Rwanda '08

Last days here in Rwanda!

nobody@vox.com(Maddie Pongor) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:54:50 -0400

Can’t believe we’re leaving in just a few hours…!

    I’m very proud to say that we did not burn down Epiphanie’s kitchen and our cake for Patrick was edible. Baking with Epiphanie’s family couldn’t be more fun- Olivier, Flora, Eric, and Patrick are such sweet people, even though they probably think Jessica and I are insane. We were laughing constantly, making weird noises (she does the greatest crazy-frog voice, and I can kinda imitate a trumpet – together it’s pretty ridiculous), teasing each other… It was so much fun. The best moment came when we were all finished with our cake and we were so excited about it even though it looked like a pile of mud with some crumbs on top (I shaped a cracker into a “P” but nobody else could tell). Then we carried it into the dining room, and there on the table was the most beautiful white cake, decorated with icing and little candies and everything. Apparently Flora had baked it all by herself. Ours looked SO sad next to hers, it was depressing. But sugar is sugar, and we ate both anyway.
    The next day, Epiphanie took us for one more house visit in Butare. This time we went to a compound where 61 orphans are living together in a building with 16 beds. They have to sleep in shifts because there isn’t enough space. Even their living conditions were rough, they seemed like such normal people. They didn’t look dirty or malnourished, they were very well-spoken (a lot of them spoke English and/or French very fluidly), and generally seemed to be happy and optimistic. We thought a lot of their attitude probably came from the fact that they were living close together with people around their age so they could easily relate to and support each other. We asked some questions about their lives and what their hopes are for the future, and in turn they asked us some questions and we described life in America. I’m not sure how much got lost in translation though because we made a point to say that not everyone in America is white and everyone has descendents from other countries – and then later on, when some of the local kids started pointing and yelling “muzungos!” one of the guys from the orphan compound asked us what children in America say when they see people with dark skin. Sigh. We were like dude, the point is that Americans don’t have just one generic skin color, hair color, eye color, etc. You’ll find everything. I still remember when I was really young – before topics of race and ethnicity were taught in school – I thought that things like accents or skin color were just individual traits and didn’t have any importance beyond what color clothes looked better on different people (haha I’m not even kidding). If only everyone had that innocent mindset of a kindergarten kid – maybe without the fashion part though.
    After spending some time with the kids, getting a tour around their compound and the new houses that were being built down the street for them, we had lunch with Martha, Alice, and Epiphanie. It was great to be able to have one more meal with them in our favorite restaurant before we had to say goodbye to Martha and Alice, who have been such a huge help to us and we hope we’ll see them again at some point (maybe at one of their weddings…?!?)
We then went back to Epiphanie’s in Gitarama to pack up our stuff and drive to Kigali. It took a little longer than we planned because I had to sort through my stuff and decide what to leave behind, and the mayor of Nyaruguru stopped by for a visit, and we had a little private concert/dance party with the four kids. We taught them the “Soulja Boy” dance and our version of… hmm how do I explain this? Ok, so, there’s this commercial for fruit juice that I saw in France

Pubzagogo

where there are little pieces of fruit doing a dance to the juice gods to try to get juice to shoot out of the ground. They start slowly and then go faster and faster. It’s one of those things you just have to see (YouTube “pub oasis” if you really have time on your hands). Anyway so we decided to imitate the dance and they thought it was hilarious, so we re-enacted it a few times for their amusement. In exchange they sang us a few songs and did a traditional dance. At first Olivier was clapping along while the girls were dancing and then when they were finished he just broke out some moves and we were like, “whoa WHERE did that come from?!” It was so great.
    We said goodbye as dusk was setting in, checked into the Hotel Iris (same place we stayed at last weekend), and had dinner at the Indian restaurant we’re obsessed with.
    Now it’s just four hours before we’re scheduled to leave to go to the airport for our 7:50 pm flight to Brussels. From there I go to Dublin and then Boston, and Jessica will go to Frankfurt and Washington D.C. After being away for two months in six different countries where I met so many new people, it feels great to be going home where there will be familiar people, places, foods, and probably a lot more that I took for granted before.
    Thanks so much for reading my blog! I hope you enjoyed it and that it made sense even though I wrote most of this really quickly. Hopefully it gave you some insight into Rwandan culture and feel free to email me if you have questions.
    Gotta go grab lunch and pack up… if there’s more time before we leave, I’ll try to write some more. If not, next time I write will be from home in the States!!!

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Changing plans, seeing the gorillas early, spraining my ankle hiking…

nobody@vox.com(Maddie Pongor) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:59:53 -0400

JUST KIDDING. Both my ankles are perfectly functional. Hopefully the other two parts of the title are almost as interesting though :)
I wrote this part on Wednesday…
While we were on site interviewing today, we got news from Epiphanie that we had to reschedule the date we’re seeing the gorillas to Thursday instead of Friday, so we had to cut our interviews short and pack up early. We’re staying at the Gorilla Nest hotel tonight, hiking up a small mountain to see the world-famous gorillas tomorrow, and staying at Epiphanie’s house tomorrow night. We’ll stay in Kigali on Friday night and we fly out Saturday night. It’s incredible how quickly everything seems to be winding down now that we unexpectedly finished doing interviews.
I had the most interesting interview today ever. It was with a man who lives on a friend’s porch underneath their rabbit hutch (the rabbit droppings literally fall into his bed – a bed consisting of cardboard pieces on a dirty cement floor). He has no job because he’s set on going to school therefore he has no time to work, and has no means of making money anyway without animals, land, or any sort of vocational training. No health insurance, no consistent access to a toilet, no siblings… his family on both his father’s and mother’s sides reject him. The whole community is well aware that his uncle will beat him if he ever stops by asking for assistance. He’s an outcast in the community as well because he’s never invited to weddings or funerals, which is a very large part of Rwandan society. He gets water from wherever he can find it whether or not it’s clean. When he had malaria, he couldn’t afford to get any medicine even though the hospital would’ve given it to him for 1000 Rwandan francs (less than $2). He wants to go to church but rarely can because he is ashamed of his dirty clothes. When he told me that, I told him that God doesn’t care what he wears. I hope the community would believe this too and not make him feel out of place simply for wanting to worship God.
Although we’ve heard stories similar to his, I think it was the way he was telling his story that was so remarkable. He was very expressive, he looked at me when he spoke even though I had to wait for Martha to translate before I understood, and he used a lot of gestures so I could sense how desperate he felt and how he knew his living conditions were unacceptable.
After we finished, I asked Martha what she thought of the interview. She said she thought he seemed like a drug user, which surprised me since I didn’t really get that impression. I guess it makes sense though because he probably looks for escapes from the suffering of his everyday life. I told her I thought the whole story was just unbelievable, and she might have taken me literally because she asked the driver to stop by the place where he was living and had him show us the porch, rabbit hut, bed, and all. As we left, she asked, “now do you believe he was telling the truth?” And I was like, “Of course! I never thought he was lying!” But I was very glad to see it anyway to have a visual to match his story.
There are so many aspects of Rwandan culture that surprise me – mainly little things that I didn’t notice right away, or took them as just individual occurrences before I realized they’re reoccurring trends…

