Dan Robson

This is a story of unexpected things. It involves Charlie Chaplin, hundreds of Rwandans, and one very chilly night.

For the past five years the Rwanda Cinema Centre has been running an annual film festival in the country. This year’s festival is dubbed “Red Carpet to Hillywood.” (Hillywood being the appropriate nickname for the film industry in place with many hills.)

Now, before I go on, an important confession: my experience with film festivals has been minimal. But from my previous observations and entertainment columns, film festivals usually fall into two categories: the glitz, glamour, and movie stars of events like Cannes—or the small “independent” kind, heavy on activism, left-wing politics and militant veganism.

But again, my experience is limited. And to be honest, as we drive east out of Kigali with Pierre Kayitana, the director of the Rwanda Cinema Centre, I am completely unsure of what to expect.

We are heading to Byumba, near the border of Uganda. The SUV drives up and around the festivals’ rolling namesakes. We arrive at sunset, as crowds make their way down the road, against cascading streams of fading orange. The mass migration is drawn by an inflated movie screen in the middle of a field, marching the pounding bass of the Brothers—a local hip-hip group, whose music video projects on the screen.

Hundreds gather. The sun slips beyond this slice of earth, and stars appear in overwhelming quantity and with incredible clarity. Vivid, bright—with the occasional flare of a passing comet.

This is cinema under the stars. And this is the first time many of these people have ever watched a film.

The bill includes two shorts made by film students with the Rwanda Cinema Centre. Both are about sugar daddies and mommies—and unsettling and growing problem of older men and women offering gifts and cash to young people in exchange for sex.

The crowd laughs along with the films, which balance humour and critical commentary with considerable skill. Characters are well acted, semi-believable and charismatic. The cinematography is daring and creative, using interesting angles and reflections to set scenes and construct moods.

When the films finish the filmmakers and actors are introduced to the audience, who offer applause and cheers.

This is followed by a short comedy, introduced as Spanish but more accurately Danish, about a group of children who deal with a couple of playground drunks by filling water guns with urine and firing with merciless vigor. Nothing is lost in translation. The crowd roars as the firing squad pumps their plastic weapons and streams of pee drench the loudmouth drunks in slow motion.

It’s unexpectedly freezing here. Pierre forgot to inform us that we would be going to a village with a climate much more familiar in Canada than Africa. In fact, as we shiver and watch our breath escape, we are told us that this is officially the coldest place in Rwanda.

After an hour of local and foreign cinema on the inflated screen underneath the stars, it’s time for the feature film: a Charlie Chaplin classic, about a factory worker who accidentally becomes a socialist revolutionary through a series of silent mishaps and hilarious misunderstandings.

The crowd of mothers and daughters, fathers and brothers laugh hysterically as a presenter adds his own commentary in Kinyarwanda. Chaplin’s comic timing and exaggerated expressions are a hit. In Rwanda Chaplin is still a star.

We interview some of the viewers as the movie concludes. They’re wide-eyed and giddy, wrapped in blankets and cocooned in faded neon ski-jackets. We hear from a sister holding her young brother close in a blanket. They had laughed the loudest, and with the widest grins. We hear from a group of chatty teenage girls, who answer with questions of their own: what is your name, where are you from?

The credits roll, the music fades, the screen deflates.

Parents begin to tug their children from the field. Time for bed, enough excitement for one night. Tomorrow Mr. Chaplin will be in another village; delighting the crowd, sharing the wonder of moving pictures.

Shivering now, we hop back in the truck and roll past a waving crowd, making their way home in the cold darkness of night.

The theatre becomes a village again. From Hillywood to Byumba.

Dan Robson

Here’s a short segment from our radio show about a Kigali city tour we took with Rwanda Gorilla Tours.

Each week on Iwacu Heza we have a call-in contest, and the winner gets a free trip donated by a local tour operator.

The goal is to give some Rwandans a chance to see a little but more of the country they live in. So far it has worked out well.

This week we drove around Kigali for a few hours. Then I made a radio doc about it.

I really like my job.

Dan Robson

This is radio documentary from the second episode of Iwacu Heza, our weekly radio program, which aired on May 31.

Iby’wacu Cultural Village is located in Kingi, at the foot of the Virunga volcanoes. It is a project created a few years ago by a local eco-tourism operator named Edwin Saburhoro.

Saburhoro wanted to provide a  meaningful employment alternative to the illegal poaching of the endangered mountain gorillas who live the region. Many villagers in the impoverished area had become dependent on poaching to survive.

Today over 300 former poachers are employed by the cultural village. Poaching in the region has decreased by almost 60  per cent.

Click on the slide show to make it play.

(Please excuse some of the longer clips . . . we have an hour long slot to fill each week, so brevity is  not an option.)

Dan Robson

Recently a group of young kids from Kigali represented Africa in an international dance festival in Holland. It was the first time any of the young dancers had ever been out of the country.

