After Murambi, the 13 of us went to a bar. By the way, onions and fries are a delicious combination. We gave up our cultural appropriateness entirely and loudly sang all the American pop songs that are CONSTANTLY streaming from the tv’s constant music videos. Sometimes I like being an obnoxious American :)

We decided we didn’t want to sleep alone, so we took ALL the furniture out of two of the rooms and replaced it with lots and lots of mattresses. Ahh, yes, middle school sleepovers! Except in a hostel with very large bugs.

The next day we went to a Women’s Association in rural Butare, and it. was. amazing. I was freezing because I had gotten stuck in the rain, and didn’t know where I was going… and didn’t have a raincoat. But that’s irrelevant.

These women are either widows of genocide victims or wives of genocide perpetrators – and they live and work and pray together as friends. They told us that “the Word of God” brought them together, and that their faith had brought them through their hardships, which I thought was pretty interesting. Especially since the church had been so complicit in committing the genocide.

It was such a great example of Christianity being used for GOOD, not just for converting “heathens.” Also a great example of foreigners doing good by empowering the people, not imposing their culture or ideas – a foreign priest had been these women’s first therapist, and he helped facilitate the organization of the association.

Those women were some of the strongest and most incredible people I’ve ever had the honor of meeting. They were beginning to include some of the former genocidaires, too, but in baby steps. They said they would not accept them until they were sure they truly ascribed to the reconciliation of the two groups. When I asked about any male survivors being included, the answer was this: there are none. Or if there are, they are so mentally or physically handicapped from the genocide that they can’t be part of normal life.

As we left that dark little concrete room, the women got up to dance and sing… and they pulled me in after Charity had joined. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but it was great! They were so joyful, celebrating these little white people coming to visit their village!

That night we went back to the bar for the fries and onions… and slowly realized that we were the ONLY girls in the entire place. And the men were numbering around 80, sitting in rows watching a soccer game projected on the wall.

We eventually found a bedroom next to the bathroom… apparently, we were in a brothel. Or maybe the owners slept in there? I hope? Anyway, we got the check and ran outta there. And realized that the day before, the whole restaurant had probably thought our only guy, Lewie, was our pimp. Lovely!

Another sleepover… Never Have I Ever… and the next day, we visited students at the National University. THEY SLEEP TWELVE TO A DORM ROOM!! IN WHICH THERE ARE SIX BEDS! God, I thought living in a dorm instead of an apartment was bad enough. They also had 140,000 books in their library… can anyone tell me how many are available to UNC students?

We talked to the Unity and Reconciliation club, and it was unbelievably nice to have people speak English comfortably. I spoke to a man Eddy for a while and learned that he survived 1994 by running into the jungle and eventually escaping to the DRC. When I asked about the rest of his family, he said, “The story of my parents? All dead. But life goes on.” One of his sisters is the only other family member who survived, but he doesn’t even know how she escaped. And he wants reconciliation, not revenge. Pretty amazing.

Then the bus ride, then Kigali, then homestay, who welcomed me home with the two Rwandan food groups: carbs (i.e. rice) and beans!

P.S. I have fellow dancers (except I don’t really count as a current dancer…) on this program! YES!

WARNING: GENOCIDE MEMORIAL. DEPRESSING.

Rwanda is called “the land of a thousand hills,” but the landscape here is more majestic than that phrase conveys. It is more dramatic than rolling hillsides, but gentler and greener than mountain peaks. The drive to Murambi Memorial in Butare was no less beautiful… I think I annoyed quite a few people by gushing over the view from the window!

We were very close to the memorial when we drove past a parade of men in blue clothing, carrying hoes and farming tools. These men, our program director explained, are genocidaires performing TIG – general interest work. The government provides a place for them to live, and they essentially do community service to “repay” the community. Since they can totally make up for what they did 15 years ago. Rwandans continually amaze me. I meet person after person who lost every person he loved in the genocide, but he still wants to reconcile with the people who caused his loss. And it seems to be working! If only every divided community worked so hard to unify and heal EVERYONE, not just the group most recently victimized. Cough Israel.

