Profiles: Peace Corps Rwanda Country Director Mary Abrams

Country Director Mary Abrams and me hanging out in her office for an interview.

                     In September 2010, Mary Abrams became the second Peace Corps Rwanda country director since the program was re-established in 2008.  As with many of the Peace Corps staff, Mary has led an interesting and varied life.  A Doctorate, travel, and management were all common knowledge of her background, but the current Peace Corps Rwanda volunteers know almost nothing about Mary.  Is she married?  What are her responsibilities?  What did she do before the Peace Corps?  Nobody could give me an answer.  So I decided to interview her for a blog post (where she became self-conscious yet candid when talking about herself) and find out for myself:

Steven Anderson (SA): After talking with other Peace Corps volunteers, we didn’t even know if you are married.  Do you have children? 

Mary Abrams (MA): I married just before I took my assignment in Niger (approximately five years ago).  I have no children, but I have two cats that are here with me in Rwanda named Bête and Mousse (French pronunciation).

 SA: How did you come from a college graduate to a Peace Corps Rwanda country director?

MA: After earning my bachelors degree in agronomy, I worked in theatre for a year.  After that, I became a Peace Corps volunteer from 1979 to 1981 in Niger focusing on agronomy.  I stayed on in Niger until 1984 working with USAID on an agricultural project.  Upon returning to the United States, I earned a PhD in soil science with a dissertation focusing on environmental issues.  I worked for five years as a research professor and traveled all over the world for my job researching and teaching natural resource management.  I then moved on to work as an environmental scientist for the City of Portland, Oregon and then as a water quality technician on the Snake River for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ).  After that I returned to Portland to manage a division for ODEQ.  Due to my experience in management, working with volunteers and in the public sector as well as work with emergency response/public safety, I was fortunate enough to come back to the Peace Corps as a director in Niger (West Africa) for four years.  After my Niger tour, I came to Rwanda as a country director. 

SA: How did your experience as the country director for Peace Corps Niger prepare you for your assignment in Rwanda?

MA: I learned a lot about the bureaucracy of the Peace Corps and knowing where to go for help.  With the security issues in Niger, I learned a lot about safety and security and how to work with the United States embassy to keep up to date and have good communication on the ground.  Furthermore, I discovered a lot of the issues that current Peace Corps volunteers have now that didn’t exist when I was a volunteer.

SA: How did work outside the Peace Corps world prepare you to be a volunteer and country director?

MA: My educations as a soil scientist and growing up in a rural area helped me with my primary assignment as a volunteer while serving in a very rural area in Niger.

Prior to being a country director, my experiences in management and office responsibilities were vital to directing an entire country office.  I also have worked and lived overseas which gave insight into overcoming challenges from different personalities/priorities/cultural situations when working on projects in a multi-cultural environment.

SA: What are a country director’s responsibilities and day to day tasks?

MA: I’m responsible for all staff, volunteers, and property with the exception of medical oversight of medical staff and I am not the contracting officer for the office.  I am the liaison between the main PC headquarters in Washington DC, volunteers, the Government of Rwanda, and the US Embassy in Rwanda.  I set policy and make decisions with the staff on how to implement that policy for PC Rwanda.  I spend too much time in front of the computer and would like to spend more time on the road visiting PCVs.

SA: How often do you make it back to the US?

MA: I try to go home once a year to Portland and take a break every six months somewhere around the world. 

SA:  What are you hoping to accomplish during your tenure as the Peace Corps country director of Rwanda?

MA: I’m hoping to finish the startup work that began in 2008 which includes building on relationships that have been established, most importantly the contacts that help serve the most immediate needs of Rwandans.

SA: You’ve traveled to a lot of countries, which ones are your favorite and why?

MA: It depends on how you define “favorite.”  If you’re looking strictly for warm, friendly people, my place to go is Niger or France.  For greenery, civic engagement and country development, I think Rwanda is the best place I’ve been.  For scenery I would go to the Namib Desert in Namibia.  My favorite vacation place is France because of the food, wine, and great places to visit.

SA: Moving from foreign country to foreign country can make this difficult, but what hobbies and pastimes do you try to keep?

MA: I love to read, practice yoga, and run.  What’s great about the Peace Corps is getting the chance to read.  I love watching movies, and over the years I have been able to amass a large collection of my favorite movies.

