During a year in Rwanda I’ve seen the seasons change from dry, to wet, to dry, to wet again. I’ve felt dust in my eyes, the kind that gets under your eye lids and scratches the balls red raw. I’ve walked through mud thick as chocolate, the kind so thick that you need weight training to lift your sodden boots. I’ve seen faces lit up by the New Year fireworks at the football stadium; and faces darken watching the images from the latest genocide movie, Shooting Dogs. I’ve heard my name called a thousand times, 'Muzungo', 'Muzungo', by children excited to see a visitor in their village and I’ve climbed in part, some of the thousand hills that mark this beautiful country.

My contract is for 2 years, I cover, here, Burundi and DRC. I’m technical godmother to 4 local NGOs. A good bunch of guys, (all guys, gender hasn’t quite arrived in WATSAN ( Water and Sanitation) in East Africa yet) sound teccies, who like to build things, like to walk in the mountains that fill the corners of these countries, looking a spring, looking for a clean water supply, to protect, to bring water to their people.

There is no typical day, only different partners, different challenges, different needs, different people. I’m a driver, mechanic, secretary, donor, technical advisor, hygiene promoter … I’m here to help the NGOs with what they need, to give my ideas, training, experience, which they are free to accept, adapt, change or ignore as they choose. We, PROTOS, have a partnership, an open dialogue, where, through synergy we work together to find the best solutions.

One of the four NGOs, COFORWA decided they want to look at their hygiene promotion programme. The guys have been carrying out PHAST for about 9 months now, but have realised it primarily focuses on diarrhoea transmission and prevention, and that there is a need to adapt it, to address the most prevalent water and sanitation related diseases in their communities. They have already visited the health clinics in the districts in which they work, collecting data on frequency of diseases. They’re come back with the top six, malaria, respiratory infections, worms, skin diseases, diarrhoea and bloody diarrhoea.

We set off for the hospital in Giterama to find out more. We leave early, driving into the sun rise, passing marketers setting up their stalls, people on their way to work, women off on the long walk to collect water, and children, knee high gathering firewood.

We spend about 3 hours at the hospital talking to doctors, nurses, patients and family relatives, learning about the symptoms, transmission, prevention and treatment, from all angles. By the time we leave we are full of information, our eyes bright with knowledge, excited by our new understanding. We head now to their office, turning off onto the road for Nyakabanda. Calved out of solid rock, initiated by a Belgium priest in the 70s, this is probably the bumpiest road known to mankind, the car slips and slides, we spin round 360 degrees, I yelp, covering my eyes with my hands, and the staff laugh, as if they are on the Ferris wheel at the fair ground. Still in 32 years of driving this way, no car has yet left the road. I repeat this to myself like a mantra, hoping it will calm my nerves. After about 2 hours of being in a car journey that makes you feel like a drink in a cocktail shaker, we fall out, into the office.

They start with presentations, each covering a different disease. We clarify, question, argue about what we heard or understood and fill in some extra details. We talk about the different diseases, why some are more prevalent at different times of the year and plan when we should do the promotion of each one. We work out a training session on these diseases for the other 72 promoters and plan a laminated fact sheet they can carry around with them on rainy days in Rwanda. 

Then we look through the PHAST pictures, there is not much here that relates to malaria, or skin diseases, we make a list of the new pictures we will need, and one of the animators volunteers to draw them.  We agree to incorporate them into the community discussions and house to house visits. (Later in the year as part of the child to child trainings the same information will be used to initiate songs and dramas in schools and communities).

A guard interrupts our meeting, two bodies have been found in the village, lost bodies from the genocide – there will need to be an exhumation tomorrow, everyone will gather. My stomach turns over, how many more? Days go by here, when you think you are living in a normal country, with power, water, phones, work 9 to 5. Then you are dragged back to the reality that scared and continues to scar this country, where will it end?

It’s only around 6 but the sun is beginning to set, a side effect of living near the equator, we’re all glazed and tired, shaken by the new news, we’ve been slumping in our seats and lying on the desks for the last 30 minutes. Time to call it a day, time to think, to reflect, to forget, to repeat a different mantra for peace for these minds, in Rwanda Ndiza, Beautiful Rwanda.