Permanent PMT is one way of describing your emotional state here. Not in a constantly cranky sense, but more in that you cannot judge how you will react or what will set you off – will you be beaming in 5 seconds or bawling? Take a normal morning. I leave my house and the kids start screaming ecstatically “Maaaaggggie!” and run up to clutch my leg. Sweet. Now beaming. I walk 5 paces and then some guy will hiss ‘mzungu’ with intimidating glare. Maybe demand some money. Frustration. Anger. Then guilt at feeling angry. 50 metres on, meet a prisoner working in the fields. Chat for 30 seconds, all in Kinyarwanda. Pride, sense of ease. Then old lady. Demands money without talking. I’ll reply no in Kinyarwanda. Then she just starts berating me, mocking my Kinyarwanda, shouting things about me to the other people passing by which I don’t understand. Others start smirking, and reply, the only word which I understand is mzungu. Talk about being an outsider. Then another 100 metres, on to the tarmac road. Looks like heavens will open any second unleashing a torrent of rain. Great, it does. Trudging up the hill up to the district offices. Hear a car coming up behind me. Jealousy. Trudge on. Aforementioned car rumbles to a halt next to me, throws open the door and tells me to jump on in – and it’s Eve, or Innocent, or Muhire or Pascal or Dany, offering me a lift, laughing about the weather, wondering why they haven’t seen me for a day or two, congratulating Spurs for beating Chelsea, asking how the work’s going and whether I’ll come out for a drink later... And the beam is back.

But sometimes, this can be more serious. My work depends on people being motivated enough to change their behaviour to avoid getting HIV. Yet, I was nearly ready to throw in the proverbial towel when chatting to two university students last week. University students. This means they are in the top, I don’t know, maybe 2% of the country. They are educated people. People who will be driving Rwanda onwards. People who have the capacity to change things, to continue the good work going on so far, to promote education and good health and to safeguard the precarious future of their own citizens. Yet, on hearing about my job they ask what the point is of protecting themselves from sexual diseases.

“Do you believe in fate Maggie?” I replied no, I think we have the power to shape our futures. ‘Eh??! No we don’t. It is already decided. If I choose one partner - if I sleep with many, God has already decided if I shall have HIV or not”. I replied, that there are many things he can do to avoid getting into situations where that would be a problem. “But why do that, when HIV is God’s punishment to African people”.

What?? Where on earth has he got this from? What poisoning text or person or organization has he been indoctrinated by to believe in such fatalistic and dangerous ideas? Punishment for what? For being treated like dirt by colonizers who rape and pillage their soils and people, who exploit their resources, take and then tut disapprovingly when asked for simple help when it comes to medication or condoms which will save millions of lives. Africans are no more promiscuous than any number of people in Britain. We are just able to avoid the consequences that disable these societies. I ask him, tongue in cheek, and expecting a rebuke whether God decided they should be poor too. “Yes! Of course! God decides all. He chose for us to be poor. He chooses that we suffer, we must accept it. We cannot change anything. If we work hard or not, we cannot change God’s will”.

Listening to these educated Rwandan guys made me realize just how much work there is to do – but is it even possible? How can I start convincing people to take charge of their lives when they don’t even believe that they have any power over them?

And then Permanent PMT Syndrome returned yesterday...
I was out in the field, in a tiny rural community on an information and training day in preparation for World AIDS day on December 1st. We were a team of 5, my VSO colleague and I were just observing, but there was a health professional, the coordinator and a person with HIV who were going to speak to this community. It took 2 and a half hours to get there, by four wheel drive, and there were points when I never thought we’d actually get through. It was more pond and craggy mountain than road. It was so muddy at times that the wheels just skidded around sounding like a huge electric toothbrush. Sometimes the water covered the wheels. I was freezing – Africa’s meant to be hot isn’t it? It was all about covering up and 4 layers. The village was in the middle of nowhere. It was raining and dreary – when we arrived there was a strip of closely packed in mud shack houses with corrugated iron roofs directing the gushing rain into nicely regulated chutes, smacking down onto the mud track. This was the ‘town’.

The meeting was called in the local office – this was a mud hut about the size of a classroom with an earth floor, and in which had been lined a bunch of wobbly pews, probably borrowed from the local school or church. People were called to the community meeting by the local leader, and soon people started filling up the room, pressed between each other on the benches. A proper community meeting – old men holding themselves up with sticks, young guys draping their arms around each other, girls pulling up their wraps and stealing glances at me, women younger than me with baby on back and one at the breast, then older women seemingly chewing upon their three teeth. It took a couple of minutes to adjust to the darkness, and after a while there must have been about 200 people crammed into the room. It made me think about just how important the community was here. Can you imagine somebody going out in the streets near where you live, calling all your neighbours to a community meeting – about whatever subject it might be that day? I’m sure it used to happen, though I can’t even think what the closest equivalent might be nowadays.

The trainers talked about HIV, how you become infected, how to protect yourself and where to go get tested and get medication and the reasons to know if you’re HIV+. All this in Kinyarwanda, and using local terminology – such as ‘the sweet stuff’ for sex, but I had Andrew my colleague there to translate for me. But above all the most interesting aspect came with the questions. When Fred the health pro told the men they needed to use the services more because women outnumbered them easily, one old man got to his feet and hoarsely cried out that ‘Them women, them women go to the health centres more than us men because they are the ones who sleep around!’. Cue lots of hooting and laughing from the male members of the crowd – but this is such a dangerous aspect of society – the women are always blamed for spreading HIV – it’s easier to point the finger at weaker people. The truth is that something like 70% of women infected has only ever had one partner – their husband – in their whole lives. It’s the men who go wandering. I wondered what would happen – women here never speak out, I have never seen such meek people. I was thoroughly disheartened after meeting my first female headmistress of a secondary school. She could not even look me in the eye and spoke barely above a whisper.

And then a women, stirred. She stood up slowly, having given her baby to the women next to her, retied her wrap around her and calmly replied amid the expectant hush; “I don’t know who you think we go to for the sweet stuff. Do you think we women have sex with ourselves? Can you explain to me mister how there are men with this virus too? Humph.” I cannot even explain how brave this woman was to stand up and say this, especially in direct response to an old – therefore respected- male member of the community. And more questions came and came – sensible ones – people wanted to know. If malaria can be passed by mosquitoes, why not HIV? And if HIV is also passed in blood, can I get HIV from eating meat or slaughtering goats? And is wearing two condoms twice as protected? I just wished Jean Marie – the university student could have been there so I could tell him – look at this. Count how many people here have shoes. Listen to the rakish coughing of these young men signalling probable tuberculosis. See these flimsy rags the kids are wearing which are soaked through because of the rain. And now see how they are ready to learn, how they want to learn and see how they are ready to change their ‘fate’. Now, go back to university and do something for them.


Permanent PMT like I say. From seeing Rwanda as a hopeless case last week I was back to beamingly positive yesterday.