30 January 2006

It’s alive!

Sorry to alarm everyone. It’s just been really busy here. Despite the power going out; only having a staff of three reporters; only having two designers – one who had a problem getting to work, the other not knowing how to design a newspaper; despite the U.S. government taking over our offices two mornings during our last production week (we are squatting in the Voice of America bureau and some folks were in town from Washington so we had to get out); despite the power going out repeatedly; and despite a wall nearly collapsing (it’s now leaning a little, but into the store next door so it will fall on them. No biggie) the first issue of Focus hits the streets this week.

That’s assuming Vincent the designer gets to Kampala tomorrow morning with files the printers can use. That was our latest disaster this morning. I got a fairly panicked call from Shyaka saying that the printers couldn’t open the files. Ruined my whole day. I text-messaged Bec saying I thought I’d go play in traffic right about then.

Our little guerilla operation has put out quite an impressive piece of journalism. Of course, I had to rewrite much of it, but the reporters are learning. The paper is 32 pages, and we have far more original stories than our competitors. And best of all, they make sense. We broke news, which a monthly with a reporting staff of three shouldn’t do, and the photography is actually pretty good, if I do say so myself.

We’re going to have work on respecting deadlines so that we’re not staying until 2:30 in the morning on the day before the paper goes to press, and then come in for another ten-and-a-half the next day just to finish it, though.

Last time I wrote we had one reporter, Helen, who is doing a bang-up job now that she knows what we’re after. She’s pitching stories and we’re letting her do them, and her writing’s gotten better in the nearly one month we’ve been working together.

We hired two more. The first was Teta, an 18-year-old who has never done this before. She’s the niece of my friend Steve, the English guy who put me in touch with Shyaka. Steve said Teta was just sitting around, doing nothing in the year before university. Did we have need for a runner? Well, we don’t have the people-power for a gofer, so she’s now our health and culture reporter. And she, too, is learning. She’s even taking the Associated Press Style Book home with her tonight to read. I’ve got Helen reading “The Elements of Style.” I’m particularly proud of that. When we get into our own office space, I’m getting a white board and am teaching classes. “Okay, people, who can tell me about the inverted pyramid?”

The third reporter is a guy named Magnus, who has got “it” as far as I’m concerned. He just needs to work on the writing. But he knows what news is and he wants to find it. At first he thought he could write for us and The New Times. Not at this paper. We’re competitors and we’re trying to beat them.

My biggest problem with Magnus is that I want to call him Ultra. But that would mean explaining The Transformers, and the movie, and how Ultra Magnus didn’t want the Matrix of Leadership and then Megatron (or at least the version using the voice of Leonard Nimoy) blows him up when he couldn’t open it and he’s rebuilt on the junk planet and then I look like a big nerd, and we just don’t need that. So I’ll just call him Magnus Arvedsson, former winger for the Ottawa Senators hockey club. That’s not nerdy at all.

So anyway, it’s done. The first issue is done. And I’m sleepy. And now we get to do the whole thing again. I’m really proud of the work we’ve done, and the contribution we’re going to make to Rwanda. Maybe that’s a bit much. In reality, I just want to beat the living daylights out of the other papers. We were discussing possible slogans for the paper (you know, like “All the News That’s Fit to Print”) the other day. I could only come up with two, and they were stolen from movies. The first was from Conan the Barbarian: “Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentation of their women.” The other was from Dodgeball: “We’re better than you, and we know it.” That’s directed at The New Times and Newsline, the other English papers in town, not the readers. Neither suggestion was accepted. Shyaka said he didn’t want a “newspaper war.” Well, I had an answer to that also, from Rambo: “To win a war, you have to become war.” That didn’t go over well either.

February is going to be busy. I’m going to be contributing at least two stories to the paper this month: the kids’ rights story I’m keeping quiet until it happens and my trip to Uganda. Plus I’ve got assignments for the Dallas Morning News and CNS.

I’ll try to write more frequently, but I think I may have to scale back to once a week or so. But that means more personal e-mails. I’ll post more this week, however, as I’m getting the Uganda trip together. But just to make everyone more at ease, I’m debating whether I should break the law when I go there.

