Out of Balance

I just wanted to paint some things that just aint right. I realize that its kind of boring but maybe somebody could have interest

1) Pay. So I work at a government school and the school should be paid for by the government. Well when I say the government, I would guess a vast majority of education money comes from other countries considering other countries and NGO’s make up over 50% of Rwanda’s spending. The money doesn’t come though. Teachers are supposed to be paid monthly but they have been paid twice all year. This means that teachers have to rely on the PTA living stipend which comes from the kid’s school fees. A lot of kids can’t pay school fees so this month teachers haven’t received their $60 living stipend. This is a bummer in general but the other day made it tougher.

So our headmaster rolled into the staff room with a guest who made a little speech about raising money for a new classroom for a school in the district which apparently they do ever year. The teachers who haven’t been their normal salary in months and wouldn’t get their living allowance were now forced to donate toward a classroom. Ah, I feel bad for everyone. It’s hard enough as it is already but having to fork over what little cash you have for a random classroom somewhere sucks. Everyone was took and stride and donated but I could see it painful for most.

2)Fight! The other day I was on a bus back from Kigali when several young men dressed in camo carrying backpacks stuffed full various knick-knacks including ak-47 jump onboard and were lucky enough to sit next to me. I see military folk all the time but most of them have dropped out of secondary school and believe that they are God’s gift to Rwanda. This makes for not so much conversation. This time was different, I got to sit next to Steven who was a Butare grad (best school in Rwanda) and turned out to be a really nice guy. I’m going to give you the cliff notes. So, the reason he joined the military, the chance to travel to America. Apparently this is one of the best ways to recruit young Rwandans, give them the opportunity the chance to train in the military. Don’t worry only about 2% of the Rwandan military get to train in America, this list does include the president. I don’t know about you but that’s painful to me. I’m not going to rant about the military though (might be my next blog, it’s just building up, I can’t help it)

So what I wanted to say was this. The Rwandan military is probably the most feared militaries in Africa. This is mainly in part because America and other countries are arming and training them to the teeth. Now I want to contrast this. We have had some major problems with trespassing and kids just being plain violent, throwing rocks at folks, just being plain violent. As I thought about what would happen in the States the idea came to me, ah just call the cops, they will take care of it. I approached the Headmaster with my brilliant idea and was completely shut down. For starters, the cops in Rwanda don’t have any mode of transportation so if we called the cops we would have to pay for motos to go and pick them up. Then we would have to pay for their time here and the police don’t arrest anyone unless they have done something really bad because they can’t afford to put people in jail so my plan just crashed and burned. Look at this contrast. Anyone in the military gets new clothes, guns, and training while the cops might get a phone call every once and a while.

These things aren’t right. Light must be shed. I’m sorry to semi-rant here but it hurts my conscience of justice. I also just realized this is going on top of my glossy Nyagatare life post but that’s who I am.