Kwibuka | #africamp

Reflections on #africamp

Posted on June 5, 2016 by andrewrfretwell

This is our final blog post for our four month trip to Africa. Instead of my usual pontifications, this blog is broken down into a number of “top ten lists” in order to succinctly share the highlights; enjoy!

The 10 Best Things We Did

Attend ASYV Debate Tournament

After being in the village for like two weeks, we joined the coaches and participants and spent a day in rapid-fire debates on the motion: The Rwandan government should significantly cut its current dependence on foreign aid. I learned a lot about the effects of foreign aid on Rwanda and the global south in general. But more importantly had an incredible day watching and coaching my team of three awesome girls who went on to win the city championship!

Akilah One-on-One meetings

The work we did at Akilah has meaningful in so many ways, and one of those ways in how it allowed us to jump on motos and meet with individuals around Kigali, whether it was worth current students, alumnae, or private sector employers who regularly hired interns and graduates from Akilah. The meetings gave Jamie and I an up-close look into the developing private sector of Rwanda and those who are building it from the ground-up.

Gorilla Trekking

Being close enough to see a fully grown silverback gorilla change its facial expression as it finishes eating one thing and considers if he wants to eat the next thing is…rad. Seriously, it was like close encounter of the best kind.

Driving the Garden Route (including Winelands)

South Africa is immersed in natural beauty and winding our way through the hills along the South and East Coast became like a 4 day drive through a series of impressionist paintings.

SAFARI!

Big Cats, Elephants, Hippos, Giraffes, Craters, Zebras, there is no better way to get lost in nature than safari in Masai Mara, Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater.

Stonehenge

After safari, it was fitting to go from basking in the natural world to trying to pry into the minds of Neolithic men and women who used this site to…bury the dead? Observe the seasons? Pray? All of the above? Few places leave you with more questions that Stonehenge so obviously, we loved it.

Driving Tour of Capetown with Noel

Our driving tour with Noel was amazing because he showed us the sights and shared with us the stories of South Africa. Not just the ones that feel good to hear, about what a saint Mandela is or how great it was for Apartheid to be overthrown without a war. But he also told us the stories about government abuse and corruption that is severely souring the sweetness of what post-Apartheid South Africa could have looked like. For the comprehensiveness and the nuance that we learned, we will forever be grateful.

White Water Rafting down the Nile

Jamie and I are not extreme sporters but we like to have fun. Rafting the Nile was about as far as we could go. We paddled our way through a couple of Category 5 rapids, got stuck under a 14 foot waterfall (that we rafted over) and we capsized twice…each time there was like a half second when one part of me went “huh, is this how Jamie tells everyone that I died?” But anyway, it was super-super fun and wouldn’t trade it back for anything.

Attended Rwanda’s National Genocide Memorial at Amahoro National Stadium

While we didn’t see the Agahozo Shalom students perform, joining with Rwandans from around the country to come together to remember such a recent, painful, confusing and real trauma in ther collective psyche and individual lives was an honor. And because Rwandans are such hospitable people, we were welcomed into such a private, vulnerable moment with open arms and teary eyes. It was a moment through which I will feel connected to Rwanda for a very long time.

Spice Tour and Beach out in Zanzibar

With our volunteering and safari behind us, we took our last few days in Africa to check out Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania. While there we both went on a spice tour, where we used all five senses to learn more about how spices and herbs are planted, grow and are used culinarily, medicinally and cosmetically. We’ve done a lot of walking tours, but from this one we said, “Wait, but really?” way more than any other. Then we spent a few days to just sit on the beach at a resort and drink and eat like we were rehearsing for a Corona commercial. We stayed at the Beach Breeze Resort and I recommend it to all. We were also lucky because it was peak rainy season so prices were low, but it was still sunny and in the high eighties on most days. #winning.

