The Food Here

The food in Kigali is fairly eclectic with a lot of variety if you are willing to pay for the international restaurants.  The staple foods of Rwanda are rice, beans, potato, bananas, and everything is cooked here with lots of oil.  It takes a while to get used to the food and I am glad that there are other choices.  There are several places that serve “American” dishes like hamburgers and sandwiches, but near where I am staying is a Chinese restaurant that I have frequented when I wanted a little taste of something else.

During lunch, various locations have buffets where the main food group being served is the various forms of starch previously mentioned.  For many this is enough food to last someone the entire day and some of my colleagues remarked that they will only have some tea at night for their dinner.  Even though the buffets are delicious, I am amazed that people can eat the same meal day in and day out.

Recently some of us at the hostel had a craving for Mexican food and we decided to cook a meal from scratch.  This included making tortillas, salsa, guacamole, and cooking and assortment of veggies to make something along the lines of fajitas/ tacos.  While you can get a really good burger here in Kigali, let me tell you no food that I have tried here reminded me of home and the US until I bit into my tortilla.  Savoring that moment was bittersweet as it left me feeling a little homesick.  With only a couple of weeks left in Rwanda, I still have a couple of restaurants that I want to try.  The one type of food that I am actively searching out while here in is sushi and is also likely to be my first meal once I am back home in the States…well my first meal after Chicago pizza.

 

Millennium Challenge Corporation

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) became operational 2004 and is designed to change the way in which the United States offers aid to other countries.  The MCC uses performance indicators measuring the countries commitment to good governance, economic freedom, and an investment in their citizens.  Using these measures they appear to be successful in providing targeted assistance to government agencies and programs.  MCC is in Rwanda as a part of its Threshold Program designed to assist in the development programs of the country.  One of the main drivers of the MCC is that the initiatives that it supports need to be country led.  In Rwanda, many of the programs that the MCC has been apart of deal with Service Delivery from the government.  MCC has been involved in the training of district leaders as well as assisting the data collection and analysis of the Citizen Report Cards.  The Citizen Report Cards (CRC) is a annual report from the citizens of a district about the progress that has been made and how they feel about their community.  The MCC establishes quarterly reports and I was tasked with making an executive summary of the most recent report.

After spending some time educating myself about the MCC and its projects in Rwanda I felt comfortable providing an analysis of the reports.  Two of the primary sections of the report that I was providing an analysis of surrounded a grant initiative for local governments and civil service organizations.  The country is in the process of building up service organizations to assist the people of Rwanda as apart of the decentralization efforts.

Celebrating the 21st without a Solstice

June 21st marks one of two astronomical events that occur six months apart, they are the Summer and Winter Solstices respectively.  I have lived my life exclusively in the Northern Hemisphere up until my internship here in Rwanda.  For me June 21st is supposed be the longest day of the year marking the Summer Solstice.  Rwanda is relatively not far from the equator, 2 degrees South,  and receives little daylight variation throughout the year.  Sunrise does not vary that far from 6:00am and sunset does not vary that much from 6:00 pm.  Living near the equator without the summer and winter extremes certainty has its benefits of its tropical climate, but the seasonal extremes are missed.  Without knowing that today is the official start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere today would have gone unnoticed by most expats here in Kigali.  For those who are unfamiliar with the term expat, it is short for expatriate or a person who is temporarily or permanently living in a country that is not their native country.   It is odd to celebrate this being the longest day of the year when it is no different than any of the days since my arrival over a month ago.

What a week!

I have been neglectful in writing my blog this week due to the fact that I have been in the field for six days straight.  Since last Friday I have been out of the office in the field and at events.  I was out in the field as an observer of the Clean and Green Environmental Campaign on Friday in the Eastern Province of the country.  The campaign is a month long continuation of this past months Umuganda and is aimed at promoting environmental initiatives.  Monday and Tuesday were also field events as part of this campaign and were really informative for someone with my undergraduate background.  One of the more interesting initiatives that is being implemented in the country is bio-gas which is being used in schools to generate energy for cooking and generating electricity.  The Government of Rwanda has ambitiously set to reduce its dependence on foreign sources of energy.  Bio-gas appears to be a promising alternative source of energy on the small scale programs that it is being used for.  Also, bio-gas has the potential to help mitigate the problem deforestation as wood is still one of the primary sources of fuel in the rural areas.

