29 December 2005

Bec’s parents, Jude and Steve, are here, and everything so far has gone well. They’ve actually seen more of the sites here in Rwanda than we have.

They arrived late Monday night, and are staying in the Hotel Mille Collines. For those of you who have seen it, the Mille Collines is the famous “Hotel Rwanda.” On Tuesday, they went around Kigali and saw the Genocide Memorial, which is supposed to be really well done, with the collaboration of the folks who put together the Washington, DC Holocaust memorial.

Getting them a driver was a bit more of a hassle than I had planned. There’s one taxi driver that I (used to) use named Ignace. He has the typical Rwandan taxi, which means you have to hold onto the door to make sure it doesn’t open up while he’s driving, and the windshield is all but shattered. But he’s reliable and he speaks passable English. So we had agreed that he would pick Jude, Steve and me up at noon on Tuesday at the hotel, and he would take the ‘rentals-in-law out for the afternoon.

When I called him on Tuesday morning to confirm, he was in Gisenyi with another fare. Now, you have to understand, Gisenyi is way the hell out on the other side of the country.

I found another driver near our house, and he worked out fine. I asked John Peter in French, “Do you speak English?”

“Yes.”

And then I switched. “Okay, we’re going to have a test. I am going to speak to you in English and use big words.”

“Okay.”

He passed.

Jude and Steve are now in Nyungwe National Forest, where the chimps live. They’re coming back this evening and then tomorrow it’s off to Mugonero, to Victor’s orphanage, for New Year’s. That should be fun. We’ll be there until Sunday afternoon. Jude and Steve head off for a 12-day safari through Uganda on Tuesday. …

So some of you have been asking about the paper I’ll be editing. Getting any new enterprise up to speed is slow, and starting an English newspaper in Rwanda is even slower. There just aren’t the reporters here. So, my boss says he has one story ready to edit, and when there are a few more he will send them to me. Eventually I’ll be able to work in the office, when the reporters are there. …

A Rwandan friend and I had an interesting conversation on Tuesday evening. We spoke about the war here, and the aftermath of the genocide. I was under the impression that there were no widespread revenge massacres when the RPF stopped the genocide. My friend said yes there were, in the west of the country where the Interahamwe and old Rwandan army didn’t have to go do the killings because the local populations performed their tasks with amazing gusto.

We then spoke about the massacres committed by the Rwandan army in Congo in 1997. The Interahamwe and other genocidaires had mixed in with other refugees, all under the knowing noses of the UN. The thugs set up their own government within the refugee camps and killed anyone that stood up to them. They were also rearming and launching deadly cross-border attacks into Rwanda.

In 1997, Uganda and Rwanda, but mostly Rwanda, propped up a militia force that eventually took over Congo from Mobutu. The Rwandan army did the bulk of the fighting, and made time to chase down and slaughter the refugees. I asked if my friend had a problem with this.

“I may sound like a cold man,” he said, eyes blazing, “but the Hutus killed us for decades without any threat of retaliation.” Maybe a reverse massacre would teach them a lesson, he said. “There were no innocent Hutus.”

I rode into the debate with my “eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” and my Human Rights Watch background. The violence just perpetuates a cycle, I said.

But it felt like I was attacking a battleship with spitballs. None of my arguments could make a dent in my friend’s convictions. In either 1959 or 1962 (I don’t remember which one), my friend’s parents, Tutsis obviously, barely escaped another series of ethnic, Hutu-on-Tutsi, massacres. “They got out by the skin of their teeth,” he said, “They were just children. They were doing this for 40 years. What were we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know,” I sputtered, and we changed the conversation.

I still believe that the revenge killings of innocents were wrong, but I have no problem clearing out the genocidaires, especially since the useless UN was letting them launch brutal attacks from the camps.

