Tuscany in Africa

The pictures above are from a Sunday hike a little west of Butare.
Hills, warm and earthy colours, and cypress lookalikes give a perfect
impression of Tuscany in Africa. Potential for tourism? Maybe, but
remember that all the people here have neither electricity nor
drinking water without carrying it home.

Striking Similarity

The picture on the left is in Rwanda, somewhere between Cyangugu and Nyungwe forest. The picture on the right is in Canada, north of Toronto, taken two years ago. When I saw this lonely building, it immediately recalled the setting seen in Canada. I find the similarity striking. However, the green stuff in the Rwanda picture is tea (camelia sinensis), which would never grow in Canada.

Land Register

Rwanda does not have a land register (dt. Kataster/Grundbuch) but there are plans about creating one and pilot projects are underway. I got the chance to visit field work for such a pilot study and found a prime example of what is known as a Participatory GIS: out in the field parcel boundaries are determined and demarcated on aerial images (QuickBird) in collaboration with the owners of the land.


After that, the people meet in the shadow of a tree and administrative information (running number, name of owner, children, etc) is entered in a big book (a preliminary land register) and (rarely) into a special "dispute register" if there are disputes between land owners. These disputes, if they happen at all, concern almost exclusively the location of the boundary in the field or the ownership of a parcel, but never the mapping. It is amazing how well people recognise their fields on the QuickBird images. I tried it myself: it's surprisingly hard to orient in this open savannah-like land with a few singular trees and lots of banana groves.


How accurate is the result? Why not using GPS? That would be magic to the local people, whereas the aerial images they can understand. It's really a low-tech participatory GIS.

And what's the cadastre going to be used for? To raise taxes from those that don't have anything to spare anyway? Or just as a planning tool? I did not get answers to these questions; our host was responsible for the technical side. But he confirmed that the local land owners are not afraid of the project and collaboration is perfect. The cadastral pilot project is carried out under the auspices of the Ministry of Lands, Environment, Forestry, Water and Mines (MINITERE) and funded by the British DFID.

Administrative Divisions

Speaking of administration, here is how Rwanda is administratively divided: 5 provinces North, South, East, West, and the capital, Kigali, are subdivided into 30 districts, which are further subdivided into sectors, then into cells, and finally, there is the Umudugudu or "village", which in an urban American setting would probably be called the "block." Here's the overview in all official languages:

English: Province > District > Sector > Cell > Umudugudu
Francais: Province > District > Secteur > Cellule > Umudugudu
Kinyarwanda: Intara > Akarere > Umurenge > Akagari > Umudugudu

Down to the Cell level, boundaries are known. The Midugudu (plural of Umudugudu), however, are not mapped, their boundaries are the local knowledge of their inhabitants and certainly of the Umudugudu chief.

Visa Renewal

Or: Red tape to fight corruption.

My visa for Rwanda had to be extended. The basic process is documented at the website of the Direction Générale de l'Immigration et de l'Emigration. The fee for a visa renewal is RWF 25000 (approximately CHF 50), you need an application letter, a passport size photo, a completed application form, and your passport. Locals advised me to write an application letter in the Director's name and have it signed (and stamed!) by the university's Vice Rector of Academic Affairs, together with my official invitation letter and terms of reference, for better chances to get through the process on the first attempt. Thanks for the hint, it worked perfectly!

What is not documented is this: You have to pay the fee at a branch of BCDI to an account that hopefully the clerk at the bank can tell you. Going to another bank is an error. The payment slip you are supposed to bring to RRA, the Rwanda Revenue Authority, who will exchange it for another snipped of paper that completes your application pack. Do not enclose 25000 in cash, that could be seen as bribery. Do also not attempt to pay 25000 directly at RRA, that could be seen as bribery too. If Rwanda is one of the least corrupt countries in Africa, then red tape is the price they pay for it. Not even directors of university research centers are allowed to have "petit cash," everything needs to go through the whole hierarchy...

By the way: I'd rather not know what harrassment a Rwandese citizen would have to suffer who wants to get/extend a visa for Switzerland...

