More Famous than Ben Affleck

On Thursday a delegation of VIPs from the Congo and UNHCR came to talk to the refugees. I asked if I could bring the bub and the Cripple along in the afternoon as we would just be sitting and listening to people talk (and I’ve learned that in Rwanda people really like to talk, so it would probably be quite a long event). The camp director said sure I could bring her, but we would be mobbed so it was my decision to make. I didn’t quite believe her.

See, everywhere we go crowds of people come to wave and shake and the bubs hand. She loves the attention! The first time I took her into the camp she probably drew a crowd of about a hundred children, and she was a bit scared (she was also not feeling very well and had just had a nasty shot), but she went in again the next day for a check up and just waved when all the children came up to her. Every day the Cripple takes her out on walks and she draws crowds of children from the nearby school that come and shake her hands and stroke her head. She blows kisses and raspberries at them. When the Cripple takes her into church she sings along with the music and spends all her time trying to get to the other children. So I figured she’d be happy to get the attention.

As soon as we arrived I realised I’d vastly underestimated the scale of the event. I think virtually every refugee (and there are about 18,000 of them) had come to hear the speakers. There were so many hoards of people small children had climbed up the basketball basket – I really can’t imagine how – and were sitting on the hoop or hanging off the net in order to get a better view!

The delegates were just beginning to talk so we were quickly ushered around the side to the benches behind them. Though there were a few, mostly older, refugees sitting behind us on the few seats provided for VIPs, the vast majority of the many thousand attending were standing in front of us. Behind us a refugee who I’d met the week before was sitting. He offered to translate the proceedings for us and sat there diligently writing what was said. After a good hour and a half the talk finished and we thanked him profusely for his kindness. Apparently the delegates had come to try to talk the refugees into going back the Congo. They were promised their houses and property back and told the situation is secure enough for them to go. We asked the refugee what he thought of this and he gave a rather neutral answer (I should point out, all the delegates were still sitting in the row in front of us).

As we were a bit distracted talking to the people behind us we didn’t notice all the VIPs leaving. Suddenly I realised there was just us and a few thousand refugees left. As we came round the side of the shelter a huge wave of children surged forward. I suddenly realised what the camp director had meant.

Oh dear.

The Cripple and I made our way, as best we could, in the direction of what we thought were the NGO vehicles in the medical centre. The children, absolutely fascinated by the bub, screamed in joy and threw all their weight into getting close enough to touch us. Some of the refugee guards stepped in and tried to keep the children back by hitting their legs with switches. We were appalled, but really, there seemed to be no alternative. We finally get through to a space in the crowd and groan when we realise we’ve come to the UNHCR boarding point, not our own. The medical centre is back around a long fence that literally thousands of children seem to be hanging off and squashed up behind.

Starting to get a bit frantic I ask the single police officer if there is a back way to the medical centre. He says no and turns his back on us. Not two seconds later the fence starts to collapse and dozens of children fall off. The police officer rushes over and says yes, there is a back way. We follow someone as fast as we can away from the hoards.

After ten minutes of speed walking through a maze of locked gates we’re back in the medical centre. The camp director laughs at us and says “see I told you you’d be mobbed.” A couple of months ago Ben Affleck came to visit the camp. As hundreds of children squash their faces up to the fence to get a better look, I ask the camp director if they acted the same way when he visited. “No, no, no. She’s more famous than Ben Affleck!”

While waiting in the security of the compound, we thought about the talks we’d just heard. We wondered how, twelve or thirteen years on, authorities could know which house belonged to whom, and even if the houses were still standing. I asked some other refugees in the medical centre what they thought. One of them said “How can I return? The Interahamwe have taken our village. They live their now.” That night one of the staff at the NGO we’ve been staying with commented that there was conflict in the region they fled from last week. Over the weekend an NGO worker in North Kivu (the area the refugees fled from) said with astonishment “But the Interahamwe are in their villages!”

A weekend break

The Fourth of July is Liberation day, a public holiday here, so we were blessed with a long weekend. We spent Friday in Kigali at a really lovely guesthouse and heard that the holiday was a very big deal for the manager of the guesthouse. He had hidden under a bed for five weeks during the genocide and was freed when the capital had been liberated fourteen years ago. It’s the kind of story you hear fairly frequently in Rwanda and makes you realise how incredibly resilient the people are.

On Saturday we went to Gisenyi, on the northern side of Lake Kivu, and crossed over to Goma (DRC) for the Cripple to get her visa renewed. Despite making several promises before leaving that I definitely wasn’t crazy enough to go into the Congo with bub, ahem, when it came right down to it, it was definitely the simplest option. The thought of spending nine hours on a bus – twice – in one weekend in order to get to Kampala was just too much. So the Congo it was, though in all actuality it was a very simple crossing. The closest we were to getting in hot water was when the Rwandan immigration official noticed the Cripple’s visa had expired two days beforehand. Thankfully everyone in the line behind us spoke up and said the date definitely looked like a 5 – not a 3 – and after a severe tongue lashing we were through.

