Adventures in Uganda

This month I had two weeks of vacation from teaching, as the school operates on a trimester system with breaks in April, July and the long break (the US equivalent of summer holiday) from November to early January. After attending the memorial on April 7th, my housemate Mary and I set off to spend a week in Uganda, visiting its capital city, Kampala, the so called “adventure capital” of East Africa, Jinja, and quaint Entebbe, nestled on the shores of Lake Victoria. Let me preface the trip by stating that, while we were very excited to go rafting on Nile, check-out the night life in Kampala, and hopefully meet some lively internationals and ex-pats along the way, the thing we looked forward to most about our trip to Uganda was the food. We were informed by some of our Ugandan-born colleagues that Kampala was known for its selection of tasty ethnic restaurants, and so in the weeks leading up to our trip, we poured over our Lonely Planet East Africa travel book, mouths-watering, in search of the best restaurants in town. Although Kigali has an excellent coffee shop, a few small Chinese restaurants, and some larger establishments serving continental fare (with prices to suit the diplomats and foreign investors they cater to), most of what I eat for lunch and dinner each day living at school in Nyamata is some combination of white rice, brown beans and a leafy-green and carrot vegetable sauce. The food at Maranyundo is by no means bad, but variety doesn’t generally come into play when it comes to meals. Having said that, you may find that a significant portion of my description that follows is devoted to my delight at visiting a place with LOTS of options for eating out.

The ten hour bus ride to Kampala was an experience in itself. Unlike the minibuses that shuttle between Nyamata and Kigali and cram five people in a row meant for three, the Onatracom bus that we took to Kampala was the size of an ordinary bus, with perhaps 30 or so rows and space below the cabin to store large luggage, as you would find on a Greyhound bus in the U.S. However while there was an aisle down the middle of the bus, seats were arranged in rows of two people on one side and three on another, which meant that for Mary and I, sandwiched between the window and a stranger in a three-seated configuration, it was just about as comfortable as the Sotra minibuses we take to get into Kigali. In any case, the prospect of us abashumba - village girls - finally making our break to the big city of Kampala, where Indian restaurants, a movie theatre and gelato awaited, was enough to keep our spirits up for the duration of the ride. When we arrived at the border about two hours into the drive, we sensed an immediate difference in the road structure and a gradual difference in landscape. As Uganda was a former British colony, our bus moved to the LEFT side of the road after crossing the border and the road itself also became much bumpier. In Rwanda, most of the major routes that buses take between main cities are fully paved…although some are potentially more dangerous, because they are so windy along its many steep hillsides. Uganda geographically gets much flatter as you move north and very few roads are fully paved; most are quite rocky with frequent potholes. We noticed that the countryside was also much less densely populated with people, homes and villages – Rwanda, where people live seemingly everywhere, is almost three times as dense per square kilometer. It was a pleasant surprise to find that all of the signs in Uganda were in English (because it is home to so many different tribal languages, English is the common denominator) and even more pleasant to learn that eating outside or on the bus was not taboo but quite common! We indulged in this new freedom to eat in public without breaking a social more as we passed through villages where locals sold piping hot chapatti, grilled meat on a spear, sugar cane, ripe bananas, Pepsi, Fanta and biscuits right to our bus window.

Upon arrival in Kampala Wednesday evening, we dropped our packs at our hostel, hopped on a boda-boda (a motorbike which, in Uganda, fits up to two behind the driver) and headed downtown to begin our culinary quest. Since Indian Khazana, a Kigali legend, had shut down just before my arrival in January, both Mary and I were seriously craving some butter nan, chicken tikka masala and samosas. Kampala is renowned for its variety of excellent Indian restaurants and we decided to try the Lonely Planet editor’s choice, which was also a recommendation of ex-pats we had met earlier that day. At Haandi, a swanky North Indian establishment, we feasted on butter and cheese nan, two chicken dishes, palak paneer and even Diet Coke, which hasn’t made it to Rwanda. The aroma and ambiance was exactly what we sought after our lengthy trek across central Africa. We planned our activities for the week ahead (most of which, in Kampala, revolved around eating out) and reveled in being on vacation in a place that offered so many choices that fit our volunteer budget.

The next morning we caught a 25 cent matatu (public minibus) into town from our hostel. About ten minutes into the ride to downtown, we had a veritable test of urban navigation skills after our packed matatu bounded into a giant pothole, sprung a flat tire and forced all 20 of us onto the street. Since it was our first time in Kampala in the daylight, we weren’t quite sure where we were headed, but followed our instincts and eventually made our way through the masses of people and vendors milling about the capital’s dirty, congested streets to the center. It was also there that our lunch excursion would begin. We never eat chicken at home in Rwanda, and as such, fully embraced every opportunity we had to order it in our new “favourite” city. We savored every bite of our spiced chicken wraps at Nando’s, an excellent Mozambican chicken spot that has recently spread to the US via DC. Although the side of chips were standard fare, and we were a bit disappointed in the lack of adequate ketchup (a thin, sweetened tomato sauce was the closest equivalent), we didn’t have to go far to order dessert. The delicious simplicity of chocolate vanilla swirl at a soft serve ice cream shop located the same block caught our eyes and sustained our taste buds. From there, we headed up the hill past a verdant urban park and Parliament to Garden City Center, an indoor shopping mall that housed a big screen movie theatre. The fact that we had our choice of four mediocre films that debuted in the US several months ago was of no consequence – we picked the one we presumed most action packed and hustled into an empty theatre. The movie we saw, The International, was a crime thriller set in various high profile global banking capitals. Despite the lackluster plot and the second line of all subtitles being projected too low to read, we had fun relaxing in a movie theatre that was ten times bigger and more permanent than the white sheet and projector set up in our living room in Nyamata. After the movie, we perused the shops of the mall, did some people watching, and really began to feeling displaced in time, like pre-teens again on any given Saturday in the USA. Once we felt our fair share of developed world nostalgia, we made our way over to Mamma Mia at the Speke Hotel, where we could choose from lasagna, ravioli, pizza and dozens of types of pasta/sauce combinations according to our culinary curiosity for the evening. I relished in every bite of my beef cannelloni plus dry white wine (a pairing faux-pas, I am aware), followed by a dish of pistachio, stracciatella and hazelnut gelato to lend a happy ending to a fantastically indulgent day.

