Peace-building in Rwanda

Well, much has happened this past week, and I thought I’d take a minute to write before I leave for Gisenyi tomorrow afternoon.

Kinyarwanda update:

Umunsimwize – have a good day. Ijororyiza – have a good night. Waraye Neza – did you sleep well? Namenye ikinyarwanda – I’m learning Kinyarwanda. Ndishimye Kukubona – It was nice to meet you. And a few others that mean: Stop, I’d like to go to town, and how much does that cost (but I don’t know how to spell any of those!)

The last few days I have been playing tour guide — how bizarre that I am in any way capable of that! — to four Americans who were en route to Gisenyi to do a workcamp for AGLI. It was a boost to confidence as a visitor myself to be able to impart what little knowledge I have gained here to others.

Upon meeting the clerk of Rwanda Yearly Meeting, one of the American workcampers asked: “What did the Friends here in Kigali do to help during the genocide?” The clerk and another Rwandan gentleman we were sitting with looked at her, confused for a moment and lost for words. “Do?…” asked one of them? They looked at each other and laughed, a little uncomfortably it seemed. Ultimately there was no need for either of them to say anything, the answer was clear from their reaction. No one could “do” much more than try to survive and save those around them — by running or hiding. There are many Rwandan heroes, to be sure, but they are recognized as individuals, by in large, who helped save other individuals through sheer courage and heart. The notion of an entire organization — i.e. an entire Church — being able to have stood up to genocide is, as the nervous laughter may have suggested, a somewhat foreign idea. I think this dynamic of the conflict in Rwanda is part of what sets it far apart from other countries who experienced mass violence or genocide. There were no bystanders in the same way there were in, say, South Africa. Even those who were safe from the interahamwe (organized Hutu militia) were not safe from the advancing RPF. Thus, I have begun to notice that the sentiment of “shame” here in Rwanda concerning the past is a very different kind of shame than we talk about Germans feeling after the Holocaust, or Afrikaners feeling after apartheid. There is shame that humans are capable of such evil, and there is shame that it happened in Rwanda. But there is no concept of shame from inaction on the part of Rwandans to the extent that we see it elsewhere. It was a battle to survive and the Friends were a part of that struggle just as much as everyone else. I realize this is intuitive to some, but being here in Rwanda and being around the intricacies of such a word — shame — has been eye-opening to me.

This weekend a girl my age from Canada was staying in the guesthouse as she was traveling through Rwanda on her way to Burundi. I was grateful to have someone to explore with, and as it was a weekend jam-packed with new experiences…it was nice to have company!

Saturday was the wedding of Jeannette and Jean-Bosco that I was so unexpectedly lucky to be invited to. I have been told that what I experienced was very traditional for a Catholic wedding here, so any generalizations I make should be taken with a grain of salt and at most only applied to Catholics in Rwanda!

When we arrived at the Eglise St. Michel in Kigali, I was not expecting to find what can only be described as a “bridal herd.” There were four weddings happening at the same time (and I’ve heard a Saturday in the Catholic Church here could even have up to ten marriages at the same time!). All four brides, and all four grooms, were standing at the front of the church, with all eight best men and maids of honor standing behind them. Each bride wore a lovely white wedding dress, and grooms were wearing black or white. The ceremony felt somewhat like a factory production line: one couple would say their vows, then the next, then the next, then the next. Then the first couple would exchange rings, and then so on down the line. There were sound effects for the entire service, primarily synthesized timpani rolls every time the priest finished a particularly exciting sentence. The audience was a huge sea of folks, mixed all together, each caring only about one-quarter of the ceremony. Most women attending the wedding wore Imikenyero, the traditional formal dress involving beautiful silk fabric that ties on one shoulder and comes down around the body almost like a toga.

After the ceremony everyone poured into the parking lot where chaos reigned the time for photos and congratulating your particular couple. After the ceremony the bridal herd split up to have individual receptions—so they do get some individual attention! We went to a semi-outdoor pavilion, where we sat in lawn chairs and awaited the happy couple. Jeannette and Jean-Bosco arrived, flanked by traditional Intore dancers. The Intore singing and dancing was unbelievably amazing, and is one of the more famous Rwandan traditions used today for special occasions.

