Disclaimer: This email is long. Probably much longer than most of you have enough time to read (it's also probably full or typos, for which I also apologize). So for a quick summary, check out the first and last couple paragraphs, and visit these facebook album links, which should be open to everyone, whether they have an account or not. They're incomplete, because I think I'm over my space limit, but they'll give you an idea. http://www.facebook.com/album.
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Dear friends and family,
It's been a couple days since I arrived back on campus, and I've been putting off writing this update for long enough! Hopefully this email finds you well and happy, and apologies is this comes as more inbox clutter ;) I think this is the longest email I've ever sent…
Though I'd planned how I was going to make my connections from Oxford-London, London-Brussels, and Brussels-Kigali, I hadn't sorted out how I was going to move between destinations in London or Brussels. As a result, I spent the wee-hours of Thursday morning hoofing it from Victoria Station to King's Cross--not a short walk--and wandering around downtown Belgian on a cold afternoon wishing I read Dutch or French until I found a nice couple that walked me to the terminal where I purchased a train ticket to the airport. Will seriously consider paying 20 extra pounds to fly from Heathrow next time...
I arrived at Kigali International a day and a half after setting out from Oxford, bleary-eyed but well-nourished by a steady diet of in-flight meals, Belgian beer and chocolate, and peanut butter and nutella sandwiches. The first interaction I had with Rwanda, not including the customs officer who turned me around after I forgot to fill out my immigration form, was with the soldier who stopped me at the arrivals portal and asked me to chuck the plastic bags that I'd been carrying some snacks and books in. Though an inconvenience at the time, I would come to appreciate Rwanda's clean streets and highways largely undefiled by heaps of plastic waste. After tossing the bags I stepped out into the arrivals lounge to a sea of faces searching out their loved ones, business contacts, and hotel clients. I had just enough time to wonder what JP looked like before a shortish Rwandan man with a wide, kind smile and a gentle voice shouldered his way forward and took me by both hands. "You are Aaron?" JP introduced me to his girlfriend, Generous, who had also come along, and our driver, Jean-Batiste. After making our way out of the airport we turned off the paved highway on our way into Kigali, Rwanda's capital and by far its largest city, and drove up a red earth hill to the a church where JP planned to meet some members of his family. Soon they came walking down from the shanty town to greet us, JP's mother, his sisters Hadija and Mukechu (her nickname), and some younger men who could have been either his cousins or nephews. In Rwanda greetings between people, including family, tend to be a bit less effusive than in the States—close, firm embraces or kisses are generally rare—yet they are no less tender. As I watched them hold each others' arms at the elbows and gently touch their foreheads against one another's I was struck by the ceremony of the encounter. It was as if, for a brief moment, I was witness to a solemn ritual the recognized the bonds of family, celebrated their shared affection, and memorialized their common experience. Such a romantic image may very well be the product of nostalgic reflections mixed with the presently dreary British winter, causing me to exaggerate what I felt and thought at the time. All I have to remember the past is a couple hundred photos, a journal, and my constantly reinvented memories. But I don't think it's just that. As I watched JP's mother interact with her children I was amazed she could even support her own weight. She was thin and bent, with a deeply-creased face, perhaps a combination of age, care, and (for me) the unfathomable achievement of having birthed 11 children and raised 10. She swayed slightly as she walked, and barely spoke above a whisper. Yet when she turned to me and took me by the arms I looked into her eyes and saw a warm, clear recognition that said "welcome." Time can break one's body, but this woman's spirit still radiated strength and grace. Shortly thereafter we said goodbye, and Hadija and Mukechu joined us in the car for the trip back to Umuryango. After dropping Generous off on the other side of town the city rapidly faded away and we were soon winding our way through a valley of rice fields and grazing land, heavily interspersed with homes and petrol stations, and one large brick mill. Several minutes later we began climbing the green hills that rise up around the Kigali valley, passing plots of banana trees, coffee, tea, cassava, potatoes, and beans. I leaned back in my seat and watched the countryside