July 10, 2009

July 10, 2009

So, I took the Remera bus straight to rehearsal today (and didn’t get lost!!) and who was there at St. Francois but Alice for another human rights workshop! The nuns rent out rooms to different groups, and she happened to be there, too. I love her so much.

So we got into our new room and warmed up a little (1, 121, 12321, 1234321, 123454321…) in a scale progression. We played pass it drop it hold it pick it and then started rehearsing the intro market scene and here I am! They’re writing some music for the intro scene outside right now. It’s a song between Rwanda’s two cell phone providers, MTN, and Rwandatel, fighting over a customer—hilarious!

Later, the American part of GYC plus some of the Rwandan AJPRODHO folks will go to the Twa village. The Twa are an indigenous people of Rwanda, not unlike our own American Indians, and make up only 1-2% of the population. They were (are?) originally potters, and Flo, the Austrian guy we hang out with at the hotel says they’re, ‘small people,’ and used the word, ‘oompa loompas.’ I’m a little sceptical of such things, as I’ve never heard such a thing. He says, though, that during the genocide, the Hutu would pay them to rape Tutsi women.

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After rehearsal, I ran straight to St. Paul’s to catch the bus to seea play and then visit the Twa village. We picked up Jesse’s father and little half-sister, Vanessa, who is the most adorable half-Rwandan, half-American I’ve ever seen. She really kind of latched onto me when we reached the village where the play was to be performed. There was a lot of music playing and about a hundred children flocked around and danced with me and Sam and Julie. Vanessa grabbed my hands and wouldn’t let me go the whole time—adorable.

She sat on my lap for most of the play, and translated bits and pieces of it for me, as she understands very basic Kinyarwanda. It didn’t really help, but it was cute just the same. We left, and she and her father took the bus home, while we went on to the Twa village.

Te Twa village was very close, but the roads were terrible, so it took a very long time. Finally, the bus had to stop, and we had to make the trek on foot the rest of the way to the village. A lot of people were upset, because they were not wearing the most appropriate shoes for the walk—lots of flip flops, not so many sneakers. However, I was in sneakers and I was still having trouble, just for the record.

We met with the leader of the village, along with Dr. Carl, who works there with a bunch of foreigners working. They told us that out of 133 babies born, 67 were stillborn. The infant mortality rate in this village is at least 400x higher than the infant mortality rate in the United States.

Dr. Carl’s group is helping, though. They’ve helped buy the children shoes and uniforms so they can go to school, and supplied vitamin supplements and anti-worming medication. This equals 5 cents per person every six months, though they would use it a whole lot more often. The children’s bellies are very big, as they are filled with worms.

They’ve supplied the people with basic health insurance, helped them form a village council to address issues in the community, and built them their first latrines this year. Before, they would just relieve themselves wherever they wanted, which added to the problem of worms, hygiene, and cleanliness. These people earn less than $1. per day, and they are very much isolated from the rest of the country. Very few can read at all.

Dr. Carl’s group led a class on how to apply soap, and only one out of the twelve women knew what it was and how to use it. Even if they know, though, it would be very difficult to use, because of their lack of water. It takes at least a half hour to walk to the well, another half hour to fill a bucket, as they have to do it by the cupful, and then there’s the long walk back with a full bucket of water—on average, a trip to the well will take two hours ad fifteen minutes. The amount of water they have per day is well below the minimum for human existence.

There is hope, though! One Twa girl is the second in her class of 47, and another girl is in the top 5 of her class. When asked about the resources they had that they could use to help themselves, they replied, “We have life, health, and happiness.” They have the ability to love, they have the ability to sing, dance, and play flute. Even with the health clinic an hour and a half walk away, beans as their only source of protein, and the lack of water for their children, they find ways to be thankful.

Traditionally, the Twa people use the word, ‘Twa,’ to define themselves. The government, however, sees this as an ethnic term, and calls them the, ‘community of potters,’ which promotes classism, instead. They have been called the, ‘Batwa pygmies,’ by the colonists, which refers to them as small creatures, which they are certainly not. By others, they have been called the, ‘people who have been here from the beginning,’ or the, ‘people who were left behind by history,’ and it is certainly true.

There have been many times on this trip when I have thought, ‘wow, it can’t get much worse than this.’ Well, this was it. The Twa people of this village, even with the help of Dr. Carl & co, hands down have the worst living conditions I ever could have imagined. The people were more dirty than I’ve ever seen anyone, and the shoes they owned were only because of Dr. Carl’s project. We arrived on a day that they had lost another baby, and so it was a solemn day for the whole village.

The HDI desperately needs funds to help this, and the many Batwa villages like this one. There are two websites that you can go to to help. The first is http://www.coffeerwanda.com . This site’s proceeds go to the HDI, Health Development Initiative, which provides shoes to children with worms, vitamins and anti-worming pills so that they can be more healthy.

The second site is not going to be up until the beginning of August, but the link will be http://www.pygmysurvival.org and the proceeds will go specifically to this village outside of Kigali.