Our First Trip to Rwanda
{ September 11th, 2008 }
Before we left Denver, I made a tentative travel schedule. I needed to come up with a budget for the regional expenses through the end of 2008, and to do so, I needed to have a general idea of when I would visit Hélène in Rwanda and Kate in Malawi. I tentatively said that I would make a trip to Rwanda the first week of September to see how the program was coming together after its first few months. However, I would only make the trip if at that point Hélène was ready for me.
As it turned out, in mid-August, I got an email from Hélène, saying that things were coming along well, but that she was really ready for some face-to-face time to discuss how to proceed with program development. We agreed that the first week of September was the right timing for my first visit.
Eileen and John Kayser asked Jon to come along and take photos. We wanted to have some “baseline” photos of the work that Hélène has been doing in Rwanda. One of the challenges of being the sole staff person in a country is that it’s very difficult to take photos at the same time you are leading meetings. We also wanted to make sure that we had some photos of Hélène at work.
Jon and I traveled last Sunday on the 9:00 am flight from Entebbe, Uganda to Kigali, Rwanda. Although the flight is less than an hour, it’s an international flight, and so we needed to report to the airport two hours early. It takes an hour to get from Kampala to Entebbe (where Uganda’s international airport is), and so Jon and I were in a taxi, before sunrise, at 6:00 am.
We flew over a piece of Lake Victoria, perhaps over some of Tanzania, and into Rwanda. It was very clear when we passed into Rwanda. Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa. The bird’s eye view showed us that the land was covered in small agricultural plots all lined up. Houses were close together, and from the air, everything looked well organized.
We arrived to Kigali and got settled. Kathryn Cooper, Water For People’s Water and Sanitation Leadership Fellow, had arrived to Kigali from Malawi the day before to begin her study of girls’ sanitation in Rwanda. She was set to stay at Hélène’s house for the two weeks she was working in Rwanda. They’d spent the morning at the market and invited Jon and me to dinner. It was great to have a chance to informally catch up with Hélène and Kathryn. We all exchanged stories of the last few months in our respective countries. We compared internet speeds, motorcycle taxis, and adventures in dining. Rwanda has a lot of avocados this time of year, and so Kathryn made a delicious guacamole. After the sun set, we sat down to a fantastic pasta dinner. Since Jon, Kathryn, and I were pretty road-weary, we called it an early night.
On Monday, Hélène and I spent a long time catching up on various administrative questions as well as some larger programmatic questions. We made a list of topics that we wanted to get through during the week, and began to work through them. Among the topics were:
- The 2009 budgeting process
- Potential partners and the status of choosing partners
- Water For People staffing priorities
- Timing the baseline mapping study so that it happens within the next six months, but doesn’t overlap the rainy season too badly
- Reporting requirements
- Water For People office space requirements and the timing for acquiring office space
- Potential programs and program design
It was an ambitious list, but one that we made significant progress on throughout the week.
One of the things that Hélène and I agreed was that because the Rwanda program is growing and changing so quickly that it makes sense to have more regular, frequent communication. For the next several months, and until we no longer feel it’s necessary, Hélène and I will have a short phone call twice a week to talk about where she’s gotten to and how she’s going to proceed. That type of frequent communication is one of the reasons that the Regional Managers have been moved from Denver to the field—by being physically closer, we’re able to give more regular support to our country offices.
On Tuesday, Hélène set up meetings in Kicukiru (pronounced KI-chee-KEE-roo) District, one of the districts where, through needs assessments, the Ministry of Water Resources of Rwanda has assigned Water For People to work. We met with the Executive Secretary of the District, where Hélène and I explained where she has gotten to in her program planning and what it meant for Kicukiru District. Hélène felt that it was very important for the District to see another Water For People face and to hear about the potential programming from someone else, and so I explained the programming ideas that Hélène and I had talked about. Rwanda has three official languages—English, French, and Kinyarwanda—however, many people are much more comfortable speaking French. Poor Hélène was faced with the task of translating my explanations of the program from English, and in many cases, then translating his questions back to me. I’ve made it through two units of Rosetta Stone French lessons, but I have a ways to go, I’m afraid.
During the conversation, the Executive Secretary told us that public toilets had been built in a nearby market. We think that they were pay-for-use toilets, but it was unclear who was managing them. After our meeting, we set off to find the toilets in the market. When we arrived, we looked around, and the toilets seemed nowhere to be found. We asked several people, and finally got some direction from a group of very bold children. We wandered around and finally found what we think were the toilets. However, it was pretty clear that people were uncomfortable with a group of mzungus (foreigners) entering. As we were entering, a man approached us and said that if we’re looking for toilets, he’d bring us to them. He escorted us away from the public toilet and brought us to a private toilet. It’s a mission that Hélène will need to continue on her own.
Wednesday Hélène arranged for us to go to Rulindo, Water For People’s other district. Rulindo is about an hour away from Kigali. After being in Uganda, where distances are long and where many roads are full of potholes, Jon and I were impressed at how easy the ride was. Hélène explained that many of the roads were new. In the places where there were still a few potholes, she explained that they were roads that had not yet been fixed, and the potholes were left from bombs during the Genocide. It was a stark reminder of what happened in Rwanda only 14 years ago. Although a lot of repairs have been made, there is still some ways to go.
In Rulindo, we met with the Assistant Mayor. We again explained where we think the program is going and asked for his thoughts. In many cases he thought that the ideas would work, but he had some suggestions. Hélène and I thanked him and told him that we look forward to working more with him to put the program together. Government is an important partner in Water For People’s work.
Hélène also arranged for us to meet with a potential partner in Rulindo. We met the partner at the Assistant Mayor’s office, and we drove together to see a water system that the group had completed in 2002. We drove up, up, up into the hills. We stopped the car at the base of a hill, and we set out to hike. The water system we were visiting was a gravity flow spring catchment system. We hiked from the road, through a number of homesteads, past a number of women working their small subsistence farming plots, and down to where the spring had been captured.
The Director of the local NGO explained how the system works, and we observed a tap that had been left near the source so that the people in the surrounding area could still access the water while much of the water was piped to the communities below. The system seemed well made, although was in need of some regular maintenance. The Director explained that the fence that had been surrounding the spring source to protect it from animals and other potential contaminants had been stolen. Neighboring children had set up soccer goals on the cleared area, instead. We talked for a long time about the management of the system, how many people the system served, and ways that the NGO might be able to improve the management. Overall, the system appeared to be in good working order.
From there, we visited a church on a nearby hill where some of the water was pumped to. The local NGO was able to rehabilitate a water tank there that had been set up many years ago and had since lost its source. By connecting the new gravity flow system to the tank, the tank was again usable, and the church, school, and other public buildings again had access to safe drinking water. While we were listening to the explanation, a young girl approached the tank and took a drink.
Thursday Hélène and I wrapped up. We finished our list of questions and had a few more meetings. At 3:00 pm Jon and I were on our way back to the airport and back to Uganda. It was a very productive trip. It was excellent to see what Hélène was working on, and to work together through some challenges that she was experiencing. She is making good progress on the Water For People—Rwanda program. It’s going to be an exciting program that will serve to use the good work that the Government of Rwanda is currently doing in the water sector as a base, and hopefully will provide some new ways of thinking that will improve services to Rwanda’s population.
Written by Sarah in Africa, Life, NGO, Travel, Water, water for people ~ Comments