Back to Murambi.

It was supposed to be a school, but never opened because of the genocide. The radio encouraged Tutsis to take refuge there, saying they would be safe, but it was a trap – the 40,000 Tutsis hiding there were weakened without food and water for days. Then the Hutu militia surrounded the hilltop and killed everyone. 40,000 people… 3 survivors.

We met two of those survivors, who were at the memorial (I think they always are?) while we were there. One man, who smiled and waved, and one woman who walked with us through the would-be-classrooms. I don’t know how they can bear to be near that place with so many memories, but maybe that’s exactly why they stay. Maybe it’s the only place they feel at home because all they have left is memories.

I warned that this would be a depressing post, so here goes: after the massacre at Murambi, the interhamwe (young Hutu militiamen) buried everyone in an unmarked mass grave. Before they had even finished cleaning the blood from the walls, floors…everywhere, Operation Turquoise had begun. French soldiers stayed at Murambi during their operation, which essentially provided an escape for Hutu genocidaires into the DRC. They hoisted their flag right outside the classrooms; they played volleyball on top of the mass grave. And they knew what had happened there.

After the RPF took control of the government, they bodies were exhumed, and most were reburied in a properly headstoned grave… because the dead care whether there is a headstone or not on top of their thousands of bodies. I always find it odd, how mourning is so much for the mourners, not the ones being mourned.

The others were preserved in a plaster-type fashion and laid in the classrooms. Their families, whoever survived, wanted it that way - for people to confront the reality of what happened.

The first thing that struck me when we walked through the rooms was the smell. I will spare you those details, at least. But we wandered into room after room; we saw body after body, skull after broken skull. Some of the bodies still had a bit of hair; some still had a shirt on. They all looked tense – fingers and toes curled. Even the tiniest hands and feet seemed clenched. One classroom simply had a stack of bones and rows of skulls; the last room was huge and empty, but for the shelves and shelves of the clothes of the victims.

We then walked outside to recover ourselves, but I hadn’t cried. I kept thinking I couldn’t cry if that man, one of the three, had smiled. So I went back into the classrooms and took pictures.

I know it sounds vulgar and disrespectful, but I felt almost like I had to. Everyone always talks about “never again” and how horrible these things are, but we never have to see it!

Americans, or at least most people I know, never see anything like that. We keep our distance from poverty and violence; we give some money to a charity and call it a day. We call it an “Africa problem” or a “third world problem,” like a disease that can be cured, and the cure is free elections and our mountains of aid.

But when people can’t read an election ballot, how can democracy be present? When a country depends on foreign aid to keep its economy afloat (partially because the aid has defeated enterprise and promoted corruption in government), how is self-determination possible?

So I took pictures to force people to confront it. But not even pictures, worth a thousand words, can reproduce that smell. Or express the feeling when an old woman – who survived this atrocity – ran over and wrapped her arms around me, comforting ME.


Happy post coming soon.

Well. Quite a lot has happened since my last post. And I'm sorry I can't reply to everyone's emails... I feel guilty spending a lot of time in the internet cafe, and this is really the first free hour I've had all week! They keep up pretty busy here. But to everyone (Granny, Dad, Mom, Melissa) who has sent me emails and updates, I enjoy reading them, so keep 'em coming! As for everyone else, PLEASE send me an email - I want to hear about your lives!

Also, my phone is being ridiculous. I can't send international texts (but it charges me for them anyway..) and sometimes the sound doesn't work. It's questionable, but I think it will work if you, meaning anyone, call me on my Rwandan number (this is EXACTLY what you would dial from a US phone): 011-250-782-16-0930. I am working on getting the phone fixed... but it may be a while before I get to that.

