Off on Another Adventure!

Tomorrow morning we are leaving to spend two weeks in Uganda, just north of Rwanda, to study their conflict and how the concepts we've learned here apply there. Internet is going to be iffy there, so it's very likely that I won't post at all when we're in Uganda and then will have a lot to say when we get back. I'm really excited, for multiple reasons. It looks like we're going to learn a lot of interesting stuff, plus it will be an added adventure. It will also be a much needed break from Eddy. He's a great kid, and I'm starting to have more patience with him, but a whole weekend with him is enough to wear on my nerves. But most of all I'm excited because, if our time in Butare is any indication, the next two weeks are going to fly by, and when we come back we'll only have six weeks left! Crazy!

Post-Genocide Justice

I don't know of justice is really possible after something as horrible as a genocide, especially in Rwanda's case. The Rwandan genocide was unique in that after losing the civil war the Hutu government convinced people that the Tutsis were evil and inhuman and were going to kill them if they took power, so that when they began telling people to kill Tutsis it was carried out by the common people, neighbors killing their neighbors, making it the only genocide to be carried out with such mass participation.

This created huge problems when it came to trying all of these cases after the genocide. With hundreds of thousands of killers, prisons were massively overcrowded, and it would have taken more than a hundred years to try all those cases. For this unique situation, the government created a unique solution.

The pre-colonial gacaca courts had been used to settle small disputes. They were community courts, where disputes were judged and settled by a family elder, and then the person who had done the wrong would provide a calabash of beer and everyone would drink together and all would be well. The government modified this tradition to try genocide cases. There is a gacaca court for each cell (a small unit of community organization). The cases are judged by a group of 9 moral and trustworthy people voted by their community, and the courts cannot meet without at least 100 adults from the community present to hear the testimony of the accused and contribute any information they have. The idea behind this is that the genocide was carried out in full view, so that anyone who was here at the time saw it happen and has some information to contribute. The communities listen to the testimony of the accused and of the victims, if they are living, and they talk about what happened, everyone with someone relevant to contribute sharing what they know to either verify or call into question the testimonies, and then once all the information has been shard the judges decide the sentence. But that's only the spark notes version. While I'm here I intend to do my research project on gacaca, so if you want to know more feel free to ask me when I get back, I hope to know a lot about it by the end of May.

One of the main benefits of gacaca is that is has given victims the right to confront those who have wronged them. It has allowed them to learn what happened to their loved ones, and in some cases even to find out where their bodies were buried so they could bury them properly. Achieving this closure, working to reintegrate the perpetrators into society, and in some way begin to heal the community, is the focus of post-genocide justice. There were so many perpetrators that retributive justice in the Western sense, putting someone in prison to punish them for their crimes, was impractical, and while that is being done for more serious cases, the goal has largely been to serve justice in a way that sensitizes the perpetrators to their crimes, has them pay their debt to society, and then, most importantly, allows them to be reintegrated into society in a way that is effective enough to facilitate healing and ensure that more violence does not break out. There is an emphasis on perpetrators confessing, apologizing, and asking forgiveness, and in prison they are given classes and taught crafts so that when they complete their sentences they will be able to provide for themselves and contribute to the country's economic development. Even many of the sentences are designed so that the convicts help rebuild the society they destroyed; a few years ago, the government created the program Travail pour l'Interet General, work for the general interest, known as TIG. It was designed both to relieve the overcrowded prisons and for the already-stated purpose of having the convicts rebuild society. Those who serve their sentences through TIG live in camps where they work on projects such as building homes for vulnerable families or chipping apart rocks that will be used to pave roads. They serve shorter sentences than they would if they were in prison, and they are able to interact with their surrounding communities, better facilitating reconciliation and reintegration. We got to visit one of these camps yesterday, and I am incredibly grateful for the experience.

