Goma traffic. The Pakistani UN troops wear blue turbans instead of helmets.Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Through the kaleidoscope darkly
In waking, I find myself dreaming, in dreaming, awake, for an eternity of muted visions straining my definition of providence. The sky is brilliant blue to the north. Sunlight, golden in the afternoon, bathes the muddy paths in glorious light. To the south, dark clouds are crawling fast. The effect is striking. A sky divided. Ominous darkness on one side rapidly eating up the blue. The tree where the black-headed herons live is swaying violently back and forth. The mothers hunker down on top of babies inside their unsteady nests. The wind pushes me back from the balcony. A warning. Time to go inside and close all of the windows. But I am reluctant. I move closer to the edge and look down at the street. The rain is starting to pour down. I don’t want to go inside. I want to be alive for a moment, in the rain, in the wind, watching the last vestiges of sunlight as they are devoured by the dark clouds.
Increasingly it seems that time is racing past me, beyond everything that used to serve as milestones. I don’t own a vehicle, a house, a pet, the list could go on. I am freer than I was 2 years ago. I’ve learned to travel lighter. Lately I move between three countries per month. Rwanda to DRC to Burundi and back last month. Rwanda to Kenya to Uganda and back this month. What is the purpose of all this movement? Crashing into other cultures, trying to with hold judgment on everything. Sleeping in one hotel room after another. Guessing at the truth behind polite conversations. What are you not saying to me? What do I not say to you? What sand traps lie in the middle of what we don’t say to each other? Hugging, kissing, touching foreheads with strangers. Welcome to the rabbit hole. A beautiful, delicious, fevered, exhausting collision into humanity. There are days when I am ready to exchange this brown olive skin for something that will allow me to blend in better, something that will keep me from the weight of a hundred of eyes that follow every move. The anonymity that I crave is not found here. I need to move to Peru where I will be myself again and not the strangest of beasts, a circus freak, the creature with pockets full of cash. If an ATM machine sprouted legs and walked down the street, it would be treated exactly the same as I am every time I walk to the store. I want to find the words to explain in Kinyarwanda, Swahili, Kirundi: I am not white and I don’t have loads of cash. Even if I was white, that still doesn’t mean that I would have money. Stop stereotyping me based on the color of my skin – which really isn’t all that much lighter than yours anyway.
But these thoughts are poisonous and circular. If I feel this way, why stay? That’s what they would ask me. That’s what I ask myself. But I’ve made up my mind by now and the reasons are carved in stone. I will not leave until it is time. I stare at the ground a lot when I walk now. So that I can ignore the spectacle that I make as I carry my groceries home in a bag on my shoulder. I pretend to myself that the stares are friendly curiosity but on some days it’s just intrusive and abrasive. For a while I would have staring contests with people to see who would blink first. But I would always win because I would end up glaring and the other person would look away in confusion and then I would feel like shit. I’m tired. After 6 months without time off I will be ready for R&R in July. One week off. I’m planning to go to Kampala where I still might be stared at but probably not as much and at least I will be able to communicate with people and that makes all the difference in the world.
Increasingly it seems that time is racing past me, beyond everything that used to serve as milestones. I don’t own a vehicle, a house, a pet, the list could go on. I am freer than I was 2 years ago. I’ve learned to travel lighter. Lately I move between three countries per month. Rwanda to DRC to Burundi and back last month. Rwanda to Kenya to Uganda and back this month. What is the purpose of all this movement? Crashing into other cultures, trying to with hold judgment on everything. Sleeping in one hotel room after another. Guessing at the truth behind polite conversations. What are you not saying to me? What do I not say to you? What sand traps lie in the middle of what we don’t say to each other? Hugging, kissing, touching foreheads with strangers. Welcome to the rabbit hole. A beautiful, delicious, fevered, exhausting collision into humanity. There are days when I am ready to exchange this brown olive skin for something that will allow me to blend in better, something that will keep me from the weight of a hundred of eyes that follow every move. The anonymity that I crave is not found here. I need to move to Peru where I will be myself again and not the strangest of beasts, a circus freak, the creature with pockets full of cash. If an ATM machine sprouted legs and walked down the street, it would be treated exactly the same as I am every time I walk to the store. I want to find the words to explain in Kinyarwanda, Swahili, Kirundi: I am not white and I don’t have loads of cash. Even if I was white, that still doesn’t mean that I would have money. Stop stereotyping me based on the color of my skin – which really isn’t all that much lighter than yours anyway.
