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Hope in Rwanda

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Unmarked grave

In the spring of 1994, over the course of 100 days, one million Rwandans were murdered. 10,000 people a day were killed by militias encouraged and supported by the government. Most North Americans only know this story through a handful of news reports and Don Cheadle’s movie. So it is understandable that our plan to travel to Rwanda was met with much disbelief and concern from our friends and family. Why on earth would we choose to take our young family to such a horrific place?

The history is indeed horrific. One in eight Rwandans were slaughtered that spring. There is a grave in Kigali that holds the remains of 250,000 victims. Toddlers were bludgeoned to death. Churches were bulldozed while victims sought shelter within. Machete wielding militias left corpses littering the streets. The history is horrific.

But the place, the country is not. Rwanda is not the genocide. Rwanda is a survivor of the genocide. The entire country is a victim of trauma, and to witness how it has chosen to heal is inspiring.

How these people can overcome the desire for revenge astonishes me. I doubt I could. When questioned on the topic our safari driver (who was made an orphan at the 10 by the militias) responded “We have no choice, we can not tolerate more killings, more death”.

Every April there is a week of national mourning, citizens attend Kwibuka sessions in their villages where they discuss and share their genocide stories, trying to heal. Tribal identity is no longer recognized; no Tutsi, no Hutu only Rwandans.

We did not take the kids into the memorial. Because of the graphic nature of the exhibits, children under 12 are not admitted. But of course they had questions, “What does genocide mean? How does something like that happen”?

Genocide is the horrible end of an ethos of “the other”. The mindset of Us versus Them. The scapegoating of all of your problems on a marginalized group. Of slowly demonizing that group until they’re not even human, then trying to get rid of them with the hope that your problems will go away too. It’s so much easier to hate a disenfranchised group than a broken system. Rwanda’s genocide is a lesson in how this mindset fails everyone and Rwanda’s recovery is a lesson in how unity is the only real hope.

That’s why we took our kids to Rwanda. I hope they learned the lesson. I hope we all can.

Retching Record

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We’ve been doing this sort of thing for decades, Jen and I. We’ve negotiated transport and driver countless times. You think by now we would have learned to ask if the road is paved the entire way. I guess we’re slow learners.

This weekend’s excursion was to Rwanda’s western border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Unlike the flat savannahs of the east, western Rwanda is mountainous. So our five hour, partially-paved trip was overflowing with twists, switchbacks, and hairpin turns. Stella beat her Bhutan record and threw up four times during the ride. What a trooper, she collects airsickness bags from all our flights, knowing that we’re likely going to force some nausea inducing adventure on her.

Not helping matters was our driver’s aggressive acceleration-braking, characteristic of those who drive with two feet. Perhaps a technique for our zealous driver to more effectively overtake and pass every bicycle, car, minibus, and lorry that had the affrontery to occupy the road ahead of us. Through a complex semaphore of horn-honking and turn-signal flashing, he would communicate to the other motorists his desire to pass at the next convenient blind curve. Fatalistic drivers like this one always earn me a seat as shotgun. Jen knows that my life insurance has the higher payout. So instead of watching our driver attempt to squeeze three abreast, between an endless succession of buses and oncoming dump trucks, I focused out the side window, at the passing mountains of western Rwanda.

Around 5000 feet, the topography of western Rwanda reminds me a lot of Appalachia. However, being situated on the equator the curvature of these hills are clothed in a very different flora. In place of the mixed temperate forests of NC or VA, these mountains play host to a more tropical variety. Immediately outside of the capital, the land is parceled in an endless quiltwork of gardens, and small subsistence farms. Broad leaved-banana trees surround homes and run up to plots of corn, peas, sweet potato, melons, cassava. There are stands of bamboo, avocado trees, passion fruit vines. The valley floors are all sectioned into rectangled rice paddies. If any naked earth shows it is the red dirt of my childhood in GA. Shades of green and red are the dominant palate of these hills.

