Inspiration isn't striking

I'm feeling enormous pressure to bust out something pithy. Indeed, there are developments abound (ha) here in Kigali, but many are a little tricky right now to discuss. And so I'm searching for something worthwhile to say that doesn't get me into a whole lot of trouble, and inspiration is failing me.

I hold the deep suspicion that the gang I kick it with doesn't want to hear about my meanders to Lake Muwahi, and though while the bit about our truck getting stuck in mud for two hours while 16 local men pushed it around as though it was on an ice rink while dogs vomitted in the back is mildly amusing, surely it's not going to buy me a blog.

I thought about talking about the tale of my first endeavour to cook beef brochette on the barby and how after cooking all day the Rwandan guests professed a love of goat. I'm pretty sure there was a message there. But the story ends a little lamely, as in that's pretty much the whole story.

Ooh, and there is the bit about my friend's security guard. His name is Theo. Theo has made it a relatively regular habit to come to work beyond blazed drunk. As in he passes out regularly and no amount of shouting or shining lights directly into his eyes seems to help. The hilarious bit is that my friend is actually concerned about security, as demonstrated by the installation of panic buttons throughout his house. And yet, despite a frequent attempts to either get Theo to try on sobriety whilst at work to firing Theo, my friend instead decided to buy theo a cap and jacket from the states that read "Security". He likes Theo.
Theo was proudly sporting said jacket and cap the other night at a party we threw, where he demonstrated his machete skills with a piece of wood and then proceeded to pass out. We grabbed a light and shouted "Qu'est ce-que vous faites!" very loudly, and finally after fifteen minutes he popped open an eye, grinned, and promptly passed out again.

Then I considered regailing you with the latest disarmament tales from one of my new favorite podmates, but we're back to the politically sensitive bit again.

I've just begun been reading "What is the What", a story of a man who, as a boy, was seperated from his family in Sudan's brutal civil war; who trekked across Africa's punishing wilderness with thousands of other children; who survived aerial bombardment and attacks by militials and wild animals; who ate whatever he could find or nothing at all; who considered ending his life to end the suffering; and who eventually made it to America, where a new and equally challenging tale began. (Direct quote from back of book). Frankly, in this shadow it's tough to fathom that I have a fighting chance of busting out anything worthwhile to say.

And so, I will say this. I have been learning an enormous amount during my time here. I'm very grateful that I get to have these wild adventures around the world. The winds seem to be changing at the moment. And we got a dog. His name is Sassou. And he has marched off with my Security tags and I'm either going to have to beat him or bring him onto my cause in solidarity and in an attempt to find them. Because I changed offices to the Tower, and I keep getting locked into the Tower without it. Its a bummer. That's the update.

Don't let the flame burn out

Fifteen years ago this week, former Rwandan President Habyarimana's plane was shot down by Hutu extremists as he flew into Kigali. Two hours later, Hutu extremists systematically began massacring Hutu moderates, and the next day began a genocidal campaign against the Tutsi population in Rwanda.

For those of us who remain relatively informed about international politics, you know how this story plays out. In the course of six weeks, 800,000 people were slaughtered in such a way that one cannot begin to fathom where humanity played into anything.

To remember the genocide, Rwanda commenced its week of mourning this Tuesday. In the morning, we went to the commemoration at Nyanza, the site where a UNAMIR ( the UN Peackeeping Force in Rwanada ) contingent was stationed, and where consequently some Tutsi had taken refuge in the days leading to the genocide, hoping to be protected. Instead, on April 11, three days into the genocide, with the refugees surrounded by Interhamewe Militia and the EX-FAR, UNAMIR withdrew and thousands were massacred along the road leading the way to Nyanza. The morning memorial was more a diplomatic event, attended by Cheri Blair (Tony Blair's wife) among other notables, with speeches from various ministers, songs sung by different groups from Rwanda and the broader East African community, and finally, a word from the President of Rwanda. It is clear that though moving forward is the proclaimed ultimate objective, anger and resentment remain crippling. I suppose as one would expect.

In the evening, we attended the memorial event at the Stadium,a ten minute walk from my house. The event started two hours late, but it was one of those moments where you realize you are involved with a moment in history. Technicians created an enourmous flame and the word "hope" spelled out in Kinyarwanda, French and English out of candles, which were lit by the President, other diplomatic representatives, and survivors of the genocide.

It is impossible to fully capture the feeling in the stadium that night. When a young girl who had been born in that stadium during the genocide and who's family had been slaughtered began to tell her tale, human wailing echoed throughout the stadium as red cross workers pulled people suffering flashbacks and repeated trauma out of the crowds. Messages from leaders including Desmund Tutu and Ban Ki Moon came in as candles lit up the arena. One young girl who had been sitting by herself in the row below me slowly made her way up to my side and burst into tears. She had lit a candle, and as I put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her, she crawled into my lap, shoved the candle into my hand, and began to sob. Red Cross workers came to speak with her to see if she needed to be removed, but she said she wanted to stay with me, so she stayed. And all I could focus on was keeping that candle lit in the wind-a small but symbolic gesture that allowed me to keep my calm and focus on being present for the survivors.

The next day, all UN workers in Rwanda met at our compound, the compound where Romeo Dallaire ran his crippled operations, to commemorate our fallen commerades.

There is too much to share in one post. The politically sensative nature of the week makes some of my observations difficult to post. I'm emotionally exhausted and having a coffee with my roomate, trying to focus on the weeks ahead.

Serious People. Doing Serious Work. In Goma.

That's right. You guessed it. Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting serious people. Doing serious work. In Goma. You may have been tipped off by the title of this blog. As I was strolling home from my evening french class, I had the honour of hearing "Muzungo!" (white man) screamed at me in a suspiciously white-man voice. Friend or foe? Turned out to be the serious people. And by this, I mean some pompous young Americans. (Don't worry, I get the distinction, not all Americans are pompous. These ones just happened to be. And some Canadians are pompous. I just don't know any. Ahem). So back to the pompous Americans. The interaction goes a little something like this:
Pompous Americans (PAs): Yo Muzungo, are you our new Australian neighbour?
Me: No.
PAs: What are you doing here?
Me: Working for the UN. (Ok, I admit, I took the bait...)What are you doing here?
PA1: Live here, dad is missionary.
PA2: Volunteering for World Vision
PA3 (and this is where it gets particularly interesting, hold your breath): In transit.
Side note: In my wee mind, this answer piques my interests, as Kigali is an interesting place to find yourself "in transit". And so, I dared to ask the question: In transit from where?
PA3: From Kenya. On way to Goma.
Me: Are you working for the UN?
PA3: No.
Me: What organization are you going with?
PA3: None.
Me: Oh. So you're just going to kick it in Goma for a bit?
Another side note: these days, Goma is not exactly the vacation destination of choice. Something about a brutal conflict. And grenades. And rape.
PA3: No, my friends and I are going to bust out a relief mission.
Me: Splendid. Have you thought this through?
PA3: Every day (in a very grave and serious tone, as one would expect from a serious person).
Me: Ok. Exit.

This, my friends, is the variety of help that is better left at the door. I can imagine nothing more useful than to be in a conflict zone and have a team of incompetent yet arrogant kids swoop through the borders to save the poor Africans that can't save themselves. It is precisely this sort of interaction that makes me want to come home and get over my African aspirations, for fear that I too sucumb to the White Man's Burden. No mirrors or need for further comment, thanks. And though I commend Ms. Jolie for bringing important issues into mainstream media (read: People magazine), I also suspect she's to thank for the influx of rich youth with not a whole lot more to do then try to be captured in an air-blown shot saving the minions. Again. No mirrors please. I don't like feeling uncomfortable with my own hypocricy. It makes me feel...uncomfortable.