The next morning we boarded the bus for Jinja, the town about 1.5 hours from Kampala where Lake Victoria meets the Nile River and the rapids are notoriously wild. Jinja is home to several white water rafting companies with excellent reputations, but when it came down to deciding, I was sold on one in particular after I read the following advertisement: “By Appointment to Her Majesty the Queen of England, Prince William is one of a number of royals who chose to raft with us. Adrift : unparalleled safety and excitement.” If gorgeous Prince William rafted with Adrift, then what was stopping me? I had been rafting in the U.S. a few times before, but had never traversed Class 5 rapids or experienced the force of the Nile. As luck would have it, we picked a lovely, sunny day to set out on our planned adventure. Once we were loaded into our 8 man raft and starting on our way down the Nile, I knew for sure that Prince William had used that very same paddle that I held in my hands (intuition is one of my many unexplainable talents).

Our boat of Americano British Canadians formed a motley crew of energized…terrified …exhilarated individuals determined to conquer the eleven major rapids of our course. We appreciated the calm flow of the Nile between bouts of enormous rapids at which we paddled strong through some parts and ducked all in at others. We were all thrown out of the boat on the third major rapid, which was a thrill and reality check that made us wiser for the ones that followed. When we weren’t in white water, we talked about life in Africa, shared jokes, swam alongside our raft, wrestled crocodiles with our bare hands….you get the picture. Although the day started out hot and sunny, at around 4PM - an hour or so from our final destination - Mother Nature turned against us with a vengeance in the form of a large scale thunderstorm. This was no ordinary storm, but one which progressed from a bit of rain and thunder to high speed winds, heavy downpour and eventually pelting hailstones that pushed us back from our destination in spite of our fervent paddling, and for moments even forced us to duck and cover inside the raft. What felt like the second coming lasted in reality a good 45 minutes, making everyone question why we chose to go rafting during the RAINY season. Somehow, we made it to the end of the course (alive), relieved to find warm towels, Nile Special beer and barbeque skewers greeting us at the finish line. It was by far the most exciting maritime adventure of my life.

But in fact, the adventure was just beginning. On the bus ride back to the Adrift base camp, still high off of adrenaline from finishing the course in such dire elements, Mary and I decided that we would make the most of our visit to Jinja and the Nile…by going bungee jumping over the river! Neither of us had been before, but it was precisely the kind of challenge we felt up for in light of our near-death experience rafting (perhaps a bit of an exaggeration). Although Mary deliberated a bit before deciding to go through with the jump, once I had made up my mind, there was no turning back. I felt courageous and eager as I signed my waiver form, watched new friends take their turns from the deck-side viewing spot, and even as I climbed the hundreds of stairs to the top of the tower. It was only seconds before the jump itself, when I shuffled up to the ledge and took a long, hard gander at the open expanse before me that I became totally freaked. I was standing 145 feet above the Nile, about to willingly throw myself off a ledge, with nothing but a series of thick ropes and bungee cord strapped to my ankles. It was then that I knew I had gone mad. But a part of me also knew that I would always regret it if I chickened out. When the instructor called, “3, 2, 1, bungee!” I braced myself, blocked out every inhibition in my body and JUMPED!

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the free fall and subsequent dunk into the river was actually really scary! After I plunged into the water, I bounced back up and was flung around several times before I gained a sense of where I was in the world. Then I realized that I had survived my first bungee jump. That was enough to keep me smiling all night long, and even now I can’t help but laugh and grin a little every time I think back on that moment.

I awoke to the sounds of scattering steps across the roof of our sleeping quarters the next morning, and later discovered that it was some of the playful vervet monkeys who run around the grounds of the base camp in the early mornings and afternoons, when most people staying there are either sleeping or gone for the day. Seeing wild monkeys up close and as they exist in their natural habitat was a treat that I witnessed in Jinja and on my visit to the lush, verdant botanical gardens of Entebbe. The gardens boasted some excellent varieties of flora and fauna like mahogany and mango trees, sugar cane plants and bamboo shoots, but the most exciting part of the gardens was entering the dense, overgrown forest in which, according to our guide, the original Tarzan movie was filmed.

Lovely Entebbe, located south of Kampala along Lake Victoria, is also home to a large international airport which was the setting of a notorious plane hijack in 1976. At the height of Idi Amin’s reign of terror in Uganda, Palestinian and German terrorists hijacked Air France Flight 139 out of Tel Aviv, Israel, forced the landing at Entebbe and took all Israeli passengers hostage in order to blackmail the Israeli government. Despite Amin’s clandestine cooperation with the terrorists and the Palestinian cause, Israel, Germany and Kenya were able to stage a joint operation within a week of the hijacking in which the hostages were returned to safety, save for one unexplained casualty. This event has been the subject of multiple films, and also comes into play at the end of The Last King of Scotland, an excellent movie that portrays the madness and corruption inherent to Uganda’s most infamous dictator, Idi Amin.

Returning to Kampala after a weekend of adventure was enough to ready our appetites for some more culinary escapades. In Jinja, Mary and I had made friends with two American med students who were completing internships in Kampala that semester. While they had many great recommendations for places to eat in town, we learned that the best Chinese restaurant was a place called Fang Fang, which we quickly designated as the venue of our celebratory Easter Sunday dinner feast. The menu was extensive, and we exhausted it to the best of our ability by ordering miso soup, vegetable spring rolls, pork dumplings and sweet white wine, to start. Although wine is available in Rwanda, it is very expensive and quite rare – so in Uganda I seized every available opportunity to order this choice beverage. Next, I ordered sweet and sour fish, garnished with pineapple and red peppers, coupled with a heaping side of ginger rice. I wince a little every time I think of how delicious that rice tasted, especially when compared to the starchy white rice we eat on a daily basis at Maranyundo. Mary ordered sticky rice and cashew chicken – also fantastically delicious and impeccably presented. Mary spent a year living in China, and she said that this was some of the best Chinese food she had ever had! I easily concurred. Despite our best efforts, there was no way we could finish all of the food that we ordered. But we did save room for dessert. We selected what sounded like a Chinese-Ugandan fusion: fried balls of banana with vanilla ice cream. That, we finished in its entirety…which resulted in yet another boda-boda ride home in which our driver reprimanded us on how collectively fat we were, bounding through pothole after pothole of Kampala’s weathered streets.

