Thanks so much all!

To those who supported me by reading these stories, with financial support, email encouragements and prayer. As the saying go ‘it wouldn’t have been possible without you!’

Lasting impressions

What will remain with me:
Time for people – the Rwandese always have time for people, no matter what the schedule says. There is time to talk to you and have a proper in depth conversation, and the rest can wait.
Inclusion – everyone is welcome in every event. You can attend anyone’s wedding, you can attend a meeting even if it doesn’t pertain to you, and as a stranger you will be asked to give a speech at a gathering (informal or formal) as a token that they want you to feel included.
Appreciation – everyone shows sincere appreciation for every little thing you help with, no matter how small or simple it might seem, and to me that’s what makes it worth doing. When going to say bye to children I taught during the first few weeks, I was bowled over by their appreciation for what I did. And then I realised how something so basic (which I actually dreaded doing) was a top privilege to them, something they’ll never forget.
Forgiveness & Reconciliation – Picture this: your next door neighbour, someone you’ve known for ages and shared meals with, one day turns against you (un-understandably) and kills your family members. This is the reality that so many Rwandese now live with after the Genocide. How do they do it? Three words: forgiveness, reconciliation and God. Those very neighbours have been brought to repentance, they have been forgiven by the survivors of those very people they killed, reconciliation has united both sides, and all made possible only through their surrender to God. This is the true story of lives of many – an amazing inspiration to all of us – but unfortunately not the story of still many more. And therefore we need to pray for them as living with such fear and un-forgiveness is destroying their lives and keeping them in poverty.

Meeting my girl at last

I’ve been sponsoring a girl in Nairobi, Kenya, through Compassion for just over 3 years now and on my way back to the UK I stopped over to visit her the first time. It was a very special way of ending off my trip!

I was told that I would visit the project office first and would then be taken to her house afterwards. Upon arrival, they surprised me - Lilian and her mother ware waiting for me at the office. They took her out of school to spend the day with me. There she stood in her, probably, nicest dress (all tattered and very old fashioned) but she looked lovely. We had the chance to quickly talk a bit and she then guided us to her house. Fortunately, being only 12 years old, she peaks English almost perfectly and made more in depth conversations possible. As we walked to her home, she tried to teach me a song in Kiswahili, her mother tongue, and I think I didn’t do too badly. I wasn’t aware of this before, but she actually lives in a slum in Nairobi. I’ve driven past slumb/plakkerskampe a thousand times in my live in SA, but never entered one deeply. This was a shock but exactly as TV prepared me. Raw sewage and horrible smells, litter everywhere and dilapidated houses (made of mud and sinkplaat) almost on top of each other. Luckily hers wasn’t far away and we reached it within five minutes’ walk. I got to meet her family and hear more about their situations. Afterwards, I had a bit more private time with Lilian and then we had lunch together before I had to say bye.

This was such a very brief meeting but meant the world to me, and I hope to her. Through letters and pictures, you can only gather so much about a person and now at least both of us have some reality to hold on to. I also know that no matter what, I want to see this girl through University in order to make sure that nothing keeps her from fulfilling her potential in life.

My Activity Summary

Week 1 – Visit a variety of projects throughout southern Rwanda.
Week 2 – Gitarama/Shyogwe: Teaching English; visit more projects in the vicinity; assist with jam/juice bottle labelling and planting seed for trees.
Week 3 – Gitarama: Assist with writing project progress reports; banana leave cards marketing; teaching English; assist in juice factory.
Week 4 – Gitarama: RDIS Newsletter compilation; assist with various projects in different capacities; teaching English.
Week 5 – Gitarama: Develop a practically implementable performance management model; visit rural farmers; teaching English.
Week 6 – Gitarama: Present my performance monitoring model; ICT training; teaching English.
Week 7 – Gitarama/Shyogwe: Stat’s formula template; Financial reporting assistance; Video recording of projects; ICT training.
Week 8 – Butare/Kigeme/Cyangugu: training RDIS staff on implementing Performance Monitoring tools in the field; ICT training.
Week 9 – Nyungwe/Gitarama: Visit Chimps in the rain forest; Community Action Plan project participation
Week 10 – Gitarama: Newsletter finalisation; produce 2nd dvd of project video recordings

Full on till completion

My last week was quite jam-packed trying to get all my little projects finished off properly before I leave, in between visiting friends and colleagues for the last time, go for runs and walks on my favourite routes, eat as much I can of my favourite food, ‘slurp’ing in as much I can of African sun and finishing the last of my books I brought with.
A few things I’ve been working on for a while came to conclusion:
- The compilation of a 10 page newsletter, RDIS’ second addition
- The production of another dvd with my video recordings on RDIS’ work in various projects
- The completion and distribution of my guide to monitoring performance in development projects

I’m satisfied with what I got accomplished during the 10 weeks, and especially as leaders from different communities expressed their appreciation just before I left. I only hope that where I sowed words of ‘consultancy’, it won’t be buried in note books and locked in drawers, but that it will be planted on the land of the poorest and erupt to make a difference.

But this is not the end, I’m afraid. Nothing annoys me more than being introduced to problems and not doing something about it. And of course rural Rwanda still faces ginormous challenges. So I’ve got a few ideas up my sleeve which I’m going to try get off the ground … at God’s timing.

Community Action Planning

‘Food Security and Livelihoods Improvement through Disaster Risk Reduction’ is the theme of RDIS’ work for the three year period 2008 to 2010. RDIS realised that addressing the first part is not feasible before the latter is actioned and hence disaster risk reduction receives much emphasis in every project they undertake. In order to improve effectiveness even further, RDIS staff devoted a whole week in September to be trained by an expert in this field, Dr Willie Nkamuhebwa, a Tearfund consultant from Uganda. The topic was discussed under the banner of Community Action Planning. In essence, change can’t be imposed on community members if they don’t understand, embrace and take ownership of it fully. The training therefore focussed on theory first and then followed by practical application where the Gahogo community was invited to participate. Over 100 people met under the trees in Gitarama for two mornings. They firstly drew a community map, then identified their major hazards, prioritising them by assessing their likelihood and level of impact, and thereafter collectively agreed on actions to be taken. Water shortage and food security were the two hazards identified to bare most risk to the locals. With the community action plan resulting from this intense week, the community will hopefully not only cooperate with RDIS, but also take ownership of seeing these risks diminishing.