10 Teachers and What They Taught Us

JC, Executive Director of Agahozo Shalom Youth Village – showed us how to hit that balance of bringing the the right people to the table with the right jobs and supporting them, but in a way that lets them do what you hired them to do, and therefore thrive.
Vincent, Village Director of Agahozo Shalom Youth Village – taught us how to look at a start-up and begin building, in order to go from good to great
Ritah, Alumnae Affiars Manager at Akilah Institute for Women – taught us how to love a job through building the relationships through those you serve
Aline, Country Director for Akilah Institute for Women – taught me about part of the psychology of Rwndans as refugees and what that means to their values and sense of self-value
Noel, Tour Guide in Cape Town – taught us to look under the surface to see the stories less told in South Africa, post-Aparthied
Nida, graduate of Akilah Institute for Women – taught us that where there’s a will there’s a way
Francis, Tour Guide for Glory Safaris – taught us about the Maasai and how to consider the balance of thousands of years of traditions with modernity
Jessica, Director of Registration and Career Development at Akilah Institute for Women – gave us a crash course in “Re-organizing the systems of your Start-up” through our work together at Akilah
Maxime, graduate at Agahozo Shalom Youth Village – who inspired us with his ambition, belief in hard work, and gratitude and eagerness towards opportunities and uphill battles
Phyllis, fellow volunteer at Agahozo Shalom Youth Village – taught us how to give without imposing, to support without commandeering, to give in the truest sense of the word

10 Assumptions Going to East Africa Tears Down

Africa is too backwards for there to be significant progress any time soon.
Africa is a great place to send charity to, not business contracts.
African women are comfortable accepting a life similar to that of their mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers
The best way for African problems to be solved is to find the equivalent problem in the US or Europe and just apply the model.
Travelling in Africa is not safe.
Unless they are rich, Africans do not speak English.
Africans do not deal with issues around ‘colorism’ since almost everyone is black.
Africa just needs “time” to get better.
Africans think life is cheap.
Africans are a “simple” people.

The 10 Things We Will Do When We Return to Africa

Climb Kilimanjaro and do some Safari Hikes and Balloon Rides
Do some work with African Innovation Prize
Check out the Apartheid Museum in Soweto
Attend Passover or Shabbat with the Abuyadaya in Uganda
Stay over for a few nights in Addis Ababa
See Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe
Hike up a volcano in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Spend more time in Capetown and the Winelands in South Africa
Visit the Nyamatta Church Genocide Memorial in the Southern Province of Rwanda
Hike around Namibia

#africampers out…for now.

These Start-up Exile Nations

Posted on April 18, 2016 by andrewrfretwell

After comparing the Holocaust and Rwanda’s Genocide commemoration, another powerful parallel emerges: the role of refugees. Today, you’d never know that less than twenty years ago, nearly 40% of Rwandans had been refugees or the children of refugees. Between 1959-1994, seven hundred and fifty thousand Tutsis were chased across Rwanda’s borders by government-sponsored pogroms. Immediately following the 1994 genocide, two MILLION Hutus fled to neighboring Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) for fear of Tutsi retaliation. But by 1998, almost all refugees, Tutsi and Hutu alike, had returned to the land of their forefathers.

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United Nations map of Rwandan Refugee Population Centers, circa December 1994.

Nothing about Rwanda seems like a nation of strangers. On the contrary, Jamie and I have been struck by how ubiquitous the combination of altruism and patriotism is here and the sincerity with which so many Rwandans seek meaning through building Rwanda. And the quantum leap this country has made over the last twenty years is a personal point of pride of every Rwandan we meet. Rwanda in 1994 showed the horror of what a mob can commit, Rwanda in 2016 shows the potential of what a community can accomplish.

Jews who know their history understand the transformation from exile to prosperity. David’s Kingdom and Solomon’s Temple were built on 440 years of slaves and wanderers’ dreams. In the 20th Century, millions of Jews made homeless and nationless by the Holocaust and freshly minted Arab autocracies came to Israel to build a home that would be everything their last residences were not. History will ultimately judge their success, but there is much to celebrate.

Jewish refugees from Arab countries prepare for life in the new State of Israel, courtesy of the Henry Jackson Society.

There are myriad reasons why Israel quickly ascended from nascent state to a military, educational, technological and cultural force and there are as many reasons that Rwanda is in the midst of an historic trajectory towards a 21^st century African success. But their success’ secret sauce may be how both countries’ allowed their refugees to catalyze progress.

How does a gathering of refugees, the supposed wretched of the Earth, spark success? From conversations I have had with Rwandan and Israeli friends, co-workers and educators who were refugees or well studied on refugees, I have very unscientifically observed three indicative adaptations many (certainly not all) refugees use towards self-preservation: striving, community facing, and self-supporting.

Refugees are made to feel less than their neighbors, who are citizen while they are aliens. Citizens feel shame or pride for their country, but refugees cannot feel either, deprived of the dignity of belonging. Instead they inherit a humiliating sense of inferiority that only subsides after a life of proving one’s worth.