We spent our last day in Uganda shopping around Kampala’s handmade craft stands, visiting the giant grocery store (which sold more than one variety of tea, more than two varieties of chocolate and more biscuits than you can ever imagine), and much of the afternoon relaxing in the garden seating of the Italian restaurant we had visited earlier in the week, sipping iced tea and eventually trying new flavors of gelato. We met up with our med student friends for dinner that evening at the Masala Chaat House, a small, inexpensive Indian eatery across from the National Theatre. It seemed as though our trip really came full circle, starting and ending with Indian food. We ordered different things at this place, of course – I tried the chapatti, samosas, vegetable korma and African tea - but we were just as content with the service and quality of food there as at the more pricey Haandi. The upstairs dining rooms filled with huge tables of Indian families reinforced our decision to spend our last night in Uganda at this understated gem.

Needless to say, Mary and I were a little sad to see an end to our week of indulgence in Uganda. We knew we would miss the variety in restaurants, generally lower prices (and more favorable exchange rate), existence of ATMs, and ease of communication due to the prevalence of English. But there were also many things about Rwanda that we valued in comparison: gorgeous landscapes, paved roads, safer and officially regulated moto rides (which – unlike Uganda - mandated helmets), cleaner streets, wonderfully friendly people and the challenge of working in a country that is becoming Anglophone. Although Kampala made Uganda seem much more developed, the two countries are rather comparable when it comes to the UN Human Development Index: Uganda ranks 156 and Rwanda ranks 165 out of 179 countries. In traversing Uganda we came across many houses, schools and other establishments that looked like they had been partially demolished decades ago, perhaps during the Amin years or the country’s civil wars in the 1980s, and totally abandoned since then.

On the flip side, both Uganda and Rwanda have made great strides in improving the health and welfare of its citizens, especially in combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with current infection rates around 3-5% in both countries, down from 15-20% at its height in the mid-nineties. Particularly in Kampala, the city and supporting groups (USAID included) have made nutrition and safe health practices a priority via advertising campaigns and paintings on schools that encourage children to eat yogurt and drink milk for strong bones, for example. Another relevant billboard shows a picture of a man in his fifties juxtaposed next to a teenage girl, asking, “Would you let your daughter date this man? …Then don’t be that person yourself.” In many regions of Africa, cross-generational relations are commonplace and a serious problem; this is one issue that Uganda’s government has been particularly adamant in fighting.



FYI this is a video of someone else on the bungee - but I did complete the very same jump!

April 7, 2009

Before embarking on a week-long adventure to neighboring Uganda, my housemate Mary and I remained in Rwanda for the beginning of the first week of break in order to attend the fifteenth anniversary of start of the genocide. April of every year is a difficult time for most Rwandans and the day of the memorial, Tuesday April 7th, was especially solemn. Thousands attended the ceremony led by President Paul Kagame, which began at nine in the morning and lasted well into the afternoon. Each year, the official ceremony is held at a different location of historical significance; this year it took place on a hillside in Nyanza, a village on the outskirts of Kigali. In ’94, a UNAMIR contingent was stationed at this site, specifically ETO – Ecole Technologique Officielle, a Salesian secondary school. The role of UNAMIR (UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda) was to see that the Arusha Accords signed in August 1993 by the Rwandan Patriotic Front and the Rwandan Government in place at the time were effectively implemented. Needless to say, the Accords were treated as a farce by the presiding Rwandan government and less than an afterthought by the Interahamwe militia, the government sponsored group that planned and carried out the killings of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus in the one hundred days following April 7, 1994. When the killings began in Kigali that week, ETO was presumed a place of protection for those fleeing the attacks, due to its UN presence. Unfortunately UNAMIR withdrew its troops from ETO on April 11th, leaving thousands of Rwandans at the mercy of the Interahamwe. Most were killed within the day. Shortly after withdrawing from ETO, UNAMIR reduced its overall strength from 2,548 to 270 troops. As a notable memorial site, ETO was the setting of the 2005 British film Shooting Dogs, which portrays how UN soldiers stationed in Rwanda during the genocide would shoot at dogs scavenging the dead bodies lining the streets of Rwanda’s capital, since their mission prohibited them from shooting at the actual killers.

The memorial that I attended was conducted primarily in Kinyarwanda, with some parts in English and French. While I didn’t understand most of what was said, I did get a sense of the horror and devastation that so many of the speakers and members of the audience experienced. Some of the people giving testimonies openly broke down in front of thousands of their compatriots. As this was anticipated, there were people in the crowds designated to assist those that went into fits of sobbing and in some cases hysteria. In his English remarks, President Kagame decried the lack of support from the UN and other groups that could have intervened and lessened the severity of the event as it was happening. He also spoke of the necessity of fighting revisionist propaganda, which claims that the killings didn’t actually happen on the scale that they did and that what occurred wasn’t a true genocide, but rather isolated incidents of killings. Although the ceremony was upsetting and uncomfortable at times, I would have felt like I hadn’t given proper respect to the gravity of the event, had I not attended. Mary and I stayed in Kigali that afternoon and evening in order to catch a 7AM bus to Uganda the next day, and as our appetites churned from hours without food, we quickly reached an impasse when we realized (to our own folly) that almost everything in town was closed that day in commemoration of the genocide. Ironically, I had my first meal of the day early that evening at the Mille Collines Hotel, which was open and serving food.

References: Dallaire, Romeo. Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. New York: Carroll and Graf, 2005
Kigali Memorial Center and Genocide Museum, Kigali, Rwanda
Additional references as included in my senior thesis, “Modern Genocide and Its Effect on Women: An African Case Study,” completed at GW University ESIA in May 2007

In Memoriam

Kigali

“When they said ‘never again’ after the Holocaust, was it meant for some people and not for others?” -Apollon Kabanizi

I recently visited the Kigali Memorial Centre and Genocide Museum, which serves as the burial site for over 250,000 of the 800,000 people killed in the Rwandan genocide of April-July 1994. This reverent museum has been in operation for about five years now and is surrounded by gardens and fountains that provide a humble backdrop to the cruel stories told within its walls. The museum itself is divided into three main exhibits. The first is a history of Rwanda leading up to the 1994 genocide and detailing the event itself through its aftermath using artifacts, photographs, video, written testimonies and other primary sources (i.e. newspapers demonstrating party philosophy) to illustrate what happened. The second exhibit is a reflection on the phenomenon of genocide in light of other genocides that have occurred in the past century, including those in South-West Africa, Armenia, Nazi Germany, Cambodia and Bosnia. The third and final exhibit is tribute to the hundreds of thousands of Rwandan children killed during the genocide.

