Put on your seatbelts - this is gonna be an emotional roller-coaster

Yesterday was a beautiful day, not despite the fact that it ended in a visceral realization of so many of the things I thought I had already come to understand. I met with the adolescent support group at 9am at the clinic, where Melanie and I taught them a little bit of English, which was really fun. We asked them to repeat after us, “Good Morning!”, and at first we got back a muddled and muffled response, but after I insisted “Tout le monde!” a couple of times they all joined in. It was really nice to see the ones who already know a little bit of English helping the others with their pronunciation. After about an hour of that, the supervisor of the family program came in to let us all know that David*, one of the WE-ACTx teens, was in the hospital in intensive care. David is one of my favorite teens. He is relatively tall and very skinny, and wears a pair of glasses that make him look like a librarian, although he wants to work in construction – not actually building things so much as planning, so I think that he means he wants to be an engineer or a contractor. He is frail and his hands shake much of the time, and I was told that he has a CD4 count of 1 (if you fall below 200, you go from HIV+ to having AIDS). In other words, he is very sick, but he just began his Anti-retroviral therapy, so he should be getting healthier very quickly.
At lunch time, I went out with one of my co-workers who was a nurse for the RPF during the genocide, making her way from Uganda to Kigali while treating the soldiers in her brigade. African Tea on Sundays has become sort of a habit for us, and each week she tells me more about her fascinating life and sheds more light onto Rwandan culture. I also tried Chipatis for the first time, and am going to try to learn how to make those as well as traditional African Tea next week so all of you can enjoy it too.
In the early afternoon at the Mosque (where the children’s support group is held each Sunday), someone brought a basketball, so I played a game of 2 on 2 (which later became 4 on 4) with the older teens. There are no hoops on the court, so we decided that in order for a basket to count, it had to be inside the box, not touching the lines, but we had to figure this out using improvised sign language and the few words we have in common. I made 4 baskets for my team, but pretty much got schooled by George*, who is good at every sport. I guess there are those kind of boys everywhere.
During my afternoon session with the teenage girls’ support group, I introduced the girls to “préservatifs”, or condoms. They giggled and joked around, but I think I got the important information across. Just then the sky opened up and it began to pour. The girls threw their opened condom packages on the ground as we ran for cover and I tried in vain to pick them up without getting soaked. I’m hoping the people who run the mosque weren’t too upset to find opened condoms all over their grass . . .
After support group, a few of the older teens and I went to the hospital to see David. A few weeks ago, I gave my e-mail address out to all of the teens in my group. David was the first one to use it. He sent me a letter in broken French asking me how he can let down the girl who wants to be his girlfriend without hurting her, and without telling her that he is HIV+. Of course, I got all romantic and nostalgic and told him he doesn’t have to let her down. In his latest e-mail he asked if I would accept one thing that he has to tell: “history of my life”. It still makes me smile now.
When we got to the hospital, I barely recognized him – partially because he wasn’t wearing his glasses, and partially because he was just so weak. They said he had had a problem of respiration, and that he was barely able to breathe so he came into the emergency room. He hadn’t had anything to eat yet, so after we all left, I went home and bought some bananas and juice for him. When I went back later that night, I was alone and no one expected to see a Muzungu in that hospital (there is a different one for rich people and ex-pats). First I got lost (yes, mom, some things never change). I asked a man in a white coat to help me, and while we were walking to where David was being held, he asked me where I’m from and for my e-mail address. This happens all of the time – on the street, on the bus, in the grocery store – there is never any reason given (unless the person is bold enough to assume that you will get them a visa). In general this is annoying – but, honestly, at a hospital while I am searching for a friend who is extremely sick – is there no decency?
Despite the fact that I would expect this hospital to be less glamorous than the ones I am used to in the United States, I was unprepared. The paint is peeling off of the walls and masking tape holds the IV into David’s arm. That evening, there was a woman in the same room who was screaming uncontrollably as I gave David his banana and juice. He was so hungry that his eyes bulged when he saw the food, but he didn’t have the strength to eat it as quickly as he would have liked. There was some large flying insect crawling by his arm.
I didn’t stay long, because I think that my presence requires more energy from him than he can spare. I opened his juice box, held his hand and left him to attempt to find sleep through all of that woman’s terrorized screams. When I walked outside of the building, there was a woman who jeered at me, saying “muzungu” and laughing. Am I not human? I got out onto the street reeling from . . . everything . . . and realized for the first time how close the grand and glorious Serena Hotel (for business men and international visitors) stands to the CHK Hospital.
At that moment where I stood frozen on the street for a few minutes between the two worlds, I was reminded of my good friend Jesse Jacobs back in Berkeley. Jesse has this theory that life is one huge carnival and we, the privileged students of the University of California (among others) were born with all of the tickets to all of the games. Everyone else in the world is fighting over how to get these tickets and befriending us just hoping some of it all will rub off, but we don’t even want them to begin with. Then I had to start walking again because there were a group of people coming towards me calling out “muzungu” and “sista” and I was simply in no shape.

