Ace of Base

You can keep the Kigali out of the guy, but not the guy out of Kigali. We were in Kigali this past weekend to pick up our new volunteer, Dr. Peter Cairo, who has been helping us with training techniques and thinking about the project’s growth.

We picked Dr. Cairo up on Saturday and stayed over Friday night to take in more of the wonders of Kigali’s nightlife.

We sat at the Sunset Lounge, which was a nice outdoor bar. For some reason Ace of Base kept coming on, which Zack and I thought was pretty hilarious.

It came out when I was 8 or 9, and I talked about how my mom had bought the album and how I had to listen to it all the time.

Rene’s friend, Francis, mumbled something.

“What did he say?” asked Zack.

“He said that we think about this song because it came out in 1994. So when people fled during the genocide, they would listen to this song while waiting for the news.”

Rubindi Umuganda

Over the last two months, Mutuelle sensitizations have been scheduled and rescheduled a half dozen times. We made it through 4 of the 6 cells in Shingiro’s catchment area before the local elections. Many of the cell coordinators were not reelected (I don’t have any read on whether they did not run or were replaced by voters) and we had to wait for the new cell coordinators to settle in before we could approach them to let us speak to their communities.

At any rate, this past weekend we were able to speak with the good people of Rubindi. It was quite a Saturday morning.

The last Saturday morning of every month is Umuganda. Because taxes are hard to extract from low income communities, the government instead asks people to volunteer labor. It’s not a bad system, though ideally it would be unnecessary.

So at 9 AM on a Saturday morning, Elie, Consolate and I piled into the Land Cruiser, bright eyed and bushy tailed. We picked up Laurent, the Mutuelle Accountant and interim Manager, on the way.

Rubindi is in a really nice area, flatter than most of the rest of Shingiro’s catchment area, with lush, green fields during this, the rainy, season.

We rolled up the road into Rubindi and took the left fork to what I think of as its main town. When we arrived, Elie wandered off to find out where the Umuganda/sensitization was going to be while Consolate and I tried to interact with the community members. A woman sitting on a blanket was shucking ears of corn while about 12 children (probably not all her own) stood around her, a couple of them half-heartedly helping.

An old woman came up to me. She was smoking a pipe, and was leaning on a walking staff. “Matamuetze,” she said, and then all I heard was something about “Faranga.”

Elie came back, “It is in another place,” he said.

We left and the woman had to be restrained from trying to the Land Cruiser with her cane. “Awww,” said Consolate, “Some people just feel entitled to get money because they are old.”

We drove back to the fork in the road, and this time took the right fork. We drove a bit to what looked to be a school, where we found several people coming up from a path that led down into the valley below.

“They said that the Umuganda is across the valley, down at the new school that is being built,” said Elie, “You can ride with me while I drive around, or walk.”

I turned to Consolate, “Let’s walk.”

It was such a beautiful morning and within 15 seconds walking on the trail I know I had made the right choice.

The path was covered in fist-sized pebbles, neither small enough to crunch through or big enough to support our steps. So we slip-slided our way down the trail – even though I was wearing my hiking boots, I probably turned each ankle 2-3 times.

Consolate and I quickly lost sight of Laurent, who was moving speedily down the path. The view continued to be amazing.

There was a river at the base of the valley.

We crossed the stone bridge over the stream and arrived at the school where the Umuganda was taking place. There were several hundred people gathered in total, with community leaders talking to them in groups of 50-100 each.

“They are deciding who will be on the indigent list,” said Consolate. This is very important business, because indigents receive financial aid for Mutuelle, among perks. However, there is no really good ways to decide who is and is not an indigent – how do you compare wealth in a largely non-cash economy? Thus, a lot of people get on the list, many more than are given financial aid. We have found this to be a big problem for Mutuelle, because the final indigent lists are not announced until January or February – after the Mutuelle enrollment period closes. After the Mutuelle period closes (December 31), new enrollment activations are delayed by a month. The delay is to prevent people from waiting until they get sick to enroll. However, many people who are on the indigent list wait to see if they will get sponsored, and if they are not sponsored but want to enroll they then have to wait 30 days for coverage.

Elie had not yet arrived in the Land Cruiser. Consolate called him, “He says that the Land Cruiser is stuck in the mud,” she said. Laurent collected a group of 10-15 guys and they ran off to help push Elie out of the mud.

At previous Mutuelle sensitizations, we had attracted maybe 75-150 people. But because this was at an Umuganda, there were probably 300-400 people present. At this point, though, 400 sets of eyes fixed on my every movement doesn’t feel much different than 100.

