Hey all, this is taken from my friend Jen's Blog. She's been living in Rwanda now for, ummm... 5 years?? And has ranted just as well, if not better, than I was just about to do about the elections yesterday, so read her entry and know that it's pretty much what I was going to write down... enjoy.
"Makes me MAD!!
Today is Tuesday, August 10 - day after the elections here in Rwanda.
My house is quiet this morning as I'm sitting here at my computer supposed to be doing financial reports but... I need to see what the world has said about yesterdays elections here in Rwanda.
What I know is that Paul Kagame has won with 92% with the other three parties dividing the rest of the votes. At least that is what Prince told me was announced on the TV this morning.
I know that I went to bed just after midnight and the city was alive with parties everywhere... I heard the vuvuzela's (and the World Cup thought they have them all!) and I was woken up by the fireworks at 4:30am this morning! Today was declared a holiday (I love Rwanda!)
I also know that many polling stations closed by mid morning because all the registered voters for that district had already cast their ballot. (Canada or the US only dreams of this!!) Serge left the house just before 6am and was 12th in line to vote at our polling station.. then he came home and crawled back into bed! :-)
I haven't heard of any violence or any unrest in the country at all.
I also know that at about midnight the President and his entire family went to Amahoro Stadium where it was PACKED!!! to celebrate. Serge said that he turned the TV off about 1am and left the First Lady and kids on that football field celebrating by leading everyone in the Electric Slide dance... it's her favourite!
So what you ask, makes me mad??!!!
WELL... let me tell you. Warning.. a 'Jen' Rant comin' on!
So... I check CBC, just to see what my own country is saying about the election here. After some digging I find a 7 sentence story which predicted Kagame's win but also stated, and I quote,
'Analysts said Kagame faced no real competition. Some opposition parties were barred from participating, and the pre-election period was marred by crackdowns on opposition figures and media'.
I then go to BBC. And after some digging I find a little story and a media clip. It's the media clip that makes me MAD! The journalist stated that some parties were not allowed to run due to differing views of Kagame's party and were arrested upon arrival and others were blocked from registering. And that is ALL he says... AH!!!
WHY were they arrested?
Blows my mind how some journalists and others in the west, looking in on Rwanda and Africa can be so arrogant and misleading some times!
So, Kagame is just to allow people who landed in Kigali and in their first news conference at the airport announced that their party had come back to 'finish the job'... implying the genocide????
Seriously people!!!! You would think that this `tidbit`of information would be important somehow. Or does one really not know what genocide is or the causes of it?
So Human Rights and whoever else who most likely knows nothing of what it is to be a genocide survivor or oppressed in whatever way can just say that there was no real opposition and that Rwandan people are oppressed??
Did I say this makes me mad???
The genocide ended 16 years ago because the RPF, lead by Paul Kagame and others came and fought in a land which their parents had fled, felt oppressed in or had never even entered before. The genocide did not end because the west put a stop to it. The west was still tying the hands of the UN mission here and still arguing over what name to call the mission of the soldiers they were releasing to come and help fight against the killers.
What has happened in this country since the end of the genocide in July 1994 is incredibly remarkable. I don`t think there is another country in the world that has recovered from anything like this in such a short period of time - socially, economically, development in all areas really.
So.. how dare the west, point fingers and tell an African leader or country how they should run it... especially when the cause of the genocide was colonization from the west!
AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!
Okay.. I`m done."
www.rwandamomma.blogspot.com
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Da Thrilla in Manila!!
Well, I’ve been in the Philippines now for just under a week... and what a busy week it’s been! I’ve had the chance to check out a lot of what my friend John has been up to during his year here, and it’s been amazing to see and experience it with him!
One of the things that we have done has been feeding programs in an area of Metro Manila called Sucat. The people that John works with in this area are from a squatting community who live in a shanty town. We’ve been out there twice now to provide meals for the kids and youth in this area as well as to visit with the families and just hang out and play with the kids. One thing about here in the Philippines is that the people here are not very tall... I am. Within about two minutes of being with the kids I had a nickname and became very popular. I have a feeling I will forever be known in that area as “Big Show.” Yeah. The second day that we went to this community the kids were yelling “Big Show! Big Show!” before we even made it to the community. It was a lot of fun to hang out with these kids and to see the joy that can be in their lives when people take the time to show them that someone cares about them.