A standard modus operandi for governments hosting refugees includes neglecting to provide basic services and to actively block refugees from educational and employment advancement opportunities. Therefore, most refugees learn quickly that all they have is each other. This heavy interdependence breeds deep fidelity to the community and builds a dense network of connectivity. In other words, networking is not a professional tactic; it’s a survival strategy.

Even counting on the strength of their community normally does not give refugees much control their own destiny. They cannot get a legitimate job, grow food, or dig a well since the country’s opportunities and natural resources are not meant for them. They are forced to subsist on the charity of others, which quickly metastasizes into a culture of dependence, which changes charity into poison. Consequently, once they reclaim self-reliance, refugees are loath to ever concede it again.

Inauguration of the Center of Excellence for Horticultural Development in Rwanda, courtesy the Foreign Ministry of Israel.

The constant striving to prove self-worth, the thick connectivity among community members, and the deep desire for true autonomy drove forward Israel and Rwanda. There is something distinctively familiar floating in the air here in Rwanda, a “chalutzic” gust that blows through both the Judean hills and this “Land of a Thousand Hills.” The chalutzim were early Jewish pioneers who toiled to build Israel’s foundations, reinvigorating local agriculture, founding the first modern Hebrew city, Tel Aviv, and even resurrecting the spoken language of Hebrew. They placed their lives in service of rebuilding their country from almost nothing.They would fit in very well in Rwanda.

The government is remarkably focused on lifting Rwanda out of poverty. Shopkeepers, cab drivers, entrepreneurs and high school students all have an opinion on how to reduce Rwanda’s dependency on foreign aid. Teens profess their dreams, not to be millionaires, but to start businesses that create jobs. On the first Saturday of every month, all Rwandans are expected to join members of their neighborhood or village to do public works, from planting trees to sweeping the streets. I have spent the last two weeks working with local women to help to launch the Akilah Women’s Institute Alumnae Association. The young women I speak to are nearly unanimous that the association’s goal should not be focused on helping alumnae, but on organizing alumnae to serve Rwandan women at large.

An ancient motif is that great leaders must go forth into the wilderness before leading their people. Moses sojourned to Midian before taking Israel out of Egypt. Jesus fasted in the desert before his final passion. Mahatma Gandhi practiced law in South Africa before taking up the banner of Indian independence. Nelson Mandela sat like Buddha in a prison cell for twenty-seven years before ending Apartheid.

But what about when a people, not a person, treks through the wilderness? Today’s zeitgeist dictates that they become a smoldering oven of hatred and violence. In Jordan, Serbia, Pakistan, Chad, etc. we have seen refugee centers turned into petri dishes of extremism. But Israel and Rwanda bare witness to what can be accomplished through ingathering the dispersed. These start-up exile nations are instructive to dealing with a swelling global refugee crisis. All in highly different circumstances, these three countries show how to unleash people’s drive, creativity and compassion by giving them the opportunity to work towards success. In doing so, the nationless of today can be the remedy to, not a source of, global woes. Someone ought to remind Donald Trump that America’s success and vitality comes from a similar recipe.

Kwibuka and Yizkor: In the Shadow of Two Genocides

Posted on April 13, 2016 by andrewrfretwell

“‘And this also,’ said Marlow suddenly, ‘has been one of the dark places of the earth.'”

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“Some days circle and circle, some days soar above like kites, some days like hyenas wait for the story to die.”

Juliane Okot Bitek, 100 Days

Twenty-two years after Rwanda plummeted into one hundred days of madness, the week of Kwibuka (Kinyarwanda for remember) for the Tutsi Genocide has drawn to a close. There is both so little and so much to say about an entire nation submerging in blood and its worldwide complicity, whether through choosing blissful ignorance (United States and UK), using bureaucracy to mask cowardice (United Nations) or even covertly supporting it (France).

In Rwanda and in Israel, I have stood along survivors of genocide in a country whose collective narrative is inseparable from that genocide. The parallels are painfully apparent between these two genocides:

A despotic government manipulates animosity against a small minority it portrays as alien, privileged, scheming, and constantly exploiting the true citizens. That animosity, cultivated in poverty, metastasized into open hostility through fear and a dominant culture of conformity. And then the final catalyst needed to mutate hostility into mass murder: war. Citizens become targets to their own neighbors and friends; seemingly overnight, everyone was either assigned as predator or prey.

Rwandans mourn and comfort each other at Kwibuka 22 commemoration event in Kigali.

