Nyamata

Today was a public holiday in Rwanda. As all the offices were closed I thought it best to take the day off and venture out of the capital to Nyamata about 30 kms away.

On my way to the main bus station a little boy came up to me and asked me for something to eat, so I popped into the nearest shop and bought him some peanuts and chocolate milk. Within seconds about a dozen more streetkids appeared from nowhere and I had to go back and get food for them all - some of them wanted a picture taken so I snapped it quickly and kept walking before any more streetkids could arrive and I would have no money at all left!

The bus station was quite a bit further than I anticipated from the centre, but eventually I arrived (with a few new blisters). I quickly found the right bus thanks to some helpful strangers who thought a pregnant muzungu was one of the funniest sights ever, and climbed in ready to go. The minibus (same as a dalladalla for those that followed the Tanzanian adventures) didn't leave until it was full a good forty minutes later, but the trip to Nyamata was mostly smooth and took less than an hour passing gorgeous scenery along the way.


About half way there an old man got on the bus and says "How are you today young lady" quite loudly to me as he sat down. It's the first thing that anyone on the bus had said to me other than confirming it was the right bus, and everyone turned towards us to listen. He tells me he spent 33 years in Uganda so he has good English and starts chatting to me, asking what I think of Rwanda, and then talks mainly about the genocide and how difficult it is for people to learn to live together now, though they are trying very hard.

When we arrived in Nyamata the bloke next to me asked if I knew where I was going and offered to show me the way. As we walk along he tells me a bit about himself - he's 25 and studying at the university in Kigali. Next week he will defend his thesis and hopes to do well enough so that next year he can begin a Masters programme in Kampala at the big university there. He tells me he has family in the area so I asked if his brothers and sisters lived there.
He replies "No, they're all dead."
And then I said "and your parents...?"
"They are dead too. They were all killed in the genocide, there's only me and my aunt left."


The memorial used to be the church in Nyamata. When the president's plane crashed Tutsis from all around Nyamata gathered in the church thinking it would provide them with a refuge, instead they were slaughtered.

He walks me round telling me about what happened: pointing out the bullet holes in the ceiling, the machete wounds on the skulls, the clubs used to kill people that were left in the vault as a reminder, and the entire time I'm thinking to myself - this is where his whole family was killed.

He showed me the orphanage where he grew up behind the church and the schools he went to. I asked him how he felt about people coming to look at the memorials from overseas and he told me it made him really happy that people were learning from it so it wouldn't happen again.

...sadly, it is happening right now in Darfur.

Marrakech

Last Sunday my friend Gillian and I took off for Marrakech. We didn't really know what we were heading into - just looked forward to warmer, sunnier weather than miserable old England.

The first sight that greeted us was the fantastic mosque (left) next to the amazing Djemaâ el Fna (below) square. The picture doesn't really do the square justice - there seemed to be a million people and a million stalls selling everything you can imagine.

Our first evening we spent enjoying the freshly squeezed orange juice and taking in the square. Watching the sunset on the mosque was a highlight of the trip - that first evening was easily the nicest sunset we saw all week!

Our riad was tucked into one of the tiny streets in the medina (old town) and one morning we found these donkeys resting just around the corner.

Our last night in Marrakech we spend wandering around the street food stalls in the square. Hassan (right) came up to us and said he was hungry, so we stopped and got him a chicken kebab and chips. He was digging into the food with gusto when we looked over and saw Lissan and Wassan (left and middle) looking hungry on the side - turns out they were with Hassan. We invited them over and all of them had their tums filled, though the guys on the stall thought we were a bit mad!

Reflections

Although my post isn't about the film, I thought the following quote from today's Post was quite apt:

[Heading South] doesn't make the mistake that so many Westerners-in-World-3 make, where they concentrate so fully on the horror of the posh observers, they pass on the horror of the exploited. What happens is horrible, and perhaps its biggest horror is how helpful it is to Westerners. It's a metaphor for the ways we look but don't feel a whole lot about what happens in the world's gutters.

