Hollywood star denounces western reluctance during 1994 Genocide
BY GEORGE KAGAME
Renowned Hollywood actress Ashley Judd has criticized western countries for not doing anything to have stopped the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.
Speaking today at Kigali Genocide Memorial Judd who is the country to assess the activities of health and social marketing firm Population Services International- PSI she said; “Some countries like the US just looked on while others like France are implicated in the Genocide, yet they have not come out to apologize to the victims.”
Judd added that while the Genocide was happening in Rwanda, it was given very little coverage in the US media; “while the genocide was happening here, I never heard much about in the US,” she said that she got to know much about the genocide through the movie Hotel Rwanda.
Judd said Verhofstadt did a good thing to have apologised to Rwandans on behalf of Belgium,” she that was a good example for Europe.
Former Belgium+ Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's made a public apology to Rwandans that died in the genocide about Belgium’s failure to help the country in its time of need.
In the visitors book Judd remarked thanked the Rwandan government for setting up a profound and clear memorial, she added that; “I will do my part to ensure such a tragedy never happens.” she added that walking inside the memorial, she almost fainted twice; “the rooms are filled with grief.”
She also applauded the measures that the government has undertaken to educate Rwandan people towards peace, unity and reconciliation.
Judd has appeared in Holly blockbusters like Someone like you, Just one of those things, High Crimes and Twisted. She also sits on the PSI board which is responsible for the distribution of condoms and other health related products like water purifying tablets like Ea Sur.
Ashley Judd is also a Global Ambassador for YouthAIDS to explore more explore innovative and effective strategies YouthAIDS/PSI employs to address the transmission of HIV.
YouthAids funds Centre Dushishoze which provides young people with a friendly and confidential environment where they can receive life-saving health peer education, products and services.
In a related development, Honore Gatera the head guide at the memorial said that recent grenade attacks which killed one police man at the gate have not affected the activities at the memorial during this mourning period; “people have been ordinarily, we have received over 10000 visitors at the centre this month and we have also carried out formal burial ceremonies for over 200 victims of the 1994 Genocide.”
Saturday, 26 April 2008
Dear Mr Muhinda,
Following the e-mail of Mr. Khalid Dahab which confirmed your registration for the training on Parliamentary Report during the 9th Session of the PAP, please find below the itinerary for your flight to Johannesburg.
1MUHINDA/GEORGEMR
KQ 474 04MAY Kigali JNB 1110 2350
KQ 463 17MAY JNB NBO 0040 0550
KQ 474 17MAY NBO KGL 0930 0955
Please let me know LATEST until Thursday 24th of April 18:00h if you will participate, so that we can issue the ticket asap.
You will have to take care of your visa for South Africa AS SOON AS possible, as the South African Embassies might be only open two days next week due to public holidays.
All participants are accommodated in the Centurion Lake Hotel. There will be a shuttle waiting for you at the airport to transfer you to the hotel. PLEASE DO NOT take any other transport (taxi or shuttle from the Pan African Parliament) to the hotel.
Further information will be send to you once we have issued the ticket.
Kind Regards,
Nicole Schaffer
Nicole Schaffer
Programme "Support to Pan African Institutions"
German Technical Cooperation (GTZ)
Hatfield Gardens Block E,
333 Grosvenor Street
P. O. Box 13732
Hatfield 0028, Pretoria
Tel.: +27 (0) 12 423 5985
Fax: +27 (0) 12 342 3646
Cell: +27 (0) 83 640 8147
Following the e-mail of Mr. Khalid Dahab which confirmed your registration for the training on Parliamentary Report during the 9th Session of the PAP, please find below the itinerary for your flight to Johannesburg.
1MUHINDA/GEORGEMR
KQ 474 04MAY Kigali JNB 1110 2350
KQ 463 17MAY JNB NBO 0040 0550
KQ 474 17MAY NBO KGL 0930 0955
Please let me know LATEST until Thursday 24th of April 18:00h if you will participate, so that we can issue the ticket asap.
You will have to take care of your visa for South Africa AS SOON AS possible, as the South African Embassies might be only open two days next week due to public holidays.
All participants are accommodated in the Centurion Lake Hotel. There will be a shuttle waiting for you at the airport to transfer you to the hotel. PLEASE DO NOT take any other transport (taxi or shuttle from the Pan African Parliament) to the hotel.
Further information will be send to you once we have issued the ticket.
Kind Regards,
Nicole Schaffer
Nicole Schaffer
Programme "Support to Pan African Institutions"
German Technical Cooperation (GTZ)
Hatfield Gardens Block E,
333 Grosvenor Street
P. O. Box 13732
Hatfield 0028, Pretoria
Tel.: +27 (0) 12 423 5985
Fax: +27 (0) 12 342 3646
Cell: +27 (0) 83 640 8147
To whom it may concern
Kigali, 25 April 2008
This is to certify that GEORGE MUHINDA is a bonafide employee of The New Times, he has been invited to participate in a training programme for African reporters in Johannesburg South Africa, the training will begin on 4th May 2008.
The purpose of this letter is to request you for any assistance where necessary
Thank you for your cooperation.
Joseph Bideri
Managing Director
The New Times Publications Sarl
Kigali, 25 April 2008
This is to certify that GEORGE MUHINDA is a bonafide employee of The New Times, he has been invited to participate in a training programme for African reporters in Johannesburg South Africa, the training will begin on 4th May 2008.
The purpose of this letter is to request you for any assistance where necessary
Thank you for your cooperation.
