Kigali: Horrors of genocide

After an exhausting bus ride all night long we arrived in Kigali at 11 in the morning. Rwanda is also aptly known as the Land of a Thousand Hills. I have never seen a country so mountainous and so breathtakingly beautiful. As we explored Kigali we all found ourselves commenting on this absurd sense of peace and calm that overtook us all. It was not at all what I expected as I walked the same streets that were overflowing with lifeless bodies just 15 years ago.

The eeriness continued the next day as we went to visit the Ministry of Sport and Culture to get media permits. We met with a representative who diplomatically asked us about our motives and continued to spout a ridiculously practiced speech about Rwanda full of outrageous propaganda. He told us that Rwanda is peaceful and that they are completely reconciled and that the traditional Gacaca courts have been just the greatest... blah, blah, blah... It was infuriating... especially after we spent enough time in Rwanda that we saw the truth. So the representative told us that he would get those media permits ready for us the next day and we left to look around the National Stadium.

That afternoon our generous host at the parish, Father Galican, took us to see two genocide memorial sites just outside of Kigali. The first was Ntarama. Ntarama was/is an area mostly populated by Tutsi people and thus became a primary target of the violence. In earlier conflicts, people sought refuge in churches and were relatively left alone. That would not be the case this time.

FYI Rwanda had been suffering a brutal civil war from 1990-1994 which culminated in the genocide... the 100 days and 100 nights that we in the west hear about.

So at the church in Ntarama 5000 people lost their lives. They were men, women and children, Hutu and Tutsi. If there is one thing that is clear in Rwanda during that time, if you were not the one doing the killing, you were being killed. It really didn't matter what tribe you belonged to. The perpetrators arrived at the church at 9:00 in the morning and surrounded the perimeter. They began by blowing holes in the walls and systematically slaughtered every person inside. One of the out buildings of the church was a nursery. They grabbed the babies by their ankles and smashed their skulls against the wall. They did not leave until 3:00 pm that day when every person was dead.

The bones of the dead are on display at the church along with all of their clothing and belongings. The wall where the babies died is still stained black with their blood. It was the most horrific scene I have ever witnessed. I saw a kettle with a hole through it and could not get rid of the image of a woman cowering behind it, desperately trying to block the spear that would kill her. I would like to share with you a piece that I wrote:

Dear UNICEF,

We went to visit Ntarama Genocide Memorial Site today. In one of the outbuildings of the church, among the belongings of the dead, I saw a UNICEF notebook. I stood there in horror staring at this glaring example of an organization who failed to assess the needs of the community it was trying to help. My mission on this project became shockingly clear.

That child did not need a notebook. That child needed someone to take the machete out of the hand that struck her down. UNICEF was there along with so many other organizations, but where were they as that child gripped her notebook fearing for her life? That child died and no one was there to help.

All I can hope is that that child did not die in vain. How can anyone justify spending a dollar on a notebook for a child living in a war-torn nation? No child can get an education when she can’t go to school because she’ll probably die on the way there. Spend that dollar to stop the war. Stop the war, and then buy notebooks, pencils and textbooks.

That child never got the chance to fill those pages with mathematics or art. Now the only things that fill those pages are the stains of her blood and the haunting reminder of a failure by the world to help. Do not let that child die in vain. Always take the time to ask a child what she needs before deciding how to help. If children had a voice, what would they say?

The people of Jinja

After our adventure in the Nile we completed a series of interviews with the people of Jinja, Uganda. The first was with a few young men who ran a chipati stand (a type of tortilla-like food) just outside the hostel. They taught us how to make chipatis and told us about growing up in Jinja. There were a lot of young kids hanging about and we found out that they didn't go to school because the teachers would beat them so severely that they were too afraid to go. I suddenly understood why it was so important to Flo to be able to send her kids away to a better school. So, we ended up spending the better part of the afternoon hanging out with the local kids, going on bike rides and playing with one particular, adorably filthy toddler named Nathan who I met when a strange man thrust him into my arms and asked if I would like him to take a photo of us.

