Rwandering and Rwondering

I mentioned in my 2012 review/2013 goals that I had a few travels coming up for work and a few places I wanted to see for Me. I knew that these two forces may work against each other, especially with my contract over the next six months including 50% time of travel. However, one benefit of two years of experience with FAO is that I've learned 1) planning doesn't mean much as all can/will change (throw your spreadsheets out the window); and 2) given item 1, if you don't carve out time for the things you want to do, they will disappear in a work abyss.

32 year old feet: You may remember one year ago when I was forced by work to alter my travel plans for skiing in the Alps in exchange for giving a presentation in Peru - ok maybe you don't remember, but either way I missed what was supposed to be a birthday weekend thanks to work and moving. Out of my last five birthdays, I have spent 4 in foreign countries by myself (not really, I mean I met strangers, found colleagues, made friends impromptu - but you get the picture, I wasn't with close friends or family) - and even though I knew I was going to have work travel coming up I promised myself that this year would be different. As I carefully scheduled my work travel to make sure I was not on the road, work reared it's head to conspire against me and combat my careful planning including 1) a trip to Rwanda to discuss land tenure issues with Anglophone countries of Africa; 2) Malawi project start. Now if you'd like to get your map out and see how close Malawi and Rwanda are to each other you would see that it makes total sense to combine these trips. And as a good warrior against hunger, I try to cut costs where I can in a sea of bureaucratic waste. But of course, all good planning on my side doesn't mean much when the forces of FAO and Africa are jointly at work; and in a true illustration of what these forces can illicit = proposed travel for 3 weeks over my birthday. My original 'plan' had been to conduct these trips in time to return for my birthday, and I had 'planned' to finally check the Dolomites off my list with a ski weekend away to celebrate. When I received the news, I hemmed and hawwed about whether I should just forgo my birthday/Dolomites for the greater good of cost savings - and then I looked at my foot and realized it was almost 32 and it was time to put it down.

So here's what my itinerary became:

Feb 10 -15 Rwanda
Feb 15 - 18 Dolomites
Feb 19 - March 2 Malawi

I realize this means I'm doing two roundtrip flights to Africa within 4 days of each other, and that it may not be normal to weekend in the north of Italy while working in Africa = but it's my birthday and i'll ski/celebrate with loved ones if I want to.

Rwhat?: In thinking of heading to Rwanda, I was excited because I was going to get to see my Sierra Leone government friends there; and yet at the same time I knew I wouldn't get to see much of the country because I would basically be in a hotel the whole time for a conference with no time for gorillas or hiking. And like, I'm sure, many of you, my only real knowledge of Rwanda was terrible genocide, so I wasn't sure what to expect. An avid reader of this blog after hearing I would be mostly in a hotel, suggested I title this post Hotel Rwanda, but after watching the film I decided I couldn't do that title justice/or make light of it. Here's a few of my insights from only three days there, mostly in a hotel with 100 Africans from 18 countries:

From Zero: I had heard from a friend who had worked in Rwanda that she really enjoyed it because they were such go-getters, especially in comparison with her current assignment in lackadaisical Tanzania (her words, not mine). I associated this with being post-conflict as my experience in Sierra Leone had shown me a similar willingness to move forward, so I was expecting something maybe a bit more advanced to SL considering a longer time having passed. There was no way I could have imagined though what met me - no litter, perfect roads including large sidewalks with abundant lighting, huge plush gardens with fountains at every rotary, and all street lights have numerical countdowns - no not for the crosswalks, but for the cars so you know how much time till it changes. It is hard to believe you are in Africa, and much less in a country demolished by violence just 15 years ago. What made all this more moving was seeing it in the company of Sierra Leoneans. The genocide in Rwanda was far worse (by numbers for one) than the conflict in Sierra Leone, and the country was truly decimated to zero both in morale and infrastructure, but to see where they've come is truly amazing and inspiring.

