Rwanda - the country that breaks the stereotypes you hold about Africa
It is like Switzerland minus the genocide. Edition 10
I lived in this small country for a month, travelling all over it. I had no associations with Rwanda other than the genocide. And for the first few days, I walked around its capital, Kigali, and looked closely at every face, thinking to myself: did this person kill their neighbours or, on the contrary, was their entire family slaughtered?
Virtually everyone in this country of 11 million suffered from the 1994 genocide. In just three months, more than a million people were slaughtered: Hutus killed Tutsis. Yet there is no ethnic difference between them. They are one people.
The difference between a Hutu and a Tutsi was about 10 cows
I was stunned to learn that before the arrival of first the Germans and then the Belgians - who introduced divisive identity cards in the 1930s forcing people to declare as Hutu or Tutsi - the division was not ethnic but economic.
If you had more than ten cows, you were Tutsi; if you had fewer, you were Hutu. In other words, you could transition from Hutu to Tutsi and back again during your lifetime.
Of course, the 10 cows rule is a simplification of a more complex socio-economic hierarchy. The point is that Hutu and Tutsi are not different races, they are distinct social groups with a long history, albeit one that was fluid before colonialism.
The Belgians instituted a rigid racial hierarchy, favouring the Tutsi elite to enforce their rule, a classic colonial 'divide and conquer' strategy that planted the seeds for future conflict.
Now, 31 years later, people walk past you smiling, machetes in hand (this is, after all, an agricultural country), and you feel no fear.
Even though you know that those same machetes (bullets were expensive) were the primary weapon during those terrible three months from April to July 1994.
Whether in Kigali or a village on the Congolese border, you are surrounded by smiling people carrying machetes, and you are not afraid.
We have forgiven, but we cannot forget
Once again, Hutus are marrying Tutsis, as has always been the case. No one asks whether you are Hutu or Tutsi; it is practically taboo. The official narrative is that ‘we are Rwandans, we are one people.’
Unofficially, when hiring, as locals have told me, they still find out who you are through indirect means.
"We have forgiven, but we cannot forget," a Tutsi might tell me when I ask point-blank - a question that is, of course, inappropriate. It's considered indecent to abruptly talk about the genocide and its aftermath a mere 30 years on. Why rub salt in a wound that is still fresh?
But I needed to understand, on a deep level, how a society lives with this when those who remember the killing - both as victims and perpetrators - are still alive. When you start this ‘inappropriate’ conversation, people first look around, lower their voices, but then often share stories that chill me to the bone and twist my stomach.
And yet, if you didn't know the history, that 31 years ago in this small country, the Hutus slaughtered more than a million friends and neighbours - the only hints of the past would be the genocide memorials. Nothing else in the everyday scene betrays what happened.
Everywhere you go, you see smiling, friendly people. Kigali is one of the safest and cleanest places in East Africa. It has proper pavements - a rarity in the region - meaning you can actually walk around rather than being forced to use a motorbike or car. Be warned, though: the city is incredibly hilly, so your walk will feel more like a constant climb or descent.
Kigali is full of art galleries with prices starting at $10,000, cosy cafés and expensive hotels. Plastic bags are banned, so everyone uses paper bags, which means less rubbish on the streets.
The cleanliness, safety, and enforced unity ("we are all Rwandans") are top-down policies, achieved at the cost of certain political freedoms and human rights violations.
The authoritarian, but effective, as many locals would tell me, rule of Paul Kagame who has been the president of the country since 2000, creates a complex reality for Rwandans, who often express both gratitude for the peace and quiet unease about the price paid for it.
The country of a thousand hills and a thousand NGOs
There are even more NGOs , which left the country on the eve of the genocide and returned as soon as it became possible to make money here again. Rwanda is called the country of 1,000 hills and 1,000 NGOs. The effectiveness of the latter is highly questionable.
The employees of these NGOs sit in large offices, drive SUVs, publish brochures about ‘poor women’ on expensive Finnish paper, and charge 300 bucks for a one-day excursion to coffee plantations to see "local women who work on these plantations and thus pull themselves out of poverty".
Both Western tourists and NGO workers pat themselves on the back, saying, ’Aren’t we wonderful for helping the locals fight poverty?’
But when you are alone with this woman and she tells you that, yes, she now earns $70, sometimes even $100, a month (the average monthly salary in Rwanda is $70), but it is not enough to pay for her children's education or buy new clothes. She is astonished to learn that tourists pay $300 for a single day to come and watch her work.
Overall, Rwanda is like Switzerland. In the sense that it could be the Switzerland if it were in Europe. A beautiful, hilly country filled with lakes and volcanoes - a hiker’s dream.
But damn circumstances. If you don't control them, they control you.
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Just spent three weeks living in Kigali, and truly was just as magical as you describe, very well-written! ✨ And very much agree about the ineffectiveness of so many international groups—my heart dropped when I learned during my trip that all of the resources and security deployed by foreign embassies just to evacuate their citizens would likely have been enough to halt the genocide itself had the focus not been only on fleeing it :(
Love this! I just recently watched a video from a Gambian YouTuber in Rwanda so most of the facts are not new to me (now) but I’m still amazed by this country! How was your personal experience in Rwanda and what brought you there? Would you recommend to visit?