Almost Paradise

This country is unbelievably beautiful. If you manage to abstract from Rwanda's poverty that's everywhere, you believe yourself in paradise. The pictures will do a better job than my description...

Lake Kivu,
seen from somewhere between Kamembe and Cyangugu.
The far side is Congo.

Tea gardens near Gisuma.
Tea (and coffee) is grown even on the steepest slopes.

Nyungwe Forest, still covering
a few hundred of Rwanda's "Thousand Hills"

Research Conference

On Nov 1-3, NUR held its fourth annual research conference. We at CGIS had again the honour to deliver the four speeches in the first session. That's honourable because it is immediately after the opening speech by the Honourable Minister of Education.

The opening ceremony was scheduled to start at 9h30. But the minister left Kigali only at 9h00, the trip from Kigali to Butare takes at least two hours, and the conference cannot start without the minister's opening speech. The rector would have had the power to decide otherwise, but he was in a meeting...

This gave us time to enjoy the magnificently decorated stage: huge, with a background of nicely pleated tissues in the country's colours (blue, yellow, green), a big table below an even bigger table cloth, and a miniature (compared to the stage) screen next to the lectern. And all that was topped with some country music.

At 11am, they arrived. The honourable minister of eductation and the rector (whose meeting seems to have finished just on time) stepped on stage. The rector's speech stressed the importance of research for the university and the minister stressed the importance of including students into research endeavours. The conference was held during the semester break. No students around. Probably unaware of this, she continued that "men in rose [prisoners, including professors] should not write the mémoirs for students". (By the way, most professors at NUR have a master's degree, some a bachelor, and few a PhD.)

Finally, the presentations. They were refreshing.

About Beers

You order a Primus and get a bottle of 70cl!
You order an Amstel and get two.
Because 30cl is just not enough.

It wasn't until March 2007 that Bralirwa realised that beer also tastes in small quantities. And so they launched Primus ntoya. In a decent restaurant you can ask for one of those small (ntoya) beers. But if you order a Guinness, even in a decent restaurant, they ask you if you want a Coke to go with it. I tried, of course, and, yes, it's a sure way to make a Guinness taste lake a shandy. But I have never seen anybody here mixing an Amstel and a Sprite (or "Cola Citron," as they say).

Bralirwa (Brasseries et Limonaderies du Rwanda) is the only Rwandan brewery and soft drink producer. Originally a Belgian company, it became Rwandan after independence. Beers brewed: Primus ("Gahuza Miryango," family reunion), Mützig ("La Prestigieuse"), Amstel ("C'est L'ambiance totale"), Guinness ("La Puissance"), Heineken ("Perfection is a process"). Shareholders: Heineken (70%) and the Rwandan Government (30%). Rumour has it that Bralirwa is the largest contributor to the national product.

Akabenze

In Butare gibts in Restaurant mit einem einzigartigen Gericht namens Akabenze: Schweinefleisch mit Kochbananen und Zwiebeln. Angeblich so genannt wegen den hierzulande äusserst selten gesehenen Mercedes Benz (der Rektor der Uni fährt einen) und dem ähnlich seltenen Schweinefleisch. Dieses ist irgendwie mariniert und so gut gebraten, dass es fast knusprig ist. Ebenso die Bananen. Und die Zwiebeln geben den nötigen Pep. Die Mengengestaltung ist sehr flexibel, man bestellt das Fleisch per Kilo und die Bananen per Stück. Für zwei Personen empfiehlt sich 1kg Fleisch und mindestens drei Bananen. Besonders eindrücklich ist das Mal wenn gerade ein tropischer Regenguss ohrenbetäubend auf das Blechdach der kleinen Séparés (vermutlich ein ehemaliges Lazarett) herunterprasselt.

Ebenfalls eindrücklich ist die Rechnung:
2 Amstel, 900;
1 Guinness, 500;
1 "Fanta Cola", 200;
1kg Schweinefleisch, 1500;
3 (Koch-) Bananen, 300;
Total 3400 RwF, also knapp 10 CHF.

Such is Africa

A whiteboard was mounted in one of our computer labs. I was sceptical from the beginning, but, of course, no black board means no chalk means no dust means healthier computers. Soon after the board was mounted on the wall, permanent pens were used. Carelessly, not wilfully.

