Staring into the Reflection Pool of Time

"At the end, there is really just the beginning..."


Dear FF&B,

By far my favorite breakfast place has got to be Vanilla Restaurant. Eggs are cheapish, chai reasonable, and chapatti downright cheap. In fact, my one chapatti was cooked right into my omelet… a right tasty and substantial meal. But the best part is the down-to-earth ambiance. The size and intimacy of the staff feels like you’re in someone’s home. It just feels like family. I makes me want to jump up and help in the kitchen or learn how to make something new...

Now back to my program:

I’ve always found that new cultural experiences take a while to process and sink in before you can write about them. Today is my 33^rd day in Rwanda – my last full day. As I sit here in the Mzungu-laden Union Trade Centre hammering out some practical emails, I can’t help but think about how much this research project has changed over the past 4 weeks, or remember the inevitable newness, confusion, and excitement that come with the start of a new project.

Yes, I have some follow-up calls and emails... but this is it. And what better way to wrap up a trip than to reflect on the beginning?

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I arrived in Kigali after 30+ hours of travel from San Francisco. With considerable layovers in both Amsterdam and Nairobi, I arrived at my hotel feeling okay... but fairly tired and worn out: I fell asleep for a couple hours and almost missed my dinner appointment!

I had pre-arranged for my lodging through my translator (also arranged via email through my in-country contact’s niece). It turns out that my translator was also distant family and had put me up in a place that was only a couple months old. It was very clean and surprisingly had free WiFi... but it was just a tad out of the way: 20 minute walk to the taxi-bus station, and another 30 minute ride to downtown (20 min with no traffic or stops). Nevertheless, we stayed there for most of the first week. Besides, I had a couple days of market surveys before Jessica even arrived... so there was no need to be right in downtown. As we would find out, few affordable restaurants stay open for dinner anywhere we visited – with the notable exception of Butare (which holds the national university and functions like a typical college town).

One of the first things I noticed was the public transportation system. Compared to my only experience in Lusaka where mini-buses were prevalent but the system did not seem as extensive and was much more expensive. Here, you can take a mini-bus for 150 francs from Kimironko to Mimuji (Kinyarwanda for "(down)town") – somewhere between 25 to 30 cents for the 20-30 minute ride. On a good day in Lusaka, you could do the 7 minute ride from Alpha Bar to Arcades for 1,000 (33 cents)... but more often you would be charged 2,000 if you are a Mzungu. Here in Kigali, the taxi-bus fares are standard and it is one of the few places where I did not need to barter for the fare beforehand (as opposed to the rest of Rwanda or anywhere in Zambia). So let me assure you what a relief it is when I had a meeting on my last day in Kigali and could finally stop being suspicious of exactly how much I was being overcharged or should try to negotiate down!

After Jessica arrived here in Kigali, we began work in earnest through a myriad of interviews with environmentalists, development workers, professors and students, and a long host of bureaucrats who worked in agriculture, energy, environment, forestry and other natural resources, technology development, and even waste management. We also found time to meet one cooperative who was doing waste collection and briquetting organic waste into energy pellets. With each meeting, we would start to form a picture of the different organizations that were working the area, the latest energy development ideas, and the sense of large production that pervaded Kigali. Even the more peri-urban/semirural cooperative was working with automated machinery to grind and briquette their organic mass! With each meeting, we would ask for not only background history and current developments, but also relevant statistics, plans, financial figures... and ALWAYS contacts, contacts, contacts. Most of the time, meetings could be arranged on one day’s notice (or less), and we got a surprising amount of understanding for only three and one-half days of the workweek.

Now, there is something about Kigali that reminds me of San Francisco. Perhaps it’s the fact that it is a city of hills. Or the quick-changing weather that may be third-degree hot at one point, and overcast/rainy 15 minutes later. Perhaps I best described it in one aborted entry from May 30:

"Kigali is beautiful. Since arriving one week ago I have marveled at the green spaces, hillside panoramas, and sense of peace and security when walking at night. Each time I turn a corner, I get a new perspective of this town."

