cabbage patterns

I like patterns and I love finding them in nature. This was a cabbage patch in Rwanda.

I love wildflowers. It feels like God is smiling when they litter the landscape.

Rwanda is called the land of a 1000 hills. I struggle a bit with this concept of hill. They do not have the beautiful jagged rocks topping them like the rockies, but the tops have been rounded off with time and their sides are covered with (slightly) terraced farms. But the tops of many of these ‘hills’ are between 7,000 and 8,000 feet. This is far from a perfect picture, but hopefully it helps you get the idea.

“Once you have seen a stone, it cannot harm you.” ~paraphrase of Rwandese proverb

Today was spent with a Rwandese colleague and friend discussing monitoring and evaluation. Not exactly most people’s idea of a grand day. Given the choice, my workday would have been filled with visiting projects because being in the field fills me up and reminds me why I love my job. Instead, today was a reminder of why hours spent in meetings, days spent in the office, and seemingly weeks creating plans are worth it.

In the midst of a seven hour conversation, my friend told me of a Rwandese proverb. Farmers spend hours working their fields with hoes. To turn the soil, they grasp their hoe with both arms and use the strength of their body to lift their hoe high and push it deep into the soil. When the hoe comes down on an unseen rock, the shock of the hoe hitting the rock reverberates through their entire body, hurting to the core. But, if the rock is seen, the farmer can avoid the rock and the ensuing pain.

Most of the time I tell stories about partners doing amazing work and communities being transformed. Stories and images that inspire. But we spend a lot of time looking for stones that could cause roadblocks and pain along the way – stories that are untold. Weeks, months, and years invested in the details and in communities. Stones mean that a water project takes longer to implement, a latrine is not constructed quite right, communities are not transformed, expansion happens faster than is sustainable, or that needed funds are not raised. Monitoring and evaluation plans are about looking for stones. It is not glamorous but is critical to success. And so tomorrow will be spent just like today: seven hours of conversation looking for stones.

This entry was written for Blood:Water Mission. Check them out at www.bloodwatermission.com/blog.

As I drove north from Kigali today I saw signs for Volcanoes National Park, each of which had gorillas on them. This park is one of the famous ones in Africa; here you can pay good money to see gorillas that are now heavily protected. I finally asked, “Is the park near here?” You see, Rwanda is a small country, so maybe these were just signs to tempt the tourists. But moments later we passed a sign that read, 11 km this way. I was close enough to wild animals I had never seen that I could practically taste it, and I thought to myself, “Maybe next trip I will plan an extra day in Rwanda.” 

As we approach the project area, which is called Cyanika (pronounced chy-a-nika), I realized that we are practically underneath the park, and that the Cyanika region spills over to the next hill, butting up against Uganda. And that is when I connect the dots: the Batwa were kicked out of the Volcanoes National Park. 

The Batwa are pygmies who originally lived in the forest and now struggle to survive in their forced new lifestyle. Through the amazing, transformative work of MOUCECORE (Blood:Water Mission’s partner in this project), the Rwandese in Cyanika have reached out to the Batwa and are teaching them skills they need to survive. Skills like basic agriculture, nutrition, hygiene, sanitation, and how to build permanent homes. The people of Cyanika also found land for the Batwa to build homes. When able, they have provided for the Batwa. Although the Batwa still have a long way to go, my heart is full from what I have heard. 

This group of Batwa number less than 150. 

Today rain and time prevented me from visiting the Batwa. Next time I will plan an extra day in Rwanda to visit with the Batwa, who live in the shadow of the gorillas. 

[Note: this is my understanding of the situation.]

In Southern Rwanda, I visited the villages of Kanyonyera and Rubugu where I saw water lines and water taps recently constructed by a local partner organization. The cement platforms and structures were well constructed, and the piping and hardware well chosen and installed. A seemingly ideal image of water provision in a rural region.
In Kanyonyera, a woman by the name of Pellina told us of the value of this water tap. She said that they used to get water at the lake, which was dirty and was a long way to walk. This problem was compounded by children collecting water who could only stand on the edge of the lake, where the water was the dirtiest. To top it off, every year children would die from drowning in the lake. Pellina was happy about the clean, flowing water at the tap. 

A little while later I noticed Pellina, deep in conversation, did not seem happy. I found out that the mud bricks near the water tap were hers. She planned to build a house, but the land she was going to use was taken to build the water tap. Now she had clean, flowing water, but no place to build her house. In such circumstances, the Rwandan government works to compensate the individual and provide alternate land. But, that was still in the process of happening, and today Pellina was stuck in the middle of the complexities of development. She had mud bricks to use, she had access to clean water, and she had no place build her home.

Clean water provision is so simple on paper. People need water, and water is provided. People walk long distances carrying large quantities of water by hand or by head, and now they walk short distances. People had little water to spare for laundry and hand washing, and now more is available. It would seem that the simple provision of clean water would solve so many problems. And yet we were told of a another village where a team (not funded by Blood:Water) came in and drilled a well. Fantastic…except the people never used the well. I don’t know if the water did not taste good, did not smell good, was in a politically poor location in the village, or if there was some other cultural issue. Bottom line is that a well was drilled but was not used; a ‘simple’ solution did not work. 

This past week I found myself in Arusha, a town near Mount Kilimanjaro to attend a conference. The conference itself was interesting, but beyond that also I got to go on a site visit to a school and a Massai women’s group, and visited the Rwanda War Tribes Tribunal. The most interesting thing at the school was the biofuel that was being used to in the kitchen (the school was boarding school). The biofuel was made of compacted sawdust. It is less expensive than the alternatives (wood, charcoal, or kerosene), burns extremely hot and for long periods of time, and produces no smoke. Absolutely fantastic!

The Massai women sung and danced for us. They make bracelets and necklaces to sell to tourists…seeing as all the money goes directly to the women, I couldn’t help but buy a few things. The women watched as I tried on different bracelets and admired the necklaces. Then when a woman pulled a necklace off her neck similar to the ones I was admiring, it was impossible to not buy it.

The Rwanda War Crimes Tribunal has been going since the end of the Rwanda genocide. As it is in Arusha and open to the public, it seemed that I should attend. Most of the people wore black robes, and one even had a wig. I sat listening with my headphones to the translators as the lawyers, judges, and witness went between French and English. Nothing earth shattering, but it was good to simply sit in a trial and see how they are done.