Anyway, it’s the first week of a new term and all is more disorganised than usual so I have the luxury of a little extra time to myself. Time to reflect on Rwanda. When I left for Uganda before Christmas wondering whether I could stick it out. But crossing the border back into Rwanda it felt like I was coming home.
Rwanda’s a phenomenally beautiful country with a landscape absolutely littered with hills, mountains and volcanoes. Every hill side, from the valley bottom to the top, is cultivated, lush with banana trees, sunflowers, tea & coffee plantations, maize etc, with dwellings dotted everywhere rather than being grouped together. It’s a very compact country with a capital ‘city’, Kigali, which is barely bigger than a small town.
Rwanda’s a phenomenally beautiful country with a landscape absolutely littered with hills, mountains and volcanoes. Every hill side, from the valley bottom to the top, is cultivated, lush with banana trees, sunflowers, tea & coffee plantations, maize etc, with dwellings dotted everywhere rather than being grouped together. It’s a very compact country with a capital ‘city’, Kigali, which is barely bigger than a small town.
While I’ve had no difficulty adjusting to waking up to such a stunning environment every morning, elements of the Rwandan culture have made life somewhat challenging. There appears to be a cultural issue with difference which manifests itself in hostility and distrust, for white people the hollering of ‘muzungu’ (white man) at you everywhere you go, aggressively and with no intention other than to make you aware they’ve noticed you (like they wouldn’t when you’re the only white person for miles!).
It takes a lot of time spent with people before you can get past this but once you do village life is more sedate and fun, playing with the kids, having superficial discussions in Kinyarwandan with the adults, living up to their expectation that you’re mad with your different behaviours etc, dodging the trails of cattle….
Of course, there’s the language barrier too. I’ve been living in really rural areas where only the local language, Kinyarwandan, is spoken which makes life difficult – it’s going to take me a lot longer than two years to grasp the language well enough to hold a conversation that is more than pleasantries and market arguments! Beyond here, French is the second most common language so I have a tutor in the hope I can revive my faltering GCSE French. I’m not a very committed student though unfortunately and keep wagging my lessons! Plus, there’s a definite culture embedding itself of expectancy and dependency, engendered by the incredible amounts of aid that has been ploughed into this country.
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