OBSERVATION ONE: Poverty
This country is poor, poorer than I imagined. Not poor in the obviously desperate poverty of a shantytown or a slum but the overwhelming majority of the population have virtually nothing. Looking at the dwellings as we walked and drove around, we could quickly see the handful of ‘successful’ people and families – they live in brick buildings of which there are a few scattered here and there. Next step down is mud-brick buildings sometimes with plaster on the outside. Finally you have small wattle and daub huts, usually with only one small window. Most of these are crumbling before your very eyes. On Sunday they were demolishing one of these houses opposite our house and it only took them about 45 minutes to completely do so and carry away all the bits.
Almost all the children we saw on our walks are barefoot and wear what must be their only clothes – many are wearing tattered school clothes even on a Sunday. Almost none wore shoes – if they had them they were probably saving them for school. And the main reason (he says after a bare two weeks in the country) is just the sheer number of people. Labour is so cheap that few people buy off-the-peg clothes. You borrow the garment and bring it to a tailor to get it copied. Hand-made is always the cheapest. A daily wage for a labourer is RWF200 which is about the price of a kilo of potatoes. About 30% of the population never handle money at all. The government is asking families to limit themselves to three children per family but that is not likely to happen, given that contraception is both frowned upon and – more importantly – totally out of the financial reach of most families.
For my work – as I am beginning to realise – this means there is absolutely no budget for additional expenditure (see Monday and Tuesday’s blogs for more details). Whatever Tina and I come up with is going to have to be pretty much things that don’t cost anything! That may cramp our style a little bit – or just make us more inventive!
OBSERVATION TWO: Red
Mars could be like this. Everywhere, on every surface, on your skin, in your ears, hair, clothes, on books and tables, nails and shoes (especially shoes!) – pinkish-red dust permeates everything. I remember being in Prague for Christmas in 1990 when everyone was still burning lignite and there was terrible air pollution. I had just walked home to the flat I was staying in and I took out a tissue and blew my nose. The ghastly black mess that appeared made me think my sinuses had disintegrated! Well, blowing your nose after a motorcycle ride in Rwanda is even more dramatic! Fans of the film ‘Total Recall’ will know what I mean – it’s just like that and it gives the countryside an eerie quality, especially when you recall what happened fourteen years ago.
OBSERVATION THREE: Kinyarwandan
Absolutely have to learn it. Have gone through some of the grammar and so on and it’s not as bad as I first feared, though still quite tough going - a large part of the problem is the incredible variations in how they pronounce words! The tenses are OK by and large with only two irregular verbs (be and have as you might have guessed). Another problem is the way in which words combine and merge and all pronouns and adjectives agree with other words in about ten different ways (seriously – ten or so noun classes and each has its own set of rules for agreement with adjectives etc). Anyway, we are going to hire a teacher soon and set to it.
OBSERVATION FOUR: Stars
They are different here. When we were out the other night watching the car rally, it was the first time the skies had been clear enough to see the stars and I suddenly realised that I didn’t recognise a single one of them. That’s a first. I remember stories of sailors in times of old who would never panic as long as they could see the stars and therefore know where they were. It was really peculiar – I should be able to recognise some after all – we are only 2 degrees south of the equator so Ireland’s southern sky constellations must be visible here but not the ones I am used to – Orion, Plough, Cassiopea (?sp).
OBSERVATION SIX: Police and the law
You don’t mess with the police. Not that people are afraid of them – for the most part the relationship with the community seems to be easygoing and friendly but their authority is absolute. As I mentioned before about our walk into Butare, even the youngest kids behaved thenselves if there was a policeman anywhere in the vicinity! There are also a lot of private security guards, outside banks and other important buildings. They usually wear black and carry pump-action shotguns, as opposed to the police who wear navy-black and carry AK47s (well, some of them do – most are only armed with a switch to whip recalcitrant boys out of the way with but the ones with AK47s do look quite impressive!).
AND SOME PICTURES.....
Maybe not - the connection crashes every time I try and upload! Some other time!
Thank you very much to all those who have supported my ongoing fundraising effort. I will be continuing my fundraising for VSO for a few more months so, if you would like to contribute, please go to www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi.
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