Joseph Bideri
Managing Director
The New Times Publications Sarl
Dear Nicole,
I find this very difficult to tell you but i also have to be honest with you, i will not be able to attend the Pan African/NEPAD training Programme, for which i was successfully nominated and i had cleared all requirements to come to Johannesburg on 4th May 2008.
This is because decided to assign me urgently to Arusha to cover the proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the East African Legislative assembly.
Not coming to attend your training will be the worst point in my career so far, i was very excited about Johannesburg, but i cannot do much.
If it can be a consolation, my immediate boss, Ignatius Kabagambe can nominate someone else at the newspaper.
Please take my apologies, and should there be a next training programme please contact me again
GEORGE Muhinda
I find this very difficult to tell you but i also have to be honest with you, i will not be able to attend the Pan African/NEPAD training Programme, for which i was successfully nominated and i had cleared all requirements to come to Johannesburg on 4th May 2008.
This is because decided to assign me urgently to Arusha to cover the proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the East African Legislative assembly.
Not coming to attend your training will be the worst point in my career so far, i was very excited about Johannesburg, but i cannot do much.
If it can be a consolation, my immediate boss, Ignatius Kabagambe can nominate someone else at the newspaper.
Please take my apologies, and should there be a next training programme please contact me again
GEORGE Muhinda
With its current population nearing the one million ark during the day and 800,000 during the night Kigali city is a hub of various activities business or otherwise that the capital city is slowly getting busier. The busier it gets the smaller the city has become, Bruno Rangira the Director of Communication at Kigali city says the city council is currently in advanced stages of constructing housing units in Btasinda estate, “Early in March, we completed the construction of 250 houses, Batsinda alone will be composed of 1000 low cost houses for urban families to move in.”
Before Rangira’s projects open and solve Kigali’s house searching problems, finding a decent low cost house in the capital city is increasingly becoming a nightmare for Kigali residents. Today, you need more than money to get a house to rent, it is possible that you will be denied a house even you meet financial rent expectations of a prospective land lord.
Finding low cost house in Kigali today has become as elusive as finding a job, even with appropriate education qualification, you can walk the streets for years, not to forget the mockery of interviews.
With the world wide increasing cost of living in agricultural produce, even land lords have caught on like one David Hitimana said; “the prices of everything has increased, food is very expensive in he markets, why do you expect a house to be cheaper? Is food more important than a house?” he asked again.
I met Jean Baptiste outside my gate one day; he was just like any other stranger. When Jean Baptiste heard I was looking for a house to rent, he came close. What followed was a month long partnership looking for a small urban condo that a low income earner like me could afford.
Immediately JP mentioned 7 prospective houses that I could occupy and he was known well with the land lords. I was convinced by the fact the JP was on top of his game, but he could only show me two houses and on both occasions we only stopped at a short distance away from the houses from where JP would go on about the beauty of the rooms inside and the neighbourhood.
Whenever I asked to meet the land lords JP told me he had to talk to them first, I tried to get the phone of one land lord, when he picked up the phone, the land lord denied having a house. That was the first day of our search, the next day I was supposed to meet JP early in the morning, he gave me his number, and the next day his phone was off the network the whole day. I kept calling till he picked up finally after 48 hours later; he took to me one land lord, Gerard. Gerard is the kind of person I would not advise anybody to meet. Apparently Gerard had a house but according to him; “it is very bad shape I don’t want to rent it out in its current state, but after one month it will be on the market.”
Gerard said he would tender his house when it was completed, he would explain the fact that he allowed me to meet me when he fully knew that I was interested in renting his house and now he is saying he does not have one.
I met another broker, who among his proclamations before he even knew my name was to ask for ‘Diporosima’ of Frw 5000. Diporosoma is a specific amount of money that a person in need of a house pays to the house broker before the prospective tenant sees the house, upon getting a house the tenant is required to pay the broker the equivalent of a half month rent charge, say if the house a broker has identified for you is Frw 200,000 per month, you pay the tenant Frw 100,0000.
"The owner of the houses left clear insructions that he only wanted foreignors (Abanyamahanga)"'
I asked the boy why the landlord preferred foreignors to Rwandans; "i dont know," the boy replied.
Check MacBook for some more info
Before Rangira’s projects open and solve Kigali’s house searching problems, finding a decent low cost house in the capital city is increasingly becoming a nightmare for Kigali residents. Today, you need more than money to get a house to rent, it is possible that you will be denied a house even you meet financial rent expectations of a prospective land lord.
Finding low cost house in Kigali today has become as elusive as finding a job, even with appropriate education qualification, you can walk the streets for years, not to forget the mockery of interviews.
With the world wide increasing cost of living in agricultural produce, even land lords have caught on like one David Hitimana said; “the prices of everything has increased, food is very expensive in he markets, why do you expect a house to be cheaper? Is food more important than a house?” he asked again.
I met Jean Baptiste outside my gate one day; he was just like any other stranger. When Jean Baptiste heard I was looking for a house to rent, he came close. What followed was a month long partnership looking for a small urban condo that a low income earner like me could afford.
Immediately JP mentioned 7 prospective houses that I could occupy and he was known well with the land lords. I was convinced by the fact the JP was on top of his game, but he could only show me two houses and on both occasions we only stopped at a short distance away from the houses from where JP would go on about the beauty of the rooms inside and the neighbourhood.
Whenever I asked to meet the land lords JP told me he had to talk to them first, I tried to get the phone of one land lord, when he picked up the phone, the land lord denied having a house. That was the first day of our search, the next day I was supposed to meet JP early in the morning, he gave me his number, and the next day his phone was off the network the whole day. I kept calling till he picked up finally after 48 hours later; he took to me one land lord, Gerard. Gerard is the kind of person I would not advise anybody to meet. Apparently Gerard had a house but according to him; “it is very bad shape I don’t want to rent it out in its current state, but after one month it will be on the market.”
