Wrapping up

Getting ready to leave this country is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s the first time I’ve had to gear up towards permanently saying goodbye to people that I’ve grown to love. Sometimes I wish that I could just wake up back at home skipping over the goodbyes and plane rides, plunging back into my old life…tucking away my souvenirs and pictures in a closet somewhere and carrying on as though I was the same person I was before I left. .. sounds really healthy huh!
Its funny but I worry both about how easy and how difficult it will be to slip into my old routine. Someone who spent a bit of time over here told me that the first time she walked into a grocery store back home she totally froze and just stared at the variety of everything that was available. I want to be able to cope a bit better than that, but I also don’t want to be able to walk into a grocery store and grab whatever it is I need, not stopping to be thankful for the luxury of being able to do this. Although I’m feeing a bit muddled right now, I know I have a tendency to worry, and know that sometimes I just need to keep going and find out how everything will turn out instead stressing out about it. I really am looking forward to stepping off the plane and being back in Canada…its just that I wish Rwanda wasn’t quite so far away.
These past few weeks have been amazing. I’ve finally finished typing up the transcripts of all of the interviews I’ve conducted and was pleased to hear that instead of starting new women’s groups, my NGO is planning on spending more of its time supporting the groups that it has already formed. This is excellent news because it means that some of the hopes these women have for their futures may be realized, and that some of their hardships might be lessened. It also means that the info I collected on each group is more likely to be used, a huge unknown in this line of work. If more time and resources are used to support these women in the short run, they will be better able to support themselves and their children in the long run. I have to admit that reading back through these interview transcripts has been emotionally draining. As I once again read over their words, I once can’t help but relive some of the despair I experienced early on during my time here. I’ll never fully understand the burden of not having enough money to feed my children or send them to school and I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to deal with these difficulties without the support of a husband, especially while trying to suppress the images of murder and feelings of terror experienced by most of my interviewees during the Genocide. I try to balance out my time in front of the computer with lots of good times away from it in order to stay sane!
Yesterday, I taught my last English class at Sisters of Rwanda. The two other girls that have also been teaching at the centre over the past few months are also leaving within the next month. We really need to find replacement teachers so that the students can keep learning. I brought along my new American neighbor, explaining to him that as he is teaching English somewhere else, he might like to see the way it is taught at a different centre…it couldn’t have been a more perfect set up! When my students realized that I would be leaving, they asked who would fill my place. I told them I didn’t know and that I hoped someone would be able to quickly. …the American has gone for the bait and will hopefully begin teaching when I leave! My students all want me to pass on a shout out to the Canadians I know, especially my mom and dad and brother…so consider your selves warmly greeted.
Even as my time here is wrapping up, I am still experiencing new things. I attended my first Rwandese wedding, which was amazing, and also attended a reception at the Canadian consulate’s house! I’m starting to look forward to seeing all the snow I keep hearing about in emails from home, but for now, I’m more than happy to fight of the heat in a skirt and tank top for a few more weeks as I travel to Kenya... and will then have to throw on a coat for my time in Amsterdam.