But this is Africa and there is always a solution. Our people used fuel from the motorcycle that is standing in the courtyard. Nobody was blamed. The smell in the lab was enormous but the whiteboard was clean. Africa is not necessarily healthy, but it works.

Hübsch aber was?

Wächst bei uns im Hof und ist doch hübsch.
Aber was für eine Pflanze ist das? Bin um
Hinweise dankbar...

Arboretum

Hinter der Universität auf dem Ruhandehügel von Butare befindet sich ein Arboretum von fast 2qkm. Ursprünglich wurde es in den 1930ern unter der belgischen Kolonialherrschaft angepflanzt um das Verhalten heimischer und importierter Arten zu untersuchen und insbesondere die schnelle Produktion von Holz. Heute ist es ein grosser und ruhiger Park mit allerhand Schmetterlingen, manchmal Affen und - angeblich - Leoparden. Besonders hübsch ist der Park aber aus der Vogelschau: auf dem Luftbild (welches ich hier leider nicht anfügen kann) ist das schachbrettartige Muster der einzelnen Pflanzflächen durch unterschiedliche Grüntöne und Texturen bestens zu erkennen. Auch Forschung wird immer noch betrieben, aktuell ist gerade ein Vergleich der Holzproduktion von zwei Eukalyptusarten. Eukalyptus ist keine heimische Art! Der Baum wurde zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts von Missionaren eingef&uum;hrt und liefert heute das meiste Brenn- und Bauholz. Allerdings wird er auch beschuldigt, die Böden für andere Arten unbrauchbar zu machen. Für trockene Regionen mag das sicher stimmen, in Ruanda wird wohl sein Nutzen überwiegen.

Nature morte au petit-déjeuner

Frühstück: Café de Maraba ("Rwanda's finest"), das Pack zu RWF 2400. Dazu frische Bananen und Maracujas vom Markt (manchmal auch im Supermarkt erhältlich). Jeweils 10 längliche Brötchen (eher American style als German bakery) gibt es für ca RWF 300 im Supermarkt und in Bäckereien. Vermutlich staatlich subventioniert. Der Supermarkt backt es selbst. Darauf eine Art Margarine, die keiner Kühlung bedarf. Und als Topping lokaler Honig, das Glas für RWF 1200, schmeckt ziemlich süss. Im Supermarkt gibt es auch Nutella (bzw die holländische Variante davon). Und in Ägypten produzierte Cadbury-Schokolade. Man mindert die Ansprüche...

Lovely Tautology

"This is interesting if you are interested"
says Lambert, Assistant to the Rector,
in forwarding a mail to all university staff.

If time is money, then tautologies are the luxury of the information age. We can still afford them...

Musée National du Rwanda

Angeblich "the finest museum in East Africa": das Musée National du Rwanda wurde vom belgischen König Baudoin zu 25 Jahren Unabhängigkeit (1962 von Belgien) gestiftet und zeigt -- dem Hettnerschen Schema folgend -- Artefakte zur Geologie, Klimatologie, Landwirtschaft, Kultur, Ökonomie, Politik und Mystik Ruandas. Mit der gegenwärtigen Regierung wurden viele der ursprünglich in Kinyarwanda und Französisch gehaltenen Tafeln durch englische ergänzt; die Eintrittskarte kauft man aber besser auf französisch.

Fotographieren ist im Innern nicht erlaubt. Besonders angetan war ich aber ohnehin von der Architektur der Anlage, welche Anklänge an alte südamerikanische Kulturen hervorruft. Hinter dem Museum sind weitere Gebäude in welchen Handwerker arbeiten, vorausgesetzt es ist nicht Sonntag.

Online: www.museum.gov.rw

Rwanda Local Projection 92

Here is something more technical/geographical...

Those topographical maps of Rwanda that I have seen so far use the Rwanda Local Projection 92. This is a Gauss-Krüger (that is, transverse Mercator) projection, with the central meridian at 30°E. It uses a false easting of 500000 (as is customary for Gauss-Krüger) and the equator gets a false northing of 10000000.

