Rwanda Radio Project for Orphans

My trip lin October 2005 to Rwanda was both inspirational and heartbreaking. As some of you know, I had long intended to visit Johnta for some time but could not locate the one person who knew how to find him. Freeplay Energy and Freeplay Foundation are in agreement that since Johnta (real name Jonathan Macumi) was the inspiration for the Freeplay torch, that Freeplay/FF should do something to benefit this young man and his family. In the past year the picture of him with his Lifeline radio balanced on his hoe is not only on the Home Page of our website and the photo sketch on the insert of the Jonta torch; he graces the cover of the Tech Museum Awards Invitation and in June appeared five stories tall on NASDAQ's Times Square billboard. The organization that found him sent out an advance party to ensure he would be there on the Saturday I would visit. If they had not gone ahead, he would likely have been tilling a nearby field, not earning money, but earning food and I would not have seen him. It is very difficult to provide support for just one child-headed household and not all the others nearby. So I took clothes, food, pots, pans, soap, matches and other useful items bought at the local market that he could share. This was in addition to his new Lifeline and his Jonta. I was afraid that if I gave him too much, he might become a target of those who don't have Mazungus (Whites) appearing out of Land Rovers bearing gifts. It took us a long time to find his house as he lives in Nyamata, a maze of pockmarked dirt roads, fields, deforested hills and deep valleys that all look the same. The ground is the rich ochre African soil that layers so much of this continent. This was also an area hit hard by the 1994 genocide and now is being devastated by Aids. If my life depended on it, I could not find him on my own. Now 14 (or so he thinks), Johnta was waiting for me and ran down the path in his flip-flops and greeted me with a giant smile wearing the same dirt-caked shorts and shirt when I last saw him. They are the shorts to his school uniform and then he changed into what looked like a newish t-shirt. I put my arms out and he came to hug me but stopped short. I realized that he has no one to hug him or provide any emotional support, so this would not be a natural or easy action for him. Our arrival also prompted the 40 or so other orphans to descend en masse. The driver kept the other kids entertained while the interpreter allowed me to speak to him in private. To review the Johnta story - his father died of Aids in 2000 and his mother in 2002/3, however, this time he told me they died of natural causes (I presume because of stigma). I had also thought he was looking after five younger siblings, but it is four (five includes him). They are Jean Bosco, 13; Claudine, 10; Chantal, 8; and the youngest boy, Arisa, 3 or so. When I first met Johnta over 2 years ago, he proudly presented Arisa to me, who was being wet-nursed by a teenage girl. With the exception of Arisa, all look small for their age; all wore rags and were covered in dirt. Neither he nor his siblings have birth certificates, so ages cannot be verified. Johnta told me that he gets up at 06h00 (How does it know it's 06h00? "From my radio.") fetches swamp water from the bottom of the hill, boiled, as he has heard on the radio, makes food for everyone if there is any and he has returned to school - grade 6. We passed the school and it seemed to be about 3kms from his house. The other children stay at home to tend the goats for a neighbor. Jean Bosco might go to school, but not the two girls. In the afternoon he comes home and prepares food with his sisters. On Saturday and Sunday he works in the neighbor’s fields to earn food as the told he, "he's too young to be paid." With pride he produced his rather beaten up Lifeline. The solar panel was "lost" and the radio was dirty, the handle knob was missing, but it still played. My conversation went something like: KP: What do you listen to on the radio? JM: News, religious songs and programs for youth. KP: What difference has having the radio made to you? JM: Before I the radio I used to feel isolated. My friends come to me and we listen together. We like to do this. KP: If you could have one of those goats (he tends a few neighbor goats) as your own or this radio, which would you have? JM: I prefer my radio. Why? Because it eases my isolation and helps me. KP: What have you learned from the radio that has helped you? JM: I learned about the president of the World Bank. At this point I burst out laughing. I do intend to inform Paul Wolfowitz of his far-reaching impact! KP: What you do worry about the most? JM: Shelter. My problem is shelter. These five children live in a tiny one room dilapidated mud brick circular house with a banana frond and wood roof. The ceiling is infested with wasps’ nests, spiders and bees. He says mosquitoes bite at night (I tried to buy a mosquito net, but could not find one). It was dark inside with the only light coming from the holes in the bricks and ceilings. The children snuggle together on a meter-high platform on an old mat. There was a rough-hewn bench, a few clothes and several items used for cooking. The towels I gave him before serve as blankets. No one should have to live like this. Through the interpreter I tried to explain that he was the inspiration for the torch. When I gave Johnta his Jonta, he said, "thank you, mama, thank you, thank you, thank you." He knows only a few English words and these are three of them. I nearly burst into tears. He absolutely loved the torch. While there I distributed four additional Lifelines. Johnta had pre-selected four girl heads of households to receive them and I conducted a mini-training. I replaced his Lifeline with a new one and meant to bring the old one back for testing, but forgot. A World Vision radio reporter accompanied me and she recorded most of the day. We stayed for about three hours. When we started to get into the car for the dusty two-hour journey back to Kigali, I motioned to Johnta to come to me. He did the same as before, sort of stretching his arms around me, but not really touching. But this time he had tears in his eyes.

• In Search of Johnta.doc (DOC)