During our first week, we were in a variety of meetings and meet in the evening with UNDP. Earlier in the day it had been roasting hot and neither of us had brought a poncho or umbrella. Sometime during the 90 minute meeting, I heard the pitter patter start... but having seen some small drizzles start and stop before, I hoped it would peter out. Unfortunately, the rain was steady when we left. Being far from the hotel... but wanting to get into more comfortable clothes (we had been in meetings and on the go for about 11 hours straight), we decided to take the walk back. Sometime in the next 5 minutes, the steady rain turned into a downpour, and we were so soaked we couldn’t do anything but laugh and continue on. No one else was on the roads. Everyone took cover in awnings and doorways, staring at us like some deranged school kids who couldn’t stop giggling at their "mis"fortune.

Here are some other highlights from May 22 – May 28:

• Touring the briquetting cooperative. Even though the machine wasn’t working at the time, you could tell the potential for serious volume. As a business student, I was happy to see that the possibility of profit was associated with this kind of alternative energy production. I just had questions about whether it could be done in a low-tech, small volume scenario.
• Learning some of my best Kinyarwanda. While I may have learned more in the rural areas that spoke less English, the very basics were practiced every day from the start. Muraho (hello), mwiliwe (hello/good day), amakuru (how are you?), murakoze (thank you)... these are the staples to any greeting or interaction and I learned them well. A more extensive explanation of words may come in a separate entry.
• Attending the first annual Environmental Health Conference. We didn’t go for long, but were welcomed to participate in the break-out sessions prior to lunch (on the day we left for Gisenyi). Some good friends of one of Jess’ MIT contacts were attending and we learned how small but close-knit the newly-formed environmental health sector was (most working at far-flung NGOs and helping each other get jobs).
• Losing my hat and running out of sunscreen in the very first week! The first was an oversight when leaving a taxi bus, the second was due to my quick departure State-side... and not realizing how unavailable sunscreen would be in Rwanda (nothing available more than 6 SPF – which I finally got two weeks later!) Dear friends, fear not... I am not the crispy lobster you come to expect in these circumstances... but it’s been challenging!

I suppose there were many other smaller moments. Everyone seemed to be so friendly... even when they couldn’t understand a word of what we said. But we did not even have to use a translator every day as more than half of the bureaucrats and other contacts could speak decent enough English to be productive.

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And with that, I must begin to prepare for the journey home. Look forward to more when I return State-side. And please feel free to send in your thoughts or requests!

Safe and Peaceful Journeys,
-Stan

P.S. I will try to post some pictures to go along with these blogs when I safely land in the States. Read more!

Tuning in to Last Summer’s Regularly Scheduled Program

"I’m having 80’s flashbacks… or is it just Ryan’s in Africa again?”

Dear Family, Friends and Blog-Readers (FF&B),

For those you just tuning into this program for the first time, this sight was a well-conceived (if ill-executed) attempt to keep everyone updated on my exploits across the Atlantic last summer. Well, since I am back again for another incredible experience, I thought I’d reuse the blogsite and try to update everyone once per week… (oops, too late!). Feel free to peruse my *ahem* monthly postings from last summer. For my returning readers… welcome back (and bless you dear sirs and madams)!!

For those of you who have no idea what I’m hinting at, I'll back up:
Most of you know by now, but I’m currently conducting research in Rwanda. The goal is to determine the market feasibility for an agricultural waste-based charcoal (think banana leaves or corn cobs). The idea is to convert natural byproducts from subsistence farming or food manufacturing (not already being used for fertilizer) into an alternative fuel. The goal: save trees and improve incomes by making a business out of it (hence my involvement). The technology for making the charcoal is from MIT (where my classmate and in-country research partner, Jessica, studied before)… and the goal is to sell the briquetters or perhaps the charcoal directly. But as you will see from my planned posts, it isn’t always so easy to figure out how that is best done.

As we are now in the “wrap-up” section of the program (by that I mean we are in our last week), my posts will be structured as weekly recaps and highlights – both on cultural and research experiences. However, instead of kicking it off with Week 1, I thought I’d leave you with some thoughts after finally visiting the National Genocide Memorial last weekend.


