Rwanda. It is known as the land of 1000 hills. It is also said to be the place where God comes to rest at night. And I can see why. This is a beautiful country, lush and green. It looks abundant and rich and can deceive you in what it appears it can provide to feed and nourish its people.

Few crops grow well due to the soil acidity and lack of organic fertilizer. I’ve not seen any large herds of animals of any sort. Some goats, chickens, a few cows.

The city of Kigali rests on many of the thousands of hills that fill this country. With over 600,000 people in this sprawling city there are people everywhere. There are relatively few large office buildings and many of the largest are governmental.
I walk into a large hotel called the Novatel and once inside I could be in any international hotel in the world. But I prefer the streets and its people.

Well dressed, or poorly dressed and shoeless, all walk without complaint up and down the hills and streets of Kigali. Many women (and some men) carry the traditional loads on their heads. But it is not to keep their hands free for other activities. The loads they carry could not be held in their arms because of their enormity and weight.

And those loads may crush a spine over time. Our heads and necks were never meant to carry 50 pounds, but this is often the burden they must carry. And in some ways it represents the burden this country carries to repair its soul.

Some days we would leave Kigali and travel into the countryside to meet with recipients of the World Vision, and specifically Vision Finance (the micro loan program I support). As we traveled out of the city, hundreds of people from many miles would be walking or riding their bikes into Kigali to sell their milk or goods. We were easily 10 – 15 miles outside of the city before this progression slowed.

Roughly the size of Massachusetts, Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa. The majority of the 8 million people live outside the capital, Kigali. The poverty is extraordinary and shocking.

How the Poorest and Most Vulnerable Live,
and programs with World Vision that support them
Some of the housing is so poor and shoddy that I cannot comprehend how people sleep in these places at night. The floors are often dirt, the walls made of mud, and the roof is tin and broken and held in place with rocks and old wood and metal scraps. There are no doors or glass in the holes which are the windows. Immediately next to a home with this much poverty can be a modest home with windows, rooms and solid walls and a tiled roof.

We visit a home of a woman* who is a widow. Four of her nine children live with her in a mud walled home that is 6 X 7 (42 square feet). The entire home. The space inside is separated by a piece of cloth. She sleeps on a bench with two of her littlest children, 2 others sleep in the “front” room. Her children range from 25 to 4 years of age. Some are out living on their own. The other children live with her Mother, also a widow. She cooks outside the door in a pot where she fries potatoes that she sells to her neighbors who live 3 feet away. This is in the suburbs of the city.

World Vision is going to build her a home on the same site which will have concrete walls and a roof and glass windows. She will still not have electricity or running water. But this program within World Vision assists the most vulnerable in the community.
Some of the side effects of the genocide in 1994 included over 300,000 orphaned children, 85,000 child headed households (CHH) and 500,000 women who were victims of rape and now infected with HIV/AIDS. HIV positive men acted as rapists as part of the strategy of the genocide. Twelve years later the effect of this brutal strategy is fully evident.

Another visit was to the home of a CHH (Child Headed Household). This young 17 year old boy* was raising his four brothers and sisters. He looks 14 and 100 at the same time and carries an enormous burden. His home consists of three small rooms. One of the rooms was falling down and uninhabitable.

He weeps with grief as he struggles each day to find enough money to feed his siblings and send them to school. World Vision is going to build him a new home on the same site. His father who died in the genocide was a craftsman. We sit in this room of crumbling walls in almost complete darkness. There is a jagged piece of broken mirror on the wall, an ancient cabinet against the wall and beautiful chairs that his father made as a woodworker.

This young man is being trained in woodworking by World Vision. He wants to follow in his father’s footsteps. He is making some money but not enough. As he wept I felt he carried the burden that no one, least of all a child, should carry to take care of his family. World Vision is also acting as his advocate and we being there gives him some stature in the community where he lives. He is extremely venerable to the adults around him and has had land that his father owned forcibly taken from him by neighbors. World Vision learned of the problem when we met with him and promised to help him get the land back. He wasn’t even going to mention it. And thank God he did.
He was magnificent in his dignity and determination and focus. He is passing through enormous grief and yet does not give up. With help, he will survive. His brothers and sisters will be educated. And if heaven works this way, may his parents long gone be blessed by the son they created who must now go on without them.

