The last couple of weeks were slow and frustrating, due to holidays, bureaucratic delays and my translator leaving for a couple of days. But on Friday the 16th I was able to interview two faculty members of the Mbuga Teachers Training Center and a member of the World Vision Rwanda staff. The interview was quite successful and I gathered several details about the complexities of pursuing an education (from primary to university level), the living conditions of the average person and an indication of life for youth from Child Headed Households (CHHs). It was interesting to learn that although some CHH members are sponsored by programs like those run by World Vision and have their educational costs paid for them they still drop out of school. This is because the sponsorship occurs on an individual basis and is directed at one child per household. This means that those who are sent to school by the World Vision program (especially secondary where most students board) are provided with shelter, food and education, while their siblings struggle without. It is because of the guilt they feel over this that some of these students drop out.

On Monday the 19th I was able to interview my new guide Alex (who is going to help us locate the homes of CHH), as well as three students from the primary school who are also children from CHHs. From the four interviews and World Vision Publications on CHH in this area, I am already beginning to gather an image of how the local society regards these youth and the consequential impact on their emotional and ideological development. Although I suspect it will not always be the case, it appears that they are considered a burden to the extended family, they are regarded as trouble makers and hooligans, lazy and negligent, and in the case of some girls prostitutes. Some children from CHHs are excluded from games and other activities organized by children from non-CHHs. When I asked the children why others treated them this way, they where unable to explain, saying they didn't know. There was one young man (of16 years) who due to some allergy (I think) has a chronic running nose. Because of this no one will associate with him, because they think he is suffering form AIDS, to make matters worse, his mother was poisoned (after the genocide) and there is suspicion within the community that his mother was a witch and this is why she was poisoned. So his family suffers the double stigma of AIDS and witchcraft. Talking to another young boy (age 12) who lives with his older married sister, I realized how well located I was.

Gikongoro is one of the poorest rural districts in Rwanda, it certainly produces a number of the street children we see in towns like Butare and Kigali, two of the four youth I interviewed talked about their desire to run away, one to Nyaruguru where his family has or had a home (this is the 12 year old) and the other to Kigali or Kikuyu. This is only the beginning but as I carry out more interviews as well as focus group meetings (the first is scheduled for this Saturday the 24th) the circumstances under which youth from CHH live in will be come clearer and provide a port hole into the ideological sphere in which they operate.