Cruising the jungle in my new voiture

After a week and a half of meetings, trips to government offices, delays, and confusion, we (my housemate, Susan, and I) finally got out "new" car. Its a 1990 4Runner, interior in excellent condition, and the body not too bad. There are some strips missing and a few reflectors. Apparently our friend knows who steals them and sells them, so we can always buy them back. Its a trusty diesel with a nice rumble. The sound reminds me of my first car! Its very fun cruising the streets of Kigali. We get lots of looks - not a lot of women drive here. So next task is for me to learn to drive a stick shift. I gave up on that at 16 when my Dad was too worried I would strip the gears of his beloved Saab!

P.S. Started French lessons yesterday and learned a new highly relevant word, voiture = car!

Paddling Rwandan Style!

Today I went out to Lake Muhazi with a group of people from all over the place for a nice leisurely Sunday lunch and some fresh air. Lucky for me there was a canoe you could hire and be paddled around in! So we all took turns paddling the canoe. All of my HKO pals would be pleased to know that my friends all commented on how much faster the canoe went when I was paddling! :) Lunch was basic goat and fish brochettes and of course the compulsory french fries, but nonetheless it was really nice to get out of Kigali and meet some new people. They were all really nice and fun, so I hope to see them again sometime soon!

Emotional Rollercoaster

Rwanda is an emotional rollercoaster. Between the high of feeling like you are making a difference, the hope of opportunity, the frustration of going nowhere, the saddness of the intense need, the horror of genocide, and the pure desperation... every day its a mix of these things. Most times this rollercoaster keeps you going - knowing that your next fix is just a day away. But it also can be extremely exhausting. As a communicator / sharer, I NEED to share these things with other people especially friends and family. Keeping it all bottled up makes me feel like I will explode! Thank god for email, phones, and blogs, and for all of your mails, comments, and feedback.
This morning was one of those mornings where its all piled up. And 2 young boys showed up at the gate. We have a replacement guard today. She is actually our maid, a shy timid woman. Not much of a guard. She tells me and I come out to tell them to go away. I guess she thought me coming out meant she should let them in. So two little boys walk down the driveway. The one boy had in mind that we could talk and he could practice his English. I met him on the street one day and he walked me home. He's not a bad boy or anything. He's first in his class and wants to learn. But the last thing I needed was to entertain two little boys! I told them I was busy and they had to leave. I felt rude and that this was entirely not Rwandan to tell someone to leave your house. But sometimes its just too overwhelming and you really need time and space to yourself. TIA.

Princess Weddings and Pavlova

That is how I would characterize my weekend - Princess Weddings and Pavlova.
I was invited to the wedding of a friend of a friend of mine. All I was told by all of my muzungu friends is that Rwandan weddings are boring! Well, it was a bit... but interesting in some things as well. First we went to the Catholic church service. There were 4 couples getting married in the same service. The best part about the service was the music. There was a live choir, but all of the hymns were sung in Kinyarwanda accompanied by African drums. Very cool.
Afterwards we went to the top hotel in Kigali, The Serena, for the reception. Now this part was really different. The guests were seated in rows like a theater all looking at a stage where the bride and groom sat. The close family were sitting at tables closest to the stage. Basically there were a lot of speeches which I didn't understand, separated by traditional Rwandan dance. The dances were cool - also accompanied by drums and singers. I came to find out that a lot of the speeches were blessing the couple, as expected, and at the end of each speech, the couple were given a cow as a gift. Sometimes one person gave 2 cows. Sometimes they gave a more expensive modern cow (meaning imported from Europe). At the end of the night, the couple was 12 cows richer. By the end of the reception, I was happy to go home. But, I was still glad to have attended.
On Sunday, I decided to be domestic and make my first pavlova. Ingredients aren't easy to come by, so I came up with the idea of pavlova, as all you really need are egg whites, sugar, whipping cream and some nice tropical fruits (which we have plenty of!). So, despite the fact that I didn't have a blender, I was actually able to stiffen the egg whites using 2 forks. I put the meringue in the oven and got to work on the whipped cream. It ended up that the pavlova had to go without whipped cream. I chose the closest thing to cream at the grocery store, but I think I might have gotten buttermilk. The French on the box translated as firm milk. Hmmm... Anyway, one thing I have learned in Africa so far is that you use whatever you got! So, we had meringue and fruit, drizzled with buttermilk!

