The Class of Kigali

The wireless at the Kigali Serena was down all weekend, so I'm a bit behind in my postings. I'm playing catch-up a bit today, because tomorrow my vacation starts. A much needed, well deserved, LONG OVERDUE VACATION, I might add.

Anyway, I wanted to share this "Class Photo" from the last day of the Kigali journalism. It's special to me for a lot of reasons. First, it marks the 6th African country where I've led successful journalism traininga. Next, it marks the first time I've worked in a country where a human tragedy of an epic scale occurred in the not too distant past, and where the remnants are still palpable. And third, it reminds me of the enormous possibilities that exist in what my friend Richard reminded me is a "benevolent dictatorship."

Before heading to Rwanda, so many people cautioned me about the strict government rule in Kigali. You can't speak out against the government. The government doesn't allow this or that. Okay, I've experienced that before, in some form or another, in every country I've visited.

And yet Kigali's streets are so clean, and people obey traffic lights, and you can walk down the street without risking robbery and assault, and (so far) there's water and electricity. But here's something else that really sparked my imagination. Rwandan health officials asked a group of researchers involved in a pilot cervical cancer screening study to come and do a study there. The country wasn't identified by some group like CDC or WHO because of their high rates of the disease. The officials themselves learned about the project and ASKED to be one of the research sites.

I don't think I need to explain how big a deal that is, especially since so many African leaders are characterized as being completely oblivious to anything other than their own self-interests. I find myself fascinated by Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who wound up martialing the will and the manpower to stop the genocide in 1994, while the rest of the world blinked. I don't know enough about him to label him a saint or anything, and you might scratch the relatively manicured surface of Kigali and see some pretty nasty stuff. But during my brief stay, I saw so many signs that Kagame is using the same focused energy to try and help his country.

(If you don't know who Kagame is, check out his picture on Google Images. While watching him on TV last week, I wound up concluding that relatively young men of East African descent with big ears make the best Presidents!)

That's the take home message I wound up leaving with this group of journalists. I told them they were pioneers, and that they now have the opportunity to learn more about the health related projects going on in their country. I told them they had a responsibility tell the stories and connect the dots in ways that will prod officials to keep seeking help for their challenges, to keep the urgent health needs of the citizens at least among the top 10 priorities.

I plan to keep working with this group of pioneers. I think I've finally found an African country that with all its challenges, scars, and complicated issues, actually makes sense.