•   Nobody cares about flies here. People let flies land on their clothes, arms, hair, and even their faces, and they don’t brush them away. At home, people get so annoyed if there’s a fly even near them that they try to kill it almost right away.
•   Picking your nose is completely acceptable, no matter who or where you are.
•   Since most people wear imported second hand clothes, it’s amusing when we see people in the middle of the countryside wearing “Charlotte Symphony Orchestra” t-shirts (true story) or sweatshirts from Harvard University or something like that.
•   All the children in primary and secondary school need to have a school uniform, and this is probably the biggest discouragement for most families who want to send their children for school but can’t afford the uniform. I think it’s very sad that thousands more children could attend school if only they didn’t have to wear a uniform.
•   It’s generally OK to answer your cell phone at any time. In the states, if you’re eating dinner or in a meeting, it’s definitely frowned upon if you chose to answer your phone, even if you say, “excuse me” and step away. As far as I’ve noticed here, if someone is calling you then it’s probably about something urgent so it’s OK to answer your phone at any point – dinner, a meeting, whatever.
•   I thought that few people would walk around outside at night since there are no streetlights and few people own flashlights or torches, but in fact the streets are pretty busy at night. As we’re driving along, I’m stunned to see huge groups of people, and even lone children, walking down the street as if it were broad daylight. Our headlights hit them, and then I turn around to watch them pass and realize it’s pitch-black outside and they’re impossible to spot. I don’t understand how they can find their footing while carrying heavy loads on their heads in complete darkness.

The hotel we’re staying in tonight is incredibly beautiful. There’s a main lodge area with a fancy “thatched roof” and marble floors, and all the rooms are in little cabanas at the end of stone walkways that lead away from the lodge and towards the forest. SO cool! Ahhh and the beds are so soft… mmm I think we’re gonna sleep well tonight :)

   Wrote this part yesterday…
Have you seen the movie “Gorillas in the Mist,” about the Rwandan gorillas? Well, I haven’t, and I’m glad, because I’d want to rename it “Gorillas in the RAIN.” Haha no, more like deluge.
At the start of our hike, the guide told our group it would take about 45 minutes to track down the specific gorilla group we were looking for. This sounded like no problem since it was a comfortable, cloudy day and the rainforest looked beautiful and inviting. Well, about an hour later…still no sign of gorillas… But I didn’t mind at that point because the jungle was everything I’d imagined and I was loving it: bamboo everywhere, vines spiraling down from the canopy, birds calling from far away, moss growing thick on every tree limb… I felt like we were walking through The Jungle Book, George of the Jungle, and Mighty Joe Young all at once. Haha yeah, I know I’m weird.
So, about two hours after the start of our hike, and we found out that we were walking over day-old elephant poop and there were some buffalo in the forest about 20 meters away that we couldn’t see but could hear… but STILL no gorillas sightings.
And then it started to rain.
At first I was excited ‘cause I thought it was a perfect touch to the aura of this exotic wilderness (what’s a rainforest without a little rain?) But after a while, as our pants started to soak through, our gloves got soaked, our fingers started freezing, and I realized my awesome Safari hat from the kids’ section of REI – I mean um my hardcore camping headgear – wasn’t actually waterproof and my hair was sopping wet… the fun started to drain a little bit. Not to mention how we were trekking through paths cut just seconds before by a trailblazer dude with a machete, so vines and thorn-hedged-branches and God knows what else kept thwacking us in the face every other step. And our pants were dark brown all the way up to our knees thanks to the lovely gooey mud the rain made. Yeah, a couple hours of being dirty, wet, cold, and lost made us a little impatient.
But when we found them, it was all worth it. The gorillas were so amazing. The silverback (the big daddy of the group who’s the only one allowed to mate the females and will potentially kill them if he catches them cheatin’) was huge and intimidating, but completely chilled out, munching on some roots and keeping a watch on his little herd of seven other gorillas (including three babies!) The littlest guys copied the older ones in the hunt for food. One of them was particularly mischievous and kept nudging and kicking the others to try to get them to play with him, but they shrugged off the poor guy and kept eating.
We took lots of pictures since we’re only allowed to watch them for an hour and wanted to take full advantage of our time.
AHHH my favorite part came when I paused from the picture-taking ‘cause one of the babies was coming really close and I was preparing to move away since we’re supposed to keep 7 meters between us and them (which we never did though)… AND THEN HE CAME OVER AND PUNCHED MY LEG!! It was pretty soft and fast, and I barely had time to react before he ran off. I think he was trying to tease me to get me to play with him like he was doing with the other gorillas. Ahhhh it was SO cool! I was so surprised – and ecstatic, of course :) We’re not supposed to touch the gorillas, but I guess who’s to stop them from touching us, right?
After our hour was up, we started the journey back to our army of Land Rovers. It was still raining, and the mud was worse than ever. We fell down tons of times (Jessica caught one of my falls on camera, which is hilarious) so everything was completely drenched by the time the rain finally stopped… which happened only about 20 minutes before we got out of the forest. Haha go figure.
   It was about 3 pm when we finally sat down to eat lunch in Ruhengeri, and we hadn’t eaten since 6 am, so we were pretty hungry. When we were hiking, we’d fantasized about our favorite warm comfort foods, including hot chocolate… and lo and behold, this restaurant was serving some! Yayyy!
   We left after lunch and now we’re driving south to Epiphanie’s house in Gitarama to spend the night. Tomorrow is her son Peter’s birthday and Jess brought some cake mix so we’re going to bake him a cake…well, she’s going to bake it, and I’ll do whatever I can to help without burning down the kitchen. I’m notoriously a horrible cook. Mariah inherited good kitchen skills, but definitely not me. Haha that reminds me of yesterday when I was interviewing that last guy… Before we started the interview, I explained our research to him and asked if he had any questions. He said he did have one, but it was about cooking and he didn’t see me as the type who cooks, so he wouldn’t ask it. I couldn’t help but to laugh even though Martha had no idea what was so funny. I mean, seriously, even a Rwandan dude I’ve never met before can guess I’m culinarily-challenged at first sight? Sigh.
   Home in two days… !!

