That One Time The President Came to My Village

17 January 2013

Just after the school year started, I saw a lot more work being done around town. More people were out cutting grass and trimming hedges in public places. Buildings were being painted. The dirt road to our town was being steam-rolled. Landscapers and gardeners were everywhere. One day I came home to find that they had torn up the little garden next to my home. I was devastated, since I had just planted some jalapenos and I had no more seeds.

 For some reason I just assumed that all this work had something to do with the new school year; the town was coming out of hibernation and working a lot harder than normal. This, however, was incidental. In fact the town was rapidly preparing for the arrival of “His Excellency”, President Paul Kagame. He would be visiting the following week to tour the cement factory. The Saturday before hand our whole district even had a surprise “umuganda”, or day of public service that everyone is required to attend.

There were a lot of strange things happening in my town in the time leading up to the president’s arrival. People in mud huts were painting their homes white. Apparently that was to make it look nice, but let’s not forget that they were painting walls made of mud. The bottoms of the trees were being painted white. I know there can be an actual purpose for that, but in this case it was just for appearances. There was a much bigger military presence normal. They zoomed up and down the roads in their jeeps for whatever reason. I saw some soldiers near my house walking out of their compound with what looked like some sort of rocket launcher. One day I saw a big group of people sitting under the trees near my school. They were being spoken to by soldiers. I asked somebody nearby what they were doing. They explained that before the president came, they needed to check everyone’s ID’s. Those without proper identification would be jailed until the president left town.

It wasn’t until the night before he came that I learned that he would be giving a speech at the hot springs nearby. I had classes the next day, though and didn’t know any details about his visit. Maybe I would catch a glimpse of his motorcade.

The next morning, Claire, a nearby volunteer texted me to tell me she was on the way to see the president speak, with one of the nuns she lives with. She also said there was no way there would be school that day since all the students were going to see the president. So I got up, put on some of my nicest clothes, and made the 40-minute trek to the hot springs. I joined a huge column of people, all headed to see “His Excellency” speak.

Along the way there were a few people handing out little Rwandan flags. The flag was made from paper and was glued to a piece of wood. Towards the entrance to the hot springs, I saw the actual line forming. It was a few hundred meters long and about six people wide at this point. Near the back of it, I found all the students from my school. I was happy that I would get to experience this with them. As we waited, I saw hundreds of people walking away from the entrance. Somebody told me they were being refused entrance because they did not have a Rwandan flag. Suddenly our group’s progress was halted by a soldier. I didn’t know why we were being stopped. Then, another soldier came and grabbed me by the hand, pulled me out of line, and pointed toward the front and told me to go there. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t want to argue, but this reeked of Mzungu privilege. The lines were divided up into smaller sections ahead. I didn’t really know how far ahead to go. Towards the front I ran into someone I knew and tried to sneak in there. She told me not to, and said I should go all the way to the front. I kept walking, and eventually another soldier directed me to a tent off to the side. This was a different entrance than everyone else was using. It had a metal detector and x-ray machine. The man in charge at this post was the first one to call me out on not being important in the least. He asked what my purpose was there. I explained that I was just a teacher and the soldiers sent me this way. “So you do not have an invitation?” He processed me through security, but then allowed me to go through the normal entrance. Somehow I got grouped in with a troupe of drummers, that I assumed would be performing, and was told to follow them. I was trying to keep an eye out for fellow volunteers Claire and Tim. When I saw that the drummers were being led to a VIP section off to the side, I abandoned them and tried to look for Tim and Claire. Someone else came and told me to follow him into that VIP section. I told him I was trying to find my friends. They had not been allowed to enter with their cell phones and I didn’t bring mine. He told me that I should just wait for them in the VIP section. I was sitting right next to the drummers, feeling a little awkward among a bunch of people far more important than me. Suddenly I realized that Tim and Claire were actually in my section with their nun. It shouldn’t have surprised me. A lot of the important people were religious leaders from the area. I sat nearby a Muslim man in a beautifully extravagant traditional robe.

Soon after I spotted Tim, Claire and the nun, they were being moved by some official-looking person. I asked them where they were going. Claire said, “I don’t know but come along.” I followed them and we were escorted to a tented area right behind the podium where Paul Kagame would be speaking. It was the most VIP seating area. There bottles of water under our new seats. It was the same area that I had originally been sent to, but then turned away from because of my lack of an invitation. I don’t know how it all happened, but it was exciting. I felt kind of bad, thinking of my students all standing out there in the hot sun with the crowds, while I got special treatment for no better than my skin color and a loose association with a nun.

The next few hours consisted of sound checks, drum performances, traditional dancing and some singers performing. During one of the singers’ performances, they brought an old lady up onto the small stage and she started dancing like a wild woman. It was probably the highlight of the day. Throughout the performances, the MC instructed people to wave their flags and to applaud louder.

Finally, in the early afternoon, Paul Kagame entered. He took his seat under the tent. I was probably twenty feet away from him. I knew he was tall and lanky, but seeing his physique in person was still shocking. I felt like I could break him in half with little effort. He looked so frail for someone who had led a guerrilla war and spent months in camps in the rugged Virunga Mountains. I appreciated that he was not dressed that formally. He was wearing a a suit jacket, but his pants were something like grayish jeans. His shoes looked like some sort of cheap rugged not-quite-hiking boots a middle school student would wear.

He gave a speech that  complimented or region for its agriculture and industry. It was true. Not only does our area have a big cement factory, we have a big rice industry, complete with a big processing plant. He also said that our region was as beautiful as Japan. This was also an allusion to the rice industry. Earlier in the day, I had told Tim and Claire that he would probably see the terrible road that led to our village and realize it needed to be paved. While there is not a huge population in my village, it would greatly help the cement factory as well as make the hot springs a more accessible tourist attraction. Then, in the middle of his speech he actually made a promise to pave the road to our village. He also said that he would pave the road to Mibirizi, where Luke and Caitlan live, because they have our district’s central hospital and it is remarkably inaccessible.

After his speech he accepted questions from the audience. This is where I got a glimpse of Kagame’s sense of humor. I had previously taken him for someone who is too serious for jokes. I didn’t really understand most of what he was saying, but I did see that he was making quite a few jokes. As one man stepped to the microphone, Kagame said, “Ok, let’s talk.” The man started by thanking him for coming and taking questions. The president cut him off immediately, saying, “Hey, cut to the chase.” Everyone laughed, and it seemed perfectly in character of Kagame to not waste time on pleasantries. I did not get most of what they exchange was, but I they were talking about a death and the mood became very serious. I later learned the man had been saying that his son was killed by Rwandan military in the northern forests. Kagame said he didn’t know anything about it, so he called a military officer over to address the question. I don’t know what response the man was given, but it was an interesting scene to play out. I was glad to see that the people’s questions had not been vetted beforehand and we were seeing an honest discussion. Apparently the incident had happened over a decade ago, when there was still a much bigger threat from rebel groups in that region crossing into Rwanda from Congo. It sounded like the son had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Because I did not understand all that much of what the President talked about during the speech, I had my students help me in class the next day. I wrote a list of questions on the board related to the president’s visit. I gave them a crash course in extemporaneous speaking, then had them come in front of the class and give short speeches answering one of the questions. I learned a lot from them, but most of the speeches seemed to cover stuff that I already knew. It was fun, though, to have a mutually beneficial lesson. More importantly, a lot of them seemed to enjoy the exercise and one of the classes asked if we could do that more often.