So that made the trip incredibly special in itself. But the children were given an even greater thrill when they brought home  first prize in the competition.

The team, called Rwamakondera–or Rwandan Horns–is made up of underprivileged children from Kigali. They will be preformig for the U.S. Embasy later this month, so we will make sure to bring you some video from the event.

Collin Sekajugo, a local artist, founded and funded the group.I spoke with him for our weekly radio show, Iwacu Heza. I asked him why he has made such an effort to give these young dancers the opportunity to develop and showcase their talent.

This is what he had to say…

Collin Sekajugo Interview

Dan Robson

Note: This is not an insightful blog entry.

Jogging is not something I usually do. It’s something I “used to do, before my knees got bad, and I took up swimming—because there is less impact”.

(I don’t really swim either. I’m not a fan of the “public” part of public pools, and quite frankly it’s just too exhausting.)

But medium-length trips to new places tend to inspire people like me to embark on journeys of self-improvement. And, as I’m sure you’ve heard, Rwanda is an inspiring place.

Over the past year I’ve been watching the family jowls emerge under my chin, and the love handles on my sides have found a soft companion around my abdomen. While in Rwanda, I’ve decided to change all that, because, of course, that’s what people like me do in places like this.

So I go for a jog on a sunny Sunday morning.

Now, in Rwanda people don’t seem to run for leisure, like many do back in Canada. (Except for those on my basketball team, which as I whined in an earlier post, run far too much.)

The people I pass as I climb up the dirt road near our house just smile at me in amusement.

As I pause to “tie my shoe” at the top of the hill, a white guy on a bike—wearing a blue helmet and matching spandex riding shorts—nods at me, knowingly. I smile back. We are both muzungus traveling the same path to personal betterment.

(An aside: Rwanda does have a competitive cycling community. A colleague recently showed me this interesting story from the Guardian. Check it out. )

Huffing and puffing back on my treck, I decide to take a dirt road that I’ve been told offers a wonderful view of Kigali.

So I take the road less traveled. In fact, I take the road not traveled at all.

It’s the wrong road actually; more of a path, really. It leads to a narrow walkway between a stone wall and a line of grey boxed homes.

“Well, this isn’t very aesthetically pleasing,” I think to myself, as K’naan pumps through my headphones.

Then I hit a dead end, and slam into my mistake. I find a narrow path the left, and find myself in a maze of grey dwellings. A woman comes out of her house and looks at me like I’m a crazy person. With a face filled with confusion, I give her a look that suggests, indeed, I am.

Others come out of their doors to see the spectacle. I have no idea where to go. Every narrow path between the homes leads to a dead end.

A smiling young woman points me to the left.

“Murakoze,” I say.

She laughs.

I go left.

She laughs.

Dead end.

She laughs.

Finally a man points me down a path between the homes, which zigs and zags on a steep angle down a hill that I didn’t know I was on.

A red road relieves my embarrassment. This, of course, is the path I was supposed to take. So I pick up the pace and continue my jog of self-improvement, leaving the minor setback behind.

A group of young boys on the road stop their soccer game to wave at me; “Muraho,” I say, jogging past.

Then I hit a rock and fall flat on my chest. My iPod flies out of my hand, settling in the red dust, somewhere near my dignity.

One of the boys runs over. “Sorry, sorry. Are you okay?”

Getting up quickly, I say that I’m fine. And then rather ridiculously ask him: “Are you okay?”

Grabbing my iPod, I run up a steep hill that leads back home. I pause halfway up and turn, as if to ponder the experience. Really, I’m just out of breath—but I try to look introspective. The sting of my scraped hand tells me it’s time to get going.

I walk home, deciding that Rwanda is the perfect place to take up swimming.

Dan Robson & Pawan Deol

This is a mini-doc that Pawan and I made about our trip to the eastern province of Rwanda. We traveled with in a convoy of UN trucks with the World Food Program and met local students and teachers who are participating in the school feeding program.

The clip is from our first radio show, Iwacu Heza- “our beautiful home”, which aired live on Saturday, May 23. We will post the entire show, with all its gaffs and blunders, shortly. So come back and check that out soon.

Bugesera

A mini-doc about a trip to eastern Rwanda with the World Food Program. (Note: the images do not sync up with the doc, but flip through them for added visuals as it plays.)

If the doc doesn’t appear in this window, click here Trip to Bugesera

Dan Robson

It was nice just to be invited a wedding here in Rwanda—but being asked to join the party, in traditional dress, was a huge honour.

So when our boss asked Pawan and I to join his wedding on Saturday morning, we immediately agreed. It was a great opportunity to learn more about Rwandan heritage and culture first hand.

The only problem is that I left my journalism skills at home that day, so I’m not exactly sure what went on.

I was dressed in a brown sarong, a cream dress shirt, and matching brown sash, with leather sandals. The beads around my neck indicated that I was an older man, and my walking stick told of my significance in the wedding party.