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dangerous avocados and...Virgin Mary II?

nobody@vox.com(Maddie Pongor) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:31:08 -0400

It was so great to retreat to Kigali for a few days and get a change of scenery. We slept in…for most college students in the summer that means rolling out of bed around lunchtime – for us it was about 9 am, but it felt way later since we’re used to getting up before 7 a lot of the time. We spent the day walking around the parts of Kigali that we were familiar with (don’t worry, Mom, these were the busy parts where they’re used to seeing tourists wandering) and dipping in gift shops sometimes…many times…um, yeah, that may have been our purpose for the day, actually. We ate lunch at an incredible Indian restaurant and dinner at an Italian restaurant – the same two places where we went with Olivier when we were going to/coming from the game-park. Sure, we could’ve tried a random place to get a new experience, but since so much of this trip has taken us by surprise, it was nice to feel like something was under our control (even if that “something” was just a curry dish and pizza). Sunday we did more of the same and came back to Butare late in the afternoon.

This week we’re working at sites about an hour and a half away from Butare center, along the same spine-shattering dirt road where we went to do construction with the USA team. Yesterday we worked outside on the side of a hill where the wind was pretty fierce and kept snatching up our papers – and making avocados fall from the tree we were under. Great, I thought, if I don't die in an outhouse, it'll be from a falling avocado. Which would be more pathetic obituary? We survived though and moved to a different site for today's interviews, where there was no threat of falling vegetables.

We’ve had some pretty interesting interviews this week, mainly surrounding the section where we ask about their HIV/AIDS awareness. One girl that Jessica interviewed said that she “always practiced abstinence,” even though she was noticeably pregnant. Hmm. Olivier wisely suggested, “Maybe she’s the Virgin Mary II?” Another girl today said that the only thing she remembered learning in her HIV/AIDS training was that HIV comes from gorillas. Nothing about using condoms or the symptoms of the disease or anything? Nope. How reassuring.

The jeep stalled about 20 minutes away from Butare center and we chilled there with a crowd watching until a truck drove by and Alice happened to know those people so we hitched a ride with them. We piled into the truck, along with seven men and one small boy who were in the back, which could not have been safe. But it seems like pretty much anything goes here in Rwanda.

The best moment this week came right after we stepped out of the car on Monday ready to conduct the interviews. The first thing we see is an adorable little girl watching us. We smiled and waved and she smiled back…and then peed right there, through her pants (clearly no diaper). There were plenty of adults around, including her mother, and no one flinched as the girl just did her thing right there in the middle of the civic center compound. We were so confused, but I was more jealous than anything ‘cause I’d wanted to do that the entire car ride. If only I was a cute, innocent little Rwandan girl and not a muzungo with dozens of people watching us avidly, as if we were about to explode at any moment.

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africana clothes and bourbon coffee

nobody@vox.com(Maddie Pongor) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:12:57 -0400

Yep we actually did it - when we went to work today, we wore the cloth we bought at the market just like the Rwandan women. I was worried they'd think we were mocking them, but they thought it was great and everyone laughed watching us try to act like we knew how to put them on. I had three different women show me how to wear it even though all three different "arrangements" looked the same to me. Oddly enough, both Jessica and I thought we looked more Asian than African. Don't you see waitresses at Asian restaurants wearing long skirts that start above the belly button and go all the way to the floor? Right? Hmm, I wonder which came first...

After work we got on the "Volcano" public bus to Kigali with Olivier who is attending English classes here. Now we're at Bourbon Coffee having an oh so cultural experience: on the internet, drinking coffee, eating sandwiches and fries... Our excuse is that we're reaccomodating our stomachs to American food since we're going home sooner than we thought. Pretty convincing...? Maybe then while I'm at it, I'll get another breakfast sandwich... wait, no I can't- today I interviewed this guy who has five siblings and they only get to eat only one meal a day. Not as if my uneaten breakfast sandwich will magically transfer itself to his dinner table, but I still feel guilty now that I thought of him. Darn it!!

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since Saturday...

nobody@vox.com(Maddie Pongor) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:35:01 -0400

Can’t believe I haven’t written since Saturday…
Before I try to catch up, I wanna mention some exciting news – Jessica and I are leaving on July 26th and we’ll arrive in the States on Sunday the 27th! Originally we were planning to leave on August 2nd, however at the rate our work is progressing, we realized that we will have completed our interviews, surveys, and house visits by next week. After that point, any extra days we spend here will be eating up our money via costs of accommodations, transportation, food, etc…. not to mention how every day means another day for Greg, our parents, Sumi, Epiphanie, and the rest of the ZOE staff to worry about our safety and ensure that we have something to do each day. Having already visited the game park, planning to spend this weekend in Kigali, and seeing the gorillas on the 25th, there aren’t many major attractions that Greg and Epiphanie think we should see before leaving (or at least, any that would require us spending an extra week here when we could be home). So I’m really happy that it’ll just be about a week and a half before I’ll finally be home since May! Yayyyy!
Ok, here it goes...
In the morning on Sunday we went to a Baptist church with the mission team from the U.S. Just like the Presbyterian church we went to before, it wasn’t a huge church, no more than 100 people, and half of them were constantly singing and dancing. It was very overwhelming – I was caught between wanting to jump in and go crazy with them, and just watching silently in awe of the dozens of men and women of all ages who looked impossibly happy. Most of the time I was watching these two little girls. Neither of them could’ve been more than two years old. One was wearing a polka dot dress and was clearly going to be an amazing dancer in a few years; she could already clap and stamp her feet perfectly in time while singing and spinning around. The other was named Benita. She was wearing a pink dress and didn’t leave my and Jessica’s laps the whole time. They were both too adorable. How old do you have to be to legally adopt kids?
That afternoon we visited two homes that ZOE has built for orphan-headed households. Both of them were immaculate and they’d clearly cleaned up knowing that visitors would be there. Greg showed them video footage he’d taken during his last visit and they went crazy whenever they saw themselves on the video. Every child and adult here has had the same reaction when we take a picture of them – they want to see it immediately. Very few of them have mirrors, so to see an image of themselves is a real treat. Coming from a place where we take pictures on a regular basis and look in the mirror countless times a day, I can’t even imagine how curious they are to see their own face frozen in time.
The community where these homes were cooked a feast of rice, beans, and cassavas for us. We felt too guilty to take much food though so we took very little and gave most of it to the children. There was one girl who was handicapped whom we made sure to give extra food to because she was clearly an outcast and had last-pick. While the other kids were running about playing with each other, she was sitting off to the side on the grass with her head ducked, avoiding eye-contact, trying to conceal how one leg and one arm was abnormally small. In the States, it’s so fortunate how handicap-accessible public places has become a norm – and if you don’t agree, you need to see how much of a struggle life is for those with handicaps in most of the rest of the world, especially here in Rwanda. She is not only rejected from her peer group, but even her own family. She explained how her parents decided when they want to feed her and when they allow her to sleep in the house. So, Dad, next time you joke about doing that to me, it will NOT BE FUNNY! :)

