Kigali genocide memorial

Two British brothers who were profoundly moved by Yad Vashem, the genocide memorial in Jerusalem, as I had been in 1964, founded the Aegis Trust, to enable the creation of this memorial on the edge of Kigali. I knew I had to visit. The information is no longer new to me – how the Belgian colonisers fixed the previously fluid categories of Hutu and Tutsi; how having ruled through the Tutsi minority they started promoting Hutu in the last years before independence; how violence kept breaking out; how the genocide flared in April 1994 and the international community did nothing to stop it, even withdrawing UN forces after evacuating the white people...

Beginning with the outside part of the memorial, as recommended, after walking around and between the mass graves where new bodies are still being interred, I visited a series of gardens. At first I thought them simplistic but now in retrospect their simplicity creates thoughtfulness without analysis.

Inside I read every word in English, watched every video clip, looked at every photo. I wasn't hassled out into the rain at closing time but given a few extra minutes. The final section presents other genocides throughout the twentieth century in Namibia (the Herero people), Armenia, Germany, Bosnia... What is there to say? 'Never again'? If only!

Business and pleasure

Writen on Friday evening, 5 Feb


Friday morning
I spend a couple of hours at Friends Peace House. My first task is explaining what will be needed for follow-on workshops where I'm hoping the groups will construct a keyhole garden. I was delighted yesterday to see some very healthy bag gardens. (To the left: onions and kale; above: tomatoes, parsley and Rwandan spinach, all in the school and church grounds.) I am reasonably confident that what I start will be continued – a necessary condition for even short-lived success since the planting can't be done till the soil has settled for a week or two, by which time I will have moved on.

Then there is the budget negotiation. For the first time I am an active participant. In October I was present but the 'owners' of the various groups, working in Kinyarwanda which I couldn't follow, shared out the total I had brought, and when I later saw the accounts each event had cost exactly 100,000 or 150,000 Rwandan francs as budgeted, though some involved travelling and/or translation and others didn't. David has suggested using exact figures for costings this time, as is done for HROC events, which are also funded by AGLI.

This time the programme money, from UK and US donors, has already been sent by AGLI to Josephine, the Friends Peace House accountant. It is almost exactly the same amount as I brought last time. I am prepared to top it up if necessary, rather than trim my schedule, but I'd like to see the figures first.

To work, then. Yesterday David asked how many participants I thought there should be at each event. Already the phoning round has begun, alerting local organisers to how many to recruit. We establish a daily price for meals and 'tea breaks' at each location (dearer in Kigali) and arrive at an exact sum for participants' food – a major item at each event. We add my food, travel and out-of-town accommodation; communication (by phone); translators' fees, food etc; seeds. I say we don't need to provide notebooks and pens for the small amount of optional note taking. I am surprised and relieved to see the interim total is comfortably within budget, though some of the travel and accommodation costs for later weeks are not yet known. If necessary the budget will stretch to buying sacks or other materials, and paying for some photocopying. It might cover a private taxi into town for an early bus a couple of times. There is even a small contingency fund, in dollars not yet converted.

At the evaluation meeting at the end of my last visit, I asked to be more of a participant in decisions being made concerning my work. I feel pleased that has happened over the budget as well as over my schedule. Good.



We finish at noon. Regular readers will remember how much of my time and energy has been taken up on previous visits by struggles to get enough internet time. There is a new phone and internet provider in Rwanda whose prices are said to be very reasonable; I decide to buy a modem/dongle for my netbook, and put an end to using other people's computers and office space.

Jean Baptiste, a young yearly meeting employee, whom I also know as choir leader at Gasharu Church, is released from other duties for an hour or two to accompany me to the shop where I shall get set up. He is happily using Tigo, the new provider, and his office netbook is almost identical to mine.

I buy the modem, which plugs neatly into a USB port. Baptiste almost doesn't want to wait to load it but I say I shall be happier doing it where help is available if needed. Connection should happen automatically and in seconds. But it doesn't. The first assistant has no success trouble-shooting and turns to a colleague who has no success either and phones a boss who will be there in 20 minutes. Baptiste gives his phone number to the assistant and we go to look for something to drink, at least. It is now 1.30. We try to order a quick lunch, but anything will take at least 40 minutes so we make do with a cold drink.