After getting decked out in traditional wear, we followed the party into the ceremony, where two families were sitting across from each other. Drums pounded, while traditional dancers yelled and jumped up and down, announcing our arrival (I think).

Regardless, I felt very welcomed.

The outdoor setting was beautiful, the drinks were flowing, and the ceremony seemed like it was both entertaining and endearing.  So it had all the makings for a great wedding, in any culture.

However I was seated between two Chinese businessmen, both named Edward. So I was without a translation for the entire service.

Now, the Edwards were very friendly and highly entertaining. We made several comments about not knowing Kinyarwanda, and smiled about having no idea what was going on in the ceremony.

Edward-on-the-left asked me where I’m from. I said “around Toronto”, and the Edward-on-the-right nodded agreeably. I asked where he was from, and he said the name of a city that I’d never heard of, which is apparently home to over 20 million people.

I told him that I have a friend who lives in Beijing. Evidently, neither Edward knows him.

So the wedding went on, as I sat there confused in a brown sarong with matching sash. There was lots of laughter as people from both sides made speeches and shared ceremonial drinks in the middle area between the two sides.

There was lots of dancing from the traditional Rwandan dancers, who moved to the beat of pounding drums.

There was something rich and historical happening—of this I was certain. But we had our first radio show on the same day, so I wasn’t able to stick around long enough to find out what, exactly, that unique tradition is all about (Poor reporting—I know, I know).

But I plan to get a complete description at work tomorrow, so I’ll post an insightful explanation then.

Dan Robson

It was probably once said, by someone somewhere, that the language of sport is universal. It’s the kind of sappy cliché I should try to avoid, but clichés are only clichés because usually they are true (also a cliché, I’m aware).

After three days in Kigali I inadvertently joined a basketball team that trains harder than any competitive team, in any sport, that I have ever been on. We play at the Cercle Sportif three nights a week, for two and a half hours at a time.

But the word “play” is really a misnomer here. We run, and then we run again, and then just when it feels like we can run no more-as the beef in my stomach threatens a second coming, and I gasp for air like an asthmatic mathlete-we run some more.

Then, when the marathon is done, we scrimmage. If we lose, we run.
I stumbled on this agony after asking a friend of a friend if there is a place to shoot around in Kigali. He speaks French and little English; I, the opposite.

Evidently the only word we connected on during our conversation was “basketball.”
So I show up at Cercle Sportif expecting a friendly game of evening pick-up, but instead find a full-blown practice run by two coaches in sharp business suits under the lights of an outdoor court.

Here’s the short version of what happens next. I join the practice and am annihilated by the speed of the team. My skill level is on par with theirs, but in terms of sheer athleticism we’re talking the difference between Lebron James and Charles Barkley.

They all speak Kinyarwanda and French, and some have a little English. Being an Anglophone, it’s awkward at first, but after about twenty minutes we start to click.

Without words we communicate through picks, passes on quick cuts, and approving nods as buckets fall.
As I struggle to keep up with the Rwandan players, the experience grows dramatic: “Eh, eh, eh!” I yell while sitting outside the three with an open look. And the ball finds my hands, off a no-look from a quick thinking forward. With enough time to become fluent in Kinyarwanda, I line up a shot and it spins slow motion under a blanket of stars in the Kigali night . . .

With wide eyes I watch as, on each rotation, the ball weaves together the differences of foreign cultures into the tale of an unlikely connection between a white Canadian guy and a team of Rwandan basketball players; a world-changing moment that reaches across oceans to forever unite humankind . . .

As the ball nears the basket, I’m considering who should play me in the upcoming box-office blockbuster about this very moment . . .

But the opportunity for global unification and Hollywood fame crumbles as the ball-of-hope sails past the rim-to the left, into a pile of rocks, splashing in a puddle.

I’m crushed, defeated, and broken. But, alas, there is no time to wallow in opportunity lost. The ball is back in action immediately, and I’m charging to keep up with the quick-footed ballers.

And so we play on, to the beat of the game: quick breathes, thumping dribbles, colliding bodies, shouts of approvals, shouts of disgust, Kinyarwandan insults, a sea of sweat, the battle-back and forth, up and down.
Running.
Running.
Running.
When the coach finally calls the match, my squad runs sprints for losing. We share the pain of the loss and are disgusted with our effort. But at the end of it all there are fist bumps and head nods. There is approval.
The coach calls us in and says directly to me: “Good work, you play well. But you are slow. You need to be fast-you need to get in shape.”

I nod and say “thank-you,” like a true Canadian.
“We practice on Thursday. More practices and you will be better,” he decides.
Then in a language I don’t know he tells the team things that seem to suggest we need to play tighter defense and, of course, run faster.

When our coach is done, the team huddles in a tight circle, putting their hands on top of others in the middle.
I stand outside the circle.
“Come. You too,” a teammate says.
Shuffling in, I hesitantly place my hand in with theirs. There is a pause. Then, in unison, we throw up our arms shouting something universal.