As the minutes passed, I noticed small groups of people leaving. The Umuganda had concluded, so now people were just waiting to be lectured by us. I decided that I needed to do something to keep them interested in us and what we were going to say.
I turned to Consolate, “We have to dance.”

“What?” she asked.

“We have to do something really embarrassing, to make everyone think ‘what are those crazy Muzungus doing? I better stay to see if they do something interesting.’ C’mon, it’ll be fun.”

Consolate sort of giggled and refused to help.

So I did a little groove.

The idea, of course, worked perfectly. Every single person in attendance started looking at me and laughing and pointing. This was pretty fun for a couple of seconds.

Fortunately for my fragile dancing-ego, a few seconds later Elie pulled up with Gertie.

With no delay, the three to four hundred people circled around. Elie and Laurent spoke for a while - everyone seemed interested and listening but it’s hard to get a read on the crowd when you have no idea what’s being said.

After Elie and Laurent spoke, they opened the session up to questions. The head of COSA, the local quasi-governmental organization that technically runs the health center, got up and asked a question.

“What did he say?” I asked Consolate.

“He asked whether CCHIPs would help pay for extra indigents,” she replied.

I was struck by the extreme inappropriateness of the forum for the question. And it kind of pissed me off. I stewed – what kind of question is that? You can’t sand bag us like that in the middle of a presentation. Elie began to give an answer, though he appeared to be equivocating. I thought about the question, and what could be the right answer. I thought I had something worthwhile to say, and I went over to Elie and asked if I might say something. I began in English…

“I came to Rwanda two months ago from America. I have not been here long, but I’ve seen the beauty of this country and the potential of its people. Based on everything I’ve seen and the people I’ve meet, I can see that Rwanda is a great country. And I believe it will soon be a wealthy country. But this wealth will not be given to Rwanda. Received wealth cannot last. You must work hard to create it. CCHIPs is a tiny part of the growth and change that will come to Rwanda. Focusing on health centers, we are here to help Rwanda fulfill its great potential. I have seen progress made every day and I know that great things can be done. But we do not give hand outs. We can give ideas and training. With those ideas and that training, Rwanda can grow and support its own indigents. That’s what CCHIPs does because that’s the best use of our limited resources. We could cover everyone’s Mutuelle for a year, but it’s better for us to help Rwanda grow so that it can support itself forever.”

Elie said, in Kinyarwanda, “I’m sure you all understood what he said…” That got a good laugh from everyone. Then Elie began to translate what I had said…

…As Elie entered into his fifth minute of translating my thirty second speech, I turned to Consolate, “what is he saying?”

“You know Elie, he loves to go on and on. Right now he is saying how what you said is like how you treat a child. You support them less and less as they grow up.”
“Wait, what? No! That’s very colonialist. I did NOT say that.”

“It’s ok, they won’t care.”

But I care, I thought,OK, the analogy is not totally false, but it’s also not very PC. I kept thinking about it as Elie finished speaking. We thanked everyone for having us, and got back in the Land Cruiser.

As we drove out of Rubindi, we had to stop several times for people to move their mats covered in sorghum. It had become a sunny day and the people were taking the opportunity to dry out the harvest before selling it.

The whole ride home, I thought about what exactly I meant, about why CCHIPs is in Rwanda, about why I’m in Rwanda, about what forms international aid and NGO interventions should take. Not small topics, I guess.

At the very least, I concluded a few things, which I plan to touch more on in this blog:

1. In Rwanda, critical thinking and forward planning are missing skills sets. This is not to say that Rwandans are stupid or can’t make decisions, but there are socially constructed and learned ways of viewing the world that improve economic decision-making. These skills are far from ubiquitous.

2. I strongly believe that if those deficits in critical thinking and forward planning were erased, Rwanda would grow at a high rate for a long time.

3. For those with an entrepreneurial frame of mind, there are so many opportunities to make money here. Indeed, I’ve met several entrepreneurs here who I plan to write more about.

Snake in the Bed

Rwandan men have a superstition that if their wife touches their penis, then they will become impotent when sleeping with other women. Jeanne D’Arc was speaking to a group of men about this and other sex-related topics:

“But you all sleep naked! Of course your wife could touch it when you sleep!”

They had, apparently, never considered this possibility. They were at once dumbfounded and terrified.

Kigali - Night

We pulled up to “Hill Top Hotel and Country Club”. “They have golf? Tennis?” I asked Zack.

“No.”

After a tense discussion at reception regarding my failure to bring my passport from Musanze, we checked in and I promptly collapsed on my bed. The TV sat on a short table next to my bed, in line with my face. Zack turned it on and began watching soccer.