The first thing I noticed when we got to the camp was the almost complete lack of security. The fence, like many fences here, was made of bundles of dry grass and was only about chest high. The gate was nothing but a string tied across the opening in the grass fence. There was one armed guard. Our director, Dan, explained to us later that the tigists (those serving their sentences through TIG) rarely run away; in the camps they are given food and water and they get to see their families regularly, but were they to run away it would mean trying to survive as a fugitive in the Congo, where provisions would be hard to come by, and their families would most likely not go with them. Also, in many of the tigists want to be there so that they can repay their debts and hopefully make up for what they've done. We got to meet with a group of them, and I think that was one of the most edifying and enlightening experiences of the trip. When we first met them, I was struck by how kind they seemed. They greeted us very warmly, taking our hands in both of theirs and asking “Amakuru?”, “How are you?”. It took me a minute to remember that they had all killed people. I still like them. They spoke to us very openly about their experiences, about how angry they were with the old government for convincing them that the Tutsis weren't human and that they should kill them.

“They told us they had tails,” one man said, “What kind of person has a tail?”

They also said how grateful they were to have been forgiven by those they had harmed. One man described how he got down on his knees during his gacaca hearing to beg for forgiveness. Another told us how he has told his children everything he did, and that he doesn't want them to think that he is innocent like some children do of their parents because he wants them to learn from his mistakes so that something like that can never happen again. They were truly lovely people. When we arrived they clapped and sang a song about how happy they were that we were there, and before we left they made us get up and dance with them. I am so blessed to have met those people. Yes, they have killed people, but they are still people, and I am no better than they are. I do not believe that the mistakes someone made nearly 20 years ago should define them. Yes, they did something very wrong, and yes, they deserve to be in TIG, but they are still people. I am just like them and they are just like me, we were just born in different places at different times. I have no right to judge them or say that they should not be allowed back into society, because they should. That is the only way for true healing to occur.

Post-Genocide Justice

I don't know of justice is really possible after something as horrible as a genocide, especially in Rwanda's case. The Rwandan genocide was unique in that after losing the civil war the Hutu government convinced people that the Tutsis were evil and inhuman and were going to kill them if they took power, so that when they began telling people to kill Tutsis it was carried out by the common people, neighbors killing their neighbors, making it the only genocide to be carried out with such mass participation.

This created huge problems when it came to trying all of these cases after the genocide. With hundreds of thousands of killers, prisons were massively overcrowded, and it would have taken more than a hundred years to try all those cases. For this unique situation, the government created a unique solution.

The pre-colonial gacaca courts had been used to settle small disputes. They were community courts, where disputes were judged and settled by a family elder, and then the person who had done the wrong would provide a calabash of beer and everyone would drink together and all would be well. The government modified this tradition to try genocide cases. There is a gacaca court for each cell (a small unit of community organization). The cases are judged by a group of 9 moral and trustworthy people voted by their community, and the courts cannot meet without at least 100 adults from the community present to hear the testimony of the accused and contribute any information they have. The idea behind this is that the genocide was carried out in full view, so that anyone who was here at the time saw it happen and has some information to contribute. The communities listen to the testimony of the accused and of the victims, if they are living, and they talk about what happened, everyone with someone relevant to contribute sharing what they know to either verify or call into question the testimonies, and then once all the information has been shard the judges decide the sentence. But that's only the spark notes version. While I'm here I intend to do my research project on gacaca, so if you want to know more feel free to ask me when I get back, I hope to know a lot about it by the end of May.

One of the main benefits of gacaca is that is has given victims the right to confront those who have wronged them. It has allowed them to learn what happened to their loved ones, and in some cases even to find out where their bodies were buried so they could bury them properly. Achieving this closure, working to reintegrate the perpetrators into society, and in some way begin to heal the community, is the focus of post-genocide justice. There were so many perpetrators that retributive justice in the Western sense, putting someone in prison to punish them for their crimes, was impractical, and while that is being done for more serious cases, the goal has largely been to serve justice in a way that sensitizes the perpetrators to their crimes, has them pay their debt to society, and then, most importantly, allows them to be reintegrated into society in a way that is effective enough to facilitate healing and ensure that more violence does not break out. There is an emphasis on perpetrators confessing, apologizing, and asking forgiveness, and in prison they are given classes and taught crafts so that when they complete their sentences they will be able to provide for themselves and contribute to the country's economic development. Even many of the sentences are designed so that the convicts help rebuild the society they destroyed; a few years ago, the government created the program Travail pour l'Interet General, work for the general interest, known as TIG. It was designed both to relieve the overcrowded prisons and for the already-stated purpose of having the convicts rebuild society. Those who serve their sentences through TIG live in camps where they work on projects such as building homes for vulnerable families or chipping apart rocks that will be used to pave roads. They serve shorter sentences than they would if they were in prison, and they are able to interact with their surrounding communities, better facilitating reconciliation and reintegration. We got to visit one of these camps yesterday, and I am incredibly grateful for the experience.