The other main thing that we have been doing this last week has been the Day Care program that John works with at the church just around the corner from his apartment. (It’s actually a church started by International Teams and actually was his apartment for the first couple of months he lived here...) This program was started to serve the children and families of a very low income squatting/shanty community in this area of Metro Manila known as Makati. There are about 15 kids who come out to the day care program every morning of the week but Sunday and Monday. This program is free to the people in this community and also acts as a school for the children. Every morning there are games, songs, lessons and a snack. These kids are SOOO much fun!! Within minutes of the first time I came they were again, climbing all over me, amazed at my height. On Saturday I got to experience something truly amazing with a group of these kids. A field trip. We got to take 10 of the young kids (probably around age 3-6) to a children’s museum and to Manila Ocean City Aquarium. Chaos!! One of the kids, Lawrence, screamed and cried the whole way to the museum, yelling over and over again, non-stop in Tagalog, “I don’t want to be here! I don’t want to be here!” and as soon as we got there it looked like he had the best time in his life! He was all over the place in the museum and so wide-eyed and excited at the aquarium!
The kids (and adults) had an amazing time at the museum, but there is no other word to describe it than Chaos! The kids were running all over the place, getting in to trouble everywhere, making as much noise as possible... so much fun!! At one point in time they found a giant piano that you walk on to make it play and the kids just went crazy!! The one girl, Alli, just laid on her back and started rolling around on it with the BIGGEST grin on her face! Jet Jet (yes, his name is Jet Jet) just started stomping, Princess was just ridiculous... they all had so much fun, it was amazing to see!!
Also in a rain forest exhibit some of the kids must have thought that they were in a real forest seeing as how the one walked to the edge of the path and started peeing on the fake rocks... haha.
After the museum we took them to Manila Ocean City... it was packed, so we made sure that each adult had two kids each and they were not to let go of their hands AT ALL. However, myself and a new friend of mine, Tin Tin only got one kid each... not so much of a good thing though. We got the trouble makers! Tin Tin got the short stick and had to watch Bernadetd who is the most ADHD inside child EVER but SOOO cute and fun! And I got Princess. Lets just say that when all the other kids were exhausted and too tired to walk by the end of the day, Princess was still ready to go cause I had no other choice but to carry her through the whole aquarium. The one time that I did try to put her down, she was gone and trying to “pet” the sharks... yup, hand in the shark tank... And poor Tin Tin... she let go of Bernadetd once and she took off running... haha... good times. It was crazy, but it had to be one of the funnest days I’ve had with kids in a long time.
Other than the ministry stuff that I’ve been helping with we’ve gotten to see a bit of Manila as well. I went to Asia’s biggest mall the other day. Saw Inception at the Imax, found a watch I saw in Paris for over $600 and bought it here for $100. Every weekend at MOA (Mall of Asia) they have fireworks that put our Canada Day fireworks to shame. Today we went to the up scale, fancy pants mall where they have only Prada and those types of stores and went to a restaurant called “Bubba Gumps” ...Forest Gump themed. And later tonight for supper we’ll probably go somewhere I’ve been looking forward to going to for over a year now... The Hobbit Hole. It’s a restaurant where... wait for it... it’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Themed, and everyone that works there is apparently a Pilipino midget, dressed as a Hobbit! SOOO would not fly in our culture!!!
After today I only have two more days here in the Philippines and then I head back to Paris for a day on Wednesday night and then finally back home. I can not believe that I’ve been traveling now for this long. I left Canada one month ago today, although it does not feel at all like it’s been a month! ...if I could start again at the first day we landed in Paris, I would for sure do the whole thing over again right now... would probably leave Sarajevo right away and go to Croatia or something for that week, but I wouldn’t turn down another month of traveling for anything.
Well... only a few more days left to go... Thanks for reading, and I’ve sure I’ll have a few more things to write about in the next 5 days before I land in Toronto.
One of the things that we have done has been feeding programs in an area of Metro Manila called Sucat. The people that John works with in this area are from a squatting community who live in a shanty town. We’ve been out there twice now to provide meals for the kids and youth in this area as well as to visit with the families and just hang out and play with the kids. One thing about here in the Philippines is that the people here are not very tall... I am. Within about two minutes of being with the kids I had a nickname and became very popular. I have a feeling I will forever be known in that area as “Big Show.” Yeah. The second day that we went to this community the kids were yelling “Big Show! Big Show!” before we even made it to the community. It was a lot of fun to hang out with these kids and to see the joy that can be in their lives when people take the time to show them that someone cares about them.