I am living with a Rwandese family now, and that has been a trying adjustment. The first night with them, my parents, sister and I went to dinner at a nice restaurant in Kigali. My parents insisted I get a beer, so I ordered the same one my mom was having - Primus, which is pretty good, as it turns out. A waiter then placed one very large fish one our table, and I was told to eat. But I didn't see any silverware, or any plates for that matter, so I asked my mom to take the first bite, hoping to come off as polite, not completely confused. My mom reached forward, grabbed a huge hunk of white meat, bones, and skin, and put it in front of me. The fish was pretty good, but it took me a second to get over my initial shock and recover a smile... I'm sure my mouth dropped when half a fish plopped down on the table before me. But oh no, the new eating experiences did not end there. Apparently, I am deathly thin in the minds of my African family, and they are bound and determined to force-feed me until I am not so "weak," as my mom is fond of calling me. My brother prefers to say that I am "just learning to eat, like a baby." My mom also told me, "You shall eat until you are as big as her!" (referring to my sister, who is a bit shorter, and probably 15-20 pounds heavier, than I). My solution (without making my stomach explode)? Sneaking potatoes to my brother when my mom isn't looking, and taking my second, maybe even third cup of tea - probably 50% sugar - to the bathroom and pouring most of it into the sink.

But that brings up another point - the water! I have it! Some SIT students' families don't have running water, so they take bucket showers. And pee into a hole in the bathroom. While I have a nice sink, toilet, and even a SHOWERHEAD! No hot water, but it's great. It did take me about a day to figure out the toilet, though; they keep an old gasoline can filled with water in the bathroom, and you pour that down the toilet to flush it. You probably don't want such a graphic description of my bathroom adventures, but oh well...

My family, despite the whole eating thing, is incredibly nice. I have 10 siblings (6 brothers, 4 sisters), and they all actually speak to me a little now! That is quite the accomplishment. The first night, only my incredibly socially awkward 22 year-old brother Robert said more than 2 words to me. Now they all love me! Probably because I gave them free reign with my camera - taking pictures of everything in sight, including filming the TV for 20 minutes - but still. I'll take it. My parents speak English very well, enough to discuss the importance of teaching history in schools to prevent something like the genocide from happening again, and I've even gotten to help my youngest brother with his English homework! Which made absolutely no sense, by the way. His teachers are American, and they assigned him this sentence, with the instructions to change the noun (calves) to singular: Amanda the biggest calves is the whole school. I didn't really know what to do with that. They all LOVE the TV and watch it all the time - during dinner, after dinner, while doing homework, right when they wake up, etc. But it does play the Rwandan news in English (after it plays the EXACT SAME news in Kinyarwanda and French), so that's nice. And they wake up at 6 am or earlier. Every morning. And turn on the radio and the TV and talk, so I get up then, too! I have absolutely no idea when they shower, but I guess it's even earlier than that, because it's always free when I want it. But we all have to shower every morning and wash our feet at night (which I never do) - they think you are literally insane if you don't. So Dad, no worries about me never showering in Africa... I actually shower here more than at home!

Other than homestay family life, our days pretrty much revolve around the school lectures. We ride the taxi in the morning, or walk if it breaks down like mine did today, and usually head to Bourbon Coffee or the internet cafe to avoid too much culture shock.

But the other day we visited Gisozi Memorial, the largest genocide memorial in Rwanda. It's a very we4sternized, museum-type memorial, so I think we all kept ourselves together better than we would have in a more unfamiliar setting. The exhibits went through the history of the Rwandan genocide - before, during, and after - and other genocides around the world: the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, Herero genocide, Cambodian genocide, and others... though it didn't mention our treatment of Native Americans, which I would consider genocidal. The most harrowing part, though, was in honor of the Rwandan children who died. Families gave the most recent picture they had of their children killed in the genocide, and below the pictures, there were little plaques with personal tidbits: their favorite foods, their favorite toys, their best friend. One child had his last words on his plaque. While waiting to die, he said only to pray. Another boy's last words were even worse; he was comforting his mom that UNAMIR would come and save them; the UN surely wouldn't let them die.