The reception was utterly bizarre to me, but quite enjoyable. It was never quite clear what was going on, and I would normally have credited this to my inability to speak Kinyarwanda, but it seemed that no one knew what was going on…not just the umuzungu. For awhile, the father of the bride and the father of the groom stood up and spoke to one another, offering customary greetings and blessings, etc. The audience started to get bored, and the fathers’ words were eventually drowned out by general conversation. Then Fanta was served when crates of orange, coca-cola, and lemon-lime sodas were brought out. The fathers’ were further ignored with the excitement of choosing flavors and enjoying of beverages. Then, about half-way through the reception events, the power cut out in the overhead lights. The fathers kept trucking along through their speeches, but all hope of maintaining audience attention had been lost. People were getting up, moving around, getting more drinks, and striking up conversations in the dark.

The lights came back on after about 15 minutes, and people settled back into their seats. Then came my absolute favorite part: Jeannette and Bosco went to cut the cake, and as they stuck the knife into it, it literally exploded with fireworks and silly string. The cake was exploding, and the silly string was going everywhere, all over both of their heads, arms and clothes. Neither one smiled or laughed—they were utterly expressionless, as this extraordinarily formal act was interrupted by such an absurd addition. They returned to their seats, still coated in silly string (to the extent that I don’t think Bosco could see) and still neither one laughed. It was only after attention was diverted to something else that they began to help one another pick the silly string off. I still don’t know if this is normal or not, but I laughed enough for the both of them!

Each part of the reception was divided up by the Intore dancers, and then the reception ended when the dancers preformed a traditional dance of offering and anyone who had a gift or card for the couple had to walk up to the front of the room (while everyone watched) and present your gift and offer your congratulations. It felt a little on-the-spot, but I was grateful to have brought a card at least. The whole thing lasted about 2 hours, and I laugh when I think about what all the bride-zillas in the US would have thought of this wedding. The day’s events end when Jeannette’s parents accompany her to Bosco’s home and teach her how to manage his house. I think it’s safe to say I wouldn’t want a wedding like this for myself, but I am enjoying this broader conception of marriage ceremonies!

On a different note, yesterday we visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial, which is utterly devastating but an incredibly poignant, beautifully presented, and well-run memorial. The inside of the memorial walks you through the genocide—before, during and after—as well as a history of genocides around the world. There is also a hall where they have the pictures of 14 children killed during the genocide, with their names, ages, favorite things to do or eat, and how they were killed. It was hard to get through it all, to say the least, but really well done in terms of a respectful and educational memorial. The memorial is constructed in Gisozi, which is the site of a number of mass graves in which an estimated 258,000 people were buried. Outside of the memorial are rose gardens, which are jarringly lovely next to the flat slabs of cement covering the mass graves. Being in the memorial and thinking about the genocide that I’ve studied in books for so long, and then realizing suddenly that I am actually here, is hard to believe every time.

The Rwanda of today, no matter how much is left to do and how many people are still in need of healing, is still a Rwanda of weddings, of singing and laughter, and even when the power goes out, of people happy to see one another.

All your thoughts of strong tires pulled us through the last trip safely! Thank you, thank you!

We made it out to Kageyo, getting lost many times trying to find our way through all the unmarked back roads. We finally picked up an older man in one of the villages we passed when he offered to show us the way. I think it may have been his first time in a car, and he spent most of the trip pushing the window button and gasping with surprise each time it moved up or down.

We interviewed 17 people in Kageyo, the most remote of remote no-man’s land IDP camps here, and even made it back to Kigali before dark. I learned, with great displeasure, that an astounding number of cars here do not use their headlights at night. I’m not sure why, but it seems like a cost-benefit analysis gone very wrong to me.