A few rooms were especially powerful in the main exhibit. In one of them, the skulls and bones of dozens of people were laid in display cases, while a seemingly endless litany of names was read plainly in the background. Another room, much larger than the last, featured hundreds of photographs of the dead. These pictures were submitted by family members who sometimes attached a letter to the person in the photo. The second exhibit opens with a quotation from the director of Aegis Trust, a UK based NGO dedicated to the elimination of genocide. It reads as follows: “If you must remember, remember this…the Nazis did not kill six million Jews…nor did the Interahamwe kill a million Tutsis. They killed one and then another, then another. Genocide is not a single act of murder. It is millions of acts of murder.” The exhibit reminds its viewers that genocide is never a spontaneous act but rather planned acts of violence intentionally targeted at destroying a population, usually carried out by the government in charge and its collaborators.

For me, the most upsetting exhibit was the children’s memorial, which consists of several connected rooms with enlarged, individual photos of children of all ages. Under each picture is a bit of information about the child. Two examples are listed below:

Nadia Chanelle
Age 8
Favorite sport: jogging with her father
Favorite sweets: chocolate
Favorite drink: milk
Favorite song: My Native Land Which God Chose for Me
Enjoyed: TV and music
Cause of Death: Hacked by machete

Aurore Kirezi
Age 2
Favorite drink: cow’s milk
Favorite game: Hide and seek with her big brother
Behavior: very talkative
Cause of Death: Burnt alive at Gikondo Chapel

The exhibit closed with a particularly poignant anecdote, demonstrative of a kind of mercilessness that is still difficult for me to fathom:

“A militiaman came up to kill me. I was astonished because I thought he was a friend. He used to come to our house every day. He farmed my father’s fields and he received a salary. My mother gave him food. We used to play with him and he was like a brother to us, even though we were not from the same family. I asked him why he wanted to kill me when I had done nothing to hurt him. I begged him to take pity on me. He said nothing but just hit me over the head with a machete. He had bits of wood in his hand which he stuck in my face. When he thought I was dead, he left.” –Uwayisenga, Age 7

Visiting the museum in Kigali left me uneasy in so many ways. One of the hardest things about the visit was realizing that even though over 250,000 are buried on the premises, only a handful of men, women and children can actually have their stories told.


Nyamata

“If you knew me and you really knew yourself you would not have killed me.” –Felicien Ntagengwa

Nyamata is the village 30km south of Kigali in which I live. It is also the site of a well-known genocide memorial, a Catholic church where about 10,000 people were killed by the Interahamwe. It is no accident that the Maranyundo School was set up in this part of Rwanda: decades prior to the genocide, Nyamata was the site of large concentration camp for Tutsis. It was one of the first regions to be targeted by the Interahamwe in April 1994 since so many Tutsis lived there. For that reason, Nyamata and the Bugesera District has had a particularly hard time rebuilding itself from the massive destruction, and schools and families in the region are very poor. When the women who founded Maranyundo consulted with the Rwandan Ministry of Education about where their school was most needed, Nyamata was a clear choice.

The church is located along a dusty dirt road several hundred meters from the main thoroughfare of our village. I had passed by it many times on Sundays on the way to mass, which is held in a nearby building since the structure is maintained as a memorial only. Like many buildings in Rwanda, the church is simply constructed of brown brick and a tin roof. Perhaps it was this sense of familiarity with my surroundings that made the experience of entering the church for the first time so startling: although I always knew it was there, until that sunny Tuesday morning I never actually considered what was inside. What immediately struck me was the stillness. The pews of the church are arranged in rows facing the altar, and lining each pew, all sides of the church and the altar are mounds of tattered clothing. I took my time walking the aisles of the church and processing what I saw. At first, everything seemed to be of a dark, muted brown hue, but as I neared closer to different items I could make out striped and polka dot patterns, floral fabrics with faded tints of red, blue and yellow; a woman’s blouse, a man’s hat, a little girl’s jumper. Although the massacres committed here took place almost fifteen years ago, there was a faint smell of urine and death stagnant in the air, reminding me that this place has still not fully rid itself of its transgressions. There were other indicators of destruction within: behind the altar, the tabernacle had been hacked into so that the symbolic fish and wine were hard to distinguish. Images of apostles and saints on church walls were mutilated, and even the Virgin Mary statue had been struck and crumbled in places. As I took another look around the space, I noticed beams of light ironically flowing through bullet holes that peppered the tin roof, with the faint chirping of birds interrupting the silence inherent to this memorial.

Although there was no guide to walk me through my visit, prior to going I had learned from my housemates what happened there. As in many areas of Rwanda during the genocide, thousands of people fled to local churches when they heard news of the impending attacks. People believed that churches would be safe havens and clergy usually encouraged people to congregate there for protection. In some cases, as in the case of L’Eglise Sainte Famille in Kigali, the pastor was affiliated with the Interahamwe militia and used his role as a church leader to cause the death of as many Tutsis as possible in one go, falsely leading his parishioners to believe they would be secure there. The Interahamwe militia was in fact ruthless in its raids and didn’t have any problem with attacking churches, schools and orphanages just the same. The church in Nyamata witnessed a major attack on April 10, 1994. Those seeking refuge padlocked the door shut, but the militia was successful in breaking down the door and entering with their machetes, rifles and hand grenades. An estimated 10,000 people were killed that day, including the entire family of one of our four resident nuns. There were also survivors of the massacre: one of the men that I work with at the Bugesera district office was ten years old at the time, and remembers hiding still under dead bodies for hours until the militia moved on.

After several minutes inside the church, I went outside and around the back, passing two large tombstones with names of parishioners who were killed in earlier massacres of Tutsis in 1990 and 1992. Behind the church are underground vaults filled with the remains of victims of the 1994 slaughter. I wasn’t sure whether or not to descend into the vaults, as I was already on edge from going into the church and I was all alone. But I took a deep breath and climbed down.

