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.