Priests, friends, family program, and gorillas

Once again, it has been a very interesting few days. Sorry I am just writing now! On Saturday, I traveled to the country—about one hour east of Kigali. I went to the home of Father Jean Gakirage, the priest I mentioned in an earlier posting (he is on the right in the picture, Simon is on the left).

It was a spectacular day. He lives on the top of this hill/mountain that overlooks three lakes. Driving to his house really allowed me to appreciate the beauty of this country. Everything is so lush and the flowers are the most brilliant colors I have ever seen. When I arrived at Father Gakirage’s house, we walked around his land and he told us that an entire community once existed there before the genocide. This is a picture of Joy (Simon's wife) and me.

It was eerie-- everywhere we walked seemed to be the remains of a home (ps—thanks dad for telling me so many ghost stories as a child and thanks Jonah for forcing me to watch “Tales from the Crypt” every Friday night, “Nightmare on Elm Street”, and “It” when I was in first grade…I am officially scared of ghosts at the age of 21). Ghosts aside (my mom tells me they would be ghosts who would be kind and protect me, I believe her!), it really was strange walking on these grassy sections because they really all were homes that were destroyed.


After the genocide, Father Gakirage bought all of the land where his community and family used to live. He built a house with a kitchen and also a house for the thirty-seven orphans. Many of the orphans endured horrible torture—thirteen of the orphans were at the house when I was there on Saturday and many of them had visible scars. Father Gakirage told us some of the stories—one girl was only 4 during the genocide and the militias burnt her house down, killing her entire family—she was the only survivor. Today she has burn scars all over her face. Here is a picture of some of the orphans (who are all very happy and successful now!)
Another boy who is nineteen years old was tortured with a machete. He carved his name into the boy’s leg. It is a permanent reminder of the atrocities that occurred. I asked the Father if there had been any justice—if the individuals that murdered the orphans’ family members and tortured the orphans were in jail. The Father replied that most were not. He gave an example of a young man—the person who wrote his name into the boy’s leg with a machete. Today, that man has a wife and a young daughter—Gakirage said that if he went to jail, it would be his wife and child who would suffer, and they are innocent. He says that you can’t change the past and so it is important to move on from it. Father Gakirage walked with me around his land and showed me the new buildings. He has already developed a water system to deliver clean water to the community. The thing is--many of the people living in his community that will benefit from this system are the people that killed his family and neighbors—there are few survivors if any. I don’t know how I feel about this…as I’ve said before; I have a hard time dealing with the reconciliation piece.

So back to Father Gakirage—so not only did he build a water system, but he is in the process of building a clinic, a library, a canteen, and a soccer field—all to be used by the community. It is like a community project—they are building a road up the mountain by hand. They are literally uprooting trees (by hand, no machines whatsoever) to create this road. Everyone has been helping to construct the buildings and the road. In fact, while we were walking down the road-in-process we saw two women working on it. Gakirage told me that one of the women had killed his brother.

When we returned to his house, his children put on a show of traditional Rwandese dances and songs. Here are some pictures of that—Simon’s daughter Cynthia joined in. She’s the one in the middle.

On Sunday I went to work with the kids the family program for the first time. There were soo many children! There must have been around 200. They range from five years to sixteen. The five year olds look like they are two or three years old—this is because of HIV and that they are malnourished. The teenagers also look very young. I was unprepared and only brought two bags of candy and one packet of markers—next week I will have to bring much more. They drew pictures with the markers I did have and waited in line so I could give them each one little sticker! They were so excited just to receive a smiley-face sticker.

Something that is hard about the Sunday family program is that it is, for many of the kids, their only opportunity to talk about their problems—it’s as the few counselors act as their own parents. The counselors feel so helpless—the kids desperately need food, money for school, money for transportation to school, books, and clothes. It really was overwhelming. Some of them didn’t even have shoes. It made me think of all of the things I have ever thrown away or given away—these kids would use ANYTHING. If there were some way to collect all those things and somehow get them over to Rwanda…they would be so much better.

The kids come and share so many problems. It was so sad—this six-year-old boy was crying because his mother had just died. The last thing she said to him before she died was “Bring this to We-ACTx”, and handed him the family’s record sheet so her son could get his medicines.

