Rwanda Diary

Searching for the Right Symposium Venue

Tuesday, February 15^th, was the designated day for our venue committee to look at hotels and grill hotel managers to find the perfect venue for November’s International Interfaith Symposium in Rwanda.  Six people, including myself, were prepared with a list of questions and eagle eyes to find a wonderful place that could accommodate 25+ Americans, serve our needs as a conference facility, dish up good food, and be reasonably priced. 

What We Needed to Know

My list of questions included:

• What were the guest rooms like?  Could they accommodate people sharing a room?  And the bathrooms?  What amenities were included, e.g. shampoo, soap, etc.?  Were the rooms air-conditioned?  Was breakfast included in the price?  Was there wifi available in the guest rooms?
• What were the conference rooms like?  Were they air-conditioned?  Did they have the capacity to enable simultaneous translation?  What equipment was available?  What was included in the conference package?  Would there be a charge for the meeting rooms if our attendees stayed at the hotel?
• Did the hotel have a pool?  A health club?  What services were available?  For what fees?
• What were the hotel’s meals like, and what was the variety available?
• Did the hotel have a brochure?  An on-line presence?
• Did the hotel offer transport to and from the airport as part of their amenities package?
• What would our price be for the cost of the rooms and meeting rooms?

Visiting – and Scrutinizing – the Hotels

We started with the Sportview Hotel because one of our committee members had attended a conference there and had been suitably impressed.  Not so the rest of us.  The biggest issues were that there was no elevator in a 4-story hotel and there was no air conditioning in the rooms.  You may not think that a place could be hot in November, but unless there’s a pretty good cross breeze, Kigali can be stultifying at any time.  

The next hotel was the Top Tower.  Yes, a/c.  Yes soaps and shampoos.  Yes elevator. But the place wasn’t friendly and seemed to be overreaching despite their telling us that customer care is their priority.

We toured a total of four of the six on our list of hotels before we decided that the fourth hotel – the Lemigo Hotel – was exactly what we wanted and needed.  In fact, the Belgian general manager (to whom I introduced myself) was stolen from another 4-star place in Kigali, the Milles Colines, a famous hotel but not nearly as nice (and twice as expensive) as this one.  Several factors sealed the deal for me.  First, it's owned by Rwandans, and is not a chain owned by an American or European conglomerate.  Second, that manager switch thing.  Third, The Lemigo not trying to be an American hotel, just a wonderful place with African touches everywhere.  Fourth, the food (African, American and European) is outstanding (a fact of which we made sure by having lunch there).  Fifth, any place that offers cappuccino gets my bid.  And fifth, the head accountant  -- the person who negotiates the prices with groups -- is Zainabo's relative and she was one of the people on the committee!  It's nice having someone in the business, whether one is in the States or in Africa. 

The Lemigo has offered a very competitive rate for us and they’ve already e-mailed me their proposal.  They have all the conference equipment we could ever need; the best symposium consulting firm has their office in this hotel; they bake their own breads and all of their food is organic; they have a pool, sauna, massage for $20 an hour, gym, and fresh squeezed juices.  The guest rooms have great showers, wonderful bedding, and loads of natural light.  And have I mentioned the food?  They have a special room in the hotel that has a pizza oven and a barbeque grill for parties.  I’m salivating as I write this.

We didn’t need to see the other sites – the Intercontinental, the Milles Colines and the Novotel – to know that they couldn’t possibly offer us what the Lemigo Hotel does, or beat their price.

Buying Fabric

By 2:00, having finished that wonderful meal on the terrace of the hotel overlooking the pool, we felt we’d accomplished a huge job.  But we’d planned to spend all day, and the afternoon was just beginning.  No problem for Pauline!  Her idea: let’s go buy fabric and have some clothes made!

Truthfully, fabric buying in Rwanda is one of my favorite things to do here.  Walking into the fabric bazaars is like immersing yourself in a visual circus – stalls and stalls of  stacks of cloth in every color and design you could possibly imagine, most of which come in bundles of  three pieces: one for the blouse, one for the skirt (most often a wrap), and one that doubles as a shawl or headpiece.  Most of the best pieces of fabric have been printed in Cote d’Ivoire – the Ivory Coast – where the wax resist batik process has been handed down from generation to generation and whose practitioners are second to none.  Making choices between patterns isn’t really an issue because the fabric is very inexpensive.  Depending on the pattern, where it’s made, and how many and how big the pieces are, you could spend as little as $3.00 up to about $18 for a bundle.  Needless to say, being the textiles junkie that I am, I bought many different pieces.  Just like I did last time.  And the time before that. 

Having Clothes Made

So what does one do with all of these pieces of fabric?  Well, some of mine are still at home waiting to be turned into tablecloths and napkins, and quilts for my grandkids.  But the majority of fabric purchased gets turned into African, or at least African-inspired, clothing.  For example, I’d brought some cloth I’d bought earlier to a seamstress in the market the week before to have some shirts made for a friend.  Sewing is one of the skills being taught to many women whose husbands were killed during the Genocide, and also to those whose husbands are still in prison.  The conditions in which they ply their craft, as you might imagine, would be considered untenable in the United States or Europe – only foot-powered treadle machines are used because of little or no electricity; horribly crowded conditions with many machines going at once with only enough space between them to climb in to the bench; one old iron plugged into the only outlet, used on an unsheltered table by all the people sewing.  Despite these circumstances, their work is outstanding.

During this particular afternoon, after we (over)bought more fabric, we went to a different seamstress and I was surprised to see the shop.  The owner was a gentle giant of a man who dwarfed his machine, and his sewers were all men!  This is pretty unusual in Rwanda, as more and more women are being trained to sew for a living.  Pauline and I both got measured for the clothes he was to design and make, and, in turn, we told him what we wanted.  For myself, I just wanted some simple tunic tops for summer in Kentucky ($8.00 each to make), with coordinating pants for a couple of them (an extra $5.00).  And a two-piece “dressy” African outfit ($17.00).  As I said to a friend, I’m not sure where I’ll wear that, but if I ever get an invitation to a Bar Mitzvah in Rwanda, I’ll be ready.  Pauline asked for a couple of African two-piece skirt/top outfits.  Oh, but he wasn’t sure he could have all of them made by the time we left.  No problem – some of our Rwandan friends would be coming to the States in the next few months and could bring them along then.

By the way, he had them all finished, and finished beautifully, right on time!  We’ve already decided that we’ll make a special trip to his shop after shopping for fabric with the Symposium participants in November – early enough to have the clothes ready for departure!!

 

Next:

The second – and most important – visit with the Twa.

 

 

 

 

To Gesenyi and Back

Many Stops and Many Stories

I thought the agenda for the day on February 14^th was to visit the Twa as our first priority, go get what they needed, bring it back to them and spend time interviewing those who wished to answer my questions.  Boy, was I wrong.  Apparently, the more people in a car, the more mysterious the travel plans. 

Another Horrifying Genocide Story

Immediately after our brief visit with the Twa, we drove for another 30 minutes or so and then turned off the road toward a group of rural houses.  In one of them lived Pauline’s aunt, the eldest sister of Pauline’s mother, with whom the mother was going to spend the day.  The two women had had numerous siblings, but many of them were massacred during the Genocide.  She told me, “When the war reached here, one of the sisters was cooking with a pot over a charcoal brazier outside their dwelling.  She called the killers her children, but they said, ‘We are not your children, but your children will need to see you when they come back.’  So they cut off her head and put it on the pot in the fire as the lid, and then threw the rest of her body out into the road.  Can you imagine seeing that happen, and then living with that as a survivor?” I always think I’ve heard the worst Genocide story.  Until I hear the next one.

Looking for a Single Child

As we drove away from the aunt’s village, watching the older women joyously reconnect, I was told that the next stop would be in Camebuye, another village
about an hour or two down the road.  Pauline had been given some money by an American couple to give to the parents of a 6-year-old child.  The Americans also had a child of the same age and had been given the name and photo of the child by an organization called Compassion, International, a Christian child sponsorship ministry.  To me, this gave new meaning to the term “needle in a haystack,” but Pauline was undeterred, no matter how long it took.  As it happened, the distrust and outright suspicion among the villagers drew out the process into a marathon event.