The first thing I noticed when we got to the camp was the almost complete lack of security. The fence, like many fences here, was made of bundles of dry grass and was only about chest high. The gate was nothing but a string tied across the opening in the grass fence. There was one armed guard. Our director, Dan, explained to us later that the tigists (those serving their sentences through TIG) rarely run away; in the camps they are given food and water and they get to see their families regularly, but were they to run away it would mean trying to survive as a fugitive in the Congo, where provisions would be hard to come by, and their families would most likely not go with them. Also, in many of the tigists want to be there so that they can repay their debts and hopefully make up for what they've done. We got to meet with a group of them, and I think that was one of the most edifying and enlightening experiences of the trip. When we first met them, I was struck by how kind they seemed. They greeted us very warmly, taking our hands in both of theirs and asking “Amakuru?”, “How are you?”. It took me a minute to remember that they had all killed people. I still like them. They spoke to us very openly about their experiences, about how angry they were with the old government for convincing them that the Tutsis weren't human and that they should kill them.

“They told us they had tails,” one man said, “What kind of person has a tail?”

They also said how grateful they were to have been forgiven by those they had harmed. One man described how he got down on his knees during his gacaca hearing to beg for forgiveness. Another told us how he has told his children everything he did, and that he doesn't want them to think that he is innocent like some children do of their parents because he wants them to learn from his mistakes so that something like that can never happen again. They were truly lovely people. When we arrived they clapped and sang a song about how happy they were that we were there, and before we left they made us get up and dance with them. I am so blessed to have met those people. Yes, they have killed people, but they are still people, and I am no better than they are. I do not believe that the mistakes someone made nearly 20 years ago should define them. Yes, they did something very wrong, and yes, they deserve to be in TIG, but they are still people. I am just like them and they are just like me, we were just born in different places at different times. I have no right to judge them or say that they should not be allowed back into society, because they should. That is the only way for true healing to occur.

The Millennium Village

The Millennium Village Project was started by the UN to figure out the best way to reach the Millennium Development Goals of eradicating certain markers of poverty by 2015. They selected a few villages throughout Africa to pour resources into and to lift them out of the cycle of poverty, with the intention also to figure out the best way to replicate the improvements all over the world.

The Millennium Village Project (MVP) is a bit controversial, with many people arguing that it has simply made these villages dependent on international donations, and that once the project ends they will be no better off than they were before, if not worse. Whether or not this is true, I cannot tell you, but what I can tell you is that I think the Millennium Village in Rwanda has a better shot than the villages in other countries. It is unique in that the efforts of the MVP are exactly in line with Rwanda's own domestic development program, Project 2020, and so the Rwandan government gives more funding to the Millennium Village than any other government gives to a Millennium Village in their country. In fact, most of the funding for the MV in Rwanda comes from the Rwandan government.

Our first stop in the Village was to visit a farmer. This man grew cassava (which he taught us how to make into flour), peanuts, and three types of beans, in addition to having some livestock. He told us that the UN had brought a specialist into the Village who had taught them better farming techniques, which he had adopted with much success. They had also brought in fruit trees and showed them how grafting the young trees to mature ones would cause them to grow to maturity and begin to bear fruit in one year instead of six. He also showed us the water pump the Project had given him to pump water out of his pond and through a small pipe so he could draw water from a spicket and more easily water is crops. The pump was broken because it was made of wood and termites had eaten through it, but he said that the Project was going to give him a metal one soon so the termites wouldn't be able to eat through it again.

