The Times They Are A Changing

So it's been a while since my last post and a lot has happened since then which I will try to catch you up on. Here goes...

So the independent study portion of our program started last Saturday, which means the group split up between Uganda and Rwanda. I am definitely sad that I don't see all of the SITers shining faces each day, but I was also ready to get out on my own and decide when I eat and when I study etc. So in terms of the living situation for the remainder of my time here, I got REALLY luck thanks to a view ingenious friends. My friends Nancy and Thammika were determined to move out of their home stays for the ISP and they posted a wanted add on couchsurfers.com. As it turns out they got an offer to live in a 2-3 bedroom house in Kigali while the owner studied in Canada for two months. Doudou is the house owner, and an adorable Congolese man who works for a youth peace building NGO here in Kigali. The girls went and visited the place and fell in love with it while me and a few other friends were looking around at hostels to shack up in for about a week. Doudou only wanted people to watch over and keep his house in good shape, so he was offering the place for FREE! After all, he has been a poor college student in a foreign country and knows our plight.

So basically, Nancy and Thammika did not want to live alone in this house in order to cut costs on food, power, water and be safer as foreigners in a middle class neighborhood, so they asked me if I (and 1 of my friends) would want to move in with them for the month. Taylor and I jumped at the chance because both of us were planning to travel during the ISP and would not want to pay for a whole month of a hostel when we wouldn't be there. So now I live in a beautiful modest house in the same neighborhood as my host family and only one bus from the city center. Thammika loves to cook and is a fabulous one. For example: I had chocolate pancakes this morning made by our little Thai chef. She was also creative enough to make a stove top pizza twice with no tomato sauce or oven available. I share a double/queen (not sure) bed with Taylor and Nancy and Thammika share a bed in the other room. We have a nice living room decorated with a huge map of Africa and 2 Kenyan tapestries. Doudou is very organized and well traveled so we enjoy reading books from his library, some of which will help me conduct my research, and using the kitchen. We really are spoiled and I never thought this living situation was a possibility. At times I don't leave the house for a day and a half at a time because it is so pleasant. I wish I was going to be able to return to Rwanda after our “evaluation” week in Uganda because Doudou will still be absent and I could stay in the house while exploring the country more.

In terms of the research, I haven't done too too much but I did have an amazing (timing) day at a youth center by coincidence. So I am conducting my research on informal peace education initiatives for youth in Butare and Kigali. I had been told about the Maison des Jeunes de Kimisagara (kimisagara youth center) in Kigali and all the amazing programs they run, and I decided to head there way last Friday. Thammika came with me because we know 2 people that work at the center (one of whom she was interested in 'seeing' again. teehee). When we got there in the afternoon we talked to a few Rwandan teens while we waited for Issa (SIT home stay coordinator) to meet us. They spoke really good English and were excited to talk about the sports they play at the center during school holidays (which it is until January). Once Issa got there we found out that there was the Great Lake Youth Summit going on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It was basically a conference on youth issues and peace building/education programs in Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania etc. Man was I lucky. Tham and I were introduced to a few different people who worked at orgs at the center, and watched the live music, speeches, gymnastics, and football forum theater during the “conference/summit”. I am actually going back this Wednesday to meet with one of the really nice guys I met there who facilitates both football (soccer) and karate as peace building efforts with the youth. I'm sure that I will find my “youth” group to interview through the center and that takes a huge weight off of my back!

Well I'm sure I will wish that I had written more but it is time for me to begin working on my ISP for the day. A week of our ISP has already gone by and all I've done is think about it a schedule meetings and interviews. I need to get serious about it now that it's the second week.... sadly. I'll try and keep you all informed on the happenings in Kigali.

A lot more than expected! Rwanda continued.

Rwanda has been my “home” now for almost 3 weeks, and I have become quite comfortable here. Our group has traveled South to Butare (where the National University is), North West to Kibuye at Lake Kivu, and of course spent most of our time in the capitol city of Kigali where we live in homestays. My family is totally amazing and I am getting to know them more and more each day. They are as much the “typical post-genocide Rwandese family” as they could be. After the genocide there were so many widows and orphans that the family unit became something of a mash up of neighbors, distant relatives and people you took in. I have a very full house here in Kicikiru (the neighborhood of Kigali where I live). I live with my Mother, 3 sisters, 3 “cousins”, 1 nephew, 1 “houseboy”/servant, and a dog who doesn’t realy have a name. I love the whole family so much. My sisters are amazing. 2 speak English, all speak French, and 1 (my “buddy” from the school where the rest of the host families have students) speaks really good English… Rosette. Alice has actually gotten really close and comfortable with me.

