home, we have dinner at 7 which is always very similar to lunch. Rwandan fare is filling and there are always huge amounts of food but has already gotten rather repetitive. As much as we don't want to admit it, Skye and I are looking forward to the American embassy party on the 4th to get some comfort food.
After dinner we read, journal, type on our netbook (to minimize internet time) or talk if we are home. Dark falls so early here that it is hard for us to feel safe going out. On the nights that we stay in we generally fall asleep fairly early. It is generally pretty uneventful unless there are more random visitors. The nights that we have been out at the festival, we come back home very late and navigate our way back from the gate, past the church and schools, over the volleyball court, and down the alley in the dark. Our gate is locked at night but as we approach and put our hand on it, it almost magically swings open courtesy of our yard boy. He flashes us a smile and disappears into the darkness. However we spend our night, the end of our day always comes when we crawl into bed and tuck the mosquito netting under the mattresses.
Since I last wrote, Skye and I have had a very busy past couple days going to the final events of the film festival and starting another week of classes. We went to a very moving and difficult genocide panorama event on Saturday, which I won't get into in this entry but will discuss at more length another time. The official closing was on Sunday night when we got to see Flow, for the Love of Water, a documentary about the availability of clean water to various communities in the world and the effect of the privatization of water sources. Guest of honor Danny Glover made an appearance and gave a speech in which he failed pretty miserably at saying anything of substance. He admitted openly that he tried to back out of being there, demonstrated he knew nothing about the Rwandan film industry, and in praising the documentary called it “Flow, for the love of money”. It wouldn't have been as disturbing except for the level of excitement the Rwandans had for his presence and the amount deference that everyone paid him. It wasn't the ending I would have chosen, but the festival is nonetheless over and we have been trying to catch up on rest since then.
Our new classes have started and it has been interesting to see the variation and character of class. We found out yesterday afternoon that one of our classes is actually 9-11 instead of 12-14 as it should be which explains a lot of the differences we saw Monday and Tuesday, especially in their ability to discuss. Things are going really well, despite the fact that the groups are admittedly not quite as profound as our first group.
I've been asked to describe my daily routine in more detail but have thus far been too busy explaining new events. So, I have put together what a 'normal' weekday would look like:
Every morning Skye and I set our alarm to either 7:30 or 8 in hopes of sleeping that late. Practically every morning we are awake between 6 and 7 because of the presence of people in our living room, which is right off of our bedroom. Rwandan's seem to wake up early and have no qualms about having loud conversations in other people's houses. I can never figure out completely why so many people are always in our house. Sometimes it is clear what kind of connection they have to the house (usually they are related to David somehow) but occasionally people will sit in our living room without any introduction and then leave.
Breakfast happens around 8 and usually consists of bread, some kind of egg dish, and fresh fruit. I have rediscovered my love for passion fruit, though there is a different kind here than they have in Latin America. It's red and much smaller but tastes remarkably similar. Skye and I have also become addicted to the peanut butter here, which is actually used almost exclusively for muzungu. Everyone eats dry, roasted peanuts that they even sell on the street here but peanut butter is usually for tourists. We can't seem to give it up so we eat it almost every morning on our bread.
If you ignore the giant buckets of water in the middle of the floor, our bathroom appears to be a normal bathroom with running water. The sink and toilet have pipes connected to them that would indicate that once upon a time, there was running water. There is even a shower (just a basic for the floor and a shower head that obviously doesn't work) that we use for our bucket showers. To the horror of Francine, we shower only every other day mostly because we can't be bothered to deal with them on a daily basis. When we do, we are given a practically boiling bucket of water to take into the bathroom. People here seem to actually use water this hot but we always have to dilute it as much as we can with cold water, attempt to let it cool as long as we can, and still end up scalding ourselves. Bucket showering is actually quite a production. Given the amount of the red dirt that we accumulate (our feet are practically rust colored at the end of everyday) it is a challenge to come out clean.
