God sleeps in Rwanda

In our staff training before the students came, we heard many Rwandan proverbs or stories.  In the old times, before the colonizers came to Rwanda, the people here used to say that while God might go and visit other places and people in the world during the day- God always came back to sleep in Rwanda at night.

Rice paddies near Rubona

Today- God not only sleeps here but is very involved in day to day life.  When I help a student with their homework- some of them say 'thank you, god bless you.' Church activities define the weekend here- what religious group is praying where and when.

 Although the village is not religious institution, I would say that 99% of the students and staff here believe in God.  I would say this is also true of Rwanda.  Most Rwandans are some form of Christianity with a minority of Muslims. This month there has also been a group of young Jewish students here on a gap year between highschool and university.  They have their own traditions and religious activities to add to the mix.  Most of the incoming Rwandan students have never heard of Judaism before- so it is interesting to see the Jewish students and the Rwandan students talking together about faith and Religion.

Atheism, Agnosticism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shamanism or any other faith (or lack of faith) is not known here.

So why is it, that Rwandans' are so hopeful, so faithful?  It seems proposterous when you consider the country's history... or does it?  We all need something or someone to believe in.... something to hope for.  I think that Rwanda has many reasons to be hopeful and to believe in the future.

Lake Mugesera

Sufi poem atributed to Hazrat Inayat Khan

“ I asked for strength

and God gave me difficulties to make me strong

I asked for wisdom

and God gave me problems to learn to solve.

I asked for prosperity

and God gave me a brain and brawn to work.

I asked fro courage

and God gave me dangers to overcome.

I asked for love

and God gave me people to help.

I asked for favours

and God gave me opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted.

I received everything I needed.”

Questions and Answers???

I cannot believe it has been a month since my last posting... ahh sorry. 

Alot has happened in the last month and I wish I had a Jhumpa Lahiri's skills at digesting small details to make a whole picture in an interesting way.  I'll try to do my best.

So I've been struggling with alot of different issues lately.  Nobody ever said coming to Rwanda to work with orphaned youth would be easy.  If you have ever seen the documentary 'Schooling the World'(I would highly recommend it!), you might even think that my presence here is exactly the opposite of helping.  Am I just another neo-colonialist? What kind of unattended consequences am I having here simply because I am a foreigner?

ASYV Traditional Rwandan Dance Troupe- performing in the Amphitheater

My struggles apart from the usual (I ask myself the same questions in any occupation in Canada): what am I doing here?  Is this the right thing to be doing?.... are mostly philosophical issues pertaining to the environment and farming,



I am helping with the Environment Club here and I have been trying to explain about what the environment is- why we need it, how we are a part of it etc.  However, environmentalism is a foreign concept here, especially for kids who have struggled all their lives to have their basic needs fulfilled.

For example- when I asked 'why are trees important?' I got some really great answers like: trees produce oxygen, they help with global warming, they attract rainfall, but I also got some interesting answers like they attract tourists, or they are decoration when they are planted in a line.

Also with the exception of three national parks, there are very few 'wild' places in Rwanda.  There is lots of greenery- but mostly from tons of bananas.  Like I said before- this place is one big garden.  Which is not to say gardens are not nature... let's just say there is limited habitat for wild plants and animals who do not thrive in garden type environments.

Bananas in the valley.  The top of the hill is ASYV.

The question is- do humans have an innate understanding of nature and their connection to the earth?  Can a kid from the slums of Nairobi who has lived in a landfill all their life understand nature? 
 

“You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they must protect them.” Wangari Maathai

One of the other challenges is that the kids think that all development is good.  Money is good, jobs are good, cities are good- it is all good.  Jack told his family about Vandana Shiva- and her battle to fight large corporations who were trying to take away the freedom of farmers by selling them GMO seeds.  They had difficulty understanding that someone who was trying to bring in money and western ideas could be bad- or at least not have the best interests of the farmer in mind.


Which leads me to another sad observation.  People everywhere want suburbia.  They want to live in a big house and have a car and be fenced off.  They can live with their families and watch TVs and drive their car wherever they go.  This is very much the predominant changing landscape of Kigali.  Goodbye small houses, goodbye poor people- make way for suburbia.  It's frightening.  Suburbia doesn't work in North America- it makes people, fat, isolated, and dependent on fossil fuels.  It is empty.  Does the rest of the world need to follow in North America's footsteps only to learn the same thing 20 to 30 years down the line?
 

"I am increasingly sensing that the primary threat to nature and people today comes from centralising and monopolising power and control which inevitably generates one-dimensional structures and what I have called "Monoculture of the Mind". The monoculture of the mind treats all diversity as disease, and creates coercive structures to model this biologically and culturally diverse world of ours on the privileged categories and concepts of one class, one race and one gender of a single species."  Vandana Shiva

Local swimming hole at lake Mugesara

Also I am struggling with some different ideas of agriculture here at ASYV.  Some ideas that are pretty much the opposite of permaculture.


It seems like everywhere I go, my perspective, my ethics, my sensitivity towards earth care leads me into these conflicts with the big machine of money and development.  Sometimes I think that it would be so much easier if I just consumed like a normal person and didn't question the trajectory so much.


However- that is not going to happen.  One of my yoga teachers says that a yogi is trying to line up their thoughts, words and actions.  You know you are making progress in your yoga practice when you 'say what you mean, and mean what you say' (which is on another note- is my New Year's resolution). 

Wetland at lake Mugesara.  Looking away from the lake towards ASYV.

Many people inspire me- but two that I have bee thinking about lately (because of Rwanda's National Hero's day) are Vandana Shiva and Wangari Muta Maathai.  Both are outstanding women who have fought for women's rights, the environment and against big business/big governments. How do I become like them?  How do I tell the story of complex, living systems to the 'monoculture of the mind'?


“Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.” Wangari Maathai