Pomegranate Power

This week I met our Turwanyubukene Farmers Cooperative (TFC) for the first time. The TFC consists of 32 men and women who have each donated one hectare of land to the co-op to farm of organic pomeganates, chickpeas, and chili peppers. Millennium Village Project (MVP -me and my colleagues) are working with the US African Development Foundation (USADF) and the TFC to turn 32 hectares of dry barren land (yet virgin organic... never seen a pesticide!) into Rwanda's newest and most successful cash crop exporting farm. Pomegranates are in extremely high demand around the world right now and it is predicted that the demand will only increase in the years to come.
But at the moment this dream is all on paper. I sat in a 1.5 hour conference call with USADF in Washington yesterday discussing the ins and outs of the proposal. We have a long way to go!
At the TFC meeting on Thursday morning, Chantal (a member of my team) and I picked our way across the red ground and carefully stepped over and around the briars and thorns to meet the farmers at the area they were clearing the land. Not too long into the meeting some of the women started explaining to me with animated gestures and facial expressions how they are in desperate need of rubber boots. Some of the other members were too busy picking torns out of their calloused feet to stop to talk. About half of these people were barefoot and the other half have on flip flops. I told them that I would try to return with rubber boots at next Thursday's meeting. When I asked them what else they needed to clear the land, they sat thinking for a few minutes. One lady looked at the machete she was carrying and gestured that it was really dull and not very strong (it wobbled when she shook it). Ok, I agreed, machetes for each of you. After some more thinking we came up with gloves, shovels, and hoes.
Its the simple things that make a dream come true. Next week my dreams will come true if I can bring rubber boots to the co-op meeting on Thursday!

Basket audits

Yesterday I spent about 3 hours in a store room auditing baskets. This is the first time our ladies have had to deal with an international order where they need to really pay attention to quality. So I spent some time going through them, so we could help them think through how to handle these issues. It was both an inspiring and saddening exercise. Inspiring because you can see and feel the hope that this business provides in so many things - in the piles of baskets, the carefully written name tags, and hand deliveries to our field office to make sure they make the delivery time. Sad because you realize just how disadvantaged they are. A lot of these ladies are illiterate. Maybe they can write their own name. You can tell those name tags which are written with care and pride, but they are so hard to read because their handwriting is so poor. The others have someone write their name for them. The scribes are also proud that they have a skill others do not have. But when someone else writes your name and you can't really read, then your name gets misspelled. So you can imagine trying to track and audit 300 baskets when last names are about 10 syllables in Rwanda and first names are spelled a number of different ways (or in some cases changed completely!). It certainly reminds me why I am needed here. Its also sad because some of these baskets we simply cannot send overseas. The quality is too poor. In order to help them learn and incentivize them to be more careful, we have to send some back. I get a sinking feeling thinking that the lady who made this basket will earn a whole dollar less for her mistakes. When you only make sixty cents from crops in on a good day, earning a dollar less is the difference between eating dinner and not eating at all.

Cipro bonding

Over the weekend, my roommates and I all started dropping like flies. Every one of us went through about 24 hours or so of running to the toilet and feeling like absolute crap - headache, aches, chills. It was no fun. So we entertained ourselves for a few days describing symptoms, joking about the quality of toilet paper in Rwanda (none of this baby bouncing on clouds stuff), and just generally checking up on each other. Much to our surprise it really only lasted 24 hours. We originally thought it was food poisoning, but could not identify a single food source which we had all eaten. It was very strange.

Happy to say now that we are all feeling fine and back to working long hours in the field, in the office, and at home at night in our beds! Maybe getting sick is just what we need for a short break now and then...

Baskets for Sale!

Our basket weaving cooperative is working on their first international order of 350 baskets. Compared with the last time I was here, I am so impressed at how far they have come! Check out how beautiful they are. In the next few posts, I'll be reaching out to all of those readers out there who are involved in schools or church groups or volunteering groups who do annual holiday bazaars to raise money for a good cause. Our ladies really need their next order asap, so how about selling baskets in America, Asia, or Europe on their behalf? All money raised would go to the ladies profit for weaving (weaving baskets they can make over US$2 per day; in farming they make US$0.60) and also a training fund so the cooperative can learn more detailed designs and learn more professional ways of managing their business. If you order now we can have an order of a few hundred complete within a month, just in time for those fall or holiday fund raisers. Let me know if you are interested. And by the way, the training program they would enter would ensure income for the next year and that they are weaving baskets for Macy's (yes the department store) next line of Rwandan baskets. How cool!