For nightlife, Kigali is most certainly not where it’s at. I’d rather spend a day watching a goose digest a loaf of bread than be stuck in Kigali without a few books on hand. This place makes modern day Ishpeming, Michigan look like disco-era Manhattan. There is absolutely not a thingy dingy going down.
And the staring at the mzungus! Usually African townees will give you a casual “So. You're a white guy,” glance. But Kigali folk hold that glance indefinitely, and they nudge their buddies. It’s like the cultural equivalent of a staring contest: Folks just stop what they’re doing and look at you until you walk on by.
And plenty of beggar street kids. Every other block, one or two get their sights on you and dog you, palm out for the length of the block.
Interesting thing about the street kids though: I hear they’re the only ones who don’t get freaked out by the genocide commemorations that dominate the media here from April through June. The TV, the radio: it’s all reminiscences of April though June of 1994, around the clock. At least half a dozen Rwandans tell me they try to avoid the media as much as possible because the constant retelling of survivor stories drives them out of their heads. The nation, as one, is dogged by images and voices of loss for almost a whole season.
Except, apparently, for the street kids. I talked to a guy who operates a place for the kids (all boys, to my experience. I don’t know if street girls exist. The closest thing I’ve seen are the angel-faced beggar girls, but they are usually attached to a mother sitting nearby. Boys, on the other hand, seem to be truly running solo), and he explained to me about how the kids come in every morning for a shower and activities.
“Activities” consist of a lecture on HIV or self-esteem or drugs or some other boring crap, followed by fun: a Jackie Chan movie or a ping-pong tournament.
But when this adult Rwandan volunteer guy tries to talk to the street kids about the genocide, they blow him off. They’re not interested, and they don’t want to sit through it. Drugs? Fine. Decision-making skills? OK, whatever. They’ll sit through all sorts of mind-numbing banalities, but not the genocide. They’re sick of hearing about it.
Most of them weren’t born when it happened, but that doesn’t explain it. Other young kids with families seem to be pretty respectful of the mourning period. (Others not so. I’ve heard of little kids playing a variation of Cowboys and Indians called Genocide. One side pretends to be the killers, and they hack the victims with imaginary machetes. The victims go to sleep, but then of course they always want to be the killers in the next game. That, after all, is the fun role to play.)
The street kids are apparently having none of this. Ignored by the government, and living on the scraps of the rest of the society, these kids are completely alienated from the national culture. And in Rwanda, that means they’re alienated from the state-sponsored, guilt-saturated dialogue of reconciliation that permeates the whole culture, especially between April and June. There is simply not enough room in their hearts for observance of a culture that ignores them.
