Shopping in Kigali

Our neighbors in Kigali who wait for us at the gate, and dance and sing for us on the street below.

This was a wonderful, relaxing day. We slept in and then went to the craft markets to get supplies for the students’ craft prototypes to take back to the U.S. to show people there who are interested in marketing them. The primary purpose of the crafts is to teach business and entrepreneurship, but we hope it will also provide some income for the young people and the orphanage and give them a creative outlet that they currently don’t have. The first craft market had only completed craft items, and I wanted to buy about 25 things. I waited because it was the most touristy place we were going and predicted there would be cheaper prices other places. We then went to the craft district downtown, and found our beads, fabric and other supplies. The Rwandan fabrics that we have so admired are made in Holland, and cost $22 per yard in six-yard pieces ($132). You can’t just buy an African dress, they must be made for you, but first you have to buy the fabric. I won’t be getting an African dress. We shopped at their store equivalent to WalMart and ate lunch—a salad!!. There were more Mazungas (rich white people) there than we have seen anywhere, so we figured the raw food was safe. On the sidewalk next to the outdoor eating area was a young woman who walked on her hands with a twisted body, most likely from polio. It was surprising to see anyone with a disease that has been eradicated at home, and that their means of making a living is begging.

Last night we met two exceptional women. Grace Lillienthal who is the sister of a former Cal Poly student who I danced West Coast Swing with, and Debbie who is from Colorado and has volunteered for the Peace Corps twice, and is now volunteering for a cooperative run by an amazing African woman who started a grass-roots battered woman’s discussion group that has grown to several cooperatives, a battered women’s shelter, a school, and now a gym and yoga studio. Debbie teaches English to the women, and is a dynamo. She will help Shauna find fabric and other supplies more cheaply. Grace has been an intern for seven months with a ministry to rehabilitate and counsel genocide prisoners, male and female. She has friends who are also volunteering in Africa. The more time I spend here and hear of the work being done, the more I marvel at what is happening here. I wonder if the latest scientific buzz about evidence that the entire human race began in central Africa has anything to do with the fact much of the world is focused on the needs of Africans, and Kigali has become a thriving, rapidly growing city. Perhaps the place where humanity started is the place where it will most evolve and move into a new type of society.

At the guest house the cook is a very sweet young man (26, but looks and acts much younger) who is a genocide survivor and head-of-household for his two younger sisters. He has had that responsibility with no assistance since he was nine. He did pass the exam to enter the University, but no money for tuition and books. He has had a sponsor to pay for school expenses, but since he has to work so many hours he has not been able to study and must drop out. He therefore loses his sponsor. His oldest sister (22) does not have a job, and his youngest sister, (20) is still in high school due to lack of schooling after the genocide and other problems caused by the genocide. Tonight he invited all of us to his house for dinner—he makes very little money and is willing to share whatever he has with us. We did not know about him, or he would have been in Project LIGHT. He will be in our next group in September.

Church at the Archbishop’s church tomorrow, and more work on getting the $30 sewing machines to work and creating samples of the craft projects for the students. Another fun day.