Postscript to community work

There was not much sign of “umuganda” community work happening around here, everyone seemed to be going for the common option of tidying their own gardens / land. I’ve heard this justification several times. However, our neighbour was travelling from Kigali by public minibus. When they reached Butare, Rwanda’s second town, about 8am, the police stopped them and made them get out and “work” for a couple of hours picking up litter before they could resume their journey. It seems the authorities in Butare take a tougher line on umuganda than those in Cyangugu.

One and a half shopping days

It’s the Saturday 22nd December and with three days until Christmas the markets are shut this morning. “Umuganda”, the monthly Saturday morning of community work, has been brought forward by a week, apparently so that the country will look good for Christmas. The plan is that people will work today on tidying the roads and the verges.
I found this out, along with most of the population, just yesterday afternoon, although in typical Rwandan style I had previously heard a rumour. A man with a loudspeaker was wandering the streets of Kamambe making the announcement.
I’m trying to think of Glasgow city centre being shut 3 days before Christmas so that everyone can do community work, but it’s a step too far for my powers of imagination!

How we repaired the Acuson X128 ultrasound scanner

With duck tape of course!
A year ago, just after we arrived in Cyangugu, a medical container arrived at the dispensary run by the diocese. We are still working out the best way to use the equipment and it will take at least another year before this process is complete. Africa requires and develops patience.
The Acuson scanner did not work when it arrived, but we managed to determine that the monitor was broken (we could get a picture on a portable TV). After a few months a Siemens technician came, confirmed our diagnosis and went away. It took another few months before he sourced a second-hand part in Antwerp and another few weeks before we managed to get it here. Then customs held it for 2 weeks and charged $200 as a “waiver” for import duty!?
Last week, we had an American team visiting and among them was Sharon, a radiographer from Kansas. She had brought a complete set of tools and instructions from an engineer in the US, so we set to. It took us about 5 hours, disconnecting and reconnecting cables, but what an adrenaline rush when we switched on and the date appeared on the screen. It works! By prayer, skill, Sharon's preparation and luck, it works!! And yes, there is indeed duck tape inside it and around the screen, which is not quite the same size as the old one (well, we can’t exactly send it back).
Much of working life in Cyangugu like this. It’s unpredictable; projects start, go into limbo and then resurface; you end up tackling all kinds of work you would never dream of doing (nor be let near) at home. The joys and disappointments are all the greater because of it.

Gakenke, shoe boxes and Advent thoughts

Last week I visited my last parish of the 13 in the diocese in order to start our welfare programme there. Gakenke is in the forest, 2.5 hours away from our base in Kamembe and is another of the parishes without electricity, running water or even a market, but there is a church there with a pastor’s house and 4 partly-built daughter churches in the surrounding hills. I was probably the first white visitor in many months.
One of the jobs was to distribute gifts from Christmas shoe boxes. I have been involved with shoe box appeals before – collecting, donating and packing - and I know lots of other people who have, too, so I have absolutely no objection in principle. The basic idea of packing a shoe box with suitable gifts for a child breaks down here, however. There are simply too many children. In the end this project was just the wrong thing to be doing in rural Rwanda.
Cyangugu Diocese had received 50 boxes each containing around 6 shoe boxes. This was our share of a container load of boxes delivered to Rwanda for the Anglican church. “Fairness” meant that each diocese had to receive an equal share : the same principle resulted in each parish getting 4 boxes. Unfortunately, Gakenke alone had more than 100 children from the various churches, so the boxes had to be opened and the contents divided.
The first step was to remove anything which looked edible but wasn’t – Playdo being a prime target. These gifts would quickly end up in the hands of children who were too young or just unable to read English.
Stage two was to break up the packets of crayons, coloured pencils and sweets and to remove any excess packaging. There was now a great heap of gifts at the front of the church and an even bigger heap of wrapping.
Finally, the distribution began and as usual the children waited patiently in turn. I don’t know if those at the end of the line expected to get much less than those at the head of the queue, but that is what happened.
So, after my visit to Gakenke, my reasons for hating shoeboxes are as follows :
1. It creates a huge amount of work in order to distribute. We never asked for it and if we sat down and thought rationally about the costs and benefits, we would have burned the lot, but once the stuff has arrived, it is inevitably going to have to be shared “equally”.
2. Many of the gifts arriving here were quite inappropriate. Even yoyos and jigsaws potentially good toys, are useless without instructions.
3. The children do not understand why they are getting gifts or from whom. I had a terrible thought in the middle of the morning – “they must think that I have organised this!”
4. It is divisive – there were as many kids excluded from the distribution as were admitted and those outside were even more scruffy than those inside.
5. It creates a lot of litter. Outside the church was littered with Christmas wrapping and discarded jigsaw pieces.

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I had real pangs of sadness as the end of the distribution came to an end. This whole episode throws some disturbing light on the human condition. How often our hearts are set on the wrong things! How easily we are pleased with a few pathetic possessions! How incompetent and misdirected even our best-intentioned actions can be!
How little all of this has to do with the celebration of God coming into the world to live as one of us – but it shows why we need saved and why he needed to come.

Fairy lights

This is a place of stunning natural beauty, but one of the prettiest sights around at the moment is the lake at night. The fishing boats attract “sambaza”, small sardine-like fish, by suspending lamps just above the water. When the moon is full, there is no fishing, but at the time of the new moon the whole lake near us is lit up as if by fairy lights (over 100 that I could count last night). I wish a photo could do it justice, but in any case the internet link here is too slow to upload.

Strength and weakness

We had just spent 2 days on “strategic planning” – a difficult exercise with about 25 people involved, many of whom had little experience of the process and very little idea of what might realistically be achieved in a given time. The “wish lists” which were the first product of the sessions will require a lot of further work. Planning generally is a huge area of weakness in this country. There often seems to be nothing in the gap between the immediate action and dreams, between “we will do this now” and “it would be nice if”.
As the meeting ended, we turned to worship and as usual the unaccompanied singing was beautiful. This is one of the huge strengths of Rwanda : I have seldom heard poor or reluctant singing, nor experienced anyone being unwilling or unable to pray publicly.
The transformation as we changed from an area of great weakness to one of great strength was remarkable. There is a lot said about being “out of our comfort zone” and I often feel out of mine here, but it is also great to be with people when they are well within their comfort zone.

We may meet, but

“You may find me when I am not there”. I have heard this phrase twice in the last week. It’s amusing to our ears, but it also makes me think that I will never understand the thought processes which can produce such language! There is no doubt that we think very differently from the people we are working with and it sometimes seems to become more apparent every day.

Antibiotics

There is no question that I have “new eyes” on the subject of antibiotics. Even way back as a microbiology student I learned about microbes acquiring resistance and the threat this could pose to the effectiveness of antibiotics. In the UK, of course, there is great caution among doctors about prescribing antibiotics and MRSA (multiply-resistant Staphylcoccus aureus) is a big problem in hospitals. Sparing use is one of the main strategies for preventing the spread of resistance.
However, after 3 skin infections this year, all requiring minor surgery, my attitude here is very different and could now be described as “the more the merrier” and “the sooner the better”. For some reason I seem to be vulnerable to these skin infections and they have been very virulent and quite severe. I have just finished another course in response to having an infected spot on the back of my neck and for the first time the drugs were successful in preventing the spread of infection. As they can be bought at any pharmacy, I will also keep a supply handy in case of further need.
It has brought a new realisation of how attitudes can change as a result of personal circumstances and need. My desire to avoid further problems (and in particular any more surgery!) certainly overrides any other considerations about limited use of antibiotics.
In general, there is a lot of faith in and use of drugs in Rwanda among those who can afford them. I have also known a few cases of people who have spent more money than they could afford. By western standards, they are very cheap : our anti-malarials cost one tenth of what we paid in the UK. However, it seems that there is a readiness to prescribe a lot of drugs and people will have quite long prescriptions with a variety of medications.

Pledge paralysis

We had our first Rwandan experience of “pledging” in church last Sunday. This is the custom of publicly announcing your offering. It’s usually for something special, not just the normal weekly giving and it’s not so common in Episcopal circles : we have been here for 15 months before encountering it.
We are still not too sure what it was all about, as our neighbour, who was translating for us, was called up to the front and after some discussion ended up leading this part of the service. He was very good at it. There are visitors coming to the diocese next week-end to hold some special meetings and so the pledges were mostly for food, but even afterwards Charles was not really sure who the visitors are. However, he obtained many offers of sweet potatoes, potatoes, other vegetables, sugar and even meat, along with some money. There was quite a variety of pledgers, including a few children.
Events like this, so against our culture, produce a strange kind of paralysis. It is just impossible to participate, not because I feel it is wrong, but because it would require me to break a deeply-held belief, taboo, I suppose, about giving publicly.

Tragedy

The genocide of 1994 (or the “war” as it us usually referred to), continues to produce tragic stories 13 years later. Earlier this week some children found an old piece of metal in the wood beside their house. Thinking it might be valuable, they took it home. The grenade they had found exploded, killing 3 children and 1 woman and injuring several more. All this happened at the bottom of the hill where we live.

Contract working

This is my first experience of working a fixed-term contract and with 7 months to go I am sensing some of the positive and negative aspects of it.
The positive side is that there is absolute clarity about our position. Our Rwandan accountant left his job without notice in May and it caused us untold grief which is still not entirely resolved. My month in the accounts office was the most stressful of my time here. Everyone knows that we will be finishing our work here at the end of June 2008.
The main negative is that the end is already in my mind and affects quite a lot of what I do. It’s not that I am counting the days, or anything like it, but there are already some longer-term plans in school-building which I know I will not see through. Our current diocesan strategic planning work also emphasises our short time left here. The best way to work, of course, is to act as if I am staying here for the duration, but there is always a certain reservation.
Ever since we came to Rwanda we have tried to avoid unduly influencing decisions which will affect things after we have left. We give our opinion, but it is more consultative than committed, because that’s how we see our role here. However, it’s a bit uncomfortable for us when we are used to being in things for the long term.
I don’t foresee a career in “interim management” or anything like it when I return to life in the UK, but then the future remains completely unknown.