Been there done that...never again...one trip down the nile is enough for em

(This is something I wrote on Nov 13 but haven´t had a chance to post until now) This past weekend Laura and I once again loaded up our backpacks and set out well before the sun rise, this time we were heading to Uganda for a white water rafting adventure on the Nile. Uganda is an 8 hour bus ride away from Kigali, but the journey can take up to 12 hours when the border crossing and driver’s unauthorized stops for bananas, corn, plantains, and even a quick pit stop to re-weld the door of the bus are taken into account. We stayed in Kampala, the capital of Uganda Thursday night and then headed to Jinja, a small city which borders the head waters of the White Nile for Friday and Saturday.
I may now be sitting in a completely stationary chair in my bedroom as I write this, but the outline of a bus window frame is so seared into my vision that my body can’t relax, It’s still tensely waiting for the next pot hole lurch and mentally bracing for the next time an oncoming freight truck passes so closely to my bus that the two vehicles collectively make a whistling sound, each giant hurtling hunk of metal acting as one side of a pursed set of lips. Oblivious to the total fear of at least one of their passengers… the drivers would happily wave to each other and honk their horns in a friendly salute before going their separate ways. While I’m definitely tired of buses, id love to get back into one of the open air cattle trucks I got to ride in several times over the past few days. The rafting company used them to collectively transport gear and people and there is nothing quite like climbing up the bars on the sides of these trucks and facing into the wind as the country side flashes by. Its defiantly the best way to watch the sunlight appearing over the horizon or watch the darkness rolling in at night
Traveling through another African country was especially interesting after living in Kigali for as long as I have. People keep telling me that Rwanda’s infrastructure is quite advanced and that it is a very clean country when compared to some of its neighbors, and until this trip, I haven’t been able to appreciate how true this is. I was also struck by how quickly the landscape changed from Rwanda’s mountainous ridges to Uganda’s rolling grass lands filled with cattle, and then transformed once again into patches of rain forest as we approached Lake Victoria. I don’t think Winston Churchill was far off when he named Uganda the pearl of Africa. In terms of the people who live in these countries, the noticeable difference is that almost all Ugandans speak English. I often found myself biting my tongue as I’d once again start a sentence in French, or have to remind myself to watch the road instead of eagerly soaking in all of the English words floating past me on billboards and in shop windows as my moto sped by. Kampala’s motos are called bota bota’s and unlike Kigali’s motorcycles, they are not regulated. The advantage of this is that it is common to put three people on one moto, so Laura and I wouldn’t have to stress about loosing one another, but the down side was that helmets weren’t part of the package deal. Unfortunately, this country also has a dark past with the reign of their last dictator still present in dailz conversation. It was also hard to believe that I was in the country of the child solider, the victim of the tyrannical outfit called the lords resistance army which operates in the north of the country. One of its signature moves is to cut of the lips, nose or ears of local villagers to subdue them into compliance.
Kampala was very similar to Kigali except everything was bigger and dirtier. The traffic was rougher, the buildings were taller, and the extreme poverty was a bit more glaringly obvious against the glimmers of opulence visible through the red dust and black smoke that hung in the air. Kampala is also home to a larger Muslim population than Rwanda and its numerous mosques and women with their heads covered bore witness. Visiting the bugandan royal tombs was the first time I’ve been kindly told that women are supposed to wear skirts, and was handed a long sarong to wear over my jeans. All in all Uganda is a bit more what of what I imagined Africa to be like, than the small country I have come to know so well.
Rafting was completely wild. We went over class five rapids which are basically mini waterfalls. I bought a DVD of the trip so anyone who is interesting in watching photage of be flying out of a raft over and over again is welcome to come over when I´m back in Waterloo. I´m happy to be back in Kigali as work is becoming more and more demanding.

none

It’s Saturday morning around 9.00 am and I’m sitting in bourbon, the Starbucks of Kigali. I walked about twenty minutes of the way and flagged a moto for the rest of the journey. With an absence of public parks, I come here to think, write and drink what has got to be some of the best coffee in the world. It’s been a hectic past few weeks and it feels good to stay put for a few days.

I tried to upload a few photos yesterday and the only one that survived the streaming process was the one you can see on this page. Considering I received a phone call from my parents a few hours after posting to make sure that my eye was okay…I should clarify that I was really hit in the eye with more of a pebble or a chunk of dirt than a rock and there are no lasting repercussions, aside from me once again riding through the streets of Rwanda with tears streaming down my cheeks.

It’s so hard to really give an accurate representation of my experiences here. I tend to write about the exciting, strange, hard or bizarre moments, but a lot of my time here is spent reading, going to work, hanging out with friends, journaling, going to the market, watching movies, exploring the city, and doing all the other things I do back home. Before I came here, I thought I’d use some of my free time coming up with some type of post graduation plan. But, while I’m now starting to think more about my life back at home, I had so much to adjust to when I first arrived here that my usual worries couldn’t have been farther from my mind. Now that I’m settled it’s been pretty cool to see the things I usually think about gradually find their way back into my thoughts and awesome to realize how such a different place has come to feel like home.

A few years ago, I read a book in which a character came close to death and had one of those flashbacks in which a person's mind involuntarily replays select moments from their lives. It made me wonder what moments my mind would replay if I was to die, what moments would I want to hold onto so strongly that I couldn’t help but think of them. I think I experienced one of these moments two days ago while walking through a banana grove in Musanze, a small town near the foot of a chain of 7 volcanic mountains stretching from Rwanda into the Congo. I was in the area to interview some women about their experiences of participating in a three day workshop called Femme en Dialogue. The purpose of the workshop is to build community between widows and women whose husbands are in jail. A few of you may have heard about this program, because of the MCC goat buying project linked to program that took place a few years ago around Christmas. In addition to conflict resolution, financial management and small business training these women are encouraged to establish their own cooperative in which they can support each other both financially and emotionally.

