On this trip to Rwanda, I’ve been into the Never Again-Rwanda office just once per week. Since I have my own internet access, I don’t have to go in to check email, make blog posts, and catch up with family and friends abroad. It’s especially good because the office has moved across town and is a 45-minute bus ride or 15-minute moto ride away.
As a result, I’ve stayed at home quite a bit. Well, it’s actually Julius’s home, which he also shares with a young man whose education he sponsors. And there’s Joseph, the house facilitator. Julius’s family also drops in regularly, as does my Rwandan son.
TV plays an interesting role in the house. It’s likely that the TV is a status symbol (and Julius’s is bigger than mine at home—what’s that about boys and their toys? Might be universal…). But the TV has useful purpose as well.
It’s fairly unusual not to have it on if someone is home or visiting—and certainly if anyone is in the living room.
I like sitting out there most of the time and that’s where we take meals, so over the last couple weeks, whenever Joseph saw me sitting on the couch, even though I was working on my laptop or writing or reading, he turned on the TV. I had to resort to turning the volume down way low after he left, although Joseph kept “fixing” that when he came back in. Maybe he wanted to hear it all the way out to the kitchen, but it’s pretty far away.
(Did I mention that Joseph speaks not one word of English? And that my Kinyarwanda is slim to none? We sometimes manage to communicate with gesture, although he’s been picking up a few words, as have I.)
So I’ve been watching (sometimes half-watching) lots of Rwandan TV. I should clarify here that Julius doesn’t have satellite, so we get just the national Rwanda TV channel.
The programming is a mix of news, education/public service, and entertainment—and probably heavier on the first two.
(Each of these bears further description, but you’ll hear about my new vices—soccer and soaps—in a later post.)
The Rwandan news is broadcast in Kinyarwanda, French, and English. Each has its own program, and the reporting is essentially though not exactly the same. All start with the top three stories, then do in-depth stories on a number of items. Business news, weather, and international news are also addressed. The quality seems to me to be high; all stories are longer than those on local American news.
Some of a recent night’s news focused on the crash of a Congolese airliner, the 25% increase in price and subsequent shortage of big bottles of Primus beer, a single-vehicle crash involving a mechanic who was testing out repairs he had made to a car but was DUI and didn’t have a license or insurance, and the birth of the first baby born in South Sudan—who was named Independence.
BBC news is also broadcast, and there have been stories shown about government policies or practices that have been unpopular, exactly the kinds of news that critics of this government have said don’t get reported.
The education and public service programming is really interesting, and not only because I’m an educator. There are many types of educational programs from different countries (Japan, US, Britain, for example), but my favorite is broadcast live on Saturdays. It uses the very popular roundtable format where a moderator and guests with particular expertise gather. Sometimes the shows take calls, but program teaches English grammar.
A week ago, the teachers focused on past perfect tense, and last weekend taught future perfect. This show has taught me that “revise” here means to study or to learn, to “go over.” It also acculturates my ear to African English, which sometimes stresses different syllables. Here, for example, one hears “par TI ci ple” instead of “PART i ci ple” and “sechurity” rather than “security—” a different rhythm in the music of language.
The public service programming is both taped and live. The taped segments report on government initiatives and rather than cynics’ view that these are broadcast to bolster public opinion of Rwandan leadership, I believe that this type of programming strives to demonstrate what the government is doing and where and how money is being spent. Transparency is as important here as anywhere, and Rwandans can see their government working. These programs sometimes frame the information as “Your right to know.”
This type of programming is more like technical communication than any other genre. Often budgets details appear onscreen, for example, and the presented information sounds more like a technical report than journalism.
Journalism is a controversial aspect of Rwandan society; radio played a major role in not only desensitizing Rwandans and fostering dehumanizing perspectives before the genocide but also in directly instigating specific violence during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
Rwanda is slowly constructing a culture of reading (and writing, hopefully) that will in the future support active problem-solving and critical thinking skills throughout Rwanda’s population.
In the meantime, Rwandans who have access to TV at least keep informed about the country’s development, relations with international partners, and a few more educational opportunities than in the past.
So don’t be callin’ it a boob tube, ya hear?
