Cleaning Up.

Finding good income generating activities that are simple enough to undertake in the refugee camps is not easy.

But thanks to one of our ARC Rwanda staff, we found this man, Toucasse, who is a local soap entrepreneur.

He was willing to share his knowledge with some of our refugee groups, and yesterday we completed two days of training on the theory and practice of making liquid soap and shampoo.

Today the groups are working on their marketing plan.

One of the men in the group decided to demonstrate the shampoo by trying it out in front of the others, and as you can see, it seems to have worked quite well!

This should be a great activity for the twenty people in the group, not only for the income that they can generate but also for the knowledge that they gain and the opportunity that they have to help make the camp a cleaner place.

"I Am A Farmer."

This man lives at the very far end of Kiziba Camp, in a neighborhood called Nyabishoro. His house is far from the services in the camp--the health center, food distribution, and the school--but where he lives he is able to rent a small plot of land from the local population for the equivalent of about $20 per year.

And for him, this is a good thing because, as he told me, "I am a farmer."

And an extension agent in Congo, knowledgeable about vegetables and fruit trees and livestock. Here you see him proudly holding up some leeks and red onions from his terrace garden and picking passion fruits from the vine that he has trained to grow over his house, high where the children can't reach. They have to wait for him to pick the fruit and share it with them, which he does often.

In the coming year we are going to be putting great emphasis on these kinds of small agricultural projects that are so important in the camps and yet somewhat challenging in a place like Kiziba where land is scarce.

But we have some good examples, like this man, who will gladly share his love of the land with his neighbors.

Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving, belatedly, to all of my friends and family in the United States.

We have much for which to be thankful, even in these challenging times, and on behalf of ARC Rwanda I would like to thank the foundations and individuals who continue to support the work of the Income Generation Program.

The work continues despite the holidays. Tomorrow, Monday December 1, I will be going to Gihembe Camp for a three day planning workshop for our 2009 IGP/VSLA Program.

On Tuesday we will have all of the refugee animators from the three camps together to do a small training session on how to support the savings groups that will be sharing out there money at the end of the year. I plan to attend as many of these share out meetings as possible and will try to post photos of that.

Then on Wednesday and Thursday the IGP Coordinators will be meeting to finalize our program plans for 2009, now that our sources of funding have been confirmed.

Deepest thanks, again, to our generous and supportive sponsors. We could not do our work without you.

Weaving A New Tomorrow.

"They say that the tree of loving,
Shine on me again,
Grows on the bank of the river of suffering,
Shine on me again.

If only I could heal your sorrow,
Shine on me again,
I'd help you to find your new tomorrow,
Shine on me again.

Weave, weave, weave me the sunshine
Out of the falling rain.
Weave me the hope of a new tomorrow,
And fill my cup again."

--"Weave Me the Sunshine" by Peter Yarrow

The women whom you see here are refugees, from Kiziba Camp, who have spent the past three weeks in Kigali at the Gahaya Links workshop learning how to weave traditional Rwandan baskets.

These beautiful works of art are sold in the United States by Macy's Department Store through a project established by two Rwandan sisters, Joy Ndungutse and Janet Nkubana, to provide village women with the training that they need in order to make baskets of export quality.

When the training is finished the women will return to Kiziba Camp with a purchase order for baskets and the materials that they need in order to make them. In addition to producing baskets they will also train others, so that the activity can become well established in the camp.

Last week I had the opportunity to go to Gahaya Links to visit our groups. I found a warm welcome and many smiles on the faces of these women who are learning to weave a better future for themselves and their families.

Vote! The Whole World Really Is Watching.

November 4 is Election Day in America and it should be a holiday here as well, as everyone's attention will be riveted on the results from the USA.

Have no doubt, the world is watching, because what happens everywhere is very much influenced by the outcome of our elections.

This headline from Newsweek is just one example--"The World Hopes for Its First President."

So please, treasure your democracy and cast your vote.

Billions of lives depend on it.

"A Humanitarian Catastrophe."--UN Secretary General

This is taking place right now, this morning.

Please call ARC Headquarters at 612.872.7060 and ask how you can help to provide emergency funding to meet the crisis.





GOMA, Congo — The exodus has begun.

Women with babies on their backs. Families crammed into cars with coolers and suitcases stuffed to the windows. United Nations trucks. Aid workers. Businessmen. Panicky government troops literally running for their lives.

On Wednesday afternoon, countless people of all kinds poured out of Goma, a strategic Congolese city on the border of Rwanda, fleeing the advancing rebel forces massing on the outskirts of town.

--Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times, October 29, 2008

A wave of humanity surged along under the hot sun - women with mattresses and pots on their backs, men shepherding cows and goats, children looking vulnerable, babies crying.

"We haven't eaten in two days," one family shouted out as our vehicle passed by on the road leading into the lakeside city of Goma.

For the last few nights, they had been camped about 15km (9 miles) north of Goma on either side of the main road.

