Hi everybody,
It seems that my mailing address may be changing. I will most likely get another PO Box in Kigali. I don't have any other information at this point, but if you are about to mail something out, just wait a few days and I might have an update for you.
Thanks,
Kim
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Love's the Only House
If you want to hear a modern Romeo-Juliet, insert a post war atmosphere, and inter-ethnic love story, let me tell you one I heard today. As always the best stories (or most tragic, heartbreaking, eye opening…insert your choice word) come from the mental health office. And again, I tell them publicly because no one cares about confidentiality here, and I doubt you could come to my village and pin point these individuals. Today was one of those rare moments in the Rwandan mental health office when honest-to-God therapy takes place (look at past entries for my frustration about overmedicating and lack of rapport). Christine was holding separate interviews with a husband and wife.
I've become quite the expert on body language due to my poor language skills. So before I got the full, translated scoop this is what I noticed. The father was irate, at the end of his rope and throwing his hands up in the air. The mother was desperate, torn, hiding something, frightened.
This couple has two daughters. The younger of the two is being treated as a mental patient, which is how the family was introduced to our office. The daughter has no diagnosable problem aside from severe stress from familial conflicts.
It turns out the first daughter is involved with a boy. In the words of my coworkers, they are illegally married. This actually means they are not at all married but rather living together in SIN, hence the illegal part. The parents are furious. Not only are they 'playing house', but the daughter is pregnant.
The issue overshadowing all of that is the history of the families. The two families have been neighbors for generations. The real/imaginary ethnic lines in Rwanda divided them. Tension erupted and in 1994, some of the boy's family members killed some of the girl's relatives. As a result, the parents refuse to allow their daughter to enter into his family. They won't hold an introduction, another title for a dowry ceremony, completely stagnating the wedding process. On top of that, the father forbids his wife and second daughter to associate with the first born. They aren't even allowed to greet her on the street. (Here is a good time to remind you how small my village is.) The wife has felt threatened by the level of rage the father feels. Sometimes she refuses to sleep in the house out of fear. The wife wants to be there for her daughter, yet her husband may kill her if she disobeys him.
This story just amazes me. Even if these two young people do not remember the atrocities that occurred when they were small, they were combating the animosity between their families that they were raised with. It reminds me of a speech I heard during genocide memorial ceremonies last year. The speaker was stressing how the hatred had to be stopped. It mustn't be passed along to the children. The history had to have an end point. And then here are these two young people who were raised to hate each other, and yet they didn't. Somewhere in their hearts they couldn't taint the imagine of each other because of what their families told them or what the country had believed. They recognized that that was another person's baggage, another person's views, another person's issue to forgive. They didn't make it a part of their present.
After dwelling on all this, two questions came into my mind (and yes, this is where I wouldn't mind you commenting some of your own thoughts, hint, hint):
1. When does a country stop being post-conflict? Clearly 16 years isn't enough. Is it a generation span? Is the US successfully beyond post-conflict status? What about people who continue to fly the Confederate flag and those that reenact Civil War scenes?
2. How much of an amazing impact do your neighbors have on you? Don't underestimate the immediate environment you have your children grow up in or the boy next door.
I've become quite the expert on body language due to my poor language skills. So before I got the full, translated scoop this is what I noticed. The father was irate, at the end of his rope and throwing his hands up in the air. The mother was desperate, torn, hiding something, frightened.
This couple has two daughters. The younger of the two is being treated as a mental patient, which is how the family was introduced to our office. The daughter has no diagnosable problem aside from severe stress from familial conflicts.
It turns out the first daughter is involved with a boy. In the words of my coworkers, they are illegally married. This actually means they are not at all married but rather living together in SIN, hence the illegal part. The parents are furious. Not only are they 'playing house', but the daughter is pregnant.
The issue overshadowing all of that is the history of the families. The two families have been neighbors for generations. The real/imaginary ethnic lines in Rwanda divided them. Tension erupted and in 1994, some of the boy's family members killed some of the girl's relatives. As a result, the parents refuse to allow their daughter to enter into his family. They won't hold an introduction, another title for a dowry ceremony, completely stagnating the wedding process. On top of that, the father forbids his wife and second daughter to associate with the first born. They aren't even allowed to greet her on the street. (Here is a good time to remind you how small my village is.) The wife has felt threatened by the level of rage the father feels. Sometimes she refuses to sleep in the house out of fear. The wife wants to be there for her daughter, yet her husband may kill her if she disobeys him.