Our next stop was the health center. It is relatively advances for a rural African health center, offering testing for HIV, malaria, and many other diseases and providing free contraceptives of all kinds to the community (Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa, and they're encouraging people to have less children). The center also had a pharmacy with a medicines for most basic illnesses (for anything they don't have they refer people to the nearby hospital), a maternity ward, as well as wards for children, men, and women, each containing about ten beds. Testing and treatment for HIV, as well as contraceptives, are free (as they are everywhere in Rwanda) and all other treatments are made affordable by the government's universal health insurance program, so patients only have to pay 10% of their medical costs. The center would certainly have been deemed alarmingly insufficient by Western standards, but by African standards it's moderately advanced, and one girl in my group who spent last semester studying public health in Kenya thought it was really great.

The highlight of our visit was the visit to the weaving cooperative. It's made up of a group of women in the village who have been taught to make all sorts of things out of native grasses, from baskets and place mats to earrings and bracelets. We got to meet some of the women there, and they taught us how to weave! We sat down on straw mats, each of us with a different woman, and they showed us how to wrap one piece of grass around the others to hold them together, and how to run a needle through completed rows to give our creations shape. It was an interesting experience for multiples reasons, namely because the women only spoke Kinyarwanda, so the teaching was done mostly by her working on the piece for a minute while I watched and then handing it to me, then taking it from me again when I did something wrong, which happened a lot. I'm really bad at weaving. And no, we didn't get to keep our creations. I didn't even finish mine. Honestly I don't even know what it was, it was just a small ring of grass. Instead we worked on our projects for a little while and then went to their shop and bought things that the women had made, which were undoubtedly much better quality than whatever it was I was making anyway. Don't worry, I did get lots of pictures of me weaving though.

I'm skeptical of the MVP's development model of pouring millions of dollars into bringing basic infrastructures and services into a village for a few years, then leaving with the assumption that the villagers now have everything they need to be healthy and to produce enough to make a profit and begin to improve their own quality of life and lift themselves out of poverty. However, I cannot deny that is seems to have done good things for the people of the village we visited, and I think that the government's support makes it likely to continue to be successful even after the project ends.

Little Things

My Dear Devoted Readers,

I owe you an apology. I am painfully aware that I promised you a blog post about my exciting visit to the Millennium Village last week, and I still have not delivered. I assure you I have a good excuse for my tardiness: this week as been marred by an unexpected deluge of homework. I am all caught up now, and will deliver the promised post some time in the next few days. Until then, here are a few good stories:

I usually listen to my ipod on the bus. Having music makes the hour long commute much more enjoyable. This is why, as I was riding home Monday night, I was almost at my bus stop before I realized that my bus had a tv in it! I hadn't noticed because there was just music, no words, so I thought it was the radio, but it was a silent film. They were playing an Charlie Chaplin movie on my bus.

This story is undoubtedly going to end up being one of my favorites from this entire trip. Somehow the topic of transgender people came up at dinner the other night. Eddy, being 9, had never heard of people changing their gender, and he was rather confused by this. So, Tuesday night, my host mom came home from work with a bunch of information she'd printed out about transgender people and gave it to Eddy to read, and that night at dinner we talked about it and she told him that they're people just like us. :)

Economic Development Is So Cool

My brain is very tired from working on my research project (details on that to come later), so I ask you to forgive me if this post is a little scattered.

This week we've been learning about Rwanda's economic development since the genocide, and it has been so interesting. I have been extremely grateful this week to be a global studies major and therefore have enough of a background to really understand and wrestle with what we've been seeing this week. I find this stuff absolutely fascinating, and if anyone in our group doubted that I am a total nerd, now they know, and I am totally ok with that.