In my family I was always taught that death is a part of life; my parents didn’t shy away from bringing us to funerals of relatives or answering questions about casualties we learned about at school or in the news. I usually find cemeteries very peaceful, and always felt a little sad but more reflective when confronted with the relics of saints or scholars (Pope John Paul II, Victor Hugo) at churches across Europe. But descending into these dimly lit crypts that contained thousands of skulls and bones stacked in rows, I really felt scared. Physically, I was so close to the remains of so many people who had been violated and brutally murdered for no good reason: it was both eerie and devastating to be there among corpses and consider how horrible it must have been to die that way. Within the vaults, there were also a few covered tombs clad in the purple and white ribbon symbolic of the genocide, some bearing flowers, crosses or other personal mementos. But too many victims had no burial at all.

When I visited Kibuye (Lake Kivu) again this weekend and attended mass at the genocide memorial church there, shown below, I thought about the similarities between these two places. Both were vibrant parishes prior to the genocide, both suffered unimaginable horrors during the three months of attacks in 1994, both reported casualties in the tens of thousands. And now, fifteen years later, both parishes have re-built themselves. In the case of the Nyamata parish, it is true that the location at which mass is held has moved, in order to permanently honor the dead at the original church. But the will to survive, persevere and re-build is something that I find extraordinary about Rwandan society.



References: Kigali Memorial Center and Genocide Museum, Kigali, Rwanda
Nyamata Memorial Church, Nyamata, Rwanda

Brief Political History of Rwanda, including events pertaining to the 1994 Genocide

Rwanda has a rich history recorded through oral tradition until the time of its colonization and maintained in writing in more recent centuries. It was originally settled by three main tribes: the Hutus, Tutsi and Twa people, which occupied different roles in Rwandan society. From approximately 1000AD, Rwanda was ruled by a line of Tutsi kings in a system comparable to feudalism. Hutus were generally peasant farmers who were subjected to the law of their Tutsi chiefs. Tutsis, who were traditionally cattle-owners, formed the ruling class and held a superior status. The Twa people, a pigmy population of hunter-gatherers, served different roles in the royal courts, such as potters, dancers and singers. Unlike the European system of feudalism, the Hutu-Tutsi divide was less rigid: if a Hutu earned enough cattle through purchase, war or marriage, he could become a Tutsi and marry a Tutsi woman if he so wished. Just the same, if a Tutsi lost a substantial amount of cattle through any of these circumstances, he would be classified as Hutu and may marry as such. This same rule did not generally apply to the minority Twa people, who seldom intermarried or changed their social status. For this reason, the Hutu and Tutsi people of Rwanda and Burundi experienced hundreds of years of intermarriage and social integration, speaking one unified language, until the time that the Germans arrived to colonize Rwanda and Burundi in 1885.

Recognizing the effectiveness of the feudal system of Tutsi chiefs already in place, Germany invested its energy in promoting the leadership of the Tutsis through indirect rule. It is important to note that the Germans and later the Belgians, who acquired Rwanda and Burundi as colonies in 1919 after Germany lost WWI, adhered to the social Darwinist philosophy predominant in Europe at the time. They viewed the ruling Tutsis as characteristically taller, leaner and of lighter skin, descendants of Ethiopia and more “civilized” parts of Northern Africa. In conjunction with their more European physique was the assumption that they were genetically predisposed to a higher level of intelligence, presumably why they had ruled without objection for so many years. The Hutu people, descendants of Bantu tribes that inhabited central Africa, were characterized as shorter, stockier and darker in skin. Given their physique, they were deemed less intelligent on average and therefore merited their second-class citizenship, so to speak. To establish order, the Belgian colonists in the 1930s mandated that each Rwandan be issued an identity card based on their physical appearance, neglecting to consider that the actual lineage of most people had been blurred substantially over hundreds of years of intermarriage and changes in hierarchy. These identity cards were maintained up through the time of the 1994 genocide, and served as a primary way to identify the race that was to be slaughtered.

By the time of Rwanda’s independence, the Catholic Church, in accordance with the Belgian government, had sent hundreds of missionaries to Rwanda to establish schools in a francophone context. The Belgians had also set up infrastructure in the form of hospitals, roads and local administration. More Hutus were educated than ever before, and Hutus became more vocal about taking their rightful place as leaders of a country that was Hutu by majority. When Rwanda achieved independence in 1961, Hutus took power in governance, and in the so-called spirit of democracy, was endorsed by Belgium and the Catholic Church as the rightful ruling party. In light of what appeared to be hundreds of years of oppression from power, the Hutu ruling party took control with a vengeance from the start. Under the leadership of President Gregoire Kayibanda, quotas were implemented in order to restrict Tutsi participation to 9% in schools, jobs, government and various other roles in society. Between 1959 and 1973 over 700,000 Tutsis exiled Rwanda to escape the sporadic “ethnic cleansing” of Tutsis that had been taking place since the rise of the PARMEHUTU (Party of the Hutu Emancipation Movement) faction ruling party and Kayibanda’s 1957 “Hutu Manifesto”.

In a military coup, another prominent Hutu named Juvenal Habyarimana took office as president of Rwanda in 1973 under the auspice of the MRND (Mouvement Revolutionnaire et Nationale pour le Developpement), but the persecution and sporadic killings of the minority Tutsis continued. In the meanwhile, ethnic Tutsis continued to flee Rwanda to neighboring Zaire (now DRC), Uganda and Tanzania and in many cases form communities. In 1986, a group of ethnic Tutsi Rwandan exiles in Uganda formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), under the leadership of Paul Kagame and Fred Rwigyema. Disheartened by their forced exile and Habyarimana’s failure to maintain a multi-party democracy, this party invaded Rwanda in 1990 but was quickly suppressed by the French, German and Zairean troops summoned to augment the Rwandan army in its defense. Habyarimana used the attack as a justification to increase the Rwandan army from 5,000 to 35,000 troops between 1990 and 1993, and his regime was supported in arms by many nations including the US, France and South Africa. In this same period, Hutu power philosophy increased tenfold with the publication of the Hutu Ten Commandments and other anti-Tutsi propaganda which spread through all official media. Government-sanctioned killings of Tutsis and Tutsi sympathizers occurred with numbers in the thousands, and all the while, the Rwandan Hutu Power militia (Interahamwe) grew in size and lists of names of Tutsis and Hutus who did not support the cause of the Hutu Power militia were compiled. In April 1994, the plane of Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down, signifying the start of the genocide.