Tracking Chimpanzees in the rain forest

This was quite exciting. We left at 4:30 in the morning to arrive at 6am, when dawn breaks, at the area in the forest where the chimps live. Upon arrival, our guide contacted the chimp trackers (staff of the nature reserve) to find out exactly which tree the chimps chose this morning as their breakfast table. We then started to make our way in that direction. About and hour’s walk in to the forest, we met with a tracker and was asked to stay put and be quiet for a while so that we can listen to the chimp’s call in order to find their precise location. We waited for about 5 min and then heard the first soft cry of the chimps which got loader and loader until it felt like they were on top of us. Quickly, the tracker started bashing straight down the steep slope, cutting away vegetation with his machete, and then motioned towards us to follow. We weren’t prompted to, but naturally all kept quiet as we stumbled in his tracks. A few minutes’ bundu-bashing and we came to a halt as right in front of us, about 20m away, 3 big chimps were feasting on fruit and leaves high in a tree. We all made ourselves comfortable on the twigs and bushes, took out our cameras and stared at the apes for the hour that we were allowed. Every now and again they would start calling again. The guide explained that they are calling the rest of their group to come and eat, but we reckoned that they were calling their friends to come and look at the muzungo (white people).

The whole experience was one of those once in a lifetime ones, definitely worth seeing the chimps in their natural environment. And definitely a highlight of my trip.

Implementing performance monitoring across RDIS projects

During last week, I visited the different regions that RDIS operates in and worked with the members of staff to understand and implement the performance monitoring model I proposed.
I realised that office work has little priority when it comes to field workers and struggled even just to get them in front of the computer. But when we eventually sat down, I knew they grasped the way of thinking I tried to promote.

A bonus was that the Tearfund representative of Rwanda and Burundi heard about my model and visited me to come and see what it was about. He agreed with the principles and aims to now promote this within other NGO’s in the two countries as well.

In between hard work and long days, I got to see many more very interesting projects, meet amazing Rwandese, hear the word Muzongo (white person) a thousand times from energetic children, and spend time in the beautiful countryside.

ICT Training

I had a training session scheduled with Andrew, and then when I turned up, there were 8 people eagerly awaiting their training. Andrew decided to invite all people in his office. Normally I won’t mind, but this one was a challenge as none of them could understand more than two English words in a row, and most hardly knew how to open an excel document. And I had only 2 hours to bring them up to speed. Needless to say, I didn’t achieve much, especially as I had to be interpreted after every sentence. But they appreciated my effort very much and we agreed that another RDIS staff member (which I already trained properly) will try to carry on with their training at a later stage. Another unique African experience!

Presentation to the Bishops

I was very privileged to have been invited to a meeting of the bishops of the southern half of the country to show my presentation on my model for monitoring performance. The Anglican church is by far the denomination most actively involved in the community (this is not to promote them, as I’m not Anglican myself, but to commence them on their work and initiatives). They understand that evangelism is not only spreading the gospel by word, but by deed as well. This is why the opportunity to address them on more effectively doing what they are doing has such meaning, because I believe that thereby a vast number of the population will actually be impacted. My presentation was described as challenging and thought provoking – just the reaction I was hoping for!

Anyway, what an experience sitting around a table with such wisdom and insightful development comments flying around. These people know what they are doing. But with a bit of help, their efforts could even achieve manifold more.

Savings & Credit Groups

Now this is an initiative that I think is highly effective and makes a huge difference to the people right at the bottom. Micro-credit schemes are available all over developing countries now, but loans this way normally are still bound to too rigged regulations and high interest rates for the very poor. So this is where savings and credit groups are able to fulfil in their needs.

People pay a fee to join the group (roughly £10) and then every month they ‘save’ a certain amount (in the order of 10 to 20p). They can take out a loan with an interest rate of 5% to fund resources which will help them to increase their earnings. The interest paid is then distributed to those with savings as their interest earned. The group together decides whether they will grant a loan to a person and because they belong to the same community and realise that their money is used by others, they hold each other accountable for using the loan responsibly, running business activities effectively and repaying on time. Such loans enable the poorest to get off the ground by for example buying two pigs and then selling the piglets to make profit, which could be invested in buying more animals. One person started this way and is now able to rent more land in order to increase his farming activities to the point where he is able to produce more than his family needs and therefore earn income.

More than the purpose of enabling loans, this activity also encourages people to save for future needs where they would have spent their cash immediately upon receipt in the past, and therefore fosters responsible use of money. I’d like to see every person in the poorest communities belong to such a group within the next two years.

Grassroot Churches

A grassroot church is a group of people gathering in someone’s house on a weekly basis (other names known in other countries are cell/home/small groups). Most of the country is classified as Christian, but this proofed to mean little as a vast number of ‘Christians’ partook in the genocide killings. Naturally, after the genocide, there was much division, hatred and conflict between people in the same community as neighbours and believers turned against each other during the massacre. Reconciliation between people is attempted by the government through grassroot courts, held every Tuesday, where suspect genocide participants are trialled by their community, people are given the opportunity to ask forgiveness and people are encouraged to forgive. Though, this process proofs slow success. RDIS introduced the grassroot church concept to facilitate real spiritual growth of Christians which naturally leads to fruits of reconciliation, forgiveness and unity. A group of people meet once a week at someone’s house to read and learn from the bible, pray for each other’s needs, talk about issues in the community, share testimonies of God’s work and, of course, sing as only Africans can. During our field visits this week, people brought up the topic of grassroot churches frequently and expressed the impact it has had on their lives. One group specifically impressed me. We visited them while they were meeting on the grass/gravel on a hill. Mainly women and all barefoot. Once these women were united by a grassroot church, they realised that they can work together to achieve more and started digging as a group in each other’s land. They also started a savings and credit group which enables them to take out small loans to finance items which could assist them to increase their income. Now to me, this speaks a great deal of the level of reconciliation that the grassroot churches have brought!

