The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World (10 page)

Mornings were better. I started most days with a run as dawn was breaking and returned exhilarated. When all was said and done, the Rwandan women and I were making real progress. There was great excitement in the capital that a new institution for women was being created by locals, not just by expatriates. Within months, we'd registered the organization, signed off on the bylaws, created a board, and raised local money. We were funded and ready to go.

The founding members gathered one evening to announce the registration of Duterimbere at the Women's Network office, where about 40 women filled the sparsely furnished room to the bursting point. The air was crackling with electricity, and again I had the sense that history was being made-but this time, I was part of it. After Prudence introduced me, I spoke in French with resolve and tremendous excitement, and they craned their necks toward me and applauded throughout my speech. I felt intoxicated by the sheer joy of that first step.

After the meeting, Prudence, wearing a black and red dress, her hair smoothed back elegantly, whispered in her girlish giggle that she thought most of the women had probably understood only half of what I was saying. "Sometimes your French is so funny," she said, adding that at least everyone had felt my passion completely, and it was that, not my facility with language, that they had applauded.

Embarrassed that my French was still so clumsy, I apologized profusely. She smiled, put her hands on my shoulders, and looked me in the eye.

"You should never worry about such small things," she counseled. "Language has very little to do with the words you say and everything with how you say them. Everyone understands what you are doing, even if the words sometimes don't follow."

Then she added, "And just so you know, we also like very much how you dance, for you listen to your own rhythm there, too."

Despite my having given a speech that few could understand, we launched what would become one of the largest lenders to the Rwandan poor. We had yet to make a loan, but we had a governing structure, money, contacts, and an amazing amount of heart-and we were a local organization created by and for Rwandan women.

After assisting Duterimbere to get on its feet, I couldn't leave until I helped it at least learn to walk. I extended my contract again and returned to Nairobi for a week or so to pick up a few pieces of clothing and favorite things. I did know we had no choice in Rwanda but to succeed.

We asked the Rwandan women to contribute some of their own money, despite being told by "the experts," who were far better at theory than practice, that women were too poor to give anything. Though the women didn't have much, nearly everyone we met donated what they could, helping to build a real partnership with local participation.

The members of the founding group put their reputations, their time, and whatever money they could find on the line. After we raised money locally, UNICEF provided our first grant of $50,000. Bilge Ogun Bassani also supported us by giving us a temporary office, drivers when we needed them, a stamp of legitimacy, and my salary, too. I learned the importance of giving different kinds of people seats at the table early in order to bring new ideas to reality.

Now all we had to do was determine how to make loans-and how to get the money back. It sounded so simple.

CHAPTER 4

BASKET ECONOMICS AND
POLITICAL REALITIES

"If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time."

-MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN

efore we began lending money, our little group met for the first time as a board, though it was unlike any board meeting I'd imagined. Honorata picked me up on a Saturday afternoon and we drove together to Veronique's home, to find her wearing a white cotton dressing gown and a full cast on her left leg. Her hair was standing straight on end, and her eyes looked sunken, as if she hadn't slept in weeks, a likely situation given the crying baby she was rocking in her arms. "Meet your newest Rwandan daughter," she said to me, smiling as she put the tiny girl in my arms and turned around to hobble to the couch.

Rumor had it that Veronique's husband had pushed her, causing her to fall down a hill and break her leg. I couldn't imagine this powerful woman allowing herself to be bullied by anyone, especially not when she had a tiny baby in her care. But I remember when she told me that only when women control money will they have the power to walk away from being hurt. We were having lunch together, and she talked for a long time about the horrors of domestic violence. "Here, the courts protect the husbands," she said. "In some ways, beating your wife is expected as part of family unity, and you know they always go after the feisty ones."

I'd never met a Rwandan woman feistier than Veronique herself, though she had been subdued on that day when sharing stories about women who were the most unsafe in the shelter of their own homes.

That afternoon at her house, as we waited for the others to arrive, Veronique was her old self, waving her hands as she dreamed aloud about what we could accomplish together. We spoke about umuganda, or community work, that was performed each Saturday morning by everyone in the country, a sort of pulling together to meet Rwanda's needs. In many ways, umuganda was classically Rwandan-highly organized work that everyone was expected to do. In Rwanda, government projects work in large part because the country is so small and organized. When government has a plan to enforce, it has only to pass it on to the country's 14 prefects, who communicate it to the bourgmestres, or local mayors. For umuganda, a community might be told one week to hoe a field; another, to plant trees-all under the supervision of a local official.

People from the expatriate community are often invited to join. Once, I hoed a field of potatoes with a small group of women, lifting the hoe's wooden handle over my head and then pounding it into the ground over and over again. Though the dirt smelled sweet and the air fresh, it was backbreaking work that lasted for hours. The next day, I could barely stand up straight. My hands were covered with blisters, and every muscle in my body ached.

Veronique laughed when I told this story. "You are still soft," she offered, "not like Rwandan women."

And then she added, "You know, umuganda is also a way for the government to ensure that everyone is where he or she is supposed to be." I didn't have time to dig deeper into the meaning of her words, but I began to notice that people did indeed seem to keep a close eye on one another in this country.

