We Can't Forget

My partner and I lived in Rwanda awhile back, and there is one story that sticks in my mind above all others. A friend I got to know in Rwanda worked with an organization called Hope for Life, which provides housing and rehabilitation to children and youth living on the streets of Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. She told me the story of a 10- or 11-year-old boy who came to their center one day seeking help. He eventually shared with the center staff that he had been living on the streets for awhile with his younger brother after their parents had died. He and his brother struggled to find food and often had to steal food to get by. But there was a period of time when even stealing food wasn’t working, and every night the boys went to bed hungry. The boy at the center described the heartbreaking moment when he held his younger brother in his arms as he died from starvation. Traumatized, grieving, and starving himself, the boy eventually stumbled across the center, where he was given a place to stay and food.

This image–of a boy holding his younger brother as the child died from starvation–will probably stick in my mind forever. To think that this was happening right in my neighborhood was heartbreaking. Dying from starvation was a reality so far from my own that it felt impossible that it was happening to this boy right in front of me, especially in such a modern, spotlessly clean city as Kigali. (If that image conflicts with your vision of an African city, you’re not alone–but do some research to learn about what African cities really look like today.)

I also will never forget the memory of taking our trash out at our apartment in Kigali. We lived in a relatively economically advantaged neighborhood, with our apartment building across the street from the large home of a former government official. Each week we would bag up our trash and plop it on the side of the street outside our gate. And each week, as soon as we emerged with trash bags in hand, a group of men and women wearing dirt-stained, tattered clothes would rush up and grab the bags. They were always so respectful of us, never snatching the bags directly from our hands but waiting until we set them down before jumping to be the first to grab the bags and take them away. We could then watch as they dragged the bags down the street, opened them up, and began sorting through what we had considered waste. They collected bottles, plastic containers, old clothes and shoes, even food scraps, sorting and organizing, seeing what they could use versus sell. 

This memory is also burned into my mind, along with the image of that boy holding his dying brother. Now back in the U.S., it’s so easy to feel detached from these realities. I live in a nice house with my partner, and we have plenty to eat. Our worries include how the stock market is doing, which brand of Tofu to buy, and how to find time to go to the doctor’s. Of course, I don’t want to minimize the very real challenges of folks living in the US: mental illness and suicide rates, rising inflation, this horrible housing market, shitty policies that impact people’s ability to get healthcare (like the recent anti-abortion and anti-trans laws), structural racism and other oppressions that impact life expectancy…. But dying of starvation and fighting over trash seem so impossible when juxtaposed with my life. 

I’m often reminded of that song in the opening credits of the TV show Weeds: “Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky.” Living a square life in little boxes made of ticky tacky is one of my biggest fears. I don’t want to be a typical housewife in a typical suburban house with a typical set of behaviors and attitudes. I don’t want to forget that poverty exists, that not everyone has the privileges that I do, that I should feel immensely grateful that all my basic needs are met.

Yet despite my fear of living this square life, I still fall into the trap of measuring my success against the stereotypical ladder of American (global?) success: go to college, get married, go to grad school, find a career, buy a house, and pop out some kids. I get so caught up in doing what society expects of me–and feeling shitty when my journey isn’t a simple, easy upward climb–and I forget that there are far greater problems in the world that should have my attention.

How do we not forget? How do we remember the injustices experienced by so many, both globally and right in our backyards, when we live in our isolated little boxes made of ticky tacky?

I believe that we have a choice to center these concerns–to find ways to remember. In fact, I think it’s our duty as privileged Americans who use up the largest percentages of the world’s resources to remember.

I’m definitely not perfect at remembering. But I try to think of that little boy and his brother when I’m eating my dinner. I try to not serve myself more food than I can eat, I try to finish everything on my plate, I try to use up everything in the fridge before it spoils. Whenever I throw something away, I think of those folks in Kigali and try to consider if I can reuse or recycle whatever it is I’m throwing away. We have to remember.

How do you remember?

Empowering Girls to Speak Up about their Sexual Health

Blushing faces. Eyes downcast. Nervous giggles. Awkward silences. These are often how my students react when they begin a sex education class. I’ve been teaching these classes for over four years now, and whether my students are 5 or 18, boy, girl, trans or non-binary, Rwandan or American, their reactions on that first day are always the same.

