Plots

For the third village visit, on Saturday, we met our guides at the same point as two days earlier, and walked a few hundred yards up on the opposite side of the road. The scene surprised me. Last year's small, scattered huts had all been swept away, replaced by rows of houses, identical in area and spacing, though varying considerably in style and degree of finish. Looking down between two rows of houses towards Ruhengeri at the foot of the hills
The government is implementing its national policy of every dwelling being roofed with tin or tiles by donating sheet metal then demolishing the old homes. Only roofing is supplied. Despite the presence of a friendly, helpful local official answering my questions, I didn't manage to work out what happens to a household's clothes and other belongings before the new roof is raised. He said that finding materials and the means to pay for them caused a lot of problems.
This house, like many, had a small internal area screened with plastic sheeting, presumably for sleeping.

House plots are allocated without consultation. Mixing Batwa and others is seen to be a good thing, though I suspect they inhabit separate social space.

Each plot has a small amount of cultivable land – 25 square metres plus a narrow border round the house. Composting toilets are being constructed, to be shared between neighbours. Both these features improve on what has been replaced.

Three people had volunteered to show me what they were growing. Two had small circular 'kitchen gardens' and one in addition had mushrooms in one section of her unfinished house. The third, Agnes, was the star. Using only seeds saved from my donation last year or collected from her own plantings before the removal, she had squashes and gourds climbing over a framework to shade her compost heap, beans for drying and beans for eating green, five car tyre beds of African greens, a patch of spinach beet and some raised beds of potatoes and maize. There was even a tomato growing against the side of the house.

We sat on a low bench, facing the assembled class. When the official (above, left) arrived and the formal greetings and introductions were over, Solange asked the group how they were finding their new homes. Some complained that the local soil wouldn't stick between the wooden uprights but just crumbled away. She challenged mutters about the rich people who could afford doors and windows. People get money for those things from working, she said. The official pointed out that they were sitting on a nicely regular edging of rocks, collected and mortared into place by the labour of Agnes and her family with some paid help. If you want a door, he said, find out how much it costs then save the money.

Encouraging saving is seen as a priority. Associations - of work colleagues, neighbours or church members, for example -are formed to save jointly and award a grant or loan to each member in turn. The Twa have no recent experience of working co-operatively; cooking together was a novelty. We suggested that if four or five worked on preparing one person's land for planting, and perhaps constructed a new sack garden, then the group could move on until each had been helped. They would need to keep remembering the lesson of the tree of trust. It would be hard to get in the habit of working regularly and forgiving each other's failings, but it would get easier. Would they give it a try for two weeks, perhaps?

Over cold drinks in a little bar, waiting for the bus back to town, Solange, Rachel and I plotted where the work could go next, without further input from me. Solange, who has the most experience with Batwa, said that regular visits for encouragement and reminders were essential. This particular village was well served by its local official and he could be an ally. It would be important not to take too long deciding on the next steps – already some recently resettled Batwa, with no tradition of growing food, had sold their small plots to neighbours, repeating the behaviour of their grandparents in the 1970s and 80s, when living in the forests was first prohibited.

Solange would be keen to take this work forward. Rachel said she'd like to be involved as well. Although she is trying to develop a career in counselling it's almost impossible to find ways of paying for the most needy to get the help that would benefit them and society as a whole.

We discussed putting together a project proposal. The main cost would be the transport and accommodation for the trainers. I said that Growing Together would be sympathetic to such a project and that for the moment I am entrusted with the decision making. I have been close to tears, saying goodbye to these damaged and beautiful people. I hope the little I have been able to do will sow seeds for more purposeful and satisfying lives.

Projects

Written Thursday evening Posted Friday morning now there is enough internet signal.

By 2.30 today we have finished our day's work and had lunch.

It's not that we've been slacking – just that there weren't many sack gardens remaining for us to look at when we went up to the Twa village this morning. As the government resettles people out of round huts with grass roofs into small rectangular houses with tin ones, they leave their sacks behind. The essential concept of getting a new sack ready for successional planting has not yet been grasped.

The three of us can do only a little teaching each, before concentration wanes and group members wander off. Solange focuses on how there is some government help available for such necessities as a grant for school uniform, but you have to apply. Rachel emphasises the value of joining a cooperative, as a few have already done; this provides an opportunity to work with other Rwandans, countering the stereotype of laziness and dishonesty, and gives access to savings schemes where even tiny amounts accumulate. I revise the teaching on the benefits of a sack garden, so these group members can teach others, Twa and non-Twa, possibly getting paid and certainly developing the trust that might result in renting a little land for joint cultivation.