As an afterthought, and to be fair, it's the nature of development work. International Institutions want development tourists, bushy-tailed youngsters to get out there, leave their evian at the door, and demonstrate that they can hack it in a mud hut without hot showers and starbucks for a couple of weeks. Only then can you get the next internship or volunteer experience, which will then, theoretically, lead to further work, if you can still hack it. The trouble is that some believe that development=something=better-than-nothing. Um. I'm not convinced. Somebody draft me a memo for further examination. But marching in with a lot of money, dropping millions on a colonial palace in the plains/rainforests/hills/desert sands of enter-any-African-country-here amongst the poor-people-but-hey-we-can't-help-everyone-and-also-please-don't-mind-us-but-your-land-is-part-of-our-plan-so-shift-your-hut-a-touch-if-you-would-be-so-kind.
Good intentions count, don't they?
Clearly, I'm having a disillusioned day. I can sense my penchant for pithy monologue is about to crank up a notch. There may be more to come...

He dared to ask the question: "Is there a balance between Kreotene and Atkins?"

The answer: apparently not. In the life of any expat, a golden light shines forth when someone from the West comes to bring you that which you long for. In my roomate Oren's case, he was longing for some power bars. He's a big, muscle-sporting guy. He says he's been hungry ever since he got to Rwanda-rice and beans apparently don't cut it. To emphasize this fact, he consumed a 1.5 ltr. tub of cookies and cream ice cream with oatmeal cookies crushed into it with Kyle an Benna. And so, when he heard that someone was coming to Rwanda from Dubai, he asked them to pick up some power bars. He needs protein. Instead, he got three crazy bars packed with kreotene, along with a box of Atkins bars and a box of slim fast bars. All for the low low price of $50 US. When my roomates and I were lounging on the couches in the living room on saturday afternoon as he lamented his tale, we were all gutting ourselves laughing. Good intentions notwithstanding, we were trying to figure out the leap from power bars to slim fast bars, and it was hilarious.

I've had another great weekend. Friday, my friend Sarah came back from Uganda, and she has made friends with Kigali's contemporary artist, who had an artshow at one of the local bars. So Andrew, Sarah and I headed for dinner to this Chinese restaurant called Flamingos, which actually offered some pretty amazing grub, and then we headed out to the artshow, which was great. Saturday morning, Sarah and I trudged our laptops to the airport so we could use the free wireless and drink a coffee. The coffee was ridiculously overpriced, but I got a bunch of work done.

Then we came home, scoffed some avacado and tomat, and headed to the market. By the time we got back, Benna, Oren, Kyle and Assaf had arrived, so we settled in for some lounge time (where the Atkins-Kreotene exchange took place), and then we all darted off to for dinner at Sole Luna, this great Italian restaurant with gorgeous terraces covered in virginia creeper overlooking Kigali (the great thing about Kigali is that its all on hills, so restaurants can get ideal locations nestled into the hills overlooking all the other hills. Its genius). We had some amazing food and a lovely night, went out to a lounge for a few drinks, and were back to the house by midnight, where we had yet another magic moment, and I realized, after two months in Kigali, I've found my Rwandan family. I felt super warm about this until Benna and Assaf woke me up at 4am.

The next morning, despite torturing Assaf that I was going to wake him up at 6 as retribution, I slept until 9-huzzah, I haven't slept in once since I got here-and worked until the rest of the crew rolled out of bed. We again made our way to the market, which was awesome-I found some great fabric, a green sweatshirt jacket I bought but am not entirely sure about (byer's remorse? Hope not), and a basket for my trinkets on my bedside table. Kyle found a sweet Kokanee Sasquatch shirt-a nod to the BC roots, along with some even sweeter orange running shorts, and all in all, we had another great day. Everyone took off at 3 and I worked the rest of the day.

Was in the field yesterday, this time visiting a mushroom and passion fruit cooperative in pretty much the middle of no where Rwanda. It was amazing. Jovin and I drove three hours to the field office, then another hour and a half down crazy dirt roads, and ended up in paradise. It was staggeringly beautiful. And Jovin's offroad moves beat the boys on bombi summit hands down. Am now back in the office, working away as always, and can't believe I've been here as long as I have. I was having a dream the other night that I was back in Canada, and when I woke up, I didn't know where I was. The first thing that flashed through my mind was-whoops, I'm not ready to be back in Canada . Thankfully, I don't have to be yet. So its Wendesday afternoon, I'm eating a passion fruit, a kind gift from one of my cooperatives, and I'm about to head off to french tutorial, because night school just wasn't enough for me, and I thought, hey, with no spare time, lets figure out a way to increase stress. Voila.

Running on Low

I think, when you are busy, you're able to get more done. When I wasn't working as much, anything seemed like a task, and it was good to spread it out a bit. Now, things are so crazy that I'm amazed at how much I can get done.

Yesterday, Jovin and I set off in the wee hours of the morning for Nyagatare District-my field office, which is about a 2.5-3hr drive. It is amazing how comfortable we have become with eachother-we have our routine now, and settle in to comfortable silence or Jovin telling me stories from the genocide or history of the region we travel through. We have our water spots, the same homeless man who finds me whenever I drive through town- it's good. So up we went, where we had a very quick meeting for an hour and a half, managed to get a lot of stuff done, then piled back into the car and whipped back to Kigali. We got back around 2pm, I got some emails done, and then I went to the opening of the "Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace', a new peafce consolidation centre that is being sponsored in conjunction with the Japanese government. That was great, whipped back to the office, edited some terms of reference, and then was off to french class for the evening. Sometime in there I ended up at an Iranian trade fair (don't ask me how), and that was hilarious-a combo of the Richmond night market and...well, a market in Iran? It reminded me a lot of the trade shows I used to go with Saidou to in Cameroon. Kind of like home. With a lot of dodgy plastic flowers.

Indeed, things are moving, but I don't know how much longer I can keep this pace up. I've been asked to draft a chapter in a book, so I do that on weekends, and in my spare time (of which I have none), I am applying for a fellowship back in Canada, a process which takes forever. With french three nights a week on top of all that, along with two ridiculously busy projects with the UN, I'm starting to get burnt out. I was considering the other night what was going to have to go, and at first I was thinking the french, but after my tutoring session today I can see I'm really getting it, so I don't want to bail now. A tricky predicament indeed. Im supposed to be there again in an hour-I'm seriously considering bailing for the night. I got another 5am text-seriously, love you guys, stop sending me stuff in the middle of the night it wakes me up and I can't sleep and one of these days I'm going to lose it on one of you. Consider yourselves forewarned!

Also got some bad news this morning-the grandpa of a family to whom I am very close with is not doing well. Grandpa and I have a particularly unique connection, and before I left he promised me he'd live to 101, so he has a few years to go. Let me tell you how unimpressed I'm going to be if he bails on our deal. He was in the hospital just before I left with a minor problem and I marched in to give him a what for and he got out. Here's hoping the same thing happens this time. But it's not sounding good. So I'm feeling pretty down about that, and after shedding a tear or two, had to get it together for a meeting at the National Police HQ here in Kigali. It's been another ridiculously busy day. If anyone a) wants to be my secretary or b) has an idea of how to increase the hours in a day or the days in a week, do tell.
Back to the slog...

Weekend Bliss

After my harrowing moto ride on Saturday morning, I did make it in to the office and I was very successful in getting work done. At four pm I closed down my computer and marched home, and much to my delight, found several people who sometimes stay at the house on weekends. Sonia, my lovely Burundian friend was there getting her hair braided in typical African fashion-a trend that unfortunately takes hours and hours but is so gorgeous it is worth it in the end. I myself am considering it again-have done it several times when I lived in West Africa.

Once the hair extravaganza was complete, Sonia and I were joined by Assef, an Israeli who also works at the village, and we went off to find a restaurant. My intial intent to take them to Cactus, a great restaraunt that boasts garden seating and a gorgeous view of Kigali was short lived as the taxi driver didn't know where it was and was not the least bit interested in trying to figure it out. We ended up on the patio at Republica munching on brochette and having a few drinks. From there, we set off for KBC, one of the local nightclubs, for a night of dancing. This was quite the experience- reminded me a great deal of a combination of prom night in the 80's and my good friend Peter's parent's basement. An interesting combo indeed. At 2:30am I packed it in and headed to bed, and much to my dismay, due to pressing projects, was up again at 7am to work. The roomates were in and out of the house until noon, when all but Assef left back for the village.

