Return to Rwanda Once Again
In the first October 2015 post that I wrote in this blog I began with this passage:
Arriving
in Rwanda and navigating the first night and day in the country, are
always an adventure. In this nation that is rapidly building new
infrastructure, developing new ideas and economies, there are always
signs of this progress blended with familiar signs, sounds and smells.
That
description remains apt to describe our arrival from Amsterdam to the
warm, spicey darkness of the airport in Kigali. I always forget that
arriving at the airport means you walk off the plane into the night air
instead of through a covered tunnel that has been pushed up to the
arriving plane as in most arrival terminals. In Rwanda, you exit the
plane that has been your seat on the world for 9 hours into the soft
night air and walk to the entrance of the Customs Hall where you show
your passport, apply and pay for your 30-day visa and retrieve your
luggage. An adventure, indeed. The customs officials are thorough,
deliberate, careful. These routines take time and patience.
This
trip to Rwanda promises to be different for me in many ways. First, it
is a trip for celebration not work. I am traveling with my colleague and
fellow educator, Jane O’Connor (and 40 other Maranyundo Girls School
supporters) to attend the first graduation of the STEM High School for
Girls on the Maranyundo Campus. Besides celebrating the achievements of
this first group of 57 young women who majored in STEM disciplines, it
celebrates the commitment of their teachers, the sisters of the
BenebikiraOrder who administer the school, the families who support the
school. It is also a celebration of the remarkable partnership that is
represented by the MaranyundoInitiative…the visionary women of both
Boston and Rwanda who took a pressing need…a school for girls beyond
elementary grades…and supported it to become one of the most successful
schools in the country. It is a celebration of the families of the girls
enrolled in the middle school, who sought the support of the Initiative
to build a high school on the campus that would prepare the graduates
for post-secondary school studies and employment in the rapidly growing
technology sectors of the Rwandan economy.
Secondly, it is a
trip on which I will stay in a hotel and not at the girls school,
itself. As many of you know, staying at the school is an experience that
I treasure. This time, I will be a visitor like everyone else. I will
not wake to that gentle light and hear the rooster crow and the soft
lowing of the cows in the stable. I will not hear the girls gather at
the meeting space outside the administration building and listen to Sr.
Juvenal introduce the day to the students. I will not follow the
routines and schedules of the school day, sit in classrooms or spend
time with teachers in the library or the Teacher’s Work Space. This
trip, I will be a guest, as it were. So I will have a different vantage
point from which to experience the graduation and the life of the
school.
Besides traveling with the Maranyundo Board members,
I am traveling with new supporters of the Initiative. Among the group I
am traveling with are Jane O’Connor’s daughter Erin and two of Erin’s
friends. They are traveling to Rwanda for the first time. It is so
interesting to see the city, to hear the story of Rwanda’s amazing
growth since the devastation of the genocide through Erin and her
friends. I always come away with new insights to stuff I thought I knew
for sure.
One thing I do know for sure every time I enter
this country, the development of the infra structure is amazing. It
continues to grow and thrive. Around the central city, tall buildings of
interesting architectural design are everywhere. One sight which
greeted us as we came into the central city last night was the new
Convention Center whose centerpiece sports a dome which is lighted with
the colors of the Rwandan flag: green, yellow and teal. There are new
hotels, elegant and chic, like the new Marriot across from the Serena.
New government buildings, new buildings at the University of Rwanda, new
banks, new shopping areas.
This morning when we went out to
the Genocide Memorial and Museum in central Kigali, our driver took us
through the “new city” of Kigali. It was an area of the city that was
known as the “bush” before 1994. During the genocide, it was a place
where many Tutsis fled as horror came upon their neighborhoods or
villages. As a result, it became a place where killers hunted down their
prey and left the bodies to be eaten by wild dogs and other animals. A
place of death and evil.
Today the area is a place of
prosperity with lovely stone homes, gated communities for the rising
Rwandan middle class and schools. Moses, our bus driver, who was 7 in
1994 and lost all of his family except for his dad, is so enthusiastic
about these signs of prosperity. He gives credit to “our brave
president” and feels that he is benefiting from the security and
“we-are-all-Rwandese” spirit that gives him hope. In fact, he told us
that he is expecting his first child in December. “I am rebuilding my
family,” he said softly.
And so the signs of prosperity and
the building boom in Kigali and its suburbs is a rebuilding that is
reflected infamilies that are rebuilding. What an interesting time to be
celebrating the graduation of accomplished young women whose school
motto… Respect, Responsibility and Leadership…are three ideals so needed
right now in a nation developing rapidly.
No comments:
Post a Comment