As we know in Africa so well, ‘the news’ as presented by the world’s major news corporations is dictated largely by commercial interests, and only tells us so much. I know this from having worked in the industry for a few decades, from TV to radio and all types of print publications, in which time I would propose stories to ‘overseas’ entities that were rejected because, simply put, they wouldn’t appeal to mainstream America. Rwanda is such a story. The average, fairly educated person beyond 20 years old may be aware that a genocide was carried out in that country in 1994, but that will be probably be the extent of their knowledge around a horrific period in world history.

I was there in 1994 for a short spell as a young journo reporting for national radio back home in South Africa, SAfm. I returned to do a piece for CNN Traveller about ten years later, on the resurrection of that country. President Paul Kagame, who has personally driven Rwanda’s resurgence, makes the news for various reasons attached to lingering ethnic tensions, for apparently ‘doing away’ with his enemies. I’m not there, I don’t know.

What I do know is that for a tiny, land-locked country wiped out by utter savagery, this resurrection – connected in no small part to the return from the USA of the educated children of many Tutsis exiled after the ethnic tension of the early 60s – has been remarkable. This is not a great image of Lake Kivu (which is vast) but when I saw it n 1994, it had bodies in it. Now it’s a tourist attraction, and for over 15 years Kigali has been serving capuccinos and ‘flat whites’ as good as they get. Remember Rwanda makes coffee, and I think it supplies Starbucks.

#rwanda
#coffee
#lakekivu
#africanstorybook
#angusbegg

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