Welcome to Rwanda
I can’t recall just how many times I’ve heard that statement in the last 4 days. The phrase comes in two main varieties: 1)From Rwandans, a quiet but incredibly warm and welcoming people; 2)From westerners working in Rwanda with regard to the flexibility of time and schedule among Rwandans which can be frustrating for those of us from more scheduled cultures.
Saturday, 20 March 2010
The travel day went swimmingly. We caught our early morning flight from Gothenburg, transferred in Brussels, and flew strait to Kigali, Rwanda. The flight was at most half full, offering a rare chance to stretch and lie down to sleep on a 9 hour flight. I have to say, one of the most stunning things I have ever seen is the Sahara desert. I have always heard it described as an Ocean of Sand, but never had any grasp on what that meant until we were flying above northern Africa, and the only color I could see on the ground was tan. For hours. And Hours. I can’t even begin to imagine what it looks like on the ground, nor how people have survived in such a desolate climate for thousands of years.
Though the travel day went swimmingly, we needed a hero to rescue our traveling evening. Upon landing in Kigali, we collected our bags, exchanged our money, and looked for someone from the National University of Rwanda (NUR is in charge of this e-waste project) here to pick us up to take us on the 2 hour drive to Butare. Through some kind of miscommunication, we never connected with the driver. We maintained good spirits, purchased cell phone cards, and I was able to call John, who lives in Kigali volunteering with a medical group, to ask for some advice on what to do next. In an incredible act of generosity, John and his wife Rachel welcomed us into their home for the night. I can’t express how calming that was for our group; instead of ending up at some hotel in Kigali and finding our way to Butare the next morning, we were in the home of people with whom we shared a language, and they even helped set us up with a taxi to the bus station in the morning. THANK YOU!
Sunday, 21 March 2010
We took a taxi to the bus station, and promptly were surrounded by various people hawking trips to Butare, once they found out that’s where we wanted to go. I must say, it was a bit intimidating, but never once did I feel unsafe. There’s a way Rwandans interact that is different than many other places, and I’m sure had I been in a similar situation in other places, I would have been more concerned for the safety of my luggage and money (don’t worry Mom, I’m not being cavalier).
We boarded one of the buses going to Butare, a 2 hour drive that costs about $4 a ticket (no, that’s not a typo). The drive was actually quite comfortable, and in retrospect I was glad we were doing it in the day, as opposed to the night before, because the scenery was incredible. I had refrained from taking pictures up to this point, as I had heard many Rwandan’s weren’t too keen on having their picture taken. I took the opportunity of the bus ride to take some pictures of the villages, landscapes, and goats. I tried to capture a few pictures of various reminders of the genocide, which are quite common, either in small memorials along the road or in large painted words across buildings such as “genocide, never again!” but we were moving just a bit too fast to get any of those pictures to come out.
The bus ride was also our first exposure to music common in Rwanda. It’s very much like reggae, in fact most of it I would call reggae. I never expected to hear a version of a Faith Hill song with steel drums and African beats, but I liked it! Rwandan music, as far as I can tell thus far, is quite different than western African music, which relies much more on djembe, and is more similar what I was expecting.
We arrived in Butare, and quickly found our way to the Hotel Ibis, where we decided to grab a coke and some lunch, still unsure of where, exactly, the house was or how we were going to get there. We contacted one of the people at NUR, who got us in touch with another of our contacts, just in time to see Kent, the other BTH staff member here now, walking down the street. We had lunch, and Olivier, the NUR staff with whom we have most closely worked, showed up to take us to our house. We had all tried to temper our expectations for the house after what we’d heard, but after seeing John and Rachel’s house, which was quite nice, I allowed myself to hope it would be something similar. The place is beautiful, with a gorgeous porch and balcony, front and back yard gardens, and a very comfortable living room. After a nice coffee break getting to know Olivier (who works in the ICT department at NUR) a bit better, as well as the weekend house boy Cassian, my thesis partners and I got to work.
Monday 22 March 2010
Monday was a whirlwind day. Starting at 9 am, we were in meetings with the staff of the Center for Entrepreneurship, Environment and Sustainable Development at NUR. The CEESD was established to cross disciplines at NUR and try to implement environmental and sustainability awareness into education across the university. The goal is to create a new generation of entrepreneurs who are conscious of the environment and sustainable development from the very beginning. Visionary? I think so, especially given that NUR is the largest and premier multidisciplinary university in the country.
After a morning meeting with the staff, including Francois, the director of the CEESD, Esperanz, the deputy director, and Joseph, Emmanuel, Dieux, the heads of the Entrepreneurship, Environmental and Sustainability departments, we had some changes to make to our presentation, and I was panicking. We then went to meet with Jawahar, the director of the ICT department. He took us on a tour of the rooms here at NUR where old computers have been piling up. The campus is beautiful, with a large park and forest area attached to it.
