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Me and Elodie
This photo was taken in Elodie's room in the mud hut she lives in with her uncle's family. Like most people she has plastered the walls in newspaper clippings to act as a sort of wallpaper. Great news: Sourire’s rejection was reversed by the immigration official. I was with a couple of her classmates who are also going to study abroad with her when we all found out; it was especially exciting for them, since none of them was really able to feel good about their own approvals until they knew Sourire would be going, too.
On Tuesday Elodie took me around the camp to meet some Rwandan families, since I have so far met mostly Congolese and Burundians. There is a new batch of refugees who just arrived in the camp from a transit shelter in the north part of the country, which the government is closing. There are about 400 of them, mostly single males from Somalia, and a few from DRC. Somalians are very striking individuals; they are all very tall and thin, and incredibly beautiful. As a group they tend to be pretty isolated, rarely mingling with other nationalities. As a personal project I am working with a group of women in the camp to help them develop a craft business with the help of a microfinance loan, and all the nationalities in
Temporary shelter
This is where the 400 or so people from the closed Karonga transit shelter in the north are sleeping. the group are represented except Somalians. That will be another challenge for next week! There is a Somali woman in the computer class who is one of the few to venture out and engage in a group activity, so I am hoping she can help me penetrate the Somali group the way I have been able to with the others.
At Patrice’s house I had
nsima Congolese-style; they call it
bukare, and it’s much harder and drier than the one I had at Mada’s. It also tasted different but I am guessing that’s because it is made from the maize ration they get from the World Food Program, which is probably lower-grade. I am very close with Patrice and his housemates so I felt comfortable telling them I found
bukare to be pretty bland! They all laughed. I asked them why they don’t put a little salt in while it’s cooking, and they just said that it wouldn’t be
bukare. Like at Mada’s they served it with cabbage sautéed with tomatoes, which is really yummy, and these tiny little fish that are sold in the camp market. (They’re the
New arrivals from Karonga
They are all standing in line to get their food rations. cheapest form of meat they can get, and they are a pain to cook. They have to be cleaned at least five times, since they are chock full of sand. They don’t look very appetizing, eyes and all, but they actually taste pretty good once you chew the bones and all down to a reasonable texture!) They had a lot of fun mocking my difficulties at managing my
bukare and relish with one hand, as they do. (In DRC and probably other places it is impolite to use your left hand for eating, so you have to use one hand.)
We had a lot of laughs discussing how my culture differs from theirs; it’s amazing how many similarities there are, considering how radically different life is in Africa. We were looking at some of Patrice’s photos, and upon seeing one of Patrice with a woman his housemate exclaimed, “elle est très grosse!” I burst out laughing, because imagine someone saying that about someone at home in the States (
especially a woman). He didn’t understand my reaction, so I explained that in the West it is extremely insulting to say that someone is fat.
Rwandan kids
We spent some time with these kids and their mother, who were bagging peanuts to sell in the market. He was shocked. In Africa, it is a compliment to tell someone they’re fat, and an insult to tell someone they’re thin. It makes sense when you think about it; telling someone they are fat means that they live well, which is something most people aspire to in a place where poverty is rampant. Here being thin means you can’t afford enough food, while for Westerners it means you have the luxuries of time, diet pills, choice of food, access to a gym, etc.
The conversation wasn’t always so lighthearted. At one point we were talking about how I was advised to wear a skirt whenever I visit the camp, since trousers might be seem as provocative or disrespectful. While they all agreed that for a white woman, it’s acceptable to wear pants since they all know it’s normal for us, one of my friends said that if he ever saw his sister wearing pants he would beat her. That was a reality check; as much as we have fun together and can laugh about the same things, there are other things that keep us miles apart.
Fortunately my
project to assist refugees with appeals is going very well. Sadly, most of them have already filed appeals—I say sadly because they usually have no idea why they were rejected for refugee status, nor any idea about what the law says, so the appeals are extremely unlikely to be successful. But there are a few who haven’t yet so I am hoping to at least give them a slightly better chance than they would have otherwise. It’s not very hopeful; 95% of the rejections are on credibility grounds, which is very difficult to contest. Refugees often use different names as they are in transit from one place to another, since they don’t want to be recognized by people from home who might want to do them harm. Many of them left their country of origin ten, even twenty years ago, so can’t possibly remember exact dates, yet that’s what’s asked of them in the interviews. So when they’re interviewed, they get into serious consistency problems which are hard to correct. But I am going to do my best. Somehow I was able to get permission to see copies of their records so I will have some sense of what the
Child in front of a mud hut
This is a pretty typical home in the camp. grounds for rejection were. Next week my with my friend Elodie as interpreter (you will recognize her as one of the Rwandan dancers) I will interview them and hopefully get their appeals started.
love,
martina
p.s. i added a video to the last blog, of Mada serving the
nsima.
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lisa
non-member comment
stinky dried fish
are those little fish stinky? does the smell of them permeate the whole house? i am just wondering if your dried fish experience is at all similar to mine. in which case, i am impressed that u can get them down.