pass by, acutely aware of the foreignness of this new place, yet excited by the prospect of discovery and happy to have arrived. After an hour of riding along mostly in silence, mostly broken by me asking "how do you say that in Kinyarwanda," we stopped for lunch at Tranquilité. This was the first place I ate at in Rwanda, and it turned out to be the best: about once every three or four days I would make the trip in Gitarama for a heaping plate of chips, rice, beans, meat, fanta, and an omelet. On that day, however, I had a tough time eating (like I said, exhausted yet well-nourished by my airport diet) and reassured JP that everything was delicious. We got back on the highway and after 15 more minutes turned onto a rutted dirt road. After driving through a small village of two convenience stores and a cluster of homes we arrived at the Umuryango site, situated on a hillside with a lovely overlook of the valley below and with a grove of banana trees rustling in the warm breeze next to the main building. The boys crowded round the car. I got out, and they silently crowded around me. "Amakuru?" "bite?," (bee-tay) alternately "how are you?" and "what's up?" were the only words I had for these boys at the time, but they did their part to bridge a little bit of the void of unfamiliarity. Hadija showed me to my room and gave me the key. I sat down on the neatly-made bed and took a deep breath, shedding the tension accumulated over 36 hours of travelling. It felt like I'd just woken up from a dream—or perhaps fallen asleep and walked into one. A couple thousand miles and a few hours make a world of difference. My month at Umuryango had begun.
Until now I've been painfully descriptive: don't worry my goal here isn't to recount the whole experience this way. It's just that first impressions of countries, as with people, tend to be the most vivid, and when I reflect on my time in Rwanda the memory of those first several hours is one of the clearest and most beautiful. From here on I'll share a bit more about what, specifically, Umuryango does and how it operates, share some of my reflections from my time with JP and the boys, talk a bit about other travel I did, briefly discuss some of the things that were challenging, and try and wrap it all up in some kind of conclusion.
Umuryango is the vision that God put on the hearts of Jean Paul and Yohani, two Rwanda brothers from the aforementioned family of 10 children who have been blessed by a relative degree of prosperity and opportunity in their home country. Jean Paul graduated in the late 1990's (I believe…) with a degree in physical therapy, while Yohani is currently pursuing a PhD in Chemistry at George Washington University. These men love Jesus, and have taken up his call to be fathers of the fatherless and friends of the poor. Though it is an island of stability in a region ravaged by chaos today, the genocide of 1994 and conflict that continued through 1997 took an enormous human toll. Though the majority of the boys at Umuryango were not alive in 1994, the world they came into as young people was one deeply-impacted by a history of violence, displacement, and extreme poverty. At least one of the oldest boys was a genocide orphan. Almost all came from single parent families, sometimes with other parent dead, sometimes with them simply being abusive, neglectful, absent, or insane. Several lived with siblings who were little-invested in, or unable to care for them. Regardless of their stories, thousands of children in Rwanda decide each year that life on the street is better than life in their homes. A very few children make this decision rebelliously, but the vast majority are forced into their way of life by the factors mentioned above. With no external source of stability or hope they turn to themselves, and seek to make it on their own in Rwanda's streets. The get high. They fight with each other. The steal. They hustle for change. They are kicked and mocked in the public markets where they beg. They never think of school, or about what they will do next year. They are street trash, "mayibobo," and they are the young men who JP and Yohani set out to reach. JP lives in Rwanda, and has no desire to ever leave: his call is to work with the boys. He meets them in the markets and on the streets, learning their names and stories, and watching their personalities. He prays about the children, considers the resources available to him, and if the time is right invites a small number of children to the home. Over in DC Yohani has been remarkably effective at raising awareness about Umuryango, and I gather has generated some of their key financing contacts. It was through my friend Joe, who met Yohani at a conference for social entrepreneurship, that I got connected with Umuryango. (an aside: Umuryango is a registered charity with the Rwandan government, and JP and Yohani are accountable to a board of directors.)