We cruised around in Goma for a couple of hours and saw the destruction caused by the volcano erupting. There’s a ban on taking pictures of almost everything in the DRC, and the few things you are allowed to photograph you need a permit for (which we didn’t have) so we hid our picture taking as much as possible. The greatest excitement occurred when we (the Cripple being a photographer it’s rather hard to resist) took a picture of some fishing boats and were shouted at by the people nearby (who thought we’d taken pictures of them) so at that point we thought it was high time we went back to Rwanda. The return crossing was without incident and the Cripple’s visa is now valid for the rest of her stay here. Woohoo!

Gisenyi was gorgeous and a lovely break from reality. The bub enjoyed playing in, and eating, the sand and was delighted to meet another baby around her age who was happy to play with her too. We spent the evening at the nicest hotel in town and spent far too much on a couple of drinks and dinner. But it was tasty, definitely.

The journey back to Kigali was a bit torturous – I had a headache, felt travel sick, was squashed in an uncomfy seat with people sleeping on me on either side and the bub sleeping on my lap did nothing to ease the pressure on my bladder for three hours or so. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself until we passed an accident on the road. A crowd of people from the nearby village had gathered round a bus that had collided with pedestrians (I think)… seeing a body wrapped in cloth on the side of the road sent shivers down my spine and made the small inconveniences I’d been grumbling silently about seem like nothing. When we reached Kigali I found out four people had died in the accident, not just the one I’d seen.

In yet another example of people’s incredible generosity here, on the way back we were offered a place to stay by someone I had met during my first week here. He has a baby born a week before the bub and we’d bonded a bit over baby stories. When we arrived back in Kigali he arranged collecting us, finding us dinner (and amusing the bub while we waited), taking us to the house (a brand new just finished building in the suburbs, one of the nicest places we’ve seen), hot water, a guard and sorted a taxi for the morning to get our lift (at 6am!) back to Byumba. As we were driving down the back roads to the house I had a moment wondering if we were perhaps being abducted. I just couldn’t work out why someone would be so kind. To be honest, I still can’t quite get my head round it. The level of kindness and generosity I’ve experienced on my travels always astonishes me, especially when I consider the way foreigners are treated in my own country.

Mazungu na Bebe

Friends will know that as much as I’ve enjoyed coming back to Rwanda again and again, I’ve found the people much more reserved than in other parts of Africa and being here long term can be a bit lonely.

Travelling with a baby has completely changed that.

From the moment we stepped off the plane – when someone from immigration saw me crushed under the weight of bub and luggage, asked me to sit down, took our passports to be stamped (in front of the massive queue), came back and carried all my suitcases through the exit – people have gone out of their way to help us. Frankly, I’m not sure I would have managed, especially that first week on my own, without all the kindness we’ve received from strangers.

At ten months the bub learned to crawl and became much more difficult to “manage.” Unfortunately this coincided with the beginning of the trip and brought on a new desire to do everything by herself. On the plane, she insisted on practicing this new crawling trick up and down the aisles for at least half of the 16 or so hours we spent travelling. Virtually everywhere we go here she adamantly demands to be let down to explore. Instead of tutting at her filth, people here laugh and wave and talk to her constantly.

She’s now feeding herself proper adult food, but oh boy is it messy. As we have no highchair, generally I scoop some of what we’re eating into the pocket of her bib and she picks out what interests her and eats it. She pops it in her mouth. She spits it out again. She holds it up to examine it. Then she might pop it back in or she might throw it on the floor. The Cripple and I have wondered (very gratefully) at the extraordinary amount of patience and indulgence she is met with everywhere we go. It is impossible to imagine going into restaurants in the “developed” world and being met with the same genuine happiness and good will we do here. Even on repeat visits! At the guesthouse in Byumba we’ve stayed in for a couple of weeks (that’s a couple of weeks of at least two meals a day throwing grub on the floor) the waiters know her by name and call to her gleefully when we arrive, often picking her up (grubby mitts and all) for cuddles.

We’ve received invitations into people’s homes, we’ve been given lifts and dinner; we’ve had people offer help, and extend friendship, almost constantly. I’ve noticed a big difference in the way that I’ve been perceived and the way people have responded to me both professionally and personally. Being here as a mother rather than an eccentric single traveller seems to have increased my standing and trustworthiness. Each time I go into the camp women ask after the little one and many of them give me their own babies to hold. They’ve dubbed me “mazungu na bebe.”

What AM I doing here?

I'm in Rwanda doing my PhD research on the refugee camps here. I haven't been to camps in other countries, but I think the ones here are particularly hopeless. The Congolese refugees have been in the camps for more than 12 years and there seems to be no solution - there is still conflict in the region they fled from in the DRC and Rwanda doesn't want to integrate them into the country here. So they are just sitting stagnating with very, very little opportunity to improve their lives in any way. Very depressing.