We were first directed to a rural school by villagers walking along the road who told us that’s where the child could be found.  By then it was noon, and all the children had been released for the day.  But we found an administrator at the school who jumped into the car and said that he’d take us to where the parents and child lived.  After driving another 30 minutes we reached the rural compound where the family lived, but before they could come out to meet with Pauline, someone called the local office of the charity and told them that Pauline appeared about to hand over some funds.  From what I gathered, the local charity official told the caller not to let Pauline give the money directly to the parents.  Instead, she should give it to the charity official and he would give it to the family.  We’re not talking about what we might consider a fortune here, but this small amount of money could feed and clothe this child for many months. 

Pauline was furious, citing her belief that if the funds were given to the local official, he would keep 90% of it and give the family only 10%.  “That is how they keep their jobs and get paid,” she explained.  I can certainly understand taking an administrative fee for running a local office of a charity, but that did seem a bit excessive, if it was more than hyperbole.  So, she made what she referred to as “alternative arrangements.”  While carefully avoiding the school administrator who was still in the crowd that had formed around us, milling about and speaking in low voices, she found someone else who would tell the parents to meet us on the road later that day.

“What time will they tell the parents to meet us?” I asked Pauline.  “Oh, no time will be given.  You are in Africa now.  They will see us when they see us.  That is our life.”  Given the way the day was going, that could be anytime between four hours hence to sometime close to Christmas.  And off we drove, Pauline still muttering to herself about how crazy this whole thing had become because of their suspicions.

(I did ask Pauline, who has lived in the States for 10 years, how big of an adjustment it was to switch from African time to American time.  “I’m not there yet!” she said, laughing.)

Lunch in Gesenyi

By 2:00, we had finally arrived in Gesenyi, directly across the border from the city of Goma in the Congo where I had worked the last time I was here.  As soon as we pulled into the little town – which always reminds me of an old town in a Western movie – Pauline ran into people she knew and started making the rounds.  Although it appears that multitasking is not a part of their culture, it’s certainly part of mine, and when I saw a sign for “paper,” indicating a store that might have the school supplies I needed for the Twa, and a market across the road that

would surely have the sugar, I said to Rachel, “Let’s go!” surprising her, I’m sure. But anything was better than sitting indefinitely in the hot car.  I wanted her to accompany me on this shopping excursion while Pauline caught up with her friends – not just because I wanted the company or her translation skills, but because nearly everything that one buys here is a negotiation.  There’s a muzungu (white person) price, and there’s an African price.  And even with the latter, there’s some room for concession. 

 

Catching Up with the Congo

By this time, Zawadi,  a young Congolese woman, and her parents appeared (pre-arranged, although I was unaware of the plans) and I asked them to join us for lunch so I could get caught up on what’s happened in the Congo since my last trip here.  Both Zawadi – who now works with rape survivors – and her father, Jeremy – who runs the Quaker peace organization in Goma, had been in my training in 2009, and after we’d all gotten settled at an outdoor table, I asked to be caught up.

The biggest news is that all of the IDP  refugee camps that had surrounded Goma  (shown in this photo I took in 2009) were now gone.  At the end of 2010, the Congolese government, in collaboration with  the UNHCR and other agencies, returned all of the refugees to their villages.  (If the results of that reintegration, however, are anything like what happened when the Rwandans returned from the camps in the Congo, the refugees will have found that others have taken over their land and dwellings and they will continue to be displaced, even in their own villages.)

The other news is that it’s now much more difficult to enter the Congo because of something called a “flying visa.”  Formerly, one could purchase a visa at the border for $35, as I did in 2009, that was good for 80 days in the Congo.  However, the government wasn’t seeing a lot, if any, of that money, so they declared the only place one could now get an official visa to enter the Congo was in a Congolese embassy in one’s home country.  No problem.  A few extra steps, but doable.  But that meant the people “managing” the border were cut off from these formerly easy funds, so they instituted what they termed the “flying visa,” costing an extra $250, payable at the border, in addition to the official visa!  Many people have been turned away from entering the Congo because they either didn’t know about the flying visa, they didn’t have the money, or they refused to pay it.

In further news, I was told that soldiers, police and teachers are still making little or no salary.  Many in the Congo feel that if the government would just pay their civil servants, many of their troubles would disappear.  Last year, members of the parliament conducted an investigation to see how the government spends its money.  They found $6 million dollars missing from the office of the governor of Goma.  A report was made to the equivalent of the attorney general, which never reached the provincial court.  All the people heard was, “Your report is not acceptable.” 

And still, vehicles are ambushed, and violence is still prevalent.  Ugandan rebel groups continue to use the Congo as a training and staging ground, abducting people, murdering them and stealing from them to support themselves.  Another Congolese friend told me that during the years of 2007 and 2008, at least 5 people in Goma were killed each night although it’s abated somewhat.

As far as digging for blood minerals goes, that practice was officially stopped, at least temporarily, but the head of the army and his deputies are among those still doing the mining.  (Note: High-tech gadgets like smart phones, mp3 players and laptops don't just offer constant connectivity and instant entertainment, they also link American consumers to the deadliest conflict in the world. The global demand for minerals like gold and tantalum, essential to portable electronics, provides millions of dollars to violent groups competing for control of lucrative mines in the eastern Congo.) When that came to light, the people were told that the perpetrators would be punished.  So, as his punishment, the general was transferred out of the army and given the job of the head of the police. 

Heading Back to Camebuye

After lunch, we headed back toward Kigali.  I was still hoping to make it back to the Twa compound, but it was already 4:00, we had many hours to drive, it had started to rain, and we had yet to find that little boy’s parents to hand over the money.  Not surprisingly, no one was waiting at the road for our return, so we drove back into the compound where the family lived.  The level of suspicion had escalated, if possible.  Finally, with some help from the villagers, a worn out man in tattered clothing was brought to our car, whereupon he told Pauline that he was the father, and after we’d left earlier in the day, the Compassion people told him that if we returned the parents were not to talk to us because we were there to take their child out of the program!  After Pauline explained that that was a blatant lie, he got into the car and we drove for a while until we found his wife, explained what we were really there to do, showed them a photograph of the donating family, and gave them the full donation.  By this time, my camera battery had run completely out of juice, so I used Pauline’s camera to take photographs of the child’s parents holding up a photo of their child and a picture of the donating family so Pauline could report back in the States that her mission was accomplished! 

A Couple of Stops to Go

Still several hours from the Twa compound, I gave up thinking that that mission might be accomplished as planned.  To my surprise, Pauline called the Twa leader on her cell phone – the only one in the entire compound in a country where nearly every person has a cell phone – and told her we would be coming back on Wednesday instead of later today.  Apparently that wasn’t a problem, and on we went directly back to Kigali…or so I thought.  Instead, we happened upon a makeshift roadside market where fresh fruits and vegetables were being sold, and we stopped there for an hour to negotiate a trunk load of that.  And further down the road was a rural butcher where beef was being sold for 1600 rwf ($2.70) per kilo for boneless and 1300 rwf ($2.20) per kilo for beef with the bones still attached. When I asked about different cuts, and named some with which I was familiar, they looked at me like I had 12 heads. The cut of meat didn’t matter.  You either got boneless or meat on the bone.  Many, many kilos of beef were then purchased and stuffed into the trunk.  And, of course, we also picked up Pauline’s mother.

Along the way home, we passed a village where some local defense workers were destroying a house at the side of the road.  “They want these houses gone so they can grow businesses there instead,” I was told.  “They want people to move back, away from the road.”  “Will they provide another house for these people?” I asked.  The answer was a resounding, “No!  People have no rights here.  If they want to move and you refuse, they just destroy your house and then you have to move.”

Next:

The search for just the right facility for our International Interfaith Symposium in Rwanda, and a lot more photos because I recharged my camera’s battery!

 

Visiting the Twa, Part 1

I’m so far behind in writing these blog posts because of my illness that I’m going to stop trying to focus each post on a single day and, instead, write them with a more thematic approach.  This post will be about my first visit with the Twa during this trip.

