A Trip to the Genocide Memorial in Kigali, Rwanda

Last Wednesday, the group (Cathy and Teste and us 8 volunteers) headed to Kigali for the day. It was a 2 hour drive along a windy road that took us up and down many of Rwanda’s famous hills (Rwanda is often known the Land of a Thousand Hills...in fact the hotel in Hotel Rwanda is called the Hotel Mille Collines).  The main purpose of trip to the capital was to see the Genocide Memorial Museum.

The Genocide Memorial had a profound effect on the way we see Rwandans. The short summary of the genocide is that for years leading up to 1994, there had been tensions (originally spurred by the Belgians and French and later exacerbated by the Rwandan government and an extremist militia group) between the Hutus (85% of the population) and Tutsis (15%). In 1994, these tensions escalated to the point where the mandate was to rid the country of all Tutsi (approximately 1.2M people). Think about that for a second. Imagine if the Ontario gov’t had a mandate to eliminate 15% of the population. Basically, eliminate a large minority such as the Chinese or Indians. For several months in 1994, this was status quo in Rwanda. Tutsis were hunted and killed as were moderate Hutus that protected Tutsis. Families were divided, friends turned against one another and mob mentality ensued. UN General Romeo D’Allaire tried to get help from the UN to stop the massacres but his request was denied, likely due to Rwanda not being oil-rich, diamond-rich or a strategically situated country.

When the terror finally stopped, over 1 million people had died and scores more were savagely injured. The UN and other political powers realized the extent of the carnage that happened under their noses and shame-laden public apologies were put forth.

Fast forward to 2010. A mere 16 years later, the country has come to terms with it’s history and is making its way along the road of recovery to the road of prosperity. According to many, recently re-elected president Paul Kagame, has much to do with this as he’s rallied his people to create a safe country that doesn’t have the same levels of corruption that other African countries are notorious for. His popularity is well over 90% due to his policies and the effective implementation.

Ok..enough of the history lesson. How did seeing the Memorial change our views? One of the last exhibits was dedicated to the children of the genocide. There was a banner “I didn’t choose to be an orphan” that hit me hard. Orphanhood was painfully thrust upon so many children in 1994..and some of these children are the ones that we see on Saturday (the street kids) or they’re the young parents of some of kids who are now at our pre-school. These are children that were likely taught no real life skills and were now left to fend for themselves and their brothers and sisters. When we walk to school, we often pass those who are missing one or more limbs. It’s possible that many of these limbs were lost during the butchering of 1994.

Rwandans have every right to be jaded and mistrustful..but they’re not. They are happy, welcoming people that have been incredibly friendly. I love walking the 4 Km to school and exchanging waves, smiles and the “muaramuzse” (good morning) greeting with almost 50% of the adults and 100% of the children we pass. And they’re not patronizing me by being nice to my face and then bad-mouthing the muzungu (foreigner) once out of earshot.  It’s Rwandan custom to not say bad things about people they don’t know.  They’re genuinely happy to see foreigners in their country and love the novelty of our skin colour, clothes and language.

In an upcoming post, I’ll try to explain why I’ve become infatuated with this country, but it should be obvious that the warmth of the people top the list.



Fountain of Hope



Mass Graves at the Genocide Memorial



View of many of Rwanda's rolling hills

A Sunday at Lake Kivu

Last weekend, the entire household (Cathy, Teste, Ron and the 8 volunteers) went on a drive to the beach at Lake Kivu, as a general treat. Enroute, we stopped to admire a tea plantation, when a little local boy went up to Dave and said ‘Hindustani?’. When Dave replied affirmative, the boy then said ‘Hritik Roshan’.


To the uninitiated, Hritik Roshan is THE hottest Bollywood leading man at the moment. Dave said to him ‘Come speak to my wife’ at which point I engaged in an excited broken-English convo with a Rwandan boy that went something along the lines of ‘You like Hritik Roshan? Oooh I do too!!!’. A connection was made, pictures were taken and we drove off to happy waves from the children, as per usual. Apparently Rwandans love Bollywood and have a fondness for Indians, as the Indians in Rwanda tend to be honest business people who come from solid families. Rwandans are big on family, as are most Africans, I suppose.