This story just amazes me. Even if these two young people do not remember the atrocities that occurred when they were small, they were combating the animosity between their families that they were raised with. It reminds me of a speech I heard during genocide memorial ceremonies last year. The speaker was stressing how the hatred had to be stopped. It mustn't be passed along to the children. The history had to have an end point. And then here are these two young people who were raised to hate each other, and yet they didn't. Somewhere in their hearts they couldn't taint the imagine of each other because of what their families told them or what the country had believed. They recognized that that was another person's baggage, another person's views, another person's issue to forgive. They didn't make it a part of their present.
After dwelling on all this, two questions came into my mind (and yes, this is where I wouldn't mind you commenting some of your own thoughts, hint, hint):
1. When does a country stop being post-conflict? Clearly 16 years isn't enough. Is it a generation span? Is the US successfully beyond post-conflict status? What about people who continue to fly the Confederate flag and those that reenact Civil War scenes?
2. How much of an amazing impact do your neighbors have on you? Don't underestimate the immediate environment you have your children grow up in or the boy next door.
Wireless, Watch Out!
Big news. My hospital could be getting free wireless internet. It's a policy that all district hospitals (aka every hospital that is not the hospital in the capital) should have free wireless. The goal is certainly for nurses and doctors to be able to do research on puzzling cases and present new information to each other during staff meetings. I, however, will use it for whatever purposes I want!! I was talking to a coworker and warned him that no one will do their work anymore and they will just sit on Facebook all day (like every workplace in the US). He was confident that only about half the people at the hospital even knew how to use the Internet and do more than just check their email. But he agreed that the rest of us would eat and sleep at the hospital, enjoying Internet 24/7. Oh let the addictions begin.
So supposedly the internet will be functioning by the end of January. Since I was pessimistic about the electricity…and was proven wrong…I'm jumping on the bandwagon for this one. The electricity was a half hooray because the village conceptually got it (hospital, big school received it), but barely any houses or smaller schools or church. Now the internet is meant only for the hospital so even if just one section of the hospital receives it (we are a bit sprawling) I will just wheel my little office chair over there and find the signal. Oh happy day.
Basically this village is developing by leaps and bounds, and I get to watch it over the span of 2 years. I have lived here for 8 months now and big changes have happened. If they ever pave the road that will be life changing…I'm not expecting it anytime soon. And furthermore, the posh corps experience continues.
So supposedly the internet will be functioning by the end of January. Since I was pessimistic about the electricity…and was proven wrong…I'm jumping on the bandwagon for this one. The electricity was a half hooray because the village conceptually got it (hospital, big school received it), but barely any houses or smaller schools or church. Now the internet is meant only for the hospital so even if just one section of the hospital receives it (we are a bit sprawling) I will just wheel my little office chair over there and find the signal. Oh happy day.
Basically this village is developing by leaps and bounds, and I get to watch it over the span of 2 years. I have lived here for 8 months now and big changes have happened. If they ever pave the road that will be life changing…I'm not expecting it anytime soon. And furthermore, the posh corps experience continues.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Just Another Day in Mental Health
There was something different about this one. She had been outside the office door a minute again and I had laughed at her random bursts of singing. I wish I could take it back now. She wasn't lost in space and time. She knew exactly where she was and what day it was. If you asked her, she would tell you. But if you left her alone with her thoughts, off she went. She would start reciting prayers and then launch into church songs. Perhaps it was the only release she could find. Maybe she knew God was the only one that could help her at this point.
Julianne* had surrender in her eyes. She was being hospitalized. She was being evaluated by the mental health department. But she needed to protect her son. She needed to protect her life. She needed to fight. But here she was. Considered unstable she had been put here by her family. Her older sister sat next to her. Periodically tears would run down her face out of sheer defeat. Her sister was in pain and yet nothing could be done.