I’m tearing through books, and am bummed I only brought 5. I’m struggling to get used to the pace of life here. I am accustomed to always having something to do, and if I have nothing to do, plenty of entertaining things to distract me. I am not at all used to this more simple lifestyle, in which, lacking both distraction and friends, I feel quite aimless for most of my time. I have been trying to pass some time in the late afternoons by walking around the Kicukiro neighborhood. On my walk a few days ago, I passed a man sitting on the side of the path, just staring into space. Almost 2 hours later, as I was returning home, I passed him again and he had not moved an inch…still staring into space. I’m trying to learn how to contentedly be more like him. You’d think as a Quaker I’d be good at sitting quietly and not needing anything to do for extended periods of time, but apparently not.

I feel very aware of the fact that I have spent the majority of my last four years wishing for more free time. How luxurious a Saturday with nothing to do but read a book seemed! Now I feel almost burdened by the lack of things to do – I guess the grass is always greener…but annoyingly so.

However, there may be quite a few things coming up to occupy my time. Saturday I’ve been invited to the wedding of a woman who works here at FPH. I feel undeservedly lucky to have such an opportunity, but also unbelievably unprepared. How dressed up does one get at a Rwandan wedding? Do I take a card? These questions are amusing, not stressful, and I’m excited to see what it’s like—showing up as dressed up as possible (meaning my one dress), with a handmade card (meaning I have to learn how to spell her name before I go!). Hopefully next week I’ll be going to Gisenyi, up in the northwest, right on Lake Kivu and the border with Congo. I have also been invited to accompany a guy here to various parts of the country to help him conduct his dissertation research on trauma.

But plans seem to be as flexible as time is here, so we’ll see.

Also two mistakes to fix in previous posts!

1) A typo – IDP stands for Internally Displaced Persons. They were indeed internationally displaced when they fled Rwanda for Tanzania (internationally displaced also meaning “refugee”), but now that they reside in the country of which they are citizens, they are internally displaced.

2) “Bless you” after someone sneezes is spelled urakire – it’s hard to decipher what people are saying! Urakire translates into “may you be rich,” and the response from the sneezer is tous, which is the French word meaning “all of us.” I was on a bus with Francine (she translated this event to me after the fact), and an older man sneezed. Only one guy in the back said urakire. The older man turned around immediately and did not say tous, he said “Yes, YOU and ME only!” The rest of the passengers were stunned, and started demanding why he would say such a rude thing. He responded by saying, “he was the only one who wished that I would become rich, so he is the only one who should become rich with me. You should all learn to be more polite and it will serve you well.” I’m not sure that it went over very well, but I found the whole exchange to be quite amusing.

In my last post I talked about the smell of Africa. This time, the sounds: I wake up in the morning to the sound of dozens of different types of birds, children laughing and yelling, the sound of cooking, water being poured, the washing of clothes, and the universal sound of a mother trying to herd her many children to do this or that. Throughout the day and into the evening, there is the absolutely glorious call to prayer that a Muslim man down the streets sings out over the neighborhood. During the day I can hear singing from the Friends Church down the hill, and from all the schools—singing everywhere, all the time. On days like today, when there is a big soccer match to listen to on the radio, there is general uproar and hollering from all corners of the district. In the evening, the crickets and other loud bugs come out, and join all the other sounds of the day. The only truly silent time is between 3 and 4am (I know this from that first night of jetlag and sleeplessness), before people start getting up to do the morning chores and when the crickets are finally quiet.

Kinyarwanda progress update of the day: gakire (after someone sneezes), birababaje (I’m sorry for things that are sad), mwihangane (take care/take courage), mbabarira (I’m sorry for running into you), nibyiza (it’s beautiful/it’s good).

Francine has an English exam in five days, and so we’ve been spending our nights in amusing circular lessons alternating between Kinyarwanda, English and French. Many people here in Rwanda do not differentiate between the letters L and R in any given word—regardless of language. I’ve been quite appreciative of the fact that French is everyone’s second language here (or even third)…thus making my rusty and stumbling French much less obvious or irritating to Rwandans. Because many Rwandans grew up outside of Rwanda in English-speaking countries like Kenya, Tanzania or Uganda, there are a fair number of Rwandans who do not speak French at all. In the past week, I have had many conversations that alternate within sentences between English, French and Kinyarwanda.

