Thoughts...

Today I have been in a reflective mood - there is much to think about. I helped Japhet with the clothes washing - all the washing is done by hand here. We are lucky at the school house - we have laundry powder and running water. Most Rwandans live some distance from a water source, and it is the young children (<8) who seek water for all the daily needs, which can be several kilometers. The slightly older children are charged with cutting grass to feed cows and goats, and they walk around with child-sized sickles neatly mowing any patch of healthy looking grass and bundling it into sacs which they carry on their heads.

Laundry is a big business for the women and children (usually), and best undertaken at the spring. Here you will plenty of water, people to chat with and an abundance of natural clothes lines in the shape any spare shrub or tree. After the clothes are clean and dry, it is time to return home to cook whatever dinner the rest of the family has managed to get together.

Children ran away from us at the spring - these children live some distance from the main road and for them, muzungu are a rare sight, especially up in the valley head. We were told a rumour the other day by Emmanuel - apparently Muzungu eat small children, which may explain the shyness! But it was all smiles among the squealing and running. There are so many children here and it influences the whole society - sometimes little kids walk around like old men and sometimes old men walk around like little kids. At times its hard to say who is serious and who is playing...

We went for a walk with Polo the other day - he took us to see his pump that brings water to the school. It a dual system, the latest from Belgium, only a few years old. Like everything in this country, it is all or nothing - these pumps are state of the art, but it can take months to get a spare part from Belgium. The pumps push water up several hundred meters to the header tank, to give pressure to the school. It is a very good system, taking water directly from the spring. It means the students at our highschool are lucky - they have running water to wash and bathe in. Students in most other schools need to get up early enough to walk to a well for water to wash their clothes and have a quick bath/brush their teeth. It is hard to imagine waking up and carting water everyday just to wash your face.

The view from the top of the hill is fantastic - rolling hills in every direction. To the south you can just see the flatlands of Burundi reaching towards the horizon, 40km away. To the west are the mountains of the western rift valley, Lake Kivu and the Congo. Theres gold in tham thar hills, and diamonds and nickel and copper and rare metals used in silicon chips. Along with all the wealth comes the misery of war, of thug culture and terror. Its more thug than any LA gang-banger could ever dream of - the President of Congo has more accrued wealth than the queen. Roaming bandits terrorise the population and drive people from their homes, stealing children to become child soldiers and practicing witchcraft and cannibilising people to make strong sorcery and attain greater power and wealth. And then when they are powerful enough, then they become politicians.

At least here in Rwanda, this does not seem to happen any place I have been yet. The country is open, education is good, and people live free from any overt oppression other than that of dire poverty. Many students have talked to me of the realities of thier situation. They will finish with a better education than most Australians, with little job prospect even for the best. So they return to the fields and their mudbrick homes to scrape together a meagre existance. Many of the questions we get are onesided, and heartbreaking. They ask how much a ticket to Rwanda has cost - at RF1,800,000 it is an incredible sum. A skilled Rwandan, a mechanic or a builder for example, would earn only RF40,000 a month - or $20US a week. To get those sums of money together is out of the question, especially when the daily essentials are not overly cheap in this country. Things we take for granted, like soap to wash your hands, is a luxury for the working poor. The boarding school sleeps 2 to a bed - and for many families coming up with the $46 per annum fees is a major major issue. But for their hard-earned they get 2 square meals of beans and cassava a day, and running water, and an education.

What can I say to this? I tell them of what I see - and that is hope. The country feels more united than many I have visited - certainly with that sense of unity can come hope for the future. It is together that they have a future, not in division. For these kids, there are no jobs. Their education has no endpoint, no job. So why do it? Because, perhaps in 2 generations, their kids will have jobs. In the meantime, the country needs to keep a stable government and a good heading so that the flowdown can occur. Already, some cooperatives are building, and maybe soon they will be able to export goods and build industry through cooperative development of agriculture and industry. But for most it is simply a struggle to get food into hungry mouths - of which there are plenty in this tiny, densely populated country.