Coming Home

Goodbye to Rwanda (Kigali Airport)

(SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

By Gale Wiley

Kigali, Rwanda – Rice MBAs who came to this African capital to commercialize biomedical technology are returning home this week with more than firsthand knowledge about commercializing biomedical technology in a developing country.

For starters, students have learned that Rwandans are a proud and gentle people who are zooming into the 21st century -- in part through outside aide, in part through dogged determination, education and hard work.

Rwanda is well organized, largely through the efforts of the country’s government, whose leadership is dominated by women who fill the gap left by men killed during the genocide. Fully 80 percent of the legislature is female.

New and Old

Kigali is a bustling, beautiful city of a thousand hills with perfect California climate. The traffic circles contain well-manicured gardens. The views from hilltop to hilltop are breathtaking.

During rush hour, Rwandans wedge themselves into mini-vans that serve as taxis. Braver souls hire mo-ped taxis piloted by helmet-wearing cowboy drivers who lean on their horns as much as their accelerators.

Kigali is booming. Everywhere there is movement. At rush hour in Kigali, throngs crowd the markets and taxi stands where scores of mini vans and mo-peds wait.

Rush hour in Kigali's mass transit hub

The well dressed employed and the ragged jobless – many talking into cell phones -- walk side by side.

In the city center you can buy low quality electronic goods and pirated CDs. A huge, enclosed market on the edge of town is like the Rwandan version of WalMart, except here you get to bargain with vendors.

Rwanda has a long way to go, however, before all of its citizens are afforded the same access as Kigalians have to electricity and clean water and centralized sewage systems. In rural Rwanda, mud brick huts that do not meet minimum standards are being condemned by the government and replaced with higher quality structures.

China has landed big contracts to add and improve roads throughout the country. Germany has built a huge mountain-top solar array.

Everyone here talks of the years before and after 1994, the year of the genocide when as many as 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered at the hands of Hutus.

The genocide happened 15 years ago, and memorials to the Tutsis are scattered through this tiny country. Hardly a person you meet doesn’t have a story about losing relatives to death during the genocide.

Press Freedom?

Rwanda’s television programming is mostly soccer clips, Rwandan music videos, and rosy interviews with government ministers and President Paul Kagame.

“Government here doesn’t air bad news,” said one young reporter who had been fired from Rwanda’s only government-controlled TV station. “Reporters who want to gather views opposite the government’s are let go.”

Unemployment

The government hires as many as people as it can, but the crush of immigrants from the countryside and neighboring countries puts pressure on an economy that is largely agricultural.
Rwanda, quite simply, needs jobs that bring value to the Rwandan economy.

Thousands of young men walk the streets here looking for work. During the day they sit in groups or prowl the city centers. In the district where huge bags of flour and sugar and consumer goods are unloaded, one thin young man yelled to me, “I’m hungry. Give me money.”

Awash with Churches and “NGO-how”

By some estimates, more than a thousand churches and nearly 300 non-governmental agencies (NGOs) work in Rwanda, providing aid, equipment, training, and what some call “NGO-how.”
Rwanda, not surprisingly, is largely Protestant. Again and again, Rwandans would say to us, “Like us, Americans are Christian.”

Like South Africa, Rwanda used the process of reconciliation to allow Tutsi victims to confront and forgive their tormentors. Although some religious leaders in the 1990’s failed Rwandans during the genocide by falling silent during the persecution and the subsequent slaughter of more than 800,000 Tutsis, still other clerics spoke up for or protected Tutsis.

Tourism

Tourists see gorillas "up close and personal"

Tourists to Rwanda come in several flavors: those who want to see the genocide memorials and the gorillas ($500 cash for a permit), those who are connected with churches and NGOs (you see these folks at the best restaurants or riding in Toyota SUVs with African drivers), and those who are simply travelers curious about Rwanda (by far the smallest group).

“Tom Cruise”

The hope for Rwanda is in the young who put in long hours at school and who pay to hear local rapper Tom Close (Rwandans say “Tom Cruise”) at live concerts.

We met the son of a seamstress who started a business with micro-finance money seeded by an American NGO.

He has big plans to grow Rwanda’s fledgling tourist industry.

“We’re building a Web site for my mother’s shop,” he said speaking perfect American English. “You will be able to order her handmade custom made shirts online. We have big plans.”

Students' route home
Kigali-Nairobi-London-Houston
36 Hours, door-to-door