One of the deepest questions ever to dog mankind is; what is time and what is space? In the Rwandan mindset they are one and the same. There are mathematical models that explain the relation between the two. Time is speed times distance, speed is distance divided by time, distance is speed times time. However, in Kinyarwanda space is “umyanya” and time is “umyanya” so it is hard to differentiate the two. I say this because I was in Mutara last week and tried having this conversation with the denizens of Nyagatare district and it raised some eyebrows. Light is the key to life, our sun shines it’s light on us daily and defines our day, then the days make up a month then a year. It is the nights that define the problems of rural Rwanda, I was lucky to have been there during a full moon. It is in the pitch black that things go bump in the night; our President once said that the best way to bring down the population growth rate is to bring electricity to the rural masses. In the dark of the night, there is little to do but drink banana beer and copulate. So in talking about the difference in space and time, I found myself discussing the upcoming change of season, talking about how time is scarce and land space is scarce. It struck me that time was not as precious there, even with the upcoming season there was little in the way of urgency to prepare for the next season. It is as if whatever will happen will happen, the only big event they are awaiting is the arrival of electricity. The poles are mounted, the cables are being unrolled and transformers being set up. We can imagine the changes that light will bring, children can study their homework without inhaling dangerous chemicals and gases, evenings can have entertainment that doesn’t involve sneaking around in the dark, and so many changes. It is hard to imagine a world of darkness; a ten-minute blackout is hard to deal with for a city-dweller. So try to imagine a lifetime of darkness, it feeds rural ignorance and superstition, creates imaginary monsters, and limits the possibilities of countless millions. So when the light comes, mindsets will change, outlooks will change and Rwanda will be a different nation. It will start to look like neighbours like Kenya, with satellite dishes on top of rusty tin roofs. This is when time will speed up and no longer go at the same dogged and tired pace. Time is change, the slower the change, the slower the time, the fact that not much has changed in 20 years in Gikoba means that time is slow and change is slow. There will be a speeding up of change, the place will be unrecognisable within a year. Many of the changes will be negative but most will be good. The worst thing is when you ask a child their ambition and they don’t know. Maybe one day, we’ll talk about the space-time continuum. Ends
