Last week I went with two other girls I work with, Nicole Galovski and Susie Maloney, and three guys we know to Rwanda, Burundi, and the DRC. Eric Kreutter was starting a new project for his organization, Cornerstone (www.cornerstonedevelopment.org, www.inveneo.org), in Bujumbura and checking up on their project in Kigali. Our first day in Kigali we went to the Genocide Memorial Centre (www.kigalimemorialcentre.org). Visiting the museum and the memorial (also the site of mass graves) was an intense experience. It is hard to believe that the genocide happened in my lifetime. Now Kigali seems like such a modern, put together city (so much aid money poured in after 1994), it's crazy that just 14 years ago it was a hell on earth. My favorite part of the memorial and also the hardest part was a room with children's pictures, telling how old the kids were when they died, how they died, and also their favorite foods and hobbies. It humanized the atrocities for me. Our first night in Kigali we stayed with this really awesome girl that Eric knew-Winter Wall who works for Keza (www.keza.com).
Our second day we left for Burundi. Eric brought a Rwandan who works with Cornerstone to scout out a house in Bujumbura and be our translator. If Kigali reminds me of a western city, Bujumbura reminds me of ghost town in the Old American West. The streets there were almost deserted--really strange for a capital city in Africa--usually their are tons of people on the streets. Everything looked run down. After a 12-year ethnic civil war between the Hutu and the Tutsi, the same ethnic groups as in Rwanda, the government of Burundi just signed a cease fire with the last rebel group in May 2008 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1068873.stm). No wonder the place looks so empty. We stayed at a guest house on a corner across from UNICEF on one side and the French Embassy on the other, but still no life to be seen. We found this really cool modern looking coffee bar called Aroma, it looked brand new, like it had just opened since the cease-fire. We had dinner and breakfast there-it was kind of like our hub. We spent a wonderful afternoon on at this cute resort restaurant and bar on the shores of Lake Taganyika playing cards, eating fish with the bones and the eyes still in them, and listening to/watching traditional drummers and dancers.
We took the bus back to Kigali, spent the night at one of Cornerstone's Youth Corps homes with a group of he coolest Rwandan guys I've ever met...they tried to teach us traditional dance andwe had a mini-dance party, played cards, and talked about life and the history of the area. One of the guys explained to us how there was no longer Hutu or Tutsi, just Rwandan--how cool to hear! The next morning, Nicole, Susie and I left for Goma. All the roads where we'd taken buses thus far had reminded me of Colorado (or what I imagine Colorado would look like, even though I've never been there). But the road from Kigali to Goma is the most beautiful road I've ever been on--hills, terraced fields, African women carrying baskets on their heads--it was like Eden.
Goma is right across the Rwandan border in the eastern D.R. Congo. One of my favorite things about traveling by land in Africa is that you have to get out of the bus and walk across the border, you get stamped once on one side of the border and then walk across a couple hundred feet of no man's land, and then you get stamped on the other side and the bus picks you up. Crossing the border from Uganda to Rwanda and Rwanda to Burundi was beautiful. The Gisenyi-Goma crossing was on the shores of Lake Kivu. We met some Americans at the border, one who worked for the International Rescue Committee (www.theIRC.org) in Bukavu and two others who had just been in for the day to visit HEAL Africa, which they recommended we check out. Our first order of business was to find food and then a hotel and then stay in for the night. As we were trying to do this, an SUV of UN South African troops stopped and offered us a lift to a good restaurant they knew of--Salt and Pepper. They were really great and we ended up running into them the next day as well. Some ex-pats we met at the restaurant helped us find a nice safe resort hotel to stay at on Lake Kivu. We spent the next day being driven around by Alex, a really great guy who worked at the hotel. He drove us to HEAL Africa and down streets still covered in volcanic rock (it made for a roller coaster of a car ride). A volcano erupted in Goma in 2002 and there was really still ash everywhere. We ran into a man who worked for an obscure part of the UN that told us about how the UN was just trying to keep a window of stability open long enough to get aid and infrastructure in, but that it wasn't working and he was trying to figure out how to get all the foreign troops out. He told us to visit the volcano and then leave. Fighting broke out 15 miles away that day. Everyone we had talked to about going to Goma assured us that as long as MONUC was in Goma no rebel armies would dare enter the city. We saw tons of UN troops piled up in trucks going out into the bush. We were comforted knowing that we were just across the border from Rwanda and we left the next morning. Goma is a common place for tourists because of the mountain gorillas and the volcano, so we'd known lots of people who had gone there and attested to it's safety. It was still a relief stepping back across the border to Rwanda.