This particular class was a room of twenty Rwandan girls, ages 13 to 19, who come from vulnerable families living in the slums of Kigali. They were participants at a youth center called MindLeaps, which uses dance to develop cognitive skills and reintegrate students who have dropped out of school or are at risk of doing so. A major concern of the center was the amount of their female students who were getting pregnant and dropping out of school.

Thanks to the generosity of the Alice Rowan Swanson fellowship grant program awarded through Students for International Training (SIT), I was able to launch a comprehensive sexuality curriculum for MindLeaps, which was piloted this past April through July with a group of twenty Rwandan girls. The program emphasizes confidence building and communication skills, putting youth at the center of their sexual health and giving them the tools and confidence to make healthy, informed choices.

Read the press release from SIT which explains the purpose of my project and how I got involved in sex ed: https://www.sit.edu/welcome-to-the-sit-newsroom/press-releases/rwanda-alumna-named-rowan-swanson-fellow/

Fast forward to one of our last classes and the feel of the class is markedly different. We’re exploring communication techniques and I’m trying to teach “I Messages” (statements like “I feel angry when you ___” rather than “I hate you! You’re a horrible human!”) using role play scenarios. The first role play hilariously got the girls out of their comfort zone as it required one actor to pretend to be a six-year-old child who was constantly getting into their older sibling’s things and the older sibling had to communicate their feelings about it. The following role play depicted a young woman asking her mother for money to buy pads for the first time. The girls responded beautifully with statements like, “Mom, this feels embarrassing for me to say but I really need money to buy pads” and the mother responding in kind, “Thank you for coming to me, let’s talk about your period so you know what to expect.” Another role play—where one partner is sharing that they like the other but that person has to respond that they’re not interested in pursuing a relationship—also delivered on the “I Messages” and they went something like this:

Person 1: Hey, I like you! You’re real cute!

Person 2: That’s really sweet but I’m not interested in being your girlfriend.

Person 1: What? Why??

Person 2: I’m just not ready for a relationship right now. How about we just be friends?

Person 1: Ok, that’s cool.

[They walk off, arm in arm.]

For such generally shy, tight-lipped girls, the forwardness of their role plays and the strength of their statements were really powerful to witness. The students admitted that these conversations would definitely be harder with actual mothers and actual boys, but they’ve practiced saying the words, and the statements themselves are normalized—these are awesome steps.

Other highlights from our nine weeks together included a gender equality game, where relay teams competed in tasks stereotypically considered “women’s work.” We all had several laughs when we got the boys to try the same tasks, but the game was an effective way to jumpstart a discussion on gender equity and stereotypes.

 Another highlight was seeing the increasing boldness of student questions. Through the anonymous “Question Box”, where students have a chance after each class to ask an anonymous question about sexual health, I was asked the radical-for-Rwanda question of “How can I enjoy sex without having children?” and the tricky question of “What happens when a boy impregnates you and then starts yelling at you?” These were invaluable opportunities to promote open communication, discussion of family planning, and long-term goal setting—all critical values of the program. 

In August, we had the honor of showcasing the program to the famous Misty Copeland, the first African American woman to be Principal Dancer at the American Ballet Theatre. MindLeaps hosted a celebration day, where participants used dance, painting, poetry, or theater to reflect on what they learned in the program. One student presented her artwork, which depicted two women—one doing stereotypical “woman’s work” and the other working on a computer and pursuing a career. She explained that it’s important for women to have the chance to pursue their dreams and create a future for themselves. Other girls painted adult versions of themselves as leaders, professional dancers, and doctors—indicating that they’re thinking about their futures and how their sexual health choices can impact those futures.

Artwork: “When I grow up, I want to be….”

At the end of the celebration day, we presented certificates to each participant and a reusable menstrual pad kit, provided by Days for Girls and made by local Rwandan women. The partnership with Days for Girls provides our vulnerable girls with an invaluable resource, since the high cost and embarrassment of buying pads present challenges for consistent good menstrual hygiene particularly for families living in poverty.

Misty awarding reusable menstrual pads and certificates.

I have high hopes for the continued implementation and development of this program, and I feel honored to have been a part of these girls’ lives. Thank you to MindLeaps for being an amazing ally in this process, to the Alice Rowan Swanson fellowship for providing the necessary funds to launch this program, to Our Whole Lives (a comprehensive sex ed program in the US) that provided crucial support to the curriculum’s development, to Days for Girls for providing awesome and fun reusable pads, and to Misty Copeland for her promotion of this important work.

