A woman at the ‘potters’ village, Bwiza, listening to the singing group as Phil records.
Claude, a young genocide survivor, involved with Bwiza and also with helping Phil learn Kinyarwanda.
Rana, a VSO volunteer whom we visited one weekend in Butare, two hours south of Kigali. Rana, born in Iraq and raised in England, helps me keep perspective on being ‘other’ in Rwanda.
Leaving Rana's to catch the bus back to Kigali, we almost get caught in the deluge promised in this approaching storm cloud.
This photo, taken last year of a group of students at one of student workshops at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre, shows the animated conversation that can happen here.
We were invited to a traditional Rwandan wedding by a colleague at the memorial centre.
There was a lot of symbolic ritual involving the joining of community and then the joining of the bride and groom. There was a group of singers.
Mary, a Canadian from Prince Edward Island, is our walking companion in Nyamata. She lives in very simple conditions with no running water.
A lovely tree encountered on a Nyamata walk.
Here is our young guard, Ernest Shyaka, who came with our house and with whom we are slowly developing a relationship. He is with our temporary housemate, Antonia, a special needs teacher from the U.K. (She's going home in two weeks). Antonia has just given this ancient computer to Ernest, a gift with the potential for serious disappointment had not Phil got the computer operative. He taught Ernest some basics, and burnt him a copy of ‘Mamaland,’ the CD that Phil produced of youth music from the Kibera slum in Kenya. He also fixed a power outlet in his room so that Ernest can enjoy son ordinateur in private, while I worry that Ernest is being distracted from his homework.
The good-bye party for Evelyn, who spent 3 months doing a gender analysis of VSO's programs. She's back home in Kampala, Uganda, and we hope to visit her next month.
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