Rwanda, final post (April 4-7)

April 4, 2010; 1.49 CST

Didn’t win against the Zune.  Oh well. 

It is Easter almost all over the world!  That is nice to think about.

I have finished packing and am only waiting for the mini-scale in order to double-check that I am below the weight limit.  I’m pretty sure I am, even though it was difficult because of the size of a couple things – my duffel bag was really light because it was mostly filled by one big light thing, so almost everything else was in my suitcase.  I think it would have been a little bit over the weight limit if I had not managed to work more back into the duffel bag.

Writing down flights and customs stuff.  Just waiting.  It’s nine o’clock here now; we leave in a couple hours.

April 5, 2010; 7.16 CST

Sitting on the plane heading to Toronto – I believe we’re more than halfway there.  Filling out my Customs declaration card.  Wish I knew the exchange rates from USD to CAD and from pounds to CAD.  Since I don’t I can only estimate ...

Saying goodbye was not difficult in some ways, but was difficult in others.  It was somewhat difficult to say goodbye to Justine (she came to say goodbye to us!  It was nice of her – and I could give her my extra 5000 Rwf!), but it is good to be going home.

I am somewhat sad because I am not in a window seat but an aisle seat, and so cannot see the Atlantic.  Also it is cloudy so it would be hard to see anyway.  Oh well, that just means I have to come back.

I got to talk to John very briefly in Nairobi airport – I only realized after supper (so around nine o’clock PM Nairobi time) that the lounge we were in had Wifi too, and then people wanted to send emails.  I let them do that but managed maybe five minutes of chat.  I get to see him in seven hours, hooray!  I am looking forward to that.

I just finished watching Sherlock Holmes.  Not bad.  Not quite my Holmes, but an interesting Holmes.  Now I want to reread the stories.  Unfortunately do not have them with me.  Think I will watch another film.  Maybe The Young Victoria or The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.  Depends on how much time I have.  If neither, I may play games.

April 7, 2010; 18.25 CST

I have been home for two days now, but it doesn’t feel like it.  I am feeling very confused and very lost and don’t know what to do with myself.  I have not been back to school apart from for my English test on Tuesday.  I am very jet-lagged but I have not been sleeping ... John was here until today, and I very much appreciated him being here, but I did not notice how clingy I was getting and eventually I hurt him ...  I am so screwed up and not thinking straight.  Nothing seems to have a point.  John makes sense and I almost feel ashamed that he is the one point that seems to make sense right now.  

And that's all she wrote.  It took me a couple weeks to get readjusted to Western life, and I'm still not quite the same (which is to be expected, I suppose).  I am now attending university, and I stay in touch with and others that I met in Rwanda.  I want to go back someday, both to work more, and to simply enjoy the beauty of the country.  Sooner than later, I will finally post an album of all my Rwanda photos, and I will post the link here when that happens.  

Thank you for reading this very-late account (that seems to be how I do a lot of things, actually) of my trip to Rwanda.  I hope you enjoyed it, or were touched by it, or were changed by it.  (I am breaking every public-speaking rule with this conclusion.)  May God be with you as He is with the Rwandans.  :)

Rwanda, post number 12 (April 3rd)

April 3, 2010; 2.17 CST

I am waiting to go play soccer and fighting with my Zune ... I do not want to play soccer: I am tired, and feel ill,  and do not wish to run around.  Maybe I can bow out.  In any case I need to change. 

Yesterday was very much a downtime day.  I was fine to work in the afternoon, but they had already finished all the shelves.  So I read and stuff. 

In the evening, the teachers went out for dinner and the Visionaries came around again.  We ate fairly late (8-ish), and then I started talking with one of the girls, Uwamahoro Justine.  We talked about easy stuff for a while, then she started telling me her story. 

[I have excised my recounting of her story in the interests of privacy on the Internet.  All I shall say here is that] I am honoured to be able to help such an amazingly brave and strong woman.

I need to change.  I am feeling slightly better, and will perhaps be able to run.  If not I can cheer.  I am not the only one who is not super-down with playing soccer, but hey.

April 3, 2010; 14.34 CST

Soccer went okay – we only lost 4-1 instead of 14-0 and we played pretty well.  I played defence for a good fifteen minutes and did a fair job.  Lots of fun was had.  Some of us taught the kids that were hanging around how to throw Frisbees, though we didn’t get to play Ultimate.  We did a quick baseball lesson after the soccer game, which had to be quick because the soccer game had started an hour later than it should have and we were already late for lunch. 

Excella High is at the bottom of the hill that the Centre César is on.  Meaning that we had to climb all the way up the hill to the inn after the soccer game in the scorching heat.  And it was scorching.  And none of us had water, really, since so many of us had drunk all the water we had during the game and there were no more bottles.  I got through the long walk by my tried-and-true method of mind over matter: I pretended, quite simply, that I was a Spartan-II.  And it worked – I got to the inn very warm, but otherwise totally fine.  I rested a bit and downed about three-quarters of a litre of water, and was good to go. 

We ate, Caroline and I started a chess game, and then we all went straight back to the Centre for the farewell ceremony.  Luc and Sandrine spoke for us briefly, thanking everyone involved; M Raval spoke briefly and got a little teary when he thanked Maman Nicole; Maman Nicole spoke; Dodou and the Visionaries gave our group a wood carving of Rwanda being held in several hands and a banana-leaf plate as thanks and a souvenir; Raymond gave Maman Nicole a book called No Limits; Maman Nicole spoke again thanking Raymond; the widows did several traditional dances of thanks and farewell; then we sang Histoire d’Antan again; then we all made a line and said goodbye to all the widows and the Centre staff and the Visionaries that were there (murabeho, tuzongera – goodbye for now, see you next time), and they wished us a safe journey.  Lots of pictures were taken.

I will be sad Monday.  I will not be sad tomorrow.  I am always sad the day after everything – it might not be until Tuesday.

We headed back to the inn and had dinner, and Caro and I continued our chess game.  She plays very conservatively whereas I am used to John’s aggressive style, so it was a very interesting game and I only won because I distracted her for long enough so that she could not make a move that would have totally messed me up.  Very interesting game on the whole.

Now fighting with my Zune again.  Have showered so am clean for the plane.  Nearly packed – just my pyjamas to put in from tonight, and my pillow, and my foam mat and my towel which is hanging to dry – oh and my sandals.  And then to quickly pack my carryon and all will be well.  I have wrapped all the fragile souvenirs in several layers of cloth and clothing but will be praying all the way home for them to reach Winnipeg safely.

