Camp #TechKobwa by Liz S.

 Liz S. 
Karongi District, Western Provinch


A couple weeks ago, I had the great pleasure in working at Camp TechKobwa, a camp designed to encourage girls to pursue interests in science and technology. The camp was the brain child of Ed3 volunteer, Lyla Fujiwara, but around 15 volunteers from around Rwanda contributed to the camp in some way. It was hosted at Gashora Girls Academy of Science and Technology in Bugesera District in the Eastern Province. 48 girls attended from 7 different schools, representing all 5 provinces and over 10 districts.

Zach and Joselyn oversee the lesson teaching Email and Internet security

 

The girls studied a range of subjects including computer basics, touch typing, email, internet and computer security, basic programming, circuits, excel, blogging, and photography. With the school's two computer labs, each girl could use her own computer - a first for many. With Rwanda's large class sizes, if a school has a computer lab, students often must share one computer between 2-4 students.

Elisabeth and Judi help students learn programming using Scratch

Each volunteer brought along an ICT teacher from his or her school. These teacher's were able to learn all the lessons during the Training of Trainers over the weekend preceding the camp and in turn helped their students master the lessons during the week. With their help, students can return to their schools and work with their ICT teacher to start a computer or media club to share what they've learned with other students. Additionally, with Peace Corps Volunteers, ICT teachers, and various Tech Experts that were invited to teach the lessons, the student to teacher ratio was often 3:1 or 4:1. Students received one on one attention to help them understand new concepts and master new skills on the computer.  

Two students engineers build their Quake Machine using LittleBits

Girls didn't just learn skills on the computer. They explored other aspects of science and technology as well. LittleBits, a company that makes a kind of electronic legos, donated several kits to the camp for the girls to use. Different pieces represent different parts of a circuit (battery, wire, dimmer, motor). Girls connected the pieces to create their own little machines. They then used the machines to run experiments and record data they then used to make a graph in excel. In a photography lesson, students got to play around with digital cameras. They learned about shutter speed and made their own "light painting" photo where they drew out the word of something they wanted to be in the future. Answers included (but certainly not limited to) journalist, doctor, nurse, singer and famous.

 

The first of two career panels. This one focused on women in the media.

 Throughout the week, the girls were supported not only by PCVs and their teachers, but also a number of Tech Experts and guest speakers. They learned how to create a gmail account from a man who worked for Google. They learned programming from a software designer and excel from a data analyst, both women working at Partners in Health. Our Public Relations Liaison, Akaliza Keza Gara, pictured above on the far right, (blogger, founded her own company, and works with female technology entrepreneurs across Rwanda) not only taught lessons but also served as Dorm Mama. She helped to find women entrepreneurs o serve as guest speakers. These women were writers, filmmakers, scientists, software developers, and many other things on the side. They provided insight, advice, and words of encouragement for girls as they pursue their own dreams.

A team of girls cheer on their teammate during the Field Day competition

 Girls had a lot of fun, too, in and outside of lessons. Everyday the girls could participate in different sports from basketball to frisbee. They played computer games and made paper machee piggy banks. They watched movies and did a lot of dancing. On the last day, there was a camp-wide competition between the 6 different groups. Through these activities, girls were encouraged to be LOUD - something Rwandan girls often struggle to do. We hope the girls not only learned about computers and technology, but also were empowered to speak out more in class, to participate more in their own learning, and not be afraid to have fun.
 

Volunteer Lauren stands with her students from T.T.C. Muramba proudly displaying their certificates

The camp was an amazing experience to be a part of and is one of the highlights of my service thus far. The girls seemed really excited and engaged, and you could see real pride in them by the end of the week. We hope many will continue to use what they learned back at their schools by starting clubs and encouraging the administration to promote the use of technology in their schools, especially for girls. And most importantly, we hope they had fun and feel proud of themselves and their accomplishments. They're an incredible bunch of girls!!

Speak Up! by Eliza F.

Eliza F.

 

Ruhango District, Southern Province

 

 Term 2 of the school year has (finally) come to an end. The last few days have been spent frantically marking papers and exams, calculating grades, and sitting in teacher meetings. I’m ready for the break. I have grand plans for the next two weeks – visiting other PCVs, reading some books, baking a chocolate cake, cleaning my jerry cans. But I also have started to and will continue to think critically about how to improve my teaching and my students’ learning during term 3.  

