Entry 2 - Skulls, femurs, flowers

“If you knew me, and if you really knew yourself, you wouldn’t have killed me.”

The crispy, burning fatigue has set in, the kind that feels like grit in my eyes and aches in my joints. No matter how well I take care of myself and what healthy choices I make, I am simply unsuited for early mornings. Sleep deprivation coupled with the emotional gymnastics of traveling in poor countries create a unique exhaustion. I tap into the spiritual capital of years of tending to a spiritual practice, especially meditation, and ask the teachings of great masters to be with me, to sustain me. Let the time I have spent sustain me now, please. Make me an instrument of thy peace, sweet God of mine. Love is a great thing, a great and thorough good; by itself it makes everything that is heavy, light. Help me make this heavy day, light; it’s a beautiful day, God; don’t let me miss it.

Yesterday I began my day on my knees in my hotel room in Kigali, saying just that. As soon as the word ‘”beautiful” left my mouth I saw two kite hawks in a treetop directly outside my window. Is grabbing field glasses to admire African birds an extension of meditation? I think so. Hawks are diurnal as owls are nocturnal; together they comprise a very special animal totem and their medicine, as taught by Native Americans, is potent in my life. They have been with me for years and in awesomely special ways. I thank my Creator for these affirmations that I am on the right path. Yesterday I had written very intimate prayers to the Creator (these diaries are news, weather, and sports compared to my real journal). The natural world is a portal of worship and connection for me. Here I see a Power greater than myself most vividly.

A tiny white flower on a resilient, curling stem would be my next symbol of comfort, and how much did I need it? I was standing in the middle of a long sequence of concrete mass graves, graves piled 20 and more bodies deep, filled with the massacred remains of Rwandans who were slaughtered during the inconceivable Genocide here in 1994. The mass graves are 15 feet wide, 20 feet long, and go on for as long as the eye can see. In the poured concrete that is the final resting place for bones hacked by machetes, this flower, tinier than my pinky finger nail, was unmistakably growing out from within a tomb. It was several feet from the ground (the graves are so deep, so deep), yet it was unmistakably there. The wheel of time turns, life, death. Life, death. Life.

Rwanda is like this flower, a thing that is blooming out of the detritus and wreckage of the absolute worst humanity has to offer. All day I dialogued with myself about balancing the current reality, which is largely positive within the context of one of the poorest countries in the entire world, with the reality of 1994 (and before), which is indescribably bad. Both sides of this story need to be told and it would be irresponsible to short change either part.

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I managed my grueling experience at the genocide memorial by dividing it into two parts: the intellectual and the emotional. Intellectually, the site is incredibly well done. It shows how the Germans, then the Belgians, followed by the unconscionable inaction of the rest of the world, set Rwanda up for the genocide; the historical background of the clans, of which distinctions like Hutu and Tutsi were socio-economic and not ethnic at all, yet how the white people’s obnoxious, flagrant, unrepentant racism distorted and perverted everything about this beautiful, ancient people into an “us versus ourselves” mentality. Of the most enraging images was a priest, for God’s sake, a priest measuring Rwandan heads and categorizing them ethnically for the registration cards of 1935 as deemed necessary by the Church and King Leopold, one of the great nutters of all time. These registration cards were doomed to become one of the worst props in the history of humankind. As these ethnic differences were spurious to begin with, the church had trouble distinguishing Hutu from Tutsi, so they would ask random questions like “how many cows do you have” and decide for the people ‘what they were.’ Once the massacres began in 1994, these cards were the delivery system of death for more than one million people. The memorial, in a balancing act of the highest order, does not stoop to blame the outside world, but rather in a straightforward way simply tells the story of how over decades the west’s racism, abuses, extraordinary sins of commission let 500,000 women be raped, a million people be butchered, and for hundreds of thousands of secondary deaths to occur; for there to be complete civic destruction and a cascade of ancillary tragedies and upheavals (refugees, for example). There are photographs of Hutus preparing to kill with French soldiers supervising the gruesome proceedings, examples of major media (NY Times, Times of London) newspaper stories reporting killing sprees that were rehearsals for mass murder, and the requests of the UN peacekeeper lead in Rwanda begging for assistance, predicting what was coming, and saying how very little he needed to avert it. And, finally there is the stone-walling silence of Kofi Annan, heads of state around the world, and us, normal citizens who should have stopped our everyday lives to prevent this doom.

I could go on and on about the exhibit’s educational strength and its mission of preventing of future genocide anywhere in the world as well as healing for by telling the truth, but that simply delays for me phase two, the feelings. The feelings are harder, aren’t they?