Gerard said he would tender his house when it was completed, he would explain the fact that he allowed me to meet me when he fully knew that I was interested in renting his house and now he is saying he does not have one.
I met another broker, who among his proclamations before he even knew my name was to ask for ‘Diporosima’ of Frw 5000. Diporosoma is a specific amount of money that a person in need of a house pays to the house broker before the prospective tenant sees the house, upon getting a house the tenant is required to pay the broker the equivalent of a half month rent charge, say if the house a broker has identified for you is Frw 200,000 per month, you pay the tenant Frw 100,0000.
"The owner of the houses left clear insructions that he only wanted foreignors (Abanyamahanga)"'
I asked the boy why the landlord preferred foreignors to Rwandans; "i dont know," the boy replied.
Check MacBook for some more info
The spaces along Kigali’s roads continue diminishing while settlements feel the pressure
BY GEORGE KAGAME
Every morning Jean Pierre Hakizimana (not his real name) comes to the Total petrol station at the junction between the roads leading to Gikondo and Kacyiru. Hakizimana is not employed at the petrol station neither is he a traffic policemen controlling the growing vehicle congestion at the junction.
He used to own the plot of land on which Total petrol station stands brightly, open 24 hours a day. Hakizimana sold his plot to an investor who built the modern petrol station, how or where Hakizimana spent the cash he was paid his plot are not clear enough because it is hard enough having a conversation with him, what is clear though is that he now suffering from mental problems and every morning Hakizimana comes to the petrol station and spends his entire day there making antics of admiration of the station.
Hakizimana is among of many petty land lords that have been displaced by investors, yesterday’s bushes are today’s mansions as Kigali continues its modernization drive. No where is this modernization more visible that the long drive from Nyabugogo to Kanombe airport!
The drive from Nyabugogo Taxi Park to Kanombe airport is like entering Rwanda’s Vision 2020, more than that, feeling the pulse of the residents of this long stretch of beautiful buildings on both sides of the road and the evergreen lush gardens.
During evening hours, the pavements and the roads are equally busy, vehicles speeding workers to or from work on the road while Kigali residents burn some fat jogging away their sweat on the pavements.
Many of architectural mazes on this road are newly built, while some like the new American embassy are still on their fist painting coat.
This beautiful drive will even need more superlatives to describe it once construction works begin this year for the highly anticipated Kigali Convention centre opens for business sometime.
And yet the convention centre will compete for importance with the equally impressive Dubai World funded golf course hotel which has taken about 100 hectares and displaced many more people in Kacyiru.
The land on which these two structures will be erected and on which many other modern buildings sit were until recently a bunch of dilapidated housing shacks that scrupulous city land owners used to exploit urban peasants in Kigali, the end of such landlords has been Kigali city’s increasing commercial depth, which even with the soon to be launched Kigali Master plan have made land extremely expensive and changed the view of the surrounding area which until recently were empty fields overgrown with bushes and trees.
Bruno Rangira the director of communication with Kigali City council says; “Kigali city council is taking a new direction as far as the resettlement of those moved from areas that are planned to be developed. We started with a pilot project of 1000 low cost houses that are being built in Batsinda-Gasabo district. Presently the first phase of over 250 houses was completed. Now about the first 50 families from lower Kiyovu are moving in these houses.”
The new Kigali master plan that will soon presented to parliament states;
“Most slums are located along the main roads where planned high income residential, commercial and administrative land use activities can highly thrive. An example of such a location is in Kiyovu-Muhima, where you will find a planned road network, but a precarious settlement.”
The petty land lords that used own these bushes were paid off and many went back to rural areas, others invested in other businesses while the rest just moved to inner slum areas. Hakizimana is among such peasant land lords currently crowded in many urban slums and ironically renting the same quality of shacks they used to own.
Steven Mbanda who used to own several plots of land in Remera and now runs a shop in the same area says; “many have just moved to inner city settlements like Kabagari in Kacyiru and Biryogo in Nyamirambo.”
I visited one such land lord who proffered not to be named, he is very bitter with the government and like Mbanda he reminisces about the way he spent his money; “I don’t like this government and any one that works or for it,” the anonymous ex land lord says. But Mbanda says such land lords are in fact bitter with themselves with the way they spent their new found cash.
Matayo Nduwumwami 48, a small landlord five years ago before the an investor bought him off, shares this opinion. Although he was given compensation, it was not enough fo rhim to build another home outside the city. The Kigali municipal authorities have tried to resolve the problem by providing alternative housing for them in Batsinda estate.
The lucky ones have been resettled in the PIGU (Projet d'Infrastructure et de Gestion Urbaine), in this project government has since 2003 created housing schemes to reduce chronic housing shortage in the country.
Some of the inhabitants of this estate will be ones that were driven from Kigali to make way for the new Kigali
Their lands are now history, large modern buildings are in place, and these are owned by even larger corporations or private bungalows for international executives doing their time in Kigali.
“So this is a new policy of Kigali city of facilitating those people moved to get better houses and even decent livelihoods. This is different from the past where after they were given their compensation money they would be left to fend for themselves, which eventually led to the growth of slums.
Other districts- Kicukiro and Nyarugenge are have plans to also build these low cost houses to settle the populations that are move,” Rangira says.
Some of the unlucky ones have genuine concerns like Matayo; "there is no sanitation or other infrastructure for development that they promised us, like hospitals, schools, electricity, or water supplies. The misery related to joblessness is too frequent and the authorities have not helped us find a solution," Matayo said.
