Amasano y'imiryango

Muraho inshuti n'abavandimwe! This month's post comes courtesy of Nanny, who requested more information about family relationships. The information I present applies to what I know from where I live, which, may I remind you, is a small, rural Rwandan village. There are exceptions to almost everything I state, even in my village, and there are infinitely more in the bigger towns and cities, so just keep that in mind as you read. Above all, enjoy, and please contact me with any questions you may have.

Anywhere in the world, it is families who dictate the nature of society. They educate their children in the local culture and customs and right versus wrong and set the tone for how everyday interactions are conducted. I have not had much interaction with different kinds of families, so I am definitely not an expert, but I will attempt to address the “typical” Rwandan family structure, how children are raised, and the roles and responsibilities of family adults.

To talk about families, I should first mention a little bit about marriage, since in Rwanda it is frowned upon to start a family without having first married. (In fact, males are considered “boys” and females “girls” until they marry.) There is a cultural expectation to marry fairly young, and I have known people who were approaching 30 years of age and were beginning to worry a bit because they weren't married. Typically, men seem to be older than the women they marry (perhaps 28 years old compared to the woman's 22 years). After marrying, couples are expected to have children within a year. There are married couples in the Peace Corps, and they get a lot of questions about why they don't have children after having been married for such a long time.

This focus on having children shortly after marriage may help explain the durability of marriages (you know, stay together for the kids sort of thing). There is divorce in Rwanda, but from what I have seen and heard it is quite rare. In fact, I only know one person who has told me he has parents who are divorced. There are certainly some cases where divorce is probably a better option than staying together (e.g. domestic violence, alcohol abuse, emotional abuse, etc.), but, in general, husbands and wives tend to stay together until death do them part.

Staying together and the pressure to have children means that there is still a tendency to have many of them. There are a few reasons for this. In older times, the reasoning was that having many children ensured the survival of at least a few (and this reasoning is slow to change despite drastically increased child survival rates). Now, I would say that the main reasons for having so many children is to have extra help around the house and because many people still do not practice family planning and use birth control. The number of children per woman is decreasing, but it remains high in many rural areas.

Despite sometimes huge families, the nuclear family appears to be strong. For example, for newborn babies, mothers show them lots of love, caressing them, kissing them, playing with them. The babies are practically a part of the mother in their first year or so, spending most of their time on her back or breastfeeding, so the physical bond is very close and surely leads to a strong emotional bond as well. When children get older, much less public affection is shown to them, but it would be difficult to argue that they have just “fallen out of favor” with the parents who doted on them as a baby. The fact is that love is expressed differently in Rwanda, be it the familial type or the romantic type. For example, it is rare to see adult Rwandans in a romantic relationship walking down the road holding hands, and I have seen exactly one Rwandan couple kiss in my time here (one-and-a half years this month). The reason I can say with confidence that children are still loved as they grow older is that family ties are so strong. Children often live at home until they marry and start their own families: in my host family in Nyanza there were four children over 18, and three lived at home (one of whom was 27), while the fourth only lived in Kigali because that was where she had found a job, not because she was married. Even after marriage or moving out because of a job, people return home as often as they can to see their families on special occasions such as public holidays, anniversaries, etc. or even just the occasional weekend.

Now, as far as the functioning of the family goes, everyone helps out to ensure that the household runs properly. Often times (though there are undoubtedly exceptions), women clean, cook, and farm while men tend to animals (cows, goats, sheep), repair the house, and farm. Children help in whatever way they can, depending on their age and size: fetching water or firewood, cutting weeds, or maybe helping to take care of younger siblings.

Members of the extended family may also be included in a household. These tend to be mostly grandparents, since they are often incapable of keeping up their own home any more and there is a great respect for elders in the culture. There are also some orphans who live with extended family members such as uncles, aunts, or even grandparents. Having relatives such as uncles and aunts living with their nieces and nephews under normal circumstances is rarer, but I am sure there are instances when it happens. These cases would probably occur when they live near to the nuclear family, but they may live far away and rarely be seen.

The discussion of the family set-up brings up the question of how children are raised and by whom. As I stated above and in my blog post on children and childhood, infants are cared for almost exclusively by their mothers, practically living on their backs and at their breasts. Post-infancy, they are still mostly raised by their mothers, but as they become more mobile older siblings and other mothers in the village help raise them: it takes a village to raise a child, as they say. When a grandparent lives with the family, he/she helps raise the child, especially grandmothers. Grandparents may also help in the case of orphans. I have met one boy who is in the care of, and lives with, his grandmother only (he is not an orphan). Ultimately, grandparents do not seem to be relied upon to help care for children, but it may happen when circumstances such as proximity allow.