The boss arrives on time, and goes ever deeper into the Linux operating system. Meanwhile I read the user guide, which mentions Mac and otherwise assumes Windows. I am advised to install some Linux updates, which I can't do here because I'm not connected! The two big supermarkets in town have free internet access. The deal is that I'll take the modem and go and try to do what has been suggested. If it doesn't work they'll give me my money back. The netbook battery is down to 40%.

Jean Baptiste phones David Bucura, his boss, and gets permission to accompany me. This is nice, though not strictly necessary as I am confident of every bit of the process apart from finding the bus boarding point to get back to Tigo if I have to. We get to Simba Supermarket at 3.30. I offer to buy us both lunch. Baptiste has been here before several times, and has been introduced to the beefburger. I learn that he is a theology graduate from Kampala, which explains his good English.

I am given the internet password, and google as instructed. Now what? There are discussions of named updates, descriptions of updates to come, theoretical articles about updating... But where is the item that says 'Click here to update your Linux'? I hunt, Baptiste hunts. My battery is getting lower. Food comes. Enough!

Baptiste's phone rings: it's his father, who is not often in Kigali and is hoping to see him, having sought him in vain at the church office. We've done all the work we can, so we invite him to join us. He turns out to be a long-time colleague of David B, from when Friends first came to Rwanda 20 years ago and the yearly meeting was established. I buy him a drink. Baptiste gently mentions that his father has had no lunch; I invite him to eat and Baptise encourages him to try a beefburger. While we wait for the food, he asks about my work. Fortunately I thinned the images on my camera card last night, so I am able to show a brief selection from Burundi, including some bag garden classics of hands around sacks. Father and son are delighted to see pictures of the new church construction as well. Friends here admire the pioneering work of Burundi Friends, the first church to move into war-torn Kamenge. They are pleased to hear that David Nyonzima is still pastor there.

At 4.30 Jean Baptiste's father has eaten his beefburger and chips and smilingly shows off his empty plate – he has passed the test! With distinction, I add. He sets off across the road for his bus home to Ruhengeri. I shall go back to Tigo. Baptiste has choir practice at 5 but he does have time to help me find the right bus – not where he had expected. I get my refund and directions for the 10 minute walk to Remera bus garage, where I learnt from Rachel two days ago how to get home.

I pick my way down the rutted lane, now nearly dry. I walk into the house just after 6pm. No modem, but a thoroughly pleasant 6 hours nonetheless.

Rain and roads

Written on Friday morning, 5 Feb

The heatwave is over. Yesterday at the end of the afternoon it poured with rain as David and I were in his car. The window on the passenger side is stuck half open and he hasn't got round to having it fixed. (The practical priority at the moment is getting a couple of doors re-hung in the house. Yesterday morning he fetched the workman and took him to the house, but the electricity was out and the man now depends on power tools.) For most of the journey it wasn't too bad, then we changed direction. My waterproof jacket was at home but I had an umbrella. Opened inside the window it didn't d0 a bad job.

David and his nine-year-old daughter Dina were about to set off for a keep fit class at his church, offered on Thursday evenings at present by one of the church members who is a PE teacher. But the rain cam back even heavier. Going was pointless, as nobody would be able to get there. It rained for several hours.

This morning it's overcast and damp but not actively raining. The temperature has dropped by about 15 degrees C I would think. After last night's scouring the lane from D's house up to the metalled road is patterned with deep gulleys. I comment that I wouldn't like to be driving here. 'Oh', says David.'Is it the roads?'

I take the opportunity to fill in my background understanding of how things work here. Who is responsible for the lane, I ask. We are, says D. 'We' is a group of around 30 neighbouring households, the smallest unit of lcal government. The leader is elected but not paid (and that can lead to petty corruption). No, there are not a lot of candidates – as at home, I say. There are monthly meetings to which D usually sends his house worker, Jean de Dieu; he thinks that the last time he went himself was 4 or 5 months ago.