There is another program which is just beginning to help ex-prostitutes and drug addicts that is funded by World Vision.
We met with the women of this program and shared our joy at what they were overcoming.

Their choice to become a prostitute is often about survival. There is no food for many. A young (or old) woman who feels she must sell her body for survival has no trouble finding work. But it is life threatening on all levels. HIV/AIDS is spread more easily when a man will offer twice the amount if a condom is NOT used. And I’m talking small amounts of money. And when you’re starving, being paid twice as much when it’s a meager amount is extremely tempting. And the men who want them know it.

But in my interaction with the women who have stepped away from the prostitution, I found that I was meeting women to whom I could relate. Except for their earlier career choice, they were not different from me. And we connected. They cheered my attempt to communicate with them in Kinyarwanda. And they honored my granddaughter’s gift of beaded necklaces.

Jonna, my granddaughter who is 9, wanted to touch the people of Rwanda. And so she, along with my daughter in law Laura and my son Todd, made necklaces. No two alike. 300 of them. 22 pounds worth. A large carry-on’s worth. As I brought them from America I was not convinced it was a great idea (BAD Vitsy!!) but I was soon eating crow.

I told them that a child in America believed in them and was praying for them. And to never forget that we stand with them, and pray for them, and believe in them.

Through World Vision they were all part of a cooperative that makes clothes on the most ancient of sewing machines. And they gave me an outfit for Jonna. It is beautiful and I will give it to her with their love and gratefulness.

HIV/AIDS and some of the issues

Another program we visited was for HIV positive participants. They are educating and creating awareness through information, plays and talking about the issues.

In Rwanda, as in anywhere in the world, there is tremendous stigma associated with HIV/AIDS. Some officials I met with said that stigmatizing people with AIDS makes the situation worse – removed and abandoned they will lash out, re-infect others and create more deaths.

But if we show compassion to them they will become the best witnesses to people about prevention. There is a strong spiritual side of the people of Rwanda.

Those who believe that God created us in His image know we are to honor our bodies. The message

communicated is to give people the power to know their lives are too precious to abuse. It is the most important asset we have.
This message clearly serves all of us as we take care of our own health, and our own bodies, on every level.

There are currently at least 200,000 children infected with HIV/AIDS in Rwanda. Education for adults and adolescents is brutally important. The billboards are clear about the dangers of HIV and spell the message out in the ABC’s:
A – Abstain until married
B – Be faithful when married
C – Condoms must be used, if you can’t follow A and B
Finally, if you ignore the A, B and C’s of prevention, there’s the final letter: D – Death.

Hard to miss that message. But condoms are not available everywhere and the poorest cannot get them easily. If there is a choice between food and a condom, guess what wins.

Men who prey on young girls who are starving offer to pay them more money if they don’t use a condom… what can I say? It’s a terrible battle for the bodies of women. And yet I believe that Rwanda’s honest and blunt approach to this problem will help turn the tide.
One final story for this journal entry

On Wednesday night I decided to attend a Rotary meeting in Kigali. It looked like any other Rotary meeting until they told us the speakers and their topic. It was titled “The proper way to use male and female condoms!” And they had props!! And they didn’t hesitate to use them or graphically give all the details!!!

To watch 30 business people dissolve into giggling reminded me of being in a sex education class in the 1960’s. There was absolutely an intent to use some humor – which was good because it was over the top in the way it was presented. But I learned a lot!!

And that’s the point, yes? What I mostly learned was that this country and its people are serious about stopping the prevention of AIDS and condom use, given that Abstinence and Being faithful are the first lines of defense, Condom use must be discussed. And religious issues must also be addressed. Interestingly, the government has not taken a stand on the use of condoms. Lots of issues, but people are not waiting until everything is perfect before they act.

And I think that’s my point so far. It’s not perfect. The solutions aren’t perfect. But this country is full of people determined to get past the incident of the genocide in 1994. It does not define this country. It is the catalyst that changed this country forever. And there are many that have hope and believe that this country can be saved.
I stand as one of them.

For information about the genocide, please visit this website:
Http://news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/in_depth/africa/2004/rwanda/default.stm
* All people mentioned are a composite of situations I observed or heard about.