I could write for hours about that experience - the guilt, the sadness, the awe at the efficiency of this horrible "work" and at the resilience of such a traumatized country - and I think it's important to recognize how awful it was, and to recognize our part in allowing it to happen. But more important, I think, its recognizing that life does go on. We walked away from that memorial, where 258,000 people were buried - that is only 1/4 of the people killed in those 100 days in 1994. We walked away, went home; we ate pizza that night for Pete's sake. But so did Rwandans. They experienced that tragedy, and they have to go on living, every day, with those memories. Some with the memories of a loved one dying, right in front of their eyes, some with the memories of taking a machete to the head of their neighbor, even wife. Every survivor wonders why he is left, why he survived, when so many others didn't. But they do have to go on - even with those who killed their friends...that takes an incredible kind of strength. I think I would feel more guilty if I allowed my far more petty sadness and guilt to keep me from living.

Sorry for the sad ending...
your mzungu friend

Wiriwe! (Good afternoon in Kinyarwanda). We arrived in Kigali last night, and WOW. It could not be any more different than Kampala. As soon as we crossed the Rwandan border, the roads seemed smoother, the air cleaner, the land more cultivated. They even terrace the hills here so that rain will get stuck and fertilize crops, rather than flooding the bottom of the hill and causing erosion. Another interesting fact: plastic bags are illegal here. What would happen if the US prohibited plastic bags?? I can't even imagine, but it's great. Everything is clean, unlike Kampala, and quiet. It's a erfreshing change. But we are also in a very nice part of town (we move in with our Rwandan families on Tuesday), so we don't see any of the poorer side of the city - no homelessness, no shacks for houses... We are actually just down the road from the US Embassy, a huge building that sticks out like a sore thumb here. Typical.

Anyway, this morning we had our first Kinyarwanda lesson, which only made me realize how daunting the language barrier here promises to be, and a briefing from a local doctor. Then we wandered downtown for lunch and shopping in the supermarket, which seems just like one you could find in small town America. The bushes are even groomed here, and there is a fountain (donated by the international community, I think) in the town square. It does NOT feel like sub-Saharan Africa in the least. And SIT made us think that everywhere we went, we would need super conservative clothes - no shoulders, no cleavage, no knees, please! But in Kampala, those rules were ridiculous! People were very fashionable there, just tasteful. And the lower half seems to be the much more risque part to show... so SIT was right to be overly cautious, but they went a bit too far. I limited my wardrobe to their packing list, and I have nothing cute enough to blend in with everyone else! Fortunately, I can borrow clothes from people on my program, who had the sense to stray from the SIT guidelines.

Update on the people in my program: during our 12 hour bus ride yesterday, people sang songs from our middle school days, and I listened to Lion King music with the girl next to me. I couldn't sing because my voice has been gone since the minute we arrived :( We discussed near-death experiences (one girl was WHIPPED in a Bolivian village this past summer?) and the disparity between the rich and poor in America, and American party politics. These are my kind of people.

Forewarning: I am making no attempt to organize my thoughts on this blog. I'd rather be out experiencing the country than sitting here, writing this, so bear with my ramblings. I'll try to give the vaguest sense of my experience!

The first real day we spent here, I was overwhelmed by Kampala Road. The night before it had been utterly EMPTY when we arrived at our hotel, but our program director left us that day to navigate our way back to the hotel through the then bustling streets. The cars, bota botas (motorcycle taxis), and taxis (huge vans carrying 14 people at a time) are crazy, honking and weaving and moving without any street signs or lights whatsoever, and people are among the shuffle, trying to cross streets or walk beside the cars when they get a chance. It smells of gasoline, dirt, and sweat, and in certain areas, of fish - fried whole fish, head, fins and all, like they jumped out of the lake into a frying pan. Men look at you, call "Mzungu!" (white one!) and ask you how you are doing, while kids gawk and say hello, smiling and waving. Women sell books, flashlights, everything on the street, sleeping under the meager shade of an umbrella, sometimes with their children on their laps or playing on their own. It forced me to realize how sterile America is. We pride ourselves on our cleanliness and high standard of living, and it felt completely foreign to smell these things we so carefully avoid and feel the dust, when we simply step into our cars and go on our way. Honestly, it was liberating. And we managed to find our way to an ATM, cell phone store, and back to the hotel without any problems.

