From Linda Beardsley - November 6, 2017 - Goin’ on Safari



November 6, 2017

Goin’ on Safari

At 5:00 AM, we were heading out of Kigali for a two-day excursion at Akagera National Park in the Eastern Province, a two and a half hour drive from the city through some of the most dramatic terrain in Rwanda.  This surely is a country of a Thousand Hills and an agricultural economy that cultivates and harvests in dramatic fashion up steep terraced slopes of rich red soil. The drive also reveals a Rwanda very different than the bustling, sophisticated Kigali scene.

Barely 30 minutes out of the city, the villages and open markets that mark these areas are already busy with many people on the road. Most are walking or leading bicycles up the steep hills laden with huge stalks of bananas and burlap bags bulging with produce. They are all heading towards the market areas. There are also many people, men and women of all ages working in the fields that line the highway. At 6:00 AM there is already a great deal of work going on in these rural sections of Rwanda.

By 6:30, 6:45 we begin to see the children dressed in  their various colorful uniforms heading to schools along the busy highway. We see a few children riding on the back of bicycles, but most students are walking in groups or alone as the sun is brightening the sky. We saw one student reading a book as she walked along. But we also saw children who appeared to be of elementary and secondary school ages without school uniforms. Some of them were helping adults transport the produce to the markets. Others were watching the commotion of the morning, some silent, some laughing and waving at the traffic going by. One assumes these children are not enrolled in school because their families have not been able to pay for the uniforms that all families must purchase for students, whether for the public or private schools. Universal education at K-12 is still a challenge for the policy makers in Rwanda.

I cannot help but think about the contrasting scenes of the past 4 days.  The celebration of the Maranyundo graduates, their enthusiasm for moving into careers or post-secondary education, imagining futures as part of the new Rwandan middle class in which they exercise the motto of their school…respect, responsibility and leadership. In this early Monday morning scene along a rural highway the scene is of an agricultural economy marked by manual labor and technology of past centuries. Thinking about this contrast…the rush to compete in the 21st century with the stark realty of the agricultural economy in these rural villages one wants to believe that this brave African nation will resolve the economic inequalities that frustrate all our economies. But our own nation has not resolved the inequalities so apparent in many aspects of life. Can education be expected to resolve the complex circumstances of economic inequalities?

These are rather deep issues to consider in the early morning headed for safari in the Akagera National Park.

November 6, 2017

On Safari

“You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions.”    Karen Blixen
                                                                                                              Out of Africa

There was something about being on safari today that made me feel as though I was channeling Meryl Streep when she played Karen Blixen in Out of Africa. I have always loved that film; I’ve seen it many times. But I don’t think I truly appreciated that film of the life of that remarkable writer until I had experienced the Akagera National Park on safari.

The word safari has such an interesting history, as do so many of the words from the colonial era that saw European nations bringing “civilization” to Africa. Safari is a Swahili term that means journey and came to mean a journey into the East African bush to either hunt or observe and admire wild animals. In Out of Africa, Denys Finch Hatton, the brash handsome British adventurer who became Blixen’s lover, included fine china, elegant dinner and Mozart on the Victrola as safari accouterments’. He represented the tradition of gentlemen tracking game for sport and creating a whole mythology about exploring the Africa landscape.

Our safari was for exploring and observing animals in their natural habitat, and it was amazing. The Akagera National Park had once been a park that included both Rwandan and Tanzanian boundaries in 1934. But after 1994, the park was redrawn to include only the Rwandan land. Today it is a wonderful tourist attraction and model of animal protection.

“No domestic animal can be as still as a wild animal. The civilized people have lost the aptitude of stillness, and must take lessons in silence from the wild before they are accepted by it.”  Karen Blixen in Out of Africa

Among the animals we saw were elephants, hippos, warthogs, water buffalo, giraffes, antelopes, zebras, baboons, three types of monkeys, and all sorts of birds. I can’t really describe how beautiful, how magnificent these animals are as they make their way through the day. Some are bold, fast and skedaddle away as they feel the approach of the Range Rover with its camera-toting humans. Others, like the giraffe, are careful, modest and can be so still that they are part of the landscape, literally. When  I saw this stillness it literally took my breath away…and I understood anew what Blixen meant when she described the “aptitude of stillness” that we must learn in order to really be at peace, with one’s self, with one another, with  “the wild.”