Two members of this group have already earned money by teaching. Joseph, who took part in advanced HROC training earlier this year, has been employed to teach about trauma healing. Beatrice, who also went on the HROC training, can read and write and gets paid to teach others. Beatrice and baby sitting 'in class' in dappled shade
(I notice she is wearing a new dress, and her baby boy has a top made out of the remaining fabric. When I asked Solange yesterday what changes she has noticed since starting to work with Batwa, she said the first thing is that they wash themselves and their clothes.)

Finally I give out the seeds I have bought in Ruhengeri, less than 10 miles away. This is my last visit, I repeat. There will be no more seeds from me. I suggest planting a few of each variety specifically for seed production in a protected patch of ground. Also they could club together to send one person into town by bus to buy for others. (A few varieties can be bought more locally, but at double the town price. Walking into town and back is also something they do occasionally.) Cooperation is one of our constant themes and we have been told how when somebody's crop is stolen others rally round to help heal the trauma with listening and food sharing. Joseph takes charge of the seeds and gives me the list of participants
Solange has been repeating the lesson that their grievances won't be resolved by sitting around waiting for handouts. I finish by suggesting that if they can agree on a particular project – such as renting a little land and planting enough to sell as well as eat – Solange and others can help them write a project proposal. I think, but don't say, that this is the kind of work Growing Together might support when I finish. As we wait for the moto drivers to collect us, Sabyinyo (the sabre-toothed extinct volcano) is too lovely to leave unphotographed

Over a nice lunch in Ruhengeri, affordable within the budget because we haven't been needing evening meals, only tea and fruit, Rachel comments that all the funders keep changing priorities and criteria. Peace and reconciliation are out of fashion, she says, though they're needed as much as ever. Development is the new focus. Everything is a project now. The countryside is littered with thousands of buildings labelled as projects with nothing going on inside. It would be better to use them as houses.

Back at our lodging, I joke that perhaps we could go to the cinema or something, to fill the rest of the day. Rachel proposes a visit.

A few hundred yards up the road is a project supporting women with HIV/Aids. Two of the four workers are there, though the little factory is silent. It's a mill for maize, where farmers can pay to have their own crop ground, or customers can buy flour or husks to feed to goats and chickens. Grain is washed in a shallow trough then dried and husked in the hopper
The manager has gone to Kigali for a meeting. It's a modest project. From the descriptive board,locked in the store room instead of out by the roadside, I deduce that it has twin aims of providing a little employment and raising funds for the other aspects of the work. I comment on the tip tap outside the toilet; I've been seeing very little hand washing recently. It is apparently a government requirement for certification. Remember, Rachel says, how particular they are. Think of the church's problems with the moringa project. Ah, yes.

Behind the walled compound is a small plot, with a splendid circular cistern. They plan a greenhouse here, Rachel says. One will last for five years. I ask what you would grow in a greenhouse. The soil and the climate are so good here - potatoes and bananas, maize and pineapples, carrots and cabbages and much else grow all year. Tomatoes, she says. it's true that the tomatoes here are disappointing in taste and texture. Peotecting them from the torrential rain would be a good project.

Cooking with the Twa

Written on Tuesday 1 Nov about Monday 31 Oct

This wasn't my idea, but Rachel's. They can learn lots of new things, she said. And they did. On day two we could focus more directly on skills for growing and selling vegetables.

Having arranged with the pastor's wife at Musanze Friends Church, where I worked with these students a year ago, that we could use her kitchen facilities, we also consulted her on shopping for the venture. First she came out to meet us by the roadside between our lodging and the road up to the church. After a lot of inspecting and rejecting, we ended with several bunches of carrots, two large white cabbages, plenty of dodo, 15 kilos of potatoes (carried by the vendor to the church), a bundle of firewood (ditto) and a sack of charcoal (ditto).

Here she has chosen a cabbage, accompanied by Solange, HROC facilitator, on her left

I had brought my usual collection of knives, graters, peelers, scrubbing brushes (for potatoes to be boiled in the skin) and stirring implements. But much was still to be got. The group of 20 Batwa arrived, organised by Solange. After smiles all round and re-introductions, Rachel and I headed off to the food market in town, 5 minutes away by moto. We bought more vegetables and fruit, oil, rice, macaroni, flour, salt, peanut flour for sauce, cheese, milk, and liver. Finally we needed two additional charcoal cookers and five boxes of juice. We hired a boy for around 20p to get us to the taxi rank with more than we could carry ourselves. On the way back to the church the taxi driver ran out of petrol and had to set out on foot with a can. However, that gave us time to waylay a pineapple seller and buy enough for three sessions.