Wednesday and Thursday I was with a delegation of representatives from the Nairobi City Council as well as other representatives from Kenya.  The delegation totaled 110 representatives from Kenya who were in Kigali to learn from the various aspects of the public and private sector.  The representatives heard from the Ministry of Local Government about the decentralization efforts in the country as well as from the water and energy agency for the country.  Also, the delegation toured two of the Genocide Memorials in the Eastern Province.  I had not been to a memorial yet, and it is actually hard to write down the experience of witnessing these two locations that were former churches.

On Friday, I was able to attend the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association East African Conference.  The event was really interesting and the days agenda was on food security and sustainability, democracy and governance, economic growth, and gender.  These were all different plenary discussions where presenters gave their reports and then the floor was open to delegates to discuss the findings.  It was an amazing opportunity to attend as this was the first year in the 42 year history of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association that Rwanda was a participant in the event and not just an observer.

Workshops and Action Plans

June is a really busy time of year for the Ministry of Local Government.  The month marks the end of the fiscal year and there is a lot of work to be done in preparation for next years activities.  My responsibilities as an intern have slightly shifted away from Service Delivery during this time to assist the Ministry in its development of an Action Plan.  It is incredible for me as an intern and a student to see the development of a document that sets the agenda of the Ministry and various levels of government.  I was involved in a workshop where my coworkers and I were finalizing the document before it is to be submitted for approval.  The workshop was an interesting experience as most of the discussion was in Kinyarwanda.  I was able to stay active by editing and revising the document due to the fact that it was in English.  After the workshop, I was tasked with the job of harmonizing the Action Plan with two other documents.  One of the documents is the Seven Year Government Plan which aims at increasing the economic outlook of the country.  The Third Phase Decentralization Implementation Plan is the other document that I was task with aligning with the Action Plan.  The document outlines the decentralization strategy for the next five years in the country.  These two documents have benchmarks and timetables for the various Ministries to reach.  The ambitious nature of the Ministry has the Action Plan packed with ways to improve the levels of government over the next year.  Many of the programs are designed to shift more authority and responsibility onto the District and Sector levels of government.  I look forward to the challenges ahead as I approach my final weeks of my internship.

Akagera National Park

This past weekend I went to the Akagera National Park in Rwanda.  The hostel that I am staying at organized the trip and provided us with everything that we needed.  We set out on Saturday morning for the park and it was quite the road trip.  We stopped for lunch about halfway through the drive at a small lake where we relaxed and had an interesting boat tour.  Less than five Minutes into the tour the boat started taking on some water.  This was not a problem as there was someone on the boat prepared with a bucket to bail the water.  We were all slightly amused by this event and it was a nice icebreaking event to laugh about with the people from the hostel that did not know each other.  After lunch we set off again for the remaining leg of our journey to the park and arrived at the enterance around 3:00pm.

At the park there is the option to stay at the game lodge, which is a really nice hotel overlooking a lake fed by the Akagera River.  From what I have been told the Akagera River is one of the most remote sources for the Nile.  However, we did not stay at the lodge; instead we went camping and had a similar view of the lake, but for a lot less.  We explored the campsite for a little bit and then around 5:00 we began looking for a place to see the sunset.  During the next hour the sun begins to set on one of the most beautiful hillsides.  The park itself is a mixture of rolling grasslands and thick brush and we found a spot that nicely contrasted the two of them. 

After the sun went down, we had dinner at the lodge.  It was an interesting experience to have a fancy meal while camping in a national park in Africa.  We get back to the campsite and neglected one of the biggest necessities of camping, firewood.  While some decide to enjoy the fire of the other campers on the campground, some stay behind to try and get a fire going.  It was a case of too many cooks in the kitchen so it took a while to get a fire to catch.  With the fire set it was time to relax and look up at the stars.  It was incredible to see so many stars and the bands of the Milky Way.  Being in a different part of the world it was interesting to see how many stars you could recognize, sadly the only one I was absolutely certain of was the Big Dipper.  With an early morning ahead of us we all set off to bed.

