Umuganda

Saturday, June 25th, was my first (and only) Umuganda day in Rwanda.  Umuganda is a national-wide morning of community service that occurs on the last Saturday of every month.  You can read about the fascinating history and meaning of Umuganda here. 

John, our gardener, woke us up with his booming voice and fervent gestures that morning, insisting that we join in the work being done.  Happy to see another side of Kigali, I threw on clothes and harassed Lizzy and Kerrlene into coming with (just kidding, they actually volunteered quite readily).  We hiked down the winding road for 15 minutes, led by two Rwandans John had arranged for us, before encountering a group of 20+ Rwandans and wazungu lined up along a brightly painted wall outside a coop and one of our favourite cafes.  The wall was being painted with a massive with the more complicated portions already sketched or painted in.  We picked up plastic cups full of varying colors of paint and washed off some paintbrushes.  After a few hours of painting triangles, rhombuses and frilly swooshes, in addition to a plethora of conversations in Swahili, we hiked back up to the house.  In other places of Rwanda, people were picking up trash, shoveling clay and trimming bushes.

From about 8am until 11am on Umuganda, all buses cease running in addition to any form of transportion.  If you are caught on the road without a valid reason, such as catching a flight, you will be stopped and fined.  The city was mysteriously quiet as people either wandered down the road in search of work to do, or hid in their houses and performed the Umuganda for themselves and their families.

Lizzy, Kerrlene and I next to a mural that we didn't actually paint.
Our colorful, albeit basic, additions are further down the wall.

WE-ACTx Vs. WE-ACTx For Hope

After three weeks here, I was finally corrected on the difference between the terms that I'd been using interchangably: WE-ACTx and WE-ACTx For Hope.  Here's the difference:

WE-ACTx

WE-ACTx is an international NGO started in 2004 that currently raises money and awareness about HIV/AIDS in Rwanda.

WE-ACTx For Hope

WE-ACTx For Hope is a local NGO that branched off from WE-ACTx to serve as its own entitity and continue to provide clinical and psychosocial services to HIV positive patients in Kigali and Nyacyonga in Rwanda.

Ineza Cooperative

Ineza is a women's cooperative in Kigali selling handmade items ranging from backpacks to bookmarks, elephant dolls and table runners.  Their quality is amazing and these women really know how to work the foot pedal sewing machines like nobody's business!  Kerrlene and I went for a visit to their workshop in Remera this week after work.  Here is what I saw, including their room full of bags, purses and ties.  Kerrlene was even shown hwo to sew, since she recently had the women make her teddy bear a full outfit, hat included.  Now, she had a matching handband.  Yes, we are most certainly grown ups.  :)  Ineza cooperative partners with a local NGO, Hands of Mothers (Manos de Madres) to help sell their beautiful things at shops in Kigali and fairs in the States.

Wazungu buying some of the beautiful handmade stuff.

Here's their website: https://inezacooperative.wordpress.com/

Nyacyonga Again

Nyacyonga Clinic

Yesterday was my second visit to Nycoyonga, the slightly less urban clinic that WE-ACTx For Hope partners with to assist in providing care once per week.  I traveled with Edmund, our trauma counselor, and Dr. Gilbert, our clinic doctor.  It was my turn to shadow Dr. Gilbert was he finished some patient consultations.  He saw 6 patients in total, with concerns ranging from chlamydia to pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).  His adviced also ranged from giving antibiotics (Deoxycycline) to going to the closest hopsital for X rays and blood work.  

One of the HIV positive patients came in because he recently had a Rapid HIV test at a different clinic that came up negative.  This man had been HIV positive for 10 years and on ARV's for 8 years.  His wife was HIV negative, so they are considered a discordant couple.  He wanted to talk to the Dr. Gilbert because he wanted to stop his ARV's since he had now tested negative for HIV.  His wife was also encouraging this.  Dr. Gilbert was explaining the mechanism of action of HIV and why, even though he still have HIV and needed to take ARV's, the test had said he was negative.  Thus, he left choosing to remain on his medication and glad that he had consulted the doctor.  Smart man.

Dr. Gilbert setting up in one of the offices.

Edmund, me, Dr. Gilbert and Chantal.

Random fact about Dr. Gilbert:  While working in Partners in Health (PIH) in Rwanda before he joined WE-ACTx, he worked alongside Paul Farmer multiple times, who also taught him how to perform a lumbar puncture at one point.

Random fact about Edmund: Before becoming a trauma counselor, he was a self-taught professional photographer.  He used to photograph weddings and other events (which explains why the lighting on this photo is way better than my others - he helped us figure it out!).

Flowers

After Chantal's rough couple days, my housemates and I chipped in to get her some flowers and say thank you for all that she does for us.  

Here's the team and Chantal with her bouquet: 

To cry

My morning at the clinic was started with some somber faces, perhaps in light of the theft that Chantal experienced yesterday.  However, as I sat down outside her office to wait for her, a women exited from the trauma counselor's office in tears.  Wrapped in kitenge and clutching a black, fake-leather purse, she heaved herself into the white plastic chair outside his office and let her head fall into her hands.  As her shoulders heaved from the tears that were springing forth, I fetched a napkin from my purse and brought it to her. "Morakoze" she uttered and I felt helpless, not even knowing the correct response in Kinyarwanda.  Leaving her privacy to cry and be sad, I stared back at my computer and recalled the disappointing news that has surrounded the last 24 hours.  Lizzy's bitten feet, Chantal's stolen computer....and I remembered that while our pain can heal with some medicine and the purchase of a replacement computer, hers was springing from a much deeper place of hurt and sadness.  As Chantal arrived, she floated to the crying woman's side and placed her hand on her back, guiding her into her office.  The woman shuffled in slowly and with the weight of a heart that holds more grief that I would wish upon my worst enemy.  The things that these women have experienced.

Stealing

Sadly, stealing is all too common in developing countries.  No matter what the situation, it's hard to not feel violated, upset and angry.  What's harder is to forgive and move on.  Within my first week in Tanzania, I lost 2 Ipods and a set of headphones.  I was devastated and confused as to why no one seemed to know who snuck into my home.  Later, after a mutiple stolen phones and lost cash, you come to realize that items and money are transient and worse things can happen.  Nevertheless, that doesn't take away the pain and frustration you feel each time it happens and, without doubt, it will happen.  Travelers learn this painful lesson right off the bat.  However, what can hurt the most, is when something is stolen from a space that you thought private and secure.  Our clinic director, Chantal, experienced this today when her computer was stolen from inside her office.  Despite me sitting outside working on my computer, someone managed to sidle inside and take her laptop.  Her heartbreak was palpable.  While she is a strong, patient and wise women, she couldn't help but be hurt.  The words that she uttered right before leaving were "what hurts the most isn't the missing computer, but the lost documents and the disrespect."  Unfortunately, too many of us can empathize with this pain.