The Africa that Everyone Expected

So, I’m in Africa. Not the Africa I’ve known for the past month or so, but the Africa of stereotypes. The dirt roads for miles (kilometers, excuse me), pantsless boys, refugees, camels, mud brick and thatched roof houses, cows and goats running across the road, dozens of languages, savannah where you’re expecting to see a giraffe any minute—stuff like that. And wide stretches of nothing, which is so unlike Rwanda. Oh, I’m in Uganda, by the way.

So, we left Kigali Friday morning and said goodbye to the new kiddos. They’re still super loud, but they seem to be rolling with everything pretty well. Oh, and we had a spa party before we left. We were delayed for an hour, so we all did our nails :) Well, at least some of us did. Ben refused :P The drive to the border took about an hour and a half. We got there, got our passports stamped, changed a little bit of money, then continued on up to Mbarara, Uganda. I tried looking for differences between the two countries, but the most I could find on that drive was cows being driven across the road by 5 year olds, goats grazing alongside the road, and houses that were made out of mud bricks and sticks that looked a little less well put together than those in Rwanda. My mama wanjye (“my” in Kinyarwanda, which is how we differentiate who we’re talking about here) told me that all the American students they’ve hosted before come back saying that they like Rwanda a lot better. I think I’m going to agree, but I think I’m going to have a good time here.

On Saturday, we went to visit a refugee settlement about 2 hours east of Mbarara where Rwandan as well as Congolese, Somali, Eritrean, Kenyan, Burundian, and other refugees lived. 56,000 refugees lived there in all, including 9,173 Rwandese refugees. The World Food Programme provides 7.5 kg of maize/person/month along with a few other food supplies, but this is nowhere near enough food, so the refugees also have land that they’re allowed to cultivate. They use this food for their own sustenance, and many also sell their crops to generate income. Others have livestock or own shops in the settlement. When people come to the camp, many expect to be resettled in more developed countries, but this isn’t a realistic expectation as there are so many of them. Most experienced some sort of trauma in their home countries and therefore say they are unable to return. Some voluntarily repatriate (about 5%), but most don’t. It seemed like a lot of them either were or felt stuck there. Many of the Rwandan refugees, from what we’ve learned, fled during or soon after the genocide, but many of them were fleeing the RPF, the group that put an end to the genocide, and not the genocidiers. In other words, many of them are either perpetrators or family of perpetrators, not victims. Because of this, the Rwandan government has been putting a lot of pressure on Uganda and other places where Rwandan refugees are to repatriate the refugees. The Rwandan government tried once to forcefully repatriate these refugees, but it was apparently super chaotic because so many flat out refused, and a few people ended up dying. Many also immediately returned. Now the Rwandan government has asked that no Rwandan refugees be given land to cultivate, cutting off a major food supply. The Ugandan government complied for a while, but after seeing so many suffering, it sounded like they began turning a blind eye to those who violated the policy. And there are still 9,000 of them there, so I doubt they’re going anywhere anytime soon. Well, til June 2013, at least. There’s a cessation clause that takes effect then that removes the title of refugee from all Rwandans in exile, thus removing their protections as refugees, which I assumes leaves them with the title of illegal immigrant unless they apply for something otherwise.

We first met with a group of Rwandan refugees. It took about 15 minutes to get a group of 5 of them, including our translator who was the leader of all the refugees and of the Rwandans. And of course he had a significant bias of his own. We knew the discussion with the Rwandan refugees would be heavily biased and contrary to everything we’ve learned so far, so we were prepared to take everything they said pretty critically. Apparently the refugees fear that people like us (white people, foreigners, etc.) who come to the camp are spies, and so they’re all afraid to talk to us or be seen by us. When we finally got a group, we asked them why and when they came to the camp, where they were during the genocide, what their role was, if they considered going back and why or why not, what life was life in the camp, what challenges they faced, etc. We heard a lot of things like Hutus “don’t feel well” in Rwanda, “the RPF attacked our country” (implying that the RPF wasn’t Rwandan, which it was, and that the country belonged to the genocidiers)

The ride back was super bumpy and hot, but we made it back to the hotel that night and crashed. Oh, the food at that hotel was the best! I’ve developed quite a love of chapatis (somewhere between tortillas and pita bread), the peas they had were flavored with curry, and they had spaghetti with tomato sauce! It was the best.