Day 9 - Cow Kings and War Kings

Today we got up at 6AM, but did not leave the house until our usual 10/11 AM timeframe. The side window in the mini-van had broken overnight and Nkusi actually went to a glass shop in the morning to get a new one installed because the weather forecast had called for rain. He did not want us to get wet. Good guy.

We booked our mountain gorilla trek for Tuesday the 24th at ORTPN (Office Rwandais du Tourisme et des Parcs Nationaux) headquarters in Kigali. We then picked a few things in Kigali shops and hit the road for Nyanza, the former capital of Rwanda. For the admission price of 1000FRW (about $2), we had a tour guide who answered all of our questions and showed us around the re-created Royal compound made entirely from trees, straw, and reeds.

Prior to the establishment of Nyanza as the permanent home of the King or "Mwami", there were 50 to 60 separate royal residences spread out across the entire country. The last king built a stone palace atop a nearby hill, but he died before moving in and the building is now a museum.

We learned a lot about the history and culture of Rwanda, but the most interesting was that the king often had many sons (as he had many wives). The sons by the queen were favored for the crown, but each son would specialize in different types of skills and learning. One would be a war king and selected to be king if Rwanda wanted to expand it's empire. One would be a cow king, and would be selected if there was a need to grow the wealth (historically measured in cows) within the kingdom. There were other kinds of kings to like one to grow arts and culture, but these non-war kings could only defend their country if attacked, and could not travel beyond the nearest rivers.

Just before the Belgians arrived in Rwanda after World War I, a war king had expanded the empire to all of current day Rwanda, eastern DRC and southern Uganda, so his son who succeeded them was a cow king. This cycle helped stabilize the kingdom and economy. We compared it to the American cycle of 8 yrs. of Democrats and then swinging back to 8 yrs. of Republicans to keep policies rather centrist. I asked the tour guide if he thought things would be different today if a war king had been in power when the Belgians arrived instead of a cow king. He said that "yes, things would be very different."

The West has a great influence here still in Rwanda. Everyone strives to be "modern" and "American" and "Western". Last time we posted, the guy sitting next to us was studying a Beyoncé video to learn the words and dance moves. All the schools are starting to focus on teaching English instead of French. There are currently great tensions between the Rwandan government and the French, who are being blamed for their alleged involvement with the genocide of 1994. If fact, we saw an entire gov. agency dedicated to investigating the involvement of France in the genocide. If you know the French, the greatest way to insult them is to insult their language. Plus, Rwanda can not economically afford to fight back in any other way.

Most educated people speak 3 languages, Kinyarwanda, French, and English. The older people know French better and the youngest people know English better. Now in schools instead of teaching 8 hrs. of French and 2 hrs. of English per week, they have switched the emphasis and changed the textbooks to English. This has made it easier for me, but I'm still trying to brush up on my pathetic French and learn vocabulary in Kinyarwanda.

On that note- Murabeho (good bye) and à bientôt (until later)!