Selia Aponte ’16 helps a student at Duha Complex School practice writing the alphabet on a reusable guide that Rollins students created during a recent trip.
o understand why that was such a priority, some back story is required. In October 2008, a few months after Ballen formed REAP, the Rwandan government decreed that the country’s new official language would be English, not French. This would be the language of education, commerce, and government. The government’s reasoning was that French—the country’s language since the Belgians colonized it during World War I—was dwindling on the world stage. World leaders spoke English. If Rwanda wanted to be part of the world economy, it needed to speak English also.
There was more to it than that, of course. The government accused the French of arming the former Rwandan army as well as militias from the Hutu ethnic group; together the army and militias massacred the Tutsis and some moderate Hutus. The language switch offered a break from the past. Regardless of the motives, though, English-speaking investors are entering the country with frequency, looking for opportunities in mining, energy, and ecotourism. But even though the government changed the national language from French to English, few of its citizens were fluent
in either. In fact, less than 5 percent spoke English and less than 5 percent spoke French when the government announced the change. Most—approximately 90 percent of Rwandans—spoke (and still speak) Kinyarwanda. And there’s some pride in that. For starters, it’s a language indigenous to the area; it is spoken by the Hutu, the Tutsi, and the Twa ethnic groups; and it is frequently spoken in daily life and at official public functions. And until that government decree, it was also the language of instruction in primary schools, even though relatively few textbooks and books were available in the language.