Home soon.  Family soon.  I’ve determined my order of hugs: my sisters first, then Ben if he wants a hug, then Mom, then John.  And then I suppose anyone else who has come to say welcome back.

Rwanda, post number 11 (April 2nd)

April 2, 2010; 2.26 CST

I did not end up writing about the 1^st yesterday evening because I ended up having a rather long conversation.  I decided I would just sleep afterwards and catch up later.  However, I did not sleep well at all – my stomach decided to start seriously acting up, instead of just the little spasms that had been happening all day, and I tossed and turned all night, very much in pain.  Also I am sick of smelling smoke, cigarette or garbage or whatever wood they burn here.  It makes me even sicker and it is always around.  As long as I lay on my right side it is better, since that makes everything move where it is supposed to.  It gets tiring though, and to use my laptop I lay on my back, which hurts but which is much more efficient. 

As a result of all this I am staying at the inn today, at least for the morning.  We’ll see how I feel after lunch, if I can go and work or not.  It is sort-of nice to not have to do anything, but also frustrating that I can’t go out and work ... although I’m sick of working, so I suppose it kind of works out.  Also I’d rather get better now and miss some stuff than be sick on the plane and when I get home.

We spent yesterday morning working with the daycare kids, this time out in their playground (which is just a triangle of green space a little ways down the road from the daycare).  We played circle games with them for a while, a sort of version of Duck Duck Goose and a sort of version of Red Rover, and then we just played with them in general – soccer balls and small footballs, skip ropes and cat’s-cradle cords, the like.  

We then brought them back to the Centre where they did some dancing upstairs and we fed them a rice and spinach concoction (which sometimes had fish in it, or carrots), which they gobbled up for the most part (even the fish heads in some cases).  The girl I helped, Nicole, was happy to eat, and found me very funny when I suggested the food go in her nose or her ear or her knee or such.  She played along after a while and we laughed together.  I told her ura sekeza (you’re funny) and she said I was too; eventually she started saying na haze, which I figured meant “I’m full”, and when I asked Rodrigue, I was right.  After food, they danced some more, and then we left.

We also got to give Eric (the employee of the Centre who just lost his brother-in-law) our gift yesterday morning.  He was very quiet but I think grateful – I have noticed that Rwandans seem to be very calm when one gives them gifts, or thanks them for a gift they have given.  When I gave Rodrigue the $50 USD Dad gave me to give to something that was worth it (I thought The Visionaries would do just fine), he was not vocally grateful about it and seemed kind of aloof actually; when I thanked him for buying me the gift he did, he was again rather aloof.  Eric was fairly reserved too, though I guess for different reasons.  The only exception I have seen to this is Igor, who stood up at the dinner table the other night and thanked Janelle profusely for singing La Vie En Rose on the boat the other day, and explained the whole affair of how to thank someone for a gift in Rwandan culture; perhaps I am not thanking properly.

In the afternoon we were supposed to go play soccer, baseball and Ultimate at the nearby high school (Excella High), but as we couldn’t get the field until 16.30, we came back to the inn for a bit of downtime.  Unfortunately for the downtime plan, we all got called to come share our experiences, mostly about Gisouzi.  Many of us did not feel up for it or did not feel like we had anything to say, but as we went around the circle we started getting more and more emotional.  

About a quarter of the way through the circle it started raining (I have to find another shirt now that I left on the line and that has been taken in somewhere; I got the other two back), and by a third of the way around it was pouring rain, so much so that when it got to me (I was maybe two-thirds around), no one could hear me over the rain, even if I fairly yelled.  At that point we stopped and went to our rooms for real downtime, and as it didn’t stop raining all afternoon we did not go to play sports.  I am not terribly down about that since I would not have played much anyway.  I ended up listening to music with Roxanne for a while (and driving Caroline and Andrée nuts since we sang along), and then on my own and packing.  I am fairly impressed: everything will fit just fine and I will probably have room for some pens if needed.  Everything will be well-padded and quite under the weight limit, I think, since there are two large items I have put in that are very light, even if they take up a lot of space, and the clothing is distributed between the two suitcases.

We had supper fairly late (19.30-ish I think), and then we had a circle with the Visionaries, a sort of spiritual reflection on what we’ve been thinking the past couple weeks.  Raymond read a few passages from a book he has been reading, not based on any religion in particular, and we commented on them.  I disagreed from a Christian standpoint with a few things that were said, but agreed in principle with much of it, and spoke my thoughts on agape in the Rwandan community.  The atmosphere was kind of awkward, since I think many in the CL-R community are of no particular faith or are atheist, and the Rwandans traditionally are very religious, mostly Christian and partially Muslim.  Our cultures’ attitudes towards spirituality are very different. 

After the circle, music started playing and we were supposed to dance – I started talking with one of the Visionaries, Samrey, instead, and found out where he was living (here in Kigali), where he was going to school and what for (Masaka, at St. Emmanuel School, to become an engineer A1 (just below A0, the highest rank)), and that he had a sort of girlfriend (Christine, going to the same school and living in Kimironko, and yes he wants to marry her so he’s going through the whole process, but unfortunately he is rather poor and is kind of stuck).  We also talked about seasons (there are two seasons that repeat in Rwanda every three months – rainy and dry) and other such things, and then he brought me over to the dance floor and explained a little bit about the band that was playing at the moment.  

I danced a little bit, but felt kind of awkward, so I slipped out and went to talk to the teachers for a bit about nothing in particular (mostly Customs stuff and how the next couple days would go), then went to my room.  It was at that point that Myriam started asking me questions and the conversation started; it went fairly late and I just went to sleep after that.

Rwanda, post number 10 (April 1st)

April 1, 2010; 6.54 CST

I am still not feeling well today. I have a suspicion it was the yogurt I had in Butare, but there are others not feeling well and we didn’t all have yogurt ...

To continue from yesterday: the second part of the first museum we visited was the traditional royal court of King Mutara, the second-last king of Rwanda. The traditional Rwandan house (only distinguished from the king’s by the fact that the king’s house has two extra wooden points on the roof) is made of ficus wood, straw and other wood. It looks a little bit like an igloo, except made of layers of straw. The thresholds are made of different kinds of clay, the threshold of the principal royal house being a large circular red platform with a white barrier that almost touches the house at both ends. This created an entrance and an exit for those who came to kneel before the king on the days of court, where the king would grant an audience to those who would come to him with problems. Right at the entrance to the main house was the pillar of pardon, a wooden pillar which, if a guilty person could get to it (there were guards all over the place) and touch it, meant that the king would pardon them.

