Trivia lovers, this one’s for you…

Rwandan factoids:

• The population is estimated at 9,720,694 with 149,000 afflicted with HIV. 17,000 of those are children. There are approximately 350,820 orphans and vulnerable children in Rwanda between the ages of 0 and 17. It is estimated that AIDS accounts for nearly a fifth of these: the number of children (0-14 years old) having lost one or both parents because of HIV was estimated to be about 233,700 in 2008.
• The life expectancy of men is 48 years old; women, 51 years old; 160/1,000 children don’t live to the age of five.
• 50% of the population lives on less than $1 a day.
• There is no state religion. 93.6% of the people are Christian; 4.6% are Muslim; 0.1% are indigenous believers; and 1.7% claim no religion. The government permits religious instruction in public schools. In some, students are allowed to choose between instruction in “religion” or “morals.” Typically, if a school is missionary established, it claims a particular denomination; otherwise, the school is nondenominational.
• The official language is Kinyarwanda, but the common vernacular is Bantu. A majority of people also speaks some English and/or French.
• A handful of phrases in the official language:

Mwaramutse. (Good morning.)

Bite? (How are you?)

Muraho (Hello)

Witwande? (What’s your name?)

Nitwa … (My name is …)

Murakoze. (Thank you.)

• Rwandans view education as one of the most important ways to give their children hope for the future. A typical academic year is from January to October. While primary schools are free, the cost of materials required for children to attend (uniforms, paper, writing supplies, etc.) is often too great for the average family.
• 76% of men and 64.7% of women are literate.
• In the arts, Rwandans are renowned for their oral storytelling, music, weaving and basketry. Storytelling and music occupy an honored position in the culture. Homemade xylophones, stringed instruments and drums are among the traditional instruments used to accompany singing and dancing in ceremonies related to birth, marriage, death, harvest and hunting. Basket weaving often indicates a family’s social status. The pygmy Twa are acclaimed potters.
• Soccer (football) is the most popular sport of Rwanda. Basketball and volleyball follow in popularity.
• Yes, there is snow in Africa. Rwanda receives frost and snow in the mountains during the rainy seasons: February to April and November to January. Off the mountains, the average temperate throughout the year is between 60 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Tea is the leading cash crop. In 2002, export earnings from tea were $18 million US dollars (15,000 tons dried tea). Coffee production is second to tea. I can attest from personal sampling that the tea is phenomenal! Yum, I’ll have a second cup, please.

These are just a handful of facts I pulled from my trusty Rwanda guidebook. I’m fascinated by all the stereotypes Rwanda blatantly breaks: snow in Africa; green mountains of world-prized tea; storytellers and musicians abounding. Simultaneously, my heart aches for all the ones that are realized: orphans; HIV/AIDS; illiteracy; poverty. With each page turn, I become more captivated. So I’ll continue to pepper you with my discovers and further education on the country.

As soon as I have the basic info digested, I’ll begin blogging on my general anticipatory feelings, hopes, and goals for the trip. This coming Sunday, January 31, is the first official Rwanda STOMP team meeting in Springfield, Virginia. As I am living in El Paso, Texas, I won’t be attending, but my fellow team members have promised to provide a minute-by-minute replay of all that is discussed. For all in attendance, I’m praying it’s a constructive meeting, and that we begin this Rwanda STOMP with eyes steadfast on all the blessings God has ready and waiting.

Yours truly, Sarah

Open your history books to Chapter Rwanda

Here’s a brief history lesson for all those out there, like me, who feel it’s important to know the facts of a place before meeting its people. Head knowledge and heart knowledge are two different entities, yet both must be recognized and respected to fully understand all that these people have endured and accomplished.

So I’m pulling out my pointer and my map of Africa, and we shall begin at the beginning:

Colonized by the Belgians in the early 1900’s, the country of Rwanda began a most difficult and ultimately deadly journey over the last century.  Feeling the need to “separate” the people so as not to allow them to gain the upper hand and ultimate possession of their own country, the Belgians began the long process of labeling each and every Rwandan based on their looks and physical features.  Given an identity card stating whether they belonged to either the Hutu or Tutsi tribe, the Rwandan’s manufactured differences began to take hold.

The Belgians, feeling that those labeled to the Tutsi tribe had more pleasing features, gave the Tutsis much power and dominion over the Hutus.  Even over the years of intermarriage between the tribes and physical features becoming a very blurry line, the identity cards remained and thus the status of one tribe being “better” slowly began to take hold. Beginning in the late 1950’s, genocide of smaller proportions took place taking the lives of thousands of innocent people.  The inferior Hutu’s, always feeling threatened by the supposedly superior Tutsi, felt the overwhelming need to eliminate the opposing tribe.  Unsuccessful in the initial genocide of 1959, the tension remained until the breaking point in April of 1994.

The Hutus in power were able to convince even the most common Hutu that all Tutsis were bad and that the Tutsis were a threat to the entire Hutu population.  Armed with machetes and any other blunt object that would inflict the deadliest and cruelest of blows, the blood bath began.  In a period of only 90 days, over one million Tutsis were innocently killed along with any Hutu that in any way supported, helped or aided any Tutsi.  Stranger killed stranger, neighbor killed neighbor, husbands killed wives, wives killed husbands, fathers and mothers killed children, children killed.  The once beautiful lush countryside of Rwanda was pouring forth with streams of blood and piles of dead bodies everywhere.  Often termed a civil war amongst tribes, this deadliest bloodbath was in no way worthy to be called war.  Innocent people, weaponless people, helpless people and even the littlest of children were killed just because someone came along and labeled them a certain way.

The widespread violence of the 90’s, along with the deadly AIDS virus, has left this small country with countless numbers of widows and orphans.  A large percentage of husbands, whether killed in the genocide or imprisoned as a result of being a perpetrator of the violence, have left their families without any source of income or support.  As a result, the nation of Rwanda has an astounding poverty rate of over 75 percent.

Yet, over the last several years, an amazing healing has taken place in this once deadly country.  Known as the Land of a Thousand Hills, Rwanda once again flows with beauty and peace.  The lush countryside is populated now by millions of Rwandans, and only Rwandans.  Lead by the former RPF Leader who was instrumental in stopping the 1994 genocide and is now President, Paul Kagame and the Rwandans have come a long way towards healing and unity. No longer armed with identity cards, the countrymen have left their difficult past behind and are moving towards a bright and hope-filled future.

~ information provided by African New Life

Check back soon for more postings on Rwanda, STOMPs of years past, and our plans for 2010.

Yours truly, Sarah

Coming soon…

Stay tuned! Information regarding the 2010 Rwanda STOMP will be up and running soon.

Yours truly, Sarah