2024 Visit to Rwanda
Various circumstances, including Covid 19, meant that it had been several years since I had paid a visit to Rwanda, and on this occasion I was accompanied by Tony Brennan, the Trust's treasurer, whose previous visit had been some 12 years before. Tony saw many changes in those intervening years!
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​Our accommodation throughout our stay is good, but not in any way extravagant, and Saint Paul's Guest House is a place where we have stayed over many years, and where we meet others from all parts of the world. It is set quite high in the city, and on my first visit to this area (although not this particular guest house) back in 2008, very few lights shone out in the city of Kigali after dark. What a transformation in those few years, the city is lit up by night now in the capital city.
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The scene was rather different the following night, when we had travelled with our partners from the Free Methodist Church for about six hours during the day to arrive on the shores of Lake Kivu in the Western Province at a town called Kibuye. On the way we had called at Nyanza for Tony to visit the King's Palace Museum where stands a reconstruction of the traditional royal residence of the last Tutsi King, a beautifully crafted thatched dwelling shaped like a beehive.
A night view of Kigali City in 2024 -
from Saint Paul's Guest House
The King's Palace
In olden times, Nyanza was the heart of Rwanda and, according to oral tradition, it was a site of battles and power struggles. For a long time, the monarchy was mobile, moving the court between various locations, but when it eventually settled in one place, Nyanza was the obvious choice. The capital of the kingdom at that time had as many as 2,000 inhabitants, and smaller huts were built with the same method as the larger palace.
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Whilst we were there, we saw some long-horned Inyambo cattle, descended from the King's herd, whose keepers carefully tend and sing to them keeping alive a unique tradition.
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Rwanda ceased to be a monarchy in 1962 when it gained independence from colonial rule.
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Nestled on a hillside above Lake Kivu, Kibuye is a magical, tranquil and peaceful location with one of the most beautiful views I think I have seen. The Home Saint Jean Guest House is another familiar location to us when staying in the west and allows easy access to some of the projects we support in this particular area.
View from Home Saint John Guest House - Kibuye
The King's Cattle
Having said that, our next night was spent at Kibogora Mission, about 90 minutes away from Kibuye, as our first visit this year was to the Inshutiyanashuti (Friends Group) Pineapple Project further inland. This reconciliation group have worked together now for a number of years and last year we supported them with the purchase of a piece of land, set on a very steep and remote hillside, but ideal for growing pineapple crops. As we arrived, the group were busy on the land clearing the last of their first crop of pineapple plants, and we could hear them singing together as we slowly drove up the very narrow and steep road. As we embarked, they joined us to show us their land and then walked with us a little further up the road to an area where we sat together in a shaded spot. They spent some time telling us what this land meant to them and their lives, and we were presented with fruit from that first crop, which we took with us and shared with other guests at the Mission that night.
Inshutiyanshuti Pineapple Project land purchased by Goboka
1. Inshutiyanshuti Reconciliation Group
2. The first crop of pineapples
After leaving the Inshutiyanshuti, we travelled on to call in at Nyarusange Health Post, and then to Gitsimbwe where we met students currently enrolled in our carpentry and sewing apprenticeship schemes. It is always a great delight to them to show us the items they are producing, and equally a delight to us to show how giving a skill can be so beneficial.
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This was the first of a number of such schemes we visited during our few days in Kibuye, new enterprises which had been set up since my last visit, but always good to see, and to meet both the students, their families and the many village people who also gather on these occasions.
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Our return to Kigali after several days gave us the opportunity to visit other projects in a different part of the country, and with our partners from PHARP (Peace-building, Healing and Reconciliation Programmes), this year in the Northern Province. We visited Cyabatanzi sewing school and our nearby newest Health Post at Cyungo. At that site, we were also introduced to a group of single mothers who had benefited from our Seed Capital Project, which you can read about elsewhere, and a group of mainly widows and orphans who were each receiving a goat (41 in total) which had recently been purchased for them by the supporters of the Trust.
Cyungo Health Post - our third
41 goats given to widows and orphans
One of our newer apprenticeship schemes is in welding, and a visit to Rukembura village enabled us to meet some students who were now qualified following their training, as well as new students just starting their journey. I think most of the village turned out to the celebration, which it truly was, with singing and dancing, and the presentation of welding equipment to two teams of students who are now working together to maintain a livelihood following their training. We viewed the metal doors and windows they had made and heard that in their first year 25% of their profit is given back to PHARP to support the students who would follow, and the purchase of equipment for them, but after that the welders were able to keep and share all the profit they made from their newly found skills.
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Our time in Rwanda this year also enabled us to visit the home of a family who have been supported by a family in this country with the purchase of a sewing machine. Hospitality is always offered even though people have little, and it is always a joy to share with them, and a great honour for them that we visit them.
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This visit was an opportunity to talk and take stock with our partners about where we intend to develop in the future and which projects we may need to cut back on. For example, in the Northern Province the cost of wood has tripled in recent years, so it has been decided to concentrate on welding and sewing apprenticeships for the time being, where as in the west, wood is still in plentiful supply, so our carpentry schemes are still very much in evidence.
1. Just one of the new Sewing Schools we visited
2. Students receiving sewing machines at Rukembura graduation
1. Rukembura welding graduates
2. Windows and doors made by
welding graduates
The Seed Capital Project for the single mothers
was so well received that we have decided this
can be replicated elsewhere in the country with
ease, and it benefits these women to such an
extent that it can be quite life changing.
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As always, coming home and leaving friends in
this beautiful little country was hard, but gives us
the incentive to continue to spread the word
about how we can help in some small way to
bring about change and self-sustainability in
Rwanda, and believe me when I say that those
people we meet on our travels are in no doubt
that their lives are changed by people who care
for them without knowing them, by giving
generously to help them.
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Heather
Testimonies from some of the single mothers who have benefited from our Seed Capital Scheme
