Looking Smart.

When our new groups at Kiziba Camp arrived at the office this week to receive their first grants, I noticed that many of them were exceptionally well dressed.

This could be surprising, since the clients for our Income Generation Program are among the poorest and most vulnerable of the camp population.

But Anitha explained to me that in Congolese culture it is very important to “look smart” for an occasion such as this, to show as well as to command respect. It is so important in fact that one might borrow or even rent suitable clothing.

Although these refugees came to the office to collect money, I think you will agree that the looks on their faces as they were leaving were priceless.

Good Company.

My son Steven arrived in Rwanda last Thursday for a ten-day visit, and as you can imagine this has lifted my spirits tremendously.

We spent the Genocide Memorial Weekend visiting sites in Kigali and elsewhere so that he could get a feel for the country and what has happened to its people.

Today we will head to the field. Two days in Nyabiheke Camp followed by two days in Gihembe, and back to Kigali on Friday.

These will also be my final visits to these camps for this trip, just a quick check in to know that things are running smoothly with our little program and to give Steven a look at all of the work that we have been doing.

I’m leaving the laptop behind on this field trip, so will be in touch when we return to Kigali. See you soon.

Why Are These Women Laughing?

At the end of today’s marketing workshop for the groups involved in making these colorful bags out of nylon thread, I asked the women whether some of them would be willing to participate in a role playing exercise to practice their selling skills.

Someone had told me that in this culture this technique would not work.

As you can see, they were wrong.

The Cruelest Month.

It is April.

This is Rwanda.

T.S. Eliot wrote “The Wasteland” in 1922.

How could he have known?

“April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain…

“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust…

“Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock…

“Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?
What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal

“In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain…”

Goodbye, Gihembe Camp.

When I asked my colleague Theophile about the training schedule for my final morning at Gihembe Camp, he told me that the refugees had requested some time to be able to say thank you and farewell.

I knew from other such occasions that this would be in some ways the most difficult part of my stay in the camp, saying goodbye to people about whom I have come to care a great deal and whom I may never see again. And this time was more emotional than most because of the unexpected arrival of Devote, who had made the three-hour trip from Butare by taxi bus to see me, Bernard and Theophile, and to wish me a safe journey.

Struggling to span three languages at once, I tried to explain to the refugees how much more they do for me than I could ever possibly do for them, and the many lessons that I have learned by being with them for even this short time.

But in the end, I think that the words on the handmade drawing that they presented to me say it best:

“What you have done for me shows that you love me.”

Thank you, refugees of Gihembe Camp. À la prochaine.

Rainy Season.

“The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”

--William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”









The big rainy season seems to have arrived in Rwanda. Even here in Kigali where it is so often hot and sunny, I have awakened today to the kind of rainy Saturday morning that tempts you to do nothing more ambitious than make coffee, grab a newspaper and go back to bed.

But the rain is badly needed in this country and especially in its capitol city, where a shortage of water during the dry season can mean that even those who live in modern houses with plumbing and electricity that work most of the time must carry their water home in jerry cans just like the refugees in the camps.

I’m sure it is raining this morning in Byumba as well, watering the thousands of tree and vegetable seedlings that our IGP group is cultivating in the nursery at Gihembe Camp. This activity was started by a group of elderly refugees, who when asked what they were capable of doing said, “We can tend the land.” After all, this is what they have done for most of their lives in Congo, where both land and rainfall are plentiful.

They used the money from their grant to build the nursery that you see here and to purchase seeds and other supplies. Within a very short time the activity has expanded to the point where they are hiring other refugees to help them with their work.

So as I sit inside on this damp and dreary Saturday, I think of all of them on the hillside, tending their land, appreciating the rain and the mercy that it shows.

Devote.

Some of you who have seen my photos from last summer may remember this young woman whose name is Devote. She is now 20 years old and grew up in Gihembe Camp from the age of 11. She was an excellent student in the school in the camp and the head of the girls’ organization.

For two years Devote has worked as a Refugee Assistant in the Income Generation Program, but she has told me that her ambition is to continue her education at the University and to study to become a doctor.

She may get her wish. When I arrived at Gihembe last week I was told that Devote had just left for Butare, the home of the National University of Rwanda. She is among a handful of refugee students to be awarded university scholarships by the United Nations. I was sad not to be able to say goodbye and wish her well, but very proud and thrilled for her and for the opportunity that she has earned.

Bon travail, Devote, et bonne route.

Sunday in Nyamirambo.

Nyamirambo was one of the first parts of Kigali to be settled, and now it is a bustling commercial district typically African and far different from the sedate and heavily fortified expatriate neighborhood that adjoins it. This afternoon I had a chance to spend a few hours in Nyamirambo as a local, and while this isn’t a story of the refugee camps I thought that you might be interested in how at least a few women passed a Sunday afternoon in Kigali.

The smiling woman in the red t-shirt is named Joy. She is the housekeeper for Barry Wheeler, ARC Country Director and my frequent weekend host. I had told Joy that I would like to get a pedicure this weekend—actually, I was in desperate need of one having walked through the camps in my Teva sandals for the past two months. So we agreed that this afternoon she would take me to Musa’s salon in Nyamirambo, nearby where she lives.