Thankfully, Assef suggested I stop working and go with him to Kimironko market and explore. A much needed break . So off we set, on a beautiful afternoon in Rwanda, to check out some local art . Assef was particularly good at negotiations, and I managed to get some cool masks and drums for some lucky people back home. Then we considered our options for dinner-go out again or cook. I mentioned I'm not the greatest chef-a fact my driver, Jovin, learned, and laughed uproariously at, informing me that I'm going to be a lousy wife. Nice. Assef, however, is an excellent cook, so we wandered the market, found gorgeous fresh ingredients, bought some more beer, and headed home to cook. Assef proceeded to make amazing spagetti and sauce, we negotiated a proposed trip to head to Uganda to go rafting down the Nile in May, listened to some great music, and feasted on the porch while watching the sun set over Kigali. The kind of day that makes life worth living.

Unfortunately, I'm so wound up right now due to all the work I have on my plate that I couldn't sleep last night, despite the fact that I was exhausted from only four hours of sleep the night before. Also, as it is becoming increasingly clear that the rainy season is coming early this year, the mosquitos are acknowledging this fact as well, and seem to be bent on feasting on and torturing me every night. I don't know how, but they manage to make their way into my mosquito net, and don't seem to be the least bit swayed by my added effort of bug repellant. I am on anti-malarials, thankfully, but at this rate I won't be the least bit surprised if I get Malaria. Am going to be very conscious of fevers while this keeps up.

And finally, for my dear friends and family who want to express their love and adoration by phoning and texting, Sunday night my time is not the time to do it. I'm always tired, I always have to get up early for a crazy day at the office, and it always makes me feel borderline violent when you do. I would turn off my phone entirely but I rely on it for the alarm clock. Come on. I love you. Stop the madness.

Is Monday at lunch and I'm back to work. Have to go up to the field office tomorrow and at this rate with work and school, I'm praying I can keep going. I leave you with a couple of pictures of Sonia and Assef at the restaurant, Assef cooking for me, and the concoction he came up with.

Thanks, I'll Walk

It's Umuganda, "community work" day in Rwanda. On the last Saturday of every month, every Rwandan citizen is obligated to help clean the town, fix the roads, weed the public spaces, etc. The obligatory work period generally runs until noon, and then one is able to commence with their Saturday routine. Last month I attempted participation and got laughed at. Instead I went for a run- it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience as no one is on the roads at this time and I don't have to breathe in lungfuls of carbon monoxide or get chased (did I mention I caused an accident last week when some dude thought watching me run was more important than watching the road and ended up in the ditch? Given that he wasn't hurt, nor did he take anyone out with him, I was secretly happy. What a gomer). The Rwandans may know a thing or two about ditching plastic bags, but Vancouver should exchange their air-care techniques. Anyways.

In the time since I got to Rwanda, I've managed to take on so many projects that my eyeballs are swimming in them. I also don't have access to internet at home. Which means I have to trudge with my trusty laptop to some venue providing internet-sometimes the local coffee shop, but today I decided to come into my office for uninterrupted work time. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is on his way over here from Goma (Congo) tomorrow, so the office is buzzing with speech writers and logistics coordinators. In I come. So, the other problem is that I live a fair distance from my office. On weekdays this is no problem because Jovin comes to get me. On the weekends, a touch trickier, and on Umuganda, trickier still. One of my weekend roomates had to go to town anyways, so we figured we'd grab a cab. While I was under the impression that this could be tricky,I didn't realize it was illegal. So off we trudge, me with my laptop strewn over my shoulder, to get a cab. After trekking a great distance (and we're in Rwanda, we're talking hills. Steep hills. Heavy laptop.), some motos come along. I've been warned against motos. I've been told their at best they're not exactly reliable, at worst, dangerous. But I also know that everyone uses them. I used them frequently in Cameroon and Chad, but here I've been more cautious. Unfortunately, taxis here cost a fortune and couldn't be found, the local transport wasn't running this morning, and the moto looked like my big opportunity. So I tell him to go slow, hop on the back, and say aurevoir (as I'm in french now) to my roomate who hopped on another moto. And off we went.

Um, I'm fairly certain he wasn't interested in my pleas for restraint. Instead we tare off at a staggering speed, and I start thinking, aieee, I made a mistake. So I'm tapping on his shoulder, begging for him to slow down, to which he heeds my requests for all of three seconds before raring off again. I start to panick when I see a police officer up at the round about-genius, I think, the police will surely stop us (I was thinking more due to speed than to the fact that it was illegal to be on the roads). So indeed, an attempt is made, and instead of slowing down, the moto dude goes faster and then swerves as the cop lunges at us. Not exactly a safety conscious move on the police's part, but the driver is crazy. We speed off again, and I'm screaming at him to slow down. Again ignored. Then we get to a point and see another police checkpoint, so the driver spins a uey over the meridian (I didn't know motos with two people on them could get over meridians), and then boots it off-roading style up the side of the mountain. I'm hoping the police don't take this opportunity to bust out their trusty machine guns, as this is a scenario I assume they would use them for. And I don't have time to bust out my white flag.

Despite the fact that Rwanda is supposed to be in a dry spell, we aren't, and the rains had been pouring all night, so part of the dodgy-off road got swept away. But by that time, I'm so far from anywhere I know, and ps largely in the middle of no where, that my choices became increasingly limited. The jist is, I finally managed to leap off the moto when I thought it was least likely to kill me, and walked the rest of the way. The moto guy tore off because the police started chasing us. "Well", I think, "I suspect I've learned my lesson, and also, I didn't have to pay him". Always looking for a silver lining. Guess who comes racing after me on foot to get his money about five minutes after? My trusty driver. I gave him a little but probably should have kicked him in the junk. I'm going to claim that I was still in shock.

On the work front, I've been back and forth to Nyagatare(my field office), quite regularly, and will post some pics of the view on the way there for your viewing pleasure. It is really quite breathtaking how beautiful the landscape is-these are more from Rwamagana, which is forty five minutes from where I live, but as you keep driving the terrain changes substantially. It's gorgeous. What can I say. On the life front, Sarah, one of my closest friends (and photographer of several of the pictures I have posted), popped in last night on her way up to Uganda. I had just enough time for a quick visit between a run and having to trudge back to night school, and it corresponded with a ginormous thunderstorm, so we hung out, laughing our heads off at the banality of some of the thoughts that go running through your mind when you spend a lot of hours on your own. Let's just say that the right-speech I was considering in a previous post came there to die. Oh and also, a word of complaint: on my way back from French class, I have to pass a really creepy white mannequin. I wish someone would take care of that for me. May have to call in the troops to take care of it...I've already been on several reconnaissance missions. Stay tuned.

I have to get back to work. I know my posting efforts have been lame-I will try to improve on them, but really, I'm here to work, not entertain. I'll try harder...

A fantastic weekend and some more reflections...

I've had a great past few days. Last week, I got to go and explore this ingenious project where this grass roots group collects the household waste of 18,000 families each week. The biodegradable waste is then sorted out and dried, then ground through a machine, and after several more ingenious steps, the waste is transformed into briquettes that are environmentally sustainable and a third of the cost of firewood. We're looking at the viability of using these briquettes in refugee camps, which would substantially decrease the environmental impact of refugees forraging the land and trees for firewood.