Some Background Information

For those who have been faithful readers of this blog (and let it be known that I’ve been very generous to you in my will and have erected a gigantic monument to you here in Kigali made from used phone cards and empty water bottles), you might recall that I visited a group of Batwa, most often called simply Twa, the last time I was in Rwanda.  At that time I wrote:

Everyone who knows anything about Rwanda has heard about the Tutsies and the Hutu.  But there is another tribe, the original people, called the Twa people.  There are many reasons the Twa are little known outside of Rwanda, among which are that they have traditionally lived in the forests, keeping to themselves, but also because they are ignored at best and shunned and discriminated against at worst.  They have been moved off their lands by the government into huts and squalor, are desperately poor, and have traditionally subsisted by making pottery for themselves and selling some of it.  Many Twa believe that the Hutu and the Tutsies hate them and that they brought war and killing to their country, so they don’t mix with the other tribes. 

The Twa are also known rather derogatorily as Pygmies and are the indigenous inhabitants of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They’re the last remnants of a people who for thousands of years had central Africa to themselves, roaming the forests, working hard to look for and grow food, yet living in comparative peace and with a sense of well being. Today, they are squeezed into small spaces and try to earn their living in a difficult world that they can’t ignore but which from which they are prevented, in many cases, from joining.  In Rwanda, the complex and recently lethal relationship between the majority Hutu and Tutsi tribes gets all the attention. Fewer than one per cent of Rwanda’s population are from Batwa, and their influence is minimal.  So, in development terms, are their living conditions.

The Twa have become less than second-class citizens in their own countries. They lack marketable skills, no longer have access to their traditional forest economy, nor to most public services. Education, healthcare, land ownership, and equal treatment by the justice system are all less accessible to the Twa than to the general population. While other citizens are issued birth certificates and identity cards free of charge, the Twa must undergo an involved bureaucratic process because the government does not consider them as a sector of the general population that should automatically receive rights. Without these identity cards, it’s difficult to enroll in schools and receive government-funded health care, which are otherwise guaranteed to some other vulnerable people in the country. Without the availability of traditional or state resources, the Twa have become the most exposed, and the most easily exploited, population since the conflicts that began in the 1990s.

Today the Twa population is rapidly decreasing. Since the 1960s, international conservation groups have joined with national governments to forcibly expel them from newly declared game parks and forest preserves. The Twa have been evicted from their homelands and offered no compensation. Living under horrible conditions, they are marginalized and pushed to the fringes of local communities. 

It’s one such compound – too small to even be considered a village – to which I returned to visit the Twa who had welcomed me so joyously the last time I was in Rwanda.

Following Protocol

There’s a strict hierarchy among the Twa, and each group has an elected leader. 
It was important that we first see her to let her know that we were coming, and to find out what they needed me to bring to them.  We found her in the small, dusty town nearest to their compound where she was in a rustic sewing school, learning how to sew on ancient treadle machines at the age of 46 in an effort to make some money for her people.  She remembered me, greeted me warmly, but then became serious when asked what the needs of her people were.  “We have so many needs,” she said, looking off toward the Twa compound.  “It is difficult to know where to begin.  But it would be good to have some sugar, and maybe some supplies for the children who are in school.”  We said that we were going to go up to the compound for a brief visit and would come back soon to bring what she had asked for.

Greeting the Twa 

We drove very slowly down a terribly rutted road, and parked at the bottom of the hill leading up to the compound, not wanting to risk ripping something from the undercarriage.  I was glad to have Pauline’s mother along as she’s the only person who walks more slowly than I do!  The word had already spread that we were coming, and many of the children had run down the hill to greet us. 

We only stayed a short time during this first visit.  More significant time and connections came during the second visit, which I’d hoped would be later that day but which didn’t happen for two days. 

 

 

 

Next Up:

A long trip to Gisenyi, news of what’s happening in the Congo, and an even longer drive back.

 

 

 

 

Getting Better

For the first time in my many years of coming to Africa, I've gotten sick and have started Cipro, which my doctor insists I take along with me for just such occasions.  This is why I haven't blogged for a couple of days -- I've been simply too tired to take the 3 - 5 hours at night it takes to upload.  But don't worry!  It's not malaria -- no chills.  Just flu-type symptoms. 

After 16 hours of sleep, I'm up again, showered and breakfasted.  The update is that I'm still a bit feverish, achey in my joints, dizzy and have some blurred vision, but none of which is nearly bad enough not to work.  I promise to take it easy today, to eat at regular times (which will be easy since Celestin gets hungry when I do!), to take my meds regularly, and to stop when I can't go any further.  This is just a little bump in the road, not an "Icarus flying too close to the sun and having his feathers melt off and then dropping into a huge vat of cow poop while wearing his best outfit" sort of catastrophe.  I can't think of anything worse than lying abed all day, wishing I was out there doing what I want to do.  I did take the giant step of wearing a Rwandan wrap skirt today -- the only fresh thing I have left to wear -- which makes me feel like a million bucks. 

I'll blog later...I promise.  By the way, my second visit with the Twa was EXTRAORDINARY and I'll fill you all in later with details. Here are some photos of the Twa to whet your appetite!

The Best Laid Plans

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,

In proving foresight may be vain;

The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men

Gang aft agley,

An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!

                                                    Robert Burns

                                                    “To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough”

Whenever I try to actually plan to do something in Rwanda, I am taken back to this Burns poem,  once memorized in a high school English class.  Translation: better not to plan and just go with the flow.  “If you want to make God laugh,” someone once told me, “make plans.”  And, “TIA,” I am frequently reminded.  “This is Africa!”

 So it was yesterday when my plan was to write all day, summarizing for myself what we had done during the past several days, download my photos to this computer, upload several posts to the blog, and then head out to Pauline’s and Baraka’s parents’ house for dinner.  I had a good start, spending 5 hours at a table on the terrace of the Internet café attached to Le Printemps, and had just ordered something for lunch when Celestin showed up, frantic, 3 hours earlier than arranged.

 “We must go now!” he exclaimed excitedly.  “It is the wedding!”

“Wedding?  What wedding?” I asked.

 Whereupon my query was followed by a convoluted explanation, in a combination of Kinyarwandan, French and some English, none of which I speak fluently anymore or ever, that I could hardly even begin to understand.  But since going with the flow seems to be the thing to do here, I rushed back to my room to drop off the computer, wolfed down the lunch, and we sped off into Kigali traffic in which everybody always seems to be rushing to something. 

The details emerged eventually: Pauline (my Rwandan friend/sister who now lives in Louisville) but was translating here for me during this trip) was to have spent the entire day getting her hair braided – a $25 cost here, $250 at home.  However, her mother reminded her that her cousin was getting married yesterday, the same day as her hair appointment.  And since everyone knew Pauline was in town, it would bring so much shame on the family for her not to attend.  Since Pauline’s luggage had still not arrived, she donned one of her mother’s  traditional outfits and off they went to the first part of the wedding: the traditional Rwandan ceremony. 

Once there, they either realized how wonderful it would be for me to experience such an event, or I was summoned primarily to take pictures since “you have such a good camera.” In any case, they began calling frantically to have me come – an uninvited guest, as it turns out, in cropped pants and a tank top although, luckily, that didn't seem to matter to anyone.

Once at the wedding, I was pushed forward to take photos, along with the hired photographers and videographers.  When they started taking pictures of me taking pictures, I was startled, jumped back, and the whole assembled group peeled in laughter.  (I bet there will be as many photos of the “muzungu” (white person) in their wedding album as there are of the bridal party.)  At some point, take-out aluminum containers of food  were passed out to the guests in their chairs, along with Fanta, the favorite drink here, and people ate heartily.  After a procession     

into the garden house for a group photo, which I was also encouraged to take, we left for the other ceremony: the church service.

Along the way, we passed a paved road where all traffic was stopped.  I was told that the flashing cars were preceding President Kagame’s car, which he was driving himself.  (It reminded me of a time when my children were little and cars were stopped on the expressway in Kentucky for miles in both directions because the Queen of England was on her way to the Kentucky Derby.  Everytime Chloe saw a traffic jam after that she would posit, "It must be the Queen.") I reached down for my camera to get a picture.  It's a good thing my camera strap was tangled because it gave Pauline time to smack it out of my hands.  “Oh, no!  NO ONE takes a photo of the President!  They will KILL you!!!”  In the States, if Obama passes by, everyone has at least a camera phone up in the air to get a photo.  But here, no one other than official photographers gets to photograph the President.  “In Rwanda, the President is like a god.”  Which explains a lot.

So on we went after the motorcade passed.

