i’m back in rwanda, in my nice cozy mosquito-net-clad bed.  there’s no water, no food, and no kerosene in the house.  but it’s nice to be home.

school starts soon and then will undoubtedly end soon.  i’ve only got three months left, which seems ridiculously short, considering all there is still to do.  i’m, oddly enough, running dry on stories – maybe the banality of adjusting to life (anywhere, even here) leads to writer’s block.  will have to move again soon.

day 9.  cintsa.  horse-back riding on the beach.  our guide rides bareback, shoeless and chainsmoking with a constant stream of commentary (about her method of collecting rainwater, about the rising price of local real-estate, about last weekend’s string of break-ins in the area).  we meander through sun-bleached hills, down rocky coast and learn to trot on the beach.  despite sara’s fear of riding large animals, we manage ok (the mount and dismount being the only tricky parts requiring a less-than-lady-like stomach flop and a helpful push from behind).  afterwards, we pack up camp and hit the road with bruised bottoms and bow-legged swaggers.

port elizabeth.  we sleep inside for the first time since arriving, in a cozy old victorian near the movie theatre.  we watch angelina jolie beat the * out of james mcavoy on the big screen.  ah, civilization.

day 10.  the highway.  we head down the coast and push through to the interior, pausing only to take pictures of benches, to be soothed by ‘traffic-calming speedbumps’ (i feel so calm now), to eat bread and cheese sandwiches (road-trip staple) in the spray of some sizable waves, and to hit a shopping mall in search of bikinis and smoothies.  coastal cliffs and rainforest rise to become desert plains back-dropped by formidable rocky mountain ranges.  sara is now a pro at driving stick (on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car), even through stoplights (called ‘robots’ here).  tonight’s campsite is in someone’s backyard, next to a swimming pool. (it says this pool is lagoon-like. i have some tiki-torches in the garage.)

day 11.  oudtshoorn.  we follow a skinny dirt road as it curves through the steep swartberg pass and are almost blown off the top of the mountain.  sara is bitten by an ostrich.

day 12.  montagu.  accommodation is in the stables of an old farmhouse.  we hike through a ravine then soak ourselves in the hot springs (not that hot actually - more like lukewarm springs, tepid even).

day 13.  the highway.  we book it out of montagu at the crack of dawn and head for the cape of good hope where we visit… a penguin colony!

day 14.  the cape of good hope.  our last day with chica.  we drive around the southern-most point of africa and hike around the park where i get my first glimpse of the atlantic in a year and a half.  here it collides with the indian ocean in a mess of waves and blended ecosystems.

the road to cape town.  we are thwarted from the start.  the scenic route from cape point into town is closed for maintenance.  sara successfully navigates me through a series of also-scenic-but-not-as-scenic roads into the city.  the hostel has misplaced our booking and there’s no parking.  we can’t return chica because the rental office is closed.  our tickets to robben island (where mandela was in prison for 18 years) are cancelled due to high seas.  the cable-car to the top of table mountain is closed for the winter.  and the new batman movie is sold out.  and it’s raining.

day 15.  cape town.  a chilly sunday morning.  all of yesterday’s hassle is forgotten.  the weather is fine.  we explore the waterfront (big shopping mall full of designer boutiques, expensive souvenir shops, and fancy restaurants), visit the aquarium, get a boat to robben island with beautiful views of the city, come back and watch christian bale battle wits with the whims of heath ledger (may he rest in peace).  a wonderful day.

day 16.  cape town.  sight-seeing.  museums.  shopping.  good food.  good wine.  relishing the city.

day 17.  cape town.  our last day.  we take a morning tour of the townships.  these are low-income housing projects at best and miles and miles of shanty-towns at worst.  the contrast between the poverty here and the extravagant wealth of the waterfront is jaw-dropping.  this is the south africa of movies like tsotsi.  a developing country hidden behind barricades next to the superhighways so the wealthy (mostly white) south africans don’t have to think about where their poor (mostly black) countrymen sleep at night.  three families bunk in a room only slightly larger than mandela’s prison cell.  unreal.  the sad thing is, after two weeks here in this country, this is the first day i’ve felt like i’m in africa.  children come smiling for hugs, there’s african music on the radios, colorful hand-painted signs, bustling outdoor markets, bus parks with drivers shouting for customers, friendly people to chat with as i wait for the other tourists to pile back in the bus.  i tell one xhosa man about my life in rwanda and he has lots of questions.  what’s it like?  is there still a war?  have the refugees returned?  what am i doing there?  he tells me i am an african woman now.

