Rwanda's Influence on Me

In early September, I was listening to a very good friend from college  tell me about his amazing trip to Bermuda in a cruise. He was telling me about the huge amount of food and alcohol, the gambling, the beautiful pools and beaches, and complaining about the small rooms.  Then he started telling me how I should save up to go on a similar cruise because it is so amazing. And suddenly I realized I was annoyed, but more than annoyed, I was downright angry with him.

Why? I had to step back and figure that out.  The fact is I just can’t imagine going on such an excessive trip right now.  While he was eating a second dessert, I was struggling to get medical help for a young woman. While he was in the jacuzzi, I was grateful that the tap was working right now. While he was relaxing on the beach, I was balking at the low educational standards and listening to someone tell me how they can’t go to school because it is too expensive.

Of course, with my Rwandan stipend, a cruise is not quite on my radar right now anyways. But even if it was, I’m just unsure I’d be able to enjoy it.  When I arrived, would I admire the beautiful resorts or would I notice the extreme food and housing prices and worry about how the locals were able to thrive in such a market inflated by foreigners? Would I appreciate the food or would I wonder if it is fair trade? Would I enjoy interaction with the locals or would I wonder which of them are sex workers struggling to care for their children?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that people should not enjoy a cruise. Not at all. But it will take me a long time (or maybe I never will) to move away from this mindset of exploring the hidden causes and intricacies of social problems.  This cruise conversation was so eye opening to me. I honestly thought that I was still the same overall person and hadn’t changed that much.  In reality, my values and opinions have clearly fundamentally changed.

On a separate note, but one I always like to promote, I have always been a bit of an minimalist. This article has always been my mantra: http://mnmlist.com/the-true-cost-of-stuff/  But this outlook clearly has gotten stronger through my year in Rwanda.

Final Church Fundraising Totals

The church fundraising campaign is officially over!   I have been so impressed by the generosity of people who have no connection to Rwanda but still cared enough to donate.  In total I raised

$3,620!

This exceeded all my expectations!

Because there are so many fees involved with transferring money into Rwanda and then converting it, I had to withdraw all the money in dollars (some of which was in my account and most was in the Benebikira Sisters’ school account) then go to the capital, Kigali, and convert it all into francs. THEN go to another bank and put the cash into the church’s construction account.  It was a bit stressful to be walking around the city with more cash than most people make in a year!

The money will now be used to complete construction projects in the building.  It is enough to buy 144.8 benches at $25 a piece or for any other project they may wish to work on.  You can be sure I will keep the blog updated with a final construction photo before I leave Nyamata in November!

Women in Rwanda 2: Violence

In my last post, I talked about the Rwandan stance that women nurturers and most effective in the home.  This post will be about the HUGE issue of domestic abuse in Rwanda. According to this article, over 57% of women experience gender based violence by their husbands.  I already shared my story of the woman who had been attacked by someone and no one would help her.  I was also told to not tell the emergency line that she had been attacked because then no one would come.   Of course, when I tell this story to Rwandans, they brush it off and say it is because she was a prostitute.  

No one seems to think that this is an overall problem and they are more pitying of my stupidity to ‘reward’ her for her trashy behavior by helping her.  But that is not fair.  Almost all women were exposed to some kind of violence during the genocide and still are today.  In fact, please see this blog post from an American who was in Rwanda in 2012.   I am most interested in his anecdote:
 

The teachers were sharing stories about if/how they were hit as children. When Laura revealed that she was never hit by her parents, one of the male teachers asked jokingly (but not really) what she was going to do when her husband hit her. She replied, trying to make light of the matter, that she would hit him back. Her colleague’s response? “Oh. Then he will kill you.” This anecdote reveals a slightly exaggerated but not entirely far-fetched reflection of Rwandese society.

