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Things I’ve learned during my trip so far, especially during my homestay this past weekend:

1.       Brochette= goat meat

It’s pretty good. Served on a stick like kabobs, it’s generally preferred here to beef because it’s considered to be more tender.

2.       Public Transportation: scariest way to get from point A to point B, or mediocre roller coaster?

So far we’ve taken large buses, van-buses, and cabs. Lanes are more of a suggestion; the shoulders of roads are more like rough guidelines. Earlier this week in Karongi, a group of us took a van-bus to visit Kiziba Refugee Camp. It took about an hour, and the roads wound around the green hills and mountains. Sounds pretty, right? And it was. Pictures can’t even do justice to the landscape. However, from the back row of the van-bus, my friend Jessica and I were clutching the seats in front of us, shielding the tops of our heads from impact with the ceiling, and laughing/shrieking every time we became airborne. I counted 17 people in this van! The large bus that we actually took to get to Karongi was apparently on a deadline. Our driver had to be back to Kigali later on Sunday evening to work, so the three-hour ride was spent gliding around turns, speeding over mountains, and neglecting the brakes — pedestrians walking along the sides of these roads had to jump out of the way! Oh boy.

A mini-bus--the view from the back row!

3.       Muzungo = White Person

One of the first words I learned in Kinyarwanda. I hear it EVERYWHERE.

4.       Muzungo! Wampaye icupa? = White person! Can you give me your water bottle?

I heard this phrase a lot at Kiziba Refugee Camp. I made the mistake at one point of taking out my water bottle to grab a drink. Children immediately gathered around me, the tops of their heads reaching my hip, and they started shouting, “Muzungo! Wampaye icupa?” Someone told me that they will sell the empty bottles for money. It was actually sort of a tough situation. If you give the children a water bottle, they will fight each other for it. Even following me, they were grabbing, swarming, and tripping over each other. However, holding onto my icupa, I sort of just felt like a greedy muzungo. I’ve seen children throw tantrums, cry, and beg for toys, but I’ve never seen kids with that kind of need before. More on the refugee camp in the next post.

5.       Motos = Motorcycle taxis

 I took my first moto ride in Karongi! I went from town to the place we were staying, Centre Bethanie. The road my moto driver took followed the perimeter of Lake Kivu, and it was beautiful! And so much fun — I don’t know why I delayed this experience for so long. Having said that…

6.       3,000 FRW is about 6 times too much to pay for a moto ride.

7.       Allowing yourself to be charged 3,000 FRW for a moto ride = Muzungo mistake.

Whoops. When we arrived at Centre Bethanie, I handed my driver 3,000 francs. My friend and Rwandese participant, aka moto-cost-expert, Johnas, started yelling from the reception area: “How much are you charging? Why do you accept that money?” My driver shouted something in reply and drove away. Johnas’s effort in trying to save me money was valiant. He later told me that the driver’s reply to him was, “She wants to give me this money, she loves me!” I think I would have rather kept my money! But all in all, not too expensive of a mistake — 3,000 FRW is the equivalent of about $5 USD.

A waterfall on the drive back from Karongi.

Kigali Memorial Centre

On Thursday we had two site visits. First, we went to visit with and tour parliament! After that, we went to Kigali Memorial Centre, which is the largest memorial to the 1994 genocide. The Centre is divided into two sections: an outdoor area that consists of memorial gardens and a mass grave site, and indoor exhibits that document the chronology and pain of the 1994 genocide. Inside the memorial there is also an exhibit dedicated to children killed during the genocide, and an exhibit that looks at other genocides that have taken place in the world — including the Holocaust and the genocides in Armenia, Namibia, Cambodia, and the Balkans.

When we first entered the Memorial Centre, there was a flame burning in the middle of a clear blue pool. Our group was informed that this flame is only lit from April-July every year — which marks the time period when the genocide took place in 1994.

Pool and Flame at the front of the memorial.