Singing in the rain

There’s not much else you can do while a tropical rainstorm lands on the corrugated roof of the church, as it has on the last two Sundays during worship. The noise is absolutely deafening and the sermon is simply suspended until it subsides. The congregation continues “singing and dancing in the rain”.

Patience, passivity and poverty

It is impossible not to admire the patience of Rwandans. Scots are very prone to complaining, but the way in which people here deal with everything from inconvenience to incredible suffering is amazing. Waiting is never a problem and the worst crises are met with equanimity, at least on the outside.
The weakness of this strength is that it can veer into passivity. In all kinds of situations, people wait patiently for those in authority to act, or even just to show up. I was once at a celebration where the food was underestimated and about 20 guests did not get “lunch” until afterwards (about 5pm). Not a murmur was heard. While this makes social life more congenial, it also has effects on the commercial activity of the country. It would be unimaginable in the west that some of the public services and even the commercial enterprises would get away with the appalling levels of service found here. It’s debatable that this poor service continues partly because of the patience or passivity of customers.
So I wonder whether some of the poverty in Rwanda has the same root cause. It’s an enormously complex and intractable problem, so I’m certainly not putting this forward as a whole explanation, merely a contributory factor. Perhaps if there was less acceptance of inactivity, poor service and low standards then economic activity would be more productive?

A day in Kigali

Within 1 minute of stepping outside my hotel, I have been approached to buy a newspaper, a wall-map of Rwanda, a phone card and a Ludo board (I couldn’t make this up). The streets, or rather the pavements, are the scene for a huge amount of commercial activity.
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The rain comes, not the usual Rwandan downpour, but heavy enough to get wet. Suddenly, with my umbrella up, I am almost the only person still walking. Everyone else is sheltering in shop verandas, waiting until it stops.
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The courtyard is just off the main street in one of the suburbs of Kigali and holds a fascinating contrast of tradition and modernity. On one side a few women are peeling vegetables and cooking chapattis, presumably for sale because it is only 10am. On the other side, some young men are at work on computers, editing wedding videos and dubbing with music. I have come with a friend who needs his video camera repaired. A young woman wanders in with a few children’s’ clothes which she is trying to sell.
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Back in the centre of town, the coffee shop with lattes and wifi internet access is nearly full, about 50% of the customers being white. In some parts of the city you could walk about all day without seeing a white face, but this is one place where we congregate. Like most of the others, I am working on my laptop. I have nowhere else to go while my car is being serviced : this is day 3 and I am still not confident about when I will get it back.
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Dusk brings the rush-hour, the streets in the shopping zone are full of lorries unloading huge amounts of materials. Keeping a large stock is common : in the craft shops you can hardly squeeze past shelves crammed with articles for sale.
I eat in a “pub” away from the centre of town – goat brochette and chips for £1.50. Here I am the only white customer and my presence brings a lot of interested stares.
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My hotel has no water. I’m not sure whether this is the persistent Kigali problem, or just some localised issue. It eventually comes back about 7pm, so I store some in a bucket in the bathroom. A further cut in supply the next morning shows that this was a sensible plan.

Prayer puzzle

I’m reading Philip Yancey’s “Prayer” just now and it is up to his usual high standards, posing some vital questions about how to live a life of faith and not ducking the very thorny issues which surround the subject of prayer. In one chapter he discusses the idea of prayer as a partnership between us and God, not a way of us absolving ourselves of responsibility, nor of controlling events.
When I was living in Scotland I continually returned to the mystery of prayer. We are reminded in prayer that God is far beyond our understanding and not under our control. This is partly a reaction against the excessive desire to be in charge which we have in western societies.
Here in Rwanda, I want to emphasise our responsibility. Too often, it seems, I hear the phrase “if God wills”, in a fatalistic rather than a “faith-full” spirit. I want to take people back to Genesis 1 where God makes mankind responsible for the earth and all life on it. As an example, large families and correspondingly large school fees do not just happen “because God wills” but by human action(!).
As Yancey elaborates so well, mystery and responsibility are not “either or” but “both and”. That is the persistent puzzle of prayer, if I can be excused theological alliteration.

Prize day

Our local primary gives prizes for “hygiene” and discipline as well as academic achievement. Hygiene would more accurately be described as smartness, or standard of uniform. The academic prizes are jotters and pencils : the hygiene prize was a plastic basin. Of course it is not so strange as it might first appear. It is likely that the children leaving p6 will end up at boarding school and will have to provide their own basins.

Failed harvest

In May we went to a rice harvest. A youth association in one of the parishes had been given money to buy some land and there were great celebrations as they harvested 7 overflowing bags each holding 50kg of rice to be taken for processing.
This week we passed the rice fields at Bugarama again and calculated that since it was 6 months since our last visit the next harvest must be nearly due. Unfortunately, there was a very heavy hail storm just a couple of days later and almost the entire crop has been lost. The ears were knocked off the plants and washed away.
For our youth association, this is a setback. For a farmer who depends on the rice to feed his family, this would be a disaster. November is already a difficult month, there is little to harvest because it is too soon after the planting at the start of the rains and prices in the market are rising sharply.

Christmas is coming

3 signs of Christmas this week :

The really good news is that our son Andrew will be coming to visit for Christmas. It will involve a rather gruelling journey with Ethiopian Airlines via Hamburg and spending Christmas morning in transit from Addis, but it is very exciting.

If some of the shops in Kamembe do not take down last year’s decorations soon, they will not need to! Last year the few public decorations we saw only appeared 2-3 days beforehand. They all lasted a long time afterwards, but "Alimentation OK" has gone for the year-round look.

The school holidays have started, except for those who are sitting national exams. As we travel around during the day, this means more calls of “Mzungu!”, “Good morning!” (at any time of the day) and “Banjower!” (oh, those French accents). There is also football on every available patch of flat land, which are not many. In the evening many of the boys take goats to graze, so a football pitch will have equal numbers of players and animals scattered across it. Neither seems to mind too much.

Population control

Vision 2020 for Rwanda, a very detailed and in many ways highly ambitious plan, appears to accept that the struggle to control the population will not be won in the next few years. It forecasts that the population growth rate will show a meagre decrease from 2.9% in 2000 to 2.2% in 2020. Because of forecast drastic cuts in maternal mortality, infant mortality (1.07% to 0.5%) and a corresponding increase in life expectancy, the population is forecast to rise from 8.3 million to 11 million by 2010 and 14 million by 2020.
This is hardly surprising : the odds are stacked against population control. Tradition favours large families (and our experience is that women are often more keen on having a lot of children than men are). In addition, the country is largely Roman Catholic, at least nominally, while the second church, the Pentecostals, has the same view on artificial methods of birth control. This, in a country where half the population is under 18, means that the population is inevitably going to grow steeply at least in the next few years. Messages about limiting family size are hard to frame appropriately and are likely to fall on very stony ground. Their delivery is also impaired because they are largely created by a generation which has already produced large families and is therefore not a good role model. “Do what we say, not what we have done!”
The genocide provides a grim backdrop to this. So many people lost parents, children, siblings in that time of horror that small families must still seem very insecure and vulnerable.
Immigration will fuel this population growth : Rwanda is much safer than neighbouring eastern Congo and is much better organised than Burundi, while there are still returnees coming back from Tanzania and Uganda where they went into exile either before or during the genocide of 1994.
In several countries in Europe, Scotland included, the birth rate is now less than is required to sustain the population at its current level. It is hard to remember that this did not come about as a result of propaganda exercises by the government, but as a result of increasing prosperity and improving health care.
There are some signs of hope for limiting population growth here :
ß Increasing access to tertiary education is already delaying the age at which some young adults are ready to marry
ß It is not what any country would aspire to, but we have met several young men who have told us that they cannot get married because they are too poor. They usually express this in the traditional way of not having enough money to buy a cow.
ß There is a realisation among some, usually wealthy or well-educated, that having large families will now mean high costs of education as access to fee-paying secondary schools increases.
ß “Caisse sociale”, a scheme to pay pensions, should bring confidence at least to those in employment that they will have some income in their old age
In the meantime, I just cannot imagine how Rwanda can sustain 14 million people in such a small country.

Population pressure

Rasano School is one of the clearest examples we have seen of the problems of the birth rate in Rwanda. The road is tricky, curling through the forest around the sides of very steep hills. There is no public transport here, nor commercial traffic either and the road beyond Rasano, leading to Bweyeye, is currently closed in several places for repair.
The land is difficult. Apart from the slopes, it is hard to cultivate and is limited. On one side is the forest, a protected National Park. On the other side is a deep valley with a river at the bottom marking the border with Burundi.
As you walk round the area, it is hard to see where the 1200 children come from. The houses are small and scattered, and there is no obvious centre of population. Normal family size is 6-10 children in 2-3 bedrooms. Many of the children have a very long walk to school, because the catchment area is wide.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this land in this location cannot sustain even the population it has now, let alone in the future as many more young people enter adulthood and start their own families. While Rwanda as a whole faces the same issue, it is in areas like this where the pressure is greatest and the effects are already obvious and severe.