Meanwhile, after revising earlier teaching, Solange had got the group started, beginning with the novelty of using hand sanitiser. Carrots were chopped and grated, potatoes scrubbed, one cabbage expanded into a heap of shreddings, dodo cut up finely. Everybody gathered round and Rachel assigned tasks - fires, salads, fruit, stir-fry preparation etc.

The salad makers worked bravely on strange tasks like grating beetroot. The woman in this team was horrified at the idea of eating even a sliver of raw onion or garlic, and didn't try any salads. Others were delighted with the new foods.

The fire team preparing the charcoal for cooking

Rachel and I performed our double act making a white sauce and adding grated cheese for the macaroni. Rachel and Solange made the peanut sauce with cauliflower and other vegetables. I fried strips of liver dredged in seasoned flour. That is an unusual amount of protein, but this was understood to be a feast.

There was some disorder in the self-service queue, with those at the front tempted to take too much. But by the end everybody was full and satisfied. The salads and the cheese sauce were praised, and the thin slices of liver in place of chunks cooked until they are tough. Of course much that we made here couldn't be replicated - I was warned not to give away graters because there wouldn't be enough to go round and conflict would ensue.

We emphasised again the importance of eating as many different foods as possible, even occasionally and in small amounts. We planned the next day's activities in the home village.

And then the 'guests' set off on their two hour walk up the mountainside and the home team tackled the washing up.

A sorrow and a joy: small, domestic

At home I am a devoted listener to BBC Radio 4: 'intelligent speech radio' I think they call it, and it is. On my first Growing Together stay, in February 09, I discovered Deutsche Welle, broadcasting from Kigali, often in English, with much more than African or world news. The first feature that surprised and delighted me was about the opening up of the solicitors' closed shop in England and Wales. Since then I have heard about childhood obesity in Latvia, a Bulgarian school with chess on the curriculum to teach thinking skills, problems in Sicily with implementing plans to protect Roman mosaics from the feet of tourists... Then on Saturday morning at the end of 'Inside Europe' the news that the programme has come to an end. As at the BBC, increasing TV and internet availability has led to cuts in funding for radio. The little logement we use in Musanze/Ruhengeri now has a bulky TV on the one small table in each room but reception is unreliable, and of course very many Rwandese and other Africans have no TV – nor the electricity to power it – and have never seen a computer.

The joy was on Saturday morning. For the family where I am staying, Saturday is the morning for relaxation, between the working week and obligatory church attendance on Sundays. Easy chairs from the living room are set on the verandah. On the last Saturday of the month, everything is compulsorily closed for umuganda, community work: no buses, no shops, no market, even no walking along the roads. Each household is supposed to supply at least one worker, but it's possible occasionally to miss the 7am start through 'oversleeping' without getting into trouble. There is a sabbath feel.

Soon after my arrival I bought a bag of Rwandan coffee – some of the best in the world. Up till now, I had failed to make coffee as I like it, boiling the water but not the coffee grounds, serving a choice of hot or cold milk and sugar or honey, to suit all tastes. This Saturday I achieved my goal. Bethany, a US Mennonite on a year-long homestay program, doesn't like coffee but used the remaining hot water for her packet of hot chocolate powder. She posed for my picture. Vestine on the verandah rail, and Gaudence and Augustin in the easy chairs (where Augustin has a power cable for his laptop) declined, but let me go ahead.

Two economies

On the way to view the kitchen garden in Gahanga, I remarked on the new market (above) being built on the site of the old informal one. There are many such projects. Rachel commented that now people would find it difficult to make any money by selling their produce because the government charges such a high daily rent for a place in a new covered market. I asked what the money went towards. We'd love to know, she replied. We pay taxes for our land, for rental income, we pay school fees, we pay for rubbish collection whether we use it or not...

[Added on Sunday: What I failed to make explicit yesterday is the lack of opportunities to earn the money that could then be used to pay taxes! I had a good example this morning. On my walk to church I was joined by Marthe, a dynamic young woman who led the service a couple of weeks ago. She has recently completed a four year degree course in public administration. She is multi-lingual, personable and extremely keen to find work. She gets as far as an interview a couple of times a month but hasn't quite landed a job yet. She has an older sister who is sick and several younger siblings who keep asking for money for school equipment etc, failing to grasp that despite her years away studying she still isn't earning. (Yes, the first nine years of school now are free of fees, but it still costs money to send children to school.)]