National Genocide Memorial Week

The villagers sit to across from the genocide memorial.  For one full week, the villagers come every day to discuss developing and healing after the genocide.

A nightime vigil.  For two nights during the Memorial Week, villagers come to listen to music, remember, light candles at the memorial, and say prayers.

On the final day, our village buried three bodies in the genocide memorial (building and funeral shown above).  These bodies were from people that were killed during the genocide and recently found.  This funeral can be very intense, with villagers crying and screaming and being led away by medical personnel. 

            On April 7, 1994, President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down on approach to Kigali International Airport.  The incident marks the beginning of the genocide, as mass killings began hours after the plane crashed.  Today, the Rwandan Government recognizes April 7 as National Mourning Day. 

            National Mourning Day is one of the most important days for Rwandans, since there are almost no businesses open, no buses running, no celebrations.  The day usually commences with a community gathering and discussion on remembering the victims of the genocide.  At night, there is a vigil held in remembrance that includes music, candles lit at memorial sites, and bonfires.  In a country where stores are open every day of the week and people work almost constantly, this is a rare opportunity for people to stop and think solely of the victims and events of the genocide.

            National Mourning Day is the first day of a week recognizing the genocide.  For this week, there are daily community discussions that are emceed by community leaders.  On the last day of the week, there is another major holiday where transportation and shops are shut down. 

            For the entire month of April, there are generally no celebrations of any kind, as it is a time solely to remember the genocide.  The genocide remembrance officially ends on July 4 (Rwandan Liberation Day) in coincidence with the day when the genocide officially ended when now-President Paul Kagame’s forces took control of Kigali. 

A message from Rwandan president Paul Kagame

President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame

Upon the Peace Corps returning to Rwanda in 2008 after an 14 year hiatus, President Paul Kagame delivered this message about the Peace Corps's involvement in Rwanda:

The United States of America has just sent a small number of its sons and daughters as Peace Corps volunteers to serve as teachers and advisors in Rwanda. They have arrived to assist, and we appreciate that. We are aware that this comes against the backdrop of increasingly scarce resources, of budget discussions and campaign promises, and of tradeoffs between defense and domestic priorities like health care and infrastructure investments. All that said, I believe we need to have a different discussion concerning the potential for bilateral aid.

The Peace Corps have returned to our country after 15 years. They were evacuated in 1994 just a short time before Rwanda collapsed into a genocide that killed over one million people in three months. Things have improved a lot in recent years. There is peace and stability throughout the nation. We have a progressive constitution that is consensus-driven, provides for power sharing, embraces diversity, and promotes the participation of women, who now represent the majority in our parliament. Our economy grew by more than 11% last year, even as the world entered a recession. We have chosen high-end segments of the coffee and tea markets in which to compete, and attract the most demanding world travelers to our tourism experiences. This has enabled us to increase wages by over 20% each year over the last eight years -- sustained by, among other things, investment in education, health and ICT.

We view the return of the Peace Corps as a significant event in Rwanda's recovery. These young men and women represent what is good about America; I have met former volunteers who have run major aid programs here, invested in our businesses, and I even count them among my friends and close advisors.

Peace Corps volunteers are well educated, optimistic, and keen to assist us as we continue to rebuild, but one must also recognize that we have much to offer them as well.

We will, for instance, show them our system of community justice, called Gacaca, where we integrated our need for nationwide reconciliation with our ancient tradition of clemency, and where violators are allowed to reassume their lives by proclaiming their crimes to their neighbors, and asking for forgiveness. We will present to them Rwanda's unique form of absolution, where the individuals who once exacted such harm on their neighbors and ran across national borders to hide from justice are being invited back to resume their farms and homes to live peacefully with those same families.

We will show your sons and daughters our civic tradition of Umuganda, where one day a month, citizens, including myself, congregate in the fields to weed, clean our streets, and build homes for the needy.

We will teach your children to prepare and enjoy our foods and speak our language. We will invite them to our weddings and funerals, and out into the communities to observe our traditions. We will teach them that in Africa, family is a broad and all-encompassing concept, and that an entire generation treats the next as its own children.