Troubled heart, sore head

Rasano Primary School is on the edge of Nyungwe Forest, right next to the Burundi border. A recent visit produced the frequent combination of a troubled heart and a sore head. The troubled heart comes from seeing so many people in dire poverty, the sore head comes from thinking about solutions or remedies. Perhaps “palliatives” or even only “appropriate course of action” would better describe what is within our capabilities.
It doesn’t take long to identify the main problem at the school, as the following statistics on the school roll show.
P1 – 385
P2 - 353
P3 – 371
P4 – 264
P5 – 145
P6 - 44
The dropout rate at p4, when the children start to stay all day at school, is huge and much more of a problem than we have found anywhere else. All the local people at the committee meeting were convinced that the solution would be to provide food at lunchtime. Some felt that the whole school (1200 pupils!) should be fed, but we managed to convince them that we could and should only provide an incentive for the seniors. The obvious difficulties are there : finding finance and sustaining it, how to manage a programme so far away from Kamembe, ensuring that only the children are fed and getting parents to value education and not just free food.
We have agreed to look at how we can do it, but oh how often “we will discuss it” is remembered as “you promised”! There are some months of grace before the start of term in January and porridge (Rwandan, not Scottish) seems as if it might be a possibility.

The mole hunter

He is about 5 feet tall, his spear is 6 feet. He is an elderly Batwa who is sometimes employed by the diocese to clear the cathedral grounds of “ifucu”, or moles. He wanders about barefoot, but for a lot of the time he stands very still over a spot where he has opened up the soil under a molehill.
I have never seen him actually in action, but his success rate is quite high : I have seen the petty cash payments, of 200 Frw (about 20p) per mole killed.

Walking in the dark

Working in a culture different from our own often feels like walking in the dark, but we sometimes do this literally, too. There is street lighting on the main path near our house, but it only functions intermittently. Cloudy nights and the lack of houses with security lighting can make it very black. If we are visiting people nearby, or accompanying visitors who have been with us, we often end up walking where we cannot see the ground. Putting your feet where you can’t see is disconcerting both literally and metaphorically.
Occasionally there are glow-worms (or something similar) beside the path, but last night there were about 100 in a 10-metre stretch, small flashing green lights in the grass verge, just like LEDs. It made quite a dramatic and very beautiful display, although there was not enough intensity to light the path, but only to show where the edge was.
There are some things, often the most interesting, you can only see by walking. There are some things you can only see in the dark.

Congregation of 600

Communion is once a month in the Episcopal Church and in the rural parishes all the “daughter” churches gather together. Each parish only has one pastor, but in some parishes there are up to 8 churches, often scattered in the hills, accessible only by footpaths.
We were at Bweyeye, where a congregation of 600 gathered, including many children, of course. It’s quite daunting to have such a large number in front of you – I can’t remember the last time I was in church with so many people. The worship was enthusiastic, the choirs were excellent, the welcome was extremely warm and our re-telling of Jesus’ stories seemed to go down well. It was a real privilege to share communion with over 300 people who have been confirmed as Christians.
Whenever we visit churches like this we are expected to speak - re-telling parables seems within our competence and a “safe” option! Our theme was about God seeing our hearts, not being impressed by the outside (the stories of the widow’s 2 coins and the 2 men praying in the temple). It seemed appropriate for Bweyeye, a community which is far away from the rapid development and emerging wealth of Kigali, but which has a real depth of faith and a vibrant church amidst some terrible poverty. There is no electricity, no secondary school, no running water, 2 cars and a few motorbikes.

Starting the day

I was wakened at 0545 this morning by a knock on the door.  Even by Rwandan standards this is early, but I was not surprised to find that it was Kenneth, the head teacher of the local primary and a good friend.  Yesterday he got back from Kigali with 2 pupils who had taken part in a national language competition.  At 0200 this morning(!) he had a phone call to say that they had won and that they needed to be back in Kigali (by 1200) for the ceremony.

My part was to supply a loan of £30, because the school had no petty cash and a lift to the bus station for the 3 of them to catch the 0630 taxi.  The children were immaculately dressed and of course were quite excited about all this.  

In return, I get a day away from the office, because he also told me that it had been announced on the radio the night before that today is a public holiday because of a Muslim celebration.  It’s still beyond me that there can be a national plan for the year 2020 but a competition for children and a public holiday cannot be organised 24 hours in advance.  I suppose it shows that culture goes much deeper than we sometimes think.

An apt phrase

When our friend Odeth talks, she has a huge store of idiosyncratic phrases, which are often highly descriptive. She is from the east of Rwanda and has worked in Uganda for some time, too, so she speaks English with Ugandan idioms, but in a highly individualised way.
There was a power cut at the office, so work had stopped. She asked where Sheena was and I said that she was at school. “There will be no problem there”, she said, “that is just chalking with children”. It’s a great way of describing so much education here in Rwanda!

Living history

We recently visited the north of Rwanda, where we spent a couple of nights with friends in the former house of Rosamund Halsey Carr. Ros Carr came to Rwanda in the middle of last century with her game-hunter husband, but after their separation she started a pyrethrum farm near Gisenyi. In those days the crop was at risk from the ravages of elephants which seem to have been abundant in the region. Later she was a friend of Dian Fossey, who did so much work with the gorillas and after the genocide, by now in her eighties, she started an orphanage which is still running. She died last year.
The house has a spectacular setting right underneath the volcanoes and because it is so high it can be quite cold. We had a fire in the hearth the 2 nights we were there. There is also a large formal country garden : when the mist is down you could almost be in England.
There is history everywhere : furs on the bed (these had to be hidden when Dian Fossey visited!); elegant china; one of the household staff, trained by Ros Carr, who serves dinner in a white jacket; loads of interesting books.
One of the most memorable parts of the time there was reading the local history of the genocide in the house where it happened. Before her forced evacuation, Ros Carr was in the house surrounded by an angry mob demanding that she hand over some of her staff. She knew many of the people in the crowd, had seen them grow up in the neighbourhood, but they were still at the roadside shouting at her as the troops drove her back to the main road and Kigali. It’s all so calm and friendly now that it really is hard to believe, but that is so often the case with Rwanda’s history.

Rain

This week the rains really arrived after a false start in September. It’s not that it rains all day, but when it comes, usually in the afternoon, it can be too heavy even to drive safely. All activity around the town stops, people just shelter and wait for it to end. The children next door didn’t get home from school until 8pm on Tuesday because we had a very extended spell.
The rain of this week brings home what it is to be poor in this country. You often see people absolutely soaked to the skin, knowing that they probably have long walks ahead of them into the surrounding countryside and may not even have houses which are proof against the rain. They also face the risk of flooding from the streams which appear everywhere during rain in the land of a thousand hills.
It has also demonstrated that in an isolated community like ours, everyone is to some extent poor. Power cuts have become more frequent. The rain, or more likely the accompanying lightning, has brought a problem with telephone landlines, making the banks inoperative for 2 days and also preventing anyone who has pay-as-you-go electricity from buying new cards. They require the Electrogaz office to use their internet connection, which is down. Since Thursday is “gacaca” and everything is shut in the morning, it will mean 3 days without a bank.
In all of this, people remember that the rain is necessary for planting crops and there are few complaints. In fact I am amazed at how little damage is done to the newly-planted crops even by the downpours of this week.

Not as easy as it first appears

How hard it is for an institution or organisation to “do good” here and to do it well! We recently had a review, or more accurately post mortem, of a project in a camp for people displaced by floods and landslides. Lots of blame flying around, lots of wisdom in hindsight.
The people were living in small shelters made of tarpaulins and straw. We built houses of mud bricks for 20 of the most needy families. It was never a “best” solution, simply a hand up out of very basic living conditions and there were undoubtedly problems with the quality of construction of some of the houses. Prompted by our work and that of other churches, the government has decided to build houses for the remainder of the families. The problem is that they are bigger and stronger than ours (they use interlocking bricks made of compacted mud which requires the use of a machine). Now the families in our houses, once the privileged, feel “cheated” (the word is not too strong!) and some are very unhappy.
Our meeting brought out how difficult even apparently simple projects can become. It is not that we have failed in our original objectives, but simply that perspectives have changed and fickle human nature has come into play, or just plain sin.
So, a little checklist for future development projects. We had most of these this time around, except perhaps thick skin.
ß Local knowledge, to understand the real needs and priorities
ß A good plan
ß Management skills to make sure that things happen
ß A warm heart, because these are not just “projects”, but people, mostly living in very poor conditions
ß A cool head – choosing to help some people means choosing not to help others and it can be hard to make these choices
ß Regular site visits – there is nothing like being there
ß A thick skin, to ignore the inevitable criticism
ß Open ears, to listen to other perspectives and to advice
ß Wisdom from the Holy Spirit to know how to handle difficult people
ß The ability to predict the future would also be invaluable, but is not usually available!
As usual, Jesus can put it more simply. The first and greatest commandment, comes to mind : “You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all of your strength”. It will take nothing less to do our work well.

