From home village to Kigali: hopes of a new jobseeker in the city

Emmanuel Ndagijimana used to work on his parents’ farm in Buhanda-Gitwe, a village in the Southern Province, before he moved to Kigali two months ago.The 30-year-old man who remains single, even if his neighbours in the village tend to get married at a tender age, has decided that it’s not in the village that he wants to live. Not anymore.He has chosen to build his life in the city where he says the lifestyle and opportunities to make money are more exciting.“My brother told me that if you look after three cows for a long time you become a fourth one. He wanted to mean that the cows would never let me have a career,” he said thoughtfully in an interview as he relaxed under the shadow of an avocado tree near Kisementi in Remera.He had sat there for a few hours before lunchtime yesterday, essentially to relax and think more about his new life in Kigali.“It’s a quiet place,” he said. “I think about what I can do to make my brother happy because he is giving me shelter and I think about what I can do to develop myself, especially with my mechanic training.”Even if Ndagijimana might be among 13 per cent of Kigali residents who are unemployed today, he has hopes of a bright future because his elder brother is training him to be a car mechanic and has agreed to shelter and feed him until he gets a full-time job.Ndagijimana said he took his brother’s advice to leave the village and build his career in the city after making some calculations. His brother in the city, who works as a car mechanic, makes Rwf100,000 every month, a far cry from what he makes back in the village by working on the family farm.“That’s around Rwf1.2m a year that my brother makes while I barely make Rwf100,000 a year after selling my produce, especially cassavas,” he said, adding that “life in the village is constraining”.For now, Ndagijimana helps his brother with different chores at the garage as part of his training and does part-time jobs when he gets them. He expects to be a competent mechanic in the next three years and he says that’s when he will feel like starting his life in Kigali, making Rwf100,000 every month.“I will start building life from there and I hope to have my own house in this city after 10 years,” he said.Off-farm jobs are considered an important indicator of economic development under the government of Rwanda’s vision to turn Rwanda into a middle-income and knowledge-based economy by the year 2020.Despite the unemployment rate in Kigali City, which the 2010/11 Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey (EICV3) estimated at 13 per cent, Ndagijimana is not going to miss out on the excitement of a city.He describes Kigali as a “King’s palace” with its “nice buildings” and cars that move around everywhere.“This is where I want to live. Challenges are always there but that’s my hope and God will help me,” he said.To kill time, he sometimes accepts offers to go out with his workmates at the garage who sometimes show him around the city and buy him a few drinks and snacks.Kigali’s current population is estimated at 1.2 million people, but it’s expected to reach 2.9 million by 2025, and 5 million in 2040. Ndagijimana will be among them if everything goes well with his plans.