The morning was equally as spectacular as we decided to wake and see the sunrise.  The hillside that we were on top of meant that we only had to walk 20 yards from our tents to see the sun rise over the lake.  After the sunrise, it was time to head to the lodge for breakfast and then start the safari. At breakfast we noticed that there was a man with a stick who was patrolling the patio.  It was not until we noticed the baboons perched on the roof that we understood what he was there for, to chase them away from the tables of food.  We were sitting inside so we were relatively safe from the baboons.

The safari itself was incredible.  (I will post pictures in a separate slide show for people to look at.)  There are no lions or any other daytime big cats at the park and the elephants were out in the brush in Tanzania, but still it was a remarkable day.  The most memorable thing about the safari was that the animals took notice of you and are not desensitized to humans.  Many of the animals struck magnificent poses for all of us to snap away with our cameras.  Others sprinted off as soon as they saw or heard our bus.  The guides at the park do amazing work and ensure that visitors have the opportunity to see as many of the animals as possible.  Some animals we were abbe to get really close to like the impalas and zebras.  There was a group of warthogs that our guide referred to as a “heard of Pumba’s,” referencing The Lion King, and we all started laughing as they ran off upon sight of the bus.  The giraffes were frightened by another tour so we could only see them from a distance. It was incredible to see them sprint down the opposite hill that we were on.  It looks as if the run in slow motion, but each gallop that they take moves them an immense distance.

The safari lasted about five hours and by the time we got back to the lodge for lunch we were all beat.  We spent the next couple of hours relaxing at the lodge.  Now I mentioned that we were able to get close to the animals, but there was also an instance when the animals decided to get close to us.  During lunch, we were all enjoying our food when to all our surprise a baboon comes to our table and steals the a burger out of the hands of someone in our group.  As a collective, it took us all a second to register that it was actually a baboon.  The baboon takes a bite of the burger and then takes a look around the table to see what else it can grab.  Its eyes were big and wide as it scanned the table looking at all of the other food it wanted to try.  We were all staring at the baboon and for some reason it reacts in an almost human way by sticking its hands up into the air holding the a piece of the burger in each hand.  Now after reflecting on this reaction I have taken the liberty to personify it in one of two ways.  The first would be the baboon claiming victory over successfully stealing food.  The second reaction I thought of was that of a child realizing that he got caught with his hands in the cookie jar so to speak and shooting his hands up in the air as if under arrest.  The second reaction is less likely, but it was the first impression left in my mind as it was happening.  Occurring simultaneously with this arms in air event was our waiter rushing to the table to scare the baboon off.  The man with the stick was nowhere to be found out on the patio, but he soon came back on patrol as more baboons came looking for food after the one was successful in stealing the burger.   Later when we retold the event to people who know the park, everyone was surprised that the baboon actually made it inside the restaurant.

With everyone safe and sound it was soon time to get back on the bus and drive back to the hostel.  I am so grateful to them for assisting in organizing this trip.  There will be a couple more trips through the country that will be planned by the hostel while I am still in Rwanda so I am looking forward to being able to share those stories as well.

Friday’s are for Sport

Working for the government of Rwanda has its challenges, but it also has its rewards.  Monday through Friday work begins at 7:00am and goes to 5:00pm, that’s right 10 hour work days.  There is a lot of dedication in the government work force and they are rewarded with “Sport” on Friday afternoons.  From what I gather, most Ministries return from lunch to wrap up the weeks activities and leave work by 3:00pm to head to one of gyms in the city.  Some of these gyms are attached to hotels in the city and one is part of the Amhoro Stadium where most of the soccer (football) games are played.  There are a variety of activities that you can choose to engage in depending on what the gym offers.

 

Getting into a routine

One of the best pieces of advice I was given was that I should get into a good routine to break up my week while in Kigali.  While this is good advice in general, it is especially true living in a third world country.   There are a lot of creature comforts that you miss (the most glaring one being guaranteed a hot shower)  and a routine really help you adjust to life here.  So after four weeks, I have a decent system going.  Here is the breakdown of my week:

Monday – Trivia Night at Sole Luna.  Sole Luna is an Italian restaurant that has pretty good pizza and that is saying something as I am from Chicago.  I have just started going to trivia and while similar to playing in the states it can be a challenge playing with the international community.

Tuesday – Thursday are fairly relaxing evenings after work where I will go to dinner with friends or lounge around the hostel.  These are the days that can get really long when the electricity goes out.  Learning to enjoy time “unplugged” can be a challenge, but is managed well by the people I have met.