Julianne started telling her story. She went off the rail when conflicts began between herself and her husband and in-laws. Apparently her husband had had a wife already. One that the family considered more appropriate and necessary than her. Julianne had been married for two years now. She was 23. She has since had a baby boy. She believes her in-laws tried to poison her son to get him out of the way.
She hasn't slept in weeks. Sometimes she felt like she was having hallucinations. She was drowning in her own reality. Someone had hurt her. Someone had threatened her whole life, her son. She needed to fight. She needed to summon the power that society had stripped from her. But all she had control over was her prayer. And pray she did.
*In the US I would be incredibly careful about confidentiality and protecting real identities. There is literally no concept of that here. Hence why I feel I can tell you this story without encroaching on anyone's desire for privacy.
There is a rare, or perhaps too common, moment for anyone who works with serious situations, where giggles take over. I remember this happening at Ele's Place. We would be discussing life and death and the giggles would begin. To an outsider it looked insensitive, but it's a coping mechanism. And a necessary one. So after the very emotional intake of Julianne where I was trying very hard not to cry, in came Colette. First - have you ever seen that arcade game where you have to smack the frog with a mallet after they pop up? You don't have to hit them hard. But your reflexes have to superb to hit them all. It's about speed. Colette was playing some kind of frog game, except instead of frogs she was slapping people's faces. She would slap as quickly as possible whenever anyone came within an arm's reach. It was like watching a five year old who honestly didn't mean to be cruel. They just slap, slap, slapped.
Colette made a grand entrance in handcuffs with the local defense on one side and her aging father on the other. As a thirty year old, mother of three and perhaps malnourished farmer, she had some spunk and excellent reflexes. I really didn't think she was being cruel until she tried to kick her elderly father in the butt when he exited the room. Thank goodness for local defense. They are like our local police.
So I had to giggle. I just had to. Colette was ridiculous. The whole situation was ridiculous.
Julianne* had surrender in her eyes. She was being hospitalized. She was being evaluated by the mental health department. But she needed to protect her son. She needed to protect her life. She needed to fight. But here she was. Considered unstable she had been put here by her family. Her older sister sat next to her. Periodically tears would run down her face out of sheer defeat. Her sister was in pain and yet nothing could be done.
Julianne started telling her story. She went off the rail when conflicts began between herself and her husband and in-laws. Apparently her husband had had a wife already. One that the family considered more appropriate and necessary than her. Julianne had been married for two years now. She was 23. She has since had a baby boy. She believes her in-laws tried to poison her son to get him out of the way.
She hasn't slept in weeks. Sometimes she felt like she was having hallucinations. She was drowning in her own reality. Someone had hurt her. Someone had threatened her whole life, her son. She needed to fight. She needed to summon the power that society had stripped from her. But all she had control over was her prayer. And pray she did.
*In the US I would be incredibly careful about confidentiality and protecting real identities. There is literally no concept of that here. Hence why I feel I can tell you this story without encroaching on anyone's desire for privacy.
There is a rare, or perhaps too common, moment for anyone who works with serious situations, where giggles take over. I remember this happening at Ele's Place. We would be discussing life and death and the giggles would begin. To an outsider it looked insensitive, but it's a coping mechanism. And a necessary one. So after the very emotional intake of Julianne where I was trying very hard not to cry, in came Colette. First - have you ever seen that arcade game where you have to smack the frog with a mallet after they pop up? You don't have to hit them hard. But your reflexes have to superb to hit them all. It's about speed. Colette was playing some kind of frog game, except instead of frogs she was slapping people's faces. She would slap as quickly as possible whenever anyone came within an arm's reach. It was like watching a five year old who honestly didn't mean to be cruel. They just slap, slap, slapped.
Colette made a grand entrance in handcuffs with the local defense on one side and her aging father on the other. As a thirty year old, mother of three and perhaps malnourished farmer, she had some spunk and excellent reflexes. I really didn't think she was being cruel until she tried to kick her elderly father in the butt when he exited the room. Thank goodness for local defense. They are like our local police.
So I had to giggle. I just had to. Colette was ridiculous. The whole situation was ridiculous.
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