This year a number of African countries marked 50 years of independence from their colonizers. Notably, Tanzania celebrated this occasion on December 9th and Kenya on December 12th. Never one to miss a long weekend opportunity, I headed to Rwanda.
Rwanda is called the 'land of a thousand hills' but the first thing I noticed when we arrived in Kigali was the order. At a clearly marked visa line I presented my pre-approved application, my money was inserted into a machine, change popped out and my passport was stamped. Upon leaving the airport, my friend and I were even more shocked. We traveled along manicured boulevards, traffic politely and obediently ambling up and down the hillsides, pedestrians making their way along paved sidewalks. Sidewalks! Giddily we congratulated ourselves on our escape from Dar and eagerly awaited our chance to explore the city.
Daylight did not disappoint. When cars stopped at pedestrian cross-walks, we were almost too astounded to move. The high of our morning of sidewalks, traffic rules and strong coffee ended abruptly when we made our way to the Kigali Genocide Memorial. The audio tour began at large unmarked graves that house hundreds of thousands of genocide victims. Beyond the graves are the endless rolling hills of Kigali. My immediate thought was 'how could such horror unfold amid such beauty?' Pictures and testimonials inside the exhibit were macabre. Although I'd been reading Shake Hands with the Devil, it was at this point that the heaviness of Rwanda's history began to settle upon me. More questions began to surface - where are the poor, hawkers and beggars, whose presence is ubiquitous on the streets of other East African major cities? Rwanda has been an economic success story under the Kagame regime, but no poor people!?! Something did not seem right.
I've heard Rwanda described as a place that feels as though something is lurking under the surface many times before. Yes, that's a pretty unsurprising observation, to the extent that it is less than 20 years since the genocide that killed a million people in 90 days. But it is not just the suspected tension amid the population, it's the sense you get of tension between the populace and the government.
Days later this sentiment was confirmed during a day trip to the Parc National des Volcans, where Rwanda, Uganda and the Congo meet. We'd traveled to the far east of the county and were repeatedly overcome by the staggering beauty of the countryside. The four people who joined us on our day trip up the Bisoke volcano had recently moved to Kigali. When we raved to them about our impressions of the city, they responded with information about an island that poor people were relegated to and a ban on flip flop sandals in the city centre - designed to keep the poorest people out. These anecdotes, while outlandish, helped us to understand what we'd seen: a peaceful, calm, beautiful landscape with hills full of densely packed homes clearly occupied by the invisible poor.
Back in Dar I looked it up. In fact, there is such a 'rehabilitation island' exists. As for the sandals, I've not been able to find a clear answer. Confirming the existence of the island made me think back to my initial giddiness. What is the cost of order in developing cities? In our own cities in the West? Should be we be comfortable with the overt exclusion of the poor against the reality of the pervasive exclusion of the poor in the socio-political life of almost every country? Can order, infrastructure and efficiency 'trickle down'? Or will it only be for the citizens of Kigali? What does my comfort with the hidden dysfunction of Kigali say about me and the cultural paradigm that I come from? One year in East Africa and I feel no closer to the answers -- but I'm relieved that I can still see the questions.
