June 26

And the week has begun. Yesterday we went to Bugasera, a village about an hour away from Kigali. It was very rural, more so than the village we saw on Friday. And on the way back, we took a “shortcut” on a dirt road, which was an experience, for sure. I have whiplash, but it was fun. We all laughed because it was the first time we had been in an SUV when it actually needed to go into 4-wheel drive. We hit our heads on the ceiling a lot, and almost tipped over once, but it was really fun. And cool to take the small road, because we passed animals and some kids who were carrying HUGE bundles of wood. We didn’t really get much of a chance to speak with the women about their loans, which was too bad, but we did get to see a village phone. It was really cool. It’s the only phone for a really long way, and people from surrounding villages come to use it. The rates are about half of what they charge in town, so that it will be more accessible to everyone.

I will write something soon about what exactly I am doing here, but at the moment I am not 100% sure… I know that at some point I’ll be doing field research, and on my own I am going to find women in Kigali to speak with about microfinance. I have also been translating things into French, and I am going to set up some English classes for the bank staff as well. I am really interested in how the loans are changing the social structure here (if they are at all). Because so many men were killed in the genocide, many families are headed by women and girls. And the loans target women, giving them economic power (suddenly) after centuries of disenfranchisement. The weird thing about it is that although this is happening, and everyone is encouraging it, Rwandan society remains extremely patriarchal.

A brief example, and then I have to go: The women basically do everything at home (which is in no way limited to Rwandan society, obviously…) and last week, we had some guests over. It is customary to offer them something to drink, so we served tea. When everyone was done, I took the mugs and spoons into the kitchen, not because it’s my “job” but because I was headed that way anyway, and just wanted to help out. One of the men who was visiting laughed and said “Oh, she knows what women’s work is.” Which might not have been so bad if not for the face that none of the men had even offered to do so much as stir in their own sugar, and the women who served them were me and and extremely pregnant Neema. More about this to come, because (naturally) I have a lot to say. I know that there are still some problems in the U.S. (glass ceiling, Congress, blah blah) and we should be no means stop working toward eradicating those inequalities, but this does make me realize how fortunate I was to grow up somewhere where it is okay not to have kids by the time you’re 25.