18 January 2006

I thought I’d never work at a paper smaller than The Riverdale Press. But the robust reporting staff of three, plus the part-time sports editor, the truly insane but unfailingly nice part-time lifestyle editor and superiors who occasionally contributed to the reporting, we had Riverdale covered.

Well, I was wrong. The Focus action news team consists of Shyaka, myself, our lone reporter Helen and two designers – a Kenyan named Vincent and a Belgian whose given name is Erwin Winkler but we now call the Fonz. Shyaka didn’t know who Arthur Fonzarelli was, but now that he’s done the research approves of the name change. Our Fonz knew whom I was talking about immediately.

A Fonz citing is like finding Big Foot. Every once in a while he floats into the office (he has other contracts) and works on our little newspaper. He’s quite good, by the way. But more often Shyaka is calling and text-messaging him, trying to figure out where the Fonz is. Today he had a toothache, which can be very debilitating. Shyaka says the Fonz has been here too long, about seven years, and Rwanda is giving him a nervous breakdown. Sadly, since Rwanda is landlocked, he is not out jumping sharks.

People sometimes get the Fonz and me confused. He’s elfin and skinny, with curly brown hair that comes down to his shoulders. His skin is graying from smoking and he has a pointy nose and far skinnier lips. He also has a Flemish-Belgian accent, far different from mine. I sound like I’m from New York. But since we’re both white, we’re obviously brothers.

The first edition is slated to come out at the beginning of February. I think we’re going to make it, but we keep dumping stories on Helen, and Shyaka has to do some as well. I’m contributing at least one business story and maybe a bit on the cholera from last week. We’ll see. The problem with a monthly newspaper is the news sometimes passes you by.

The paper is supposed to be 40 pages. We have about 20 already filled with stories, photos and opinion columns. Advertisers are coming, but slowly. We actually have about 30 pages if you count the stories we’re still working on.

The biggest problem we’re facing is the Rwandan aversion to risk. Everyone we talk to about working with us wants to see the newsboys hawking the paper before they sign on to join. Well, until we get the ideally eight reporters, we’re going to have a problem getting the paper out. We also need advertising people (although the rumor is we’ve got a guy who is waiting for the paper to be out), an office manager (we may have one of those) and more computers it’s going to be a slog. A better photographer would be nice too, but I’ll have to do.

Our plan is to steal reporters from the other papers when they see how good we are. Our stories will be readable, partly due to my editing. And we’re also selling my editing. I’m supposed to make these guys better. We’re getting a white board and I’ll essentially be teaching classes. “How many of you guys know what the inverted pyramid is? Most important information on top, and move down the line. Nobody?” Reporters here tend to just write what each person told them in the order they did the interviews. That’s why the stories make no sense.

I think my own biggest problem, which will come as no surprise, is that I speak to fast. All the Africans I work with complain about my American accent (What other accent should I have? I don’t complain about theirs) and the astonishing rate the words come out of my mouth. The explanation that I’m from New York and we don’t have time to talk slow often falls on deaf ears. Or they don’t understand because I said it in a blur. Helen finds it funny that neither Vincent nor I speak Kinyarwanda. I explained that it’s not exactly a world language that people learn in school. She pointed out that she grew up in Uganda but speaks Kinyarwanda. “But you’re Rwandan,” I said. “You spoke it at home. And you can’t write in it anyway.”

Despite those obstacles, we’re cooking along. We’re disorganized. We have a skeletal staff. Our bookkeeping is practically nonexistent. We’re small, and we don’t even have an issue out there. But we’re the best damn newspaper in this country.

11 January 2006

Before I get started with today’s post, I need to provide two corrections.

The first is one that I should have corrected long ago but only recently found out I was wrong. The second is something I just learned.

First, umuzungu is not technically correct. The noun is muzungu, and adding the “u” to it is like adding “a” in English. So instead of just meaning whitey, umuzungu means an indefinite whitey.

