The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World (8 page)

It seemed like a lot of driving, but I had already observed that there were few restaurants and no fast-food shops. Public transportation didn't serve certain areas, and all but the very elite lacked private vehicles. Getting workers back and forth was therefore an essential priority.

Boniface walked me upstairs to meet the director of UNICEF's Rwanda office, Bilge Ogun Bassani, a powerful, elegantly dressed Turkish woman with a dazzling smile and a solid handshake. We discussed the job I was there to undertake: determining whether a credit system for women was feasible and, if so, helping to design a financial institution for women. UNICEF would pick up most costs and provide me with an office and drivers.

Bilge was a trailblazer in that she understood that the power of an institution like UNICEF could provide legitimacy to a new effort while also giving me as a "consultant" all the flexibility I needed to be entrepreneurial.

"I want to do something for the women here," she said. "Women are too often neglected, and yet it is through them that we can best reach the children." She also understood women's need to earn income if they are to make more and better decisions. I liked her.

Bilge directed me downstairs to my new desk, and though I was again in a new place, for the first time in Africa, I began believing that somehow-maybe-I'd finally found a home.

After introducing myself to the colorful, quirky, international staff in the office, I called Veronique, the woman who had invited me to Rwanda in the first place. After a quick hello and how do you do, she breathlessly began listing people I should meet for my study. My French had improved, but still I understood only about half of what she was saying. The difference this time was that instead of feeling intimidated, I felt a yearning to be better, and an ease in asking for clarification when I needed it. We were off to a good beginning.

I've always started new undertakings with a delicious sense of excitement. The terms of my contract were simply to determine whether some kind of financial institution for women was needed and feasible. To me, the question seemed superfluous. This was a country where women comprised half the population, yet had no access to banking facilities. Of course a financial institution focused on poor women was needed. The real question was what it would take to make the institution real. My plan was to talk to as many people as I could, learn as much as possible, and then just start building. The work would teach us what was feasible and what was not. Of course, I didn't tell anyone this was my ultimate plan; it didn't make any sense to get everyone's hopes up and not follow through with action.

First step: endless phone calls and meetings. Veronique recommended key people to meet in the economic sector as well as the country's only three women parliamentarians, Prudence, Constance, and Agnes, whose last names I couldn't pronounce.

As I sat at my desk dialing the phone and speaking my still-middling French to assistants all over Kigali, one of UNICEF's expatriates invited me to a dinner that evening at the home of a French couple in town. In Kigali's tiny expatriate community, newcomers were always welcome for a change of pace. I accepted gladly in a spirit of having another adventure.

Given the humble character of Kigali itself as well as the simple exteriors of its houses, I was surprised by the mix of luxury and sophistication I saw at the dinner party. The walls and floors of the impeccably decorated house were covered with Persian rugs and African tapestries. One woman wore a blue taffeta skirt; and all came dressed as if they were dining at an upscale restaurant. The hostess served French food and wine while the dinner guests, mostly Europeans, debated global politics and complained about Ronald Reagan, America, and everything Rwandan.

Intrigued by the women in evening attire, I asked the colleague who'd invited me to the party who they were.

"Most are married to aid workers or UN civil servants," she told me. "Even those who want to work often can't get visas. Though some do significant work as volunteers, other women languish at the country club, wishing they were anywhere but here."

She added mischievously, "And their boredom does wonders for the state of extramarital affairs."

A Belgian man with thick blond hair, deep blue eyes, and a rugged appearance that betrayed a hard-earned weariness took it upon himself to give me a primer on the country. "In Rwanda," he said, "there is a great sense of order and discipline. This country is called the pearl of Africa for a reason. She is the land of a thousand hills-so beautiful and green, and you can get a lot done here, too. The people, they follow rules. You know, the masses were yoked thrice-by the feudals, the colonialists, and the Catholics. It is a lot, but you can see development projects work better here than anywhere else on the continent. It is almost too easy, in fact. But be careful, because with all of this discipline and progress comes a lot of deception."

I would reflect on those words for decades to come.

As the evening wore on, the wine flowed along with stories of Rwandan mishaps having mostly to do with hired maids and cooks. I heard the story of a housekeeper who was asked to whitewash the rims of a car's tires and ended up whitewashing the entire Mercedes, and one about the gardener who found a snake outside and put it in the expatriate's hamper for safekeeping. I found the stories about "these people" demeaning and tiring and later fell asleep thinking about the paradoxes of a physically spectacular country having a soul punctured by the competing forces of racism, colonialism, development, and geographic isolation.

The landlocked country seemed to cut people off from new ideas, so that conversations centered on the mundane, despite some of the extraordinary work people were doing. I pondered the strangeness of expatriate life, realizing that none of us at the party understood much at all about Rwanda or Rwandans, though we were the ones called "experts" I knew that this was just a single snapshot from a single night, but the bored facades of too many of the people at the dinner depressed me.

I awoke early the next morning thinking about what had bothered me most about the evening. Some of the expatriates had put low-income Rwandans in another category altogether-a box marked "other" for people who couldn't save themselves for trying. Yet we were supposed to be here to create real opportunities that would only work if we believed in the people we were serving. I decided to avoid the cynics and the "careerists" and promised myself that I wouldn't remain an expatriate for too long without rerooting myself in my own country. A creeping cynicism seemed inevitable in anyone who is always a visitor rather than someone with no choice but to live with the consequences of what he or she does. I also began to understand why I was so attracted to the notion of giving women access to loans, besides believing in it as an issue of justice. By lending women money instead of giving handouts, we would signal our high expectations for them and give them the chance to do something for their own lives rather than waiting for the "experts" to give them things they might or might not need.

