Saturday 3 April – Easter

Sorry I have been neglecting my blog lately. Dog-sitting is quite hard work it turns out which gives me little time left to write. Am also busy arranging my trip to Uganda next week which is taking much more time than expected. Celebrating Easter in Rwanda is not very exciting. People go to church and that’s it so there’s not much holiday spirit or celebration anywhere. We had an Easter dinner at a colleague’s yesterday with some Swedish food such as meatballs, herring and Kalles kaviar but that was all the celebrating I will be doing this year.

Something I find odd is that Rwandans don’t have Monday off work next week. This is a very religious country and most people are Catholics so they should really think Easter is important. Since this is supposed to be the time when Jesus was first crucified and then rose from the dead it should be a big deal, don’t you think? If you decide that long Friday when, according to the bible, Jesus was crucified is a national holiday, how can you not make Easter Monday, when he rose a national holiday has well? That would mean that you celebrate the death of Jesus but not the resurrection. The fact that he rose again is supposed to be some sort of proof of his holiness, right? Anyway I don’t get it but as was pointed out to me last night, there is no reason or logic in religion.

Next week, on the 7th of April, is Genocide Memorial Day in Rwanda. As you can imagine this is not a happy occasion and usually the whole month of April is rather depressing here. There will be a lot of official ceremonies and speeches during the week and a few seminars on the subject. I don’t know if I should be happy or sad to miss it. I will not be here since I’m going to Uganda for the whole week and in a way it feels nice not to have to stay here since it will be very quiet and slow. On the other hand this is something that is a part of Rwanda’s history and maybe experiencing this week of sadness is something one should do when living here. I don’t know. A lot of people are leaving and I guess there’s a reason for that. Hopefully the week will pass without violence or other problems. This is a high-risk time for that kind of thing since everybody in this country and abroad does not agree that the genocide is a very sad event to remember or grieve. I would not want to be in a big crowd at the stadium or elsewhere that day.