Selling by the roadside is not a safe option - I heard the other day of an American here who went to get his house worker out of prison after an indiscriminate round up following a car break in. Waiting for the formalities to be completed, he observed a line of poor women who'd been selling fruit in town from trays on their heads, lying on the ground being beaten on the soles of their feet.

The kitchen garden is a fine construction at the side of the church. Local pastors' wives have formed a committee and organised the work, bringing in local women to join them and paying an ex-prisoner for the ehavy work. (Gaudence has used the same man for her raised garden at home. He has left prison with a marketable skill.)

Constructed two months ago, in readiness for the rainy season, the raised bed and the surrounding field have been planted with lettuce, carrots, beetroot, basil and rocket. Of these, only carrots are easily available locally. Lettuce, rocket and basil have all grown abundantly from seed I brought from England, and seed saved from the first crop is now growing well. The lettuce will be ready in a couple of weeks and sweet potatoes have already been interplanted for succession.

What of the economics? The local women who come regularly to weed and water will be paid in seeds bought in town, to encourage them to plant at home. Produce will be sold to church members and neighbours, and possibly in the market if there is surplus. When funds allow, the plan is to build rabbit hutches round the edge of the land, to provide droppings for enriching compost as well as meat to be sold. At that point a night guard will need to be employed.

A local official has already been to admire and commend the work. He hoped the group responsible would teach others.

I asked if they'd be paid for teaching. Probably not, because they are only a small organisation. But bigger bodies can charge, and Rachel was surprised recently when, invited to teach gardening skills to a large organisation a little way out of town, she had her transport paid as well as a small fee. Reluctance to pay to attend a training is a legacy from the post-war days, when the international community was so ashamed of having allowed the genocide that organisations poured in to Rwanda, paying people to attend seminars with expensive food in the best hotels.

When my sister and I had young families we experienced the two economies. I, living in suburban London, had an income from part time work and paid for the children's various out-of-school activites. My sister, in a village in a part of Scotland thriving on wealth from North Sea oil, volunteered as a teacher at the Saturday morning music club. I don't want to judge either superior.

On the coffee table in Gaudence and Augustin's living room is a fascinating book, written by a Westerner, describing African attitudes to money. I have much to learn.

More about goats

First, here's the sign board for Kageyo, the village where 3 communities of Batwa, Rwandan exiles from Tanzania (which threw out all with Rwandan background, even Tanzanian citizens, a few year ago, causing great and continuing distress as groups afraid of each other were lumped together)and released prisoners all try to make a decent life in an isolated arid place. My chatty boy lives here.



I was in Kageyo on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday I went to see the developments in the church field at Gahanga and receive the statement of how the donation from Growing Together is being used. More on that anon. Yesterday, Friday, was for a day workshop with the Gahanga church women - my third visit to this group.

We began by walking round the village to look at the garden projects of three members of the group. Others would also have enjoyed a visit, but were too far afield - the three visits took an hour. This woman has two sacks, which she has planted three times. She evidently still cooks on an old-fashioned fuel-hungry three-stone fire.
I saw sacks, new style kitchen gardens, fields and livestock. Two had a cow, one had a pig, all had chickens and all had goats. As we admired a goat with two day old twin kids, I asked my usual question: 'Do you milk the goats?' There were several reasons for not doing so. This kind are too small - we'd need the bigger ones from Kenya. Nobody wants to buy the milk and we don't want to drink it. It's not proper food for adults, only for children with kwashiorkor. However, they had heard it was helpful for people on antiretroviral medication for HIV. And yes, maybe in a crisis they'd try...

A little something

I'm not inspired today but it's time for a little something.

Tuesday
I am sitting after lunch in a sliver of shade at the side of the training room in the resettlement village of Kageyo, near Kayonza, where I'm spending two days with groups of Batwa I trained in sack gardening last year. A boy of about 10 comes over, and Rachel, resting beside me, is able to translate. He is full of questions.

'How many children do you have?' 'Only two! Most people here have ten.' ('What's wrong with you?' was politely unspoken. He later said he would have three.)

'Do you have elephants in your country?' (They sometimes eat the crops here.) 'Or giraffe? Zebra?' I say our largest animal is a kind of antelope.

'Do you have cows?'
'Yes, and a lot of sheep.' (He won't have seen sheep but he may know they are kept in the cooler north of Rwanda.)

'Do you have goats? Do you have goats you can milk?'

We are less than 50 miles from the village where women laughed a few months ago at the suggestion that goats could be milked. Even last week the sophisticated group of church women in Kigali admitted that they too were close to laughing. This boy has a little something. I'm sorry I can't show you his picture, but my camera battery was dead.