Inside the house, there were partitions made of woven straw which were see-through from the inside, functioning both as doors and windows since they could be moved. Decorated partitions marked the bedchamber, which was basically just a huge (very hard) bed surrounded by said partitions and with several different-sized pointed baskets, which served as suitcases when the king went places. There were two entrances to the bedchamber: one for the king and male visitors, and one for the women. The king and his friends would enter directly from the main foyer of the house, which was itself separated from the entrance with more partitioning (a sort of entrance hall, which was also separated between men and women), and the women would go around behind another partition into a separate room that linked to the king’s bedchamber. The main foyer had a hearth in it, a sort of raised-clay affair that was decorated as a star. The smoke from the fire would impregnate the walls and render them hostile to insects. People would dance and sing in the main foyer, and drink beer and such, and chat, and so on and so forth.

The other two traditional houses they had built/rebuilt were the milk house and the beer house, each successively smaller than the one previous, and each built along the same basic layout. Milk was considered very, very important in traditional Rwandan culture, and a female servant (single for life) lived in the milk house to make sure that the king’s milk and milk products were not poisoned. This was also the hangout for the queen and her friends, so the secrets of the kingdom were safe with the servant because she never left.

The beer house was much the same, except a male servant would stay and brew the different kinds of beer (banana, sorghum and honey – the honey beer had more alcohol in it than today’s whisky). There were different sorts of jugs and containers for the milk and the beer: small milk jugs with thin necks for babies and progressively larger for older people (each child drank 1L of milk a day – and you wonder why Rwandans were so tall; the last king was over 7 feet); great big gourds for churning butter; different shapes of gourds for the different beers; calabashes and half-calabashes with various uses, etc.

After the old-Rwanda museum, we went up to another hill to visit the National Art Museum. The trip there was interesting since we got lost a couple times, but we made it there. The tree was very large width-wise, spreading out over a large amount of land and providing lots of shade. We ate pre-packed sandwiches (tomato, cheese and sausage) and fruit (I ate three marakujas) and took lots of pictures.

The art museum was a lovely building, having been built with the intention of it being the last king’s palace, but as he died two months before he could start living in it, it was converted (eventually) into a museum. The building has only been a museum for 4 years or so; I’m not sure what it was before that. They have an overarching theme of peace, and have had sub-themes each year tying into that: youth, ubuntu, etc.

The art comes from all over the world, not just from Rwanda or even from Africa: there were pieces from Serbia and elsewhere, but most of them were from Rwanda or from the DRC. Lots of fairly abstract art: I made the observation to myself that it seems as if abstract and absurd arts really boom after tragedies or large incidents. I think this is perhaps because we feel as if we cannot properly express what we feel with the language and the art we currently understand: we need a new way of saying things that is unlike what has come before. We are showing what we feel instead of what we see.

There were quite a few carved-wood statues, almost all graceful and smooth or in bas-relief – I particularly liked these, along with a few mixed-technique pieces, as I felt they really showed the emotions behind the pieces. There was one that was a metal sheet with a lock on it and a frame with chains ... I forget what it was called, but I won’t forget the piece. There were several pieces with mirrors, and many pieces showing women and children or traditional life.

We next drove to the national museum of Rwanda, which was more of the prehistory and culture of Rwanda than anything else. There exhibits including the geography of Rwanda, the climate, the topography and the geology, the evolution of the language and its construction, ancient and near-modern tools, Rwanda’s prehistory, methods of sustenance (agriculture and raising cattle in general) and the various arts of the culture: basket-weaving, pottery, weaponry, music, hunting and clothing. The detail here was amazing: they had pictures of people making baskets and pots and pictures of pretty much everything else, and the museum has an intense collection of artifacts, all meticulously preserved and labelled and explained in all three official languages (although sometimes English was missing). At the end of the tour, we took pictures outside and then went to the town of Butare.

In the town, we could go to two restaurants and/or go to a small market for snacks since we would not be home until late. I bought a package of chocolate biscuits, a drinking yogurt (ikivuguto) and a roll with ground beef in the middle. I sat in the second restaurant where most of us were, but did not order anything as I was running out of money (I believe I only have 4550 Rwf left, unless I don’t have to pay for my dress now, in which case I have 9550 Rwf. I might keep the 5000 Rwf and bring it home so I can pay for my dress when it comes, meaning I really only have 4550.

Oh, we poked a hole in the bus. Claude came around the back of the first restaurant to pick us all up, then had to back out all the way to the street. As good a driver as he is, he managed to get the bus out – but hit a pole and poked a hole in the ventilator at the back. Oh well. He didn’t seem too miffed.

The ride home was long and not very interesting, since it was dark soon into the trip. I listened to my Zune on shuffle for a while, then listened to Noriyuki Iwadare, then U2 on shuffle. I practiced conducting for a while. When we finally got back to the inn, we had some spinach soup and then went pretty much straight to bed.

I am still feeling off so I am going to rest now. I will write about today this evening.

Rwanda, post number 9 (March 31st)

March 31, 2010; 14.56 CST

Another very long day, with its ups and downs … and more downs than ups, I think. I am not coming away from this day at this point with a good feeling. It is so easy to complain about so many things – certain people getting on my nerves (either more than usual or the same as usual), the language barrier between us and the Rwandans, the fatigue enveloping us all, the planning that seems badly done, the miscommunications … I could probably write pages and pages, but in the interests of keeping things proportionate, I will only touch on each briefly. It would not do to have all positive in this journal.

People. The more tired I get, the more they get on my nerves. People leaving doors half-open or only locking once (the doors lock twice here). People focusing on their appearance much more than I think is necessary. People being rude or crude. People yelling or trying to exert authority which they do not have. It’s very tiring, but if everyone in the world was perfect, we’d be in Kingdom Come.

The language barrier. This is a super-frustrating one. Service at restaurants is awfully slow here (not sure why – Rwandan time?), and often restaurants will not have exactly what they list on their menus (or for the same price as they list on their menus). When we try to order or to clarify or just to ask questions, it is often difficult to get the question across and more difficult to understand the answer. I thought we’d be able to get along fine here with French and English – apparently in many cases that is not so at all.

The fatigue. We’re all exhausted, and as a result not feeling well and often very irritable. Changes in plans become huge issues when we’re all so tired. The adults are far more irritable as well, and the conciliatory manners some of them try to adopt sound condescending and patronizing and just get on our nerves even more. We were supposed to be back from Butare around 8 tonight and have a small, late supper. We got back at 9 and didn’t want to eat at all, but we had to because otherwise the food would be wasted. No one is very happy.