The others arrived and took their seats around a wooden coffee table in Veronique's government-issued house. Prudence and Agnes looked regal and serious in their long white dresses. Honorata and Annie wore full navy skirts and white T-shirts, and Constance, her brown nun's habit. Prudence had brought with her a wonderful French Canadian woman named Ginette who had recently left a successful corporate career and marriage of more than a decade to seek an entirely new life. She understood how to build operations and systems and she loved management. I knew myself well enough already to know that I could inspire people and help create a dream, but I needed the assistance of a professional manager to build an organization that could sustain our collective vision.

Once we were all settled, I looked around the room and thought of the life I'd left behind, where women wore "power suits" to work and little black dresses to evening cocktail parties. I remember mornings when, leather briefcase in hand, I had felt a heady rush just walking into Chase Manhattan Bank's massive marble lobby of the bank. And a big part of me missed the 22nd floor at the bank, where I had a specific role and a desk in a skyscraper on Wall Street that was filled with colleagues who understood me and I, them. Now I was in a Rwandan's living room talking to women in long dresses in a country with which I was still unfamiliar. I didn't fathom then that most big dreams originate in someone's living room with a small group of people, regardless of where they come from or how they are dressed.

Our meeting began on a formal note as Prudence, our first board chair, called us to order. Veronique, who was always less serious, sat poised at one end of her couch, her wide foot perched on the skinny wooden table, giving her breast to her daughter and wildly waving her hands as she told another story. Yellow sunlight poured through the windows, bouncing off the clean white walls of the tiny house.

We moved through our agenda: confirming that we would name the organization Duterimbere, because of our own commitment to going forth enthusiastically; officially hiring Ginette; and discussing an action plan. The board designated that Agnes would serve as the organization's first executive director. I thought the appointment was odd since she was a parliamentarian, but Prudence explained that many high-ranking officials held other jobs, as well.

We all agreed that Agnes would be perfect for the position. She had the necessary status as well as the inclination to do the work. We knew she would give it her all to make Duterimbere succeed and so the board unanimously made her the organization's first executive director. As for staff, Prudence mentioned that she wanted us to meet a young protegee of hers named Liliane, who had recently graduated from university and could be a powerful ally to Ginette as she put operations in order.

The next week, Ginette and I met Liliane at one of the local restaurants in town. I liked her from the moment we met. The other women referred to her as "the blue one" because her skin was so dark, it was bluer than black. She wore her hair cut close to her head so that her dark eyes and smile dominated her face. Liliane exuded a youthful innocence, though her serious air gave both Ginette and me confidence.

"I graduated from the University of Butare," she told us, "and want to work on women's economic development. I learn very fast and work even harder."

Ginette explained that Liliane would spend time working directly with the women in the market, helping them with business planning and ensuring that loans were made and repaid in a timely manner.

"Prudence told me this is a very big position," Liliane responded, "but I've worked toward this and will not let the women down. I can promise you that. I won't disappoint Prudence, either. She's such a big woman and she's put herself behind me, I know that."

We did hire her, and Liliane and Ginette ended up becoming a formidable team. In the next few weeks, we located a light and airy office to rent above a tailor shop in the middle of town. Its interior walls were painted pale blue, with big windows in both the front and the back. An external staircase ran up to the office, but the stairs were so small and rickety that almost daily I ended up tripping over a few stairs in my long cotton skirts. And, somehow, I never learned to take the stairs differently.

While setting up our office, we met a kind, talented Zairean artist named Dieu Donne who designed a logo for us depicting women dressed in red and green marching, fists clenched and bodies leaning forward with enthusiasm, toward a rural bank. Prudence teased that the women were walking more like me than like so many of the low-income rural women, who held themselves more demurely. But everyone else seemed to like it and the logo stayed, for this was to be an organization of aspiration.

In those early days, we spent a lot of time in Kigali's markets talking and listening to the women, this time to understand better why they would want to borrow money. Most were interested in expanding their tiny businesses. "I pay too much to the moneylender," a tomato vendor told Liliane. "I could borrow at a low interest rate; I could sell more and take more money home to my family." Another wanted to borrow enough to buy a goat with the hope that the animal would reproduce and she could earn even more money.

Some of the women had outsized dreams. One of our first potential borrowers wanted to start a bookstore, explaining that she'd had the idea because there were too few books in Rwanda.

"True," we responded to her, "but what qualifies you for this business? Do you know how to run a store? What do you know about selling books?"

She quietly admitted that she wasn't really qualified. "I am illiterate. But I would like to learn to read, and I want my children to have books."

She didn't get the loan, but her spirit was emblematic of what we were looking for.

I loved spending time in the Kigali marketplace-the bargaining, the camaraderie, and the constant chatter of vendors and customers. I loved the way barrels of dried beans stood together like stout men at a beer fest; the beautiful red tomatoes piled in pyramids; the bright yellows, greens, and pinks of so many different types of bananas; sunny oranges, blushing mangos, and pale fennel and leeks. I loved the smells of the fruits and flowers and the feel of rice when I ran it through my fingers.

What I didn't like was that it was impossible to find locally grown coffee. Despite Rwanda's reputation for producing some of the best coffee on earth, locals had to settle for tins of Nescafe instant coffee. And it peeved me that men sold high-margin products like fish and powdered milk while women were consigned to tomatoes and onions, items guaranteed not to make money. I wanted to see at least some women breaking these local economic barriers.