A Tale of Two Cities

London skyline

Kigali skyline

I realise the gaps between my blog posts are getting longer – the last one was done almost five months ago and reading it, I see I had just come back from the UK after a visit there in the Autumn and now I have just returned, again, back from the UK after a Spring visit.  Normally, I would not go back so soon after a visit but I needed to go home to do a few ‘personal things’ and not do my normal mad dash around the country meeting up with friends to talk about Rwanda.  So to all those family and friends, who did not see me this time accept my apologies and I will see you on my next trip back.

Where's the shop gone? It was here yesterday!

I don’t intend to write about what I have been doing since last November – mainly because I can’t remember!  

Life in Kigali continues and I notice, on my walks, so does the pace of development. Just up from Solace, I have been observing a commercial block now having reached six floors and the roof has started to go on.  Next door, what was a lovely house and garden full of trees is now a large hole as the diggers have come in to start on what will be another commercial block that will, sadly, dwarf the guesthouse.  The China Wall Restaurant, that has been in Kigali for many years and just up the road, disappeared one day along with other buildings to make way for a new road to the new convention centre that opens in June.  So it goes on!  How sustainable this is all going to be, I wonder as not sure who is going to utilise all these office buildings not to mention the many new hotels and houses/apartments that are currently being constructed.

When I was back in the UK, I spent a week in London and was fascinated to see the development that was going on there too.  The city skyline is certainly changing and I was struck, seeing the city from the heights of Kenwood and Hampstead Heath in North London, by the number of cranes there are and seeing St Paul’s Cathedral being surrounded by all the new high-rise buildings.  

Count the cranes

London, like Kigali, is a very green city but the main difference is that London has many open spaces, parks and heaths that are open to the public whilst in Kigali there are more hills and trees but the open green spaces are only for decorative purposes as no one is allowed to walk on them and if you do, you are likely to get a telling off by a member of the police or military guards that are often around.  I am sure they are doing more than just making sure nobody walks on the grass!

London open space - walk on the grass

Kigali open space - whatever you do, don't walk on the grass

It was good, when I was in Lewes to have the opportunity to get up on the South Downs and the freedom to walk across most fields and open land.  I enjoyed a good walk with my good friend Jamie and the dogs – my dog Jasper, who seemed very pleased to see me and Jamie’s dog, Alfie although with all the sheep and the new born lambs around we had to keep them, at times, firmly on their leads.  I notice in Kigali that there are many more dogs now being walked on leads and I have to admit I walk past them with a degree of caution after one suddenly jumped out towards me.

Keeping the dogs on their leads - Alfie (L), Jasper (R)

Flying back with Turkish Airlines to the UK in March, we landed in Istanbul very soon to when a bomb went off in the city.  A few days later, in London, I was watching the news on television about the bombs in Brussels and thought that Kigali seemed to be a much safer place to be.  People still ask me “Is Rwanda safe?” and this always surprises me, as it really is one of the safest, cleanest and most secure countries in Africa.  Yes, there is a high security presence here and something that visitors coming for the first time notice and are slightly concerned about but I tell them there is nothing to worry about. You can walk the main streets of Kigali at night and nobody will bother you and the times I have done this, I always feel very safe – in all the time I have been in Rwanda, I have never felt unsafe or threatened.

Rains, what rains?

I had assumed I would come back to heavy rains in Kigali but, on the whole, it continues to be hot and dry with the occasional downpour.  Like everywhere the weather patterns are changing but here there can either be torrential rain causing houses to be destroyed, crops to be ruined and even people washed away and killed or drought in certain parts of the country.  For a small country, Rwanda does seem to have many different microclimates affected by the volcanoes, mountains and the tropical forest.

With the fast development in Kigali, I assume wrongly that many people have jobs and there is work in abundance. Sadly, this is not the case and I come across many people, even here in the city, who struggle to find work.  Many students finish secondary school and wish to go onto university as they know, to get a good job they will need, at least, a Bachelor’s Degree although this still does not guarantee them work so they then have to go onto do a Master’s.

There are many universities in Kigali but the government are now encouraging them to open regional campuses so that study can be available to people across the country and to save them from having to come to the capital.  People here will often do full-time study or evening and weekend courses combining this with their, if they have one.  Fees are expensive and beyond the means of many and then they need a laptop and money for accommodation, food, registration fees, examination fees and so it goes on!

Fees for primary and secondary schools also continue to be a challenge and I hear stories of many families who owe schools a lot of money in back-fees and it gets to the stage when their children have to leave the school.  It becomes a bit of a vicious cycle as fees are not paid, the school don’t then have money to pay teachers who them find themselves without the money to pay fees for their children.

The government is now trying to encourage more VCT (Vocational Training) so young people can get a skill in something like carpentry, plumbing, electrician and I agree this is a good way forward. When you see the amount of construction that is going on across Rwanda and the need in the future for maintenance and repairs, you hope there us going to be a demand for people with the skills to do all this.

Being a typical Muzungu who likes to have everything planned out, I arrived back in time to pay school fees for a number of students that are in the Educational Sponsorship Fund although this was made challenging as all the documentation I needed was in a suitcase that was still in Brussels! I planned my arrival back on a Wednesday so I could go to the banks on Thursday, thus avoiding the queues that I knew there would be on Friday as it was the 15^th of the month and the day that all businesses and companies have to pay their VAT and PAYE (they get a very hefty fine if they don’t). So, coinciding with families paying fees (the system here is you pay direct to the school bank account and the student has then to take a copy of the bank receipt to give to the school on the first day of term – failure to do this means they will be sent home and not allowed to return to school until fees have been paid) and VAT/PAYE day, I really wanted to be back in time to beat the rush at the bank.

As I managed to get the information I needed, to pay the fees, from various bits of information I had in my office and which took me most of Thursday, I found myself on Friday going to my bank to withdrawal the cash I needed and then to pay it into four other banks. It was a race against the queues building up and I, finally, had to give up at the last bank four hours later, as I could not face the number of people that were there.  Anyway, it was satisfying to have been able to get the majority of fees paid and then the receipts scanned and emailed to the families so their child could go back to school.

Some fees I paid using Mobile Money, a great system here for sending money across the country. I just buy some money using the MTN network, someone sends it for me and it instantly arrives on the phone of the recipient who can then take their phone to an MTN representative to get the cash.  When I first came to Rwanda in 2006, mobile phones were non-existent but today so many people use them as the country is being built on the use of technology – there is fibre-optic cable around the country providing broadband and excellent Wi-Fi available through three providers.  The first thing that everyone asks when arriving at the guesthouse is “Do you have Wi-Fi?”

Remember

My return to Rwanda has coincided with ‘Kwibuka 22’ (Remember22) and today, at Solace, we had a commemoration service to remember those that died in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi twenty-two years ago. One moving testimony from a lady told us how she escaped death many times and spent two weeks in a pit latrine as she was too fearful of her life if she came out.  Candles were lit and held by some of the young members of Solace and names of some of those killed in 1994 were read out.  Kwibuka 22 lasts for 100 days with local commemorations around the country to mark the date that a massacre took place in a particular community.  Even today, they still find remains of people killed but ensure that they are now given a dignified burial.

Remembering loved ones who lost their lives

It is still so very hard to comprehend these tragic events of 22 years in a country that is so beautiful with people that are so wonderful.  It is amazing to see where the country is today and where it has come from and it certainly lives us to its new name of “Remarkable Rwanda.”