The grief is debilitating. I would walk and feel my legs becoming heavier, almost immobilized, as I slowly moved through the mass graves. At times I was close to passing out and I’d have to sharpen up mentally and reconnect with my breath. At other times I felt hyper alert to the point of panic and had to slow my breath, it would be coming in heaves. I would feel pain so deep the rest of the world ceased to exist and I would be swallowed entirely in it. If I had been able to think in those moments I would have thought my life was over, nothing else was possible, except maybe to crawl silently to somewhere quiet to sit, to hide, to huddle. Three women with a faded color photograph gripped in their hands staggered through the graves. One fell to her knees and her sisters stood alongside her as pillars. When she recovered slightly it was the other two women’s turn to keen. I wanted to run to their group and throw myself on them, like we were a pyre, sobbing, howling, “I am so sorry, I am so sorry.” Perhaps they would have appreciated such a validating outburst of communal sorrow, perhaps culturally that would have been wildly out of order. I barely restrained myself as I passed by them, brushing one lightly on the back. She said, “thank you.”

I am muzungu, a white person. I wish I had gone with my instinct and reached out more to the women. Part of the pain about the genocide is the lack of validation.

Prayer did help as I was sucked inexorably further into the memorial. When I would start to lose my mind I would start to pray for the souls of the dead. (I haven’t started to pray yet for the perpetrators, the way Archbishop Tutu’s daughter has taught me, but I will. I will.) May you rest in peace. May you rest in peace. May you rest in peace. One million and more times, may you rest in peace.

One of the round rooms of the exhibit had victim’s clothing suspended in mid air by filament. The arrangement of the clothes suggests the posture of the body that had occupied them; the empty garments expressed surprise, violence, pitiful and useless self defense. The clothes were all sizes, and I stood, weeping and haunted, in front a child’s colorful sweater, filthy from where the body had lain in the muck. At that little child’s age, that would have been my favorite sweater, it was so cheerful. It reminded me of the rainbow painted on the entrance to the tunnel from Marin County to the Golden Gate Bridge, so optimistic! Next to it was a tattered superman sheet. God have mercy on us all. Was the person sleeping and hacked to death in his bed? Had a family tried to flee their mud hut, the sheet grabbed in a mindless fit of modesty? Had a wildly panicked mother grabbed the sheet to tie her youngster to her back so she could run from her rapists?

Another room had horizontal rows of filament, to which survivors pin photographs of their loved ones. Rows, rows, and rows, images from family parties, official documents, snapshots of reluctant looking elderly which perhaps an amateur family historian took to have for future generations. The room is devastating. It is almost unbearable. Murder, murder, murder, it silently screams.

I paused at the memorial guest book. I couldn’t see the page for my tears blearing my sight. What do I say? How do I tell the survivors of such horror anything consoling? How does one apologize to the dead? Feeling useless and incompetent I wrote, “I am sorry, I am so sorry.”

Afterwards I was asked to say a few words to our local staff and the media. In the morning, I had thought to talk about the Rwandan government’s extraordinary action in rebuilding itself, a veritable Phoenix rising from ashes, and to salute NGO’s and initiative’s like President Clinton’s, which have accomplished so much. It was not, however, the right time; this needed to be about genocide, regret, accountability. In this moment I found the division between the intellect and the emotional in order to be able to speak in public and not simply wail. I took responsibility certainly for my government’s inaction, pledged to do my part as a citizen to ensure no genocide happens again, and to serve Rwanda’s people as living amends. I also mentioned this Chinese ship full of arms that was trying to dock in Zimbabwe earlier this week. Are people out of their minds? Nothing, absolutely nothing good can possibly come of such arms coming to Africa. Are we forgetting, even as this memorial exists, that the genocide was committed with .50 machetes from China? I vowed to call my legislators and you bet your ass I did. That ship needs to go back from whence it came, thank you very much.

These writings will not be entirely about the genocide, but today’s is. It inescapably informs everything in this country, and most certainly Population Service International’s public health mission here. It is the background, acknowledged - if unspoken, it has set Rwanda’s stage.

We also visited an infamous site, a church where 10,000 children, women, and elderly were slaughtered. In the mayhem of the bloody free for all, a group had fled to the church, naturally expecting some protection. Instead, they were tortured. The Hutu madmen began by throwing grenades into the packed throng (the church is not big, just one open room, 10,000 people in it - inconceivable). The shrapnel damage is still in the church’s tin roof, letting small bits of sun come through. Over a short period of time, the 10,000 were hacked to death, one brutal, agonizing death at a time.

