Nice to meetingi you!

In life, people live separate lives, engrossed in the cocoon that is modern living. In Rwanda, the various classes of society can sometimes meet in the most bizarre of circumstances. Recently I had such an encounter that changed both myself and the other person. In Rwanda, social commentary is free, it is a very rude habit people have of talking about you loud enough so you can hear, it is a way of cutting you down and equalising the social divide. I live on a road next to a primary school, and three times a day the pupils are unleashed on the public, in the morning, lunch and evening. So I am sat at home eating a very late lunch when I heard a cacophony of ranting kids. The gang of kids got to my gate, and one of them was dared to walk up to my door, so as I watched BBC news I saw a child peering through the window. He gave a running commentary to his friends “Dor’ababossi! We” - look at the bosses, “Bafite bwose bishya!” They got all the latest stuff. “Nangye Nzabu’mubossi” I will be a boss when I grow up. “He’s eating, while watching TV, and surfing the internet.” I had enough of this audacity and went over to shoo the kid away when he gave me a cheeky grin with his best English he could muster “Hello, is nice to meetingi you!” I laughed at the situation, a social car crash that brought two people from differing backgrounds together. I thought about the situation, this boy was so curious to see how other people live, what happened was the start of ambition. Instead of envy, he chose to aspire to the kind of lifestyle he wanted; I like to think that he paid attention the next day in class. He wants to be a “Mubossi” and however crude his thinking, he should be destined to make it; because even I was motivated in school by material things. When we think of life in general, some people are born in relative wealth and others achieve it, but the hardest thing is to motivate second-generation middle-class children. They can never replicate the hunger of their parents, or the determination of that young boy. When we look at Rwanda, nearly half the population is under 18; this gives us tremendous potential, but is also a burden because soon these kids will be having kids. We need to be ready for that boy when he graduates because it will be the moment when our future steps up another notch. In life, too many people spend money they don’t have, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like. Ambition is good, but it must have a purpose, we need to harness the ambitions of the youngest in our society and give them the skills they need to be able to afford products that can better their lives. That 7 year old will be 18 in the year 2020, what we do now is mapping his future. ramaisibo@hotmail.com