Monday we visited the National Museum of Rwanda located here in Butare and we (along with the US team) spent 2 beautiful hours in the giftshop. I wish I were kidding. But trust me, it was worth it – the best quality stuff for the best prices. We found stuff there that we haven’t seen anywhere else, and apparently Jess was able to buy gifts for her entire family (meaning like all 1895745 people) for about $100. True story.
   Also at the museum, a group of traditional dancers and singers put on a special performance for us, which was INTENSE. The guys especially were pretty hardcore with their spears and shields, jumping high in the air and landing in lunges that could not be good for your knees (chya, as a runner, I’m one to talk). The best part came at the end when they pulled us into their group and had us mimic their movements. Before I got dragged off, I captured a few seconds of Jessica dancing on video which is SO coming out at her wedding. Greg, if you got me on video, I’m ordering you to delete it NOW!!!
   Afterward we visited a construction site where the community was working with ZOE to build a home for a Giving Hope orphan that I got to interview the next day. At the beginning of our interview, he told me how afraid he was because he thought he wouldn’t be able to answer many of the questions since he didn’t have a place to live. He has been wandering from house to house in the community begging to sleep on a neighbor’s floor; otherwise he sleeps outside. Imagine not having a place to belong to, no place to come home to, for years… and now dozens of people in your community are building a house for you. He didn’t even have to say how ecstatic he was – anyone could see it.
   Another boy we visited had put so much effort into ensuring that he had a respectable home for himself and his sisters – a cow, chickens, toilet, kitchen, good doors… He was so proud to show us everything. The story about his older sister was unbelievable. She is mentally challenged and disappeared for three years; her brother had no idea where she was. And when he found her again, she must have been raped because she was pregnant. She vanished for a few days again, and when she came back she was no longer pregnant. Did she miscarry? Did she give birth and give the baby to someone else? Did she abandon it in some unknown place? To this day no one knows what happened to the baby.

    On Tuesday and Wednesday, we did more interviews and surveys in the Huye district. Nothing particularly notable happened… aside from maybe our lunch at The Chinese Restaurant. Yep, it’s seriously called “THE Chinese Restaurant,” and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the only one in the country. The great part was that it was about the most un-Asian restaurant I’ve ever seen. The decorations were Caribbean/Rwandan/Christmas (?) style: Caribbean being the straw shacks that housed a couple booths, Rwandan being the antelope horns on the walls, Christmas being the two fake Christmas trees in the middle of the room and red lights shaped like strawberries hung between the horns and a wooden mask. They say only rednecks keep their Christmas lights up all year long but… guess not, haha.
    Oh yeah, Wednesday we had a kinda exasperating day at work. It was much like what happened our last day working in Gitarama when twice as many orphans showed up than should have. Epiphanie has selected specific heads of households whom she believes collectively give an accurate representation of the orphans within the community that Giving Hope has assisted. We don’t have enough time to interview all of them even if we wanted to, nor have we brought enough gifts for all of them. Receiving the gifts after being interviewed seemed to be the main reason why so many extra people came hoping we’d interview them. They don’t realize, however, that this is taking advantage of our time and our translators’ time. Jessica had almost completed an interview before we realized that orphan was not supposed to be there. When we both spoke to the entire group and told them that those not invited had to leave or else no one would be interviewed or get gifts, it still took over half an hour of pleading before some of them admitted they weren’t invited and left.

Work today went much more smoothly. We only had six people and they were the most friendly, patient, polite group I can remember working with so far. They seemed to be very connected with each other - laughing, talking, and playing together like a pack of happy school kids while the others were being interviewed. They were also very honest; today was the first time I’ve heard an orphan admit that he doesn’t always abstain from having sex. Although I do believe that they do recognize that abstinence is the best way to avoid getting HIV/AIDS, I find it hard to believe that out of a group of the 60 or so people we’ve interviewed, only one of them ever has sex since joining the Giving Hope program. This might seem to be a pessimistic assumption, but I think it’s pretty reasonable.
After lunch, our translator Marta took us to the marketplace to shop for some “Africana cloth,” as we call it. We felt very safe with her because she’s a very well educated, street-smart woman and she definitely understands how American tourists like us operate. I did mistakably whip out my camera at one point and get swallowed in a mob… JUST kidding! This marketplace experience was much better than the last – no hassle, and we found really pretty pieces of cloth for like $4 each that we could make into dresses, bandanas, tablecloths, basically anything… Well, at least I thought the two I picked out were pretty, but Martha looked at one of them, gasped, and exclaimed, “What? WHY do you want to buy that?!” Ouch!!! Hahah I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. We just might wear them to work tomorrow ‘cause we know Martha, Olivier, and the orphans will get such a kick out of us muzungos trying to pull off the Africana look!

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wrote this yesterday on the bus...

nobody@vox.com(Maddie Pongor) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 13:21:44 -0400

