Lessons from Rwanda

There are a lot of things here in Rwanda that really are quite amazing. For a country that was so very recently leveled to the ground, without infrastructure, without services, without hope, without peace, Rwanda has achieved a great deal. The economy is booming, at least here in Kigali. The infrastructure is back in place – not perfect, but there is running water, electricity (with random interruptions), sewers and garbage collection. The schools are functioning and more are being built, even as I write. Health care is available for about two dollars per year per person.

The courts continue to be very busy with genocide cases, but they too are functioning well, albeit slowly. The government is stable, with severe penalties for anything that smacks of corruption. It seems Rwanda has gone from being the scourge of Africa, a blight oin the eyes of the world, to a model country that is the envy of most other African nations.

How was this achieved? I am not an historian, but I have talked with many people and observed a great deal during my stay here. First of all, I would have to credit a deep faith as one of the primary factors in Rwanda’s recovery. Largely a Christian nation, the country’s despair has been replaced by hope, which many Rwandans see as the return of God to bless this country, having abandoned it for a long time. You cannot talk for long with a Rwandan before God is mentioned as a huge force in his or her life.


Second, it seems to me the government has taken some extraordinarily courageous steps in reconciling the past with the present. Gacacca courts are a primary example, where crimes by more minor players in the genocide are tried and sentenced. By minor, crimes are those of property as well as murder, but no more than some number of people, perhaps ten. The implication is that these criminals were mere pawns (and young pawns at that) in a much larger agenda of genocide. This community court process is due to end in November this year so there is a great deal of effort to complete the cases currently before the courts.

This is a particularly difficult process for those who were the victims in the genocide, because they have to accuse the perpetrators. The perpetrators have to admit their crimes to the accuser(s) and ask for pardon but very often their sentences are not severe. There simply is not enough room in the country’s prisons to jail everyone who participated in the genocide, even if they committed murder. What is expected is that the victims pardon the perpetrators of the crimes. This is the difficult part. But somehow it is working. Victims pardon the accused, at least in word. Their own private thoughts and feelings are set aside, at least in public. As one woman said to me, I have pardoned (him) because I have to.

I find this a very courageous journey towards reconciliation. If people are able to live together in harmony again, if their children are well-educated and not inculcated with divisive ideologies about ethnicity, if the economy continues to grow and everyone has opportunities to prosper, then people can look to the future rather than the past and there is real hope for long-term success.

In addition to this overarching system of reconciliation, there are other ways in which the Rwandan government has taken some remarkable steps. A small thing, but something that has grown much larger in recent years in the Western world as our sensibility about environmental issues has grown, here in Rwanda, plastic bags are forbidden. If you travel here and put your shoes in a plastic bag, that bag may be confiscated at the airport. People carry reusable bags of all kinds and paper bags are the norm in grocery stores and markets. Household garbage is stored in empty bags that once carried coal, or sorghum or grains. When garbage is collected, the bags are emptied into large trucks and the bags are returned to the owners. If Kigali was to start a household composting program, there would be very little garbage at all!

Another interesting feature that has been inserted into the lives of the Rwandan people is called umuganda, which translates as “community work.” During the morning of the last Saturday of every month, everyone is expected to participate in their community’s well-being, at least one person from each household. The buses stop running, the streets are closed and everyone remains in their own community. Roads are repaired, schools, churches and other public buildings are built, even young children participate in this process, carrying bricks and lumber and water.

To me, this half day per month of community work, while compulsory, is a reminder that we all have a responsibility to make our country better. That we are the state, as my friend Sandi never tired of saying. Can you imagine such a mandated day in your community?? Perhaps you are lucky and live somewhere where people actually do take that responsibility seriously and actively participate in their communities voluntarily. But I fear that all too many of us just expect someone else to take care of it, whatever “it” is.

So to me, with these few examples, I believe Rwanda has taken stock of the rest of the world, and learned something from the things we don’t do so well, and from the things we have done badly. And Rwanda has taken advantage of being able to build something from nothing, or something from a very broken something else, incorporating the best of the rest of the world, and inserting and inventing things that are entirely new. Go Rwanda! And God bless.