After the genocide, Rwanda was absolutely devastated. The previous government had fled, leaving absolutely no money in the treasury, most professionals had either fled the country or been killed, and the country's infrastructure was almost completely destroyed. Today, Kigali has been completely rebuilt and infrastructures around the country have been restored and improved upon, with significantly more universities and hospitals than before the genocide. The government has adopted an ambitious development plan called Vision 2020, with the goal of extending benefits such as electricity, clean water, and easy access to healthcare etc. to even the most rural areas, and to bring Rwanda to the level of a middle income country by the year 2020. This is an extremely ambitious project, and the government is working very hard to make it happen. How are they funding this, you ask? That is the interesting part. While the country initially needed massive amounts of foreign aid to being rebuilding (since they literally started with $0), President Kagame wants the country to begin phasing out aid from foreign governments, which currently accounts for 50% of Rwanda's annual budget. He feels strongly that this is not a sustainable strategy, and he's right, because aid from other governments is renewed every year, and states are well within their rights to decide that they would rather spend that money on something other than supporting the Rwandan government. Instead, the strategy is to bring in foreign businesses and convince them to invest in Rwanda, with the idea that a company opening up a branch here has more of a vested interest in the country and is therefore more likely to stick around, and Kagame has done a truly impressive amount of international networking to make this happen. For example, he personally reached out to the CEO of Costco, which is now one of the biggest buyers of Rwandan coffee, and he has formed a circle of global businessmen who both bring their companies to Rwanda and enlist their friends as well. For this reason, as well as the encouragement of local business, Rwanda's economy has been growing rapidly, at a rate of around 8% for the last few years. Whether or not I agree with this capitalistic model and the idea that economic growth will eventually spread to benefit everyone and raise the income levels of the poor, the government is clearly doing something right. Seventeen years ago Rwanda could rightfully have been classified as a failed state, with the genocidal government having fled, infrastructure destroyed, and bodies were still in the streets. You cannot see that Rwanda today. It is still one of the poorest countries in the world, and that poverty is still evident in many ways, yet today Kigali is one of the most developed cities in the region, and the government is actively working to spread that development to the rest of the country. The amount of growth that has happened over so little time is stunning, and I am very curious to see where Rwanda will be in another 17 years.

Butare

Last week we too a 5 day trip to Butare, a southern province of Rwanda and home to the National University of Rwanda. I was really excited to get to see another part of the country, except for the fact that we were leaving the school at 7am, which meant that I had to get on the bus at 6am, which meant that I had to get up at 5am. Eddy was really excited about this, as he has to get up at 5 every day for school and cannot comprehend why and how I sleep all the way until 7am every day.

I was the first person to wake up that morning. The house was dark and quiet, and there was no noise from the street outside. As I lay in bed willing myself to get up, I heard the quiet sound of the call to early morning prayer from the mosque around the corner, and as much as I was not happy to be awake that early and really wanted to go home, I was grateful in that moment to be able to be in such a beautiful place.

Despite the early hour, I did make it to school on time. I don't know why I always worry so much about being on time to things, considering that in Africa ten minutes late is early. I hate African time.

It's only a three hour drive from Kigali to Butare, but we left early so that we would have time to make a few stops along the way. We all piled onto the bus, and the first thing we did before everyone went back to sleep was look up the results from the Oscars. I'm so upset that I missed them, and I really want to see The Artist now.

Our first stop was the museum of pre-colonial history. At first I was really unhappy that I'd been woken from a great nap to go to a museum, but it turned out to be pretty interesting. Well, parts of it at least. They've built life size models of traditional homes, including the king's house (before the Belgian king had a Western style house built for him) and the homes of his milk girl, who prepared the king's milk, and the beer boy, who prepared the beer. Unlike all the other houses, the beer boy's house did not have a step outside of it, because they figured he would be drunk from spending so much time making and drinking beer and they didn't want him to fall and hurt himself. The houses were made of dried grasses tied into tight bundles and then packed together. They weren't large, but inside there were still walls sectioning off different areas of the house. It wouldn't have been a bad place to live. I decided later that it was worth waking up to get to walk through a traditional Rwandan house.

Our next stop was the Murambi genocide memorial. At the time of the genocide it was a school under construction, almost complete. Local officials told Tutsis that they would be safe there, but it was a lie. Instead 50,000 people flocked to this place, all to be killed in one day and then buried in mass graves. After the genocide these bodies were exhumed, and 2,000 of them have been preserved and are now displayed in the classrooms of Murambi. Room after room filled with bodies. Two thousand is so many, and almost a million were killed in the genocide.

