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Rwanda: My dreamed experience

I first visited Rwanda (Land of a thousand hills) in 2017 for a business conference hosted in the iconic Kigali Convention Centre. For anyone who has attended a conference with a thousand delegate, you can relate with the frenzied pace of things. Running from one breakout room to another, speed networking with fellow delegates, and if you are lucky, grabbing a bite from the buffet table.

At the end of each day, a stream of tired delegates shuttled back to our various hotels dotted around the city. The lucky ones stayed right there at the Radisson Blu. Back at my hotel, I had a hot meal and sent emails to the new contacts I made that day. And for the next two days, the cycle repeated itself.

So, at the end of this visit, the only experience of Rwanda besides the conference was a quick stop at Sainte Famille Church and the Genocide Museum. Both are very symbolic, given the events of 1994. But at least I ticked Rwanda as the 12th African country on my ‘to visit’ list. As luck would have it, four years later (Last month), I visited Rwanda and this time for a full week.

In conjunction with the Lagos Business School and JR Farms Africa, the visit was precisely what I longed for, an immersive experience of the miracle of Rwanda. A country with only 12 million inhabitants, its capital city, Kigali, is the second most popular MICE destination in Africa, in addition to being the cleanest and safest city as well.

A country where citizens can arrest you for littering. There were no unsightly plastic bags anywhere, not even in the market places. Incredible! The sense of security was palpable. You could spot gun-toting policemen standing discreetly among the citizens as we moved across the cities and towns and yet, it felt completely right that they should be there. Not once did we feel intimidated or concerned.

Even when we were stopped at a routine checkpoint, I felt a strong urge to reach out and touch one gun (Bet it was a good thing I didn’t, no?). On closer inspection of their uniforms, you could see they too were amazingly stylish! What’s more, being in the middle of an ongoing pandemic, a curfew had been enforced between 10pm and 4am every day. We found it truly amusing that people who were caught breaking the curfew were taken to the stadium by soldiers, made to sit on the grass (in the freezing cold) and listen to an all-night lecture about civic responsibility.

At dawn, they paid the fine and walked free. Talk about effective deterrents! For us who are used to the pace of Nigerian intercity travel, the speed limit of 60 kilometres per hour was truly excruciating. But it began to make sense when we drove up the winding highways into the hills.

A strained silence enveloped the bus every few kilometres as we gazed fearfully at the precipices, or when we spotted in the distance, nestled within the clouds, yet another road that formed part of our route. While our skilful driver negotiated the sharp bends along the winding highway, some of us shut our eyes to calm the rising waves of panic. When traffic slowed to a crawl with cars, buses, coaches, tankers, and trailers slowly chugging uphill, it occurred to us that driving in Rwanda without good brakes would be akin to having a death wish.

Observing cyclists as they pedalled almost effortlessly uphill was another sight to behold. Many of them alone or with a passenger, but several more with bunch of massive green bananas strapped onto their bicycles. No small wonder Rwandan athletes compete successfully in long distance races!

We also spotted craftier cyclists who clung to moving trucks in a bid to gain some leverage up the slopes. Our travels took us to Inyange Industries, in the outskirts of Kigali. Inyange is Rwanda’s leading food processing company producing dairy products, fruit juices and water. I was particularly fascinated by the network of milk collection centres around the country, which ensured the continuous flow of milk to the factory.

It is estimated that by 2022, milk production in Rwanda would have hit the 1billion litre mark! After this, it was time to tap into the coffee value chain. We visited the Rwanda Farmers Coffee Company in Kigali, owners of the largest coffee roasting and packaging facility in Africa. Not one for coffee, the smell in the roastery was amazing and so I ended up buying some for the road. Next, we visited the coffee plantations and washing centres in Akagera, to the east of Kigali near the Tanzanian border.

We learnt how coffee beans were grown, harvested, washed, dried, bagged and then sent off to the roastery. What was interesting about this process was the synergy along the entire value chain, from rural farmers to cooperatives, and then to the processing companies and beyond.

Unfortunately, there was no time to visit the Akagera National Park. We piled back into the bus and started on the journey back to Kigali. One of the highpoints of this road trip was the signage indicating Uganda to the north and Tanzania to the east. Another trip took us some five hours out of Kigali to the western highlands, where the Rwanda Mount Tea Company is located. Remember the treacherous terrain up into the clouds? Yes, this was it. I had a Eureka moment when we finally arrived the tea plantations about 2,500 metres above sea level. The Kigali Convention Centre is modelled after the tea plantations that perched around the volcanic hills of western Rwanda.

As we walked through the plantations and the Kitabi tea factory, I reflected that drinking tea would never be the same for me again. We also visited the African Leadership University for a workshop on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA). While this was going on, a few of us took time off to speak with members of the Rwanda Convention Bureau and the Rwanda Chamber of Tourism. Next, it was off to Minimex, the largest grain processing factory in the country. And guess what, the head miller is female! Now this shows that government policy on female participation in economic development is truly alive in Rwanda.

We rounded up with a brief stop at SP Oil, the largest oil and gas company in the country. I must say, that in all our visits to companies, it was striking to see how young the CEOs were. Betting on my last bottle of Akabanga, I’d say the oldest we met was not yet 45 years old. Rwanda is truly an intriguing study. Exhausted by days of travelling, we did not miss the opportunity to dine in a Nigerian restaurant in Kigali, and visit the Nigerian High Commission. Nothing like home food to get things going! We also experienced hospitality at the Chez Lando, Onomo Hotel, a plush residence in Vision City, and at the Ipfundo Art Gallery. Another highlight was bargain hunting at Kimironko market. Although we missed out on quad biking and bungee jumping at Mount Kigali Park (thank goodness!), it was well worth the trip.

As we reflected on the days spent in Rwanda, one thing stood out the most. Good governance works! Here is a tiny African country, overcoming a most tragic past to emerge a beacon of social and economic development. And what is truly amazing is the fact that this has all been achieved in less than 20 years! I left for Nigeria more enlightened and very thoughtful. And as one of my fellow adventurers puts it; “I’ve been grappling with where to start and came to this conclusion: it begins with me…I need a cultural reorientation, core values (inner) that will drive the change that I desire to see in my immediate environment, community and world at large”. This is what one week of the Rwandan experience helped to inspire!

*Dr. Belinda Nwosu is a tourism expert and faculty member, Lagos Business School

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