I know that the last Saturday of every month has a few morning hours designated for community work. (In Bujumbura, with a similar system, I could get a cup of coffee at breakfast time only because the cafe staff knew me and took pity on my ignorance.) Would the neighbours get together to patch the lane? Yes, eventually: it's already nearly too bad to ignore. How often does it get patched? About twice a year.

Back in Kigali

Weds evening, 3 Feb

Leaving Bujumbura on a hideously expensive 30 minute flight yesterday, I was looking forward to a more comfortable temperature in Kigali. Not for long: the pilot cheerfully told us it was 32C at 5.30 in the evening. It's not just that I have left Britain in winter: everybody is remarking on the heat and here they are saying it must be climate change. I tried the term 'climate chaos', which I now prefer, on Rachel, my hostess (David Bucura's wife) and she didn't demur.

I slept for more than 10 hours in a quiet house where even the dog barked quietly when something moved in the night. Then after breakfast David presented an outline programme, to be firmed up tomorrow. He is responsible for the work with the women's and church groups, Antoine for the school contacts. (Antoine is no longer the head of the Friends School here in Kigali at Kagarama but has been promoted to superintendent of all 4 Friends schools in the country. I expect to be visiting 3 of them.)

Rachel leaves tomorrow for Nairobi, where she has 4 more months to complete her masters in counselling. We went into town together. The bus journey requires one big bus or two little ones. Fortunately for me we got on a little one, so I could learn how to change over in Remera bus station. I wrote down the name of our stop: Chapere, and the name of the district to check with the driver: Samuduha. I have no memory for meaningless words. On our return we get off the bus beside a little church, whose board says 'chapelle'.

We both changed money; I went seed shopping, while Rachel bought her bus ticket for tomorrow. (The journey takes 24 hours but flights are just too expensive.) The local seed company, Agrotech, had a much better selection than previously, including several herbs, which had seemed almost unknown. (It's om my schedule to se about making a demonstration herb garden.) Another innovation was a computerised system which gave me a printed list of all 18 kinds of seed instead of a hand-written scrap with a bare total. The Kenya Seed Company, a few shops further down, had some of the same staples and a few additions: a second variety of tomato, chard, kale (known here as sukumawiki – the Swahili name usually translated as collards), and spinach – especially useful for the sides of the planted sack which is my first project with every group. I have packed up samples for Burundi, where the choice was very limited, and will ask the church office to find somebody to take them to Alex – contact between the two yearly meetings is frequent.

I see more multi-storey buildings going up each time I come here, though many remain unfinished. Very pleasing to me is the increase in size and number of street trees, though most don't yet cast deep shade. Town was very crowded, and Rachel said the extra people were students preparing to return to school. All the schools have been closed for an extra month at the end of the long holiday while the teachers have training for teaching in English. A month is certainly better than nothing.

I didn't take my camera into town, and I didn't see anything I would have liked to capture. I was sorry, however, not to have had it when I went for supper with Alex on my last evening in Bujumbura. Hearing that I had not seen the lake other than from the aeroplane, she took me a few hundred yards from the house she shares with the two QPSW workers to a place called the Sunset Bar but nicknamed the hippo hole. There we sat sharing a drink, counting three solid dark shapes in the water as the light faded and glad of the protective netting even if it did mar the view.

Kamenge Friends Church

Sunday 31 Jan

The plan is for me to attend the whole 3-hour service at the Friends church in Kamenge, a block away from the clinic where my workshops have been held. My lift from Adrien is not very prompt, so I miss the first half hour. As we drive up and ease into a parking space, I notice a lot of people clustered round the church building, some looking in and some greeting and talking to each other. Florence arrives and takes me to a side door. Two chairs are reserved for us, next to the various pastors, at right angles to the children's benches. Florence says there are probably 1000 people inside; they need to be getting on with the larger church being constructed adjacent to this building, so the others can fit inside.