Rwandan society held a special place of honor for its elderly, but in the genocide they were treated with a particular cruelty. Everyone was, really….the Hutu just found different twists on the same fundamental insult: the elderly had breed cockroach Tutsis, women gave birth to cockroach Tutsi, men married cockroach Tutsi, and so on and so forth. But I feel a singular grief at what was done to the elderly. No more so than children, but….it’s a different aspect of the pain. Maybe because I spend a little time each day honoring my grandparents, thanking them for my life, coming to peace once more with the fact they are with me in spirit but not in the flesh. That someone would set out to ruin an old person’s life, when I long for more old people in my life, hurts.

I haven’t said much of rape, but it happened (and continues to happen, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo, en masse). A typical example of rape as a tool of genocide happened in this church. A woman was strung up, crucifixion style, and raped over a period of days by hundreds of genocidaires, until she expired. Her bones hung on the tortured scaffolding until recently. Her family asked forher remainsto be interned just recently. They had enough of her bones as a historical teaching point.

The church is breathtaking for all the wrong reasons. Upon entering the grounds, “We will never forget” is spelled out in a lovely and restrained planting of small shrubs. Then, upon entering the church, I was thunderstruck by the sight of the clothing of 10,000 people piled onto low, backless benches, which once served as pews, and by the rotting stench of the defiled bodies that have been removed, piece by piece, from the clothing. I cannot even begin to describe the shock of this.

I moved in transfixed horror between the benches, studying the piles and piles of t-shirts, pants, jeans, dresses, baby clothes, sweaters. Everything is dirty, and it’s easy to discern blood stains from life’s wear and tear. I kept stopping every few steps to turn slightly; it was relentless from every angle, 10,000 people, 10,000 people, 10,000 people, butchered in this small room.

Within the church is an opening in the floor, a set of stairs that leads down to a basement. Oh my God. The basement is very simple, going from right to left with only a very narrow footpath path. Its walls are lined with shelves that go from the floor to the ceiling. Oh my God. These shelves are stacked with bones. Human bones. Skulls, femurs, fibulas. Stacks upon stacks upon stacks of bones.

I didn’t know if I should enter. I didn’t know if I could. I didn’t know if I would later have trauma if I did. I thought about my own bones, and how these women, elderly, and children were innocent. I decided that the bones in and of themselves were not spooky; what was done to them was. I pressed on. From time to time I thought I was suffocating. I would stop, struggle to breathe, look at the shaft of light from the church above, and gather my determination to see, feel, and know the truth.

As far up as I could see were orderly, stacked rows of human remains. Some of the skulls are missing chunks where a machete had connected. Many were missing teeth.
Many were very small.

One skull was sticking out a bit from its shelf. The path is so narrow, I was already turning sideways not to bump into leg bones. I had a quick obsession flare up that someone would knock this skull off its shelf, and I really wanted to pick it up and set it somewhere more secure. I equivocated, a real life version of some childhood dare. I thought, oh, it’s just bone, I know what bones are made of, the soul has flown away, it’s okay, do the right things by this skull….pick it up…..but right before I touched it, Papa Jack said, “Maybe in life he was a sticking out there kind of guy.” I laughed in an improbable celebration of this skull’s personality and left it as it was.

There are also caskets. They are filled with 20-25 bodies each.

The woman who was raped over a period of days is in a casket in a place of respect for the uniqueness of her suffering.

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Outside, with the stench from the clothes funneled through the church door and canceled out any freshness from the rain, I visited with the woman who guides tours. She lives nearby and does this as much as she can, taking days off when it really starts to get to her. We talked about her crops (cassava and sweet potatoes), how I live somewhere that has 4 seasons instead of 2, and best agricultural practices. She was a tragic figure, and I welcomed helping her find a few smiles. We exchanged addresses and I look forward to writing her. Oh, she is a grandmother, and she lit up in the special way that grandmothers do when asked about their grandbabies. I was glad for her that she has them, even as I know lack of family planning is a serious crisis in Rwanda. Believe it or not, when we got to talking about flowers, she went to the side of the church and picked me a bouquet and sent me home with it.

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10,000 people were murdered every day for 100 days. 500,000 women were raped, with men who knew they were HIV+ taking the lead. Children were made to murder (and in the case of boys, rape their mothers and sisters) their parents, parents to murder their children, before they themselves were killed. Torture was sometimes lengthy before death. A refugee crisis was created as panicked Rwandans fled to the DRC and other neighboring countries. There were hundreds of thousands of additional deaths due to starvation, disease, and civil collapse, deaths due to things like cholera and typhoid, on top of malaria, etc. And in a strange twist that human rights groups and NGO’s have not yet discussed, when the Hutu fled to the DRC sensing their bloody glory was over, they were taken into refuge camps by human rights workers, and there were fed, watered, and tended to, while their victims were left in piles unattended and the living were abandoned. The Interahamwe who still live on the DRC border would start this all up again in a minute if they could, in spite of the peace and reconciliation that Hutus and Tutsi have miraculously found at home.