When I similarly had discussed domestic abuse in the staff room, teachers said it is not a problem.  If the man is being abusive toward his wife, the families of the couple will get together to discuss the problem.  Then when it is all resolve, the couple can live happily again.  I said that doesn’t sound like it would work very well and he asked me what I would do.  I said I would go to the police and divorce him.  He paused thoughtfully, shook his head in shock and said, “Now I know why the divorce rate is so high in America!”
 As a demonstration of how bad this can get, one of my friends is a doctor and he treated a woman who had been beaten by a machete (beaten to ensure she would get a lot of cuts and scars but not die).  He said that she had cheated on him, so he did not face any punishment.  When my roommate asked where she is now, the doctor said that she was back living with her husband.
 I don’t want to give Rwanda a bad name though. The government is working to combat this. Very hard.  Between the One Stop Centres, the Gender Based Violence Bill, and the GBV and Child Abuse Campaign currently happening. Hopefully, we can see major progress soon!
 I also want to point out that I have always felt safe here.  Random violence or assault is virtually unheard of.  Even in the squeeze buses with four people in a row meant for two, sandwiched between two men, I have never felt that I am going to be assaulted (completely different viewpoint in Egypt!).  I am confident walking alone, even at night, and often get on motorcycle taxis by myself except for the male driver.
 However, I feel I must share this hidden perspective because it is an undeniably central part of the culture.  This has simply made me more motivated to continue my important work of educating and empowering girls.  The less economically vulnerable they are, the less vulnerable they are to such abuses!
  

Women in Rwanda 1: Domestic Roles

On the surface, it seems like Rwanda has great women’s rights.  After the genocide, women who had previously had little say over household affairs, suddenly became heads of household and needed to learn to manage  all aspects of maintaining a family, include owning property, securing an income generating jobs and arranging for the children’s education.  Today, Rwanda has the highest concentration of women in parliament in the entire world with 56% of seats going to women, more than the 30% quota.  This is compared to 18% of congressional seats going to women in the US.  In addition they hold 33% of the cabinet and several senior positions throughout the government.  

But do these statistics of high powered professionals translate to everyday life for the average Rwandan woman?  I have decided that it has helped women make great strides in the last few years.  They can own property.  Every marriage starts with a declaration of how assets will be divided in the event of a divorce and it is usually split right down the middle.  Schools specifically for girls are being established left and right.  In fact, Maranyundo Girls School is supported by the first lady and was initially established because girl’s schools were lower quality and they were not doing as well on tests.  But last year, MGS scored the highest on the national exams of all the schools in the country!

But on the other hand, there are still very traditional perspectives toward the role of women in society.  One day a colleague said that I acted very Rwandan and I asked what he meant.  He told me that women are supposed to be “quiet and thankful.”  I was shocked and could not even take the comment as a compliment.

Women work hard here as they always have.  It is not at all uncommon to see men sitting around and chatting while drinking a beer and then to drive 100 yards down the road to see women toiling away at the fields with a baby on their backs.  Women are conventionally in charge of agriculture and the following excerpt came from an article about women empowerment and agriculture from the official government newspaper.

Women are many things; powerful, always right and most importantly nurturing. Women are naturally and beautifully designed with a ‘mother’s instinct’. This is why we created a mythical creature called ‘Mother Nature’, because we know that no one can take better care of the earth than a woman. She will make sure that the ‘home’ is always clean and beautiful.A true woman (or mother) will make sure that not one hair is out of place nor a single breath a minute too late. A real mother will call you to your room to tell you it is messy when one shoe is crooked. When it comes to women, the glass is neither full nor empty. It is clean. A true woman is meticulous.

I chose this article when searching for an article that showed obvious bias to share with the students. However, when I asked them if the article was fact based and true, they all agreed with it!  I really had to change the approach of my lesson after that.

The Ebola Epidemic

I had been keeping a close eye on the Ebola situation in West Africa since about May but it seemed no one else knew or particularly cared about the crisis there.  However, that all changed when two Americans with Ebola were brought back to the United States.  Suddenly everyone knew and was concerned.  I think some people are worried about it coming to Rwanda because it is the same continent. This post is to put people’s fears to rest. Check out the map below.

Firstly, it is important to realize that Africa is BIG. It is four times larger than the United States. Picture from here

Now let’s look at where Ebola is.

Picture edited from here.

But despite all that, Rwanda is still taking precautions against Ebola. 

  Recently there was a man in Rwanda who had recently been to Liberia and tested positive for Malaria.  One of Malaria’s symptoms is a fever, which is also a symptom for Ebola.  The government is being so cautious that they quarantined and tested him for thedisease, which was blessedly negative.
   
In addition, on August 31, I got an email from the United States Embassy that said:
 

The Government of Rwanda is screening each visitor entering Rwanda for symptoms of Ebola virus disease at its land borders and at the Kigali International Airport. The screening includes taking each visitor’s body temperature via a laser thermometer. Each visitor must also complete a detailed questionnaire concerning whether they have any symptoms of illness and where they have traveled in the prior three weeks. 