Although the source of the presidential assassination has never been determined, it is known that the planning of the Rwandan genocide occurred over many years time. Major foreign governments were aware that Tutsis were being targeted in the early 1990s and prior, but elected to turn a blind eye and in many cases continued supplying the Interahamwe with its arms. In January 1994, UN Secretary –General Kofi Annan received a fax from UN General Romeo Dallaire, stationed in Rwanda, informing him that a huge massacre of Tutsis was planned and that killings had been taking place already. In spite of this message and Dallaire’s urgent recommendation to send in reinforcements of peacekeeping troops, the UN opted not to act on the tip. In the 100 days following the plane crash, Rwanda became a frenzied bloodbath. Tutsis were hunted and killed by the Interahamwe like birds of prey, and along the way, anyone who did not participate in the search and destroy of Tutsis was also subject to slaughter. Over 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the months of terror, with an estimated 500,000 women victimized by rape and countless others subjected to physical and emotional torture. In additional to the physical and mental trauma that plagued survivors of the genocide, many surviving rape victims awaited a long and arduous death sentence after being infected with AIDS or other fatal STDS. There was also the very real possibility that they would have to deliver and raise a child that was conceived in an act of violence. As a result of the genocide, over 300,000 children were orphaned and 85,000 became heads of households. More than 2/3 of the population of Rwanda was displaced within the country, and over 2 million people fled to refugee camps in Burundi, Tanzania, Zaire and Uganda.

For more information on the successful invasion of the Rwandan Patriotic Front and the end of the genocide, please refer to the third paragraph of my entry on Lake Kivu (February 20).

Since 1994, Rwanda has made great strides in rebuilding itself as a nation and forging into the 21st century as a unified nation of Rwandans. Identity cards designating ethnicity have been outlawed and it is not even legal to refer to people as Hutu or Tutsi. President Paul Kagame has a vision for the economic development of the country which includes a push to make the landlocked country an African hub for the services industry. Changing the official language of schools, government and business from French to English is one manifestation of this development in which I feel privileged to participate. Although it could take decades or longer for Rwanda to recover from the wounds of its past, the current leadership seems to be doing everything in its power to enable citizens to move forward while honoring the memory of the dead.

References: Dallaire, Romeo. Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. New York: Carroll and Graf, 2005
Kigali Memorial Center and Genocide Museum, Kigali, Rwanda
Powers, Samantha. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide. “Chapter 10: Rwanda: Mostly in Listening Mode.” New York: Harper Perennial, 2002
Additional references as included in my senior thesis, “Modern Genocide and Its Effect on Women: An African Case Study,” completed at GW University ESIA in May 2007.

Visit to Lake Kivu: A Beautiful Paradox

A few weekends back Mary, Andy, our friend Els and I travelled to the town of Kibuye, located in the Western Province of Rwanda on Lake Kivu, one of East Africa’s great lakes. Let me begin by saying that the photos posted here do not do justice to the immense beauty of this place: in all of my travels within the US, across Europe and around Africa so far, this place is home to some of the most stunning views that I have ever witnessed. It is also probably the least expensive weekend excursion that I have ever taken, when you factor in the equivalent of a $3 (3 hour) bus ride, $10/night stay in a lakeside bungalow, and around $3/meal plus less than a dollar per Mutzig or Primus (Rwandan beer) consumed. Since arriving to Rwanda, my housemates (or new “family” as we sometimes refer to each other – with all due respect to my real family, whom I love and miss dearly) have repeatedly mentioned how much they are looking forward to showing me this place that they visit regularly, due to its relatively close locale, calm, laid-back atmosphere and natural beauty. Many foreigners who visit Rwanda stop in Gisenyi for a lakeside excursion, however this place, located on one of the fingers of Kivu, is a little more off the beaten path and is frequented more by those seeking quiet and relaxation than by tourists. Anyone who visits Rwanda will get a sense of its hilliness, but on the ride to Kibuye I think I really did see over a thousand hills. Although I am not usually a fan of driving along narrow, winding paths overlooking steep inclines - especially when there is no guard rail for mental reassurance - the road was paved and the moments of anxiety + vertigo were well worth it. As we neared our destination, Mary told me to keep my eyes open for a surprise. Sure enough, about 5km from Kibuye I had my first bird’s eye view of sparkling Lake Kivu, nestled in the densely forested jade hillside. I also noticed the gorgeous balconied villa atop the most prominent hill in view which overlooked the lake, roughly 1000 feet above the water…which, I guessed correctly, was our hotel! Home St. Jean is actually the less expensive option in places to stay in this town, but we certainly did not make any compromise when it came to choosing a place with a breathtaking view, friendly service and comfortable accommodation. We spent the weekend relaxing on the terrace balconies and enjoying our meals there (which did take hours to arrive, but this was not much of a problem given our agenda), swimming, reading and tanning by the lake.

Despite the seemingly inherent tranquility and sense of calm that this gem of a place exudes, the prefecture of Kibuye witnessed the most comprehensive slaughter of Tutsis anywhere in Rwanda between April and June of 1994. Prior to the genocide, this region had an unusually high percentage of ethnic Tutsis (20%), and by its close, an estimated 9/10 had been killed. We passed the genocide memorial church, in which over 4,000 people were killed, on our walk to Home St. Jean. Remarkably, the church has re-built itself both physically and as a community and mass is held and well attended each Sunday.

