Blog taboo

It occurs to me that the one major taboo for blogs like this one is local danger. It doesn’t feel right to cause anxiety to family and friends by describing local hazards. Sometimes imagination can run wild and it is better not to know the details of events which can act as a starter’s gun for that imagination. I still remember receiving our first letter from our daughter Clare when she was on a gap-year in Malawi. Enclosed was a photo of a 4-foot snake which had been killed in the compound around her house.
In that spirit, here is the story of a crime which is the talk of Kamembe. A woman was found murdered and decapitated in her house at the week-end, with a 2-month old baby. Such a horrific murder of course caused a great deal of alarm. 2 days later, suspects have been arrested and it is alleged that the husband arranged for the murder of his wife, paying about £100 for this. The case is likely to come to trial very quickly.
It’s a window into a very dark part of Rwandan life. I must emphasise that this is not a dangerous or crime-ridden society and people do not get attacked at random. As at home, murders are most usually committed by family members. However, there are people around who hold human life very lightly and you can only wonder if that is a remaining product of the genocide.

Business update - dividend paid!

My young “business partner”, Eugene, visited yesterday with my dividend from our joint venture : 1,500 Frw (£1.50), as agreed. He has sold all of his flour and he was sporting a new pair of shoes. All very encouraging.
There was also a request, to help him buy soap. It seems that it is difficult to obtain in his village and that customers had asked him to sell it. I duly parted with 4,000 Frw, explaining that this had now freed Eugene from the need to come and ask me for money in the future. We shall see…..

Muesli & dependency

The main “treat” which we ask visitors to bring with them is muesli. Our usual breakfast diet of fruit salad and bread benefits from a little variety and it is certainly not possible to buy muesli in Kamembe. Mostly, we make it last by having small portions and by only eating it every second day.
The last packet we received was about 2 weeks ago and we realised that we have been eating it every morning. We wondered recently if it is a sign that we are adopting a more African approach – “use it today, let tomorrow take care of itself”. Sheena disagreed – we have another friend coming from the UK early in May and our supply can be refreshed then. This of course confirms our enculturation : now we have developed a dependency on the west for muesli-aid and are looking forward to the next consignment brought by a “mzungu”!

This is not simply a story about our breakfast diet, of course. It’s true that at one level we are dependent on western visitors, but only when you look at the material world. As far as I can recall, none of the visitors to the Diocese of Cyangugu in our time here have failed to be impressed with the welcome and hospitality they have received from everyone and many have commented on how much they have gained during their visit. There is indeed a 2-way exchange going on, not simply a 1-way flow of goods and at a personal level it is wrong to too quickly assume that there is dependency. What we have to offer here, however, are different cultural values, life experiences and wisdom gained by people who constantly live close to the edge and who have suffering as a frequent visitor.

CMS Conference

We had an inspiring and refreshing time last week-end at the Mid-Africa CMS Conference. The main part of the content was an explanation of the recent and planned changes in the organisation and ethos of CMS. Not so relevant for us – we have been quite isolated down in Cyangugu and so do not really understand too much of the history and obviously as our time in Africa is now quite limited the future will not affect us much, either. However, Dennis Tongoi, the new General secretary of the new CMS Africa was very perceptive and inspiring and Tim Dakin, who leads CMS UK did a good job of explaining the rationale behind what is happening and communicating vision for the future.
Most interesting for us was the mission work CMS is doing in the UK, with “fresh expressions” of church to meet a rapidly changing faith environment. The recent experience of our home church back in Scotland has shown how many parts of the church hierarchy are quite unable to understand or accept anything that is out of the ordinary. We were excited by our conversations with Chris Neal and look forward to finding out more about CMS in the UK when we get back there.
All this was in the setting of a retreat centre in a beautiful location at the side of Lake Muhazi. It’s a strangely-shaped lake in the middle/east of Rwanda – mostly less than 1km wide, but at least 40km long. Excellent food, friendly staff and a chance to meet regional CMS staff and others working in this part of Africa : the 15-km drive along a muddy road was worth it! Worship and prayers in English were a great blessing, too.

Church is cancelled

Last Sunday marked the end of the annual week of mourning for the genocide. It began with a public holiday on the Monday : there were meetings throughout the country with speeches and the interment of remains. Each day thereafter businesses closed at 2pm, although we were surprised to arrive in Kigali on Friday afternoon to find everything open.
On Sunday, all church services in the country were cancelled so that the population could attend ceremonies to mark the end of the week. As usual, this was announced at very short notice (Saturday night).
Even on Wednesday, the day we left Kigali, the “New Times” was full of stories about Genocide Memorial Week. There was also a full page of diatribe against Paul Rusesabagina, on whom the story of “Hotel Rwanda” is based, but who is decidedly persona non grata with the government here and therefore also with “New Times”.

Comment on these various aspects of the week can wait for another time, but it certainly leaves us in no doubt that the genocide and its repercussions are still very much shaping the consciousness and the public life of this country.

A strange conversation with the traffic police

Traffic police are very common on the main roads and it is not unusual to be stopped. Long conversations are unusual, however : the normal routine is to check documents and sometimes less than that. Last week, however, I got into a much longer and deeper conversation, rather against my will. The tone was friendly throughout and on reflection it was a very revealing insight into how an ordinary Rwandan sees the "big issues" in the wider Anglican church.

