Today was our second day in the Kibiza refugee camp along the Congolese border with Rwanda. We didn’t have our Red Cross escort today, so we went in with the intent of meeting some representatives from the community who never showed up. After we gave up waiting, we wandered over to have another look at the market. This time we ventured farther toward the back and found a little motorized (via generator) corn grinder and two men working as tailors. One of them had a hand-turn operated sewing machine and was sewing a mosquito net- the materials had been provided to him by UNHCR. This little girl attached herself to one of my travel-mates and ended up following us pretty far down the road past the market. This is just an example of mothering within a fenced in area- children wander around as they please from the moment they are old enough to walk. No one seems to worry much about their safety. It’s fascinating that the three year olds will help each other out when no adults are around. If one falls and cries, the others come over to help her stand back up. Before too long, we had a gaggle of children following us through the streets pushing to be the one who gets to hold one of our hands.
We attracted quite a bit of attention with all these children following us, and a young man walked up to Savannah and introduced himself. Gaston is 25 and has lived in the refugee camp since he was 15 or so. His father was killed in the violence in the Congo, and he fled here with his mother and little sister. He’s graduated from as much school as is offered in the camp (9th grade) and says he literally does nothing all day long because there are no jobs and nothing to do. They just wait until the next month’s rations are distributed. He was more than happy to use his excellent English to show us around the rest of the day.
With his help, we made our way to the perimeter of the camp – the area most interesting but that the camp elders don’t generally show off to foreigners. The people are a little less outgoing there. One woman sat idly on a stump with her baby strapped to her back. If there’s one word I could use to describe the situation of adults there- it’s “Idle.” Warehousing at its worst. We wandered down this mountain path in order to see the camp soccer field. On the way down, we stepped over sewage draining down the mountain side, and moved out of the way for cows and goats to pass. An old man stopped us and spoke in Kinyarwanda. He was apparently saying that he was sick and needed medicine. Our guide laughed it off and told us just to “pray for him.” There were several churches- religion is very big here. They have churches for Catholics and Protestants. The pastors are all funded by an NGO here so they are generally brought in from elsewhere.
We saw some tiny children in school uniforms and asked our guide about them. He said, “Oh, that’s the nursery school. Do you want to see it?” Without hesitation, Savannah and I vered right into the school yard. You could heard dozens of children singing in unison. We peeked into the windows and the teacher came right out. She invited us to sit in on her class—it’s been the best part of the trip so far! The kids all speak Kinyarawanda, and although the government now mandates the use of English in schools, they were learning French. It’s hard to describe the atmosphere in the classroom, but it was energized and full of hope. If I had had a preschool teacher as awesome as this woman (also a Congolese refugee), I might have made it through preschool! The little girl sitting next to me inched closer and closer as class went on. She wanted to sit close to me- but she didn’t want me to notice. That teacher, who is only 23, did so much with so little. It was really inspiring.
After the school, we had a meeting with a woman who represented the global NGO that is supporting education in the refugee camps (and others around the world). I was fascinated by the fact that she said we would never be refused by someone in the camp because of remnants of ideals of colonialism. Coming from white people, they’re conditioned to just do as we ask- so she said. But, at the same time she talked about the refugee camp schools and the refugee camp students with an air of ownership. “My kids…My school…” essentially “my” or “our” (referring to the NGO she works for) preceded every word she used to talk about the schools. It was a bit ironic given her previous accusations of our abuses of colonialist privileges. In the end, even after her short ten months here, she was a bit jaded and shared that frustration with us. Most interesting was that any word in reference to the government was uttered in a whisper. She refused to use any political terms out loud, despite our isolation in a dark little dirt floor room with thunder and pouring rain drowning out the sounds from outside.
We have one more day left. Gaston has agreed to serve as our guide again tomorrow morning. He has promised to let us see his home – we have yet to actually see the inside of one of these huts. He has also offered to take us around and allow us to talk to some of the population. It’s so fortunate that we ran into him. It’s funny, I remember him scoping us out on the first day. I think he was getting up the nerve to talk to us.