The other main thing that we have been doing this last week has been the Day Care program that John works with at the church just around the corner from his apartment. (It’s actually a church started by International Teams and actually was his apartment for the first couple of months he lived here...) This program was started to serve the children and families of a very low income squatting/shanty community in this area of Metro Manila known as Makati. There are about 15 kids who come out to the day care program every morning of the week but Sunday and Monday. This program is free to the people in this community and also acts as a school for the children. Every morning there are games, songs, lessons and a snack. These kids are SOOO much fun!! Within minutes of the first time I came they were again, climbing all over me, amazed at my height. On Saturday I got to experience something truly amazing with a group of these kids. A field trip. We got to take 10 of the young kids (probably around age 3-6) to a children’s museum and to Manila Ocean City Aquarium. Chaos!! One of the kids, Lawrence, screamed and cried the whole way to the museum, yelling over and over again, non-stop in Tagalog, “I don’t want to be here! I don’t want to be here!” and as soon as we got there it looked like he had the best time in his life! He was all over the place in the museum and so wide-eyed and excited at the aquarium!
The kids (and adults) had an amazing time at the museum, but there is no other word to describe it than Chaos! The kids were running all over the place, getting in to trouble everywhere, making as much noise as possible... so much fun!! At one point in time they found a giant piano that you walk on to make it play and the kids just went crazy!! The one girl, Alli, just laid on her back and started rolling around on it with the BIGGEST grin on her face! Jet Jet (yes, his name is Jet Jet) just started stomping, Princess was just ridiculous... they all had so much fun, it was amazing to see!!
Also in a rain forest exhibit some of the kids must have thought that they were in a real forest seeing as how the one walked to the edge of the path and started peeing on the fake rocks... haha.
After the museum we took them to Manila Ocean City... it was packed, so we made sure that each adult had two kids each and they were not to let go of their hands AT ALL. However, myself and a new friend of mine, Tin Tin only got one kid each... not so much of a good thing though. We got the trouble makers! Tin Tin got the short stick and had to watch Bernadetd who is the most ADHD inside child EVER but SOOO cute and fun! And I got Princess. Lets just say that when all the other kids were exhausted and too tired to walk by the end of the day, Princess was still ready to go cause I had no other choice but to carry her through the whole aquarium. The one time that I did try to put her down, she was gone and trying to “pet” the sharks... yup, hand in the shark tank... And poor Tin Tin... she let go of Bernadetd once and she took off running... haha... good times. It was crazy, but it had to be one of the funnest days I’ve had with kids in a long time.
Other than the ministry stuff that I’ve been helping with we’ve gotten to see a bit of Manila as well. I went to Asia’s biggest mall the other day. Saw Inception at the Imax, found a watch I saw in Paris for over $600 and bought it here for $100. Every weekend at MOA (Mall of Asia) they have fireworks that put our Canada Day fireworks to shame. Today we went to the up scale, fancy pants mall where they have only Prada and those types of stores and went to a restaurant called “Bubba Gumps” ...Forest Gump themed. And later tonight for supper we’ll probably go somewhere I’ve been looking forward to going to for over a year now... The Hobbit Hole. It’s a restaurant where... wait for it... it’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Themed, and everyone that works there is apparently a Pilipino midget, dressed as a Hobbit! SOOO would not fly in our culture!!!
After today I only have two more days here in the Philippines and then I head back to Paris for a day on Wednesday night and then finally back home. I can not believe that I’ve been traveling now for this long. I left Canada one month ago today, although it does not feel at all like it’s been a month! ...if I could start again at the first day we landed in Paris, I would for sure do the whole thing over again right now... would probably leave Sarajevo right away and go to Croatia or something for that week, but I wouldn’t turn down another month of traveling for anything.
Well... only a few more days left to go... Thanks for reading, and I’ve sure I’ll have a few more things to write about in the next 5 days before I land in Toronto.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Bullet holes and Graves... A week in Sarajevo.
Alrighty... so I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything, and for that I’m sorry.
Anywho, so I’m in Manila, Philippines now, but there’s some stuff before that that I should talk about. I just spent 6 days in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina which was really cool to be there, but to long to be alone without knowing the country at all. My first couple of days there I just wandered around the city, took in the sites and lounged in cafes and pubs.
