Eric Rwabuhihi, Rwanda director for Children Affected by HIV/AIDS (CHABHA), talks on his cell phone at HotelTech in Kigali. (Debra Archambault photograph)
Part Two
The on-court exuberance contrasts with the life-and-death seriousness of what follows: a presentation on children's rights that includes a discussion of AIDS.
Two women from Haguruka, a Kigali-based nongovernmental organization providing legal assistance to women and children, have been invited to speak, partly in responce to the repe of an 11-year-old girl in Amahoro Association. The children gather on the grass as the women, dressed in business suits, begin with a question, "What do you think your rights are?"
Most of the women's remarks focus on sexual activity, including the punishments for statutory rape and abortion, which is illegal in Rwanda. The children raise their hands and ask questions in front of the group. What's the right age to have sex? Is abortion still illegal if the pregnancy resulted from rape? Where can children born with AIDS get help?
Lizzy and Kylie nod as two older students sitting next to them whisper translations from Kinyarwanda to English. Though they don't show it, they're surprised that their presence doesn't deter the children from asking such frank questions. My translator is Aphrodiac Ndagiyimana, 19, one of the Rwandan high school students who played in the pickup basketball game. He tells me his mother died of AIDS in 1996; he never knew his father. Rwanda has some 210,000 orphans because of AIDS. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, infects more than 3 percent of adults ages 15 to 49, a far higher prevalence than in the United States, where roughly one-half of 1 percent are infected.
The workshop continues into the heat of mid-afternoon. Our translators are doing their best, but their English is limited, and it's a struggle for us to understand even the essence of what's being said. Breakfast - dry white bread with jam, bananas, tea and coffee - was hours earlier, and our stomachs begin to grumble. Lizzy and Kylie ask if we can get lunch.
The girls' flagging attention doesn't escape the notice of Cindy Perry, the Thetford Academy teacher leading the trip. She's struck by how the Rwandan children know how to sit for long periods, whereas the American teenagers don't. Besides the hunger pangs and difficulty understanding, she believes part of what's happening is that the Upper Valley students have been raised in a culture where everything is faster, including education. "They're used to seeing something, learning about it and moving on," she says later. "There's not enough introspection, reflection, deep questioning."