…… about prostitution …….. the private life of ancille: video I words ……. the private life of clotide: video I words ……. spac

(click on the links to get to the individual films)....

For more about the project ‘Von Dü backstage’ check the subpage vondu.simonsticker.com.

This is the third part of a series about prostitution in Rwanda. The second part can be seen here, part one and four will be online soon.

Clotide is waiting for us down at the main road, waving as soon as she can see us coming. With her jeans jacket and pant and a big smile all over her face she is not looking like someone who was living a very different life than nowadays. She invites us into her house, brings in some chairs and we sit down to talk.

Clotide is a former prostitude and stopped in 2008. For 18 years, since her 20th birthday, she worked as a prostitude for soldiers, students and other people. She got HIV beside other disaeses in the first year of doing it, got pregnant three times from men who never became part of the family. She got beaten and pushed out by her family that had adoped her as a child. Her voice is low while she is talking about all this and her eyes look sad and painful. It was never the life she chose to live but it felt like the only option. With living in a very poor family that never accepted her as their real child. With the hope for a bit more than what she was living in. It were hard years, raising up her childs without a father, she says. But then there is this glimmer in her eyes, this happiness to now have the chance for a different life.

She stopped prostitution after 18 years, moved to another area, another house, started to work in a brig factory five days a week. She became part of the Medsar project SPAC (Stop Prostitution Around Campus) and helped develop it. They founded a association for the women and she became the president. They now produce baskets and plant a field beside their normal work. When she is talking about it, she is smiling, reliefed and happy. “My situation is not bad”, she says. Her children can go to school, she finds support in the community and she gets no longer stigmatized. She has some goats and rabbits now. When the situation got better, she adopted another child, a older boy. But he stole all the rabbits beside one and went away. Shortly after she adopted Ignace, another boy, who is now part of the family.

Clotide is waving again with a big smile as we leave her again. She seems confident and happy with her life, proud on what she has achieved. And she is telling us a little lesson in what is possible when you do not stop believing in yourself.

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]]> http://www.simonsticker.com/2010/03/04/the-private-life-of-clotide/feed/ 0 http://www.simonsticker.com/2009/11/29/the-private-life-of-ancille-mukabisangwa/ http://www.simonsticker.com/2009/11/29/the-private-life-of-ancille-mukabisangwa/#comments Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:51:56 +0000 admin http://www.simonsticker.com/?p=1328

The streets are full of people early in the morning. Days start early in Rwanda and this one is no exception. People carrying everything you can imagine on old bicycles, on their heads, if it’s fresh fire wood or sacks of food for the next weeks or a local shop. Hidden beside all this daily life in a calm backstreet, between two clay houses is the narrow entrance to the small hut of Ancille Mukabisangwa, She is living here in Tumba with her daugther in a hut, smaller than the bathroom of most people in Europe. Two beds, some cloth hanging on the wall, a chair, canisters and some pictures, that is about all she posseses. A curtain is deviding the hut in two rooms to give it a bit more privacy. Ancille is sitting on the ground. Her life has been a tough job so far. She grew up in Gikongoro, but had to flee with her husband during the genocide. In one of the refugee camps she gave birth to her daugther and lost her husband at the same time. When she came back to Gikongoro she could not find her family, scattered all over the country in different refugee camps. And she was pushed away by the people there. She was fighting hunger and could barely feed her child. Moving away and doing a new start somewhere else seemed to be the only alternative, so she went to Tumba. In the same year she started prostitution.

The sun is coming through the door, enlightening Ancilles face while she is talking to us. She is seldom looking into your eyes when she is talking, but her voice is strong and even when she is talking about sad things, she never lowers her voice. Her eyes are sad and are showing all the pain she passed through in her life. Sometimes it seems like as if she is not fighting for herself, more for her daughter, to give her a chance for life, a life outside this small narrow space, a life where she can get education or at least a nice place to stay. Valentine is 13 years old now and she is also HIV positive as her mother. In 2005 Ancille got tested for the first time and they found out about her HIV infection. She does not know where she got infected, but she believes that it was during her time in prostitution. Now she is getting treatment as well as Valentine. The treatment is for free in Rwanda for anyone under an income of 100.000 RFr (180$). Ancille has around 12$ per month. 7$ are for the rent of the hut. She calculates, 30 liters of water cost 30 RFr, the rest of the money is for food.

Ancille’s life changed two years ago. One day two students came and told her about a new program to reduce prostitution in the area. She did not believed them. Students are a big part of her clients, beside the soldiers from the nearby barracks. But they came back and convinced her to join SPAC. Nowadays she has her income from weaving baskets and getting fruits and vegetables from a field where the 60 ex-prostitutes cultivate now. It did not improve her living conditions till now, but it gave her the chance to stop with prostitution. And deep in her heart she hopes to come back to Gikongoro one day, buy a house and give her daughter the chance to live a life different from hers.

‘The private life of Ancille Mukabisangwa’ is one part of a series of four multimedia pieces about prostitution in Rwanda and the project SPAC. More will be up in the next weeks…

Read more about the topic here.