Three hopes, by Sarah E.

Sarah Epplin

Education 3 -- Kirehe District, Eastern Province

Three hopes.

Every Peace Corps Volunteer encounters social differences that rock to their core. Many of my fellow female volunteers comment on difficult conversations and situations they are involved in due to their sex. All of us try to put a positive spin on them, out of the hope that a few words or an action will put a new idea into the minds of our neighbors, friends, and coworkers at site. Planting a seed, you could say. I will tell the stories of three difficult conversations I’ve had and the hopes that follow them.

During the first three months in Rwanda, I lived with a host family. I lived with a mom, dad, two sisters (11 and 17), and a brother (12). I won’t go into details, but toward the end of my stay, my host brother did something to me that was disrespectful and wrong. I was told that for his punishment, he would be beaten and taken to the church to give his confession. I told the family that I didn’t want him to be beaten. I wanted to talk with him. I sat in the sitting room with my Kinyarwanda dictionary in my lap. When he came into the room, he knelt on the floor (this is typical punishment as someone in Rwanda is giving you a “talking to”). I told him that I wanted to know his reason for disrespecting me. He said, “Satan is evil.” I told him that wasn’t his reason – that he must understand he has his own mind and brain. Over and over again, his only response was “Satan is evil.” That, to me, was not acceptable. So I told him how I felt. I had lived with them for nearly three months. I tried my best to me a good Rwandan – to dress like a Rwandan because I wanted to respect the culture, to speak in Kinyarwanda, and so on. And then he decides to make his own decision that affects me, that disrespects me. I told him that it wasn’t okay and that “Satan is evil” is not his reason, that his own mind made the decision. I ended the scolding when he started to cry. I noticed, then, the look on Deanne’s face. She was my 11 year old host sister. She was polite and did everything she was told. She was the most loyal and sweet girl I’d ever met. But the look on her face after I’d just scolded her brother was priceless. She looked as though a whole new world had been opened up. That she learned she could speak her mind and say how she felt. I’ve never regreted scolding her brother out of the hope that she’ll always stand up for herself and ask for the reasons.

During my first few weeks at site, I spent a lot of time in cafes, talking with people and eating keke. Most of the conversations centered around my marital status – people just couldn’t get how a 23-year-old girl was single…and wanted to be single. During one of these conversations, a man in his 40s walked into the café, sat down, and listened. He interrupted the conversation and asked me, “When do you want to get married?” I told him I didn’t know. Everyone laughed, as I’d expected. He then asked how old I was. I told him. Then he said in a super matter-of-fact tone, “When a Rwandan girl is 21, she wants a husband.” So then I said, “I’m American. In America, we think you should get married when you have love. God likes love, so it is good. If you are 18, 20, 30, 50, not a problem. You can get married when you have love.” And to that, he shut up. When I glanced around, hoping I hadn’t offended anyone terribly, I made eye contact with an old lady (who holds the epitome of Rwandan culture and respect), who had been quiet the entire time. She smiled at me and nodded her head. If the old lady agrees with me, I thought, then I guess I’m not so crazy in this culture afterall! My hope was that little seeds had been planted in all their minds, especially the man’s, to slowly begin to think that marriage isn’t the only option for a girl who is 21.

A fellow teacher at my school asked me questions about American culture that interested him. He asked me about the relationship between husbands and wives in America. (Generally, I try to paint the picture as accurate as possible – like saying, “Some Americans think…but other Americans think…and so on.”) I said that Americans believe that women and men are equal, so in a home, for example, the wife may cook dinner one night but the husband may cook dinner the next night. Then he said, “Americans think that women and men are the same. What about with strength? Women are not stronger than men. Women cannot build. Women cannot farm.” I laughed at this and told him that I think some Rwandan women are stronger than men, as I see many women every day working on their fields for maybe 12 hours and then I see their husbands drinking all day. He seemed startled by my response, but then he asked me how to become a western man. I said that all he needs to do is say to his wife, “Wife, I love you. I want to help you. Teach me how to cook boiled bananas.” And then once he learns, he can cook them for her. I was frustrated by this conversation for a few days, but now I’m glad it happened out of the hope that maybe he asked his wife how to cook boiled bananas.

