The Rwandan Dream
- Patrick Shyaka
- Mar 24, 2019
- 5 min read
Welcome, welcome to the land of 1000 thrills, of million pieces and the best culture. This country had a superlative past, most I can say I don’t know about. There is something into being a native here that makes me chuckle of laughter. The people here. We are known to have surpassed all expectations, thriving the cold weather to development and always looking for the next big thing, our president is the actual president of the world, at least to me when I was six years old. We grew to be amazing as kids of the future, we can talk about all of our history, but I’d need to go back in primary school to understand it better, so what I chose to talk about is the people that live in this so frivolous grassed-country, I want to talk about the wavering culture that’s been outgrowing us into wilderness, that mostly derive to a descendant mother-nature who opened our eyes to what the world really has to offer aside of the best coffee, I want to talk about the Rwandan dream.
There is a quarter of thousands of stories that each Rwandan can share. The start of the hip hop generation and the decline to its superiority. The fight to get a scholarship abroad which as a person who missed his chance, I’ll say that it’s lame wishing to leave this country with the lamest excuse that there are no opportunities for you. There are so many other opinions that you’ll find every local trying to agree on, that’s us, the people who woke up after the massive Genocide against Tutsi, and didn’t know how to respond to that, the children that grew up to lose their culture because of the mere fact that people forgot that the actual civilization was the first colonizers mission and that they achieved it. Everyone grew up loving Chris brown, some Jay-Polly songs but really the western world was our fantasy. My siblings and I were the ambassadors of Santa Clause and Christmas was the lit-as-fuck party we planned all year. To this day, every youth’s wish is to go in America, most of them. Some have yet to know what it feels like to be on a plane, some are so scattered in the world that we probably took a third of china’s universities. We were born in the midst of the worst time we could think of, we managed to learn from it and we are on some good map, but our generation is not a second of what our parents thought we’d be. For some elders, we are disappointments and they are true, we are. But I also know that their ancestors told them the same thing because let’s be honest, every generation screws up under their previous. What I’m sure of though, you can’t command us anything because we are the young ones, that’s what we do, we are in this stage of life to discover ourselves better and figure our shit out. So yes grandma, I’m a writer not an engineer and definitely not a rapper.
Rwanda is overwhelming. This is the only place in the entire world where you’ll find fifty hardware stores on the same line selling the same things and no one will get jealous of the other, this is the place where youngsters recognize their talents and treat them as if they are Drake, this is the only place where drama is underrated, local films underrated, and western movies exaggerated! But for real though, Avengers is the best movie of all time, crap out Titanic. And yeah I said it. We all know that the countries we envy so much have more than decades of mastering themselves, but we are only a quarter of that, so don’t think that for one second you can be rewarded the same. We are still exploring our options, I see visual artists growing everyday as photographers were the past year, bloggers, youTubers, writers, authors, comedians, skateboarders and more and that’s only in entertainment; great thinkers, leaders, girls that when you are in the same room you feel the tension as if you were with your mama. Honestly, if you fly abroad and come back changing people and stuff, the whole thing was worth it, y’all better travel soon then. But I see all these skills and talents and people full of passion and realize that if it wasn’t of the westerns influence, we’d be here ramping jobs as our parents, though it turned not that bad as I make it sound, we’d really not have people who love what they do deeply. And though, most of what we choose to go after doesn’t seem to pay us back some money, it’ll eventually. All these are people and experiences I’ve gotten to witness, they open your mind to much bigger structures, you will outstand the understanding of it if you visit Rwanda and no this is no Ad. Failures shaped us, success gave us pride, we transitioned to English we forgot French, typical Rwandans.
We were birthed by this amazing clean well-ruled chill place, let’s not turn our back on it. I’m not telling you to always go in those village meetings (I really hate them), but do something. The country’s dream is of us to prosper, find our true nature and paradise. The mission is not being celebrities out there but being stars in here. Sure outsiders have so much to offer, the riches, the travels, not being famous and still be seen easily in the streets, and many other gifts; but I believe that in the end, there is only one Rwandan dream, the maturity to struggle for what you love, doing whatever it takes to reach it, and still love everyone. It’s not being the best artist, or being a role model, or leaving everything for a cozy adventure, that is some dream but not ours.
All in all, Go after what you want, risk it all, life has so much to give than rotten potatoes. They will be challenges along the way, but that is our morning porridge isn’t it? We are capable of fighting and you can do it. With what you are, believe in and do best than all the other amateurs, you will get your mark on the world. After the win, sit down and order some fresh made chapattis, search how to tuck your shirt well in a suit and then invite me for some beer; because I tell you if I can say all the things we do wrong and need to reset, if I can tell you how we should really focus on what matters than cheering and disputing football every day, if I can tell you go kiss your mother I love you, this would be so long. But in the end even if some don’t, we always figure our own shit, and that is the real Rwandan dream.
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