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?
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| ASYV Traditional Rwandan Dance Troupe- performing in the Amphitheater |
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.
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| Bananas in the valley. The top of the hill is ASYV. |
“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
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| Local swimming hole at lake Mugesara |
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).
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| 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
Melissa, you have quite a well-deserved following on your blog. You are articulate, insightful and a great writer. Your photos are terrific.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the questions you posed, I suggest that many people (myself included) are asking many of these same questions. How a question is posed can change the whole dialogue and can created greater insights, simply with the question. In my work, it sometimes takes a group a while to frame the question or issue they are trying to resolve. Last Friday, at an event we attended, Jion Ghomeshi suggested that human nature leads us to constantly confirm our own hypothesis of how life works. That's why people become faithful followers of the newspapers, blogs, magazines, authors, etc. who confirm how they perceive the world. He challenged the audience to check out other views and realities. It sounds to me as if some of your hypotheses are being challenged.
I suggest that what the kids really want is more than "suburbia". Suburbia is a symbol for feeling safe, well-fed, free, healthy, loved and able to love. I wish I knew how to deliver that to everyone. I wonder if you and the kids truly have the same mental image of suburbia?
As to understanding environment, there are likely as many definitions of understanding environment as there just about are people in the world (what is that 8 billion?). In some areas of the world, humans have killed off (eaten) many long-lost endemic species (animal, marine, plant), forever changing "natural". Our recent trip to the Galapagos was very insightful on so many levels.
As for big business, I challenge the value judgement that says because businesses or organizations are big, it always has suspect motivations. Does that mean small business is good? Who defines good, bad, right, wrong or even just? My hypothesis is that all institutions are human (government, business, religious, non-profit, family) and as such are subject to human failings, foibles, emotions and victories. There was a time when I loudly sang about “little houses, on the hillside… built of ticky-tacky” and I was never going to be conscripted by the system. I guess I now live in a glass house and the older I get, the less I know and the less I know what solutions to suggest.
Agriculture, permaculture, growing things--there are so many issues and viewpoints.
You did not mention culture in your blog. I wonder if that is a topic for another day. I continue to be blown away with how a culture (national, corporate, individual) can change perceptions of reality.
We are blessed in so many ways to live at this time in history. I feel the work has begun to turn things around. You are part of the solution. I love your thoughtful blogs.
Keep up the good work!