Dream, Plan, Travel, Repeat.

Yes, the title of this blog entry is excruciatingly boring, but I couldn’t think of anything clever (or even “clever”) and I’m running out of time at the internet cafe. Sorry.At this moment, I’m in sunny Dar es Salaam, a large city on Tanzania’s coast that Lonely Planet describes as “the country’s capital in all but name.” (The actual capital of Tanzania is a rather dull inland city called Dodoma– southern Californians will understand the two cities’ relationship if I compare Dodoma to Sacramento and Dar es Salaam to Los Angeles.) Tomorrow, if I can survive the awful touts swarming around the ticket offices, I will take a ferry to Zanzibar. And after that, you may never see me in the United States again because I will take up permanent residence on that island paradise and spend my days drinking coconut milk and gazing at the turquoise ocean from my swaying hammock.So that’s what I’m up to at the moment. But I also need to write about the rest of my trip in Rwanda— I hardly want to leave all of you with my robbery story as your final impression of the country.During my last few days in Rwanda, I visited some of my former organization’s rights education classes for their female program participants. The classes, which I attended both in Kigali and in a small rural town located several hours east of the capital, were conducted in Kinyarwanda; thankfully, a wonderful woman who works as a vocational trainer offered to translate for me. Topics discussed among the groups I visited included business etiquette (such as the importance of marketing, self-presentation, and honesty in trade), the value of women’s work at home (or, why unpaid work still contributes to a family’s prosperity), and reproductive health (which initially involved lots of giggling by women with babies on their laps who were too embarrassed to say “vagina,” but later developed into earnest conversations about menstrual cycles, pregnancy, and infertility.) I found the women’s discussions fascinating—and, through our enthusiastic translator, they seemed to have found me pretty interesting too. Besides being asked if I was married, if goat meat was popular in the United States, and how Americans spend their summer days, I was asked questions related to the classes, such as how business was conducted in America and if my father helped my mother with housework. (Ted, they applauded when they heard that you cook and help clean up the house.)What sticks out the most in my memories of meeting these women, though, is the appreciation with which they spoke to me of their ability to participate in the organization’s programs. At the end of the classes, it was common for women to provide me with testimonies of how their lives have improved since they joined the organization—using money from their overseas sponsors, one woman has built herself a kitchen, another sends her children to school, another has a small garden plot of tomatoes, and yet another has purchased bricks for her future home. Some came to the classes holding letters or pictures from their sponsors. All the women who talked to me—all of whom had experienced innumerable tragedies and obstacles over the years—spoke of hope. And that was wonderful to hear.Other brief memories of Rwanda……I saw the president and his motorcade of black and gray SUVs speeding down a village road, scattering children and animals out of their way. While I have great respect for the progress Rwanda has made while under the president’s leadership, I really question the necessity of his driving (as my driver estimated) some 200 km/hr through a busy countryside……I recently received an e-mail that asked, “Can you tell who is Hutu and who is Tutsi?” The answer: no. And very few people that I met volunteered this information. I think, with the government’s strong encouragement, people are doing all that they can to erase the divisions of the past and re-define themselves as “Rwandan.” On that same note, I often found myself looking for evidence of the genocide; to me, it didn’t seem obvious that genocide had occurred. But then I would hear bits and pieces about others’ past—how some had come to Rwanda at the end of 1994, returning with their families from years of exile in nearby countries; how so many young men and women have AIDS; how 14 and 15 year-old boys were studying at a nearby school for orphans; how a woman who once had nine siblings now has only two. It’s clear that scars run deep through the society, and while so much progress has been made, there is still so much work to do to make Rwanda whole again.…for my final night in Rwanda, I had a delicious dinner (or really, a feast with a dozen dishes or so) with David’s aunt, uncle, and cousins. I was so happy to be invited to their home, and felt equally thankful for all the opportunities I had while in Rwanda to interact with Rwandans—to dine with them, and to hear their stories and debates while sharing some of my own. I think I learned more about their country while among them for a week than I could have learned as a typical tourist in a year.And that’s all for now. Once I get my hammock arranged, I’ll write from Zanzibar.

Tags: Dar es Salaam, Kigali, RTW 07/08, Rwanda, Tanzania

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 1:20 pm and is filed under RTW 07/08, Rwanda, Tanzania. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.