I often wonder how a country this vibrant - rich in history, culture and natural beauty - could have experienced such an event. At Kibuye, this was especially hard to accept. What is even more unbelievable in visiting a place so serene and picturesque is knowing that across the lake in neighboring DRC, millions of people around Goma and throughout the eastern part of the country have been and continue to be killed by the FDLR (Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda - ex Interahamwe/Hutu power militia). In order to end the genocide, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), led by current Rwandan President Paul Kagame, overpowered the Hutu (Interahamwe) militia and forced them to flee the country in July 1994. A high concentration of Interahamwe officials and masterminds behind the genocide flocked to Goma alongside millions of displaced persons, where refugee camps were set up and humanitarian aid flowed like honey, as the UN and Western based aid agencies came to realize how little they had done and at such an unforgivable detriment to the Rwandan people over the past three months of slaughter. Ironically, a great deal of this highly publicized aid effort, a consolation prize for ignoring Rwanda’s cry for help, allowed those fleeing punishment in Rwanda for their acts of mass murder a kind of carte blanche, enabling them to live for months, even years in these well stocked camps. Many of these Hutu power officials regrouped in the Eastern Congo and formed the FDLR, a rebel faction which has terrorized millions of innocent people in the region through vandalism, rape and murder since its formation at Goma. While this region continues to experience devastation, one can only hope that the recent accord between the Congolese and Rwandan governments, which has sent a joint militia of thousands to disarm the FDLR and forge stability into the region, will put an end to this brutality once and for all.







References: McCrummen, Stephanie. “U.N. Unit struggles as Rwandan Hutu militiamen seeking repatriation emerge in Congo.” The Washington Post, 4 February 2009. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/03/AR2009020303758.html
Booth, Janice and Philip Briggs. Rwanda. UK: Bradt Travel Guides, Ltd, 2007; 161-165
Additional references as included in my senior thesis, “Modern Genocide and Its Effect on Women: An African Case Study,” completed at GW University ESIA in May 2007.

Rwandan Superstitions

1. A woman should not eat goat meat. If she does, she will grow a beard.
2. A woman should never call her father in-law by name or refer to him by name to anyone else.
3. A pregnant woman should never look into a tomb. If she does, she will give birth to a stillborn child.
4. You should never touch something that has been struck by lightning. If you do, you too will be struck by lightning later on in life.
5. A girl/woman should not climb trees.
6. A woman should not milk a cow.
7. A man should not drink the milk of a pregnant cow.
8. You should never kill a cat. If you do, you will lead an unlucky life.
9. You should never cut your nails at night. If you do, you will become a thief.
10. Girls should not sit by the fireplace. If they do, they will not get married.
11. Whistling is taboo in general and forbidden at night, as it is said to conjure up snakes or evil spirits. Women should never whistle, men should never whistle indoors.
12. A woman who is menstruating should never hold someone else's baby. If she does, the baby will get sick.
13. You should never tell a fable in the daytime. If you do, you will turn into a lizard.

As you can see, many of these superstitions are aimed at limiting the activities of women. Rwanda has a long history of gender inequality, but fortunately the country has made great strides in recent years to combat this and encourage the promotion of women. Today, Rwanda has the highest percentage of women in parliament of any country in the world, and it is the ONLY country in which women claim the majority of seats (56%), including the coveted position of speaker! When I asked my English class at the district office about these traditions, they explained that many of them are rooted in strong cultural significance but may no longer be applicable. For example, now that many girls and women wear pants, climbing trees is okay. On the flip side, I'm still always careful about not whistling in public (or ever).

For more information on women's improved roles in Rwanda, refer to the following article: McCrummen, Stephanie. "Women run the show in a recovering Rwanda." The Washington Post, 27 October 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/26/AR2008102602197.html?sid=ST2008051504314&s_pos=
(There is also a link to this article and other relevant web pages on top right side of this blog).
Senator Aloisea Inyumba, who is quoted, serves on our school's advisory board and was one of the people integral in getting the Maranyundo School started.

In addition to the Maranyundo Initiative, there are many great organizations that work in the US and in developing countries such as Rwanda to promote the education, health and financial stability of women. One that I know that does great work is Women for Women International, www.womenforwomen.org. This DC-based nonprofit, which I interned for in college, assists women survivors of war in eight developing countries to re-build their lives and their families by means of weekly support groups, trainings and small business loans.

Getting Around Rwanda: by car, bus, and foot

Other than committing to living in sub-saharan Africa for a year without ever having visited, one of my proudest accomplishments since leaving the US last month has been learning how to drive a manual car. Our school has the good fortune of owning a 10 person van, which is used for school events, grocery shopping (feeding 120 children plus faculty and staff is no easy feat ), picking up guests and dignitaries at the airport and, on occasion, teaching residents like Mary and me how to drive stick shift. Since she and I share an interest in working in developing countries in our future careers, it is only logical that we know how to operate the kind of transmission that most of the developing world uses. We put ourselves to the test one evening a few weeks ago when our fearless instructor and compatriot Andy patiently talked us through every jostle, jolt, shift and stall-out as we took turns driving to the Burundi border and back, which is located less than 30 kilometers south of our school. I would love to say that I was calm, cool and collected throughout the experience, but the fact of the matter is that when I got into the driver’s seat, turned on the car, waited for a herd of cattle to cross the road, and finally shifted the gears into motion, I was sweating bullets. Twenty minutes and countless honks of the horn later, with the requisite guidance of Andy (or Teecha And, as he is called by many Rwandans), I had driven the three of us back to Nyamata without jeopardizing the life of any person or animal along the way. Because practice makes perfect and my driving was very far from perfect, future driving lessons with Teacher Andy will resume in the next few weeks.

Perhaps equally noteworthy of an experience in traveling around Rwanda has been taking inter and intra-city buses. For 500 Rwandan francs - slightly less than 1 US dollar - you can make the 30km journey between Kigali and my village, Nyamata, while taking the buses within Kigali will cost about 200Frw (less than 40 cents). Upon arrival, I was surprised to learn that buses in Rwanda do run fairly regularly (fortunately, the notion of African time does not apply to all situations) and they are generally a safe means of transportation. The downside to riding the bus is a little more obvious: there is no apparent vehicle standard, and you can kiss your personal space good-bye for the duration of the ride. A “bus” is almost always a white colored van with a logo on the side and its destination route hand-painted on the back or front end. The interior varies: some vans have the steering wheel on the left, while others have it on the right. Every one I’ve been in is in pretty awful shape on the inside, with broken seat fixtures, hanging bars and patchwork upholstery, not to mention the Fanta citron/orange soda bottle caps that are screwed into the backs of seats to cover some of the sharp edges. I’ve been able to notice some of these details in the times I’ve been sandwiched between other passengers and/or the side of the van, which is an implicit fact of riding a public bus. The buses are always filled to capacity, which means there are at least three people up front next to the driver, and usually 5-6 in each of the subsequent rows (which are designed for three, perhaps four people). One saving grace is that there is normally some form of ventilation coming from the windows…but even that doesn’t really compensate for the range of odors that exist on a public bus ride in the heart of a developing country. Getting out of Nyamata on the bus also requires a good deal of patience, as - depending on the driver, time of day and demographic aboard - the bus will stop multiple times to allow passengers to chat with passing friends/neighbors along the route, drop off/pick up more passengers, and flag down other buses or seemingly unaffiliated vehicles to exchange information or goods (it’s really not as sketchy as it sounds...or is it?)

