29 August 2005 - Flailing no more!!!!

It looks like your humble correspondent is actually now a professional correspondent.

I just filed my first story from Rwanda earlier today. If all goes well, I should hear from my Catholic News editors back in DC whether it’s going to run. To be honest, it’s a little nerve wracking. When it goes onto the wire, I’ll post the link.

Here's the story: I went with Rebecca and some of her CRS colleagues last Tuesday to see a rural health center where anti-retroviral drugs are being handed out to HIV/AIDS patients. It’s something new for Rwanda, within the last year. Previously, people either had to come into Kigali, or they were even further out of luck.

It was the first time out of Kigali for both Rebecca and me, and Kigali is definitely not like most of the country. Muhura, which is in Byumba province near the border with Uganda, is dirt poor and mountainous, around two and a half hours from Kigali. The roads are made of hard, red clay, winding through the mountains and with the necessary complement of ruts, grooves and divots. The four-wheel drive we traveled in seemed to find every hole, or perhaps there was no flat road to find. We bounced around within the confines of our seatbelts, and I couldn’t write as I interviewed Andre, CRS’s program manager for the rural ARV treatment project.

The people in Muhura are subsistence farmers, growing potatoes, corn, cauliflower, sorghum and sweet potatoes. Banana trees and coffee plants lined the road, and people picked bananas for eating and selling. People live in dusty shacks with corrugated metal roofs. If ever there was a picture of African rural poverty, Muhura was it.

HIV and AIDS aren’t the problems in the countryside that they are in the city. Only about four percent of the rural population has the disease, whereas the city average rises to 11 percent, parts of Kigali up to 17. But in the cities, people had access to medicines rural populations didn’t.

Muhura health center, where we went, is run by a group of nuns who struggle mightily with their burden. More than 30,000 people fall under their care, and malaria, tuberculosis and violent diarrhea are constant threats to the population. The compound of buildings with green courtyards has separate wards for HIV, and the capacity to have around 20 people in need of urgent care. There is also a maternity ward of 12 beds, and they are almost constantly full, Sister Eugenie, the center’s director, said. They are also building a much-needed tuberculosis ward.

Anyway, I won’t say too much about the HIV/AIDS program I saw because I want you to read my story when it’s posted. But I met the first people I knew had been condemned to death. I interviewed several AIDS patients who are on the anti-retrovirals. The drugs hold off AIDS, sometimes for several years, but each person has their own expiration date.

It’s odd looking into the eyes of someone you know is going to die, maybe soon, but who appears to be in fairly good health. It’s more discordant than sad. The people I spoke to all retained their hopes for the future, even though it may be short. It’s hard not to get caught up in that hope, even if you doubt how long the future will be for that individual. It's not like talking to someone with cancer, either. There's some hope with many cancers. Not with HIV. As I said, the drugs merely hold off the disease for a while, but a person's not getting better, no matter how healthy they look.

Before we got there, I was nervous about meeting my first person living with HIV/AIDS. But after I got over it and remembered that I was talking to a human being with the same hopes and dreams as just about any other human being, albeit with a huge anvil hanging over their head, I was fine.

I just forgot to get the last names of the nuns, which delayed publication by about four or five days while I scrounged around for them.

So, yeah, work is officially off the ground and running. I am picking up my press card tomorrow. It turns out that it’s $300 for two months, not three. The prices really are extortion. That's making me feel a lot better.

So has running. I began this morning a little after six (what have you done with Evan!) with the cry, “Let’s take that hill!” and off I went.

The hill in question is the one leading down to our house. It’s the Darth Vader of hills, twisted and evil. It’s the same red clay found throughout Rwanda, packed tight and hard, almost to the consistency of asphalt. I think it may have been paved at one time; Bec differs on that score.

The hill is at a 45-degree angle if it has any slope at all. It seems to go on forever. It is rutted and rocky, dangerous to drive, death defying to walk.

And I plan on running it every chance I get.

The first time I did it, last week, I thought my chest was going to explode. I almost didn’t make it up. But I did, passing workers as they trudged with their tools and school kids in their uniforms, rushing off to class. All of them had a look of, what is that crazy white boy doing?

I made it. And then I basically dragged myself for a couple of hundred meters to catch my breath. I walked past a brother and sister, waiting for their ride to school. “Run, run,” the older girl shouted. All I could do was wave and smile. I didn’t have the air for words.

I was eventually able to capture oxygen again and ran back down the hill. Jean opened the gate with a look of surprise that I made it home alive.