The new Kigali is not that modern glitter that the master plan envisions or anything close to Vision 2020 but the city has rather taken its own unique way to adopt to its new found beauty a cold night drive from Kanombe to Mumuji as well as its nasty warmer concentration camps behind the ministry of education offices...the famous Kabagari.
BY GEORGE KAGAME
Every morning Jean Pierre Hakizimana (not his real name) comes to the Total petrol station at the junction between the roads leading to Gikondo and Kacyiru. Hakizimana is not employed at the petrol station neither is he a traffic policemen controlling the growing vehicle congestion at the junction.
He used to own the plot of land on which Total petrol station stands brightly, open 24 hours a day. Hakizimana sold his plot to an investor who built the modern petrol station, how or where Hakizimana spent the cash he was paid his plot are not clear enough because it is hard enough having a conversation with him, what is clear though is that he now suffering from mental problems and every morning Hakizimana comes to the petrol station and spends his entire day there making antics of admiration of the station.
Hakizimana is among of many petty land lords that have been displaced by investors, yesterday’s bushes are today’s mansions as Kigali continues its modernization drive. No where is this modernization more visible that the long drive from Nyabugogo to Kanombe airport!
The drive from Nyabugogo Taxi Park to Kanombe airport is like entering Rwanda’s Vision 2020, more than that, feeling the pulse of the residents of this long stretch of beautiful buildings on both sides of the road and the evergreen lush gardens.
During evening hours, the pavements and the roads are equally busy, vehicles speeding workers to or from work on the road while Kigali residents burn some fat jogging away their sweat on the pavements.
Many of architectural mazes on this road are newly built, while some like the new American embassy are still on their fist painting coat.
This beautiful drive will even need more superlatives to describe it once construction works begin this year for the highly anticipated Kigali Convention centre opens for business sometime.
And yet the convention centre will compete for importance with the equally impressive Dubai World funded golf course hotel which has taken about 100 hectares and displaced many more people in Kacyiru.
The land on which these two structures will be erected and on which many other modern buildings sit were until recently a bunch of dilapidated housing shacks that scrupulous city land owners used to exploit urban peasants in Kigali, the end of such landlords has been Kigali city’s increasing commercial depth, which even with the soon to be launched Kigali Master plan have made land extremely expensive and changed the view of the surrounding area which until recently were empty fields overgrown with bushes and trees.
Bruno Rangira the director of communication with Kigali City council says; “Kigali city council is taking a new direction as far as the resettlement of those moved from areas that are planned to be developed. We started with a pilot project of 1000 low cost houses that are being built in Batsinda-Gasabo district. Presently the first phase of over 250 houses was completed. Now about the first 50 families from lower Kiyovu are moving in these houses.”
The new Kigali master plan that will soon presented to parliament states;
“Most slums are located along the main roads where planned high income residential, commercial and administrative land use activities can highly thrive. An example of such a location is in Kiyovu-Muhima, where you will find a planned road network, but a precarious settlement.”
The petty land lords that used own these bushes were paid off and many went back to rural areas, others invested in other businesses while the rest just moved to inner slum areas. Hakizimana is among such peasant land lords currently crowded in many urban slums and ironically renting the same quality of shacks they used to own.
Steven Mbanda who used to own several plots of land in Remera and now runs a shop in the same area says; “many have just moved to inner city settlements like Kabagari in Kacyiru and Biryogo in Nyamirambo.”
I visited one such land lord who proffered not to be named, he is very bitter with the government and like Mbanda he reminisces about the way he spent his money; “I don’t like this government and any one that works or for it,” the anonymous ex land lord says. But Mbanda says such land lords are in fact bitter with themselves with the way they spent their new found cash.
Matayo Nduwumwami 48, a small landlord five years ago before the an investor bought him off, shares this opinion. Although he was given compensation, it was not enough fo rhim to build another home outside the city. The Kigali municipal authorities have tried to resolve the problem by providing alternative housing for them in Batsinda estate.
The lucky ones have been resettled in the PIGU (Projet d'Infrastructure et de Gestion Urbaine), in this project government has since 2003 created housing schemes to reduce chronic housing shortage in the country.
Some of the inhabitants of this estate will be ones that were driven from Kigali to make way for the new Kigali
Their lands are now history, large modern buildings are in place, and these are owned by even larger corporations or private bungalows for international executives doing their time in Kigali.
“So this is a new policy of Kigali city of facilitating those people moved to get better houses and even decent livelihoods. This is different from the past where after they were given their compensation money they would be left to fend for themselves, which eventually led to the growth of slums.
Other districts- Kicukiro and Nyarugenge are have plans to also build these low cost houses to settle the populations that are move,” Rangira says.
Some of the unlucky ones have genuine concerns like Matayo; "there is no sanitation or other infrastructure for development that they promised us, like hospitals, schools, electricity, or water supplies. The misery related to joblessness is too frequent and the authorities have not helped us find a solution," Matayo said.
The new Kigali is not that modern glitter that the master plan envisions or anything close to Vision 2020 but the city has rather taken its own unique way to adopt to its new found beauty a cold night drive from Kanombe to Mumuji as well as its nasty warmer concentration camps behind the ministry of education offices...the famous Kabagari.
To Ahmed and Micheal
Hey Michael;
How are you doing?
Maybe you are at school, or at home or in a dormitory, wherever you are, I just thought about you today. I thought I would write you how I spend my typical day.
I stay at a place called Kimironko, if you have ever lived in Kiwafu after Kansanga that is the equivalent of Kimironko in Kigali.