Just before we arrived, we did a quick drive over to the border between Rwanda and the Congo, gaped as is customary for tourists (photos aren’t allowed) and then drove to the beach at Lake Kivu. I must admit a part of me was slightly chilled at the thought of being so close to an area of such horrific conflict. Apparently, day trips across the border are possible but we were absolutely not interested, as we had heard stories of other tourists being harassed and being put in compromising situations (i.e robbed of all belongings and left in their undies by the side of the road). No thank you.

Being at Lake Kivu felt very much like being at a lake in Canada. The water was cool and very clean, and the beach slowly but surely got very busy with locals coming by to enjoy their weekend. Beer and brochettes (goat kebabs) were on offer for food, while a DJ nearby blasted out some pretty groovy reggae and hip hop tunes with some Bollywood music thrown in for good measure. Again we experience the Rwandan fascination with all things Bollywood

The girls in the group started a game of Frisbee, to be joined by some of the locals who had never played Frisbee before. I was thrilled to not be the worst player on the team. A lovely Rwandan lady in a dress skirt and dress shirt was by far the most uncoordinated – I looked like an athlete in my prime by comparison. You only get that lucky once every so often in life.

Dave and the boys played soccer with Toufiq, the son of our driver who took us to Lake Kivu, and another boy with down’s syndrome who works at the beach, and who was a pretty remarkable soccer player. Toufiq on the other hand, had so much rhythm and style, I wanted to bring him back to Canada with me, only so I could show off his skills at dance parties. And he’s one of the sweetest kids I’ve ever met . The kids here are absolutely phenomenal – I think I’ve been spoiled and getting adjusted to regular North American kids when we get back will be a challenge.

The day ended with much beer, soccer, brochettes, Frisbee, laughs and just general fun. As Cathy said as she looked us over with beers in hand ‘look – here are my extremely hard working volunteers…’

- Dal

Stylin'

The group

Congo in the background

Soccer Boys

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Fetch me a beer, kid.

Cathy, Teste, the volunteers and random Canadians

The First Batch of Goats

“If I had told you 6 months ago that we’d be in a beaten-down flat-bed pickup truck driving to a goat market in Ruhengeri, Rwanda, what would you have said ?”.
“YOU CRAZY !”

Yet here we were. It was 10am and Teste (Cathy’s husband) and us were in a rented truck on the way to the goat market to pick up 20 goats to distribute to needy families in the province. We set the limit at 20 for the first visit, as buying, loading, offloading and containing more than 20 goats at a time might be a bit of a larger challenge than we're cut out for.

The morning had gotten off to a rather exciting start as we had a big feast at the school thanks to a contribution of $600 US from an Australian whom had volunteered with Cathy before (and had traded emails with me about PREFER when I was doing my research). The feast consisted of apple juice, rice pilao and a goat curry. The goat was a male goat from the garden in the back of the school which had been used to impregnate many of the female goats that had been given to needy families previously. This goat is now a personal hero of Dave's as it's given it's life so that many others could live....and was a total stud in his lifetime. The feast was enjoyed by all the children and cost only about $150 meaning there's money for 3 more !

