An exotic posting

Having come to China as the wife of an ambassador, Kayitesi Anne Marie Ngarambe found it tough to adapt at first, but has since found smiles, friendship and purpose in the country's capital

The beautiful lady in front of me, with perfect hair and a brilliantly hued silk scarf, doesn't look like part of a building crew for the Great Khan. But Kayitesi Anne Marie Ngarambe, the new president of the Group of African Ambassadors' Spouses, is bright-eyed and eager as she talks about her club's next project.

"We will be going to the Great Wall in March - some of us haven't been yet," she says. "We will go to one of the unrestored areas to help with the wall repairs. It will be a day of some work, but it will be very exciting for us."

When F. Xavier Ngarambe was posted to China as Rwanda's ambassador in 2010, an exotic journey also began for his wife and children, three of whom are university students in Beijing.

"The beginning is hard because a lot of things are new," she says. "While you are trying to learn the language, the culture and to get familiar with useful places you also have to be a real partner of the ambassador and be with him in almost all functions - without forgetting to help your children who also have to adjust with the new environment.

"After some time you get more organized and you start enjoying life in Beijing."

The spouses' group gave Ngarambe a good start in that direction - it was an immediate haven.

"This is my third year as a member," she says. "My first year in the group I was the secretary and then my second year I became the financial adviser.

"I have been living in China for two-and-a-half years, enjoying the legendary hospitality of its people, and fascinated to see so many smiling and friendly faces. I am very impressed by how multicultural the place is and by the extraordinary economic progress, with such a modern, well-developed infrastructure."

Official duties don't always keep her in Beijing. "I have had a chance to visit places like Shanghai, Shenzhen, Yunnan and Guangzhou," she says. "I also enjoyed Hainan province, especially the Dongshan mountain in Haikou, and the Yuntai mountain in Henan."

GAAS was organized 30 years ago as a social club, she notes. "Spouses can be lonely in a new posting, especially where the language and culture are very different. So the group is a way to bring people together who have a common background."

While there are more than 50 African countries with widely varying traditions and languages - she herself speaks several tongues from her home continent as well as fluent French and English - the spouses all have a common desire to adapt to their new surroundings, to explore the country and culture, and to represent their own countries effectively. GAAS is a way to do all that and more.

The group meets monthly at one of the members' embassies, to plan outings such as the upcoming Great Wall trip, to exchange ideas and just to chat. About a dozen of the members usually attend, since many may be traveling out of Beijing for an embassy function.

Several members will begin meeting weekly with a tutor to practice Chinese language and painting. Some spouses have taken one or more weekend classes offered for diplomats and their families by Hanban, the parent organization of the Confucius Institutes, so Ngarambe hopes to build on that experience and also bring in some wives who cannot participate in the Saturday classes.

"We are all women, spouses of all African ambassadors," she says. "When an ambassador is single or his spouse doesn't live in Beijing, the spouse of the second diplomat in the hierarchy is welcomed. The only African male spouse of a female ambassador is not an active member of our group."

Her colleagues are excited to be going to Hainan later in February, after the Spring Festival break, where they will visit one of the charities they made a contribution to last year.

"We are not a charity organization, we are a social club," she says. "But we like to organize at least one big event per year, some kind of cultural exchange."

These events involve selling tickets and perhaps food or crafts, she notes, and so they work with the Former Diplomats Association and other networking groups to find deserving charities to which they can donate the proceeds.

"Our special target groups are women and children in need, but we believe that there is no strict limit in charity and no one should be excluded from benefiting from our actions. The only limitation is our own capability," she says.

Ngarambe says her own interests are children's welfare and diseases, especially cancer and HIV. That goes back to her life in Rwanda, where she was involved in similar activities.

"Our cultural and fundraising activities are done with the support and active participation of our embassies," she adds, noting that they provide good opportunities to showcase African culture and to promote Sino-African cultural exchanges.

Past charity activities included a food festival two years ago, at which several dozen spouses cooked for the crowd at a hotel reception. This year, GAAS will sponsor an art festival, with exhibitions by African and Chinese artists over three days in May.

"Like other Africans living in China, our students are involved. They play an active role in cultural and fashion shows, etcetera," she says.

"No African is a beneficiary of our charity actions," she adds. The benefits are exclusively reserved to Chinese people in need.

Ambassadors and their families are typically posted for about four years, although Sudan's just-departed Ambassador to China Mirghani Mohamed Salih was in Beijing for almost a decade, making his wife Nadia Ahmed Salih the dean of the spouses group.

Who is the longest-serving member now?

She stops to ponder for a moment.

"It's not me. I'm sure," she says with a smile. "But we'll have to figure that out at our next meeting."

michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 02/08/2013 page22)