So I’m back from my trip. I’m sorry it has taken me so long to post again s my internet café has been closed for various reasons…no power…no internet and I had to find one where my flash drive would work. Anyway here I go with my entry its going a long one so I broke it up by topic so you can skip around if you want.
Mbarara
We stopped in Mbarara which is a few hours from
We also stopped at the equator on the way which is cool only cause now I can say I have had one foot at each end of the equator at the same time.
Another interesting tidbit is that once in Mbarara 3 girls shaved their heads and we all went to this tiny salon to watch. I thought it would only take a few minutes but it took an hour and a half.
We stopped to visit a Millennium Village Project in a village called Ruhiira which is in
The tour around the village to the bank, health center and their agriculture site was interesting. It was cool to see how much they were doing but it raised questions as to how much community input there was although we were assured that the community was involved in the decision process and I think our guide was from the village as well.
There was some controversy among the group over whether the village project was a good idea or not because the surrounding areas might feel resentment, it did seem like it would be able to self sustain after the UN was gone, and it seemed like a lot of money for something that wouldn’t be replicable in other areas. Oh I forgot to mention that there are 12 of these villages throughout SubSaharan Africa in different agrozones with the goal of learning what works best in these areas so that it can be replicated later.
I think that I think it’s a cool idea. The theory of going into an area and attacking poverty at every angle is intriguing and if you have read Jeffrey Sachs book the end of Poverty then he explains why it actually makes a lot of sense. I do think that it had more grassroots development included in it, with more community empowerment and what not but there could be and I just wasn’t exposed to it. In terms of it being to much money…I disagree I think when someone considers the immense wealth of the western world spending $110 per person per year is not that much money. Just look at how much money the US government has spent on the war in Iraq in comparison to how much is spent on foreign aid and then looking at how much of that aid actually goes to development work. I wish I had the numbers on me but its kinda crazy.
Refugee Settlement
So we also went to a refugee settlement in
The settlement its important to mention was not like a refugee camp at all there were homes, they have land for crops etc…they are settled…hence the term settlement…but the people were still very poor. The place was loaded with kids and you could tell that a lot of them had signs of malnourishment. Someone in the group asked the refugees why they couldn’t go back to
The Refugees in general seemed to ask us a lot for money and complain a lot about their lives and how they weren’t given enough. Even some of the kids were asking us for money. One of them told one of my friends to give them their camera because they could get another one. Overall it left me with a bad feeling about the refugees there and raised questions about the issue of dependency and also about how would you have a refugee settlement for 50plus years without repatriating people or encouraging them to settle somewhere.
Now would be a good time to mention that before I went to
I should also mention that I really liked being in
We only really spent one full day in the city but it was emotionally draining.
First we went to the
The museum also had a section about genocides that have occurred including the Holocaust,
And for those of you out there reading this who say how can the US or the UN possibly get involved in all that it is financially feasible…If you look at how much money it would have cost to stop the genocide in Rwanda versus the amount of money that was spent on refugee camps and Rwanda afterwards to help assuage Americas guilt…well it would have been cheaper to stop the genocide.
On another note at the Museum they also had survivors talking about their experiences during and after. A lot of them had loss parents and talked about what that meant for them and how sometimes they still talk to them at night as if they are still there and it made what happen become so real for me. When you look at the numbers of how many were killed (close to one million) it doesn’t truly affect you because it is so incompressible. But when you think of the death of one person and how much that one person means to you then you can begin to understand. There was a quote that I read somewhere in Rwanda that said something along the lines of genocide isn’t the killing of one million people but the killing of one person, and one person and one person till you reach one million. Something to think about I guess.
After the Museum, the Rwandan students we were with thought it would be a good idea to go to the prison in
The people in charge of the jail gathered about thirty to forty prisoners who were apart of the Genocide. So they trickled in staring at us and us at them just facing each other. It was an incredible feeling to come face to face with killers with no bars, glass or chains in between. Some of them shared their ‘testimony’ with us about what they did some in more detail than others and you could tell those who were reluctant to talk about what they actually did, some eager to blame it on the person above them, and some whom you could tell weren’t sorry despite them saying they were.
One women said she had been a teacher and had taught the methodology that led people to kill because the government made her…that was all she said but the wardens said afterwards that the fact that she was in jail meant that she did more than what she talked about. One man had been the leader of the ruling political party, which would mean he most likely would have been a planner even though he blamed it on people higher up than him. Another woman had been a radio personality during the genocide and had encouraged people to go out and “Do their work” which would have meant killing the Tutsis. Another man had been in charge of a road block that checked Ethnic Identity Cards. But there was only really one man who talked about how he had killed Tutsis with a machete. He seemed the most genuine and he was the only one who spoke to really say, ya there was a plan for this genocide, and a lot of people can be blamed but I was the one who chose to pick up a machete and kill someone. Even if I had been taught to hate Tutsis, I chose to kill them. I believed him when he said he was sorry.