Adaption to living with HIV/AIDS

In 2002, Jean-Pierre (one of the RDIS staff) was the head of the provincial committee for HIV/AIDS. Today, we visited families with whom he worked, and the evidence of their programme was clear … completely transformed lives. The lady here is HIV positive. She has been since 1997. Eight years back she was very close to giving up, weighing only 30kms, but today she stands healthy weighing a full 70. The main challenge Jean-Pierre and his team faced was to get people to accept themselves and to accept those who were affected. When people find out they have the virus, they tend to keep quiet about it because of fear of being rejected by the community. They even feel too ashamed to visit a health centre to receive antiretroviral treatment. Consequently they fall behind, their families fall behind and the virus keeps spreading. Many are even too scared to be tested for HIV because of this reason. Jean-Pierre’s programme provided social support to those diagnosed, encouraging them to face life and fight the challenge with God’s help. The programme also assisted them to start small businesses to generate income for their treatment and their families, as businessmen are reluctant to employ a person with HIV/AIDS. They are then also provided with start-up cash to get going. The treatment has worked very well for this single mother of three (her husband died in the genocide) and she was able to raise her children to the point where they are now working and able to provide the income for the family. Her youngest is also affected with HIV and receiving treatment, but I believe that with this type of support, she’ll live to see many more days. In another family we visited, both parents are affected, but through the programme they came to accept their status, embrace whatever support was provided and now have two children who are clean and who will according to them ‘be able to live the family legacy’.

Children’s Church Choir

I totally loved this group. This was the children’s choir of the church I visited today. The way they interchanged song with dance and acted out the story of the song completely conveyed the message – even I was almost able to understand what the song’s about. The dancers had bells tied around their feet which added to the beat while they danced. A livelier choir you’ll struggle to find! This is how I imagine David danced before the Lord!

Playing Camera Man (Lady)

Just before I came over, I decided to invest in a camcorder in order to capture my experiences with more authenticity. So I’m very new to the recording thing and apart from still figuring out the camera, I’ve got lots to learn about shooting. But unfortunately there wasn’t much time allowed. RDIS was desperate to show their stakeholders what they are doing and they grabbed the opportunity to have it recorded in live. So this week I had to record and edit films on the fly. It’s really just beginner’s material and I’ll even be reluctant to show it to anyone else apart from close friends and fam, but I guess to the organisation something is better than nothing. My first piece of work has now been produced!

Vunga Vocational School

Many children, after finishing primary school, have no means of entering a secondary school. Therefore vocational schools have risen to equip this category of youth with skills which equips them to earn a proper income within just two to three years. School fees are minimal and students still receive a balanced education in addition to their chosen trade. The school receives generous support from people in Canada, the UK and the local church. The investments are not in vane as Vunga has become the top vocational school in the district. The head master invited me to come and see what it’s about ( … and also while I’m there, to give him some training on the computer). The school grounds cover 7 Hectares in a beautiful valley. Within two years, the student count has grown from 20 to 140. They are now planning to extend the facilities to include accommodation for students and teachers which will allow many more that simply lives too far to attend. We finished the visit at midday and the cooking class provided us with lunch – definitely chef standard (although still a bit too oily for my preference).

Financial Reporting Assistance

I had a chance to dip into the financial side of things here this week as well. One of the project coordinators asked for some assistance in properly reporting on his projects’ finances as he reached the end of the semester. He always struggled to get this right in the past. We dug into his files of receipts and after I made some sense of what is required of him, showed him how to create a basic financial report in excel. Good prep for my MBA!

Stat’s of Rural Families

RDIS completed their first proper profiles of their beneficiaries this week. Hundreds of forms containing information on the families and their economic situations were piled up on a table (fortunately for them there’s no problem with data-protection here, yet!). And then one of the members of staff approached me with a big frown, asking if I have any suggestions on how to summarise the data. This suited me quite well, as I was looking forward to a bit of a challenge again.

I explained to him that what they really need is a tool to not only summarise, but also analyse the data; something where they can just enter the data into and then the statistics is spat out without them worrying about how to use formulas. So that is exactly what I did. I created an excel template for their future use. Then I helped him to input the data and whala, the first time ever they actually have reliable stat’s to evaluate their work and plan future actions on. Something so simple can mean so much.

A Goat to Prosperity

Today was once again a complete eye opener for me. RDIS brought a goat for each of the three poorest children attending the Youth at Risk programme, and we went with them to deliver the goats to their homes. Here are their stories in short.

Jacqueline
Jacqueline and her mother were overwhelmed with this luxurious gift. They live alone in their small house (built with the help of people from their church) and have the piece of land, about 4m radius around the house, as their only possession. Jacqueline has four sisters, all married and living with their husbands now, and one brother. Her brother is living as a street child in the town as he chose to no longer be stuck with their limited resources at home. They don’t see him much. Their father died over 15 years ago, even before the genocide. I asked them what they cultivate and whether they are able to sell some of it to the market. They replied smiling broadly: we have potatoes, beans and sometimes sorghum. I (the mother) am the only one working in our land and am able to produce just about enough for us two to eat. Jacqueline goes to the Youth at Risk vocational school during the day, walking 1 hour each way and therefore don’t have much time to help her mother. But in the rainy season when the climate is good for agriculture, she stays at home to help. I was thinking about this and then dared to ask the question: do you have any other food than potatoes and beans to eat then? And the answer was ‘no’.