There is no part of the Rwanda that was not under the rampage of genocidaires. The killing was not localized; it was spread over an entire country the size of Maryland. Human remains are still being found everywhere; in the church there was a blue tarp with a family of 19 that had just been discovered. It was sitting in a pile near a bench of dead people’s clothes. I guess someone will take care of them and gently place them on the already heaving shelf when they have a free minute.

Williamson County, Tennessee has a population of 125,000. If anything came through and hurt a portion let alone all of us - in the span of a day (or a year!), the state and federal government would urgently declare a state of emergency and descend with help. We had a tornado blow us around a bit this spring, and my gosh, we were untouched yet we received concerned telephone calls from all over the country, with people saying they were at the ready to get on a plane if we needed help.

Yet this genocide happened day after day for 100 days, with deaths and suffering and collapse of the highest order, and in spite of knowing exactly what was happening, we did nothing. A quote chosen for the memorial said:

"Quand il disait de L’Holocuste, encore jamais, parlait-il du tous le monde, or juste certaines personnes?

When they said of the Holocaust, “never again,” were they talking about everyone or just certain people?

They were talking about everyone but Africans. Just ask the Sudanese.

Entry 3 - Kigali, Rwanda

In 1994, when the machetes stopped hacking bodies, it was women and children who began to pick up corpses and body parts. Remains were everywhere. An already poor country bearing one of the world’s most crippling disease burdens, cholera, typhoid, and other killers took additional lives as women attempted to bury bodies and build simple shelter and find safe water and a little food. The trauma was sky high. As we drive through the now clean and orderly capital, as we drink in the lovely countryside, my mind from time to time does an automatic slide show, and imposes the detritus of genocide on what I see. It really is unimaginable, that such protracted filthy evil transpired ever, anywhere, but especially here, someplace so pretty.

President since 2000, Kagame has worked his heart out. The result is that his parliament and minister posts are stacked with capable women, the highest female participation anywhere in the entire world (this has been codified in their constitution and government articles) and enormous government participation in the welfare of “la base,” the people. Looking at the extreme nature of what transpired, the government has reckoned extreme solutions are necessary, and the result is one of the most progressive and dynamic governments in the entire world. They stopped the genocide with no help from anyone, and they have a can-do attitude about re building their country themselves. PSI employs 150 people here, only 4 are non-Rwandans and they are monitored closely; I even heard one refer to herself as a “transactional cost,” meaning the gov’t tolerates her as the price of getting on with the business of improving public health.

Rwanda society is highly decentralized. It is described in units, if you will, beginning with the individual household. The next unit up is the cell, the sectuer, the department, the province (like our states), and the national government. This is to ensure individuals have a voice, that there is a way for their needs to be recognized and heard, to create a harmonized society where there is a profound sense of belonging and community. The expectation is that such closeness will also eliminate the possibility of the types of divisions that created the genocide. (I was told to expect that my telephone and emails would be monitored, as a foreign national visiting. Hmmmm. I have a lot of thoughts about this but now is not the time).

It is remarkable how nice things are here, in spite of abject poverty. The hotel is terrific, with an azure blue pool and pretty gardens. I have a little suite and each morning I stand at my window drinking tea, watching a woman with a hand made broom sweep the street below (the city employs street sweepers). All the toilets are clean, modern flush toilets, some with 2 modes (little flush, big flush, for conservation), and there is TP available in public places everywhere. There is usually even a nail with a cloth for drying hands after washing with the bit of soap provided. The streets and fields are free of litter; there is less litter here, than there is on the road between Franklin and Leipers Fork that I drive every day. They are proud, these Rwandans.

And the flowers! My Lord, how beautiful! I recognize many, but don’t know the names as there are many exotic plants, but I get super excited when I see Morning Glory, Moon Vine, and Hollyhocks, my dearest favorites. And vegetables are cultivated literally everywhere, even in urban spaces. Houses often do not have a path to the front door; rather, people walk between rows of corn or runners of beans trained up bamboo sticks.

