This entry will take you back through yesterday– I’ll save today’s adventures for the next post.
So, the morning started by heading down the hill from our host family’s house to the Rwanda Red Cross where Operation Smile was reading off the names of all the children who’d come from the countryside to Kigali to have cleft palettes and lips repaired. I actually found this whole encounter far more traumatizing than the genocide memorial– as bad as that may sound. Of all the potential candidates there, only half would fit in the one week the doctors would be available to work on them. The calling of the names meant that half those kids, with cleft lips like I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams, would not get the surgery that would help them integrate better into their communities. It was heart breaking.
We didn’t stick around for the whole thing, and I ended up sitting on the hillside behind the event talking to two of the translators because I couldn’t handle the drama. About halfway through the name-calling, we headed off to Kibuye, which is situated in a tiny paradise on the lake that separates Rwanda and the DRC. I know I’m unlucky– I mentioned before that our vehicle broke down on the way to the safari– well, this time, we were rolling backward down a poorly paved road backwards in neutral until we could find a driveway to pull into. The driver turned around, and we coasted a bit more to a local (rural-ish) market. I think this market might be my very worst Rwandan experience. The children all seemed to want their photos taken, but afterwards kept asking for money.
This is new to me…I’ve yet to be asked for money from a child just for taking a photo. I’m a bit disturbed that the only English they know is “Give me money” despite the fact that the President has mandated English as a national language in order to cut ties with France. So, we turned a corner of the market (large entourage of children behind) and I stumbled across a woman bent over her pitifully wilted vegetables with a baby strapped to her back. I snapped a photo- so much better than if she’d posed for me (Women’s Studies 514 class- that was for you!) and this old man ran up and started yelling at me while doing the Catholic cross thing across his chest (you know what I’m referring to– I don’t know what it’s called). He grabbed my arm and was holding me back as my professor tried to drag me away. There was a mob of kids packed around us, so it was difficult to get a sense of what was going on. I stuffed my camera back into my bag and she pried his fingers off my arm. We escaped back to our broken down vehicle to the safety of our driver who tends to be very protective of us. Ironic, I suppose, that four very capable and independent women who attended a gender conference just yesterday seeking equality for women would hide in the shadow of a man. I’ll remember it as a moment where we simply needed someone who spoke the native tongue…
We’ve settled into this wonderful spiritual retreat on lake Kivu when we finally arrived (3 hours later). We have our own little porches that look out onto this huge lake– I’m definitely roughing it. The feeling of that man’s grasp, and the sounds of children pleading for money still lingers with me though. Capitalism has tainted even the most remote places of the world, I suppose.