Although this is a very communal culture, emotions are often deeply suppressed and people are left to grieve and work through traumatic experiences on their own. After their training, the women who participated in this workshop received some goats whose offspring they eventually hope to use for meat. They currently use the goat dung to fertilize their fields, thereby increasing their crop yields. Although I’m a city girl born and bread, all the farming stories I’ve heard growing up and my childhood visits out west seem to have stuck with me. I’m fascinated by the farming techniques which have been developed here to maximize the production of small plots of land and am especially impressed by the step farming happening way up on the mountain sides surrounding the more fertile valleys. Anyways, in addition to monthly meetings in which each of the women contributes 200 francs and collectively try to work through any problems their members may be experiencing, they decided to start a mushroom growing project. Their church allowed them to use a room in one of its houses to grow their mushrooms and the women began to raise mushrooms which they sold to nearby hotels. According to the women, their venture was beginning to return a profit when the church told them they needed the building back.

The women are hoping to save up enough money to rent a new building, but suitable buildings are in very short supply and building seems to be the only viable option. The project is on hold until they are able to come up with the necessary funds, a task which may be impossible for them. I spoke with the pastor of the church where the women attend, and he said that the church will contribute bricks and labor, but a technician would have to be hired and the sheet metal for a roof and a plot of land would need to be purchased. He imagines the cost of this would be around 450 dollars. In addition to growing mushrooms, the women hope to set up a small store in the same building from which they could sell any of the surplus their fields may now produce.

After the interviews, I asked if I could see some of their fields, and also the goats they had received. One of the women said her house was within walking distance and that I could come to visit her. Five of us walked out into the country and we were joined by a group of young children. A little girl who I imagine would have been around 9 or 10 held my hand as we walked and happily chatted away with her friends. The only things we managed to communicate between us were our ages and our abilities to count to ten in each others respective languages. After walking up a rocky path for awhile, we passed through fields of climbing beans and potatoes before descending into a banana grove. We all had to walk single file to fit between the banana trees and the little girl holding my hand became my leader as she helped me navigate around roots and rocks... as my Birkenstocks kept finding all available material to trip over. As I looked around and saw the sunlight dappling the forest floor and rbeathed in the warm dewy air, I realized that this moment was one I would think back on. This is a moment I will hold onto until the end.

oh computers

Its with great hesitation that I begin to type this post. And unfortunately, my concern has already proven to be well founded. I spent three days last week running all over Kigali in my attempts to get the laptop my work has leant me in working order. I had to buy a new adaptor cord and charger and attempted to get the keyboard fixed. Apparently, I'm not the hard nosed business person I thought I was! I told the electrician I needed the s key on the laptops keyboard fixed. The end result after hours of waiting around in a little store which was the size of a good walk in closet… three of the computers keys were now broken and I still insisted on paying the electrician because he seemed to have done his best! Everyone in the little shop now knows me by name due to my frequent visits...but unfortunately they all think my name is Christine.

I finally agreed to buy an external keyboard. This is the first time IM using the new keyboard and I’ve already found many problems. Even though I specifically said I needed an English keyboard, this is definitely a French keyboard. The keys are in the wrong places, the shift key doesn’t work`, so I have to hit caps lock to get a capital, and the apostrophe key doesn’t work, unless I hit control alt delete before I hit it! Also… I had the viruses removed…but as I have learned this morning…they are all still thriving…much like whatever animal is running around in our ceiling every night. It usually wakes me up twice me up at least twice a night when it and its friends decide to have dance parties and jump all over the place. Enough of my woes! I can think of many things that would be much more interesting for you all to read about