Anyhow, I work as a journalist in an English newspaper called The New Times, it is also the equivalent of The New Vision in Uganda.
I work as a Staff Writer, normally that’s another name for reporter, I report about news events, issues, personalities and anything else that can make news, sometimes I also help in the creation of news, from my own room, then I call other people who are important and they speak to the public through me. Sometimes, the news to write about is not even there, and so I begin thinking, maybe I’m going to loose my job tomorrow, the God sends a story from somewhere, which can keep busy the whole week. All I do really is write in my notepad what people say and then I type it from my room, listening to music.
Right now aim listening I think to Eric Clapton and Baby King. Byaba Bazungu nyo I cannot understand it, but I downloaded the music when I was idle one day at work.
So my day begins at 6am, I report for work at seven, and read majors events of the day, sometimes, aim invited to events, where I spend the day attending an event just to write 400 words about.
Then sometimes events present themselves, like today I went to a job interview FOR A vacancy that I applied for in February from the national social protection company. NSSF, we were so many that I felt crazy, there were only a couple of jobs and we about 300, we occupied a all university campus and finished all the drinks in the canteen.
So I went to do the interview and it occurred to me that I had come to the wrong interview, my job interview was the next day at 9am/
I met Doryn, my classmate at university, she was also coming to sit for the same interview, we chatted and laughed about the old days at university.
I told her that I was proud of her to have helped me and she should be proud of me for not letting her down.
She however is a big official with the Kigali City Administration, for which I was also a regular reporter. Doryn sometimes also gives tips for news; she is the International Relations Officer for the Capital City administration. So when I have no news I call, however she complains about her job, she says wants to work in a more dynamic company like MTN, which is where her future husband works.
So we all went to the wrong interview, while we were chatting away and revising for tomorrow’s interview, then someone called from for the Rwanda Centre for Support to Small and Medium scale enterprises. This office caters for government and donor support to the growth of small enterprises like kiosks, canteens, bars, hotels, libraries and all of them like salons.
I applied for a job there maybe two months ago, then I chilled, one time they called me for an interview, then today they called me for another interview. When I went there I found it is the crazy routine. So I will go for tomorrow’s interview and hopefully finish doing the exercise in time for me to hand in weekend stories. I have three columns that run on Saturday and Sunday.
So right now am at home after going the wrong interview, and then dropping off another copy of my CV at the centre I told you about.
I have finished my weekend sports column, aim going to edit my Sunday feature story and then write two stories for the news desk.
The one about the city administration concerns the newly developed Kigali MASTER plan which is a blue print for developing a fully planned city growth. The master plan was developed by the current administration of Mayor Dr Aisa Kirabo, it was presented at the International Investment Conference held in Kigali in June 2007.
So the master plan is going to be presented to cabinet and thereafter launched.
So I walk to the offices of the organisations involved and anyone interested or affected by the master plan and when I do that I have a job. Sometimes it happens in two minutes, sometimes four, and then a day, two days, sometimes it can take six months to make one story.
Yet, am paid according to the stories I have published by the end of the month, which means sometimes the salaries varies, sometimes I can afford have many stories and therefore a good salary, sometimes the stories ate not there and then salary to disappears. I spent eight months staying in someone’s house to afford the house rent for the place in which I live currently.
And yet, the house rent is due, the landlord has asked back his house; apparently she wants to sell it. I have got a new house, the new house which I rented from an old man who signed an agreement with me and did not leave me with a copy.
So the house is really far from where I can pick my taxi to work, every morning, I will have to walk 15 minutes to get to a bus point. That is not good, but am consoling myself, you need the exercise.
It is 5.25pm right now, by the time I have done all the things I wrote above it is usually at this time. If I have money sometimes I go to the gym, when I don’t the money.......like today, which unfortunately is quite often, I sty here in my room and listen to music.
Am now listening to a song with lyrics that goes;
“
The sun is setting in the west; the cattle go the stream/ the red wing settling in the nest/ Its time for a cowboy to sing. Purple lines in the canyon/ that’s where I long to be/with my three good companions, just my rifle my pony and me. Weevil wheel in the willow sings a sweet melody............”
Its nice song.
So I will write you much more tomorrow.
“He is here, the one you have been looking for, the one who finished your family during the genocide, now he is here shouting in the taxi park.” Petero Muzeyi, (not his real name) shouted at a passenger in Nyabugogo mid last year.
Muzeyi was part of a group of youth that lounge in Nyabugogo during the day and vanish to neighbouring sharks during the night. That Sunday evening, they were having fun as they called upon passengers in the taxi park. I happened to be traveling to Lake Muhazi’s Jambo for beach for an assignment on Bralirwa’s annual Mutzig nationwide annual folklore musical drive.
Gaaki Kigambo a fellow journalist who was traveling with me was intrigued with the remarks of the boys, who looked to be enjoying the above scene describing the 1994 Genocide. He was caught between the drama and the fact the youths were so eager to talk about the genocide in such a way; “maybe after 50 years, even the Rwandan Genocide will be a matter of history left to chit chats and jokes,” he remarked.
No one else in the bus understood Gaaki’s English to offer a discussion and I was lost between my anger against the taxi touts and their jokes or the humiliation of the passenger. The passenger seemed not to be bothered with the antics of youths; other passengers looked on in amusement.
Fast forward to April 2007 in the newly built taxi park, a group of beautiful endowed adult and teenage ladies walked inside one bus, one of the taxi touts in the park asked the conductor of the bus; “Hey.........are you going to Masisi?”, the conductor was impassive, and his colleague offered the explanation; “the girls you have packed inside that bus can only be residents of Masisi.”