Being somewhat overly health and nutrition conscious sometimes myself, I actually didn’t think that the body can survive on mainly potatoes, beans and sorghum, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, for more than 15 years! Well I was wrong, here is the proof. It amazes me how God made the human body to be able to adapt to such little nutrients in order to survive. But it is still only survival. Jacqueline’s mother often gets sick because of malnutrition and then Jacqueline needs to stay home to work the crops. The trades she is learning at school will hopefully provide her with the ability to earn an income soon so that she don’t need to follow the same cycle of those before her.

Christine
I thought that it can’t really get much worse than Jacqueline’s story, but Christine proved otherwise. We drove as close as the road could take us to Christine’s home, and then took a small pathway down the hill to reach her remote house. Christine walks 2.5 hours every day to the Youth at Risk vocational school, and then the same journey back in the afternoon again. Christine’s parents were killed in the genocide and she has since been living with her aunt. They are the only two people living together since her aunt’s husband died a few years ago. Her aunt is terminally ill with HIV/AIDS and now needs special care and nutrition. Every day, Christine is torn between going to school to learn a trade that might free her from poverty, and staying home to look at their aunt and cultivate their piece of land. Here, having food to eat is up to Christine’s ability and time to work in the land. And to add to their dilemma, the government is implementing a re-settling strategy in her area whereby they need to move to an area close to the road. This implies physically building a new house and starting afresh.

Amidst all of this, Christine was very excited about the goat, because now she’ll have manure for her land and the possibility to earn money when the goat bares babies. Rwandans don’t drink goat milk, but I attempted to explain the nutritional value and she said she’ll even try to give the milk a go!

Bertine
Bertine is 15 years old. On the way to Bertine’s home, the Youth at Risk manager explained to us that Bertine has been taken in by a woman as a four day old baby during the genocide. Bertine doesn’t know that the woman is not her real mother, so we were asked to keep this confidential. When reaching their home, Bertine proudly introduce her mother to us. The lady, probably in her 60’s, was sitting outside in the dust pealing corn-cops to sell as maize. She jumped with joy when she heard the goat is now theirs and immediately said: this will give me a cow! We looked a little puzzled, and then our interpreter explained. With the goat, they will be able to obtain kids, which they can sell to buy pigs, to produce piglets, which sells for more than goats and eventually they would have earned enough to buy a cow (the most prized and agricultural beneficial animal you can have). As you might have read from my previous stories, a cow can release a family from poverty with all the benefits it brings. Now I realized that actually, a goat can release a family from poverty. And this only for as little as £15!

Today gave me a clearer understanding of what rural life is really like. I just wish that the answer was always as simple as the giving of a goat.

ICT Training

I started training the RDIS staff in what developing countries call ICT – Information and Communication Technology. Their knowledge in using computers is very limited and hence they have a huge requirement for training in this area but professional courses cost a fortune around here.
My course comprises of training in MS Office (word, excel, power point, picture manager) and then the use of the internet, email and skype for communication purposes. I train the people individually as they are all on different levels. Immaculee is clearly concentrating very hard in my lesson!

Development Performance Indicators

This organisation, and others in the area, and those in other countries, and actually many aided projects around the globe have, and still do, lack in sufficiently monitoring and reporting on their impact. One of the reasons why aid failed in the past is because the development organisations weren’t held accountable for adequately indicating what their funds have achieved, and therefore donors are becoming more and more demanding on wanting to see proof of the return on their investment.

I picked up this deficiency in RDIS’ management of projects and over the last few weeks, developed a model for monitoring progress of their project objectives adequately, using KPI’s, in order to obtain figures as proof of the project’s impact. RDIS is definitely achieving a lot and has great success in what they do, but they have been challenged lately with the question of: where is the proof? I had to throw my PRINCE2 principles almost completely out of the window, as things here just work so much differently to the UK (perhaps someone should devise CHIEF2 principles for rural Africa?!). My aim was to come up with something that could be practically implementable here.

The RDIS coordinator was so enthusiastic about my suggestions that he gave me a whole morning at their monthly ‘board’ meeting to present the model. The presentation was quite unique to what I’ve experienced so far, having had to pause after every sentence to allow time for the interpreter. All in all, my propositions were received very well and the concepts introduced were understood clearly. But right now I’m not the most favoured person around, having exposed them to this challenge.

Though I tried to make the model as practical as possible, I still have my fears on whether it will be implementable as is. Time will only tell. Meanwhile, the first steps of action need to be taken now. Next week, I will start to visit each staff member in the different regions to help them implement the performance indicators in current and upcoming projects. Quite looking forward to that!

What Westerners have Lost

Self-consciousness of westerners, I think, made over the years that they have lost a sense of freedom. I’ve yet to meet someone in this country that is self-conscious. Here is why I came to this conclusion.

Any child randomly picked from a group, will without a blink stand up and sing a song or do a dance, if you ask him or her to do so. Now imagine the same situation in a school in SA or the UK … I don’t think so. And this is not only among the young, any age group will be willing to do the same (even the grannies). Maybe we should look back at where we picked up this attribute (or should I say attitude), and learn again from the 3rd world on how not to judge and be thought of as being judged.

A Saturday with Compassion Kids

7:50am this morning, we (two other volunteers and I) were collected at home by the Accountant of Compassion Project 727, and we ascended the hill behind our house to where their Saturday activities take place.

Children in school uniforms were playing all around till they were gathered on the steps in front of the church building to start the day. Now, we were invited by the project’s coordinator to come and see what they do, but true to Rwandan culture (as I’ve come to know), the way they like to make visitors ‘feel welcome’ is to included them in what they do. So in front of the 271 children, the coordinator announced that the three visitors will be taking their hour and a half lesson this morning. Luckily by now, my improvisation skills have developed quite well as this was not the first instance of this sort I’ve experienced whilst in the country.