Before I came, I was nervous about making close friends on my program, even though I knew it takes a certain kind of person to decide to study abroad in Africa, not to mention Uganda and Rwanda. But I could not possibly find a better group of people, even though I could bear to have more than 3 guys to our 24 girls. Everyone is laid-back, open to new experiences, and interested and involved in all of these amazing things... I have never met so many people MORE interested in social issues and problems and culture in this part of the world than I am. I absolutely love it. With any luck, I think I will walk away from this semester with some very good friends. We've already discussed reuniting and backpacking in Colorado sometime after this summer - there are about 4 people either from Colorado, or who go to school there. But unfortunately, we are splitting up tomorrow; my half of the group is going to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, while the other half goes to Gulu, an NGO hub and newly somewhat-at-peace town in northern Uganda. I am so so excited for Rwanda, but I'm not ready to leave Kampala yet! I love it here!

Thus far, the best part of the trip was last night when I went to the women's craft market (touristy, but still very cool) and then to a Ugandan family's home for dinner. I was with Anne, a junior at UVA, Freesia, who goes to Barnard, and Charity, who goes to CU Boulder, and who spent the past month working in a refugee camp a few hours away from Kampala. We met Charity's friend at the craft market, followed her to the taxi park (far busier and crazier than Kampala Road), and took the taxi to Basubi (sp?). This was a part of town we had not really seen; it was much poorer and dirtier... and there are chickens everywhere. People were far more surprised to see mzungus walking through these streets, and kids just stared, wide-eyed. Of course, I have been obsessed with every child I've seen since I've been here, so I smiled and waved at all of them, which set them off, running up to hold my hand, then running away with "Hello! Hello! Bye! Bye!" over and over again. It was adorable. One little boy followed me, waving and kept saying goodbye until I had gotten too far from his house, or rather wooden box with a tin sheet on top.

We picked up Judith's sister, Juliette, and got some jack fruit (it tastes like bubblegum, I swear) on the street. When we arrived at their house, separated from some of the poorer homes by a metal gate, we took off our shoes and went inside. It took me a minute to realize that the power was out, but Juliette lit one candle, and we started peeling carrots and cucumbers for our "salad" for dinner. By this time, Judith's other, VERY talkative sister Evelyn, had joined the group, and told us all about Juliette leaving her husband because he burned her nicer clothes in jealousy; he didn't want any other men to think she was pretty. Her two children live with the sisters' mom or with Juliette's ex. Apparently divorce and separation is becoming more acceptable in the country, although it is still up to the family to decide if a woman can leave her husband or should return to him. When we finished making our salad - mashed potatoes with totmatoes, carrots, cucumbers, and avacado on top (delicious!) - the power had returned, finally. Evelyn continued with another soap opera about herself, this time because her ex boyfr4iend had pretended first that he didn't have children, then that he was single, when he was actually already married. Evelyn, 27 and unmarried, seemed like such a modern woman, especially considering that she grew up in a small village in eastern Uganda. She was educated in the UK, is now a lawyer, and seems independent - and very comfortable being that way. Everyone in her family has had bad marriages, she said, so she was in no hurry to marry in the near future. By the time we left, around 9:30, I was friends with these women, who greeted me with a hug the first time they had ever seen me. We all exchanged numbers and information, and we promised to see each other again when our group returned to Uganda. When we got back to our insanely nice hotel (for Ugandan standards), everyone was sitting in the garden playing a game, which was way beyond me even trying to understand. But some of us had a very personal, honest conversation about our pasts and families etc., which was incredible. It's amazing when people are that open about themselves. Then we joined the security guards downstairs to listen to Lewie, one of the few guys with us, serenade them with the new guitar he bought in town. Everything was perfect; I love this place and these people!! My only regret is that we are staying in this very nice area of town in such a nice hotel. I'd rather see the real city, which I got to experience only through dinner with Charity's friends.

Don't know when I'll be getting on the internet next, but updates sometime soon?

Love, Mzungu