RADIO GA-GAH
Rwanda is the most densely populated country in the Milky Way Galaxy, apart from a few wealthy City-States which can handle their situation; Rwanda is struggling under the weight of its growing population. It is cheek to jowl; I recently talked about travelling to the North and seeing the inch by inch farming aimed at mass production. I went to Novotel to use their internet and I met a fascinating Texan woman who had just recently become a mother; she showed me her blue-eyed son called Kwizera or Faith in English. She said “He 100 % Rwandan!” I laughed, She made some joke about “He’ll never be president of America, he was born here, he’ll have to be president of Rwanda one day.” We both stirred in the dream of the Blonde, Blue-eyed President Kwizera. We talked about a lot of things but we were adamant that Rwanda is the best country in the world; I was embarrassed coz I am not as patriotic as this Texan lady, for my own country. Rwanda stirs deep emotions in those who see it for the first time; I imagine the first herders who stumbled on this land high up in the mountains with lush peaks, deep valleys a mile deep. Eventually the herders became Rwandans, as did farmers from Congo; who joined the Pygmy Twa who are the only original Rwandans. Time will see if we have that White president and this shows the progress we are making.
A symptom of such density is sheer proximity to everyone; we number 8.8 million yet somehow all related or close in some way. Kigali is chocker block as the English say; packed like sardines; Rich slum, poor slum, give a dog a bone. I have the best view in Kigali in the photo you see but I just imagine how beautiful those houses in Nyarutarama would be if they had gardens or space. Space defines the edifice; if the White House was stuck in a congested area it wouldn’t look as good, but because it is nestled in the splendour of the White House lawn and the Rose garden it is the pride of USA. A result of this boom is the proliferation of enormous houses, totally inappropriate for the users need. It is common to meet a professional young couple living in a 15-bedroom house with just one kid, a nanny, a cook, gardener, guard, and that’s all. The quality of space is not yet developed; therefore quantity of it is more valuable. In UK you can buy a 3-bedroom house for £350,000 that is more valuable that a mansion in another area. Houses are really looked after and are constantly being renovated, with quality added to increase the sale price.
These humungous houses have a negative effect on the housing industry, the prices of basic products like cement, steel, and sand, all rise because these houses consume so much. In the end the house is impressive but impractical, luxurious but lunatic, a fancy statement but poor investment. Land in rural areas in available just outside town, only 15 minutes from the City centre; if they bought land in one of those areas at a fraction of the price and built on a nice spot with a rushing river, or impressive valley. When I build a house I want to build like my friend Alex Gatete; he built a house with his bare hands for the lady he loved, even though he hadn’t met her yet. “I am building her the best house she’ll ever see. Even if she’s one of those modern chicks, she’ll wanna cook and settle down, just because of the cosy house.” What that little romantic aside says is that people are still old-fashioned. In Kinyarwanda the word for marriage is Kwubaka, people ask you “Wubatse?” Have you built a house? (Kinyarwanda says long things with few word but says short things in long speeches) So to build is to be married, you can get engaged but no married woman is going to move into a rented old house, she wants her own place, planned to her specifications. So she’ll wait for you to build, when the house is nearly ready she’ll go through the formalities of getting pregnant to trap you and speed up the process.
This rush to build causes slums, I define a slum not by the quality of the houses but by whether or not they were built hapzardly. Rwanda copied Belgium in every way, the shoddy electrics, bad plumbing, everything is impractical. That might have been Belgium 30 years ago but nothing changed in Rwanda in 30 years until recently. So you are cheek to cheek; yard to yard, the house has to be as big as the land you have. These houses are expensive to run, hence the domestic economy is one of the biggest employment sectors; cooks, yard boys, gardeners, drivers, nannies, cleaners, guards, dog groomers. The abundance of labour means that you can employ someone just to look after your dog; to the point where it ain’t your dog anymore, it is closer to the Guard, listens to him, and obeys him, you just pay for the food. Your kids can also end up like this brought up by nannies, servants, this leads to negative effects.
You can go to MTN center and see this first hand, on Fridays every underage brat is there on cue. Kids who have been neglected by their rich parents and who have been brought up by servile houseboys. The classic illustration of this was when I first went there; these two runts were fighting hysterically, just grabbing shirts and not swinging, the crowd wanted a good fight but were disappointed. A valiant Guard armed with nothing but bad breath and a pump-action shotgun attempted to calm the situation but these runts knew their social standing; they both descended on the misguided Guard. Knowing these were kids of VIP’s he couldn’t retaliate and stood there as blows rained on him, I was shouting at him that this was a perfect opportunity to use his pump-action shotgun, to no avail.