2 sides to the story

It is hard to believe that the 2 web stories about General Nkunda, who is deeply involved in the conflict in eastern Congo not far from here, refer to the same person. They provide an excellent illustration of how politics affect reporting. While both have Nkunda as a “rebel general”, the BBC report his troops as being responsible for breaking ceasefires and also report “allegations” of child abductions – in this part of the world, bringing the notorious LRA of Northern Uganda to mind. In the New Times, the general is defending the persecuted Tutsis of the Congo from the erstwhile perpetrators of the genocide (FDLR) who are being aided by the Congolese army. They have also captured people who are acting as spies against Rwanda.
BBC
New Times (Rwanda)

Assumptions and stereotypes

The rain was just starting and I stopped the car to pick up a friend at the bottom of the hill near our house. Two young men jumped in beside her. When we let her out at the top I asked her if they were friends. “No”, she said, “I don’t know them”. They were either opportunists, or just thought that we were being generous to all the passers-by who happened to be around when we stopped.
This assumption that we will give a lift to passing strangers, even in towns, is widespread and is undoubtedly based on the colour of our skin. It also illustrates one of the most enduringly frustrating aspects of living here, because it is based on the deeper assumption that all white people are rich and generous. Now, this is fairly valid, because most of the white people here are missionaries or aid workers, or tourists who are also likely to be disposed towards generosity in the face of the widespread poverty they encounter.
However, all of this means that every time you help someone you are reinforcing the stereotype. The individual is assisted, but the idea that you can get money by being around white people is strengthened. There is no way out of this, or none that I have yet thought of, but it can be very wearing to be constantly seen as a source of money.

Flooding

I read on the BBC website about flooding right across Africa. We have had our own share of that in the north of Rwanda, where 15 people have died and 500 homes have been destroyed. We saw a little of that on a recent journey – mud houses which had apparently “dissolved” in the rain, leaving only the roof lying on the ground. Others were surrounded by fields of muddy water where there had once been crops. It is hugely depressing to see people in such poor circumstances hit by further hardship. In some cases the road appears to have been a contributory factor, holding back water which had run off the hills because of the lack of adequate drainage facilities.
This area of Rwanda, under the volcanoes, appears to have well organised agriculture, on a bigger scale than the southwest where subsistence farming on tiny plots is the norm. There are also some considerable areas which are reasonably flat, which makes agriculture easier most of the time, but of course is a problem in heavy rain because the water can gather and lie. The obviously fertile volcanic soil and the better organisation don’t appear to result in great prosperity, however. There is still widespread poverty and need.

Destination unknown

The main post office in Kigali has 4 boxes for letters to be posted, dependent on destination. They are labelled :
Kigali city
Provinces
Foreign
Unknown

Presbyterians again for a day

Last Sunday we were invited to attend the local celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of the Presbyterian Church in Rwanda. Since we regard Scotland as the spiritual home of Presbyterianism and my sister was visiting from Geneva, where John Knox, the leader of the reformation in Scotland, studied under Calvin, how could we refuse?
It was an open-air event, although the invited guests (about 100) had a tarpaulin shelter to keep us from the elements. The rains have already started, but on this particular day we needed protection from the sunshine. There was an impressive array of visiting choirs, including one from Idjwi, a large Congolese Island in the middle of Lake Kivu and another from Bukavu. The lead singer of this latter one had a fantastic jazz-singer voice, quite strong enough to make the microphone redundant even out of doors. Their choice of music was also noticeably different in style from most Rwandan choirs we have heard.
However, pride of place had to go to the brass band from Kigali. They were well equipped with trumpets, trombones and drums and played several pieces competently : unfortunately we did not get an opportunity to discover their history. We haven’t seen or heard anything like this elsewhere in Rwanda.
There were impressive contributions from school choirs and a dance group, with an inspiring and admirably short sermon about building on the good points of history while having hope and faith for the future. We were welcomed as the “official delegation from the Presbyterian Church in Scotland” (!) and presented with a length of specially-printed fabric which the brass band were wearing as a uniform.
It was all going so well under the direction of a very competent MC until the political speeches started. At first it was interesting to hear about the vision and strategy of the Eglise Presbyterienne au Rwanda, although it took a long time to describe it. There is of course a strong similarity with what the Eglise Episcopale is doing. Peace and reconciliation is still vital for all the churches here, while education, health and the alleviation of poverty are essential parts of living out the gospel, as being faithful to the mission of Jesus.
However, at these events the political representatives are always given pride of place and the last opportunity to speak. Since he started with “I will not say much” we should have known we were doomed. Thanks, repetition and political propaganda took us well over the 4-hour mark for the whole event, well past the comfort limit not only for us westerners, but also for the crowd. One of the good points about NOT being under the tarpaulin is that you can come and go at meetings like this and usually the ordinary people take full advantage.
The day was going to continue over food, usually in such cases followed by more speeches, but we were able to leave at this stage, having another visitor to welcome later in the day. The EPR is obviously thriving, like most of the protestant churches in Rwanda – we hope to meet with them again when we can play a more low-key role.

Learning 2 new cultures

A few things recently have reminded me that I am living in 2 new cultures here – Rwandan and Episcopalian. We are learners in both and it often seems as if Rwanda is more understandable than the workings of the Anglican communion.
This is especially true of the ongoing, high-profile and increasingly acrimonious dispute between the African episcopalians and their American counterparts. It centres on the ordination of openly homosexual priests and bishops, but there are a number of other issues lurking just below the surface. Self-interest is just behind theology in some of the discussions I have heard.
To our shame, Presbyterians know a lot about church schism. lt is one of the hallmarks of the Scottish branch of the church and indeed our most recent split is less than 10 years old and was still quite acrimonious when we left the UK 1 year ago. One of the things which impressed me about our first contacts with the Church of England was its ability to maintain unity in diversity. CMS, the mission organisation we are with, certainly shows a generosity of spirit in the people it “sends” as missionaries and in the work it supports. The “charism of a big heart”, a phrase I once heard used to describe the Church of Scotland, describes it well.
It is particularly disappointing now to find that the wider communion is in such serious difficulties over this very issue of unity, which initially appeared to be its greatest strength. It feels as if we have come to live with a family which is bitterly feuding with its American cousins, while the grandmother in England tries vainly to patch up the quarrel. I’m a guest here on 2 counts, and will therefore refrain from detailed comment, but words and actions on both sides appear to be extremely provocative. While we learn the culture of episcopalianism, we definitely treat this as a “no-go” area.

"It does not only cost you money"

Following yet another extended visit to our Electrogaz office, to persuade them to reconnect a supply which had been cut off in error, my colleague Odeth commented “Going to that office does not only cost you money, it costs you heart also”. How true, you can feel the will to live just slipping away!

School fees again

The season of school fees has just passed and it has become “safe” for us to go back on the streets without meeting constant requests for financial assistance.
In the first 2 weeks of each term we are frequently asked to help with school fees – in the office, in the street, by children and parents alike. It is such a big event on the calendar and one which puts a lot of strain on many family finances. On a recent trip to a parish we passed a cattle market – apparently they are particularly busy at this time of year because people sell their cows to pay school fees.
The French word used here for school fees is “minerval” which I have been unable to find either in my dictionary or on Babelfish, the Altavista translator.
Everything in education here is in transition. There is free universal primary education, although at one end of the scale parents are willing and able to pay large amounts of money for private schools, while at the other, in the more remote parts of the country, the free education is not universally taken up. While there is still some way to go with this implementation, there is also an ambitious drive to extend education for all to S1-S3. This is obviously creating a huge demand for school buildings and for teacher training. It is happening in a country with an annual population growth of more than 2% and about 50% of the population under 18, so there is no prospect of the need for new schools being met any time soon.
The roles of public schools, private fee-paying schools and church-assisted schools have still to be worked out, too. Finally, to complicate matters further, the relative importance of French and English in education is changing as Rwanda becomes more Anglophone. You have to be trilingual to get into higher education, but most primary schools are still Francophone.

A different country

We were talking with friends about school fees. It seems that some of the private English-speaking primary schools in Kigali are now charging 70,000 Frw per term. Around Cyangugu, many people are earning the national minimum wage of 15,000 Frw per month. Kigali is the only city in Rwanda and it looks and feels increasingly prosperous. The gulf between rich and poor is a problem in many countries, the UK included, but with figures like this, Kigali is becoming a different country.

Shaking

Every time I take the car for servicing, there is some shaking damage to repair – loose screws, a light misaligned, a wing mirror off or occasionally something more serious. The Rwandan roads provide a stiff test for vehicles and around here even the ones with a tarmac surface have an increasing number and depth of potholes. No part of the car escapes this shaking and constant care is needed.
Sometimes living in Rwanda feels a bit like this. There is a shaking which tests every part of us – physically, mentally, spiritually, psychologically and socially. I don’t mean that it is terrible, any more than driving through the beautiful countryside of Rwanda is terrible. I don’t even mean the word to have negative connotations, simply that living here is indeed testing. It is one year since we arrived in Cyangugu and I think this word sums up my experience better than any other single word would.
I am grateful to God for the opportunity to live and work in Rwanda, usually I am even grateful for the shaking, but especially I am grateful that He provides the constant care that I need to keep functioning here.
I hope to return without anything too serious having been shaken loose!

A non-meeting of cultures

On a recent trip we had a misunderstanding about numbers and ended up taking 6 people in the pickup, 3 on the bench seat in front and 3 behind. It was a bit of a squeeze, but the man sharing the front seat with us is very slight in build. Later the bishop’s wife took me to task for squeezing someone in beside Sheena. She was worried that Sheena would be uncomfortable in her work and therefore be unhappy.
I realised that there was a complete non-meeting of cultures here. Our priorities are completely different. I could never make her understand that the main hardship for us working in Rwanda comes from poor organisation and management – any physical discomfort pales by comparison. In turn she could never explain to me what is wrong with putting 3 people in the front of a pickup, especially when we were driving over some of the worst roads in the diocese.

