Reflections in April
on Melissa Hipkins (Rwanda), 14/Apr/2011 11:45, 34 days ago
This is the middle of genocide memorial week, picked to mark the beginning of the months of slaughter in 1994. April 6 was the day the then president of Rwanda was killed in a plane shot down over the capital Kigali, sparking the organised killing of the Tutsi minority together with any moderate Hutus who were disinclined to join in. At the time the population was designated either Hutu or Tutsi, covering 99% of people. The remaining 1% are Twa or what’s left of the original forest pygmies. Everyone had an identity card that clearly stated into which group the holder fell and tribal identity was part of life at the time. The tension between the groups sprang in part from the fact that the Tutsi constitute about 10% of the country but had been in the position of power for most of Rwanda's history.The course of events, the scale and swiftness of the genocide; worse in terms of concentrated killing that the Nazi attempt at extermination of the Jews, and the failure of effective global response to the tragedy are all a matter of record.Not surprisingly, the effects of that traumatic period are still felt today. All those over the age of about 20 will have some memory burned within them. Many families were now headed by children in the place of murdered parents. Without a breadwinner, and the poverty that entails meant education has suffered for a generation. The sight of men on crutches with legs off and others with stumps instead of hands are still the visible legacy of that time.The line encouraged by the president, Paul Kagame, speaks of Rwandans and not of tribal divisions; they are one people working with a common aim and any organised attempt to revert to the old classifications would be treated with severe penalties. That is not to say there have been tensions from time to time and some pessimists see a future that may dissolve into crisis along tribal lines if there arrives a period of instability in government. The one thing that is completely off limits in a social situation is asking whether someone is Hutu or Tutsi. You have to know someone pretty well before they may volunteer what happened to them during 1994.Each community has in the town or close to it a mass grave containing an unspecified amount of anonymous remains. All these sites will be visited with much ceremony. People have the afternoon off all this week with the purpose of allowing them to pay their respects to all the sites relevant to them and their families. The football stadium in Nyanza will be the focus of many preliminary gatherings before the actual visits take place. There is usually a concomitant disruption of the daily routine; buses and shops will stop their services and offices only be fully staffed in the mornings.Volunteers tend not to go to the ceremonies; not having been directly involved and being surrounded by people deep in private thoughts makes us uncomfortable. In addition, by sticking out from the crowd we would tend to detract from the feeling of solidarity in the community. Memorial week is often taken as an opportune time for volunteers to go out of the country. This year we have chosen to stay, not from any desire to participate but to make it possible for Lucy to come over during Easter and celebrate her birthday with us.It is rumoured that the rental on the house is due for an increase at the end of this month. At the moment we suspect that rent comes to about 70,000 Rwf and that Aphrodise is angling for it to reach 100,000. In view of this hike, we thought it in order to get some jobs done by him to justify paying more. VSO pay the rent, but seem quite content to comply with any increases that come their way. They even seem to put up with paying for repairs that anywhere else would be the landlord’s responsibility. Together Melissa and I compiled a niggle list to give to VSO in face of the upping of their costs. There’s a leak in the roof, but apart from the drip being perilously close to a light fitting it doesn’t actually get through the plywood ceiling. The plants out at the front are all in cement pots and as they have got bigger, so have the pots exceeded their design spec. and most have burst apart. Cement is all that is used here for most construction jobs; buildings very rarely go above single storey except in Kigali. It seems to me to have the consistency and strength ofshortbread so it only needs a nudge for bits to crumble off. Aphrodise has offered plastic pots as a substitute; a good idea provided they are UV resistant.At the top of this fairly short list is the back gate. This gate serves the courtyard below the level of the house itself. Most houses are set in grounds of generous size and the main gate allows access to all parts as the boundaries come nowhere near the house walls. We, on the other hand, are hard by the main culvert that drains about a 400 metre stretch of road and it doesn’t take much rain for this to become very full and noisy. Our boundary wall facing this drain is at its narrowest point only one foot away from the house. When we have charcoal delivered the bag is too big to negotiate this gap so the choice is through the house or use the back gate. Over the years the frame of this gate has lost its original form and tended towards the lozenge, leaving the gate itself untouched but displacing the staples fixed to the frame into which the bolts slide. It has got to the point that Jacky cannot shoot the bolts back home after the door has been opened and has to leave it unfastened.Aphrodise agrees that something should be done; being an all metal construction the easiest approach would be to cut off the old staples and weld new ones further down the frame. A welder is duly booked and turns up 8.30 Monday morning. His appraisal at first glance seems to involve lifting the door off its hinges, taking it away and tailoring it to fit the distorted frame. As it is a heavy construction of 50 mm tube and covered completely in sheet steel, it seems to us to not the most practical or cheapest option. Mrs Aphrodise and I, communicating in broken french, between us put forward the idea to shift the staples instead and this notion was endorsed by all. He promises to be back with the kit in 20 minutes and indeed he is but in the meantime we have a power cut. He spends some of this down time connecting to our outside socket but eventually he is resigned to leave the job for the moment and finds something more useful to do back in the town. He disappeared for most of the morning, but I assume wherever he was it was on the same electrical circuit as here because no sooner than the power was restored, he was banging on the main gate to get on and finish.I have only had dealings with welding once before when the garden fork Melissa got me from Kigali broke its handle and needed fixing. On that occasion I went to the workshop recommended by the hardware shop for the repair. For all it was terrifyingly Heath-Robinson he did a good job, was happy to interrupt an existing piece of welding and took only 30 minutes. My man with the gate was equally cavalier with electrical safety but we got a result. He even threw in a coat of galvanised paint onto the welds.                                                                         Welder at work