Road Signs

I was on the road quite a bit this past weekend. I had to head south to Resumo with the kids for a debate on Friday. On Saturday I had to make a quick trip to Kigali to bid goodbye to friend heading back to the States. When you travel so much, you start to notice things along the road that you’ve never seen before. I started to realize that many parts of the journey portrayed the growing Rwanda of today. On our way down to Resumo, we spent several kilometers winding though a valley that had recently been turned into an endless sea of rice fields. The valley was speckled with women in colorful clothing putting rice into big brown woven baskets. What a beautiful picture of the changing face of Rwanda. The country is starting to use its limited land to try to grow enough food to feed its swelling population.

The newly acquired rice fields were not the only signs of the country’s progress. The entire trip from Nyagatare to Kigali is lined with freshly dug dirt. In contract with the rapidly changing East African Community, Rwanda is laying fiber-optic cable across the entire country. High-speed internet was promised last year and it seems as though it might be up and running by the beginning of this coming year. As you approach Kigali from further and further away, you can see the growing skyscrapers coupled with a half dozen cranes to help them reach the sky. Can Rwanda truly skip the industrialization stage of development and head straight to a knowledge based economy.

As you pass by the steep hillsides just before reaching Lake Muhazi, you can see the bleeding bleach marks along the cliff side that used to clearly read Kagame, Paul. The controversial election went off without a hitch now two months ago and the country is still on the possibly façaded up and up.

After a strong showing at our debate against Resumo, the kids were singing songs of joy and happiness as we travelled back north to Nyagatare. From Resumo to Nyagatare, you pass by 5 mass graves from the genocide. The large white concrete slabs are usually decorated with the memorial purple and decaying flowers. Scrolled across the entrance to each site are the words, “never again” and “we will never forget”. The kid’s songs never let up the entire ride home, even as we passed the various grave sites. I felt like the kid’s songs displayed the beauty of life, that Rwanda is alive as ever. In some ways it felt like their songs were overpowering the past. We know what happened 16 years ago but were not going back there and were going to sing songs of joy that we are alive and well today. Rwanda can be prosperous and peaceful and death and despair will not be our final word. I know the kids weren’t thinking about this as we passed reminders of the past every 30 minutes or so but I think it was beautifully symbolic. This country is moving. It has a long way to go but it sure is giving it a shot. It’s an exciting time to be a Rwandan. Their future is bright and in their hands to make the best of it.