The planning. It seems like everything is done half by-ear on this trip. Things change quickly and word is not always passed along.

The communication. Oi. I brought money to buy souvenirs and a couple lunches, but we have gone to far more places where we have been obligated to spend money that we were not aware we would need to spend. This hasn’t been a problem for most people, but I brought less and feel a little left-out on occasion. If I had known about all these stops, I would have planned even better! I did not waste money, and yet here I am. Also to do with the communication issues is who is going where and when and for how long, and what to bring, and whether or not pictures can be taken, and the customs, and whether or not we will be outside, and how much time we have, and so on and so forth. I would have loved a schedule with markings like “shopping here” or “break here for food, pay on your own”, or “stop at grocery shop”, etc.

I am exhausted and want to sleep very badly, but I suppose I should say what actually happened today. We left for Butare a little later than planned, but the ride there was rather pleasant. I listened to music and read the fourth part (of five) of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which was an interesting chapter on the whole – he discovers part of his destiny at the end, which is done in a very neat passage. To go to Gisenyi one goes west and north; to go to Butare one goes south. The landscape changed from very high, peaked mountains to softer hills (still high, but with plateaus instead of peaks).

The first museum we visited was atop a hill, and was both the last king’s palace (a modern building) and the second-last king’s palace (traditional Rwandan royal housing). The modern house was somewhat boring, but very nicely furnished (the wood was very intricately carved as decoration, and I particularly liked the rugs – very colourful and plush) and somewhat informative. The plaques on the walls told specifically of the monarchical history of Rwanda, talking of the formation of the kingdom in the 10^th century AD and the conquests that led to its apogee in the 18^th century and then its slow decline under colonialism in the 19^th and 20^th century leading to today. It was interesting to see how an African empire had survived so long, but being in the middle of the continent I would imagine it was one of the last places to be reached by European influence. For example, when King Baudouin of Belgium visited Rwanda in the 20^th century, he was given 120 different spears by the Rwandan king (whose name escapes me), a traditional Rwandan royal-to-royal gift. It was under the last king that the European influence really expanded, as he was very cooperative with the Belgians. At one point, the Rwandan kingdom expanded far into what are its neighbouring countries today, which is why there are still Rwandaphones in those areas. Rwanda is notable for the fact that its people only speak one language, unlike many neighbouring countries which may speak seven to twelve. This is due to the conquest nature of the Rwandan monarchy.

I am really not feeling well. I am going to sleep and I will finish this entry in the morning or later in the evening.

Rwanda, post number 7 (March 29th)

Another long one, but only one day.

March 29, 2010; 14.48 CST

Today was a rather long and frustrating day. I felt like I was often losing my patience and being irritable with and/or without reason. Not sure what day I’m on – but I think it’s more likely to be just fatigue and heat (it was incredibly hot today) plus a bit of cabin-fever style stress due to being with the same people 24/7 for over a week. I miss my alone time – and I still miss John. I wonder how many times I will say that in the course of this journal. I am used to speaking to him every night; perhaps this is my version of speaking to him every night now that I cannot do so ...

Anyway. Woke up this morning to an ant crisis. And I do mean crisis. Now, I don’t like ants. I really don’t. I don’t know why, but I don’t like them at all. They creep me out. And last night, when we got back to Bel Air, I didn’t think twice about the honey and marakuja nectar in the paper bags from the market. I’m not used to thinking about insects getting into houses.

Yeah, revise that. Woke up and got up to get dressed and saw ants all over the floor. I’m immediately disgusted and creeped out, and then I realize they’re on my stuff – specifically the paper bags with the honey and the marakuja nectar. I instantly feel like a total idiot for not having thought of this before, and then I’m thinking about how the heck I’m going to fix this in twenty minutes and still have time to get dressed and ready for the day, since it’s 7.10. Oh dear.

So I pull the marakuja nectar out of the big paper bag and clean off the top, which was sticky. I put it in the plastic bag which had my mosquito netting in it. I gingerly pull the pot of honey out of its little bag and wipe it off too, and put it in the same plastic bag. I take the two boxes of tea out of their little bags (which the ants are crawling on too) and roll them in some of the fabric. They have no honey on them so I thought it should be okay. I throw away the big paper bag, which has two marakujas and two parts of a baguette in it (sob, what a waste, but they would have been no good after all the ants). I get dressed and take the honey with me to breakfast, leaving the marakuja nectar in my backpack, which I closed.

Ate a good amount of the honey at breakfast, slathering it on my bread (so good after just butter) and putting it in my tea (I miss the creamer: they keep giving us milk now, but that’s okay ... the milk is better for me). Come back to the room, wrap the honey and the nectar in the plastic bag again, seal them both in my backpack and pack my bag (the hotel staff was going to change our sheets this morning, so I just put everything away). I wrap my backpack in my mosquito net to deter any more ants, and leave it on my suitcase. On the way to the construction site, it occurred to me that I could have sprayed the netting with Off – it’s not meant for ants, but maybe it would help mask the smell of the honey.

Work this morning was more efficient than it was at the end of last week, mostly because of Danika’s genius with kids: she stopped working, more or less, and distracted them all with games (the Hokey Pokey, a simplified version of Simon Says, plus bracelets, necklaces and bouncy balls) and trying to learn Kinyarwanda. I have a few pictures plus a video of this: it was rather touching, not to mention it was an absolute lifesaver. The kids, helpful as they want to be, are very difficult to communicate with and after a certain point just start getting on your nerves. More proof for me to not work with kids. The ones who didn’t go to play with Danika were easier to communicate and more willing to cooperate, so that was much nicer – we could actually tell them to wait, or not to hammer (oh, and we had the genius idea of only having one hammer per group, so there were no extra hammers and so they couldn’t get them! It worked for a while, but then they found the rest), or where to hammer. One of them, Steven, spoke fairly good English (if pretty rudimentary), and he was really helpful. It’s great to see them wanting to help to help themselves.

