The first week in Rwanda seems to have flown by! Unbelievable really, but I guess it is time for some reflection and hopefully an update for everyone back home on my travels!
My delayed flight, arrived here in Rwanda about 1 am which made me nervous since I lacked a phone and Rwandan Francs- which apparently are not orderable in the States. So feeling a bit sleepy and a little dazed by the ending of the second Hunger Games book, I headed through passport control to my luggage. Much to my relief none of my bags were lost, my helmet made it (why one would worry seems slightly irrational-since it’s made for luggage handlers tosses), and there was my Spark team groggy, but welcoming me nonetheless!
Our Kigali hub is at Hotel Exotica- yes the name lets on a bit about its past life as a brothel, but since then, it has housed many a development worker! We share the house with people from Gardens for health and the German version of USAID. Ironically enough, the first weekend was a large goodbye celebration (at Hotel Exotica) for a few other expats heading home after spending some significant time here. So many people came to the event, I was floored-clearly they were some popular folks! There must have been more than 200 people there at our house dancing the night away- my rhythm is officially better here than at Toby’s back home!
Since I arrived, I tried to hit the ground running and have been busy typing up data sets for Spark Microgrants (the NGO I am helping out this summer). Not all of the interns have arrived yet, but my partner in crime thus far has been Dennis. He arrived about a week and a half before me, and has been to a project or two beyond my experience and is going to be a great travel buddy! We’ve been talking about Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda! Hopefully I can plan out the weekends well in order to see my homestay family from my last time in East Africa, cause it would just about be a crime to be so close and not go to see them!
As for the communities that Spark works with, there are more than 30 projects that have come into fruition, and the Monitoring and Evaluation interns are in charge of making sense of all that has happened at the projects and where we have to go in terms of surveys for the upcoming projects (particularly the opening of offices/projects in Uganda). On Monday, we took the bus up to Musanze to out next "home" and where most of my things will remain for the rest of the trip! It was good to finally get some where I could psuedo "settle-in." The house is very nice, with showers and two flush toilettes- feeling a bit spoiled, but the bug bites have been getting me through the sprays. On Monday afternoon, Dennis and I went out to visit my first Spark project- a potato farming community outside Musanze.
The 15 minute moto (motorcycle) ride (that didn’t warrant digging through my “elephant” of a bag for sunscreen) turned out to be a bit longer- involving a 30 minute hike into the mountains so far outside the cities that even the motos had to stop driving us! Luckily, I had the foresight to at least bring some water for this “short” trip. Amazing how time and distance become so relative and understated! Our hike led us up and up through potato farms, past prickly yellow “bison berries” (spiney lemon-like fruits) and eucalyptus trees. It was a beautiful place, and the mists were not as thick as in Kigali, so you could see quite far around once you got to the top of a cave that was where the village collected their water. The volcanic soil, lava flows and various basalts made me think of mom’s time in volcanology, but hopefully I will get to go visit the Volcanoes National Park, soon to get a better feel for things!
The village was serene, but after the first little one saw us “muzungus” heading toward them, there where children everywhere!! The kids are truly such lovely things, but there is always something bitter sweet, and in fact being alongside someone brand new to Africa, I am looking at interactions through a slightly different lens from my last trip.
While I brought tokens of appreciation with me on my last trip, I knew I would not be having a family to live with this time around and didn’t bring more than a few gifts. But on our walk out from the village, the children began to beg. It’s heart breaking to see them beg, because all you want to do is help, but then again, helping in that instant is almost the worst thing you can do for a young child. In the same way you can train a puppy to beg at the table for scraps by feeding him the first time he whimpers, you can teach a child the same. You also can instigate tension through giving to one and not another, and even your attention will and is often fought over. Coming to terms with being here to help, and not helping each individual who asks for help is tough- it makes you feel cruel, but at the same time I hope that the projects like those of Spark teach people to work together within their communities to change their circumstances rather than just to expect assistance from outsiders.
Please forgive any typos!
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