Umuryango is a home for these boys near the small town of Byimana, 15 minutes by microbus from Gitarama. It is a complex of three houses that supply dormitories, guest rooms, cooking facilities, and a dining hall. It has a small amount of land that JP hopes to farm, and a stable with four cows that he hopes to expand to supply milk for the boys and a modest independent income stream for the program. It is staffed at any given time around eight people: a cook, a groundskeeper, a cattle boy, and four or so staff whose primary commitment is to work with the children and keep the home feeling like home. The first three positions pay a couple dollars a day, while the staff that works with the children receives slightly greater monthly support by Umuryango sponsoring organizations, which include a large church and a couple non-profits in the U.S. The boys were on vacation during most of my time with them, but as far as I could tell the program had three key components: education, spiritual training, and personal development. Most of the boys attend the local primary school in Byimana, but the ones who have advanced to secondary school leave the home when vacation ends. This is because Rwanda secondary education is a set up as a boarding school system, where graduating primary school students take an exam that determines their secondary school placement. In either case, Umuryango provides the boys with uniforms, materials, and in the case of the secondary school boys a modest amount of cash for their journey, and holds them accountable to solid academic performance. As Umuryango's purpose is rooted in a Christ-centered view of the boys' identities and value, the program actively seeks to cultivate this awareness in the children themselves. Twice a week a man from the village comes over near dinner time, and leads us in a devotional of prayer, confession, worship, and teaching. Some nights we would just keep singing—just as one song began to end, a boy would pipe up with a new tune, and the energy of the group would swell again. What a joy it was to dance my clumsy steps to the rhythm of their clapping, to share their smiles, and to laugh together as we celebrated God's love. The teaching time, of which I couldn't understand more than a word or two, did get tedious, but when we sang their music set my heart free. The boys also attend the local Pentecostal church together, and as big as Rwandan families tend to be, I'm pretty sure that none of them ever topped the 27 kids that JP brought with him each Sunday! Finally the boys are asked to keep their living spaces clean, to do daily chores, to help prepare and serve meals, and to respect their elders and each other. The hope is that their academic accomplishments, rootedness in Jesus, and accountability to living responsibility will create virtuous cycle that teaches them discipline, self respect, and cultivates hope and vision for their lives.
It works, too. I could go on for so long about each boy, but the two examples that moved me the most are those of Ndahimana, and Hassani and Passifique. Ndahimana is one of the older boys at Umuryango, just entering his second year of secondary school. His is a deeply emotional young man, who seems to understand in a profound way what has been done for him. He harbors a deep gratitude towards God and JP, and is absolutely committed to seizing the opportunity he has been given to improve his life. I have no doubt that he will do this: he tested into one of the top secondary school programs in the country, to the south of Gitarama in Butare, and completed his studies last year with distinction. The age difference between us was only three years, and as he spoke a little English we became somewhat close. On one of his last evenings with us he caught me staring into the night sky and the thunder clouds flashing over the hills on the horizon and decided to join me. "I want to change my life," he said, "life for me was not good at home. We were poor, and no father would be better than the one we have. One day I will have resources, and I want to be like JP. I am so grateful to God for what he has given me, and hope that he gives me success." This inadequate summary of that conversation reveals the incredible depth of character that this young man has. It was difficult for me to believe JP when he said that when he met Ndahimana he was living the life of any other street boy in Kigali.
The second example is of Hassani and Passifique. Both these boys are sensitive and kind, though also quite different: Passifique is an energetic, boisterous showman who loves the camera, while Hassani is much shyer and the more sensitive of the two, but also seems more inclined to go out on a limb. A large, shiny scar runs from Hassani forehead, over his right eye and onto his cheek. During my first several weeks there I wondered what story it told, and whether that scar partially explained Hassani's quiet demeanor. It was hard to take in when JP told me that Passifique gave Hassani that scar with a razor blade in Gitarama before they came to the Umuryango. They play together now, and I've even seen them with their arms over each other's shoulders. They are children again, by the restorative power of God, transmitted through the commitment and care of a small group of individuals who love kids.