As we sit down and greet our neighbours, a group of a dozen men makes its noisy way onto the raised area at the front. They are enacting the Israelites' journey through the desert from Egypt. Moses, with a briefcase, is being berated, quite fiercely, by the other men. The props for the others are staves, bundles and baseball caps. They shout at him, he sings a prayer (which they harmonise). Ah! God tells him what to do. He crouches down, banging his stave along the ground. The men huddle near the ground, obscured by the lectern, keyboard etc. The tension eases. They get out their plastic mugs – the same design as for drinking water in the workshop yesterday – and drink deep. They leave to cheers and applause.

Visitors are welcomed. I go to a microphone, with Florence beside me to translate. I have never spoken to so many and I say so. I read part of my travelling minute, using its quotation from Ecclesiastes and a verse from Genesis to show cultivating the ground as doing God's work. Enough.

Several choirs sing, each performing 2 songs. One choir has two young male soloists who jump about vigorously throughout. (Later they do a double act with shakers and fancy stepping during the offertory.) Each choir has rehearsed carefully and accompanies the words with gestures. In front of me many of the older children join in quietly with words and actions. Some members of the congregation sing along. As each group leaves the raised area there are cheers and applause.

After the offertory, the children file out and their benches are carried to various spots under trees. Next the sermon. It lasts almost an hour. The preacher uses not only his voice, highly amplified, but also his whole body. As he describes how Jesus saved him from being murdered by a gang, he writhes and throws his head back, calling out to heaven. He moves from Deuteronomy to Matthew, exhorting everybody to act lovingly to at least one needy person. The address is frequently punctuated with 'Alleluia' 'Amen'. Florence moves between calling out suggestions, joining in general responses and giving me a translation – usually of the bible passages I have in front of me.

It is very, very hot. I excuse myself and slip outside for 5 minutes. At least there is an occasional breeze. When I come back to my place Florence commiserates: 'Only 15 minutes more.'

The heat and the sound level are almost unbearable. So why don't I walk to the bus stop and take myself home? Well, it's tempting, and I know the way well enough not to be an obvious target for a thief. On the other hand, there's something uplifting about the mood of rejoicing in this huge community. We've had theatre and a concert. As well as Adrien and Florence I see Edith, my translator for the workshops, Alexis, the clinic doctor, and many of my students. Children and adults greet me, taking my hand or embracing me. I feel genuinely welcome in this community of faith.

Harvest and seed time

Caption: Marcelline harvesting maize

Caption: taking a share of the harvest

Behind the clinic at Kamenge, a poor suburb of Bujumbura where my workshops are taking place, is a piece of land which might eventually be used as a hostel for patients. Meanwhile at the far end by the back gate is a small room with tables and chairs, and a kitchen area with bamboo walls, partly roofed. This is a small restaurant - not just a canteen for the clinic. It raises around $50 a week, which is used for micro-credit loans for HIV+ patients.

The rest of the land is waste ground, I have been told. Last July, US work-campers here asked me for advice by email on how to start cultivation and I advised making compost. Even when Alex arrived in November, nothing was planted. When I looked at the site for the sack garden project on Wednesday we walked into an enclosure of full grown maize underplanted with sweet potatoes. The soil is rich. I thought I must have seriously misunderstood something. Or was there another adjacent barren plot?

The explanation was simple: Marcelline, one of the clinic staff, had decided to make a start.

On Thursday, even as we were planting the seeds in our sack, she fetched a machete, summoned a helper to carry the cobs, and cut the crop. Alex, my American colleague, commented that she had only ever seen harvesting done by machine.

I gave a variant of my usual lesson on rubbish and compost - how new materials such as plastics need treating differently from organic rubbish, how dangerous are the fumes from burning plastic, how we need to learn new habits for new circumstances. How it is up to the people who live here to decide whether to do anything new, while my contribution is to sow some seeds of ideas.

I had thought the clinic might start a demonstration compost heap, using the peelings from the restaurant kitchen of course. As the session broke up I heard that they were going further: they also planned to divide up the land to give small plots to patients with no gardens. (This will be even better than trying to establish sack gardens in odd corners, because gardening will become a social activity.)