Today was a little easier. It didn’t hurt as much, and I was able to pick up my jog a little faster. I hope to be able vanquish the hill soon.

That’s all for now. I’ll try to post more often – I didn’t realize I had fans! I’ll also keep you posted on my travels. Possibly Burundi in the next few weeks to find out about the new president and hopes for peace there.

22 August 2005

Rebecca and I have made our escape from Cloud City, also known as Chez Lando. I am pleased to report that I still have both hands, and that Rebecca has not been taken captive by any bounty hunters. The assault on Jaba’s palace begins next week, although no one we know has been entombed in carbonite.

I am writing this from the Kigali Bureau of the Catholic News Service, which also happens to be a room in a two-story, red brick townhouse in Kigali’s Kimihurura district. I was calling our neighborhood the Kimi-Uhura district, thinking it was named after the Starship Enterprise’s communications officer. I guess not everyone lives in the bizarre mix of science fiction and real life that I choose to inhabit.

We moved into the house last Thursday. I’d give you an address, but I don’t think we have one. Like most streets in Kigali, ours has no name. I simply tell taxi drivers I live in Kimihurura district, behind the Sauna. That’s how most things are done here. People, businesses, even the government, have post boxes, and their street addresses are based on landmarks. For instance, the CRS office, where Bec goes every day, is behind the KBC. That’s it. Everyone in Kigali will be able to tell you where it is. Street names and numbers would make things far more efficient, especially with the pace of construction here. But it would probably end up like Phnom Penh, where there were street names and numbers that the foreigners used, but the moto drivers went via landmarks. A foreigner gesturing wildly or simply screaming agitated instructions on the back of a motorcycle, at the mercy of a smiling, uncomprehending driver up front was a common sight in Cambodia.

So, let me take you on a tour of our house. As I said, it is a red brick, two-story townhouse, and the second in a line of four along an unnamed dirt road. It has three bedrooms, all upstairs. We turned one of the bedrooms into the Kigali Bureau, which makes me the Chief. But I digress. There are two bathrooms upstairs, one downstairs that we use mostly as a storage closet for Claude, the guy who comes to clean the house and do the laundry twice a week.

The house came nearly fully furnished with beds, a dining table and chairs, two armoires, stove, refrigerator, sofas for the sitting room, table in the kitchen and a table and chairs for the balcony off the master bedroom. They also gave us a generator, which is a necessity because the power reliably conks out a couple of times per day. The landlords provided a TV and VCR, although we only have DVDs. If anyone knows what cables I need to get to play DVDs from my Mac or Bec’s Sony Vaio onto the TV, please post them to the blog or e-mail me directly. I do like to get those e-mails. evweinberger@yahoo.com, in case you’re wondering.

What we didn’t have, CRS provided for the most part. They took us shopping for some kitchen and cleaning supplies, all on CRS’s dime. We also got a desk, bookcase and chairs for the office out of storage. The storage place was actually where CRS stores uncountable stacks of grain and cooking oil provided by Uncle Sam. One of the ways the food is used is that it is sold at bargain prices to individuals and little shops, who then turn and sell the food. It’s called monetization. When there is a dire food shortage, or people don’t have the money to buy food, then it is simply given out. But the monetization program allows for business and job development, as well as economic growth. It’s an interesting idea. The Rwandan government no longer wants to receive food aid – instead it wants money for development programs – so we’ll see what happens with the monetization program.

Now back to the house. One of the other amenities our house came with was a guard. His name is Jean, and we have no idea where he sleeps, when he eats or anything else like that. It seems like his job is simply to open and close the gate to our driveway, turn on the generator when the power goes out, sweep up when the wind blows, squeegee the porch when it rains and make sure the place doesn’t get robbed. His French isn’t wonderful, and he seems to communicate better with Bec, but we’re starting to reach an accord.

Having Jean around is reassuring, and I realize that it provides a job to someone who may not have the highest level of education in the country. But since when do I need a guard? Rich people, important people have guards. Who are we? Bec says to think of him like a houseboy. Yeah, that helps a lot. The poor guy is outside all the time, although a small shack is on the way.

Jean is another example of my complicated relationship with Kigali. There are times that I enjoy it here, and it’s a great adventure. There are other times when Kigali and I mix like the bug I encountered last week mixed with my digestive tract. I’m still not totally sure all of my internal organs are where they should be.

There are things I genuinely like about Kigali: I like that just about all of the mini-buses have names. Some of them make sense, like the Jet Li taxi. It conveys a sense of toughness, speed and direction. Others have slogans, like In God’s Hands. I plan on avoiding that one. Then there is the Shania Twain mini-bus. It conveys a love of easy-listening Canadian country-pop music. What that has to do with public transport, I can’t say.