Though Friday night didn't hold much excitement, as I'm getting a little burnt out from working nine hour days and then being in French class for another two hours three days a week, Saturday was amazing. It was a gorgeous weekend in Kigali, so my weekend roomates and I headed to one of the local hotels that boasts a gorgeous swimming pool. Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda, showed up to play some tennis, and I'm sure he was no doubt extremely impressed with my butterfly skills. We went out for Valentines day dinner, which was great. Sunday was super productive, as I spent three hours conjugating verbs for french class, writing a speech for an auspicious occassion that is rapidly falling upon us, and working to upgrade my cv. Then I went for a run, hopped in the shower, and headed to a potluck with a bunch of expat friends. There was something really glorious about eating an amazing veggie stew, salad from the garden, bread fresh from the oven with Guac on the side, and pineapples and papaya from the back yard watching the sun set over Kigali. The company was great, exchanging tales from travels in Congo, Uganda, Chad, Cameroon, Tunisia, Sudan, Somalia..etc. and not for the first time since I've been here did I reflect on how lucky I am to have had the opportunity to live in some amazing places world-wide.

Part of my weekend was also spent reading the famous "We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Shall be Killed with our Families" . It's one of many books highlighting events of the genocide, and it's very well written. There are times that I'm wandering the streets of Kigali and the enormity of the place and history really hits me. This was particulary poignant as I was wandering by the Hotel Rwanda (Milles de Collines) one evening at dusk, and I got a flash of how truly horrific it must have been to have swarmes of Interhammwe storming down the streets looking for people to massacre. I could almost see militias going over the walls trying to gain access to their next victims. I had flashes of the road blocks and the bodies piling up in the streets-visions probably assisted by the very tasteful but graphic genocide memorial centre.

The centre was quite the experience. There are several different exhibits. There were the displays of skulls that you have all seen. But perhaps the most difficult for me was the exhibit with clothes of victims hanging on display. One of the articles was a superman sheet soiled with blood and dirt. It was a sheet similar to ones my nephews (ok not really my nephews but for all intents and purposes they are) have had, and it was very very difficult for me to see. There were exhibitions of kids with little summaries of their favorite foods and their first words and their dreams. There was an exhibition of photos upon photos that survivors had brought of their friends and families who were victims. You could sit on a bench and stare into thousands of faces that had vanished that month in '94, and these pictures were only the ones that were brought in by people left to remember their friends and families. Many people's memories will be lost forever-no real evidence that they ever existed-because their loved ones were slaughtered too.

I have also been thinking a lot about what it means to be party to a genocide. When I was in University during my undergrad, I double majored in International Relations and Forensic Psychology. Consequently, I had the opportunity to write a paper with a very well known Psychologist at UBC that was focused on the psychology of genocide. So often, we hear of the post traumatic stress disorder. Dr. Dutton and I were focused on what we referred to as "pre-traumatic stress disorder", or the psychological process one must go through when you are in the midsts of a genocide and your options are kill or be killed. A topic that is meant more for a Masters thesis or PhD. It must truly be excrutiating. A lot of "We Wish To Inform You" focused on the duality of Hutu who would save some Tutsi (particularly if they were related), but spend their days massacring others. The argument goes that if one had the capacity to understand that some should be saved, they had the necessary capacity to understand right from wrong and thus were doubly responsible. A complex topic that Dad, the NCRMD specialist, understands far better than I.

But when I think about it, what would my own family have done to save ourselves? I was twelve the year the genocide rampaged through Rwanda. My cousin has a pen-pal that she'd gotten through her middle school they were partnered with a school here in Kigali. They had been writing letters back and forth as a mechanism of culture sharing, etc, and one day the class back in Canada got word of the massacre. My cousin's pen pal survived and I have been in contact with him-hope to meet him very soon. But it is stories like these that bring the genocide close to home and emphasize how truly impossible it is to sort through all the ethical and moral nuances to come up with some sort of final conclusion.

One interview from a priest who saved a few people but arranged the massacres of many revealed what I have often considered: it is difficult to judge when we weren't there, and the international community made no meaningful attempt to stop the genocide or provide any alternatives, so we don't get an opinion. The Priest was adamant that if he had not killed, the extremists would have killed him and those he was trying to protect. Evidence suggests he was right. Does this mean he should be absolved? I don't know. I understand the value and importance of the peace and reconcilliation process. But in some ways, those who were party to the genocide only because the other option was death now have to live in fear that they will be locked up, and 15 years later they still are being locked up.

Anyways. Enough. Am off to the field again tomorrow, and have another busy week in front of me. I can see that my time in Rwanda is going to speed by. Am off to french...

The Importance of Language

Language, I have come to discover, is very powerful. It is the mechanism by which we communicate, it is the means by which we convey emotion; it is a weapon with which we can hurt each other, and it can be nuanced for action or inaction. Ah ha, she’s finished her first French class. Indeed, the interesting thing when I arrived in Rwanda was that with my pathetic French capabilities, what immediately became clear is not what I know, but rather what I don’t know. A glaringly obvious weakness despite my strengths. My recent (re)engagement with language reminded me of a paper I had read and critiqued during my Masters degree. This is going to get a little technical, but bear with me, I won’t drone on for hours.

The article essentially attempted to bridge the disjuncture between international and domestic law relating to war and armed conflict that emerges when the two (domestic vs. international) jurisdictions are not clearly defined. By nature of the UN Charter, UN member states are to “refrain in their international relations from their threat or use of force regarding the territorial integrity or political independence of any state’. In lay terms, they’re not supposed to arbitrarily declare war on one another. Something about a UN objective to maintain peace and security. I don’t know.

To mitigate the distinction between war and peace, a third, rather ambiguous category of ‘armed conflict’ emerged rendering the concepts of war and peace no longer mutually exclusive. The effect of this new category, essentially nothing more than a twist of language, is that it removes the necessity for Parliaments (we’re talking democratic states here) to formally declare war and allows instead for the implicit and immediate engagement in armed conflict; it thus blurs the lines between traditional warfare and removes the democratic process of making a conscious and clear decision to engage in war. The assumption of the article I critiqued was that the emergence of the new category of “armed conflict” was inherently negative. With further consideration, I don’t necessarily agree-with particular reference to the United Nations, if the state of armed conflict had not emerged, an already inherently cumbersome political process within the Security Council would likely become intractable if each member state were to need authorization from their respective governing bodies to respond and clearly classify crisis situations. Thus the category of armed conflict serves a very significant purpose.

The argument, however, should be made (and wasn’t) that with the changing dynamics of warfare and armed conflict, the category of armed conflict has even more extreme consequences for intrastate war (war within one country) and complex humanitarian crisis. The real concern is that so often semiotics governs responses by the international community. Failure to use “war”, but instead “armed conflict” may be consequentially equivalent to the failure to use “genocide” but rather “conflict”. The implications for the country I’m currently hanging out in are obvious. (If I've lost you on IR dork banter, the international community tends to be very unwilling to respond to much unless you utter the word 'genocide', in which case theoretically there is an international obligation to do something to stop it. See Rwanda, Sudan).

I was confronted with another language quagmire during my Masters program when an individual whom I hold in the utmost regard presented her PhD thesis, speaking to UN Resolution 1325 which addressed women and children in armed conflict. Essentially, it has become evident in the UN system that women and children were uniquely affected by conflict (ie. women are often targets of systemic rape; children are recruited, drugged, and made to become child soldiers), but this had yet to become formally addressed within the UN system. Resolution 1325 was created essentially to address this gap. The feminist argument, however, is that the language used in Resolution 1325 essentially removes agency from women by linking them to child; the language utilized by some particularly disgruntled feminist theorists have gone so far as to refer to ‘woman-and-child’ as one word. My question, then, was what specifically this particular scholar would recommend as a starting ground for addressing the gap that would avoid creating this tension. Her answer was that that wasn’t what she did. I remain unsatisfied by that answer. Another close friend and I have had precisely this conversation since over the utility of academically exploring a topic simply because you can. I’m of the school of thought that academics should lead somewhere. He is not. A discussion for another time, perhaps. My point remains: though I can understand this particular scholar’s critique of Resolution 1325, you still need language as a starting point to begin the discussion on this and other such issues.