maybe not.  but i will be glad to go home tomorrow.  and i’m glad that home, for now at least, is still in africa.

penguins, township, funky eel

day 2.  jo’burg airport.  i’m behind the steering wheel of a vw golf rental car, aptly named chica.  we are on our fourth loop around the airport compound (whaddya say - departures again? or arrivals this time?), trying to ‘get used to’ driving a stick-shift, on the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of the car (passenger on the left, driver on the right, clutch thankfully still left foot).  i have yet to discover that what i think is first is actually third, and - more seriously - what i think is reverse is actually first.

the highway.  they have highway rest-stops here.  with aisles and glass freezers and cash registers.  62 varieties of candy bar and plastic two-liter bottles of flavored water.  beef jerky at the counter.  and there are white people everywhere - driving pickup trucks, working at the gas station, walking dogs, jogging on the road.  what country am i in anyway?

bergville.  camping at the foot of the drakensberg mountains, with the ‘mountain kingdom’ of lesotho in the distance.  it’s cold.  i’m wearing a sweater, a sweatshirt, a long-sleeved shirt, a t-shirt, two pairs of pants, and two pairs of socks.  i have ziplocked myself into the sleeping bag, and i’m still too cold to sleep.  sara gets up to pee.  í’m gonna make a run for it.’  she bolts for the toilets, runs blindly over rough terrain, trips, falls on her face, gets up and limps the rest of the way.  bloody knee.  first casualty.  it’s 32 degrees.

day 3.  royal natal national park.  hiking.  sunning ourselves on big rocks.  a back-drop of towering cliffs.  gorgeous.  and afterwards, sara learns to drive stick (on the worng side of the road on the wrong side of the car).  and we buy a blanket.

the highway.  i found the black people.  they keep them in run-down metal shacks in shanty towns outside the cities, or in tiny mud-hut villages with limited water and electricity.  i’m not sure i like this place.

port st. john.  night has fallen when we pull into a campground full of half-baked multi-colored hippies, jamming in a drum circle around an organic bonfire.

day 5.  port st. john.  beach.  ocean.  waves.  it’s still cold but we’re acclimatizing.  we walk on rocks doused in sea spray and Contemplate.  we take the dogs for a walk in the hills (not our dogs, not our hills).  we relax.

day 6.  sara sets my hair on fire.

day 7.  cintsa.  we go swimming in the waves (!).  we dive through them, jump over them, ride them, get tumbled, lose our bikini tops in the surf, get water up our noses and out our ears, relive our childhoods.  it’s thrilling.  then we have a bag lunch of bread and bread sandwiches and sandy apples.  then we have a sit-down dinner of tomato soup, homemade bread, red wine, roasted red peppers, egglant parmesan, spinach quiche, grilled calamari, jumbo shrimp, mussles, roasted chicken in gravy, baby arugula salad, bleu cheese, goat cheese, chocolate brownies, strawberries, and lemon meringue pie (!!!:)!!!)

day 8.  to date we have driven 1479km (on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car).  we have had no flat tires, breakdowns, or speeding tickets.  we have hit no people, no cars, no fences, no cows, no goats, no dogs, no trees and no (big) rocks.  we have fallen off no cliffs and into no ditches.  it’s cape town or bust.

i’m barrelling down the highway east out of kigali, jammed tight between the wall of the taxi-bus and the hips of a plump woman in full african splendor - hand-sewn skirt and matching puffed-sleeve top in bright orange, her hair braided snugly to her head.  my head droops and nods and bangs against the rattling window.  as we round a curve, shadows bend to stripe the pavement, thrown from the west by trees and pedestrians.  my hip crunches against the wall of the bus.  i shift my shoulders.  my neighbor makes a tsk tsk sound through her teeth.  the bus swings wildly to the left, shadows bend again, sardine-can passengers grumble.  i stare longingly up at musha moutnain and the steel roofs of apagie school glinting in the sun above the road.  10 minutes longer.  i close my eyes.

