Lessons in hope and hatred

Our first excursion to an NGO after our safari weekend was to the local primary and secondary school that is under the name St. Jude's (not associated with the St. Jude's organization in the U.S. that many of us are familiar with). The school was started by an Australian woman who originally went to Uganda for three years after her college graduation to volunteer. During these years, she had come to neighboring Tanzania to go on a safari in Ngorongoro National Park, where we were just a few days ago. While on safari, she got to know the driver of the vehicle. As it turns out, they ended up falling in love and he eventually became her husband. After her three years of volunteering, she moved back to Australia in order to raise money for poor Ugandan children to go to school. She was successful at raising the money, but upon return to Uganda and examination of where the funds had been going, she was disappointed to see that there had been much misuse of the money and the children that it was intended to help were not benefitting in the way that she had intended. This caused her to want to open her own school instead, so that she could monitor and control how the funds were spent and the children were affected. This led into the foundation of St. Jude's primary school in Arusha, Tanzania in 2002. 

Students at St. Jude's Primary

Entrance into the school is dependent upon two things: a child's intellectual capability and his or her level of poverty. St. Jude's caters to the poorest of the poor, those who would maybe not be able to attend any school at all were it not for outside funding. The admissions process begins with a test that is administered to children who are just below the entrance age of the primary school. Interested families bring their children by the thousands to take this test when it is administered. We were told that there are over 2000 applicants for the 150 open spots per entering class. If a child is selected based on his or her score on the exam, then a poverty check is undergone to ensure that the family is actually too poor to send their child to school on their own. St. Jude's has a poverty chair who is in charge of visiting homes and questioning the young children about their financial status. Sometimes parents will remove belongings from their homes and instruct their children to not speak of their TVs or refrigerators so that they can appear poor enough to be funded by the school, so this is what the poverty chair is looking out for during these checks. If a child passes both the examination and the poverty check, then they can be admitted to the school and fully funded from the time at which they begin.

The primary school children are all obviously incredibly bright; this was apparent from spending just a few minutes with them. They are all aware of the opportunity with which they have been presented, and they all have high hopes for their futures. Their families also have high hopes for them; they are really the only chance the family has to rise out of poverty. So much rides on the shoulders of these little ones; it is hard to imagine being able to withstand that much pressure, especially at the young age of seven or eight, like so many that I talked to were. But they are all so bright and beautiful, cheerful and filled with hope, that it was impossible not to smile back at them when they looked up at you with open, shining eyes and hearts open even wider.

The secondary campus was also highly impressive. It was not the intention of the founder of St. Jude's to create a secondary school after the initial construction of the primary school. It was only founded in 2008, but it is already such an incredible campus with so many resources available to its students. There are 648 students on the secondary campus, and 98% of them are completely funded. Over 80% of the total funding for the secondary campus comes from an American family, Smith, which the campus now bears the name of. There are many wonderful facilities that cater to the students with the intention of sending them to college once they complete their education here, including computer labs, a library, music and art rooms, and science labs. It is such an impressive organization; I think we were all fairly blown away by its operations. Since the secondary campus is so new, there has not even been a graduating class yet. It is yet to be seen how these kids will fare in terms of going to college after graduation, but the hope is that they will want to stay in Tanzania to pursue a higher education and then a career. As with the primary school children, these kids all have high hopes for their futures, as well. It is encouraging to see them so excited about where they might be headed, and I am sure that each and every one of them will be able to positively contribute to the betterment of their families, their communities, and Tanzania as a whole.

The faces of Tanzania's future 

So that was Monday. Tuesday was an absolute nothing day for me because I woke up sick and stayed that way for the duration of the day. So that was no fun, but luckily this was the one day that we didn't have an excursion in the afternoon, so I was able to sleep it off, and I woke up Wednesday morning back to normal!

My sickness had good timing, because Wednesday morning, we all headed to the UN International Criminal Tribune for the Rwandan Genocide, in Arusha. After the absolute horrors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, court proceedings for those ultimately responsible for instigating and ordering the mass murders were chosen to take place in Arusha. Most of the trials have already taken place; out of the 83 arrests made, the only court proceedings that remain are appeals. The ICTR proceedings are actually slated to be completely closed in mid-2014. There are nine remaining people who have been indicted but are still on the run, but if they are found, they will be tried by the Rwandan government, not the UN. 

The ICTR is special because before this, the UN had no experience in judicial matters. It also expanded the definition of genocide to include rape and other acts that were carried out with the intention of destroying a specific group of people (in this case, the Tutsi). And as in Nuremberg after the Holocaust, the ICTR dealt with prosecuting the superior officers and other government officials who perhaps incited the massive amounts of violence, even though they may not have murdered anybody firsthand (these cases would be left to the Rwandan government). 

While at the UN compound, we watched a documentary over the ICTR proceedings and listened to a UN employee's explanation of how ICTR has operated over its lifespan. It was obviously very difficult to talk about the extreme scale at which these murders occurred (over 800,000 during a 100 day period), but it was also a very insightful view into the process of international law. We were able to walk through the actual court room in which so many people were tried and found guilty; it was a unique experience to be in the same room as where so much history had been made and so many terrible people had been brought to justice with the fullest extent of the law (which we all know will never make up for the atrocities that they committed). It was a sobering trip, but still yet another one that we were lucky to experience.

Waiting in a UN conference room for one of the employees who came to talk to us

UN visitor's badge

Tomorrow we are going to an HIV clinic at a local hospital, and Friday will be a trip to a local secondhand clothing market, so I will update y'all on those excursions after they occur!

On a more personal note, to my friends and family: I thank you all for your support as I continue along this most incredible journey. It has already been enriching and eye opening beyond what I could have ever imagined, and I am grateful for you all in ways that I didn't think could increase, but just over the short duration of this trip thus far, have still done so. Love and hugs to you all!

Bye for now!