The land of a thousand (seemingly surmountable) hills: I kept thinking - but how? What's their secret? And not just how given where they've come from, but how in general given the rest of the norm in Africa? I haven't quite figured out the answer, but it seems to lie partly in the question - where they've come from. I was in a working group for the week with my friends from Sierra Leone, plus two men from South Sudan, and one from Zimbabwe and we all were similarly impressed, and I count myself lucky to experience Rwanda with people from other post-conflict countries. We may all wish at times for a clean slate to start over, and Rwanda turned a tragedy into just that. They went as far as even changing the language from one day to the next from French to English to break with the bitterness of French involvement in the genocide, and also to be more closely aligned with their East African Anglophone neighbors. This has interesting implications on the ground as you have a younger population fluent in English, an older generation befuddled with French/English, and a population of displaced people that returned who were educated outside. In my few days there, I tried to ask as many people, both Rwandans and foreigners, as I could how they've been so successful at achieving such growth/peace/development and it has largely come down to political will. Westerners would tell you it's an overly top-down approach of government advancing it's objectives, while Rwandans seem to be happy with the direction and progress. One thing, especially after visiting the Genocide Memorial (the one item of tourism I had time for) that I can't get my head around is how they're able to live together again and work together to achieve such things. With 1 million people killed in a country of 10 million, with one of the highest densities in Africa - you can imagine that the genocide touched each person's life. On the way to the Memorial a local FAO colleague said, "You'll see my children there". He lost two children under 8 to machetes. I had a hard time even going through the whole memorial as it is so horrific, and I still can't get my head around how they've managed so much. Africa continues to teach me perspective and inspire me.

SL buddies: I mentioned that I was most excited for this trip to reunite with my SL gov't friends - one who went on the visits to communities with us, and one who has been particularly engaged and moving things ahead while we've been absent these last six months. One of the things I most enjoy about the Sierra Leoneans is their lack of a filter, which makes them dually very approachable and refreshing.  I had arranged with the SLs to go to dinner to celebrate our presentation at the workshop and our renewed funding for our project there, and on my way to the lobby I ran into some FAO colleagues who were heading to dinner at Milles Collines (the hotel in Hotel Rwanda) and they invited me so I asked if the SLs could come and similarly asked if the SLs wanted to go - they both said yes. We were excited to visit the site of the film and to learn more about the history of how they had reopened since the genocide. However, after my SL friends inquired with the waiter on the history; one of the local British expats who had joined us for dinner was shocked and disturbed and interjected that they should not be inquiring such things (even saying there could be spies), which I then had to explain to my SL friends. I left the dinner feeling embarrassed that they may have offended the Rwandans, and then the next morning I thought - no, who am I (or the British expat) to tell the SLs who have been through terrible conflict to tell them what they should or shouldn't ask in their genuine interest. So again, Africa teaching me lessons about tolerance, sensitivity, curiosity, and Western ideas.

With this long, unfunny post I feel like I shouldn't torture you more, so I won't go into my adventurous flight to Kigali including 10 landing attempts, a reroute and retakeoff from Burundi, other than that I'm so glad I learned patience.  I will say it is the first time I actually thought my plane could crash.

So I left Rwanda, returned to Rome and 6 hours later flew to Venice for a weekend skiing in the Dolomites, I checked out what 32 looks like, and headed back to Rome and left to fly to Malawi 22 hours later. I flew to Addis Ababa from Rome for my connection to Malawi, and was informed that the Malawi airport is closed due to widespread government strikes. I'm now on my second day in Addis after another attempt to fly out today. So the adventure, and appreciation of patience continues as of the last 12 days I have been at an airport 8 of them. When life hands you layover/stranded flight, gorge on Ethiopian buffet......

**photos coming soon

Le Regole

I've written before about 'the rules' that Italians have for living life, but after being given a book recently by always-a-super-hero-Laura and now after dating an Italian for the last six months, I have an even greater perspective.

Book (title, Italians Dance While I'm a Wallflower): First impression, where were you 2 years ago when I was in desperate culture shock googling for books on adjusting to life in Italy and all I could find were rehabing farmhouses in Tuscany, cookbooks, and how to fall in love on the back of a scooter? And yes, this book had been published two years ago but has a super obscure unhelpful title for those in need.....Second impression, pissed - apparently a lot of my jokes and impressions are not that original, however I still have a few thoughts not noted by this Italian/American author......

America(n) Rules:  At a recent dinner with Giorgio's family, Laura was regaling her parents with one of her favorite chapters called 'non se fa' or 'it's not done'. More on that in a second, but their father turned to me and said, "And what are some of your rules in America?" And I was stumped. So then I said, "La unica regola che abbiamo e che non abbiamo le regole" "The only rule we have is that we don't have rules", let freedom ring. But then I went home and thought, no there must be one I can think of - but nope (feel free to chime in here). And after some more jaunt-pondering I've concluded that at our core we are rule breakers, it is part of our founding on Revolution and why we get along so well with Australians (for reference a former penal colony, they really hate rules but have a better sense of humour). Within the same week, a Croatian colleague asked me about why we're so informal in the workplace - not in terms of dressing but in terms of hierarchy/greetings/relationships - and so I thought again. We chafe at the very idea, and are proud to scoff in the face, of rules, thinking we'll make our own, I mean have you seen what we built since 1776? So when you take an American who is used to rules-schmoolsing around and place them in Italy = chafe city