But these thoughts are poisonous and circular. If I feel this way, why stay? That’s what they would ask me. That’s what I ask myself. But I’ve made up my mind by now and the reasons are carved in stone. I will not leave until it is time. I stare at the ground a lot when I walk now. So that I can ignore the spectacle that I make as I carry my groceries home in a bag on my shoulder. I pretend to myself that the stares are friendly curiosity but on some days it’s just intrusive and abrasive. For a while I would have staring contests with people to see who would blink first. But I would always win because I would end up glaring and the other person would look away in confusion and then I would feel like shit. I’m tired. After 6 months without time off I will be ready for R&R in July. One week off. I’m planning to go to Kampala where I still might be stared at but probably not as much and at least I will be able to communicate with people and that makes all the difference in the world.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
May 3 Kigali
The light bulb shifts from bright to dim, flickering back and forth like a malfunctioning lightening bug caught in a thunderstorm. Outside, lightening flashes over familiar terrain turning it into an otherworldly landscape. Invisible dragons soar over the hills, white fire exploding from their mouths, the smell of scorched earth in their wake. I drift in and out of sleep.
May 5 Goma
Across the chaotic border, Goma roars to life. A full-on assault on the senses. Ten minutes ago the tranquility of rolling hills and waterfalls lulled us all to sleep and now someone has pushed the fast-forward button and cranked the volume up high. The cacophony of motorbikes dodging vehicles and pedestrians, money changers calling out, and planes rumbling overhead in the blazing sunlight overwhelms us. Bienvenue, the driver yells. I can’t stop smiling.
After the ceremony marking the launch of the project in Goma, the coordinator tells us that the government officials were annoyed because they didn’t receive money for the speeches they made, other than the transport money that we gave to everyone. He said they probably won’t come to any of our functions again. The project manager told him that he did the right thing in not paying them. You shouldn’t have to pay government officials do their job. Especially when the project is already supporting the government by doing the very things that they say that they want to do. The problem is that other NGO’s pay government officials to attend their functions. So they expect it from us too. It’s really annoying how some of them throw money at people to get them to participate in their activities. That is not development. We have faced this problem of money as motivation for attending workshops and trainings in all three countries. People will come if they are paid and they will participate but after you leave they are not going to continue doing those activities. There will be no motivation. We want people to participate for the right reasons. The PM tells us that he would rather have 10 committed people participate in this project because they want to solve problems in their communities, than 100 people who show up just for the money.
May 10 Kigali
The tiles are coming up in the living room. It’s as if there was a small volcano under the floor. It happened overnight. I made the mistake of telling the landlady about it. She completely loses it. She says the tiles will have to be shipped from South Africa, that I have to pay for everything. It doesn’t matter that it happened overnight, that I didn’t do anything to make them come up. In the end I evaluate the cost and stress of moving from a place with a really great view to someplace new with unforeseen disasters waiting to happen. I decide it’s worth it to pay to fix it. But I do research. I take a piece of the tile, jump on the mini-bus and in 15 minutes I am in town, on a scavenger hunt for the store that sells the right kind of tile. On the bus I meet another muzungu. A slightly drunk elderly Scottish man. He is wearing a white fedora hat with a black band, a daffodil yellow shirt and khaki pants. He squeezes in beside me and asks me where I am from. I say, the US and he begins a monologue that lasts all the way to town on how Americans aren’t really as bad as everyone says they are and that most of us are pretty good people, generous, just a bit misguided on how to help people development-wise. I smile and nod a lot. The conversation amuses me and I can’t feel the least bit insulted when I am so enchanted by his accent. When we get to town he pulls out a tiny slip of paper with his number and email address. He says, I would like to have coffee some time and talk some more. Then he says, you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve had some beers. Its 10 AM. Of course I’ll have coffee with him. I like hearing him talk, plus I want to find out what an old Scottish guy is doing in Kigali. In town, I finally find the right tile store. They have my tiles. They aren’t too expensive and they certainly do not have to be shipped from South Africa.