Even though Ive been in country for 6 weeks as of yesterday, this past week has brought me through a lot of firsts. I taught my first English class at an organisation called sisters of Rwanda, I went to the first of my soon to be weekly visits to an orphanage started by mother Theresa, and for the first time, Ive really felt as though Im a contributing member of my organisations staff! Ì now have a concrete work plan of my own and have helped translate a document. Its still far from, perfect, but Ive also noticed that over these past two weeks some of the French I learned throughout my primary schooling in French immersion has resurfaced. It has also been reinforced by local phrases and expressions that are becoming a part of my every day vocabulary. My ´Kinyarwandan is horrible…but none the less Im trying to use it as much as I can. Ive learned how to say “I want to go to” which is a very useful phrase especially when flagging down one of the moto taxis. I had to laugh at myself the other day when for the first time I spoke to a taxi driver only using my limited Kinya. I must have done a good job because he replied using the same language instead of switching to French or English. Unfortunately I didn’t understand his response and said in English “Im sorry what” His response had been to quote the price of the fare and i couldn’t remember if what he said meant 6 or 7 hundred. He mistook my inability to understand the language as an unwillingness to pay such a high fare...and without me ever bartering, he dropped the fare by 200! Im learning that Im sometimes most effective when Im not even trying and unfortunately the opposite is also true.

One of the strangest things that comes with living here has been realising that I am inadvertently part of this country's elite. I can afford to eat at the expensive restaurants, and if I miss the public bus I don’t think twice about jumping onto a moto, thereby paying 8 times as much. Last night Laura and I met up with another Canadian, and two of her Rwandan friends. One of the Rwandan guys brought along another British guy. Turns out that the British guy, some kinda garden architect who must have been at least in his late 30s, had just arrived in country the night before had been hired by the Rwandan gov to design a giant garden for a new museum. As we all sat eating on a balcony overlooking the night time cityscape of light covered mountains, it was hard to digest that the very same morning I was overcome with tears after leaving the orphanage where I had spent 2 and a half hours playing with and singing to 23 little one and two year olds who cried every time I set them back on the ground. More than any other time in my life Im being forced to meditate on the inequalities that exist between my life of relative ease and the lives of those I now interact with daily. I wonder how Paris Hilton will internalise all these realities when she visits the country next month!One of the biggest lessons I'm learning is that I need to give myself some grace as I work things through.

This afternoon Laura and I are both going to a three day work shop in a rural village in the western province. The workshop is run by the Trauma and healing department of my work, and its goal is to promote dialogue and renew the relationships that were destroyed during the genocide. Over the three days, the families of victims and offenders will live together as they participate in Trauma recovery workshops. This is the first group or individual counselling most of the villagers will have experienced.

Yesterday afternoon I decided that I wanted to visit the Gizozi Genocide Memorial and education centre before participating in this workshop. Laura and split a cab to the centre but I wanted to walk around on my own. The intern who worked with my organisation before I came left last week, but before she left we went for a long walk around our neighbourhood and she told me what had happened where I currently live and work during the genocide. Some of the mass killings took place just down the street from me in a school and a field. Living where many people died and knowing people who lost their families made reading about the lead up to the genocide in the memorial very difficult. The genocide is built on a hill top overlooking Kigali and over 250,000 people are buried their in large mass graves.

A little bit engaged...