For these and many other reasons, I think Rwanda should be promoted as a tourist destination in Africa. It is safe, beautiful, inspiring and the people are warm and welcoming. There is no corruption (the government is very serious about this!!!), there is no intimidation or crazy making and contradictory bureaucracies to navigate. There are some very good hotels (phones and internet work fine, big lovely bathtub, robe, slippers, etc) and the overall landscape is not only clean looking, it is stunningly beautiful, these mille collines. I have found somewhere I could bring Dario. I went to our offices, set in a very nice two story building with lots of doors that open onto a small hillside; there was a rondelle of Cosmos growing by the PSI sign and the welcome desk included a dry eraser board where staff sign in and out. There were some small trucks with our brand names (primo, confiance, tuzanet) painted on the side. Below the building is a garage that has been converted into a warehouse for our products - from here we begin to distribute them out to the poor people who need them. I saw boxes of long lasting insecticide treated bed nets, coartem, and our arteminisin based anti malaria drug, various methods of birth control, and Sur Eau, our point of use water purification product. Our staff in the warehouse consist of women we have been sensitized via peer education about the risks of commercial sex work; who as a result have been able to retire from sex work altogether, and have created a co-op in which they pool their money to buy supplies to make crafts. It is really fascinating to see poverty reduction solutions in action, and how one good action opens the way for yet another to manifest. I loved meeting everyone and am so proud we are able to employ so many smart, committed, compassionate Rwandans. In this way, PSI helps contributes to the local economy, increases employability by adding to job experience, and of course more effectively creates and runs programs that appeal to Rwandans themselves, as they are created by Rwandans. This is our policy worldwide. One must understand each tiny micro culture and habit and dialect in order to create positive behavior change within it.

I sat down after a round of introductions (I always mention we have 5 cats and 2 dogs because it gets a shocked laugh, hungry societies don’t keep pets, and so the concept often does not exist at all), and was prepared to be dazzled by the presentation our staff would make, et comme d’habitude, I was.

Rwanda is a country of 10 million people and it is growing at a terrifying rate, one of the fastest growth rates in all of Africa. They have already run out of space. As mentioned, every inch of earth is cultivated yet there is wide spread food insecurity. There are the predictable environmental consequences: massive deforestation, erosion (Egypt is getting all Rwanda’s topsoil), loss of biodiversity. I was warned that I would never be alone (something everyone knows I need daily) as even in the most remote parts of the country, people would be…everywhere. And it’s true, they are, even unpaved rural roads are lined with folks walking somewhere. Off on distant hillsides I can see people gardening. I will try to go pee behind some tree or bush and sure enough there is someone farming a few feet away!

At its current growth rate, which is 6.3 children per woman, Rwanda’s population will swell uncontrollably by 2030, which surely means catastrophe. Famine is inevitable, the pressure on space to a crisis point, economic and public health collapse, infrastructure that cannot meet needs, and ultimately, political instability. It is this, political instability, above all things, Rwanda seeks to avoid, and therefore, family planning is at the very top of the government’s public health plan. However, even if the gov’t, with PSI’s help, meets its most fantastic fertility regulation goals, by 2030 the population still will have doubled.

I find it most interesting that this government is smart enough to regard poverty a political issue. Sure, they want to reduce poverty for all the more socially recognized reasons, but having come out of genocide, and being intensely motivated to avoid bloodshed in the future, they get that poverty breeds instability. This is always something I try to bring to my talks in the U.S. when people say, “Why should we care about poor people abroad?” The One Campaign to End Poverty does a great job of articulating this.

So, we help the government with family planning. A variety of options are available to individuals and couples: oral, injectables, male and female condoms. We brand and socially market them and in cases of extreme poverty give them away (even though the cost for any product is extremely low, but some cannot afford to spend even those pennies) and we help prevent unintended pregnancies through peer education. We also provide STI (sexually transmitted infection) and HIV prevention education. Some products we receive at subsidized prices, but believe you me, there are plenty of manufactures out there who will only sell to us at market rates. People who make money off poor people’s problem make me sick.

From the description of the population problem, next I was immersed in the world of Five and Alive, what we call our programs that help children reach their 5th birthday. This year, 10 million children world will die before their 5th birthday from pneumonia, malaria, diarrheal disease, and other easily preventable causes. Rwanda’s government, in addition to wanting very much to meet the Millennium Development Goals, has set “2020” goals for itself, and to that end has one of the most intensive child survival and maternal health agendas in the world.

And, they need it. 1 in 12 children born here will die before age 1, and then an additional child per 7 will die before 5. Malaria, preventable and treatable, is cause number 1. There are 2 million cases of simple malaria a year in public health facilities and 4 million cases that are not treated at all….children average 2 3 cases a year. Death by mosquito bite. I think that the next time you play badminton and get all annoyed. Least it’s not killing you and your babies.

To take this on, we socially market a net called “Tuzanet,” which is pre treated with the appropriate insecticide and lasts for 3 years. It is available at very small price which research shows different sectors of society can afford (“market segmentation”), and we give them away for free in many areas as well. This approach of private sector availability combined with recent free distribution of 3 million bed nets to caregivers of children under age 5, pregnant mothers, and the HIV+ helped achieve a stunning 60% reduction in malaria cases in 2007!

