What happens when the reason you traveled across the ocean to a foreign country becomes an obstacle to the very work you hoped to accomplish? As a passionate photographer, I was adamantly seeking opportunities to link my desire to eradicate extreme poverty with my creativity as an artist. I was under the impression that the Go Ed study abroad program would easily allow me to do this, especially during the month long practicum which was part of our program. Never in my life had reality turned out to be so different than my original expectations.
After spending the first five weeks of the semester in Kampala, Uganda, I headed towards my long anticipated practicum placement in Eastern Rwanda. My position was Community Transformation Development Officer and photo journalist. Studying at Houghton College in New York, majoring in Communications with a concentration in Visual Media and minoring in Art and International Development, these positions seemed the perfect fit for me. The goal of the community development position was to discover baseline information in the community in areas such as agriculture, income, health, education, sanitation through interviewing local leaders, technical workers, and community members. Through the information gained I hoped to understand how to then photograph the life and culture of Rwanda. I even hoped that I could add the pictures I took to my portfolio for Graduate school.
As the days passed I pulled my camera out a little bit slower and less often. I cringed as we sat in interviews asking the same exasperating questions that provided no real information about people’s lives. Frustration overwhelmed me. These emotions were an immediate physical response to a deeper struggle that I would come to understand through much thought and processing.
Mindset Obstacle
One of the impediments that we kept encountering was the mindset that placed the white man at an elevated status. This outlook was a result of the historical impact of colonialism and the later learned dependence on foreign aid such as NGO’s (non-governmental organizations). How we witnessed it surface was through the way the Rwandans acted towards us and the responses to our survey questions.
My partner Ben and I were treated like celebrities. We could not step out of house without dozens of children from the nearby school noticing our white skin and blonde hair immediately. They’d yell, “era mazungu, era mazungu!!” (see the white person, see the white person) and rush up the dusty path towards us. The strange part was that conversation did not necessarily follow these meetings. Both adults and children would often stand and stare without attempting to bridge the language divide. Walking anywhere in those first few days was near impossible because so many people would surround us, pushing and hitting each other to get closer. It got to the point that I become incredibly uncomfortable with the amount of attention we were getting. One day I asked one of our Rwandan supervisors about this and he said, “when people here see you they immediately think you are rich, educated, important, blessed, different, and incredibly special. They want to be able to say that you said “hi” to them, or shook their hand.” Ben and I just stared at each other in disbelief. Ben said what we were both thinking “that is so untrue, we are no more special than they are”. This mindset was a reoccurring theme not only in the stares and exclamations, but also in our conversations with the many local leaders, church leaders, and community members that we interviewed. One of our questions was “what is your vision for your community?” the leaders would respond with something along the lines of, “we want our city to look like Washington, New York, or Paris”. Development towards western ways seemed to be on everyone’s mind, not only the leaders. People would respond similarly even in the most remote corners of the village, areas that you could only get to by specially hired motorcycles or by walking far distances on old gaming trails. The answer was continually, “Our vision for our family and for our community is to develop and be at peace... like your country”. Even the young teachers working at the nearby school would mention how superior America’s ways were to their own in statements like “Americans are always honest and punctual. We are not. We want to become like Americans”.
Another impact that this mindset had on the community was a dependence on foreign assistance. Rwandans seemed to link the idea that if western ways were superior then their help was required for development to happen. During interviews we experienced blunt requests for provision of materials or funding. This reliance seemed to be escalating to unhealthy levels and stunting the growth of the community in many ways. Rather than asking hard questions and attempting to tackle problems themselves, people would resign to expecting NGO’s or the government to do the work for them.
Because of this mindset, the development questions we asked did not seem helpful. We were discovering problems in the community but we were not addressing the larger problems that were causing the issues. The community members were not ignorant; they understood basic things like unclean drinking water resulting in illness, education being necessary for progress and that they should save money. The real issues were that they were so overworked that little time was left for things like waiting at the overcrowded clean water pump, relocating to less swampy living areas, or finding extra money to send their children to secondary school. The deeply pitted dirt roads were awful, therefore the value of their crops at the market dropped significantly. They were unable to predict if they would have food or money in the future because it depended on their crop and if the cheap seeds they planted would grow in the fickle rainy weather. We could not provide fixes to all these problems; it was beyond our control. Therefore asking questions seemed like we were doing little more than reinforce dependence on outside help. Lists of problems and requests were laid before us while we become more aware that this community could never be cured by us but only through the empowerment of the people themselves. The long bred inferior/dependency complex needed to be addressed and therefore we needed to be asking questions that forced people to look at their strengths and how they themselves could overcome these issues. New thinking needed to be encouraged, not stereotypes reinforced.