Afterwards, we went for an interview with a group called Soft Power. You will recall the name as the group who started the women's cooperative of which Flo is a member. You may well wonder what kind of name is Soft Power? Well allow me to explain by quoting Daisaku Ikeda:

The moving force of history was, in the past, "hard power"- in the form of military might, political authority and wealth. What we have seen in recent years, however, is a decrease in the relative importance of this factor, and in its stead a remarkable increase in the importance of "soft power"- factors such as knowledge and information, culture, ideas and systems.

Daisaku Ikeda at Harvard University, Boston, USA on September 26, 1991

I could talk all day about Soft Power... I was very impressed by them and definitely encourage anyone to check out their website at www.softpowereducation.com Their main focus is education. In 1997, the Ugandan government introduced free universal primary education and enrollment rose by millions in the following two years. Their infrastructure was entirely unprepared for this and many students received their education in unsafe, unstimulating, overcrowded classrooms. Soft Power builds bright, safe, fun classrooms for the children of Jinja. They also have a main education centre where kids can supplement their learning and where adults can come too. They employ nearly 100 individuals (all but 8 being Ugandan when we visited) at any given time and are all about sustainability. All of their funding is from private donors and they spend none of it on advertising, marketing or applying for grants. After meeting with Soft Power, I am so annoyed by big organizations like UNICEF, World Vision, Plan, etc. They will tell you that if you make a donation, 80% of it will go directly to the child, project, etc. That is 20% of your money paying someone's salary and for those annoying infomercials on tv every 20 minutes. At Soft Power, 100% of your money can go directly to the child, project, etc that you want to support. If you want to volunteer with Soft Power, you don't have to pay thousands of dollars just to be there (like someone I know did when she volunteered in Mexico). They ask only that you make a small donation to the organization.

We asked the woman we interviewed if she had any advice for people back in Canada who wanted to volunteer, or support a cause like Soft Power. She told us that the most important thing to do is ask questions. Ask if the organization is a charity or a business. Ask if they can tell you EXACTLY where each penny you give them will go. Ask them everything you can think of and if you are not 100% satisfied by their answers, move on and find someone who will. These groups may be harder to find but it will be totally worth the search in the end.

After meeting with Soft Power I can't tell you how badly I wished that I had known to ask those questions before I decided to "volunteer" with Projects Abroad the summer before. Projects Abroad is a business. I had to pay thousands of dollars to go volunteer with them. When compared to most businesses like them, they asked for a reasonable fee, didn't hide that a lot of the money went to administration, and when I complained about the amount of money my host family received out of my thousands of dollars, I got a phone call from the CEO himself. So, while I did chose wisely among these types of businesses, I wish that I had chosen a charity instead.

That night we sadly left Jinja to continue our journey to Rwanda. And in true Room for Improvement style, there was lots of drama involved. The hostel offered to drive us out to the bus stop but sent us 3 small cars for 11 people and about a thousand tonnes of luggage and not a single driver had a clue where the bus stop was. Furthermore, as we were driving to town, one of the cars ran out of gas and we realized that Alexis had been left behind. And Alexis was the only one who knew where the bus stop was.

But alas, luck was on our side and we found the bus station just minutes before the bus arrived and Alexis' car pulled up just as the driver was ready to leave without us. However, the bus was ill equipped for our mountain of luggage so we had to keep all our stuff in the aisles so every time someone got off or on we either had to lift or bags or have them stepped on. So, our plan to get a good night's sleep on the bus quickly turned into a nightmare. But it was all worth it when the sun came up and we found ourselves in the most beautiful place I've ever seen: Rwanda.