I love that there are so many stories just waiting to be written. I just need to focus on one or two rather than working on the nine or ten at a time I’ve been trying to do. I also love that there are few, if any, Western reporters here. That makes life somewhat easier.

The people I’ve met have for the most part been lovely. They deeply care about their country, and they want to make sure that I learn to love it the way they do. I’ll reserve judgment on that. One other thing I really like is that Rwandans and foreigners mix. We eat in the same restaurants, shop at the same stores – at least the rich Rwandans – and go to the same places. It wasn’t like that in Cambodia.

Then there are days that I just want to wake up and be back in New York. The begging kids and the street hawkers have overwhelmed me, and the power is still out from the night before. A year’s press pass costs $1,000. (I’m going to buy the three-month pass, at still an extortionary $300, and hope that my contacts will let me in places after December without the pass.) We don’t know that many people here yet, and there are only so many times we can eat Rwandan pizza or brochettes without wanting to swear off food for a little while. Fortunately, we’ve started cooking again.

And then there is the language, my tortured relationship with Rwandan French. My first discovery was that my suspicion was correct: I only won the French prize in my senior year of high school because I was less obnoxious than Michael Emmanuel. Sorry, Dad, I’ve been saying this for years.

My second discovery was that the classical French I studied in high school and college has no bearing here. There are really no rules to French in Kigali, so the formal structures I know are no match for the anarchy. People mumble, they speak almost inaudibly; they plunge into sentences, almost daring grammar to stop them. Rebecca points out that this is not a francophone country; it’s a Kinyarwandaphone country. But I don’t speak Kinyarwanda, and am trying my best to meet the Rwandans on their terms. And oh yeah, that English as a third national language bit just isn’t true. Not many Rwandans speak English, so I just assume forget the whole English language with them.

So my transition goes in fits and starts. Some days the shifts from the depths of despair to sheer joy are almost frighteningly fast. But I may have my first story done this week. I’m off to a rural AIDS project with Bec and CRS tomorrow. And I’m starting to make some good contacts. Once that first story is out, and that first paycheck is in, I’ll feel much better.

Sorry this was so long. It’s been a while. If you want to see some photos, check out Rebecca’s flickr Web site, http://www.flickr.com/photos/rstich.

12 August 2005: Joys of language

I am pleased to report that I’ve learned my first word in Kinyarwanda. It was a word that I heard often coming down the street, and, silly me, I thought it meant hello. A kid, usually a boy, will shout “umuzungu” when I pass. I wave, smile or brush off the hawker. I think Rebecca thought the same thing. And then, as she began to learn Kinyarwanda from Christine, CRS’s receptionist, we learned what the word meant. Umuzungu means “Hey whitey!”

Allow me to translate:

“Umuzungu, newspaper?” in Kinyarwanda is “Hey whitey, want a newspaper?”

“Umuzungu, need change?” is “Hey whitey, do you want to get ripped off as my friend over here gives you two francs to the dollar?” The exchange rate is around 560 francs to the dollar, and yes, that’s what Rebecca and I get.

“Umuzungu, money?” means “Hey, rich whitey, give my friends and me some money. We know you’re good for it.” That usually comes from the street kids.

It’s not menacing in anyway, and I don’t think that it’s racist either. It’s almost like calling out, “hey, mister,” or, “excuse me, miss,” just more specific on skin color than gender. It’s probably a little bit of good-natured razzing as well. Given the history of white people on this continent, I think a little friendly razzing seems in order, and far better than we should expect.

Despite the fairly warm welcome Rebecca and I have received here in Rwanda – I think Rwandans realize that the foreigners that are here really want to be here, usually to help – umuzungu reinforces outsider status here. And here I was thinking I blended in.

Doing what I’m doing, trying to report on what’s happening here, also reinforces my role as the outsider. My job is to try to make sense of this place and what happens here for folks reading in relative comfort. How can I make the unfathomable fathomable?

I’ve met with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees representatives here to discuss going to meet refugees returning from the jungles of Congo. These refugees are the last remaining from the record-setting refugee flow that marked the end of the genocide. Often they were entirely cut off from any information, being told that the current government of Rwanda would kill them if they returned to the country. Hundreds of thousands left in the span of days, and the last 50,000 are sitting in refugee camps. That’s not really counting the genocidaires and former Rwandan military terrorizing the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda’s massive and anarchic neighbor, and threatening to come back and take over the country. Nobody believes they can do it because these are the guys that the current Rwandan military routed in 1994, but they do have the potential to do some mischief.