After the meeting with Jawahar, we were able to connect to the NUR internet just enough to gather our emails and gather some information for our presentation the next day. We then went back to another meeting with the people at the CEESD, and talked specifically about our workshop sessions, which we were planning to host in the style of a World Café. After some explanation, they seemed to like the idea, and it was nice to know we would have some people in the room the next day to help us along. The rest of the day and most of the night was spent finalizing the presentation.
Tuesday 23 March 2010
PRESENTATION DAY! Even after all of our hard work, we still went in nervous. And then Rwandan time and flexibility struck again. The room that was reserved for our workshop had been taken over because the auditors were coming from Kigali to assess the education at NUR. So while we stood around waiting for ideas on what to do, we started to relax. The workshop was supposed to start at 9, and at about 8:45, the news came that perhaps the auditors weren’t coming from Kigali, so we took back over the room, now much more relaxed than before. At about 9:30, we got underway. The attendees included representatives from numerous departments, from ICT to Art, to CEESD, and Management, even a couple of deans were there.
The presentation went quite well, especially after we paused and waited for questions a couple of times. We had heard that culturally, people were likely to say yes, or that they understand, and it may not be that they understand or understand what they’re saying yes to. So we made sure to make it as simple as possible, and take it slowly. After people started asking questions, the presentation felt great. We conveyed the information we wanted, and people were engaged. But the World Café was looming, and I was still unsure how well the group would react to it.
I couldn’t have placed my fears in a more wrong place. The ideas, conversations, and connections that came out of the sessions were incredible! We asked two questions, the first session was focused on “What can NUR be for Rwanda with regard to e-waste?” The second question, which we had intended to ask for 2 sessions, but it ended up being one long one, was “What can NUR do today to address its immediate e-waste challenge and lead Rwanda in e-waste management?” I was so happy to see everyone drawing, talking, creating ideas and plans. I can’t wait to begin to see what comes out of those plans.
Even more exciting for me was that Raymond, the SIDA project manager that initiated this project, was very excited about the prospect of systems mapping. We had initially planned to put a systems mapping exercise in our workshop, but decided to take it out in the interest of simplicity and time. I am so excited to get to work on one with Raymond, as well as several other deans who were able to show up to the second half of our workshop. That we now have planned for Thursday, and I think it will be much better to have a planned system mapping session, rather than squeezing it into the greater presentation.
Wednesday 24 March 2010
I had hoped to have a blog posted by Wednesday, even had it all written up and ready to go, but internet access is a rare commodity here. Wednesday was a nice lazy morning; I spent some time reading, writing, and recording data and reflections from the day before. Emmanuel, the day house boy, cooked us a fantastic lunch as he did the day before. It’s been very nice to get to sample some true Rwandan food.
In the afternoon we went back to campus to give a presentation to students about e-waste. After briefly waiting at the NUR Faculty of Medicine, we realized that’s not where we were supposed to be and made our way down to the NUR main campus. Our presentation that day was in the Grand Auditorium, and though it seated about 2000, only 50 or so showed up. It ended up being a great discussion; students were interested, some even working on solid waste projects of their own. We stayed for quite a while after the presentation, answering questions, talking one on one with students, and sharing a bit about our program.
Wednesday evening we had dinner at the house of one of the staff members with whom we’ve been working. We met her baby, whom Ece quickly fell in love with, and her friend. After a wonderful dinner, we wandered home to finish our final preparations for our Thursday meeting, which would be the systems mapping session.
Thursday, 25 March 2010
We decided to change the systems mapping just a bit, as it was clear the goal of the meeting was to understand not only players, but exactly what projects those players would be a part of. We created a template upon which we could write out ideas in discussion. We didn’t know exactly who would be at the meeting,
It ended up being only 3 people, but the three most involved and important to the project people. We had a great 3 hour meeting going over major project areas that we took away from the Tuesday World Café session. Each of the six areas we spent 15 minutes discussing and thinking of immediate actions necessary to move towards the larger goal in that area, with the 6 areas each working towards the vision of NUR as an intellectual leader in all of Africa with regards to e-waste management. We then mapped out who would be necessary in and out of NUR to accomplish those tasks and areas. It took a couple of minutes for everyone to warm up to the idea, but once we were all talking, the ideas were strong, and we were connecting how different ideas would help serve many different areas.
We finally had an afternoon free, and we took advantage of it, walking through town, taking pictures, and enjoying the beautiful, sunny afternoon. Though it is the rainy season, up to this point, it really had only rained briefly a couple of times up to this point. The weather on Thursday sure looked like the height of the sunny season. We explored a church, got to actually take the time to see people moving in the city in the day, instead of just quickly passing through.
After lunch, we went to the National Museum of Rwanda, which has an incredible collection of western African artifacts, both from archeological sites and modern traditional crafts to illustrate the culture of the region. It was nice to get to know a bit about the history of Rwanda, as much of the history commonly known among westerners starts when Belgium took over as the colonial power from Germany. The even had a model of a traditional Rwandan house that we walked into, and it was quite nice, though I would have had a difficult time living in a grass hut, as even a minute in one began to set my allergies off.