The couple is Catholic, so we joined their wedding guests – along with the wedding guests of the four other couples being married at the same time – at a large Catholic church. 
The wedding pairs had all changed into Western garb – suits for the men and white wedding gowns and veils for the women.  (Our couple was quite late and arrived when the ceremony was half over, ostensibly because the bride wanted to change her hair along with her dress.)  This was a high mass,
all in Kinyarwandan, with choir, music, communion, saying of vows (which each bride and groom read from a prepared card held up to them by an acolyte), and exchange of rings. 
 All the while, the bridal couples remained stony-faced without looking at each other, holding hands, or acknowledging each other in any way.  It looked to me they were scared out of their wits, but this might have just been part of the tradition.

The ceremony ended in a vague sort of way, with no one (including the couples) knowing exactly what to do, so we all drifted off into the pouring rain, some to the reception – the third part of the wedding – and some to places other than the reception, feeling that they’d paid enough of their respects and being too hungry to wait hours for the food to show up at the reception site while everyone talked talked talked and danced danced danced.  That would be us. 

Pauline’s luggage was arriving at the airport about 2 hours from then, and rather than go all the way back to their home in another province, I treated them to a pre-luggage-pick-up dinner at a buffet restaurant – Karibu – which means “welcome” in Kiswahili.  The Rwandan equivalent of spaghetti Bolognese was on the buffet – the same exact thing I’d wolfed down at lunch – but I piled some on my plate anyway.  Back at the table, I made my second near-mistake of the day.  There was a container of what looked to me all the world like grated parmesan cheese next to my plate.  I dipped a spoon into it, hauled out a large amount, and was about to sprinkle it on my spaghetti when Celestin looked over curiously and said, “Why are you putting milk on your food?”  AACK!  It was powdered milk!  Eeeuuw.  Now when we’re together and I put that in my coffee or tea, he says, “Look!  Nyirurukundo (my Rwandan name) is putting cheese in her tea!!”

Finally back to the room at around 8 or 9 where I finished writing and uploading yesterday’s blog entry.  A long day, but rich with tradition, potential gaffes, and time with loving friends.  And pictures from my “good camera.”

 

 

Symposium Planning with the Interfaith Group

 

Opening Our Ears and Hearts

It's easy to forget sometimes that everyone has a story to tell if we would only take the time to listen. We’re so accustomed to hearing the stories of people in the media that we sometimes lose track of the fact that the random stranger on the street – no matter where we are – also has a fascinating story about where they came from and how they got to be where they are.  The sheer variety of paths taken in this world, from subsistence farmers to CEOs to homeless people to world travelers, is indicative of how much we can learn from each individual. Sometimes the shy, quiet person at work, like the chambermaid, Flora,  here at Le Printemps, has the most amazing life story and the biggest dreams.

Some people travel a path of wealth and privilege, while others struggle with only themselves to rely on, and both have great stories to tell. Each person learns lessons, makes choices, and develops a unique perspective – what I call the equity perspective – that only they can claim and share. Even two people who have had very similar lives will have slightly different experiences, leading them to a different point of view, as we saw in our early exercises here while building this interfaith group in Rwanda.  When we take the time to ask questions and listen, we find that every person has a fascinating story to tell and an utterly unique perspective from which to tell it, even if they seem to be “the same” on the surface.

I’ve had the extraordinary opportunity to approach the world not as an outsider looking in, but in an intense, questioning way inside various borders and homes. Boredom is never an option.  When we retain the spark of curiosity and the warmth required to open someone up, while opening up ourselves, we always have in front of us the makings of a great story.  All we have to do is ask.

 Opening Question

Bearing this in mind, I almost always open training sessions with at least one probing question.  This time, I was meeting with the Executive Committee of the Center for Interfaith Relations in Rwanda (CIRR – the name they chose in 2008 for their group) and they supplied the question for me: “What does ‘interfaith’ mean to you?”  Their answers, all different, were interesting:

  Donatira: We are the sheep and the shepherds, as in Psalm 23.   We all have the same God, but there is diversity from one Creator and from Adam and Eve.  I wonder why we have conflicts since we are all from the same root.

 

 

Cecile: A beauty of the gathering from different denominations.  It is powerful – people seeking peace and reconciliation, seeking answers for conflict, together.  It is unity.

 

Zainabo: Interfaith is a way that different ideas and styles come together for solutions to problems.

 

 

Marie Chantal: What I want to add is love.  We have a joy, and from love there is a beautiful transformation toward peace and reconciliation.

 

 

 

Bucura: I separate “inter” from “faith.”  They are two words.  To put together many different faiths so they can connect and work together, like we are.  Even in my own family we have different faiths, but we live peacefully together.  And even our families will be affected by this work. 

 

 

 Therez: We have different beliefs and faiths with one goal.  Even those who are not the same faith can and will reach that goal, and it is why we meet: to form an association for peace and reconciliation.

 

 

 

 

Tacien: Our faiths are like the foundation where we meet: different people with the same goal – living and seeking peace.

 

 

 

Alexi:  Interfaith helps each one to accept each other, his or her neighbor, without interrupting how they want to live with his or her God.

 

 

Jan: Interfaith is the first step.  If you can find friends among people who are different from you, you can create peace anywhere.  You all are examples of this for your entire community.

 

 

 

I brought small gifts for each of the members of the Executive Committee and I handed them out, letting them choose their own from the stack.  Chocolate was the hands down favorite, followed by the tea collections.  (One would have thought that I would have learned by now to bring only chocolates, but I knew there were some diabetics in the group and I wanted to accommodate them.  Interestingly, they were among the chocolate-pickers, leaving the tea to those who could tolerate the chocolate!)  Rwandans are thrilled to receive gifts of any kind and while they profess that my coming home to train them is the gift, it never hurts to bring something they can eat or at least hold in their hands.  After we divied up the boxes, they insisted on a group photo with their presents.

Bucura set the agenda,  following what we had discussed at our meeting the previous day:

• Talk about the concept of the proposed conference
• Set the dates
• Name it
• Determine the beginning of an agenda for the conference based on their needs
• Brainstorm a list of possible workshops and plenary speakers
• Brainstorm a list of hotels to check out
• Create a list of priorities
• Begin to determine the budget and cost for participants
• Designate a single person who will be conference coordinator in Rwanda with whom I can communicate and who will then pass along the information on a regular basis with other committee members (Cecile Niramana)

Clearly this was a full agenda, but this group had come to work and we got right down to it.

Concept, Name, Dates

This gathering of Rwandans and Americans in Kigali, Rwanda has as its goals:

• To bring to Rwanda one American mentor for each of the 20+ members of the Center for Interfaith Relations in Rwanda (CIRR) who have participated in my organizational, strategic planning and fundraising  trainings;
• This conference would strive to meet the training needs of both constituencies: the Rwandans and the Americans;
• At the end of the conference (and connection with each member of CIRR) there will be 20+ individuals and congregations supporting CIRR’s interfaith work in Rwanda;
• These will become longstanding and growing partnerships.

This concept was enthusiastically accepted by the group, having already heard about it from me when I was last here in 2009 to engage them in strategic planning.

After a short debate about names, there was quick consensus on what they want to call it:

The International Interfaith Symposium in Rwanda, 2011

This indicates that there will be a formal meeting for the discussion of various subjects, and could be followed with a published collection of the results.  Just as theirs is the first interfaith organization in Rwanda, this would be the first such symposium in their country, and they expected both their government and their press would well support it.

Although I cautioned that the magnitude of this project could take a while to put together, they opted for the dates of November 9^th – 16^th for the symposium and other visits, just 8 months from when I return to the States!  (I foresee many late nights of upcoming work for me, but well worth the effort.) The Americans would, therefore, fly into Kigali on November 7^th or 8^th in order to rest before the opening ceremonies, attend and participate in the symposium for four days, spend the next 4 days seeing the mountain gorillas (an extraordinary experience http://www.rwandatourism.com/primate.htm and other natural wonders of Rwanda) and then leave Kigali on the 17^th, well in advance of what one of my friends calls the beginning of the Holiday Trifecta – Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.  In addition, Americans would have the opportunity to book side trips to other parts of Africa both before and after the symposium week through our designated travel agent in Louisville, All About Travel. 

 

So this is the first notice to everyone who is reading this blog and beyond: if you are interested in meeting real people who need your assistance in capacity building in a war-torn and traumatized country, and becoming a close friend to at least one of them as a mentor rather than just sending a check to unknown people through a large organization, consider signing up for this trip!