May 19 Bujumbura
Sunlight is filtered down through a permanent haze of dust. Its fading fast when I finally reach Pacific Hotel. A shabby set of buildings with a built-in restaurant. At $17 a night I can’t complain. But there is no towel in bathroom, the bed takes up the whole room and the mosquito net is full of holes. The fan works though which a necessity in the Burundi heat. Also on the upside, it is so loud that it drowns out the sound of shelling and any other mischief that the rebels might be up to at night. I sleep on top of the covers, not willing to venture underneath the ragged bedspread.
Evenings in Burundi stretch out longer than usual. I don’t know anyone in Bujumbura. So I sit by the water at Circle Nautique and talk to the stray cats. I eavesdrop on conversations in Italian and French. I watch a small family, a white UN type guy with an African wife and beautiful little boy. They are lost in a private domestic little world. I wonder what their lives are like. I wonder if they are happy. Taxi’s are cheap so I float from place to place, stopping anywhere that looks interesting. At first I let the driver choose the restaurant for me. But that didn’t work out so well because they took one look at me and drove me straight to the Chinese restaurant. One night I lost my phone and spent several hours retracing my steps in a vain effort to find it. I knew I wouldn’t find it but the taxi driver was nice and didn’t mind driving me all over town. It was the second phone I had lost in less than a month. The first one broke when I threw it across the room.
The road to Cibitoke follows the Congo border. The Country Director tells us that this road is exceptionally dangerous in the evenings. In fact we will have to leave Cibitoke by 2pm so that we can get back to the city before dark. He says that rebel soldiers often ambush vehicles along the road. He tells a story about a minibus driver traveling towards Rwanda who was stopped by rebel soldiers. They asked him to give them money. The driver said that he didn’t have any money because his minibus was not working well and he had repaired it several times and it cost a lot of money. The soldiers asked if he was refusing and he again said that he didn’t have the money. So they told everyone to get off of the bus and then they set fire to it and burned it up right on the road. Then they said to the driver, now you won’t have to worry about your vehicle costing you money anymore. The moral of the story is that you always pay the soldiers when they ask, you never say no. Apparently the rebels simply cross the border into Congo whenever they are pursued by government soldiers.
May 27 Kibuye
The road to Kibuye curls around the Rwandan hills in an unyielding embrace. It has so many sharp turns that people often become sick when the driver goes too fast. Our vehicle turns a corner and we pass through a small town. Coming towards us are two men on motorbikes driving side by side in the same lane holding hands. It was an unusual sight and made an impression on me. There may be some aspects of this culture that I don’t like but I do appreciate the part of the Rwandese culture that allows men to be openly affectionate with each other.
Rounding the final bend in the road, Lake Kivu unfolds in all its glory before us. The turquoise green water and little islands just off-shore are tempting. A wooden boat is parked at the dock and a boy calls out, only 5000 francs for one hour. But I’ve already been out on the boat and today I have too much work to do. We chat with journalists and camera men from Kigali. The journalist gets distracted, so he asks me to take notes for him on the launch. No problem. I write down everything about the project that I want people to know. It will be on the news tomorrow. I don’t have a television so I won’t know if he used my notes or not, but either way, It’s all there.