As slaughter raged, the world turned a blind eye, unable to countenance such mayhem, nor willing to take responsibility to stop it. The United States, Europe and neighboring countries idly looked the other way. In this modern incarnation of Cain and Abel, the Catholic Church provided no refuge for Abel and local clergy even joined Cain. Eventually the madness subsided with invading soldiers restoring order but as emaciated and dazed survivors emerged, the staggering human and psychological toll had already been paid.

The broad strokes of 1945 and 1994 are hauntingly familiar, but the distinctions are clear. Of the many differences, I focus on four.

Banality vs. Bloodlust of Evil

Nazis and Hutu extremists took opposite approaches to dehumanize their victims. The Third Reich reduced victims into numbers and mass murder into a sterilized bureaucracy. The S.S. shuttled Jews, Gypsies and others to remote camps to give Germans and collaborators psychological space and let people feel the genocide was outside their realm. This was the unspoken pact between perpetrators and bystanders: kill millions and pretend it’s not happening.

Not the case in Rwanda. Killers reveled in the orgy of blood. The planners’ strategy was to nullify the criminality of genocide by casting guilt on everyone. Instead of using bureaucracy as an anesthetic for the murderers, the genocidaires celebrated murder as an act of community consecration. The Interahamwe (local death squads) conscribed every Hutu man to kill Tutsis or provide material support to the effort. Consequently, Tutsis were chased and called out by name by their neighbors, friends, and even family.

Genocide as Ends or Genocide as Means

One of the Holocaust’s great paradoxes was the extreme operational rationality used to achieve an irrational aim. Hitler’s ultimate aspiration for “Greater Germany” was undermined by the Holocaust since it diverted significant resources from battlefields to concentration camps, with no resulting benefit.

Not the case in Rwanda. Killing Tutsis was not a goal, but the chosen method of a corrupt, hateful cadre of politicians and generals to retain power. Hutu extremists saw the sun setting on their reign and to prevent its end, they incentivized poor Hutus to kill their Tutsi neighbors and claim their possessions. Many genocidaires have admitted that they spent as much time looting as killing. These leaders believed the genocide would go unpunished and would eliminate the prospect of any future power-sharing agreement. The genocide may have looked like an eruption of passion, but it was planned along cool political calculus.

Tel Aviv isn’t in Treblinka

Jamie and I visited the site of a mass grave for genocide victims, which sits about a quarter mile from our house.

The most salient distinction resides in the nature of the recovery process. Holocaust survivors left Europe for Israel and the US to start over and Nazis have rightly become synonymous with evil. Physical and moral distance from one’s oppressor bolsters the psychological rehabilitation.

Not the case in Rwanda. The moral distance is compressed and there is zero physical distance. While Jews ask, “How could we suffer this?” Rwandans ask, “How could we suffer and perpetrate this?” Tremendous effort has been invested into reconciling survivors and perpetrators, but there is no precedent for two sides of a genocide living together afterwards. While thousands have been imprisoned for their involvement, justice is a relative, and tortured term. Rwanda turns “No Justice, No Peace!” on its head. Justice and peace have become conflicting values. If justice were truly served then all perpetrators would be imprisoned. But then Rwanda would sink even deeper into poverty, ushering in starvation, crime, hopelessness, war, and that’s right: another genocide.

Thousands of confessed perpetrators were freed, returning to their homes and working next to their former prey. How are the widowed and orphaned survivors supposed to find justice in a world where their former murderers have been reunited with their family and fields? In Rwanda, survivors have been asked to concede personal justice in the interest of national peace.

Sirens and Hands

Phyllis holds hands with Rwandans during a moment of remembrance as a community.

Kwibuka Week crescendos at Amahoro National Stadium during a nationally televised ceremony. At the culminating moment, tens of thousands in attendance stand and hold hands. On Israel’s Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), sirens blare across the country and the nation stands at attention. The difference between holding hands and listening to a siren is telling: sirens remind Israel to be vigilant against outside oppressors; holding hands reminds Rwanda that our touch has the power to destroy and the power to protect each other. Both bare witness to the nadir of their people and call on us to confront evil wherever we see it. May we all raise our consciousness, empathy and care towards those who are suffering, from Burundi to Syria.

To learn more about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, I recommend Phillip Gourevitch’s “We Wish to Inform you that Tomorrow We will be Killed with our Families,” Steven Kinzer’s “A Thousand Hills” and Jean Hatzfield’s literary trilogy “Life Laid Bare,” “Machete Season,” and “The Antelope’s Strategy.”