There are so many different thoughts racing through my head since I’ve gotten here, some of which have been brought out even more by our drive through the rural country to Akagera, all of which seem interconnected, and none of which I seem to be able to make complete sense of. As Mike has said, our internships are producing many doubts, mostly surrounding our overall effectiveness as human rights advocates. I really hoped to be more hands-on with my work here, and I thought ahead of time that the focus of my role at NAR would be on female empowerment, and getting the girls in the various youth clubs more involved and in leadership roles. However, we were not told that most of the clubs are faraway in another province, and it takes much organizing (and money out of our own pockets, despite the fact that we’ve paid internship fees and have no income while here) to be able to visit. Also, we found out that they only meet an average of once a month, and because we are only here for three months, it does not give me the time to be able to observe the girls, get to know them, and develop a plan of action for their involvement, so the whole thing seems to be a futile idea. It also raises the question of, “Who am I, this American Muzungu who has barely spent a week in this country, to tell others how things should be run?” It seems very ethnocentric of me, and adds to that awful notion of the white humanitarian swooping in to save the Africans from themselves. This is an image that is evoked all too often, but difficult to avoid when I am, in fact, white, with the desire to see Africa flourish.
A project that seems as if it can actually be fruitful is our development of a human rights curriculum to be taught at the NAR youth clubs. Most of the clubs are run out of secondary schools, but some are at universities and others are unaffiliated with any school, so our challenge is to create a curriculum that is adaptable for any education level, and relevant to the lives of Rwandan youth. Even this, which is precisely what the majority of my college education was spent preparing me for, has made me question everything. How important is it in the long run to teach every child what her rights are according to these United Nations documents, when she has been working since a young age just to have enough food to eat? Are these international laws really relevant to her everyday life? That is, of course, the biggest debate surrounding human rights, and in the end I always go back to the fact that it is imperative to have these international standards and to work towards enforcing them everywhere so that all peoples may have a fair quality of life. But lately I’ve been feeling that I need a career that has more direct action. I think that is why I enjoyed my job at the National Kidney Foundation more than I originally expected to. Although I was not directly involved in the patient advocacy, I could see how people were being helped by our organization. Even my job seemed to offer assistance fairly often, which is what made it worthwhile. This has created a whole new moral dilemma in my mind. Everyone needs some sort of help in their lives, this is undeniable. If it is my passion in life to help others, is it morally superior to seek out those who are in most desperate need, or is any sort of help to anyone who needs it, good? In other words, is assistance at all levels worthwhile or should I continue to find the poorest or most exploited people to donate my time and efforts to? Will that just leave me burnt out by the age of 25? It’s a discussion that came up again between Mike and I on our drive home from the park. We drove through some of the most destitute areas in the world, where the villages lived entirely off of the land, with perhaps no monetary income. Yet we had to wonder, what sorts of things could we even donate to these villages that would be helpful? They didn’t have fancy things, but they had food and water and a nearby hospital funded by the Clinton Foundation and run by Partners in Health, which is more than we are able to say about areas of our own country. Parts of my own birthplace of New Orleans are still completely uninhabitable, and nothing is being done about it; meanwhile, our own government has established a huge USAid facility just down the road from our house in Kigali. It provokes the question everyone asked when I told them I was going to Africa- "Why are you helping there when so many people in your own country need help?" I'm not by any means saying that we should not be giving as much money as we do to Rwanda, but how is it that we can afford to do so, yet an entire major city is still in shambles after almost 3 years? Part of the reason is probably the guilt the US feels for not acting in the 1994 genocide, but how long will it take before they take responsibility for their inaction after Katrina? It makes me so angry to think about, and even a bit guilty for not pursuing a job in New Orleans as I had previously said I would do upon graduation.

I don't even know the point I am trying to convey with this post, so I'm sorry if I've just confused everyone who read it. I just needed to try to express what I am thinking and feeling, in the hope that it would help me figure out some answers. That's a negative.

xoSteph