    Today was our last day working at the construction site with the U.S. team. Today, like the other four mornings this week, we woke up as the sun was rising, wharfed down some breakfast, and hit the road… well, if you can call it a road. The two-hour bus ride into the countryside is an experience in itself. After the first five minutes, there is no pavement and no smooth stretch of road for more than 10 feet. It’s impossible to do anything like read, eat, or write because anything will fly out of your hands as we hit a pothole or some random object every five seconds. It makes Duke Transit feel smooth as ice (for anyone who’s ridden a C1, you know this is a bold statement).
    So there’s nothing much to do but look out the window, which fortunately turns out to be more fascinating than reading or watching a movie. Stories move all around us: groups of women balancing loads of goods on their heads trek to market; little children fascinated by our white skin chase our van and holler “muzungos!”; a boy leads his blind grandfather down the treacherous road; Epiphanie points out churches where people were rounded up and slaughtered 14 years ago… Every second, another lifetime of hope and suffering passes us by – thousands of lifetimes that will go untold.
    All these people move in front of the most breathtaking backdrop of terraced mountains, traced by red-dirt paths that spiral up to the top. This stunning vista reminds me of Tuscany, or the never-ending farmlands in the English countryside. But if you look closer, you won’t see ancient manors-turned-bed-and-baths; you won’t see bikers and picnickers leisurely enjoying the soft sunshine. Instead, small mud huts dot the fields and skimpy fences made of twigs and straw barely contain starved farm animals. If you see sunlight glint on something shiny, it’s not a rental car carrying carefree tourists planning their excursions for the day. That glint reflected off a thin tin roof that leaks during the rainy season and lets in malaria-infested mosquitoes that snatch lives daily. Exhausted, sweating men and women hike to-and-from their homes and markets carrying the weight of their week’s work on their heads, their children on their backs, and the world on their shoulders.
    After two hours of soaking in these surroundings, we finally arrive at the construction site. Dozens of men, women, and children gather round to watch us jump out from the van wearing our sneakers and hiking boots, sunglasses and work gloves, waterbottles strapped into backpacks – essentials to us, unreachable luxuries to them. We greet the leaders, smile and wave to the children, assess the progress made since yesterday and get to work.
   Thursday I was hauling bricks until my wrists started to give out. Some of you may have noticed that I have weirdly thin wrists, so one wrong twist forced me to ease off (especially since it was my left wrist, the one I broke/sprained a couple years ago). I resorted to taking pictures and playing with the kids, but Friday I was thrilled that there was work to do besides hauling bricks – laying mud on the bricks! Hooray! Haha, yeah, the variety we got here is shocking, right?
    I was feeling pretty productive but we only got to work for about an hour before half of us went back to the hotel to catch up on some much-needed sleep. At first I didn’t want to leave so early, but when we slept for four hours straight, I had no regrets. The other half, though, had an amazing house visit. They went to the home of a boy whose orphanage had closed down four years ago and was now living in a space too small for him to lie down in, half of which was taken up by a rabbit hutch. This boy had no idea that he was one of the orphans for whom we’re building a house. Apparently he was in absolute shock and couldn’t stop showing how happy and thankful he was. Probably a good thing I missed it ‘cause I doubt I would’ve held myself together witnessing that kind of happiness.
   It reminded me of the house visit we had on Thursday, when we visited the home of a woman with HIV/AIDS whose daughter and adopted daughter were caring for her since she was too weak to leave the house. Her eyes looked so sad and desperate, but light that filled them when we gave her enough money to pay for the next two months’ worth of food for her and her daughters. She had no idea we were going to do anything more than come and observe her troubles. I am so happy ZOE has ensured that we are not having the kind of experience known as “misery tourism”; foreigners observe a country’s problems and identify the needs, but make no effort to change the situation. I have a big problem with that. Even though raising awareness about issues like poverty and AIDS is important to do, I would feel completely helpless if I hadn’t found a way to help. (Thanks again SO much to ZOE and the DGHI!)
    Jess and I made a valiant effort to go out running yesterday. It took about 30 seconds to realize that it was a really bad idea. EVERY person looked at us – especially the men. The way they were eyeing us, you would’ve thought we were jogging in bikinis. We finally found a path that went through a deserted field. Hmm…why was this field deserted? And why was it reeking? Oh yeah, because it was a LANDFILL. And why was there a big hole emitting thick black smoke? Because the landfill was on FIRE. Yeah, we were literally running through a dump, breathing in toxic fumes. Terrific. We tried to run along a different path away from the fire pit, and then realized we were running through a creepy cemetery on the edge of a forest from which any homeless bum could jump at any moment. We stopped, looked around for any other options, looked at each other…and laughed. It was just hopeless. We went back to the hotel and did jump-rope, crunches, and lunges. I think I felt a single bead of sweat at one point!!!
    Seriously though, it’s so frustrating not to be able to run or work out much. I can’t remember a week in the last few years when I haven’t been running a few times at least. It’s my favorite sport and pastime – I run when I’m stressed, when I’m happy, when I’m sad, when I need to take a break or make an important decision… I run before or after something big happens, I run to feel good, to tire myself out, to challenge myself…sometimes I just run for no reason, if I’m bored. Or I’ll run if I have a thousand things to do and need one more way to procrastinate. It’s a big part of my life, but like many things, “you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.” Now that I can’t go running, I’m starting to realize how much harder it is for me to keep a level head, to find ways to de-stress when I need to. And during these weeks when I’m seeing heart-stopping things every day and constantly venturing outside my comfort-zone, this is when I need stress-relievers the most. I thought running a lot made me strong, but now I wonder if it’s just an easy way to cover up my weaknesses.
    We arrived at the site today shocked to see half of the tin roof up and the walls about ¼ of the way finished. It was also the first day that I was positive the vast majority of the locals were participating, not just watching. I felt the most productive I’ve been so far, learning to catch and throw handfuls of mud across the length of the house. I was so proud when the workers would pull out two people and put me in there. Then they taught me how to flatten the side of a brick with a mini machete, and when one of the workmen held it up to show his companion, I could probably feel my head get bigger. I wish I had a picture with that brick ‘cause I’m sure I was beaming like it was an Academy Award.
After working for a couple hours, Jessica and I went to play with the hundreds of kids watching us on top of the hill. We showed them hand-games, passed a football, played volleyball without a net, and passed out stickers to hundreds of eager hands reaching up to our noses. A chorus of voices chirped, “please, please, please!” the whole time, as if we were distributing gold.
    Since this was our last day working, we had a small meeting with the Giving Hope orphans and thanked them for letting us come to work with them and praying that God will protect them in the future. They in turn thanked us for our contributions and asked us questions about life in the United States. As we said goodbye, Epiphanie announced that Jessica and I will return later to visit them even after the U.S. team leaves, which I hadn’t realized. It felt good to be able to honestly say, “See you again soon!” I remember saying the same thing to so many children in the Dominican Republic and Paraguay and I still wonder if I told them the truth.

p.s. Two things that make me laugh every time: 1) Seeing people walking with bushels of hay on their heads so thick that you can’t see their heads; they look like creatures from a storybook, or walking trees. 2) Rwandan outhouses that consist of holes in the ground inside huts with cracks for windows. Looking at that hole is terrifying because I KNOW that at any moment some monster is gonna pounce out of that hole and I’ll die in an outhouse. Or not be able to have children.