Women are great, by Caitlyn G.

Caitlyn Griffith

Education 2 -- Kayonza District, Eastern Province

Women are great.

I mean come on, its just true.

When I look into the shockingly beautiful faces of the women here I just know in my core that it’s true. When I see a thin woman carrying a 50 L Jerrycan of water on her head with a baby on her back and a sack of potatoes at her side I know that strength comes from a different place than muscles. When I listen to my friend talk about how, after being impregnated by her teacher in her first year of high school, she never wants to marry but rather to continue raise her child herself and get a job in business, all the while smiling and laughing, I know that joy can come from a place other than your circumstances. Women are the embodiment of paradoxes, of strength and joy and sadness and passion and exhaustion all mingling together in an encasement of beauty.

Rwandan women are amazing. In the village, they literally do everything. They cook, clean, farm, bear, birth and raise children, they run informal businesses, and see their children through school. They are amazing.

Rwanda, like many developing countries (and developed ones too) has a long history of unequal gender roles. Girls education, women’s involvement in politics, in formal business and as leaders with a voice are all still fairly new ideas. These ideas take time to reach out to the village where old habits, customs and cultures die hard and men are reluctant to relinquish their power.

This can be hard to watch at times. Especially because oftentimes Rwandans don’t see it. The government talks about gender equality a lot and so many people just assume that now they have it. They see girls in school (though fewer than boys with lower scores on average) and women on TV or the radio and assume there is equality. But even though there is great progress being made there are still some frustratingly entrenched ideas persisting here. For example a girl is not a woman until she is married while there is a special word for young man and also a boy can become a man by virtue of age while a girl’s womanhood is directly connected to her husband. People here call my fiancé Joe my boss, which is completely normal. Many of my friends call their husbands “Boss.” Also, women are often called upon to be the servants at people’s parties so that the men never have to get up but can have a woman continually refill their beer. And in the home women are distinctly below their husbands’ rule.

Needless to say, things need to change. And things are changing, just very very slowly. The tricky thing about change is that you can’t just run out in front of a man sitting and drinking beer while his wife cleans, cooks, cares for kids and refills his cup and wave your arms to say “STOP STOP! ARE YOU CRAZY!? Things have to CHANGE!” No. You have to be patient, ask pointed questions, plant seeds, draw people’s attention to the inconsistencies and injustices, and ENCOURAGE people to greatness. You can’t tell people they are wrong with aggression. You have to help them see that and come to their own conclusions. You have to encourage them to be better, to think larger, to act consciously.  If you make people angry and defensive the change will not be positive.

I love to do this exercise with my students. I ask them to draw a table with two parts: one for gender equality and one for inequality. Then I ask them to consider some places in their communities that they can identify equality and where they can identify inequality. Often, even with all the rhetoric regarding gender balance that you hear here, no one has ever thought about their communities critically. That is a perfect place to start. And not just in Rwanda. Change will not happen naturally. All of us need to be constantly looking at our lives and our communities identifying areas of injustice. I never, however, leave the exercise at that. I ask the students to make a list of practical things THEY CAN DO to address the inequalities on their table. Then we make and action plan. Because change can’t happen without actions-thousand small actions slowly chipping away at a structure of oppression until equality, freedom and unity is birthed forth in its place. This may sound overly optimistic but I live it out every day. And so to dozens of women and men in my community. 

So optimistic yes, but overly….never.

In the name of change,

In the name of women everywhere,

cg

Girls Hub Rwanda by Hope L

Hope Lewis

Education 2 -- Rutsiro District, Western District 

Girls Hub, a new organization located in Kigali, opened March 2011 with a focus on empowering young Rwandan women.   The organization has two pillars of government: first, the goal to reduce the population growth rate and, to give better basic health education to some of the poorest populations in Rwanda. 