TP : Where are you going?
Me : Kigali
TP : What are you going to do in Kigali? (this was already more detail than anyone usually asks)
Me : We are going to a conference
TP : What kind of conference?
Me : It is a conference for missionaries (hoping this will mean an end to the conversation)
TP : Oh, are you a pastor? (the usual question which follows)
Me : No, I am a projects manager
TP : With the Pentecostal Church?
Me : No, with the Anglican church
TP : You have just changed your name, haven't you?
Me : Yes, we were the Episcopal church and now we are the Anglican church. (by this time I am regretting letting on I can speak French)
TP : That was because of problems with homosexuality.
Me : Oh, that is a matter for the bishops (this is very deep water now and I don't want to be in it!)
TP : That's what I heard on the radio
Me : Well, we must be going

I hope he does not really mean that

The underlined passage is quite chilling; much of the rest is just incomprehensible. Perhaps it is just a case of excessive enthusiasm for education and a naive and simplistic belief that it is the solution to the majority of the country's ills. As genocide memorial week begins here, it is not good see anyone being described as "not fully a person". Dehumanising others was, of course, one of the devices used in 1994.

From the “New Times” website : full link

“Modernization of education sector can boost the economic growth of the nation” - by Joseph kamugisha

The government of Rwanda is fully focused on human resource development through use of the education sector. Many schools, technical institutes and universities have been built to accommodate and educate high numbers of Rwandese people. Restructuring of the education system has seen the levels of illiteracy drop from 60 per cent to a smaller per cent and the country target to have at least over 80 percent of its citizens literate. Many teachers, doctors, Engineers, economists, agriculture experts and others to mention but a few has been produced ever since after the 1994.
…….

It can be noticed that the spread of literacy through schools stems from organization level and ideological processes used by implementers of the education system in the country. Also any economic output of school expansion should be effected and studied at an aggregate level. This is because economic effects may be more related to the changing social rules of trade and work within modernizing economies, which are increasingly oriented around markets and mass production and not village based subsistence.

It can also be observed that aggregate analysis of education avoids the ecological fallacy of estimating nation level productivity growth from individual level correlations between school attainment and wage levels. In countries where there are no modulators or active implementers of the education system, investments in the education sector have either small or inconsistent economic effects. The potential effect of educational quality that also includes literacy levels from the effect of the quantity of schools available and to disentangle possible effects among different economic sectors.

Education has an immense impact on the human society. One can safely assume that a person is not in the proper sense until he or she attains a certain level of education. Education trains the human mind to think and take the right decision. In other words, man becomes a rational animal when he is educated.

It is through education that knowledge and information is received and spread throughout the world. An uneducated person cannot read and write and hence he is closed to all the knowledge and wisdom he can gain through books and other mediums. In other, words he is also shut off from the outside world and on contrary an educated man lives in a room with all its windows open towards outside world.
(continues)

Synod

There was never much chance that Presbyterians like us would understand their first Anglican synod, especially in a foreign language. It started at 7pm, after dinner, with apparently only one purpose, to ratify the change of name from Eglise Episcopale to Eglise Anglicane (my favourite comment from the floor – “This is a good idea, I could never pronounce Episcopale anyway”!!). Since the archbishop, house of bishops and provincial synod had already approved the name, it was never going to produce a heated debate.
At 1020, the bishop started his closing speech. This got interrupted and we took the chance to leave assuming it was nearly over. We found out the next morning that it found a new lease of life and went on till midnight – it was 0130 before some people got to bed.
No more complaints about long church meetings when we go home!

Teacher training, government style

Two of the English teachers who were to lead the training course during these 2 weeks came to Rwanda anyway to understand the country better. Yesterday they went on a chimp trek, setting off at 0500. As they left Kamembe, they were horrified to pass the Rwandan teachers who were on the government training. In the half-light before dawn, they were in groups of about 10, each accompanied by an armed soldier and jogging to the pace of an army chant.

Holidays cancelled

Since last October, we have been preparing for a group of English teachers to come to Cyangugu and to hold a 10-day training course for over 100 of the teachers in diocesan schools. We have been hoping for many benefits from this – improvement in teaching methods, improved use of visual and practical aids, building relationships among our teachers. A very generous donor in the UK funded it : flights, £5000 of materials and the costs of accommodation and transport.
One of our concerns all along has been that something else would crop up, so even last year we went to the district education office to share our plans. They were enthusiastic. On Wednesday, 2 days before the end of term and 3 days before the arrival of the English teachers, we learned that the government is taking ALL teachers for a residential training course from 1-18 April. Many of the teachers learned this officially on Friday 28th March. The topic is genocide ideology and there are to be no exceptions – anyone missing it is to be punished. The government is taking this very seriously (see the earlier post on burning books). The previous education minister probably lost her job because it was felt that “genocide ideology” was not being tackled vigorously enough. A secondary school about 50km from here was closed for the last 2 weeks of term following an inspection of their performance in this.
The teachers do not have long to prepare and childcare will be a problem for several that we know. It is being accepted in the usual resigned way, although we know that many are very disappointed to be missing our course and feel that the topic of genocide ideology has already been more than thoroughly covered.
Of course our plans are in ruins. The flights are changeable, but the “advance party” has already arrived and we have spent a lot of time and money in preparation both here and in England. We also now have a large hole in our plans for our last 3 months here – follow-up of the training was to be a major part of Sheena’s role.

In some ways this whole episode epitomises one part of the African experience. The poor are at the mercy of forces completely beyond their control, which can suddenly and unexpectedly change their lives for the worse. In that respect, almost everyone here is poor. It is a salutary but bitter lesson. (I realise very well that it is also one with much less drastic effects than people suffer every day). It feels as if this was preventable and indeed it was, but the same is true of course of much of the disease, war, incompetence and corruption which plague this continent.