Around breakfast we usually brush up on our lessons and leave between 9-9:15 to meet Joyce and Bonheur. When we leave our garden and gate, we walk down a little alleyway, across a volleyball court in front of a private English high school that AGLI runs, in front of a Friends Church, and to the offices close to the gate of the big compound. Joyce, Bonheur, Skye and I meet in our library to go over plans for the day, get any materials ready, and delegate jobs. At around 10:00 (though this week at 9:30 because of scheduling changes) we walk across the street to go to school. Despite the fact that we walk there everyday, when we walk through the schoolyard we are still surrounded by throngs of school children. The ones that we don't know yell “muzungu” at us or tell us good morning, but the ones we have had in class generally yell our names and give us hugs. They never seem to have both names down, they only ever yell to one of us. At first they could only ever remember Skye's name but it's been about even since we switched to calling me Kristen (it pains me, but it must be done) to make it easier for them. Adults and children alike simply cannot pronounce Kirsten and generally get called things that range from Kristen to Christian to Christina (except for David who continues to call me Mandala and very often The Mandala).
The schools is made up of 3 buildings which consist of several classrooms back to back. There are no hallways- the doors to the classrooms are from the schoolyard. It is not really clear to me what actually goes on in the classroom during the day, the kids always seem so unruly. They crowd around the windows when we walk by and watch our games when they are outside. Recess also seems to occur several times a day and there are almost always a pack of kids playing in the yard.
Normally we teach from 10 to 12 (though this week we are doing 4 days of 2 ½ hour blocks because of the national holiday today) and our program changes depending on the day. We always break for snack time at around 11:30 when the school's accountant brings us food for the kids. It always consists of some kind of bread, fruit or egg, and either soda or milk (which is more like cream or yoghourt). Snack time is almost always dead silent and takes about 15 minutes, more if they are having eggs or milk. We always try to through something upbeat at them after snack time to dispel the awkward silence.
At 12 we leave to walk back to our house for lunch. If our timing is right, we pass the private schools just as the kindergarteners are getting out. This is still one of my highlights of the day- they always start running at us as soon as they see us and give us huge hugs. One boy named Christian always walks with us all the way to our gate holding one of our hands and waves goodbye to us as we leave. Francine always has a huge amount of food waiting for us, usually rice and beans, some kind of meat, peas, and potatoes or plantains. We get about an hour to eat and relax, talk about lessons and what we want to do or change for the afternoon, and head back to school. When we meet Bonheur and Joyce back at school to start our next group at 1:15, the kids are always waiting at their desks for us. The program is either the same or completely different than the morning (depending on whether or not we have the same age group) though snack occurs at 2:15 which slightly changes our schedule.
Several times a day during our lesson the janitor or the accountant will have to come and beat kids away from the classroom with sticks. They all crowd around the door and climb on the windows to watch our lessons which is fairly distracting for our students. Even highschoolers (who are actually around our age) walking back through the yard from private school crowd around. Despite the best efforts of the janitor and the accountant we almost always have a large unintended audience. This week especially has been bad because students have been in exams and when they finish they are free to run around for hours on end.
We generally end school at around 3:15 and walk back to the library to drop our supplies off. What we do in the afternoon has fluctuated a lot. We have spent a lot of the time in the past weeks at the film festival, shopping for supplies, going to the internet cafe, having meetings, etc. Things will change a little in the next couple weeks as we have hammered out our curriculum and the film festival is over. We will probably have more time to go into town and explore different parts of the city.
If we are home, we have dinner at 7 which is always very similar to lunch. Rwandan fare is filling and there are always huge amounts of food but has already gotten rather repetitive. As much as we don't want to admit it, Skye and I are looking forward to the American embassy party on the 4th to get some comfort food.
After dinner we read, journal, type on our netbook (to minimize internet time) or talk if we are home. Dark falls so early here that it is hard for us to feel safe going out. On the nights that we stay in we generally fall asleep fairly early. It is generally pretty uneventful unless there are more random visitors. The nights that we have been out at the festival, we come back home very late and navigate our way back from the gate, past the church and schools, over the volleyball court, and down the alley in the dark. Our gate is locked at night but as we approach and put our hand on it, it almost magically swings open courtesy of our yard boy. He flashes us a smile and disappears into the darkness. However we spend our night, the end of our day always comes when we crawl into bed and tuck the mosquito netting under the mattresses.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Pictures!
Here are 2 pictures that Skye took. Unfortunately takes forever to upload so I can't do this often, but here we are!
The first picture is from one of our classes the first week and the second is of us with our younger class the second week:
The first picture is from one of our classes the first week and the second is of us with our younger class the second week:
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Making a Difference
Working with the 12-14 year olds this week has been an incredibly powerful experience. If I had to leave Rwanda right now, I would leave feeling like I have accomplished something truly significant. I'm sorry if this post is extremely gushy but it has been such a unexpectedly rewarding week.