It will change your life!

Of course, details on itinerary and costs will be forthcoming as we continue to plan this event, but if you have some interest, please let me know early at jarnow@iglou.com.  There will only be room for 23 people from the United States.

 Opening Day of the Symposium

The Rwandans will be the primary planners of the opening and closing ceremonies – they’re really good at ceremonies!  We can expect choirs, dancers, visits from high government officials, and other surprises.

 We got right down to working on the structure of the symposium, and had I not known these people, I would have been astonished how eager and single-minded they were.  I’ve worked with many groups in training and planning, and most of my other groups (especially Americans!) would have still been stuck on naming the event.  But once they achieved consensus on one aspect of the symposium, they moved right along as a coherent group to the next task.

 The opening ceremony on the first day will be followed by the first plenary to include three separate speakers who will set the context for this symposium by delivering fairly brief talks on:

• The history of Rwanda and its core values;
• The Genocide;
• The current situation of reconciliation.

Lunch will follow this plenary, and then the entire group – Americans and Rwandans together – will head to the Genocide Memorial Museum where we will have a private tour. The guides at the museum are all genocide orphans themselves, I am told. 

The guides will take us inside, through exhibitions about the Belgian colonization and into rooms that illustrate the killings with videotaped testimony about torture and photos of children with their heads split open, past lighted display boxes, one containing neat piles of femurs; another, variously sized skulls with machete cuts; and a third, empty clothing. Gingham dresses and yellow work shirts float, fragile and unreal as dolls' clothes, with small tears and brown stains that would seem innocuous in another context.  We’ll come to a room with 14 windows, each displaying an enlarged photograph of a dead child, beneath which is a plaque with a short biography. There is Fabrice Cyemezo (Age: 15 months. Favorite food: Rice with milk. Favorite animal: Cat. Enjoyed: Making gestures. Favorite word: Auntie. Killed at: Muhororo Church.). And there is Francine Murengezi Ingabire (Age: 12. Favorite sport: Swimming. Favorite food: Eggs and chips. Favorite drinks: Milk and Fanta. Best friend: Her elder sister Claudette. Cause of death: Hacked by machete.). Then we’ll walk outside, passing an abstract sculpture of a child with the inscription “I did not make myself an orphan.”

After this visit, it’s likely that everyone will return to the hotel for rest and reflection.  Speaking from personal experience, we’ll need it after the visit to this memorial museum.

Workshops, Plenaries and other Symposium Activities

We started brainstorming workshops, some of which they would want to see and some of which they thought would be useful for their American mentors, and over our two days of meetings, this is our beginning list:

• Reintegration post-genocide – the gacaca restorative justice system (primarily for Americans)
• Gender-based violence – Rwanda and the US cases (for both)
• Interfaith children’s rights (for both)
• Personal and group technology (for Rwandans – they really need some help with this)
• Developing a business plan (for Rwandans)
• My new peace curriculum with copies for everyone (for both)
• Workshop based on Terry Taylor’s book, A Spiritality for Brokenness (for both)
• Additional peace education and conflict resolution training (for Rwandans)
• Concurrent workshops for Rwandan youth

We just had a few moments to talk about other plenary sessions, but one they suggested was the history of the interfaith movement in the United States.  We’ve talked about that in some detail during the years I’ve been working with them, but they’d like to hear about it all at once so they might be able to envision a trajectory for their own work within Rwanda.  More work will be done in both countries to come up with a list of interesting and informative trainings and workshops so we can compete the agenda for the symposium.

Included will be an interfaith forum one afternoon – conversation café style – similar to the very successful Faith Leaders’ Forum we did in Louisville some years ago.  This will give everyone an opportunity to meet and talk with all participants at the symposium, Rwandans and Americans alike.

One of the days will be a Sunday, during which each Rwandan will take their American mentor to their house of worship and then back to their home for lunch/dinner.  They were very enthusiastic about having this opportunity to show the Americans how they live and to offer personal hospitality in their own homes.  (We’ll be sure to provide interpreters and transportation where needed.)  You’ll have an opportunity to meet not only their immediate families, but also their extended families and their neighbors, as well!  This is the Rwandan way when they have special guests visit their homes.

Telling Their Stories and Making the Matches

At the top of this post I talked about the fact that everyone has an interesting life story.  As you can imagine, Rwandans are not exempt from this phenomenon.  On the second day of our meeting, each member of the Executive Committee wrote his or her answers to these questions (which will be followed shortly by answers from the entire CIRR group): 

• Name
• Age
• Gender
• Telephone number
• E-mail address
• Faith tradition
• Family situation
• Job
• Personal Genocide story (brief)

As we get applications from Americans to attend this symposium, I’ll match them up with their Rwandan mentees and will send each Rwandan’s biography and photo way in advance of the trip so two-way communication can begin long before departure. 

I’ve now got a lot of work to do.  We made our list of priorities as one of the last tasks of our two days and it’s massive.  But it’ll get done, and we’ll hopefully further build their capacity for doing what they tell me is the most important work in Rwanda – peace and reconciliation.

That’s what we did in two days’ time.  Amazing, complicated decisions made by a cohesive group of dedicated people.  I never fail to be amazed by their joy (which you can see in these post-meeting photos), their perseverance and their willingness to share with me. 

Next: A trip to the market, attendance at a traditional Rwandan wedding, and Information about the coming days!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once Again in Rwanda

Back to My Home in Africa

Pictures of snow?  In a blog about Rwanda??  Yes, and mandatory for any trip that begins in Chicago during the snowmageddon blizzard of 2011!  I wanted to be in the city from which my flight for Rwanda would leave instead of being held back in Louisville where flights to Chicago were being cancelled, so I called off a planned trip to New York prior to leaving for Rwanda and instead left early for Chicago.  I survived the snowstorm and its aftermath handily thanks to special friends there. And despite three trips from the gate to the runway only to be returned for de-icing three separate times due to a second, unexpected snow storm, a mad dash in Amsterdam to catch my connecting flight to Kigali that resulted in delayed luggage, and a longer than expected layover in Entebbe, I finally arrived to the shouts, hugs and flowers from some of my Rwandan “family” – Bucura, Therez, Zainabo, and my “son,” Celestin.

Happy to be back in my African home, I checked into the same room I always have at Le Printemps,  a somewhat out of the way spot in Kigali, got some sleep, and hit the ground running the next morning.

 

A Review of the Rwandan Issues

More than a decade and a half has passed since the Rwandan genocide, in which a militant faction of the majority ethnic group, the Hutus, eliminated 85 percent of the minority Tutsis, once favored by the Belgian colonialists. Despite the passage of time, the fairy-tale horror of its images endures: limbless corpses dissolving into bones, piled up in streets and fields and churches, and rivers thick with bodies. It was the fastest rate of genocide in recorded history – more than 800,000 people hacked to death by machetes in 100 days. Having pledged "Never again" after the Holocaust, the West failed to intervene in Rwanda – a decision President Clinton now refers to as one of the greatest mistakes of his presidency.

On a continent destroyed by cycles of ethnic violence, Rwanda seems in many ways a model of recovery and change. While the genocide has left catastrophic problems – more than 250,000 rape victims, many of them infected with HIV; 95,000 children orphaned – and although ethnic tensions persist, efforts at rebuilding this engaging society seem strikingly successful. The old Belgian system of ethnic identity papers has been abolished, and many Tutsi employers hire Hutus – and vice versa. The resounding refrain is, "We are all Rwandans now."  Walking around with $2,000 in cash (credit cards and travelers' checks are rarely accepted) in the capital, Kigali, at 2 a.m. feels safer than it would in Manhattan.  Machetes are once again used as farming tools, although there is a conspicuous re-emergence of many soldiers on the streets at night, heavily armed.  Several Rwandan friends have told me this phenomenon says to its citizens that there is something imminent the government fears – either from insurgent rebel forces coming from outside the country, or a coup d’état from within.  But the soldiers are all they see.  No one speaks officially about anything other than “security.”

Rwanda can be considered, once again, a tourist destination – with market stalls stocked with bright batik fabrics; tracking giraffes, elephants, and baboons in Akagera National Park; boating on Lake Kivu, from whose shores rise the volcanoes where the gorillas live.  Yet scattered throughout the country are places that call for deeper reflection: 200 genocide sites, a number of which have become important spots of pilgrimage and memorial, such as churches whose floors are still littered with the skulls, bones, shoes, clothes, and prayer books of  Tutsis who took refuge there.

