A message from Rwandan president Paul Kagame

President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame

Upon the Peace Corps returning to Rwanda in 2008 after an 14 year hiatus, President Paul Kagame delivered this message about the Peace Corps's involvement in Rwanda:

The United States of America has just sent a small number of its sons and daughters as Peace Corps volunteers to serve as teachers and advisors in Rwanda. They have arrived to assist, and we appreciate that. We are aware that this comes against the backdrop of increasingly scarce resources, of budget discussions and campaign promises, and of tradeoffs between defense and domestic priorities like health care and infrastructure investments. All that said, I believe we need to have a different discussion concerning the potential for bilateral aid.

The Peace Corps have returned to our country after 15 years. They were evacuated in 1994 just a short time before Rwanda collapsed into a genocide that killed over one million people in three months. Things have improved a lot in recent years. There is peace and stability throughout the nation. We have a progressive constitution that is consensus-driven, provides for power sharing, embraces diversity, and promotes the participation of women, who now represent the majority in our parliament. Our economy grew by more than 11% last year, even as the world entered a recession. We have chosen high-end segments of the coffee and tea markets in which to compete, and attract the most demanding world travelers to our tourism experiences. This has enabled us to increase wages by over 20% each year over the last eight years -- sustained by, among other things, investment in education, health and ICT.

We view the return of the Peace Corps as a significant event in Rwanda's recovery. These young men and women represent what is good about America; I have met former volunteers who have run major aid programs here, invested in our businesses, and I even count them among my friends and close advisors.

Peace Corps volunteers are well educated, optimistic, and keen to assist us as we continue to rebuild, but one must also recognize that we have much to offer them as well.

We will, for instance, show them our system of community justice, called Gacaca, where we integrated our need for nationwide reconciliation with our ancient tradition of clemency, and where violators are allowed to reassume their lives by proclaiming their crimes to their neighbors, and asking for forgiveness. We will present to them Rwanda's unique form of absolution, where the individuals who once exacted such harm on their neighbors and ran across national borders to hide from justice are being invited back to resume their farms and homes to live peacefully with those same families.

We will show your sons and daughters our civic tradition of Umuganda, where one day a month, citizens, including myself, congregate in the fields to weed, clean our streets, and build homes for the needy.

We will teach your children to prepare and enjoy our foods and speak our language. We will invite them to our weddings and funerals, and out into the communities to observe our traditions. We will teach them that in Africa, family is a broad and all-encompassing concept, and that an entire generation treats the next as its own children.

And we will have discussions in the restaurants, and debates in our staff rooms and classrooms where we will learn from one another: What is the nature of prosperity? Is it subsoil assets, location and sunshine, or is it based on human initiative, the productivity of our firms, the foresight of our entrepreneurs? What is a cohesive society, and how can we strengthen it? How can we improve tolerance and build a common vision between people who perceive differences in one another, increase civic engagement, interpersonal trust, and self-esteem? How does a nation recognize and develop the leaders of future generations? What is the relationship between humans and the earth? And how are we to meet our needs while revering the earth as the womb of humankind? These are the questions of our time.

While some consider development mostly in terms of infusion of capital, budgets and head counts, we in Rwanda place equal importance to relationships between peoples who have a passion to learn from one another, preparing the next generation of teachers, administrators and CEOs to see the exchange of values and ideas as the way to build the competencies of our people, and to create a prosperous nation.

We will do this because we see that the only investment with the possibility of infinite returns is in our children, and because after a couple of years in Rwanda, working and learning with our people, these Peace Corps volunteers will be our sons and daughters, too.

My Site



The view of my village from the nearby mountain.  On the left is the cathedral and on the right is my school.  In the background is Lake Kivu, and in the distance is the Democratic Republic of the Congo.



The cathedral and elementary school at my site.



My house is the one with the tin roof.  There are about 15 houses in the area.



My town center.  You can't get much here outside of the food staples (rice, beans, etc).  There is no electricity or running water here.



             After successfully completing pre-service training (see the blog posted on 11/13/10) and swearing in as a volunteer (see the blog posted on 01/25/11), every Peace Corps Volunteer leaves for their site.  Sites in the Peace Corps are generally very rural and in the direst need for volunteers.  My site is no exception.

I live in a village called Kinunu.  Kinunu lies in the Western Province of Rwanda in the district of Rutsiro (the districts are the American equivalent of states).  The Western Province is famous for bordering the gorgeous Lake Kivu and the biggest mountains in Rwanda.  To get to my site, you have to take a three hour bus ride from Kigali west to the town of Gisenyi.  From Gisenyi, you can either take a three hour grueling bus ride on a dirt road following by a twenty minute motorcycle ride to my site, or you can take a three hour boat ride on Lake Kivu followed by a forty minute walk up a mountain to my site.  Either way, it takes a while. 