Now these unbelievably poor people are returning to Rwanda, although the flow has slowed because of renewed fighting in Congo, to find that there is almost no land for them. According to the UNHCR guy I spoke to, the biggest problem is the scarcity of land. Rwanda has the highest population density of any African country, and much of the land here is made up of hills and mountains. So where do they go?

I’ll be speaking to these people. But how do I relate to them? How do I talk to them without condescending to them? We’ll find out. Add to that the language difficulty – they all speak Kinyarwanda and I’m not counting on them knowing French – and you have the mixture of an alien experience. I think I’m up to it, but really I’m not sure.

I’ve also been spending time at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda information center here in Kigali, in preparation for covering trials of Catholic clergy over their roles in the genocide. My first trip will be in September, when the trial of one priest who had around 2,000 people killed and then had his own church bulldozed, restarts.

I expect that it will be like covering any trial. The priest is innocent until proven guilty, evidence will be presented and both the defense and prosecution will make their arguments. But if this man is guilty, it is a level of evil unlike any I’ve encountered face to face. I recognize that everyone, no matter how evil, is entitled to a defense. I just don’t think that I could do it, and I don’t understand how anyone can. It’ll be another example of looking at people I don’t know if I can understand.

And that brings us to Kigali today. It is a relatively calm city, filled with unidentifiable Japanese taxis, old Suzuki jeeps and expensive 4x4s driven by aid agencies traversing the undulating hills. People walk to and fro, business happens and construction is going on everywhere. It’s hard for me to picture the streets filled with bodies and the people with the ready smiles and easy laughs either running for their lives or running to take them. But it’s something that happened, and it underlies everything here.

6 August 2005 - A shorty

The funny thing about being a foreign correspondent is you want to live in a stable country, but you don’t necessarily want to cover it. Stability is bad for business. It puts the journalist in the uncomfortable position of looking for something to happen, and hoping that it’s not something terrible. But it’s easier to write about something terrible.

That was apropos of nothing, but it seemed like a good way to start. Since I haven’t been working on any stories yet, I’ve had a lot of time to think of the nature of what I’m doing here. I’m not calling it a job until I start to produce. I have set the ambitious goal of one story per week starting two weeks from now. That gives me three weeks to get myself set up. I can’t say enough for how patient and gentle Bec’s been as she listens to me alternately whine, moan, bitch and complain. But as things pick up and I get my feet under me, things will get better.

I really thought it would take me less time to get up and running. And I thought it would be much easier. I think I expected to get here, spend a day getting used to the time difference (it’s six hours ahead of New York) and get going. No such luck. It’s been frustrating and boring. There isn’t a whole hell of a lot to do in Kigali, which isn’t surprising considering how poor the country is. It’s not like there’s a great leisure or entertainment industry just bursting with excitement.

And there’s also no set press center like there is in other countries. So Eric, the fixer I wrote about in the last installment, introduced me to his friend Emma (a guy), who is the sports editor at the New Times, Rwanda’s biggest paper. He told me about some of the other ferners working here, and also how to get information from the government. He also gave me phone numbers, which probably more important. Now it’s time to put the contacts to work.

Living in the hotel is hard, too. I’m ready to unpack, and start cooking meals. I’m tired of restaurants. Rebecca and I have narrowed our choices down to a three-bedroom apartment and a three-bedroom townhouse. The apartment has a lot going for it: a generator, furnishings that we’ve seen, a balcony and it’s high enough for us to have beautiful views. It also has potentially noisy neighbors, so that’s a strike against. The townhouse isn’t furnished yet, although CRS will handle those negotiations, and there is no generator, so if the power grid goes out, we lose electricity. That usually happens a few times a day. But, it is our own space. We’ll have neighbors next door on both sides, but it’s our own house. It’s hard to discount how cool that is.

August 9, 2005 - I could use a muffin

I stopped that last entry short, and there’s actually been a fair amount of movement in the intervening days.

On the house front, Rebecca and I have seen several more. They’ve all been very nice, but have each had one or two small details that were a problem. One was very nice, in a new subdivision. It would not have been out of place in the United States, with a modern kitchen, good electrical connections and its own water pump. The furnishings were beautiful as well. Plus it was cheap. But it was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, past a sprawling lumberyard and along an unbelievably dusty dirt road. The house’s owners said that we couldn’t keep the doors or windows open during the day because of the dust. It’s going to be a great neighborhood in a year or two, but not right for us now.

