Life on Earth

There are many Chinese people living and working in Rwanda. Many of them I spoke with are operating small wholesale businesses or selling $1 store merchandise. This is what Mr. Liang (below) and his younger counterpart, nicknamed “Xiaomenr“, Little Fella (”That’s what everyone calls me, that’s my name,” he insisted when asked his name), have been doing for the last 10 year and 4 years respectively.

They are what is apparently a large and growing interest of migrating Chinese searching for opportunity across Africa. Mr. Liang credited the easy pace of life and how less competitive and hectic it is living in Rwanda than in his home city of Dalian in Northeast China. While speaking with them in the $1 store, the majority of Rwandan customers I saw were young Rwandans looking for a few small items that they could buy cheap, and then sell for a larger price on the street. The items often don’t have anything in common, so you might see someone selling a nail-clipper set, a pair of shoe laces and compact disc.

In rural Rwanda, Chinese made bikes, Shanghai made phoenix, are all over the place. They are sturdy, rugged and a smooth ride when the road is paved. View a well-used example below. I also met a pair of Chinese engineers building a bridge, a group of Chinese diplomats and consultants, and a Rwandan who works in a Chinese owned quarry operation. I found it strange that during my first week in Rwanda, which I spent by myself, my longest conversations were in Chinese.

I’m still looking for some data, or other online information that might show the actually Chinese presence in Rwanda and the rest of Africa.

(edited/updated: 2/25)

1. Lack of Rubbish: The country, urban and rural, is amazingly clean of rubbish like plastic bags and excessive packaging. Apparently, the government has banned plastic bags, and that might explain why I kept seeing people carrying little paper bags that I mistook for a national program to “Pack your own Lunch to Work”. The ban, like many of the government’s blanket laws, has its drawbacks.
2. Hand-shakes and Greetings: I lost count at 10. I’m not sure if there are certain social rules, or if it is all just at the whim of the individual. I did notice that when I met a stranger they typically lightly shook hands with the right while using their left hand to touch their own forearm. I also saw lots of hugging and cheek kissing. And of course, the ever popular fist-to-fist, and pumping of the chest once to show heart.
3. Small Country: Everyone knows everyone! Or, so it seems to the outsider. Just watching on a street corner one sees people bumping into old friends at a consistent rate. When I mentioned who I met in this meeting or that to someone, they often would know the person. The rule that we are 6 removed from knowing everyone is more like 2 removed in Rwanda. Rwanda is 26,340 KM2 with a population of 8.2 million. The most densely populated country in Africa at 320 people per km².
4. Right and Left Sided Automobiles: Rwandans drive on the right side of the road, but have a mix-match of vehicles with steering wheels on either the right or the left. It is a point of concern when imagine a car with right sided steering wheel trying to pass a dowry along a twisting mountain road. The visibility, already a concern, is amplified. An interesting history can be found in Denis Seguin’s article, “The right side of the road.” Also,related, Rwandans actually have and follow a front seat seatbelt law!
5. Mzungu (white man): The call is loud and proud. I could be flying by at 60mph and undoubtedly someone would catch a glimpse of me and call out, “Mzungu!”. I don’t believe any offense is intended, but it does sound strange when someone wanting to practice English comes up from behind and calls out, “white man!”
6. Pace of Life: Things move slow in Rwanda. If the majority of people made a sustainable living, I might call it a Take Back Your Time dream state. I’ve been in other countries that move at a slower pace, and in those places it is typically associated with a certain lack of initiative. In Rwanda, I felt that people just weren’t in a rush. It is best not to rely to heavily on the timescales if a local was setting up the schedule. One of the first English phrase people learn is, ” no problem”, which works nice for a commonly used word meaning the same thing, ntakibazo.
7. No Dogs: There is little sign of the four legged creatures. I heard a few bark behind walls, but the only dogs on the street that I saw were roadkill.

It’s my last morning in Kigali. Life is good. I’m healthy, strong and the top of my head isn’t too sun burnt.

Yesterday morning I was being toured around a cooperative’s region via a boat on Lake Kivu. This is in Rwanda’s volcanic region in the west. The soil there is amazing. You just want to roll around in it! It also just happens to the home to the country’s best coffee.

We visited five cooperatives in the last few days. I was with the producer realtions manager of Cooperative Coffees, Monika Firl, as she has been trying to increase her understanding of where the different cooperatives are, and where they are heading, in terms of the parameters that cooperative coffees supports. The first priority is that they be a producer cooperative, and not a private plantation. The other conditions they look for before commiting to a relationship are: is the producer cooperative taking steps to improve the quality of their coffee; are they organic, or transitioning to organic; and,  are they a Fair Trade certified producer.

It is a huge understatement to say that the coffee industry in general, and the Fair Trade industry specifically, is a complex system. As Rwanda is just re-emerging into the specialty coffee market the farmers, the cooperatives and the bureaucracy in Kigali are all showing signs of growing pains as they try to navigate this head-spinning global market. Some of these pains are unavoidable, and some of them are unique to the economic and political culture of Rwanda. There is a tendency here for top down control, and many times a wrong decision, or the lack of one, in the ministry of agriculture can really hurt the development in the coffee sector.

I’ll write more about this in detail on another day. I’ll also be posting images and more reflection on the country in general. For the most part, Rwanda is a beautiful place with friendly people. There is a lot of work to be done to rebuild the country, but there is a strong sense of trust that the country as a whole is on the right path.