Check out this amazing video produced by Misty’s team about the event: https://www.facebook.com/mindleaps/videos/1707716406021385/UzpfSTczMzEyNTkwOToxMDE1NTk4NjQzNDEyMDkxMA/

In late September, we pilot a boys’ class covering the same material. The girls are embarrassed that their male classmates will be learning about female anatomy—“Do you have to teach them about the vagina?” “I promise ladies, you definitely want the guys to know about it. Just trust me.”—and there is talk of expanding the program to another MindLeaps center in Guinea in 2019.

Thanks again to everyone involved in launching this program and let’s continue to fight for the right of all people, regardless of age, gender, or economic status, to have access to comprehensive reproductive health education and services!

The Orgasm that Created a Lake

From 2017-18, my partner and I spent some time in Rwanda and it was a year full of cultural lessons. One of my favorite moments in Rwanda, being a sex ed teacher, unsurprisingly had to do with the topic of sex.

The scene: I’m at a yoga retreat far from the city, sitting on top of a hill surrounded by rolling tea plantations and hills that disappear into the distance. The sun is shining, we started the day with several hours of great yoga, we’re surrounded by beautiful nature—we’re feeling good.

I’m shelling peas with a group of fellow yogis, retreat staff, and yoga instructors—a good mix of foreigners and Rwandans, men and women. We have a huge pile of bean vines in front of us, ripped directly from the center’s garden plot, and the locals have taught the foreigners how to shell the peas that we’ll be eating for dinner. Relaxed by the simple, repetitive act, we begin the most candid conversation about sex I’ve had in Rwanda. It began with this story about Lake Kivu, the huge lake guarding Rwanda’s western border with Congo:

“Does anyone know the story of how Lake Kivu was formed? No? Well, long ago, the king and queen ruled this land. They were happy enough but the queen was never quite satisfied with their sex life. One day the king went off to war, leaving the queen alone. The queen gave into her curiosity and slept with one of her servants she’d had her eye on for awhile. To her surprise, the servant gave her the biggest orgasm she’d had in her entire life, so big that it created Lake Kivu.”

This was confusing to us westerners (how does an orgasm create enough liquid for a lake, even in a legend?) until we found out that female ejaculation—known as kunyara in the local language—is common and expected throughout Rwanda, at least according to this crew.

We found this quite interesting since Rwandan culture also has well-known proverbs stating that men have complete power over their wives and can do whatever they want, whenever they want. Yet somehow, this culture also has a prioritization for female orgasms. In fact, we were told that there’s a word in the local language, Kinyarwanda—gifubwa—that is used to describe the action of a woman finding another man to “finish” her if the first man has a consistent problem with pre-ejaculating. The exact translation of gifubwa is when you’re cooking and the electricity goes out yet the food still needs to be finished.

We also found out that it’s much easier to use English or French when talking about sex than Kinyarwanda. There aren’t as many direct translations in Kinyarwanda for anatomy (like the word for a woman’s private parts is agapipi—sound it out to hear “pee pee”. Aga is added to make a word pejorative, like little or small. So the word in Kinyarwanda for a woman’s vulva is literally “that little place where pee comes out”). Also, Kinyarwanda is meant to be a more reserved, polite, traditional language—not to be used describing sexual acts—making it a difficult language to use when wanting to teach sex ed.

While teaching youth in Rwanda about their reproductive health, I also learned about a practice called gukuna when I was asked by a student “Why do women pull their lips?” My translator had to help me culturally interpret that one, and I found out that vaginal lip pulling is a common practice for Rwandan girls going through puberty. Gukuna imishino or guca imyeyo literally means ‘to cut brooms’ – girls used to go out in the bushes in a group, and when asked where they were going they would reply that they were going out in the bush to look for grass, which they would turn into brooms. This was because men were not supposed to know what they were actually doing.

An example of the broom, not an example of a girl who necessarily practices labia elongation.

The actual process involves a girl gently pulling her inner labia outwards so that after awhile, the general shape remains unchanged but they protrude down, away from the body. This practice is done to create more pleasure for the woman during sexual intercourse; larger labia are easier to find/touch and can cover more of the penis to experience increased sexual pleasure for both partners.

Turns out I wasn’t the only person interested in these cultural practices: a movie has been produced highlighting the practice as well as discussing the emphasis on female orgasm and ejaculation. Little did I know that traveling to Rwanda would introduce me to more sexually progressive practices than found in most of America!