So everybody has to have servants; the more the better, it is a basic economic weather gage. Pretty much like Scarlet O’Hara and such plantation owners wanted as many servants as possible. A sad result of this is the general noise and acrimony involved; 5 servants average per house, they are shouting, radios blazing, drumming, anything to annoy you. So radio; the bane of my life, locals can’t hear them, if you have 5 Rwandans in a space, then you have 5 radios blaring. A servant would sooner part with his leg than lose his Radio, and he knows it is his God-given right to play it as loud as he can. The servant also helps reduce the average life expectancy of their bosses; some of home haven’t stirred a cup of tea in years and would certainly sprain their wrists. I love to listen to BBC radio as often as I can but Rwandans listen to silly stations. Radio is intertwined with all aspects of life. Radio was integral is fomenting hatred and helped organise the Genocide. The basics include food and batteries, and water. This addiction to radio restricts productivity; servants are handicapped by having one hand, because one has to be holding a radio. It takes two guys to wash a car because each will be holding a radio; it takes two to cook because one has to hold the onion while the other cuts.
Rwanda is a cacophony of shitty radios; China and Taiwan have a lot to answer for, these cheap transistors cause me mental pain. If we stopped listening to Radio or drinking cheap banana beer, then we would be richer no end. The millions of dollars we waste on batteries would be put to good use and our brains would be clear enough actually do something. I used to argue with this houseboy next door, he used to blast his radio from 5am. His radio faced towards me so he would crank it up hear on his side, while it blasted towards me. One day things got out of hand; I went over and spoke to his boss, who was drunk, nonplussed yet issued a stern but half-hearted warning to him. Like a child he only increased the volume and giggled; I must admit I freaked out. (at one point death threats were involved) The poor guy was sacked as a final transgression after impregnating several maids and pissing off the neighbours. Just another episode in this series of life.
Rwanda is the most densely populated country in the Milky Way Galaxy, apart from a few wealthy City-States which can handle their situation; Rwanda is struggling under the weight of its growing population. It is cheek to jowl; I recently talked about travelling to the North and seeing the inch by inch farming aimed at mass production. I went to Novotel to use their internet and I met a fascinating Texan woman who had just recently become a mother; she showed me her blue-eyed son called Kwizera or Faith in English. She said “He 100 % Rwandan!” I laughed, She made some joke about “He’ll never be president of America, he was born here, he’ll have to be president of Rwanda one day.” We both stirred in the dream of the Blonde, Blue-eyed President Kwizera. We talked about a lot of things but we were adamant that Rwanda is the best country in the world; I was embarrassed coz I am not as patriotic as this Texan lady, for my own country. Rwanda stirs deep emotions in those who see it for the first time; I imagine the first herders who stumbled on this land high up in the mountains with lush peaks, deep valleys a mile deep. Eventually the herders became Rwandans, as did farmers from Congo; who joined the Pygmy Twa who are the only original Rwandans. Time will see if we have that White president and this shows the progress we are making.
A symptom of such density is sheer proximity to everyone; we number 8.8 million yet somehow all related or close in some way. Kigali is chocker block as the English say; packed like sardines; Rich slum, poor slum, give a dog a bone. I have the best view in Kigali in the photo you see but I just imagine how beautiful those houses in Nyarutarama would be if they had gardens or space. Space defines the edifice; if the White House was stuck in a congested area it wouldn’t look as good, but because it is nestled in the splendour of the White House lawn and the Rose garden it is the pride of USA. A result of this boom is the proliferation of enormous houses, totally inappropriate for the users need. It is common to meet a professional young couple living in a 15-bedroom house with just one kid, a nanny, a cook, gardener, guard, and that’s all. The quality of space is not yet developed; therefore quantity of it is more valuable. In UK you can buy a 3-bedroom house for £350,000 that is more valuable that a mansion in another area. Houses are really looked after and are constantly being renovated, with quality added to increase the sale price.
