Monday, November 29, 2010

History of Rwanda to 1960

I decided to break down the history of Rwanda into two parts: pre-1960 and post-1960.  The main reason is that East African countries started to gain independence around 1960, which resulted in a paradigm shift in traditional East African politics, lifestyles, financial investments, and infrastructure. 
Rwanda has an oral tradition, so formal history was never written down before Europeans arrived.  The Portuguese arrived to the eastern Africa coast (present day Tanzania and Kenya) around 1500.  They retained general control of the area, including trade routes, until Arabs dominated the area starting in 1700.  Slave trade became in such high demand that slave traders started to take slaves from present day Rwanda in the 18th century.  For the next 200 years, approximately 50,000 slaves would leave Zanzibar Island (where all Rwandan slaves would likely have been detained) per year. 
In 1890, Eastern Africa was broken up into German and British spheres of influences.  Germany took control of present day Rwanda and Burundi.  From 1890 to the World War I, Rwanda would be defined by colonial control which included new hospitals, roads, and missionaries.  This period would also be defined by famous African explorers.  Two of the most famous pairs of explorers would make their way around present day Rwanda: Burton and Speke (mainly seeking the source of the Nile) and Stanley and Livingstone (“Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”). 
The next main shift occurred during World War I, when battles between the Germans and Belgians occurred on Rwandan soil.  After the war ended, a League of Nations mandate declared that Rwanda-Urundi be under the administrative control of Belgium.  This decision is a major reason why one of Rwanda’s national languages is French, why there are direct flights from Brussels to Kigali, and why the famous “Hotel Rwanda” was a hotel owned by a Belgian airline at the time of the genocide. 
The Belgian government decided to start a system of differentiating Rwandans into intelligent, ruling Rwandans (Tutsis) and lesser, laborer Rwandans (Hutus).  From 1935 until the genocide, Rwandans would have an identification card with a line specifically for their “ethnicity.”  These differentiations were based on head size, leg length, and other physical aspects. 
The 1950s were a period of independence in Eastern Africa.  Kenya, Uganda, and the Congo were all pushing for independence from colonial powers.  Increased resentment towards Tutsis continued due to their preferred status and different viewpoints on a path towards independence.  After the attempted assassination of Kayibanda (Hutu), the “Hutu Revolution” resulted in the deaths of approximately 100,000 Tutsis, with an additional 150,000 Tutsis fleeing to neighboring countries. 
Belgium decided to split Rwanda and Burundi, and Rwanda was officially independent in 1962.  While Rwanda was independent, the country did not change from its colonial past with ethnic matters.  Events that would unfold in the next 30 years would result in a course changing event that has altered Rwandans ever since. 

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Saturday, November 13, 2010

Peace Corps training

            Peace Corps service is broken into two main segments: a three month training session followed by 24 months of service.  Our training began on October 19, and ends January 3 when we swear in as Peace Corps volunteers at the United States Embassy in Kigali.  For those three months, we study culture, language, safety and security, medical, technical aspects (teacher training), and various miscellaneous tasks.
            Culture: We study all cultural aspects of Rwanda.  This includes the history and genocide, but includes faux-pas, dress, marriage, and perceptions about Americans and westerners in general. 
            Language:  We have seven, 1.5 hour classes a week.  These are 3-on-1 classes that are aimed at getting us to an intermediate level of Kinyarwanda by the end of training.  The language is fairly intense, but necessary since this will be our only means of communication with our village during service. 
            Safety and Security:  This deals with several aspects of living in a new country.  A native Rwandan deals with all cultural and social issues that could hinder our health and safety.  Transportation issues, locks, emergency action plans, and site situations are all dealt with in this section.
            Medical: Rwanda has a fairly low concern for amoebas, parasites, and disease relative to other countries in Africa, but it is still a definite issue.  People in Peace Corps say that the medical attention we receive is the best we will ever have in our lives.  Medical training includes inoculations, AIDS, general sickness, malaria medication, diarrhea, and how medical issues are treated.
            Technical:  Five to six days a week we receive training on teacher pedagogy.  We review educational theory, lesson plans, objectives, classroom management, learning styles, and aspects of the Rwandan education system.  The Rwandan school system is in their American equivalent of summer break from the end of October to the beginning of January.  Since the youth are out of school, the Peace Corps trainers have recruited children from the Nyanza region to come to our mock classrooms and acts as students for three weeks while we try out actual in-class lesson plans for four hours, five days a week. 
            Our training is conducted in a town called Nyanza, approximately two hours south of Kigali.  There are 68 trainees, approximately 15 language and cultural facilitators (LCFs), and various additional staff (technical training staff, directors, medical, cooks, etc) that are assisting us with getting ready for the next two years.  It is six to seven days a week, and fairly intense.  However, the training will ensure us a smoother transition into our sites and help us deal with any issues inside and outside the classroom that we might encounter. 