Afterwards the prisoners asked us to have their pictures taken with them. So we did not knowing whether to smile, or how to act in the photo. Some put there arms around us and when some tried to shake our hand it was an interesting thought process deciding whether to go ahead and shake them.
I think I should mention the way the Rwandan Government has decided to deal with trying, convicting and punishing people in the genocide. For starters after the Genocide they abolished the death penalty. How amazing is that…the clear statement that killing a person will not be accepted at all, and this done by a largely Tutsi government the very group that Hutu power was attempting to eliminate. Also because having Trials for everyone involved in the genocide is not really feasible cause the number involved is so big so Rwanda has gone back to a traditional method of having perpetrators go back to their communities and be tried, usually confessing what they did and the community decides if they are guilty, innocent, the punishment, and if they should be accepted back into the community and many of the perpetrators get reduced punishment for confessing sometimes being allowed to go back home.
The process is more complicated than what I’ve described but it is this incredible process of reconciliation, and acceptance, allowing both victims and killers to come to acceptance with what has happened with the goal of being able to move past it. The only way I can think of how to describe is grace, beautiful, hopeful, amazing… The strength of the survivors and the government to take their country in this direction is incredible. I honestly don’t think that if I had been in that situation I could do that. But maybe it isn’t until you are truly in a situation like
Church Memorial
After the prison we went to a church memorial. During the genocide people went to the churches for safety and at many of these churches there were mass slaughters…sometimes with the help of the parish priest…how sickening is that. At the church I visited 5000 people were killed.
The church sits on a small hill with some trees and these small purple flowers (purple is the genocide remembrance color). The church itself is this simple clay brick structure. Before you even walk in the church you can since that something happened there and just before entering you can see the bones inside. I honestly didn’t think that I was going to be able to go in and turned to start walking back outside but decided to go ahead and go in. Inside the church you can see the simple wooden benches for pews. I have no idea how 5000 people were able to fit it looked like it could hold 200 maybe but 5000 people sought refuge there for 3days before they were killed. Against the back wall is a shelf full of bones. There are arranged on the shelves according to the type of bone skulls with skulls etc. Too many to count. On The side walls of the church were the clothes the people had been wearing when they were killed. And in the front of the church there was a small alter with a cross. On the side there was another shelf but this one had the possessions that people had with them. There were a lot of Rosaries and a small statue of the Virgin Mary alongside a few children’s toys. Then across the front wall there were coffins.
Being in that space gave you an interesting feeling. Everyone in my group was silent, lost in their thoughts, shocked by the site before them, some praying. We were told to take pictures. I honestly was torn as to whether to take pictures. In one sense I thought it would be important to have as a reminder of what happened and to show people so that it won’t happen again but on the other hand in order to respect those whose resting place was at the church I didn’t think I should take pictures. I took one of the front of the church and felt guilty, so I hope this description of what I saw shall suffice.
In Other News
I went to a place where the grow plants for traditional healing methods and sell it as a form of development it was actually really cool and an interesting blend between modern and traditional Ugandan culture.
I went on Safari at
So I ate a grasshopper…And liked it!!! And random other stories
The other day I was at a market and we made friends with this guy selling stuff and he was showing me and some friends around the market and we came to a grasshopper stand and the guy handed us a grasshopper. And I ate it. And it tasted like a potato chip. And I would probably eat one again. True story.
So I went out to a bar with my home-stay brother who is my age and a friend. And these 30yr old guys bought us beers. One started talking to my friend and she relayed to me that the guy she was talking to told her to tell me that his friend “Fancied me” and I said to tell him I had a boyfriend (its just easier to tell people you are taken than to explain you aren’t interested here…some people wear pretend wedding rings) anyway after he was told that I had a boyfriend he asked if “he was heaven sent” I lost it and couldn’t do anything but laugh.
This is an old story – it happened when we first moved in with our homestay families. At my friends family she found out her first night there that to bath you had to use a basin. So her sisters set everything up for her and went away and when she started to bath her sisters came back in and started to bath her. Afterwards they came up to her and the younger one told her that her nakedness was weird.
Along the same lines at another girls homestay her sister told her that her home-stay mom wanted to see her and she walked and saw her mom with the basin and just looked at her and said “Do you fear me” and then washed her to show her how to use it.
I was glad I wasn’t in their families.
I was walking around with my home-stay sister one day and we met the LC Chairman (like a village leader). He looked at me and said “You’re a big American, a big one” and my sister said “Shes reduced” and afterwards tried to explain to me that he meant it as a compliment but I just thought the whole experience was really funny.
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