I think we are at eighty-ish sets of shelves now, since there was a power outage in the late morning and there was no wood for a while (nor was there much in the afternoon, which made for a semi-unproductive afternoon – all the wood started getting cut just as we were supposed to close up for dinner). But I want to write down the experience of delivering one of the sets of shelves to one of the widows. This was a couple days ago, I think Friday. Roxanne, Myriam and I hopped into Rodrigue’s van to help deliver shelves. The little kids were faster than we were and delivered the first two sets, but Rodrigue told them to let us do the third one. We brought it down into the widow’s house, and started talking with her and her friend (who taught the widow’s daughter, killed in the genocide, in school). The friend could speak French, so she translated for us. It was very touching and somewhat difficult – the widow said that she had a granddaughter in school of whom we reminded her, and she said that Roxanne smiled like her late daughter (which made Roxanne rather teary later). She blessed us and thanked us and we got pictures with her; I was glad that I could remember the first two words of “God bless you” in Kinyarwanda, and that her friend understood what I was trying to say and provided me with the last word – it’s Imana aguhe umugisha, I think, or close to that anyway. The message got through. It was an amazing experience. The house was little; painted teal on the inside in the front room – a couple chairs, a small TV, a bedroom and a kitchen – but that was all I could see. Rudimentary and very clean, but definitely a home. A picture of her late daughter on the wall. And still she smiled.

This afternoon we were supposed to work more, which only kind of worked as planned – the remaining people who had not gone to the Kimironko market went, leaving two of the three groups missing people, so they (our group and another group) joined up to work together. Yeah. That didn’t work so well, since each group has its own production-line style of building the shelves, and it’s rather difficult to integrate ... even more so when you have a new set of kids to work with. The ones at the site we went to were incommunicado, speaking neither French nor English to speak of, and the mother apparently invited some of the group in to eat but they didn’t understand what she was saying (and tried to tell her so, but apparently that didn’t get through) and so she was potentially offended, and the kids were trying to walk off with things ... the whole atmosphere was sort of tense and awkward, more so than the morning. Ah well. Also we had to bring all the shelves from those two sites to the Centre at four, which was another whole step. I’m very grateful for the way our site works now, and how efficient we are.

I read for about two hours this afternoon, which was nice – I’ve read sixty percent of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man now, and I’m really getting into it. Joyce has a funny way of making you think you’re in Ireland, creating a strange sense of displacement every time I look up from the book, because I am not in Ireland but neither am I at home, and so it takes a moment to re-realize that I am in Rwanda.

I have been so tired these past few days that food almost makes me feel sick – I keep coming back to the room after meals and feeling kind of out of it, a little queasy, rather weak. I want to just sleep; it is so hot here during the day, and the food is heavy most of the time and carb-loaded, so I keep becoming more and more fatigued. It is nice to have the honey in the morning (along with fruit) and the marakuja nectar to mix with my water (along with some stevia) to make for some sugar during the day.

Oh, more ant crisis in the afternoon. The marakuja nectar had leaked onto a few pieces of clothing, so I had washed them quickly last night and hung them to dry on my window. When I came back that afternoon, I saw a trail of ants going up the wall to my window, and just about freaked out. That was pretty nasty and not cool at all – and I had thought I had gotten all the nectar! I pulled the window out and saw that there was like a whole colony of ants on one spot on my capris ... evidently I had not gotten all the nectar off. Ugh. With Roxanne’s help I managed to toss the three articles of clothing into a garbage bag, and then I brought them to the outdoor sink and washed them as thoroughly as I could, then hung them on the hedges to dry. (Two of them – my shorts and my capris – are still there, drying: the t-shirt, being very thin, dried quickly. No sign of ants. Win.) I came back in and sprayed the wall with Off, trying to get rid of everything. Oh, and I sprayed the mosquito netting and even my backpack to mask the smell of the honey. The inn staff had cleaned the room a bit, including the sheets and the floor, so the ants were pretty much gone. I still feel like they’re all over the place, though, and keep jumping whenever something touches me gently, like my hair or my headphone cord. Ach.

After supper the Visionaries came along for a debate evening, which I thought was going to be difficult to hear/understand/focus on because I was so tired and not in the mood for a debate, but it was actually pretty good. We started again on Romeo Dallaire, which we had discussed a bit during one of our discussion periods last week, the question being what do Rwandans think of Romeo Dallaire? The Canadians think he’s a hero, the Belgians think he’s a traitor: where do Rwandans stand? The answers varied, from answers seemingly closed-minded (he is not a hero because he failed, regardless of whether he could have done more) to forward-thinking (he is a hero because he is spreading the word of the genocide and has been since 1994) to two-sided (he is not a hero because he did not succeed, but we cannot condemn him because it was not his fault). A lot seemed to depend on one’s personal or cultural definition of hero: I explained the Canadian point of view of a hero being someone who gives their all in spite of personal danger and does their absolute best to save lives; the traditional Rwandan point of view was given as someone who fights valiantly and (generally) wins in battle. The viewpoints were evidently, therefore, very different to start with. The conversation was, in general, a good one.

One of the things I have noticed during conversations like these is that often the Rwandans will make the same point at least three times, almost starting over their idea again at the end two or three times. It can get kind of frustrating for those of us who prefer conversations and discussion points to be precise and concise (oh dear, the IB is controlling my brain): you make your point and you support it, and you don’t repeat yourself. I am one of these people, so some of the people who spoke several times (often pretty much the same thing as they had said before) got on my nerves a bit.

After the debate, though, Andrée said something which I had (I admit to my own shame) not thought of: these people need to talk these things through. Apparently one of the guys who talked the most (and was the most polarized of the speakers) had seen the rest of his four-member family die. Hm. Perspective much, us Canadians? This whole trip has been an exercise in seeing other people through the right eyeglasses: we have to keep in mind what they have gone through, while not letting that be the only light in which we see them: we must see them also through the lens of future development and the new push for humanity. The genocide is not where it ended and is not where it ends now – life goes on and they must somehow move on as well. Debates like this are part of that.

Rwanda, post number 6 (March 27th-28th)

Sorry this is a couple weeks late ... would take too long to go into the various reasons ...

This entry is a double entry: I did not bring my laptop to Gisenyi, so I wrote the whole thing in one go when we got back.

March 28, 2010; 14.45 CST

I have been and gone to Gisenyi, and it is an absolutely beautiful place. I feel as if I can relax there, among the palm trees and the innumerable flowers, on the coast of huge Lake Kivu in the middle of the mountains, on the border of several African states, with active volcanoes among the mountains … it is beautiful.

We left early in the morning, as planned, minus one – Anatol was very sick and so he stayed here. The drive to Gisenyi took about five hours, although we only covered about 120 km, since it was very up and down and roundabout. The road was built by Juvénal Habyarimana, the last dictator of Rwanda (and one of the instigators of the genocide), to go home, because Gisenyi was his home. Because of this, the road from Kigali to Gisenyi was the last to be rebuilt after the destruction of the genocide. All along the way, from Kigali on, we saw people working in the ditches or in the fields, doing the muganda just as Igor had said they would – the community work on the last Saturday of each month. We were indeed stopped a couple times, but everything checked out and we kept going.