JP's ultimate goal is for Umuryango to be self-supporting. For several reasons I'm not sure that this will ever happen, and wonder if the program's somewhat unique model inhibits its scalability. As a guy with an interest in policy who wrote a thesis on sustainable microfinance I've always prioritized questions of sustainability and scalability when it comes to interventions that improve the quality of human life. Yet during my time at Umuryango I saw that it is not up to us to change the whole world at once. If all this program ever accomplished was to radically transform the lives of 30-odd young men, then that alone will have been well worth it. Yet I suspect that it will accomplish far more.
My time with JP and the boys affected me in other was as well. I remember having a conversation with JP about faith, why it is we believe what we believe. I explained why it is important for me that faith not be blind, that I be able to offer some kind of evidence-based justification for my acceptance of the claims of Christianity. JP's never really thought about it that way though. "For me, I just believe," he would say, "I don't need a reason." I asked him how he deals with fact that there are believers of other faiths who have the exact same perspective. Not the he was a stranger to this simple fact—his sister, Hadija, converted to Islam long ago. "I rely on God to change their hearts," he said. I still believe that evidence and reason ought to play an important role in the modern practice of faith, but this conversation was profound for me. If there is a God, and he is good and just and seeks to reveal himself to us, and if His nature and relationship to people is most accurately expressed by a single religious system, then JP's worldview is perfectly viable. It places the emphasis on the wisdom and call of God, over the persuasive power of man. Indeed, "no one can come unless the Father calls."
My steady diet of corn porridge, corn paste, beans, rice, and potatoes also taught me that what I need and what I have trained myself to believe I need are two different things. At the same time it affirmed my conviction that vegetarianism just isn't a viable option for me for at least a couple more years: with all the exercise we were doing each day my metabolism just about ate me alive. Yet the older boys are all so solidly built! Whether this is the result of genetics, environmental adaptation, or a combination of both, I'm sticking with beef for now.
As wonderful as my time with the boys was, the hours spent with them each day were exhausting as well. In the end my role was much less structured than I'd initially envisioned: I did teach some English, especially to a couple of the oldest boys, but very informally. The funds for building the basketball court didn't materialize, either. As for teaching guitar, think of 27 restless children and one instrument that they all want to play at the same time… With very little order in my daily program I tended to feel like I just rode the rhythm of many days, yielding the tug and pull of various demands the boys made on my attention. Soccer games, swims in the lake, bang on guitar sessions, work outs ("siporo"), wood gathering, singing and dancing, and walks to Byimana were all wonderful, but by January I was ready to move around a bit. I traveled to Kibuye, on the shores of Lake Kivu, which divides Rwanda and the DRC. It was a great miniature vacation. The lake front was reminiscent of the Mediterranean coast, with steep hills rushing to meet water dotted with islands, and hemming in lovely blue coves around which the town's modest population clustered. While there I met some Australians who had been volunteering at an Anglican mission in Tanzania. We had a great time together and they invited me to return to Kigali with them for a couple nights. But after two days I missed the boys, and returned to Byimana.