sounds: the hum of rubber tires on pavement, the din of reggae on the radio, the rush of hot air past an open window, the murmur of voices chatting three rows back.  the bang of knuckles against the ceiling.  a shout from the driver- ‘arasigara?’ (=someone getting off?) ‘mmmm’ (=uh huh).  squeeling brakes, sliding door, grumbling passengers, and i’m off, out, free.  the long ride home.

two weeks later, two weeks before, last year, today.  the bus rushes past open fields of sugar and sorghum, past green hills patchworked by plots of banana and coffee plantations, through a tunnel of dancing eucalyptus trees.  at the narrow shoulder stretches a column of people.  men walking.  men on bicycles with all manner of stuff strapped to the back (water jugs, 50kg bags of potatoes, goats, people, steel roofing, chairs, you name it).  women with wide woven baskets of fruit balanced on their heads.  children in primary school uniforms running playfully, dangerously close to traffic.

beyond the crowded shoulder runs a 3-foot deep ditch for water drain-off during heavy rains.  the foreign firms (chinese? german?) who built the road weren’t kidding around.  considering all the litter that rwandans throw out bus windows (plastic bags, cookie wrappers, water bottles), it’s a wonder this ditch is always clean.  but one friend pointed out that kids like to make toys from the empty bottles, so maybe the trash gets reused, or maybe just carried away by the rain.

beyond the run-off ditch lies a new trench meant to bury the fiber-optics cable that will soon wire the country.  heaps of freshly-dug red earth swallow the workers digging it.  mile after mile, we pass them, thousands of them, barechested, swinging pickaxes, to the waist in dirt, men, women, not a back-hoe or tractor in sight.  a human machine.

further on, past the pedestrians, the run-off ditch, and the cable-trench, way out into the extensive fields of the maraba coffee cooperative, i sometimes get a glimpse of farmers in blue uniforms.  like their colleagues in the trench, they work in droves, in lines, organized to the point of beauty.  200 men with 200 hoes lined up shoulder-to-shoulder to clear a field, moving across it like an elaborate 200m-wide machine.  behind them, i watch three maybe four hundred others march single-file across the plantation carrying bundles of grass on their heads like ants.  it’s minutes before we pass them all.  scenes from a bus window.

sorry guys.  i’ve fallen off the wagon on the updates here.  i know you’re all eagerly awaiting the next entry, checking in regularly to see that, once again, those kivu writers smiles are staring back at you, frozen in time, never aging despite how many weeks go by.  i’m aware that you’re all hungry for stories, or at least a not-dead-yet update.  maybe it’s work overload, maybe writer’s block, maybe i’m just a huge slacker.  sorry about that.

the end of the second term is in sight.  the last few months have been insane.  i’ve finally started some teacher training.  once a week (when there’s not a four-hour teachers’ meeting, that is) i teach basic english to my francophone colleagues.  ‘what’s this?’ ‘this is a desk.’  ‘what are those?’ ‘those are windows.’  roaring fun, let me tell you.  but after a few nervous false-starts, the teachers seem excited and eager and i like teaching beginners.  and we might hope that some of the participatory methodology i use in teaching them will rub off, particularly because negotiations with the director to do teaching methodology trainings seem a bit stalled.

last weekend, i bussed out to kabarondo in the east to help a couple other volunteers with a teacher-training workshop there.  my session was on ‘teaching vocabulary using participatory games and speaking activities’.  it was nice to feel like, even if only a few of those teachers repeat what we practiced together, i might have made the smallest of sustainable impacts on the education system here.  maybe.

amanda and i ran a study skills workshop for the students of apagie a few weeks back.  we’re trying to help them break through the memorization habits to reach actual comprehension of what they’re learning, and then to help them with exam-taking skills to raise their test scores.  we have the support of the students and director, but not of the new dean of studies, who seems to have put himself directly in whatever path we’re making towards more training less teaching. 

so yeah.  busy.  exhausted actually.