Now we'll look at the roles and responsibilities of family adults. As noted above, it is mostly the parents who are responsible for raising their children. At school, when we have parent meetings both mothers and fathers come, with attendance at around 60% women and 40% men, so they both are invested in their children's upbringing. To support the family, typically both parents work and raise whatever money they can. Women mostly work in and around the house and sell goods in the local markets, while men most often work outside the home, perhaps cultivating the fields or maybe as a bicycle or motorcycle taxi driver. Of course, there are many women who work outside of the home, as well, especially in the bigger towns and cities.

As for extended family members (uncles, aunts, and grandparents), they are not necessarily involved in the nuclear family, but they help out when they are around, stepping in to help raise the children or doing things around the house such as cooking to help the family. And, in reality, the village is like one big family. For the most part everybody knows everyone else, and anyone will help keep children out of trouble (especially other mothers and older women); help around the house in times of distress (e.g. a death); or lend materials and manpower to help with weddings, naming ceremonies, and other celebrations.

In the end, the family relationships found in Rwanda do not differ greatly from those in the U.S. Yes, there may be greater similarities with a more distant time in the U.S, particularly with respect to the roles of mothers and fathers and how children are expected to physically contribute to the household from a young age. And, love for children may not be as visibly apparent. (Some Peace Corps Volunteers complain about the lack of love and emotion shown towards others, but it seems to be there somewhere, just expressed in a different way.) Finally, the involvement of extended family members varies depending on the family's situation and physical proximity to other family members, but the respect for elders in the culture means that it is most often grandparents, if anybody, who live with their children and grandchildren, receiving care from their children while at the same time helping to care for their grandchildren. In the end, the families, with their intricate relations, are just a part of a bigger family, Rwandan society, and their job is to promote and advance this larger family.

Murabeho until next month!

Happy birthday this month: Mom, Kristen, Chelsea, Mackenzie, Granny, Uncle Paul

Next month's blog post: Land ownership (a request by Nanny)

Ubukiranutsi bw'uRwanda

Muraho! Muraho! This month's blog post is about justice in Rwanda. The idea for this topic came to me because, as many of you know, I teach judges (abacamanza) and other court staff English once per month. There are around 36 Peace Corps Volunteers who are involved in the program, teaching English at four different levels to people in the Rwandan justice system in four different locales. I teach level two (mostly applying learned grammar to basic situations like writing a resume or debate) in Nyanza, the capital of the Southern Province, alternating with two other Volunteers. The program was started last year with a pilot program, and two of the Volunteers involved in that stayed for a third year to run the program in addition to helping out with the English department at the Institute for Legal Practice and Development in Nyanza. The interesting thing about the justice system in Rwanda is that it is a mix of civil law, common law, and traditional courts to meet the various needs of the country. I will try to explain how each of these three parts work and their uses here in Rwanda.

Civil law is a system of law based on a codified set of core principles (think the Code of Hammurabi). This set of principles serves as the primary source of law, and judges have limited authority to interpret these codes. This means, too, that statutory law (the codes) are more important than case law (precedent). The other interesting thing is that there are no juries, though there may sometimes be a panel of judges.

So where is civil law found? It's primarily used in continental Europe, hence its use in Rwanda and many countries in Central Africa because of their colonial past. You will also find this system of law in China (with the exception of Hong Kong), Mexico, Russia, Switzerland, and the state of Louisiana in the U.S., just to name a few places.

I have been to see one case in a Rwandan courtroom (the acquaintance of a friend was a lawyer in the case), so I can tell a little bit about how it works in practice. From what I saw, the lawyers give a big summary of the case and all the evidence to support their side to the judge and other lawyer. They then have a chance to defend their case to the judge and the judge makes a decision. In the case I saw, their were a few witnesses, but there were no big fiery debates or impassioned arguments (though that may happen in some cases; I don't know). Civil law is the primary system used in Rwanda, and it is used for most cases. 

Common law is a system with which most of my readers will be more familiar. Instead of relying on a codified set of principles as the primary source of law, judge-made decisional law provides the intellectual framework. That is, cases are decided taking into account not only the laws “on the books” but also referring to prior court decisions, an action know as following precedent. In this type of system, judges have more leeway in their interpretation of laws (remember, as your high school government teacher always said, “The Constitution is a living, breathing document.”). Finally, this system provides both a judge and a jury in trials.

So where does one find common law? As the system was first used in England, starting Medieval Times, it can be found in England and most of its former colonies, as well as in countries in the British Commonwealth. There are some exceptions, of course, as most of Canada uses common law, but Québec, always looking to be different, uses a mix of common and civil law. Also, as noted above, Louisiana uses civil law, but the rest of the U.S. uses common law.

