This Muzungu feels quite at home!
Why does a land like this so captivate me? What is it about this tiny country that has me so in awe?
Perhaps I need the edge the angst that lies beneath the surface here. Whatever it is it completely embraces me.
Today there was a soccer match at the local stadium, 1-0 to the local team Hoorah! The result was a city that erupted into a cacophony of sounds, from hooting taxis taking their fare back to the various villages, (Suburbs), to the sound of the many whistles favored as a means of ‘Blowing their trumpet”, and I even thought I heard a Vuvusela. But by far the most definitive sound is the transistor radios that burst into life, and who’s crackling sound carries up the slopes to the patio where I am sitting enjoying the evening settle.
12 years ago these radios where the call to arms of a rebellious and militant group, who in the end whipped up such emotion that it would lead to a rampant killing spree that would leave 1 million slain.
Now the radios crackle away all day long, playing music and hosting social empowering talk shows.
Of course I speak no Kinyarwanda, and for all I know there may well be coded messages again inciting hate and anger, but one gets the sense if that were happening the strong arm of the law here would be onto it in a flash! Few would dare mess with Kagame.
The Hon Excellency Paul Kagame must truly be a remarkable man! All around are the visible signs of his character as it gets stamped on this tiny nation. But it is not him that makes the difference, he may set the example, but each and every Rwandese, or at least those I meet, are embracing his vision and making it theirs and the results are an ever growing sense of national pride coupled with faith. Faith in each other and faith in the future.
I made notes about the threats facing the country, and if the ear is long enough to the ground, and, like the African dung beetle, one listens through the noise of diplomacy and politeness, then yes, from deep below a soft tap tap tap can be heard. A trained eye can read between lines and observe the threats that lie below the surface – an upcoming election in the DRC will be sure to send out a louder boom in the next few months, and perhaps the results there will lead to the stirring up certain old wounds here.
The Burundi situation will be constantly on any sensible persons radar, and as the rebels there first agreeing to talk, then not to talk, then do, then again… don’t! So that front must be one of concern. Perhaps deep in the “collines” of the country there are pockets of regret that a former “war” was lost, but on the whole there is no sense of that in Kigali
I have yet to see evidence of what it is that keeps this nation so in step, so disciplined – but the Rwandese are disciplined! Each day, as I head down the hill into the valley below and then up the other side to where the office is located, I pass children all walking up one way to cross at a designated spot that is paved for pedestrians. There is a rule forbidding walking over the middle verge of grass, or of jaywalking, and so in a steady stream of people everyone files dutifully up the hill to cross at the demarcated area before moving on to the schools or business on the other side of the road.
Every day is different every day is a blessing.
MJM/Kigali/20060320