They had fled fierce battles around Kibumba, 30km away (18 miles) - home to a huge camp for those displaced by the violence that has wreaked havoc in this region over the last year.

The trek took its toll on some - one woman had collapsed from exhaustion, people crowded round her trying to tend to her baby.

As darkness fell, it was not clear where the displaced people would sleep.

--Thomas Fessy, BBC News, October 29, 2008

Escalating violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is creating a humanitarian catastrophe and could have tragic consequences for the entire region, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday.

In a statement read by U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe, Ban said "the intensification and expansion of the conflict is creating a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic dimensions and threatens dire consequences on a regional scale."

--Reuters, October 30, 2008

News from Kiziba Camp.

It seems as if most of the news lately has been from Nyabiheke Camp, so I'm pleased to pass news of some exciting developments in Kiziba Camp as well:

Our beautiful new IGP Center is nearing completion. When it is finished we will have a permanent office, storage room, training room and exhibition area for the craft goods that are made by many of our groups.

Next to the new IGP Center we have for the first time been allocated some space for our IGP groups to grow vegetables. We will be adding new groups in the next few weeks and looking for some who are particularly interested in this activity. We will also be training others in the camp community in intensive gardening techniques that they can use to grow vegetables in even a very limited amount of space.

Two dozen of our Voluntary Savings and Lending Associations are preparing for year end share out meetings, at which each member will receive a cash distribution based on the amount of money that they have saved during the past year as well as the interest earned on loans taken out by members of the group. Most of these groups will start up again after the first of the year to begin another cycle of saving and lending.

And our Solar Energy Project Coordinator is working in Kiziba with a group of young men trained in carpentry to construct our first ever solar oven, which will be used to bake bread.

Gimme Shelter.

"Oh, a storm is threatning
My very life today
If I dont get some shelter
Oh yeah, Im gonna fade away"
--from Gimme Shelter, by the Rolling Stones








Shelter construction is a joyful activity, done by teams of refugees on behalf of their neighbors.

The shelters start out as wooden pole and plastic sheeting structures, but within a short time people will have "mudded" the walls of the their own homes and the new quartiers will be transformed into something more closely resembling a village.

Temporary, yes, but shelter from the storm.

New Faces in Nyabiheke.

Yeseterday I visited Nyabiheke Camp, where refugee teams are busy constructing more than 300 new shelters to accommodate almost 2000 new arrivals from the transit centers.

The first convoys arrived last week and several more are due in the coming days.

As with the population in all of the camps, about two thirds of these new arrivals are children.

Here are some of their faces.

Back to work.

Greetings to everyone who has asked whether I will be updating my blog.

The answer is, "yes."

I am just searching for a way to do so that is interesting, meaningful and worthwhile.

In the meantime, though, here are a few quick bits of news.

I'm back in Rwanda, back to work with the ARC program here, continuing to support our Income Generation Program groups and Voluntary Savings and Lending Associations.

I had a wonderful summer in the US, highlighted by the wedding of my son, Steven Scroggins, to his bride, Lina Sestokas Scroggins, in Boston at the beginning of September. The wedding was beautiful, and as you can see, they make a lovely couple.



While I was in Boston I had a chance to get together with Dr. Ann Kao, whom I met several years ago when we worked together here in Rwanda and whom many of you know either personally or through my blog. Her happy news was that she, too, was getting married, on September 20, her birthday and also that of her husband, Sid. I don't have any photos of Ann's wedding but I did see a picture of the beautiful silk wedding dress that she brought back from Cambodia for the occasion and I'm sure she looked radiant.

I'm getting back in the routine here but still keeping a careful eye (and ear) on events in the United States--political and otherwise--that will have an impact on all of us even in this small country in Africa.

Thanks for reading, and visit often. I miss you all.

Tea and sympathy.

It is not unusual to see refugees who are waiting.

They wait in lines for their monthly food distributions.

They wait on benches to see the doctor at the health center.

They wait for sheeting to repair their shelters and for firewood to cook their meals.

And they wait for peace to return to their country so that they can go home.

But for the two women who were waiting in an ARC vehicle parked in the yard at our Kigali office yesterday, the wait must have seemed especially long.

Beside them in the back of the vehicle was a small box covered with a cloth.

Inside the box was the body of a baby who had died the day before.

The women were waiting to take the baby back to Nyabiheke Camp to be buried.

Their sadness and patience broke my heart.

We held hands, we spoke through an interpreter, we had tea.

And when they were finished waiting, they left.

Now the baby lies in the fragrant pine forest of Nyabiheke Camp.

For him, no more waiting, and a peaceful rest.

Citizens of the world.

Wita, far right, with her sister and another member of their doll making association.


Beatrice, on the left, during bag making training in 2006.

Last year I wrote about Dancille, my lovely friend in Kiziba Camp who was resettled with her family to Australia.

Last week, it happened again.