We made three stops total, if I remember correctly: one where there were a bunch of eucalyptus trees; one at the very top of the mountains, on a sort of plain where there were lots of trucks (a parking lot, basically); and one in a small village next to the marakuja-juice factory, where we could buy food for lunch.

The eucalyptus trees were everywhere, Igor said, and they helped a bit with the rising altitude: since there was less oxygen, the eucalyptus would help us breathe. I didn’t notice much of a difference, but that’s okay. Cool anyway. At this stop, we met a couple kids (also everywhere), to whom I sort-of taught the heart-hand sign. I believe Roxanne has a picture with me and one girl doing the little hand heart. It was very cute.

At the next stop, at the top of the mountains, you could see the river flowing through the valley. I don’t remember off the top of my head what it’s called, but it was very orangey-brown and looked a little bit like the Red River (more orange, less brown). Igor said that since it connects to Lake Victoria, from which the Nile flows, and since part of the anti-Tutsi propaganda was that they originally came from Egypt and not from the actual region of Rwanda, extremist Hutus would speak of “showing the Tutsi the [name of river] road” – meaning they meant to kill them and throw them in the river (or kill them by throwing them in the river). Up here, we met a whole bunch of kids. A couple of the older girls (and a couple of the younger ones) were carrying babies on their back: one of them handed the baby off to a slightly older woman, but I couldn’t help but wonder how many of those young girls were the heads of their families for some reason or other. It was very sad for me.

It was about this time that I started noticing the kids asking for things, or rather demanding. I hadn’t noticed so much in the village – there was only one little boy who asked for chocolate – but the more rural kids were flat-out (but that may have been because their English and their French was very rudimentary): “give me money.” Now that I know by sound the Kinyarwanda word for money – “amafaranga” – I hear it more … umuzungu, amafaranga! White person, money! It is sort of upside-down for me that I as a white person am equated via fictionalization (as Igor said) to wealth: by the standards of my country, I am not terribly rich at all. I am very middle class, lower middle class once I leave home. But here I am rich.

The last stop was in the little village: I bought a baguette (300 Rwf), a pot of honey (1200 Rwf), two samosas (200 Rwf each) and a bottle of marakuja nectar (3000 Rwf) – for $8.57 USD, I bought what would have cost me roughly $30 CAD. They also had cheese, which I kind of wanted, but I didn’t want a whole quarter of a wheel, so I had some of someone else’s … wow. So very good. Tangy, sort of like a raw cheese, but soft like a cheddar and sweet like a mozzarella. Yum yum yum. Also, the honey tastes like raisins, and is liquid (and so kept leaking, ugh) –and even though I don’t like raisins, I like this honey.

When we got to Gisenyi, we stopped at an upper-class hotel (I believe Igor said $50 USD a night … and the place was amazing) for a drink. Driving into the city, we weren’t entirely sure where to look when Igor told us to look at the lake – and then Mikey exclaimed, “That’s not the sky. That’s the lake!” and we all figured out that indeed what we were looking at was not the sky, but the huge expanse of Lake Kivu. The view from this hotel (Le Belvedere) was astonishing. Words don’t do it justice – I will put pictures in.

After our drinks at Le Belvedere, we went to the guest house we were staying the night in and settled in. We all slept in the same room on the floor on mattresses, and had brought our pillows and comforters from Bel Air Inn. After quickly settling in, we got into our bathing suits and went (after a rather long wait) to Kivu Beach, just by the Serena Hotel. The water was almost warm – we could go in and not freeze! Such a novel idea … It wasn’t very sunny, being as it’s the rainy season now (or almost), but it was warm and calm and a little breezy even. It would have been nice to have been there for longer than forty-five minutes, or with the sun, or both, but it was lovely anyway. You can get out of the water there and not be cold – all of us Winnipeggers were totally unused to this concept. And the view, as is any view of Lake Kivu, is amazing.

We went back to the guest house after the beach and got changed to go to the restaurant, La Corniche, where we had a buffet of pretty much all the same food as we’d been having at Bel Air (difference: the spinach and the meat was better at La Corniche, but the rice, the beans and the fries are better at Bel Air) and played a lot of games of Would You Rather while eating and after. I took lots of photos, including trying to get one of the glowing volcano in the distance, and plenty of plant life. It started pouring while we were eating, and I have photos of me in the rain, trying to look ecstatic in the wonderful, wonderful, not freezing cold rain – but it was kind of hard, as it was raining pretty heavily and making me squint. But it’s beautiful rain: it’s not cold! You can walk in it! You just get wet, and then a little cold, but it’s so wonderful here …

We came back to the guest house, dried off and changed into pyjamas, and organized the room with all the mattresses. I got to use Rodrigue’s laptop briefly to check my email (30 messages, as I had predicted; all but 7 were useless), and I sent off an email to John and one to Dad. Rodrigue explained the process of Rwandan courtship to Mme Fréchette while I was writing, and the whole thing is incredibly complicated: for the guy and girl to get to know each other alone, it must all be done silently and entirely in secret; then when the guy decides he wants to marry the girl, he has to send a representative to the girl’s family to present himself; if the family likes what they hear, they will ask to meet him and that comes next; if all goes well, there is a huge party where all of both families meet (paid by the guy’s family, and the guy must pay a price for the bride – generally a certain amount of cows, Rodrigue said, and no joke); then there is a public ceremony and the guy and girl get married. Rodrigue said that if you don’t follow that, you can end up being threatened with machetes … and he wasn’t kidding, apparently. I’m glad I live where I live and in my culture and that it isn’t nearly that complicated or expensive … oh, and if the wife leaves and goes back to her parents, if the guy wants her back he pretty much has to do the same thing over again. Yikes.

I fell asleep listening to the songs that John and I recorded, and thinking about how beautiful it is in Gisenyi – the yard of our guesthouse was ringed and covered in flowers and greenery: I took lots of pictures the next morning.

I woke up a little before six this morning, and listened to Sting for two hours – mostly the Fields of Gold album because I woke up with that stuck in my head. I ended up wandering around the yard for a while taking pictures and still listening to Sting; I put on sunscreen because I wasn’t sure whether we were going swimming again or not, and it was a good thing I did because lots of other people got very burnt. We took the bus along the presidential route (open to us through Igor’s connections) to a peninsula where we had breakfast (omelettes, toast and fruit – good food and amazing plants again) at a hotel called Paradise Malahide.