Second, bundu is not a Kinyarwanda word. It’s a word used throughout sub-Saharan African. In fact, Shyaka tells me, bundu does not even get a squiggly line underneath it when using the South African edition of Microsoft Word. Who knew there was a South African edition?

Anyway, on to the latest happenings in my life here in Kigali.

I’ve discovered that my career is actually rather ghoulish. In fact, I wrote that in my notebook yesterday. I’m supposed to peer in at the trials, tribulations and triumphs of complete strangers’ lives (actually, mostly the trials and tribulations). At least it’s better than having a real job.

This thought came to me while I was in a health center covering a cholera outbreak yesterday. It’s on the outskirts of Kigali and has killed around 20 people since just before the New Year. I wrote a story about it for Catholic News Service yesterday, so hopefully I’ll have a link for you soon. (Update: Just after I wrote that the story appeared. Here’s the link: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0600156.htm.)

While I was there, I saw a boy who couldn’t have been older than 8 sitting around in his hospital scrubs, just looking confused, lonely and lost. He was in the tent for people who just needed some extra fluids, but weren’t terribly sick. A couple of Rwandan guys came by and shoved cameras in his face. I wasn’t sure if they were journalists. All I knew was they were heartless. But I also knew it was a great shot and had to resist picking up my camera. That’s when I realized my profession, which I really like, is rather ghoulish.

I came to another realization yesterday as I drove to the cholera outbreak with the director of hospitals for Caritas-Kigali. My life is all about controlled stupidity. Here’s what I mean. The stupidity is driving to a cholera outbreak to see people getting sick (which I did, all over the dirt path). The controlled part is that I went with a doctor and did what he did so I didn’t come out violently ill myself.

I have to do stupid things for my job. But in order to do it well and not take stupid risks, I have to do it in a controlled way.

I’m sure that’s comforting to everyone.

9 January 2006

Please check out the previous post (7 January 2006, posted on 9 January) before reading this. Otherwise most of what I write here will make no sense.

I learned a fabulous Kinyarwanda word this weekend: bundu.

The bundu is where you go after you’ve driven way past the boondocks. That’s where I was yesterday. Many of you are probably thinking, but Evan, you’re already out in the bundu living in Kigali. Ah, you have not seen the bundu until you go out to formerly-Umatara province, where it borders on the game park.

Shyaka, his uncle, The Guy With the Truck and I went on a search for The Man Who Would Be King yesterday. Who is this man who would run Rwanda? He’s just a pissed-off old guy who’s been forced to move his hut onto the border of the Akagera National Park because of the cattle quarantine in Umatara and other factors I didn’t really understand. This old man – we will call him Miguel Cairo because apparently The Man Who Would Be King’s name sounds much like the Yankee utility infielder’s, according to Red Sox fan Shyaka – has decided that he wants to take over the government.

He’ll have to find his way out of the bundu first.

The Guy With the Truck and Shyaka’s uncle picked us up at 9:30 in the morning, only a half hour late and a big improvement from Saturday. Plus, they didn’t bring the “Who the Hell is this Guy?” Guy – another great leap forward.

We stopped at an empty cattle-trading post so the uncle and the Guy With the Truck (my attempts to get their names were fruitless) could tell us what happened there usually, and how farmers were getting hit during the quarantine. I didn’t understand a word but got a summarized translation from Shyaka. Basically, cows wander down through a metal maze into a central viewing area surrounded by bleachers and are sold. While the explanation went on, I took pictures and maintained my perfect record of avoiding cow pies. Everyone’s got to be good at something.

It was time to head into the bundu.

Miguel Cairo, a friend of uncle and truck guy, had recently moved. So we were running on directions. But Miguel Cairo must have given them the wrong sorghum patch to turn at, or the wrong hut as a marker, because we got horribly lost. We stopped and asked people for directions – “Hey, do you know where we can find a pissed-off old guy who wants to overthrow the government?” – but no one really knew. So we just went off.

The Guy With the Truck was plowing over virgin grasses, up hills that were previously insurmountable and through small holes in the trees we were sure would take off the rear-view mirrors. But we made it. Periodically, the uncle would pop out of the truck and scout. Before he could return, The Guy With the Truck would hustle after him. And then we’d back out and beat a different, previously untouched, path.

