Adrift in a Sea of Rolling Hills
My time in the Pays des Mille Collines
September 3, 2009 at 11:28 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It’s been a long time since I last updated. A hiatus of sorts for me, let’s say. One of the things I have been eager to post is the school anthem written by the kids. I just got the audio file the other day and here it is.
When We Will Meet Again
Please listen. It is immensely beautiful and incredibly powerful. I hope it moves you in the way it did me. Read the translation below and you can begin to grasp the amazing individuals we have here. It’s difficult to imagine what it must take to write words like these.
On a personal note, my time at Agahozo-Shalom will be coming to a close next week after a year in Rwanda. I will be traveling to Israel, India, and South Korea for five weeks to visit family and friends before finally returning to California on October 14 and starting to look for a new job in earnest. (If you know of any interesting opportunites in New York or San Francisco, I would love to hear about them).
As I prepare to leave, there is much to do, but I hope to follow soon with many more photos, stories, and reflections from this year.
When We Will Meet Again
I am longing to meet you, my lovely parents,
We shall meet when I have resurrected the whole family,
I am missing my lovely parents.
We shall rejoice together when we meet again,
With friends and relatives,
Parents and children,
Those who separated.
Even me, I will meet my father
and we shall rejoice again.
Daddy and mommy, you left me when I was very young,
But it wasn’t your wish.
You left an incomplete work,
But don’t worry, I am alive and alright.
Not all people are bad,
Now I have other parents
Who welcomed me,
They are lovely and merciful parents,
Please let’s join hands together to thank them
For the wonderful love they show us.
May 28, 2009 at 1:27 am · Filed under Uncategorized
On Sunday night someone knocked on my door to tell me I had to go fix a problem at the water tower right away. Begrudgingly I went to check it out, to find water gushing out from the top of the tower.
We had too much water.
We cut the power to the pump and the water stopped overflowing. My, my how quickly things have changed.
May 7, 2009 at 11:02 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
One of the most moving and compelling books I ever read is Philip Gourevitch’s account of the Rwandan Genocide, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. Even without any connection to Rwanda it is obligatory reading - eye-opening, piercing, and staggeringly real.
A friend just pointed me to new a New Yorker podcast with him reflecting on the country that Rwanda has now become. He is again fascinating and poignant. It accompanies an article in the May New Yorker:
On the fifteenth anniversary of the genocide, Rwanda is one of the safest and most orderly countries in Africa. The great majority of prisoners accused or convicted of genocide have been released. And Rwanda is the only nation where hundreds of thousands of people who took part in mass murder live intermingled at every level of society with the families of their victims. “So far, so good,” Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame tells the writer.
A short 12 minutes that will give you a tremendous insight into this small, unique country.
Listen Here.
April 24, 2009 at 1:08 am · Filed under Uncategorized
When I woke up today, I optomistically walked over to my faucet and gave it a shot. I turned it on, it sputtered, and then did nothing. No water today, I guess. So it goes.
Yesterday there wasn’t water either and, really, I wouldn’t have even bothered to have checked today if it wasn’t for the annoying fact that someone told me the water might be running. I can’t decide if its better to think you have water and most of the time not have it or just to know you don’t have it and make due without it. There are so many unfulfilling turns of so many faucets that I wish I could have back. Optimism crushed is very deflating.
Way back when, I wrote about our highly technically sophisticated search for water (or, more specifically, a location to drill our borehole). Since then we’ve drilled not one, but two boreholes, built two massive metal water towers and another giant cement water tank, we’ve laid pipe, installed pumps, spent $20000 or more (maybe a little less, don’t quote me), and invested countless hours of problem-solving man-hours. And yet the water still rarely runs (not like how often you have a power outage rare, but like the stock market is up rare). We’ve had “running water” since at least sometime in late February and I’ve taken an overhead shower with water running through metal pipes and falling consistently on my head three times since then (though it is true I sometimes wait too long to capitalize on the all too short and too few windows of running water we’ve had to take advantage and that I smell).
For a while (3 months), we just didn’t have water. No borehole, no pipes, no hope. Our water came by truck and by jerry can. I took a bucket, a cup, and I did what I could. Every once in a while I had a shower in Kigali. I wasn’t (am not) very clean. But it was okay (and I had shorter hair).
Someday soon our water will flow. It’ll come and then just keep coming. It’ll be a little hard to get used to, even.
When I shower with a bucket, I stand in another. I dump the water over my head and it all collects at my feet. I then flust my toilet. It’s very efficient and so, so satisfying. It’s like when you find a great use for something you were just about to throw away.
I like to say its not so bad that we’ve gone so long without a stable, water supply. With so many resources at our fingertips here in the village, such fancy houses to live in, and electricity that just never seems to go out (it doesn’t make any sense), it is easy to take for granted how challenging life can be here, or anywhere really. When the water starts flowing and flowing and flowing there will be great excitement (and relief) and then pretty soon we all get very used to it. But we will be thankful for it.
As I wrote before, water may very well be our most precious resource and too much of the world lives without stable access to it. When the toilet will fill up with water after every flush, what will I do with my greywater (re-usable waste water) from the shower then? It feels so wrong to just let it flush down the drain - even though that’s what I’ve been doing all my life.
I wrote in November that “Blue is the new Green.” I think it still is.
So think about that. I’m going to check the faucet, maybe hop in the shower - I heard there might be water tonight.
April 5, 2009 at 4:59 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Looking for a little extra something for this year’s seder? How about trying the 4 questions in Kinyarwanda (Rwanda’s local language)?
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Kubera iki iri joro ritanduka nya n’ayandi (majoro)?