At the end of the afternoon session Marcelline was all smiles and excitement. I was taken to the room that serves as a laboratory where testing for HIV and diabetes is carried out. The cobs were divided into heaps all over the floor. There must have been at least a hundred. Alex and I were asked to help ourselves. I took two. Then the workshop participants and staff members were invited to take a pile each.

I brought my two cobs back to the office, where I offered them to Florence, a HROC facilitator I have met briefly in Rwanda. Would she like to take them home and perhaps bring me a portion tomorrow? No, she will cook them here. There is a kitchen but I haven't used the electric hotplate. I strip the cobs while F gets a pan. We break the cobs into portions and set them to boil.

The corn is delicious - not sweet but full of flavour. Florence gathers up the peelings, walks to the door of the first-floor office and returns immediately, empty-handed. Later, when everybody has eaten, I contemplate the husks. I already have banana peel, used peppermint teabags and other assorted rubbish accumulating in the bin in my room and I don't know where to empty it. I take the husks to the door, look over the wall, see a bonfire site - corn peelings, paper, plastic - and drop the husks onto the pile.

*********

Technical PS: posting images is very dodgy. I'm trying to send a photo or two but keep getting timed out.

Pastures New

Weds 27 Jan, 6pm

It's hard to believe it's only 72 hours since I left home on Sunday evening.

On Monday instead of sitting for dull hours in the airport in Nairobi I got a transit visa and went to meet F/friends old and new. A highlight was participating in the afternoon session of a HROC advanced workshop run by three facilitators – 2 from Rwanda and one Kenyan – and in English. (My Swahili is even worse than my Kinyarwanda.) Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities has been running for a couple of years in Kenya, where AVP (Alternatives to Violence Project)is also much in demand. I also managed to spend some time with Sarah Anusu, a Kenyan member of the 2008 Friendly FolkDancers tour which first took me to Rwanda.

Having landed at 6.30 I took off for Bujumbura at 23.40. So once I'd queued for a Burundian visa, collected my 2 heavy suitcases and been driven through the warm darkness, I was glad to go to sleep knowing I had arranged an easy day for the rest of Tuesday.

I am staying in the guest room at the Burundi Friends Church office, which also houses HROC Burundi and other programmes. Alex is another AGLI volunteer who has been here for 4 months working on capacity building with Friends Women's Association (FWA) – a programme set up by the Friends Church but not owned by them, which makes its main work with HIV+ women easier. She stayed when she first arrived in what is 'my' room for the week, and was able to help with locking the door – tricky when a pull dislodges the handle – before pointing me to money changing and an internet café for breakfast.

Actually I don't need the internet facility as the office building is connected. Not all is straightforward, however: follow through is unreliable and I've already lost a couple of messages while trying to send them. So I'm not composing this on line and the picture I'm hoping to attach – of the view from the office door – won't be embedded.

The rest of Tuesday went on discussing my programme of 3 workshops before my flight to Rwanda on Tuesday afternoon; buying seeds, which was unexpectedly difficult; deciding I didn't need a café meal and dining on cheese from the first flight and some little cakes, some peanuts and a carrot, bought round the corner.

Today, Wednesday, was day one of the first 2-day workshop, attended by 15 women including 3 staff from the clinic at FWA, 4 men and 3 babies. I had re-read a lot of my materials since leaving home, and thought of some new approaches. Filling the demonstration sack doesn't lose its interest for me, and always entertains the participants. Seeds have been chosen for planting tomorrow, once the sack is staked and slits cut in the sides. Then composting will be a main topic. We've already considered the differences between a naturally self-sustaining forest and conditions in modern Burundi. I've given the figures on the nutritional benefits of some AIVs (African indigenous vegetables). I've used the nutrition chart (for vegans) that my daughter spotted in a Truro health shop.

It's hot and sticky. Now at 6.30 night is falling but I'm assured downtown Bujumbura is quite safe to go in search of supper. So I'll attempt to post this and attach a photo, then leave you all till next time.

PS No response from blogspot then, so I went to eat and am now about to ry again.