And we will have discussions in the restaurants, and debates in our staff rooms and classrooms where we will learn from one another: What is the nature of prosperity? Is it subsoil assets, location and sunshine, or is it based on human initiative, the productivity of our firms, the foresight of our entrepreneurs? What is a cohesive society, and how can we strengthen it? How can we improve tolerance and build a common vision between people who perceive differences in one another, increase civic engagement, interpersonal trust, and self-esteem? How does a nation recognize and develop the leaders of future generations? What is the relationship between humans and the earth? And how are we to meet our needs while revering the earth as the womb of humankind? These are the questions of our time.

While some consider development mostly in terms of infusion of capital, budgets and head counts, we in Rwanda place equal importance to relationships between peoples who have a passion to learn from one another, preparing the next generation of teachers, administrators and CEOs to see the exchange of values and ideas as the way to build the competencies of our people, and to create a prosperous nation.

We will do this because we see that the only investment with the possibility of infinite returns is in our children, and because after a couple of years in Rwanda, working and learning with our people, these Peace Corps volunteers will be our sons and daughters, too.

My Site



The view of my village from the nearby mountain.  On the left is the cathedral and on the right is my school.  In the background is Lake Kivu, and in the distance is the Democratic Republic of the Congo.



The cathedral and elementary school at my site.



My house is the one with the tin roof.  There are about 15 houses in the area.



My town center.  You can't get much here outside of the food staples (rice, beans, etc).  There is no electricity or running water here.



             After successfully completing pre-service training (see the blog posted on 11/13/10) and swearing in as a volunteer (see the blog posted on 01/25/11), every Peace Corps Volunteer leaves for their site.  Sites in the Peace Corps are generally very rural and in the direst need for volunteers.  My site is no exception.

I live in a village called Kinunu.  Kinunu lies in the Western Province of Rwanda in the district of Rutsiro (the districts are the American equivalent of states).  The Western Province is famous for bordering the gorgeous Lake Kivu and the biggest mountains in Rwanda.  To get to my site, you have to take a three hour bus ride from Kigali west to the town of Gisenyi.  From Gisenyi, you can either take a three hour grueling bus ride on a dirt road following by a twenty minute motorcycle ride to my site, or you can take a three hour boat ride on Lake Kivu followed by a forty minute walk up a mountain to my site.  Either way, it takes a while. 

The village is small, even by Peace Corps standards.  In a one hour walking radius, there are probably about 1,000 people.  I say one hour radius, because houses don’t really end and open areas begin, agrarian villages just basically melt together.  It’s difficult to say “We’re leaving Kinunu and entering the next village” because a) there is no distinguishing characteristics between villages and b) there are no “Welcome to Kinunu” or “You are now leaving Kinunu” signs at the edge of the village.

The village is beautiful, as it sits on Lake Kivu.  Kinunu has a large Catholic church, several small Protestant churches, two elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools. 

My house sits next to the town center (called the “ishusho”) where you can buy basic goods and staple foods (rice, potatoes, corn).  If I want to buy anything additional (pineapples, avocadoes) I have to wait for the market days of Wednesday and Saturday. 

For the next two years, Kinunu is my home. 

Rwanda History 1960 to present

   

A genocide memorial (one of hundreds in Rwanda) that is at my site.  In the memorial, there are numerous bodies laid to rest from the genocide.

           I’m writing the second in a two series blog on the history of Rwanda.  The history of Rwanda has been separated into two parts: pre-1960 and post-1960.  For the history of Rwanda from prehistory to 1960, see the blog posted on 11/29/10.  The main reason that the blog was separated into two parts is because East African countries started to gain independence around 1960, which resulted in a paradigm shift in traditional East African politics, lifestyles, financial investments, and infrastructure.

            The United Nations decided to split Rwanda and Burundi due to different philosophies on governing, and Rwanda was officially independent in 1962.  The first independent government was lead by Prime Minister Kayibanda and his Hutu majority.  The next ten years would be a mixture of Tutsis and Hutus killing each other, both inside Rwanda and in the neighboring countries where Tutsis would seek refuge.  Furthermore, the new independent government made attempts to limit the educational and business opportunities to Tutsis. 

            A new leader, Habayarimana, became a rising figure in Rwanda and had the backing of the majority due to a slaughter of Hutus in the southern border country of Burundi.  These new attacks made the intertribal tensions huge again in Rwanda, and resulted in the military coup lead by Habayarimana in 1973.  The coup would be classic military style, with the slaughter of Kayibanda (the former prime minister), his wife, and many cabinet and high level officials. 