Grenade at the garage

It’s always hard to get news out of Rwandans. Although their standard greeting (“Amakuru?”) literally means “how is the news?”, the answer is ALWAYS “It is good”. We did, however, find out that while we are away a grenade had gone off at the local garage, the one I normally use, killing 2 people. The man carrying the grenade and a woman who worked at the garage both died in the explosion. One of the petrol pumps is still peppered with holes, made through quite thick sheet steel, a sombre memorial.
It seems that there were family problems and that the man had somehow obtained the grenade with some deadly purpose against his relations, but that it had gone off accidentally while he was at the garage. The woman was an innocent victim. I knew her a little, we had had several debates during the diesel shortage earlier this year, during which I had tried to persuade her (usually unsuccessfully) to sell me some of her small stock.

Kumbya 3 - is too much choice bad?

One thing that was noticeable at Kumbya was how well the young people and children got on and across gender, age and cultural gaps which would probably have proved a step too far in a western context. We discussed this with an American friend who has been in Rwanda and among missionaries for many years. Her observation was that “missionary kids” were usually very able and willing to relate to a much wider range of people than young people at home.
We speculated if this was due to necessity arising from a lack of choice of friends. (Social isolation is still one of the major problems we and other westerners face in Rwanda). The question then arose as to whether too much choice is actually bad for you. Does it encourage self-indulgence, spending too much time considering what you want? I think I would answer a tentative “yes” to that question. Spending too much time on choice focuses our energies on our personal needs and put simply that just goes against the advice of Jesus about the best way to live.
Being in Rwanda certainly reduces choice in a whole range of areas, from food to friendships to travel. Like all spiritual disciplines, it is difficult at times, but I am coming to realise that as a discipline it can produce spiritual health. Western society is of course full of a myriad of choices and the freedom to choose is fundamental to politics and the economy. I would never recommend actively reducing choice for others, but I wonder how the benefits of “reduced choice” can be realised in at least some areas of life.
As an aside, the “luxury” foods we brought back with us – muesli, dark chocolate and assorted cheeses – are now nearly finished. `I like my freedom of choice as much as anyone!

Kumbya 2 - the swim

One of the Kumbya traditions is a morning swim to a nearby island. It is 2.5km! After a couple of afternoon practices, we decided that we would give it a go, despite the 0600 start : one thing in its favour is that Lake Kivu is an ideal temperature for swimming. On the day, we were both awake in our tent from about 0330, only dozing intermittently after that. Whether this was from anticipation or dread we could not tell.
In glorious dawn light, about 20 of us aged 10-50+ plunged in (the cold air made this easier than in the afternoon) and swam, accompanied by several safety canoes. It took us about 100 minutes, and involved 3 sunrises as the sun appeared and disappeared behind the hills. There were also some enthusiastic but surprised greetings from some local people setting out early in their boats. I’m sure it confirmed any notions they had that they would never understand “bazungu”!
Although the water was not cold, we were glad of the warm clothes sent ahead in the canoes and even more glad of the pancakes waiting for us when we got back to the camp. Like a half-marathon, it was hugely satisfying to have completed it and everyone was a winner, particularly the 10-year-old girl who became the youngest ever to finish and a heroine to her friends.

Kumbya 1 - missionaries

Our first week back in Rwanda was spent at Kumbya, a retreat camp on the shore of Lake Kivu, about 1 hour away from Cyangugu. This is the 60th anniversary of Kumbya Week, which was started on the back of the revival which took place in Rwanda and Uganda in the middle of last century and resulted in a huge expansion of the church. It is for missionaries and Christian ex-pat workers in Rwanda and the surrounding countries. One of the interesting things about it is that there are a large number of denominations, mission groups and nationalities represented although there are only about 70 adults in total. Americans and Brits predominate, but there is a fascinating mix of people of different backgrounds, ages and outlooks.
I have to admit we approached the week with some trepidation, but it has been refreshing, restful and challenging. The small group discussions were particularly interesting, because it gave us a chance to understand some different perspectives on mission in Rwanda.
The people were interesting, too. Our experience of short-term visitors to Cyangugu has not always been positive, but the people we met at Kumbya were sensitive to local culture, almost all learning the language, committed to the good of the country, positive and often making huge sacrifices to be in Rwanda.

Cafouiller

I came across this word by accident in the Collins French Dictionary in the middle of a very difficult first day back in the office. With uncharacteristic French conciseness it sums up my experience of working in Rwanda : “to get into a shambles”. As a Scot I would change “shambles” to “bourrach”. Finding it helped make the transition back to Rwandan pace and style of working a little easier, as if someone understood.

Back in Rwanda

When I started to write a blog, I resolved that I would never make a post on the theme of “I’m back”. I have noticed on other sites that these seem to precede as often as to follow a long period of non-posting.
We are indeed back in Rwanda after a month in the UK with 2 graduations, a wedding and too many social events to recount behind us. We had a wonderful time, even if it was not very relaxing. It has been strange but reassuring to come to Rwanda and to see familiar things and sights. It is so totally different from last year when everything was new.
Our first evening was also a reminder of one of the most appealing aspects of life in Rwanda. We had left our car at the garage in Kigali (not the original plan, but that is a long story). One of the managers from the garage came to meet us from the plane at 930pm on Saturday night. He was in his own car with a relative who was visiting. We were offered dinner, but since we had already eaten we were taken to where our car was parked and helped with the luggage. Nothing was too much trouble. Now, the car was at the garage so long due to someone’s incompetence, but the warmth of the welcome and the personal service were such a lovely way to come back to Rwanda.

Harsh realities

We arrived back in the UK on Wednesday, just as the handover of prime ministers was happening. We spent 3 nights in Sussex as planned and then came back to Scotland on Saturday. 30 minutes after we left Glasgow Airport, 2 men deliberately drove a car apparently laden with gas cylinders into the terminal. It was a reminder of the harsh realities of life in Britain.
Evil manifests itself in all kinds of ways, but hatred of other cultures and the desire to destroy them seems to be one of its most extreme forms. In this respect (motivation), events in the Rwandan genocide and the current campaigns of various terrorist groups are connected.

7 nights, 7 beds

As expected, the preparation for leaving Rwanda for the month of June has been hectic, with the added unexpected work of getting a new accountant started with us in Cyangugu. Today we face a week of changing bed every night : Cyangugu, Kigali, the plane to Brussels, 3 different homes in Sussex and then Scotland. We are hoping not to arrive home exhausted, but the adrenaline of seeing everyone will keep us going and anyway it will be good practice for the wedding at the end of July. This is likely to be even more hectic.

Gold-diggers of Burundi

On the eve of the opening of Bweyeye School and in the middle of the preparations which were well behind schedule, the local government executive decided to take me to see the Burundi border. Admittedly this is only about 1 km away and on the Rwandan side consists of 2 soldiers and a pole across the road. We duly drove across to find that the Burundi side was similar except that there were no soldiers. 2 men without any sign of official status let us through after some discussion about a drink.
Passing through a small trading post, we soon came upon this group of gold diggers. They were very keen for me to see what they were doing and to take photos of them.
The mud was being dug from a hole about 6m deep and then “panned”. This was producing a little gold - I was allowed to hold a piece, which was about the size of a letter "i" on a typical page! The photo indicates that this area is producing few millionaires, as for most gold-mining, I suspect. It turns out that these guys earn about 1000 Frw per day, probably about twice what they could get from digging fields, but it's obviously tough and dangerous work. They had started to tunnel under the road, but there was no sign of any supports or the intention to use them. Another group of people who are cheerfully struggling to make a living in the remore centre of this continent.

The grand opening of Bweyeye School

It’s all over, or at least it nearly is. Bweyeye Primary School was officially opened last Saturday by the local Senator (from the upper house of the Rwandan parliament). This was no small commitment from him - he left Kigali in the dark at 4am for 6 hours’ drive to get to Bweyeye and returned there at the end of the day. The hoped-for television crew did not arrive, but we got some coverage on national radio.
I arrived the day before as part of the advance party to help with last-minute preparations. The pickups were laden with the 600 pairs of shoes, exercise books and pens as gifts for the children and other materials not easily available in Bweyeye. We got there about mid-morning to find a buzz of activity at the school – a shelter being built, cleaning and painting under way, last minute touches to the buildings. No children, however – they were to come at 3pm to collect their new shoes and uniforms.
We were clearly going to be struggling to get everything done before Saturday morning, as everything had been delayed by unseasonal rain, but of course there was not the slightest sign of worry, stress or sense of pressure about this.
This was highlighted by the tailors, who were nowhere near finished the uniforms. They had sewing machines running, charcoal irons going and button-sewers working hard, but the uniforms were piled high in chaotic fashion. Several visits backwards and forwards persuaded them to recruit some extra help, but contingency plans for distributing uniforms in the morning were clearly needed.
By the time we got back after a late lunch the atmosphere at the school was electric and the children charged with adrenaline. They had already been waiting for at least 1 hour for us. The distribution of shoes started well enough, but there were simply not enough uniforms available, it all took longer than we anticipated (of course) and as darkness fell (and being Bweyeye, it was DARK), there were hundreds of children still at school. We sent them home to regroup in the morning.
I managed to surprise a few local people by rising early. It’s very unusual to see a “mzungu” who has spent the night in Bweyeye. At 0630 the potato peelers and chicken pluckers were already hard at work at the back of the pastor’s house, but the uniform sewers had been less productive. Fortunately the guests were late, as expected and so the preparations proceeded reasonably smoothly. We started 1.5 hours late, with about 100 special guests, a few hundred others and about 300 children. They were immaculate in their new uniform and shoes and immaculate in their behaviour, too. It was a proud day for the community.
The event itself was less interesting than the preparations. The preposterous idea that speakers should limit themselves to 5 minutes failed to be implemented, but there was nothing excessive. The star turn was one of the pupils who delivered a speech in heavily accented English which was a model of brevity and directness. The rain threatened but came to very little and we finished about 2 hours behind schedule. Meanwhile the cooks had worked wonders with very limited facilities and the spread was fantastic – over 100 people fed in just over 1 hour.
The day will do wonders for the community, giving an enormous boost to morale for all concerned. The new school, new uniforms and books, visitors from outside are all really important for a place like Bweyeye. There is still lots to do – I chatted to a couple of children who don’t go to school, there is always a shortage of teachers in communities like this and the quality of education and school management give cause for concern. Nevertheless, it was one of those days when it is a real privilege to be working in Rwanda.