The photo above is me with all of my home-stay sisters (In order that makes Liberathe, me, Alice, and Rosette).

Most Africans (huge stereotype I know!) are fascinated by the hair and skin of white people because it is so different from their own. Well, when I wear shorts or Capri pants Alice likes to touch/hold my bare skin as a sign of affection. At first it weirded me out, but now I think it’s adorable. Also she and my “cousin” (who is a genocide orphan) Divine get such a kick out of playing with my hair. Alice actually played with my hair for half an hour the other day, which was fine with me because it’s the closest I’ve gotten to a massage in awhile. When Divine plays with my hair it’s a little odd. I think she doesn’t really know how to “play” with white hair, because she ended up scratching my head uncomfortably. Either way I don’t really mind. I actually tried to “braid/cornrow” my sister Rosette’s hair and it didn’t go so well since I don’t know how to do it. Pretty funny actually. They all laugh at me whenever I try things like this, or eat new foods, or try and speak Kinyarwanda, but it’s just something you get used to. I think I will be much more comfortable with people laughing AT me when I’m back in the USA in the future.

The first 2 weeks in Rwanda were all about becoming comfortable in the city, learning Rwandan history and focusing specifically on the genocide and pre-genocide conflicts. In terms of discovering the city, public transit was totally terrifying in the beginning. Not because it’s difficult but because I never knew were I was going, how much things were, what the procedure was, etc. Now it’s all totally easy, and I’ve only gotten lost ONCE. Aren’t you impressed? I have gotten ripped off some, but that’s to be expected because I am white and don’t know what I’m doing a lot of the time. And whenever you get ripped off here it’s by like 40 cents or 2 dollars. Not a big deal if you really think about it.

DON’T READ IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR EXPLICIT DETAILS ABOUT THE GENOCIDE. (Scroll down to read the last section instead)

Our group went to 4 different genocide memorial sites within the first 2 weeks. We visited Murambi, Gisozyi (Kigali), the National University Memorial, and Nyamatta (a church memorial). Each of these were challenging experiences in different ways, and I am very glad I got to visit each of them. For me Murambi was the hardest, as I have said before, because there you actually SEE and SMELL the death, and you are able to picture how they suffered and how many people were killed. Nyamatta was also difficult for me because it was in a region of Rwanda where so many Tutsi’s lived back then. The majority of the Tutsi’s in that community were killed, and many of them had sought refuge at churches which ended up being the last place they saw. At the Nyamatta memorial you walk into the church and see all the clothes of those who died there all over the floor and the pews. There were only 2 survivors there, who were children at the time. They most likely hid among the bodies until the perpetrators left to continue their "work" as it was called by the propoganda. You can still see bullet/shrapnel holes in the roof and blood stains on the clothes. For me the hardest part of that memorial was the mass grave/tomb behind the church. There are 2 of equal size (bigger than classrooms or restaurants in much of America) which are filled with caskets and skulls and bones. Each tomb was open, and you could walk down the stairs inside and go down 2 hallways (one each direction) and see the remains of the people who died there. In Rwanda during the genocide caskets were never filled with just one person. This is because there was often not that much of the bodies remaining, and there were so many people to bury “properly” (in Rwandan terms) that they had to be economical about it. I got quite claustrphobic in these dark narrow tombs and ended up being unable to go down the aisles to view all of the caskets. In one of the tombs the minute you step off the last step you see rows of skulls at your eye level less than a foot away from you. This is a difficult experience, especially the first time, but now it has come to the point ni our trip when I expect to see these types of remains at memorials. Memorialization is actually a quite controversial topic here, because there are so many ways in which memorials can go wrong. By this I mean they can be exclusive (made about or for only the Tutsi's), teach a very politicized history which may further the hatred and revenge in some peoples minds, or perhaps they may retraumatize the victims/survivors. Our program assistant, Apollon, taught us about these elements of memorials recently because he works with rememberance and has built many of the memorials here with different organizations. I am glad that I tried to see these things. I know they will stick with me for a lifetime, and I will never be able to sit by if a genocide or similar killings begin to happen again.

YOU CAN READ AGAIN NOW IF YOU SKIPPED THE EXPLICIT PART.

After the emotionally and physically taxing weeks of learning and seeing Rwandan history up close and personal, our group took a min-vacation to Lake Kivu. Know of us knew what to expect, but it turned out to be so fun and relaxing. We stayed at the Centre Bethanie, a sort of resort hotel right on the Lake. There was a restaurant, bar, boats to rent, all-inclusive rooms (still cold bucket showers), and places for us to meet for lecture and movies. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that I never left the resort and went into the town of Kibuye. I (and other students) were so focused on relaxing, swimming and spending time outside that I never made it to town in 2 ½ days.

