Photos from Nyagasambu and Akagera Game Park

Sorry it has been so long since we have written. We have had difficulty with internet access because of issues here at the guest house which include turning the computer room into a bedroom and Becky and I getting "displaced." The good news is that we have a really great place we are staying in now. Our Canandian Baptists friends are away for a week and asked us to house sit in there really nice little home that just happens to be close by to Solace. We enjoy having a kitchen to actually prepare real meals in and not having to sleep in the same place as our office.

In the past few weeks I finished writing the five year strategic plan for Solace and just finished the evaluation report for the Child Sponsorship Project in Kabuga. Becky and I will both work on the baseline evaluation report for Nyagasambu where Solace is considering sponsorship options. We got to spend a full day in Nyagasambu last week. Becky did some of her own research and I interviewed the Solace community President. We also brought some other foreigners with us who are supporters of Solace and are volunteering here right now. Nyagasambu is even worse than we thought, if you can believe that. It seems that a lot of the people we were able to interview for the evaluation were actually the ones doing the best...and they aren't doing all that well. Everyone else leaves as soon as possible. The boys often end up on drugs and many of the girls have gone into prostitution. A lot of these orphans were taken in by relatives after the genocide who treated them like slaves and took away their remaining property. I asked the community President what can be done for them and she said, "Actions, not words." A lot of people have gone there over the years promising help and nothing has come of it. They are really desperate now. The good news is that some of the Americans who came with us had raised extra money for their trip and want to use it as seed money for a project in Nyagasambu. Also, the evaluation we are doing is the groundwork for starting sponsorship projects there. Becky has done an amazing job of recruiting sponsors for children already but a more structured system would really help the entire community. We will keep working for Nyagasambu even after we leave. There are few people advocating for the orphans there.

We got to take a fun trip yesterday to Akagera National Park and go on a short safari. Akagera is on the Tanzanian border and is filled with typical East Afrian wildlife. Since it is the dry season we didn't get to see a whole lot of animals but we did see zebras, giraffs, hippos, impala, baboons, warthogs and a plethora of birds. We had some especially close encounters with the baboons because they are aclaimated to humans. We do have an "R" rated account of an encounter with one baboon that I won't describe here. All in all it was a great time.

Becky and I are also preparing for our short trip to Ethopia on the way back to the states. We wanted to go to a rainforest in southern Rwanda to go chimpanzee tracking but we decided to save our money for the trip to Ethiopia. While I am enjoying my time here I am definitely lookinf forward to taking a break from my work. In addition to what I'm doing for Solace I have also been trying to interview people for my own research. I'm not sure if I will have enough when I leave and I'm still not certain what I want to focus my MA paper on. Hopefully that will become a bit more clear when I'm away from here and have some time to reflect.

Anyway, that is it for now. I'm sure Becky will write her own update soon. We will also try to post some pictures soon.

and now for the good news

So, after Ian's summary of my rough week, I wanted you all to know that things are looking better. I hired a new translator today who is known for being methodical and a little boring but a great translator and very trustworthy. He's also agreed to what I will pay and has VERY clear guidelines about what is expected for the price. Also, I finished translating my Gasabo questionnaires. My Kinyarwanda has gotten a lot better doing those but I'm learning phrases like "My future will be bad because I'm an orphan" and "I'm so poor that life is very difficult." Now I've started on the rest of the questionnaires for Ian's evaluation in Kabuga and Gasabo. It will be hours and hours of entering numbers and translating but the end is in sight.

Also, I did get some good news tonight. I've been offered an adjunct faculty position at Holy Cross, a Catholic university near Clark. I will teach 3 classes a semester while I finish my dissertation. It will only be for a year or two but it's a solid job while I finish and pays almost three times the stipend I was getting at Clark. It's really increased my workload for the summer since I have to choose my texts and write the syllabi, both of which are hard to do while in Rwanda. However, it will be great experience and will set me up to find a good and more permanent teaching position when I'm ready to move out of New England.

Joys and Sorrows

Maybe that's a little bit of a dramatic title but it probably got your attention...right? So yesterday Becky and I had days that sort of cancelled each other out. The director loved the strategic plan I submitted and now is suggesting that I work on their bylaws and be a long-term consultant for Solace. I guess the "no experience" factor doesn't seem to bother him.

Becky had to fire her translator yesterday while still depending on her to complete the translations of a few interviews. This girl (translator) is a piece of work. Here's a rundown on her past issues. Strike one: she stole money from Becky's phone which Becky caught her doing. Strike two: she told us to meet her in a village a long way from Kigali an hour earlier than planned and then showed up an hour late. Strike three: she refused to make transcripts of the interviews into Kinyarwanda (even though Becky hired her for that in addition to English) and demanded more money to do it. Strike four: she erased a bunch of interviews so that no one can even transcribe them into Kinyarwanda. Strike five: she hired a friend of hers to help do the translations instead of telling Becky that it was too much work for her. Strike six: she tried to convince Becky that she wasn't getting paid enough even though Becky is paying her more than she would earn in a month as a teacher (her profession) and more than most translators get in an effort to be very generous. So she struck out twice over. Personally, I would have fired her a month ago but lucky for her she wasn't working for me. I've never seen anyone fired in such a nice way before. It made me want to be fired.