The same month in Butare’s NUR, Peter entered a restaurant one dark evening; the moment he stepped in the dining room electricity went off. One of the diners in the room remarked; “this is what happens when a stranger walks other diners in a place. Peter was not a stranger and it was not a joke either.
Peter was offended!
For some reason a parliamentary commission in december 2007 discovered with the help of percentage rates that in many Rwanda’s schools especially in the Northern Province were breeding pupils and students along identities which the parliament members termed as ‘Genocide ideology’.
The ideology got its name from investigations that school children labeled each other as Hutu or Tutsi, the students thereafter began to write their determination to eliminate their supposed opponents, such ideas the commission went on to report caused the 1994 Genocide.
The report caused alarm to many observers and politicians, to date headlines still appear in the media about genocide ideologies, either politicians urging their people to avoid the ideas here or an attack against a genocide survivor there inspired by what researchers have termed as ethnic hatred. In some cases, the attacks have been motivated by one victim testifying against one genocide perpetrator. In many cases, the names are different, but the motive is always familiar. Yet, in the same month that these events happened, the nation was in mourning for over 937000 victims of the 1994 Genocide, the same month; conferences were taking place in Canada disputing the Rwandan Genocide.
Professor Lwakabamba
In the past we had issues where students wrote abusive language in the toilets and their hostels. We have stopped this writing.
Lwakabamba however admits that during guild elections, genocide related ideas come in to play in student politics; “genocide ideas come into play especially in election time. However, here they take the rivalries between Anglophones and Francophone students.”
Francophone is the Kigali speak for someone that speaks exclusively French as his second language while Anglophone is foe the English speaking lot.
Lwakabamba adds that there was too much competition for guild seats; “students fought by all means to get to these positions because they earn a lot of money.”
The university has adopted an intelligence network to report about genocide related incidents among the students; “we have put up security agents to check and report back to the administration about the situation concerning genocide ideologies.”
The government has committed resources to assisting genocide survivors throughout the country, Protais Musoni the Minister of Local Government says, “We have established the number of vulnerable people that survived the genocide who cannot afford basic materials as houses.”
Musoni said that number currently stands at 30000 according to Ibuka, he says that government has committed resources to eliminating genocide ideologies in the country; “through programmes like Ubudehe, Umuganda, community policy committees, we have promoted a culture of people solving their own problems, if citizens have initiative to solve their own problems, they cannot be manipulated, we worked to achieve a universal feeling of self esteem among Rwandans. Musoni says such ideologies will be eliminated in the long run as Rwandans become more hard work and inspire competition .among the citizens on exploiting government policies instead of ethnic thinking that was indoctrinated into people.
Professor Frank Chalk a genocide expert that has offered to assist Rwanda in eliminating genocide ideology says
..............
Is there genocide ideology in the country?
What is government doing?
Itorero
Ubudehe
Beyond forgiveness to reintegration
FDLR publicity
Can it be eliminated?
Frank Chalk
At The nightmare came on a horse back screening at Gisozi.
Musoni and giving Rwandans self esteem
International condemnation of French and Spanish warrant dramas
When poverty is eliminated and as Protais Musoni says; it is important to raise the self esteem of our people so that they accept that some people are rich and other are poor, to avoid being indoctrinated with harmful thinking about each other.”
Frank Chalk agrees, poverty is very easy to be manipulated
It is easy to sell an ideology to a poor man
Bloom Hotel
BY GEORGE KAGAME
Put a lake nearby and you have the perfect resort motel right in the middle of Kigali Kimironko’s Bloom Motel has a wide expanse compound beautifully coloured by a clever lining of flowers right from the gate to the reception.
The motel is well set apart from the normal lifestyle around Kimironko yet it is less than 30 metres between the main road leading to the prison the other side of the suburb, and connecting to main roads leading to Kibagabaga hospital, the main market and the national stadium.
Sitting on the patio of the motel, the above features look so many hundreds of miles away, because while you sip a cold Amstel from the bar facing the main, the indications are quite clear that you have to a place where fun is in plenty.
The wide gardens behind guestrooms are used to host parties and should a guest want to stretch with a ball in the compound, no problem according to the Manager@@@@@@@
Bloom Motel serves fresh meals prepared in the in-house kitchen where the chef regularly comes to the crowd in front to receive special orders.
There are well made fried chips and equally tasty fish brochette, but the beef brochette is not tender and the vegetable servings are very little too.
The chips are also made in the shape of chain saws as is the case in many eating restaurants in the city.
The rooms have a very good view; the front of the motel gives way to a virgin hill across, which gives the place a very rural outlook, the well maintained and good looking little garden with a wide collection of flowers.
The back view gives a fresh looking view is large flat field with a single tree that looks isolated in the middle, the other trees are outside the compound.
It is normal in the evenings seeing Kigali's corporate wannabes that reside in nearby areas with laptops heading to the hotel. These Yuppies; (young urban working professionals) are a common feature with their lone laptops and headphones on the tables and beer bottles as company.
There’s fresh chicken prepared Ala carte chicken, the man chicken serves traditional dishes as is ordered.
Fish brochette costs Frw 2500 for two sticks, while a whole fish costs Frw 5000, chips will take you back Frw 1000, while beef brochette is Frw 600.
The unique selling point for Bloom Hotel is their garden, which is so huge it can occupy a football field Ideal for children as their nothing to break, just well maintained low trimmed grass.
How are you doing?
Maybe you are at school, or at home or in a dormitory, wherever you are, I just thought about you today. I thought I would write you how I spend my typical day.