God's day

Yesterday we worked in the garden instead of going to church. It had been a long week with a lot of travelling and we needed some exercise. The children who live next door came to visit at one point and Mukeshimana gently took me to task for “working on God’s day”. She is about 15, in primary 7 and is also responsible for cooking for 8 people in the household. She has a very charming smile and not very good English, but she has definite ideas about not working on Sundays.
The type of work is important – she was going to cook that day, “because I have a stomach”. Cooking is “soft work”, but digging is hard work. I didn’t ask, but presumably the school meeting which Sheena had been asked to attend in the afternoon was no work at all!
It’s not about going to church – she was not there either.
When I asked if every day was God’s day, she agreed, but she was very definite about not digging. In general this is not a very sabbatarian society : many of the kiosks open on Sunday afternoon and there are a lot of meetings scheduled. It seems that the tradition of not working the land on Sundays is quite well-established, however.

1km of fabric, 700 pairs of shoes

In the 10 months since we came to Rwanda, the diocese has been building a primary school in Bweyeye. This is funded by the “Telegraph” Christmas Appeal of 2005, where Bweyeye was heavily featured as one of the target communities. It has been part of my work here to supervise the building and in the process of regular visits I have got to know the community and the people there a little. This is not easy : the route involves 1 hour on pot-holed tarmac roads followed by 2 hours on a rough track down through the forest to near the Burundi border. No electricity, running water or phone signal, of course.
The official opening is now approaching and excitement is mounting. A very generous personal sponsor in the UK has offered to buy uniforms for the 700 children there. On our last visit we took 1km of fabric for the tailors of Bweyeye to work with. A quick survey of one class of 45 showed 5 children with shoes and the same number with any semblance of uniform. This is a very poor community. Tomorrow the advance party leaves with 4 huge sacks containing the 700 pairs of plastic shoes. We also have exercise books, pens, pencils and slates for all the kids in the school. We will sleep in Bweyeye, an adventure in itself, at least for me.
The Minister of Education has been invited to the meeting, along with Rwandan TV and about 100 other guests. No-one has any clear idea of how many of these will turn up, but the food budget should be adequate for all eventualities – 60kg of beef, 20 chickens, 50kg of rice, 50kg of potatoes and 10 hands of matoke, washed down by 1000 bottles of Fanta. It’s going to be quite a party! However, the significance for a community like Bweyeye is huge.

The weight of poverty

Today I spent 2 hours walking around the island of Nkombo, with some visitors from Kigali. Nkombo magnifies all the problems of Rwanda : overpopulation, soil erosion and poor agricultural practice, inadequate housing, limited education and health care, poor hygiene for the children. There is no electricity or running water on the island, which has nearly 20,000 inhabitants. Without fishing, people would be starving. There are children in rags everywhere.
Nkombo is not unique by any means : several of the parishes in the diocese are similar in the standard of living. However, it was one of those days when the extent and depth of poverty here weighed heavily on me, as it sometimes does.

The Message gives Romans 12:8 as “if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated by them or depressed by them.” It’s good advice, but can be hard to follow. Two things help : the usual cheerfulness and friendliness of Rwandans even in desperate poverty and the evidence everywhere that faith in God is strong and a real help in hardship.

Cuddly toy

Our day guard, Modeste, has been seriously ill with malaria. I went to visit him : his house is several kilometres away. When we came out, there was the inevitable group of children waiting and looking at me. One seemed to have a cuddly toy in his hands – strange, because they were barefoot and in rags, like most of the children in that area.
A closer look revealed that the cuddly toy was actually a dead mole.

Strawberries

Strawberries are grown in Butare and made into jam there, too, but they are not common elsewhere in Rwanda. On our last visit to Kigali, we bought a small pail of them. After 3 hours in the car back to Cyangugu, they were much the worse for wear. Naphthali, our 10-year-old neighbour, came in to see us when I was “husking” them. When I asked if he liked strawberries, he answered with one of those memorable phrases only those who do not have English as their first language can produce :
“What is the meaning of a strawberry?”
After tasting one, of course, this question became completely irrelevant.

Mystery solved

It is perhaps a sign that I am becoming Africanised that I first tried to solve the mystery of the inzibyi by asking people. Not much progress there - people knew of it, some had even seen one, but no-one could identify it exactly.
Of course, even children (or perhaps especially children) in the UK would have looked at the internet first. Sure enough, there is more information than you could possibly imagine or want about Lutra maculicollis, the small spotted-necked otter or inzibyi. Numerous photos are available too. Strangely, however, the top hit in Google is now this blog wondering what an inzibyi is!
Among the articles is an academic study of the distribution of inzibyi in the lakes of Rwanda. It was carried out in 1990, a sign and reminder of what a different country this was before the genocide.

The mysterious "inzibyi"

We were talking to a young Rwandan friend last night. He has often ben out fishing for sambaza, small sardine-like fish which are very popular in the market here. They are attracted by lights and then caught in nets. The presence of dozens of fishing boats in a small area of lake gives it quite a magical quality most nights.
In the course of the conversation, he mentioned that they also sometimes caught an animal in their nets - the "inzibyi", English / French / Swahili names unknown. This was described as :

about 20-30cm long
black, with a large mouth
like a small pig - an animal with legs, not a fish
capable of biting people
not eaten by humans, but given to dogs to eat

I am intrigued and have no idea what this creature is, although its description and name was confirmed by several others in the company. Suggestions welcome, I am going to try to find out.

Breaking the fast

This is how our last week-end in Kigali felt. It is now 6 weeks since we ventured out from beyond the forest and we have had virtually no ex-pat company in that time.
The week-end was luxurious in that regard - meeting some new people, hillwalking in the mist and rain with Scottish friends and collecting another friend from the airport to bring him to Cyangugu for 10 days. In all this, it is the chat that is important, both the serious and light-hearted. While we are here in Cyangugu we don't often "miss" people from our own culture, but when we get quality time with friends, it is just wonderful.

Two approaches

"Paying taxes builds the nation" declares a billboard in Kigali (in French), appealing to ther nobler sentiments of taxpayers.

"Pay your taxes on time to avoid penalties" says another, using a more pragmatic approach to tackle the problem.

The secret shortage

I first heard about the shortage of diesel in East Africa in an email from the UK. Apparently the problem is a broken pipe near Mombasa. There was no sign of any problem in Kamembe until last week, when suddenly only one of the seven garages had any supplies. When I asked about this, I was told that the shortage extended as far as Kampala and Nairobi. There is plenty of petrol and paraffin, but diesel is hard to find.
However, a search of the “New Times” website reveals nothing and there has been no news on the radio about this problem.
The approach to such things is so different at home, where there would be news bulletins and rumours abounding. I still remember the huge queue of cars which appeared at the garage outside my office window just 2 hours after (untrue) stories of an impending petrol shortage were broadcast on the morning news. It illustrates the different attitude of the public, accepting that such things will inevitably happen and also the tight control that there is over the news.

Plastic bags and other rubbish

If you wanted to give an example of a draconian measure, you need go no further than this :

“Article 104 of the Environment law bans the importation, production, storage, use, sale and distribution of polythene bags. According to the law, anyone found in possession of a polythene bag may be sentenced to one to five years’ imprisonment or a fine ranging from five million to 50 million francs.”

You can see the original article on the New Times website. Of course this law is not implemented as it is stated here, although it is true that plastic bags acre confiscated from passengers arriving at Kigali Airport.

The shop where we buy bread has most of the loaves and rolls in plastic bags. When I ask about this, people believe that there are different kinds of plastic bags, only some of which are affected. This may well be true, although I haven’t managed to confirm it yet, but the use of plastic for packaging is certainly reasonably common. What is interesting is that Rwanda is very largely clear of the littering by plastic bags which characterises some other African countries and which led to the passing of this law.

There is a wider issue about packaging and about waste disposal generally which the country needs to deal with and quite urgently. Virtually all manufactured goods are imported and the number of goods which are overpackaged western-style will definitely increase. The modern supermarkets in Kigali are already producing a lot of packaging waste and it will need more than a draconian law against polythene bags to ensure that there is infrastructure in place to deal withy this.

The week in brief

Sunday – In church, an announcement is made asking the congregation NOT to take change from the offering basket.
One family brings their new baby to give thanks for her surviving 5 days in intensive care shortly after birth. It’s a reminder of the difference health care can make, but the infant mortality figures here are still frightening.

Monday – our normally reliable MTN internet connection, via the mobile phone fails.
It’s goat day at the refugee camp at Bugarama, 50 goats to give out from our Christmas appeal. Chantal, the Social Worker, has it well organised, but inevitably there are some unhappy people who feel hard done by. In the end, though, we manage to get the job done. For the people living here, this is a drop in the ocean, but the local official with us says that the government will complete the house-building we and other churches have started. A very encouraging sign of how churches can lead the way despite very limited resources.

Tuesday – we usually meet with a group of Rwandan friends after work for a Fanta : the English club, as we reluctantly call it. Tonight we invited a new acquaintance, the friend of a friend, but the atmosphere changed noticeably when he arrived. One of our friends explained that they needed to get to know him first before they would feel comfortable in a group like that (we meet in a pub). This society is still very divided and distrustful.