But at some point in every conflict, someone has to say we’re not going to fight anymore. At some point, someone has to be brave, and accept whatever may come. Otherwise people just keep killing each other for no reason. Someone in Israel and Palestine (that’s right, I said Palestine) is going to have to say enough. Bec says the more powerful party in a conflict has the responsibility to do that. I don’t think any side has a greater responsibility. Someone just has to get up and say, enough.

I recognize that what I just wrote is a sort of dream world. I’m not a pacifist, and do believe in self-defense. People aiming at attacking innocents need to be stopped, within the law. None of this torture or illegal wiretapping nonsense. But maybe in cases where it’s just one revenge killing justifying another revenge attack, people need to step back and say, we’re not going to retaliate. Maybe that’s the only way to move forward.

I guess that’s my New Year’s wish. And since I’m going to be out of town, in the sticks, for the changing of the calendar, here’s hoping everyone has a happy and a healthy one. Sorry for the rambling and bringing everyone down.

26 December 2005

Christmas and Hanukkah were joyeux.

Other than a little disagreement between the vegetable peeler and my left pointer finger, everything went off without a hitch. We had an intimate group of six, including our friend Anne, who was here for Thanksgiving and works for CRS, our friend Laura, another regular, and two Columbia Business School Students who are here doing a short-term consulting project, Jake and Tricia. I was the only non-business person at the gathering, but we were able to redirect the conversation out of the business world, except when I was off making the latkes.

The latkes, by the way, were a huge hit. Thanks Mom. They were the source of my injury, though. And the pot roast with a red wine reduction Bec made was fabulous as well. Normally Rwandan beef is ridiculously tough. But she managed to make it chewable, and tasty. Anne had the best theory as to why Rwandan beef is as tough as it is. “The cows have to walk up all these hills,” she said.

Laura lives up in Kimironko, a mostly middle-class neighborhood by Rwandan standards on the other side of town from us, in a house maintained by a joint Rwandan-American non-governmental organization (yup, yet another NGO) called RAPs – Rwandans and Americans in Partnership. Both Rebecca and I hate the name. Why can’t it just be Rwandan-American Partnership? Or Rwandan-American Partners? Why does it need the “in”? Why must it be like a Steven Seagal movie title?

Laura is starting another NGO here, a health services one that is putting a proper hospital in underserved rural areas. There are over 400 registered NGOs, Rwandan and international, in this country. That’s not including the UN and the various Western government aid agencies like USAID. There are probably more NGOs than there are private businesses in Rwanda. It’s gotten to the point where there are two international NGOs working here with the same acronym – FHI – but with two different functions. One does family planning and anti-AIDS work, the other food security. I’m sorry, but once we’ve run out of acronyms, we need fewer NGOs. One needs to change its name or go out of business. I have thought of two ways to do this. Either the organization that was in business first gets to keep the name, or gang fights between the rival executive boards. Their choice, but one FHI has to go.

Somehow the number of NGOs in Rwanda seems wrong. I fear it’s like Bec described in Central Asia, where a few people decided that they were going to form an NGO, they gave themselves a snappy name and mission statement, got a boatload of Western foundation money, and then…. Nothing. No work, just the founders living better than they had before.

I have no doubt that Laura and her backers are doing and will do good work. But people have to start thinking about making money here, or nothing will ever really develop. As much as non-profits are necessary – and one of them is paying my rent and employing my wife – a country needs a vibrant private sector in order to really grow.

Anyway, back to Laura. She’s from Hanover, N.H.; she is hysterical; and she’s ready for a vacation. She hasn’t had power in her house for a couple of months because the previous owner never paid the electric bill. So the current tenant is expected to cover the previous delinquent. That hardly seems fair, since RAPs was up to date on its bills. Anyway, the person in charge of paying the bills is a bit forgetful and didn’t take care of the previous bills before spending six weeks in the U.S.