For treatment, we have made Coartem available at government 227 registered pharmacies nation wide (registered is important to ensure correct education is given with the sale of the product regarding its use to avoid generation of myths and creation of resistance to meds). We have “over packaged” instructions from the manufacturer, one of my favorite things that we do. We make it a brand, “Primo,” which we “market,” and provide pictorial and local dialect instructions for the low/non literature. Even the photos of the babies guide care givers on correct dosage based on age. It’s a truly wonderful thing and I get very, very excited about over packing!!!!!!!!!!

Publicity and marketing campaigns, via billboards, paintings on buildings, radio and TV spots and “infotainment” like skits and plays, puppet shows help create awareness of the need for sleeping with a mousquitaire, Tuzanet as a locally available LLITN, symptom recognition/treatment seeking behaviors, as well as drug compliance. The umbrella term for all this is “Behavior Change Communications,” BCC. Perhaps this is a good time to mention that Staci, our Country Representative, did her undergrad at UCLA and her MBA at Columbia!

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Today I also saw an overview of our point of use water purification outreach. 60% of rural and 40% of urban Rwandans do not have access to safe water. Even the 2.5% with piped water cannot know if that water is safe. Unsafe water makes millions sick, which additionally adds to loss of productivity, inability to procure food, care for children, children miss school, maternal mortality issues, and ultimately it is a killer. Death by diarrhea, can you imagine? In the last 2 weeks, 14% of all children under 5 have had diarrheal disease, regardless of source of water or when they are in the country. (In some of the 65 countries where we have programs, we are doing de-worming. Yucky to talk about it, but worse to die of, no?)

Sur Eau comes in a small plastic bottle and one capful makes safe 20 liters of water. A bottle provides safe water for a family of 6 for one month for a total cost of 55 cents!

The UN clearly states that disinfection of water at the point of use is consistently the most cost effective intervention. Sur Eau helps poor people obtain safe water, even if their infrastructure is improving; my local church is financing the digging of a well in the Sudan, and Sur Eau purifies water as some communities wait for such improvements. Additionally, Sur Eau makes sure the stored water remains safe.

The BCC and education that accompanies this campaign is 3 parts: hygiene, sanitation, and water. Hand washing behaviors. Correct latrine behaviors. And point of use purification, whether water is obtained from lakes, rivers, dams, rainwater, creeks, wells, or taps. It’s a big deal. Again, we have packaged this product with pictures and local dialect instructions. They clearly show the links between daily life activities, contamination, and sickness.

It is a lightly chlorinated product, and this neatly sidesteps an array of issues. When water is filled in a jug or jerry can, which is time intensive/labor intensive/often obtained from far away/if bought something only affordable periodically, storage of the precious water ultimately leads to it being contaminated, if it happened to be safe to begin with. A dirty hand…a dirty utensil….insects…..whatever. Sur Eau is perhaps the most cost effective life saving product on the planet. The prevention of morbidity and mortality is almost incalculable -- oh, but we’ll try, as we measure lives saved as the private sector measures profits, which is why our donors love us! We can show you our results in black and white. It is produced by a private sector partner locally (adding jobs and helping the local economy) and per bottle revenues recover the cost of production. In a word - sustainable.

We make Sur Eau available via an integrated distribution network: health facilities, mutuelles (health insurance) community health workers (you’ll meet them on world malaria day), private sector pharmacies. We also distribute it for free as an emergency response (we are doing this right now in Myanmar). Cholera breaks out often here due to erosion into water ways, which leads us back to where we began: overpopulation and stress on the environment. Poverty reduction must be a balanced approach - we all have something to contribute, the environmentalists, the human rights activities, aid groups, public health agencies.

One last note for now about Sur Eau is the government of Rwanda has banned plastic bags. How fabulous is that? If you have them upon arrival, you are politely asked to give them up and they’ll sell you a replacement for cheap. Rwanda and San Francisco, what fantastically unlikely company!!! We need to figure something out with a Sur Eau bottles and how Tuzanet is packaged, even though school kids use the net bag as their tote for school books, and that generally, everyone is so poor a little plastic bottle, even empty, is a treasure. (Whenever I think of poor people and plastic, I think of what happened in Appalachia when plastic jugs of milk came out; our creeks were full of them.) Staci says we are striving to create refill “centers” where folks can easily bring their bottles to a nearby village for a refill. “Progress, not perfection.”