Rwanda is the size of Vermont, with something of its lush, lake-dotted look. In French it is known as pays des mille collines—the country of a thousand hills. Every inch of those soft slopes is cultivated with bananas, corn, coffee, and tea; nearly all of its 8.4 million inhabitants work and live at subsistence level.  In a country where most people earn less than a dollar a day, a tip can, somewhat embarrassingly, cause someone to kiss your hand. Rwanda is devoutly evangelical Christian (94 percent), although there are other faith traditions represented within its borders including Catholics, Quakers and Muslims.

Working Again with Rwanda’s Interfaith Community

It’s been more than 3 years ago since this group of about 20+ Rwandans came together for my organizational training and formed the first successful, working interfaith organization in Rwanda.  In the interim, they’ve held an interfaith children’s festival, allowing kids of all faith traditions to meet and play with one another, an event that would have never have been possible prior to the establishment of this group.  We’ve met together to focus next on their strategic planning, and since then they’ve worked hard to learn about each other’s faith traditions and have begun to concentrate together on other projects as well, all geared toward peace and reconciliation in this traumatized country. 

I designed this program as a three- to five-year undertaking. My first visit in 2008 was to organize these grass-roots multi-faith volunteers, at their request, into a cohesive, well-bonded interfaith organization.  My second visit to Rwanda focused on strategic planning and fundraising, while I did Year One in the Congo, which established that country’s first interfaith organization.  This third visit to Rwanda is to plan for a much larger, more ambitious undertaking: a  connection between each of these individuals with an American mentor, all of whom will come back with me in November 2011 for an international interfaith congress held in Kigali.  In this way, the Rwandan interfaith group will have not   just me, but 20+ American individuals and congregations supporting their interfaith work here.  I’ll then be able to do Year Two in the Congo, and I’ve been asked to start this process anew in Burundi, one of the world's poorest nations, which is emerging from a 12-year, armed conflict and ethnic-based civil war.  As part of these next trainings, some of the Rwandan interfaith group will accompany me to Burundi and the Congo to conduct part of the training, giving them the experience to help people in other provinces form their own interfaith coalitions, working together toward peace and reconciliation in communities that are desperate for such healing.

More Coming Tomorrow

I now sit in my room at Le Printemps, breathing in the scent of the roses and tuberoses that were presented to me at the airport, grateful for the fan blowing away the bugs and cooling off the room to a sleepable temperature after two days of working intensely with the Executive Committee of the Rwandan interfaith group.  We’re getting close to consensus on some critical details for this conference, all of which I’ll describe in tomorrow’s post.  

 

 

Back to Rwanda

Some last thoughts about being in the Congo:

Toilet Facilities
I’d been using the indoor facilities at the workshop site.  To say it was “indoor plumbing” would be a stretch.  Typical of most of the indoor spots in both countries, it had a toilet, but not one that flushed.  There was, however, a large tub of water and a jug that one uses to pour in some H₂O after one has finished.  On the third day, I noticed that I had been the only one of our group using this indoor site.  When I asked about it, it was explained that the others had been told to use the outdoor, traditional toilet to save on the cost of water.  To tell the truth, I was happy to have been excluded from that announcement.

The UN Presence in the Congo

On our shopping afternoon, I saw a few UN jeeps go by and commented on them.  This started a discussion  about the nature of the UN presence in the Congo and the general confusion about it.  What the population sees, it was explained to me, are well-maintained cars and trucks with plenty of fuel, carrying well-dressed and clean “peacekeepers” and other UN personnel who get plenty to eat.  What they don’t see, apparently, is any intervention by the peacekeepers, even when there is blatant crime and violence while the UN personnel are present.  This has caused growing uncertainty and even hostility on the part of the Congolese toward the United Nations.  According to the United Nations’ own site, this is their definition of peacekeeping:

Peacekeeping is a way to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for sustainable peace. UN peacekeepers—soldiers and military officers, police and civilian personnel from many countries—monitor and observe peace processes that emerge in post-conflict situations and assist conflicting parties to implement the peace agreement they have signed. Such assistance comes in many forms, including promoting human security, confidence-building measures, power-sharing arrangements, electoral support, strengthening the rule of law, and economic and social development.

It’s understandable, then, how an uneducated and desperately poor population could misunderstand the UN’s role, especially when there is such a seemingly huge economic gap between the UN’s personnel and the general population.

No Governmental Support for Initiatives
Unlike in Rwanda, where the government does take responsibility for some of their major infrastructure projects and does occasionally offer some assistance for local initiatives, there is no such governmental support in the Congo. 

Some industrious people, tired of waiting for the government, have taken matters into their own hands.  Here are two examples, one that shows incredible entrepreneurial spirit and one that is a perfect illustration of non-violent direct action.

In a neighborhood typical of the one I wrote about earlier in which the electricity was spotty at best, one of its residents decided that he no longer trusted, or wanted to wait for, the government.  He purchased a huge generator, hooked the neighborhood houses up to it, and now everyone has electricity when they want it.  His neighbors pay him (instead of the national electric company) enough to keep the generator going, plus something for him to maintain it.

In another neighborhood where the road had been scraped flat (not a small undertaking) in preparation for paving, the workers had said they would be back to surface it in a matter of days.  Weeks went by with no further action on the road.  In the meantime, noting the very unusual occurrence of a flat road, drivers were zipping through the neighborhood quickly, stirring up a cloud of dust through which the residents couldn’t even see their hands.  So they did what they could to slow the cars to their former snail’s pace: they collected sharp lava rocks of all sizes and spread them out on the road, causing the cars to go extremely slowly through their neighborhood in order to avoid blowing out tires or ripping off transmissions and other car parts!

Their Final Sentiments
Before I left the seminar, the group presented me with several gifts:

For my funder in the States, a card signed by many of the participants and a large volcanic rock.  There was a hole in the rock into which they had placed a little flower, representing the seed of peace they said I had planted in their harsh environment.

I also received a card, and a handmade caftan from some tie-died cloth.

Here are the translations of the inscriptions in our cards.  It’s clear that their gratitude was immeasurable, although I learned at least as much from them as they did from me.

Translation/Transcription of the Funder’s Thank You Card from Congolese Workshop Participants:

1.    We thank you to have made it possible for Jan Arnow to come and share her knowledge.  We have been blessed by her presence.  We promise to put what we learnt in practice.  May God bless you in all you do.

2.    I thank you for having sent Jan Arnow to come and tell us about Interfaith.  May God provide you with His peace.

3.    May God bless you from the workshop Jan had with us with our input in the Congo.  May peace come back to the Congo with your contribution (of Jan’s time here).  

4.    We are very thankful to the messenger that you sent to give us these instructions that are constructive.  May the everlasting God strengthen for you this spirit of brotherhood with Africans.

5.    Thank you for having sent this messenger of peace to our country, which is characterized by divisions of communities, insurrections and hatred.  Thank you for thinking about this outside country.  May the peace of the Lord, Jesus Christ, together with your preaching, get all nations.

6.    I am honored to greet you and thank you for the good act of sending us Jan Arnow to come and teach us about this very valuable material for three consecutive days.  I am so much satisfied and wish you a great prosperity in your activities of charity.  Thank you.

7.    We are very much thankful and grateful of how you sent us Jan Arnow as a messenger for peace in Congo, our country.  Thanks to you.

8.    It was so nice to hear from Jan that you made her trip to D.R. Congo possible.  Her training on interfaith relations has been very inspiring to us.  We thank you very much for your generosity and good will.  May God bless you.

Translation/Transcription of My Thank You Card from Congolese Workshop Participants:

1.    We thank you for your participatory method and spirit of humanity.  We invite you again.

2.    We thank you for your contribution and participation of our workshop in the Congo.  May the good God bless you.

3.    Thank you so much for your sacrifice to our favor for we have gained from you and we received a precious armor, which will help us fight for peace.  Please don’t stop here.  Thank you.

4.    I thank you for the courage and devotion, which have characterized you during the workshop form which we have gained from your side.  We make a joyful noise for your humanitarian vision, which we are going to plan to implement in the world: the culture of peace and pacific cohabitation and equality of human beings. God bless you.