            The 1970s and 1980s would be a period of general economic prosperity (including the Peace Corps entering the country).  In 1986, General Museveni became president of Uganda after being victorious in the Ugandan civil war (As of February 2011, Museveni is still the president of Uganda.  Being a president in an African country for twenty-five years is quite common).  One of the major players in Museveni’s army was Paul Kagame.  With the backing of Museveni, Paul Kagame started the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) with exiled Tutsis in Uganda and started the Rwandan Civil War in 1990. 

            The Rwandan Civil War was comprised of the Belgian, French, Congolese, and Rwandan armies against the RPF and Ugandan government.  The next three years would be the RPF advancing and retreating from Kigali, and the Rwandan army brutally killing, arresting, and neglecting Tutsis and sympathetic Hutus.  By 1993, the RPF was on 15 miles from Kigali, and Habayarimana was cornered into peace negotiations in Tanzania.  The peace negotiations ended on April 6, 1994, when Habayarimana and the Burundian president were flying back to Kigali.  The plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile while on approach to land.  Tutsis were blamed for the crash, and the genocide would start only hours after the plane had crashed.     

            For the next 100 days, road blocks would be set up in order to kill Tutsis and Hutu sympathizers.  The murders were children, wives, husbands, and long time friends.  Once Paul Kagame and the RPF finally took control of Rwanda and pushed the Interahamwe into Burundi (country bordering to the south) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, country bordering to the east), the genocide ended.  In the end, an estimated 1,000,000 people were killed, and Rwanda was in tatters. 

            While Rwanda tried to recover from the scars of the genocide, the country still faced issues with the Interahamwe threatening refugees to not return to Rwanda.  By 1996, the Rwandan army invaded the DRC and forced the rebels deep into the Congo.  This allowed nearly all the refugees to return, but started a new issue of repatriation.  Due to land constrictions, Rwanda deforested some of Akagera National Park in order to place refugees back in Rwanda. 

            Paul Kagame has been president of Rwanda since 2000, and recently won an election that will make him the president until 2017.  Since 1994, Rwanda has outlawed identity cards (showing if a person was a Hutu or a Tutsi), joined the East African Community and Commonwealth, and enjoyed peace and prosperity.  Tourism has grown rapidly and infrastructure has improved dramatically.  In some years, Rwanda has had their economy grow by 20 percent.  However, there are still scars to heal and work to do. 

Where Are All Your Used Clothes End Up

A market in Nyanza, Rwanda where they are sorting through and distributing clothes from the Western World. 

After you send your clothes to the Salvation Army or Goodwill, do you think what happens to your clothes afterwards?  Generally, we think that they are given to underprivileged children in our community, or sold at a local dime store for pennies on the dollar.  Some of our clothes do end up there, but a lot of it ends up here in developing countries.  In fact the Western World, particularly America, clothes the rest of the world with our used clothing. 

Huge shipments of clothes come off trucks and barges to ports in developing countries.  The clothes are then sorted and resold at markets all over country.  Every type of clothing that you have sent to Goodwill is resold here.  For example, in Nyanza there was a man who walked around town year round in a Santa Claus hat on his head.  Remember that shirt you gave to Goodwill that said “Remember My Name You’ll Be Screaming it Later”, well now there is a 12 year old girl wearing it in a village.  Somewhere in Africa right now a child is wearing a shirt that says “Santa Clause is not real.”  In fact, my housekeeper is a really strong 20 year old man that wears an orange and white “DuMont Cheerleading” jacket that has the name “Heather” embroidered on the front.  The people that wear these clothes have no clue what they mean, nor do they seem to care. 

Next time you give away your clothes, think about who will be wearing it next.  It could be an underprivileged family in your community, or it could be a child in India that walks around their village wearing it all week. 

A Quick Update

I have officially been a volunteer for one month.  The first month has been a huge learning curve, and I have been trying to find my way through long bus rides, no electricity, no running water, and two bouts of sickness.  However, I have been trying to keep up with e-mail correspondence and blog posts (I plan to do one blog post every two weeks).  If correspondence is spotty and inconsistent, just remember that I’m trying to answer e-mails and write posts as soon as I possibly can.

If you have any questions about the Peace Corps, Rwanda, Africa, or my life here, please e-mail me at sma2103@gmail.com  I will personally respond back to you and place all Q and A as a future blog post.  I look forward to hearing from you.