Wednesday – the ufucu (mole) lives! The mole traps in our garden were dismantled (empty) ages ago, but today there were 4 large molehills on the grass. I’m quite glad – Wikipedia confirms my suspicions that moles are carnivores, but our neighbours stick to their convictions that the moles will eat the sweet potatoes and other plants.

Thursday – I gain a new respect for Rwandan wildlife when we see a 2-metre snake on the road while we are on our way to Nyarusange. It’s only the second one we have seen here and it’s 5 times as long as the first, which was dead. The live one is quite a scary sight. Instinctively, I drive round it – it’s only afterwards that I remember an episode story from the “Lady Detective Agency” series where a snake gets caught in the engine of a car.

Friday – an email from MTN suggests the oldest IT trick – turn the phone off and then back on. The internet connection is duly restored.
Dinner at the “pork restaurant” with a friend – the menu consists of pork and matoke (savoury banana), but at £5 for the three of us, including 1 kg of fresh pork to take home, we can put up with the lack of choice every so often.

Saturday – I’m cooking dinner for the first time since Sheena came back from Scotland and attempt stovies using matoke. Unfortunately the matoke has ripened since we were given it on Tuesday and the stovies turn out really quite sweet and not very pleasant. Next time I’ll use a recipe.

Murambi

There was a warm, gentle breeze blowing when we arrived at Murambi Genocide Memorial Site. It’s just 2km from the main road and despite the group of people working at the entrance, it was very quiet and peaceful.

At the front door we were directed by a young man past the main building to a set of terraced brick buildings. He opened the door to the first one : inside were wooden benches piled high with preserved human remains, not much more than skeletons, covered with white powder. Someone had left a bouquet of flowers, now withered. The second and third doors revealed the same. It was only in the third room, where there were some larger bodies, that I realised that most of the remains were of children. There were obvious signs of damage on many bodies – holes in skulls, broken limbs. Murambi was built as a school but never used and has more than 20 such rooms. Between 40,000 and 50,000 people were killed here in the space of a few short days in 1994. They had gathered to seek protection from the killing which was going on around them.

For me, as I suspect most westerners, the only appropriate response in such surroundings is silence, or perhaps a few words in a hushed voice, but we were joined by one of the handful of people who survived the massacre. He now works at Murambi, telling his story to visitors. He has a dent in his head where the bullet entered. I have to admit I found his talking intrusive and distracting, but it did provide the only information on the events at Murambi. The memorial is stark in its simplicity and its portrayal of the extent of the genocide.

A large shed has several ropes on which hang the blood-stained clothes taken from the victims. On our way back to the car we were shown a large hole which served as the mass grave. Most of the remains had been exhumed form here. We signed the visitors’ book and left. It was about another 20 minutes before we spoke.

Rwandan story - never been to school

S has never been to school. She is in her thirties now, so this was in the 1970s. Her mother died when she was young and her stepmother did not think it was important for girls to go to school. This would have been well before universal primary education was available in Rwanda, anyway.
Now S is married with 6 children and is a lady of great enterprise and considerable artistic flair. She is learning English, she cleans houses, she takes on sizeable painting and gardening jobs, providing employment for other people as well. It is still a struggle to make ends meet, because these jobs are intermittent and her husband works as a guard, which provides a regular but small wage.

Rwandan story - the family split

One family fled Rwanda as the RPF approached at the end of the 100 days. After some time in the Congo, they decided to return, except for the father who was frightened and one of the brothers, who had got a job.
When war came to the Congo, the brother was killed in cold blood along with some priests. The family was told this by someone who buried the bodies. The father fled into the jungle : he has not been heard of since. The split in the family became permanent.
One of the dilemmas for families like this is that Genocide Memorial Week is about victims of the genocide, not those who died in the war in the Congo in the years shortly afterwards (some say that the numbers are about the same). They can therefore feel excluded from the events.

Another brother of the family has recently been sentenced by the gacaca court for minor crimes. His wife and 2 young children are dependent on the rest of the family for support.

Rwandan story - the walk to Angola

I have a friend here whose family fled Rwanda at the approach of the RPF at the end of the genocide. With many others, they went into the Congo as refugees and kept walking to escape the RPF soldiers. They eventually ended up walking to Angola. With no prospect of settling there, they started to return and were eventually repatriated from Lubumbashi in the Congo by UNHCR.
Now my friend’s father is in prison, expecting to die there. The family visits him every week.

Rwandan story - caring for the genocidaires

R lost many members of his family during the genocide. He told me his own story some time ago a- I remember that he spent about 3 weeks hiding in the forest before he was able to escape to Congo.
R now does a lot of voluntary work with prisoners. He visits Cyangugu Prison regularly to preach and to give pastoral care and to prepare them for release. Among those there must be those who are responsible for the deaths of his family members.

Rwandan story - escape on a motor bike

A is a Hutu married to a Tutsi woman. During the genocide she managed to escape from the country. While he was in Rwanda the Interahamwe came for his motor bike. There was one night of a very close call when he was imprisoned and threatened with death because he had hidden it. Eventually he too escaped to Burundi.
At the end of the genocide they were living in Cyangugu. They have clear memories of being hungry and watching the UNHCR food convoys driving past them and into the Congo where food was given out in the refugee camps. It is well known that many of the camps were full of people responsible for the genocide.
A and his wife braved some dangerous times in Cyangugu after the genocide to bring help to people living here.

Genocide Memorial Week

Saturday 7th April marks the start of Genocide memorial week. This year is the 13th anniversary of the terrible events. It’s not clear yet exactly what is happening – even a phone call from the bishop to the mayor failed to produce a programme, only a promise that it would be delivered to the office on Friday.

It is clear what will NOT be happening and that is anything which involves celebrations. Churches have cancelled baptisms and confirmations. This is not so much for the events themselves, but more for the parties which would normally follow. Even Easter Sunday will, I think, be different because of this.

It was indeed “one of those days” in the usual sense, but it was also one of those days which contained so many of the things which epitomise life here, that it is worth recording. In later years, when I wonder “what did I do while I was in Rwanda?”, I will re-read this.
===============
The plan was simple enough – to take Sheena to the farm and then to go to the office. However, the previous evening our electricity suppliers and nemesis Electrogaz arrived without warning or invitation to change our meter to “cashpower”, a pay-as-you-go system they are introducing. We had to hurry round to their offices just before closing time to buy some credit, managing not to get too riled by the cashier asking us why we had come so late.
We arrived home, entered the numbers from the credit card only to be rewarded with an error message. Repeated attempts produced the same result and it was apparent that the 5kWhr Electrogaz had left us would expire some time during the night despite our best efforts at conservation (security lighting is a must).

A visitor staying with us attracted some other visitors at breakfast time, so it was 10am before I arrived at the Electrogaz offices. To their credit, they produced 2 technicians quite quickly, but no vehicle : I was expected to give them a lift to the house. Once there, Some 10 minutes of fiddling only produced the conclusion that we needed to return to the office to see the boss.
Naively, I stayed in the car expecting a quick turn-around, but after 15 minutes decided that the 2 needed some follow-up. I found them in a queue in the boss’ office, which took a further 20 minutes to be dealt with and concluded with us returning to the house, this time with 4 Electrogaz employees. Fortunately by now my sense of the ridiculous was engaged and I had renounced any hope of productive work that morning, feeling grateful once again for my earlier decision to postpone management training from the afternoon. This would have caused me severe stress in the current circumstances.
Our “work party” attracted a group of 5 kids from next door, plus our guard and a young man who sells crafts nearby. Fortunately, we have steps beside the meter, so everyone was able to get a good view, although there was more talk than action.
While the Electrogaz team was failing to repair the meter and then was putting the old one back, Modeste, our guard, approached me with Derek from next door as interpreter, to ask if he could chase the mice from the garden. “Not mice, exactly, they live in the ground and eat the sweet potatoes”. Moles (ifucu, in Kinyarwanda). Having agreed that they could do this, I took the Electrogaz team back to the office with electricity restored but the cashpower machine still broken.

After a morning of meagre achievement, there was a sudden burst of fruitful activity in the afternoon : a meeting at the dispensary to discuss the way forward with our AIDS Project, combined with a progress review on my severely septic finger; a discussion with the bishop on welfare policy; afternoon prayers for Holy Week.

Back home the mole catching was creating much activity and hope : traps, consisting of deep holes, wires and springy sticks were being dug. “Bring back the moles”, I thought, “they made a lot less mess of the garden than these traps”. Sheena was more concerned about being the first to find a dead mole in a trap and made Derek promise to check them early in the morning.

That evening our neighbour called in to check on my finger and also to talk about the UK team he currently has here working with children and using puppets to tell parables and gospel stories. The school holidays mean that the children of the family who are studying in Kigali are home, bringing a couple of friends, so it is 4 to a bed and more mouths to feed than I can easily count. His wife, also studying in Kigali, is coming home for Easter week-end and the 8 from the UK team have also been invited for Sunday lunch after a visit to the prison. This is African hospitality in action.

This is absolutely true

Yesterday morning we met our friend Richard on the way to a meeting. He explained that he had some urgent business to attend to before he could go. The diocese has a house it has refurbished and some people are being paid to landscape it, to dig over and plant the ground in the garden and also outside the wall.

Richard had had a call from the Executive Secretary, who is responsible for the whole district of Kamembe. Apparently our gardeners had committed the cardinal sin of planting potatoes outside the wall instead of flowers. This had to be undone by 10am that morning, otherwise the “local guards”, a uniformed (and armed) type of local police, would be sent round to dig up the offending potatoes.