I really wasn't prepared for how much more difficult having a baby with me would be, and how much more emotionally vulnerable it would make me. I knew it would be hard, but I wasn't quite prepared for the actuality of how hard, if that makes sense? She's usually a very content baby but being here has made her much more clingy and leaving her to do work is much more emotionally wrenching than I'd imagined... and then I feel doubly guilty for leaving my screaming child for the poor Cripple to comfort.

Early last week the bub had a high fever and I thought she might have malaria. I'd waited a few hours for a meeting with someone who was busier than expected with the bub sitting on my lap. By the end of the day the person still hadn't been able to make it and all the while the bub's temperature had seemed to get higher and higher. I finally asked the receptionist if she might know how I'd contact a doctor.

I had no idea the reaction that would get. Immediately panic ensues. The doctor is unable to be reached so we have a vehicle take us to find him. Doctor located we scream off to the medical centre in the camp. As we zoomed up the hill of the camp in the land rover the Cripple turned to me and said "I can't imagine being anywhere else and going *to* a refugee camp for medical care." Turns out the bub didn’t have malaria (and is fine now), but contrasting the instant help and tons of attention she got to the way I've since seen the refugees are treated has made me feel quite guilty and useless.

My first full day "working" in the camp was spent mostly in the health centre. I met a woman that was paralysed from shrapnel in the DRC conflict and had been lying in the same bed for over six years. I met another man that had been paralysed recently when a building collapsed on him - he was hoping an operation in Kigali could restore the use of his legs, but a dr told me it was unlikely. I met a mother who's eight month old baby was so emmaciated from malnutrition the baby was about half the size of my baby. Then I realised why the Dr and nurses had told me not to worry about my baby - she was crying so strongly she couldn't possibly be really ill. Watching this eight month old child barely muster the strength to whimper broke my heart.

At the moment going into the camps and talking to people is making me feel like I'm kind of a voyeur and rather than helping I'm taking time from people who can actually be useful. I know theoretically that unless what goes on is documented and reported no change can possibly happen, but it's hard to remember that when faced with such overwhelming deprivation. Watching babies barely able to make any noise in pain is quite literally heartbreaking. Agh.

Back in Byumba

It’s been an awfully long time since I’ve blogged. I have always thought quite carefully about what I’ve posted on here and tried to keep the focus on the wonderful people I’ve met during my travels and perhaps have less of a personal focus. Last August my daughter was born and now, at almost one, she’s with me in Rwanda. Life has changed enormously and it seems only right to include more of my own thoughts and reflections now.

I’ve been back in Rwanda for three weeks. There are many things that have happened over the past few weeks that I’ve been too busy to write about; I’ll try my best to catch up a bit in the next few days. When I signed up for this trip, with bub, I knew it would be bit trickier than traveling on my own, but really, I had no idea. No idea.

For starters, I have ten tonnes of luggage. 95% of it is hers. The logistics of moving from place to place are a bit of a nightmare. I’ve been incredibly lucky to have befriended the brilliant people at the American Refugee Committee who have helped a lot with getting us (and luggage) from place to place, but traveling is *far* more stressful than as a singleton. Last weekend we (that would be me, the bub, and The Cripple, a friend and former au pair who joined us 8 days into the trip to help look after the bub and see some of Africa) took a trip to Kibuye which involved local buses. Thank goodness we were the first to load on the bus otherwise there would have been no room for our (small, weekender) suitcase.

Then there’s the problem of keeping clean. Even staying in Kigali (the capital), with hot running water, there is an awful lot of washing to do. Instead of being able to get away with wearing clothes a few days and then washing, virtually everything must be washed each time it is worn as the lovely little miss has a habit of grinding food into my leg while she eats.

For the last couple of weeks we’ve been staying in Byumba, the nearest town to one of the largest refugee camps in the country. Since we arrived here there has been no running water. We are given a bucket of hot water in the morning (and if we’re really lucky in the evening) and have a big container full of cold water. I feel as though only now do I have *any* idea of the difficulties in managing water usage the women here have. With my bucket of hot water, first I mix some of it with cold water. Then I bathe the bub. She hates me for it and screams blue murder the entire time. Then I bathe myself – face first, then smelly bits, then feet. Then I soak the clothes that need washing while I get the two of us ready. Then bub crawls about on the floor, puts dirty things in her mouth and tries to come into the bathroom while I get down to washing. The dirty water is poured in another bucket to flush the toilet. The rest of the bucket of hot clean water is used to first wash up the baby bottles then to wash the clothes. Then the dirty water is poured into the bucket to flush the toilet. I use some of the cold water to rinse the clothes, wring them out and try to find places around the windows to hang to dry. The remaining cold water, already used for rinsing, is left to wash my hands in for the rest of the day.

Did I mention the bub is using four or five washable nappies a day? Plus muslins for cleaning her, plus both of our clothes for the day. It's an awful lot of work. No wonder I haven't found the time to blog until now!

Comparatively though, I’m very lucky. I have hot water (on occasion). I have just one child (not 7-9 as is average here) and no husband to keep clothes clean for. And I have no cooking to do. I have no idea where the women here manage to find time, energy and ability to keep going with such grueling responsibilities.