Marathon

Kay, so im way late on this, but here it is: the marathon.

So this year marks the fifth annual Amahoro week in Rwanda. Amahoro means peace in Kinyarwanda. The entire week is dedicated to ending violence and other injustices. It includes several eents, one of which is a marathon that I along with 5 other PCVs participated in. This event is huge-- UNICEF, USAID, and Women for Women are just a fe of the organisations that sponsor this event.
On Saturday, I attended an avent by the stadium which turned out to be all about saying no to cross generational sex. Apparently, its very common here in Rwanda for economially disadvantaged youn girls to turn to Sugar Daddys to help them out with school fees, phones, clothes, etc. Ive heard this from several sources.
The people in the audience mostly included school children who were their with their classes, as a sort of field trip. There were also some representatives from various organisations who were there to show support or make speeches. They passed out bottles of water (thank god-- its so hot in Kigali and water is a serious problem), as well as orange bracelets that said "not for sale" (in kinyarwanda of course) as well as posters that said Oya Shuga Daddi and Oya Shuga Mami. I like their choice of spelling. The pictures on them were pretty cheezy and contrived, it made me laugh, but I still plan on hanging them somewhere in my house. The same pictures are shown on billboards all over Rwanda.
The event included:

1. Performances by Rwandan singers and rappers whose songs I've grown to become very familiar with (there are only so many famous and successful singers/rappers in Rwanda)

2. Speeches by representatives of various organizations (such as USAID)

3. Two plays about "shuga daddi" and "shuga mami"

Overall, I was happy to have witnessed such an event. At the same time, I couldn't help but wonder if this event was catering to the right audience. Most of the people in the audience were schoolchildren, but from what I could tell, they were schoolchildren from well to do schools (which makes sence, which schools can afford to go on field trips? Not to mention Amahoro Stadium is in a better part of Kigali, far away from a rural place like the school I teach at). The children who go to these schools, are they really the ones who are all that susceptable to turning to sugar daddys and sugar mommas for financial help? I guess that's the problem with organizations that try to change things in general-- the people who are the most vulnerable are the ones who are the least reachable. The kids who need the most help are the least visable-- they're not going to school, or going but with very poor attendance. The schools they go to are far away from NGOs, and the schools they attend don't necesarilly have the money for extra curriculars.
The next day, we woke up early and split a cab ride to Amahoro Stadium for the run. It was a really potitive feeling-- being there with so many different people with so much energy. We really felt like something was happening. There were 6 of us PCVs all together, but only two of us had signed up for the half marathon, the rest of us had signed up for the 5K. However, we missed the 5 K, since when we saw the first group of runners lining up, it was a group of mostly children and senior citizens. We figured it was some kind of "special kid race". I'm actually glad we missed it-- to be perfectly honest running with just kids and a few people who are older than my parents would have hurt my pride a little. So instead, we lined up and ran with the half marathoners-- but only ran half of that, so basically, we ran about 10K. Even though that's not a huge distance, I'm still proud of myself for having been able to run like that, especially since I've barely done any kind of excercise beside walking up and down my mountain (and everywhere else) everyday. Not the same as hard cardio. And hey-- I got a free shirt out of it! Yay