In other news, there is now a second lizard in our house, and the bigger one is chasing it around the house trying to eat it—this unfortunately neglects the mosquito issue, but does provide excellent entertainment for us.

Thursday I went to the second IDP camp, Ndego, which is up in the northeast corner of Rwanda. In the late 1990s the government reserved a section of land in the northern part of Akagera National Park, right on the border of Tanzania, for returning refugees. The people living in Ndego had a story much like that of the people in Nemba. Many of them were born in Tanzania and were chased from their homes in 2006. The government moved them to Ndego, helped them get established by moving in groups of Rwandese who had never left Rwanda, and then left the diverse mix of people to figure out how to live together.

It takes four hours to drive there from Kigali, but mainly because of the horrendous condition of the roads once you leave Kayonza, the last big town to the east. We have a driver, Leopold, who does not speak English or French, does not understand manual transmission, and prefers to drive at or above 80km/h. I spent the entirety of those four hours praying for our lives, the lives of those innocent people on the side of the road, and the life of our tiny beat up car that was not made for such a journey.

The roads have potholes and cracks that are of almost post-earthquake caliber. Worse than the bumps and holes, however, are the stretches of road that are covered in rocks ground into nice razor-sharp points just waiting to burst all of your tires. The knowledge that we were beyond help’s range if we broke down kept me on the edge of my seat for the duration of the ride.

When we did arrive at Ndego, it was an amazingly different climate and geography than the rest of Rwanda. Akagera is also a game reserve, and the land looks safari-friendly—with the tall yellow grass, acacia trees, rocks, sun, dust and low vegetation—whereas the rest of Rwanda is more lush and tropical with the banana trees, and mountainous stretches of green farmland.

As I began the interviews, under a nice tent out of the scorching sun, it became clear that while AVP may be helpful, there are certain problems that even conflict resolution training can’t help. As a result of drought, unrelenting sun with little shade, and game animals who come and eat their crops, the people in Ndego are starving. Every single person I interviewed said the same thing: “AVP changed my life, but if I can’t feed my children, I cannot feel peace in my heart.” Another woman said, “Rwanda is good, it is our homeland, but you cannot stay someplace where you cannot eat.” There is no denying the truth in what she says.

The people of Ndego that I spoke with had the impression that AVP was an organization that could supply them with food, or better, convince the government to move the camp. I didn’t have the heart to say that all AVP could do was bring more workshops—a pitiful gift in the face of such hardship. So I wrote down all their requests, and ensured that I would pass along their words to people who could work to change their situation. It was painful to get back in the car after a few hours of interviews and know that at my feet I had a bag with some bananas and bread for Emmanuel, Leopold and myself. Kids with swollen bellies watched us leave…and it was hard to not feel that all their hopes for a better future drove off with us.

I knew writing the report would be hard because I would hear testimonies of traumatic experiences. I didn’t really think about how people praying for something better would now attach my face to their prayers. There is a heavy sense of obligation and helplessness that comes with that expectation. We may all feel some sense of responsibility as privileged, educated Americans. But in the same way that they now attach my face to the hope that AVP will change things for the better, I now have their faces etched in my mind of what that responsibility really means.

We survived the return death-journey, but I’m supposed to do almost the same trip again on Monday to go to Kageyo (where unless something happens, I won’t have to stay overnight). It turns out that I don’t have to go Nasho, as all the AVP participants who lived there have left the camp for one reason or another. I have absolutely no faith that the car can make the trip on Monday…but I have no idea what else to do.

I spent some time in downtown Kigali yesterday—which is often referred to as centre ville and pronounced as “centRAY villAY”, all L’s included. (For those of you who speak have heard the French speak French, the accent here is fascinating and a little difficult to get used to. Deux is pronounced “dee” and matin is “meh”). As I’ve spent more time in very rural Rwanda, Kigali seems increasingly like the bustling city that people talk about. Whereas when I first arrived, I had a hard time connecting my understanding of a city with what was here.

