Car skiing in Kigali

IT’S another rainy morning in Kigali. Many would say this is the stuff of depression. Grey and rainy Monday mornings. Personally, I would take the rain, chill and general dampness over the scorching and dusty days that await us in July and August. There’s a haunting beauty to misty mornings and hilltops covered by dark clouds. Recently this haunting beauty has turned into floods and muddy hell. Reports of roads getting cut off, crop damage and landslides have become a nearly daily feature in the local news. So much so that the extent of the damage wrought by these rains is slowly fading to a background drone. You know it’s happening but you never really pay it any attention. Last Saturday a ‘special’ umuganda was organised to deal with the effects of the rain. This should have happened sooner in my opinion. You could organise car skiing competitions on some of the roads in Kigali’s neighbourhoods, some of them with more than 20cm of mud on their surface.Naturally one wonders about the role of the meteo service and the Ministry of Disaster Management in all of this. They must have been aware of the rains and had some idea on their intensity. Still there was no warning, no preparation for the rains and I suspect very little follow-up on previous disaster management counsel. Having the last umuganda was a good step but it came when a lot of the damage was already done. It will be interesting to see estimates on the value of the damage caused by the rains because that will be the national facture [bill] for being unprepared. We need to do better before the next rainy season. In sunnier news, former Prime Minister, recent exile and general political acrobat, Mr Pierre-Celestin Rwigema was elected to the East African Legislative Assembly. Considering that less than a year ago he was in exile, this news was surprising to say the least. Except for General Paul Rwarakabije, I cannot think of a faster political rehabilitation. Political exiles everywhere must be in despair over this news. I doubt that Mr. Rwigema’s election to the regional legislative body will encourage large scale return of self made political exiles but I think it should offer free and wider lessons for any bitter politician plotting in a foreign land. Come back and take part in the political process at home. Claiming possible persecution is not only misleading but cowardly. Madame Victoire Ingabire realised the importance of bringing her struggle [however misguided] home.For all the grand pronouncements and pretensions of the self appointed leaders of opposition abroad, it is difficult to compare them to any of the freedom fighters that they claim to aspire to. Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu did not fight the system from London neither did Aung Sang Suu Kyi spend her time making placards in Bangkok or Hong Kong. Their current template appears to be more closely molded along the unprincipled example of Iraqi exile turned corrupt politician, Ahmed Chalabi [google him].