Monday, November 1, 2010

Welcome to Rwanda!

             Welcome to Africa.  Those were the words as we got off the plane on Thursday.  Excited?  Yes.  Tired?  Yes.  We just left the plane, got to the compound, and passed out under a mosquito net to our new life in Kigali.  Here’s what happened:
            We all met on Tuesday, October 12 in Philadelphia.  Prior to meeting all of the new trainees (that is the term for Peace Corps volunteers who haven’t finished the three months of training), I went down to Independence Hall for a tour and saw the Liberty Bell.  Did you know that the Liberty Bell was just another bell until the 1830s?  There was nothing special to the bell, but it became a rallying cry for the abolition of slavery when it was re-discovered that the bell said, “Freedom and Liberty For All.”  Prior to that, it was a bell that sat in the Pennsylvania State House and was hid during the Revolutionary War not because of its significance or message, but because the Americans were afraid that the Brits would melt the bell into ammunition and cannons.  I digress…
            We came together with a huge amount of anxiety.  Two days of training in Philadelphia (which included a yellow fever shot) were followed by a bus ride to New York City.  We flew to Brussels on an overnight flight, then arrived in Kigali the next day.  The first three days were logistics and orientation in Kigali (shots, medicine, bank accounts, documentation, photos, etc).  We took one afternoon to visit the genocide memorial in Kigali and discussed some of the heavy issues that remain from a country that is only fifteen years out of a genocide.  Finally, we took a two hour bus ride to the village of Nyanza.  This is where we will be spending the next eleven weeks (up until about January 3) for training.  We are officially in PST (pre-service training), and are considered members of the community now.  
            Here are some fun and interesting facts about the 70 remaining Peace Corps 2010 Rwanda trainees.  The trainees come from all over the country, from California to Massachussetts to Texas to the Virgin Islands.  I’m the only volunteer from Nevada, and about the tenth oldest trainee in the group.  The average age of a Peace Corps volunteer is 28 (my age), but I feel a bit older for my group.  Most of the trainees just graduated college, or have been in the working world for one year.  All of the trainees have college degrees, with a large focus in education.  This is no surprise since we are all training to become teachers (15 are math teachers, 10 are science teachers, and 45 are English teachers).  There are three married couples, which one couple is about 70 years old and married for over 40 years.  The group is about 60 percent women, which is about the average for Peace Corps.   Also, almost everyone has student loans that are being deferred during service.  There are a ton of sacrifices being made to be here by the whole group, from selling cars and quitting jobs to leaving ill family members and boyfriends/girlfriends. 
            Rwanda is gorgeous.  It’s named the Land of A Thousand Hills, and it’s accurate.  The entire country is mountainous, with nice roads that seem to go from hilltop to hilltop.  We feel lucky and excited to be here.  We’re in the honeymoon phase, and spirits are high.  There is so much to learn and see, and so much we have found out so far.  We’ll save some of that for next time.