The logical conclusion, then, is that language matters. It matters in academia, it matters in politics, and I suppose that means it matters in life. My sweet mummy often talks about the importance of “right speech”-explained in negative terms, it means avoiding four types of harmful speech: lies, divisive speech; harsh speech; and idle chatter. In positive terms, it means speaking in ways that are trustworthy, harmonious, comforting, and worth taking to heart. I think she may be on to something. And she's generally lecturing me after I've let something shocking spew from my mouth. I also think that sadly, I have a long way to go if right speech is my ultimate objective. Is good to have goals?…

Biting the Bullet

I did it. After whimpering and feeling sorry for myself, certainly since I arrived in Rwanda but probably since I realized that english isn't going to cut it in the world beyond the Kootenays, I was hanging out with Bonny during coffee break, and she was saying she was excited about her new Kiswahili course she's starting next week. This is from the girl who is a whiz at languages-she speaks a million of them. And I was lamenting, as I have daily here, about how I really needed to improve my french, la ti da. And she said, go to the Belgian School and see what they offer. This option had been drawn to my attention a couple of weeks ago, but one of my colleagues said he thought courses had already begun. Excellent, an excuse not to check it out. But Bonny was somehow able to hold a mirror up and I was doing precisely what I despise in others: making lame excuses. So despite all my reasons why I wasn't going to: it's expensive, it's inconveneint as it is far from home, whine whine whine snivel snivel, I am now signed up for my first class tonight. Not sure how it happened, but I hear this is a good thing.
The thing is, I know I need to learn french. I have been pathetic about my grudge against my parents, who made me learn russian and didn't have the insight to know that I was one day going to endeavour to become an international superstar and russian wasn't going to help me a lot. If they had been thinking, they would have put me in russian immersion and then switched me into french immersion.
Granted, if I recall my youth, I wasn't much more agreeable than I am now, so I suspect I would have been, ahem, difficult to negotiate with at the time. Especially considering I was a late-bloomer with my international endeavours. Ie, Rotary didn't interest me in the slightest, and when my best friend Steph tried to get me to go to Guatemala in grade 10, I totally balked. No thanks, I like Robson.
During my undergrad, I carried on with Russian. In Cameroon I lived with a guy who only spoke french. Want to talk about a gong show? I got a bit better then but nothing amazing. During my Masters degree, I did take some french, but I believe it was for something ridiculous like an hour a week. I also took some Arabic, which I loved, but same thing. Not enough.
The grudge has persisted: Why is the Kootenays so insulated that the figurative "they" don't understand that as a babe I should have been exposed to a million languages European-style? How on earth did UBC let me graduate with Poli Sci and IR and not make me learn french? Why did the placement people at home not listen to me when I told them I didn't speak french? (ie they should have placed me in a nice anglophone setting where I didn't have to have my very upsetting lack of language glare me in the eye). I have gotten so pathetic that I have even gone so far as to fantisize about the possibility of someone creating some sort of microchip that they could implant into my brain that would solve my learning the french woes. Truly truly sad.
So. For six hours a week after work, I will be learning french. I am completely resistant, but hoping for the best. Wish me luck.

Sometimes all it takes is a cup of tea

I had an awful morning. The variety of which suggests you should turn around and go back to bed. The transition to Rwanda has been unlike my other expat experiences-I suspect it's because this time, there is no clear plan for what happens next. When I lived in Cameroon, I knew I was going to move to the UK to do my Masters. When that was done, I knew I was going to return home for some time. Now I'm not sure what the next phase will be-perhaps more time in Rwanda, perhaps a move to another field office, perhaps returning home. At twenty six, though I'm still young, I'm also thinking about the balance of family, friends, partners, and perhaps even kids. I don't know how its all going to turn out, and this leads to a little anxiety. Ha, if you know me, I actually mean a lot of anxiety.

So while the weekend was fantastic (a UN New Years gala full of traditional dancing and good food in a beautiful courtyard at a huge mansion followed by a weekend exploring a new coffee shop that has an amazing latte, and later by the attendance of the big Ghana-Cameroon football game), by Monday I was feeling a bit lonely. Tuesday was great-was back in the field, visiting refugee/returnee camps and a pineapple plantation. Then I ended up at the Uganda border and got to visit my lovely driver Jovin's family who live in an amazing mud hut. More pictures to follow.

But this morning, after five days away from internet, and consequently, five days away from contact to home, I was desperately looking forward to getting back to the office. Ha. My driver was half an hour late. Then I got to the office, and my computer wouldn't work. Then I got a different laptop while the Tech guy tried to figure out what was wrong with the first computer. Then the mouse didn't work. Then my headphones on my ipod blew. Then my flash drive (full of pics from yesterday's trip) decided to stop working. And, to boot, though the early morning was gorgeous, huge rain clouds moved in and it has poured all day. I am wearing a sleeveless shirt. And so, at ten am, I was freezing, missing home, lacked the necessary emails from friends that would keep me from totally losing it, and only had one email from sweet mummy telling me of finacial gong shows with my bank. Not the stuff happiness is made of. So, I seriously considered a nervous breakdown. My colleague, Bonnie, took one look at me and immediately marched me to her jeep, took me to her place, and gave me soup and tea. After a good vent, I felt better.

I came back to the office and had a very productive afternoon. I'm arranging a trip to a Congolese refugee camp next week to figure out environmentally sustainable firewood. I got the article finished that has been plaguing me for a week. I got my emails sent off. And I'm not as miserable. Huzzah for a cup of tea. I meant this post to be a bit different, but with all the commotion, I leave you at this. I'm also attaching some pics-largely from my friend Sarah, who is working at the village. But they will give you a taste of the beauty I get to work in. It's not so bad. Especially with tea.

There is value in keeping one's mouth shut

Am back to work after a very...full weekend. The house I live in has many different rooms, and though no one is currently living with me full time, there is a project being run about an hour from Kigali that rents out several rooms for its workers, who drop in from time to time. This weekend was one of those times. After my run on Friday I came home to a full house. Countries represented: Burundi, Rwanda, Israel, and the US. When living and working with people from many different countries, it is amazing the depth of conversation that comes about at the dinner table.

As several of us were discussing possible plans for dinner, the Rwandan asked me about my initial impressions of Rwanda. This is a tricky question-there are a lot of things that are amazing about Rwanda. But it is very different from my experience in West Africa, and I find negotiating the issue of the genocide-the white elephant that is often in the room- very difficult. After spending some time feeling this Rwandan out, I felt comfortable enough to mention that I didn't really know how to negotiate acknowledging this enormous event, thus not pretending that I don't know it happened, without opening old wounds and unwanted pain. And thus began a pretty amazing tale. This man is a survivor of the genocide and watched his mother and sister be slaughtered in front of him. His father had been killed in massacres before the actual triggering point of the genocide in 1994. He talked about the years leading to 1994-how one day (1992ish) at school his teacher asked the Tutsi to stand up, and he did not stand up because he didn't know what he was. The teacher then asked the Hutu to stand. He didn't stand. The teacher asked the Twa to stand. He still didn't know when to stand. So the teacher told him that she knew his family and that he was Tutsi. The beginning of a renewed attempt to re-emphasize ethnic divides based essentially on Belgium's manufactured divide and conquer technique-dating back to colonization in the 60's when Belgium decreed the 10% Tutsi population to be the preferred ethnic group, who consequently received economic and political kickbacks, thus securing their loyalty and assisting in managing the Hutu majority. He spoke of a time when his best friend from school came over and grabbed one of his chickens. "Why are you taking my chicken?" he asked his friend. "You Tutsi will all be dead and I will take your chickens then, but I need one now" replied his friend. He also talked about the roadblocks and how the Hutu had devised some scientific measurement scheme to prove your ethnicity by measuring the circumference of your head and nose etc.-apparently I would not have been able to pass through, my nose is too small. After several specific horrific stories, we talked more about Rwanda today. As I understand it, Rwanda's present day Constitution acknowledges the genocide against the Tutsi. It does not, however, acknowledge what many argue was a genocide against Hutu moderate. It is a very difficult question to tackle, so I asked him what he thought of this. In his mind, no genocide against the Hutu occurred. Period. And frankly, I was not here, and I don't really know. But from my understanding, within an hour of the former President's plane was shot down, a set of lists of moderate Hutu (who would ostensibly try to stop their extremist counterparts) and Tutsi were systematically followed to begin slaughtering hundreds. And so from whispers around here and from the West, it is politically difficult to acknowledge the genocide of the Tutsi without simultaneously acknowledging the great loss of life of Hutu moderates. Though our conversation did beg the intellectual question of whether the massacre of Hutu could technically be considered genocidal if it was orchestrated by their own ethnic group (as genocide is defined as the act of ethnic cleansing). A question I acquiesce to the authority of my professors back home.