Perfect.

For the next 15 minutes I tried to sleep over the soccer announcer shouting in my ear.

There was a knock on the door.

“Time for drinks,” said Ro, from the hall.

Zack got up to leave, “I’ll be there in a bit,” I said, “I’m going to try to take a shower.”

I went into the bathroom. There was no shower, per se. The bathroom was maybe 25 square feet. There was a shower head, and a bucket on the floor next to the toilet. I turned the knob, and water shot out of the spout at waist level. I looked for some do-hicky that would redirect the water to come out of the shower head. No such luck. The shower head had a hose dangling down from its base, so I tried shoving this into the waist level spout. Nope.

After a hot day in Kigali, I felt grim. Sweat, oil and dirt was caked over my entirety. I have to do something, I thought.

I looked at the sink. Frowned. Shrugged.

I turned on the sink. I stepped into the bucket.

…

Feeling refreshed if slightly ashamed after my hobo shower, I wandered out to the patio, where Zack, Ro, and Jeanne D’Arc were interviewing a candidate for the Medical Systems Coordinator position.

While we waited for the interview to end, Amber, Elie and I chatted. I ordered a coffee and a beer – not exactly the wisest combination, but I wanted to simultaneously wake up and relax.

When the waitress came with my order, I was pretty happy to find that ordering a coffee means you get the whole pot. Also, my beer was a full liter. Excessive, but appreciated.

…

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant. Restaurants in Rwanda are generally unreliable – for most menu items, you could get almost anything based on your order. In Musanze, I routinely am brought the wrong thing, or nothing at all. The best defense to this problem is to order Briochete and chips. Briochete is goat kebob. Everyone in Rwanda knows what Briochete is and how to make it and basically all Briochete tastes the same.

Ro, Amber, Zack and I made the safe play and ordered Briochete and chips.
While we waited for the food to arrive, we talked about Rwandan culture. Women’s rights issues are for some reason a favorite a favorite topic of conversation for all the women present.

“In Rwanda,” Jeanne D’Arc said, “If a man is with a woman who is not his wife, that is called a ‘mistake’ and if there is a child it goes to live with its father. But if a woman does the same mistake, the husband divorces her and takes all the children.”

Jeanne D’Arc is part of a local group in Musanze. They beat wife beaters. Seriously. The Mayor's wife is a member of the group.

“Yeah, I think Gabby mentioned that women cannot whistle?” I offered.

“That’s true, only men may whistle in public,” said Elie.

After long time of good conversation, the food arrived. At this point I was too hungry to care, but I did notice that my fries were dripping with grease. To save money or because of lack of supplies, sometimes Rwandan restaurants don’t change the frying oil as often as they should.

As we sat and talked more after dinner, I noticed the grease begin to work its magic – I was suddenly deep in a food coma. Everyone was excited to be going out to Cadillac, and Amber secured the positive RSVPs of Elie and Jeanne D’Arc – Ro, of course, was in from the start.

…

After dinner, we went back to the room. I was ready to fall asleep. I lay down on my bed, and began drifting off to sleep. Happily. Softly. Nicely.

“Mike, it’s time to go to Cadillac.”

“Nooooo,” I protested.

And then we left for Cadillac.

…

We rolled up to Cadillac around 10:30PM. Zack and I had both voiced concerns that this was too early for a dance club, but the team seemed unfazed. Zack and I went up to the guy collecting covers – “500 each,” he said, eyeing us. Zack covered me and Amber. The bouncer seemed annoyed to get up off of his stool.

We passed through the leather, padded double doors. The doors opened into a large, dark room. Sparkling lights covered all the walls, a dance floor at the middle of the room. I looked around. Empty.

I almost ran to the bar.

“A Jameson and a red bull on the rocks.”

“Double up that Jameson?”

“Absolutely.”


…

After a bit, people began coming into the club. Most gawked at the knot of Muzungus dominating the bar next to the door, and congregated at the other bar across the room. A short guy came up to me. “Hello,” he said in very accented English, “How’s it going? I’m Leonard.”

“How’s it going, man?”

“You like Rwanda? You like girls?”

“Yes?”

“Look,” he said, pulling out his phone, “I know lots of girls.” He began scrolling through his contacts, showing me entries with names of girls…Mary, Anne, Jessica.

“Great man, I’m really proud of you,” I said, hoping he’d get the hint and leave me alone. I turned my head and saw Zack and Ro giggling at my predicament.

Apparently he was not appreciative of my tone: “So where were you in 1994?”