The village is small, even by Peace Corps standards.  In a one hour walking radius, there are probably about 1,000 people.  I say one hour radius, because houses don’t really end and open areas begin, agrarian villages just basically melt together.  It’s difficult to say “We’re leaving Kinunu and entering the next village” because a) there is no distinguishing characteristics between villages and b) there are no “Welcome to Kinunu” or “You are now leaving Kinunu” signs at the edge of the village.

The village is beautiful, as it sits on Lake Kivu.  Kinunu has a large Catholic church, several small Protestant churches, two elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools. 

My house sits next to the town center (called the “ishusho”) where you can buy basic goods and staple foods (rice, potatoes, corn).  If I want to buy anything additional (pineapples, avocadoes) I have to wait for the market days of Wednesday and Saturday. 

For the next two years, Kinunu is my home. 

Rwanda History 1960 to present

   

A genocide memorial (one of hundreds in Rwanda) that is at my site.  In the memorial, there are numerous bodies laid to rest from the genocide.

           I’m writing the second in a two series blog on the history of Rwanda.  The history of Rwanda has been separated into two parts: pre-1960 and post-1960.  For the history of Rwanda from prehistory to 1960, see the blog posted on 11/29/10.  The main reason that the blog was separated into two parts is because 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.

            The United Nations decided to split Rwanda and Burundi due to different philosophies on governing, and Rwanda was officially independent in 1962.  The first independent government was lead by Prime Minister Kayibanda and his Hutu majority.  The next ten years would be a mixture of Tutsis and Hutus killing each other, both inside Rwanda and in the neighboring countries where Tutsis would seek refuge.  Furthermore, the new independent government made attempts to limit the educational and business opportunities to Tutsis. 

            A new leader, Habayarimana, became a rising figure in Rwanda and had the backing of the majority due to a slaughter of Hutus in the southern border country of Burundi.  These new attacks made the intertribal tensions huge again in Rwanda, and resulted in the military coup lead by Habayarimana in 1973.  The coup would be classic military style, with the slaughter of Kayibanda (the former prime minister), his wife, and many cabinet and high level officials. 

            The 1970s and 1980s would be a period of general economic prosperity (including the Peace Corps entering the country).  In 1986, General Museveni became president of Uganda after being victorious in the Ugandan civil war (As of February 2011, Museveni is still the president of Uganda.  Being a president in an African country for twenty-five years is quite common).  One of the major players in Museveni’s army was Paul Kagame.  With the backing of Museveni, Paul Kagame started the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) with exiled Tutsis in Uganda and started the Rwandan Civil War in 1990. 

            The Rwandan Civil War was comprised of the Belgian, French, Congolese, and Rwandan armies against the RPF and Ugandan government.  The next three years would be the RPF advancing and retreating from Kigali, and the Rwandan army brutally killing, arresting, and neglecting Tutsis and sympathetic Hutus.  By 1993, the RPF was on 15 miles from Kigali, and Habayarimana was cornered into peace negotiations in Tanzania.  The peace negotiations ended on April 6, 1994, when Habayarimana and the Burundian president were flying back to Kigali.  The plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile while on approach to land.  Tutsis were blamed for the crash, and the genocide would start only hours after the plane had crashed.     

            For the next 100 days, road blocks would be set up in order to kill Tutsis and Hutu sympathizers.  The murders were children, wives, husbands, and long time friends.  Once Paul Kagame and the RPF finally took control of Rwanda and pushed the Interahamwe into Burundi (country bordering to the south) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, country bordering to the east), the genocide ended.  In the end, an estimated 1,000,000 people were killed, and Rwanda was in tatters. 

            While Rwanda tried to recover from the scars of the genocide, the country still faced issues with the Interahamwe threatening refugees to not return to Rwanda.  By 1996, the Rwandan army invaded the DRC and forced the rebels deep into the Congo.  This allowed nearly all the refugees to return, but started a new issue of repatriation.  Due to land constrictions, Rwanda deforested some of Akagera National Park in order to place refugees back in Rwanda. 

            Paul Kagame has been president of Rwanda since 2000, and recently won an election that will make him the president until 2017.  Since 1994, Rwanda has outlawed identity cards (showing if a person was a Hutu or a Tutsi), joined the East African Community and Commonwealth, and enjoyed peace and prosperity.  Tourism has grown rapidly and infrastructure has improved dramatically.  In some years, Rwanda has had their economy grow by 20 percent.  However, there are still scars to heal and work to do. 