(edited/updated:2/18)

Before coming to Rwanda, students in my world regional geography class were introduced to Rwanda, and breifly on the impact of Genocide. The brave ones asked, “What is genocide?” What to say…

The obvious answer is the UN definition of genocide, but I struggle, as well as I should, what genocide really is. As part of that struggle, I’ve read several books on the subject concerning Cambodia and Rwanda. But, as I’m discovering, one of the values of visiting a place where genocide has occurred so recently is the daily reminder, either through impersonal billboards (Work together so Genocide never happens again), or the more personal conversations when someone is in the process of introducing themselves and they must include the impact of the genocide on themselves. A simple question about a person’s family and their parents carries a lot of weight. Rwandans were not aware of the word genocide prior to 1994, but now it brings out a nod of recognition even amongst those who don’t speak English.

Besides the personal contacts and daily reminders, I’ve also tried to search out the meaning and impact of genocide by visiting significant sites and organizations. I mentioned earlier the visit to Speak I’m Listening (MbwiraNumva). Yesterday, I visited a Church in Kibuye where 11,400 people were slaughtered on a single day on April 17, 1994. The day before, I had visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial that was built on the mass grave of over 250,000. These daily experiences have stuck in my mind and it has been difficult for me to view the scenes of Rwanda, or the people I meet, in any other light. I’m always thinking about where they were in 1994 and how they were impacted.

At the end of the Kigali Genocide Memorial, a quote by Stephen Smith of Aegis Trust. (The Aegis Trust was established to combat genocide) has stuck with me as a reminder of how to grasp the question of what genocide is.

“If you must remember, remember this: The Nazi’s did not kill 6 million Jews, nor the Interahamwe kill a million Tutsis. in the genocide they killed one, then another and then another. Genocide is not a single act of murder. It is a million acts of murder.”

It is a human responsibility to be aware of what human beings are capable of doing to one another. What makes Rwanda’s war so difficult is that the murders were conducted by the victims’ neighbors. People that had shared dinners, watched each others’ children and worked on one another’s fields; and then all of a sudden they did not recognize one another. Today, many of them still live side by side. Many are able to forgive, and many others say it is not they who can forgive-only God. To visit Rwanda today, is to undoubtedly reflect on the past evil, but to also see those who remain and are rebuilding a fractured society struggling to maintain a unified identity.

Landed in Kigali yesterday and have only wondered around town a few times, which is an accomplishment considering the topography of the place-you really have to commit to going down a road because you will have to come back up!

The evidence that Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Sub-Saharan Africa is apparent in a most pedestrian way. Not tremendous amount of traffic, but a lot of people. Some of them with somewhere to go, and a lot of them with no apparent place to go. I’ve seen a lot of people bump into someone they know and either touch cheeks three times, shake hands or hold hands while they exchange greetings. I’ve also been offered the closed fist knuckle-to-knuckle exchange followed up by, “what’s up braw.” That was as far as his English went.

I’m visited the office of “Speak I’m Listening“. They began in 1996 when they realized that female victims of the genocide weren’t getting any counseling. They brought in trauma counselors and social workers to help the victims realize that life must go on and that they weren’t alone. The work eventually evolved into providing training making crafts and baked goods, as well as to provide micro-loans to help participants establish themselves.They also provide dance and singing classes. They still see the over 1000 initial women once a month, but have also now expanded into providing service for orphaned children and HIV/AIDS infected women.

I later toured the Kigali Genocide Memorial, but will have to write about that at anther time.

For 2 weeks (Feb. 12th-Feb. 25th) I will be at, or in transit to/from, the Source of the Nile in Rwanda’s Nyungwe Forest. I’m traveling with a group of North American Fair Trade coffee roasters/importers from Cooperative Coffees as they visit four emerging producer cooperatives. Rwandan coffee isn’t widely known, but has always had complex, distinct, high quality beans. Coffee is a critical key for the small country’s economic and social recovery from turmoil of 1990’s. Emerging producer cooperatives selling on the Fair Trade coffee market, have been an important element to Rwanda’s 5% growth since 2001. The story of reconciliation is an additional incentive for North American and European coffee importers.

Please check back here for reports from the field and future media presentations.

Resources of note concerning Rwanda:

1. PBS’s Wide-Angle: Changing Role of Women in Rwandan society
2. Out of Madness, A Matriarchy By Kimberlee Acquaro in Mother Jones.
3. Oxfam’s Rwanda Projects. Also see their introduction to the 1994 Genocide
4. Coffee, Fairtrade & Rwanda- Intro of Voluntary Service Overseas’ Project
5. Country Profile on the BBC: Rwanda
6. The New Times ~ Rwanda’s English newspaper
7. Radio of Rwanda

Photo Essays:

1. Through the Eyes of Children-The Rwandan Project
2. Children of Rwanda’s Genocide by Vanessa Vick
3. Birth & Death in Rwanda by James Nachtwey
4. Rwanda: 10 Years Later (graphic images)

Miscellaneous:

1. Rwandan websites Directory
   
2. Rwanda Cinema Center
3. Rwanda Film Festival
4. Learn to speak Kinyarwanda

View the multi-media slideshow Polar Bear Dip 2007

Listen to the complete Radio Profile

Earthwork Music’s Daisy May Erlewine, has released a brand new Solo album, Mother Moon. The album insert features images taken by me during the recording in Big Rapids in December 2006.Listen to a sample: May

The album features artists Seth Bernard, Dominic Suchyta, Mike Shimmin, Andrea Moreno-Beals, Drew Howard and many special guests! It was Recorded in November at the Heart Center Studios by Ian Gorman.