After breakfast and all the photos, we took a tour to what Igor called Spice Island: there were cloves growing there (I had always wondered how cloves grew – they grow on trees, turns out), along with rosemary and lemon trees, and lots of spiders. Honestly, the amount of spiders even creeped me out a bit, but they never crawled on us and were little grey-brown things. Igor didn’t even mention them, so we weren’t worried. After Spice Island, the boat continued to another peninsula where there are natural hot springs, coming out of the ground heated by the volcano and sulphuric to the point where it makes yellow algae; the water is honestly boiling hot: you can barely touch it. The guardian of the hot springs has been guarding said hot springs for over sixty years, Igor said. Also on this peninsula were coffee trees (had I time and would it not have deprived someone of a job, I would have picked a few handfuls and roasted them myself). We could also see the fishing industry and the gas industry: the boats are really cool, and Lake Kivu is the only lake in the world, I think, where the water is mixed with methane gas because of the mountains and the volcanoes and stuff – so they extract the methane, and in extracting the methane you create electricity. There is one platform already that churns out 20 MW, and Igor said another was starting tomorrow that would churn out 5.

A little ways along the coast from the restaurant at which we had breakfast was a church, or more like a gathering of people in a square. It was Palm Sunday today, which Roxanne reminded me of, and while we were having breakfast, the people in the church never stopped singing loud and clear. It made me very happy, but a little sad since I would have loved to join in the singing and grab some fresh palm branches. We actually drove past a baptism going on in the lake, and that was really cool too.

I went on the second boat tour (each boat only held 15 and we were twice that), and while Roxanne and I waited we sat in the shade and talked with Manu and Claude (our driver). They asked what I wanted to do, since they knew I sang, and I told them my plans. I said to Roxanne later that maybe I would come back to Rwanda and start the Kigali Symphony Orchestra, combining Rwandan music with classical to form a new genre. Roxanne laughed a bit but said it was a really cool idea.

We went back to Le Belvedere for lunch, and I had chicken curry and marakuja juice. It took over two hours for any of our orders to get to the tables – they don’t serve one at a time; they wait until everyone’s is cooked and then hand it all out. The fries were insanely good, as was the curry sauce, but I keep forgetting that I am spoiled in Canada and that the meat is too good to be true – here the meat is a little tougher, but still good. Should stick to fish, lamb, and goat, I think: those have been really good. It rained while we were here too (and in fact all the way home, and it might still be raining now – the fog we had for a while on the ride home was kind of creepy, in fact), and I contemplated the fact that it’s crazy safe here (there are video cameras, the bus got stopped on the way back for no visible reason, everyone knows everyone, the border to the DRC is a metal gate (then a string, then a wall)) ... If you come in April it rains a lot, it’s warm, I can eat as many fresh fruits and vegetables as I want ... I am relaxed here. I have never felt so relaxed in my life. Someday. Someday I will come back here.

This country is full of agape, as I said to Roxanne earlier today at Le Belvedere. There is so much love. To touch another person is not to hit on them or flirt with them or be intrusive of their personal space. Everyone is friendly; everyone is loving. I have already started to see this change work in me: I will give people hugs, or take their hands, or hold their hands, or touch their shoulders – I even look people in the eye more now when I speak to them. It is not wrong to smile here; it is not wrong to say hello and to ask how you are doing. This place is full of love for one another and understanding for one another. This place is full of God’s love and acceptance and beauty: His creation, lived in by His creatures, showered in His love and blessings.

The ride home was shorter than the ride there by half an hour, but it seemed to pass even faster because I listened to music and because it was dark. During the course of U-Catastrophe //, Turn it On Again and almost all of The Best of 1990-2000 (U2), there was a rather large game of Risk-like style going on: Mikey and Danika, because of the fog that enveloped the bus, created a zombie apocalypse scenario, and then it degenerated into a power struggle that enveloped PJFM techniques and became absolutely hilarious as everyone got dragged into it. Mikey, Luc, Danika and Sandrine were all president or prime minister or both at some point, Myriam and Dan were heads of the army (then Dan got demoted because he supported Sandrine’s driving skills over Mikey’s), Juliane was Minister of Superheroes and Defense, Quentin was Minister of Jokes and Funny Things and Would You Rather, Renee was the oracle, Luc and Janique were bodyguards respectively of Mikey and Danika (also Janique was going to teach us all tae kwon do), Roxanne was chief of police, I was the Leader of the House (timekeeper/order guy that stands beside the Speaker), Élodie and Justin were on the Supreme Court, Janelle was … Minister of Domestic Affairs maybe? Anyway, the whole thing got rather insane rather quickly and I believe Mikey ended up getting executed for abuses of power or something like that by the end of the trip. The whole conversation/debate lasted about an hour and I didn’t hear all of it because A) sometimes I had my headphones in and B) I couldn’t hear anything anyway (which led to A again and so on and so forth).

We got to Bel Air around 9.30, and ate a little bit – now it is time for getting my pictures off my camera, which is proving to be a pain, and then beautiful sleep.

Rwanda, post number 5 (March 25th-26th)

March 25, 2010; 15.10 CST

We built more shelves today: we have finished approximately nine sets, with one left to sand and two left to nail backing onto. We had to sand and nail the backing onto the three we did yesterday, but that didn’t take long. We did six today, and after sanding all the boards for two sets we decided to nail it all together and then sand (which is more sensible logistics-wise, if not the best for sanding quality) – the rhythm therefore goes pick boards, build, sand, backing. We’re pretty darn efficient if I do say so myself.

We were working in the sun this morning, and even though I slathered sunscreen onto my shoulders I ended up burning them slightly. Not a bad burn – not terribly painful in any case – and it should be gone in a few days if I keep treating it with moisturizer and sunscreen. Hopefully it will only be tan lines when I get back.

This afternoon was the grand opening of the Centre Cesar, and the whole ceremony took a good four hours … and we were there an hour and a half early. We got to the Centre at 14.30 (as the ceremonies were supposed to start at 14.00), but we didn’t get started until 15.30, and then we went until 19.30. Not the most fun of times, nor the most interesting – lots of people talked, including Maman Nicole, Igor, M. Raval, Léonie (the president of the Centre, a widow herself along with all the women on the board of directors), two local politicians (one very high up in the government) and one representative of a company that has supported the Centre since its inception in 2005. Most of the speeches were very similar, and all of them were translated either out of Kinyarwanda or into Kinyarwanda (for some reason the second language of choice was English – there must have been someone there who only spoke English, but I didn’t mind, as it meant I could zone out a little more and still listen), which meant they took twice as long … and no one spoke quickly or for a short amount of time.