For those of you who have traveled to developing countries, it is easy to imagine the hunger and desperation that may exist on any village roadside or city market. Those without the fortune of daily jobs (and here day laborers earn less than $2/day in the sections outside of Kigali) find begging from tourists an easy means of supplementing their income (and who can blame them?).

But there are a few countries that have had traumatic events in their past so widespread that you can literally see the signs flitting across the national consciousness or in your everyday interactions. Two summers ago, I encountered this for the first time in Cambodia. The devastation of Pol Pot’s regime beginning with Year Zero, the forced work migrations, and highly systematized massacres left a generation of children without fathers or mothers, depleted the intellectual resources of a nation, and left a host of amputees and starving individuals who struggled to survive (especially because there were so many of them). At Angkor Wat, these individuals would not only ask if you wanted to buy a book/scarf/postcard/necklace/shirt/figurine as you walked around… they would approach you at lunch (where you are trapped by your food) and as long as you talk to them at all (most people don’t even respond) would continue to ask you until you said “maybe” and then tell you that you said “you said yes.” Or if you buy one item, they will ask if you need more for “your sister, your mother, your brother, your father, your girlfriend…” All this behavior might be best explained by the simple fact that there were more vendors at Angkor Wat than travelers – the desperation for a single sale is that palpable.

I share this reverie about Cambodia because it is the only true comparison to my experience here in Rwanda. I have not been able to visit a Holocaust memorial, and my experience in Japan is the powerful illustration at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial – but I did not see this event etched onto the faces of the people I met during my travels.

The National Genocide Memorial itself is a collection of gardens, mass graves, and three series of exhibits within the building that also serves as an educational center for genocide prevention, all of which officially opened in 2004 on the 10th anniversary of the genocide. The day was hot… so we started with a tour of the interior exhibits, which consisted of:
1) a history of the genocide (including events that lead up to the genocide, the genocide itself, and the aftermath);
2) other similar events throughout the world during this century; and
3) a special focus on children of Rwanda who died during the genocide.

The exhibits are translated into Kinyarwanda, French, and English. We also opted for the English audio tour (helpful, and includes some different details at certain exhibits… but not necessary as the exhibits themselves usually had more detail than the audio tour). During this somber tour, I did not take any pictures (sorry Christina) or notes, but opted instead for fully engaging with the emotional experience of the memorial. While some of you may be curious about the details of the exhibits, I would not be able to do them full justice (and am fairly sure there are more accurate accounts written in books than my memory). But I can say that it was truly emotional as the exhibits used a full range of techniques beyond the typical arrangement of illustrative photos and facts, including displays of artifacts, a room full of individual photos, and extensive use of video that helped personalize the event.

By the end of the tour within the building, I was already emotionally spent. At this point, we opted to skip most of the symbolic gardens (that represented unity, division, reconciliation and other themes), but made sure to take a long, respectful walk amongst the mass graves and the Wall of Names (which details identified remains within the mass graves but is far from completion as the research continues on).

In terms of what I have seen here on the faces of the individuals I meet, there are the visible signs of amputees, broken or partial families, and resettled villages. On the one hand, there is no single display of mass desperation such as what I felt at Angkor Wat… but there is a sizable portion of the population throughout the entire country that has been obviously affected by this event. Our work with one cooperative is from a resettled village where work becomes more difficult because they own no land. During surveys, I came across one woman who openly spoke about a husband that fled during the genocide and was still missing, but that she would never know if he was still alive and still hoped for his return.

Despite these visible scars, the genocide is rarely talked about. During one survey, my translator pointed out a woman who was Twa (the local pygmy population that were the original inhabitants of Rwanda and apparently mostly live in the bush or remote areas). As I did not know about this third ethnic population, I began to ask about the Hutu and Tutsi… but my translator quickly told me that this is not spoken about openly. Also, during my first full day in Rwanda, I walked around another translator as we talked about how peaceful and safe Rwanda feels. (I can attest – while I had my wallet stolen twice in Lusaka, Zambia last summer… mainly where tourists could be targets, I have not even felt the least bit unsafe when walking down a very dark and mostly deserted street in the pitch dark anywhere in Rwanda.) Titi (my translator’s nickname) pointed out that the recent history of the genocide taught people how important amahoro (peace) is, regardless of the daily difficulties of poverty or hunger. This all points to a country that consciously tries to heal its divisions for the betterment of all.