Woah, I thought. “Uhhh, I was 8? In America?” I offered.

“So do you like Edgar Allen Poe?” he asked.

“Who?”

“The poet.”

Thoroughly confused, and experiencing one of the most bizarre encounters in my life, I decided that I had had enough, “I dunno man, I’m going to go talk to my friends.”

…

We all chatted for a while. Then Elie, Amber and Jeanne D’Arc decided to do a bit of dancing. My stomach rumbled – between my unsettling conversation with Leonard and the greasy fries and goat, my mood and stomach were both frothing. Zack’s next move didn’t settle anything.

Zack waved me to the bar, where he waited with a small bottle of Waragi and two glasses.

Waragi is a Ugandan banana liquor. The name “Waragi” comes from the British colonists in Uganda, who called it “War Gin”. It is among the most horrendous drinks I’ve ever had the misfortune of drinking. It is technically vodka but it tastes like bathtub gin.

“Thanks for nothing,” I said, as I drank the shot.

…

As the night wore on, a couple groups of Muzungus came in.

I thought about the dynamics in the club – a lot of Rwandans having a good time, and a handful of Muzungus coming in and grabbing a lot of attention.

Why do we get so much attention? I wondered. We’re …rich?
I make over 100 times the average salary here, I realized. I could be a Sugar Daddy! Just like the billboard!

I processed the implications of this realization. In Musanze and at Shingiro, I’m exotic, different, a who-knows-what-to-expect entity. But in Kigali, there are enough Muzungus that we’ve established a collective reputation. Apparently it’s not a great one at Cadillac on a Friday night at 1 AM…

Rich, foreign, predatory.

Where was I in 1994?

Woah.

…

Several old Muzungu men began dancing with their Rwandan ‘girlfriends’. These guys looked to be in their mid-50s to late-60s. Old. There are a number of unsettling realizations that come from watching these couples. The most glaring, though, is what dorks the guys are.

There’s a serious cognitive dissonance when a supposed ‘millionaire-celebrity’ goofily performs a cringe-inducing ballroom dance to “Get Low”. Not ballroom dancing like he’s some pro. Ballroom dancing like the man’s never had the courage to try to dance. Like how the theatre kids 'express' themselves at a high school dance. Damnit, it was embarrassing. And enraging. My blood boiled.

…

Making the easy choice not to share a dance floor with Neil Strauss, Mystery, David D’Angelo and their ladies, I began to recognize just how bad my stomach felt.

Ro, Jeanne D’Arc, and Elie were ready to leave, and so was I.

We said goodbye to Zack and Amber, who decided to stay and dance, and we made a happy retreat to Hill-Top Hotel and Country Club.

…

Kigali is a beautiful city at night.

We drove home, and admired the lights of the city, an abrupt difference from Musanze, which is very dark at night.

“It looks like the lights of LA from a distance, but we’re so close,” said Ro.

She was right, though the lights, being so close, didn’t twinkle. The black wall of the hillside passed from left to right through the windows on the opposite side of the back of the Land Cruiser. Each light represented an open door or window of someone’s home. They gently slid past.

…

The next day, Zack, Amber and I sat in Bourbon while the others did more errands. We had a good time chatting and people watching.

The most memorable group of people I saw was a disastrously representative American family of four. They fumbled about, completely unaware of how loud their cultural hubris was shouting. Each member of the family was overweight. Each wore an ill-fitting t-shirt with a completely non sequitur print: a “Just Do It Later” Bahamas souvenir, a shirt extolling the virtues of Yellowstone national park, a Wal-Mart knock off of an Ed Hardy print, and a shirt bearing Taz, the Looney-Tunes character. The husband was stocky, with a protruding gut and a shaggy brown beard. His wife’s brown hair fell long and unkempt – she wore no make-up. One of the boys dragged the mother by her hand to the counter display of pastries. The boy pointed at his selection - not demandingly, not even expectantly. He showed no anticipation. That he would get whatever he wanted was a foregone conclusion. I witnessed the last member of the family, he looked to be about 6, eagerly snatch a cup of hot cocoa from his mother. He took a big gulp of the steaming liquid and a grimace broke out on his face. To his credit, he didn’t cry or scream. He just looked puzzled – what have I done to deserve this unpleasantness?

…

The drive home was really nice. It was late in the day, and the temperature was perfect. We had an English-language quorum in the back of Gertie between Zack, Amber, Ro and myself. During one of the shopping excursions, we had accidentally bought an Indian version of Trivial Pursuit. It was almost what we had wanted, and all we could do was laugh about how hard questions about cricket and Indira Gandhi would be to try to answer.