I stay at a place called Kimironko, if you have ever lived in Kiwafu after Kansanga that is the equivalent of Kimironko in Kigali.
Anyhow, I work as a journalist in an English newspaper called The New Times, it is also the equivalent of The New Vision in Uganda.
I work as a Staff Writer, normally that’s another name for reporter, I report about news events, issues, personalities and anything else that can make news, sometimes I also help in the creation of news, from my own room, then I call other people who are important and they speak to the public through me. Sometimes, the news to write about is not even there, and so I begin thinking, maybe I’m going to loose my job tomorrow, the God sends a story from somewhere, which can keep busy the whole week. All I do really is write in my notepad what people say and then I type it from my room, listening to music.
Right now aim listening I think to Eric Clapton and Baby King. Byaba Bazungu nyo I cannot understand it, but I downloaded the music when I was idle one day at work.
So my day begins at 6am, I report for work at seven, and read majors events of the day, sometimes, aim invited to events, where I spend the day attending an event just to write 400 words about.
Then sometimes events present themselves, like today I went to a job interview FOR A vacancy that I applied for in February from the national social protection company. NSSF, we were so many that I felt crazy, there were only a couple of jobs and we about 300, we occupied a all university campus and finished all the drinks in the canteen.
So I went to do the interview and it occurred to me that I had come to the wrong interview, my job interview was the next day at 9am/
I met Doryn, my classmate at university, she was also coming to sit for the same interview, we chatted and laughed about the old days at university.
I told her that I was proud of her to have helped me and she should be proud of me for not letting her down.
She however is a big official with the Kigali City Administration, for which I was also a regular reporter. Doryn sometimes also gives tips for news; she is the International Relations Officer for the Capital City administration. So when I have no news I call, however she complains about her job, she says wants to work in a more dynamic company like MTN, which is where her future husband works.
So we all went to the wrong interview, while we were chatting away and revising for tomorrow’s interview, then someone called from for the Rwanda Centre for Support to Small and Medium scale enterprises. This office caters for government and donor support to the growth of small enterprises like kiosks, canteens, bars, hotels, libraries and all of them like salons.
I applied for a job there maybe two months ago, then I chilled, one time they called me for an interview, then today they called me for another interview. When I went there I found it is the crazy routine. So I will go for tomorrow’s interview and hopefully finish doing the exercise in time for me to hand in weekend stories. I have three columns that run on Saturday and Sunday.
So right now am at home after going the wrong interview, and then dropping off another copy of my CV at the centre I told you about.
I have finished my weekend sports column, aim going to edit my Sunday feature story and then write two stories for the news desk.
The one about the city administration concerns the newly developed Kigali MASTER plan which is a blue print for developing a fully planned city growth. The master plan was developed by the current administration of Mayor Dr Aisa Kirabo, it was presented at the International Investment Conference held in Kigali in June 2007.
So the master plan is going to be presented to cabinet and thereafter launched.
So I walk to the offices of the organisations involved and anyone interested or affected by the master plan and when I do that I have a job. Sometimes it happens in two minutes, sometimes four, and then a day, two days, sometimes it can take six months to make one story.
Yet, am paid according to the stories I have published by the end of the month, which means sometimes the salaries varies, sometimes I can afford have many stories and therefore a good salary, sometimes the stories ate not there and then salary to disappears. I spent eight months staying in someone’s house to afford the house rent for the place in which I live currently.
And yet, the house rent is due, the landlord has asked back his house; apparently she wants to sell it. I have got a new house, the new house which I rented from an old man who signed an agreement with me and did not leave me with a copy.
So the house is really far from where I can pick my taxi to work, every morning, I will have to walk 15 minutes to get to a bus point. That is not good, but am consoling myself, you need the exercise.
It is 5.25pm right now, by the time I have done all the things I wrote above it is usually at this time. If I have money sometimes I go to the gym, when I don’t the money.......like today, which unfortunately is quite often, I sty here in my room and listen to music.
Am now listening to a song with lyrics that goes;
“
The sun is setting in the west; the cattle go the stream/ the red wing settling in the nest/ Its time for a cowboy to sing. Purple lines in the canyon/ that’s where I long to be/with my three good companions, just my rifle my pony and me. Weevil wheel in the willow sings a sweet melody............”
Its nice song.
So I will write you much more tomorrow.
“He is here, the one you have been looking for, the one who finished your family during the genocide, now he is here shouting in the taxi park.” Petero Muzeyi, (not his real name) shouted at a passenger in Nyabugogo mid last year.
Muzeyi was part of a group of youth that lounge in Nyabugogo during the day and vanish to neighbouring sharks during the night. That Sunday evening, they were having fun as they called upon passengers in the taxi park. I happened to be traveling to Lake Muhazi’s Jambo for beach for an assignment on Bralirwa’s annual Mutzig nationwide annual folklore musical drive.
Gaaki Kigambo a fellow journalist who was traveling with me was intrigued with the remarks of the boys, who looked to be enjoying the above scene describing the 1994 Genocide. He was caught between the drama and the fact the youths were so eager to talk about the genocide in such a way; “maybe after 50 years, even the Rwandan Genocide will be a matter of history left to chit chats and jokes,” he remarked.
No one else in the bus understood Gaaki’s English to offer a discussion and I was lost between my anger against the taxi touts and their jokes or the humiliation of the passenger. The passenger seemed not to be bothered with the antics of youths; other passengers looked on in amusement.