Especially considering the difficulty of adolescence, they were an exceptional group. They have none of the attitude that you would find in a group of American middle school students and are unbelievably receptive and open minded. Even though we are introducing topics that they don't discuss in class they are extremely thoughtful and insightful. The girls are beautiful and graceful in everything they do or say while the boys are more respectful and compassionate than I would have ever believed was possible.
We definitely have many older than 14, one I would even put somewhere around my age. Though there are years that are designated to start school, it is acceptable for some to matriculate late. Especially in the more tumultuous years that this age group should have been entering school, there seems to be fluctuation in age. We found out that student my age was a street kid, which would account for his age difference. We were nervous at first about having someone so old and he was so enthusiastic about the activities from the beginning that we thought he was mocking us, but it since has become clear that he is sincere.
I think we were very successful in the beginning by introducing ourselves as coming to learn about peace together instead of just teaching them. We stressed that we were there to explore things they hadn't talked about in school and gain insight as a group. This as well as refusing to let them call us 'Miss Teacher' seemed to make a big difference in the classroom dynamic and I feel as if we have broken down a pretty significant barrier.
Our first day focused entirely on trust and community building. We did trust falls, shared personal things about ourselves, and talked about building a community of trust and respect. Tuesday, our focus was identity and diversity. One of my favorite activities was the step-in step-out exercise when we asked people to step in to the circle if statements were true for them. We asked them to step into the circle if they liked oranges, had been in an airplane, ate three meals a day, had two parents, had witnessed violence, had been the victim of physical violence, etc. My favorite part about it was reflecting with them about it afterward. When I asked whether their opinions of Skye and I had changed, they were unanimous in thinking of us much differently. Instead of simply being privileged muzungu, we were human beings who had often had many similar experiences and struggles as them.
Another one of the most successful exercise was the colored dot game from AVP. The kids closed their eyes and I handed out 10 red dots, 8 green dots, 1 blue dot, and 1 that had a red and green dot. They were then told that they had to open their eyes and find where they belonged without speaking. You specifically don't say anything about finding your color group, but the children naturally separate that way, excluding the blue dot and either fighting over or (in this case) excluding the one with two dots. When we asked them why they had separated that way, why it was necessary to break down into groups by color to 'belong' many of them were horrified. We challenged them to think about their own prejudices and attitudes, bringing up our role as muzungu.
We spent the next two days talking about violence which went extremely well. To start, we sketched the 'roots' (causes) and 'leaves' (effects) of a violence 'tree'. We discussed conflict a lot and what kinds of conflicts they had witnessed. We asked them to think about violence they had experienced in their own lives, discuss it in groups, and pick an instance to show us in a play.
On Thursday they showed us their role plays about conflict which were actually very serious and interesting. They depicted everything from watching people being beaten at home to fights over drugs between gangs of kids on the streets. It was astonishing to see how involved they were in the role plays especially as compared to their younger peers. You could really tell that these experiences were from their lives or were too close to their lives for comfort. To conclude our days on violence we spent a long time talking about the 12 steps AVP gives for transforming power. In case you are interested, I am including the steps at the bottom of this post.
We weren't always serious and dealing with heavy issues. I think that the difficult discussions only served to make the laughter more beautiful. Whether we were doing short icebreaker acting games, doing to human knot, or (my favorite) 'I love you baby but I just can't smile', it was a very intimate kind of play. The trust is practically palpable as they open up to us and allow themselves to be silly.
The last day was spent discussing peace on peace on a more global level. We talked a lot about war and about conflict in the world. They truly believe that humanity has the potential to live peacefully which really surprised me. For the first time, we brought up the genocide for discussion, though very delicately. It is still very raw and is not a subject that is often broached. To bring it up, I discussed Rwanda as an example for the world in the healing process. It's sweet to see how much pride they have in all of Rwanda's accomplishments and hope for a peaceful future. As part of the idea of global peace we talked about our relationship with the environment. Surprisingly, it was the first time they had really talked about air pollution and the ozone layer. To conclude our week we asked them to write letters to themselves talking about their thoughts and what they want to remember from the program. Skye and I are planning on mailing these back to them from the states along with a group picture in six months or so. They seemed really excited by the idea and we practically had to kick them out of the classroom to get them to say goodbye and leave.
