YES Rwanda benefit

Each year over 100,000 youth enter the labor market in Rwanda, but less than one percent are able to find sustainable work. Tonight I attended a benefit at the Serena Hotel for an organization called YES Rwanda that is working to address the growing problem of unemployment in Rwanda, specifically among youth. Their goal is to create 200,000 sustainable jobs for youth to benefit overall livelihood and development.

The evening began with a cocktail hour, followed by a delicious buffet dinner. During dinner there were speeches from a representative of the minister of labor and from a South African official and entertainment from traditional dancers. At the end of the evening, there was an auction of photographs taken by some of the youth from the program.
I took a short video of the traditional dancers at dinner. It's too bad I couldn't continue filming when the dancers dragged Kate, Emily and I up to join them!

Kigali Memorial Centre

“On 6th April 1994, President Juvenal Habyarimana [of Rwanda] and President Cyrien Ntaryamira of Burundi were flying into Kigali when, at 20:23 [8:23 p.m.], the plane was shot down on its approach to Kigali airport. By 21:15 [9:15 p.m.], roadblocks had been constructed throughout Kigali and houses were being searched. Shooting began to be heard within an hour.” Thus began the events for which Rwanda is now famous – one hundred days of genocide during which as many as one million people were massacred. Living in Kigali, sometimes, it's hard to imagine that such a horrific event could have occurred only thirteen years ago; at other times, it's impossible to forget.

Today, our entire staff (approximately 120 Rwandans, 6 Americans and 1 Brit) visited the Kigali Memorial Centre, which is a burial ground, memorial and museum that opened in 2004 on the ten-year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.
We first visited the mass grave site at the center. There are eleven mass graves on the site which have each been filled with coffins containing over 280,000 genocide victims. Many of those are unidentified corpses that have been discovered in crude mass graves throughout the city. Others’ identities are known, but the corpses have only recently been found, often as a result of the confessions of genocidaires during gacaca.
One of the mass graves is still open (though it should be filled within the coming days), and we gathered around it for a moment of silence. Our medical director, laboratory director, study coordinator and head of administration placed floral arrangements on the gravesite that said ‘NEVER AGAIN’ in English, French and Kinyarwanda. Each of us brought a yellow rose with a purple ribbon.
After visiting the gravesite, we split into four groups to visit the museum. The first floor of the museum is dedicated to the Rwandan genocide and details the events leading up to April of 1994, the hundred days of the genocide and its aftermath and consequences. This floor also has three large rooms, one filled with photographs, one with skulls and bones and one with victims’ clothing. Upstairs, the museum is divided into two sections. One focuses on other genocides and ‘genocidal events’ in places such as Cambodia, Germany, Namibia, Armenia, etc., and the other is a children’s memorial.
Visiting the museum with the entire project staff was particularly difficult, knowing that every single person on staff had lived through the nightmare. The story of the genocide that was told in the museum is the story of their lives. They saw their parents and children massacred in front of their own eyes; they were attacked by machete and left to die; they saw neighbor turn on neighbor, friend on friend, family member on family member. It's no wonder then that everyone was very affected today. Some cried silently, some wailed loudly, and some were so shaken that they collapsed and had to be carried out. I felt more like an outsider than I have since I arrived in Rwanda. As much sympathy and pain as I may feel, I know nothing about what it is like to experience the things that this country has experienced.

Still, there were two sections of the museum that were particularly difficult to visit. The first was the room filled with photographs. I think the hardest part of this situation was watching my coworkers walk up to specific photographs and check the back for the person’s name. I am absolutely certain that they saw friends and family on thet wall. The second area was the children’s memorial. There are fourteen profiles of children who were killed during the genocide and reading them was heart-wrenching. Here is one from the memorial center’s website:

Francine Murengezi Ingabire

Age: 12
Favourite sport: Swimming
Favourite food: Eggs and chips
Favourite drink: Milk and Fanta tropical
Best friend: Her elder sister Claudette
Cause of death: Hacked by machete

There's story after story of children who were murdered in unimaginable ways. But I suppose the entire population of Rwanda is made up of story after story of children and parents and grandparents and siblings and friends and neighbors, all of whom share this horrific past. And yet they all continue to live their lives and amaze the rest of the world with their strength, determination and hope, all the while reminding us 'NEVER AGAIN.'

If you are interested in learning more about the genocide or the Kigali Memorial Centre, visit http://www.kigalimemorialcentre.org/index.php.

Global HIV/AIDS timeline

The Kaiser Family Foundation has put together an interactive timeline that provides information on key HIV/AIDS-related events since 1981. Also, if you look just below the timeline, there is an estimate of the number of people living with HIV/AIDS for each year. If you're interested, visit http://www.kff.org/hivaids/timeline/hivtimeline.cfm.

Sunday brunch

My favorite new thing in Rwanda is Sunday brunch with my expat coworkers. Today we met at eleven for a brunch of pancakes, eggs, bacon, fruit, juice and coffee on the patio of one of the houses. It was another beautiful day and the perfect to spend a few relaxing hours together between Sunday morning mass and an afternoon in the office.

Thieves and police

Yesterday became quite eventful as I had my first (and hopefully only) encounter with the Rwandan police. The entire experience was bizarre and shocking.

Around three o’clock, one of my friends and coworkers came to my house and told me that her cell phone had been stolen by a man who came to her house and pretended to be enrolled in a study at PSF. We decided to call the phone to see if anyone would answer, and, amazing, a man answered and demanded that my coworker pay him Rwf40,000 (US$80) for the phone. She, of course, refused, and we called the police. The police showed up at my house about an hour later and, after hearing my coworker’s story, assured us that they would have the phone back by Monday afternoon. I was certain we’d never see them, or the phone, again.

No more than two hours later, the police returned to my house, literally dragging the three men involved in the theft – the man who stole the phone, the man who bought the phone from him on the street and the commissioner of the deal – to my front porch. Everyone sat down at the table and an absurd conversation of English, French and Kinyarwanda ensued. In the end, my coworker identified the thief, he confessed and the phone was returned, but the man who bought the phone from the thief threw a fit because he had lost Rwf25,000 (US$50) in the deal. I might have felt sorry for him, were it not well known that phones purchased on the street in Kigali are stolen goods and had he not been the man with whom we spoke on the phone, who was demanding an even higher price from my coworker for her own stolen phone. Adding to that, we later found out that this man makes his living by buying and reselling stolen goods. I had no sympathy for him; but the police seemed on his side. It seems they promised him that he would be repaid if he provided information about the thief to them.

So now that my coworker’s phone was returned, the main issue was repaying Rwf25,000 to the man who bought the phone. The commissioner claimed to have received no money in the transaction, and the thief only had Rwf6,500 remaining from the deal. The policemen wanted everyone involved in the sale of the phone to come to the police station to give statements, but the man who bought the phone refused (probably knowing that he had no legitimate claim and, really, could be arrested himself), so everyone left, supposedly to resolve things “outside of the police station.”

This morning, my coworker called one of the policemen to find out about the resolution of the situation. The man calmly explained that the thief had given his Rwf6,500 to the man who bought the phone, as well as Rwf18,500 of heroin that he had in a matchbox in his pocket. And just like that, the commotion was over.

But I can’t decide what part of this story is the most absurd. Is it the fact that the police could actually track a stolen phone and return it? Or that they showed up at my house with the three guilty men in tow and we all sat on the front porch to discuss the incident? Or that the situation with the man who bought the phone was resolved by a thief handing over a matchbox of heroin to another criminal in a police station? It certainly leaves me with a mixed opinions of the justice system.