My next trip was to Musanze, in the north, and a base for tourists on their way to see the gorillas in the Virungas mountain range. For a foreigner this costs around 600 dollars, so I had ruled it out or my itinerary well in advance. I did hope, however, to go for a day hike. No dice. Hiking permits cost 75 dollars, transportation for a day 40 dollars at the cheapest, and it's always polite to tip guide. My interaction with people in Musanze was trying as well: for whatever reason people there were quick to take advantage. In Kinyarwanda a white person is called a "muzungu," which means "he who has all." I'd gotten used to hearing this hollered at me by children, and whispered by teenagers and adults. I'd also become accustomed to requests for money or food. Yet in Musanze I felt as if everywhere I went I had to resist a constant crush of unwanted attention, and harden myself towards the many people who reflexively asked me for handouts. In contrast to my previous travels in Latin America, during my visit to Rwanda I decided that I would be a more generous giver to those on the streets. Not only do I believe that I have a moral obligation to give out of my wealth to the those in need, but it is simply too hard on my heart to constantly resist the urge to give: I don't like the person I become when I train myself to coldly ignore the grey old woman or man with a missing leg tapping the window of the bus I'm in. Yet there are two types of people who ask you for money in these places: those who have legitimate deep need, and those who, though poor, just want something from you because they see you as an object of wealth. In Musanze I had many encounters with the latter, and felt deep frustration, loneliness, and confusion during my short stay there. I returned to Umuryango somewhat discouraged and worn out, but happy to be back with the boys again. I think this was the point of the trip—with a little more than a week left—that I lost my momentum. From then on my awareness of the differences between me and those around me only was much more acute, and shouts of "muzungu, ndashaka amafaranga" (I want money), didn't role off quite as easily.
In my final days in Rwanda I visited Butare for a day, the location of the National University of Rwanda, and the National Museum. I met some friendly students, spent an afternoon admiring Rwanda's spectacular tradition of craftsmanship and dance in the museum, picked up some souvenirs at an artisan's cooperative, and ate a nice dinner of fried fish. The next morning I returned to the home to spend my final full day with the boys. The morning I left Umuryango the boys who had not already left for school that morning were playing soccer in the dirt courtyard out front of the main home. I hugged them goodbye, and as I turned to leave they resumed their game. It's a good leaving memory, hearing their playful shouts fade away as I walked the dirt road to the bus stop with JP and his family. Kazungu Olivier, one of the older boys who had never been in a class room until JP found him at the age of 13, carried my pack with me, and as I picked up my things to get in the bus he said in quiet, halting English "I will never forget you." Kazu speaks so little English that I am sure he must have asked another one of the older boys to teach this to him, which made it all the more special of a parting gift. JP accompanied me to Kigali, and after he purchased me a small woven basket as a gift we parted ways outside an internet café. I flagged down a mototaxi, said goodbye to JP, and hopped on. After 15 minutes or so of winding our way through stop and go traffic I arrived at the airport, checked in, and made my way to the departure lobby, where coverage of Israel's invasion of Gaza was playing on BBC. As if I had never gone away the rest of the world came flooding through the television screen, my time in Byimana already beginning to seem like a distant memory.
All this narrative and reflection could certainly have been better organized, and I'm grateful if you made it this far. My time in Rwanda was a time of much reflection, many challenging conversations and experiences, and wonderful daily joys. Even this mammoth email only scratches the surface of what I felt and thought during these times, but that's really how all of life is—when telling our stories to others we're usually confined to recounting the highlights. Here are some of things I hope I internalized to varying degrees: when you give it initially feels like you are losing something, but what you are actually doing is buying freedom for your heart. You never regret good planning. When Christ says that we are his body He is not referring to government-sponsored, scalable solutions: the trick is to find the work that resonates deeply with our spirit and to do that well. What if all people of faith, or even just people of good faith, lived this way? We need so little to be happy. Make time in your life to switch of your mind and simply live. This one is the hardest for me to embrace.
It's going to be a good term, if not a busy one. Stats continue to be challenging though rewarding, and I'm excited to be training with the Oxford University Amateur Boxing Club. Also, as of today I went in on a one-year lease in Jericho for a nice, affordable flat in North Oxford (Jericho, if you know the area) with two other guys. They're great fellas, and I think we'll have a blast together. Can't wait for spring. I've been inviting friends over to Worcester for meals and taking them around the grounds afterwards, and we always agree that it will be even more beautiful than it already is when the flowers are in bloom and the willows hanging over the lake have their leaves back.
I'd be blessed to hear how you are these days, don't be a stranger :)
Much love,
Aaron