When I was planning the curriculum I was always thinking of what would happen if I failed. I got so caught up in making sure that I felt good enough about our project even in the face of failure that I almost never considered that I would succeed. I decided that between assembling the library, feeding the kids an extra meal a day (which a lot of them need) and showing them that the members of the 'international community' do care about them, we were making enough of an impact. It has therefore come as the most wonderful surprise to see how much this seems to be touching them. Several times this week I have had to stop talking and leading reflection because I have been moved to tears. At one point, Bonheur told us that he couldn't talk because he would cry which made me truly understand how much we had gotten through. Joyce was telling me about how much it was bringing back her memories of healing with AVP and that this week was like reliving it all over again. Joyce and Bonheur have been wonderful with the young kids but I think that for the first time they have really understood what we are trying to do. They have been tough critics thus far, so we have taken their enthusiasm very seriously.
I am so curious about these kids and wished they shared a little more. We get little glimpses of their lives and their pain but they still haven't painted the whole picture for us. I may know that one is beaten at home, that another has never loved herself, and that another was only recently rescued from the streets. But I can only guess as to what kind of baggage they are carrying. It makes me wish that we could spend another week with them but we realize that it would be impossible to continue the forward momentum to a place we want to go with the language barrier. If we all could understand each other, we would definitely extend our time with them but I think we would hit a wall at some point fairly soon. However, we have decided next week to do two groups of 12-14 and see if they are as open as this group. Though I will miss our hugs and games I am optimistic about next week and another fantastic group.
And for everyone who emailed me in my absence this week, sorry for the delay but I have no time to respond to emails right now. Next time!!
**************************************************************************
Guide to Transforming Power (from the Alternatives to Violence Project)
1) Seek to resolve conflicts by reaching common ground.
2) Reach for that something good in others.
3) Listen before making judgments.
4) Base your position on truth.
5) Be ready to revise your position, if it is wrong.
6) Expect to experience great inward power to act.
7) Risk being creative rather than violent.
8) Use surprise and humor.
9) Learn to trust your inner sense of when to act.
10) Be willing to suffer for what is important.
11) Be patient and persistent.
12) Build community based on honesty, respect, and caring.
Especially considering the difficulty of adolescence, they were an exceptional group. They have none of the attitude that you would find in a group of American middle school students and are unbelievably receptive and open minded. Even though we are introducing topics that they don't discuss in class they are extremely thoughtful and insightful. The girls are beautiful and graceful in everything they do or say while the boys are more respectful and compassionate than I would have ever believed was possible.
We definitely have many older than 14, one I would even put somewhere around my age. Though there are years that are designated to start school, it is acceptable for some to matriculate late. Especially in the more tumultuous years that this age group should have been entering school, there seems to be fluctuation in age. We found out that student my age was a street kid, which would account for his age difference. We were nervous at first about having someone so old and he was so enthusiastic about the activities from the beginning that we thought he was mocking us, but it since has become clear that he is sincere.
I think we were very successful in the beginning by introducing ourselves as coming to learn about peace together instead of just teaching them. We stressed that we were there to explore things they hadn't talked about in school and gain insight as a group. This as well as refusing to let them call us 'Miss Teacher' seemed to make a big difference in the classroom dynamic and I feel as if we have broken down a pretty significant barrier.
Our first day focused entirely on trust and community building. We did trust falls, shared personal things about ourselves, and talked about building a community of trust and respect. Tuesday, our focus was identity and diversity. One of my favorite activities was the step-in step-out exercise when we asked people to step in to the circle if statements were true for them. We asked them to step into the circle if they liked oranges, had been in an airplane, ate three meals a day, had two parents, had witnessed violence, had been the victim of physical violence, etc. My favorite part about it was reflecting with them about it afterward. When I asked whether their opinions of Skye and I had changed, they were unanimous in thinking of us much differently. Instead of simply being privileged muzungu, we were human beings who had often had many similar experiences and struggles as them.
Another one of the most successful exercise was the colored dot game from AVP. The kids closed their eyes and I handed out 10 red dots, 8 green dots, 1 blue dot, and 1 that had a red and green dot. They were then told that they had to open their eyes and find where they belonged without speaking. You specifically don't say anything about finding your color group, but the children naturally separate that way, excluding the blue dot and either fighting over or (in this case) excluding the one with two dots. When we asked them why they had separated that way, why it was necessary to break down into groups by color to 'belong' many of them were horrified. We challenged them to think about their own prejudices and attitudes, bringing up our role as muzungu.
