Secondary School and Millenium Village

Last Thursday, a few people in our group went to volunteer at a secondary school called CDV (i really have no idea what it stands for). I have already been there to help teach English to teachers, but on thursday we also taught students, which was really cool! I helped teach computer science, which sounds kind of scary since I don't know much about computers. But basically I just sat at a computer with at least fifteen students around me, showing them how to use microsoft word. I let them practice copy and paste, changing the font and color, and typing. Then I let each of them write their name in word art, which they all lovvvvvvvvedddd. It was fun talking to them as well, because they wanted to know all about us and about the US. They asked most of us how many parents we have, which is probably because most of them are orphans and had lost their parents in the genocide or to HIV.
The secondary school is amazing, but it is so sad to see how little money and resources they have. There are 520 students that go to the school, most of which live at the school because they have no where else to go. We calculated that the school runs on about $60,000 a year, mostly coming from the genocide survivors' fund. Can you imagine a boarding school with over five hundred students only being able to spend $60,000??? That is like one teacher's salary in the United States.
Teaching English to teachers at the school that night was really interesting. A few of them were asking me about the names of different food in English, so we got in to a discussion of eating habits in Rwanda and the US. When I tried to explain that in America, we often eat a lot for breakfast (unless we are too busy), they were a bit confused. They told me that in Rwanda, you are lucky if you have enough money to have tea for breakfast; otherwise you only get water. I don't think I would be able to make it through the day.
We were also teaching one man who had been accused of genocide. He had been in jail for ten years before his trial in the gacaca courts (the traditional courts), and then he was found innocent (which I think is pretty rare). But can you imagine being stuck in jail for soooo long for a crime you didn't commit?!?! That is one major problem Rwanda faced after 1994; there were so many people that were involved in the genocide that it would literally take a century to try them all in court (there were almost one million perpetrators of the genocide, and about one million victims). They set up gacaca courts (traditional courts) to help speed up the process.
The next day, Friday, we went to visit a Millenium village in Bugasera, Rwanda. It is one of about 15 villages in Africa that are supported by the Millenium Village Project which was created by Jeffery Sachs. The project works on health care, education, agriculture, and other things as well. But there are a lot of criticims of the Millenium Village project, because it pours soooo many resources into one tiny village and basically ignores the rest of the country. The project also only lasts for five or so years, I think, then it just leaves. That is soooooooooooooooooo ridiculous. I really don't think its a good idea to flood resources into such a tiny area, then completely stop funding a few years later. The villages will just fall apart! and I think the amount of resources they are putting into these villages could be used in a much more efficient way; a way that could help a hell of a lot more people. It also only works in African countries that have stable governments. But what about the poor, struggling people in the rest of Africa?!?
After spending time at the Millenium Village, I started disliking the project even more. We were basically forced to invade these people lives. They took us into a primary school classroom, and we just stood there looking like fools and disrupting their learning. Then they took us on a tour of a hospital, which was pretty much a horrible experience. I felt so uncomfortable, because the guide was basically opening the doors to every room and showing us the sick people like they were tourist attractions! It really really pissed me off, and I wish I had walked out of the hospital. Some people from our group did, because it was so uncomfortable I cannot even describe it. Some of these people had literally just given birth and others looked so sick that I thought they could die any second. Why on earth would we be brought on a tour of that?! I do think there is a point when you can over-react and over-analyze the bad effects of tourism, but after my experience at Millenium Village, I definitely look at tourism and international development projects in a different way. Oh yeah, and then we went to a reconciliation part of the village, where genocide survivors, perpetrators, and returnees who came back to Rwanda after the genocide all live together. They had a dancing ceremony for us, which was kind of cool. Then we heard testimonies from a survivor and a perpetrator of the genocide. It was weird sitting like five feet from a man that had killed multiple people. But that has probably happened so many times while I've been here in Rwanda, but I just didn't know it. It was really strange and uncomfortable during the perpetrator's testimony, because the translator kept laughing. I mean, WHAT? We really didn't understand why she was laughing, because what she was translating certainly wasnt funny. It was so strange.
But there was one good part of the Millenium village visit. I got to try Casavas! We went to a fruit farm, and the farmer dug a hole in the ground near a tree and pulled out a Casava. It looked like a potato, but it was the strangest and best thing I have ever tasted. It is such a weird texture, but I loved it! And I got to help a woman weave a basket, which was really exciting!