I arrived in Kiziba to find that Wita and Beatrice have also left, this time, thanks to the good hearts and open arms of the people of Finland.

I have a special fondness for these two women and also for the country that they will now call home.

Wita has been in our Income Generation Program since 2004, making charming dolls that portray the lives of refugees from a woman’s point of view. She went to Finland with her daughter and baby granddaughter, and is working to have her 18-year-old son join the rest of the family as soon as possible. In the meantime, her son has remained in the camp, joining a group of teenagers in another IGP association, carrying on his mother’s work by teaching the members of his group to make dolls.

Beatrice is the energetic, talented and tenacious leader of a group that learned to make nylon bags, and then baskets, and convinced us to rehabilitate a shelter for them to use as their workshop. I don’t know the details of her situation but I do know that she will make the most of the opportunity that she has found, just as she did here.

Amazingly, both of these women have already spoken by phone with family members who are still in the camp. They say that it is very cold in Finland, but that they are happy to be there, and the children have started school. Somehow having this connection with those who have left gives others hope that, as one of my friends said today, “God may open the door for me and my family, too.”

My fondness for Finland dates back to Steven’s junior year in high school, when he was an AFS exchange student in Espoo, near Helsinki. Finland was very good to him, and I know that it will be a good place for my Kiziba Camp friends as well.

Safe journey to all, and may we meet again.

Time Marches On.

And I simply cannot believe that not only has the month of March come and gone, but a good chunk of the month of April as well. I'm grateful to have been able to extend my volunteer agreement to allow me to be here another couple of months, as there always seems to be more work to do.

Sorry not to have been a better correspondent these past few weeks, but I promise to post some updates with photos in the next few days.

Today is a holiday, one that begins a period of national mourning in Rwanda to remember the victims of the 1994 genocide. On a normal day I would hear voices, music, singing and the sounds of daily life rising up the hill from the houses below, but today even the birds are quiet.

If you have not seen the movie "Shooting Dogs" (released in the United States as "Beyond the Gates"), I can recommend it as a realistic, disturbing and important film about the Rwandan genocide. The film, which stars John Hurt as a Catholic priest who decides that one person can make a difference in the in the face of such evil, was shot on location here in Kigali, and many genocide survivors appeared in the film or were involved in some way in the production. I've posted a link to the film's website and I hope you'll take a look and pause to reflect.

No matter how many times the world says "never again," these things not only can still happen, but are happening today, this afternoon, to people no different than us except for the place in the world where they happened to be born.

Madina.

Madina is one of the IGP Refugee Assistants in Nyabiheke Camp.

Her son, Cedric, was born December 21 in the Nyabiheke Camp Health Center.

He is sweet and lively and has a smile just like his mother's.

Best wishes to them both for a long, healthy and peaceful life.

More Savings Groups.

In the past month I have had the opportunity to attend Savings Group meetings in Kiziba and Nyabiheke Camps.

Here are some photos that tell the story better than I ever could:


Money Counters verify deposits in front of the whole association.



Each group member has a number card that she must bring to each meeting. The group always sits in numerical order. This woman's number 3 indicates that she is the Association Treasurer.



Note the lace tablecloth, carefully placed for the Association meeting.



This man has purchased the maximum number of shares for a single savings meeting. You can see that there are five stamps in his book.



Ernest is one of our Refugee Assistants in Kiziba Camp. In this photo he is observing a group meeting being facilitated by one of his colleagues. Later he will share his observations and feedback with his colleague.

"It can take time."

This is one of my favorite expressions here in Rwanda, and it was never truer than in the case of the startup of our new Voluntary Savings and Lending Group program.

On Monday I will have been in Rwanda for four months, and today I attended the initial share purchase meetings of two of our very first groups in Gihembe Camp.

The group that you see here consists of 16 people, a mix of men and women, and the Management Committee is also gender balanced, with women in the positions of President, Treasurer and Money Counter. They will meet twice per month, saving between two and ten dollars each per meeting. I think that they will be pleased and surprised at how quickly their savings accumulate.

Sometimes the work here takes a lot longer than you think that it should, and that is when it is good to let go of the concept of time.

Yes, we need to work according to our plans, in order to accomplish what we have set out to do in the big picture. But by giving ourselves the freedom to work according to the needs and capacities of our groups—instead of an arbitrary schedule—we can feel liberated, motivated and much less stressed out.

And we are able to appreciate what we have accomplished rather than feel frustrated by what we have not yet been able to do.

It can take time, but it is worth every minute.

Peace on Earth?

"A Congolese woman at a camp in North Kivu, eastern Congo, was one of thousands who have been displaced by recent fighting."

This photo (by Lynsey Addario for The New York Times) and caption appeared on the home page of the Times' website this morning.

I was struck by the look of this woman, but even more so by the setting.

The green hills of Congo look just like the green hills of Rwanda.

Sadly, the new year has not brought peace, only promises.