Another house was in the leafy section of Kigali that was the first Belgian outpost, near the German embassy. It was airy, with sliding doors at the front and back, and was just the right size: two bedrooms, an office space and a sitting room. The neighborhood has constant water and power because we would have lived about around the corner from the president. But it was even more expensive than the chateaux that CRS’s country representative (Bec’s boss) lives in. Ah well, it would have been nice to get to know the new neighbors, although you probably wouldn’t want to play the music too loud too late with the presidential guards around.

A third was beautiful, a bit big but manageable. The price was right, but the landlord lives outside of Rwanda. His brother, who is handling the business negotiations, said his brother was “overseas.” To me, that probably means he’s a war criminal awaiting trial or in hiding. That really doesn’t matter to me. What does matter is that it’s hard to get the leaky faucet fixed if your landlord’s in hiding.

So we’re going to take the townhouse, and CRS may give us a spare generator they have lying around. We are so well taken care of. I think the negotiations began today, and we’ll hopefully be out of Chez Lando within 10 days.

Things on the work front are starting to pick up as well. The New Times sports editor introduced me to one of his friends, a Rwandan guy who is the local correspondent for a Swiss news agency called Hirondell. Gabby showed me some of the tricks that will make my life a little easier. One of them is not telling the government that I’m here. If I do, they’ll try to get about $1,000 from me for the privilege of working here. If I don’t, just about everyone, including the government, will speak to me anyway.

I also learned that unlike every other developing country, introducing local officials to my friends Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and Benjamin Franklin are more likely to get me in trouble than get me access to the people I need to talk to and sites I need to see. Stupid effective government anti-corruption efforts.

Gabby and I hit it off well. The same goes for my initial meetings with Emma and Eric. The locals mix much more with foreigners here than in Cambodia. I think part of that is there are fewer foreigners here than in Cambodia. Part of it is that there are just very few places for people to go, so everyone, locals and expats, end up in the same restaurants, bars, cafes and shops.

I’ve also finally met the local Catholic clergy. I spent the afternoon yesterday at the College of Catholic Bishops, and met several priests and church officials. I know whom to talk to when I need comment from the church. Abbe Emmanuel, the priest who is the assistant secretary general of the College, was very helpful, even through his broken English. The head of Catholic education spoke to me in French, and I picked up about 75% of what he said. And the office manager for the Episcopal Conference for Peace and Justice, a tall drink of water that the CRS country rep Sean calls Michael Jordan and is actually named Jean Claude, talked to me about going out to see the resettlement process of refugees returning from Congo.

There was one unfortunate incident. Abbe Emmanuel took me to a small chapel as he was showing me around the campus. When we got there, he crossed himself and stood for a few seconds waiting for something. So in the silence, I figured that I would do it myself, even though I am not Catholic and I have no intention of becoming one. What else was I supposed to do?

So I did it wrong. I used the wrong fingers and went the wrong way. Does that mean I pledged allegiance to the anti-Christ? Could I have brought about the end times? My sincere apologies if anyone sees four guys on horses wreaking havoc in the next few weeks.

That unfortunate incident aside, all of my meetings bring me to the biggest development. I’ve now officially got several stories I’m working here in Rwanda and in Arusha, Tanzania, where the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which prosecutes crimes from the 1994 genocide. I’ll keep them to myself until I’ve got buyers. And then it’s time for the merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made.

So things are moving here. It took me a week to get my feet underneath me. I hope to have my first story out by a week from Friday, but hopefully it’ll come out before then. It’s a start, and I feel much more comfortable. It’s still not easy, and there are times where I find my head swimming from everything going on around me. I’m not feeling quite as anxious as I was when I wrote last week, but occasionally an uneasy feeling comes over me when I’m walking around at night. I think it will take time for it to fully disappear, because it’s a feeling I really don’t like.

The French is coming along, although I am going to take the tutor that Rebecca’s getting through CRS. I’ll also try to learn some Kinya-rwanda, the local language. But I’ve gotten over the first two hurdles. I no longer feel weird with foreign words coming out of my mouth, and I feel less self-conscious when I make a fool out of myself talking.

Anyway, time to go post this. I also need to go pick up some water, which means I need to bring the ragamuffins. There aren’t nearly as many people begging on the street here as there were in Cambodia, but there are a few kids out in front of food stores, restaurants and Internet cafes, wherever people with money assemble. They’re usually little boys, and they’re usually off the streets before the sun goes down. I have no idea where they go (although it could be a story. See how the mind of a hustling reporter works). Anyway, rather than just stare straight ahead or give them money that will be turned into glue – and no, they’re not putting together model airplanes – Sean taught us to try to carry around little rolls or pieces of bread, or to pick some up when shopping. Often times the best thing to give are little muffins that are sold in packs of five – ragamuffins for the ragamuffins.