The lake was by far the best part of Kibuye. When you are swimming and you look East you can actually see the mountains of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)! There are 3 islands within the lake that were close to our side. One of these islands is inhabited only by Bats, 500,000 to be exact. Some of my friends rented boats and paddled over to these islands and spent hours exploring them. My friends who are also planning on researching in Rwanda, and I are hoping to go back to Kibuye either to celebrate Taylor’s Birthday or to relax while we write up our research. We shall see…….

Most recently on our trip though, a lot of us have been stressed or freaking out our Independent Study Projects. We had to turn in a rough draft of our research proposal and it was difficult because we had to guess what we were gun do, how, where, when and how much everything would cost. It was also quite difficult to find a cheap place to print our papers near our school. The SIT office is located in Kacyiru, Kigali which is mainly made up of the ministries, embassies, and big NGO’s… but of course there are also some slums and snack shops. Most of Kigali is mixed like this, but where I live and where many of my friends live is poorer than Kacyiru. It is quite mind boggeling to think that in only two weeks I will be living basically on my own, conducting interviews and research in Kigali (and possibly Butare). I am going to have to do a lot of logistical work over the next two weeks. My future roommates and I are already realizing just how expensive Kigali is to live, and the fact that we may go broke is a big possibility here. Hint Hint Parents J

On a different note again, last Sunday me and 6 other students, our director and a translator went to observe the traditional Rwandan court called Gacaca, which literally means grass or grass roots. This justice system used to exist to settle disputes between families and neighbors decades ago. Now it has been adapted to handle the thousands of people accused of committing acts of genocide, being involved in the planning, or destroying property during that time. It is quite controversial in terms of how the court is structured and whether is actually gives Rwandans a fair trial. We have been learning about the justice systems a lot recently, and it is fascinating the disparity that exists between the ICTR (international) justice and the traditional Gacaca justice.

Lastly, I think it is important to share something I learned recently. For those of you that have seen Hotel Rwanda this will be especially interesting. Both my (extremely intelligent and handsome) program director Apollon, and our lecturer Alfred, have informed us that Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle’s real life character in the film) did not do what he said he did during the genocide, and he was not portrayed accurately in the movie at all. Alfred actually wrote a book about this called “Hotel Rwanda: Or the Tutsi Genocide as Seen by Hollywood”, which you should all read!

I am not saying that the things I will repeat here are the absolute truth, but I think if you are interested you should do further research into this topic. And I do feel that what these academics said about Paul holds some truth. I guess I feel that way because they have both talked/interviewed some of the Tutsi’s staying in the Hotel de Mille Colline during that time.

SO BASICALLY: Paul was not married to a Tutsi women, he did not protect Tutsi’s in his home, he was not the manager of the hotel at the time (a Belgian man was). What he did do= disconnect the only phone line in the hotel and their only connection to the rest of the world, asked for payment from the Tutsi’s who sought refuge in the hotel during the genocide (and kicked them out if they could not pay), and they say he even sent lists of the names of all the Tutsi’s hiding in the hotel to the PARMEHutu government.

I know that these are huge claims, but I think everyone should know that the movie Hotel Rwanda is a work of fiction that was made for entertainment, as well as to inform the masses about the Rwandan genocide. In that way it was a great film, but Paul is not a real life hero, and this should be investigated further. In fact our favorite (ahem) President Bush awarded Paul for the humanitarian work he has done with/for Rwanda… how duped I feel right now. I mean there are sooo many people out there who only know about 1994 in the terms spelled out by this movie, and I know a lot of people probably feel like they understand what happened here because of this movie. That is not the case. Anyone whose interested should watch “Sometimes in April” and the documentary “Ghosts of Rwanda” to get a more well rounded view of history. Or you could just come on the SIT program here and meet the amazing people who write books, make movies, and work in President Kagame’s cabinet! Just a thought! Hehe.

Well I feel thoroughly tired from writing this blog, but I feel everyone is more well informed now. My host family is watching the Scooby Doo movie, and so I think I will join them before I go to bed. Tomorrow we will spend all day at our siblings/buddies secondary school doing “cultural presentations”, which for the Americans means dancing to Beyonce and showing our states. Oh and Saturday is Umuganda, which is when the whole country of Rwanda stops their work and does community work/service/clean-up for the betterment of the country. I maybe farming or I may be cooking. I’m not sure yet.

I hope to update again soon. Thanks for reading! Kai Kai in Kigali.