Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Not all sunshine and lollipops..

So, haven’t done a legitimate blog post in a while (laptop battery post doesn’t count)..

Not to be a pessimist, but people who know me well know that I like to vent so that I can get on with life and make way for the good that is hopefully soon to come.
So on that note, let me talk about some sources of frustration of late:

Work – Going from the highs of teaching to the lows of, well, nothing. KHI is full of really great people but I just got moved to my own office and don’t get to interact with them that often. Combined this with how I was bombarded with (at times too much) human contact the past two weeks while teaching, it made for a drastic change. I am currently working on planning the HIV/AIDS community outreach program which is going to be a huge undertaking. While I am so excited to actually put the project into action, I am discouraged at the difficulties of trying to communicate with the prospective schools (many only speak French and Kinyarwanda) and sort out all of the travel details for sixty people to get to these thirty-six rural schools in a six day period. Thank God for my co-worker, Penda, who is at this point working towards his BSc, is employed by KHI and is helping me with this project, among other things. He's like superman.
‘African time’ is really showing it’s true colours at this point as the funding was promised to be available to us at the beginning of September. That doesn’t stop us from planning. One small problem, though. Everyone who knows me knows that although I usually get the job done, I love to procrastinate until I have so much pressure on me that there’s nothing else I can do. I never want to do a half-ass job so there is even more pressure I put on myself. This explains why it feels like nothing is going on because even when I do try to chip away at planning, I hit a wall and then think ‘oh I can do it later’. Come on Lauren! Thought I moved past them procrastinatin’ days after suffering through them for my whole university career..

Orphanage – We went to one a couple of weeks ago because our friend Egide volunteers there and he wanted to introduce us. The amazing thing about this is that the man who runs this orphanage is in his mid-twenties and was himself orphaned at the age of nine by none other than my next point. The frustrating part is that he and the three other men who run the place have no salary at all, and have to work elsewhere on top of running this orphanage to make money just to live. Any leftover money they have goes towards the orphanage.
Just a couple of children at the orphanage, more pictures to come!
 There were 45 beautiful children there who, thankfully, are all in school (unless they are under 5) and a lot of children who grew up here have graduated thus far and moved on to jobs or university. I asked where the priorities lie as far as financial donations and the director explained that food and school fees are the two biggest problems. Being a still-poor, still-starving ex-student, I wondered the whole time how one could help with this orphanage in a sustainable way. I know that one-time financial donations are not the answer but it was very evident in seeing this place that every bit helps. I think we are going to look into going there once every couple of weeks to just hang out with the kids and maybe help them with school work and play some soccer.
Although most of the children are too young to, a few them are orphaned as a direct result of…

Genocide – I suggest you read ‘An Imperfect Offering’ by Dr. James Orbinski (thanks for the thoughtful gift Ali :) , I’m loving it). His accounts of when he was here in 1988 really seem to capture the essence of Rwanda pre-genocide, and in many ways the way I see Rwanda today. However in Part II of his book he comes to work for Medecins Sans Frontiers in Rwanda in 1994, and the two Rwandas are about as similar as night and day. I get angry reading his description of the inhumane ways the Interhamwe messed with so many people, and especially children. The militia must have had a genuine mentality of hate for others in order to carry out these torturings and mass killings and still be able to live with themselves. No matter how much I read about the subject I still feel so far removed from this situation because I can’t comprehend that such things actually happened here. It is weird thinking that although I am walking among many victims of genocide, I am also walking among people who were part of the Interhamwe and committed these atrocities. The relatively good thing is that it doesn’t matter anymore who is who.

17 year old soccer players
– and their unrelenting stamina when I play with them, but mostly because they don’t have to work until 5 PM every day and therefore can attend practice from 2-5 PM, whereas I cannot… my Rwandan soccer career isn’t looking as promising as it did before because of this. The league doesn’t start until December so hopefully I can figure something out by then.

Lack of jokes/understanding movie references – I guess ‘Old School’ and ‘Anchor Man’ don’t translate into Kinyarwanda very well. Unfortunately neither does anything from Arrested Development.

Rwandan sports fans – biggest bandwagon hoppers ever! They booed their own team after they lost a FIFA game and can’t make up their mind who to cheer for at the FIBA tourney because Rwanda didn’t have a very good showing. The fans based their cheering on some crazy Egyptian dude with a flag on his head as a turban chanting in Arabic..

Amahoro Stadium, Rwanda v Benin

OKAY now for some good things (a la Martha Stewart):

Traditional Rwandese dancing – Went to a wedding this past weekend of Robyn’s co-worker’s. Yes, in Rwanda they let random people they have never even met show up to their weddings and it’s totally normal. The only letdown was that they didn’t party and dance like we had hoped (Charlotte, pressure is ON for your wedding. I know you won’t disappoint).
See! No smiling even on wedding day (CODY POIRIER)! Beautiful wedding party.


 Realizing that a BSc in Biology is not enough –This stems from hearing R and C’s (who are both Registered Nurses) accounts of their clinical placements at the hospitals in Butare, Kigali and Rwamagana and understanding that I will never be qualified to be exposed to anything like this until I further my education. This is a good thing because I LOVE SCHOOL! Cheers to resuming my poor, starving student status as soon as I can!

African sports – It was nice finding out that my attraction to the ‘under-18’ basketball players from Nigeria and the Congo was actually okay since it turns out these under agers were really my age. Props for being able to play four of seven games in the FIBA African Basketball U18 Kagame Cup with over-age players and not getting caught until the quarter finals, ha!

Headline from the FIBA Website :

Age fraud : Godfrey Moses (Nigeria, n 14) and Makouana Itoua (Congo, n 4) suspended

Ballin score clock

Le Petit Stade (right beside Amahoro)
Planning trips away from the city – no explanation needed here.

Until next time...
Love L


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