Later that day, we went to the to the goat market to pick up our first 20 goats for distribution. Like most things here, it's controlled chaos. As we parked our truck, we were quickly swarmed by goat vendors who were pleased to hear that we needed 20 of their finest. The process was as follows :
* Once they figured out the 'muzungus' couldn't speak Kinyawranda, most of the vendors directed their attention to Teste
* Teste began negotiating with the vendors for their goat..he would make the goat turn around to confirm it was female and then sized it up with his eyes
* Dave would pat the back of the goat because his friend Elson advised that some vendors would overfeed their goats prior to purchase hoping to secure a better price; however looking for a solid wide back was an indicator of a healthy female. Did he know what he was feeling for ? No..not really
* After about 2 minutes we were able to secure a pen and paper for Teste where he recorded the vendors name and the negotiated amount for the specific goat
* Each selected goat was given to a guy to hold and Dal supervised him to make sure the count was correct (Dal valiantly tried to hold some goats herself but was quickly out-weighed at goat number 5)
* After all 20 goats were selected, Teste read out the name of each vendor one-by-one and Dave paid him the negotiatied amount
* We then loaded the goats onto the back of the truck and headed for the school and unloaded the goats and tied them to the school fence around noon. Dave road in the back with the goats.
 At 3pm, the selected families would meet us on the school grounds to receive their goat

Before leaving the school for lunch, one woman, who had walked 20km to get to the school, arrived at the grounds. When told that she would have to wait until 3pm to get her goat, she smiled and took a seat on the ground with her baby.

At 3pm we came back to the school to find 17 of the 20 families present. With us was Augustin, the govt official who provides the names of these needy families, and ensures the right people are getting their goats. The crowd consisted mostly of the mamas in each family, some of them with their little ones securely tied to their backs. They let Teste know they wanted to come up and say 'hello' to us.

Hello consisted of several hearty thumps on the back - these African women are STRONG! We handed out goats one by one - it was clear to see how happy and grateful they all were, thanking us profusely. We made sure to let them know the names of the people in Canada who had purchased their goat for them, as well as the goats names. We took a photo with person, their goat and a piece of paper with the donor and the goat name which we'll email to all of the donors when we have a faster internet connection !

Once done, they strutted off proudly - Teste told us that this goat would make a massive difference in their lives, and they would likely walk by all the homes in their villages to show everyone their new possession. In fact, one of the mamas there has her 'adopted' son at the PREFER school (by adopted, I mean the little guy was left on the ground by his mum who took off with a solider. Another woman in the community took him in, in spite of being quite poor herself)

Goat day was totally fabulous - and we get to do it all again a few times, as we get through all the goats on our list. Next time Dal will NOT pose for pictures with random African men who want to hold her hand. 

Click on the photos below to enlarge.

First Impressions

Rwanda isn’t much like we thought it would be. From the exceptionally polite immigrations officials, to the busy streets of Kigali that remind us of Mumbai (only cleaner), we’ve been pleasantly surprised for most of the way.

Kigali is considered pretty safe – underscored by the many armed security guards that unobtrusively walk the streets to ensure things stay that way. In Ruhengeri where we are, we have a group of men who patrol the neighbourhood at night – one of their additional chores is to ensure neighbourhood kids don’t throw stones over the fence to get a reaction out of Max, the dog at the house we live in.

That brings us to Max. Apparently Rwandans don’t do well with pets – and a dog or cat on the street is likely to get stoned mercilessly by children. Max stays within the confines of the compound, which doesn’t stop the kids from throwing stones over the fence to torment him. Which is why we were surprised and impressed when the Imam in the mosque beside the house included Max in his sermon one day. ‘You all come here and pray’ he said ‘and then you go home and throw stones at the dog. Stop throwing stones at the dog’. Possibly one of the most relevant and timely sermons I’ve heard in a long time.

Other surprises include:

1. The lack of mosquitos thus far. It’s been 6 days and I have one bite to show for it and we haven’t event been using our net all the time while we sleep

2. The food – we came here expecting veggies and rice and have eaten all sorts of yumminess, including meat, cooked at Cathy’s house. We had planned to lose some weight in Rwanda – I don’t think that’s going to happen

3. The general feeling of safety while walking through the street of Ruhengeri. People are nice.

4. The availability of Ribena, a blackcurrent cordial I used to drink as a kid in Dubai – it’s really helped me down water much better during our stay.

5. Being woken up 3 times each night by the Imam beside the house as he says his Ramadan prayers on the loudspeaker…and then sometimes lectures his congregation at 2 in the morning.
So far so good.