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Last day in Gitarama, first days in Butare

nobody@vox.com(Maddie Pongor) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:04:28 -0400

Monday was the most overwhelming day-on-the-job we’ve had so far. We showed up at the YWCA at 8 am as usual, expecting to have about six or seven people total… and found out that around 15 people had showed up. It was a nightmare trying to figure out who was actually there to be interviewed versus who had just come to keep the others company (probably hoping for a free Fanta too). In the end we had to interview twelve people, and of course most of them happened to have four or five siblings and very complicated educational and medical backgrounds, which made the interview process much longer than usual. We worked straight through lunch and didn’t pack up until 3 pm. We were absolutely exhausted. I couldn’t even stay awake at the diner we went to for lunch, I was so tired. I fell asleep at the guesthouse until dinner, and then we had to pack up all our stuff so we could head to Butare the next morning, where we’ll be staying until June 20^th.

We drove to Butare with Olivier, which was very entertaining because we shared my iPod and I got a sense of what American music is popular in Rwanda. He knew a bunch of songs by 50 Cent, Sean Kingston, and Britney Spears (it made my day when he knew the lyrics to “Piece of Me”). Once we arrived in Butare, Jessica and I conducted four interviews with kids who’d been in the Giving Hope program for about 9 months – a few years behind those we’ve been interviewing in Gitarama. The differences between their experiences and accomplishments were visible. Most of them hadn’t repaid their loans from Giving Hope, didn’t have health insurance, had very few farm animals, and most of their little siblings didn’t have school uniforms. Their self-confidence and comfort level during the interview was noticeably lower than those I’d met in Gitarama. I have no doubt though that all those things will change within the next few years - maybe even months – considering how strong and effective ZOE’s work has been.

That night we met the mission team Greg Jenks is leading, consisting of adults from Oregon and North Carolina, and a recent graduate of UNC…sigh… Jessica and I have been very tolerant people. Haha, I’m just kidding, we all get along really well. It’s SO nice to be with a group of people who speak English and understand where we’re coming from. Apart from Mama Arlene, Olivia, and Kyle, I’ve realized that we haven’t spoken with any non-Rwandans in the last two weeks. It’s such a relief; any reminder of home is always a good one.

Today we divided into two groups and went to two different construction sites. Our team was Team One. Greg very cleverly called us Team One-derful… Mom, I thought you’d appreciate that because of the movie That Thing You Do in which the band is called the Oneders, remember? :) So after both teams visited the Mayor of Butare in his office, we split up and went to work.

Both teams were constructing houses for orphans that Giving Hope has been taking care of. Working outside was SUCH a nice change-up from sitting indoors. We carried big bricks uphill and big rocks downhill to the spot on the side of a mountain where the house’s foundation was about halfway finished. I couldn’t believe how the women could carry rocks over 50 pounds on their heads! I finally had to try it for myself. One of the workers lent me his head-cushion thingy and I was able to balance rocks on top with one hand for support. It was SO much harder than it looked! Those rocks were heavy and my head/neck/back/entire body was not used to that kind of weight. I didn’t have any problems though, except when I tried to do a brick, which was like the size and weight of a cinder block. That did me in, and I went back to hauling medium-sized rocks for the rest of the time.

The kids were adorable but a little overwhelming. They flocked to the construction site by the dozens and were fascinated by every little thing we did. Jessica tried to teach them how to run Indian sprints…before eventually realizing that was beyond explainable, plus not exactly an ideal activity for 20 malnourished/dehydrated children playing in the blazing hot sun haha. But teaching them how to build a human-pyramid was much more successful :) I had a strenuous conversation with our driver who spoke French and was trying to convince me to give him money to visit the States, or my phone number so he could call in case he magically arrived there and needed a place to stay. I only dragged out the pointless conversation so I could practice speaking French. Hahaha, Mom, remember the incident on the beach in Anguilla involving Spanish? It kind of reminded me of that. Not that this in any way is reassuring to you.

After construction, we visited the home of two orphan-headed households whom Giving Hope is supporting. The first was an 18-year-old girl named Devota who didn’t look older than 14. She had three little siblings to care for and all of them plus four others and a pig slept in a hut a third the size of my dorm room. There was nothing inside except a straw mat and cooking space. No furniture, no light, nothing. The kids were all dirty and covered in fleas, wearing clothes torn to shreads, their stomachs bloated from malnutrition, their eyes blood-shot, their noses bleeding… I felt so helpless. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

Our comic relief came when two mice fell out of the roof and scampered all around us, making us shriek and laugh. But looking back, it was actually a pretty sad thing to be laughing at. The mice were among the many pests in the house, in addition to malaria-carrying mosquitoes and who knows what else that could spread diseases and spoil their food.

The next home we visited was a little bigger but no less disturbing. The orphan who headed this home was a 15-year-old boy with three little siblings and an older brother who was mentally ill and hospitalized. The boy needed to bring food to his older brother because the hospital wouldn’t supply it, in addition to looking after his brother and sisters. Epiphanie was translating his words for us and suddenly broke down in tears. One of the adults in our group then told the boy that, being a father, he knew that this boy’s father would’ve been very proud of how capable he’d proven himself to be. If we hadn’t lost it before that moment, we were all GONE by then! As we were saying goodbye, we noticed that his 12-year-old sister had a strange substance on the back of her head. It looked like globs of Vaseline. When we found out she had a skin disease that was untreated and worsening, I thought I was going to be sick.

The most striking part was how all these children were smiling. They somehow were able to act like normal, happy, playful children, as far as we could tell. The heads of the households were a little more serious, but on the whole they did not seem disturbed, ashamed, hopeless, or anything. Then again, if this kind of living condition is all that these children have known, then maybe it’s understandable. Coming from the United States where we live in a world of comfort and convenience, we have a point of comparison – a curse and a blessing on this trip.

I remember how Devota showed us a history of her life and a plan for her future that she’d mapped out; an exercise which Giving Hope requires all the orphans to do when they first join the program. It began with what she disliked the most: she drew a picture of a woman beating a child. Then she drew what she loved the most: the Bible. Next, what made her sad: her mother’s coffin. Fourth, her hope for the future: a small home with four goats so she could use their manure to sell or cultivate land. The last piece was a motto she lived her life by. Although I don’t remember it completely, it basically said “showing respect for all human beings, and living my life full of love for God.”