I am fascinated by the situation in the Congo, and all of Africa in general and the interconnectedness of the entire continent--for example that at one point in my lifetime the DRC president had enlisted the help of Namibia, Angola, and Zimbabwe to help him fight against forces from Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda. I can't believe I only took one course on African history the entire time I was at UVA. I really want to learn French and Arabic and Swahili and spend my lifetime on this continent. At the same time I wonder what it means to be an American here and to also contribute to the rebirth of the continent that colonialism and tribal wars destroyed. I wonder whether there is any ethical legitimacy at all in my desire to be here. I could see myself doing work in the Middle East, in southeast Asia as well, anywhere aid groups are pulling out. I would really like to work for the IRC, UNHCR, or UNICEF at some point in my life. Nicole and Susie and I share a desire to work in places like this. I became really close with Nicole and Susie on our trip and I'm so excited about the upcoming months.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
First Impressions
The first day in Uganda
The first morning (my flight got in at 7:45am), I arrived at our guest house (we, the long-termers, live right down the hill from the guest house) just in time for morning devotions. I walked into a room of 8 other Mzungus (Mzungu is the word for white people, literal translation, foreigner) and the Ugandans who work for the organization. I was thinking I would arrive at a compound when we got here (with our house and the orphanage in the same compound like at the Child Rescue Center in Sierra Leone), but I found out our kids house (orphanage is a bad word here) is 10 kilometers away. After devotions on this first day we went out to the kids house. We hopped in a taxi-a van that functions like a bus, crammed in with about 20 other Ugandans, and then got out at the taxi park and jumped on a bodabodas (motorcycle taxis) to get the rest of the way. In the afternoon we went to Mulago Hospital in Kampala (the hospital in The Last King of Scotland, if you've seen it) and prayed over sick kids and brought bubbles and candy and stickers (we were in the general ward that day, but the cancer ward that I visited later is crazy--kids so swollen they look completely deformed and a child in a neighboring room was screaming through a surgery with no anesthetic). My first night, we went back to the kids house for a movie night--The Lion King. Did you know that the word for Lion in Swahili is Simba? The kids know about as much Swahili as I do though (which is next to nothing). They speak Luganda. My second day, I went to Jinja with two amazing short-termers, Tonya and Chady, we visited the source of the Nile and spent a whole day white water rafting. I came away with a pretty awesome looking black eye from hitting my head on a fellow rafters helmet during a particularly rough Grade 5 rapid.