 

One of the largest challenges I want to tackle next term is the reticence of the girls in my classroom. I teach Senior 4, 5, and 6. In Senior 6, the second in the class is a girl, in Senior 4, the first. However, these two incredibly intelligent young women are totally silent during my lessons, as are most of their female peers.  Why? Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely quiet boys too, even ones who I know are following along and could answer my questions. But it's not to the extent that my girls remain silent. In Senior 4, my top student will sometimes whisper the answer but when I ask her to repeat her answer more loudly, she withdraws into herself. Of what is she really afraid?

Reflecting on this dilemma, I remember the fact that in high school, I was pretty quiet myself. I earned good grades but getting me to participate in class was like pulling teeth. Part of this had to do with the fact that I’m not an especially talkative person. But the other part, and the far more serious one, was that I didn’t want to risk making a mistake. Even in America, I felt that my reputation as being intelligent was more fragile because I was a girl. The best I could do was to protect that reputation by never taking chances in the classroom.

 

Now, as a teacher, I want my students to take the chances I didn't. Especially when studying a foreign language, refusing to participate is incredibly detrimental to your learning. I want my students to speak up! Some PCVs don't like to speak ikinyarwanda around their students, because, after all, we’re here in order to bring our native English speaking to the villages. This strategy is a good one and I understand its benefits. But I use another one- I regularly speak ikinyarwanda to my colleagues, headmaster, and students (outside of the classroom) with the hope that by allowing people to see me trying my best at their language (read: making a fool of myself), they’ll let their guard down and try speaking English.

I don’t know if this actually works but I do know that I REALLY try to make my students comfortable with making mistakes in front of me. But that won’t help the students who don’t have the courage to take risks. Because being a girl in a classroom does take courage, both in Rwanda and in the U.S. It’s not just about knowing the answer, it’s also about believing that people care about what you have to say, and that when you inevitably make a mistake, that you will still be respected by the people around you. Development workers, teachers, and society as a whole must support the voices and opinions of the girls and women in our world. We have to teach them that not only their “good” ideas are important to hear, but also their mistakes. That’s an awful lot for me to think about – I might not get around to cleaning my jerry cans after all.

National Gender Policy in Rwanda

Caitie G.

Kigali City, Kigali

 

Recently I had the opportunity to be a VAT (Volunteer at Training) for Pre-Service Training for the 5^th Health group to serve in Rwanda. In Peace Corps Rwanda it is common to have experienced volunteers spend a week at Pre-Service training facilitating technical trainings and sharing their experience. I’ve been in country for a year and three months now, which means one year down, and one to go.

While at training, I lead a session on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment. During the session a member of Peace Corps staff said something very interesting that reminded me of perspective, and the importance of maintaining a good perspective as a volunteer. The thing he said went something like this: the laws and policies have not always trickled down to the village level yet, but at least, at the national level, they are written and understood.

In the year that I have been here, I often lost sight of this, frustrated by the ever present gender imbalances, and overall patriarchal society system. But it is important to remember that Rwanda does have a National Gender Policy, they do know what gender equality is and have government offices promoting and creating gender equality daily. This has not trickled down to the village level, but it is a start.  

President of Rwanda Paul Kagame stated at the 63^rd United Nations General Assembly, New York, 2008: “With regards to empowering women and promoting their socio economic and political participation, we continue to make modest progress. We believe that, besides improving gender relations in our country, this marks healthy progress towards realizing our vision of a united, democratic, and prosperous Rwanda.”

I agree with this statement, and find it accurate on the national level.

I’d like to briefly review the National Gender Policy, specifically focusing on the Health and Education Policies for Gender Equality. Why those specifically? Health and Education are the two programs Peace Corps Rwanda has here, it is where volunteers are focused and can intervene. I find that volunteers are usually unaware of this information, or have forgotten it in the midst of village living. So as a reminder, here it goes.   

The National Gender Policy: is a tool that helps facilitate and obtain equal opportunities for women and men, girls and boys in all sectors.

