Peter....

The name means rock and here in Rwanda we’ve met a man named Peter whose vision, like his name, is rock solid … although he can’t even see. Peter is a blind man here in the village with which we have had the opportunity to spend some considerable time together with. Three times a week, I pick him and some older ladies up from the village in a mini-bus and bring them to the center when Peter (or Pierre) gives them massage therapy to alleviate their aches and pains. In addition to that, I also go to his house for an hour or so every Tuesday and Thursday night to give he and his wife (who is also blind) English lessons. In Canada, maybe Peter’s story wouldn’t be so remarkable and what he is doing may not have so easily captured my attention, but here in Rwanda, he is an extremely remarkable man. One day while accompanying Peter to an internet-café so I could help him check his e-mail, I noticed nearly everyone we passed was staring at us. I assumed that like most stares I’ve received here, that it was because I was white (a muzungu) or perhaps because people thought it strange that I was a white man holding a black man’s hand. While that might have been part of the reason, Peter later told me that it was likely because he was blind and I am white. The blind, like many other physically handicapped people in Rwanda (and many other parts of Africa), are considered invalids and most resort to a life of begging to get by. They get no special funding from the government to help accommodate their needs and many are orphaned at a young age. What makes Peter so remarkable to me is his unwavering determination not to fall into the status quo of the handicapped in Africa, especially considering the relatively few resources he has to fight that fight. Aside from an old 1950’s Braille machine that he and his wife share and their walking canes, they have no special tools or resources to help them navigate a world not made for them. No seeing eye dogs, no Braille computer or accommodated living, he and his wife live alone with their two children (one of them an adopted blind-girl that was orphaned at birth) in a house like just about everyone else’s here. They are Rwanda’s first blind couple, two of the very few blind people in Africa living independently and two of the even fewer university educated blind in Africa. Centre de la Paix or The Peace Center is his vision. A centre, much like the Centre Cesar (at which we are working right now), that helps empower some of societies most vulnerable, but instead of empowering widows and orphans, empowering the handicapped of Africa. A center where the handicapped could be educated on how to live independently and learn skills to help them earn a living apart from begging. By empowering them, he also aims to change the perception of the disabled in Africa, to see them given the same rights as the able bodied. Peter faces a long battle to see his vision fulfilled and unfortunately he believes he will never see the change he envisions without the fulltime dedicated help of a westerner or western world based N.G.O. “The widows and orphans of the Umudugudu-Imena (the village we are living in) had no hope before Ubuntu and Maman Nicole (the Rwanda-based president of Ubuntu that runs operations here), the disabled and blind of Rwanda need their own Maman Nicole” he told me. This past week he won one small battle, convincing the government to hook his house up to the city water system, a system that very few people have access to. In the meantime, we’ll try to help Peter however we can during our time here and for the moment that means learning English. When I asked him why he wanted to learn English, I expected him to say that it was because Rwanda is becoming an Anglicized country, having applied for membership in the Commonwealth and already having left La Francophonie several years ago. Instead, his motivation was in line with his vision, “I want to learn English so that I can show Rwanda and Rwandans alike that I am as able as they are”.

Love,

Alex and Jo