I’d been looking forward to our team retreat for some time.
Professional, mature reasons included wondering how my teammates were getting on, what they found strange, what was normal, which battles were not worth it, and how we could encourage each other to keep fighting the ones that were.
Professional, mature reasons included wondering how my teammates were getting on, what they found strange, what was normal, which battles were not worth it, and how we could encourage each other to keep fighting the ones that were.
Personal reasons included a need for cheap facewash and conditioner and a deep, abiding love for Rwanda, which I screeched at the top of my lungs the minute anyone said anything about our surroundings.
Towards the end of the drive, I was reduced to singing Semi-Charmed Kind of Life around a bitten tongue in order to do my best to not offend our two Congolese teammates (who, along with me, Butters, and Carrottop, were heading to the retreat together). I’m not choosing Rwanda over Congo, per se... But... they have flat roads. And sidewalks. And green rolling hills. And banana trees. And no garbage. And women carrying umbrellas as sunblock.
I tried to disguise my admiration for the country by saying it reminded me of my home (if there is such a thing) province of Kerala in South India, but I don’t think I was fooling anyone. All I can say is that I’m glad I never visited Pakistan, Senegal, or Japan; my loyalty to India, Mali, and Korea are absolute.
The drive itself made me happy for the above reasons, though crossing the border was a study in uselessness. Stopping at each office on each side of an imaginary line to pay money and testify that I was crossing said imaginary line was beyond my level of understanding. Add that to the fact that I filled in the requisite form on each line that was marked with an X – thus causing my official to grumble at me because the Xs apparently indicated that I wasn’t to fill in those fields...
Then came the security check, which I was only marginally prepared for as the Queen of Sheba reminded me that morning that Rwanda would not accept plastic bags across the border. As I had feverishly scrambled to get rid of any plastic bags, I’d forgotten a pack of about five or six just-in-case bags (my summer vacations were to a soundtrack of my deathly carsick mother; I have reasons for each and every one of my obsessive compulsions), which the security official discovered, examined, and quietly replaced in my backpack.
A. study. in. uselessness.
Other marginally exciting events included the Carrottop’s possible malaria (she assured me she hadn’t thrown up yellow vomit that day and driving the tight, winding curves around hills would help her – I nodded and smiled and gave thanks that I left a last will and testament in Canada) and the Queen of Sheba’s unidentified illness (which I suspect was due to eating Indian food the night before – entirely her fault as she knows she gets sick from it and no one else who ate it was ill – I still felt guilty).
We arrived in a lovely maze of hedges and stairs among which I was immediately lost, and checked into our shared rooms, which each had a bathroom, which contained a showerhead with running hot water.
Running.
Hot.
Water.
Admittedly, I think the water was shut off by about 8:30pm (though I think you could ask hotel management to open a tank or something if necessary – I never did), but with fairly predictable access to water and constant electricity, I felt like the heavens had come down and glory had filled my soul.
You of unlimited internet could never understand.
The first order of business was to search for facewash and conditioner, which – after a glorious visit to a Nakamatt (Kenyan Walmart) in Kigali - I’d mistakenly assumed was easily accessible in Rwanda.
Ha.
Again I say: Ha.
Our retreat sessions were much more successful, with another refresher course on Do No Harm for aid programs, which cautioned against different values for different lives. For example, Captain shared an experience of escaping the volcanic eruption in Goma in 2002, when he overheard a foreign woman tearfully asking about her dog.
While I wouldn’t condone actually flinging your pet behind you as you flee a river of molten lava, asking about your dog amidst refugees who may have lost families, friends, or homes makes my teeth ache.
But that’s not to say that foreigners have cornered the market on apathy – teammembers shared that villagers ask the equivalent of Are you a person? in regional languages. Answering incorrectly (i.e. being of a different tribe) basically indicates non-existence or non-personhood.
So that’s nice.
The session I’d most been looking forward to was one on the role of women. I’ll share (again) that one of the most difficult aspects of living as a team and working in the field of peacebuilding here has been the (mis)treatment of women, even casually. Female teammates shared their experiences of being hounded on the street, on the bus to and from work, at work itself, and the expectation to do chores for a group...