The children gathered in to age groups at different spots under trees on the hill. Blackboards and a few benches were carried out from the church building and then the morning session started. Each group has a teacher who provides them with education in mainly social and bible studies. The class I was assigned to was very eager to learn more English words, so I combined this with teaching them an English song. And thereafter, as part of social development, we played some of their games. They even played ‘vroteier’! I wonder where that game originated then really if it’s known across Africa.

After the session, the children rushed to the Compassion office down the other side of the hill to get their cup of nutritional drink (boiled mixture of sorghum, maize, soya and sugar) and two ‘vetkoek’-like pieces of cake.

Normally, the children would have had another teaching session afterwards, but today they were gathered together for the handout of mosquito nets. Each child got two nets, one for themselves and one for a parent. This is obviously not enough for the whole family, but the nets are very big and could easily cover 2 children at a time. The children were very excited about these new items, but one of the Compassion staff explained to us that now they have a big task at hand as they’ll have to go and visit each individual family during the coming week to make sure the nets are being used and not sold for cash.

I looked over the hundreds of faces, and then started looking in to individuals’ eyes, and then realised that each single one of them are being cared for and prayed for by some person across the water. These children are light-years ahead of their peers: the children of other farmers like the ones I met yesterday and the children I see along the road so often. Their health, their clothes, their alertness and their content are some of the characteristics that are visibly different. As a sponsor myself, today’s interaction with the children meant so much to me, as I now clearly saw the difference that child sponsorship makes.

Achievement with the kiddies

Well, as for the teaching of English, I’m not too sure if the children have improved that much yet. But, at least I managed to teach them two new songs in English!

One afternoon this week, we arrived quite late for the English classes and it appeared that the other two teachers couldn’t make it at all. No students have left yet, all were waiting patiently for us to arrive. But what amazed me even more, was that one of the classes decided to start on their own. Some of the children took initiative to carry on with the lesson where they stopped the previous day, and were trying to teach the other with what ever few words they could utter in English. Wow! I honestly did not think children could be that eager to learn … anywhere in the world!

Ceramic water filters project

Having clean water to drink is considered a luxury in the country. Water is mainly obtained through collecting rain water or from bore holes and the more elite purchase from water kiosks (providing reservoir water). The only filtering process the water goes through before it is drunk is the boiling of the water which is not sufficient. Sometimes the desperation for water is so big that it is even consumed as is – which naturally contributes to people getting sick.

RDIS is partnering with a Canadian charity to manufacture low cost ceramic water filters locally. It basically looks like a clay plant pot. These filters have apparently been proven to filter water to a very high standard. Even if sold at a very low cost, it will still be a challenge to promote/market the filters as for generations long there has been no culture of filtering water, not even to speak of paying for filtered water. But once the ball gets rolling, general health will improve significantly.

RDIS is currently in the phase of preparing for the manufacturing of the first filters, but one of the things delaying the project to move forward is the difficulty in communication between the Rwandese and those in Canada … so this is one of the things that has kept me busy this week – assisting the two parties in gathering and communicating the information correctly in order to move to implementation.

Domestic water tanks

These water tanks are slowly spreading throughout the country, depending on the people’s ability to afford cement. Rainwater captured by the roof and then fed through a pipe into the tank. This could alleviate water shortage problems quite a bit if cement wasn’t as expensive.

Fruit adverts

Bananas for sale!

You can’t buy one banana though, their only sold per branch. Costs app 50 pence per branch (about 80 bananas).

Avo’s almost for free!

Avocado pares – the largest and most beautiful you’ve seen – costing 5 pence each when brought on the street.

Kigali Memorial Museum

Not the most ideal place to visit on a day off – a museum portraying a genocide – but certainly one of the most insightful things to do in the country!

The Genocide Memorial Centre takes you through every step of Rwanda’s history, explaining the complete war and genocide from every angle in a very sensitive manner. Even through I thought I new the whole story, having read quite a lot about it before I came, the museum put things to me much more into perspective. Definitely recommended if you are to pass through Kigali at any stage!

The last placard on the wall in the museum read something along the lines of: a genocide is not the killing of thousands of people, it’s thousands of killings of individuals.

Rabit for dinner …

being prepared by the butcher on the left and the cook on the right.

Newsletter

RDIS started a quarterly newsletter earlier this year to inform their beneficiaries, donors and local community on whet their up to. I was drawn into assisting with contributing articles to the next issue at first, but have now been handed over the responsibility of overseeing the complete compilation (including being the editor). Luckily it’s just a 10 pager, but it’s still completely outside my sphere of expertise! I’ll be working on this during the course of the next few weeks in between other things.

Thanks for keeping visiting!

Progress Reporting

It’s quite ironic that a weak point of mine, writing, is one of the main needs of the organisation I am working with. As their English skills are, well, still in the phase of being developed, they struggle to comprehensively report on their projects’ progress. When I first took out my camcorder to capture a group of youth welcoming us with song, the RDIS coordinator poked me in the shoulder and asked me to record as much I can so that they have better evidence of project progress. And this instigated his request for me to write reports on their projects as part of my role here. I’ll also attempt to help their staff on improving their report writing skills (as a more sustainable solution to this requirement). Improved reporting will allow increased donor confidence, better marketing and raised project awareness. Let’s see what I can do!

Lake Kivu – Kibuye Day Trip

We had a great day out! I joined the students group from the UK (Transform team) for a day trip to lake Kivu. On these very bendy roads, it took us 2 hours to complete the 80km journey to the lake (in a minibus), but it was all worth it. I can’t really describe the lake in words, so please look at my photo’s to get an idea of what it’s like.

We did a boat ride to one of the little islands off-shore and spent about an hour docked to the island while we tested the water. The water was lukewarm and calm – perfect for swimming – I could have stayed in it all day if we didn’t had to head back for lunch.