Our first night in Butare I was sick. I had managed to avoid getting sick up to that point, but all the avoided illness caught up with me that night and I spent most of the night throwing up. I finally went back to bed around 6:15. My alarm went off at 7, and in addition to being absolutely exhausted, I was still sick. If Ruth hadn't given me some pepto I probably wouldn't have gone to class. I brought some with me to Rwanda, but left it at my homestay, because there was no more room in the bag I was taking and I hadn't needed it so far. I bet that I wouldn't have gotten sick if I'd brought the pepto with me.

As you can imagine, I was thoroughly miserable that morning. The night before, as I was sitting on the bathroom floor, I found myself thinking that this was not worth it and that I should've stayed home where I would get to sleep in my own bed and see my friends and would not spend all night throwing up. Despite the fact that I wasn't vomiting anymore, that was still more or less my thought process that morning. The turning point came with my bath that morning. We were staying in the guest house of a Catholic school, and the nuns has brought each of us a bucket of hot water to bathe with. That was the first time I've had hot water since I got here, and being able to pour warm water over my head was an inexpressible comfort. I was equally comforted when I got to breakfast and there was coffee, even though I couldn't drink much of it. So even though I was sick and exhausted, that was one of the best mornings I've had here, and my day would've been infinitely worse without those small comforts. God bless the nuns.

That morning we went to the National University of Rwanda to tour the school and meet with the Student Club for Unity and Reconciliation (SCUR). As you can imagine, walking around in the heat was the absolute last thing I wanted to do, so most of the tour was lost on me, except the part where our guide said that the forest on campus was home to more than 4,000 monkeys. I haven't seen a monkey yet, and I really want to. I feel like it's an obligatory part of a visit to Africa. After the tour we sat down for our meeting with the students of SCUR and to hear about the work they do. I fell asleep almost immediately upon sitting down, so all I know about them is that they go to secondary schools and give students presentations about unity and reconciliation, whatever that means. Honestly I feel like I didn't miss much though, because a lot of people felt frustrated afterwards that the presentation had been very vague and that they didn't feel like they'd learned anything about what these students actually do. I'm happy that I got to nap instead.

That afternoon we visited one of my favorite groups thus far, a women's cooperative located about an hour outside of Butare. This group now includes hundreds of women spread across the province, bringing together widows whose husbands were killed during the genocide and women whose husbands are in prison for committing the genocide. We got the hear the story of this group, how these women initially hated each other, but 16 years later they are part of a community that works together to help each other survive. It doesn't matter now who was a victim and who was a perpetrator, and today there is even intermarriage between the children of these two groups. Meeting these women and getting to hear their story was the most inspiring experience I've had here thus far, and it gives me hope that reconciliation is possible, and convinces me even more that the future of Rwanda depends upon its children.

The other really exciting visit of the trip was when we got to meet with two men who rescued and hid Tutsis during the genocide. It was great to get to hear their stories, and to know that not everyone bought into the hatred and fear promulgated by the government at the time. A recent survey found more than 400 people who rescued people during the genocide, and that was only in some provinces, not all of Rwanda. It is possible that as many as a thousand Hutus rescued Tutsis instead of killing them. So far there have been minimal efforts by the government to find the people and tell their stories, but multiple NGOs are currently working on it. Their stories are inspiring, and they need to be told.

The only other major event of the week was Sabrina's birthday! She turned 21 on Thursday, and, being unfamiliar with Butare, we weren't sure how we were going to celebrate, until Tuesday night when Sabrina met a Swedish guy who owns a club here, and he offered to open it up for us on Thursday so we could celebrate. It was fantastic, and I'm glad I can say that I've now been to a Rwandan nightclub.

We also had a lot of free time in Butare, so I had a lot of much needed time to rest and catch up on journaling before coming back to busy life in Kigali. Our next major excursion is in two weeks, when we go to Uganda for two weeks to study the conflict there. After that we'll have two weeks left with our homestay families before beginning our ISP periods, when we are living on our own and spending all our time on our research. This is going to be over so soon!

