Rosh Hashanah in Kigali
Round challah with raisins? Check.
There may be no Jewish bakers in Kigali, but here’s evidence that there are bakers who can be taught to bake Jewish.
Shana Tovah from Rwanda.
Adrift in a Sea of Rolling Hills
My time in the Pays des Mille CollinesArchive for September, 2008
My My Moto
Want to get anywhere in Rwanda? The moto will take you.
These little machines that sometimes resemble no more than a motorized bicycle cover every corner of this country. Throughout the country, the motos are the transport system from the most remote houses to the nearest bus stop to anywhere else you might go.
In Kigali, it’s less than a dollar to get most everywhere in the city.
Cheap point-to-point public transportation. Not a bad idea if it weren’t for the absurdly high accident rate. It seems everyone has far too many moto accident stories and death is not uncommon.
But they sure are fun.
Trash Talking
I was traveling in the countryside yesterday 20 to 30 minutes down a dirt road into the country. City life far behind. If it weren’t for all the people living here, we might say “into the natural landscape.”
As we’re bumping along, one of my fellow passengers chucks out the milk carton he just finished. In my most bemused California, Berkeley student way, I asked, “Why’d you do that? You just toss the garbage on the side of the road like that?”
“It’s okay,” they responded. “It’s not a problem.”
“But it’s trash. Why not just hold on to it and we’ll throw it away later?”
“Rwanda is very clean. Very clean for Africa. It’s okay.” There was a clear consensus in the car.
“But this makes it less clean, doesn’t it?”
“No, no. It’s okay. Rwanda is very clean…”
…Honestly, Rwanda is very clean. You don’t see trash and abandoned waste anywhere. Which is why I don’t get it. For how normal they made it seem to chuck your trash out your window, Rwanda should be much dirtier.
Shouldn’t it?
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A Bakery with a Mission
Yesterday I got to visit an after-school/ weekend activities center for orphans here in Kigali. It is run by two genocide survivors, Emmanuel and Leonce, who believe God saved them so that they can help others.
The center began with offering activities and programs for street children and orphans and, just recently, they’ve opened a bakery staffed by their kids - a program which will support other programs.
It’s quite the operation, with about 12 kids on assembly lines and a huge, wood fueled oven. The bread is quite good too.
Emmanuel and Leonce’s passion and work moved one of the local staff who was with us to share his own passion. Driving back, he told us how difficult it was to find the will to live after he survived and how important our project is for Rwanda. Pounding the steering wheel, he declared that “We must succeed, we must rebuild our country.”
This is the passion which is building a better future for Rwanda.
“The highest percentage of orphans in the world”
The New York Times reported today on a new study by Tulane University on rural Rwandan orphans aged 12 to 24 caring for others in child-headed households. Their findings are compelling:
- 40% said life was meaningless
- 76% said their community rejected orphans
- Over half suffer from depression
- 77% are Subsistence Farmers
- 93% had less than six years of school
- Almost half had eaten only one meal a day in the last week
The study concludes that the number of Rwandan orphans “overwhelmed” the capacity of the country to adequately take them in and “large-scale interventions would be necessary ‘if the next generation of youth is to thrive.’”
The full study, from The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, is here.