Friday – While the end of the week can come with its usual frivolity, it is actually one of the most productive days that I have.  Friday’s are meant for Sport (separate post to follow) and I also get a lot of organizing of my work accomplished as well as planning for the next week.  Treating yourself to a nice dinner at the end of the week with friends in needed to get some variety in food.

The Weekends – I have spent the last couple of weekends learning my way around Kigali.  My plan for the remaining weeks is to see as much of the country as I can.  This weekend I start my explorations with a camping trip and safari in Akagera National Park.

Umuganda…A Call to Serve

On the last Saturday of every month the people of Rwanda participate in a day of public service called Umuganda.  The exact translation of Umuganda escapes me at the moment, but in essence one is performing community service from 8:00am until around noon.  It is a time when everyone in the country is supposed to be giving back to the country in some form or another.  Umuganda varies based on the specific District or Sector where you are located.  All citizens of Rwanda aged 18 and older are expected to participate as Umuganda is institutionalized and mandatory.  It is not expected of not non-nationals and visitors of the country like myself to participate, but Umuganda is organized by MINALOC so I wanted to take part in the experience.

I participated in Umuganda in the Kicukiro District of Kigali City Province with the office staff from my Ministry.  Arriving at the Ministry at 7:00am on a Saturday was a bit of a struggle after a long week, but the experience was worth the early wake up.  As I got on the bus to get ready to leave, I was handed a machete and told not to let it out of my hand.  I had heard about Umuganda from previous students and they described it as cleaning the streets and maybe some light construction.  However, Saturday’s agenda consisted of a massive brush clearing on the side of a hill.  It was a part of a new environmental initiative called the “Clean and Green Environment Campaign.” We were clearing away grasses and bushes to allow for recently planted trees to grow.  We drove only a little way past the airport and I was surprised at how quickly the capital becomes countryside.

Now I have done lawn care before, even without the assistance of electric or gasoline powered machinery, but chopping down a bush with a machete is hard.  It took me a good 45 minutes to recognize the “sweet spot” on the machete.  On the hillside there were two large gatherings of people each on opposite ends of the hill.  The objective was to get the two groups to work towards the middle of the hillside.  Those participating in Umuganda with me easily numbered 2000 people.  The most visible people in the crowd were the soldiers and the police officers as they were working in their uniforms.  Everyone else was wearing fairly casual attire.  The truly remarkable thing about Umuganda is that everyone, no matter your rank or title participated.  There were generals and ministers of government working alongside everyone else.

After Umuganda, my coworkers gathered for lunch and some relaxation.  We spent the afternoon enjoying each others company and I got back home around 5:00pm.  Even though it was a Saturday I would consider it my best day of work so far.  I have one more Umuganda to participate in and I am looking forward to what the Ministry will be doing next month.

Service Delivery Part II

I came to the realization that it would assist anyone reading this to know something about the organizational structure of the Government of Rwanda.  The country is separated into two separate entities, the national government and the local government.  The national government is organized under a democratic republic with a bicameral legislature.  The system of local governments is separated into five layers: Province, District, Sector, Cell, and Village.

There are five Provinces in Rwanda designated by geography North, East, South, West, and Kigali City in the center of the country.  The Provinces are the primary form of coordination between the national and local governments.  The five Provinces oversee the 30 Districts in the country.  Districts are legally and financially autonomous, so a comparison to the US would be somewhere between and state and regional governmental entity.  Sectors, Cells, and Villages all differ a little in their composition depending on the District being in an urban or rural setting.  There are 416 Sectors in the country, 2148 Cells, and finally 14,842 Villages.

The District  represents the most central form of decentralized government in the country.  Where the Province provides coordination, the District is primarily responsible for the implementation of national policies as well as providing feedback to the capital.

The the improvement of Service Delivery is the third Strategic Area of focus during the third phase of decentralization.  One of the ways that Service Delivery is being improved over the next five years is that performance standards are to be measured across the board by the communities they serve.  The Citizens Report Card (CRC) is one such measure in making Local Governments more accountable.  The CRC is an annual survey that asks the citizens of Rwanda to evaluate the performance of government and government services.  It provides the necessary feedback to improve the functioning of government.

This should help with later posts, but if you have questions leave a comment and I will do my best to answer.