The People of Rwanda

The other day, while I was in Akagera Park, I met a German woman and her husband who had been travelling in several other African countries. They talked a little bit about how much begging went on in the countries they had visited. I reported that I had seen very little of that here, just a few children who annoyingly say “give me money”, practicing their few English words, and a few older women downtown who beg, sitting on the ground with a child or two by their side. Otherwise, at least as far as I have seen, everyone is very busy working.

Seriously, the streets are always filled with people. The majority of the economy here is at a micro level. There are thousands upon thousands of small shops that sell pretty much everything under the sun, though you totally have to know where to go to find what you are looking for as neither the store front nor the sign will tell you much at all about what is inside. Then there are the thousands upon thousands of people who walk the streets selling fresh eggs, phone cards, internet cards, tomatoes, jewelry, papayas, and so on. Then there are the professionals, very much the minority and pretty much only in Kigali, who work in offices, hospitals, schools and the like. Then there are the hordes of moto-taxis that are ubiquitous, not to mention taxis, which are equally present and the hundreds of bus drivers. Then there is construction that seems to be going on everywhere, both in the city and rurally. These endeavours require thousands upon thousands of people to do the work. It looks to me like this country is growing, and growing well, economically.

To date, I have not heard anyone refer to anyone else as anything but Rwandan, which suggests that President Paul Kagame’s recipe for reconciliation is working, at least on the surface. Who knows what goes on in private? But public is a good step, rather like racism in Canada. It is not evident in Canada though it rears its head in more insidious ways. And children are hopefully being taught about being Rwandan, not Hutu or Tutsi or Twa. I am starting to see the great variety in facial features, stature and so on, but I have never seen anyone flinch, for example, if, on the bus, they sit next to someone who is different from them.

Speaking of buses, I do enjoy them, plus they are pretty cheap, only 200 RWF (about 50 cents). The buses are packed, but everyone gets a seat. You do have to be able to tolerate a fair bit of body odour! The larger buses hold about forty people I think. When all the main seats are taken, there are aisle seats that fold down. The etiquette when getting on the bus is to always take the seat furthest to the back, especially when the side seating is quite full. If someone gets off from the back, several people shift to fill that spot. Otherwise, everyone in the aisle would have to stand, fold up their seat, and make room for the next person getting onto the bus. It works like a charm but you do have to know the rules.

I have had many a nice chat in French with various people on the bus. People are generally very friendly and warm towards mzungus, and always delighted to hear we are from Canada. Almost always, someone knows someone in Canada and asks if we know them too. They have no concept of how vast Canada is. Others are curious to know what it is like, and how it compares to Rwanda. Rwandans are very proud of their country and rightly proud of the direction in which it is going. They see hope after many years of despair.

Of course, here at Tubahumurize, I do hear a different side of things as pretty much all the women here have suffered or still suffer in situations of domestic violence. Simone thinks the young men of Rwanda really have a problem; they are far too confident and far too cocky, swaggering when they walk. It is clearly still a patriarchal society, even though the family is definitely matriarchal.

There is a very strong division here between male and female. To be female is to have children and take care of home and family. Dowries are still essential; you cannot marry without the dowry. The man has to give at least one cow to marry a woman, which, believe it or not, is a small fortune as cows are very precious. Girls are still the ones who are last to go to school. Homosexuality is impossible, not recognized, not believed in (sinful). It just doesn’t exist (obviously, completely closeted). Divorce is pretty close to impossible. The judge will say to a disputing couple, if one wants a divorce and the other doesn’t, to go back to the home and work it out and come back in six months. In the case of clear domestic violence, divorce is possible but the police become involved, creating a real risk of violence escalating.

I see this divide between the sexes as a huge obstacle to change within the family. The women of Tubahumurize are lucky, in that they are learning about all the things they are capable of, and are gaining confidence in their abilities, some earning an income. These are important steps, I think, in changing the role of women in the family so that women and men share more equal partnerships.

All that said, there are many men who clearly are gentle and kind, who see women as different but equal, and who probably are wonderful partners to their wives. Not everyone is dominating and cruel or punitive. But there is definitely an underlying thread of male supremacy that needs to shift before this country can really emerge as a fully-functioning society. That’s the way I see it anyway.