Girls Hub has three programs.  The first is a health program for all Rwandan girls 12 years and older.  The second is a partnership with Nike Foundation and Rwanda Government Ministry of Health which offers a 10 month group learning experience that focuses on the dangers of adolescent pregnancy, knowing your body and HIV/STIs prevention as well as how to say “No” to sugar daddies and sugar mommies.  Lastly, they have created a magazine “Ni Nyampinga” and a radio programme of the same name that runs by girls for girls.

Girls Hub believes, as many international organizations now believe, women are the key to alleviating poverty and spurring development in countries worldwide.  Investing in a girl stops poverty before it starts.  Their mission is to empower girl’s to have their own voice and create impact at scale.  They also champion girl’s roles to influence decision maker’s actions.  Girls Hub hopes to help girls manager their reproduction health and encourages their participants to make more informed economic and social decisions.  They believe that girls who stay healthy, don’t get pregnant, and stay in school can lead very productive adult lives and can have immeasurable amounts of impact in their communities.

With a quality education and these resources, the girls of Rwanda will have a bright future both for themselves and for the development of their country.   

Reflections by Jeff M.

Jeff Monsma
Education 2 -- Kamembe District, Southern Province
fun fact: Jeff lives the farthest and hottest part of Rwanda near the Congo border. We see once in a blue moon.

Muzungu! Muzungu! The high pitched cries float through the air and dust off my shoulders, mixing with the other debris in our moto’s wake. The driver and I laugh, as this is the fourth time children have braved the murky morning air to call attention to my already obvious presence. What the driver doesn’t know is that this is a step up for me when it comes to the oblivious prejudice of the pint-sized. I have been visiting another volunteer over the school break and am just beginning the trek back to oz. There, in my town and surrounding area, due to exposure to visiting Chinese factory workers throughout the years, any patch of white skin is greeted with a disharmonic chorus of umushinwa! (Chinese person!) And while I hold nothing against anyone with Far Asian ancestry, my decidedly Aryan looks have roots just a few degrees closer to the Prime Meridian. Despite my best efforts over the past sixteen months, children still scream at, and some grown men still greet—in Chinese, which they cannot possibly speak—the 6’4”, blond, long-faced Asian walking towards them. A friend and I have joked that if a pandemic of open-mindedness ever breaks out, some of the children in our areas will be invaluable in concocting the antidote.

            My brain calls my mind back to the task at hand as the driver picks his way through a patch of puddles. Successfully navigated, we continue on, blurring banana trees, mud houses, bush fences, and eucalyptus trunks into an ever-moving earthen stew. The sun continues to rise, bringing the mists with it, as we head down into the valley. Climbing up the other side, a small town slides by and the driver acknowledges some acquaintances. I join in the drive-by greeting and a few more muzungu calls fly out of young mouths. I respond to them, as I usually do while on the ephemeral social experience that is a moto ride, with a wave and as ridiculous a face as I can make. This often results in fear, delight, or some combination of the two. The wheels roll on and my mind turns with them.

            Unbidden, an image of Louis Armstrong pops into my head, eyes and smile wide, frighteningly similar to my own facial expression a few minutes earlier, and minutes before that. Am I some sort of warped, twenty-first century, international Uncle Tom? The idea smacks the wind in its face and stills the rushing air. True, there is no extended 400 year history of pain and racial polarization behind my actions, but there is still history, negative and racial. Well, what history is not negative from some angle? Glory does not, can not, exist in a vacuum. There is, I hope, no highly unbalanced power relationship between myself and the Rwandans I meet, but are my actions some sort of power play? No, I decide, as Billie Holiday’s perspective on Satchemo joins the image of Armstrong’s tomming, “Of course Pops toms, but he toms from the heart.” In any other situation, I would act the same, and have made the same faces to countless American children of various races. I haven’t put on any face that is not my own, have put on no chalky powder in some sort of minstrelsy nightmare. Hell, I didn’t even put on sunscreen. And yet, perception is a reality held in the eye of the beholder. We control others’ perceptions of ourselves insofar as we display the parts of ourselves that we want them to see. Once that image leaves our consciousness and enters theirs, it becomes something else entirely, and begins to catalogue itself in the mind of the observer. It gets kicked around by their own past experiences—direct and indirect, real and imagined—prejudices, and biases—both positive and negative. This social hardware, which enables all of us to navigate the human world around us efficiently and intelligently, immediately goes to work and churns out the appropriate response in milliseconds. Yep, fear, delight, or some combination of the two.

