Rwanda. A Phoenix. A country rose from the ashes to prosper. Twenty years ago, exactly, Hutu extremists slaughtered one million Tutsi and Tutsi sympathisers. It served as one of the worst genocides in the twentieth century. Twenty years ago Rwandese drenched Kigali in blood. One hundred days of violence left the city littered with bodies, many of them children’s that machetes hacked to death, and grenades ripped apart while the world did nothing. Today, only twenty years later, Kigali stands as a bustling metropolis; with streets so clean it puts many other cities to shame.
In many ways Rwanda stands as the antithesis of Uganda. Trees spot the hills, a few skyscrapers dot the skyline, the streets are clean, the roads are well maintained, people stop for pedestrians, traffic lights exist with timers so dirvers know when they can go, and boda drivers are required to have a helmet for both them and the passenger (bodas also look a bit more like sports bikes as well). Even the shops and stores that look like holes in the walls seem to be in better shape than those in Kampala. They even had addresses. This seemed to be the case not only in Kigali but all along the long drive we took to lake Kivu. Rwanda, like Uganda though, still has full building advertising.
This change did not happen over night. To heal the broken pieces the government headed by Kigami and the RPF drew from traditional practices, and applied them to a postcolonial world. The Gachacha Courts that tried thousands of Hutu addressers serve as one of the best examples of how the RPF applied old traditions to the new world. In the pre-colonial area when neighbours had grivences or disagreements the Gachacaha courts were established where in impartial elders would hear the case and decide the best way to return peace to the community. Because old friends and neighbours carried out the genocide people felt they could no longer trust their neighbours, and these courts were re-established to amend these feelings. Community members could share their concerns and grievances with impartial members of the court. Those hearing the case would then make a ruling on how much jail time or community service the person, if found guilty, would do. These courts heard hundreds of thousands of cases in a few months time, while the federal and international courts, which handled the more serious cases, heard only a few hundred if that. The government also did not need to spend much money on the Gachacha courts, which allowed them to save for other projects.
The RPF also drew on, and still draws upon the idea of community. The idea of Mbuntu (though it may have a different name in Rwanda, but I don’t know) became and remains a cornerstone of how Rwanda came to flourish after the genocide. In Rwanda on the last Saturday of every month every adult citizen by government mandate must participate in community works projects from 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM, then must attend a community meeting from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM. In this manner the roads stay well maintained, the sidewalks remain clean, the gardens remain well maintained, and everyone feels invested in the community. It also probably motivates them to take better care of where they live the rest of the month so that they have less work to do that Saturday. We happened to be in Rwanda on the last Saturday of June. We origionally planed to stay back in our hotel until 11 when we could drive again, but at my and Mia’s request Eric (our in country contact) arranged for us to participate in the days activities. At 7:30 our group of Mzungu headed through road construction where community members were assisting to construct a stonework gutter on the side of the road. We walked until we met up with a group of people picking dried leaves, branches, weeds, and trash out of the gardens that lined the sidewalk to the right of the road and separated the road from private property. Every few minuets or so when the area looked clean enough the group moved down the road. We wandered our way into the stadium (once headquarter for UN Peace Keepers) dirt parking lot where I picked up scraps of exploded rubber, candy wrappers and bubble wrap. My group skipped the community meeting because we needed to prepare to leave for Lake Kivu.
The city that bustled the day before stood in eerie silence. Apart form the military pulling into the stadium to rehearse for a genocide commemoration event, and the people working on the road near the hotel we only saw four other people. People were taking a break from their lives to participate in the community building projects. It touched a part of me that longed for that sence of community/ civic duty back home. While those we talked to admitted that some people stayed home, the vast majority of the country, or Kigali at least, participated. Even those that did not help at least respected the day enough, or were scared enough, to stay home and not drive in their cars, or open their shops. We could never implement a mandate like that in the states without at least three armed standoffs, and appeal to the Supreme Court that would strike down the measure with some BS ruling. Even if SCOTUS ruled in favour of the measure the police would not have enough power to force people to participate instead of carry on with their daily lives. It made me wonder about all the amazing things, though, that Canada or the United States could accomplish if we all for 12 days a year donated five hours of our time. Maybe we’d manage to keep our streets as clean as those of Kigali.
After we removed all of the orange dust that the parking lot caked on our hands and re-applied sunscreen the large group of Mzungu plus Dan (in country rep for Uganda) and Eric piled into our massive van for the two-hour drive to Lake Kivu on the Congo Rwanda border.