Rwanda is located roughly between 28°E and 31°E as well as between 1°S and 3°S. Local coordinates range from about 469000 to 474000 in W-E direction and from about 9710000 to 9715000 in S-N direction.

The Rwanda Local Projection 92 is referenced to the Arc 1960 datum, which uses Clarke's 1880 ellipsoid (a=6378249.145, 1/f=293.465). This datum is common in East Africa; at least Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda use it also. To transform this to WGS84, use a geocentric translation with dx=-160, dy=-6, and dz=-302. According to the EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset, this transformation gives accuracy of about 20m in all three axes. There are parameter sets specifically for Tanzania and for Kenya that give that give better accuracy. I am not aware of transformation parameters specifically for Rwanda.

Using Rwanda Local Projection with GRASS

GRASS stores ellipsoid and datum in formation in the files $GISBASE/etc/ellipse.table and $GISBASE/etc/datum.table (there is also a file datumtransform.table that records 7-parameter trafo values to WGS84).

The Clarke 1880 (RGS) ellipsoid is already known to GRASS under the short name "clark80".

The Arc 1960 geodetic datum has to be added by appending these two lines to the file $GISBASE/etc/datum.table:

# The Arc 1960 datum; source: EPSG database
arc60 "Arc 1960" clark80 dx=-160 dy=-6 dz=-302

The format of lines in this file is: shortname, the full EPSG style name in double quotes, the ellipsoid (as defined in the ellipse.table file), and the values for the 3-parameter trafo to the WGS 1984 datum.

In GRASS, use g.setproj to establish the Rwanda Local Projection 92. Specify "tmerc" (transverse mercator) as the projection name, use "arc60" as the geodetic datum and choose the parameter set for transforming coordinates to WGS84 (type "list" and g.setproj will probably offer exactly one set of transformation parameters, namely the geocentric translation specified in datum.table for the "arc60" datum), and finally, enter the projection parameters: lat_0 = 0, lon_0 = 30, k_0 = 0.9999, x_0 = 500000, and y_0 = 10000000.

When done, type g.proj -p to verify the parameters.
The output should look like this:

name: Transverse Mercator
datum: arc60
towgs84: -160,-6,-302
proj: tmerc
ellps: clark80
a: 6378249.1449999996
es: 0.0068035113
f: 293.4650000000
lat_0: 0.0000000000
lon_0: 30.0000000000
k_0: 0.9999000000
x_0: 500000.0000000000
y_0: 10000000.0000000000

The name can be manually changed to "Rwanda Local Projection 92" or "Rwanda92" or "rw92" or whatever you like. Note that the value for a is not as stated above; this is due to the internal floating point representation. To get a WKT representation, type g.proj -w:

PROJCS["Transverse Mercator",
 GEOGCS["clark80",
     DATUM["Arc 1960",
         SPHEROID["clark80",6378249.145,293.465],
         TOWGS84[-160.000,-6.000,-302.000]],
     PRIMEM["Greenwich",0],
     UNIT["degree",0.0174532925199433]],
 PROJECTION["Transverse_Mercator"],
 PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",0],
 PARAMETER["central_meridian",30],
 PARAMETER["scale_factor",0.9999],
 PARAMETER["false_easting",500000],
 PARAMETER["false_northing",10000000],
 UNIT["meter",1]]

Using Rwanda Local Projection with ESRI software

An "ESRI style" WKT representation would look like this (note
the names for the datum and the spheroid):

PROJCS["Rwanda Local Projection 92",
GEOGCS["GCS_Arc_1960",
 DATUM["D_Arc_1960",
   SPHEROID["Clarke_1880_RGS",6378249.145,293.465]
 ],
 PRIMEM["Greenwich",0.0],
 UNIT["Degree",0.0174532925199433]
],
PROJECTION["Transverse_Mercator"],
PARAMETER["False_Easting",500000.0],
PARAMETER["False_Northing",10000000.0],
PARAMETER["Central_Meridian",30.0],
PARAMETER["Scale_Factor",0.9999],
PARAMETER["Latitude_Of_Origin",0.0],
UNIT["Meter",1.0]
]

The Big Dig

There is an impressive hole in our garden, so deep you cannot see the ground (and certainly no fence to prevent you from falling down). What is this for? Oil? Diamonds? A secret connection to the Russian embassy?