Let me explain. This past week, I participated in a three day HIV/Aids conference hosted by my NGO. After going to work Tuesday morning and discovering that no one else was at the office, the other intern and I pieced together the bits of conversation we'd overheard over the past few days and soon realised that the entire staff, except for us, were already participating in an AIDS teachers training seminar. As so often is the case here, I had to invite myself to attend and walked back down the mountain I had just walked up to join my other co-workers. There is no type of formal information network at my NGO (or anyother place in this country!) so unless you're in the room when something is being discussed...you won't know about it. Once I signed up for the workshop and sat down on the wooden benches with the other 40 participants...I soon realised that this was not to be a typical North American training seminar.
To begin the workshop, the leader said that all participants had to introduce themselves by saying their name, level of education, and stating whether or not they were married. I would have thought this was strange a few weeks ago, but now that I've spent a month here, I'm completely use to being asked my name...and then being asked if I'm married. Sometimes, people don't even ask my name and just skip to the are you married part, yeah it gets a little bit annoying. Anyways, I was already dreading my turn to introduce myself after a group of 6 university guys all stood up and said that they were not married, but my dread grew when one of them said that he hoped to be engaged by the end of this workshop! It came to be my turn and I said (all in french) Hi, my name is Kathryn, I'm a 4th year university student from Canada...and I'm not married. Cheers erupted and some guy said "and are you engaged?" This is when, a bit to my surprise..I said "yes...I am a little bit engaged"and then sat down. Everyone laughed and the next person had to introduce themselves. I don't know what being a little bit engaged here means but if it means that I'm not going to marry anyone within the next three months that I stay in this country...then I don't think I'm completely lying by saying that I'm a little bit engaged!(Although if any of my Rwanda friends visit Canada...I may need one of you guys to pose as my fiancee)
A lot of the information that was presented in the workshop was excellent, and very factual. I've heard most of this stuff before but it was a good refresher and helpful to learn about some HIV/Aids transmission dangers that are especially relevant in this country. Once problem is that many people, especially in rural areas, share the same razor to shave their heads. If the razor is not properly cleaned, than Aids can be spread to all of the people in a village! Many of the participants grew concerned upon learning this information and were comforted to learn that here in Kigali, almost all of the salons have received HIV/Aids awareness training. Its been really hot here this past week and the room we were all sitting in grew pretty hot and muggy during the 8 hours a day we spent in the same room. To keep people awake and give them a chance to stretch, all participants were expected to participate in the 3 breaks that would take place randonmly throughout the day. I can't stress how hilarious these breaks were and I usually ended up near tears because I was laughing so hard. (It's important to know that this was a formal meeting and most people were dressed in full suits or at least office appropriate attire.) In the fist game we played, everyone had to stand in a tight circle in the centre of the room and, in order, take turns saying 1, 2, urgh. Strangely that was the entire game...I couldn't figure out why this was hard because all you had to do was listen to what the person before you said and you'd know that you either had to say 1, 2 or urgh. The game began and immediatly, someone was out. To make sure that others knew that someone was out, the unfortunate person had to walk to the centre of the circle..sqwat on the ground, and cover their head with their hands. I was praying that I wouldn't have to join all the sqwaters and I made it through five rounds. I was so proud when I overheard someone whisper "the Mzungo is good at this game." At last...I've done something right! Other games we played included swat the mosquito (a game which involved pretending that the people beside you were covered in mosquitos which you had to hit) and another game much like Simon says.
In addition to discussing HIV/Aids the workshop addressed typical gender roles and stressed the importance of sexual education. To start a dialogue over gender roles and marriage (my absolute least favourite subject here!) we all had to once again go around the circle and state what we were looking for in a husband or wife. They came to me and asked if I would like to share what I thought.... I was like absolutely! At this point all of the guys had stated that a good wife had to be presentable, keep a clean house, be good at entertaining and must be a good mother. I rambled over a few typical things and then said, "and he must believe that we are equals" The instructor asked me to explain what this meant so I said "ideally, I'd love to stay at home with my kids when they are young, but I also plan on working outside of the home. If this happens, then my husband and I will have to help eachother clean the house and raise the kids" This response received no comments and I wasn't hit on for the rest of the workshop! I think I'll make myself a t-shirt that says if I'm your wife you'll have to help clean...walking down the street may become a lot easier!
Two weeks ago I visited one of the poorest regions of Rwanda, Gikongoro. This area has been plagued by famine and the stories I listened to during my interviews were heart breaking. My co-worker and I visited four different women's groups which had received an HIV/training seminars. The purpose of these interviews is to see whether these workshops have helped the women, especially those who are HIV positive. A big complaint amongst the women was that they didn't have enough food to take their aids medication with... so it would make them sick. They'd then stop talking the medication so that they'd feel better,but then they'd fall sick with Aids. One of the small groups we visited met in a building that served as a church, but it had a few bedroms attached to the back. After the interviews were done, the women asked if we would go and see a sick man that was being housed in one of the rooms at the back of the church. We walked into a small room with bright blue walls where there was a man lying under a mosquito net. He was drenched in sweat and his eyes looked wild. He put a shirt on and sat up, leaning on his arm, to tell us that his medications were making him sick and that he needed to go to the hospital. Church members had been sharing with him what little food they had and were basically keeping him alive. He asked if he could pray for us so we ended up kneeling on the cold cement floor in front of his bead. He spoke Kinyarwandan so I had no idea what he was saying. I bowed my head but all I felt was anger. I was angry at everyone and everything that had made this man's life as hard as it was. Later on that day J and I walked over an hour to the next group we were meeting with. We had to walk directly passed the prison serving the district we were in. The stench coming from those prison walls was horrid and I can't imagine what life is like inside. We also passed one of the more gruesome genocide memorials in which the bones of over 2000 people are layed out on tables. The prision and the bones...living and dead reminders of what took place here.
I really need to stress that much of what I experience here in Kigali, and this country as a whole, is very positive. Most of the people I've met here are really generous, welcoming, and filled with hope for their country's future. People are proud to be Rwandan and so they should be, it is amazing to see how much this country has accomplished since the war. One of the biggest surprises I have experienced after arriving here is how safe I feel. Normal precautions aside, I sometimes feel safer than I do in some parts of Toronto!
One last story that is keeping in theme with the earlier part of this post is the hilarity I experienced while leaving one of the viallges I visited in Gikongoro. I was definetly the only Mzungo in the village, and perhaps the only that had been there in quite awhile. It is Rwandan culture to accompany a guest as they leave... sometimes for over a mile. About 7 people from the interviews walked with J and I through the village as we were leaving. Our little crowd was drawing quite a bit of attention and I soon began to feel as though I was the main attraction in a small parade. Little kids ran beside us yelling Mzungo and all of a sudden I was walking beside a man in a captain's hat. (Where he found a captain's hat I have no idea, but none the less there it was on his head") I shook his hand, and said hi, but he wouldn't leave. He kept yelling things to the people we were passing and then looking back at me. I would have felt a bit uneasy but there were so many people around all seemed fine. I kept asking my translator what he was saying but she wouldn't tell me. Finally I was like really, I want to know! She said "well, he's saying a lot of things but one of the things he is telling people is that you're his wife." Oh the things that happen here!
I must go but I want to wish everyone a great Thanksgiving. Laura and I are hosting a bit of a thanksgiving party for some of the people we've met here. We've spent the day looking around down town for things that are sorta close to thanksgiving foods. We're cooking dinner for 7 people in our toaster oven and on our 2 petrol burners so I'm sure I'll have a few more stories after this Monday. I even managed to find a few pieces of paper with maple leaves on them and we're planning on cutting some banana leaves into the shapes of leaves from home for a centre piece. I promise to take lots of pictures.