-          The mission is to set society free from all gender based discrimination; for men and women to fully participate in all aspects of the development process

-          To eliminate all forms of gender inequalities in order to obtain sustainable development

The Education Policy within the National Gender Policy States:

All girls should have access to an education.

All women should have access to a catch up program for women who have  not completed their secondary school.

Schools should have gender sensitive mechanisms for the improvement of a quality education.

Increased participation of women in science and technology at all levels.

Education and Health overlaps within the Gender Policy:

No girl should be expelled from school because she is pregnant.

Girls should be allowed back to their schools after producing a baby.

Every school should have a room for girls to rest if they are on their periods.

Every school should have a room where girls can clean themselves, and change their sanitary pads while on their period.

Health Policy

Both men and women should have access to health facilities that have trained medical personnel, appropriate equipment and medical supplies.

Family Planning - Every woman and girl should have access to reproductive health services.

-          The reproductive health services should be gender sensitive and easily accessible to both women and men

-          Ensuring that women, men, girls and boys are provided with equal and correct knowledge, skills, and attitudes towards reproductive health

Women and men should have equal access to HIV information for prevention, treatment, and care of the victims with a special attention to women.

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Personally, as a volunteer I have never seen most of these things implemented in the villages. For example: every school should have a room where girls can clean themselves, and change their sanitary pads while on their period.  This did not exist where I was placed, and is a major problem. Girls wouldn’t come to school during that week because of the lack of hygienic resources. They would fall behind, and unfortunately the majority of the teachers were not sympathetic to this, and did not give them any resources to catch up.

But it is important to maintain perspective, and hold on to it. The National Policy, stemming from Vision 20/20 (a document of development goals Rwanda wishes to achieve by the year 2020), is what the government wants, hopes, and has implemented for its country. And government in Rwanda is serious and respected. These policies are opportunities for volunteers to pick up the missing pieces and links, between the national level and grassroots village level.  We can implement these policies in our villages and strive for gender equality on these fronts!

The parts I included in this post are very small portions of the Gender Policy.  To find out more about the Gender Policy click here for the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion's website. Also, the link to the Gender Monitoring Office here, and the National Women's Council here. For more information on the Government of Rwanda click here.

Lastly the Peace Corps's National Coordinator of GAD, Sarah Doyle, wrote a post on gender roles establishment resulting from the Genocide. Interested?  Click here.

What Now? by Sarah E.

Sarah Epplin
Eastern Province, Kirehe District

“Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected, how one decision leads you to another, how one twist of fate, good or bad, brings you to a door that later takes you to another door, which, aided by several detours-long hallways and unforeseen stairwells-eventually puts you in the places you are now. Every choice lays down a trail of bread crumbs, so that when you look behind you there appears to be a very clear path that points straight to the place where you now stand. But when you look ahead there isn’t a bread crumb in sight-there are just a few shrubs, a bunch of trees, a handful of skittish woodland creatures. You glance from left to right and find no indication of which way you’re supposed to go. And so you stand there, sniffing at the wind, looking for directional clues in the growth patterns of moss, and you think, ‘What now?’”

-What Now? By Ann Patchett

I have lived in Rwanda for just under 22 months. I have 4 months to go. The time I have spent here isn’t enough time to fully understand Rwandan culture or Rwandans. It’s enough time to take a glimpse. Twenty-six months of observations, conversations, boring days, exciting days, days full of waiting, days full of crying. Or hoping. Or just…trying.

I read this excerpt, sent to me by my oldest best friend, and I think back to my pre-Peace Corps days, the days when I was first researching the agency, the days when I was working to make my resume as professional as possible, the days when I was applying and waiting. I knew it was what I wanted and needed, and I felt called to be a Peace Corps Volunteer. I didn’t know exactly what I was getting myself into. I didn’t know my village yet, I didn’t know my future co-workers (my brothers whom I joke with about…everything), I didn’t know my future students (my girls who speak very candidly with me about their situations and their boy problems; my boys who imitate Chris Brown any chance they get), I didn’t know Samuel and Emelyne, my landlords (my older siblings who look out for me and listen to my Kinyarwanda patiently, understanding what I mean even if I don’t exactly know how to express it). I didn’t know much of anything about Rwanda. I look behind in my path and I see those bread crumbs – those conversations and interactions that led me to open each door that eventually led me to this place – and I am thankful. What I now know about where I am has enriched my life and changed my perceptions forever.

