There's a Way

Friday was quite a nice break in all the bustling about we’d been doing (if you can call it that in Africa).

We started the morning with an 8 o’clock breakfast meeting with Festus, Mary Jean, and Emanuel from Hope International. The organization is based in Pennsylvania and is located in 14 different countries. It runs by savings and credit associations. It’s an interesting system – members of groups save their money and pool it for the needs of different members. Their savings stay with them and there is also no external injection of capital. They borrow each other’s money. This is how Hope intends to reach the poor – by helping them borrow loans of less than $50 in rural areas, rather than by small loans in more urban areas.

The groups make their own policies but Hope helps them in the process. Similarly to UOB, Hope integrates the financial and the spiritual through the structure of church networks. People who would never have access to loans have a chance in this set-up, and when they’ve reached a sustainable level, they can perhaps join a trust group. Mary Jean had a great testimony of how this sort of thing worked for her and a group of other widows. They are at this point looking to buy their own houses!

We had the rest of the morning to relax and then a lunch meeting with Kat and Mark from Bridge to Rwanda, and Claire from the Rwandan Development Board. What a group. Kat and Mark came first and just talked with us about random things like the lack of addresses in Kigali, the time their house was broken into, and Waco. When Claire arrived we got down to business and talked about economic development in Rwanda. She gave us the basics of what RDB is there for and why it was established in 2008. It seems that many of the ministries and organisations we’ve interacted with are fairly new. The RDB wants to bring business to the private sector in an orderly and efficient way, rather than have duplicate services and product providers. I’m not entirely sure how that would work and still allow competition, but Claire seems rather capable. She said the idea was to do business but not to compete with private businesses (who need income).
She talked about Vision 2020, the “development road map” for Rwanda. It’s an ambitious plan which focuses on economic growth and investment. Rwanda has been the fastest economic reformer in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, there is still so much to be done for growth.

Later on we went to a different market, which I liked better because it was individual little house-room things and each person had their own room of products that they would love to sell to you. I felt less hassled and more able to take my time because our bus was in a central location and it wasn’t a maze to get in and out. I bought the majority of my gifts there. I’m pretty sure I got ripped off, but I am choosing to call it a requested blessing. Also I was able to converse in French and I’m growing more confident – since it’s a necessity for communication I’m forced to use it, which I haven’t been in several years.

Then we went to a sportsy store which had jerseys, trophies, shoes, ballons, etc. Allison was twirling in her skirt outside and misunderstanding ensued after Parker remarked that her knees were showing and that was risqué. Hilarity ensued after we all realized that Allison had heard him say something else... Glad we got that cleared up.

Devotional/Debriefing Time:
Three points of focus…
- We should be careful of our words, and how we react to small disappointments.
- There is power in the group – having others to support and to lean on makes the whole group stronger, and things can get done.
- We need to meet people where they are, to get into their circumstances rather than trying to bring them to our level (whatever that may be). In terms of microfinance, you have to go to the rural people to serve them, rather than only looking after whoever is in town and able to come to the bank. This concept takes on myriad other forms.

For supper, we walked to the mall and bought groceries or walked around or ate at Bourbon (chique restaurant/coffee place). Some of us found Muzungu 1 T-shirts but left them for others of that name. I bought cheap bread from the galette in the grocery store. We saw Paul – not PK but our trip/tour guy. I can’t figure out how, when Kigali is so big, you find people you know all over the place. And that’s only for us – we’ve been here less than a week and we already can know people. This is fun.

The walk to the mall included a little boy walking with us for quite some time, wanting/needing food or money. We just aren’t supposed to give it so that the younger generation does not grow up with a mentality that begging works and is all that’s needed. But it is not easy to walk away.

On the way into the hotel, we met Peter Robinson from Pepperdine University, who knows Ken Starr. Now when I meet our new president, I’ll have something enjoyable to talk about! “Hi, Dr. Starr, I recently spoke with Peter Robinson about how great it is to take students to Rwanda. What are your thoughts?”

Later some folks played more Phase 10, a game that will continue to faze me for some time. I sat there and took down scores and notes, which was probably a needless job that someone else could have done but I stayed anyway. It was really fun, though, to hang out and laugh and be confused and see Joel’s facebook picture mysteriously morph into one of PK. All sorts of values go out the door during this game, such as honesty, compassion, self-control, selflessness… ah! the competitive spirit often drives out charity. Thankfully, it seems as though the door has been reopened to those pleasant virtues.

1 Muzungu means foreigner, white person, or other things too. We hear that everywhere we go.

Items of Note:
• Ms. Coldwell hears everything.
• Don’t give me the Muzungu price. That price is disagreeable.
• Nutella is expensive in Rwanda. Bring your own.
• I was told that I will be a good mother. Note to good mothers: always carry insect spray.
• It’s a bummer to be colour blind during the colour phase of Phase 10.
• I love my teammates.