Monthly Rwanda
「解放日」の一場面（軍の行進）
A scene from the Liberation Day (Military Parade)
A scene from the Liberation Day (Military Parade)
日本祭り。習字に挑戦する学生。「神」の字が人気
Japan Festival. Calligraphy tried by students. Many wanted to write the letter of ‘God’
Japan Festival. Calligraphy tried by students. Many wanted to write the letter of ‘God’
＜近況報告１＞
Monthly Rwanda
Reported by Toshikazu MITO @UNDP Rwanda
だいぶご無沙汰してしまいましたが元気です。ここ２カ月ほど大変忙しく、いろいろなことがありましたが、まとめて（その一部を）報告します。
１）妻の優理が７月上旬」という無理をして、ようやく離日をすることができました。ルワンダへは、成田→バンコク→アジスアベバ（エチオピア）→ナイロビ（ケニア）→キガリ（ルワンダ）というルートで飛んだのですが、アジスアベバからのエチオピア航空がオーバーブッキングに合い、ルワンダに戻るのに結局３日かかってしまいました。しかしそのお陰でアジスアベバに一泊でき、ちょっとだけ街をみるという機会を得ることもできました。アジスアベバはルワンダよりも都会ですが、雑然としており、我々の送迎バスに寄ってくる物乞いの悲惨さはキに合流しました。引越しを手伝うため、私は１週間だけ帰国したのですが、滞在後半は寝るまもなくひたすら片付けをしていました。それでも作業が間に合わず、「前日に国際便の飛行機の日程を一日ずらすガリよりひどいなぁ、という印象でした。優理がきて既に１か月が経とうとしていますが、借家の室内を少しでも快適にするため内装を日本風にしたりと工夫中です。特に、家の床が、ルワンダでは典型的なのですがコンクリートの打ちっぱなしのままなので、何とか見栄えよくできないか検討しているところです。庭師に種を託し、持参した日本の野菜の栽培も家の庭で始まりました（彼はさすがにプロで、野菜は順調に育っています）。
２）ルワンダに戻った翌日は、「解放日(Liberation Day)」の式典でした。会場のスタジアムは大変混んでいて中に入れるかどうかも怪しかったのですが、外国人（「ムズング」とキニアルワンダ語ではいいます）は別扱いのようで優先的に会場に入れてもらえました。「1994年に起こったジェノサイドからの解放」を祝う式典なのですが、ルワンダ軍の日頃の訓練成果を披露する内容が多く、またその一内容で中国武術を披露して敵をやっつける場面で大喜びをする聴衆を目の当たりにし、ここが日本ではないと再認識しました。
It took time to send this report but we are doing fine. For this past two months, I was very busy and many things happened. This report contains some parts of the update.
1) My wife Yuri started to join me at the beginning of July. In order to help her departure to Rwanda, I went back to Japan just for one week, and I was doing nothing but kept packing even without sleeping during the latter half of my stay. Nevertheless, we could not follow our original schedule but could at last leave Japan only by ‘challenging on the day before our planned departure to postpone our international flights for one day’. The route back to Kigali (Rwanda) was from Narita via Bangkok, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Nairobi (Kenya) and it resulted in taking three days to reach as we faced overbooking for the Ethiopian Air flight from Addis Ababa. But thanks to the delay, we could stay in Addis Ababa for one night and glance at the city. Addis looked more urbanized than Kigali, but seemed to be in more disorder, and beggars to chase our courtesy bus were more desperate. One month has already passed since Yuri’s arrival and she is trying to make the interior of our rented house as comfortable as possible (e.g. by redecorating the interior in Japanese styles). Specifically, as the floor of the house is non-decorated but made of simple concrete, which is typical in Rwanda by the way, she is in her investigation on how we can make the floor look better. We have also begun to grow Japanese vegetables at our garden by handing our brought seeds to our gardener (he is indeed professional and the vegetables are growing well so far).
2) On the next day of our arrival, there was a ceremony of the ‘Liberation Day’. The stadium of the venue was so crowded that we doubted to be able to enter it, but it seemed that foreigners, who are called as ‘Muzungu’ in Kinyawranda, were treated differently and we got the priority to find seats. The event was for celebrating the ‘liberation from the genocide happened in 1994’. There were many demonstrations to show training results of the Rwandan military. We also witnessed that local attendants were quite excited by looking at a performance of beating up enemies by using Chinese martial arts, which made me realize that we are not in Japan.