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So, that is an overview of what we do here, and I issue a disclaimer that I am sure I have done every program and campaign at least a modest disservice in my description. And in no way have I have even begun to address what we do world wide; most of our 65 countries have the family planning/hiv/sti, malaria (in applicable regions), and water programs, but we offer a full basket of products, services, and behavior change communications. It’s hard to restrain myself and not exuberantly tell you about them all, don’t you want to hear about the way we have created a franchise called “Green Star” for family planning services in Pakistan?? Male circumcision in Zambia? Outreach to deaf and blind sex slaves in Central Asia?

Entry 4 - You go global, girl!

Somehow it is still the 24th of April.

After the genocide memorials, lunch on a patio set in a tropical garden (I kept dropping out of conversations to use my field glasses to watch birds), the full immersion into PSI Rwanda, and the church visit, I crawled into bed. I have an event tonight, the United Nations Development Programme Gender Equality Conference dinner, and I wasn’t going to make it without some quiet time. I knew I didn’t have time to cry, to begin to process all I had seen; I didn’t have time to make a few reach out phone calls or to get started writing, so simply took a shower and lied down. And frankly, I don’t know if I had energy for those things.

The excitement of my 40th birthday at Skibo, the forced layover in Brussels, and whirlwind and emotional assault of the day; I was exhausted and a little worried I was starting a 14 day trip this tired. To my surprise, because I am an experienced “rester” but necessarily a talented “napper,” I fell asleep for an hour and half. I slept with my pretty new sapphire earrings still in my ears, head perfectly straight on the pillow, ankles crossed. I did not flinch, apparently.

I roused about 7:15, after Staci was scheduled to arrive for my briefing. I boiled the kettle and made some green tea and she arrived just in time for me to serve us both. Soon after, the great Zainab Salbi arrived, resplendent with her chic cropped hair, black silk shirt waist dress and fabulous beaded necklace. Man, Mr Armani would love her! Some women do so much with so little….

Zainab sat next to Staci and I quietly snuggled into the sofa. I was feeling very vulnerable after my sleep, undefended and wide open. I enjoyed my delicate state as these two remarkable women put on an unselfconscious show of empowerment, talking with intimate knowledge of global poverty and armed conflict, how girls and women and the environment are the wreckage, and the simple grassroots solutions that are the way out. Dang, I thought, you women are fine, and I want to be you when I grow up! I did not worry about contributing save for more questions that would set them off on another round of fascinating stories, and I am so grateful today I don’t feel like I had to show off or impress with my own experience; that is one of the many pleasure of having mentors, learning to listen, listening to learn.

Zainab uses the word “fascinating” a lot, but always accurately. She will punctuate the beginning of yet another story with the point of a finger, leaning forward, her voice taking on even more enthralling energy, and the next thing I know, I have been schooled, for example, in the border conflict between Rwanda and the DRC or some such other elusive and complex subject.

When Kagame offered in 1996 to help a hapless rebel named Kabila “go to Kinshasa,” to oust Mobutu the Mad, the trade off was the Kibila would send the Interahamwe, the Hutu youth genocidaire who fled to the DRC when the genocide was ending, back home. He did not, and they are still there (they are by and large the rapists terrorizing the DRC), and they still long to fulfill their genocidal ideology. Plus, there are the Tutsi who fled the genocide as refugees who are still in the DRC, plus Congolese rebels who are simply doing what rebels do, raising hell and disrupting everything. All are armed, and Zainab explained that as wars always do, it has become about the economy and land and natural resources. Or, as Dario puts it, they start fighting over the color of piss.

This background was important for me as someone doing public heath and human rights in Rwanda, and because however repugnant, I long to learn more about gender based violence in the DRC. To that end, I am planning a day trip to Goma, just across the border from where I will be later in the week. The area in between Kinshasa and Goma is vast, very unstable and dangerous, so I can’t get there from Kinshasa, so I am going to cross the border from Gisenyi on the Rwandan side.

I do not mean for the synopsis above to be thorough and inclusive of all sides of the story, but rather to demonstrate the dazzling commitment and depth of knowledge these women have. I am in awe that this is their lives 24/7/365 and the world is a better place because they are in it.

Having finished her book in Brussels, I asked Zainab about her brothers. One is safe in Chicago, but the one in Jordan must renew his visa yearly. She is sure he’ll be assassinated if he ever has to go back to Iraq; about 20 of her friends, educated, empowered women, have disappeared. They are doing the Pol Pot thing, wiping out the educated classes; Zainab’s family home has recently been taken over by a militia and her neighbors are sad to report that their basketball court has become a gallows. The number 20 came up again: number of assassinations daily.