I absolutely love the organization I'm working with, which is funny because I didn't know nearly enough about them before I came to work with them. I knew I would be working on education stuff with orphans in Africa, I had read the website, and I knew I loved Shane, our executive director. I had no idea how the organization really functioned or what it actually believed about community development. Come Let's Dance is registered as both a American and a Ugandan NGO. The whole purpose is sustainability and coming alongside of Ugandans to empower them to create their own future. I love it because we don't just work with these Ugandans, we live in community with them, they are our best friends, we know their families, we know their stories. The organization started with a kids home which we don't call an orphanage, because our hope is to get the children back with the families that abandoned them for financial reasons or with other families in the community if they are true orphans. Most of the kids go to boarding school, and during the school break we send them back to their remaining families or another family in the community. It's interesting that the idea of an orphanage is something that the West brought with them and before that Africans were naturally incorporating orphaned children into the homes of aunts and uncles or other community members. There was not necessarily even the idea that you could abandon a child to be taken care of by an orphanage before the Europeans came. So the whole idea with our organization is family empowerment. CLD is working with the mothers and fathers of some of the children to start microbusinesses by giving out no-interest loans. CLD works in the slum where many of the kids came
from, and has pooled some of the slum women together to start a sewing shop that creates products for tourists (jewelry and aprons). Hopefully someday soon school uniforms for Ugandans so it can be really self-sustainable (right now the business is almost broke). We just started a farm project, so that the children's home can be
self-sustainable creating food for themselves and for the market and the hope is to add a vocational training school in agriculture. My role here is thinking about what it would look like to create a school for our kids. I'm taking a couple post-graduate classes at Makerere University's School of Education and observing classes at secondary and primary schools to learn about the Ugandan system of education. I'm trying to start a couple sustainable enrichment programs for our kids while I'm here as well. I love that it is always the Ugandans that are at the head of our projects. Our hope for our NGO is that there will be a day when we don't have to exist anymore--and that's probably my favorite part about our organization.
I love it here so much. I'm starting to learn to live in the present and to not be constantly planning the next step (which is what I felt like I did all of college). I am excited to learn how to be myself outside the safety of university and inside the sometimes uncomfortable experience of living in another culture. I don't think I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I left college other than get to Africa and work in education. I can articulate now where and what it is I feel called to do and what I am passionate about doing with my life. I want to live in community with the most marginalized, the people in places and situations everyone else has given up on. I want to do grassroots community development work focusing on education in conflict and post conflict areas.
The first morning (my flight got in at 7:45am), I arrived at our guest house (we, the long-termers, live right down the hill from the guest house) just in time for morning devotions. I walked into a room of 8 other Mzungus (Mzungu is the word for white people, literal translation, foreigner) and the Ugandans who work for the organization. I was thinking I would arrive at a compound when we got here (with our house and the orphanage in the same compound like at the Child Rescue Center in Sierra Leone), but I found out our kids house (orphanage is a bad word here) is 10 kilometers away. After devotions on this first day we went out to the kids house. We hopped in a taxi-a van that functions like a bus, crammed in with about 20 other Ugandans, and then got out at the taxi park and jumped on a bodabodas (motorcycle taxis) to get the rest of the way. In the afternoon we went to Mulago Hospital in Kampala (the hospital in The Last King of Scotland, if you've seen it) and prayed over sick kids and brought bubbles and candy and stickers (we were in the general ward that day, but the cancer ward that I visited later is crazy--kids so swollen they look completely deformed and a child in a neighboring room was screaming through a surgery with no anesthetic). My first night, we went back to the kids house for a movie night--The Lion King. Did you know that the word for Lion in Swahili is Simba? The kids know about as much Swahili as I do though (which is next to nothing). They speak Luganda. My second day, I went to Jinja with two amazing short-termers, Tonya and Chady, we visited the source of the Nile and spent a whole day white water rafting. I came away with a pretty awesome looking black eye from hitting my head on a fellow rafters helmet during a particularly rough Grade 5 rapid.