We did see something quite extraordinary that amazed even our driver and our guide. We saw a leopard kill an antelope. We caught the end of the chase as the leopard felled the antelope and took its face in its mouth. I thought the kill would be a bloody affair. Instead, the leopard clamped her/his jaws around the mouth and nose of the antelope and smothered it to death. It took awhile for the antelope to die. After that, we watched the  leopard for a few minutes as s/he sat and watched us watching the kill. We rode ever so slowly by, not wanting to interrupt the conquest and leopard’s chance to eat the beast. Later, on our drive back to the lodge, the driver went by the spot where we had seen the kill. Sure enough, we saw the carcass of the antelope had been dragged to a space under a bush. The guide explained that the leopard would first drink the blood and then eat what s/he needed. S/he would take the rest and either hang it from a tree (although the antelope was pretty big) or hide it to eat another day…before the carcass began to smell. So that kill represented at least two days of food and the nourishment of the blood. The leopard would not hunt again until the antelope was finished.

“When you have caught the rhythm of Africa, you find out that it is the same in all her music.”  Karen Blixen

And so our group of compassionate women from Boston watched as the leopard killed the antelope…absolutely still and fascinated… in awe, even, of the power and raw necessity of the kill. I guess we had been caught up in the rhythm of this majestic landscape. At one place, atop the crest of a hill from which we could see the lakes , valleys and mountains of  the area, I thought I was actually looking at the whole world and all that it could teach me about space, time and truth. Karen Blixen described what I saw today exactly right…

“The views were immensely wide. Everything that you saw made for greatness and freedom, and unequalled nobility.”


From Linda Beardsley - Short Takes on a Two Day Celebration

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Short Takes on a Two Day Celebration

Front Page News, Baby! The Sunday edition of the Kigali Times had as its headline, Quality education is the best legacy – First Lady. Yes, the lead story and pictures were referring to the graduation ceremony at the Maranyundo School at which Madame  proclaimed in her keynote, ”Education is the best heritage we can hand to our children.”  The story also included her pride in touring the new Library and STEM Learning Center. The tour of the Labs, Maker Space and Computer Space showcased students demonstrating projects in chemistry, physics, biology and computer science. Among the projects that impressed the dignitaries was an app that 3 first year high school girls developed to help peers study for science and math tests. They had won an award at a Girls in Computer competition last month.

The ceremony was two days of celebration. The events included opportunities to meet with the graduates, speeches, poems, singing, a blessing by the bishop, dancing, lunches, dancing, skits, dancing. Rwandan people now how to celebrate and be joyful as a community.

For my Role of Story students: I had a conversation with several girls at my lunch table about Americanah. They had all read it and found Adichie a clear and captivating author. I asked them what they thought the main lesson that she wanted readers to take from the novel. Replies included: “Racism is a barrier that needs to be broken. Life is a struggle but don’t be afraid to engage in the struggle if what you want is important to you and good for others. Be true to yourself.” When I asked the what they thought she wanted them to think about education in the US and Africa there was a re-sounding reply…”You should never take your education for granted because not everyone can afford to have the right to a good education that you have…not everyone has teachers who understand your ideas and culture.”  And then this…”Each of us has a voice that must be heard, an identity that must be respected.”

There are traffic jams throughout the roadways that lead into Kigali from the outlying areas. Slow moving farm vehicles include enormous cattle trucks transporting enormous cattle. And scooters weaving and dodging through traffic and pedestrians. Not for the feint of heart. Horns are part of the sounds of the city.

The school has come so far. The  campus, the buildings and the landscaping far surpass what the members of the Maranyundo Initiative  could have imagined in 2005 when they planted a tiny tree on the former site of a Tutsi concentration camp and promised that the site would be a school for girls, a sign of hope in a rebuilding nation. Seeing  the gradating high school girls…proud of their accomplishments yet sincerely grateful for the support of family, friends and teachers is so rewarding. But hearing the entire school, (now 400 girls where there were 60!) Singing the school song together…amazing.

Yes, “Education is the best heritage we can hand to our children”…and to ourselves.

In the first October 2015 post that I wrote in this blog I began with this passage:

Arriving in Rwanda and navigating the first night and day in the country, are always an adventure. In this nation that is rapidly building new infrastructure, developing new ideas and economies, there are always signs of this progress blended with familiar signs, sounds and smells.