Where Are All Your Used Clothes End Up

A market in Nyanza, Rwanda where they are sorting through and distributing clothes from the Western World. 

After you send your clothes to the Salvation Army or Goodwill, do you think what happens to your clothes afterwards?  Generally, we think that they are given to underprivileged children in our community, or sold at a local dime store for pennies on the dollar.  Some of our clothes do end up there, but a lot of it ends up here in developing countries.  In fact the Western World, particularly America, clothes the rest of the world with our used clothing. 

Huge shipments of clothes come off trucks and barges to ports in developing countries.  The clothes are then sorted and resold at markets all over country.  Every type of clothing that you have sent to Goodwill is resold here.  For example, in Nyanza there was a man who walked around town year round in a Santa Claus hat on his head.  Remember that shirt you gave to Goodwill that said “Remember My Name You’ll Be Screaming it Later”, well now there is a 12 year old girl wearing it in a village.  Somewhere in Africa right now a child is wearing a shirt that says “Santa Clause is not real.”  In fact, my housekeeper is a really strong 20 year old man that wears an orange and white “DuMont Cheerleading” jacket that has the name “Heather” embroidered on the front.  The people that wear these clothes have no clue what they mean, nor do they seem to care. 

Next time you give away your clothes, think about who will be wearing it next.  It could be an underprivileged family in your community, or it could be a child in India that walks around their village wearing it all week. 

A Quick Update

I have officially been a volunteer for one month.  The first month has been a huge learning curve, and I have been trying to find my way through long bus rides, no electricity, no running water, and two bouts of sickness.  However, I have been trying to keep up with e-mail correspondence and blog posts (I plan to do one blog post every two weeks).  If correspondence is spotty and inconsistent, just remember that I’m trying to answer e-mails and write posts as soon as I possibly can.

If you have any questions about the Peace Corps, Rwanda, Africa, or my life here, please e-mail me at sma2103@gmail.com  I will personally respond back to you and place all Q and A as a future blog post.  I look forward to hearing from you.    

Umuganda!

Working on the road on a Saturday morning!



Having a break with our Rwandan counterparts, Moses and Gilbert.



Having fun the old fashioned way - Doing Nothing!



         “Umuganda” is a Kinyarwanda word meaning “pillar.”  The pillar is a reference to the pillar of development for the future of Rwanda.  However, most everyone knows “umuganda” as the word for community service.  On the last Saturday of every month, every single Rwandan is required to participate in umuganda in their community.  If a Rwandan does not participate, they are fined by the government.  The local jurisdiction determines what the umuganda project will be for the month. 

Umuganda can be anything from improving roads, forestation, to building schools.  In fact, some of the newly developed schools and reforestation of rural areas is a result of umuganda.  The previous training group built schools in our training village of Nyanza.  Our training group was responsible for improving roads and drainage structures in Nyanza. 

Since we will be Rwanda residents for the next two years and are trying to be a part of our communities, we are strongly encouraged to participate in every umuganda in our village.  Umunsi mwiza (have a good day)!

Swearing In as a Peace Corps Volunteer

Me with Mupemba, the training manager for our Rwandan education group.



The entire Rwandan training staff that helped us with every aspect of culture, language, and education pedagogy.



A collection of the Peace Corps Rwanda Education Group II just after swearing in as volunteers.  We are on the steps of the Ambassador's House.



Listening to speaches at the Ambassador's House shortly before swearing in.



            Swearing in is the culmination of a volunteer’s long road from application, medical reviews, invitation, and training to being an actual volunteer.  It’s a long road, one from finishing the application to being an actual volunteer can be from 6 months to 5 years. 

            In order to be a Peace Corps Volunteer, the trainee must pass a language exam (able to speak “survival Kinyarwandan” which is the technical equivalent of an intermediate level foreign language), medical exam, and technical exam (teaching test, and approval of the educational instructor that the trainee will be an effective teacher as reviewed from the educational training staff), along with the training group believing that the trainee will be an effective and positive volunteer. 

            On January 3, sixty-five trainees swore in as Peace Corps education volunteers.  The ceremony was emceed by the United States Ambassador to Rwanda and the Peace Corps Rwanda Country Director, and took place at the United States Ambassadors House (side note, the house is the nicest building I’ve seen in Rwanda). 

            The day culminated in a shopping trip in Kigali.  The next day, all of the volunteers said goodbye to each other and moved to their sites.  The volunteers will reconvene together for a five day in service training (IST) in April.