And then Laura’s just grown tired of a lot of the nonsense I’ve written about. So one day, after a particularly annoying morning, she just went home and went to bed. And now she’s taken to swinging her umbrella like a Billy club. Her house manager, a Rwandan, told Laura she wanted to walk around with her American friend at night for protection. “As if me and my umbrella are going to do anything,” Laura said last night.

It’s comforting in it’s way to see other people at short ends, although I wish we weren’t. Laura said Rwanda is turning her mean, which she wasn’t before. She doesn’t like it. Sometimes I feel the same way. But I’m still able to laugh, and so is Laura. We just try to keep our equilibrium, and to keep our spirits as intact as possible.

23 December 2005

So this is Christmas. And Hanukkah.

When I think of Christmas, I think of cold and snow and music. In Rwanda, it’s 90 degrees, and Christmas just isn’t that big a deal. I don’t think Hanukkah is a big deal here either. It’s been a bit hard to get into the spirit of the season, but we’re working on it.

Bec and I are hosting a traditional Christmas/Hanukkah dinner, complete with a big ol’ pot roast and potato latkes. Yummy. We’re still not sure how many people are coming, but we should probably find out soon since we need to shop tomorrow. Did I tell you that living in Rwanda was like being on the knife’s edge?

Here are just a few more thoughts on what I wrote about last time. The people who bother me when they call me umuzungu, which I probably spell incorrectly, are the adults. The street kids just break my heart, and when one of them is selling tissues or something, I make sure to buy. Bec and I also keep planning on putting together bags of peanuts to give to them, just to make sure they get something in their tummies. We’ll get to it.

The other kids don’t bother me that much either. I’m different than them, and they’re starting to explore their world. When something is different, they study it and point. That’s normal. That’s discovery.

Teen-agers do it too, but they’re just universally annoying and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

It’s just the adults who get to me. And when I asked Bec’s French teacher, Florentine (who is graciously letting me sit in on some classes), she said that to many people, umuzungus are supposed to be driving big white cars, or have a Rwandan driving them. They’re not supposed to be walking around, or taking the mini-bus. Many of the people on the street have just come in from their hillsides, she said, and they still ask her whether her husband, who is Belgian, eats with his mouth, or whether umuzungus do everything differently.

So when these people see me walking or taking the bus, there’s obviously something wrong with me, and therefore I should be laughed at. Florentine’s husband no longer walks around the neighborhood, unless he’s with their kids. It just got to be too much, and he’s been here at least since right after the genocide.

None of this makes me feel much better. It’s profoundly sad in its way, and it doesn’t make the laughing any less annoying. But I’m not going to change what I do. I like to walk around, and private taxis are far too expensive. Plus, I’m stubborn and I’m not letting people here change what I do.

So, now that that’s out of the way, I’m now a newspaper editor. A guy I met named Shyaka, who is Rwandan and reported from here and from South Africa, is starting a new English-language paper. Shyaka was also a Nieman Fellow in journalism at Harvard and got a master’s in journalism at City College in London. He’s serious about what he’s doing. The only problem is he’s a Red Sox fan. And he’s not happy about Johnny Damon.

Anyway, he wants his paper to be on an international level, good enough for people outside of Rwanda to read. Not like the New Times, the competition which I’ve stopped reading because a) it’s wretched and b) they make almost everything up.

Both Shyaka and I agreed that I shouldn’t report. I don’t speak the language, and he wants his reporters for his local paper to really dig. If there’s a story I’m working on that might work for his paper, he told me to give it a local angle and he’d publish it. But where I can really help is by bringing along his young reporters. I’ll also help put together a stylebook, so that all the reporters spell things the same way and the paper looks uniform.

The paper, called Focus, is going to be a weekly but is starting out as a monthly. The first edition is expected in January, and will probably be online. I’m not working in his office yet, because there’s not enough room and the reporters aren’t working out of there as of now. But it’s an exciting project, and he said it’s no problem with him if I take time off to work on my own assignments. I just need to get them.

I have a feeling this is going to be good, and it’ll be steady work. That’s enough for me.

