The Shadow of the Sun

by Ryszard Kapuściński

Rwanda. It is a small country, so small that on certain maps of Africa it is marked with only a dot. You must read the accompanying explanatory notes to discover that this dot, at the continent’s very center, indicates Rwanda. It is a mountainous country. Plains and plateaus are more characteristic of Africa, whereas Rwanda is mountains and more mountains. They rise two thousand, three thousand meters, even higher. That is why Rwanda is frequently called the Tibet of Africa—although it earned this moniker not only because of its mountains, but also on account of its singularity, distinctness, difference. It is extraordinary not only geographically, but also socially. As a rule, the populations of African states are multitribal (Congo is inhabited by 300 tribes, Nigeria by 250, and so on), whereas only one group inhabits Rwanda, the Banyarwanda, a single nation divided into three castes: the Tutsi cattle owners (14 percent of the population), the Hutu farmers (85 percent), and the Twa laborers and servants (1 percent).

helps to explain a lot