Have I adjusted
on Annemiek Miller (Rwanda), 04/Nov/2005 13:17, 34 days ago
Have I adjusted?Nation wide“congés” or holidays are announced the night before on the 10 o’clock news. I, like many Rwandans do not have a radio in which case I might not hear there is a day off. This week was particularly interesting: Monday night it was decided that primary schools would be closed because of “Toussaint”. My office made it a late start day, but most people came in to work.Today, Wed.Nov. 2, it was decided at around 4pm that tomorrow is a holiday because it is the end of Ramadan. I believe Friday is a holiday because of national tree planting. There is something deeply disturbing and foreignabout this. Imagine the chaos and control at the top when these decisions are made last minute. More serious, is the lack of support and recognition to people who are organized and want to get things done. I am not yet considering myself in this last group. However, the work ethic here often leavesto be desired and these surprise moves do no allow people to plan their lives.Power outages at 7 pm just when you have started to cook– are a real pain!Matches, used in great quantity are of poor quality and break with sparks flying.Candles, also used in great quantity are of poor quality also. Something I will stock up on when in a developed country.Rwandans cannot distinguish between r and l. A bit like the Chinese!When greeting and talking a Rwandan will hold your hand all the while and emit sounds of ayyyye, ayyyye, in acknowledgement of what you are saying.Children continue to be heart-warmingly genuine in their greetings and curiosity.Many of these children are being exploited: carrying inordinately heavy loads of wood, vegetables, jerry cans of water on their heads. These same children are also the ones who are kept out of school to perform this child labour. I would be reassured if as many tall, strong youths were doing the same lugging around. On the contrary, these youths lounge about aimlessly with little to do.Absenteeism, amongst teachers and principals especially, is alarming if I compare it to home. However, in any emergency ranging from not being paid to having a sick family member, the nearest bank or hospital or health unit is probably 2 hours walking one way.The following account will require your patience and imagination and you should feel some affinity with digging and plants in order to appreciate my puzzlement.The road cleaners/fixer uppers: these have sprouted these last weeks since the rains have started. Imagine very hard surfaced, rutted, sand or dirt roads. They are so hard they feel like stone sometimes and roots and stones are deeply imbedded and protruding. When it rains this becomes a thin layer of treacherous“slither” as no road is flat for longer than 20 metres. Anyway, the mixed company of cleaners , (men, women, children of all ages) equipped with the rwandan hoe, scrape earth from the side of the hill adjacent to the road and use this earth to cover the road. At the same time they deepen the ditch between hillside and road for the rainwaters. The hillside from which the road has been dug out can range from 10-20 ft or more and there are often trees growing on the edge of these hillsides. With the scraping of the grassy hillside, the bared earth and roots of the trees become exposed, readyfor the attack of erosion caused by the deluges. Eventually the trees die. I have not yet figured out what the best way to improve roads would be. Once graded and paved, they stay in good condition because there is no frost but grading and paving is not in the cards for the province of Gikongoro, except for the road running to the Congo which passes through this province and on the outside of this town.I have adjusted; don’t worry! I believe I am fairly resigned to the above, although the plight and future of many children are of great concern. More on that another time!