My colleague's gardener of one year was also arrested last week for his role in the massacre of ten families. Difficult for my colleague-he likes this man, trusts this man, the man played with his daughter. But as the Rwandan at my dinner table pointed out, the genocide was orchestrated with machetes, not machine guns, and massacring 800,000 people in one hundred days in that way required a lot of participation. The Gacaca courts-the local courts held to try less serious offenders-happen at least once a week still. So 15 years later, people are still going to jail.

Anyways. After that heavy discussion, we went for a great dinner at this very nice hotel near our house, and then the tone switched to the expat M party hosted by four UK guys (former speech writers for Tony Blair, now working as representatives of the UK President). The M party demanded that you dress as something beginning as the letter M. As I had not been planning to go, I ignored the demand. But I was amazed at how many people took this very seriously. There were Michael Jacksons, Madonna's, Miners, my colleague from the UN went as a representative from MONUC (the peacekeeping operation in Congo), pregnant Mothers to be, etc. Very fun. There was one very snobby guy from the UK who was lamenting the terrible music (and it was pretty bad), who announced he was pissed. I regaled him with the old tale of Winston Churchill's wife saying "You're Pissed!" and he says "and you're ugly, but I'll be sober in the morning". He asked me which one of us was which, and I gave him the pissed role. It won me brownie points. He was v. impressed.

On Saturday, I went with my American friend, Benna, and my Burundian friend, Sonia, into town to get coffee. The place we were hoping to go to was closed for renovations, so we went the the Hotel Serena, a very swank hotel near my office. Unfortunately swank=ridiculously expensive, and my latte was instead a bizarre cold coffee like drink with a scoop of ice cream in it. Hmm. When I returned home, another Israeli, an older man, arrived to stay the evening. He's a neat guy-one might say he has an abrasive personality, but being that I myself have had such accusations thrown at me, we got along well. It was interesting to have his perspective on the genocide-being an Israeli, his position (and granted, he had a thick Israeli accent so perhaps I'm misrepresenting slightly), was that though it was tragic, it was one country doing it within their borders to themselves. Interesting that even in the face of genocide, victims are more willing to distinguish the uniqueness of positions rather than identifying with one another.

He also had an interesting position on the UN-largely he wasn't impressed. He can't understand why it is ok for Russia to invade Georgia, the States to hold Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and go into Iraq, but its not ok for the Israelis to protect themselves against Hamas, and by extension, the Palestinian Authority. A position I can somewhat understand, but not entirely agree with. The problem, then, is both the Rwandan and the Israeli have a particular perspective that is vehemently held as the "right" perspective. Being that I am neither Rwandan or Israeli, nor was I present during the genocide or the attacks, it is difficult for me to hold a position. Academically, I feel a bit more confident in doing so, but personally it is very tough.

What was emphasized this weekend is a lesson I had already learned in the UK when interacting with my Middle Eastern friends. Largely, sometimes its ok to keep your mouth shut (from the girl who rarely closes hers). Given our different backgrounds and experiences, we often hold very different and sometimes conflicting perspectives. My Middle Eastern friends, for instance, were flabbergasted that I would associate with my queer friends. My queer friends were angry that I would become friends with people so adamantly opposed to homosexuality. The bottom line is, I'm not going to change my mind about human rights. I'm for them. I know what my position is on that and I am comfortable with that. That said, I still think it is important to negotiate dialogue and hear the other side. Interestingly enough, one Middle Eastern friend was floored that I wasn't trying to change his mind; I simply held my position. I think, in the end, this tactic earned me more respect, and consequently though I don't think he's going to warmly embrace homosexuality, he will have to think twice because someone he respects holds a very different position.

On Sunday I went to the Genocide Memorial Museum with Benna, but this post is getting long enough and I have work to do. All in all it was an excellent if difficult weekend, and work is proving to be a bit of a relief.

Barriers=Security?

With the kiddies

Corn for Cows

Am seriously fighting waking up on the wrong side of bed this morning. We all have days like this and I know it will pass. As I was lying awake last night listening to the final moments of Obama mania taking place on my street, I was considering all the barriers I have to go through to get to bed each night. First, I'm dropped off by my driver. Then I get by the outside guard. Then the locked gate to my compound. Then the courtyard houseboy/guard. Then through my front door. Into the locked wing of my home. Into my locked bedroom. Then have to crawl into the mosquito net after putting on long bed clothes and an application of Deet. That's ten barriers of security by my count. I wonder precisely how necessary it all is-and weigh the value of security versus the value of avoiding crazy making. I also wonder how many doors I should lock to keep the badness out vs. the risk that I would need to get out of my house at somepoint (the locked maze would make this tough). In many ways, I feel more secure when I'm outside my gates and aware of what is going on around me (its actually not that scary), as opposed to locking myself away thinking about the boogeyman. I often think these efforts are the same as four wheel drive-as Dad says, they provide a false sense of security. For a high-strung girl from the Kootenays, it's all a little much.

On the work front, I've been passed the Disaster Management Task Force (DMTF) portfolio. Rwanda is particularly susceptible to natural disasters-earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods, not to mention political unrest. After floods in 2007 killed 20 people and displaced hundreds, the Government of Rwanda made disaster management a priority, though it has yet to be fully implemented. Thus Henri, my colleague from Belgium, and I are to come up with UNDP's role of coordinating various stakeholders-NGOs, the Red Cross, the Civil Defense, Rwanda's Police force, and community leaders in creating a coordinated disaster response plan. This will be excellent experience if I ever work with the International Commission of the Red Cross, and the work is of particular interest to me, so I'm excited to be participating. Rwandan troops went into the Congo yesterday to try to oust hutu extremists still trying to destabilize the government. Here's hoping we don't need the DMTF too soon...

Otherwise, the field project is also coming along, and Jovin and I will take another trip there tomorrow. Am looking forward to seeing the villagers, and am particularly looking forward to going to the returnee camps. Maybe I'll get some more corn. I also have to make sure that the cocoons for food storage are going to get filled and transferred to the storage site; that an infrastructure specialist is hired to consult on the rice marshlands project; and that somehow we start getting some cows to these returnees. I think maybe I should try to get some more sleep...

Photos

One of the sitting rooms

The outdoor kitchen where the houseboys prepare food

Hill leading to my home ( I run here every day)

Front Patio

A preface on walking the line

Blogging is not my thing. I'm no writer-I don't aspire to be one. But it has proved to be a very convenient way to communicate enough detail in one shot to tell everyone what I want to tell about what is going on while I'm off and about.

It becomes very tricky, however, to edit the world in which I live to the extent that it needs to be edited. I did this before while I was in Cameroon. And to be honest, the blogs were more boring than anything else. I didn't want to tackle specific issues because there is always a risk in exploring controversial topics. Instead, I wrote about my day to day life, which inevitably became mundane.