These humungous houses have a negative effect on the housing industry, the prices of basic products like cement, steel, and sand, all rise because these houses consume so much. In the end the house is impressive but impractical, luxurious but lunatic, a fancy statement but poor investment. Land in rural areas in available just outside town, only 15 minutes from the City centre; if they bought land in one of those areas at a fraction of the price and built on a nice spot with a rushing river, or impressive valley. When I build a house I want to build like my friend Alex Gatete; he built a house with his bare hands for the lady he loved, even though he hadn’t met her yet. “I am building her the best house she’ll ever see. Even if she’s one of those modern chicks, she’ll wanna cook and settle down, just because of the cosy house.” What that little romantic aside says is that people are still old-fashioned. In Kinyarwanda the word for marriage is Kwubaka, people ask you “Wubatse?” Have you built a house? (Kinyarwanda says long things with few word but says short things in long speeches) So to build is to be married, you can get engaged but no married woman is going to move into a rented old house, she wants her own place, planned to her specifications. So she’ll wait for you to build, when the house is nearly ready she’ll go through the formalities of getting pregnant to trap you and speed up the process.
This rush to build causes slums, I define a slum not by the quality of the houses but by whether or not they were built hapzardly. Rwanda copied Belgium in every way, the shoddy electrics, bad plumbing, everything is impractical. That might have been Belgium 30 years ago but nothing changed in Rwanda in 30 years until recently. So you are cheek to cheek; yard to yard, the house has to be as big as the land you have. These houses are expensive to run, hence the domestic economy is one of the biggest employment sectors; cooks, yard boys, gardeners, drivers, nannies, cleaners, guards, dog groomers. The abundance of labour means that you can employ someone just to look after your dog; to the point where it ain’t your dog anymore, it is closer to the Guard, listens to him, and obeys him, you just pay for the food. Your kids can also end up like this brought up by nannies, servants, this leads to negative effects.
You can go to MTN center and see this first hand, on Fridays every underage brat is there on cue. Kids who have been neglected by their rich parents and who have been brought up by servile houseboys. The classic illustration of this was when I first went there; these two runts were fighting hysterically, just grabbing shirts and not swinging, the crowd wanted a good fight but were disappointed. A valiant Guard armed with nothing but bad breath and a pump-action shotgun attempted to calm the situation but these runts knew their social standing; they both descended on the misguided Guard. Knowing these were kids of VIP’s he couldn’t retaliate and stood there as blows rained on him, I was shouting at him that this was a perfect opportunity to use his pump-action shotgun, to no avail.
So everybody has to have servants; the more the better, it is a basic economic weather gage. Pretty much like Scarlet O’Hara and such plantation owners wanted as many servants as possible. A sad result of this is the general noise and acrimony involved; 5 servants average per house, they are shouting, radios blazing, drumming, anything to annoy you. So radio; the bane of my life, locals can’t hear them, if you have 5 Rwandans in a space, then you have 5 radios blaring. A servant would sooner part with his leg than lose his Radio, and he knows it is his God-given right to play it as loud as he can. The servant also helps reduce the average life expectancy of their bosses; some of home haven’t stirred a cup of tea in years and would certainly sprain their wrists. I love to listen to BBC radio as often as I can but Rwandans listen to silly stations. Radio is intertwined with all aspects of life. Radio was integral is fomenting hatred and helped organise the Genocide. The basics include food and batteries, and water. This addiction to radio restricts productivity; servants are handicapped by having one hand, because one has to be holding a radio. It takes two guys to wash a car because each will be holding a radio; it takes two to cook because one has to hold the onion while the other cuts.
Rwanda is a cacophony of shitty radios; China and Taiwan have a lot to answer for, these cheap transistors cause me mental pain. If we stopped listening to Radio or drinking cheap banana beer, then we would be richer no end. The millions of dollars we waste on batteries would be put to good use and our brains would be clear enough actually do something. I used to argue with this houseboy next door, he used to blast his radio from 5am. His radio faced towards me so he would crank it up hear on his side, while it blasted towards me. One day things got out of hand; I went over and spoke to his boss, who was drunk, nonplussed yet issued a stern but half-hearted warning to him. Like a child he only increased the volume and giggled; I must admit I freaked out. (at one point death threats were involved) The poor guy was sacked as a final transgression after impregnating several maids and pissing off the neighbours. Just another episode in this series of life.
2 comments:
LOL!!! the radio next door was always my alarm..!
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