It’s a small thing, and something that makes me feel better about myself. It puts a little something in their tummies, and allows me to bask in the glow of my own self-satisfaction. Of course, Rebecca points out, it frees up some money for glue. But at least there’s a little something providing sustenance rather than a high.

So, off I go. Speak to everyone soon, and I will provide links to whatever stories end up online. Rebecca passed her driving test. Yay! Fewer taxis. Wish her luck on her first drive home.

4 August 2005 -- Uncomfortable Observations

It’s been a couple of days since I’ve written, and a couple of days to explore Kigali. So now I can give a few first impressions, as I sit here under a bamboo lean-to at the Novotel hotel, with sweeping views of one of the hillsides.

Before I get started on new thoughts, let me update one of the things I wrote last time, the whole traffic light bit. Yeah, I was wrong. People do drive safer here than they do in Phnom Penh – there are no families of five with all of their earthly possessions on one motor scooter, for example – but there aren’t many more traffic lights here. It’s just that people follow the lights and signs that are up.

That’s quite enough about driving, but it is one of the easiest things to notice. Now on to other thoughts and observations.

Kigali is not an easy place to explore on foot. Between the hills and the beating sun, it’s just not that pleasant to take a good long walk. I know I should be wearing my ridiculous big-brimmed hat, but pride and vanity are getting in the way. I feel like a beekeeper in the thing, and it doesn’t allow me to blend in as well with the locals. Fortunately, it’s not hot at all. The sun is just incredibly strong. If you check the online weather for Kigali, you’ll notice that the UV ratings are usually 10-plus. Yikes. It’s like I’m walking around in a tanning booth all day. At least the sun is down by about 6:30, every day, all year. We are just north of the Equator after all.

I’ve also made some possibly uncomfortable observations about myself. I’m wondering why I felt more comfortable in Phnom Penh than I do here in the first few days. I think part of it is that I had a cadre of people in Phnom Penh, ex-pats and locals, who were looking out for me. They needed me to put out their newspaper. I don’t have that here; my contacts are all in the States.

But I fear that my discomfort level in Kigali may also be because of some biases ingrained in me. Could it be that I feel slightly less at ease because everyone around me is African? Could it be like when white people lock ‘em up and roll ‘em up in Harlem or the South Bronx? I hope not. Hell, I never do that. And it’s not like I think people are sizing me up to rob me. But I can’t discount it. I can, however, get over it. I don’t think I could do that unless I was open and honest about what I was feeling. And since this here Web site is all about telling you what I’m thinking and feeling, I felt like I should put that in there. I hope none of you think less of me.

Transitions are often the hardest part of writing. And trying to find the proper transition from discussing my ugly internal deliberations to trying to get my ugly work situation off the ground is harder than most. There, I think I’ve done it, but in a cheap and tawdry way.

I’ve found my fixer. For those of you who don’t know what a fixer is, it’s the local that makes foreign corresponding happen. It’s usually a man who knows the people to know in the country the correspondent is covering. And the fixer generally has a car. They’ll often make appointments for the journalist, and also do the driving. Of course, one has to pay for the fixer’s services, but it’s his job.

I met this fellow Eric through a contact Rebecca made before we got here. He’s 27, tall and fluent in French, English and Kinya-rwanda, the local language. He was a refugee in Burundi for a few years, so I felt funny after I told him that Rebecca and I were tired of living out of suitcases, which we’ve done for the last few weeks. Party foul, we’ve never had to run for our lives.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that Eric doesn’t sleep. He is in charge of four different essentially charity organizations, including a school-exchange program with Montpellier, Vermont, an anti-AIDS organization, an ethnic reconciliation forum and a business development group. He’s also in his second year at university, where he studies business at night. Eric is going to introduce me to some of the journalists here, and then to some government folks and others. I think he’ll help a lot.

Of course, I haven’t yet introduced myself to any of the Catholic hierarchy here yet, and since I’m writing for the Catholic News Service primarily, they’re probably people I should meet. I tried, but they changed their phone number.

I have a feeling I’ll be writing mostly for CNS. There’s no famine here (Niger and soon Mali. Get your tickets), no riots or ongoing genocide here (Sudan) and there’s not going to be a coup anytime soon (Mauritania). Yep, I certainly know how to go where the news is. I guess that’s the price to pay for being in a relatively stable country.