For me, it was another exercise in biting my tongue, though I did share that I was sometimes accused of being racist: “It’s because I’m black, isn’t it.”
No, it’s because you could be a rapist and/or a serial killer.
[For further information, please see Appendix A]
Lowlights were a conflict resolution session over an issue I’d put out of my mind, but which I was distressed to discover had remained unresolved for the other party. Highlights were the buffet and a boat ride and a hike to the very top of a bat-infested island. I listened to Disney most of the way up and down, except for when I broke into a spontaneous Lord of the Rings musical number (because why not – also, the bats reminded of the Fellowship tracking orcs). Carrottop seemed certain that there were cows on the island, confirmed by the presence of patties, but I was doubtful. One of our teammates expressed worry about extremely fit cows that could traverse the strong current between islands, but I was mostly ashamed that even cows now outstrip me in athletic ability.
That night, we had a talent show where I decided against both reciting Philippians and rapping Golddigger – I vaguely smacked a drum for the women, who did a spectacular Rwandan dance, and the guys did many skilled individual acts, most involving Butters’ musical skills. You can imagine the level of practice that went into these as this was one conversation in the few hours before the show:
“[Kermit,] don’t bother me; I’m writing slam poetry and then [Butters] will add music to it.”
“I will?”
As Captain was busy, Carrottop magnificently filled in for him by – you guessed it – yodelling.
And then we separated into two groups again as I wavered between the joy and pain of going back home. Re-entry involved a spastic security official who felt that the best way for us to understand Kinyarwanda was to growl it in a progressively more hostile fashion. All's well that end's well, though - the weight of the five of us in the land cruiser may have been the end of the wooden bridge we had to cross, and walking gave us the opportunity to observe proper protocol, such as entering on the far left and exiting on the far right.
Naturally, it would have been totally ridiculous to walk on and off the same side of a rickety 20-ft series of planks into a dustbath.
Towards the end of the drive, I was reduced to singing Semi-Charmed Kind of Life around a bitten tongue in order to do my best to not offend our two Congolese teammates (who, along with me, Butters, and Carrottop, were heading to the retreat together). I’m not choosing Rwanda over Congo, per se... But... they have flat roads. And sidewalks. And green rolling hills. And banana trees. And no garbage. And women carrying umbrellas as sunblock.
 |
| The view from our room |
 |
| Another view from our room |
 |
| A view from somewhere I don't remember |
 |
| The view from the top of the hike |
I tried to disguise my admiration for the country by saying it reminded me of my home (if there is such a thing) province of Kerala in South India, but I don’t think I was fooling anyone. All I can say is that I’m glad I never visited Pakistan, Senegal, or Japan; my loyalty to India, Mali, and Korea are absolute.
The drive itself made me happy for the above reasons, though crossing the border was a study in uselessness. Stopping at each office on each side of an imaginary line to pay money and testify that I was crossing said imaginary line was beyond my level of understanding. Add that to the fact that I filled in the requisite form on each line that was marked with an X – thus causing my official to grumble at me because the Xs apparently indicated that I wasn’t to fill in those fields...
Then came the security check, which I was only marginally prepared for as the Queen of Sheba reminded me that morning that Rwanda would not accept plastic bags across the border. As I had feverishly scrambled to get rid of any plastic bags, I’d forgotten a pack of about five or six just-in-case bags (my summer vacations were to a soundtrack of my deathly carsick mother; I have reasons for each and every one of my obsessive compulsions), which the security official discovered, examined, and quietly replaced in my backpack.
A. study. in. uselessness.
Other marginally exciting events included the Carrottop’s possible malaria (she assured me she hadn’t thrown up yellow vomit that day and driving the tight, winding curves around hills would help her – I nodded and smiled and gave thanks that I left a last will and testament in Canada) and the Queen of Sheba’s unidentified illness (which I suspect was due to eating Indian food the night before – entirely her fault as she knows she gets sick from it and no one else who ate it was ill – I still felt guilty).