A highly recommendable visit!

Banana Leave Cards Marketing

One of the products of the Youth at Risk projects (see my section in this for more info) is the making of cards, using banana leaves as decorative medium. The problem is that the market in the country is very small for this product, as it mainly appeals to people who earn a proper income and tourists only. This week, among other things, I had a look in to how this product could be marketed overseas, as increased sales would benefit these youth immensely. Some work still needs to be done in this area.

English Teaching Progress

I already completed two weeks of teaching English! This week, due to other activities, I didn’t teach every day, and strangely enough I actually found myself wanting to go back to my classes. Not really because I like the teaching aspect that much, but because I’m missing the children and they appreciate every single class so much that you kind of feel you want to give them all you can.
I’ve found a new strategy with my advanced class. I give them a topic and then we discuss it in the class, with me chipping in helping them to say what they want to say. This gives them all the opportunity to practice talking and I learn new things about the country at the same time. The Rwanda Vision 2020 (our last point of discussion) is quite interesting!

Fruit Juice & Jam Factory

The fruit juice and jam factory of RDIS was bourn to address two requirements. Firstly, to provide pineapple farmers in the region with an additional opportunity for sales, as the local markets many times receive an overflow of pineapples. Secondly, to generate an income with the aim to become independent of international aid for running their development activities.

The factory produces pineapple syrup, strawberry syrup and mixed jam consisting of pineapples, papaya and tomatoes. This week, I had the chance to help out bottling pineapple syrup. I made a point of it to observe their process carefully and think I might even try making my own when I get home.

This business is still very small and has many hurdles to overcome in order to expand, mainly restricted by finances, but the first steps have been made … and their products taste really good!

Pineapple Widows

An association for widows (from the genocide and HIV AIDS deaths and wives of men in jail) was formed in 2000. Together, the women started growing pineapples for its profitability. The association also brought women together that lived otherwise in isolation, and at their meetings they would assist each other morally and spiritually.

Pineapple sales have enabled the women to send their children to school, to buy proper clothes, obtain health insurance, provide their families with balanced nutrition food including meat once a year and to jointly run a savings and credit programme. It also enabled the association to improve their business with the investment of more and better tools and with them joining a co-operative for pineapple growers. At the end of 2009, the projected savings of the group will amount to 600,000 Rwandan Francs. The aim is mainly to use this money to buy each family a cow.

Genocide after effects

15 Years later, the country is still struggling because of the genocide set-back. Many women were widowed and children orphaned because the men were either killed during or jailed afterwards. Another consequence was deforestation because people’s houses were destroyed and they therefore required a considerable quantity of wood to rebuild their homes and facilities. Causes like these have left the country in a much poorer state and hence widows, orphans and tree planting are focal points of development work in the country.

Disaster prevention methods

One aspect the RDIS projects are very attend to is disaster prevention. Droughts, floods and famine as a result of climate change are real causes for concern. Some of the initiatives of RDIS are encouraging communities to build food storage huts (e.g. for rice or potatoes) and to plant trees for rain accumulation (see the section on Climate Change for more details on this topic).

Living the Word

So many places we’ve visited and people we met, locals, organisations, NGO’s, churches, children … I noticed them share the word of God interchangeably with their daily living conversations. God is practically part of their every day lives in a real way. They acknowledge that they can not live without His provision, from moment to moment, whether it is simply surviving from day to day or living proficiently. I might be on the biased side as we move mainly in the church circles, but even so, it’s such an encouragement to see people from a huge variety of circumstances and backgrounds openly living with God – as they know there’s no alternative.

Teachers Help Please!

I’m a bit thrown in to the deep en here – now delivering two English classes a day for up to 90min each! Everyone wants to learn English as they regard it as their key to knowledge. So the need is big and here I am, trying to help where I can but with very little skill in this area. These lot are any teacher’s dream, but any non-teacher’s fear … when I end off the class, they just keep sitting wanting to learn more, or run after me as I leave to get a few more words in with me.

I’m taking the beginners in the morning and the advanced English students in the afternoon, which means they can speak broken sentences at least. BUT I’ve got no teaching training and very little experience, so I’m ‘phoning my friends’ and calling on all teachers to PLEASE send me some advice, tips, ideas or anything that will help!

African Style Church

Yep, true to its reputation, church goes on for 3 hours, and now I’ve experienced it as well. Though I need to admit that their services are action packed and it actually feels like an hour only. What really helps is that we have someone translating everything to us. The church we’re attending in Gitarama is only two years old and therefore doesn’t have its own building yet. I really enjoy how young and old engage fully, especially when it comes to dancing on songs!

Kitchen Gardens

Here is a wide-practiced initiative of conserving water when managing crops for own consumption, called the Kitchen Garden (pronounced ‘chicken’ garden by the locals). The pyramid effect supposedly causes that water draining down from the top gets consumed by the crops on lower level and therefore less water is required for the same area of land. This is typically used for growing a variety of veg for the house. Mmm, might give it a go at home!

Organic Farmers

Rwanda’s great asset of the spectacular rolling green hills, is also a big drawback to the people’s prosperity. Because of the majority of land on an incline, little is suitable for agricultural and animal farming, so the space they do have needs to be used optimally. RDIS introduced a 3-layered animal cage for this purpose. Not sure what I think of it, but it was quite a sight to see. When you enter in to the little shed, you find on one level some pigs and goats, on the next a few rabbits and at the top a hole lot of chickens. Their agricultural issues still need some work. It’s quite difficult to provide general solutions or code of practice to communities like these, as each family’s situation of land is different.

Sunbathing

After lunch one day, I was ‘slurp’ing in the sun, sitting on the grass outside. I soon was so lekker lui that I decided to take a quick nap on the grass. A little while later, I heard some voices coming around the corner and when I looked behind me there were five people staring at this woman all spread out on the grass. I quickly got up, collected my shoes from where I kicked them off and went to greet the visitors, only to find out that it’s the lady Mayor and her committee members, paying RDIS a visit. Speaking about first impressions! Oops!

