Remarkable Rwanda
It’s all good and well having a bunch of leaders gather around a table to discuss the way forward after one of the most intense and devastating genocide atrocities to mar our history on this planet, but to then get a whole nation to buy into the process and successfully achieve it is entirely another thing altogether.
It’s been just over a week since my early morning arrival in the bustling and vibrant Rwandan capital, Kigali, a visit to the genocide memorial and the three hour drive up to Bisate Lodge on the outskirts of the famous Volcano’s National Park. Ten days to be exact and I’m still trying to get my head around how this postage stamp-sized, densely populated country in the centre of Africa managed to go in a relatively short time-frame from being an international disaster to a shining and genuine example for the rest of the world on what can be achieved when you have the collective will.
Kigali is bustling; it’s vibrant and growing fast. With a skyline reaching upwards it’s a city literally on the rise with people on the move; and to move one has a choice – conventional taxi or riding pillion on one of the thousands of motorbike taxis to be found throughout the country anywhere anyone needs to get from A to B.
And yes, as in most places Africa there are bicycle taxis too - those red cushions are where you park yourself.
Rwanda is also known as the country of a thousand hills so I guess one can't blame people for hitching a free ride up a slope or two when opportunity presents ... the Rwandan version of a ski lift?
Stretching from the outskirts of town (actually even in certain places within the city circle) and as far as the eye can see, throughout the valleys, over most slopes and almost to the top of impossible hills, agriculture is the name of the game.
Statistics have it that almost 90% of the Rwandan population survive on or supplement their lifestyles through subsistence farming.
They’re very fortunate in having such fertile soil, but just take a glance up some of the hills sporting neatly laid out terraces and you’ll quickly realise there’s an incredible work ethic and will driving these folk.
You would also not be remiss in thinking, as did I, they have to be some of the fittest farmers to be found on this planet.
What about litter? Why am I going there? Because there isn’t any and it fascinates me. Can you imagine living in a country where the streets are clean, there’s no rubbish lying around and plastic shopping bags are banned? No “African flowers” adorning thorn trees and barbed wire fences or choking up the river systems and waterways! Having travelled through many countries in Africa this certainly is a wonderful experience for me.
Rwanda has managed to get this right, and the key ingredient it appears has been setting the example from the top on down. The last Saturday of every month is called Umuganda and on this day everyone, including his Excellency Sir Paul Kagama, Rwanda’s president, either walks the streets picking up whatever litter can be found or giving of their time to help someone less fortunate. In short, everyone, an entire nation giving of their time to work side by side and with pride to make a better country for themselves to live in. A remarkable achievement considering.
In fact it’s really hard to believe that only twenty three years ago no-one in Rwanda trusted their neighbours as people ran rampant on the streets and in the hills killing each other in the name of a ‘name’. Actually it was a little more complicated than that in reality as a visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial will teach.
Such a visit will also leave you a bit baffled by the history leading up to the event and having learnt about the goings on during it, wondering how any human being could find it in him or herself to treat another in the ways described and graphically displayed.
The reality however is that our brief existence on this planet is littered with similar genocidal events and one would like to believe we should, and could have learned how to prevent this from happening again.
Apparently not, and one only has to look today at Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Myanmar for confirmation of that.
So what made, and makes Rwanda so different? Simply put, it’s the people of Rwanda. For they are people who realised that the only way forward was to engage in conversation in order to gather a collective will to be better. And most critically, they are people with a genuine capacity for forgiveness.
Rwanda is nothing short of a modern day miracle and as such I believe rightly deserves the marketing by-line that has become synonymous with its very name …
Remarkable Rwanda