The photo above is of a few of my teens – this is apparently their idea of a good pose for a photograph, haha. Unfortuanately, I don’t have one of David yet, but please keep him in your prayers or thoughts or hopes or whatever it is that you do. And I hope that this entry isn’t too depressing – there are tons of great things in life, too. I’ll write about them soon.

Hair Braiding in Kacyiru

Well, I only have about 3 more weeks before I fly back to California, and things are getting very busy. True to form, I left a lot of little things to the end, so I have been running around picking things up and getting things done. Yesterday, I went to Kacyiru (another part of Kigali) with my friend Caitlin to get my hair braided again. So, after a little bit of haggling (not much, luckily, because I’m not good at it), I got them to braid my hair for 5000 rwf, which is about $10. I sat on a pillow on the floor for 7 or so hours, and every once in a while a few children would come in and stare and I would hear the muffled sound of them whispering “muzungu!”. Caitlin had haggled with the owner of the salon, who also runs a video rental, to let her borrow the second season of Lost. We watched 4 or 5 episodes of that, and she ran across the street to get me a piece of bread or an apple (I know – you’re not supposed to eat fruit that you can’t peel or wash yourself . . . but I feel fine . . .). Of course, the DVD was really messed up, so for the better part of our viewing, the sound lagged about 3 minutes behind the video. Eventually Caitlin got tired and went home, and about an hour later I was finished.
In order to set the hair so that the braids don’t come unraveled, the ends are stuck into boiling water. While I was waiting for the water to get hot enough, I sat in a chair and a bunch of kids standing at the door started talking to me. One of them spoke very good English, so I told them that I’m a student and that I come from America. Actually, people always ask ‘where do you live?’ and I respond ‘Kiyovu’. Then they kind of sigh and say ‘but you come from where?’, and then they tell me that America is a good place, and then sometimes they ask me if I can get them a visa.
So after everything was done, I walked up the hill to the Kacyiru bus station, trailing about 10 children. The leader of the pack, the one who spoke English, continued to ask me about school for a few minutes and finally said, “you buy us treat”. So, then I had to say no probably 10 times, because he would immediately ask why, alternating from English to French. Eventually I stopped walking and said, “I just told you that your English is very good, so clearly you understand me when I say ‘no’. If you continue to ask me, I will become upset.” I kept walking and they all turned around and walked back down the hill.
On the bus, a man behind me who also spoke English started asking me where I was from, what I was doing here, etc. He is the driver for the Libyan Ambassador. He asked me how I like Rwanda, although it was more of a statement than a question, like “So you have been enjoying Rwanda, it is good country”. I said yes, that it is beautiful here and that people are kind. Then I added that sometimes it is tiring to be called Muzungu everywhere you go. He chuckled and said, “But even that they call you muzungu it is good”. What he meant by that, I wasn’t exactly sure, but then the man sitting next to me said something to me in Kinyarwanda , and the whole bus started laughing. Then the man behind me translated, “He said he needs money”.
After the bus stop in Mumuji (downtown), I had about a 20 minute walk home, and there aren’t usually street lights, so I had to choose my route carefully. When I was almost to my house, I passed 3 soldiers with huge rifles and camouflage. The first two just said good evening, but the last one stopped me to ask where I was going and where I lived. I answered him, albeit vaguely. As I walked on, I realized how long I have really been here and how these things that I had encountered that trip home (not the least of which the huge guns) had totally disarmed me when I first got here, but now they are just commonplace. Man, it is going to be really weird to get back to the United States . . .

Kigali Imagery

This is my first Saturday with absolutely nothing that I have to do. The air is still and everything is quiet in a comforting sort of a way. It is odd how sounds here lend so much to my comfort levels. Any of you who have seen Hotel Rwanda are probably aware of the use public radio in the genocide. For months leading up to and during the genocide, a radio station based in Kigali broadcasted urging people to cleanse the nation of the Tutsis, and during the genocide, it directed participators to find specific people and neighborhoods. Every once in a while, there are cars that drive around the city with a huge loudspeaker attached to the outside, blasting some sort of radio station. I don’t actually have any idea what they are saying, but the tone and abrasive volume reminds me of the Interahamwe sponsored radio.

