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.