On the Road

On the first day of August we embarked on our journey across East Africa. We were up at the crack of dawn, hopped into our beloved matatu and arrived at the bus station just in time to catch Kampala Coach to Jinja, Uganda. As we lurched into gear, we began a journey none of us will ever forget. The engine of our bus roared as we bounced in and out of gear and just over an hour later we ran out of gas. A furious passenger nearly got into fisticuffs with the driver as we waited and waited some more for someone to come by with fuel. An hour later we got moving again only to stop two minutes later at the gas station and wait another hour while everyone argued about whose fault this was and who should pay for the gas. All the passengers on the bus were so embarrassed. They kept telling Alexis to make sure all us white folk know that this is not what Africa is like.
Shawn and Joe on Kampala Coach; the angry passenger.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful... I saw a bit of wildlife, met with some terrifying bathrooms, and didn't reach our destination (a mere 800-ish km from Nairobi) until 9pm. We did however drive across the equator and ended up at the source of the great Nile River.

We jumped off the bus at a gas station seemingly in the middle of nowhere and were immediately surrounded by men on little motorcycles. This would have been a desperately terrifying experience but my trusty Lonely Planet had informed me that these guys are the local public transit known as boda bodas.

We had about 8000 tonnes of luggage with us so had to embark on a bit of an adventure to find a couple of matatus to fit us. One driver tried to rip us off and was so mad when we went with two other drivers. It was rather dramatic. Shortly thereafter we arrived at Nile River Explorers Backpackers threw our stuff in our rooms and got to drinking the local brew as quickly as we could. A celebration of surviving the first leg of our voyage was very much in order.

The next morning Carolyn and Katie went whitewater rafting on the Nile while the rest of us nursed our hangovers and got to a whole bunch of interviews. We met some of the most amazing people. The first woman we interviewed was a lovely kindhearted woman named Flo. She was a member of a women's cooperative who sold their hand crafts at the hostel. They were started by a British NGO called Softpower but now run it all on their own. Flo told us how the cooperative had allowed her to make money of her own rather than just relying on a husband to provide for her. She was able to send her kids to a good school using her own money. She was clearly very proud of herself and immeasurably empowered.
The Nile

After our visit with flo, we all took advantage of the hot sun and went for a swim in the Nile. It was a little tricky getting down to the river. We pretty much had to slide down a cliff to get there. The current was super strong so we did more standing than swimming but it was a lot of fun. However, we soon realized that we hadn't thought about how we were going to get back up the bank once we were done. There was a staircase a little way down the bank but the current was too strong for us to swim there. We saw a young man out on the river doing some fishing in a little canoe-like boat. So being the adventurous folk that we are we called him over and asked him to ship us over to the stairs. He accepted and told us that he could take four of us in his boat at a time. This was not the case. We were far too heavy and had only inches between the water and the gunwale. We were also to heavy for the young man to navigate the currents and get us close enough to the stairs. So he decided that he would go out into the rapids to pick up some speed and swing us around. This was the most terrifying experience of my life. Not only were we sinking (our bailing efforts did not equal the amount of water splashing over the gunwales), the man's fish were still alive and swimming around our feet. In any case his plan failed and we had to go back to the beachy area where we had been swimming. In a panic we all stood up at once and immediately sunk his boat. We had a mad scramble to recover all his fish before they swam away. Even after this debacle, he was still willing to help us and took most of the group (two by two this time) over to the stairs. Alexis and Megali were even brave enough to go for a ride in the rapids. I was far too traumatized to get back in the boat along with a few others, so we managed in our desperation to find a way to clamber back up the bank. After this adventure we rinsed away our worries in the open air showers over looking the magnificent river.

and so it begins...

The day after my birthday was when we had our first glimpse of what we really came to Africa for. We had all gone into town to have a look at downtown Nairobi and on our way back the bus took a detour past the Kibera slums. Kibera is one of the largest slums in the world and home to over a million people. The little tin-roof shacks extended to the horizon. There was garbage flooding every inch of the ground and the stench of feces was at times overwhelming. I even saw a small shop advertising cell phone charging. These people don't have electricity but most of them have phones. (It's a messed up economy where the poorest of the poor have cell phones but can't afford electricity or even a solid roof over their heads.)