The five long days of work had taken a toll on the team; especially given we were staying up well past midnight sometimes to finish the material for the following day, only to be awake again at 6. We decided to take Thursday night to recuperate personally, get some work done that we had been putting off in the interest of completing the project, and relax at home. I cooked up a curry and rice dinner, and we watched a movie together before splitting off to get work done on our own.
Friday 26 March 2010
Finally! Some fun time just for us! On Olivier’s recommendation, we drove the 100km to the Nyungwe National Forest and went on a hike. It was amazing! The rainforest is at about 7,000 feet, and we left early in the morning, hoping to get there before it got really rainy for the day, which usually happens in the afternoon. We got to see a whole new part of the country, much more rural than the trip between Kigali and Butare. We saw large groups of people in pink work uniforms going to work in the rice fields, and a few new towns along the way too. The road was windy, hilly, and occasionally bumpy, but in pretty good shape overall.
Once we crossed into the national park, we still had another 30 kilometers left to go, and the road started to deteriorate. Though it was still paved, there were landslides that had come down from the uphill side to cover half the road. Occasionally, we passed a broken down truck. After a few kilometers, we began to see Rwandan troops patrolling, and the road kilometer markings, counting up from Butare, were joined with spray painted numbers counting down, staring around 75 or so. When we saw a troop of UN South Korean troops, we asked what they were there for, and our driver responded that this road continued all the way through the national park to the Congo, and that these troops were returning from there. The white numbers on painted were counting the kilometers down to the border.
Just as we got more and more nervous that perhaps we were accidentally venturing into a part of Rwanda we had been told to avoid (both Congolese and Burundian rebels occasionally cross the border into Rwanda by a few kilometers and have skirmishes with Rwandan troops) we reached the visitors center in the park. From there, we registered, chose our trail, and were assigned a guide, who works for the National Park Service. The interpretive center, a USAID project, was a great idea, because more and more people are coming to this park, and Rwanda seems to be doing a good job managing it, but the buildings built by USAID look like they’re taken strait from the slopes of Mt. Hood, not the Nyungwe National Park.
Our guide, Aime, has been guiding in Nyungwe for 8 years, and was incredibly knowledgeable about the scientific aspects of the plants and animals, as well as traditional, art, medicinal, and other uses. We started by descending the trail into the jungle, and quickly came upon a group of monkeys eating in the trees above us and dropping small red fruits on us below. Though I can’t remember the name of it, he made a particular point of directing our attention towards a yellow flowering plant that grows EVERYWHERE and is choking out the trees in the forest, and blocking light on the floor, so new trees are not able to start. I asked if it was invasive, as it reminded me of English Ivy on steroids, but he said it was native. The plant is apparently the favorite food of mountain elephants, the last of which in Rwanda was killed by poachers in 1999. Thankfully, Rwanda has been doing research on how to repopulate forest elephants, and has been doing genetic testing to determine which population would be the best match to the ones that had lived in the forest. Cameroon appears to be a match, and negotiations are under way to bring a population back to Rwanda. Wouldn’t that be cool!
About halfway through the hike we got to a waterfall, and took a brief break. Just as we got up to leave, it started to rain. However, just as we passed a giant Mahogany tree (at least 400 years old according to Aime) we passed into an area covered under a thick canopy of leaves, and we were more or less sheltered from the rain. We climbed and climbed and climbed, reached a beautiful vista. Apparently on a clear day, one can see Congo and Lake Kivu from this point, today, it was just a beautiful mix of trees, mountains and clouds, and the swarming yellow flowering bushes.
We finished the hike on 2 kilometers of strait uphill, at 7000 feet. Needless to say we were exhausted. We climbed back into the car, drove home, and just as we started to take some naps it started to rain. And I mean RAIN. It finally felt like the rainy season, with solid streams of water pouring off the roof. It lasted for about 20 minutes, then slowed to a drizzle and eventually rained itself out for the night, leaving the streets muddy for our walk to Olivier’s house for dinner. His wife made an incredible spread of food, perfect after a long day hiking. Olivier’s two daughters are growing up speaking 3 languages, something of which I am very jealous.
After dinner, we went to campus to watch a student performance of dance, comedy sketches and freestyle rap. Though we missed the dancing, we did get to see some of the others.
We're back in Kigali now, will be here until Tuesday. When I get back to Sweden I'll add some pictures, the internet here would take too long to support that.
AN UPDATE: I'm now home in Sweden (It's Thursday April 1) Here's a link to a picasa album with a bunch of pictures from the trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/wglarson/Rwanda#
Thanks to Ece, Matt, and Tony, who took some of those on their cameras.
Love to all at home,
Wyeth