it’s that time again – time for the annual english club concert at apagie.  my clever gang galvanized themselves, writing comedy skits, choreographing dance numbers, rehearsing songs and poems.  for weeks we’d been ready and waiting for the school to fix the cd-player.  finally, we got the go ahead and set a date.  may 30^th.  i rearranged meetings and work in order to be supportive and available.  bosco designed and drew up posters.  jean de dieu sent out invitations.  david organized last-minute rehearsals.  jean claude arranged the use of the refectory as our venue.  robert and i scrounged for props and costumes.  pascal put together a cd with all the songs we’d need.  jean baptiste wrote out a program for the evening.  the day had arrived.  we were ready. 

then the dean of students, a dynamic reliable guy named innocent, showed up at my door to say that not only was the cd-player not working (again) but neither was the television (they can sometimes hook the two together to get better sound).  oh, and the microphone from the church up the road was also on the blitz.  bummer. after about an hour of putzing around with a screw driver on the faulty cd-player, we gave up in favor of my laptop and some speakers pilfered from the computer lab.  it would have to do. 

we traipsed across the road lugging tables and sheets and a canadian flag (for a hilarious skit in which the canadian government is taken over by a military coup).  the refectory was already buzzing with excitement – there were easily a hundred students already inside and two or three hundred more gathering at the door, all waiting to see the show.  we strung up clothesline and sheets to create a backstage area, did a little cheer to pump ourselves up, i took my seat as dj at the laptop, and then….

the lights went out.  screams, hoots, and laughter filled the cavernous refectory.  outside, lightening flickered nearby.  i turned to innocent, seated next to me at the v.i.p. table.  ‘what should we do?’

‘i think we can wait.’

and wait we did, in the dark, so dark you couldn’t see a hand in front of your face.  ten minutes.  twenty.  i had a lovely chat with innocent about the stresses of being dean of students.  i don’t know what went on backstage – to venture out of my chair in the pitch dark could have meant tumbling over one of the many people and cables sitting at my feet. 

and then?  well, then there was light.

screams and hoots again.  so much noise from the crowd, you couldn’t think.  i picked my way through arms and legs, under the curtain and backstage.  ‘let’s go!  let’s do it!  are you ready?’  as response, a clap of thunder and the heavens unleashed a downpour like we hadn’t seen in months.  as if all the dry season months had been storing up moisture for this very moment.  rain slammed against the corrugated steel roof, found cracks and dripped through to the floor.  students howled.  the noise was overwhelming.  i turned to david, the english club president.  through the din, i hollered ‘WHAT SHOULD WE DO?’

‘I THINK WE CAN WAIT!’

and wait we did, in the noise, so loud you could only scream to the person next to you.  ten minutes.  thirty.  i went backstage with the camera, out of boredom really, and took shots of club members posing in silly costumes.  gady, rafiki, freddy, and a few others grabbed a drum and started improv rapping in a little energetic circle in the corner.  drumming, dancing, singing teenage boys in backwards hats and jeans pulled down to show their boxers, jamming like they see on music videos.  having a riot of fun.  singing in the rain.  someday you’ll see the video i promise.

eventually the downpour became a steady rain and we gave up waiting and started the show anyway.  it was kind of a wreck – no one could hear anything and the actors were screaming at the top of their lungs.  we threw out half the program, the poems and non-physical-comedy skits.  the speakers weren’t anywhere near loud enough, we had no microphone.  then jean baptiste, little nerdy awkward supersmart jean baptiste, brought the crowd to their feet with an ethel merman style rendition of me love (oh oh oh oh why’d you have to go-oh away so long me love?).  where’d he get those pipes?  he started a sing-along.  arms waving in the air.  the rap stars joined in as back-up.  it was amazing.

the next week, we had ten new faces at english club.  and the week after, ten more. 

i’ve lived in this house for just over 15 months, which is actually the longest i’ve resided in one place since i left my parent’s house ten years ago. in bits and spurts, i’ve managed to settle in and decorate. batiks bought in uganda and tanzania are tacked up here and there. kanga fabric panels serve as curtains. congolese masks hang in the front room, rwandan masks in my room, and banana-leaf mobiles dangle in the bathroom. there are half a dozen handmade baskets scattered around, holding everything from jewelry to laundry to assorted electronics. it’s nice. homey.

