The Next Big Thing?

This could be really boring for 90% of people but if you’re interested in development or you donate money to any of the big hitter non-profits, micro-savings could be where a fair amount of money is headed. In the past 30 years, micro-finance has sky-rocketed bringing small loans and big opportunities for millions that were either unable to get credit or enslaved to loan sharks with unreachable interest rates. Everyone is getting involved in micro-finance, including governments. Some micro-finance is good, some bad and some ugly, depending on the country. Rwanda has its own micro-finance bank called Umarango Sako. Apparently they have given out a lot of loans and are pushing a majority of the population to join the formal economy and participate in business and get a bank account. According to other NGO folk, Rwanda is doing a decent job handling micro-finance but others aren’t handling it so well.

So to join the Umarango Sako micro-finance community you need 10,000 francs. That’s the equivalent of around $20. I know a Jackson seems like chump change but in a country where close to 60% of the population lives on less than $0.50 a day, 20 dollars seems impossible for most. This is where micro-savings comes in, to help the poorest of the poor. Similar to micro-finance, micro-savings joins a group of 12-15 very vulnerable folks, predominately women, and together, they create a savings club. Each week, each member brings what they can and buys shares of entire savings collected. The price of a share is determined by the group. This can range from 500-1500 francs ($1-$3). In joining the club they are also asked to donate a little bit to a social fund to help pay for an orphans school fees or widow’s funeral or a cause agreed upon by the group. After three months of growth the group chooses one person to give a loan to. They (the hard core people at Care and other non-profits who wrote the painstakingly detailed manual) have learned that most people in the group end up helping each other out to start a small business or pay for something much needed to improve their family life.

Most micro-savings projects are still in pilot stages but from what people are telling me, results have been overwhelmingly positive.

It now just depends on how it spreads. Each non-profit has to tailor similar micro-savings projects for each country. 3 years ago, Niger was the first test country for micro-savings and since then projects have been popping up all over Niger. Rwanda is in its second year where non-profits are wrapping up their pilot stages and starting to operate full scale.

I highly doubt that if you’re reading my blog that you believe that all poor people are lazy and they should help themselves but if you are, check it, people helping themselves. Besides education, people are lifting themselves out of poverty without any outside financial help.

Poor folks aren’t powerless or voiceless, many just aren’t given an opportunity to rise up. I don’t know about you but I love a good empowerment story and I think micro-savings is going to be full of them. So share the story of micro-savings and if you got a couple bucks, maybe give a few to a non-profit engaging in micro-savings.

Implement

I’m really lucky right now to have the opportunity to teach at Parliament. My little class of 5 MPs and 3 Senators is quite a lively bunch. We have a lot of fun and also talk about a lot of serious issues. This past Thursday as we were saying our goodbyes for the weekend, the jokes started flying which unintentionally led us to one of our most serious interactions.

A couple of months ago, I read this really great article by the head of International Justice Mission.. The basic gist of the article is that over the past 60 years the human rights movement has been very successful in getting many great laws in the books in many countries. But the implementation of these laws is another story. Many countries have very corrupt officials, officials who don’t believe in enforcing laws and officials who just don’t have enough money to enforce laws.

The last reason certainly applies to Rwanda. As we were all walking out the door, I was joking with some members of Parliament about what their plans were for the weekend, which clubs they enjoyed attending (almost all the members are over 50 and want nothing more than going home to their wife or husband). As I was listing off names of night clubs, Cadillac, Le Must, Executive Car Wash, KBC, one of the members says ‘oh not KBC they have a big prostitute problem.’

This was relatively shocking to me. I mean everyone knows that KBC is infested with prostitutes but I just guessed these officials were a little out of touch. I was wrong. I slowed the conversation and asked, ‘so you do know?’ They all kind of laughed it off and thought my presumption that they would not know as naïve. Of course my next question was, well if you do know, why don’t you do something about?

Everyone’s answer was most telling. ‘you see Evan, we work really hard to make good laws but doing them is another story. We are a very small poor country with many problems and that’s just another one. You can’t expect us to stand around night clubs and enforce these laws. Prostitution is a big problem in all of Africa (very true) and we do need to do better but it takes time. Our police force is very weak and inexperienced.’

So for those of you interested in human rights, I think this is our task, coming up with creative ways to make sure these good laws that we have worked hard to put in place are enforced. I think this a fairly clear firsthand account that the article by IJM and FRC is correct. Lets hold up the laws we create.

Scars (again)

Looking back at my first blogs since moving to Rwanda, I’ve realized that not just myself but several other peoples first blogs about moving to Rwanda were about scars. The complete openness of past tragedy and open lament is really foreign to Americans. This is one of the first things many people notice when they first arrive here. I think this is due to stark contrast and how different it is from America. Past hardships and physical scars are typically concealed, covered or attempted to forget about but these hardships have to go somewhere. Rwanda is quite the opposite to America when it comes to the lament. Many people cannot hide their constant reminder of a past suffering which I think is ok for many people. I think Rwanda has properly grieved its hardships and is ready to move forward. It does not want to forget about previous injustices but is ready to move on in a better light due to the fact that it has openly dealt with what it has.