I absolutely love the organization I'm working with, which is funny because I didn't know nearly enough about them before I came to work with them. I knew I would be working on education stuff with orphans in Africa, I had read the website, and I knew I loved Shane, our executive director. I had no idea how the organization really functioned or what it actually believed about community development. Come Let's Dance is registered as both a American and a Ugandan NGO. The whole purpose is sustainability and coming alongside of Ugandans to empower them to create their own future. I love it because we don't just work with these Ugandans, we live in community with them, they are our best friends, we know their families, we know their stories. The organization started with a kids home which we don't call an orphanage, because our hope is to get the children back with the families that abandoned them for financial reasons or with other families in the community if they are true orphans. Most of the kids go to boarding school, and during the school break we send them back to their remaining families or another family in the community. It's interesting that the idea of an orphanage is something that the West brought with them and before that Africans were naturally incorporating orphaned children into the homes of aunts and uncles or other community members. There was not necessarily even the idea that you could abandon a child to be taken care of by an orphanage before the Europeans came. So the whole idea with our organization is family empowerment. CLD is working with the mothers and fathers of some of the children to start microbusinesses by giving out no-interest loans. CLD works in the slum where many of the kids came
from, and has pooled some of the slum women together to start a sewing shop that creates products for tourists (jewelry and aprons). Hopefully someday soon school uniforms for Ugandans so it can be really self-sustainable (right now the business is almost broke). We just started a farm project, so that the children's home can be
self-sustainable creating food for themselves and for the market and the hope is to add a vocational training school in agriculture. My role here is thinking about what it would look like to create a school for our kids. I'm taking a couple post-graduate classes at Makerere University's School of Education and observing classes at secondary and primary schools to learn about the Ugandan system of education. I'm trying to start a couple sustainable enrichment programs for our kids while I'm here as well. I love that it is always the Ugandans that are at the head of our projects. Our hope for our NGO is that there will be a day when we don't have to exist anymore--and that's probably my favorite part about our organization.
I love it here so much. I'm starting to learn to live in the present and to not be constantly planning the next step (which is what I felt like I did all of college). I am excited to learn how to be myself outside the safety of university and inside the sometimes uncomfortable experience of living in another culture. I don't think I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I left college other than get to Africa and work in education. I can articulate now where and what it is I feel called to do and what I am passionate about doing with my life. I want to live in community with the most marginalized, the people in places and situations everyone else has given up on. I want to do grassroots community development work focusing on education in conflict and post conflict areas.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Sierra Leone
My second time in Sierra Leone was so different than my first. The relationships I formed were so much deeper. I think that was because my time with the kids was more structured. I spent 3 hours every morning with 16 pekins, the smallest children, age 3 to 8. We did crafts, sung songs, played games, and learned the letters of the alphabet. It was so wonderful to be able to spend the morning with them. They did, however, wear Emily, Jenny, and I out. But they are adorable and bright children. In the afternoon I helped Mark, a veteran Geography teacher at a high school in Richmond, teach Creative Problem Solving and two sections of Geography. Our students were quick learners and it didn't take long until most of them could identify most of the countries in Africa on a map. All the kids are so bright and I had so much fun talking to the older youth about their hopes and aspirations. The children at the Child Rescue Center (CRC) in Bo stole my heart.
Church in Bo was an experience, as always. The second Sunday we went to the youth service at Centenary United Methodist Church. It was a 5 hour service and there were 13 offerings. The length was understandable because church here is really the only major community meeting during the week. It was amazing how many non-worship items were on the schedule. At one point in the service, they called up everyone who had donated to buy a surprise something that was going to go up in the church, there were 5 coverings over it and special people were called up to the front to remove each covering. Finally, after 30 minutes or so the item was revealed: a small framed picture. The parts of the service that the youth ran were really terrific. Most of the teens on the church youth leadership team are from the Child Rescue Center and it is so wonderful to see them acting as leaders in their community. That Sunday, there was an election for youth of the year and one of our youth was a finalist. There was an offering taken for the two finalists and whosever's offering total was the highest won youth of the year. Ganda, from the CRC won. They gave him a Crown and a scepter and sang "Crown Him the Lord of Lords." It was the most exciting part of the service. We are so proud of Ganda. I wonder though if we sixteen Americans weren't there, if Ganda would have won. I felt a little sorry for the other girl and wondered what effect our being present and contributing to only Ganda's offering had on the perception of the CRC and also on the already warped perception of us as Americans.
