Proud to be a Rwandan

I remember my mother once saying in a disgruntled voice that all she had been doing since she arrived in the UK was complete application forms. Everyone wanted to know who you were, what nationality you were, where you lived, how much you earned, the tick boxes and dotted lines were endless. I find myself mindlessly dropping a black ball pen in my bag every time I leave the house, because I never know who might shove an application form in my hand. But the true hell of application forms dawned on me recently as I completed the 2011 Census pushed under my door by the student hall cleaner.

Place of Birth: Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Country of Origin: Rwanda

Nationality: British

Ethnicity: Black African

First language: English

I have been using these same answers in every application form, without ever stopping to think for a minute what it meant. From looking at the information above, what is my identity? I was born in Belgium but left before I could identify myself as a Belgian, I did not live in Rwanda for more than six months of my life even though my parents are from there and to makes matters worse I have not been back to Rwanda for almost two decades. Thus far, the country I have lived in for the longest time is the UK. But apart from my red passport and an occasional South London accent, nothing else about me tells you I am British. Even those who know me will tell you that my accent is so interchangeable that I could be from anywhere – I only speak the Queen’s English at job interviews.

According to the Cambridge Online Dictionary, ‘a person’s first language is the language they learn from their parents as they are growing up.’ Well I grew up speaking French and Kinyarwanda*, but I don’t think in French or Kinyarwanda nor can I communicate as freely and confidently in either of the languages without casually injecting some English words in my sentences. Because of my Bachelor’s degree in French, my reading and writing skills in the language are better than my speaking skills. However, with Kinyarwanda, even though I can read and write it with some level of confidence, if you were to give me a children’s story book written in Kinyarwanda, I would struggle to make sense of the words and sentences I did not use on a day to day basis. In the end I am forced to write English, even though it was the fourth language I learned to speak after French, Kinyarwanda and Shona*.

For some years I was ashamed to tell people I was Rwandan because most of the times, they would ask me if I was born there to which I would shake my head and walk away before anyone asked me anything else. I remember a few years ago, when I revealed to a group of Rwandan peers that I was born in Belgium, one of them let out a chortle and said, ‘uyu numuzungu, ntag’aruw’iwacu!’ or in English, ‘this one is a white girl, she doesn’t belong to us.’ Although I laughed it off, inside I was hurting because something as simple as my place of birth made me an outsider. I did not choose where I was born; surely how I identified myself was more important?

Many of us struggle with our cultural identities. Our skin colour, surnames and the food we eat at home tells may tell us we are African, but our environment, our thought processes, our education, social status and social networks tells us otherwise.  Most people in my generation were either born outside the continent, or left the continent before the age of five and have not gone back ever since. Those who eventually go back are treated like outsiders and traitors; but the same people feel inclined to say hello when they walk past another African in the supermarket,  their faces light up when they hear two people having a rude conversation in an African language on a packed train thinking no one else understands. Everyone should be given the space and freedom to appreciate and celebrate their African Orijin. Identity is not limited to a dictionary definition.

I am not Rwandan because I speak the language, nor is it because I have a Rwandan surname and because my parents were born there. I am a Rwandan because in my heart that is who I am. I don’t know my country like most folk do, but the little I remember I cherish it with my whole heart. The long dusty trips to the countryside to visit my grandparents during the Christmas break; playing on the swings with my sisters in the garden at Hotel Baobab; sunny afternoons on the porch, a Fanta Tropicale in one hand and a sweet and squidgy mandazi in the other; crowded pulpits at Cathédrale Saint Michel in downtown Kigali on a Sunday. The memories are old but special to me, they are comforting and they reassure me that no matter how far away I am – home will always be where the heart is. I have been in the UK for a long time so I consider it to be my home, but my real home is where my heart belongs. To mirror Barry White’s words to his lover, Rwanda is my first, my last, my everything!

For all of you who think I am a fake Rwandan, keep hating because I am happy just the way I am. A PROUD RWANDAN WOMAN!

* Kinyarwanda (also sometimes known as Rwanda, Ruanda or Rwandan), is a Bantu language spoken by some 12 million people in Rwanda, where it is the official language.

*Shona (or chiShona) is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe.