I'm writing this from a guesthouse in the Rwandan capital Kigali, watching the last scraps of sunlight drip down onto the city. And as a young journalist on her first big expedition, I can't pretend it doesn't give me a thrill just to write that location down. Yet perhaps inevitably, my impressions of Rwanda have always been overwhelmed above all else by the spectre of the 1994 genocide. But, as I've discovered today, the country has pulled itself up from an almost apocalyptic level of decimation, to an extent which perhaps has to be experienced to be believed. I'm here working as a writer with the charity Tearfund, travelling to various areas of the country to find out about projects designed to ensure food security in rural communities. Parts of Kigali are incredibly glossy, with orderly traffic and manicured topiary, though a bullet-riddled wall remaining on the parliament building acts as just one reminder of past horrors.
As my plane first touched down to the city in darkness, my phone honked with a message from Tearfund's Emanuel Murangira, who immediately endeared himself by texting: "I am a heavy set person wearing a Mississippi t-shirt." When questioned by passport control about where I was staying in Kigali, I vaguely informed them that I was about to meet "a man," whereupon they decided that this clueless white girl needed a personal escort into Emanuel's (very safe) hands. I felt like an idiot when I met up with my travelling companion from Tearfund's London office, Esther Williams, who gently reminded me that the name of the guesthouse and various contact details had been written on the Safety In Travel form....which I'd thrown straight into my bag reaching a mention of grenade attacks (though these were rare and isolated incidents.)
The next morning, we travelled to a banana-growing community in the Ngoma district of Eastern Uganda, driving through lush, rolling green hills on roads stained a rich Murram brown. Though utterly gorgeous, Rwanda's scenery is perhaps a bit trickily deceptive, because the land is becoming fragile from over-use in this small and densely populated country. Around 90% of Rwanda's 10.2m population are subsistence farmers living in rural communities. In recent years, the huge hike in global food prices means that if crops perform less well than hoped, it's extremely difficult for Rwandans to afford the extra food they need to feed their families.
At a banana plantation, I met a farmer called Jean Damascene Iyamuremye, a man with a warm-eyed smile. Jean and his wife married in a Tanzanian refugee camp, in exile after the genocide, and now have six children. In collaboration with Moucecore, Tearfund's biggest partner in Rwanda, the two have worked themselves up from a basis of absolute zero. They can now not only feed their entire family with ease, but can sell enough surplus to educate their children. Lining up outside their house to wave goodbye, Jean's family offered just one example of the peace and positivity that truly seems to abound in Rwanda nowadays. In fact, it's unnervingly difficult to square the upbeat, unguarded friendliness of almost everyone I meet with the knowledge that they have probably experienced a scale of carnage that I can't begin to even contemplate, or in some cases committed unspeakable atrocities themselves. But self-perpetuating hate can only ever snap at its own tail, and from what I've seen Rwanda seems to make a pretty incredible case for choosing progress, truth and reconciliation instead.