We spent the next two days talking about violence which went extremely well. To start, we sketched the 'roots' (causes) and 'leaves' (effects) of a violence 'tree'. We discussed conflict a lot and what kinds of conflicts they had witnessed. We asked them to think about violence they had experienced in their own lives, discuss it in groups, and pick an instance to show us in a play.
On Thursday they showed us their role plays about conflict which were actually very serious and interesting. They depicted everything from watching people being beaten at home to fights over drugs between gangs of kids on the streets. It was astonishing to see how involved they were in the role plays especially as compared to their younger peers. You could really tell that these experiences were from their lives or were too close to their lives for comfort. To conclude our days on violence we spent a long time talking about the 12 steps AVP gives for transforming power. In case you are interested, I am including the steps at the bottom of this post.
We weren't always serious and dealing with heavy issues. I think that the difficult discussions only served to make the laughter more beautiful. Whether we were doing short icebreaker acting games, doing to human knot, or (my favorite) 'I love you baby but I just can't smile', it was a very intimate kind of play. The trust is practically palpable as they open up to us and allow themselves to be silly.
The last day was spent discussing peace on peace on a more global level. We talked a lot about war and about conflict in the world. They truly believe that humanity has the potential to live peacefully which really surprised me. For the first time, we brought up the genocide for discussion, though very delicately. It is still very raw and is not a subject that is often broached. To bring it up, I discussed Rwanda as an example for the world in the healing process. It's sweet to see how much pride they have in all of Rwanda's accomplishments and hope for a peaceful future. As part of the idea of global peace we talked about our relationship with the environment. Surprisingly, it was the first time they had really talked about air pollution and the ozone layer. To conclude our week we asked them to write letters to themselves talking about their thoughts and what they want to remember from the program. Skye and I are planning on mailing these back to them from the states along with a group picture in six months or so. They seemed really excited by the idea and we practically had to kick them out of the classroom to get them to say goodbye and leave.
When I was planning the curriculum I was always thinking of what would happen if I failed. I got so caught up in making sure that I felt good enough about our project even in the face of failure that I almost never considered that I would succeed. I decided that between assembling the library, feeding the kids an extra meal a day (which a lot of them need) and showing them that the members of the 'international community' do care about them, we were making enough of an impact. It has therefore come as the most wonderful surprise to see how much this seems to be touching them. Several times this week I have had to stop talking and leading reflection because I have been moved to tears. At one point, Bonheur told us that he couldn't talk because he would cry which made me truly understand how much we had gotten through. Joyce was telling me about how much it was bringing back her memories of healing with AVP and that this week was like reliving it all over again. Joyce and Bonheur have been wonderful with the young kids but I think that for the first time they have really understood what we are trying to do. They have been tough critics thus far, so we have taken their enthusiasm very seriously.
I am so curious about these kids and wished they shared a little more. We get little glimpses of their lives and their pain but they still haven't painted the whole picture for us. I may know that one is beaten at home, that another has never loved herself, and that another was only recently rescued from the streets. But I can only guess as to what kind of baggage they are carrying. It makes me wish that we could spend another week with them but we realize that it would be impossible to continue the forward momentum to a place we want to go with the language barrier. If we all could understand each other, we would definitely extend our time with them but I think we would hit a wall at some point fairly soon. However, we have decided next week to do two groups of 12-14 and see if they are as open as this group. Though I will miss our hugs and games I am optimistic about next week and another fantastic group.
And for everyone who emailed me in my absence this week, sorry for the delay but I have no time to respond to emails right now. Next time!!
**************************************************************************
Guide to Transforming Power (from the Alternatives to Violence Project)
1) Seek to resolve conflicts by reaching common ground.
2) Reach for that something good in others.
3) Listen before making judgments.
4) Base your position on truth.
5) Be ready to revise your position, if it is wrong.
6) Expect to experience great inward power to act.
7) Risk being creative rather than violent.
8) Use surprise and humor.
9) Learn to trust your inner sense of when to act.
10) Be willing to suffer for what is important.
11) Be patient and persistent.
12) Build community based on honesty, respect, and caring.
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