That’s actually not what I’m thinking about at all this morning, though. One of my housemates was telling me yesterday about a writing assignment she has to describe the experience of Kigali. Given, that is a very broad topic and could be taken to mean just about anything, but we both immediately knew what we would chose to write about. Margot wanted to describeof the mixture of cultures through clothes – often you see women carrying Nike backpacks on their heads, or wearing a traditional Rwandan skirt paired with an American flag t-shirt with the caption “Support Our Troops”. Make of that what you will. To be honest, that is not what has struck me most about Kigali. For me, it’s the vegetation - the flowers and trees and grasses – that make this place what it is to me.
Growing up in San Francisco, my bedroom windows looked out into pine and eucalyptus trees. Everyone I knew hated the eucalyptus because of how invasive they are, and their leaves and scent permeate just about everything. When I moved to New York, for the first time I really missed the scent of the trees and the crunch of their oblong leaves. Of course, no one I knew in New York had any idea what I was talking about (I don't think that they grow in that climate).
Being in Kigali, there is a strange familiarity of a lot of the flowers. Some of the plants like Avocado trees and Passionfruit vines remind me of Berkeley, although everything here is richer and more lush. At the same time, there is a certain sadness that seems to be carried even in the vegetation of this place. It is like this exotic beauty that has grown from soil that was once fed by decomposing bodies. Or even just that most of these trees are over fourteen years old and have seen everything.
All of these images are from photos that I took during a walk this morning. The bottom one is of a typical wall that surrounds houses in the wealthier parts of the cities. Many of the walls have barbed wire lining them, but most are sprinkled with broken glass. It is very welcoming and fosters a warm sense of community . . .

While most of you were celebrating July 4th in the United States yesterday, with Watermelon and fireworks and maybe some barbeque (if anyone wants to drop me a line and tell me what they did, I would help me to live vicariously), I was celebrating Liberation Day here in Rwanda.
Rwandans celebrate 2 major holidays during the same week. July 1st is Independence Day, marking Rwanda’s (and Burundi’s, a neighboring and historically similar nation to the South) independence from Belgium. July 4th is Liberation Day, which celebrates the end of the Genocide. Paul Kagame (current president) and his regime have pronounced Liberation Day the celebration of true freedom for all Rwandans. I am not sure how it is celebrated elsewhere in the country, but here in Kigali (the capital), nearly the entire city gathered at Amahoro Stadium where there was a Parade.

The Parade began with a marching band, followed by the entire Rwandan Army (apparently one of the strongest armies in the developing world, trained by the United States Army). This was somewhat more of a display of arms than anything else. First there were the battalions with the machine guns, then those with bayonets, and then those with hand held missiles, then more with guns. After the military, the different sects of gendarmes, police, local militia (men who volunteer to keep their city in line), and then the security guard companies (totally bizaar). There were also some traditional Rwandan dancers. And then, of course, the president, waving.
After the parade had finished, there were a series of . . . performances, for lack of a better word. There were several groups who did martial arts (of sorts) in some sort of choreographed sparring. Every time that one of the men would fall to the ground, the audience would laugh. They set up different scenarios, including one where a nicely dressed couple walked through the field pretending not to notice the men in fatigues lying in the grass surrounding them. When the soldiers attacked the couple, both the man and the woman defeated about 10 soldiers and the audience went wild. Honestly – I was and am so bewildered that this is how Kigali celebrates the liberation and end of the genocide.
Next there were the knife throwers, and later there was a whole battalion of soldiers who lined up and did some sort of play-fight performance with all of their knives. Then there was some traditional dancing, a very long speech by the president, and an even longer procession out.
I can’t help but be struck by how much violence was present during this day that I would think is celebrating peace. Furthermore, I can’t imagine what effect this has on the thousands of people in that stadium still suffering debilitating PTSD, not to mention those who still have open wounds from the genocide. I am not making this up – there are a lot of Rwandans whose deep machete wounds have still not closed up, and who still are forced to wear bandages, visit the doctor (if they can) and miss days of work because of cuts from 14 years ago.

After the Parade, I also went to my first African Futbol game – which was sooo much fun. Unfortunately this entry is getting way too long. I will have to write about that more later (it’s much more upbeat than this past entry). For now I will just say that I was sitting in the section with Africa’s version of Raider’s fans, and I was rooting for the other team.