Perry Beeman's Blogs

  • Power up, Rwanda, Part 2

    Here’s another couple of tidbits about Rwanda’s bid to get electricity to its nearly 10 million people.

    So far, 130,000 homes and business are hooked up to the grid.

    The goal is add 250,000 more in the short term. By 2012, 16 percent of population should be in dwellings connected to the grid.

    That does not mean the people can afford the power, which is highly expensive. The government is looking to subsidize the industry.

    And we’re talking about power for energy efficient

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  • Rwanda update

    I have returned to Washington, D.C., where I am on a fellowship through the International Reporting Project, the kind organization that paid for my travels to Rwanda. I’m back in my temporary office at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies, a few blocks from the hubbub and fantastic food of Dupont Circle.

    Thanks to the equally kind people at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, I’ll be staying in D.C. a few more weeks than originally planned.

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  • Turn on Rwanda

    Rwanda has a serious electricity shortage. The government acknowledges that the lack of power, good roads and safe water supplies hold back development here.

    In 2007, 4.5 percent of the population had electricity, most of it from hydroelectric plants. The government wants to raise that to 30 or 35 percent by 2020, largely with hydro expansions and by burning methane from dumps and from an unusual, giant bubble sitting under Lake Kivu in the country’s volcano region.

    Ben Beck of

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  • “Clean” Rwanda, Part 3

    I wrote earlier about how clean the streets are in Rwanda. In general, the country is surprisingly clean, especially by African standards. But I’ve learned there are plenty of serious environmental challenges here.

    The air is full of smoke and soot, open dumping is a problem in places and the waterways run the color of creamed coffee.

    Here’s more. Rwanda has next to no sewage systems. That includes Kigali, a city of approximately 1 million with no central system. Imagine if

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  • State of Rwanda’s environment

    Trust me, you’ll find some of what is in this handy volume fascinating. I’ll do the heavy lifting. In the days and weeks ahead, I’ll share some of the most compelling facts from this first-ever environmental report card for the east African country. I’m here seeing for myself, as part of an International Reporting Project fellowship.

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  • “Clean” Rwanda, Part 2

    Earlier in my five-week trip to Rwanda, I blogged about the surprising cleanliness of this east African country. No illegal dumping in sight. Clean streets in the cities, with women sweeping the curbs with brooms. Litter rare. A mandatory fourth-Saturday monthly cleanup sends all adults, including President Paul Kagame, out to spruce things up for four hours.

    There are some things that aren’t clean here: The air and the waterways.

    First, the air. As I write this, I am in

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  • Coke is it, in French and Arabic

    I’ve always thought it was amazing how well Coke is distributed. It’s amusing to see the cans and bottles printed in so many languages. The Rwanda guide books mentioned that Coke and Pepsi products are widely available here. I saw a Pepsi cooler once, and contained food, not Pepsi. But Coke is everywhere.

    The small bottles are labeled in French (other than the name Coca-Cola). The cans most often are printed in

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  • Joy in Rwanda, Part 2

    Earlier in my trip to Rwanda as a fellow with the International Reporting Project, an acquaintance, Sylvain, invited me to attend his Pentacostal Church. I gladly accepted. The walk through Gisenyi gave us a good flavor of the community. But the service was most moving of all. I was invited to sit up front with the ministers and to address the audience, through a translator. Four choirs performed in the three hour service. What struck me most was the absolute joy in the faces of

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  • French influences in Rwanda

    The official line is that Rwanda will be pushing English as the go-to second language, replacing French, to position the country better in international business circles. As it is, Kinyarwanda is the prevailing language, and French is spoken almost everywhere, too. People here hold a lot of disdain for the French for that country’s role in setting up the tensions that led to the 1994 genocide, when nearly 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were beaten, shot or hacked to death.

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  • Rwanda radar detectors

    The Rwandans have a little system for warning fellow drivers about speed traps, which seem to be about as plentiful as the roadblocks around here on major highways. If a driver in oncoming traffic flashes his headlights, that’s a question: “Are there speed traps ahead?” If the answering driver jabs his index finger upward a couple of times, that means “there is a speed trap down the road a bit.” If the driver points his index finger downward a time or two, that means

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