I love and miss you all!
Kathryn

I've had an amazing past few days. I wish I had a few hours to tell you all about it but I have about twenty minutes before it starts to get dark and I need to return my friends lap top before I head home (If anyone is planning international travel DO bring a laptop!) I've kicked myself so many times over not buying one before I left. There are times when you just want to write about your experiences, to vent, or as a way of working out your thought process and doing it all by hand takes forever!
Last Thursday I headed to Buyumba, a village high in the Mountains in the Northern part of Rwandan claos to Uganda. It was a two hour drive in what they call a mini-bus taxi. Back home we'd call it a 15 seater van. The inside of the van is gutted and another bench is added so that 20 plus people can "fit" inside. To spice things up there is some random type of animal print covering all of the inside of the vehicle either in a furry fabric or a type of vinyl. If you're lucky, as I was one of the four times I've been in these vehicles so far, there will be a loud speaker set up at the front to play music. Rwandan radio is hilarious as it jumps genres from classical to R and B to Reggaie and Rap within a twenty minute span. Surprisingly, Canadian singers get a lot of air time here (Celine dion, Bryan Adams) and they are mixed in with select cuts from snoop dog and Phil Collins. The funniest part is that hardly anyone speaks english so they don't understand the lyrics...but often at least one person will be humming along.
In Buyumba Jeanette, my Rwandan co-worker and I met with 19 women who had participated in a Conflict Resolution workshop. THe workshop is supposed to establish a group of women who will continue to work together to solve their own, and their communities, problems. Another purpose of these groups is to serve as a co-op in which women pool their resources to produce something (baskets, or providing a comunity phone, or setting up a hair straigtening stand etc.). The questions I'm asking through my translator are to help my NGO to evaluate the effectivness of these workshops. When Jeanette and I first arrived she had to leave to take a phone call so I was left alone with the women, none of whom spoke french or English. I was seated at the front of the room on a counch and they all sat facing me on wooden benches and chairs which lined the walls. It felt really awkward but I tried to pretend that everything was normal and just smiled at everyone. When Jeanette came in I thought it might break the ice if I asked one of the women who had a little baby how old her child was. I did this through the translator. Everyone started laughing and asked if I wanted the baby...I was like sure! Next thing I knew I was holding a two month old baby and wondering if I had just adopted a child. Thankfully after a few minutes of me hoping that the little guy wouldn't start crying when he saw my white face one of the women took him back amidst much laughter. I was told that here, there are too many babies. The interviews seem to have gone well.
The next morning Jeanette and I caught the 6 oclock bus to Kibuye, a three hour drive to the south of Rwanda. The town is on a Lake which also borders the Congo. Kibuye is an absolutely beautiful fishing village. Laura came along on this trip and after I finished my interviews, Jeanette returned back to Kigali and we stayed there for the weekend. Before Jeanette left she pretty much insisted that we go swimming ( I don't think she believed we knew how) as a lot of Rwandans don't swim. We wanted to find a place out of the way where we wouldn't stand out. Jeanette said she knew a perfect spot, an abandoned resort that closed about two years ago. It had a private beach where we could swim in peace. Long story short..much against the wishes of Laura and I, she convinved the AK 47 wielding guard to let us pass if we would return later in the evening with Fantas for them. Half way through our swim the guards came over with a big orange life jacket. If that whole experience wasn't surreal enough, later on in the weekend Laura and I were walking through the village when we passed a group of about 20 or 30 prisoners marching home after their days work. My usual routine is to look at the ground and keep walking when we run into prisoners. This is exactly what I was doing when the guard carrying the gun at the end of the line shouted "Bonjour" to Laura and I. He was grinning, and we realised that it was the same guy we bought a fanta...weird.
I hope to get back to a computer sometime soon and fill you in on a few more stories
much love, Kathryn (sorry I don't have time to read over this I realise that phrasing and spell check is probably attrocious!)