Musa’s salon is clearly among the popular in the quartier. Musa himself is a handsome, bearded Ugandan man who obviously enjoys being surrounded by the somewhat vain and appearance conscious women who fill his shop. Needless to say, I was the only one with white skin and for that reason was a major attraction during the two and a half hours that I sat there having not only my feet but also my hands massaged, smoothed and polished.

Two of Joy’s friends and fellow ARC staff, Miriam and Christine, stopped by and I was able to get a photo of them before I had to put my camera away. But there were at least a dozen other women who came to sit, talk, and spend time together in the typical African way.

A leisurely walk home was the perfect end to a few hours that lifted the small cloud of homesickness that I was feeling when I woke up this morning and replaced it with the warmth and companionship of an unscripted African afternoon.

Women Who Work.

When one of my African friends describes the philosophy behind our program, he is fond of saying that we encounter a person who can barely raise her load as far as her knees and help her so that she is able to lift it onto her head. From there she must carry it the rest of the way herself.

Of course the person carrying the load is usually a woman. In one of the photos that you see here, the woman is Riziki, a Refugee Assistant in the Income Generation Program at Nyabiheke Camp. I took this photo one day after we had all finished work, when Riziki passed by the office on her way to her second job selling vegetables in the market.

The woman weighing potatoes had just carried more than 20 kilograms (see scale) of potatoes on her head from the town market uphill to the Gihembe Camp, where she will sell them as part of a trading group.

And the barefoot woman with the rake was in the middle of tending a vegetable terrace where she and her colleagues have established an amazing nursery and garden on the hill below Gihembe Camp.

To be fair to the men, they were working, too, but the largest things that you will see most of them carrying on their heads are their hats, which are de rigueur especially for the older ones. The man you see here is a friend from my last visit, who dressed in his Sunday best and came to find me when he heard that I was in the camp.

If you want to have a glimpse of what it is like to be here, just spend a moment studying the faces of these refugees and try to imagine yourself in their place.

Helping to make the load easier to carry is the least we can do.



P.S. I apologize if the photos are out of order—I haven’t yet figured out how to control that function in the blog template—but I hope that from the descriptions I’ve given you will understand what you are seeing.

In Case You Were Wondering...

Yes, I am enjoying this work, immensely. And the people you see here are some of the reasons why.

This picture was taken after one of our training sessions for new IGP clients at Gihembe Camp. The man on my left is Bernard, himself a refugee and a teacher in our program, and the women are clients.

During the past three days at Gihembe I have learned and photographed enough for several blog postings. Now I just need to write the accompanying notes. So stay tuned, and enjoy!

"You Are Welcome."

This is what my Rwandese friends and colleagues always say to me when I arrive at their homes, at the office, or at the camp. They say it whether I have been gone for an hour or for a month. And I truly believe that they mean it.

So now here I am, back in Rwanda after a very lovely break in London, and feeling welcomed by one and all.

The next few weeks will be filled with homecomings and farewells, a blend of emotions that I already know will cast a different light on the work that I am doing here and the urgency that I feel to do it as well and as completely as possible before I step back on the plane to Minnesota at the end of April.

I’ll be moving around a lot in the coming weeks, so will update as often as I am able. It has been an incredible journey so far and it is great having you along.

Mile 13.1

It is hard to believe but we have arrived at the halfway point of this particular marathon and the water stop up ahead looks like London. I will be spending ten days there reconnecting with my family before returning back to Rwanda on March 6 for the second half of the journey.

I leave here with a heightened awareness of the elements of privilege and good fortune that allow me to travel freely and at will. I am most grateful for all of that, and committed to using it well.

See you soon.

A Sign from God?

The other day a small child ran to the front of the room in one of my training sessions and threw his arms around my legs in the kind of two-year-old hug that is familiar to parents and grandparents everywhere.

But Rwanda is not everywhere, and neither is Nyabiheke Camp, and it is rare for anyone, even children, to engage in such an open display of trust and affection.

Theodore told me later that this was a very good sign.

“If small children and old people love you, then it means that god loves you. Small children know, because they have seen god more recently, and old people know because they will be seeing him soon.”

However this notion fits with your own particular belief system, I hope that you can appreciate, as I did, the symmetry of it. I only wish that as you are reading those words you could hear the wonderful French African accent with which they were spoken. Actually, I know that some of you can.

We do not have to look far to find small children and old people at Nyabiheke Camp. God seems to have many messengers there and we can only hope that they will put in a good word for us.

Slowly By Slowly.

This is one of my favorite sayings in Africa. It describes so many things here—the way of walking, the pace of change, the
mental framework that those of us from the so-called developed world do well to adopt if we are to be happy and effective in our work.

This expression conveys no value judgments, just the realities of a culture that keeps time by the progress of the sun and measures the distance between places by the time that it takes to go on foot.

So slowly by slowly, the Income Generation Program at Nyabiheke Camp has arrived at an important moment, when we begin distributing our small grants to the groups who have shown the initiative to organize and the willingness to work together to help themselves.