There is a difficult distinction between being generous and good stewards of our wealth and creating the perception that Americans or anybody with white skin is an ATM machine. It was difficult in Sierra Leone conveying the idea of partnership, especially outside of the CRC, because our prescence there was so limited. I wonder even of our closest friends in Sierra Leone, whether at the end of the day, they see us truly as friends, as partners in community with them, or whether they see only our wealth. Our presence in Sierra Leone, as partners with the Sierra Leonean Conference of the United Methodist Church in these projects-Mercy Hospital and the Child Rescue Center, already raises difficult questions in my mind about development and our role as Americans in the world. Our teams from America only go over for one or two weeks, some people return, but for the most part the majority of teams are people who are new to Africa. I truly believe in the power that an experience serving in Africa (or anywhere else in the developing world) has to take Americans outside their comfort zone and positively transform their world view. I also think that even though there are a group of churches that are invested in the CRC and Mercy Hospital and keep coming back, because it is always only for a short term and because it is always a different group of people, the kind of relationship we have with the CRC is having detrimental effects, even in the midst of all the positive ones. We aren't truly living in community together if it is for sporadic two week periods. Our constant coming and goings are an unnecessary strain on the kids who have already been through so much. We are repeating a cycle of abandonment for kids whose abandonment was the reason for rescuing them and bringing them to the CRC. Also, I don't think we saw a real picture of the lives of the youth at the CRC by only coming for two weeks. Sometimes I felt as though the things that were happening were only happening that way because the whites were there. There is a point when working with children, orphans, for such a short period time, becomes less an act of love and more a visit to a petting zoo, even though that is not the intention of our hearts. All these thoughts are part of a dialogue I have been having with myself and others who have had similar experiences about the effectiveness and ethical legitimacy of short term missions. None of what I have said is original; this dialogue has been going on for a long time. The six months I will spend in Uganda already seems too short. What I know is that missions, development work, helping someone can't happen apart from community, and community can't happen in the absence of individual relationships. Relationships take a significant investment of time face to face. I have a deep desire to go back to Sierra Leone for a longer period of time and continue my relationships with the kids I left there. My hope is to be able to go back and spend at least a month with them in the spring (not nearly enough time), but that will all depend on Uganda and on my financial situation.
Church in Bo was an experience, as always. The second Sunday we went to the youth service at Centenary United Methodist Church. It was a 5 hour service and there were 13 offerings. The length was understandable because church here is really the only major community meeting during the week. It was amazing how many non-worship items were on the schedule. At one point in the service, they called up everyone who had donated to buy a surprise something that was going to go up in the church, there were 5 coverings over it and special people were called up to the front to remove each covering. Finally, after 30 minutes or so the item was revealed: a small framed picture. The parts of the service that the youth ran were really terrific. Most of the teens on the church youth leadership team are from the Child Rescue Center and it is so wonderful to see them acting as leaders in their community. That Sunday, there was an election for youth of the year and one of our youth was a finalist. There was an offering taken for the two finalists and whosever's offering total was the highest won youth of the year. Ganda, from the CRC won. They gave him a Crown and a scepter and sang "Crown Him the Lord of Lords." It was the most exciting part of the service. We are so proud of Ganda. I wonder though if we sixteen Americans weren't there, if Ganda would have won. I felt a little sorry for the other girl and wondered what effect our being present and contributing to only Ganda's offering had on the perception of the CRC and also on the already warped perception of us as Americans.