5.    Thanks and congratulations.  Dear Madame Janne: I am so glad to see you arrive in the Congo to train us and give us knowledge which is very much from your experience.  May God bless you.  I wish you come back as soon as possible so the material that we have learned will be much dug (as in “digging in the brain”).

6.    Dear Jan, Your coming to Goma has been a great blessing to us. The seed you have sown will grow up and contribute to build peace in Congo, our country.  Many, many thanks to you.

7.    Dear Jan, I really appreciate the leadership training concerning Interfaith Relations, during these days.  It was so inspiring and it has solidified what we have learned before.  We trust that this training will not be the last.  Thank you very much.

8.    It has been a blessing from the moment I saw you.  Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.  I believe this is the beginning of a lasting relationship.  May God strengthen you as you work, may His light shine upon you!

Leaving the Congo
Immediately after the close of the workshop, Camarade, Zawadi and Innocent drove me back to the border. Because no visa is required to enter Rwanda, they were able to accompany me into “no man’s land,” helping me with my bags and with the multiple stops I had to make through the volcanic cinders and stones to show my passport, then my Congolese visa, then fill out the entry card for Rwanda and, finally, to show my luggage.  When I was asked how many more days I’d be in Rwanda before leaving to return to the States, I said less than a week.  “It’s not worth it to check your bags then,” the guard said, waving me off with his hand.

Celestine  was waiting for me on the Rwandan border, along with Emmanuel, the brother of one of my CIRR participants, Theoneste.  After many exclamations and hugs (an observer would have thought that I’d just been released from prison after a long and arduous stay except there were no CNN reporters around), we were on our way again back to Kigali.

To pass the time, they taught me a lot of new Kinyarwandan words, and then we sang songs to each other. They started with their national anthem.  I responded with mine.  (If anyone had ever told me that I would be driving along a highway in Rwanda doing a fairly good interpretation of the opening of the Super Bowl, I would have bet him or her money against it.)  They sang some religious songs, harmonizing in their deep voices, and I sang them a medley of my favorites: Trouble in Mind, Tell Old Bill, I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter, You Are My Sunshine, Summertime, There Is Nothin' Like A Dame, I Love You a Bushel and a Peck, and Johnny I Hardly Knew You. They gave me what I’m assuming (and hoping) was a wonderful compliment: “You sing like an Ethiopian!”

Sights Along the Way
We didn’t stop along the way like we did on our way to the Congo because we wanted to get back to Kigali in 3 or 4 hours, so I didn’t take pictures of these things.  But I thought I’d mentioned them so when you’re reading these, please feel free to render them in full color with your imagination:

• Women in full African dress working on paving the road…by hand
• Mud houses on a cliff
• The Lord is Our Savior Saloon
• A small child carrying water on his head with his baby brother on his back
• A mosque in the middle of nowhere
• Tea and coffee plantations
• A sea of blue uniforms running down a hill as school lets out
• The results of a giant wreck involving two big trucks on a small road
• Children running after the car yelling, “Umuzungu!  Ichupa!” which meant, “White person!  Bottles!”  They were asking for our used, empty water bottles so they’d have something in which to take water to school.

Dinner at Cecile’s House
We got back just in time to change clothes, drop off the bags, and head out to Cecile’s house for dinner.  As with the other homes I’ve visited, friends, neighbors and relatives were also invited because having a respected guest is a special occasion. 

And it was, indeed, a special dinner: pasta, French fries, white sweet potatoes, plantains, roasted ears of corn, rice, stewed greens, some meat and sauce.  I asked if they eat this way every night and, laughing, they told me that this was the kind of meal that they make only as a Christmas feast, or when having very special company.  It was such an honor to be invited to Cecile’s home, modest though it was, and to be considered such a privileged visitor.

Dinner at Zainabo’s House
The next day was for planning, writing and preparing for my final workshop beginning the following day.  And dinner that evening was at the home of another workshop participant and friend, Zainabo.  This time it was light enough out when I arrived that I was able to be shown around the house.  Zainabo’s husband, who was working late that night at the Heineken plant, is Catholic, but she and her children, several of whom were with us for dinner along with other relatives, are Muslim.  The meal was much the same as the night before, with the addition of deliciously seasoned rice and cassava leaves.

Zainabo’s little 3-year-old niece was there, too, and as the television was on, we were all half-watching an American soap opera that had been dubbed in French.  The hilarious moment of the evening came when this little girl, having seen the leading man try to kiss the leading woman on the television, shouted out in Kinyarwandan, “Don’t you put your mouth on her!!!!”  Everyone howled!  Looks like this little one might be successful in avoiding sexual abuse when she grow up!

Then, finally, back to my room and my mosquito net for a bit of shut-eye before starting my fifth, and last, workshop of the trip.

Congo Training, Day 3

This time when we checked in with each other at the opening of the third day of training, people were finally ready to talk. 

Sharing Their Feelings
One man said that he works with an association of women and they were having problems.  Some of the women were even stealing and selling each others’ belongings.  He thought about the parable I had related the day before,** and about the violence pyramid, and he's now going to look for the causes of the quarrels.

Another said:
“Thank you for letting me speak.  (This sentence was repeated by everyone who spoke.)  Your teachings match what we are facing here in Congo today.  They are very valuable.”

And another spoke up:
“Before you came, I was losing heart.  I have raised 18 children, none of them my own.  Many are not even aware of their differences.  So your lessons about collaboration were very valuable.”

And another:
“I compared this seminar to others we have had.  I saw that this is a shortcut to peace.  You have been emphasizing leadership and how we can help resolve conflict.  When people collaborate and work together, peace can be found faster.  I compare your pyramid model to the situation in this region.  At the bottom was before the war.  In the middle were signs of coming war.  Then at the top: war.  When we squeezed into the top, it was like people fleeing and entering the camps.  People there are still in the top, are still suffering, weeping, and the numbers are increasing.”

And still more:
“These skills, especially about knowing our environment and building trust, are so valuable.  Also, power with people is a new concept for us because our leaders use power over.  And the fifth skill – that we need to teach each other – works with the sixth skill: that we first need to know ourselves.”

“Your pyramid of violence model will be good for our work in the camps.  It is very valuable.”

“These teachings really brought back our hope.  I see many leaders leading with power over, never power with.  But in this situation these teachings will help us reduce conflicts.  Even in our households, especially for mothers.  They never learned this.  You speak of gender balance and without it you have one of the roots of conflict in homes and communities.  We now see how leaders can help with that.”

“We will not only work with this new interfaith group, but each of us is taking these lessons to our individual congregations, cooperatives, groups and families.  Our Mother (he was referring to me!  Age does have its benefits.) has equipped us, given us tools, to create peace and reduce conflicts.”

Laying the Groundwork for This New Interfaith Coalition
It was clear that they were on the right track.  After several more exercises that stressed communication, gaining alignment, stress and burnout, diversity issues  and getting what they needed in order to do the necessary work, and then lunch where they chatted excitedly (I think it was about the workshop, but they could have been saying, "Hurry before that old white lady takes all the pineapple!"),  we began to talk about different types of interfaith communities.  I next asked them to work in small groups to discuss this question: “What can you do together as a group that you couldn’t do alone?”  After lunch, we regrouped and I answered questions for about an hour. 

Then it was time for them to answer some big questions:

1.    What do you want to call your group?

2.    Who will you choose as members of a transitional  “executive committee” to lead your interfaith group into the next months of work together?

Interestingly, their first response was to vote for the committee members, even after all of our conversations and discussions about consensus building!  All of this really was pretty new to them, so I said, laughing, “No!  We’re not going to vote!  When you vote, there’s a winner and a loser.  Anyone here want to be a loser???” 

They snapped out of that mode pretty quickly and began to cautiously dip their toes into the consensus pond.  We didn’t have enough time together to carry out a flawless consensus process, so as a compromise they ended up with two people sharing the job of President, two people sharing the job of Vice President, a Treasurer, a Secretary, and two “Advisors,” or members-at-large.  This is probably for the best since it’s going to be more difficult to get people together in Goma than in Kigali, and job-sharing might prove more practical in this part of the world, at least for the transition team.

Naming the group was easier.  They felt that since there was already a sister group in Kigali named the Center for Interfaith Relations of Rwanda (CIRR), they should name themselves the Center for Interfaith Relations of the Congo (CIRC), and then be mentored by CIRR.