The landscape was beautiful, straight out of the old West. “Man, I’ve never been this far out in the bundu,” Shyaka said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some giraffes or antelope.” (We did see a couple of antelope who had strayed out of the game park, putting themselves in mortal danger.)

Finally, we stumbled upon an excited, dirty child who knew where we needed to go – until he noticed me, which totally confused him. His arms started to flail wildly and he almost spun himself into the ground. We went with his initial instructions, and those of an old guy pushing his bike along the grasses.

And then we got to The Man Who Would Be King’s hut. The uncle walked up and asked why he had moved into the game park. Miguel Cairo responded that he was angry about it, and he was especially angry that they had brought an umuzungu to see it, Shyaka said later.

We walked into the hut (who knew that traditional African huts were partitioned? I thought they were single rooms.) and Shyaka began the interview. I took pictures of Miguel Cairo, his grandchildren, daughter-in-law and the neighbors who wanted to see the umuzungu.

Since it was all in Kinyarwanda, I can only tell you what I saw of the hut. It was round with a thatched roof, although blue tarpaulin was visible among the sticks to keep the rain. The interior mud walls were painted yellow with black stripes and designs along the sides. Cloth doors hung from the ceiling, setting off the rooms. Flies buzzed everywhere. There were so many that people stopped swatting them. The hut was part of a small compound, complete with another small hut, chicken coop and covered cooking fire.

The interview was done in about an hour, and we headed out of the bundu. The Man Who Would Be King followed us to the truck and we were off to visit other members of Shyaka’s family who live nearby before returning to Kigali, which looks like New York compared to way out in the bundu.

By the way, I think the Rwandan government is safe.

7 January 2005

Greetings from Nyagatare, in the province formerly known as Umatara. I’m now in Rwanda’s northeast on a story for Focus, the newspaper I’m helping to start. But I’m not reporting. I’m the photographer. It’s one of my four jobs at Focus, along with staff writer, headline writer and editor. (Oh yeah, did I mention I’ve got two stories to do for Catholic News Service and two for DaMN. When it rains it pours, to use a beaten-to-death cliché.)

The story Shyaka, Focus’s founder, is working on is heartbreaking. Umatara is, and always has been, drought and famine prone. It is the province where the country is experimenting with rain collection and other ways of saving water. The manager of the hotel where we’re staying, the Sky Blue Lodge, said it rained a bit yesterday, but only a drizzle. Other than that, it’s been three weeks. But this is only slightly worse than normal, so people rely on cows for food and sale rather than farming. But there’s been a foot and mouth out disease outbreak, so the government has quarantined all livestock, both cows and goats, from Umatara. Cows are dying from the lack of water and the disease, and people are starving. The story is actually that someone is buying the cows extremely cheap and then turning around and illegally selling them at full price. Nice profit if you can get it, and Shyaka is trying to find who that “you” is. I’m just taking pictures and trying not to step in cow pies.

Getting out here was slower and slightly less comfortable than we had hoped, but relatively easy. Shyaka’s uncle lives in Umatara, and he arranged for a twin-cab pick-up to get us at 9:30 this morning. It was just supposed to be the uncle and The Guy With the Truck, but a third guy was in the truck. The whole trip, Shyaka kept saying, “who the hell is this guy?” So Shyaka, his uncle and I crammed into the back seat with the bags.

We finally left Kigali at 11:30 this morning and stopped for lunch at around 1 p.m., at a pretty little restaurant on the shore of a lake where President Kagame keeps a weekend retreat. As we walked in, Shyaka said that it would take an hour to just prepare the food. So we sat at the bar. I got a soda, Shyaka a beer. He then had time for two moor. The three other guys disappeared after getting a snack. We think they went on a boat trip (none for me, thanks). Lunch was delayed because not only did the restaurant have to prepare the chicken, they had to slaughter the birds as well.