That description remains apt to describe our arrival from Amsterdam to the warm, spicey darkness of the airport in Kigali. I always forget that arriving at the airport means you walk off the plane into the night air instead of through a covered tunnel that has been pushed up to the arriving plane as in most arrival terminals. In Rwanda, you exit the plane that has been your seat on the world for 9 hours into the soft night air and walk to the entrance of the Customs Hall where you show your passport, apply and pay for your 30-day visa and retrieve your luggage. An adventure, indeed.  The customs officials are thorough, deliberate, careful. These routines take time and patience.

This trip to Rwanda promises to be different for me in many ways. First, it is a trip for celebration not work. I am traveling with my colleague and fellow educator, Jane O’Connor (and 40 other Maranyundo Girls School supporters) to attend the first graduation  of the STEM High School for Girls on the Maranyundo Campus. Besides celebrating the achievements of this first group of 57 young women who majored in STEM disciplines, it celebrates the commitment of their teachers, the sisters of the Benebikira Order who administer the school, the families who support the school.  It is also  a celebration of the remarkable partnership that is represented by the Maranyundo Initiative…the visionary women of both Boston and Rwanda who took a pressing need…a school for girls beyond elementary grades…and supported it to become one of the most successful schools in the country. It is a celebration of the families of the girls enrolled in the middle school, who sought the support of the Initiative to build a high school on the campus that would prepare the graduates for post-secondary school studies and employment in the rapidly growing technology sectors of the Rwandan economy.

Secondly, it is a trip on which I will stay in a hotel and not at the girls school, itself. As many of you know, staying at the school is an experience that I treasure. This time, I will be a visitor like everyone else. I will not wake to that gentle light and hear the rooster crow and the soft lowing of the cows in the stable. I will not hear the girls gather at the meeting space outside the administration building and listen to Sr. Juvenal  introduce the day to the students. I will not follow the routines and schedules of the school day, sit in classrooms or spend time with teachers in the library or the Teacher’s Work Space. This trip, I will be a guest, as it were. So I will have a different vantage point from which to experience the graduation and the life of the school.

Besides traveling with the Maranyundo Board members, I am traveling with new supporters of the Initiative. Among the group I am traveling with are Jane O’Connor’s daughter Erin and two of Erin’s friends. They are traveling to Rwanda for the first time. It is so interesting to see the city, to hear the story of Rwanda’s amazing growth since the devastation of the genocide through Erin and her friends. I always come away with new insights to stuff I thought I knew for sure.

One thing I do know for sure every time I enter this country, the development of the infra structure is amazing. It continues to grow and thrive. Around the central city, tall buildings of interesting architectural design are everywhere. One sight which greeted us as we came into the central city last night was the new Convention Center whose centerpiece sports a dome which is lighted with the colors of the Rwandan flag: green, yellow and teal. There are new hotels, elegant and chic, like the new Marriot across from the Serena. New government buildings, new buildings at the University of Rwanda, new banks, new shopping areas.

This morning when we went out to the Genocide Memorial and Museum in central Kigali, our driver took us through the “new city” of Kigali. It was an area of the city that was known as the “bush” before 1994. During the genocide, it was a place where many Tutsis fled as horror came upon their neighborhoods or villages. As a result, it became a place where killers hunted down their prey and left the bodies to be eaten by wild dogs and other animals. A place of death and evil.

Today the area is a place of prosperity with lovely stone homes, gated communities for the rising Rwandan middle class and schools.  Moses, our bus driver, who was 7 in 1994 and lost all of his family except for his dad, is so enthusiastic about these  signs of prosperity.  He gives credit to “our brave president” and feels that he is benefiting from the security and “we-are-all-Rwandese” spirit that gives him hope. In fact, he told us that he is expecting his first child in December. “I am rebuilding my family,” he said softly.

And so the signs of prosperity and the building boom in Kigali and its suburbs is a rebuilding that is reflected in families that are rebuilding. What an interesting time to be celebrating the graduation of accomplished young women whose school motto… Respect, Responsibility and Leadership…are three ideals so needed right now in a nation developing  rapidly.