Strengths Discovered
Part of the reason I felt so passionate to encourage a focus on strengths was because I had experienced an abundance of them. The three most prominent were; their strong relational focus, their patience and their passion
Rwandans’ relational focus came out in many unexpected ways, one of them being how they chose to spend their time. You may have heard that African’s are not known for being very time conscious, and it can certainly be true. “African time” people will affectionately or exasperatedly call it. During my time I have experienced my fair share of this in many different forms and have had my moments of frustration. Over time I realized that it was not solely a negative thing, but rather an expression of deep and beautiful value. In North America we are governed by our watches, often resulting in de-valuing of anyone or anything that gets in the way of our schedule. Rwandans are governed by their relationships, constantly taking and making time for each person they meet. This is evident in the way they greet each person they meet while walking. It is seen as severely disrespectful to walk past someone without a simple “hello” or “how are you”. Often these conversations can be quite lengthy if you allow them to, since when one asks “how are you” a real answer is given and expected.
Another strength I saw was abnormal amounts of patience. One rainy day over practicum I saw a prime example of this. It was raining, and our supervisor decided we would brave the bad weather. This was a strange occurrence, because usually if it rained in the small community we were in, life literally stopped moving. We could not travel anywhere because our only means of transportation, hired motorcycles could not drive on the muddy dirt roads. This particular day our supervisor instructed the motorcyclists to come despite the rain because we could not afford further delays in our work. No one was surprised when this resulted in much walking up hills as the motorcyclists attempted to slip and slide up the steep, muddy slopes. What was shocking was the reaction of our Rwandan drivers. Both our supervisor and the hired motorcyclist were completely calm and even laughing. There was no hint of stress or annoyance, just patience and determination to overcome the current obstacle.
A further strength I saw was the extraordinary amount of passion that people had for each other. A beautiful example of this was the young teachers working at the nearby school whom I had the privilege of befriending. Recently graduated from teachers’ school, these nineteen to thirty year olds literally dripped with passion for their students. While sitting over dinner one day I had one young male teacher explain to me why a teacher was so important in students’ lives. He said, “A teacher is not just someone who teaches you to count, a teacher is someone who shows you how to live your life. These children are intelligent; they watch and mimic how you communicate, the way you dress, and how you treat those around you. They will never exceed the teacher therefore the teacher must model every kind of integrity, patience, strength, kindness, and wisdom. Being educated does not only mean being knowledgeable, it means being a better human being in general. We want to produce high achievers but more than anything we want to produce good people who can achieve great things”. These words were restated in many ways by other teachers and displayed through their actions. Rising early to begin work at 7:15 in the morning, they taught classes of sixty plus children until 4:45 with a fifteen minute lunch break. After classes finished they organized sports for the children and led evening clubs focusing on raising awareness among the students. Anti-genocide and anti-aids were two of the biggest focuses within the clubs. Despite how underpaid and overworked they were, they never seemed to lose their stamina or passion. They were resourceful and creative, challenging their students to be critical thinkers. Care was shown in every way possible to each student through smiles, kind words, and encouragement. These children were their life; it did not seem an option to do otherwise.
These strengths and many others challenged and inspired me. My worry was that very few Rwandans seemed proud or even aware of these strengths because of the overwhelming focus on the negatives and needs.
In Conclusion
With my new understanding of both the struggles and the strengths in Rwanda came the weighty realization that I was now responsible to display the real story of the country through my photographs. Currently the outside world has a skewed understanding that Rwanda is solely a poverty stricken nation where genocide took place. Part of this is ignorance, while part is also the choice photographers have made in the past to only document images of certain things that display poverty and war, like children in torn rags or brutalized bodies in mass graves. The focus has been on the atrocities and the issues while the positives have been completely overlooked. This perception does not only minimize the outside worlds understanding of the true Rwanda, but also harms Rwanda’s ability to recognize the strengths within its culture. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We can either help or hinder this process with the story we tell through the pictures we take.
With this mind blowing realization I decided I must stop taking pictures until I could learn how to do it properly. I will not and cannot add to a detrimental process that has already caused enough damage to this country I love. Therefore I will begin with a new challenge of exploring creative ways to discover how to justly tell the world the real story of Rwanda. I want to tell of the passionate teachers who toil and sweat to train the next generation how to respect, love, and lead their country. I want to boast about the people who care so deeply about their fellow humans that at any sign of trouble 15 people would rush to my aid. This and much more is the Rwanda I’ve come to love. This is the Rwanda I will somehow learn how to show the world.
Passion?
Hope?
Strength?
Do these pictures depict to someone who has never been here the depth they do to me? Is there more than poverty? Genocide? Underdevelopment? Do you see the beauty yet?
Is this getting closer to hitting the mark?
You tell me.
Is this getting closer to hitting the mark?
You tell me.