And thus was born what we believe to be the first interfaith association in the Congo’s history.

(Tomorrow: Leaving the Congo and the Return to Rwanda)

** The Parable of the River

Once upon a time there was a small village on the edge of a river.  The people there were good and life in the village was good. One day a villager noticed a man floating downstream in the river, flailing about and drowning.  A Hero was walking by and the villager asked the Hero to save the man.  So he quickly swam out to save the man from drowning. The next day this same villager noticed two men floating downstream in the river, also drowning.  He called to the Hero for help, and both men were rescued from the swift waters.  And the following day four men were seen caught in the turbulent downstream current.   And then eight, then more, and still more! 

The villagers organized themselves quickly, imploring the Hero to continue to save the drowning men.  Finally, the Hero said, “No!  I won’t jump in the water anymore!” 

“But, why not?” they asked.  Surely all the men will die!”

"Because I’m going to go upstream to find out who’s throwing all of these men into the river in the first place!  If I can find out who is throwing them in, we can stop the problem and no more men will drown!”

Training in the Congo, Day 2

After another silent breakfast at the convent, Camarade picked me up for our second day of training.  We began by “checking in” with each other, something they are not yet used to doing as their culture teaches them to hold their feelings inside of them, not unlike the Rwandans.

Blindfolded Star
I officially opened the day’s training with one of my favorite exercises: The Blindfolded Star.   (I usually do this outside in a large space, but the ground outside the training room was dangerously peppered with lava rocks and stones.  I knew if I was blindfolded, I’d soon find myself scraping my hands and knees in the cinders so we did this exercise within the confines of the training room.)

I asked everyone to stand up and gather around to watch me take two large rope circles and lay them on the floor, overlapping them in two intersecting triangles, to form a six-pointed star.  I asked if anyone thought they could do this and they all said they thought they could.  I asked them how many of them would describe themselves as being collaborative.  Once again, they all raised their hands.  So I divided them into two groups, made certain that the first group understood that their task was to repeat what I had made on the floor, and then added an additional requirement: they had to do this task blindfolded!  After tying on all the blindfolds, I handed the two pieces of rope to two different participants and told them to begin the exercise.  As always, it was hilarious to see the various members of the group trying to coordinate with each other enough to even approximate the shape I had made.  And, as always, there were people who actively tried to maneuver by themselves with no coordination with others, some who stood completely immobile, and still others who used some of the senses they had left – hearing/speaking and touch, in particular – to try to complete their assigned task.  Needless to say, the first group didn’t come close to forming a star. 

The follow-up discussion centered on what was missing – a leader! – and on how difficult it had been to function without someone directing their efforts.  When the second group tried it, several people stepped forward to assume leadership and their “star” was much more complete. 

As I had done last year with the Rwandan group, I explained that there had been a study by one of our leading foundations in the United States (the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) that identified a number of critical skills and capacities that collaborative leaders needed to have:

They are:

1. Assessing the environment for collaboration (understanding the context for change before you act)

2. Creating clarity -- visioning and mobilizing (defining shared values and engaging people in positive action)

3. Building trust and creating safety (creating safe places for developing shared purpose and action, especially important in this region of the world)

4. Sharing power and influence (developing the synergy of people, organizations and communities to accomplish common goals)

5. Developing people (mentoring and coaching; committing to bringing out the best in others and realizing people are your key assets)

6. Self-reflection (being aware of and understanding your values, attitudes and behaviors as they relate to your own leadership style and their impact on others.

Each of these elements, I explained, is key to the collaborative process. They are not mutually exclusive but support each other and provide a comprehensive picture of the essential skills of a collaborative leader.

So, I said, here’s the real question:

Do you want to establish your interfaith group as empire (dividing and conquering), or as community (coming together and sharing)?  Again, the question came down to power over, or power with.

They all agreed that the history of their country had evolved through the former...and not very well, either…and that power with was their best course.

A Lunch Break
During lunch, I ventured out back again to say hello to the cooks (and the baby that had been sleeping on the back of one of the  women the day before but this day was just finishing up a rice meal), and realized that the small space was doubling as a sewing school for area women.  Like many parts of the Great Lakes Region, there are countless widows and women who, for one reason or another, need to be the primary income earners (if at all possible) for their families.  This group of women was being taught to sew through a cooperative started by Immaculee, one of my workshop participants, and the class was in full swing with ancient hand-wheeled Singer sewing machines.  Since many of the garments worn by these Africans are made by hand rather than mass-produced (especially for the women who still, for the most part, wear traditional dress) sewing is as good a potential source of income as any for these women. 

The Training Continues
The day proceeded as before – pause café, more exercises, discussions,  small group work, slowing down as the room got hotter and hotter.  There was a slight breeze that rattled one of the large sheets of paper on the wall, and before I could tear off another piece of tape to anchor the paper to the wall more securely, someone got up and shut the windows!  Aaaccck!  Luckily, it was just hot, not hot and humid. 

Despite the heat, we covered coalition building, diversity issues, turfism and conflict.  During lunch I had laid out a model of my violence pyramid model on the floor with tape and that lesson following lunch, I believe, had more impact on the group than any of them.  The premise is that conflict and violence (or any social problem) is like an iceberg.  (Despite living near the equator, they all recognized this picture of an iceberg!)  Only the tip of the iceberg shows above the water.  Similarly, only the action component of the problem (in the case of violence and conflict that would be rapes, murders, fighting, etc.) showed.  But what creates and supports those actions are the structural and cultural causes of violence and conflict.  Another way to describe this, I explained, is to think of an earthquake – the earthquake is the action, or direct “violence;” the movement of the tectonic plates is the structural piece, and the fault line on which the tectonic plates sit is the real origin of the earthquake.

Further, when people are stuck in the “tip of the iceberg,” their only responses are one of the three “F’s” – fight, flight or freeze.  I demonstrated this by asking for 4 volunteers to first step into the largest part of the pyramid, and then moved them up through the middle section to the tip.  Naturally, they wanted to push the others aside to give themselves more room, or to leave the section altogether.  We talked a lot about the ramifications of this model and how they could use it in their work, both as individuals and as a group.  I think this is when the light really came on for this cohort.

Another Excursion After Work
Zawadi, Innocent and Camarade wanted to take me to see the refugee camps after work, but before we could get out the door we were met by a family from the camps who came to beg for money. Zawadi told me that this is not an unusual occurrence.  Each family gets a monthly ration of food – beans, rice, that sort of thing – but the food runs out way before the month does, even with careful planning on the family’s part.  With no source of income inside the camps, many families leave for the day and walk the miles into Goma to see what they can either forage or beg.  I gave them some money for which they were very grateful and talked with them for a little bit.  This family consisted of a grandmother, a young girl, and a mother with a nursing baby and another on her back.  I was especially sad when I realized that the grandmother might easily be as many as 20 years younger than I am.

We drove out to two IDP (internally displaced persons) refugee camps – first an official UN camp and then an “unofficial” camp where refugees had moved when unhappy with the official site (although I couldn’t tell the difference) – and I was not allowed to leave the car because 1) we hadn’t received permission to visit, and 2) it was potentially dangerous for me to do so. 

The conditions were appalling.  These packed, squalid pieces of land have been home to thousands of people, in some cases for years on end.  It was a living nightmare.  The ground, like in other places in Goma, was solid volcanic rock.  The dwellings, if you could even morally call them that, were constructed of reeds over which thatch would be attached, with plastic tarps on top of that reading, “UN-HCR” or “USAID” on them.  They were not tall enough in which to stand; yet entire families lived in each of them.  Smack up against another hut.  And then another.  And then another.  I wanted to get out and talk with people, and when I return to the Congo I will make sure I get permission in advance.  I can’t imagine living in these conditions.

On our way back to town, we stopped at a place they called Green Lake because they wanted to show me that among the deprivation there is also some beauty.  And it was extraordinarily beautiful – a lovely green lake at the bottom of high cliff walls surrounding it, looking almost like a crater lake.

There was a family there and I asked if they were having a picnic.  “No,” Zawadi explained.  “These people come to wash their clothes.”  They climb all the way down to the lake because this water is free.  They’re not having a picnic.  They’re resting.”

We take so much for granted in our lives.