The next morning the last of our team arrived. Carolyn and Katie arrived bright and early and didn't get a moments rest before we visited the first of many organizations in East Africa making a difference in the lives of the youth there. We went to Hope International School which is one of the only French schools in Nairobi and where many refugees of francophone Africa attend. The school is desperate for funding and as a result the teachers are all volunteers getting paid only small amounts at times when the school has a bit to spare. The classrooms are very small often with only a plywood board between classes. We were told that when it rains it is so loud that the teachers have to resort to writing everything on the board. I was told that while to me it seems impossible for education to take place within these walls there are hundreds of schools in East Africa that don't even have walls.

We interviewed the director of the school who told us of their need for books and of a building to call their own so that the would no longer have to pay rent. Next we interviewed a few of the students and we learned that despite all of the challenges they face, the students at Hope are exceptional. They excel academically and many have received scholarships to study in France or Belgium. We met one young man called Fils who makes greeting cards into the wee hours of every night so that he earns an income and can pay his school fees. He touched our hearts with his determination and we pulled together enough money to pay his fees for him for a term. He has since inspired the two Room for Improvement competitive scholarships that we will begin accepting applications for once our film is complete.

That evening we were invited up to the Nyandwi house for supper. Dr. Nyandwi invited a few of his friends to meet with us and tell us of their own experiences in Rwanda. We asked them a lot of questions about Rwanda and East Africa in general and we got into some pretty amazing and in depth conversations. They all enlightened us with their perceptions of Rwanda's past and what needs to happen for it to succeed in the future. We talked about Canada and its role in the world and in East Africa and their perceptions of it. I am very grateful to them for that excellent introduction to what we would soon discover for ourselves on our travels.

That evening brings to mind a conversation we had with another man we had met in town who had fled Rwanda only a month before we arrived in Kenya and told us his story. He is a well educated man, was married and has two young sons. They had left Rwanda during the war and returned afterward to reclaim their lives there. However, those who fled Rwanda during the war are now considered to be deserters of their country and are not permitted to work. Also, upon their return, they found that their home was now occupied by others who were not interested in giving it up. (This is a story far too common in Rwanda these days.) The man went to the proper authorities to reclaim his home and after a long battle was given a date and told that he would have his home back on that day. When he arrived, the military was waiting for him and would have killed him had a neighbour not warned him before he got too close. After many years of working under the table for different compassionate people here and there. The military again attempted to take his life one night when they stormed his home. Again it was their neighbours who came to their rescue. Finally, this man was served with a summons to attend the Gacaca court on charges of the first degree of genocide (i.e. planning the genocide). The next day, he took his boys and fled. The boys now attend Hope International and are doing very well.

The Gacaca courts have been described to me as a national embarrassment. These courts were initially set up to deal with the overwhelming number of trials as a result of the genocide. They are the traditional courts of Rwanda where each community hears the trials of the members of their own community. I can't say if or how the courts were of any success at the beginning but now I have to agree that they are an embarrassment. At Gacaca a person can be handed a thirty year sentence based entirely on the word of one individual. The people who work at the Gacaca are not trained in any way with regard to law, justice, evidence... nothing. I will tell you more in further detail when I get to the trial we attended in Kigali.

In any case, this man we met was a highly educated man and educated men have targets on their backs in Rwanda these days as potential threats to the current regime. Unwarranted charges of genocide now seem to fall on these people and when they do there is a conviction rate of nearly 100%. Our friend had no choice but to flee. In fact, upon our return to Nairobi after visiting Rwanda, we learned that his trial had gone on without him and he had in fact been convicted and sentenced to thirty years in prison. For now he and his sons are safe but they will now never be able to return home.

Africa... here we go again

So I am aware that I didn't actually get to a word about Africa in my last post and that the title is quite misleading. However, I dare you to upload all those photos to such a long post using this thing. It has a terribly user-unfriendly interface.