That’s pretty much it from here. Our luggage arrived yesterday. Funny story, it actually arrived on Tuesday, but Kenyan Air decoded not to tell us. So it was sitting in the Kigali Airport for a day. So far everything we packed appears to have made it. And we’re going house hunting this afternoon. Here’s hoping for the chateaux, or at least something bigger than one bedroom.

Hey, if anyone feels like I’m not answering questions they have or anything post them. Also, if this sounds funny, like it was just posted on Saturday even though it was written Thursday, well, sorry. I guess I’m just a slacker. Like you didn’t know that already.

Greetings, everyone, from the land of eternal spring, one of Rwanda’s nicknames. I thought rather than sending a long e-mail every week that I’d maintain a blog instead. That’s right, I’ve become part of the chattering class. I hope that rather than the fat guys with political agendas who never see the sun in the United States, I’ll actually have something interesting to say. I also hope that I will not get fat and that I will see the sun, but that’s another story.

Anyway, here’s how this is going to work. I’ll update this site periodically. Sometimes I’ll remember to e-mail out that I’ve done it, most of the time I won’t. So it’ll be your responsibility to check it periodically, at least a couple of times a week. You’ll be able to post a response, so if you think I’m insightful and helping your understanding of the country, post it. If you think I’m a government shill, any government, post it. You can call me any names you want. Any names, except late for dinner.

I’ll also remember to put links to my stories when they’re published in other newspapers and wire services.

So, here we go with the first missive:

August 2, 2005

So we’re here. In Kigali, at Chez Lando. Our luggage isn’t with us, except for the stuff we carried onto the plane ourselves. It never made the jump from our Baltimore to London flight to our London to Nairobi flight. Don’t worry though, we do have enough changes of underwear to weather this particular storm, and our bags should arrive today or tomorrow. At least that’s what British Airways says.

Rebecca is off at work, meeting new people, doing exciting things. Me, well, I tried to go for a walk, to try to find a good place to sit and write. That’s no easy task when you’re in a city with barely any street names, and even fewer maps. So I’m sitting on a bench in Chez Lando’s parking lot. And I really have nothing to write about, except about how I’ve got almost nothing to write about. Yet. It hasn’t even been 24 hours since we arrived.

I am determined to find my way around. I will not whine. I will not complain. I don’t have a choice. It’ll be much easier when Rebecca and I finally have a place to live that’s not a hotel. She might be fine living out of a suitcase. I am too, up to a point. So far it’s been 10 days at the Stich apartment, three nights with Amanda, three nights on airplanes, a night in Nairobi and a night at Chez Lando with no end in sight.

This is all going to take some time. I have to get over my fear of French. It’s not an inability to speak the language. It’s a fear of hearing the words come out of my mouth. They’re not English, in case any of you were wondering, and it still feels wrong to speak them. Like everything else here, it’s just going to take some time and I’ll get used to it. Until then, I’ll just sort of muddle through.

Now, enough about me. Let’s talk about Kigali, since that’s what most of you are probably wondering about. What are my first impressions, you’re probably wondering. Sorry, but I’m a journalist. I don’t do impressions. If I did, however, I would impersonate a cloud of dust. Yesterday when Rebecca and I were being driven back from the Catholic Relief Services headquarters, I was brought to tears by a cloud that snuck around my sunglasses and into the whites of my eyes. I may have to wear goggles.

Other than that, I haven’t seen very much. Chez Lando is between the government area, where CRS is based, and the central city, or what there is of a central city. Of course, that means that it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. It’s a 25 to 30 minute walk to get either area, and with the blistering UV levels, that’s probably not going to be a possibility for me. Chez Lando is a hopping spot at night, however. Of course, since it’s named after Lando Calrissian, how could it not be? Don’t quote me on the Lando Calrissian bit, though. It is, however, truly its own little city in the clouds.

Other than the dust, Kigali is simply beautiful. It is built on two hills, and incorporates the valley in between. It is studded with trees, although we arrived during one of the two dry seasons, so it’s not nearly as green as it will be here. There is construction going on everywhere. Modern buildings, some with glass walls others with the ubiquitous stucco of the developing world, are going up everywhere.

It’s all a part of rebuilding the country, which is much easier to do physically. Business appears to be picking up, although it doesn’t mask the grinding poverty. Reading some of the statistics on the country paints a picture of a nation with a host of problems it will be tough to overcome. The life expectancy averages about 49 years. The HIV/AIDS infection rate is 11 to 13 percent of the population. Infant mortality rates are 110 for every 1,000 births. Those are just off the top of my head. Rebecca’s got more.