            We reach the main road, tracing fading fingers of mud on the asphalt. Considering the conditions, brought on by a downpour that pounded out a bebop tempo on the roof a few hours before, the ride went smoothly. We only stopped once, to clean the mud trapped under the front fender. My friend’s moto flags down a passing bus and we make a seamless transition in transportation, leaving two thousand francs and our thanks behind. We board the bus and grab the two empty seats in the back. Ironic.

            I actually like the back seats, and not out of any retrospective Rosa Parks solidarity. You can sometimes eek out an extra centimeter of leg room, and you can watch everyone else in the bus, a welcome inversion to always being watched. In a few high school and college classrooms, we used to toss around the phrase “a credit to the race.” I understood the concept, the implications, the reasons why the NAACP chose its champions carefully (Ms. Parks wasn’t the first black, nor the first black woman, to stand up and sit down). I knew, but I didn’t know what I was talking about. I’m beginning to realize that knowledge and knowing are not the same thing, barely even synonyms. Looking back on my Peace Corps interview, I see it more and more as a selection of the “credits to the country,” choosing people who will, to the best of their ability, continually put their best face forward. It’s our job to be the best people we can be, from the minute my thirteen-year-old surrogate son knocks on the door and wakes me up at 6:00 in the morning to the last goodbye given to my favorite family, after they’ve accompanied me on the twenty minute walk back to my house, sometimes as late as ten o’clock at night. I can tell you right now, I’ve failed. I’ve had off days, slipped here and there, I’m human. But hopefully in that failure, there’s success. I’m not a poster, picture, or character in a movie. I’m here and I’m alive. And I’m me, from the heart, goofy-faced, loud-laughed, and all. And yes, I have a never before seen amount of arm hair.

            As my time here increases, I realize that the credit I lend extends to the various corners of my identity: country, race, gender. Gender. I hope I’m a credit to my gender, more than any of my other facets. As a male, I know I only have a second hand experience, an understanding, of the true nature of gender relations here. I catch glimpses, observe, but I don’t have a living knowledge of the imbalance of power. Still, I do what little things I can (along with some more overt measures. The boys’ team was less than pleased about being kicked off the court for girls’ basketball practice.) I’ll continue to cook and clean my own house, and when a random soldier passing by comes to the door, puts his fists to his chest in a vomit-inducing approximation of breasts, and says, “when you have a wife, you won’t do this anymore,” I tell him that I will, in fact, continue to do all of it. When another passerby catches wind that I have a sister and immediately asks that I give her to him in marriage, I (get a little angry and) tell them she’s not mine to give and the fact that you think she is means you have no shot. A friend and I continually discuss how great, and unattainable, fluency in Kinyarwanda would be, but I hope these men still come away with some understanding of their own. When I’m out in my community, or anyone else’s, I do my best to genuinely greet women, and use their names if I know them, if only to see their face light up in a split-second reflection of my own sincerity. I have bad days in this area too, but that’s all the more reason to pile on as many good ones as I can before I leave.

            Four wheels spin under us now, singing at a slightly different pitch, which will continue to vary as the road rises and falls, twists and moves. In another ten hours, I’ll be home, in that tiny corner that is not a foreign country, and I am not (always) a foreigner, where the kids run toward me, stopping their legs only when their arms are wrapped around my knees, screaming my name.