Sometimes in April

Some weeks before coming to Rwanda, we watched “Hotel Rwanda” with friends. I have just watched “Sometimes in April”, an American film with an African director, which predates “Hotel Rwanda”. I don’t know whether it is me that has changed (or got “new eyes”!), but “SiA” seemed to me to give a much better insight into the events of 1994.

It follows a family split by the genocide : 2 Hutu brothers, 1 working for the “hate radio” station, the other an army officer married to a Tutsi woman. By showing real characters on both sides it brings some real illumination of the psychology of the genocide – hate, fear and grief in huge measures. Highly recommended, although of course it’s not easy viewing.

Machetes

Despite being here for over 6 months, I have not yet got used to seeing machetes everywhere. Children and even prisoners carry them about in public in a way that would get you turned into a prisoner if you did it in the UK. The machete is also a powerful symbol of the genocide : many people were killed with them and the provision of new machetes to the militias is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for pre-planning of the events of 1994 (shown in both “Hotel Rwanda” and “Sometimes in April”).
We had a couple of men working on the garden recently and they were using a machete to prune trees. The dull thud of the metal on the wood was quite disturbing - even a sharp machete would not bring a quick death. The killings and mutilations of 1994 were described as “work” and with some reason, although it’s a horrible euphemism.

People here witnessed machete attacks, encouraged them, fled from them, survived them and carried them out. It’s hard to understand why they don’t appear to create the same uneasiness in Rwandans as they do in me.

May the almighty Allah

“May the almighty Allah bless Saddam Hussein”. So ran the caption on a laminated wall calendar on sale outside the market today. The calendar was covered with photos of Saddam – at prayer against the Americans, at a birthday party, with his troops, at his capture, with the noose around his neck moments before death and finally of his body thrown in the back of a pick-up. There was quite a pile of these calendars available.

This doesn’t mean that Cyangugu has seen an outbreak of radical Islam, although the very idea of having this on the wall completely boggles my mind. In his very limited selection, the vendor also had Manchester United calendars (unofficial, of course). Nevertheless, it gives pause for thought about how others perceive the world.

A guide to estimation in Rwanda

There are always more people than you thought (especially when giving lifts)
It always takes longer than you thought
The meeting always starts later than you thought possible
It is always further than you have been told

Under the coffee trees

It was a baking hot morning, so I was glad that the coffee plantation was not too far from where we had left the car, on a narrow path high in the hills above Lake Kivu. This is a major coffee-growing area of Rwanda and we had come to discuss the purchase of a small plot for the Youth Association of the parish. As custom dictates, we sat on the ground in the shade of the trees and discussed the proposal, joined by a small group of children and openly eavesdropped by a few adults who had been working on their own patches of land. The idea of a private discussion in the open air is not understood!
We are developing a scheme whereby Youth Associations are given money to purchase small plots of land which they can work as a cooperative. The deal is that 25% of the first crop is given back, so that we can eventually become independent of the western donors who are currently funding this. As well as providing a small income for the members, the cooperative also encourages working together, enterprise and generosity (10% of the income is given away). It’s been an encouraging start. For just a few hundred pounds the lives of these young adults can be significantly improved and this group seem well able to rise to the challenge.
Even to my untrained eye, the coffee trees were obviously not well cared for and the harvest, due in 2-3 months will be poor. Before we left, we prayed under the coffee trees and there was a real sense that this group will do their best to ensure that the harvest in 2008 is significantly better.

When praying is easy

Visitors to churches here have no chance of sneaking in to the back row unobserved, as they might do in the UK. Every service we have been to has a time for welcoming visitors, when they have to stand up so that the whole congregation can see them. Inevitably when we are visiting we have to introduce ourselves as well.
A couple of weeks ago at the cathedral, now our home church, one lady was introduced as being from the very north of Rwanda, several hours’ journey away. It was reported that she had recently lost her husband and was left with 8 children. The congregation was asked to pray for her.
Afterwards, we met our friend Kenneth, the Ugandan head of the local primary school. He introduced us to a 7-year-old boy who was going to be living with him. Kenneth is single and shares his house with a fellow teacher. It turned out that this was one of the sons of the widow we had prayed for earlier. Her husband had been a good friend of Kenneth and had asked him to look after the boy when he died. The reason for her visit to Cyangugu was to bring her son to Kenneth and he has now settled in to living here.
This kind of situation is not uncommon here and it illustrates the very different nature of family life. It also reminds me that sometimes praying is a lot easier than acting.

The Queen Saloon

This may sound like an English pub, but it is in fact the place where I get my hair cut and in so doing provide entertainment for the local passers-by. It’s better now that they have moved to a first-floor building, but my arrival is still an event of some note.
My haircut was long overdue, because of various dressings on my neck, but I went on Saturday. Apart from the small kiosks which sell the common foodstuffs, hairdressers are easily the most common business in Kamembe. The price list is interesting – it starts with “Abagabo” (men) for 300 Frw (less than 30p) and at the bottom is “Umuzungu” (me) – 2000 Frw. However, I have managed to negotiate a special rate of 1000 Frw (“Umushitsi oya – I am not a tourist”), reminding myself that it is 1/6th of what I pay at home and is of better quality. The warm welcome makes it easy to ignore the apparently racist prices, although people I have talked to here genuinely believe that mzungu hair is harder to cut, even though mine only requires a run over the head with a razor.

Rwandan stories

The events of 1994 and immediately afterwards have produced many tragic stories, but also some remarkable stories of heroism, endurance and survival. We have heard a few of these from friends and others. Sometimes it is hard to believe that people who are living quite normal and ordinary lives now have endured such hardship and lived through such traumatic events.
Nevertheless, this is the background to life in Rwanda : people are still living with the consequences of the genocide. This affects hearts and minds, the way people think and feel about life, but it also affects the shape of people’s lives, how they live day by day. It’s important to be regularly reminded of this.

Baboons

We were coming through the forest recently when we came across a small family of baboons on the road. They ran away, but not very far and this one conveniently sat in a tree only about 25 metres away as if to pose for some photos. Quite a large creature and the alarm calls were certainly scary! Whetted my appetite for a possible gorilla visit at some point in the future.

Legal at last

We finally have our visas! We should have got these before the end of 3 months in Rwanda, i.e. November, but due to a lack of understanding on both our part and the diocese, we were late. The process finally got started in December and has involved at least 6 visits to the visa office in Kigali and a similar number to the Episcopal Province Office. It’s very wearing and especially difficult because we are so far away from Kigali.

Our visa situation is not unusual – during our last visit we met a British vet who was still trying to get the necessary paperwork after 4 months here and a young German girl who had just got her visa in time to go home after nearly 1 year in Rwanda. No-one seems to particularly mind people being here and working : it is only when you want to leave the country that a valid visa becomes important.

"Bleeding is good"

About 3 weeks ago a small bite on my neck started to go septic and eventually turned into a boil which, despite a course of antibiotics, ulcerated. Not a pretty sight, although it was not causing me pain. This is how I came to be lying on a couch at King Faisal Hospital in Kigali, my face covered with surgical cloths, listening to the doctor explain what he was doing. I started out at Casualty and worked my way up the seniority ladder to the duty surgeon, as each one wanted someone else to look at it.
By now both the application of local anaesthetic and the treatment of cleaning out pus were most definitely causing me pain, but apparently “bleeding is good”, I was told, because it indicates live instead of necrotic tissue. This is more difficult to believe when the blood is coming from your neck!
The wound is now clean, I am on new antibiotics and I believe well on my way to recovery. I am also sporting a huge, completely outsize plaster on my neck which has attracted a lot of stares and a few direct questions while I have been in Kigali. “Bandits?” was one theory posed for my wound. Asking personal questions of complete strangers on the street is much more acceptable here than it is in Europe.
I have nothing but praise for the medical care at King Faisal Hospital and by western standards it is fairly cheap. The administrative procedures leave something to be desired : they took a lot longer than the medical ones, but in general it seems well run.

Before I came here people said I would need to get to understand Bishop Geoffrey. He had a major operation on his neck last year, perhaps this is a small way of me identifying with him!??

Meditation at the road-side

I’ve spent too much time in the last few weeks standing at the side of the road. It’s a natural hazard of driving here that there will be breakdowns, because despite the strength of the Toyota Hilux pickup, it gets some fairly rough treatment and a very constant shaking even on “good” roads. Some of the roadside waiting is at our local garage, which often does repairs in the open air. In December I held an umbrella over the young mechanic while he changed the brake pads during a downpour.
Reflecting back over that month, we have been very fortunate in the location of these breakdowns. In Uganda, a wheel actually fell off, but at very low speed and in front of a hospital near our friends’ house and within easy reach of a garage with a strong tow truck and welding capability. Another time a trip to Kigali was thwarted by 3 simultaneous problems, but all before we left Kamembe town. We were able to get a replacement vehicle on that occasion. Finally, we had a fan belt problem on our way home one night, but managed to limp to a nearby trading station and get some wire and temporary repairs.

I’m reluctant to use the word “miracle” in this context, although the first breakdown in particular felt like that. We travel quite long distances, sometimes through remote forests without a phone signal, yet all our breakdowns have been easily resolved. It reminds me of God’s constant and detailed care for us, of the faithful support of a praying community, of how privileged we are and of the mystery of faith.
I can't answer the question why our breakdowns have been "fortunate" in the middle of a country which has all kinds of physical, emotional and spiritual suffering. Even for me to ask it at this point seems like an intrusion into something holy. I sense a change here - sometimes intellectual questions like that which can seem so important at home become much less important in context here.