I was changing. Though I'd been uncomfortable about focusing on women when I was first given the opportunity to come to Africa, I'd begun to see that if you support a woman, you support a family. I'd also learned that I definitely didn't like the word "expert" when it came to development. I still don't.

The question for me now was whether Rwanda was ready for microcredit-were there enough people and institutions to support the idea? I also questioned whether the Grameen Bank model would work in Rwanda. Bangladesh had something this country didn't: a history of trading and a feeling of solidarity among the people, especially since nationalism had taken root because of the war with Pakistan. Everything I read discussed how Rwanda operated as a feudal economy composed mostly of farmers living off the land. Some low-income people had started bartering for needed goods and services, but except for the Muslim population concentrated in Kigali, this was not known as a country of traders. I made a long list of questions to ask people and readied myself to present them first to my new partner in the study, Veronique.

Boniface picked me up to drive me to the Ministry of Family and Social Affairs, where we walked down a dark corridor and looked for Veronique in every room. I heard her rich voice before I saw her. As in every other office, Veronique's space was furnished with two desks, both constructed of dark wood, both covered with piles of papers and books, some yellowed, apparently from remaining in the same place for years.

Standing next to Veronique in the dark and dingy office was a shy, unassuming woman wearing a long skirt and flat black shoes. She was just a few inches over 5 feet tall, with a broad face and skin the color of coffee beans. She had large brown eyes that drooped at the sides, projecting a crinkly empathy further emphasized by a gap-toothed smile. Her hair was combed back into a loose crown. Her only adornments were a wedding band and a tiny gold cross on a chain around her neck.

She introduced herself shyly: "Amahuru, Jacqueline. My name is Honorata."

"Bonjour."

Veronique, already a teacher to me, gave me a gentle shove and laughed. "Now you say `Imeza.' When someone says Amahuru,' you answer `Imeza.' It is only polite."

"What does it mean?" I asked.

She laughed and hit me on the back. "So many questions already!" she said, adding, "It's very simple. Amahuru means `What news?' A sort of `How are you doing?' When you say imeza, you are answering back that it is just okay."

"What if it is more than okay?" I teased.

She laughed and shook her head and I knew we would be friends. I reached over to shake Honorata's hand, and she surprised me by clapping her right hand over my left shoulder and her left on my right elbow while leaning her face to the right of mine. My body naturally did the opposite, mirroring her. Then we switched. It was an awkward gesture at first, but a more intimate way of greeting-a double hug rather than a handshake.

Throughout the exchange, Honorata laughed quietly, covering her mouth with her hand. She wasn't showy in any way and seemed genuine in her desire to help women change their lives. Though Veronique was the more effusive communicator about our project, it turned out to be Honorata who knew which people we needed to meet, made the right calls, and set up my schedule. She also accompanied me to meetings while offering a running oral history of her country.

Veronique and Honorata were bemused when I said I wanted to meet tomato sellers, business owners, and priests as well as their list of government ministers, NGO directors, and U.N. aid workers. These were the women we would ultimately be serving, so why wouldn't we start there and assess their needs? They finally agreed, and Honorata added that we should speak with some of the women's groups she knew, as well.

The early days of the project were now filled with meetings, informal conversations, and just watching the way the world worked for women in Kigali. We would ask government ministers and development workers about their economic aid programs for women and found a number of grant-based programs. Several officials told us how they intended to reach millions with programs to give women maize mills and other "labor-saving devices." I would think of a photo I once saw of a rural man riding a donkey as his wife walked alongside, carrying a load of wood on her head. "Labor-saving devices for whom?" I would ask. "And how do we know they are the right ones?"

Ultimately, most agreed that an experiment in providing credit to women made great sense. We sat for hours inside each of three commercial banks; not a single low-income woman walked through their doors. In the Kigali market, women told us they paid up to 10 percent interest daily to moneylenders so that they could run their businesses. Clearly, we were onto something.

Where individual opinions differed was in whether we should charge interest to the women, an ongoing debate in microfinance programs the world over at the time. Many people we met at international agencies felt it was unjust or plain usurious to be charging interest to some of the poorest people in society.

"How can you justify making money off the backs of the poor themselves?" one woman asked.

Though we explained over and over that the organization was a nonprofit and would not cover the costs of lending, our arguments often fell on deaf ears.

"These women have no collateral," one minister told us. "How will you know they will repay?"

"With your grants, you know they will not repay, so this is, to start, a bonus," we said. "Furthermore, everything we're seeing from other programs in the world indicates that poor women do, in fact, repay."

When we returned to the market and spoke to the women themselves, there was great excitement about a program that would lend to them at fair interest rates (we didn't know what it was yet, but we knew it would be much lower than what they were currently paying). We would help them with skills and connect them with other women. Ultimately, it was these women we listened to most carefully.

After a few days, Honorata, Veronique, and I had had enough. Two reasons poor women needed this program were because they didn't have collateral and because they had extremely low income levels. The women themselves certainly wanted access to credit. There would always be naysayers, we told ourselves; in fact, it was this spirit that ultimately inspired the organization's name, Duterimbere, which means to go forward with enthusiasm. Besides, by this time a formidable group of "founders," was emerging, powerful women in Kigali who stood behind the idea of a credit institution for women and were willing to work to make it real. Though we had yet to work out the details, our momentum was building.

Still, we had to revisit the question of whether or not to charge interest, even with some members of Duterimbere's founding group. At a meeting with several of the women, I was asked to explain again why we wanted to make money from poor women.

"We will not make money," I repeated, "at least not in the short term, though we could grow and sustain ourselves if we truly built an institution that covered costs in the long-term. Think of charging fair interest as practice for the women to interact with the formal economy. It will help them build real businesses-and they want the option to borrow! Don't you think the poor women are capable of success?"