One of my favorite means of exploring Nyamata has been by going on early morning runs around the hillside and main road. The first few weeks I always tagged along with my housemate, Kate - who has also inadvertently become my yoga guru - but now I am at the point where I’m familiar enough to run by myself from time to time. Although I ran regularly prior to arriving in Rwanda and was happily anticipating my first jog, my first 30 minutes in the Maranyundo hillside felt more like a death march than anything resembling leisure, due to the huge change in altitude. Newton, MA=100 feet above sea level, Nyamata, Rwanda=5200 feet above sea level (…and in comparison, the champion runners from Kenya who take the gold in the Boston Marathon each spring are training at about 5700 feet!) Although it is not common for Rwandans to run for sport, they are more supportive and enthusiastic about seeing runners pass by than any people I’ve ever encountered! On the hillside routes, people always shout muraho! (hello), ama kuru? (how are you), and hooray from afar. When little children see Kate and me coming down the path, they start jumping up and down shouting “muzungu!” and often they will run alongside of us for several minutes, usually barefoot. There have been other times à la Forrest Gump, when not only children but groups of women on their way to the market will see us and join in on the journey to the main road, carrying baskets and other goods and dressed well for the day, as is customary in Rwanda. Last week, one woman in particular caught up to my speed and we raced the last five minutes of the route until we arrived at Maranyundo; despite a full-on sprint on my part, in her skirt and sandals she was victorious! While running on the hillside is quite scenic, running on the main road also has its benefits: each kilometer is clearly marked and there are even more people passing by on foot, moto, and bike-taxi (yes, there are cyclists who will bring people to their destination – often uphill – for a minimal fare) who are thrilled to witness a muzungu trekking across Rwanda, and will subsequently express their enthusiasm through cheering in Kinyarwanda, French or English.

Adventures in Teaching English

My primary duty in Rwanda is to serve as an English language tutor and mentor to the girls at the Maranyundo School by conducting tutoring sessions from 6-7 and 8-9 every week night in small groups and individual sessions on course content. While our girls are admitted based on academic achievement and most normally would not require extra help to succeed, learning in an Anglophone environment means that most require further assistance in building their course specific vocabulary in working toward English proficiency. In addition to leading these tutoring sessions, the other two mentors and I are responsible for leading clubs, social events and facilitating community outreach. Our school is fortunate to be able to offer a variety of extra-curricular activities so that students can participate in what suits their interest, from Debate Team to Computer Club to after-school sports. This year, I’ve elected to be the basketball coach for the first ever Maranyundo School Team, as well as lead the Anti-AIDS club and the Art Club. Judging by our first practice and first few club meetings, it is looking to be an eventful year! Although our court is not yet paved and our hoops are net-less, we clearly have some talented individuals who seem eager to represent their school in inter-village basketball games, once I establish contacts at area secondary schools.

One major aspect of our community outreach is teaching English classes at the Bugesera District Office every morning. This year, the Rwandan government has mandated a shift from conducting all official business (including all district operations) from French to English, as it seeks to take a more active role in the East African Community (EAC), the regional governing alliance comprising Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, which uses English as its official language. Being a landlocked country with few natural resources, Rwanda also seeks to develop itself economically by becoming an African hub for the services industry worldwide, for which English is the most prevalent method of communication. Although we are only working in one district, I still see our daily, hour-long classes for government workers as an integral part of helping to further Rwanda’s long-term development. After conducting a written/spoken assessment of the 50 district employee this past week, we divided them into beginner/advanced levels of about 25 students per class. I am responsible for teaching the advanced class, which means I don’t have to explain some of the more rudimentary aspects of learning English for the first time and I get to have more detailed conversations with my students using the language. However, it also challenges me to make more extensive lesson plans that are both relevant to job functions and expose the employees to a large vocabulary. One lesson that went particularly well this week was focused on formal letter writing. We examined the style, format and verbiage of a formal letter written in English, and spent class time learning appropriate title designations (Mr., Ms., Dr., Rev., Hon. and suffixes like Jr., Ph.D., Esq.) and reviewed ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd) which are necessary for writing dates. Their homework was to write a formal letter in English specific to their job…which I’m looking forward to grading this weekend! Like the students of Maranyundo, the Bugesera district employees are great people to work with and learn from. Knowing French has helped me greatly in my interactions with the mayor and secretary in setting up the classes and other initiatives while they are still in the process of becoming fully proficient in English. Aside from helping the district along in its English immersion, our relationship with the local government also gives our school more notoriety and makes us more aware of what is happening outside of our campus.

The girls that I have been working with most closely at Maranyundo these past few weeks are the seven who failed three or more subjects on last year’s national exams, and thus must repeat the seventh grade (Level S1). In conjunction with Andy and Mary, my co-tutors, we are leading intensive group English classes and individual tutoring sessions for these girls during the day until the 53 new seventh graders, whose exam scores and corresponding eligibility for placement have just been released, arrive to complete the class early next week. Although it may be tedious for these seven girls to study English all day for several consecutive weeks, we hope that it will give them a boost in their language ability prior to beginning all academic subjects with the new class. They still participate in all of the same extra-curricular activities as their peers who have already begun classes at the eighth grade level, and we’ve done our best to keep them engaged by playing language games and teaching them songs in English (including Edelweiss and Do, Re, Mi, which they will very likely sing along to when the whole school watches The Sound of Music for movie night next weekend). While some of these girls are more discouraged than others by their failure of the seventh grade, they are still by and large model students who truly want to succeed and see their peers succeed, no matter how hard they must work. To me it seems that the girls at our school feel privileged to be part of a community of academic excellence, and as such they do everything they can to maintain and develop that opportunity. Rwandan students are characteristically disciplined, detail-oriented and eager learners, and our school certainly fits the bill when it comes to fostering a group of girls who share that kind of positive energy.