The one person, the ombudsman (fourth in the chain of command, M. Raval said), Tito, had the best speech of them all – engaging, simple, clear, and he often translated for himself as he spoke very good English. He was far more personal in his speech than any of the others, going into open and earnest encouragement for Nicole, Marcelle, the widows, and even us. What really struck me about his speech, the other politician’s, and the businessman’s speeches was that all of them promised help (whether financial or through networking), and from the examples given or the timelines and history stated, it looks like those promises will be carried through. Maman Nicole and Léonie went on and on about the involvement of the government and the one company, mentioning how it was due much to them (and Marcelle) that the Centre was still going and could do as much as it could. It was interesting and a bit mind-bending for me to hear promises made that seemed like they would be kept, and were not just empty words – another thing I would like to bring back to Canada.

After supper (which was late, since the evening went so late), Roxanne and I had a good conversation for at least an hour about all and sundry, and that was good. I am very comfortable now, so I am going to do my devotions and then sleep early (wow). 435 pictures so far and my camera’s still going.

March 26, 2010; 15.21 CST

Today was more shelves. Apparently we are at a total of around sixty so far – that’s forty percent in three mornings’ work. Not bad at all. Each group is churning out 10 to 15 per day. I think we did either 11 or 13 today – and it would have been closer to 20, probably, if we had not had the help of the local kids. They’re wonderful help when it comes to sanding (one less thing we have to do, and they’re pretty good at it), but they very soon want to move to helping to build, and then a lot of our time is eaten up by telling them as nicely as we can not to nail here, or not to nail now … they’re very cute, but it’s difficult to get through to them, and they very much want to help (which is very nice of them), but we would be able to get our job done much better if they weren’t trying to help in that way. It’s hard not to feel sort of guilty when I say that, since it’s great that they want to help and that they’re so hardworking and willing to jump to a task – but as much as it’s great to make connections and show them as much love and patience as we can, we do need to get the work done. It’s a balance. We can’t take time off and just play with them, but we can’t exactly work.

This afternoon, I got to go to the market. Holy crap. It’s one heck of an adventure. I didn’t take my camera, as Janelle had said a few days ago that if you have a camera, the vendors will be all over you times two, since you obviously have money if you have a camera. That means, unfortunately, no pictures – but I will describe it: a huge warehouse-style building, filled half with open stalls for fruit, vegetables, grains, flours and other foods (sort of like the produce counters in a Safeway, but each vendor has a section and the aisles are very narrow), and the other half is filled halfway to the ceiling with wooden stalls with shelves stocked high with goods (shoes, cloth, souvenirs, drums, clothing, jewelry, scarves, you name it). The aisles are incredibly narrow – you can’t walk side by side because you’d knock the vendors over. It’s a clever strategy in a way because it forces you to be alone, in a sense.

Manu came with us to be our negotiator, and Igor was along too for some of it. And a good thing too, because I tried to haggle for a scarf and didn’t do too well – I ended up paying 1500 Rwf for it (which is insanely good, really, approximately $2.50 USD for something that would cost $20 at home), when I imagine Manu or Igor could have had it for 1000 or less. It was an interesting experience, with the woman going back on her offer of 1000 (if I remember correctly – she swore up and down that she never said less than 1500) and us haggling back and forth … I eventually got her to leave it at 1400, but I gave her the 1500 because in reality, it didn’t matter – what was 100 Rwf to me, compared to 100 Rwf for her?

She was a nice woman, if a bit annoying by the end, and her brother … or well, he said he was her brother, he was the vendor next to her, started eventually hitting on me (not creepy-like or anything, just putting his hand on my shoulder the way the Rwandans do, trying to convince me to buy the scarf) – I had to pull my sindi ingaragu card, which means “I’m not single,” after the woman translated for me and said that the guy was saying I was pretty and that he liked me. After saying sindi ingaragu and proclaiming that I was quite taken, she said, “Oh, you are married?” and I said, “no, but I’m very taken” and she said, “oh, you have a … boyfriend?” and I said yes. There isn’t really such thing in Rwandan culture: you don’t go out with a woman until you’re married. You’re single, or you’re married; there is no in-between. After I said that yes, I had a boyfriend, she laughed and said, “well, he [the other vendor] likes you too!” I laughed, paid for the scarf, and left.

In total from the market today, I bought 4 pagnes (not sure of the translation) of fabric (two for my dress that I’m having made, one just because I loved it, and one as a gift), one scarf (a gift), and two boxes of Rwandan tea (glee!!) – all for 12700 Rwf, or roughly $22.20 USD. In Canada, I probably would have paid almost a hundred dollars for all that - $15 for the tea, $20 for the scarf, and a good $50 or more for the fabric. I talked about this a little later with Jacqueline, saying that I felt a bit like I was ripping them off, and she said no, that really isn’t the case – you have to think about the relative price of living, and also about inflation, and so on and so forth. I felt a bit better after that – I’m not paying $2.10 USD for two boxes of tea, I’m paying 1200 Frw, and therein lies the difference. It’s a different mindset, a different need set, and I am not accustomed to either.

Supper was good tonight, although I had eyes bigger than my stomach – pasta with a light tomato and meat sauce, really good soup, a spinach dish similar to the soup, the everpresent (and ever-yummy) potatoes, and chickpeas, followed by a fruit salad for dessert (containing marakuja (passionfruit), bananas (which taste different here), and possibly tree tomatoes).

After supper, the Visionaries came by and we watched a documentary that they had helped produce in minor roles (Rodrigue did a little more, but most of the work was done by another group), talking about the role of the Rwandan youth in the genocide and in the rebuilding. One of the major messages that we took away was that it was Rwandan youth who were mobilized against their own people in large numbers due to the propaganda, and therefore they (the youth) feel that it is their duty to rebuild the country and to spread the message of the genocide, its consequences and Rwanda’s needs and new strength to the world. They have taken this responsibility upon themselves not as a burden but as a duty and as a joy. They take pride in their work and they want their country to succeed. It is inspiring, and a little shaming, to hear of their exploits.

We are leaving at 7 in the morning to go to Gisenyi tomorrow. We cannot leave later because the community work (last Saturday of every month) starts at eight, and if we are on the roads we will have to stop, get out, and help work – and not go to Gisenyi. And I want to go to Gisenyi, so devotions and bed for me.