Bugarama Rice Plantation

This project visit was completely crazy. When we got out of the car, we were surrounded by children immediately, and as we did our walk through the rice plantation, they kept appearing till there were probably hundreds nosily following us. I later learnt that the rice valley hosts around 50 000 people! Though no-one really knows how many for sure.

We started our visit with a meeting in a small dark building where the local leaders informed us on the project and its progress. They actually invited villagers to tell their testimonies themselves. Initially, the people suffered from very poor housing, clothing, education and nutrition. RDIS identified the potential of using the valley for rice plantations and started the work of facilitating this through the local parish in the year 2000. This plantation is now one of the very few that serves the whole country, and provides an income for 90 families with many more involved with consequent village activities.

The locals told the following stories:

• Before, our houses were made of only banana leaves because of the shortage in trees. Now, after assistance with growing trees, we have much more sturdy houses.
• Before, we (mainly women) had to process the rice with hand tools which took very long. Now, with the new machine, we are able to process rice much faster and to a better standard.
• Before, I didn’t have proper clothes. I didn’t even have soap. Now, because of the benefits of the rice plantation, I have good quality clothes (and she stood up to show us) and my children can go to school. I belong to the Mother’s Union (around 30 women per group meeting on a regular basis). We learn to make clothes and sell to the people. With the profit we make, we run a microfinance programme to support other women in need. We also learn to read and write and we pray together.
• Before, our widows, elderly people and the sick were left to look after themselves as we were not able to. Now, we are financially strong enough to support them in their needs.
• Before, I wasn’t able to obtain education. Now, I am literate and have been trained to teach others in literacy and funds management.
• Before, I was an orphan living on the streets. Now, I have a wife, a house, clothes and I was taught about the Bible, all made possible by the support of the community.

We were sent off with a glass bottle of Fanta each. It must have been a real expense for those people, but it was a real blessing for us in the heat!

Kigeme Remote Village

I joined a group of youth from the UK for a day. We drove for 2 hours (at 10 to 20 km/h) from the town Kigeme to get to this remote village. The journey gave me once again very good insight in to the life of the really rural. All over I saw people working in fields: men, women, women with babies on their backs, older people and children. The main challenge these people have to fight is the access to larger villages and markets. Because this is so hard, they need to survive with what resources they have, literally living from hand to mouth.

RDIS identified the dire need for intervention of this village and through the village parish, started their project in 2001. RDIS first of all listened to what the parish leaders reckoned the greatest need was and then planned their actions from there. Before 2001, the village had no facilities at all. Since then, major growth had occurred.

Upon arrival, we were made to sit down on a bench in the field and were welcomed by a team of parish leaders (serving as the town council) with song and then prayer. We were told that our interest in their activities, shown by coming all the way from England, is a big encouragement to the local people. After the short ‘meeting’, we were taken on a little tour to see the development achievements over that last eight years: three classrooms were built for primary school (no nearby school before); secondary school was started (50 students attending, with 8 sent to University from this school); literacy programme was started (for those who never had the opportunity to go to school); potato food storage building was built (no place existed before to store excess produce and hence lots was wasted); animal rearing, a.o. made possible by RDIS (Tearfund) with the provision of 10 cows to the community on a revolving loan basis; microfinance and savings programme initiated (people taught how to manage funds and could borrow money); widows support programme started. In addition, as the parish got more established through managing these activities, people were encouraged to fight witchcraft. 76 People turned from witchcraft practice – they even showed us the complete list of names and photo’s as evidence!

This project is a very good example of RDIS’s approach of church and community mobilisation. RDIS didn’t go in and manage the work. They simply mobilised the church and community to do it themselves. I’m all for this approach, as I’ve come to witness that one of the key failures of aid is the dependency and hence slackness it creates.

Water Supply

The other day, we stayed at a Guest House on our visit to a project. I was quite impressed with the standard, but little did I know that water supply is still a problem for everyone. I only realised it when I took a shower during the morning peak time. I was standing there, all soaped up, when the water suddenly stopped. I actually felt ashamed when I found myself praying for just a little bit more water to rinse myself because I realised that most out there don’t even have showers to start off with. But I still did long for that bit of water because I wasn’t exactly looking forward to going through the day with a soapy body and hence an itching bum. After a minute or two, a few more droplets trickled down. What a relief! How we get dependant on such basic things so heavily.

Welding Workshop

In welding classes, children learn to make items such as doors, windows, tables and transport mechanisms.

Carpentry Workshop

Wherever you go in Rwanda, you’re bound to see some carpenter entrepreneurs with small businesses on the road. It is from their products that people furnish their houses with beds, tables, chairs, benches and cupboards. These boys are therefore well off if they are educated in making these items themselves!

Sewing Training

Here is Martha, a girl that graduated from the Youth at Risk programme and is now employed to teach other children. She’s also one of my top students in my morning English class! Martha teaches them sewing techniques and how to make mainly skirts, shirts and trousers. It is a great asset for a woman in Rwanda to be able to make clothes, as clothes are otherwise imported and cost a lot more than the locally made.

Youth at Risk

Children between the age of 14 and 22 who have been orphaned (either as a result of HIV AIDS, malaria, the 1994 genocide or their parents jailed after the war) are a real concern everywhere in Rwanda. ‘Youth at Risk’ are those from this target group that live on the street or under severe poverty in child headed households and with no access to education, basic needs or proper nutrition. They are therefore at risk of engaging in prostitution and crime. RDIS initiated centres where these children can be trained in various trades for very low tuition fees. The types of trade include sewing, shoe making, crafts, carpentry and welding. At these centres, children are also educated in English (that’s where I come in), agriculture, family planning, HIV prevention and Bible studies and they participate in sport and cultural activities such as traditional Rwandan songs and dancing. The centres are managed by the Anglican church, but children from all denominations are taken in.