First, I walked around the different gardens outside. There was a fruit tree garden in memory of children of the genocide, a flower garden for women of the genocide who were brutally raped and murdered, and a series of three gardens that represented Rwanda’s history before, during, and after the genocide — which were connected by a stream of water.

Next to the gardens are the mass graves. Not all the names of those who are buried at this site are known. Over 250,000 people are buried there — I think that is roughly the size of the city I’m from. The mass graves are in a long row, surrounded by greenery and flowers, with a path that you can walk down. All that can be seen of the graves are large cement slabs that rise out of the ground one or two feet. A few flower arrangements were scattered across the tops of these sites. As I walked around these graves, I realized I couldn’t even comprehend what they held. I couldn’t comprehend the pain or the reality of the 1994 genocide, though I knew that for the Rwandese participants who had accompanied us to the site, 1994 is not a matter of comprehending or not—it was and is a part of their culture’s history, their family’s history, and its effects will always be felt in their lives. All I could understand was that I will never be able to understand their pain, or the pain felt by all of Rwanda.

Path along the mass graves, which are on the left.

This was further realized when, once inside the Memorial, I walked into a room where pictures lined and covered the walls. They were victims of the genocide, their pictures hung by family members who had visited the memorial. As I walked around the room, I looked at of the faces — some looking directly at the camera, smiling, while others’ eyes wandered to things or people not seen. Some faces were in suits, some were in jerseys or dresses; some were babies. I was overwhelmed both by the hundreds of faces that rested on the walls, and once again by the fact that I couldn’t really grasp the reality of them. I felt both relief and frustration to know that this pain would never be mine, and that I would never understand this memorial as others did. I felt only extreme relief to know that I would never recognize one of these faces on the wall. As I stood there thinking this, one of the girls in our group — who always wears the cutest sandals and flashiest earrings, who is always willing to share a mischievous smile with you — stood next to me looking at the wall. She snatched a picture down from the wall, held it in front of me, and said “This is my mom.” I didn’t know what to say to her. She then carefully put it back on the wall, pointed to the picture next to it, and said “This is my brother.”

***

                Once we had left the Memorial and were back at St. Paul’s, we spoke a little about what we had just experienced, though no one felt like talking that much. Someone said that Rwanda is still paying back its previous government’s debt to the French government for weapons purchased in order to carry out the genocide. This is wrong, very wrong.

                The international community failed to prevent this from occurring, failed to stop it, yet they are there to collect the money that is owed to them.

                It’s difficult to make sense of all of this.

End on a cheerful note--myself, Jessica, and Stina at Parliament!

Semir, Sam and I in Parliament!

June 21st

A few notes thus far…

Thanks so much Dan, Jeremy, Mom, Caitlin, Annie, Aunt Kate, and Megan for the comments and support! In order to keep this post a little less long-winded, I’m just going to share a few points that have come up in the past couple of days.

1.       The Importance of Language. My oh my oh my, I never fully realized how wrong America has got it. It seems as though everyone in Kigali is at least tri-lingual; most people I’ve asked speak around five languages. The top three are without a doubt Kinyarwanda, French, and English. It is such a humbling position to be in — stumbling around looking down a couple lines for the English translation of everything. Actually, I’m lucky. A lot of the downtown area of Kigali that surrounds St. Paul’s is written in primarily English. But what would we, Americans, do if the rest of the world clung as stubbornly to solely one language as we do to English? Speaking multiple languages allows us not only to share dialogue, but to share cultures. What does it say about the US that we only seem to truly celebrate and respect one language?

Unfortunately I don’t think I can answer that question yet — maybe later in the delegation.

All I can say is that a new appreciation and excitement has sprung up in me; I can’t wait to start Elementary French this fall!

