Reverse Racism, Integration and the Chaos of Kigali

This weekend, we once again took advantage of our new found privileges to adventure into the capital city of Kigali. Kigali is always an odd and overwhelming experience for trainees ( and I’ve been told for PCVs as well). For starters we are not the only white people, and generally people pay us no attention at all, which is a wonderful change of pace. However, as Peace Corps Volunteers who work primarily off by ourselves without seeing other white people – unlike other aid and NGO workers who live in the capital or work primarily with American colleagues we are a little bit socially awkward.

Whenever I see another Muzungu in Kigali I automatically assume they work with Peace Corps, because that is my frame of reference, but truthfully PCVs are not in Kigali very often. Most times I refrain from approaching strangers for this reason – most likely they are aid workers or ex-pats who are nowhere near as excited as I am to see a white person they don’t know.  There is also generally a tension between PCVs and ex-pats who are in Rwanda for other reasons (which I have been told is pervasive in other countries as well).  PCVs live very differently and have very different goals from many other aid agencies. We learn the language (extensively), live in rural communities, make modest salaries, try our hardest to conform to culture, and we are extremely proud of it. Ex-pats make plush salaries, use translators, live in capitals, and many times have access to things that mean their lives are not all that different from America. You can probably sense already from this post that the tension comes from both sides. PCVs sometimes can and do feel superior – like they are being more authentic – and ex-pats react by thinking we are self righteous causing the whole cycle to perpetuate itself further.

I had my first run-in with this paradox and the complications that being around other muzungus causes. While sitting in Bourbon coffee on Sunday enjoying a very overpriced ($2 American) cup of coffee a small boy came and stood next to me. Naturally I greeted him in Kinyarwanda and started asking him my normal slew of questions. He looked terrified and confused and the only thing he would do was point out at the rest of the room and say mama. I assumed that he was trying to discourage me from stealing him by reminding me that his mama was in the room.  Fair enough, better safe than sorry. However, after he decided he didn’ t know what to make of me he ran away into the arms a white American woman and her African American husband and began babbling away in perfect English. Yea, they were ex-pat Americans and the child didn’t speak a word of Kinyarwanda, they were from New York.