• Visitors who exhibit a high temperature (above 37.5 degrees Celsius or 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit) will not be permitted to enter Rwanda; returning residents may be placed in isolation.

• Visitors who have traveled to Guinea, Liberia, Senegal, or Sierra Leone within the past 22 days will also be denied entry, and if traveling by air, may be denied boarding at the originating or transit airport.

• Visitors who have recently traveled to places where Ebola outbreaks have occurred in the past (such as the Democratic Republic of Congo or Uganda), or who were in contact with someone who may have been infected with Ebola, may be placed in isolation.

But even so, there is still a risk, so the Maranyundo Initiative has already put a plan in place.  If there is a positive case, I am to stay on campus.  Then I can decide whether I wish to fly home early at their expense or stay here.
 
I will conclude by saying I am not too concerned about Ebola coming to Rwanda because of the plans in place to prevent its entry.

I got the above text message just a few weeks ago describing Ebola and that it has a 90% death rate. To get more information about the situation, all I had to do was contact the number in the message.

Malaria in Rwanda: A success story?

This is a very number heavy post with lots of links, so please bear with me. :)  If you are interested in more information about this very important topic, then go ahead and click on any of the links. But I was a brief as I could be, with possible sacrifices in the economic and emotional impact of this devastating pandemic.

Malaria is an interesting disease partly because it is very possible to eradicate it from a country.  For example, the United States used to have widespread Malaria but eliminated it.  When I went to Ghana for six weeks in 2011, three people I knew got Malaria during that time and virtually everyone got it almost every year.  Before I’d been there, I thought you simply died from Malaria. The end. No chance for recovery.  However, there were constantly commercials on TV about how inexpensive treatment is, so please treat your kid when s/he gets it.  It was considered just a part of life, similar to the flu.  That is part of the reason Ebola is kind of hard to control in West Africa right now. People are thinking they simply have Malaria or other endemic diseases and are not too concerned.

However, it is not like that at all in Rwanda. I have asked several people in Nyamata and Kigali when they last had malaria and they all have to pause and think about it because it has been many years.  However, it has not always been this way, to illustrate their success, according to the National Institute of Statistics in Rwanda, in 2005 62% of all deaths under 5 were caused by Malaria (1,012 deaths). Comparatively, in 2010 only 13.05% of all deaths under 5 (175 deaths) were caused by Malaria.  That is a huge difference.  However, it is important to note that if you do the math, there were 1632.29 deaths in 2005 vs 1349.99 deaths in 2010.  That's unfortunately not a lot of progress in childhood mortality.  But I digress.

So how did they make so much progress in such a short time?  In 2005, President Bush started the President’s Malaria Initiative around the world which has been a huge help.  There are four main measures they take: 

1. Free Insecticide treated-mosquito nets

                 -I sleep under a mosquito net but I doubt it is treated anymore as it is fairly old

                -“83%of households nationwide own at least one mosquito net and 71% of children under five had slept under a mosquito net the night before the survey. Overall 73% of pregnant women age 15-49 slept under a mosquito net the night before the survey.”

2. Indoor residual spraying

3. Preventative treatment for pregnant women 

                -Free treated mosquito nets are distributed to women at their first antenatal doctor visit

4. Diagnosis with rapid testing and treatment 

-94% of all children diagnosed with Malaria are treated within 24 hours (compared to 62% in 2008)

My own contribution is that the country is very clean, which makes it harder for mosquitoes to find breeding grounds (although the buggers are still around to bite me!)  A big part is the outlawing of plastic bags in the country, which then can’t fill up with stagnant water.

Six districts account for 60% of the Malaria burden and the rest of the country is not as concerned about Malaria.  The goal is to achieve zero Malaria deaths in Rwanda by 2017, which is lofty, impressive and actually appears achievable if the progress is kept up. However, with this success comes the problem of complacency and the possibility of a resurgence.  Despite the statistics quoted above, I know many people (Rwandan and expat) in urban areas who do not use a mosquito net because they do not see Malaria as a problem.  Expats do not take Malaria preventative pills (I stubbornly refuse to stop, you can see the prescription bottle on my nightstand in the picture above).  At the same time, people are losing their immunity to Malaria as they get fast acting treatments or are not exposed to the pathogen at all. And the parasite and insects are starting to become resistant to the nets and the treatments.  But no one is too concerned right now because there is so much progress.

MGS Animals

So after the depressing account from my last post, let's look at bunnies!  Maranyundo owns several animals that always look super cute. I don't even have any words!