Fast forward to April 2007 in the newly built taxi park, a group of beautiful endowed adult and teenage ladies walked inside one bus, one of the taxi touts in the park asked the conductor of the bus; “Hey.........are you going to Masisi?”, the conductor was impassive, and his colleague offered the explanation; “the girls you have packed inside that bus can only be residents of Masisi.”
The same month in Butare’s NUR, Peter entered a restaurant one dark evening; the moment he stepped in the dining room electricity went off. One of the diners in the room remarked; “this is what happens when a stranger walks other diners in a place. Peter was not a stranger and it was not a joke either.
Peter was offended!
For some reason a parliamentary commission in december 2007 discovered with the help of percentage rates that in many Rwanda’s schools especially in the Northern Province were breeding pupils and students along identities which the parliament members termed as ‘Genocide ideology’.
The ideology got its name from investigations that school children labeled each other as Hutu or Tutsi, the students thereafter began to write their determination to eliminate their supposed opponents, such ideas the commission went on to report caused the 1994 Genocide.
The report caused alarm to many observers and politicians, to date headlines still appear in the media about genocide ideologies, either politicians urging their people to avoid the ideas here or an attack against a genocide survivor there inspired by what researchers have termed as ethnic hatred. In some cases, the attacks have been motivated by one victim testifying against one genocide perpetrator. In many cases, the names are different, but the motive is always familiar. Yet, in the same month that these events happened, the nation was in mourning for over 937000 victims of the 1994 Genocide, the same month; conferences were taking place in Canada disputing the Rwandan Genocide.
Professor Lwakabamba
In the past we had issues where students wrote abusive language in the toilets and their hostels. We have stopped this writing.
Lwakabamba however admits that during guild elections, genocide related ideas come in to play in student politics; “genocide ideas come into play especially in election time. However, here they take the rivalries between Anglophones and Francophone students.”
Francophone is the Kigali speak for someone that speaks exclusively French as his second language while Anglophone is foe the English speaking lot.
Lwakabamba adds that there was too much competition for guild seats; “students fought by all means to get to these positions because they earn a lot of money.”
The university has adopted an intelligence network to report about genocide related incidents among the students; “we have put up security agents to check and report back to the administration about the situation concerning genocide ideologies.”
The government has committed resources to assisting genocide survivors throughout the country, Protais Musoni the Minister of Local Government says, “We have established the number of vulnerable people that survived the genocide who cannot afford basic materials as houses.”
Musoni said that number currently stands at 30000 according to Ibuka, he says that government has committed resources to eliminating genocide ideologies in the country; “through programmes like Ubudehe, Umuganda, community policy committees, we have promoted a culture of people solving their own problems, if citizens have initiative to solve their own problems, they cannot be manipulated, we worked to achieve a universal feeling of self esteem among Rwandans. Musoni says such ideologies will be eliminated in the long run as Rwandans become more hard work and inspire competition .among the citizens on exploiting government policies instead of ethnic thinking that was indoctrinated into people.
Professor Frank Chalk a genocide expert that has offered to assist Rwanda in eliminating genocide ideology says
..............
Is there genocide ideology in the country?
What is government doing?
Itorero
Ubudehe
Beyond forgiveness to reintegration
FDLR publicity
Can it be eliminated?
Frank Chalk
At The nightmare came on a horse back screening at Gisozi.
Musoni and giving Rwandans self esteem
International condemnation of French and Spanish warrant dramas
When poverty is eliminated and as Protais Musoni says; it is important to raise the self esteem of our people so that they accept that some people are rich and other are poor, to avoid being indoctrinated with harmful thinking about each other.”
Frank Chalk agrees, poverty is very easy to be manipulated
It is easy to sell an ideology to a poor man
Bloom Hotel
BY GEORGE KAGAME
Put a lake nearby and you have the perfect resort motel right in the middle of Kigali Kimironko’s Bloom Motel has a wide expanse compound beautifully coloured by a clever lining of flowers right from the gate to the reception.
The motel is well set apart from the normal lifestyle around Kimironko yet it is less than 30 metres between the main road leading to the prison the other side of the suburb, and connecting to main roads leading to Kibagabaga hospital, the main market and the national stadium.
Sitting on the patio of the motel, the above features look so many hundreds of miles away, because while you sip a cold Amstel from the bar facing the main, the indications are quite clear that you have to a place where fun is in plenty.
The wide gardens behind guestrooms are used to host parties and should a guest want to stretch with a ball in the compound, no problem according to the Manager@@@@@@@
Bloom Motel serves fresh meals prepared in the in-house kitchen where the chef regularly comes to the crowd in front to receive special orders.
There are well made fried chips and equally tasty fish brochette, but the beef brochette is not tender and the vegetable servings are very little too.
The chips are also made in the shape of chain saws as is the case in many eating restaurants in the city.
The rooms have a very good view; the front of the motel gives way to a virgin hill across, which gives the place a very rural outlook, the well maintained and good looking little garden with a wide collection of flowers.
The back view gives a fresh looking view is large flat field with a single tree that looks isolated in the middle, the other trees are outside the compound.
It is normal in the evenings seeing Kigali's corporate wannabes that reside in nearby areas with laptops heading to the hotel. These Yuppies; (young urban working professionals) are a common feature with their lone laptops and headphones on the tables and beer bottles as company.
There’s fresh chicken prepared Ala carte chicken, the man chicken serves traditional dishes as is ordered.
Fish brochette costs Frw 2500 for two sticks, while a whole fish costs Frw 5000, chips will take you back Frw 1000, while beef brochette is Frw 600.
The unique selling point for Bloom Hotel is their garden, which is so huge it can occupy a football field Ideal for children as their nothing to break, just well maintained low trimmed grass.
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