Okay, that’s all for now. If you’re a Quaker or Quaker-familiar, please hold my Monday voyage in the Light. Otherwise, think good thoughts about strong tires and nice flat roads!

If you’ve been to Africa, you know that it smells unlike anywhere else in the world. This smell sinks into you—your clothes, your hair, your skin, everything. It gets into your blood and nowhere else will ever smell as rich. It smells like dirt, ripe fruit and green plants, smoke from wood fires, sweat, sun, and in all moments, sweet, heavy and pungent. My clothes no longer smell like American laundry detergent…I think I’m settling in.

I started work at the Friends Peace House on Monday, here’s a little background info on them:

The FPH (called Urugo Rw’Amahoro in Kinyarwanda) was started by the Friends Peace Teams, and has three general goals: 1) to build a sustainable and durable peace in Rwanda; 2) to restore the relationship that were destroyed by the war and genocide to ensure peaceful co-existence; and 3) to reintegrate the people who were harmed by the tragic events of this country. The FPH works primarily with women, widows, children and youth, genocide survivors, prisoners, community and religious leaders, and other grassroots organizations.

The AVP and HROC workshops are coordinated out of this office, as is the department for women and children, and finally the program for youth. The building is quite nice, and is high up on a hill (in the land of the milles collines) overlooking Kigali.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s amazing how travel changes one’s sense of time so thoroughly. I left the US last Wednesday, and it feels both like yesterday and an eternity ago.

After leaving Washington DC, I flew to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia courtesy of Ethiopian Air. The flight was actually quite enjoyable because the second half included flying over the Sahara and the Nile, neither of which I’d ever seen. Ethiopian Air is quite good to its customers—if you arrive in Addis in the evening and have a morning connection, they will put you up in a nice hotel for the night and feed you an impressive dinner and breakfast. So I spent Thursday night in Addis, and left for Kigali, via Entebbe on Friday morning.

Arriving in Kigali, with all twenty passengers aboard a commercial plane, was thrilling. The view from above Uganda and Rwanda is breathtaking—endless lakes, green sprawling hills, and most distinctively, the red coloring of the earth. People often say that the dirt in Rwanda is red with all the blood spilled during the genocide. I prefer to see it as yet another testament to the awe-inspiring richness of the earth in Africa. We landed at Kigali International Airport, and I was momentarily confused when I recognized the tarmac when we disembarked. In 1994 (or ’95?) President Clinton flew to Kigali to apologize for the inaction of the US despite the incontrovertible evidence of genocide. His apology was not as well received as he intended, however, because he never left the tarmac and departed the country within hours. If you watch clips of his apology, you’ll see the airport.

I was met at the airport by the accountant for AGLI, and taken to the guesthouse of the Friends Peace House, where I am living. The Friends Peace House (more information on them and what they do in another post), the guesthouse, a school, and the Friends Church are all on one compound in the Kicukiro district of Kigali. I am currently the only guest of the guesthouse, which is a little lonely, but a young girl my age, Francine, works there and manages the guesthouse.

My room has a bed and electricity, and I have my own bathroom, but no running water. I took my first bucket shower yesterday, and don’t feel as daunted by learning a new system of hygiene. Francine speaks French and is patient with me as I bumble along trying to regain what has become so rusty since my time abroad in Paris two years ago. She cooks the food for the guesthouse, and I’ve enjoyed all the fresh fruit.  Yesterday we ate roasted maize (corn), which brought back sentimental memories of living in Zimbabwe when I was little. Both Friday and Saturday it poured, and Friday I saw one of the more impressive lightening shows of my life.   There is also a lizard named Lizzie who lives in my room…