A Rwandan Wedding

As I mentioned a few posts back, last Sunday my homestay family and I went to a wedding. One of my “sisters” here, Julie, is actually my host mom's niece, and her brother was the groom. He's older than Julie, and I'm told that he lived here while he was in college.

We were late to the wedding. My host mom told me that we had to leave at 1pm. At 1:05, we sat down for lunch. When we got to the church the bride and groom were already at the altar, but I don't think we were very late. The entire service was in Kinyarwanda, so I couldn't understand anything, I just guessed as to what was going on. It seems that the ceremony starts with a small sermon. The pastor talked for at least half an hour, and the bride and groom had chairs that they could sit in at the altar so that they didn't have to stand the whole time. The service seemed relatively western; the bride wore a big, poofy white dress and the groom wore a tux, and there were bridesmaids and groomsmen who were also dressed in western clothes. The guests wore a mix of traditional and western clothes. Since everything was in Kinyarwanda I wasn't certain what was going on, but it seemed pretty similar to a western wedding ceremony. The only differences I noticed was that when the bride and groom exchanged rings they held their hands high in the air so that everyone could see, and there was no kiss at the end. The bride and groom did not kiss at all throughout the entire ceremony and reception, which seemed rather sad to me, but they have different standards of pda here.

After the ceremony we went to the reception, which was nothing like an American wedding reception. In America, the reception is like a party, with dinner and cake and dancing and general celebration. The only similarity was that there was cake. Here, the dinner is a whole separate part of the wedding that happens after the reception. The reception consists of about three hours of ceremonial dialogues. All in Kinyarwanda. I am glad that I had the opportunity to see a Rwandan wedding, but it was really, really boring. The only interesting part was the troupe of traditional Rwandan dancers that performed periodically between the dialogue. Traditional Rwandan dance is really cool. It consists of a lot of foot and arm movement, with lots of stomping and jumping and turning, and the dancers wear thick cuffs of bells on their ankles that amply the beat of the drum they dance to. It was amazing, and provided a wonderful break in the monotony of speeches by old men I couldn't understand. I'm grateful that we decided not to go to the dinner because my mom was tired and Eddy and I both had to get up so early in the morning. I'm sure if I was Rwandan I would feel differently, but I prefer American weddings, with the fun and few speeches and the language I can actually understand.

A Rwandan Wedding

As I mentioned a few posts back, last Sunday my homestay family and I went to a wedding. One of my “sisters” here, Julie, is actually my host mom's niece, and her brother was the groom. He's older than Julie, and I'm told that he lived here while he was in college.

We were late to the wedding. My host mom told me that we had to leave at 1pm. At 1:05, we sat down for lunch. When we got to the church the bride and groom were already at the altar, but I don't think we were very late. The entire service was in Kinyarwanda, so I couldn't understand anything, I just guessed as to what was going on. It seems that the ceremony starts with a small sermon. The pastor talked for at least half an hour, and the bride and groom had chairs that they could sit in at the altar so that they didn't have to stand the whole time. The service seemed relatively western; the bride wore a big, poofy white dress and the groom wore a tux, and there were bridesmaids and groomsmen who were also dressed in western clothes. The guests wore a mix of traditional and western clothes. Since everything was in Kinyarwanda I wasn't certain what was going on, but it seemed pretty similar to a western wedding ceremony. The only differences I noticed was that when the bride and groom exchanged rings they held their hands high in the air so that everyone could see, and there was no kiss at the end. The bride and groom did not kiss at all throughout the entire ceremony and reception, which seemed rather sad to me, but they have different standards of pda here.