Hear from Linda Beardsley - Return to Rwanda Once Again

Return to Rwanda Once Again

In the first October 2015 post that I wrote in this blog I began with this passage:

Arriving in Rwanda and navigating the first night and day in the country, are always an adventure. In this nation that is rapidly building new infrastructure, developing new ideas and economies, there are always signs of this progress blended with familiar signs, sounds and smells.

That description remains apt to describe our arrival from Amsterdam to the warm, spicey darkness of the airport in Kigali. I always forget that arriving at the airport means you walk off the plane into the night air instead of through a covered tunnel that has been pushed up to the arriving plane as in most arrival terminals. In Rwanda, you exit the plane that has been your seat on the world for 9 hours into the soft night air and walk to the entrance of the Customs Hall where you show your passport, apply and pay for your 30-day visa and retrieve your luggage. An adventure, indeed.  The customs officials are thorough, deliberate, careful. These routines take time and patience.

This trip to Rwanda promises to be different for me in many ways. First, it is a trip for celebration not work. I am traveling with my colleague and fellow educator, Jane O’Connor (and 40 other Maranyundo Girls School supporters) to attend the first graduation  of the STEM High School for Girls on the Maranyundo Campus. Besides celebrating the achievements of this first group of 57 young women who majored in STEM disciplines, it celebrates the commitment of their teachers, the sisters of the BenebikiraOrder who administer the school, the families who support the school. It is also  a celebration of the remarkable partnership that is represented by the MaranyundoInitiative…the visionary women of both Boston and Rwanda who took a pressing need…a school for girls beyond elementary grades…and supported it to become one of the most successful schools in the country. It is a celebration of the families of the girls enrolled in the middle school, who sought the support of the Initiative to build a high school on the campus that would prepare the graduates for post-secondary school studies and employment in the rapidly growing technology sectors of the Rwandan economy.

Secondly, it is a trip on which I will stay in a hotel and not at the girls school, itself. As many of you know, staying at the school is an experience that I treasure. This time, I will be a visitor like everyone else. I will not wake to that gentle light and hear the rooster crow and the soft lowing of the cows in the stable. I will not hear the girls gather at the meeting space outside the administration building and listen to Sr. Juvenal  introduce the day to the students. I will not follow the routines and schedules of the school day, sit in classrooms or spend time with teachers in the library or the Teacher’s Work Space. This trip, I will be a guest, as it were. So I will have a different vantage point from which to experience the graduation and the life of the school.

Besides traveling with the Maranyundo Board members, I am traveling with new supporters of the Initiative. Among the group I am traveling with are Jane O’Connor’s daughter Erin and two of Erin’s friends. They are traveling to Rwanda for the first time. It is so interesting to see the city, to hear the story of Rwanda’s amazing growth since the devastation of the genocide through Erin and her friends. I always come away with new insights to stuff I thought I knew for sure.

One thing I do know for sure every time I enter this country, the development of the infra structure is amazing. It continues to grow and thrive. Around the central city, tall buildings of interesting architectural design are everywhere. One sight which greeted us as we came into the central city last night was the new Convention Center whose centerpiece sports a dome which is lighted with the colors of the Rwandan flag: green, yellow and teal. There are new hotels, elegant and chic, like the new Marriot across from the Serena. New government buildings, new buildings at the University of Rwanda, new banks, new shopping areas.

This morning when we went out to the Genocide Memorial and Museum in central Kigali, our driver took us through the “new city” of Kigali. It was an area of the city that was known as the “bush” before 1994. During the genocide, it was a place where many Tutsis fled as horror came upon their neighborhoods or villages. As a result, it became a place where killers hunted down their prey and left the bodies to be eaten by wild dogs and other animals. A place of death and evil.

Today the area is a place of prosperity with lovely stone homes, gated communities for the rising Rwandan middle class and schools. Moses, our bus driver, who was 7 in 1994 and lost all of his family except for his dad, is so enthusiastic about these  signs of prosperity.  He gives credit to “our brave president” and feels that he is benefiting from the security and “we-are-all-Rwandese” spirit that gives him hope. In fact, he told us that he is expecting his first child in December. “I am rebuilding my family,” he said softly.

And so the signs of prosperity and the building boom in Kigali and its suburbs is a rebuilding that is reflected infamilies that are rebuilding. What an interesting time to be celebrating the graduation of accomplished young women whose school motto… Respect, Responsibility and Leadership…are three ideals so needed right now in a nation developing rapidly.