Last week, I was putting together plans for training sessions with two of my colleagues, and it came up that I was leaving the project in a little over a month. They expressed outrage and surprise at this (the plan hasn’t changed, I guess they'd just forgotten I was so short-term). And at that moment I realised that 2 months really is very short, and I’ll feel a certain sadness when I leave. That said, I am becoming quite frustrated with my work. I have maybe a couple of days a week where I have what I would consider to be a reasonable amount of work, and the rest of the time it’s very slow. I’m helping organize and keep records of training events for lab and data management staff at health clinics around the country as they introduce couples counseling and testing into their routine activities. That the work is not hugely challenging isn’t surprising, but I am disappointed that there isn’t more of it. This coming week I’ll take a trip to a couple of rural health centers to talk to counselors there. Maybe my conversations will provide some interesting food for thought. And if not, at least I’ll get to have lunch and go to the market with a friend of mine who lives in the village…

Last night I had a fascinating dinner with some friends, mzungu and Rwandese. A Rwandese friend was laughing at the disappointment expressed by many white folk upon arriving in Kigali (myself included): 'but it's so ordered! so clean and tidy! this isn't the real africa! the real africa is kampala or bujumbura or lagos, where everyone goes out all day and night, no rules, chaos - that's the africa we came for!'. My friend said 'and in london and paris, in brussels, are there guys in the streets selling peanuts all night? is there trash rolling around, people pissing on every corner?'. While the orderliness here is at times suggestive of somewhat sinister political weight, and much of the sterility visitors encounter is not in fact representative of the way most Kigalois live, his point was well-taken. If we label as 'Africa' and in some sense fetishize the chaos and raw energy typically found in low-income countries, we should at least be honest about what we're doing, and preferably consider whether this is at odds with buying into prevalent ideas of 'economic development'. There then followed a lively discussion of Rwanda's recent joining of the commonwealth, and the resulting change in official language to English. 'Africans should be able to speak African languages' one said. 'Germans learn English because it's useful, but in their schools they're taught in German.' Others laughed at his idealism, suggesting Rwanda should be pragmatic and do whatever is necessary to promote its development, and that matters of national or continental pride could wait until it is on a more equal footing with the rest of the international community. All part of the ongoing question of what 'development' should mean, whether it has to be a duplication of 'western' structures.

The photo is of the volleyball team of the Agahozo-Shalom youth village - home and school to ~200 orphans, funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. I visited a friend who works there last weekend and went to their sports tournament. Most of the children's clothes are donated by Americans and Israelis - including a couple of dozen Barack Obama t-shirts.

on the challenges of mzungu integration

i wrote half this post last weekend, and then the internet broke for a few days, so this is a long one. the photo is the view behind our house (check out my internet connection!)

sunday i visited the kigali genocide memorial. the memorial is in a modern white building, surrounded by commemorative gardens, overlooking one of kigali's many crowded valleys. the exhibit was moving and informative, a powerful combination of a historical account of the genesis and execution of the genocide and audio-visual testimonials from survivors. the end of the exhibit is made up of large photos of children killed in the genocide, each labeled with the child's name, the manner in which they were killed and details such as their favourite food or final words. in the gardens surrounding the building are several mass graves in which over 250,000 people are buried, most of whom remain unidentified. obviously submerging myself in the horror of those 100 days for a few hours was deeply saddening and thought-provoking. but it sheds no light on how rwanda is to move on from these events, though in many ways it is doing just that. as you stand by the mass graves you see a steady stream of people walking up the hill past the memorial, on their way home, jerry-cans of water balanced on their heads. i wonder how many of those people have family members in the mass graves, and how many think of them as they walk by. and i think about the tensions in rwanda's governance (eg the arrest and conditional release of kagame's opponent in the upcoming elections http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8638129.stm) - while building, rebuilding and 'reconciliation' efforts appear to be in full-force, one can't help but wonder what the future holds.

later on in the week i had a great conversation with a rwandan friend. he's in his mid 20s and lost about half his family in the genocide (he said he was surprised one day to notice a photo of his brother among those displayed at the memorial where i was on sunday). he said talking about the genocide is unpredictable for him, maybe fine, or suddenly painful, and that there are certain things he doesn't want to talk about (like his own experience). but he told me he'd like to write a book about rwanda, expressly not about the genocide - there's more to this country than that dark chapter in its history, his says.

one of the remarkable things about rwanda is its health system. this week, PSF has had officials from tanzania visiting kigali and learning about the project's activities and efforts to roll out couples counseling and testing in government health centres. one of my colleagues was telling me how amazed they were by the community health systems in place in rwanda. couples counseling and testing is gaining in popularity across africa, but rwanda is light-years ahead. one of the reasons has been a supportive government with leverage at the community level. almost all women presenting for PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission) services are accompanied by their male partners, and are turned away if they present alone - unless their village chief has written a letter explaining the partner's absence. every community also has elected volunteers called animateurs de sante, whose role is to promote access to healthcare in their community - eg advising couples to be tested for HIV together. the tanzanian officials were highly impressed, but doubtful that the same results could be achieved in tanzania - perhaps if paul kagame was transplanted to tanzania, they said.