Anyway, at a little after 3 we were back in the truck and I went to sleep. When I woke up it was time to take pictures. Most of them are of cows because Rwandans are incredibly afraid to have their pictures taken. It’s all a part of the paranoia. Even my tricks with kids – squatting so I’m at eye-level, shaking hands and showing them the video display of their faces – didn’t work. Not that I wanted straight on photos of people. I was looking for action shots (although how much action is there when herders are just trying to get their cows watered), but I was trying to keep everyone from running away.

The different ecosystems and terrains of Rwanda are astounding. After spending last weekend in green and lush Kibuye, I’m in an area where the rainforests of central Africa ease into the savannahs of east Africa. The hills roll rather than shoot up into the sky as in Kibuye and Kigali. They are covered in browning grasses, stubby trees that look like cypresses or the cover of U2’s “Joshua Tree” album and cactus. Some of the trees look like they’ve given up and have sprouted cactus branches where leaves should be. I was half expecting to see Clint Eastwood or John Wayne riding over the hills while we were driving, but no such luck.

After photography, it was off to Nyagatare, the largest town around these parts. It has a paved road, but unlike Butare, no intersection. “It’s not exactly Las Vegas,” I said to Shyaka. I’m about to go to bed. It’s 9:21 p.m.

Tomorrow morning we get up bright and early for more interviews and photos, and then we’re taking the bus back to Kigali in the afternoon.

As for as the “province formerly known as” stuff at the top, Rwanda just changed its administrative structure earlier this week, shrinking from 12 provinces to four with Kigali it’s own separate administrative zone. The new provinces are North, South, East and West, and I’m not sure if I’m in North or East province. I don’t think the people who live here are either.

6 January 2005

I’m in the office now. Everyone is speaking Kinyarwanda. They can all speak English or French. But apparently I’m not here to the ladies from the Voice of America. Actually, they all speak at least some English.

2 January 2006

That’s weird to write. Happy New Year, everyone.

We got back safely from our country weekend late yesterday afternoon.

As I said before we left, Bec, her parents and I spent New Year’s weekend at the Esperance Children’s Village in Kigarama, a village in the hills around Lake Kivu in Rwanda’s west. And just to make sure everyone knows what I mean by hills, we were at around 6,000 feet.

The Esperance Children’s Village is a home for 103 orphans ranging in age from 18 months until, in theory, 18. At 18 the kids are supposed to leave and head off to a new life. Some of the kids are as old as 21. Victor, our friend who runs the place and invited us for the weekend, recently discovered that one of them was 30.

We got there on Friday afternoon. Bec hired a driver even though the CRS drivers told her only around the last kilometer was tough. Apparently their definition of tough is far different than ours. The last hour of the journey was on windy, rutted dirt roads. Jude, Bec’s mom, Steve, Bec’s dad, and I sat in the back, and poor Jude, who was in the middle, was bouncing between the two of us on every violent switchback. I got well acquainted with the door.

The Children’s Village is in one of the most beautiful settings you can imagine. At the top of a hill, it is surrounded by lush greenery and little else. Clusters of homes are scattered around the compound, but the area is not densely populated. There is nothing taller than one story anywhere near where we were. We were firmly in the countryside, in the version of Rwanda where there is no electricity or running water and people can go a lifetime without seeing a foreigner, especially a white one. Victor, who is Guatemalan but travels on a German passport, is the most exciting thing to happen to the area in a long time.

As I’ve written before, Victor is aiming to develop eco-tourism along with the agricultural projects he’s working on. So he wanted to take us canoeing and hiking. The hiking was necessary because the canoeing was 20 minutes away, pretty much straight down a mountain.

After the walk, which was surprisingly easy and pleasant early Saturday, before the sun really got angry, we saw the canoes. Victor told us they were dugouts, but until you actually see them it’s hard to comprehend. They were carved tree trunks. After Steve, Bec and I – Jude stayed back to read and have some alone time – figured out how not to tip the boats, we were off. Victor told us that it would take over an hour to paddle out to our island destination. I assumed that it would be no big deal.

Steve, who had spent more than a week in a dugout canoe in Papua New Guinea almost 20 years ago, got his own canoe. Victor and one of his kids, Innocent, took another. That left Bec and I in the last.

