Slide 1

The Stolen Dreams of Africa

Je M’appelle Amazing Africa

8 minutes read ● by Mbong A. FT.

Slide 1

The Stolen Dreams of Africa

Je M’appelle Amazing Africa

8 minutes read ● by Mbong A. FT.

Slide 1

The Stolen Dreams of Africa

Je M’appelle Amazing Africa

8 minutes read ● by Mbong A. FT.

Slide 1

The Stolen Dreams of Africa

Je M’appelle Amazing Africa

8 minutes read ● by Mbong A. FT.

Slide 1

The Stolen Dreams of Africa

Je M’appelle Amazing Africa

8 minutes read ● by Mbong A. FT.

It seldom happens that I agree with everyone, and with everything that has been said. It so seldom happens that this feeling of being in complete agreement is unsettling and somewhat uncomfortable. But I must admit that for the first time in a long time, Rwanda gave me a thousand reasons to jump with ease, on the bandwagon of its praisers. Everything I had been told turned out to be true, and even if I were to find cheap reasons to differ, it would be hard to justify my difference. 

We arrived in Rwanda just after 9:00 am on an Air Rwanda flight. Before embarking on the trip my son was curious to know why we were traveling to Rwanda and not home to Cameroon as was usually the case. ‘Daddy are we going to Rwanda because of Arsenal?” he asked. My boys are Gunners. He knew Rwanda from watching Arsenal matches and had been exposed to the ‘Visit Rwanda’ campaign. He did not get a clean and clear response beyond daddy’s giggle. I heard the question but chose not to answer at the time. Knowing my son, I knew the question would not go away, so I decided to answer later when my words will be backed by reality. 

And reality dawned fairly quickly, we had been driving to our accommodation for about 25 minutes, and my son was the first to speak up again. “Mom, Rwanda looks so different”, “ indeed my boy” I responded. I knew exactly why he made that statement. 

A year earlier, we were home in Cameroon, and he asked me a question I simply could not answer. “Mom, why it is that when you get to the Airport in Cameroon, it looks okay but as soon as you drive out of the airport, there’s litter everywhere?” I tried to justify that, sometimes, council workers, responsible for refuse collection are on strike, or sometimes the routes are not properly marked, so refuse does not get collected. But I simply could not dispute the fact that there’s litter and lots of it in Douala. The perception he now had of his country and by extension, the rest of Africa beyond South Africa where he lives, was one I was committed to changing. If you’ve lived in South Africa, you’ll know how common it is to hear people say, South Africa and Africa. I didn’t want him to look at the rest of Africa in that light. I could spend days and weeks trying to make excuses for why there was much litter in Douala but first impressions last and that impression could only be changed by being exposed to another country in Sub-Saharan Africa, which told a different tale. The litter situation in Douala is complicated but my kids needed to understand that flirt, and litter is unAfrican and Rwanda was my best bet to make my point.

His astonishment barely two hours into Rwanda was a good sign. The mindset shift I had hoped for was happening faster than anticipated. And just a few days into our trip, this quote from my daughter’s journal nailed it for me.  

“My siblings and I have been hunting for litter, and for days and days and days we are yet to find any. Today is day four of our holiday”. 

There’s no denying that Rwanda, as a nation has taken the concept of ‘cleanliness, is next to godliness’ to the next level. I live in South Africa, a beautiful and far more sophisticated society than Rwanda in many ways. But South Africa like many richer countries in Europe and North America have very affluent communities where you will find no litter and a fair share of underprivileged communities which literally smell of litter, and that’s where Rwanda takes the price. 

If you’ve ever been to a remote village in Africa, you’ll know that it is a common practice for villagers to wake up early and sweep the yard, cleaning up every tiny leaf particle from their compound. This practice leaves dust and what would otherwise be muddy ground looking spotlessly clean. That’s what the less developed corners of the country and even the less sophisticated parts of Kigali looked like., It is the cleanliness for all and in every corner which is commendable. But there was much more to Rwanda than the spotlessly clean streets.

If you’ve read my previous readings, you’ll know that attending mass is one of the things I thoroughly enjoy when I travel. As a Roman Catholic Christian, I find it extremely fulfilling that I can follow the mass rites in any language in any country in the world. The church in Rwanda had a bit more on offer. The church was designed with the spirit of Africa in mind, and even more exciting were the details. The chalice which is normally used to hold communion was an astonishing wooden calved chalice, and the altar itself was shaped like a calabash. It wasn’t just beautiful to watch, it was heartwarming to see. It is always so heartwarming when we as Africans embrace everything on our terms and use what is truly African to shape the norm. 

