What a Barometer Cannot Measure: Reading about Unity and Reconciliation

1Before you read

1. What is the difference between unity and reconciliation? Can a community have one without the other?
2. Think of a time you made peace with someone after a quarrel. What made it possible? What made it slow?
3. Why might a government want to measure unity? What could go wrong with a number like 95.3%?

2Text A, a short story: The Bench at the Washing Station

A story written by Ganzaa for this lesson. The people and the cooperative are invented; the experience it describes is one that many Rwandan families know.

1 Every Wednesday, from the end of March until the harvest was over, my grandmother sorted coffee cherries at the washing station below our hill. She sat on the same wooden bench every time, and every time the same man sat at the other end of it: Gasana, the quiet neighbour who mended bicycles. They hardly spoke. They passed the basket of bad cherries between them, and at noon one of them would buy two bottles of water and hand one to the other. I grew up thinking they were old friends.

2 In Senior 4 our English teacher asked each of us to interview an older person about reconciliation. I chose my grandmother because I thought she would give me an easy answer. She did not. She was silent for so long that I thought she had not heard the question. Then she said, "You have watched me on that bench for years. Do you know who Gasana is?"

3 She told me then what my parents had never found the right moment to tell me. During the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, her husband and two of her sons were killed, and Gasana had been among the men who came to their hill. Years later he confessed before the Gacaca court of our sector, told the families what he knew, and served his sentence. When he came home, he and his wife walked to my grandmother's door to ask for forgiveness.

4 "I did not answer him," she said. "Not that day, and not for more than a year. Forgiveness was mine to give or to keep. Nobody could order it from me, not a court and not a neighbour. What changed my mind was not his words. It was that he kept coming back without asking for anything. He repaired my roof before the rains. He brought his children to greet me. One day I understood that hating him was a weight I carried, not him."

5 I asked her the question I had written on my list: "So you are reconciled now?" She laughed for the first time in the interview. "Reconciled is a word for a report. We work together. We are polite. Our grandchildren play football on the same field, and that is more than I once believed possible. Some days the memory is heavy and I sit a little further along the bench. He understands. He moves the basket closer to me."

6 At the end I asked whether she trusted him. She thought about it as carefully as she sorts the cherries. "I trust him with the coffee," she said. "Trust is like a coffee tree. It grows slowly, it needs someone to look after it every season, and if you neglect it, it dies."

3Text B, a report: Measuring Unity

A summary written by Ganzaa from MINUBUMWE's Rwanda National Unity Barometer 2025, Executive Summary (November 2025). All figures are from that document.

1 Since 2010, Rwanda has measured the state of unity and reconciliation among its citizens with a regular national survey. The 2025 edition, published by MINUBUMWE in November 2025, was the first to be built on three pillars instead of two: unity, reconciliation and resilience, the ability of people to recover and rebuild their lives after the Genocide against the Tutsi.

2 The survey was large. A total of 12,300 people took part: 8,100 were interviewed in their households and 4,200 in institutions such as secondary schools, universities, vocational training centres, correctional facilities and rehabilitation centres. The researchers also held in-depth interviews with 60 experts and 49 focus-group discussions with survivors, leaders, young people, people who took part in the genocide, religious leaders, journalists and others.

3 The overall score has risen at every edition: from 82.3% in 2010 to 92.5% in 2015, 94.7% in 2020 and 95.3% in 2025. Within the score, almost every respondent agreed that Rwandans socialise with one another regardless of background (99%) and that commemorating the Genocide against the Tutsi helps reconciliation (99%). Ninety-four per cent said that community savings groups, ibimina, play a part in reconciliation and are open to members of every background.

4 The report does not claim that the work is finished. Of the respondents, 45.1% said that survivors of the Genocide against the Tutsi still carry wounds, and 23% said that genocide ideology is still present in their communities. The report also warns about social media accounts, many run from outside Rwanda, that distort history and mislead young people. Its recommendations include teaching Rwandan values to the young and involving youth in unity initiatives that begin within their own families.

4Comprehension

Answer in full sentences. Questions 1 to 5 check what the texts say; 6 to 8 ask what they mean; 9 and 10 ask you to evaluate.

1. Why did the narrator of Text A believe that her grandmother and Gasana were old friends? (paragraph 1)
2. Name three things Gasana did after he came home. (paragraphs 3 and 4)
3. How long did the grandmother wait before she answered Gasana's request?
4. Which three pillars was the 2025 barometer built on? Which one was new?
5. How many people took part in the survey, and where were the 4,200 interviewed?
6. Explain what the grandmother means by "hating him was a weight I carried, not him".
7. Why does the grandmother laugh at the word "reconciled" in paragraph 5? What does she prefer to describe instead?
8. In paragraph 6, the grandmother compares trust to a coffee tree. Give two ways in which the comparison fits.
9. Text B gives an overall score of 95.3%, but also reports that 45.1% of respondents said survivors still carry wounds. Do these two figures contradict each other? Explain.
10. Which text gives you a better understanding of reconciliation in Rwanda? Argue for one, but say what the other adds.

Show answersHide answers

1. Because they sat on the same bench every Wednesday, passed the basket between them and bought water for each other.
2. Any three of: he confessed before the Gacaca court; he told the families what he knew; he served his sentence; he and his wife went to ask the grandmother for forgiveness; he kept coming back without asking for anything; he repaired her roof; he brought his children to greet her.
3. More than a year.
4. Unity, reconciliation and resilience; resilience was new in 2025.
5. 12,300 people took part. The 4,200 were interviewed in institutions: secondary schools, universities, vocational training centres, correctional facilities and rehabilitation centres.
6. Her hatred hurt her more than it hurt Gasana; letting it go freed her, whatever it did for him.
7. She finds the word too neat and official ("a word for a report"). She prefers to describe what actually happens: they work together, are polite, and their grandchildren play on the same field.
8. Model answer: trust, like a coffee tree, grows slowly; it needs care every season (Gasana keeps coming back); and it can die if it is neglected.
9. No. The overall score measures many indicators of unity and reconciliation together, while the 45.1% answers one question about survivors' wounds. A society can live and work together peacefully while individuals still carry grief; the report itself says the work is not finished.
10. Open answer. For example: Text A shows that reconciliation is personal, slow and the survivor's choice, which no percentage shows; Text B shows that the experience is shared across the country and changing over time, which one story cannot prove.

5Vocabulary in context

6Language focus: talking about figures and change

When you report a survey, you need verbs and nouns of change, and the right prepositions after them. Look at how Text B, paragraph 3, does it: "The overall score has risen at every edition: from 82.3% in 2010 to 92.5% in 2015 …"

7Speaking and writing

1. Pairs (5 minutes). Using the chart only, Partner A describes the barometer scores in four sentences, using from … to, by and stood at. Partner B checks the numbers and the prepositions. Then swap: Partner B describes the report's warnings in paragraph 4.
2. Group discussion. "A country can be united without every person having forgiven." Do you agree? Each member gives one reason, and the group agrees on one sentence to report to the class.
3. Write (150–180 words). A short report for your school magazine titled "What the 2025 Unity Barometer tells us". Give the overall trend, two findings, one warning, and one thing young people can do. Use at least three expressions from the language table.