That said, my work remains inherently political. Particularly now-working for the UN is about as political as one could get. And it is important to maintain decorum. There are legitimate security concerns, issues of containing classified information, and general good sense that need to prevail. But within this highly politicized context is the day to day politics of class, races, sexuality and religion that I think should, to some extent, be explored. I think it is both intellectually and socially irresponsible not to talk about some of this stuff. So, after great consideration, and nestled into quips about daily happenings, I'm going to touch on some of the stuff I've been confronted with on my different missions. This will include things I've thought about before, and things that come up as my life unfolds in this new country. I cannot say all the things I would perhaps like to say about some of these issues. If you are interested or want further clarification about something that may offend, please consider emailing me directly rather than posting. But with this in minds, I will attempt to more honestly convey and confront what it means to me to work in an intercultural and highly political environment.

That said, the first issue I've been confronted with is that of living as a minority in a new environment. In a country where I am white and woman in a region that is predominantly black, it is virtually impossible to go unnoticed. This means that as I am running, I get thumbs up, horn honks, the flash of headlights, and sometimes hordes of kids running along behind me as though I was the pied piper of Kigali. Artificial admiration simply because of my skin colour. Sometimes men also try to take a kick at running along beside me. Where to go with this? It's tough. I don't want to ignore people, especially in the part of Kigali where I live. It is important to me that I don't simply look, but actually see the poverty and politics that surround me. Willful ignorance does not suffice. I want to develop a rapport with the locals and have some sort of trust established. At the same time, there are moments when I put my sunglasses on, keep my head down, and try to avoid the onslaught of comments and stares. And there is always issues of security-I don't need any man thinking that I've given him an extra special smile that day and take that as an invitation to follow me home.

Though I therefore understand to an extent what it is to be a minority, I am also a white minority, and thus remain in a position of privilege. There is, of course, discrimination as people stare and make crude jokes, but largely its more as though I am the local celebrity. People often want to touch me. As a friend in Canada maintains, the colour of your skin and the class you are born into is inherently political and impossible to avoid. Thus while I am beginning to understand what it means to be a minority, I don't and won't ever understand what it means to be oppressed. If a political or environmental crisis occurs while I'm away, both my government and the United Nations will work to get me out. The same luxury is not afforded to the local populations-as evident during the genocide here where horrific acts occured and much of the international community turned the other cheek.

Being white in a black country, with the assumption of wealth trailing behind me, also leads to some problems. Take for instance this weekend. Work on Friday ended with Jovin announcing he wasn't taking me home. Oh cute, I think, I'm hostage in my own vehicle. But his eyes gleamed and he announced he was going to take me for a tour- a favour I'm to return in the event that he drops around in Canada. So he took me to the location where President Habyiarama's (the former Rwandan President in 1994) plane was shot down, the triggering event of the genocide. Not exactly happy stuff, but as an IR dork it was essentially the equivalent of letting me loose at Disney Land. We didn't have a lot of time to explore, but he assures me we will return. Friday evening was spent at the US Embassy screening a movie, Saturday spent at the Canadian Ambassador's gorgeous place enjoying an expat party. Sunday brought with it my houseboy banging on my window at 6am. A totally disoriented me hopped out of bed and ran to the door to find out what the trouble is. I'm told that his father has passed away and he needs money to head to the Congo.

And thus I am confronted with a difficult position. Wealth is relative. Though I am here working on a practicum for six months before I can be hired into the UN officially, I still hold more wealth than my houseboy. But I also have much greater financial responsibilities than he-student loans that need to be maintained, much higher housing and living costs while I am here, etc. etc. And though I'd rather not talk about it, Muzungo (white men) are often targeted with tragic stories in an attempt to score money. So I now have to decide whether I want to find $60,000 francs (the equivalent of about $150) for my houseboy to lay his father to rest. If I do, there is a good chance that the requests won't end there, that his other father will pass away next week, or that he could take off entirely and I never see him again. But I could afford him the opportunity to be there to bury his father. If I don't, there is the risk that he will steal my stuff. I have to live with him and I'm alone (asides from the other employees) at the house for at least another month. A tricky predicament indeed.

After much consideration and consultation with colleagues (one who mentioned that she'd given her cleaning lady the day off to go see a sick aunt, only to return home to a pillaged apartment), and after transferring funds to take the money out only to find they were seized as Visa is concerned with transactions in Kigali, I've decided not to give him the money. It is a huge amount to ask by local standards, and I'm told he could easily get to where he needs to be on 10,000 francs. We also pay him a very good salary by Rwandan standards. So my driver is going to come with me and try to translate that I don't have the money, and also to take his identification number and name in an attempt to stop any efforts to steal all my junk. I don't feel great about this option, but I don't feel great about any option. So we shall see where it all leads.
I leave you with some pics of my abode- they're not great, but I find I don't want to take a lot of photos when I first get to a new country. As I am not a tourist, I will be around and thus feel accountable to the people whose photos I take, and I would rather wait and make some friends before I march around taking shots as though they are animals at a zoo. So for now, voila. Enjoy.

Yes, Jovin, the World is Your Four Lane Highway

Am coming to the end of a busy day. Have been to a retreat this morning, then had to create my first power point presentation on the project I am managing to be presented tomorrow afternoon to all the funders. Big pressure for week one and a bit. Work is moving along precisely as it should.

With much time for reflection, and with my favorite driver Jovin by my side, I have been thinking a lot about the people who seemingly arbitrarily have come to play an influential role in my life. Jovin, for instance, is a driver with UNDP. It will be he who I share much of the next six months + of my life with. Instead of my family or my friends, or even really my colleagues, Jovin will know when I've had a bad day, he will know when I've had a great day, he will know which villagers are giving me a hard time and which will become my friends. It is he who I talk to about religion and politics, and more importantly, about various techniques I'm to employ to keep him awake on our long journeys. So far, I'm to poke him if it looks like he's nodding off. We also are to keep the windows wide open at all times, no matter that the extensive air pollution gives me a headache, so that the air keeps him awake. He also likes if we leave five minutes early back to Kigali so that he can get his smoke break in half way. So much so that he was not looking impressed when the Nyagatare project coordinator suggested we view' just one more site'. He also likes to careen down the highway, dodging in and out of traffic, and blowing his horn at a mighty blast when passers by, children, goats, chickens etc. dare to get in his way. The world is indeed his fourway highway. He skillfully dodges ridiculous traffic jams at the end of the day that are always on the hill that leads to my home, so I'm very grateful to him.

Jovin's eldest daughter is my age (he's got nine kids. NINE.), and I suspect he's taken me under his wing, though he would never outright say it. He's got a sparkle in his eye, laughs his head off when people scream MUZUNGO! (White man) as we pass by, and when they follow me around like the paparazzi taking as many pictures as possible, much to my chagrin. Will now get caught and have evidence for posterity when I have a bad haire day. He is there when I start and end my day. And the first day I spent with him, he demanded to know my religion. I don't think he cares so much what the religion of choice is, as long as it is something. When I mentioned it was not yet well-defined, he gave me a disgusted look, and from time to time busts out some catholic hymns perhaps to get me inspired. But regardless of the fact that we have been randomly thrown together, I am so grateful to have him.

Today at lunch I marched off to the local supermarket and bought tape (to tape up my pictures of you-all the ridiculously important people in my life that I can't bare to not have with me at all times), a french language set so that I can more easily partake in the meetings that are supposed to be in english but inevitably fall into french hollering, free weights (as I did not closely check the size of my excercise ball and am dismayed to find that it would be better suited for an oompa loompa-will have to more carefully consider how to implement it into my daily routine), and some water. Am v. pleased with my purchases and am looking forward to getting home and making my new nook in the world my own.