On my third day there I walked out of the old city down what has been called “Sniper Ally.” This is the main road that runs all the way through Sarajevo. It’s very wide, clear and open, so during the siege anyone who had to cross the road or use it to get from one part of the city to another was an easy target for all of the snipers hiding in the hills surrounding the city. Just outside of the Old City is the Bosnian History Museum and the Sarajevo War Museum. The History Museum had some pretty cool things inside of it. Lots of old Roman and Ottoman artefacts. The coolest thing that was there is the Sarajevo Haggadah. It’s basically the Jewish or Old Testament creation story written out in a picture book used during one of the Jewish holidays. The thing that makes this one so special is that during World War 2 this book was one of the main things that the Nazis were trying to find to destroy and then again during the Bosnian war it was one of the first cultural things that the Serb army was looking for to destroy. What’s the price tag on a ancient book that has survived centuries of war where it was one of the main targets? $700,000,000! The Sarajevo War Museum was really well done too. The museum is very much meant for people from Sarajevo, and very rightly so, so because of this if you are looking for a way to learn a lot about what has happened, you won’t find a lot of history there. Having a decent idea of what happened there in 1993-95 really helped in appreciating the museum. The only thing that I can compare it to, which won’t be much help to most people reading this, would be the Nyamata and Ntrama church memorial sites in Rwanda... or maybe the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC but on a MUCH smaller scale.
The rest of my time in Sarajevo was spent pretty much doing almost nothing... A lot of time sitting in cafes by the river reading or walking around the city. I’m really happy that I was there, but maybe not for that long... and next time I’ll take someone with me. It gets kinda boring when there’s no one in the same city that you can have more than a 1 minute conversation with... and if there was anyone else there fluent in English, I didn’t find them no matter how hard I tried. Apparently everyone staying at hostels in Sarajevo are just from other parts of Bosnia... not many travelers. Lets just say that I ran out of things to do pretty quick. And the public transit system isn’t in any shape or form foreigner friendly. But again, I am still happy that I got to be there... it’s been on my “list” for a long time.
One thing that sticks out the most to me is the impact that the war has had on the city and the amount of that that you can still see everywhere you look. Every other building that you walk past is still covered in bullet and mortar holes, buildings are still in the process of being fixed up or demolished all over Sarajevo, and so many people were killed during the siege of Sarajevo that almost every park/green space/back yard is filled with graves. The War Museum is great example of this because the building that it’s in has been kept exactly the same way as it was at the end of the war all the way up to the crumbling steps you walk up in to the building, to the burnt out tank behind the building where a cafe dedicated to the former Yugoslavia’s original Communist dictator, Tito, has been set up.
Another really cool thing about the city is the way that so many different cultures live together in peace. You can walk down a street almost anywhere in Sarajevo and walk past a Jewish Synagogue, a Serbian Orthodox Church and a Muslim Mosque within 5 minutes. A Muslim call to prayer will ring through the valley and you’ll see groups of friends split up, some going to pray, others going off to do other things and then see them meet back up and go on their way together again after prayers are done. All of this in a city where 14-17 years ago there was one of modern times longest and worse city sieges and genocides.
Three mornings ago I woke up, packed up and headed back to the airport for flights 8, 9 and 10 of my summer from Sarajevo to Istanbul Turkey, Dubai UAE and finally to my last major stop this trip in Manila Philippines. The first two flights were pretty short, and so was the amount of leg room in each plane... Turkish Air is NOT meant for tall people to fly with!! By far the most cramped I’ve ever been in an airplane!! From Dubai I flew Air Emirates which I at least had some leg room in... not as good of a flight that I’ve heard Air Emirates should be, but not bad...
Yesterday late afternoon I arrived here in Manila to a bright yellow sign, John Coffey and Tin Tin, who works with ITeams here, waiting for me at the airport. We took a bus and taxi through the streets of Metro Manila to the apartment where I was welcomed in the best way possible... a game of Settlers!!
Last night I crashed pretty hard and slept probably the best I have this whole trip (Sooo happy that John’s room has its own air conditioning!!). Could have slept a lot longer, but this morning we got up and went to the daycare that John helps teach at. It was really cool to start to see some of the other International Teams projects happening here. All of the kids that come to this daycare live on the streets in the community around the church and International Teams office (which are in the same building). Tonight we will be going to Alabang, which is in Metro Manila, to help out with a street kid feeding that ITeams partners with in that community. And I’m sure that Brett Ostrander will bend my arm in to another game or two of Settlers when we get back to the apartment.
Well, I should be a lot busier here than I was in Sarajevo, which means I’ll have more to blog about again, so hopefully I’ll be blogging more again this week than I did last week. I’m really excited for what I’ll be seeing and doing here with the International Teams Philippines folks so it should be an awesome week!!
Anywho, so I’m in Manila, Philippines now, but there’s some stuff before that that I should talk about. I just spent 6 days in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina which was really cool to be there, but to long to be alone without knowing the country at all. My first couple of days there I just wandered around the city, took in the sites and lounged in cafes and pubs.