Anyway, we woke from our flight just in time to land and go through customs. It took forever! So once we finally got through Alexis' whole family was there to meet us (except little sister Solange aka Soso who stayed back with big brother Patrick's little girl Alexa). The drive back to their house took an hour on winding, bumpy roads that are barely wide enough for two small cars to pass each other let alone big trucks. I wished that it was light out so that I could see the landscape (and oncoming traffic). The last bit of the drive was the craziest. Their house is on the top of a steep hill with a crazy path heading up to it. Once we got there I met Soso, Alexa, and Charlotte (a girl my age who helped out the family around the house). I was welcomed so warmly by the Nyandwi's that I immediately felt like part of the family.

The next few days are still a bit of a blur. We mostly stayed around the house as the weather was pretty crumby and I was terribly jet-lagged. I did a lot of sleeping... tagged along as Patrick ran errands/worked all over Nairobi... and ate Mrs. Nyandwi's amazing food (this included succulent beef, chicken and goat covered in delicious sauce, sweet potatoes, spicy chiles and my favourite millet porridge for breakfast).
Matatu; Alexa

So after the cloud of jet-lag cleared, it was time for little Alexa to be baptized. As Alexis is her godfather and she is his namesake, Patrick had planned to have her baptism while we were in town. The day began with no electricity so I got to enjoy the delight of the bucket shower. And I'm not even being sarcastic. After several days of luke-warm showers under zero pressure, I thoroughly enjoyed the scalding heat of the water Mrs. Nyandwi had heated for me on the stove. We headed to the church late in the afternoon with Alexa looking like a little princess. Patrick had asked me to do the first reading. I was so touched. I have never been so nervous in my life and I don't remember a word of what I read. After the church we went to a reception and ate delicious African food and drank lots of delicious African wine and delicious African beer. I met a whole bunch of family friends including this adorable little girl named Kenza who took photos of me and told me that I'm too light.
Alexa and Mama Tina; Alexis with his new Goddaughter; Kenza and me; Alexa cuts her cake.

The next day was my birthday and the whole team (minus the two girls who were still in Europe) arrived bright and early in the morning to celebrate with me. After getting everyone settled at their hotel just down the road from the Nyandwi house (and letting them nap until mid-afternoon) we went to Karen to use the internet and stopped by the pub for beers and chicken gizzards (which I discovered that I do not like). Our favourite mode of transportation in Africa was the 15-passenger van known in Kenya as a matatu. Shawn (one of our film-makers ) and I got experience it at its best when trying to get back to the hotel. It was around 4pm and the whole world seemed to heading home. After waiting forever we got crammed into a matatu. I think I had about 6 school kids sitting on my lap. Thankfully Shawn had gotten into the front seat so he could ask the driver where we were supposed to get out because I couldn't see a thing.

That evening we all went up to the Nyandwi house for a birthday feast of barbecued goat and all sorts of other goodies. I got a big card with little notes from everyone and had one of the most memorable birthdays of my life.

Alexis and Patrick barbecue the goat; Mrs. Nyandwi, Soso, Tina, Alexa, Alexis; Shawn, Megali, Matt, Dr. Nyandwi.

Africa... we meet again.

Ok so it's the middle of January, I am not in school, my useless job only gives me 25 hours a week, and I have no more excuses.

It's blog time.

So Africa.... it's been a while. I've missed you. Now just like the good ole friends that we are, let us reminisce about all the good times we used to have:

So it all began last July.... Mum and Dad drove me and Alexis to the airport for the first of our epic flights to Nairobi, Kenya. We got all checked in with no issues and were off before we knew it to Minneapolis. That was the easy part. Our flight was much too large for the capacity of the baggage conveyor belt and I nearly witnessed death by killer luggage for a child who was standing too near the belt before her father grabbed her out of the way just in time.