The Rooster was still alive

My silence for the last five days has been the result of work and a somewhat self-imposed hiatus from technology. At the office, longer days are worked from Mon-Thurs, and then on Friday we get off at 1pm. I suspect that as I get busier with work, more time will be spent at the office on weekends. Until then, faced with the prospect of essentially three days to fill with no computer and no roomates, I devised a plan. In my experience, this sort of alone time doesn't happen a lot in the West. There is always a distraction-tv, friends, family, work, telephone, internet.... When you find yourself in a developing country with no friends, no tv, no internet, a telephone that works sporadically, and a ten hour time difference from anyone who would want to talk to you anyways, there is a lot of silence. And a lot of thinking. And it's not always easy to have that kind of alone time. But given that this sort of scenario has happened more frequently as my rendezvous to foreign lands increase, I'm learning to-maybe not quite enjoy it yet, but sit with it. Apparently, I don't bite.
My first project: march around my new neighbourhood and find dinner. A daunting task when you are the only white person for miles, the market is huge, and everyone has a deal for you if you'd only step this way. After a forray into the masses where I purchased some veggies, I decided I was not well equipped to purchase a live chicken and kill it for dinner. Nor did I want to carry one home. So I asked my congolese house boy to go get one for me. And then I sat, rather smug, as visions of chicken and veg for dinner danced in my head, and I ploughed through some of the reading I had brought. Four hours later, I marched around to check on the progress of said dinner, and the rooster was still hanging out in the back yard. Ok, dinner will happen tomorrow. A bit of a dissapointment given that it was going to be the event of the day.
The rest of the weekend was spent going for runs and exploring new terrain. The UN has hired me three guards, in addition to the houseboy and the guard we already have at the house. Consequently, despite being essentially alone, there are always people tracking me. Feels really odd. And a little violating. But I'm told I will grow used to it.
On the work front, I am officially the project manager of the Community Development Project in Nyagatere District. Supported by the Italian government, this project was strategically developed to assist some of Rwanda's most vulnerable: returnees from Tanzania who were unceremoniously kicked out in November 2006, and demobilized soldiers. Stabilizing this region will contribute substantially to Rwanda's security. And so, the project consists of a number of components. One is food security. Fifty-three concrete slabs have been poured to hold cocoons of food so that there will be food available during the dryer seasons. As I visited this project in the field last week, it became clear that one of the challenges will be getting the cocoons, currently in storage, to the site with the food stored securely. It is harvest time now, so it will be a priority to get this done. Under food security, the project is also supporting a rice production cooperative by providing fertilizers, inputs and irrigation. The rice marshlands are majestic. It looks like a little Vietnam nestled into the hills of Rwanda.
There are seven displaced persons camps this project support (326 families). The area this project covers is extensive, so I was only able to visit one of the camps, but it was beautiful and the people were great. As I got out to discuss with the camp leader challenges and goals for 2009, he suggested in no uncertain terms that I figure out a way to come up with 300 cows. His people, who have spent a large part of their life in Tanzania, are pastoral people, he tells me. They don't know how to farm-they want cows. Got it. Unfortunately, so far the budget only allows for 65 cows. So we'll have to negotiate.
To support income generation, the Nyagatere District Project is supporting microfinance loans, with 14 projects and 1 022 participants trained in fertilisation, crop disease control, animal traction, agro-forestry, irrigation, seed multiplication, processing and marketing, cooperative management, beekeeping, mushroom, banana, coffee and passion fruit production. I visited one cooperative that is now developing paint (yes Dad, more colours to choose from, I'll send you some swatches if you are interested).
Otherwise, the project has also installed 14 bore holes. The holes are relatively accessible, but by western standards are still very difficult to get to, and once there, it was my task to pump some water. Ha. It's tough work. I was told I wasn't fast enough. And I was escorted in and out via my lovely driver Jovin and an entourage of 10 other people. And I don't have to plop the water on my head and walk it out. Renewed respect for those who have to go for miles to get some water. And it's not even clean enough to drink.
Maggy, my supervisor, has also been kind enough to ask me what work I am interested in-peace and security is very difficult to get into this way, and so my first job with the UN is in development. However, in light of the extensive peacebuilding efforts going in to post-conflict Rwanda, the government is establishing an institute focused not solely on peacekeeping, as institutes such as the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre tend to focus on, but rather on peacemaking and peacebuilding. I'm very happy to have the opportunity to get my foot in the door on this project.
In the meantime, I'm trying to kick my coffee habit-my Dr. tells me the combo of my generally constant state of anxiety mixed with the ridiculously strong coffee I have become accustomed to drinking after team Middle East in the UK got me hooked is a bad habit and could lead to ulcers. The tea is not a disaster but its not entirely appealing either.
And a word about mosquito nets: I hate them. I know they're useful, but I think they mean more for sleeping babes. For those of us who flail, you get caught up in them and feel claustrophobic, mosquitos tend to find their way in regardless, and particularly for more public areas like hotels where they are provided, it feels like you are sleeping in someone else's sheets. If anyone has any suggestions as to how to come to terms with, and use effectively, mosquito nets, I'd be thrilled to hear them.

Plastics are forbidden, but straws, they are ok

I bring you this blog sitting at my desk in the UNDP office, munching on a tuna fish sandwich and sipping my yogurt with a straw. Indeed, it is lunch time. In a bold move, Rwanda has outlawed plastic. Well, plastic bags at least. Plastic spoons also seem to be a no go (hence the straw), but staws thus far seem ok. It is these sorts of rules that make some of Rwanda's policies' quite progressive. As plastic bags a) aren't good for the environment, so they tell us, and b) cause pollution, a+b=c, c being a ban on plastic bags. Not a bad solution. When you buy groceries, you get a paper bag. It works. Who knew. In addition to an outlaw on plastic bags, on the last Saturday of each month, all Rwandans are expected to participate in a community clean. Consequently, Rwanda is a very clean African nation. It is also very ordered. As I moved my belongings to my new abode today, my driver informed me that the numbers on the helmets of motor drivers is actually the number that can be reported by if they don't tow the line. Police are on every corner, and we watched as a motor driver and his passenger, both of whom were not wearing helmuts, made a panicked dodge away from the police officers lest they get busted.
The UN in Rwanda is also participating as a pilot country in a move for a more efficient United Nations. In November 2006, the UN Secretary General's High Level Panel on System-Wide Coherence produced a set of far-reaching recommendations for UN reform. This was largely in response to the fact that it became clear that under current operating standards, the UN was simply not equipped to respond to the challenge set by the Millennium Development Goals, due to fragmentation, duplication, high overhead costs, and lack of focus. In Jan 2007, Rwanda was selected as one of eight countries where the "One UN" model has been introduced. The idea is that One Country will equate to 'One Office', 'One Programme', 'One Leader', and 'One Budgetary Framework'. It is great to have the opportunity to see first hand how this sort of program might work.
In other news, I have a home. At least, I do unless the security team deems it unfit, but I think it will be fine. It is essentially a gated mansion ( a far cry from my digs in Cameroon), a little far from the office but near public transit, and when my driver took me there this morning to drop off my junk, he informed me that other UNDP workers live in the area so there is a shuttle I can pay for that will take me straight to the office, and back home again after work. Huzzah. One small point: be there or be square, ie they're not waiting for me. Got it. The house will be shared with several other ex pats-one Danish girl who is leaving in a week, two people who are back and forth from Burundi, I believe, an American girl who will be back in March, and another American girl and her boyfriend. Should be interesting to see who pops by. But I'm very very happy to have a room to settle in to, where I can blow up my excercise ball and put up my photos. The place is very clean, there is a water heater (which I am overjoyed about: true story, cold showers are really more of a symbolic gesture than an actual valid mechanism to achieve hygeine. They are awful and no amount of time is going to help anybody get used to them. Stay tuned for my thoughts on mosquito nets...). We have a house boy who does the cooking largely in the outdoor kitchen. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not super comfortable with this, but I'm told he comes with the house and we'd be putting him out of a job if we let him go. So he stays.
At work, the people have been amazing. My supervisor is very supportive, and though technical difficulties continue to plague my computer, I've been given a new one that works. So I'm ploughing through official UNDP protocols and trying to get a handle on the project I will be managing. The first field mission is scheduled for thursday, and I'm excited to get out there and see whats been happening and what more can be accomplished. For now, back to work.