I think this is a great lesson the Rwandese can teach Americans, and in my opinion especially Christians. How many times have you walked into church with the weight of the world on your shoulders, only to see a lot of people with smiling faces and the image of not a care in the world. Times for sorrow and lament are reserved for specific Sundays accompanied with a particular message. I don’t think this façade is healthy. As a community and individually we need to learn how to properly grieve loss, heartache and injustice. I think we carry our scars on the inside. The feeling and emotions are stuck and not worked out. I don’t think this lets up live to our full potential. I don’t think we can fully heal if we don’t lament.

I know I’m not in the states but overseas the Wikileaks documents about the massive amount of torture and abuse committed in Iraq was a big deal. Even in my village people would ask me how I felt as an American about the documents. My only response is deep deep sorrow mixed with some anger. When I talked to my parents and asked them what the reaction was in America, they told me that there wasn’t much of one. I think this is due to our denial and inability to lament. The injustices committed in Iraq are wrong and I believe we need to properly mourn what happened and is currently happening in Afghanistan. We need to address what’s wrong and bring to light. We can’t banish these atrocities from our consciousness, trying our best to hide the gruesome images of what we have done. I think we will be better off if we were more real with ourselves and with the rest of the world and talked about what is happening.

Rwanda has created a space to lament. From the countless mass graves scattered across the tiny country to the open fresh mortar shell wounds almost displayed across the west side of Parliament, Rwanda is healing. Let’s deal with our own story, let’s dive deep into the muck, speak it out, resonate with community and move forward with the visible scars of life and the wholesomeness of properly lamenting.

(west wall of the rwandan parliament building)

(they're keeping the scars in the building to remember)

Dive In

I know I talk about the environment quite a bit which I think is just a product of just living closer to the rhythms of nature. The alternating dry and wet seasons coming and going have noticeably changed my life over the last year and made me a stronger advocate of nature and protecting the earth. I have recently moved to the capital Kigali which takes me a step away from nature but I had this last week off and decided to head down Nyungwe National Park to go camping. I believe it’s the highest elevation rainforest in the world or if not at least in Africa. I imagine many tourists just swing into Rwanda to go see the gorillas in Virunga Park and keep traveling so Nyungwe is a relatively untouched paradise. Over the course of the 4 days I was there, a total of 18 people visited the park. This really let me see the raw beauty of God’s creation unlike I had ever seen it before. I’m in love. We are so blessed to have such a beautiful earth to provide us with everything we need. From 13 species of monkeys, to hundreds of different types of birds and butterflies and the surprisingly human like chimpanzees, our world is beautiful. The simplicity of carrying everything you need on your back, setting up your own shelter has a strange hard love appeal that I can’t explain. To lay in bed hearing the orchestra of natural sounds from the nocturnal animals of the rainforest is one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard.

I promise I’m not writing this to gloat about a nice camping trip I went on. I want to urge you to go camping yourself. Go find a nature trail close to your home and just walk, breathe, take in the rawness of God’s creation. You might fall in love like I have. I’m not sure where you are reading this and if you have an intimate relationship with God’s creation or not but regardless of where you are, give nature a try. Find a little place to get away from the air conditioning or heater, where you might get a little dirt under your finger nails or a couple more deep breaths of some good old pure fresh air. I know I’m not in the states right now but I believe it the season fall. Fall is a great time to enjoy nature. There might be a cool crisp freshness in the air when as the sun rises. The coolness of the morning might disappear by the middle of the day which might have enough warm glow from the sun to stop you in your tracks and make you say “dang it’s a beautiful day, I am blessed.”

I also believe that if you and those around you start to have this strange closer connection to nature, your actions might change to maybe keep this environment, to keep God’s creation. Dive in, don’t just go from car to house, turn around and walk on a path that isn’t concrete. Let the beauty of nature take your heart and just see what happens.

Bloop Blop Bleep Stop Climate Change!

I’m not sure if anybody actually reads my blehg but a couple weeks ago, I was gloating about the new garden that I planted. I also encouraged you to grow a garden. I still think growing a garden is a great idea but I have recently been thwarted by climate change. Everyone in my village had thought that the rains had come to stay but it turned out to be a big mother nature pump fake. Here you have the rainy season and the dry season. Either you get no rain or lots of rain, never just some rain. A couple of weeks ago, we had 3 solid days of rain and everyone thought that the rains had returned. It also was about the time the rains used to return. Dry season usually starts in May and ends in September. As of the last few years the wet season hasn’t returned until October. At the beginning of September we got those 3 solid days of rain and everyone thought the rain was returning to its old schedule and planted their plot. It turns out that it wasn’t and as a result, everyone’s crops died and they are going to have to dig again and replant. This means a loss of seed which also means a loss of money. I know I’m not a climatologist and that this unusual change in weather can be explained though many different reasons but it’s not only me noticing it. I was spending time with a friend who is an agriculture professor at the local university and told her that my garden died. She started to tell me that my case fairly common. For hundreds of years farmers have been on a similar schedule. The rains rarely fail or trick them. The changes in weather have left farmers confused and growing less.