Another big problem is that many of the families don’t even want the kids. There is this nine-year-old girl (she looked like she was five, I was shocked to learn she was nine) who is an orphan and very depressed—her stepmother is taking care of her. The problem is—the stepmother didn’t even know that her husband had been married before and especially didn’t know that he had a child from the previous marriage. So the father died from AIDS and passed on the infection to his new wife. Now the stepmother resents his daughter and doesn’t want to take care of her because she is upset at her deceased husband for giving her AIDS and for leaving her with this little girl who is also HIV positive…. that was the worst run-on sentence (sorry dad, armeen) and probably made little sense—but it is a difficult situation to explain in writing…

Being at the family program on Sunday made me feel so overwhelmed. It was like I couldn’t even breather. The kids are so sweet and innocent and were born in this world to very poor families and with HIV. Most of them don’t eat very often, as their families have no money. Many do not sleep on mattresses or have clothes to wear to school, if they are in school. And then I think about this—this is just a tiny number of kids in Kigali alone, let alone Rwanda or the entire continent or the world…aaahhh, its so overwhelming.

In fact, the parents or guardians of the kids want their kids to go to the family program on Sunday, even though it means paying 20 cents for transportation. The reason is the kids get a free meal—for most of them—their meal of the day. Their “meal” is a biscuit that is about the size of a child’s fist, a hard-boiled egg (size of a robin’s egg), and a glass of milk. The kids love going to the family program because they can run around and play. The older kids like the support—they can talk about what it is like living with HIV—it is really a support group for them.

Something that I would like to do while I am here is work with the adolescent and pre-adolescent girls. Many times they feel very alone when going through the transition from childhood to adolescence. They don’t have anyone to talk to. Usually they don’t even know about their period and do not have the money to buy pads. I have been thinking of fundraisers (discussed below) where the money generated goes directly to the family program-in particular focusing on the teenage girls. Additionally, I think something that may be valuable to them would be keeping a journal of sorts. Although diaries are not really a part of the culture here—I think it would be a good opportunity for the girls to describe what they are going through on a day-to-day basis. They could make it as personal as they wanted or they could share it with the counselors--but really it would be something for them to have and to take the time for themselves. I’m hoping to get this started this Sunday. It will be interesting to see if they are receptive to the idea.

I’ve started collecting stories and pictures from the kids—I ask them to draw what they hope for in the future. It is really very sweet. Then I ask them simple questions and write them down. My goal is to turn the pictures and the answers to their questions into cards, which I will sell as a fundraiser in the United States. There is one girl I am especially drawn to. She is a twelve-year-old orphan who lives with her 24-year-old sister. Her story is a lot like the other kids in that her sister refuses to pay for her go to school because she knows her little sister is just going to die of AIDS anyway. To make matters worse, she eats only once a day or every other day. The doctors say that she has lost so much weight. She has been coming into the office every day, even when she doesn’t have appointments, and we spend hours together. It is like private tutoring or something. She needs to get out of the house because when she is there she is like the servant for her sister and her sister’s husband. WE-ACTx has decided that they will find the money to send her to school. In the meantime, I have been bringing her food from my house (literally so inexpensive here) and then pay for her bus money (also soo cheap) so she can come to the clinic and work with me. She never wants to leave and she is so sweet! She has almond shaped eyes and just looking at her makes you feel like you have to help her! She wants to be a doctor and drew a picture of this big house, which is the kind of place she wants to live in when she grows up. Everyday we go over English—I finally taught her the ABC’s.

So I am no longer living alone in the house—a trauma psychologist from Chicago and a pediatric endocrinologist, also from Chicago, have joined me. The pediatric endocrinologist is basically my role model. She is fantastic. She is the exact person I want to be when I’m sixty years old! As soon as I met her—we hit it off. She feels like family or something. We read the same books, do the same activities, see the same movies, and share the same political beliefs…. it’s great! This is her second time in Rwanda—the first time she came was in August 1994—right after the genocide. She kept reading about it and seeing all the kids on television and she decided that she had to go and help somehow. She contacted a few NGOs and one happened to work out. The most poignant thing she remembers is watching little kids carrying smaller kids across the border to the refugee camps. Man…it kills me. So sad.

I am excited for this weekend—I am going with my favorite doctor friend to see the gorillas! I can’t even believe it’s happening…. we are lucky. Normally you have to get a permit to enter this park months in advance…. fortunately, Simon knows someone in the tourism “biz” and he pulled about a million strings and got us a permit. I really can’t believe it—we leave Friday afternoon after work and then will get back Saturday night. Assuming I don’t get attacked by a 400 lb. silverback….I will have many pictures to share.