After a while I notice something missing. I’ve not seen any draft animals in Rwanda. There are no oxen tilling those paddies, no donkeys pulling carts of produce. I guess it makes sense. Rwanda is Africa’s most densely populated country. Labor here is cheap. We’re constantly passing bicycles laden down with small mountains of plantains, sweating men and boys pushing them to market.

Tea Plantation

As we get closer to our destination, the patchwork of gardens gives way to industrial-scale tea plantations. The waist high shrubs are so tightly packed, they make entire hillsides into bright green topiary. The only break, the occasional blue-grey stand of eucalyptus, identifiable by its scent as much as its silvery leaves. The plantations are community co-ops. In addition to a source of local income, these fields form natural barriers around Nyungwe Forest National Park.

Colobus Monkey

Nyungwe is Rwanda’s most important area of biodiversity. 1000 plant species, 13 species of primates including chimpanzee and colobus monkeys, 275 species of birds, 120 different types of butterfly. When we cross into the park we enter a world of nature left to its own business. Now the hills are obscured by curtains of green wild rainforest jungle. Blue monkeys eye us from the roadside and hornbills glide along the valleys. There is so much green it makes a racket for the eyes.

Rwandan soldiers also watch us from the roadside. In body armor, with an impressive array of machine guns, they are a reminder that we are on the border of the DRC. From our hotel room, we can look across Lake Kivu and into that no man’s land of civil war and Ebola. It’s like looking into North Korea, Syria, South Sudan, Yemen. Like standing at the edge of the grand canyon or the top of the Sears tower. It gives you the willies. Some travelers (with a poor sense of self-preservation) actually cross that border tracking gorilla, looking for adventure, hits of adrenalin.

For Byers Without Borders, the hotel buffet was adventure enough. Lily and I spent the majority of Monday prostrate on the cool tile floor of our bathroom in Kigali.

Kigali Transport

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Kigali is a city of 1 million spread out over a handful of steep hills. Unlike some of our other homes abroad, it is not feasible to navigate the city on foot. As such we’ve been forced to educate ourselves on the varied modes of Kigali city transport.

At 5000 Rwandan Francs (RWF) for a cross-town ride, taxis occupy the top spot in the food chain of transport. No real difference from those at home, assuming your stateside taxi has mirrors held on by zip ties and worn springs that bottom the car out on every bump. Jen normally takes the front seat because of her superior French, however, most of the drivers only speak Kinyarwanda, so the ride often devolves into frustrated pointing at a phone map.

If 5000 RWF is too much the moto-taxi is an exhilarating option. For 1000 RWF (helmet included) you can hop on the back of one of these motorcycle taxis and zip across town, weaving in and out of traffic, in an affront to local traffic laws and every nuanced clause of your travel insurance policy. Arriving at your destination vibrating from adrenaline and itching from the community helmet are just part of the experience.

Cheap, scenic and likely a bit more safe than Moto-taxis are the bicycle taxis. It’s just what it sounds like, a padded seat behind your driver pumping the pedals. By far these are my favorite because no one can look serious riding shotgun on the back of a bike, legs held out to the sides in a tin-man pose. It’s like trying to look mad while sipping out of a straw.

Finally, there is the city bus. At 100-200 RWF, this is the cheapest way to get across town. Overcrowded, smelly, with cryptic routes and stops that change like the stairs of Hogwarts, the kids refuse to take the bus with me. The rugby scrum getting on and off is intimidating.

 

Plus, a family motorcycle race across town is loads more fun.

Asian Aftertaste

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Imagine you’re lucky enough to snag a table at The French Laundry, the chef’s tasting menu, multiple courses with wine pairings, ingredients locally sourced and Michelin-level prepared by Thomas Keller himself, and after swallowing the last morsel of dessert perfection you pop up and rush to the restroom to brush your teeth. Unthinkable! No! An experience like that warrants time on the palate, time for savoring. Those exquisite and complex flavors need a chance to imprint themselves. They should be allowed to fade slowly.