We arrived in a lovely maze of hedges and stairs among which I was immediately lost, and checked into our shared rooms, which each had a bathroom, which contained a showerhead with running hot water.
Running.
Hot.
Water.
Admittedly, I think the water was shut off by about 8:30pm (though I think you could ask hotel management to open a tank or something if necessary – I never did), but with fairly predictable access to water and constant electricity, I felt like the heavens had come down and glory had filled my soul.
You of unlimited internet could never understand.
The first order of business was to search for facewash and conditioner, which – after a glorious visit to a Nakamatt (Kenyan Walmart) in Kigali - I’d mistakenly assumed was easily accessible in Rwanda.
Ha.
Again I say: Ha.
Our retreat sessions were much more successful, with another refresher course on Do No Harm for aid programs, which cautioned against different values for different lives. For example, Captain shared an experience of escaping the volcanic eruption in Goma in 2002, when he overheard a foreign woman tearfully asking about her dog.
While I wouldn’t condone actually flinging your pet behind you as you flee a river of molten lava, asking about your dog amidst refugees who may have lost families, friends, or homes makes my teeth ache.
But that’s not to say that foreigners have cornered the market on apathy – teammembers shared that villagers ask the equivalent of Are you a person? in regional languages. Answering incorrectly (i.e. being of a different tribe) basically indicates non-existence or non-personhood.
So that’s nice.
The session I’d most been looking forward to was one on the role of women. I’ll share (again) that one of the most difficult aspects of living as a team and working in the field of peacebuilding here has been the (mis)treatment of women, even casually. Female teammates shared their experiences of being hounded on the street, on the bus to and from work, at work itself, and the expectation to do chores for a group...
For me, it was another exercise in biting my tongue, though I did share that I was sometimes accused of being racist: “It’s because I’m black, isn’t it.”
No, it’s because you could be a rapist and/or a serial killer.
[For further information, please see Appendix A]
Lowlights were a conflict resolution session over an issue I’d put out of my mind, but which I was distressed to discover had remained unresolved for the other party. Highlights were the buffet and a boat ride and a hike to the very top of a bat-infested island. I listened to Disney most of the way up and down, except for when I broke into a spontaneous Lord of the Rings musical number (because why not – also, the bats reminded of the Fellowship tracking orcs). Carrottop seemed certain that there were cows on the island, confirmed by the presence of patties, but I was doubtful. One of our teammates expressed worry about extremely fit cows that could traverse the strong current between islands, but I was mostly ashamed that even cows now outstrip me in athletic ability.
That night, we had a talent show where I decided against both reciting Philippians and rapping Golddigger – I vaguely smacked a drum for the women, who did a spectacular Rwandan dance, and the guys did many skilled individual acts, most involving Butters’ musical skills. You can imagine the level of practice that went into these as this was one conversation in the few hours before the show:
“[Kermit,] don’t bother me; I’m writing slam poetry and then [Butters] will add music to it.”
“I will?”
As Captain was busy, Carrottop magnificently filled in for him by – you guessed it – yodelling.
And then we separated into two groups again as I wavered between the joy and pain of going back home. Re-entry involved a spastic security official who felt that the best way for us to understand Kinyarwanda was to growl it in a progressively more hostile fashion. All's well that end's well, though - the weight of the five of us in the land cruiser may have been the end of the wooden bridge we had to cross, and walking gave us the opportunity to observe proper protocol, such as entering on the far left and exiting on the far right.
Naturally, it would have been totally ridiculous to walk on and off the same side of a rickety 20-ft series of planks into a dustbath.
 |
| “AKANDI” Natural Mineral Water Is produced through adequate and modern techniques of purification to keep consistency with standards and rending it safe to consumers. Enjoy “AKANDI” Refreshing product from the spring of GITARE HILLS I found this label, with all its fervent (but vague) assurances and quotation marks, very worrying |
No comments:
Post a Comment
At the risk of sounding desperate - PLEASE WRITE TO ME!