Dogs at School and Other Tails

As our two weeks at Children’s Village Kigarama come to a close, we are finishing up our engineering work and left with more time to contemplate the complex society which we are fortunate enough to visit.  I just finished reading A Thousand Hills, by Stephen Kinzer, a book that I would highly recommend to anyone who is interested in the story of Rwanda’s history and development since the genocide.  The book attempts to explain the society and culture of Rwanda in the context of its recent history, and has been very beneficial in helping to interpret situations we encounter here.  Initially, we saw clean streets and expensive-looking infrastructure projects and a noticeable lack of obvious poverty on the streets of Kigali, and I concluded that everything was progressing fabulously and things were great.  Everyone we met was effusive in their courtesy and exceptionally helpful and kind to us.  We have noticed though, that people are in general very serious and somber – which is completely to be expected given that 99.9% of Rwandan children who were alive during the genocide were effected either indirectly by the loss of loved ones, or by directly witnessing or experiencing violence.  Many of the Rwandans we have been working with at CVK have physical and psychological scars from the genocide.  Prince, the orphanage’s assistant director, lost his entire family in the violence and grew up at CVK.

There seems to be an attitude of walking on eggshells.  From Kinzer’s book, as well as people we have talked with, Rwanda appears to be aware that a repeat of genocide violence could potentially break out if control were lost for even a brief period.  President Kagame, who by most accounts orchestrated Rwanda’s recovery from the genocide and rebirth into one of the fastest moving economies in Africa, runs a pretty controlled society.  There are debates as to whether the amount of control the government exercises over its people is necessary for keeping order and averting another outbreak of violence, or whether it is an excessive display of power from a leader who has remained unchallenged for too long.  I’ve only been here for two weeks and don’t have enough information yet to form an opinion, but I will say that from an outsider’s perspective, Rwanda seems to be making progress.  And that is pretty cool.

Here is my segue:  

Segway

Updates on the team achievements are as follows:

Our three major goals at CVK were to monitor the operation of our three past projects, the high efficiency cook stoves, the irrigation system, and the rainwater catchment systems.  We have been dominating our to-do lists most days (with occasional lapses in productivity due to enthusiastic children, rousing soccer games, and Steve’s insistence that we ‘get out and exercise’).  The cook stoves, which were found to be in need of repairs, are currently being renovated by a team of local masons who were trained by Inno, a cook stove specialist from Manna Energy, a Kigali-based organization that we have partnered with on several projects. 

The team learning the basics of stove repair from Inno

The irrigation system seems to be in good repair, other than the entire piping system being infested with giant yellow slugs (which pour out of the faucet whenever the system is turned on).  We have also been testing drinking water to make sure everything is in order and the UV treatment system is working.  Yesterday, Steve and I trekked with Prince (the assistant director at CVK) to three of the spring sources from which the kids haul water during the dry season.  It was quite a hike and I almost plummeted to my death (or at least extreme discomfort) so many times that I was allocated an extra ration of pineapple for my efforts.  Steve almost died only once, and so was not appreciated as much as myself, who managed to semi-hurdle off of cliffs about every 3 minutes. 

The intensity of the hike to fetch water underscores the importance of our education mission here, which is to encourage conservation of rainwater from the collection tanks during the dry season.  Jordan and Andrew have been pioneering the education effort, and have had great success teaching the kindergarten classes with the help of CVK’s excellent teacher, Jean de Dieu.  Because Sunday is the only day of the week that is free for the secondary school kids to attend any educational workshops, we are planning an exciting educational afternoon on Sunday for the older kids and mothers to learn about water conservation and cook stove use.

Because we have been working so much with education this week, the team thought it would be a good idea for us to take a field trip to a local school with some of the kids.  Sonya and Andrew went to a secondary school English class at the beginning of the week (the rest of us stayed behind in bed after coming down with a horrifically virulent cold, which we did not want to spread to the children).  After having managed to recover enough to be less infectious, the rest of us took a trip to primary school with the kids on Thursday.  Jordan, Andy, and myself attended a P6 class with Mado and Peter, kids from CVK, and about 50 other children from the nearby area.  We sat three-to-a-desk, and wrote on notebooks made out of recycled newspaper, but this was by far the most focused geometry class I have ever attended.  The teacher, who is also the school’s assistant headmaster, taught in a fluent mix of Kinyarwanda and English, and encouraged class participation and in-class problem solving with skill I have rarely witnessed in the US.  I was highly impressed, and was also probably the most distracted person in the classroom due to the fact that CVK’s resident pet dog, Lady, managed to crawl under the orphanage fence and follow us all the way to school.  She would not leave and insisted on following us into the classroom, which I am sure was a horrific breach of etiquette in the Rwandan school system.  So, the whole time we were learning about finding the volume of a cuboid, I was trying to keep Lady happy and hidden under the desk.  It was kind of like one of those bad dreams where you accidentally forget to wear pants to school and you have a test, except it was real.  We also had a quiz in class, which Jordan and I passed with flying colors and received red checkmarks on our papers. 

Today is the Sabbath (CVK is run by Seventh Day Adventists who celebrate Saturday as their holy day), so we are encourage to take today as a day of rest.  That works out pretty nice, as it’s a beautiful day and we have lots of planning to catch up on for our last few days here.  On Monday, we will return to Kigali, where Sean (a coordinator at the Rwandan Orphans Project) has set up a house for our team to rent for the rest of our stay in Rwanda.  We will soon be joined by two more members of our group, Matt and Kara.  We are excited to begin our project in Kigali, but will be sorry to leave the warm hospitality and good friends at CVK.

Love and pineapples,

BJ