Almost a month on, I'm still processing all that I saw and felt in East Africa. I'm trying to reconcile my experiences with those of of the people I came into contact with. I always feel a deep sense of shame; shame that I am so afluent, shame that I am so impotent. I can't help but cringe when I see other muzungos interact with 'locals' in a condescending, patronising way and then I think - I must be like that too. For the most part, 'we' (Westerners) are 1) ridiculously afraid of being in Africa and 2) completely blind to most of what's going on around us.

It is so easy to come away and have selective memory. To remember the bad things and not the overwhelming generosity. Do you remember the guy that pulled you to the side at the border crossing and tried to scam you, or the one that came up to you quietly and warned you the first one was a scammer? Do you remember the man that grabbed your throat and tried to rob you, or the mob that stuck up for you and chased after him?

There are streetkids in every city I've been to in Africa, there are probably streetkids in most cities in the world, but with such huge numbers of orphans and enormous poverty it seems to be far more overwhelming in the places I've been to in Africa. Even though I've lived and worked with muzungus who care about children, the streetkids seem invisible to most. I think the problem is so overwhelming most people can't think about it. How can you justify having a 6 year old sleep on the streets and beg for food? How do you justify walking by a 6 year old kid that has no food or home? You say to yourself they'll sniff glue if I give them anything and keep walking.

One day I was in Nairobi walking down the street and a little boy came up to me and said (all this was in Swahili) how are you, where are you from, I'm hungry. I asked him how old he was (he said 9 but looked about 4 or 5), what his name was and where his parents were, and chatted to him for a bit as we walked down the street. The other people I'd been walking with hadn't seen him when he walked up to us. I bought the little boy some food and watched him walk off smiling with a bag almost as big as he was, thinking how futile it was. Someone would probably snatch it from him but even if he kept it, how long would it last? Then I remembered walking by a homeless man in Bristol and giving him some change, he thanked me saying "sometimes I think I don't exist anymore, people walk by me without seeing me every day." At least the little boy had been seen.

I know this post seems a bit all over the place, but it does have a message - please see the people around you are just that: people.

This homeless guy asked me for money the other day.
I was about to give it to him and then I thought he was going to use it on drugs or alcohol.
And then I thought, that's what I'm going to use it on.
Why am I judging this poor bastard.
People love to judge homeless guys.
Like if you give them money they're just going to waste it.
Well, he lives in a box, what do you want him to do?
Save it up and buy a wall unit?
Take a little run to the store for a throw rug and a CD rack?
He's homeless.
I walked behind this guy the other day.
A homeless guy asked him for money.
He looks right at the homeless guy and says why don't you go get a job you bum.
People always say that to homeless guys like it is so easy.
This homeless guy was wearing his underwear outside his pants.
Outside his pants.
I'm guessing his resume isn't all up to date.
I'm predicting some problems during the interview process.
I'm pretty sure even McDonalds has a "underwear goes inside the pants" policy.
Not that they enforce it really strictly, but technically I'm sure it is on the books.

-Lazyboy

Mwanza revisited

Yesterday Abby and I arrived in Mwanza and were extremely warmly welcomed by Joseph and all the children in Fonelisco. The children at the orphanage (and the staff) put on a wonderful performance singing and dancing for us. At the end Abby and I were forced to get up and join everyone - so it was a good thing we got some rest in Nairobi otherwise we would have been knackered!


the staff performing a local dance

Last year while I was here I took a group of streetkids out to dinner at the local pizzeria that's run by another orphanage in mwanza. Yesterday when I walked into Fonelisco I saw Jimmy straight away, one of the streetkids I had told to go to Joseph's orphanage a year ago. I couldn't believe that he had taken my advice and it was so nice to see that he was healthy, happy and safe :)


abby and jimmy