So today Becky is going to meet with another potential translator. He was recommended to us by some friends here. Becky sat down last night and wrote out a detailed job description just so, in case he isn't great, she doesn't experience the same issues again. The good news is that she is almost done with her research. The last part seems to be the hardest.

We are hoping that today has a bit more good news for Becky. It looks like the evaluations we are both working on will maybe get done this week, which is nothing short of a miracle. I also have interviews with the World Food Program, the UN Development Program and World Vision for my research at the end of the week. I am glad that I only need translation for a few of the things I do.

Not much to report

Life here has been a bit more run-of-the-mill lately. I finished the first draft of the strategic plan for Solace and am waiting on feedback from that. I spent the better part of last week staring at my little computer working on it so it is nice to sit up straight and look at things further than one foot away from my face again. We really have to get these evaluations finished but are bogged down waiting for some groups to finish surveys and some people in the office to translate what we've received so far. I need to light a fire under some people because in a couple of weeks I have to start writing reports. This has to be finished before the director of the german NGO that works with Solace arrives in late July.

I interviewed a few people for my research last week, one in the ministry of foreign affairs. Hopefully this week I'll be able to do a few more of those. I still don't know exactly what my MA paper is going to be about but I'm gathering a lot of interesting information about what sort of experiences returnees have reintegrating.

Becky has a few encounters that have to happen soon. Her translator has been taking advantage of her a bit. Think/pray for her about that one. This trip to Rwanda has been a bit rougher for her than before because of some sticky relationship issues with some old friends here. I'm sure she can write much more about that.

This past Saturday we got to go see a really cool street kids ministry that a local church does. They have really changed the lives of about 70 children who were living on the streets sniffing glue and getting in trouble. It makes me ashamed to think about how I've reacted to some of the kids on the street here. Seems like this is a huge need here in Kigali.

That's it for now. Overall things are going well.

birthday weekend

Per Caitlin's request, a comment on my birthday. I usually don't really celebrate birthdays so I decided to do more this year and we had a birthday weekend.

On Friday night, we went to the American Club for the buffet/movie. We didn't realize that you needed to be an American AND a member to get in but the president of the club let us be his guests for the evening. The buffet had some American style food and we all ate way too much, especially considering that the movie was "Hannibal Rising" which is filled with too much gore to watch it on a full stomach. Probably not the best weekend to go to the Club but it was an experience and I even got to meet some Marines.

On Saturday, we went to Gasabo, my village. We took motorbikes from town, the whole 40 km, which was great. It also got us there by 9, which is when my translator told us to be there. She didn't show up until 10:15, which meant the village kids had an entire hour to stare at us. They were relatively nice, especially to Ian when I wasn't there. It seems the attention grows significantly when I'm around. I did get 4 interviews done for my research and could even use my Kinyarwanda to explain to Leocadie, the president of the orphan community, how Ian wanted his surveys distributed. It wasn't pretty but she got the idea. After that, we came back and went to the pool (our obligatory weekend activity) and to the Soucy's for dinner (the Baptist couple who has adopted us). They even had birthday cake for me.

By 8:30 on Sunday we were on a bus to Butare. It was a 2.5 hour ride on the hilly roads. We went to see Jessie, one of my Rwandan sisters who was sent to boarding school. We wanted to take her out but she's not allowed to leave and we weren't even allowed to bring her any food. It's like a prison. They don't even give her tea or bread for breakfast, only sorghum porridge. So, I snuck her chocolate in a purse I gave her and we bought her soda and samosa's from the school store. We travelled 4.5 hours for a 1.5 hour visit. But, Jessie loved it so it was worth it. That night, the guest house made me dinner. No birthday cake but they did make the grilled bananas with passion fruit glaze that I love.

The birthday continued on Monday when the workers at Solace suprised me with cake and tea. I thought they had all forgotten so it was nice to get a suprise. Ian also took me on our first real date since getting to Rwanda. We went to Chez Lando, the same restaurant I went to for my 21st birthday, which I also celebrated in Rwanda in 2002. They have great goat kebabs and fried plantains. And that is my birthday weekend.

Today is July 4, a huge holiday here, so no work. It was the day the RPF took Kigali during the genocide, marking the beginning of the end for the killers. They used to celebrate July 1, since that was independence from Belgium, but since the previous administration turned it into an opportunity to suppress Tutsis even more, it's no longer a national holiday. On the 1st they filled the newspaper with articles on why it's not appropriate to celebrate but today there are bbq's, soccer games and fireworks. We're going to try to go to a Mexican restaurant that has beach volleyball and swimming. Nothing like celebrating the 4th with fajitas.