Saturday Francine took me around town, showing me where to catch the minibus-taxis from Kicukiro into the center of Kigali. We also went to the section of town with all the government offices and ministries, and finally her family’s neighborhood, Gikondo. It was really good to start getting a feel for the area, but also really overwhelming. This is my first time in Africa since I was three that is not Cape Town. I have never been pointed at or greeted by being called umuzunge, the Kinyarwanda equivalent of wazungu, which in Swahili means ‘white person.’ One young boy in Gikondo walked next to me, singing American pop songs in Kinyarwanda with frequent “I love you’s” thrown in. When I told him in French that he was an excellent singer but I had no money for him, he told me quite adamantly that because I was an umuzunge, I must have money for him. I did expect a confrontation of my own privilege while here, but I wasn’t quite ready for the amount of attention I draw just walking down the street. I’m hoping I get used to it, but for now, I’m missing the ability to fade into the crowd.

I think with another couple trips into and around town, and once I start work with AGLI on Monday, I will start settling in more comfortably. I am still in that beginning phase of travel, where I feel pretty far out of my comfort zone and a little intimidated by how much time I have ahead of me and how little I know yet. I don’t expect to feel completely at home nor competent in my brief stay here, but hopefully a little more at ease. I think there’s no way that’s not possible, so I’m glad to have set such an achievable goal!

This morning I went to the Friends Church in Kicukiro, which is a world apart from a Friends Meeting.  I think it could be best described as a four hour dance party, with the most beautiful singing in the entire world.  There was more joy in that church this morning than I’ve seen in a long time.

Now that I’ve found the internet cafe down the road, I’ll be able to update fairly frequently and hopefully with photos sometime. I would love to hear from any of you.   Till next time!

Welcome to my summer blog! As you have read in the description, I will be spending my summer in Kigali as an extended Peace Team member of the African Great Lakes Initiative. I am grateful to both Haverford’s Center for Peace and Global Citizenship, and the Clarence and Lilly Pickett Endowment for making this trip possible. I leave for Rwanda in four days, and wanted to take a moment to give some background information about my trip and what I’ll be doing doing for the next two months.

Rwanda has recovered remarkably well since the 1994 genocide in which almost one million people were killed in the course of 100 days. However, there is still a great deal to be done on the national and local levels in terms of both societal and interpersonal relations.

One of the most important organizations furthering individual and community healing in Rwanda is the African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI). AGLI is an internationally respected organization founded by the Friends Peace Teams in 1999 in order to support peacemaking activities at the grassroots level in Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the Congo. AGLI funds and organizes many different peace-building programs, including Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) workshops and Healing and Rebuilding our Communities workshops (HROC).

AVP is an international volunteer movement dedicated to teaching community building, mediation, and leadership skills through experiential workshops. I was introduced to AVP in Philadelphia last year, and spent two months last summer facilitating AVP workshops in a South African prison (also thanks to Haverford’s Center for Peace and Global Citizenship). AVP has been bolstered in Rwanda by AGLI’s own program, Healing and Rebuilding our Communities.

The recently developed HROC program facilitates three-day workshops in various communities around the country between ten people from one side of the conflict, and ten people from the other. The goal of HROC is to restore normal relationships between the two sides. In Rwanda, this means Tutsi survivors of the genocide and the families of the Hutu perpetrators of the genocide. These workshops serve to rebuild and strengthen communities through conflict management, peace building, trauma healing, and reconciliation by sponsoring Peace Teams composed of members from local partners and the international community.

I will be helping to facilitate these workshops, as well as compiling a report for AGLI on a number of workshops held in resettlement camps in the eastern part of Rwanda. I imagine all of this is subject to change, so I will explain what I am doing as it unfolds.

I will update with more information once I’m there. Here are two pictures of Rwanda just to give more of a sense of the country’s geography.

Hope you enjoy, and please feel free to leave comments — I’d love to hear from all of you! My actual email address is  higgs.emily at gmail.com, if you’d like to write at any time.

Here’s to an exciting next two months!

“I will be in Rwanda, working as an extended Peace Team service member for the African Great Lakes Initiative. I will be helping to facilitate nonviolent conflict resolution and reconciliation workshops in various parts of the country with a program called Healing and Rebuilding our Communities.”

- Emily Higgs ‘08