After the ceremony we went to the reception, which was nothing like an American wedding reception. In America, the reception is like a party, with dinner and cake and dancing and general celebration. The only similarity was that there was cake. Here, the dinner is a whole separate part of the wedding that happens after the reception. The reception consists of about three hours of ceremonial dialogues. All in Kinyarwanda. I am glad that I had the opportunity to see a Rwandan wedding, but it was really, really boring. The only interesting part was the troupe of traditional Rwandan dancers that performed periodically between the dialogue. Traditional Rwandan dance is really cool. It consists of a lot of foot and arm movement, with lots of stomping and jumping and turning, and the dancers wear thick cuffs of bells on their ankles that amply the beat of the drum they dance to. It was amazing, and provided a wonderful break in the monotony of speeches by old men I couldn't understand. I'm grateful that we decided not to go to the dinner because my mom was tired and Eddy and I both had to get up so early in the morning. I'm sure if I was Rwandan I would feel differently, but I prefer American weddings, with the fun and few speeches and the language I can actually understand.

Excursions

We have visited a lot of really interesting places since we've been here, and I'm afraid I've neglected to post about them as we've gone. So, here is a description of everywhere we've visited thus far, because they are all really cool places and I want you to know about them.

The Genocide Museum: This was our first visit. It's a museum describing the civil war that preceded the genocide, the breakdown of the Arusha Peace Accords, and the genocide itself. It was really informative, but also intense, including the stories of individuals who were buried alive (the chains they were tied with were displayed in the museum), videos of survivors telling their stories, and rooms and rooms full of pictures of people who were killed. The museum is surrounded by beautiful gardens where many victims have been buried, and I am grateful that they have been laid to rest in such a peaceful place.

Gisozi & Ntarama: These are two churches where massacres occurred, which have now been turned into memorials. During the genocide there were many massacres in churches. Tutsis fled there en masse because they believed that no one would kill them in a church. They were wrong. Today the clothes and other personal effects of thousands of victims are on display in Gisozi, almost 10,000 in Ntarama. The clothes of people who were killed there, stained with blood and dirt from the mass graves they were thrown into, cover the benches of the church, claiming forever the seats where a congregation once worshipped. I do not understand how someone could do something so horrible in a church.

Institute for Research and Development for Peace: This place was really cool. It's an NGO that conducts group interviews with people all over the country, discovering how everyday citizens of all groups feel about important issues such as education, justice, and ethnicity. They record each of their interviews and make them into documentaries, one of which we got to watch. It was very enlightening, and I was extremely grateful for the opportunity to hear more about what Rwandans think and feel, even if it was indirectly. My favorite thing about this group is that after the interviews they consolidate the various opinions and into one report, which they then present to government officials, keeping them informed on what the population is thinking so that they can meet people's needs better. It was a very cool example of how representative democracy might better keep in touch with grassroots opinions.

Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village: This is a beautiful place located about an hour outside of Kigali. It was started by a New York woman who heard about the genocide and wanted to do something to meet the needs of the many orphans it left behind. Inspired by similar villages created in Israel after the Holocaust, she began the process of creating Agahozo, which is today home to 500 orphans and other vulnerable children. They find children for the school by going into each sector or the country and asking community leaders to identify the most vulnerable children in the community, not only orphans, but children who have been abused, whose parents can't adequately care for them, etc. After assessing each child's situation, they choose only the most needy, because the village only has room for 500 children. Agahozo is also a secondary school, so children must be around age 15 and have finished primary school, otherwise they would not be able to keep up academically. Once at Agahozo, children are given therapy to whatever degree they need it, because the philosophy of the village is to heal the heart and then to go out and heal the world. Therefore the first few years children are at the village focus on healing their wounds and ensuring them that they are now in a secure environment where all of their needs are met, and the last two are oriented towards community service and learning to be an active citizen in their communities. It is also set up to feel as much as possible like a family environment, with children living in houses in groups of about 15. Each house has a house mother who lives there, and every night they have family time where they all come together to talk about the day. Students who share houses are called brothers and sisters, encouraging the feeling of family. Students do not leave the family once they graduate; there is a guest house reserved for any alumni who want to come back and visit, and the staff works to create lifelong relationships with the students that they can always count on. I could say so much more about this village. I was very impressed by the way their philosophy pervades every aspect of life at Agahozo, and by the way they combine individual healing of the students with educating and encouraging them to contribute to the healing of the larger community.

I think we visit places more often than we have lectures. It's a very useful way to learn how Rwandans are coping and where the country is 17 years after the genocide. We will be visiting more cool places this week, so there will be more to come soon!