Someone tells me it's to prevent the water form the roof from destroying the street. Aha... collecting rainy water instead of draining it onto the street.

But the puzzle remains: Why should the water flow into the hole instead of out onto the street? And why should our house's owner care about the street while others don't? Why not collect money from all house owners and build a ditch?

Update 2007-11-26:
This hole is at least 12m deep (the string with a weight on one end was 12m long and could not reach the ground). We also noticed steps carved into the wall, indicating that the digger climbed down and up without any help.

Electricité à l'Africaine

Hoffentlich regnet es hier immer nur senkrecht. Denn die abgebildete Stromzufuhr für "unser" Haus befindet sich an einer Aussenwand: unten der Zähler, oben die Sicherungen. Wenn das der allgemeine Standard ist, dann ist schon klar, warum es täglich zu mehreren power cuts (Stromausfällen) kommt...

Ok, to be fair: vermutlich haben die power cuts vor allem damit zu tun, dass Ruanda den meisten (allen?) Strom teuer importieren muss. Ebenso den Treibstoff: die Preise an den Tankstellen entsprechen jenen bei uns! Ich komme immer mehr zum Schluss, dass die schon lange diskutierte Bahnlinie von Tanzania (Meerhafen) nach Ruanda eine zwingende Notwendigkeit ist, um dieses Land voran zu bringen.

Start in Ruanda

Das also ist Ruanda... ein kleines Land mit unglaublich vielen Menschen, am Flughafen, in den Städten, entlang der Strassen, überall. Und alles ist anders. Das Bild oben könnte man mit "Zentralbahnhof" betiteln: die besseren Buslinien fahren bis hier ins Zentrum von Kigali, von wo die Reise mit den "taxi moto" weitergehen kann, also hinten auf einem Motorrad. Das ist etwa so halsbrecherisch wie praktisch, vorausgesetzt, man hat einen Fahrer gefunden, der auch weiss, wo das Ziel liegt, was eher die Ausnahme als die Regel ist! Man sagt, die selteneren "taxi voiture" seien besser in Briefträgergeographie, was ich aber nicht bestätigen konnte. Vielleicht liegt das daran, dass es keine Briefträger gibt, sondern nur Postfächer.

Spätestens bei der Fahrt von Kigali nach Butare weiss man, weshalb das Land "pays do mille collines" genannt wird. Dörfer sind immer auf den Hügeln (auch der Kigali Intl Airport), denn das Tal könnte überschwemmt werden. Dazwischen wird wie fast überall Landwirtschaft betrieben, das meiste wohl für den unmittelbaren Eigengebrauch. Die Strasse ist gut, durchgehend asphaltiert, durchwegs kurvig und durchwegs ebensofest begangen wie befahren. Spätestens ab dem Eindunkeln gegen 6 Uhr ist das für die Fussgänger äusserst gefährlich, denn man sieht dunkle Haut wirklich schlechter als helle.

Lastwagen, die bei uns nicht mehr zugelassen wären versorgen Ruanda mit allem, was die Subsistenzwirtschaft nicht hervorzubringen vermag, vor allem Verkehr und Energie. Bei jedem Anstieg keuchen die Lastwagen im Schritttempo hinauf und wer einen stärkeren Motor hat, versucht durch die schwarze Abgaswolke hindurch zu überholen.


In Butare wohnte ich zunächst im L'Oiret, einem ehemaligen französischen Hotel, in welchem inzwischen von der Universität genutzt wird und unser Zentrum beherbergt. Das ist eine wunderbare kleine Oase, gebaut von Architekten, die wussten, was ein tropischer Regen ist, denn die Regenrinnen sind alle etwa einen Meter tief! Schade, dass das kein Hotel mehr ist, denn alles ist am zerfallen weil niemand das Gefühl hat, man könnte dazu Sorge tragen.



Soviel für heute. Weitere Meldungen folgen, falls Zeit, Internet und Stromversorgung es erlauben...