I cannot claim to be an expert on the either system of law; most of my experience with the common law system comes from watching the honorable Judge Judy. Basically, lawyers present their case to the judge and the jury through opening and closing statements, witnesses, and other evidence. The judge gives final instructions to the jury, they deliberate to reach a decision, and the decision is read out by the judge, who then sentences the defendant if he/she is found guilty. Of course, the process is much more complicated than that, and I encourage you to read more about it online or at your local library if you want to know more. In Rwanda, the system of common law was adopted upon becoming a member of both the East African Community (EAC), whose other four members are mostly old British colonies, and the British Commonwealth. In addition, as common law is the predominate system in commerce, and Rwanda wants to increase its foreign trade, it was important for them to adopt common law for trade purposes.

The final part of the Rwandan justice puzzle is the traditional justice system, known as gacaca ('soft grass,' the place where people come together, in Kinyarwanda). It is a system that was originally used to resolve small problems in the community or family, and it used an assembly of villagers presided over by elders where everyone had the right to speak. It came back into use after the 1994 Genocide when it was found that approximately 200 years of courtroom justice would be needed to try all of the accused. So, out came a law in 1996 on the organization and trial of crimes of genocide, which created four criminal categories. The first category was for planners, organizers, and leaders: those who acted in a position of authority, murderers of renown, and those suspected of sexual torture or rape. The second category was reserved for perpetrators, co-perpetrators, or accomplices of voluntary homicide or attacks against people leading to death and those who had the intention to kill and inflict wounds or who committed other grace acts of violence not leading to death. The third category included those who committed serious attacks without intention to kill. Finally, the fourth category was reserved for those who committed infractions against property. Perpetrators in the first category were tried in regular tribunals or the International Tribunal Court for Rwanda (ITCR), whereas gacaca was used for those falling into the other three categories (2-4). Those in the fourth category (infractions against property could only be punished by repayment, and the maximum sentence for others tried in gacaca was 30 years in prison. Perpetrators who were minors between the ages of 14 and 18 at the time of their crime were given punishment equal to one-half the time of an adult, and those who were under 14 years old at the time of their crime were not punished.

So, how did this new gacaca work in the trial of génocidaires? The trials were conducted in public, once per week in villages around the country. As in the traditional gacaca, all villagers could participate and interject, and there were no lawyers. The trials were ideally led by people who had followed a judicial formation and had a good reputation locally. Finally, suspects were encouraged to share all: full collaboration with the court could result in a half-sentence and/or work in a prison camp (Travaux d'Intérêt Général, or TIG) instead of prison. (There is a TIG camp in my village, and they work to repair and improve roads in the area.)

Of course, with reversion to a traditional justice system to try those accused of crimes of genocide, there has been some criticism, especially from the outside world. The first, and main, criticism is that the accused are denied representation in the form of a lawyer, so its fairness is called into question. There are also issues of false accusations, intimidation of witnesses, and acts of revenge related to the trials. In addition, because some of the trials happened many years after the crimes were committed, and they were based on witnesses' testimonies, the memory of witnesses has been called into question.

To conclude, Rwanda's legal system could best be characterized as adaptation to circumstances. First, they adopted civil law, abandoning a gacaca after colonization. Then, with the 1994 Genocide came the challenge of trying a large number of perpetrators and the reintroduction of gacaca. Finally, membership in the EAC and British Commonwealth, along with a desire for more access to global markets led to the adoption of common law, notably for commerce. Due to its past, present, and future, Rwanda has a mixed justice system, one that is moving forward just like the rest of the country.

Happy birthday this month: Hana
Next month's blog topic: Family dynamics (suggested by Nannie)

Kurinda ubuzima mu Rwanda

Muraho mwese! Mumeze mute (How are you)? It's time for another blog post about Rwanda. This month, I'm tackling an issue requested by Grandma: healthcare in Rwanda. I'm not as educated as many others when it comes to this, so I've embedded a link to a New York Times article which you can access by clicking on the title of this post. Also, there is another link to follow for more information: http://www.jointlearningnetwork.org/content/mutuelles-de-sante

Healthcare is an important issue in any country. I remember being asked about the American healthcare system many times when I was studying in France, and who can forget the great healthcare debate in Congress in 2010? In Rwanda, the topic is of particular interest, as there are a number of health challenges facing this small country, including malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and complications related to childbirth. Rwanda's response to these challenges has been to implement a national health insurance system and build an extensive network of health centers and hospitals to provide care to its citizens.