The most notable lessons that I’ve learned have occurred when I wasn’t looking for them, as if I opened a door, leading to a straight hallway, but then it took a sharp curve and I found myself seeing and hearing and feeling something that took me by surprise, took me on a new course of action.

One of those moments happened 15 days ago.

One of my students, Chantal, visited me. I thought she was just going to drop off an assignment to me, but she lingered, wanting to see my family photographs. We got to talking, and she, in her nearly perfect English, told me her life story.

She’s a 15 year-old orphan, who lives with her 80-year-old grandmother with her two brothers. They live in extreme poverty in very bad living conditions, sometimes going three days without food. They do everything they can to survive, so Chantal’s older brother has sacrificed his education, quitting school to find work.

These few facts tell you just a smidgen about who Chantal is. Chantal is at the top of her class. Three years ago, she received the highest score in the Eastern Province on the P6 National Examination. She speaks English at a higher capacity than most teachers at my school. Chantal has confidence. She has no fear, coming up to me or any of the other teachers, asking for clarification about a lesson. She has respect for her fellow students, not letting her high test scores attribute to a big ego.

She very humbly told me her story, speaking about her struggles of not being able to afford $5 shoes or of not having enough money to regularly shave her head.

I listened, and my heart ached for her, spoke loudly for her.

Peace Corps Volunteers have these moments, when we’re witnessing something or hearing about something and our whole bodies scream, “SOMEBODY HELP ME FIX THIS PROBLEM.” Most of the time, the problem isn’t fixable. It’s beyond us in some way, much like knowing that one person can’t snap their fingers and bring World Peace or End World Hunger or Cure HIV/AIDS.

But in this moment, with my student Chantal, something different happened. I remembered a school, called Gashora Girls Academy. Google it. Pretty remarkable, am I right?

It’s a possibility for Chantal. There are essays to write, financial aid forms to fill out, term 3 of the school year to finish, and a S3 National Exam to be had. Knowing that she has a good chance and knowing that I can help her get into this school has my body screaming, “PLEASE. THIS HAS GOT TO HAPPEN.” If she gets into this school, she will undoubtedly continue her education. She won’t have to drop out of school like her older brother did. And once she finishes secondary school, the chances she will have will be limitless. I see her potential futures in my mind. I see those breadcrumbs going from this eastern valley to the highest peaks in Rwanda. I see her closing the door to her grandmother’s dirt floored house and opening one to an office. With a view. And a desk. With her name on it. 

The Hope of Students by Eliza F.

Eliza F.



Ruhango District, Southern Province

 

Hi, my name is Eliza Foster and I’m the third new member of GAD from Education 4. I live in what is known as “the melted land” which, though it sounds like yet another sequel to “The Land Before Time”, is in fact a hot but lovely area in the Southern Province where I get to teach English to Senior 4, 5, and 6.

This past Friday was my village’s “Day of Remembrance.” All the schools in my sector gathered together to remember the victims of the 1994 genocide – we brought flowers to the mass grave, we read the names of the teachers and students who had been killed, community leaders gave speeches, and students recited poetry.  As I’m sure the other Rwanda Peace Corps Volunteers have experienced, it was one of those moments in your service when you are amazed at and challenged by how wholly welcomed you are into such an intensely personal day in your community.

At one point in the day’s ceremonies, I sat among a large group of teachers, parents and leaders to listen to music, a Catholic mass, and speeches.  Sitting or standing on the field across from us were roughly 800 students, mostly from nearby primary schools.

What struck me most on Friday was not what I heard of Rwanda’s past, but what I saw in its future. So many students! I found myself looking at the faces of the children in their school uniforms and could not help but be overwhelmed by a feeling of optimism for this country’s future, both in general and in terms of gender equality. I saw at least an equal number of female students as male (if not more) and thought about how much progress had already been made in educating the youth of Rwanda. Yes, there are still many issues concerning education here. Kids still miss too much school due to sickness, responsibilities at home, hindering fees, and the distance of schools from their homes, among other issues. I know in my upper secondary school where my students focus on history, economics, and geography, all their notes are in English in which they are far from fluent. However, despite the host of issues the country needs to address, more and more children are receiving an education – both boys and girls.

