Notes on Buses and Begging

I am officially a bus-taking superstar. This morning, I managed to get a prized place on a government-run bus from Kicukiro to downtown... Prized because the seats are only 100 Rwandan Francs rather than 170. At the current exchange rate, 100RwF is about 19 cents Canadian. Previously, I'd only taken the slightly more expensive buses (the 32 cent ones) and was a bit confused about the different price. Luckily, the two men sharing my seat with me (that's the one thing about government buses I liked less; they'll put three to a two-seater and four to a three-seater... a bit snug) both spoke great English and explained. The two also came in handy when the bus stopped in a totally different part of downtown than the other buses do... One of the men was walking to work next to the normal bus park (from which I know how to find my way home) and showed me the way... Thank goodness for kind strangers, of which Rwanda has an abundance.

The interesting thing about the bus was the absolute rush to get on- because it is comparatively so much cheaper, everyone wants to get on the government buses. It was quite interesting, actually, watching everyone fight and clamour to get a seat before it was full. A bit dangerous too, especially in thin ballet flats... my toes hurt a little bit from being stepped on so many times. As well, there appeared to be some sort of incident with pickpocketing- a woman appeared to accuse a younger man of stealing something (I assume this was what happened, although of course the conversation was completely in Kinyarwanda) and two other older men searched him (as well as the other young man the former pointed out). Very different from home.

Anyway, I'm not sure the saved 70RwF was worth it, as I then had to walk a good 15 minutes or so. On my walk however, I was joined by a young guy from London who just arrived in Kigali yesterday. He's here for four weeks doing research on the gacaca system of justice used in Rwanda to cope with accusations of participating in the genocide. Today was a good morning for making friends, Rwandan and otherwise.

One thing I think I will not ever get used to in Kigali is the begging. The first few days, I saw only very few people asking for money on the street, and all were adults with a physical disability (amputations, for the most part). But last night, the four of us walked from near my office to Claire's house in Kiyovu, through what in the daytime is a fairly nice part of town. At night, it's still quite nice and quite safe (as is all of Kigali that I've seen) but there were quite a few women sitting on the sidewalk with infants and toddlers. I don't believe in supporting a begging culture as I do think there are better and more sustainble ways of offering support... but it has never been so hard to say no. Just the realisation of how lucky I am, and how lucky my child is... It's hard to cope with when the comparison between mine and theirs is so apparent in my mind. I knew coming here that I would be confronted with overwhelming poverty and I was aware that it was going to be difficult to cope with, but I had tried quite hard to prepare myself as well as I could. Most people are well aware that I'm sappy and tend to cry at everything remotely sweet, sad or romantic, but it's rare for things in 'real life' to hit me hard enough to bring on tears. I know I am going to love the work I'm doing here with ARBEF, but I've been thinking quite a bit about where else I can get involved during my time here. I'm on the lookout now for an organisation working with children, I think.

The unilingual Kinyarwanda-speaking woman just brought me tea (I still wish they would just show me how so she wouldn't have to) so I'm going to get to work. I'm not sure where my exec director is just now, but on Friday I compiled some resources on refugee reproductive health so off I go to read like a mad woman.

ETA: My boss just came to my office with a stack of reading material. The majority is on IPPF (some in French), which is good as I like IPPF and we're an affiliate, so it's always interesting to know what one is aligned with. Also in the pile? African Woman magazine. I love Dr. Laurien.