Our re-entry to the west is always like this. It takes us a few weeks to allow the recent experience to fade. Time to process, to reorient, to recalibrate to this cultural baseline.

Our last port of call in Asia was Singapore. We had the good fortune to stay with our friends Kim and Tom. Not only did they store a mountain of cold-weather gear for us, while we played in Indonesia, they acted as wonderful hosts and guides in a town that now ranks in our personal top 3 Asian cities.

Everyone has heard how clean Singapore is (yes, it is against the law to chew gum in public) but really, it is insanely clean. My mother’s housekeeping standards are based on the magazine layouts of Southern Living. As a kid she made me vacuum my way backward out of rooms so I wouldn’t walk over the sweeper lines in the carpet’s nap. Even she would be impressed with Singapore. Add in its tropical flora, and it’s understandable why the kids kept saying “I feel like we’re at Busch Gardens”.

Somehow Singapore has found a way to blend English, Chinese, South Indian, and Maylay cultures without watering down any one of them. The best place to see this is in the food hawker centers. Tiny mom and pop owned food stalls specialize in the authentic cuisine of the owner’s heritage. By picking multiple stalls our mealtimes often resembled a buffet at the U.N.  Satay and coconut rice, saag paneer and tandoori baked naan, chili crab and buns, even a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, all laid out on long communal tables and washed down with bottles of Tiger Beer.

Singapore is famous among foodies and was even featured on an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. The celebrity chef called Singapore the most food-centric place on the planet, and our host Kim made sure it lived up to the hype. I had a religious experience with soup dumplings, Jen spent an afternoon sipping authentic Singapore Slings, and the kids discovered the little-known Singaporean Ice Cream Sandwich.

Even food expert Bourdain missed that one. An inch thick slab of ice cream slapped on a slice of psychedelic colored sandwich bread, eaten taco style. It

sounds ridiculous, but the lines at these carts attest that it is ridiculously good. The texture of the bread makes the whole encounter reminiscent of a strawberry shortcake.

Savoring Ice Cream Sandwiches with friends

 

 

 

 

 

 

The food, the mix of cultures, the clean streets, a crime rate that is conducive to 10 year olds taking the subway unaccompanied, Singapore left a taste we wanted to savor.

Even departing Singapore was pleasant. Smiling immigration officers stuffed the kid’s pockets with candy. In contrast, their kevlar-clad U.S. counterparts welcomed us home with scowls and the news of the latest school shooting.

Culture shock makes sense. You’re in a foreign environment, so obviously you should feel a bit off balance. But reverse culture shock, the struggle to feel at home when you’re at home, is much more distressing. You’re in an environment that should feel comfortable and normal, and yet things still feel alien. There are too many cereals to pick from at the grocery store and not enough smiles to help soothe your indecision.

Rob & Sharon’s pet bear/dog Hagrid

For the past month, this has been our little struggle. We’ve felt out of step and misunderstood. Fortunately, we returned to New Haven for another month of work at Yale. Hearing Arabic or Russian on the bus is nothing special in New Haven, and 90% of the kid’s friends here have passports. Also, we have been able to connect with some of our HVO-Bhutan-volunteer buddies. We had

Having fun with Hagrid

dinner in Avon with surgeons Rob and Sharon, and their giant Newfie Hagrid. Charlie and Carolyn had us over for cocktails in Branford. And

Sunset on the beach with the Mizes.

Jen and the kids spent the better part of a week in Maine at Betsy and Randall’s camp. Spending time with these people, friends who understand why we go and how we feel when returning, has helped pull our heads out of the sand. We’re all feeling a bit more at ease. The kids no longer balk at brushing their teeth with tap water.

With Betsy at her and Randy’s camp in Maine.

So we’re back to normal. Or at least as normal as Byerswithoutborders can ever be, which means… moving day!

My month-long contract at Yale is over. It’s time to hit the road again.

”We’re like birds. Wherever we land we build a nest” Given