No longer unemployed!

Things are finally moving forward! This morning I managed to meet with the two people I needed to talk with.(arranging a meeting here is much harder than you'd imagine) My mandate has changed, but its not far off from what I was initially supposed to be doing. For those of you who don't know, I'm working with a Rwandan NGO in their women's department. To improve a country's governance it is essential to empower a country's citizens, so my work here is meant to share strategies and expertise that may help to build the capacity of women, a group that is often left out of the formal work sector. Today my task is to compile a questionnaire. Throughout my remaining time here I will travel around the country to around 30 women's groups which have already been established and pose the questionnaire to them, with the aid of a translator. David D, you may note that this is surprisingly similar to the work you did in Burkina, although I'm hoping that I won't have to ride a motorcycle to all of the locations. Yesterday my motorcycle driver almost hit a girl who ran across the road in front of us. He had surprinsigly good french and shouted to me that "that girl is playing with death" I gripped my handle bar a bit tighter and thought that it felt like we were doing the same thing. A few minutes later we swerved around a vehicle and came face to face with a stopped van. Slamming the breaks and swirving he started laughing and a few minutes later he said..."did you say your prayers this morning?" oh man

It's funny how some things are starting to feel normal here. I'm writing this email on a work computer which has two big windows right behind it. You know that feeling you get when you can tell people are watching you? Well I think that sense is being numbed here as I am watched ALL the time. As I write this, random groups of children or adults gather outside the window to stare...at the computer...and at me....I think the biggest culture shock I'll expereince at home is the ability to fade into a crowd.

On a serious note, I learned yesterday from a co-worker that five people were hit by a car or truck travelling at a high speed along the recently paved road right outside our house. Two women in the group were killed and they were both widows with large families. There was a huge funeral yesterday, and everyone that could fit into vehicles were driving down the road on their way to the burial site. One small truck had 17 people crammed into the back. People seem to be driving a bit slower today...there really needs to be a speed limit...or at least a side walk so that people aren't forced to walk on the shoulder. We could see the blood in the ditch on the side of the road..

Laura and I now have a security guard! Our neighbours convinced us that it was a necessary precaution and so we now have a 24 year guy wearing my bright yellow raincoat, sit outside from 5:30pm (dusk) until five in the morning. He is the oldest of three children who were orphaned. After staying up all night he goes to school during the day. I asked him if it was possible for him to do this and he said that "to move forward you need effort". There are two locked doors between the living room and my bedroom so I tried to convince everyone that it would be fine if he was allowed to sit on the couch in the living room as we have no guard house and it rains every night. This was deemed inappropriate so the poor guy must sit outside in the rain. We give him hot tea every night but my conscious is far from clear. Although, knowing he's there, I've started sleeping through the night.

Hope all is going well back home...I'll miss the falling leaves but to make things easier I'm planning a white water rafting trip down the nile in Uganda for Thanksgiving ...if my back permits!