Dal

Soccer Day in Ruhengeri

Soccer Day in Ruhengeri


As we’ve mentioned before, Rwanda has an extremely young population. This is partially explained by the genocide which killed many parents as well as the exorbitant number of babies born as a result of the mass rapes. Many of these children that don’t have parents wind up living on the streets. On Saturday, we met about 120 of these children

A few months ago, Cathy introduced a Saturday morning program to give these children some hope. Using a school a short walk away as a meeting point, she distributes bread, the sorghum/corn mixture and a bar of soap. The group, mainly boys, typically come a bit earlier in anticipation of Cathy’s arrival and pass the time by playing soccer on the rocky grounds.

We arrived at about 9am and were greeted by the group, consisting mainly of teenagers although not as affectionately as with the pre-schoolers. Cathy set up shop in a classroom with Dal and Brianne and a few of the older children helping make the liquid mixture and cutting the bread into thirds. Batches of 10 kids at a time were brought into the classroom to receive their portions and they sat at their desks and consumed their meals. Some of the other children waited against the wall to receive their invite into the classroom. Most of the older children however were engaged in a game of soccer. Ron, Cathy’s most trusted helper, served as referee and distributed pinnies to help identify teams. Ron gave me one of the pinnies and I was on the green/yellow team. As none of the kids spoke English aside from ‘Hello’ and ‘Thank You’ I racked my brain for names of African soccer players that I heard during the recent World Cup as a way to relate to them. “Nice pass Drogba !” “Good shot Eto”. I’ve found that handslaps, handshakes and smiles are also universal ways to break the ice. But the best way to win the kids over is to take photos. As soon as the camera comes out, a solo photo quickly becomes a group of 10 or more and all the children want to see the photo after it’s taken. Once they see their photo, they smile happily knowing they’ve been immortalized.

The soccer pitch was quite brutal as I almost turned my ankle twice on stones the size of a fist. All sorts of rocks were scattered all over the pitch but that didn’t deter the boys. Neither did their lack of appropriate footwear. Some of the kids only had flimsy sandals which would fly off after a particularly solid kick. Others actually played barefoot and I grimaced each time I saw them make contact with the ball or someone else’s foot.

Dal and I talked the footwear issue over with other volunteers and have decided to group together to purchase new sandals for each of the kids. They cost about $1.50 per pair, so if each of us contributes $50, we’ll be able to cover all the kids.

If any of the soccer fanatics reading this blog would be able to donate uniform tops or bottoms (used is perfectly fine) or anything else soccer related, please let me know and we can figure out how to make the arrangements.

The street kids being fed.

A picture with the kids waiting to be called in for their meal.

David dominating.

Group photo after the game.

Red Snowsuit Boy

Walking home from the market, I spotted his bumbling approach towards me out of the corner of my eye and stopped dead in my tracks. About 50 feet away, a child no older than 5 was in a dead sprint towards me with arms outstretched. He was wearing a bright red full-length snowsuit with the hood on, for reasons I’ll never understand. The smile on his face was electric and I lowered myself to my knees and readied myself for his embrace by extending my own arms. As he closed in on me, with his short legs waddling as fast as he could manage, he tripped over a large stone and face-planted into the dirt. Time literally stopped for an instant as onlookers awaited his reaction. After about 3 seconds, an impatient boy (who had been funnelling fresh milk into canisters to be sold) of about 7 picked up Red Snowsuit Boy by his left arm and I quickly approached to fully get him on his feet. As he looked up and saw me, he broke into a massive grin as he realized he would be able to achieve his original goal. He puts his arms around me and greeted me “Hello”. I smiled at him and said hello and asked him if he was ok. He simply hugged me tighter.

Given the nature of the children here as well as the amount of time we’ll be at the school, I’m setting the over/under of the # of hugs I’ll be participating in at around 50,000 (the conservative estimate). However the one from Red Snowsuit Boy is one that I never want to forget.