It’s dark when we reach the outskirts of Kigali. Small lights are glowing on a thousand hills. A Townes Van Zandt song comes to mind. “Living on the road my friend, was gonna keep you free and clean, but now you wear your skin like iron and your breath’s as hard as kerosene.” Sometimes I’m not sure if this life will lead me further down the wide road to destruction or if in the end, it will serve to purify me. I’m gambling on the last one. Mostly because this life does not allow me the dangerous luxury of forgetting the suffering that exists all around us. If I can not learn to stretch out my hand and touch the sick and the sad, the wounded and the oppressed in this place, than I will never learn to do it. God help the unbelief that clouds my mind at times, and lead my feet to trod on the narrow rocky path, that leads to paradise.
The light bulb shifts from bright to dim, flickering back and forth like a malfunctioning lightening bug caught in a thunderstorm. Outside, lightening flashes over familiar terrain turning it into an otherworldly landscape. Invisible dragons soar over the hills, white fire exploding from their mouths, the smell of scorched earth in their wake. I drift in and out of sleep.
May 5 Goma
Across the chaotic border, Goma roars to life. A full-on assault on the senses. Ten minutes ago the tranquility of rolling hills and waterfalls lulled us all to sleep and now someone has pushed the fast-forward button and cranked the volume up high. The cacophony of motorbikes dodging vehicles and pedestrians, money changers calling out, and planes rumbling overhead in the blazing sunlight overwhelms us. Bienvenue, the driver yells. I can’t stop smiling.
After the ceremony marking the launch of the project in Goma, the coordinator tells us that the government officials were annoyed because they didn’t receive money for the speeches they made, other than the transport money that we gave to everyone. He said they probably won’t come to any of our functions again. The project manager told him that he did the right thing in not paying them. You shouldn’t have to pay government officials do their job. Especially when the project is already supporting the government by doing the very things that they say that they want to do. The problem is that other NGO’s pay government officials to attend their functions. So they expect it from us too. It’s really annoying how some of them throw money at people to get them to participate in their activities. That is not development. We have faced this problem of money as motivation for attending workshops and trainings in all three countries. People will come if they are paid and they will participate but after you leave they are not going to continue doing those activities. There will be no motivation. We want people to participate for the right reasons. The PM tells us that he would rather have 10 committed people participate in this project because they want to solve problems in their communities, than 100 people who show up just for the money.
May 10 Kigali
The tiles are coming up in the living room. It’s as if there was a small volcano under the floor. It happened overnight. I made the mistake of telling the landlady about it. She completely loses it. She says the tiles will have to be shipped from South Africa, that I have to pay for everything. It doesn’t matter that it happened overnight, that I didn’t do anything to make them come up. In the end I evaluate the cost and stress of moving from a place with a really great view to someplace new with unforeseen disasters waiting to happen. I decide it’s worth it to pay to fix it. But I do research. I take a piece of the tile, jump on the mini-bus and in 15 minutes I am in town, on a scavenger hunt for the store that sells the right kind of tile. On the bus I meet another muzungu. A slightly drunk elderly Scottish man. He is wearing a white fedora hat with a black band, a daffodil yellow shirt and khaki pants. He squeezes in beside me and asks me where I am from. I say, the US and he begins a monologue that lasts all the way to town on how Americans aren’t really as bad as everyone says they are and that most of us are pretty good people, generous, just a bit misguided on how to help people development-wise. I smile and nod a lot. The conversation amuses me and I can’t feel the least bit insulted when I am so enchanted by his accent. When we get to town he pulls out a tiny slip of paper with his number and email address. He says, I would like to have coffee some time and talk some more. Then he says, you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve had some beers. Its 10 AM. Of course I’ll have coffee with him. I like hearing him talk, plus I want to find out what an old Scottish guy is doing in Kigali. In town, I finally find the right tile store. They have my tiles. They aren’t too expensive and they certainly do not have to be shipped from South Africa.