in general my life in kigali is becoming more and more familiar, comprehensible, comfortable, as i meet people and explore the city. i've heard many expats talk about rwandan society being closed, about the difficulty of talking to their rwandan co-workers. i've found my co-workers to be initially reserved but with a little perseverence and interest in local customs, they're becoming warm and friendly. that said, this society may well be less accessible than many. firstly, local norms of politeness value quietness and seriousness (this was also true in malawi, and contrasts with the american emphasis on enthusiasm and cheerfulness). then there's the fact the country basically operates as a military dictatorship, with strict rules and regulations being followed, including not talking about certain things, eg tribalism. then there's the genuine psychological difficulty many people have speaking about some topics, eg genocide experiences (and the - not incorrect - assumption that outsiders will have difficulty relating to them). then there's the language barrier, arguably complicated by the recent shift in official language from french to english, meaning even educated people are often not completely comfortable in their worplace language. (and very few expats learn kinyarwanda, the local language). the end result seems to be that the expat experience is fairly segregated from the local, and it's hard to really get a handle on why. sure, there are cultural differences, linguistic barriers, income differentials etc but i can't help feeling much of the barrier is constructed or somehow scripted. for example, for my first 10 days here i did not understand where most of my rwandan coworkers ate lunch. eventually, i discovered that the wife of one of the lab techs brings home-cooked food every day, which most people buy and eat together. it seems the obvious choice to me, but no one had told me about it, none of the other expats seem particularly interested, and there was some surprise (quickly replaced by warm welcome) that i was. i'm fascinated by how that dynamic becomes established, and whether it should or can be changed. i hope by the time i leave i'll be more integrated and spending more time in rwandan hang-outs. i'm just surprised at what hard work it is to do that.

work is fine - still a little slow, though picking up. i'm helping with logistics and monitoring of nationwide roll-out of couples counseling and testing in government clinics. not hugely taxing, but just seeing how the project is run and watching systems unfold is a great experience for me. plus it's giving my french a new lease of life. and leaves me with plenty of time and energy to immerse myself in rwanda and generally relax.

first impressions

hello from the land of a thousand hills! i arrived on april 8th and i'm starting to settle in and get a feel for kigali. here are some first impressions...

kigali is spread over several hills and valleys, so not the easiest town to navigate. but it makes for pretty views. the central part of town, where i work, is very modern and clean. emblems of 'development' abound. large modern building projects all over town (usually with a chinese foreman), roads newly paved or in the process of being paved, clothing stores, electronic stores, women in business attire and (to my great dismay) a somewhat sterile business district where my work is. i'm living a 15 minute walk from work, with a friendly british couple. the house is nice, though it used to be a clinic owned by PSF (the NGO i'm working with), so it's not all that homey yet. but the power doesn't really seem to go out, and we have hot water, a fridge, a stove. that said, this house doesn't come close to some of the expat houses here. i had dinner at one the other night - a little island of america in the posh kiyovu neighbourhood, discernible from some part of middle america only by the presence of the rwandan man doing the dishes. some of the people had been in rwanda for a year or two, but had few if any rwandan friends. the expat-local dynamic is obviously complicated, but that evening did leave me feeling a bit icky.

i've really only had one day at work, but so far i've been very impressed with PSF's mission, running and infrastructure. my role is unclear, as expected, though the project has a rotation system where every newcomer is shown each department's activities. so i guess the idea is that by getting to know the project over the next couple of weeks i'll come up with a direction of my own.

it's a weird time to be in rwanda - april 6 was the 16th anniversary of the shooting down of the plane which sparked the genocide. so this week has been a week of mourning, with a national holiday at its start. obviously, the burden of the genocide on rwandan society is difficult to really appreciate. the newspapers i've seen were full of pieces about sufferers of post-traumatic stress (of which there are obviously enormous numbers) and their care. i've seen on tv a lot of memorial events this week, and i think we have a work trip planned to a memorial site (a church where a massacre took place) some time next week. we were advised that this mourning period will be quiet and we shouldn't go out to bars etc out of respect. day-to-day life seems relatively normal - people are at work, the markets are open. i doubt i'll ever really get to grips with how people think, talk and feel about what happened and its aftermath, beyond what can be learned from books.

yesterday i went to the market for the first time! a very friendly rwandan man who'd started talking to me on the street a few days ago took me and my roommates. there's no market in the town centre, so you sort of have to know where to find them in the parts of town where locals actually live. i was very excited by the variety available. i guess because of rwanda's tropical climate, there's a pretty good diveristy of produce year-round. we bought a lot of fruits and vegetables, and our rwandan friend provided explanations, and some attempt to prevent us from getting ripped off (mostly unsuccessful). our kitchen is now stocked full of ingredients, ready for some attempts at rwandan cuisine. it was such a pleasure to get away from the sterile land of embassies and offices where we work and wander around the part of town where people live, barter and stare at white people.

(i tried posting a photo of the view of mont kigali from the wall behind our house, but i think that's asking a little too much of the internet connection...)