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Andi majoro, ntidukoza. Iri joro Furakoza kabiri?
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Andi majoro yose, turye hametz cyangwa matza. Iri joro turarya matza gusa?
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Andi majoro, turya ubwoko bwose bw’imboga. Iri joro, turya maror?
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Andi majoro, kurya turicaye iwemye cyangwa twihengetse. Iri joro, turihengeka twese?
And for the most adventurous among you, you can try out the Gurwitz Family Haggadah this year. [Excerpted from many different haggadahs].
This year, I’ll be celebrating with the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda.
Chag Sameach!
April 4, 2009 at 10:48 pm · Filed under Doing Good, Uncategorized
The buying power of 3500 Rwandan francs at the local market in the village next to ASYV. Those 9 avocados in the back? 300 francs or about 53 cents, rounding up.
Presumably, it’s all organic too. So, Mom, how much would this run you at Jimbo’s?
March 3, 2009 at 10:02 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Today I taught my first computer class. I began by asking them they wanted me to teach them. They listed a few things:
- Typing (or specifically, “Type fast like you”)
- Skype (really? who are they calling overseas for cheap?)
- “How to find photos on the internet and then email them” (this was like the most popular thing. i have no idea why.)
- How to use the desktop publishing program Pagemaker (an archaic program which no one has used since I was a sophomore in high school. where do they get these ideas?)
They listed a few other things and then one kid asked,
Kid: “How to control the world with Google.”
Me: What?
Prospective controller of world (kid): I want to control the world with Google.
Me: Like how to do a search?
Kid: No, I want to control the Earth with Google.
Me: What are you talking about?
Kid: To see all the different parts of the world. Earth Google.
Me (finally getting it): Oh, Google Earth?
OK, next class: Google Earth: How to Control the World with Google
February 15, 2009 at 11:55 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
One of the more peculiar things about Rwanda (and East Africa as a whole), is how picky they can be when it comes to American dollar bills. It used to be that the dollar was king, but now it’s more like only the $100 dollar-bill-printed-in-the-year-2003-or-after is king. While $20 is $20 is $20 and a benjamin’s a benjamin wherever you go in the US, you’re lucking if you can get 90% on the dollar for small bills and pre-2003 notes around here. In fact, most of the time they simply won’t take them. And we’re not just talking about the banks and the proper establishments. A couple weeks ago we completed an exchange with some random guys on the street, who 2 minutes later returned demanding his money back. Our 1998 bill just didn’t cut it for him. I mean, who do they think they are with this your-dollars-aren’t-good-enough-for-me crap?
So on my last trip to the normal world (where $100 is a $100), I made sure to get a stack of only post 2003 bills to take back with me (did I mention there are no ATMs here?). As my two uncles who I discharged with this task recounted to me, it was perhaps the most unusual request the Israeli bank teller they convinced to fulfill it has ever encountered.
So I while I’ve got a healthy supply of acceptable bills, those captured by Somali pirates don’t seem to always be as lucky. You see, as it turns out, your ransom is also subject to this pesky not-all-dollars-are-created-equal craziness. Recounts one former captive:
“They sometimes say they want $208,000 exactly in $100 bills only,” he says.
“I don’t know why they make those demands. They usually also don’t like dollar bills that were printed in 2000 or the years before. If it was printed in 1999, they say: ‘This is not fit to be used in our shop’,” he adds.
Welcome to the world of the modern pirate. Isn’t it wacky? [Want to know more about modern pirate negotiation? See here.]
Meanwhile what I find most bizarre is the stack of bills ($20, $10, pre-2003 100s) that I have collecting dust until I return to the States, where both people and dollars are created equal.
[From Chris Blattman via Boondoggle]
February 4, 2009 at 11:49 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Yesterday, I used to the word “muzungo” in a post. That’s what they call all us white folks around here. It would presumably mean “white people”, but someone named Morgan C. dug a little deeper and found out a much more interesting etymology:
The Rwandans didn’t always call white people abazungu. Back when the Germans were the colonizers, they were called German. The French were the French. Et cetera.
But after World War I, when the Belgians came to take over the territory from the Germans, they were called Abazungu, not Belgians.
…Because the verb that Muzungu and Abazungu come from is “kuzungura,” which means “to replace, to take over.”
So, it would seem Muzungu means replacers/ take over-ers. And so now it gets even more interesting. Morgan, again:
As a quick side note, the Kinyarwanda word for muzungu comes from the Swahili “mzungu.” Back in the days of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president, there was a rebel movement called the “Mau Mau,” which was actually an acronym:
Mzungu Aende Ulaya
Mweusi Apate Uluru
Which means: “Conquerors return to Europe, black men recover independence.”
So they’re not yelling “White people! White people!” every time we pass on the road or the street. They’re yelling “Conquerors! Conquerors!” I’m not sure which is worse, but if this is how the Rwandese treat they’re “conquerors” — jumping up and down, laughing, and smiling — then I can only imagine what they do for their liberators.
[Thanks Morgan C. Also home to the best English-Kinyarwanda Dictionary I know of. In case you want to brush up on your kinyarwanda (Oren, here's thinking of you).]
February 3, 2009 at 10:28 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Last week, as I rode from the village to the nearby town to catch the last bus to Kigali on Friday night we passed many, many children who were excited to see “muzingos” on motos passing through their small village.
They called out to me “Good morning! Good morning!” I thought to reply back, “Good evening!” (maybe they’d pick up the difference), but they still answered me again with “Good morning!” So “Good morning!” I repeated to myself with a laugh as the sun was setting.
Whoever’s been teaching them English must only come in the morning, I figured.
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