Participating in grassroots development is frustrating and I have countless stories that reflect the persistence of gender inequality, but I also have stories of my students articulately discussing family planning and gender balance, of teachers making sure that an equal number of boys and girls participate in any given event, and of women taking on key leadership roles.

As Caitlan mentioned in her post last week, education is such a powerful tool of empowerment for marginalized people around the world, from America’s inner-cities to the villages in which Peace Corps Volunteers are serving. Seeing those children listening on the field and hearing thirteen of my own students speaking to the ideas of dignity, tolerance, and self-reliance in front of nearly a thousand people, I was swept up in the hope that is very much present in the discourse on development in this country. I DO believe there will be great and rapid progress in Rwanda. I believe it because I see the creativity, thoughtfulness and drive needed for such advancement alighting in the hearts and minds of the students in my community.

Gender in Marriage by Caitlan S.

Caitlan S.

Rusizi District, Western Province

Before I begin, let me introduce myself. I’m Caitlan and I’m another newly elected GAD representative from Ed 4. My husband and I, Luke, live in the southwest corner of Rwanda, known by most as the G’ug, known by all as Rusizi. My husband and I both teach Senior 2 (eighth grade) English along with Creative Performance. We have served for 8 months now in Rwanda.

Currently there are only two married couples serving in Rwanda, and being one of those, I tend to focus more on what is happening in marriages in Rwanda and how both women and men feel about their place in a marriage.

The other day one of my fellow female teachers visited another community where a health volunteer lives. They had a brief conversation about Luke and I and within that conversation the teacher kept asking questions about our marriage. “Why don’t they have children?” “When will they have children?” “How many children will they have?” “Will they have children in Rwanda?”

As one can imagine, there are still strictly defined gender roles within a marriage. A man is expected to work a job that provides for his family. Sometimes wives work too, I know of three in our school that are married and teach. But a wife is also expected bear children as soon as possible, raise the children, cook for the family, clean, wash clothes, and go to the market.

What is interesting to me is how women, both married and single, perceive me in Rwanda. Most, if not all of the teachers, know we can’t have children in Peace Corps, I have worked hard to explain how we have work and projects to do here and if we have children that would make our jobs much more difficult and we would not have the time to give to our community like we do now. Yet, obviously, women are still confused about our choice to wait.

When it comes to gender and development we try to expand the minds of both men and women to help them see that there are other forms of gender roles, different ways to accomplish things, new methods of running a household, and better ways to treat the opposite sex. So many times I can get caught up in this spirit of change and development for women, but it’s moments like this one last week that make me realize that women are not even questioning their roles at times. The women I work with are content with their place in society and can’t even comprehend my choices.

The question remains, how do we encourage women to think outside of social norms, to imagine the possibility of new gender roles in marriage? How do we start that change in gender roles in marriage?

The only answer I have so far is education. I can educate my colleagues by continuing to show how my husband and I interact, educate through open and honest conversations, and to explain how every marriage is different in America. Whether or not it is in a classroom I believe education is the key for gender and development. 

What I want to see most during my service here is for at least one women to realize things can be done differently, there is no one way.  I think when women and men can finally begin to imagine a new paradigm of gender then that is when we will see a change in gender roles within Rwanda.

"Education in general has[sic]...wide ranging beneficial effects of the demographic, social, and economic development patterns of a nation." - Kenneth Hadden and Bruce London

Boys and Their Forks by Liz S.

Liz S.
Karongi District, Western Province

First of all, I want to begin by introducing myself. My name is Liz, and I have been working as an education volunteer in Karongi District in the West. I am one of the three newest members to the GAD committee from Education 4.

I am still learning more every day about how gender is constructed in Rwandan society and how that manifests itself in Rwandans’ lives. I was particularly struck by Saara’s description of what it means to be a woman in Rwanda – that expectations for women’s success are low which therefore leads to an inferior sense of self-worth. I have found this to be true among many of my female colleagues and friends. But it also poses the question for me of what it means to be a man in Rwanda, which so far I have associated with a sense of entitlement. My male colleagues expect to be served first, to have first choice of seating, to be given a chair when there is limited seating, etc.

