Rwanda Cuisine

                The cuisine of Rwanda is the local staples foods they farm for themselves and their families. The staple foods in Rwanda are bananas, plantains, pulses, sweet potatoes, beans and cassava. Meats are rare for the people of rural Rwanda and only get eaten a few times a month. Meals for the people Rwanda usually consist of; for breakfast, the sweet potatoes and porridge and for lunch/dinner, it is boiled beans, bananas, or sweet potatoes or cassava. Rwanda’s common drink is milk and refusing to drink milk that is being offered by a person from Rwanda is considered an insult. As you may know, the people are of Rwanda are made of many groups and there are the famous groups such as Hutus and the Tutsis. The Hutus and the Twa were the group of people who hunted and farm for their food and the Tutsis were pastoralists (rising of livestock) and consumed a lot of dairy products. I think this is why the cuisine of Rwanda came out the way it is today because these groups were highly influential on the traditions of Rwanda. They also still live in Rwanda today! Now the real question is how did these staples food come to Rwanda?

               First, the potato came from Germany and Belgian when they colonize Rwanda. The potato, as you can tell form the meals, are very popular in Rwanda. Bananas were introduced by China and Indonesia. Beans were from Uganda between the 16 and 17^th century. In the 1930, Belgians introduced the cassava which is the 3^rd most consumed food after the bananas and sweet potatoes.  It is interesting to see where these “staple” foods of Rwanda came from. This relates back to the Diaspora because may this occurrence is due to trades, colonization or even tourism!

Sources:
http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=14944&a=9014&week=4

A Man with Vision

Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17145106

I came apon this article about how inspiring this man is. Olivier Nizeyimana, a man from Rwanda, saw a problem with the country and he tried to find a solution to the problem and he  successfully did that.  Based on all the problems in the country he manage to make the best of things and not take anything for granted; he was able to create a bus company called Volcanoes Transport in 1999. His Inspiration? He was tired of walking miles to his former University called Rwanda’s National University which he got a degree in Management from and he wanted to show that making everything on time is a strong value to have! He was tired of seeing people from Rwanda not being punctual. At the time when he thought about his plan, he was too young to get a loan from the bank, so with the help from his family and the boss of Akagera Motors, he was able to start up this company. He started of with two buses and one bus route and only starting with $28,000. Now his company worth is $3 million. That is just insane to think about, this man not only overcame his “countries state of mind”, he is able to achieve success, which is moving to me. He saw a problem and was active in finding a solution. He only started with four staff members and two buses coming out. Now he is has 250 employees and 60 buses.  In the article, he even mentions that he is a part of the company and he sometimes drives the bus as well –“I want to be close to my clients”-.  Based on his interview he’s very humble, he knows the company is not only his but everyone in the company is the owner.  He is able to provide jobs for everyone such as drivers, ticket sellers, and cleaners that can help the economy’s unemployment rate a bit! He mentions a challenge called “African time”, which I think means, “being on their own time”. He’s trying to change that! As of February 22, this company is now an internationally business and the company "opened a new line connecting Kigali to Bujumbura, Burundi's capital that drives there three times a day”.  I do not want to make people think this all happen suddenly; the company had commitment, dedication and hard work to get where it is today, and he was able to achieve this success at the end even with little bumps on the road! I hope you were moved by the article as much as I was. Enjoy!

Economy

Coming from the genocide, the government knows they have to start somewhere. The biggest benefactors of the Rwandan economy are agriculture, miners tourism. The agriculture, miners, tourism make up of majority of the GDP the economy makes. This makes the country more rural based and because of this, a lot of people in Rwanda are living in poverty making less than 1 dollar a day. Ever since the genocide in 1994, the economy had to pick itself up from this disaster and the country as a whole show they want improvement. The economy went from a decline of 40% in real GDP to an increase of 9% within the next year in 1995 with the help from other countries. The main priorities that Rwanda are focusing on “poverty reduction, infrastructure development, privatization of government-owned assets, expansion of the export base, and trade liberalization.” Rwanda knows they face a problem with getting too much foreign aid and is trying to stop getting aid because it “dehumanizes” them. The economic relations with other countries is that Rwanda is in a situation where they need a lot of foreign aid for rebuilding themselves back up so I believe this is their “rebuilding stage”. Also for recent years, the U.S and Rwanda has been working together. For example, the U.S has investments in local mineral production and biofuel projects and signed a treaty for their investments. In 2011, Barack Obama made the investments even bigger by giving the investments legal protections for investors to show the commitment for both countries in the “open investments and trade policies”. The major source of the economy is mostly tea and coffee from the agriculture, coltan from the minerals and tourism of course. It’s interesting to note the way Rwanda is forming its economy is to have a huge network to attract private investors. For example, Kagame met with the CEO Jim Sinegal, of Costco’s to be able to sell coffee beans in the company and is currently selling 25% of Rwanda's coffee beans to Costco. This network from Singeal of Costco then led a meeting with CEO Howard Schultz of Starbucks to improve even more of their coffee beans sales. This example shows their resistance to what the country was mostly known for, the war, and place that mindset into something more healing and hopeful. Kagame’s strategy to attract private investors seems like it is working for the country but every plan is not flawless. The country still faces problems with exporting less and importing more. The president, Kagame does have future plans for a major shift in the economy by 2020 and hopefully provided have better life such as health, education, electricity and  lessen poverty rate for everyone in Rwanda.

