Authorities in Huye District on Saturday launched a new campaign to encourage citizens to visit the country’s historical and cultural sites using sports.

The initiative seeks to help the citizenry know about the many historical and cultural places around the country while at the same time exercising to be fit and healthy, officials said.

The exercise was launched with a mass public sport that involved hundreds of residents and officials, who walked for over two hours from the outskirts of Huye town and finished on top of Huye Mountain.

The mountain is one of the topographies that make Ibisi bya Huye, a chain of hills standing at 2,400 metres of altitude stretching between Huye, Nyamagabe and Nyaruguru districts.

The legend of Nyagakecuru

The mountains are known in history as having been the residence of a notorious woman, known as Nyagakecuru, who is said to have ruled the area around Butare and stretching up to Burundi and who was feared by many kings.

On several occasions, the myth goes, Nyagakecuru was attacked by the king’s army trying to annex the area she ruled but always managed to repel the attacks.

Legend has it that Nyagakecuru was an old woman who lived atop Huye mountain around the 18th century.

It is said Nyagakecuru was protected by a large snake (or possibly many smaller snakes) that hid in the bushes surrounding her home. At one time, royal emissaries offered her dozens of goats as a tribute.

It was a trick, as the goats ate the leaves of the bushes, exposing the snake(s) and thus allowing the king’s warriors to invade Nyagakecuru’s home, kill her and her family.

This is the history that authorities want citizens to know by encouraging them to visit the place–but also telling them to walk all the way to the mountain’s top exercising as they appreciate its beautiful environment and surrounding areas.

Attractions on the hill

Among some of the attractions that can be seen at the mountain include the area where Nyagakecuru’s home was purportedly built and a well, known as the ‘Springs of Nyagakecuru’, where her cows allegedly drunk from.Speaking at the exercise, the Minister for Sports and Culture, Joseph Habineza, encouraged residents to always exercise and take time off for sports to keep fit and healthy.

He said sports can help prevent some diseases such as diabetes and encouraged them to dedicate time for physical exercises.

"Exercising benefits our bodies and health. We need to start taking time for that if we don’t want avoidable health complications,” Habineza said.

He also said by encouraging younger individuals to practise sports early it would inculcate into them a sport culture and help detect talents that can develop the sports sector in the country and raise the country’s flag on the international scene.

The minister noted that the mass sport exercise was also an occasion to learn of the history of Nyagakecuru and Ibisi bya Huye, encouraging others also to take the same initiative, do sport as they visit the mountain and learn of its story.

He called on the Institute of National Museums of Rwanda, a co-organiser of the event, to conduct scientific research to ascertain facts about the Nyagakecuru’s story, noting that could even attract visitors from outside the country.

Huye vice mayor for economic affairs Cyprien Mutwarasibo said the district plans to develop the site in order to make it more attractive.

A group of sports enthusiasts in Huye district is set to carry out monthly mass sports exercise on the mountain, leading an example for others to follow.

jp.bucyensenge@newtimes.co.rw