It’s not that big of a deal for me. I’m sad I wouldn’t be able to eat any fresh veggies or basil before I go, but I don’t make my living growing crops like 92% of the population in Rwanda does. The earth’s condition is life or death for billions around the world and we must take care of it.

My time here in Rwanda has brought me closer to the earth and shown me just how important it is to take care of God’s creation. My neighbors all around me make their living from the earth and if we keep continuing to poison the earth our neighbors will have no means for survival. We are all in this together. Please, do your part in protecting our earth.

Gacaca Continued

As I concluded to myself earlier, regardless of how effective Gacaca has been in bringing about justice, I believe that it has done one right. It has instilled a culture of forgiveness in Rwanda. Regardless of what the scenario is, Rwandese deeply value forgiveness and I believe that’s really important for a society and has brought fruit many different ways.

But back to my original dabbling, has Gacaca brought justice? This is a quite delicate issue that if one person starts talking about it, I am sure to have at least two or three others interject their opinion. Although it’s unexpected, I think it’s been good to get vastly different perspectives.

I’m first going to give you the gist according those living and experiencing Gacaca. So those in jail who have committed various crimes from murder to theft had the option to leave jail and go to the Gacaca Courts if they admitted that they took some part in genocide and would agree to apologize. Those who contributed to the planning or higher officials in the army were not given this option.

All in all over 40,000 people chose to confess and forgive handing them down to Gacaca. Everyone in the community came out to Gacaca and several trusted members of the community were judges. In a very formal way, one by one people who witnessed the perpetrator commit a crime came forth and explained what they saw. After several hours, the story was set straight. The information was out. The confession was had. The perpetrator had been accused and confessed to those actions agreed upon by the community judges and himself.

The sentencing usually had to do with retribution to the victims. Agreeing to rebuild a home for them, pay their surviving children’s school fees, help with growing crops or tending to cows.

Many believe that the Gacaca Courts have been an absolute blessing to Rwanda. Instead of holding prisoners in the crumbling jails and the government paying lots of money to keep them there, many believe that the perpetrators of genocide are now helping to rebuild the country and the country’s infrastructure.

On the other hand, apparently there have been many more reprisal killings than the government would lead you to believe. (I find this fact interesting because nobody really disbelieves the government and most wouldn’t say anything bad about it but many will speak out on this issue) Not only have there been reprisal killings, many also fear for the health of the survivors. Even though they have been through the Gacaca Trials, they still have a lot of pain in their heart and see the one that might have killed their family members everyday reminds them and brings back even more pain.

Overall, I think Gacaca was an extremely risky move by a country and in many ways, it has been vastly effective. I have met people on both sides of the aisle. I met a boy my age whose entire family was killed by one man. They went though Gacaca and through time became great friends and now live together. They live together. Can I just tell you how amazing that is? Just think for a second, your entire family is killed, could you live with the man that admitted to doing it? That’s an astounding story of forgiveness.

The other side is different though. A young student in one of my classes has told me on more than one occasion that she hates going home for holiday because she has to see the man that killed her father and brother. Her entire demeanor changes as terms finish up. I can see the pain in her heart and can’t really do much about it.

I want to close with a quote from one of my students describing the effectiveness of Gacaca. She explained to me in simple English, “if we want to truly live, we have to learn to forgive”.

The Unseen

Please do not read if you are already feeling a little down today.
I’m just going to share this and you can take as you want to because I’m not really sure how to articulate it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I want to bring this into the conversation and that’s all. The other day we were in a bus going Nyananza and stopped to for a bathroom break in a random town. It was no big deal at all but as people were dispersed throughout this little town for a few minutes, a mother let her daughter who clearly had Down’s syndrome out of the house to come and greet the muzungus. It was not problem with us, but the folks from the town gasped in horror as a child with disabilities and beautiful smile pushed toward us just wanting to hold hands. The reactions of the people in the town startled me. Overall it was really a non event as the child was able to hold hands with somebody for a minute and then we had to pile back on the bus and went on our way. The subtlety killed me though. My mind raced for the rest of bus ride about what happens to those with disabilities in developing countries. Let’s be honest, as things have tightened in the US, the facilities for those with disabilities have vanished. I cannot imagine a developing country. I think that little girl will be alright. You could see the love her mother had for her but still, what about the others I have not seen or they have not seen much daylight. How has their fortune turned out? I don’t know if I’m out of the loop but I really haven’t heard much about helping those with disabilities in developing country. A while ago, I met a guy who started this organization called Hisperian to help those with disabilities in developing countries, but haven’t heard from the organization since.
I don’t know if you believe in higher power, but if you do, please pray for those with disabilities especially in developing countries. That’s all I got and I have to put it up to that because I’m not big enough. I will continue to try to do what I can and if you check out the Hisperian website and feel comfortable giving them money, I’m sure they need some.