Postcard from Rwanda: First impressions

It’s tidy. Singa­pore-level spotless.

Com­munit­ies get togeth­er on the last Sat­urday of every month to pick up rub­bish. Even the pop­u­lar Pres­id­ent, Paul Kagame, joins in when he can, I’m told. As do oth­er leaders.

I arrived on the Thursday before the last Sat­urday in August and there seemed to be very little to pick up. 

Good habits breed bet­ter habits.

Order.

There’s a com­mun­al dis­cip­line in Rwanda. 

Drivers stop at ped­es­tri­an crossings.

Smokers, if there are any, don’t smoke in pub­lic spaces.

It per­haps serves as a means to move on from the past and to mit­ig­ate any cause for irrit­a­tion and dis­quiet between Rwandans.

Focus.

There’s a clear under­stand­ing here that this small and land­locked coun­try on this vast and rich con­tin­ent has rel­at­ively little in the way of nat­ur­al resources and min­er­als, so that it has to level up its sec­ond­ary and ter­tiary eco­nom­ic sectors.

One of the first facts I learned while leav­ing the air­port was that Volk­swa­gen had star­ted assem­bling vehicles in Rwanda. There were plenty of VW badges on Kigali’s roads.

The ter­tiary sec­tor, of course, includes tour­ism, which is why I am here at the invit­a­tion of Red Rocks Rwanda and Red Rocks Ini­ti­at­ive for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (“GT” Part­ners) and the Rwanda Devel­op­ment Board (RDB).

My first five days will be with Red Rocks in Musan­ze, North­ern Province, as they cel­eb­rate their 11th annu­al Red Rocks Cul­tur­al Fest­iv­al at the Red Rocks Cul­tur­al Center. 

I will then join a num­ber of oth­er media people for a 10-day famil­i­ar­isa­tion tour of the coun­try hos­ted by RDB.

Friendly.

Emma Raissa Isheja (pic­tured above) showed me around the Red Rocks Cul­tur­al Cen­ter this morn­ing as pre­par­a­tions were under­way for the Fest­iv­al, which starts at 2pm.

Here Emma Raissa talks about the arts and crafts ini­ti­at­ives Red Rocks offers its com­munity stake­hold­ers, espe­cially the loc­al women and youth. She describes them as the “heart” and “energy” of the com­munity, respectively.

Red Rocks founder Greg Bak­un­zi showed me where it all star­ted more than 20 years ago, in the home-office he built with his own hands.

While in Rwanda, itin­er­ary per­mit­ting, I will try to reg­u­larly post travel impres­sions like this — “GT” Travel post­cards — as I invite fresh per­spect­ives on tour­ism for The “Good Tour­ism” Blog; per­spect­ives like Emma Raissa’s.

Where next?