Depending on the resources available, the programme length at such a centre varies between 1 and 3 years. After graduation, the youth can then be selected to be a teacher for the next year’s group, or join an association to manufacture products for an income. Such jobs are scarce though, so ways to fund equipment for lending to the graduates, enabling self-start-ups, are currently being investigated. There are now 10 projects running with a total of 405 scholars enrolled this year. This initiative has lots more potential but already makes a huge difference in empowering in the order of 400 children a year to earn an income.

Mother’s Union

After the genocide, the country was left with a vast number of widows, many of whose husbands died and other whose husbands were jailed. A lady from Gitarama decided to do something about the widows’ struggle to adjust to living on their own and founded the Mother’s Union (MU). MU’s are now run in all dioceses. This association aims to look after widows and their families as a whole in managing Youth at Risk projects (see below above for more detail), educating widows in finance and savings, nutrition and hygiene and training them to make hand crafts for additional income. These ladies meet regularly to support each other morally and spiritually. Here is a photo of some of the crafts produced by the ladies.

Oh the Cow is a wonderful thing…

Amazing, one cow actually has the potential to assist a family out of poverty. Its manure increases soil nourishing for increased crop production. It produces milk (the only diary product available) for the family as well as to be sold. And then of course the meat. This family told us that through the products of their cow, they are now able to send their three children to school. One cow costs in the order of £80 – that’s all it takes (potentially) to free a whole family to live.

Animal Pharmacy

Shyogwe’s animal care / agriculture centre. Here, locals can buy all sorts of products to look after their animals, as well as plant seeds – a one stop for the farmer! On Wednesdays, people can come to receive free training and advice on looking after animals and their crops.

Trees – Climate Change Prevention

Why then are so much more trees required? Shouldn’t there be lots already seeing that the country is on the equator with a favourable climate for growth? The answer lies in over population, creation care and the genocide. After the genocide, a vast majority of the country had to relocate, choosing bushy areas not previously lived in. Much trees ware cut to make space for homes, and to build the homes with.
Because Rwanda is so hilly, it is naturally suppose to have lots of rain. But because of the deforestation, rainfall has decreased substantially. Having more trees enforces cloud accumulation in the area and hence increases rainfall.

Tree Nurseries

Who wants a more idyllic setting to work in? In the outdoors with enough shade and the rolling green hills as surrounding. Tree nurseries is an established yet still immerging initiative by the RDIS, beneficial to the individual households, the community and the globe. People can come to the nursery to learn how to grow all sorts of trees and fruit plants. They pay between 5 and 10 Rwandan Francs (that’s 0.5 to 1 pence), depending on their capability, as a token of valuing the service, to decrease their dependence on NGO aid and to increase the project’s sustainability (decrease its dependence on external funding). The nursery also produces its own trees to be sold to the community for very little, in order to promote their vision of each household with arable land to plant at least 5 trees per year. Each nursery produces in the order of 100 000 trees per year.

Three types of plants are grown: Forestry (e.g. timber for building houses, fire wood), agriculture (e.g. leaves providing feed for animals; trees that enhance soil fertility) and fruit. Around 35% of the country suffers from malnutrition, most instances because there is simply not a fruit-eating culture, even though the country is able to produce almost every kind of fruit available. Apart from the benefits to the households, excess trees could be sold by them to generate income. It clearly holds lots of benefits!

Tackling the issue of HIV-AIDS

Behind this door, in the Shyogwe diocese, I met a lady who’s contributed so much to the community in terms of addressing HIV and I really admire her endurance with the challenges she face. Beatrice lives her concern for the HIV epidemic by training representatives in all parishes in the region to address the issue by: 1) promoting prevention, 2) fighting discrimination against those who are affected, and most of all 3) encouraging people to be tested. She explained to me why this last point is so integral to combating the spread of the virus. Most people don’t want to know if they are positive, with the fear that they’ll know whether they are going to die and with the fear of being rejected by their community after being diagnosed. This of course eases the spread of the virus as people live obliviously. When people are tested negative, they are encouraged to stay clean. Their testimonies many times help a great deal to encourage others to follow the same route. If tested positive, the person is invited to join an association that helps them to adjust to living, obtain medication and educate them on why not to spread the virus. Sounds easy, but then there’s always the case of the poorest of the poor that sees prostitution as the only way to survive. How ironic.

Mahongo Market

I paid the local market a visit today. Here is the food section. Apart from this, they sell mainly clothes and shoes (all imported). You’d probably call this the shopping mall of the town, as the only other places where you can buy anything are the small shops on the road as I mentioned below.

Local Shops

I’ve had the question about shops around here. Well there’s actually not much to tell on this topic, ‘cause there are very few. With the exception of business people (10% if that much), Rwandese can’t afford anything but the very necessary food which they aren’t able to produce in and around their homes themselves. This they’ll buy in outdoor markets. Therefore there is a very small demand for things sold in shops. All I’ve seen so far are little house-shops like this one, where people sell a few drinks with basic household items or material for clothes. Kigali apparently has more shops resembling what we know, and Butare is the only other town with a proper food supermarket. Even then, predominantly imported items are sold ‘ten duurste’ as Rwanda hardly process or manufacture anything other than tee and coffee. This place has an infinite number of development opportunities. The positive side of the lack of shops is that I am definitely saving money!

Back in time

I’m really mind blown at how time could have seemed to stand still around here in terms of development. I still remember my Sub B (year 2) class where we drew pictures of the development of housing over the ages. One of the very early phases of housing was mud houses. These should have been imitations in museums by now, but here, a vast number of people have no alternative. Many houses are really just a construction of wooden poles with a mud filling as walls. Although clay brick houses are more common, mud houses are still a reality with the really poor households.