And then, there was food. When I travel with the kids, I make it a point to live in self-catering accommodations. That’s a time to be 100% mom, – do the cooking the cleaning, and everything I would ordinarily get help with while at home. I had just prepared some sweet potato chips with a chicken sauce, some fresh vegetables, and a generous supply of pineapples as dessert.  As we enjoyed every part of the meal and the juicy pineapples, the question popped. “Why don’t we just move to Rwanda? ‘why?’ I responded. ‘Well, the place is so clean, it feels safer, the water is cleaner, the food is so tasty”. That was a lot of compliment coming from a child who lives in a fairly decent up-market South African neighbourhood. The quality of the food was definitely the difference. All the ‘difference’ that you may get from South Africa’s number 1 healthy food retailer cannot compare with food that is grown in the mountainous Rwandan soil and most likely in a less industrialised manner.  

I soon got to realise that the concept of eating local is far developed in Rwanda, the shop attendant a few blocks from my apartment hotel informed me on one of my visits that “we don’t sell soft chicken here, we don’t import chicken, we breed and sell”. And as hard as that chicken was to cook and eat, it did taste like chicken.

The landscape was the other thrill for me. I found no exaggeration whatsoever that Rwanda is called the land of a thousand hills.  The Hotel des Milles Collines or “Hotel Rwanda’ if you prefer to go by its movie name was worth a stop at, if not for anything else, it did feature in a well-acclaimed movie. The gardens there and everywhere else in Kigali spoke to the richness of the hilly mountainous soil and shouted two words – Resplendiscent Rwanda.

As a lover of nature and all things listed in creation, I found the views and the landscape magical. But what was even more magical was how well the Rwandese small traders have adapted to this rather magnificent but challenging landscape. The sight of petite traders transporting huge amounts of goods on their bikes and riding steadily up those hills or racing down with such unimaginable speed left me open-mouthed. “How do you carry so much on a bike up and down a hill?” I wondered.

While the petite traders mainly use bicycles to maneuver their tricky terrain, motorbikes did seem to be a major form of transportation in Kigali. In my country Cameroon motorbikes as just as common. But in Rwanda, everyone has a helmet. The enforcement of the helmet rule made me wonder why no such rule has ever been thought of in Cameroon. When you think of it, it is in fact not a hard rule to enforce. Surely, getting every motorbike rider to wear a helmet and have a spare on his motorbike for his passenger can’t be the hardest thing to get right. Helmets certainly ain’t the most comfortable piece of safety accessory but their role in saving lives can’t be questioned. I kept hoping that someone will let the policymakers in my country know.

The four hours drive to Kivu – on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo – gave me a clearer picture of Urban, semi-urban, and rural Rwanda. All of which had the same unique feature of orderliness, cleanliness, and hilly landscapes. But in addition, Kivu had a wonderful lake in-store…..I have always imagined a lake to be a fairly small mass of water compared to other water masses, but lake Kivu was nothing small. It is a massive lake, spanning several countries. It was particularly interesting sailing on the lake and being able to see Rwanda on the one side and the DRC on the other. We made a stop at a natural hot pool, streaming with gas, the experience felt dangerous and intriguing, but I did dare and got a brief foot massage in the mineral-bustling natural hot pool.

I had a really great time in Rwanda, and somehow, I wish there was a version of Rwanda without the genocide museum, spending an hour there was draining, and depressing. It filled me with rage. It was a reminder of the full extent of the demonic colonial policy of divide and rule. A policy that sadly, still hunts many African communities today. An evil policy that makes many Africans focus on their difference instead of their obvious sameness. Worst of all, it made me wonder if people can truly heal from such an atrocious past. 

The darkness aside, Rwanda was everything I imagined and more with the only downside being that we could not go to the mountains to visit gorillas as most tourists will do. Fact is, that activity isn’t priced for a middle-class African family. But that’s a story for another day.

What is undeniable is that Rwanda is evidence that we don’t have to do too much as Africans to live a good and dignified life. We don’t have to try and be like anyone else. We must honestly look inward and start with the little things to get big rewards.