You have to understand, both of us like to be in charge. Okay, let’s be honest. We both can be bossy. And neither of us had any idea what to do. So we spent the first 45 minutes or so trying to figure out how to go straight. And while with normal people, that would be handled calmly and quietly, we bickered the whole way down. Bec was convinced the boat was tilted right. I was convinced that it was all her fault. And we filled the quiet, pristine lake with the sounds of our arguing. She just happened to be right.

Finally, Bec asked, “Didn’t you go to summer camp? What did you do there?”

“Well, played soccer and softball. The only nature I got was hiding in the bushes after lights out, jumping out the windows of the girls bunks.”

After we made it past the first outcropping, the expedition pulled into another small cove to separate the two of us. Bec went with Steve, and I got my own boat. I still had no idea what I was doing, but was happy to be on my own.

It was only after I pulled the canoe out of the brambles that I realized the canoe and I were not going to get along.

After Victor pushed my canoe off the shore, I didn’t back out enough. So I paddled and I paddled and I paddled and I didn’t hit the rocks I was heading for. And then I paddled and I paddled and I paddled, and I ran into the tree. There were many sharp things sticking out of those trees, and they all seemed to find me. The fisherman near us thought this was the funniest thing they had ever seen.

After I freed myself from the green prison, I was still stuck in the middle of the lake. Steve is a university professor, and I had never before seen him in action. He skillfully gave me suggestions of how to get where I wanted to go, and I even listened. I finally got myself going, almost straight, and was paddling along. Everything was going smoothly until I realized we were going to be doing this for a while.

And then I started to turn again. “Oh goddamit, why does this thing only turn right!” I screamed, channeling George Costanza. I gave up, let my boat turn around to face the opposite direction of where I was heading, and smacked my paddle at the water. Steve gave me more instructions, and after sulking I was on my way. And then it hit me again. We were going to be doing this a while.

“I feel like we’re in ‘Apocalypse Now.’ Where are the guys with the spears?” I asked.

Most Rwandans are long and lean, skinny to the point where you wonder whether the ones who have enough to eat actually do. The canoes are built for them, not me. So I couldn’t find anyplace to put my legs. As they started going numb from being straight out, I saw the island. Victor and Innocent started to pull in. And then they didn’t. “I think they’re going to the far side,” I said.

“No they’re not,” someone in the Stich canoe said.

“No, they are.”

“Oh yes, they are.”

We got there, almost two hours after we started but without any sunburn. It took a while for my legs to come back. We had lunch and spent about an hour on the island. It was gorgeous and worth the pain, small trees set against rocky outcroppings and bright green grass. But then we had to go back.

Bec went alone and I went with Steve. The idea was with the two of us in the boat, we’d have some serious speed. I had a round banana branch to sit on. As you can imagine, the mixture of wet and round and easily tipped canoe was not a winner. I spent the whole trip back pretty much reclining without a backrest, and I still have the bruises under my arms to prove it.

At one point, Bec said, “Why don’t you lean forward so you can paddle?”

Okay, I thought, why not. And then I heard “whoa” from behind me and saw the horizon moving from side to side. “No more suggestions!” I shouted back.

Steve Stich is my hero. We made it back with him paddling all 300 pounds of us back. I realized two things. One is that stunning natural beauty can carry you only so far. The second is that Jews and canoes usually don’t mix.

When we got back, Victor decided he needed to figure out what to do if a canoe tipped.

The rest of the weekend was picture perfect. Victor was hospitable beyond reason, constantly apologizing for the lack of running water and the latrines. Hey, that’s Rwanda and the company was worth it. It was refreshing to be away from Kigali.

The kids were adorable, and while their lives were incredibly hard, they managed to keep singing and laughing. Two choirs sang for us on Sunday, right before we left. The little kids choir did a song that Bec calls the “Shake the White Person’s Hands” song. Each one of them came by to shake hands with each one of us. I think Bec wanted to take at least a couple home.

So we’re back to Kigali, with one more day with Jude and Steve. They’re off on a 12-day safari through Uganda tomorrow. And I start editing tomorrow as well. Wish me luck.