Bec’s parents are coming for a few days next week, which should be fun.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone. Miss you all.

20 December 2005

It’s taken me a little while to get used to being back, and journalistically things have been a bit slow. But I’m making progress in both areas.

On the work front, I sent out five pitches to editors in the US yesterday, including three to DaMN, which I’m far more hopeful about. In baseball, if you bat .300, you’re going to the Hall of Fame. I’m aiming to bat around .600, meaning I get assigned three of those stories. Of course, it’ll be one of those first-week-of-the-season batting averages that are skewed because of the meaningless number of at-bats.

Two are foreign stories, one in Uganda and one in Congo. I actually have to leave the country within the next three months because my trip to Connecticut to get the new passport cut into my time to get the fingerprints I needed for my FBI clearance to get a long-term visa. That’s right, in a country where one million people were killed in the span of 100 days – admittedly not by the people in power now, not including actions in Congo in the late 1990s – I need to prove that I’m not a criminal.

So I have to leave the country every three months. That’s okay. It keeps me on my toes, thinking of places to go and stories to do.

One story I pitched is poople power, and the other is a “development of philanthropy” story. The final story is inside Rwanda, and is really awful. But I’m not telling you what it is until I know if I can write it for DaMN or not.

But I will tell you a little about the person that gave me the awful Rwanda story. His name is Victor and he’s a Guatemalan who runs an orphanage out in the middle of nowhere. In Rwanda that’s saying something. Bec met him through work, and he was in town for a few days last weekend. We had dinner on Saturday.

Anyway, Victor lived in Europe for several years, speaks Spanish, German and English. No French. No Kinyarwanda. He says he speaks to his kids in the universal language of love (his words). He’s right. A good hug can go a long way.

Victor is an agronomist, and one of the projects he’s working on is creating a plantation on his orphanage’s sprawling property where he will grow papayas, mangoes, pineapples and other fruits to dry, get certified organic and send up to Europe. He also wants to start an eco-tourism business, and we may be spending New Year’s at the orphanage hiking and canoeing on Lake Kivu.

Because of his training, Victor knows a lot about farming. And he knows a lot about tropical fruit from growing up in Guatemala, which he says has a remarkably similar climate to Rwanda. He’s bringing in new species of mango and papaya to grow here. Right now only pineapples grow on his orphanage’s grounds.
He noticed that people were picking them while they were green. Victor said people told him green pineapples were the sweetest, and the best time to eat them. He knew this was nonsense, so he pressed on.

The people then told him they took green pineapples because they were sure the neighbors were going to pick them early, and they wanted to make sure they at least got a bad one. See, it’s that lack of trust I’ve written about before that keeps coming back.

Victor’s initial reaction to that and mine start out in the same place: it’s tremendously sad that Rwandans can’t trust each other.

But then they diverge drastically. Victor hired a guard for his plants and hopes that people will see that yellow pineapple is better, and that maybe they’ll start to trust each other. Mine is to just say, you know what, have fun with that. It’s not worth the frustration.

I hope that I lose this feeling. But every time I start to feel differently, I have an experience that just knocks most of my positive feelings out.

Yesterday, I was buying bread at the local store. This guy Jean-Baptiste, a Rwandan who lives near us and speaks English, was there. We have a little game. Every time I see him, he asks me for a job, gardening, doing laundry. Usually, I politely say we’ve got a guy.

He was sitting and drinking a beer in the store. When he saw me, he said, “How about that job?”

“Sorry, I don’t have one.”

“But I need a job.”

“You can keep asking me, but I still won’t have one.”

He persisted. “But I have a wife and kids. How am I supposed to feed them?”

“Why are you sitting here drinking beer?”

“But it’s Christmas, how am I supposed to buy presents.”

“I’m not Christian, and I still have no job to offer you.” (The first part was clearly not the right thing to say, but I had had about enough.)