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4th of July Rwandan-style, Kigali, & Safari

nobody@vox.com(Maddie Pongor) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:03:00 -0400

While y’all in the U.S. were shooting off fireworks, barbequing, and celebrating the red white & blue last Friday, Jessica and I were two of maybe 10 white people packed into a stadium of thousands of people watching…gosh, what to call it…theatrical military? Interpretive boot camp? Since the announcers all spoke Kinyarwandan, I really have no idea what it was, but it was pretty cool. Since Rwanda celebrates their Liberation Day from the genocide/dictatorship on July 4th, Gitarama hosted a big celebration featuring President Kagame speaking, several hours of parading and traditional dancing, and a bunch of military exercises. The military was definitely the coolest part since they had hundreds of soldiers demonstrate their abilities by mock-fighting. Every different exercise (there were dozens) was perfectly timed. My favorite was when a government vehicle drove out into the center of the stadium and then a bunch of soldiers in uniform encircled it, forcing the driver and passenger to stop. Out came a man and a woman, both well-dressed and looking very important. The soldiers started to ambush them, but the two politicians took off their shoes and took on all the soldiers at once! It was SO tight! And then when they’d floored every one of the soldiers, they put back on their shoes, straightened their blazers, dragged the bodies out of their path, and drove away. The crowd ate it up. I was cheering too, but I didn’t really get the point haha. Maybe it was just for entertainment value, but it surprised me how a country trying to show how devoted it is to recovering from a genocide implemented by a corrupt government and military would be so determined to show off its military prowess rather than its efforts to maintain peace.

Saturday we spent the day in Kigali with Olivier, Gaston (a friend of Epiphanie’s who offered to be our driver for the weekend), and the President of the Rwanda division of the YWCA. We went all over town – visiting shops, going to popular spots like Bourbon Coffee and Novotel...The best came when we went to an Italian restaurant for lunch and I got to eat the first pizza I’ve had since May! It was HEAVENLY. A good cheese pizza is one of many things I took for granted at home. After saying goodbye to the YWCA President, we drove an hour east and spent the night in a motel so we could wake up early and go to the game park for our one-day safari!

The safari was absolutely unbelievable. You can ask Jessica, I was flipping out the entire time. At first I thought it was silly to wake up at 4:30 am, but it definitely made a big difference because we saw so many animals SO fast! Within five minutes of heading out from the lodge, we came across a whole herd of antelope grazing. Five minutes later, a herd of impala. Fifteen minutes later, a herd of zebras chillin on the plain. You would think I would’ve gotten used to seeing groups of exotic animals one after the other, but I freaked out just as much when we saw the giraffes, hippos, snake, monkeys, cool birds, and other antelope-like herds too. We got SO close to the giraffes! I couldn’t believe how they would look at us but seem completely unperturbed that a big jeepful of awed tourists was gaping at them and snapping one picture each second (props, Dad?). I was kinda nervous about seeing hippos because apparently they kill the most animals out of any animal in Africa…and this park had the highest concentration of hippos IN Africa! But they stayed off-shore and just came up to get some air and wag their little ears.

The craziest moment came when we were walking along the shore looking at a pair of the biggest birds I’d ever seen, when suddenly some dude walks out of the bushes carrying a huge python. We couldn’t believe it! He wasn’t a park guide or anything. He just walked into the bushes, grabbed a python trying to escape into the water, and walked out like “what’s up? Check this out. I’m the man.” Haha he didn’t ACTUALLY say that – it kinda went without saying because we were all stunned. It turned out that he was a Rwandan wildlife specialist and did his PhD about snakes, which sounded pretty legit. Probably not legit enough to let him drape it around our necks, but we did anyway :)

Afterward we went to an amazing Indian restaurant that everyone was raving about, and rightfully so. It was very fancy – waterfall, golden statues, rugs, waiters wearing turbans… I felt mildly out of my element wearing hiking boots, zip-away pants, and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up. But I was so hungry for food other than rice, beans, and fries that I didn’t care.

I wish it didn’t take like 10 minutes to upload one picture to this blog due to the slow internet speed here, otherwise I would. I’ll to put up a couple if I muster the patience. Also, I want to thank those people who have commented on my blog but unfortunately I can’t view the comment or let it be posted unless you’re a member of “vox”. So please drop me an email if you want to comment on something and I’d really appreciate it!

~Maddie

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chaos in the marketplace & other adventures

nobody@vox.com(Maddie Pongor) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:46:00 -0400

After work yesterday, we went with our housekeepers Chantal and Olivier to Gitarama’s local market. Sounds pretty simple right? Ha, wrong! It was our first and last time trying that out. Unsurprisingly, we drew a lot of stares being the only two white people among thousands of Rwandan buyers and sellers in a market that stretched over an entire hilltop. I took out my camera and snapped a few pictures since I knew my dad would want to see :) Haha WELL here’s what I got for being a good daughter! …

I was taking my third or fourth picture of Jessica walking through the market when suddenly this aggressive woman jumped in front of my shot. She immediately stormed up to me and started yelling in my face, getting heated when she realized I didn’t understand a word she was shouting. The racket drew a lot of attention and in a few seconds I was surrounded by a crowd of curious Rwandans. Olivier came up to me and said, “She wants you to give her money for taking the picture or delete it.” Well, there’s an easy decision – I turned my camera around and showed the woman as I deleted the picture. This made her even more furious somehow and the crowd kept growing. I finally just looked back at the woman and said, “I deleted the picture, I’m not giving you any money, goodbye!” and walked away with Jessica. Anyone who hadn’t noticed us walking through the market before was now completely aware we were there and they were staring us down even more obviously than ever. And I was completely flustered and annoyed that we were told it was OK to take pictures in public and there wouldn’t be a hassle. I put away the camera after that of course.

The attention made it difficult for Chantal and Olivier to buy fruits and vegetables without them raising the prices since we were a pair of “muzungos” (white people). Nobody bothered us though, and in fact they all smiled and waved as long as we showed we were friendly. Some of them spoke French and said “bonjour!” and other showed off to their friends by saying “hello, how are you?” It was very sweet.

A while later we were walking down a dirt road on our way back to the house, dodging women balancing full bags of flour on their heads and men driving motorbikes… When suddenly we see two guys on a motorbike going around 30 mph coming towards us, weaving through the throngs of people. We stepped to the side, but a man about 15 feet in front of us wasn’t so lucky. The motorbike honked behind him, he stepped to his right to try to move out of the way, but the motorbike swerved right too. We saw the incident happen like it was in slow motion. He went flying up over the bike and the two people riding it fell off. Before the crowds of curious Rwandans engulfed them, I caught a glimpse of the damage - the man hit had clearly broken his leg and his head was bleeding; the driver was trying to hoist himself off the ground while he vomited a pool of blood onto the dirt road; the other man was trapped under the bike and who knows what had happened to him. Needless to say we pretty much sprinted home, in shock from what we’d just witnessed. This is one wild country!

Today’s round of interviews was the first time anyone admitted to having HIV/AIDS, and in fact all three people I interviewed openly discussed it. The first girl I interviewed was incredibly comfortable talking about her life. She was my age (19) and was a single mother with a five-year-old son. Her parents both dead and her son’s father completely disconnected from his family, she has also faced child abuse by a relative and often stigmatization from her neighbors because they know she has AIDS. Somehow she manages to pay for her son's education and health insurance, and she is the president of Gitarama’s anti-AIDS organization.