but over the last year and change the house has also managed to acquire a different sort of decoration, one that ought to be more functional. for example, we have a decorative shower head in our bathroom. no water comes from this shower head, but it makes a nice towel rack. come to think of it, the sink fixture is also purely decorative. no water comes from the tap, and if you pour water into the basin, it all dumps onto the floor. but it makes a nice toiletries shelf. we used to have decorative light switches in the kitchen and bathroom for a couple months while we were waiting for the electrician to show up (funny story, though – when he actually did come by he took a broom and whacked the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling… and it turned on! see? decorative light switches, just whack fixture with broom to turn on and off, shoulda written that in the manual, why didn’t i think of it). i guess the bathroom was really in a state. amanda came out one evening, having just washed out of a bucket by candlelight in a room with a shower and overhead light. welcome to africa.

for awhile we had a decorative electric kettle (for boiling water for tea). our neighbor, who controls the electricity coming into our house, had without telling us put some kind of surge monitor fuse on our line so that we wouldn’t use too much power. every time we tried the kettle, the power would go out in the whole house. then we’d hop the fence and flip the fuse next door to get it back. like a dog learning the boundaries of a new invisible fence, after three of four trips to the fuse box we got the message. no more kettle.

but the latest addition to our non-functional appliance list is the beautiful new standing water pipe. it’s masterfully encased in a brick and cement block so that the kids from next door can’t wreck it like they did the last one. it worked for nearly 24 hours. then the on/off lever broke a few yards back, spurting water everywhere and making a nice pool which one of the students dubbed lake muhazi. a nice portable phone-booth man stopped the leak by tying used plastic bags (now illegal in rwanda) and banana leaves around it. needless to say, the water’s off again. not sure what to do with the gorgeous standing pipe now – birdbath? clothesline? sculpture? outlet for graffiti art?

don’t get me wrong. i really don’t mind filling water jugs across the street instead of in the backyard. i don’t need an overhead shower or an electric kettle. i was only mildly annoyed when the kitchen light went out (when mom was here we washed dishes on the floor in the hallway). all those amenities are things i never expected to find here anyway. what bothers me is the illusion of functionality. the idea that the water guy could dig up the yard and encase the pipe in cement, but couldn’t fix the on/off lever. that the plumber could buy and install the sink, but couldn’t hook it up to the water supply. it’s disappointing. but i suppose it makes for interesting stories. remember the time i was in africa? and that electrician whacked the lightbulb with a broom to turn it on? those were good times.

today was the premier kivu writers workshop of the year.  for the first time in the group’s history, selected alumni were brought together for continued training in various techniques of creative writing.  these are the best of the best of young rwandan writing talent, and the room resonated with their talents.  here are some shots from the day:

now here’s an update that’s long overdue. kivu writers is the project i started working on last year, but it was founded in 2000 by a couple of then-volunteers. each year we take 20 rwandan high school students, selected through a tri-lingual national writing competition, out to lake kivu in the west for a series of three weekend workshops in creative writing techniques in drama, poetry, prose, song-writing, and journalism. it’s quite exciting, particularly as many of them have never travelled to that part of the country and most haven’t had the opportunity to learn about creative writing, a subject remarkably absent in much of the curriculum. the project’s alums have gone on to become teachers, journalists, song-writers, and writers for radio-drama and many have received full scholarships to national universities and even universities abroad. we’d like to think the project has contributed to that in some way.

anyway, over the last few years kivu writers has become increasingly autonomous with vso, receiving grants from organizations like unicef and care international to name a few, and training rwandan partners to organize and facilitate the workshops. this year we’re taking the next logical step and pursuing independent ngo status for the group. with luck, and a successful fund-raising campaign, i’ll be able to hand over control to the ready and capable hands of my rwandan partners by the time i finish my placement here.

we’ve had a minor set-back, however. vso international has made massive budget cutbacks on the program level this year, which has affected kivu writers, as well as many other projects around the world. so we won’t be holding a national competition or bringing any lucky students out to the lake this year. instead we’re holding three one-day workshops with previous participants of years past, to try to focus on building the capacity of the group and developing the organization. we’re also throwing energy into fund-raising, so that next year we can resume normal activities.

can anyone out there suggest any arts foundations or other donors interested in education or creative writing that might support our project? we’re looking at an operating budget of about $10,000 a year, with the potential for growth. any advice would be much appreciated.