- David

Our First Day of School

The night before our first day at the school, Dal and I went to bed around 10am hoping to get a full night’s sleep. At 2:45am, the silence was pierced by the Imam's short prayer/announcement over the loudspeakers (1 of 10 that he performs daily during the holy month of Ramadan). Unable to sleep, I gradually woke Dal up at around 4:30am and we chatted about expectations of our first day. We knew to expect a lot of hugs, eagerness and noise. We discussed our anxiety about the fact neither of really knew how to teach English or math. What if the kids didn’t like us ? What if they ganged up on us ? What if they treated us the way we typically used to treat supply teachers back in elementary school ? These fears kept us up for the rest of the morning.

At 7:45am, we left the guest house in the truck and made the 5km drive to the school. We passed through the main town of Ruhengeri as Teste regularly honked the horn, alternating between greetings and warnings. As we turned down the road of the school, children began to sprint towards the main door. We felt like pop stars at the Grammys as we rolled up the driveway with our windows down and greeting by adoring children. Huge smiles and greetings of ‘Good Morning Teacher’ were given to us. As we stepped out of the car, we were all swarmed by the kids who wanted to either hug us our touch our hands. At one point, I literally had 20 kids around me reaching over each other to make contact with the muzunga (non-Rwandan) visitor.

One of my absolute favourite things about the kids is their canned answers to some basic questions. The answers always comeback rather loudly, even from the shy kids.

What is your name ? MY NAME IS SAMUEL IMANIREBE.

How old are you ? I AM 4 YEARS OLD.

How are you ? I AM FINE, THANK YOU.

Are you ok ? YES I AM OK.

There are 4 classes split by age (Baby class, 3 and 4, 4 and 5, 5 and 6’s). Each class rotates among outside play, classroom and feeding. We were able to participate in all 3 and it was loads of fun. Outside play was just like recess…controlled chaos. Kids sat on the ground with their legos, they talked with their friends or they played with soccer and bouncy balls. Simple games like playing keep away or heading the ball made them laugh and made me feel as skilled as Pele. I totally dominated them.

The classroom dynamics were interesting. The teachers are trying to teach the 123’s, ABC’s, days of the week and months of the year which the kids smartly recite. The kids attention span are similar to that of N American kids and there's lot of chatting with friends and what not, but it's clear to see that they all enjoy learning and want to be in school.
Feeding consists of sitting all the kids in a line and handing out bread and a sorghum/corn drink that contains water/milk/sugar. It’s likely the healthiest thing that many of these children will eat all day. As we distribute the mixture, the children exclaim “THANK YOU VERY MUCH” and finish their food. Not a fussy one in the bunch, however it’s not uncommon for one of the chickens that parade on the grounds to steal the bread from the hands of a child leaving that kids in tears.

On Day 2, we were able to distribute the suitcase of clothes we had brought over from Canada. After arranging them into Boys/Girls and small/medium/large, we would bring in kids 10 at a time and basically play dress-up. The children were thrilled to have new clothes and each left the room with a little more confidence and a lot more pride. Not once did a child express “I don’t like this” or “I want something else”. Rather, they happily removed the dirty clothes they were wearing and trust that we wouldn’t turn them into fashion nightmares. Many of the kids high-fived or hugged us after putting on their new threads.

Amazing Smiles

At the end of each day, all the children sit in a massive circle and are
led by the staff through various songs and dances. These kids have wayyy more rhythm then me, which isn’t really all that surprising. Today, we were also able to take some group photos. And most importantly, I was able to get the kids to do a thunderous chant of “GO LEAFS GO”. Dal expressed her concerned that we’re teaching these kids to be losers. Concern noted.

Here are a few photos of our days at the school. Once we have a faster internet connection, I'll add albums.

David distributing the food

Dal and her new friends

Inside the Classroom

Dal plays dressup

Showing off the new threads

Group Photo