Le Regole: So we've discussed some Italian rules before that I learned soon after arrival like 1) no cappucicno (or any coffee with any large amount of milk) after lunch - remember your digestion is at stake; 2) no cheese with fish - yeah that means you scampi, don't even try it with the parmesan - because clearly cheese overtakes the flavour of the fish. I sometimes try to imagine an Italian eating tuna noodle casserole and explode into a fit of smirks; 3) no walking barefoot - even if you were just hanging clothes up to dry and were unwittingly locked out of your apartment, everyone will think your bare feet are a more desperate situation than your ability to enter your home, and so on. At the same time there's a lot of rules I learned that I can really get behind - 1) wine must be available at every dinner (check); 2) amaro aids digestion and must follow every meal (this includes limoncello, grappa, amaro, mirto and yes I do actually think fire liquid helps dissolve your meal and have really grown to like the taste); 3) you never have to damsel in distress because no matter what, you will always be allowed to walk through a door first (unless there is danger, then he will go first but just to check that it's ok for you to pass) and you don't have to make decisions if you don't want to or open any doors or basically do anything requiring manual labor. But I didn't realize that while I've been obediently obeying (and embracing some) Italian rules like any good culturally aware transplant - that I've been breaking so many others. I recently learned that it's unheard of in Italy to eat any meal - doesn't matter if you're by yourself and it's a weekday breakfast where you scarf down a coffee - you have to use a tablecloth, and worst case scenario a placemat, which fittingly in Italy they call "tovaglia americana" or American tablecloth. Seriously? You're lucky I sit down to drink my coffee in the morning versus walking to work with it in a to-go mug, and now you want me to put down a tablecloth? I also take offense at the use of 'American' to name a placemat. And I could go on with these types of rules.....but add to that dating rules, where I was really out of any familiar territory and sought immediate guidance. I thus received the following advice - 1) in Italy we don't date multiple people, as soon as you kiss someone you're going steady; 2) we don't meet someone's family until it's really serious, like you're getting married (both untrue but also unproven by me). Lucky for me, Giorgio somehow doesn't care much for the rules (he's even fine with me having a cappuccino after lunch, which I never do of course, but nice to know that I could), but this also means I continue to offend other Italians  since he doesn't correct me, with my uncovered table and my browsing in shops (yes, you should know before you go in what you want, and if you dare to try things on without purchasing, prepare for an earful). One of the hardest things for me to comprehend is that these aren't just 'customs', like 'this is how we do it, but we know people do it another way'. No, these are facts. I quickly learned you can't argue these points, because to Italians there is a scientific basis for not drinking milk in your coffee after lunch or swimming in a lake; and when you think it's safe to have a fun cultural laugh - it's not, it will be like you're questioning the positioning of the sun (ahem Copernicus).

The Rule of (un)Law: What makes this all more funny (to me, not to Italians) is the fact that as strict as Italians are about cultural rules, there is a practically a cultural edit to get around the law. This takes many forms - 1) driving- which I've told you about before and how fun it can be as a transplant since apparently you don't have to learn the rules cause the whole point is to break them - good times, that is, until they're not; 2) taxes - you may have heard about Italy's financial woes, well it has a bit to do with the fact that Italians are very creative about paying them and not because they don't like obeying the law (they love rules!) but because they know their government isn't following the rules about how they use their taxes, so why should they willingly hand over their money. As further evidence I pay my rent of over 1000 euro per month in cash and have signed a contract saying I live here for free as a result of a new law requiring Italians to claim their income in more detail; 3) police - to shorten this story, I'll just give you two examples, Amanda Knox and the Monster of Florence, both of which (without talking about guilt) don't make me eager to deal with the Italian justice system.

So after pondering this, I found my answer - Italians are the fathers of the renaissance (science, art, fashion, etc.) and their traditions have made them who they are. Americans are the fathers of Revolution (yeah I went there) and freedom runs deep through the veins of all that we do (pls see Jell-O, Hamburger Helper, KrisKross, etc.). And yet - Italians have learned that survival means getting around the rules (laws) and Americans while we may cling to freedom, the one rule we have may be order (yeah, do not stand up before the plane has reached the gate; and yes, there is a line here) and while we might complain, for the most part we believe in the following and functioning of a system that we created by uprising. So to break it down for you = Italians love rules but don't follow laws; Americans don't believe in rules (acc)except when they are laws.

And with that, yes I recently bought some placemats and cringed when the stall owner called them American tablecloths.