We took the overnight flight to Amsterdam and on our approach I was very happy to see that the Dutch fully live up to their stereotype by putting windmills everywhere. From the airport we went straight to the Heineken brewery (where else would one go in Amsterdam?). It was much overpriced and set up like a museum with a bar in the middle and we had a jolly good time taking many a ridiculous photo and drinking many a Heineken.


Next we went for a stroll through town eating bread with cheese and salami and drinking wine straight from the bottle. We sat by the water and embarked on a fight to the death with the local birds for possession of our food. Next our stroll took us through the red light district and we witnessed many stoned tourists and next-to-naked women in all the windows. It was not a good time... interesting from a cultural anthropologist-like perspective but I was sooo not in the mood.


We took the train in the evening to Brussels and went to meet Alexis' big sister Chantal and her boyfriend Theo. They live right in the city-centre (perfect for us tourist types) however, its on the 4th floor so I had to drag my excess of luggage up floor flights of stairs. Not fun when I couldn't even remember the last time I slept. And on top of it all Theo doesn't speak much English so I had to somehow make my brain work in French for the next few days. But my efforts were rewarded with Belgian beer: the best beer I have encountered on this planet thus far.... and so many varieties! I had cherry beer, white beer, dark beer, 9% alcohol beer! It was great!

Chantal and Theo took us to a baptism in the Rwandese community of Brussels (a rather substantially community). There probably hundreds of people there and it lasted well into the night. This was my first taste of proper Rwandese food and boy-howdy it was awesome!!! So after a full day of food and complimentary drink, Alexis and I went out for waffles with two of his friends from the proverbial "back in the day". I promptly lost my wallet and all that was in it and had a little nervous breakdown. Then we went to a Rwandese bar, drank some more beer and ate brochette (savoury meat and onions on an stick). I felt substantially better among good eats and even better company. I only had a few dollars in my wallet so in the morning I cancelled my credit cards, transferred all my money to Alexis and came out of the whole experience no worse for wear.

We were lucky enough to be in Brussels for their Fete National (National Day/Holiday)... the equivalent to Canada Day I suppose. There were all sorts of parades and expositions and we nearly saw the royal family except that it was so crowded and security was so tight that we quickly gave up trying to get anywhere near them. So we went over to Grand Place instead and I immediately fell in love! The architecture oh the architecture!!! It made me weak in the knees. Then we saw little Mannequin de Pis, touched Lady Luck, ate more waffles and drank more beer. That night we took the last train out of Brussels to Ghent for their annual week of partying and festival-ing. We got there around midnight and met up with a couple of our friends who would later be travelling around Africa with us. We danced the night away and then took the first train back to Brussels in the morning. Chantal was not pleased when we woke her up at 6am to let us in.

The next day... or rather later that same day we walked around the Royal Palace grounds and went to visit Chantal at work at the European Commission. She took us to see the European Parliament and we took in happy hour and a nice pub out front. Then we rushed back to the apartment, packed and hopped on the last train back to Amsterdam. Our flight to Nairobi was at 10 am so we had to take the train the night before and spent the night at the airport. It was sad to be leaving Europe and our excellent hosts behind but I was very excited to be setting foot in Africa in less than 24 hours. After a miserable night at the airport we got on our flight and were asleep just as soon as our bums touched our seats. We didn't even notice when we took off.

Coming soon to a theatre near you

Welcome to the prelude of my next adventure (a little belated I know but internet was hard to come by).

I went to explore a bit of Europe and East Africa. My dear Alexis (who you will recall from previous posts) is the founder of an NGO called Room for Improvement Youth Development. He has been working very hard over the past few years, raising money and awareness for global issues and especially for an orphanage in the Musasa region of Rwanda. He developed a program that took 9 students and two filmmakers to East Africa to document the current situation of youth in Rwanda. Our film will focus on the needs of the youth we meet as they define them and the organizations working to meet these needs.

My trip had the secondary objective of meeting Alexis' family. So, we began our journey on July 16th. More to come later when I am less jet lagged and have more energy.