Dynamics between men are comically illustrated for me every night at dinner with the fork. I live in a compound with the (male) director Frodouard, the (male) bursor and 2^nd in command Jack, another (male) teacher Muhire, and our (female) librarian Jolie. I share dinner with some combination of them and other teachers who drop by on occasion. We have 5 or 6 forks of varying quality. 4 are the same super cheap forks but with varying degrees of being bent out of shape. Then there’s the fork of slightly higher quality and remains unbent but still relatively cheap and crappy. Finally, there’s the cream of all fork crops. It’s sturdy, durable, too heavy to be bent and clearly of finer quality than the other forks. The boys always want the good fork, but the power dynamics at any given dinner determine who gets it.

At a normal lunch, it’s me with Muhire and Jolie. Muhire always takes the good fork without question. When Jack is in town, it changes Muhire’s behavior. At the beginning of the year, Muhire would hold off to see if Jack took the fork first, allowing Jack, the superior in age, marital status, and job position, to take it if he wanted but leaving the option open for Muhire to still have the fork. After a couple weeks, Jack realized Muhire really wanted the fork, and Jack being confident in his masculinity (or not caring which fork he eats with because….it’s a fork) graciously cedes the fork to Muhire, taking the 2nd or 3rd quality fork for himself. When Erneste, the animateur, comes over, he not only doesn’t live in the compound, his younger age and lower position within the school means he usually shares a fork and plate with whoever finishes earliest, and that person never has the good fork. In other words, the lowest of fork lows. The first time the director came, though, he didn’t even flinch before grabbing the good fork before Muhire or Jack could even think about it, therefore securing his place as the school’s top dog. Jolie, who happens to be a woman and the youngest staff member at the school, almost always takes the worst fork, severely bent out of shape, along with the cracked plate as well.

For me, as funny as it is to witness this play out every night, it shows in a simple but clear way the power dynamics and expectations between men of varying statuses and women’s interactions with this system. Men use a variety of characteristics – be it age, occupation, marital status, etc. to size each other up and decide who comes out on top – who gets the good fork. Women don’t seem to be a part of this power grab, but nor do they see the benefits as attainable or applicable to them. Even when Jolie and I are alone and I offer her the good fork, she doesn’t take it. She still takes the sad, bent fork for herself and on one occasion even said, “The broken fork for the broken person.”

I see gender development as two-fold. We must empower women to expect more of themselves and their abilities – empower women to go for the good fork and to feel that they deserve it. But we must always engage men in the conversation. How do Rwandan conceptions of masculinity also constrain and construct men’s lives? How can we facilitate partnerships and cooperation among the genders to create a more equal and beneficial system for all involved? In other words, can we change the game so that men don’t have to constantly jockey for the only good fork, and women have the chance to actually grasp it? Can we help create a world where everyone has a good fork?

I hope so, and I look forward to working with this committee to make a dent (no pun intended).

A Perfect Smile by Sarah E.

Sarah E.
Eastern Province, Kirehe District

Every Peace Corps Volunteer has their reasons for wanting to live 27 months away from home. One of mine was to get away from fast-paced technology, to slow down a little bit. While the internet offers all the information in the world, a way to know exactly what you want to know when, I was interested in what life would be like without the constant communication. I didn’t know then what I know now: that fate always has something in store for you, and that connections can exist before they’re even made.

When I applied for Peace Corps in August 2010, I requested sub-Saharan Africa as my future home, and that, even, wasn’t guaranteed by Peace Corps. Peace Corps puts an applicant where they’re best seen fit, where their qualifications match the needs of a country. I waited and waited some more, and in July 2011, I learned that I would call Rwanda my home. 

After three months in training, I moved to my village in the Eastern Province, and on my first day of teaching, I noticed a girl who sat in the front row. I had about 50 students in each class I taught, and it took me months to learn all their names, but I learned her name within the first week: Francine. She’s a small girl with quiet confidence. When I said a joke to the class, she’d giggle to herself as opposed to out loud. Because she sat in the front row, I often borrowed her notebooks and pens to demonstrate new vocabulary, dropping them on the floor or tearing a piece of paper out. I borrowed her things so often, that when I approached her desk, she’d have something ready for me to grab, handing it to me. Her personality reminded me of myself, 12 years earlier: quiet, polite, and a little nervous. Francine has a cleft lip. Err…had a cleft lip.

