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| View of Kigali from a distance |
Last night we visited the Hotel des Mille Collines, the site of the movie Hotel Rwanda. We stood outside on the sidewalk for quite some time reflecting on the changes Rwanda has undergone in the last 16 years. The street outside the hotel, just 16 years ago, was filled with bodies as returnees entered the city to begin the road to restoration. We lingered a bit too long, and an armed guard walked past and gave us a long warning stare, his rifle slung across his chest. The hotel now has been completely overhauled- most likely an effort to visually distance itself from the past. The pool again functions as a recreational site, rather than a last-resort water source. The view from the hotel is beautiful- a stunning overlook of the city below. It’s hard to imagine the refugees contained in that hotel had such a dramatic view of the city burning during the genocide. For some reason, I had it in my head that the hotel was isolated, and that’s what save them; but, it’s right in the center of the city.
The taxi ride home was interesting. It took some haggling with the driver, who wanted to charge us double the city prices because we were foreign and exiting the fancy hotel. We actually had to walk away and threaten to walk through the dark to the nearest taxi stand before he gave in. At the last leg of the drive, as we were pulling up to the house, he asked my professor, “Flash me!” Fits of giggles ensued after we realized he wanted her to “call him” on his cell phone so we’d have each others’ numbers in case we needed a driver one day– it seems to be common practice because they can make good money as daily drivers for foreign guests.
We met this morning with an NGO called Avega that works to assist women who were the victims of rape during the genocide. Interestingly, the newest problem that has arisen that they’ve addressed is the children of the rape who are now reaching 16 years old and beginning to ask questions about their identity. Up until recently, these children were not beneficiaries of genocide-related programs, but with much lobbying, Avega now has the resources to help these families cope with their painful past and help these children fund education to improve their lives. There’s alot of really important work happening in these women’s grassroots organizations throughout the country.
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| Kigali Institute of Education Center for Gender and Culture |
Late this morning, we finally got a call back from the Ministry of Health contact involved with the mHealth initiative that I’m currently studying. He invited us to his office and we met with him in the late afternoon. His deadpan face and staunch resistance to providing us data gave me little hope that we’d get anywhere. I pretty much had shut down during the first part of the meeting. But my noble professor pressed on, and assured him we wouldn’t just steal his data and run. I showed him a bit of my draft model running on the computer (little pregnant triangles running around having babies– a different approach to analyzing effectiveness of medical initiatives) and he simply stared at it until, after a grueling five minutes or so, the model finished running. He maintained his deadpan stare, made us assure him that this study would NOT be part of my dissertation, and then asked us to write a proposal and submit it to him by Thursday so we could meet again Friday to discuss where to go from here. Break through!! The process here is very bureaucratic, and he tried to insist that our government would be equally reluctant to share information with academics. We assured him that was not the case, but he rightfully seemed weary. I’m hoping to make some impressions with a proposal that I put together with my professor tonight and tomorrow, so that we might really move forward with this project. He’s a bit reluctant because the mHealth initiative is in its pilot stages, but there’s alot of opportunity for productive academic work here that ultimately could improve the lives of women in rural areas. 
Tomorrow is a national holiday: National Women’s Day. It’s wonderful that this developing country can put so much stock in gender equality, but we face our own struggles in bringing this conference to fruition. We learned today that “gender studies” is okay, but the government finds “feminism” to be a dirty word. This is puzzling in a country with the highest representation (almost 50%) of women in parliament in Africa. We’ve run into a bit of a government censorship issue with our paper presentations- luckily mine is completely supportive of Rwanda’s health initiatives, which are a model for developing countries, but some of the topics are too sensitive for government support. Tomorrow will be spent adjusting them…