The access to healthcare, as far as the facilities go, is very good in Rwanda. There are basic health centers at the sector level (a sector is an administrative division, similar to a county in the U.S.). With 416 sectors in a country the size of Maryland, this means that people do not have to travel far to get to one of these centers. I estimate that it would be no more than a 2-hour walk to the nearest health center for any Rwandan. At these health centers, basic services are offered, including basic vaccinations (e.g. Hepatitis A, B, and C), simple operations (e.g. circumcision), family planning, pre-/post-natal care, essential/generic drugs, and HIV/AIDS or other testing (depending on the facilities). At the health center in my district, most of their work deals with pregnancies and childbirth, but they've also done condom demonstrations and HIV/AIDS testing at my school, free vaccinations against HPV for girls in the area, and free circumcisions for males in the area.

Bigger hospitals are found in larger areas; there are two within 8 kilometers of my village in two different directions. These hospitals offer the same services as the small health centers, plus caesarian sections, other minor/major surgical operations, medical imaging (where available), more blood tests (most have laboratories), and an ambulance to transport patients who need it. I've briefly seen one of the nearby hospitals, and the facilities are basic but certainly adequate. I, myself, have only ever been a patient at the biggest hospital in the country: King Faisal Hospital in Kigali. I went there for a doctor visit, and it was a very nice hospital from what I saw, though I didn't see what kind of equipment and labs they have.

Access to care in these facilities is assured to almost all Rwandans through health insurance. In 2003, Rwanda launched the Community-Based Health System (CBHS), officially requiring every Rwandan to possess some form of health insurance. Of course, in reality not everybody has health insurance, but according to figures I saw a staggering 92% do! Compare this to the U.S., where between 85% and 90% have health insurance, and it's clear that Rwanda is doing something right. Certainly the cost of the insurance is a contributing factor to the success of the program: the cost for the public plan is 1000 RWF per year, or roughly $1.67 each time the earth orbits the sun. Patients pay a 10% service fee up front for each visit, but that is the only additional cost.

Health insurance is provided through companies called mutuelles, a French word, and there are two major ones in Rwanda: Mutuelle de Sante and La Rwandaise d'Assurance Maladie (RAMA). In addition, there are Military Medical Insurance (MMI) and private insurance companies to round out the coverage options. As this is a government program, it is financed as much as possible by the Rwandan government through their revenues. But, as Rwanda still relies heavily on foreign aid, the mutuelles program is also partially funded by foreign governments and NGOs (for example, The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria covers premiums for around 1.5 million Rwandans according to one figure I saw).

Despite the success of the CBHS in Rwanda, there remain challenges. The first among these is the cost of healthcare. Although the cost for insurance is low, some still cannot afford it, whether from large family size (the 1000 RWF is per person) or simply an inadequate income. Those without insurance often do not go to receive healthcare; one Peace Corps Volunteer who works in a health center told me that probably fewer than 5% of their patients do not have health insurance. I have also heard stories of people being turned away because they do not have a health insurance card. Besides the personal cost, there is some worry about the financial stability of the entire system, especially in light of the fact that so much foreign aid is needed to support it. Perhaps adding to the financial questions is the fact that payments are not based on a capacity to pay. That means that the farmer who lives next door and earns perhaps 15,000 RWF per month pays the same 1000 RWF each year as the mayor who earns 300,000 RWF each month.

Another challenge facing the healthcare system in Rwanda is a lack of adequate infrastructure and facilities. Poor roads make it difficult to transport sick people to hospitals, especially during the rainy season, and there is often a lack of sufficient laboratories and/or diagnostic equipment in the smaller hospitals and health centers.

Finally, a lack of education is the third challenge that Rwanda's healthcare system faces. There is still a lack of information on the services available in some instances, such as family planning, and there remain misconceptions about diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria and how they are spread.

To address these challenges, efforts are being made in many areas. First, there is a general push to raise the standard of living for all to make healthcare more affordable. To address the problem of lacking infrastructure, roads are constantly being improved, mostly by tigistes (accused génocidaires who live in camps and work on roads for their prison sentence), and more health centers are being equipped with a reliable supply of electricity instead of relying on solar panels, thus allowing them to have more modern equipment and laboratories. In order to educate people about health problems and what services are offered at the health centers, there are radio programs such as BBC's “Urunana,” which talks about health issues; billboards about malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis; and even igitenge (colorful African cloth) proclaiming the need to protect against malaria. Finally, each village has three community health workers to help with education and local projects. They are involved in the areas of family planning, social affairs, and aiding pregnant women. One of them came to our house a few months ago to see how many mosquito nets we have in an effort to fight malaria.

Rwanda may face many challenges when it comes to healthcare, but they have in place a system that affords most people coverage (more, in fact than the U.S.). As one Volunteer who was finishing her service told me, “When things aren't going so well, I just have to remind myself that at least there's a system.” Continued improvement in infrastructure, financing of the system, and education of the general population should only lead to further improvements, a better system, and a higher quality of life for Rwandans.

Happy birthday this month: Chris
Next month's topic: Rwanda's Justice System