2.       Human Rights: 1, 2, 3, 4? As I think I stated before, Monday was the first day that the International and the Rwandese participants met. We discussed the basics first by asking some questions about human rights, like “How would you define human rights?” and “What rights are included under the heading of human rights?” One of the last questions really got me thinking though, so hear me out. The final question asked, “Are human rights organized into a hierarchy? Or, can human rights be ranked in order of importance?” At first I thought I knew the answer to this question. Though I find rights such as the right to healthcare, right to education, right to self-expression to be invaluable, I’ve always thought that these rights were sort of irrelevant if the basic rights — such as right to food, right to shelter, right to clean water — aren’t taken care of. What is the point of being able to go to school if you are one of the one billion people in the world who don’t have access to clean water, therefore severely harming your chances of making it to age 5? I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try and provide the whole world with education starting now, but I am saying that we should look at each community’s needs based on a case-by-case basis. A few others in my group for this discussion shared the same view as me. However, someone brought up that without certain rights  (i.e. the right to self-expression, the right to vote, the right to assemble, etc.) how can the change necessary to bring about universal and comprehensive human rights ever take place? Therefore, I started to see our list of rights, not as linear, but as cyclical. This still causes the question to remain: when it comes to human rights, where do we start? I’d love to hear opinions on this.

3.       The Arts and Human Rights! On Tuesday we had our first meetings with the grassroots organizations in Kigali that we will be volunteering with in small groups.  I am working with ISHYO, which is an organization in Kigali that works on cultural promotion through the arts. Needless to say, I’m so excited to be working with this group. They aren’t explicitly a human rights group, but use the arts (such as theater, dance, and music) to educate and deliver messages of social justice. I will start work with them next week. This is basically what my Interdepartmental major is all about, so being able to actually combine human rights/social justice AND the arts in a fieldwork setting will provide me with some great ideas for where to go and what to do with myself and my ideas when I come back from Rwanda!

4.       Just a few more thoughts… Someone I met with the other day presented the idea that human rights can be used as a form of oppression. At first I was very surprised to hear this statement, and felt a little defensive. I’m not sure I have the battery life or the knowledge to break down this idea all the way, but she basically said that Western countries sometimes pressure developing countries into adopting social, economic, civil, or cultural policies that don’t really fit with the culture or the people of the country. While I believe that human rights are universal concept, I found her statement to be very refreshing — and ironic. Sometimes, I think we overlook the rights of a culture or community in order to ensure the rights of the individual — something that is culturally specific in the Western world, but not everywhere!  I think the Western world will also put on a face of being concerned for human rights, when really this mask of concern is simply used to exert power or force over another country.

Additionally, on Wednesday we had a discussion about memorials in preparation for our visit to Kigali Memorial Center on Thursday. In our small group discussion for the day, one of the Rwandese participants asked me if the United States had any memorials dedicated to the lives lost during the time when American supported the slave trade. This question really got me thinking. I am by no means an expert on US memorials, but the only places that immediately come to mind when I think of memorials in my home country are those dedicated to WWI, WWII, and Vietnam soldiers—and of course, those structures that are dedicated to our founding fathers. Why is it that America doesn’t have memorials dedicated to lives lost (at least memorials that receive national attention or recognition) that weren’t soldiers or presidents? If memorials are meant to honor the memory of a person or people, then why hasn’t the US recognized the lives lost due to slavery, the genocide of the American Indians, or any other acts of violence at the hands of the US?  This makes me wonder why, as Americans, we always choose to remember ourselves as the victims, when we know that just as often we create victims. If we can’t honor the stolen lives of American Indians — if we choose not to remember that these events occurred — it makes me wonder how we choose to define what and who an “American” is?

These really were just supposed to be a few notes, and turned out to be much longer! Any insight or comments are always appreciated. Next post will be about our group’s visit to the Kigali Memorial Center.

If you don’t hear from me for a while it is because I’m at a homestay at the end of this week, and then on Sunday we go to Kibuye, in western Rwanda. Internet access is not guaranteed. Until then stay safe, and thanks for the support!

Cheers,

Marisa

A few of us at dinner last night--Janet, Hillary, Ruxi, and me!