Food highlight of the day: melting chocolate in hot water, mixing it with peanut butter, and spreading it on our pancake made of cornmeal to make the African version of a crepe with nutella. Anyone can testify I’m a horrible cook, but that was pretty creative, eh? Yeah, I’m pretty much Martha Stewart Jr now.

Sunday was also a really fun day that I forgot to write about earlier. At first we were kind of dreading sitting through three hours of a church service conducted entirely in Kinyarwandan, but it ended up being wonderful. For most of the time, dozens of children and adults sang hymns and danced. Their voices were absolutely beautiful and I was struck by how unselfconscious the kids were. Several of Mama Arlene’s little girls came over to Jessica and me, sat on our laps, and played with our hair – it was adorable.

Afterward we ate lunch at Mama Arlene’s home for girls and then played football (soccer) and tennis for hours on end with them and the boys. All the kids were so friendly and funny… I just wish we could understand what they’re saying! Before coming here, I realize that I’ve been able to converse in some familiar language like English or Spanish (and mayyyybe some French?) anywhere else I’ve gone. But here I know nothing beyond five phrases: Hello (muraho or bite), How are you (amakuru?), I’m fine (ni meza), and What’s your name? (witwande?) The end. Sigh. Not exactly the most exciting conversation, but something is definitely better than nothing. I want to venture into uncharted territory and learn: “I know you wouldn’t guess, but…surprise! I’m an American tourist!”

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Genocide Memorial and first day of work!

nobody@vox.com(Maddie Pongor) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:41:00 -0400

Visiting the Genocide Memorial on Monday was just as tough as I expected. We took a tour of the capital city Kigali on a bus with a few Italian and Australian tourists and Epiphanie’s son Olivier. The Memorial was included in the tour, so beforehand we drove by a couple important/historic places like the oldest house in Rwanda, the mayor’s house, the hotel where Hotel Rwanda was filmed (where we’re still crossing our fingers we’ll get to stay at some point!). We also stopped in the building where ten Belgian soldiers were killed before the Genocide, an event that prompted the UN and other international forces to drop their peacekeeping efforts and move out of the country. The room where it happened had hundreds of bullet holes in the walls. Talk about eerie.

The site where the Memorial was built was on the side of a small hill overlooking Kigali to demonstrate what the victims saw as they fled the city in April 1994. Outside there were beautiful gardens around tombs where hundreds of thousands of people were buried. Inside it was arranged perfectly – the Memorial walked you through the timeline of the Genocide and didn’t leave anything out: the roots of the conflict (Belgians passed out identity cards; those with over 10 cows were Tutsi, the rest were Hutus, sometimes it was just based on your physical features)…the international politics surrounding the situation (apparently the French supplied $12 million worth of arms to the corrupt government)…the ways in which people were killed (one that made my stomach turn – mom don’t read this! – throwing a person in a well and then throwing rocks on top of them until the screams subsided)… how families were uprooted and separated…

The worst for me was the part dedicated to the children. It was very simple compared to the hundreds of pictures, texts, videos, and artifacts around the rest of the Memorial. There were simply a couple dozen large photographs of little children with short descriptions about them that their family members filled in. The descriptions included information like “favorite food, favorite game, personality type, best friend…” and gave you this glimpse into the life of an adorable little boy or girl…and then ended with: “cause of death: hacked down by a machete in his mother’s arms.” I totally lost it.

It’s unfathomable how millions of ordinary people like you and me can be driven to kill their neighbors. Jessica and I were trying to imagine what could drive a good, hard-working person with a family and friends to commit such atrocities…and the only way we could make sense of it was that it has to come down to fundamental facts: “I am starving, my children are starving and probably will die, but my neighbor has money and food, if I had what he has then my family will survive, and the government says he’s an evil-doer and traitor anyway. So, do I kill him and save my family or sit idle and let my sons and daughters die of starvation?” It reminds me of a quote that my dad found: "A hungry people listens not to reason, not cares for justice, nor is bent by any prayers." I really believe that's a central cause of the Rwandan Genocide.

The tour-guide tried to cheer us up afterward. We went to an outdoor shopping area where they were selling traditional Rwandan goods like baskets, dolls, paintings, carvings, and jewelry. I behaved and didn’t buy any souvenirs for myself (applause? Thank you). Then we saw the up-and-coming section of Kigali where the wealthy Rwandan businessmen are building their sprawling white-washed mansions complete with pools, pillars, gardens, and guest houses. Of course every city has that kind of district, but it amazed me how these people could build their meccas overlooking a city landscape dominated by mud huts, dirt roads, and other signs of serious poverty.

We had our first round of surveys today finally! Jess and I met Epiphanie, her son, and two translators at the YWCA’s headquarters in Gitarama center where six orphans came to be interviewed. Those whom we’re interviewing in Gitarama have “graduated” from ZOE’s Giving Hope Program, meaning that they received assistance, guidance, training, and education from ZOE for three years and are now living almost entirely independently. Some of them still attend support groups organized by ZOE, but for the most part they pay for their own health insurance, education, food, etc for themselves and their siblings (which could mean five other young children). It was incredible how involved they had become in the community and how proud they were of their accomplishments. Although we were focused on their progress since they were orphaned, hints of their traumatizing histories crept into our conversations. For example, one girl’s father was killed by his younger brother during the Genocide. Another boy didn’t know his father and his mother died of “poison,” which in Rwanda essentially means HIV/AIDS. Jessica and I each interviewed three people and it took about four hours total, partially because we were adjusting the survey questions as we went. Tonight we met with Epiphanie and reworded some questions and changed the ordering around so that it will definitely go smoother and quicker these next few weeks.

Other than that, the highlight of today definitely included persuading our driver to stop at a supermarket so we could buy Canterbury chocolate bars which were heaven in a wrapper. As a lifelong chocoholic, I have been on withdrawal since last Thursday, and it just wasn't going well so I had to give in. The food here is very good and healthy, but it’s starting to get redundant. We literally haven’t gone one meal without eating some combination of rice, beans, fries, bananas, green beans, and these weird things that look and taste like a cross between a kiwi and a tomato (kiwito?). Oh yeah, I spilled tomato sauce all over the table and myself at dinner today. Some of you know I’m a huge klutz, especially with food, but I was doing so well not spilling stuff during meals. Hopefully this won’t become a reoccurring trend like our menu already has :)

~Maddie

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