There is a difficult distinction between being generous and good stewards of our wealth and creating the perception that Americans or anybody with white skin is an ATM machine. It was difficult in Sierra Leone conveying the idea of partnership, especially outside of the CRC, because our prescence there was so limited. I wonder even of our closest friends in Sierra Leone, whether at the end of the day, they see us truly as friends, as partners in community with them, or whether they see only our wealth. Our presence in Sierra Leone, as partners with the Sierra Leonean Conference of the United Methodist Church in these projects-Mercy Hospital and the Child Rescue Center, already raises difficult questions in my mind about development and our role as Americans in the world. Our teams from America only go over for one or two weeks, some people return, but for the most part the majority of teams are people who are new to Africa. I truly believe in the power that an experience serving in Africa (or anywhere else in the developing world) has to take Americans outside their comfort zone and positively transform their world view. I also think that even though there are a group of churches that are invested in the CRC and Mercy Hospital and keep coming back, because it is always only for a short term and because it is always a different group of people, the kind of relationship we have with the CRC is having detrimental effects, even in the midst of all the positive ones. We aren't truly living in community together if it is for sporadic two week periods. Our constant coming and goings are an unnecessary strain on the kids who have already been through so much. We are repeating a cycle of abandonment for kids whose abandonment was the reason for rescuing them and bringing them to the CRC. Also, I don't think we saw a real picture of the lives of the youth at the CRC by only coming for two weeks. Sometimes I felt as though the things that were happening were only happening that way because the whites were there. There is a point when working with children, orphans, for such a short period time, becomes less an act of love and more a visit to a petting zoo, even though that is not the intention of our hearts. All these thoughts are part of a dialogue I have been having with myself and others who have had similar experiences about the effectiveness and ethical legitimacy of short term missions. None of what I have said is original; this dialogue has been going on for a long time. The six months I will spend in Uganda already seems too short. What I know is that missions, development work, helping someone can't happen apart from community, and community can't happen in the absence of individual relationships. Relationships take a significant investment of time face to face. I have a deep desire to go back to Sierra Leone for a longer period of time and continue my relationships with the kids I left there. My hope is to be able to go back and spend at least a month with them in the spring (not nearly enough time), but that will all depend on Uganda and on my financial situation.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Preparations
I will have more limited internet access while in Africa, so I thought I'd set up my blog on my last day in the States. For those of you who are anxious to hear more and are impatient with the long interludes between posts (or conversely are bored by my witless and rambling posts and are looking for something else to do), I humbly suggest the following:
Learn more about the organization I'm working with in Uganda:
http://www.comeletsdance.org/
Learn more about the Child Rescue Center in Sierra Leone:
http://www.childrescuecenter.org/
Watch a Slide Show about Come Let's Dance's work in Nansana:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8urq2RsqLo
(if link doesn't work, search "Nansana 2008" on Youtube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiGDs7xbcVM
(if link doesn't work, search "Nansana Girlz" on Youtube)
Watch an original short film David Benjamin, the first boy I ever met from Nansana:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR4mcQ9OR5g
(if link doesn't work, search "Wilson ~ A day in the life of a street kid" on Youtube)
Make Goodsearch your favorite search engine. Every time you search, Goodsearch will give one penny to Come Let's Dance (or another charity close to your heart, of course you will be closer to my heart if you pick CLD). Enter "Come Let's Dance" under "Who do you Goodsearch for?" and click verify, the site should remember your charity after you use it a couple times. In addition, everytime you buy from amazon.com, half.com, bestbuy, target, ebay, etc. Goodsearch will donate a percentage of your purchase to your chosen charity. Check it out:
http://www.goodsearch.com/
P.S. I'll love you even if you don't pick Come Let's Dance as your Goodsearch charity, I was trying to be witty (in case you missed it).
Learn more about the organization I'm working with in Uganda:
http://www.comeletsdance.org/
Learn more about the Child Rescue Center in Sierra Leone:
http://www.childrescuecenter.org/
Watch a Slide Show about Come Let's Dance's work in Nansana:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8urq2RsqLo
(if link doesn't work, search "Nansana 2008" on Youtube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiGDs7xbcVM
(if link doesn't work, search "Nansana Girlz" on Youtube)
Watch an original short film David Benjamin, the first boy I ever met from Nansana:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR4mcQ9OR5g
(if link doesn't work, search "Wilson ~ A day in the life of a street kid" on Youtube)
Make Goodsearch your favorite search engine. Every time you search, Goodsearch will give one penny to Come Let's Dance (or another charity close to your heart, of course you will be closer to my heart if you pick CLD). Enter "Come Let's Dance" under "Who do you Goodsearch for?" and click verify, the site should remember your charity after you use it a couple times. In addition, everytime you buy from amazon.com, half.com, bestbuy, target, ebay, etc. Goodsearch will donate a percentage of your purchase to your chosen charity. Check it out:
http://www.goodsearch.com/
P.S. I'll love you even if you don't pick Come Let's Dance as your Goodsearch charity, I was trying to be witty (in case you missed it).
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