But I will also share two discussions in the past day or two that taught me the picture is more complicated than that. On Tuesday, I randomly met one Rwandan/American (dual citizenship) named Pascale. We talked a lot about business and personal lives… but he also strayed into politics as it related to Rwanda’s recent history. In particular, he asked me about America’s commitment to democracy and what I would do (were I the President) if that democracy put in power a majority that had resorted to violence when the minority government had demonstrated peace and reconciliation. On the one hand, he seemed to be partially worried about upcoming elections. We debated about how the recent government was democratically elected and whether that was likely to change in the near term. During the discussion we agreed that the situation was much more complicated than events from the last 15 or so years, and that giving a voice to the majority was also important. But it just goes to show that the results of those events are still etched onto part of the population’s current concerns.

Later that night, I had a chance to meet up with two friends where talked ranged again from business to personal lives to the resettlement villages. In particular, Jess and I have been struggling with how to work sustainably in areas that have a so called “charity model” – individuals, NGOs, and other benefactors give help to survivors so they may be able to improve their livelihoods, but in doing so may increase the sense of entitlement or expectation of future donations and at the same time weaken their sense of ownership over their new possessions. One friend in particular even suggested that the way the government has also given away things to this group of people has contributed to the problem. During our discussion, we talked about how ways to help survivors improve their livelihoods was important, but the structure of help (donations versus microcredit, equipment and possessions versus knowledge) could be just as important in helping them maintain their drive and the long-term sustainability of their new activities. Because… what would happen if the donations were to dry up tomorrow?


All these issues are particularly sensitive to talk about with Rwandans… and to share. I don’t pretend to know more than the next development worker or student… and especially any Rwandan (as I am still learning about the history and culture). But these are complex issues that are highly emotional which we can only hope to be part of the solution (rather than an exacerbating contributor to the problem). I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

In the meantime, I wish you all love and peace.

Safe and Peaceful Journeys,
-Stan Read more!

All The Small Things

"Even John Cusack doesn't have such appreciation for the idiosyncracies..."

A post originally written July 17-July 23rd.

Dear FF&B,

The other weekend as I waited for my Canadian friend, Jordan, I thought about the differences between visiting a place and truly living in it long enough to appreciate the subtle nuances. I am not speaking of how the prostitutes outside my gate have stopped asking to follow me when I go out at night because they’ve seen me enough to know I am not the typical tourist mzungu (white person). And you don’t have to be here long to appreciate the open, kind nature or most Zambians.

Instead, I marvel at the inquisitiveness about my own country – politics, academics, daily life… How life in Lusaka may seem the same as any other major city – hopes and dreams, career competitiveness, love and hopelessness all wrapped up into any random person.

I think of the deep religious culture that permeates everything. In the capital city, church may last only an hour… but in the rural provinces, you attend service for 3 hours, 6 hours, a whole day. Sunday is ONLY structured around church (and the market for tourists). Sermon in the morning to afternoon. Perhaps teaching choir practice at night.

I appreciate the hustle of the working class to stay a single step ahead of poverty. How taxi drivers, bus owners, street vendors struggle to make ends meet but never ask for a handout.

I feel the sense of morals and fortitude. The community’s willingness to speak out when they see a local mistreat another person, to address theft or unkindness.

Then there are the small things you only learn after having been somewhere for a while – things that aren’t even important but when you figure them out you smile a subtle smile of enlightenment to yourself. Instead of grabbing for the fork, I eat nshima with my hands. But to tentatively pull the cornmeal with your three fingertips only leads to a crumbling balled mess. Instead, grab a small fistful and bunch it up in the ball of your hand – like you’re snatching the last loaf of bread and making it part of you. Presto! One large ball to soak up the meat and sauce…

Well, in theory if the cornmeal didn’t stick to my hands! Read more!