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Debra Black, 2007 |
I woke this morning to the sounds of roosters crowing and the golden sunlight of Rwanda streaming into my bedroom. After two days of travel I have arrived in Kigali and settled into the house that I am sharing with some other journalists from the Rwanda Initiative in the neighborhood known as Kimihurura.
As I type this I look out over a terrace and a beautiful garden and an incredible view of the city, which is built into the hills. Morning traffic has just started and the occasional horn blasts and nearby birds sing like an early morning serenade. It is quite the contrast from London, England where I stopped over on my journey in order to visit family. The red-dirt roads and the green countryside of Kigali look like an impressionist painting far from the roar and hustle of London’s west-end or the cement-baked summer streets of Toronto.
Yesterday, I arrived mid-afternoon after spending the day in London where I visited with my cousin and her husband. Once upon a time we had lived together, sharing a flat for a very brief time in north London. It was wonderful to see her again and catch up. We hadn’t seen each other for about nine years and traded stories about our children and siblings. After getting a good night’s sleep I went off to see the Tate Modern, which had an incredible Salvador Dali exhibition as well as a special show by a Brazilian artist, Helio Oiticica. The Tate was also featuring a small exhibit by a Congolese artist Cheri Samba, one of a group of modern painters to come out of the worn-torn nation. He has gained quite an international following. One of the pictures of a child soldier, in green khaki, with a gun surrounded by bright-coloured flowers just blew me away.
After spending five hours at the Tate Modern – an amazing structure in and of itself on the banks of the Thames, I went back to Heathrow and checked in for my flight to Rwanda. I met some really interesting people on the plane – a Scottish girl Rose Foley who is in Rwanda working for a British based organization called VSO. She’s working at the Ministry of Education, trying to help set up a program to empower young women here.
On the plane between Addis Ababa and Kigali, I also met Rangira Bea Gallimore, a very interesting Rwandan American woman who is a linguistics professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Her first name means “Be Famous” in Kinyarwandan. Her family was here during the genocide and was affected by it, she said. But she didn’t say in what way and just left it at that. She spoke passionately about the situation for women survivors of the genocide, many of whom have HIV/AIDS. Her husband is working in Africa at the international Genocide Tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania.
She is doing research into women who survived the genocide and has set up a foundation – Step Up American Association for Rwandan Women — to help them. She has been working with some survivors in Butare, Rwanda and speaks passionately about their fight for survival. She said she would take me down to speak to them. She also suggested I speak to her husband who handles media and information at the international genocide tribunal. She told me he is very critical of both the local and international press when it comes to the tribunal. It will be interesting to speak to both of them.
As the plane flew into Kigali I was awestruck by the sheer beauty of the landscape. The countryside is stunning and I couldn’t help but think of the stark contrast of life before, during and after the genocide. It is a wonder to me that a country so beautiful had to endure such tragedy and remains so lush and verdant.
Today was a very hectic day. In the morning I spoke to Leon, a Rwandan working with the Rwandan Initiative. He explained to me that even though tomorrow is officially Rwanda’s Independence Day celebrations now take place on July 4th – the end of the genocide. It’s a national holiday. So I hope to attend the ceremonies, which I believe are to be held in Kigali’s stadium. Then I went off to the crafts market with one of the interns from the Rwanda Initiative and into town to meet the Rose Foley, the Scottish woman I’d met on the plane, to buy fabric and have a coffee. It was so much fun. She took us to the commercial district of Kigali into a small arcade where there were stalls full of the most beautiful batiked cotton fabric I have ever seen. The bolts of cloth were piled high from the ceiling to the floor and others were displayed on hooks on the walls. Material was everywhere. The stall looked like it had been wallpapered in rainbow coloured cloth. It resembled the tailor’s shop I visited in Varanasi, India where you sat and had tea and picked from thousands of bolts of cloth and then were measured for clothes. Twenty-four hours later they would be finished and ready for pick up or delivery. Here there were so many fabulous patterns and colours on display it was hard to choose. Rose also introduced us to a tailor – Andre – who promises he can make fabulous dresses and skirts. I promised to return later in the week for a fashion consultation. He was very sweet. As were all the Rwandans I have met over the past two days – especially the children.
The streets are busy and dusty – very little of the city is paved. Everywhere are hand-painted billboards warning of malaria and reminding people to use bed nets and other billboards warn residents about HIV/AIDS. Women walk the dusty roads with woven baskets full of oranges and bananas balanced delicately on their heads. Often their babies are strapped to their backs. Children in dusty shorts and tops precariously carry fresh water in plastic buckets home. And everywhere you go people want to sell you things from a pair of nicely pressed pants to a wooden carved giraffe. But it’s not like in other developing countries such as India where street vendors are oppressive and aggressive. Here it is softer – once told no the vendors usually fade back into the city’s backdrop.
Rwandans rely on their cell phones extensively and so you find this odd phenomenon of young boys selling phone cards all over the streets of downtown Kigali. The cards are used to allow a certain number of minutes of phone calls. And they do a thriving business, but these young men also carry portable phones that people use to place long distance calls. They are like a human phone box.
But what strikes me as really sharp contrast from other countries such as Canada or England is that when you walk around the city or drive anywhere you suddenly notice that everyone is really young and I mean really young – there are very few middle aged or elderly people around because of the genocide. I am a kind of demographic oddity here. In fact, some people I have spoken to refer to life as before the genocide and after the genocide as a way of explaining their city and country. It makes sense when you think about the definitive nature of the genocide.
As I write this I am listening to a chorus of singers somewhere nearby, singing an African tune. It is very soothing. Tonight there is a party to go to and many of the staff from the New Times, TV Rwanda and other media outlets will be there so I will be able to meet some of the staff from the New Times before I start work on Monday.
The city is now dark — it is about dinnertime and across the way in the hills that I can see out of my bedroom window some house lights are twinkling. My first full day in Africa – it has been wonderful. The house where I am staying is beautiful with a terrace overlooking a garden and a magnificent view of the city – houses are literally dug into the many hills that make up Kigali. I feel content here as I look out my window, at peace.
