We’re driving out of the city today to visit the villages. While driving out of Kigali its evident how much hills have impacted the culture. We are surrounded by them. It’s lush and beautiful with tons of people walking the streets. The soil is this wonderful red color…their pottery must be red. The homes are mostly white stucco or cement with a thin layer of red dust. There are some brick buildings, but they are less common.
I love the way the women dress, in colorful and beautiful fabrics. Please don’t be surprised if I come home with some ridiculously bright blouses and skirts…who cares if they match.
After driving a while we run out of pavement and continue on gravel roads. It’s foggy in the hills.
I was AMAZED at the beautify of the country side. The hills were covered with different levels of flattened fields, they looked like steps that a giant would use. In some areas there were field of tea growing. And everything was sooooo green. Amazing! There were so many farmers actively working. Both men and women (in many African countries the farming is mainly done by the women) maybe this is a trickle down effect of the obvious respect of women in the government.
I haven’t seen any stray dog…that’s weird now that I think of it. In all other countries I’ve been to stray dogs run in packs! I have literally not seen one dog here, very strange.*
Once we reached Burera, we had a meeting with the Vice Mayor and other officials of the district (like a county in the US). We met with them to hear about the health work in the district and the statistics. After this meeting we grabbed our packed lunches and ate in the cars on our way to visit smaller villages and their cooperatives.
The cooperatives that we visited are opportunities for Community Health Workers (CHWs). These CHWs are elected volunteers. They are elected by a vote through their communities and are responsible for looking after the health of those in their community. If someone is sick they will treat them with simple solutions or refer them to a Health Center where they can see a doctor. The cooperatives that we visited are opportunities for the CHWs to buy shares of this small business; this is one of the perks of being a CHW.
The particular cooperative that I visited had 120 members with 75% or the membership being women. When we entered the small building (which did not have electricity) they offered us seats and many people piled into this space for our meeting. The meeting began by the President of the cooperative talking to us about the status of the business. He told us about where the cooperative used to be and where it was now. How many members there are, what they sell, etc. My favorite part of his speech was when he started listing the assets of the company. With the profit they have made over the last year they have purchased:
‘2 houses, chairs (you are sitting on them), tables, scale (even bigger than we need!), paper, pen, staple and 1 stamp.’
I love that he included the stamp and staple in his assets J
*Later I found out the answer to this. It turns out that during the genocide the stray dogs were feeding on the dead bodies in the streets. Since then the Rwandans have had a very negative feeling towards dogs (rightly so!). They do not have them unless they are very rich and use them as guard dogs.
No comments:
Post a Comment