＜近況報告２＞
３）ルワンダは人口８５０万人くらいと言われていますが、日本人在住者の数は３０人強のようです。うち、８割は、（UNHCRのトップだった）緒方貞子さんの肝煎りで最近設立したルワンダJICA事務所の関係者で、さらにその９割は青年海外協力隊員です。彼らのほとんどはシャワーのないような家で生活しているのですが、教育、建築、福祉といった場面で精力的に活動しています。現在はほぼ月１回のペースで日本を紹介する活動（「日本祭り」）も自主的に行っています。先日は、FAWEというキガリ郊外のエリートが通う女子高で、日本祭りが開かれました。日本については、「ハイテクの国」という以外ほとんど知られていないためか、悪い印象もないようで、学生たちも大変興味をもっているようでした。FAWEには一協力隊員が先生として派遣されているのですが、彼の影響もあり、日本語を勉強したい、と思っている学生も多いようでした。
４）国際免許証を持参し忘れたのをきっかけに、ルワンダの自動車免許証を取得することにし、ついに先日、手に入れることに成功しました！UNDPの現地職員の同僚に随分助けてもらいましたが、「無期限（永久に）有効」の、現地の人が持っているのと同じ免許証で、「UNナンバー」しか運転できないUN免許証とは違うものです。職場の人からは、「次はルワンダの国籍だね」と言われています。半分本気のようで、１年ほど住んでいれば取得の可能性がある、という噂も聞いています。
3) The population of Rwanda is around 8.5 million while the number of Japanese living in Rwanda seems to be 30 and over. 80% of them are relating to JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency); the Rwanda office was recently established by strong leadership of Ms. Sadako Ogata, former head of UNHCR. 90% of JICA people are working as young volunteers. Most of them are living under challenging conditions such as no hot water supply, but they are enthusiastically playing roles in fields of education, construction, social welfare, etc. They are also literally voluntarily organizing the ‘Japan Festival’ around once a month, which introduces Japan to people here. The recent festival was held at an elite women’s secondary school called FAWE located in the outskirts of Kigali. The students seemed to have a general good impression about Japan as they do not know anything about the country but its ‘high tech’. They were very keen on learning more about Japan. One volunteer is dispatched to FAWE as a teacher and thanks to him, many students showed interests in learning Japanese.
4) I forgot to bring an international driver’s license and have decided to obtain a Rwandan driver’s permit instead. Recently, I have made it! My local colleague at UNDP helped me a lot. The term of validity is ‘unlimited’ and the license is the same as Rwandans have, which is different from the UN driver’s license that allows to drive only ‘UN plate cars’. My colleagues now say to me that the next step should be to get the nationality of Rwanda. Actually, the suggestion might be half serious as someone told me that foreigners could obtain the Rwandan citizenship after living here for about a year.
Monthly Rwanda
Reported by Toshikazu MITO @UNDP Rwanda
だいぶご無沙汰してしまいましたが元気です。ここ２カ月ほど大変忙しく、いろいろなことがありましたが、まとめて（その一部を）報告します。
１）妻の優理が７月上旬」という無理をして、ようやく離日をすることができました。ルワンダへは、成田→バンコク→アジスアベバ（エチオピア）→ナイロビ（ケニア）→キガリ（ルワンダ）というルートで飛んだのですが、アジスアベバからのエチオピア航空がオーバーブッキングに合い、ルワンダに戻るのに結局３日かかってしまいました。しかしそのお陰でアジスアベバに一泊でき、ちょっとだけ街をみるという機会を得ることもできました。アジスアベバはルワンダよりも都会ですが、雑然としており、我々の送迎バスに寄ってくる物乞いの悲惨さはキに合流しました。引越しを手伝うため、私は１週間だけ帰国したのですが、滞在後半は寝るまもなくひたすら片付けをしていました。それでも作業が間に合わず、「前日に国際便の飛行機の日程を一日ずらすガリよりひどいなぁ、という印象でした。優理がきて既に１か月が経とうとしていますが、借家の室内を少しでも快適にするため内装を日本風にしたりと工夫中です。特に、家の床が、ルワンダでは典型的なのですがコンクリートの打ちっぱなしのままなので、何とか見栄えよくできないか検討しているところです。庭師に種を託し、持参した日本の野菜の栽培も家の庭で始まりました（彼はさすがにプロで、野菜は順調に育っています）。
２）ルワンダに戻った翌日は、「解放日(Liberation Day)」の式典でした。会場のスタジアムは大変混んでいて中に入れるかどうかも怪しかったのですが、外国人（「ムズング」とキニアルワンダ語ではいいます）は別扱いのようで優先的に会場に入れてもらえました。「1994年に起こったジェノサイドからの解放」を祝う式典なのですが、ルワンダ軍の日頃の訓練成果を披露する内容が多く、またその一内容で中国武術を披露して敵をやっつける場面で大喜びをする聴衆を目の当たりにし、ここが日本ではないと再認識しました。
It took time to send this report but we are doing fine. For this past two months, I was very busy and many things happened. This report contains some parts of the update.