On my third day there I walked out of the old city down what has been called “Sniper Ally.” This is the main road that runs all the way through Sarajevo. It’s very wide, clear and open, so during the siege anyone who had to cross the road or use it to get from one part of the city to another was an easy target for all of the snipers hiding in the hills surrounding the city. Just outside of the Old City is the Bosnian History Museum and the Sarajevo War Museum. The History Museum had some pretty cool things inside of it. Lots of old Roman and Ottoman artefacts. The coolest thing that was there is the Sarajevo Haggadah. It’s basically the Jewish or Old Testament creation story written out in a picture book used during one of the Jewish holidays. The thing that makes this one so special is that during World War 2 this book was one of the main things that the Nazis were trying to find to destroy and then again during the Bosnian war it was one of the first cultural things that the Serb army was looking for to destroy. What’s the price tag on a ancient book that has survived centuries of war where it was one of the main targets? $700,000,000! The Sarajevo War Museum was really well done too. The museum is very much meant for people from Sarajevo, and very rightly so, so because of this if you are looking for a way to learn a lot about what has happened, you won’t find a lot of history there. Having a decent idea of what happened there in 1993-95 really helped in appreciating the museum. The only thing that I can compare it to, which won’t be much help to most people reading this, would be the Nyamata and Ntrama church memorial sites in Rwanda... or maybe the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC but on a MUCH smaller scale.
The rest of my time in Sarajevo was spent pretty much doing almost nothing... A lot of time sitting in cafes by the river reading or walking around the city. I’m really happy that I was there, but maybe not for that long... and next time I’ll take someone with me. It gets kinda boring when there’s no one in the same city that you can have more than a 1 minute conversation with... and if there was anyone else there fluent in English, I didn’t find them no matter how hard I tried. Apparently everyone staying at hostels in Sarajevo are just from other parts of Bosnia... not many travelers. Lets just say that I ran out of things to do pretty quick. And the public transit system isn’t in any shape or form foreigner friendly. But again, I am still happy that I got to be there... it’s been on my “list” for a long time.
One thing that sticks out the most to me is the impact that the war has had on the city and the amount of that that you can still see everywhere you look. Every other building that you walk past is still covered in bullet and mortar holes, buildings are still in the process of being fixed up or demolished all over Sarajevo, and so many people were killed during the siege of Sarajevo that almost every park/green space/back yard is filled with graves. The War Museum is great example of this because the building that it’s in has been kept exactly the same way as it was at the end of the war all the way up to the crumbling steps you walk up in to the building, to the burnt out tank behind the building where a cafe dedicated to the former Yugoslavia’s original Communist dictator, Tito, has been set up.
Another really cool thing about the city is the way that so many different cultures live together in peace. You can walk down a street almost anywhere in Sarajevo and walk past a Jewish Synagogue, a Serbian Orthodox Church and a Muslim Mosque within 5 minutes. A Muslim call to prayer will ring through the valley and you’ll see groups of friends split up, some going to pray, others going off to do other things and then see them meet back up and go on their way together again after prayers are done. All of this in a city where 14-17 years ago there was one of modern times longest and worse city sieges and genocides.
Three mornings ago I woke up, packed up and headed back to the airport for flights 8, 9 and 10 of my summer from Sarajevo to Istanbul Turkey, Dubai UAE and finally to my last major stop this trip in Manila Philippines. The first two flights were pretty short, and so was the amount of leg room in each plane... Turkish Air is NOT meant for tall people to fly with!! By far the most cramped I’ve ever been in an airplane!! From Dubai I flew Air Emirates which I at least had some leg room in... not as good of a flight that I’ve heard Air Emirates should be, but not bad...
Yesterday late afternoon I arrived here in Manila to a bright yellow sign, John Coffey and Tin Tin, who works with ITeams here, waiting for me at the airport. We took a bus and taxi through the streets of Metro Manila to the apartment where I was welcomed in the best way possible... a game of Settlers!!
Last night I crashed pretty hard and slept probably the best I have this whole trip (Sooo happy that John’s room has its own air conditioning!!). Could have slept a lot longer, but this morning we got up and went to the daycare that John helps teach at. It was really cool to start to see some of the other International Teams projects happening here. All of the kids that come to this daycare live on the streets in the community around the church and International Teams office (which are in the same building). Tonight we will be going to Alabang, which is in Metro Manila, to help out with a street kid feeding that ITeams partners with in that community. And I’m sure that Brett Ostrander will bend my arm in to another game or two of Settlers when we get back to the apartment.
Well, I should be a lot busier here than I was in Sarajevo, which means I’ll have more to blog about again, so hopefully I’ll be blogging more again this week than I did last week. I’m really excited for what I’ll be seeing and doing here with the International Teams Philippines folks so it should be an awesome week!!
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