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.