The women that you see in the photo had just received their grant, and you can see on their faces how proud and happy they are.

The groups are undertaking many different activities, including soap making, tailoring and trading. With your help, all of them will have a chance to try, and slowly by slowly, most of them will succeed.

Thank you.

Valentine's Day.

Yes, Virginia, they do celebrate Valentine's Day in Rwanda. Here is how:

Our housekeeper put a vase of fresh flowers in the living room.

Our driver sent a text message to his girl friend who was still on night duty in the Health Center.

And a full moon in a clear sky over Nyabiheke Camp relieved the darkness for at least one night.

My love to you all. Happy Valentine's Day.

The Africa Cup.

In celebration of the conclusion of the Africa Cup of Nations Soccer Tournament this week, I offer a photo of my own “Africa cup,” crafted by Sarah Dudgeon of Wisconsin and given to me by Ann Pifer, owner of The Grand Hand Gallery in St. Paul, Minnesota (see link).

This is one of my treasured coffee mugs at home in Minnesota, and I brought it to Africa with me for comfort and inspiration. It has provided both, surviving the trip from Afton to Gituza and all of the bumpy roads in between.

So thanks to Sarah and Ann and all who enhance our lives with truly beautiful gifts from the heart. That includes all of you, who have made it possible for us to be here making a difference for people who are more like ourselves than we may have any way of knowing.

A toast to you, from my Africa cup and from me.

Three Thousand Words.

With apologies for the greenish light that prevails inside our plastic sheeted classroom, here are three training session photos which I hope will explain a great deal about what we are doing with our Income Generation Program at Nyabiheke Camp.

The white board depicts the “Circle Training” concept that we are using to help our IGP participants to think about the whole cycle of acquiring materials, making a product (in this case, soap), allocating income and profit among many possible uses, and deciding how rapidly they can afford to expand their businesses.

In the next photo you see one of our IGP Refugee Assistants, Riziki, explaining the program to a group of elderly women while IGP Coordinator Louise Bodji looks on. Riziki is an amazingly strong woman—both emotionally and physically—who works all day each day with our program, then at 5:00 hoists a bucket of tomatoes to balance on top of her head (no hands, thank you) and goes off to the market to sell.

Finally, there is a photo of a group of women who attended one of the orientation sessions for vulnerable persons and decided to form a group together.

I wish that all of you could be here for just one of these training sessions to experience for yourself the energy, the excitement, and the appreciation that is so evident in everyone. Thank you, merci, murakoze from us all.

It Could Be Harder.

Today at lunch when I was telling our Camp Manager about my meeting with a group of refugees this morning I happened to mention that many of them had business experience from their lives in Congo, before they became refugees. This is very helpful for our program since they understand the concepts of buying, selling, manufacturing, keeping records, earning a profit, saving, reinvesting in the business and so forth.

Theo told me that when he worked with ARC in Sudan he had to explain to his groups there the reasons why they needed to take the soap that they had made to market in order to sell it. They seemed to think that if people needed soap they would find out where soap was being made and go there to buy it. Theo asked them what they would do if they had a cow that they wanted to sell and they replied that they would leave the cow at home, then go to market and describe the cow to the people they met there.

So, this work with all of its challenges could always be even more difficult. I cannot imagine that it could be more rewarding. My warmest greetings and deepest thanks to all of you for making this program possible.

Chimes of Freedom.

Far between the city sundown and midnight’s broken tones,
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder was crashing,
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sound,
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing.
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on their unarmed road of flight
And for each and every underdog soldier in the night,
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

--Bob Dylan


Thanks to the library of music on my laptop I’m able to listen now and then to some familiar songs, which often take on new meaning in this distant land.

This past weekend it was Bob Dylan, the album “No Direction Home,” which includes one of the best versions of “Chimes of Freedom” that I’ve heard. It keeps running through my head as I think about our refugees, the fighting that sent them here, and the hope that they have to return home soon to at least some sort of freedom.

One Day, One Life.

When I go to the camp in the morning I try to remind myself that all that I have ahead of me is this one day of my life, to do what I can to make some other lives a little bit better.

Today I met with a group of some of Nyabiheke Camp’s most vulnerable refugees—elderly widows, orphaned teenagers, old men, those with physical handicaps that include missing or misshapen limbs. I told them that although we call them vulnerable, they must be among the most courageous and resourceful of all of the refugees to have made it all the way to Nyabiheke from their far away homes in Congo.

The teenagers are to me the most heartbreaking. Small children can always find someone to care for them, but in this culture a 15 or 16 year old is viewed as an adult, even though we all know that deep inside they are still children and in need of love, guidance and support. I am hoping that through our program they can gain some skills and self confidence that might have a chance of keeping the boys from picking up a weapon to fight or the girls from giving birth to yet more children.

I have no photos to show you of this group, since I am very reluctant to point my camera at people who may feel exploited. But I want you to know that as they filed out of the room each and everyone took my hand and thanked me—and you—for our help.

So for this day of this life, we brought hope and encouragement. Thank you.