Years ago there was an Oprah magazine in a seat back pocket on a flight and I flipped through it. Or maybe I bought it, the issue with Bono on the cover. Anyhow, there was a tear out card describing Women for Women International. I was so intrigued and I challenged my Feathered Piper yoga sisters each to sponsor a woman in a war torn country. This is Zainab’s program, founded in Serbia’s rape camps during the war in Bosnia, and based on her own experiences growing up under a dictator (Saddam Hussein). Since then, I have given sponsorships to other special women in my life. Quite wonderfully, a group of my sisters were graduating from a Rwanda program during my stay! I missed meeting them due to my canceled flight, but it was fantastic to meet Zainab and plan my visit to Goma to see her program there, were gender based violence is a daily occurrence.

Letters from m different sisters are always a delight, and I appreciate how W4W includes a snapshot. Mary Ogeke in Nigeria, gathering kindling for boiling water is my favorite. She shared a new favorite expression with me she wished me “more grease for your elbow”.

Eventually the phone rang and Zainab’s colleague said the First Lady was waiting for us (oops)! I threw my dress on and downstairs we went. I was disappointed to see a big room with dining tables and place cards, drats, I wanted to pop in and out and get back in that magical bed! But, it turned out to be a very healing night. The great Aloisea Inyumba, currently a senator and formerly the Minister of Reconciliation and Healing, hugged me so warmly. Growing up, she was a refuge in Uganda, and said her mother, although uneducated, was bright, and made sure her 3 daughters made it all the way to university. She received her degree in Social Work and Social Administration. When she came back to Rwanda at the president’s quest, she made minister and she got to work, fast. In 2002 there were 120,000 genocidaire still hunkered down in a fragile prison system awaiting trail, and the then-Minister brought back the Gacacas, meaning “patch of grass,” courts. 250,000 people were elected within their communities. They received brief training in law, judicial ethics, and conflict resolution. 11,000 Gacaca courts were established, each with a panel of 15 judges and requiring 100 villagers be present to make the trial valid.

This is just one of her many, many accomplishments….She is a special lady.

She took me over to the First Lady at the right moment. Madame Kagame is a physically imposing presence and somewhat stoic. But I couldn’t really process all that because I was having an attack of static cling, and my dress was all up in my crack. I know this because the First Lady’s aide was on her knees behind me, pulling my dress off my backside. Hmmm. Was it to protect my modesty, or the decorum of the entire event? I was, after all, smack dab at the front of the room, back turned to the crowd, a movie star chatting with the First Lady. What a lousy time to get a bad case of hungry bum!

Better events followed. The most extraordinary drumming and dancing began, and I could feel the pain of earlier in the day be vibrated out of my chest. I was absolutely in awe. This is the Africa I believe in, its traditional culture and arts in tact and shining amidst smart, modern, empowered people talking about gender equality and development with an eye on 7 generations ahead. Even though we were in a hotel’s spiffy ballroom, when I closed my eyes I was in the bush, around a fire, the sounds of the wild engulfing me. It was fabulous beyond description. The senator narrated each dance for me: Ah, this is the dance about millet, teaching and celebrating agricultural practices, valuing production to keep everyone fed. Ah, this is the dance for the herd, the grass at the end of their sticks is to clean the herd, ahhhh, and this is the dance of women, celebrating their beautiful bodies! My gosh, I live for this stuff! It’s what I dreamt of in college!

Although I was very caught up in the moment, a tiny thought crept into my head: How do I get more of this?? Then, an idea was born, bring them to the U.S.! I excitedly began to ask the Senator if they were a formal dance troupe (yes), and didn’t she think it would be extraordinary for them to perform in the U.S., to help rehabilitate Rwanda’s image abroad, to raise awareness about yes, the need for development funding, but also, the many, many good things that are happening here? Oh my gosh, we were beside ourselves, and came up with so many ideas. She and the First Lady will come, I can book them at TPAC in Nashville and well, shouldn’t I really involve a professional promoter? In fact, as many people as possible should see them New York! D.C., an event with PSI that I could host with special donors! And the best idea yet, I am friends with a band, a really special band, and they are touring college campuses in the fall, and haven’t I just found the perfect opening act for them!!!!!!!!!!

On this wonderful optimistic note, after splashing handfuls of water on my silk dress in a futile attempt to arrest static cling, the Senator held my hand and walked me to the lift. It time for bed, and I valued her hugs and gentleness as a child does a bedtime story. Rwandans are kind, but there are not very touchy feely, except her, lucky me! Only one table leaned toward me as I passed and in a desperate stage whisper said, “Your dress is hiked up all the way and you underpants are showing.” I was unperturbed, knowing it was no big deal, really, for after all I actually had some on for once in my life.

I closed my eyes, and when the skulls came I let the drums beat them out of my head. I slept pretty well, and woke up curious about another day in this lush land.