He cursed at me in Kinyarwanda and I walked off. On the way down, the guards at the apartment building next to our house and one of its residents – you have to have money to live there – started in on “Donnez-moi du pain!” (Give me bread.)

I asked if they had self-respect, in English because that’s kind of where my French gives out, and kept walking.

To fight back, I’ve taken to walking around with headphones on. So when the Congolese moneychangers start in with their calls of “My friend, change?” they sound like Bruce Springsteen. As they get up in my face and continue, despite me saying no, they start to sound like Bono.

Now, to balance out my annoying Jean-Baptiste story, I met a new friend right before I left for New York. His name is Thaddee, and he just graduated with a degree in environmental sciences from the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology. He’s helping me with my environment story. And despite not having one, he has not asked me for a job.

We met up early yesterday, and he told me that he’s looking for work anywhere, and is learning Dutch because he just likes languages. He also started a small brick-making business. The government recently banned the use of wood in industrial ovens, like those for making bricks. Deforestation is a huge problem here. So Thaddee started using the shells and stalks from picked coffee beans. Unfortunately, that has gotten far more expensive than he can afford, so he’s looking for another way.

But that’s the key. He’s looking for another way. And it’s people like Thaddee that keep me from telling Rebecca that we’re getting the hell out of here and going home. I just wish folks like Thaddee stuck in my mind more than people like Jean-Baptiste.

14 December 2005

Well, we’re back. I wish I could say I’m glad to be back here in Kigali, but it is what it is. There is a lot of work to be done, so I’m looking forward to jumping right into it.

The trip to New York was too short but fabulous, other than sending my passport on a wild ride through the spin cycle. A trip to Connecticut and almost $200 later, everything was fine.

The new passport photo has engendered more discussion than is probably necessary, and has divided people into two camps. One, led by Rebecca, says it looks like a model’s headshot, complete with the scruffy beginnings of facial hair and a mischievous half-smile. The other camp, with my Mom at its head, says I look like a mass murderer. I’m not sure which I fall into, or which I would prefer.

The trip back was uneventful. It was, however, a flying metallic pill filled with freaks and weirdoes. There were Hassids going to Belgium who arrived late for the flight and caused us to leave almost an hour late and then refused to sit down or follow the instructions of the cabin crew. Somehow the lunatic fringe of my own religious and ethnic group is far more annoying than other loons.

And then there was the person sitting to my right.

Bec and I were stuck in the center row on the way from New York to Brussels. I knew we were sort of in trouble when the third member of our row, an American NATO employee, showed up with framed pictures that didn’t fit anywhere on the plane. She got someone to wedge them in. “Are you American?” she asked when she sat down.

“Yes.”

“I don’t fly very well,” she said. “But don’t worry, I’ll take a Valium and be out for the whole flight.”

Why did my nationality matter? Would she have divulged this important piece of information to someone other than an American? How bad a flier must one be to drop a Valium on the plane?

She continued: “The Valium makes me talk in my sleep, so don’t worry about it.”

Note taken.

Anyway, she snored but didn’t talk in her sleep, which disappointed Bec. I spent much of the flight pushing her out of my space. And she stuck her leg out into the aisle. When the flight crew bashed into her and demanded that she move it, my neighbor replied, “Oh, I thought it was a puppy.”

The Brussels-Kigali leg was easy, and Bec and I had the window-aisle combination, so no weirdo neighbors.

And now we’re in Kigali, where the geniuses who replaced our cooking gas tank forgot to put the valve onto the new tank. So we can’t cook. It’s good to be back and see that little has changed. The Congo earthquake that happened while we were away left our house untouched.

It’s time to get back to work, and I’ll post again soon.

1 December 2005

Well, everyone, you're not going to hear from me for a while. I'm in New York. Woo hoo.

Anyway, here's a story to keep you going. Still working on finding out what happened with my story for DaMN.

http://www.thefloridacatholic.org/specials/mdg/0511-mdg-rwanda.htm