May 19 Bujumbura
Sunlight is filtered down through a permanent haze of dust. Its fading fast when I finally reach Pacific Hotel. A shabby set of buildings with a built-in restaurant. At $17 a night I can’t complain. But there is no towel in bathroom, the bed takes up the whole room and the mosquito net is full of holes. The fan works though which a necessity in the Burundi heat. Also on the upside, it is so loud that it drowns out the sound of shelling and any other mischief that the rebels might be up to at night. I sleep on top of the covers, not willing to venture underneath the ragged bedspread.
Evenings in Burundi stretch out longer than usual. I don’t know anyone in Bujumbura. So I sit by the water at Circle Nautique and talk to the stray cats. I eavesdrop on conversations in Italian and French. I watch a small family, a white UN type guy with an African wife and beautiful little boy. They are lost in a private domestic little world. I wonder what their lives are like. I wonder if they are happy. Taxi’s are cheap so I float from place to place, stopping anywhere that looks interesting. At first I let the driver choose the restaurant for me. But that didn’t work out so well because they took one look at me and drove me straight to the Chinese restaurant. One night I lost my phone and spent several hours retracing my steps in a vain effort to find it. I knew I wouldn’t find it but the taxi driver was nice and didn’t mind driving me all over town. It was the second phone I had lost in less than a month. The first one broke when I threw it across the room.
The road to Cibitoke follows the Congo border. The Country Director tells us that this road is exceptionally dangerous in the evenings. In fact we will have to leave Cibitoke by 2pm so that we can get back to the city before dark. He says that rebel soldiers often ambush vehicles along the road. He tells a story about a minibus driver traveling towards Rwanda who was stopped by rebel soldiers. They asked him to give them money. The driver said that he didn’t have any money because his minibus was not working well and he had repaired it several times and it cost a lot of money. The soldiers asked if he was refusing and he again said that he didn’t have the money. So they told everyone to get off of the bus and then they set fire to it and burned it up right on the road. Then they said to the driver, now you won’t have to worry about your vehicle costing you money anymore. The moral of the story is that you always pay the soldiers when they ask, you never say no. Apparently the rebels simply cross the border into Congo whenever they are pursued by government soldiers.
May 27 Kibuye
The road to Kibuye curls around the Rwandan hills in an unyielding embrace. It has so many sharp turns that people often become sick when the driver goes too fast. Our vehicle turns a corner and we pass through a small town. Coming towards us are two men on motorbikes driving side by side in the same lane holding hands. It was an unusual sight and made an impression on me. There may be some aspects of this culture that I don’t like but I do appreciate the part of the Rwandese culture that allows men to be openly affectionate with each other.
Rounding the final bend in the road, Lake Kivu unfolds in all its glory before us. The turquoise green water and little islands just off-shore are tempting. A wooden boat is parked at the dock and a boy calls out, only 5000 francs for one hour. But I’ve already been out on the boat and today I have too much work to do. We chat with journalists and camera men from Kigali. The journalist gets distracted, so he asks me to take notes for him on the launch. No problem. I write down everything about the project that I want people to know. It will be on the news tomorrow. I don’t have a television so I won’t know if he used my notes or not, but either way, It’s all there.
It’s dark when we reach the outskirts of Kigali. Small lights are glowing on a thousand hills. A Townes Van Zandt song comes to mind. “Living on the road my friend, was gonna keep you free and clean, but now you wear your skin like iron and your breath’s as hard as kerosene.” Sometimes I’m not sure if this life will lead me further down the wide road to destruction or if in the end, it will serve to purify me. I’m gambling on the last one. Mostly because this life does not allow me the dangerous luxury of forgetting the suffering that exists all around us. If I can not learn to stretch out my hand and touch the sick and the sad, the wounded and the oppressed in this place, than I will never learn to do it. God help the unbelief that clouds my mind at times, and lead my feet to trod on the narrow rocky path, that leads to paradise.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)