1) My wife Yuri started to join me at the beginning of July. In order to help her departure to Rwanda, I went back to Japan just for one week, and I was doing nothing but kept packing even without sleeping during the latter half of my stay. Nevertheless, we could not follow our original schedule but could at last leave Japan only by ‘challenging on the day before our planned departure to postpone our international flights for one day’. The route back to Kigali (Rwanda) was from Narita via Bangkok, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Nairobi (Kenya) and it resulted in taking three days to reach as we faced overbooking for the Ethiopian Air flight from Addis Ababa. But thanks to the delay, we could stay in Addis Ababa for one night and glance at the city. Addis looked more urbanized than Kigali, but seemed to be in more disorder, and beggars to chase our courtesy bus were more desperate. One month has already passed since Yuri’s arrival and she is trying to make the interior of our rented house as comfortable as possible (e.g. by redecorating the interior in Japanese styles). Specifically, as the floor of the house is non-decorated but made of simple concrete, which is typical in Rwanda by the way, she is in her investigation on how we can make the floor look better. We have also begun to grow Japanese vegetables at our garden by handing our brought seeds to our gardener (he is indeed professional and the vegetables are growing well so far).
2) On the next day of our arrival, there was a ceremony of the ‘Liberation Day’. The stadium of the venue was so crowded that we doubted to be able to enter it, but it seemed that foreigners, who are called as ‘Muzungu’ in Kinyawranda, were treated differently and we got the priority to find seats. The event was for celebrating the ‘liberation from the genocide happened in 1994’. There were many demonstrations to show training results of the Rwandan military. We also witnessed that local attendants were quite excited by looking at a performance of beating up enemies by using Chinese martial arts, which made me realize that we are not in Japan.
＜近況報告２＞
３）ルワンダは人口８５０万人くらいと言われていますが、日本人在住者の数は３０人強のようです。うち、８割は、（UNHCRのトップだった）緒方貞子さんの肝煎りで最近設立したルワンダJICA事務所の関係者で、さらにその９割は青年海外協力隊員です。彼らのほとんどはシャワーのないような家で生活しているのですが、教育、建築、福祉といった場面で精力的に活動しています。現在はほぼ月１回のペースで日本を紹介する活動（「日本祭り」）も自主的に行っています。先日は、FAWEというキガリ郊外のエリートが通う女子高で、日本祭りが開かれました。日本については、「ハイテクの国」という以外ほとんど知られていないためか、悪い印象もないようで、学生たちも大変興味をもっているようでした。FAWEには一協力隊員が先生として派遣されているのですが、彼の影響もあり、日本語を勉強したい、と思っている学生も多いようでした。
４）国際免許証を持参し忘れたのをきっかけに、ルワンダの自動車免許証を取得することにし、ついに先日、手に入れることに成功しました！UNDPの現地職員の同僚に随分助けてもらいましたが、「無期限（永久に）有効」の、現地の人が持っているのと同じ免許証で、「UNナンバー」しか運転できないUN免許証とは違うものです。職場の人からは、「次はルワンダの国籍だね」と言われています。半分本気のようで、１年ほど住んでいれば取得の可能性がある、という噂も聞いています。
3) The population of Rwanda is around 8.5 million while the number of Japanese living in Rwanda seems to be 30 and over. 80% of them are relating to JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency); the Rwanda office was recently established by strong leadership of Ms. Sadako Ogata, former head of UNHCR. 90% of JICA people are working as young volunteers. Most of them are living under challenging conditions such as no hot water supply, but they are enthusiastically playing roles in fields of education, construction, social welfare, etc. They are also literally voluntarily organizing the ‘Japan Festival’ around once a month, which introduces Japan to people here. The recent festival was held at an elite women’s secondary school called FAWE located in the outskirts of Kigali. The students seemed to have a general good impression about Japan as they do not know anything about the country but its ‘high tech’. They were very keen on learning more about Japan. One volunteer is dispatched to FAWE as a teacher and thanks to him, many students showed interests in learning Japanese.
4) I forgot to bring an international driver’s license and have decided to obtain a Rwandan driver’s permit instead. Recently, I have made it! My local colleague at UNDP helped me a lot. The term of validity is ‘unlimited’ and the license is the same as Rwandans have, which is different from the UN driver’s license that allows to drive only ‘UN plate cars’. My colleagues now say to me that the next step should be to get the nationality of Rwanda. Actually, the suggestion might be half serious as someone told me that foreigners could obtain the Rwandan citizenship after living here for about a year.