Sources:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/134/special-report-rwanda-rising.html?page=0%2C0

http://www.iss.co.za/AF/profiles/Rwanda/Economy.html

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2861.htm#econ

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0860865.html

Goverment

Since the Rwandan Patriotic Front  (RPF) was able to achieve victory in July 1994, they were able to form a government called the “The Broad Based Government of National Unity” while President Habyarimana was in power. Paul Kagame was sworn in April 22, 2000.  This was considered the “first nonviolent presidential change in the country’s history”. On May 26, 2003, there was a “new constitution that got rid of the reference to ubwoko.” Ubwoko means the clans. I thought was big deal because a lot of the Rwanda genocide had to do with what the clans people were in with the whole power difference. This also was a stepping-stone to the election in August and September of 2003. This led to the election of President Paul Kagame in August 25,2003 for a 7 year term and soon after, he was re-elected again in August 2010 and he’s still the President of Rwanda. There is 8 different political parties and the party of the Democratic Republican Party (MDR) is slowly disperse since 1994 but after every election there has been trends of a new party is forming. For example: After the Presidency election of Kagame, a 9^th party was formed. Then in the spring of 2006 after the elections for the Chambers of Deputies there was a 10^th party formed. In Chambers of Dupties, the women hold most of the seats (more than half 45 out of 80 seats). It’s also interesting to note that after the re-election of President Kagame, there was more violence even though he won 93% of the votes from the people. “An unexplained murder of the vice president of the unregistered Democratic Green Party who was expecting to registered but backfired.  Now it seems like RPF is in full control of the country with all the “wins” they have from elections like a recent one in the spring 2011 for the Senator. There are still challenges that the government is dealing with the individuals involving the genocide, long-term commitment for partnerships and development within the country and the government. These challenges are slowly getting better and the political agenda is for the development of the country to become more stable, which is happening since the poverty percent went down 12%. This impact’s the country’s government because the development of the government facing these challenges are becoming more positive even though Rwanda had a negative past.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16694130

Source of Information:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2861.htm#gov

History of Rwanda

In the history of Rwanda there were two known groups of people, the Tutsi and the Hutu. In the 15^th century, the Tutsi was in power and created a monarchy led by Tutsi mwami (king) with Tutsi nobles and followers. The two groups coexistence with each other and even cooperated with each other to live their daily lives. But there was a power difference and the rural Tutsis had a few advantages over the rural Hutus. The mwami submitted his power to German Count Von Goetzen in 1894. But soon later, the Belgian troops from Belgian Congo drove the Germans out of the Rwanda and took control.  Then the Belgians wanted to make Rwanda more democratic but the Tutsi traditionalist feared that, with making the country more democratic the Tutsi monarchy would be overturned, which did eventually happen in November 1959. The Belgians got help from the Hutu Leaders. This was the beginning of the disaster. Two years after, the Hutu created a party called the Party of the Hutu Emancipation Movement (PARMEHUTU). This party caused more than 160,000 Tutsi to leave to neighboring countries. Autonomy was then granted to Rwanda from Belgians on January 1, 1962 and their independence was established by July 1, 1962. Since Gregoire Kayibanda was the leader of the PARMEHUTU, the government was under his control and he wanted Hutu supremacy. This promoted more Tutsis to leave Rwanda. After many corruptions in the government, Kayibanda’s party was overturn by Juvenal Habyarimana to form a party called National Revolutionary Movement for Development (MRND). But during his reign, the Tutsi was still faced with more violence towards them and there was no consequence for the wrongdoings towards them.  After Habyarimana was re-elected again as president in 1983 and again in 1988, he believed that the large population of the Tutsi was too overwhelming for the country of Rwanda and did not welcome them back from their exiled. On October 1, 1990, the Tutsi who were in exiled created a revolutionary group called Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). They blamed the failing democracy and not being able to solve the problems for the 500,000 Tutsi refugees living in the other countries around the world. They fought against The MRND government for 2 years until there was ceasefire that took effect in July 31, 1992 promoting peace and equal power sharing.  On April 6, 1994, there was an incidence of a plane being shot down with the passengers, President Habyarimana and the President of Burundi. Both of the presidents were killed and it caused mayhem; the military then rounded up the Tutsi regardless of their clan and killed them. The killing began from the landing spot of the plane, Kigali, to all around the country between April 6 and the beginning of July. This genocide killed over 800,000 Tutsi and others. The war between RPF and the military was still happening and the French forces tried to stop the fighting but soon later, the RPF was able to take Kigali and win the war in July 16, 1994. The result of the war is a disaster in the country and, “over 800,000 had been murdered, another 2 million (Hutu) had fled, and another million were displaced internally.”1 As time passed, the international community helped Rwanda build themselves up and helped the Tutsi who was in exiled come back into the country. A big part of the help came from the Congo, which is now in a joint-military with Rwanda to help stop Hutu extremist.  Now Rwanda on the road to a steady economic growth development and is in the process of rebuilding. The current state of Rwanda is still majority Hutu, and is now considered the most densely populated country in Africa. 

I studied Rwanda because I have heard about Rwanda but never knew much about it. I also remembered in High school, I had a guest speaker who spoke about the genocide and I wanted to know more about it since then. Surprisingly, the event happen in Rwanda. At first I didn’t know where even Rwanda was and I even remember hearing a movie called Hotel Rwanda that had the event of the genocide. I’m hoping to learn about the country’s economic group and how they are dealing with this event to see if I can learn how people resolve issues about poverty and stability around the world. 

Sources:

1- http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2861.htm

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rw.html (picture)

Welcome to Rwanda!

Rwanda, WE BACK!