As I said, there are good things going on here. Rwanda was just rated the top of the list in President Bush’s PEPFAR (I think that stands for President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief or some other nonsensical acronym from Uncle Sam), which means that it is getting anti-retroviral drugs and other AIDS treatments to its population more efficiently and completely than any country that receives the funds. Even in rural areas, which is most of the country. Prevention efforts by the government are a different story altogether, and one that I know little about. I plan on finding out about them.

As I said, there is construction going on all over Kigali. And there are traffic lights. That may not sound like such a big deal, and in fact they don’t necessarily work all that well – most of the signals I’ve seen are flashing yellow lights rather than full-on red, yellow and green – but it’s a sign that the folks who run this country are trying to instill a rule of law.

In most developed countries, traffic is heavily regulated, even if the regulations are usually ignored. In most developing countries that’s not the case. I don’t remember seeing one traffic light in Nairobi, although to be fair we really only drove from the airport to the hotel and back. I think there were two traffic lights in all of Cambodia, and anyway, people didn’t follow them. People here follow the lights and the signs, from what I’ve seen, and anyway, except for the motorcycle taxi drivers, don’t drive like maniacs. Everyone tells me not to use the moto guys, and since folks who have been here for over a year and have lived all over this continent tell me that, I’ll listen.

One other interesting phenomenon is the beginnings of a public transit system. There were always minibuses flying around Kigali. The minibuses are small Japanese vans from the 1980s, like the Shaggin’ Wagon, Mo. Until recently, they just went wherever the passengers wanted. Now, they have the neighborhood they’re going to marked clearly on the front and are starting to develop routes. I’m not sure if that’s a government thing, but it’s putting a bit of order into transport here. I don’t know any of the neighborhoods, so they’re of no use to me yet. I’m also going to have to figure out which private cars are actually taxis.

The government here appears to be ahead of the people in many ways, traffic being one prominent example. According to Rebecca’s boss, the people may just be starting to catch up.

I’m sure that those of you who know their history are waiting for me to mention the g-word. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ve got to turn off the television and start reading more. The g-word I’m talking about is genocide, and it’s hard to not think about it when you first arrive here. When I look at someone older than say about 25, I wonder what they did, or when they moved back here. It’s simply not possible to avoid, although I’d like to think that I’ll move past that thought. More than 800,000 people were slaughtered out of a population of around 8 million in around 100 days. That’s about 10 percent of the population for those math-phobes. In fact, Rwanda had the second largest portion of its population killed in a genocide or political violence of any country, according to Rebecca’s boss. What country killed the most of its citizens? Cambodia. Do I know how to pick my developing countries or what?

The genocide hangs over everything here, and according to the few foreigners I’ve spoken to, it’s something Rwandans don’t talk about. There is a certain tension in the air at all times, these folks say. But it’s eased a bit over the last few weeks. Other than that, I don’t have much to say about it. I’m just trying to learn how to talk about it with Rwandans, if they choose to talk about it. It’s not like asking about the weather, however.

Chances are when you meet people, they either lost family in the genocide, returned with the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the rebel group that ended the genocide, knew people who killed or who killed themselves. Cambodia was the same way, but when Rebecca and I were there, they had 30 years to move on from the Khmer Rouge, and they didn’t do it well. The Rwandan genocide happened only 11 years ago, and the country is still trying to figure out how to deal with it. But how does it move on and create a civil society? That’s one of the questions I hope to answer. A better way to phrase that is I hope there is an answer to that question, for the Rwandans’ sakes.

Around 36,000 people implicated in the killings were recently released from prison here because they were being held too long without a trial. They have to be reincorporated into society. A recent peace agreement with rebels in Congo is allowing many genocidaires, the people who brought you the violence, to return home, although the jury is still out on whether that will happen, and how it will work. The local gacaca (pronounced gachacha) tribunals, where a form of local justice is handed down on low-level offenders after a public trial, are still going on, and I plan on going to many to see how they work. The government appears to want to move ahead peacefully, and unlike other genocide sufferers actually is trying to prevent others from suffering the same fate. The Rwandan military, which by all accounts is trained to the standards of a Western military, is among the leaders of the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, Sudan. And the government wants to send more troops. We’ll see how that works out.

Wow, so much for not having a lot to write about. I hope that this serves as a good introduction into what Rebecca and I have got us into. As you can see, there’s no shortage of stories here. Hopefully editors will want them. Look for another installment soon.