Operation Smile came to Rwanda a year ago, but at the time, I had internet problems, so I couldn’t connect with them. Another PCV informed me that Operation Smile was coming again this year, so she gave me information about the dates and location. I connected with a member of the Operation Smile team through Peace Corps Rwanda and was able to get more information about who is selected to get the surgeries. I then met with my school headmaster and Francine, to discuss the possibility of her going to Kigali. She said she was interested, so we kept up communication with her father. During these conversations, her father became more and more excited – to the point that he said I could call Francine my child. I shook his hand a few dozen times – his happiness infectious.  While in Kigali, their food and lodging would be provided by Operation Smile. I knew their family was poor – both of Francine’s parents are farmers – so I gave them the money needed for Francine and one parent to travel to Kigali and return to our village: the equivalent of $25. The best $25 I’ve ever spent.

Francine being chosen for surgery was likely because she had an unrepaired cleft lip, Operation Smile’s first priority. After Francine left for Kigali, I felt like I was playing the waiting game, hoping that her and her father weren’t going to be disappointed. Five days passed, during which time I told my landlady about what was happening. She confirmed the name with me, and told me that just a year and a half before, Francine’s father was one of the constructors of my house! This house, which was being built around the time I received my invitation to serve in Rwanda. I knew in that moment: when my recruiter and placement officer placed me in Rwanda, and when Peace Corps selected me to serve in this village, it was all meant to happen. It may be easy to find mutual friends on Facebook and discover how small a world it is online, but when you’re put in the middle of nowhere and “the real world” can seem so far away, those bonds that form through no force of will on your own but through the actions of fate are meant to be.

I continued to wait for news, and then one of my fellow PCVs, volunteering for Operation Smile for the week, called me to give me the good news: Francine was chosen!

I’d like to give a shout out to the people of Operation Smile for doing what they do. In this global world of ours, it is nice to get away from it all, but it’s also nice to use connections to give people what they deserve: a perfect smile.

Since her surgery and returning to school, I’ve visited with Francine and her family. Here are a few photographs:

Francine is in the middle, wearing her school uniform. She is surrounded by her family.

Francine's father with one of their cows.

Me with Francine and her parents.

Francine's father with their other cow.

International Women’s Day

Whitney Goldman

Health 3 - Nyaruguru District

On March 8th, Rwanda joined the ranks of many other countries is supporting International Women’s Day.  Throughout the country, District, Sector, and Cell offices held special events and speeches in celebration. 

Scouring the internet for some good old fashioned news and articles, I came across a few  things I found interesting and want to share:

- The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day at http://www.internationalwomensday.com... The Gender Agenda: Gaining Momentum.

- The World Economic Forum’s best places for women using their rank in gender gap (according to health and survival, access to education, political empowerment, and economic participation) in order from 1-10: Iceland, Finland,  Norway, Sweden, Ireland, New Zealand, Denmark,  Philippines/Nicaragua, Switzerland.

 - An excerpt from remarks from Michelle Bachelet, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women at the International Women’s Day Commemorative Event 

            “If we act with courage, conviction and commitment, we can change violence against            women from being the most pervasive violation of human rights to being a rare occurrence that is considered unacceptable and no longer tolerated. Each one of us has responsibility and duty to act.”

While she goes on to talk about the role of the Member States of the United Nations, I think it’s nice to end the point here.  Period. 

Read the full transcript here 

- The UN’s official “One Woman” song.  Did you miss it?  If so, you can listen to the song here

- Current Peace Corps volunteers by gender: 62% female, 38% male.  Find more fun facts about Peace Corps here 

 - An interesting point from  Zillah Eisenstein in her article International Women’s Day: New challenges ahead
             “On this Day, let us reject the idea of "unity" as "oneness" and rather understand that women's power lies in her diverse unity. Feminists of all sorts have written of "diverse commonality" and "common differences" for years. And it may also be the case that women are now more diverse than they have ever been given newly formed economic disparities across the globe.”

The full article can be found here

I hope you all had a wonderful March 8th, no matter where you were or how you chose to celebrate.