Our District and Our Country
Primary 3 · Social and Religious Studies
Our District and Our Country
Lesson 3 of 3
14 min
Let's begin
Mugisha climbs to the very top of the hill behind his home. He is out of breath. He turns round slowly, all the way round.
Hills. Hills everywhere. Hills behind hills behind hills, going blue and soft in the distance. Down in the bottom, far below him, a thin silver line is shining. That is the river.
"Now I understand the name," he says. "A thousand hills." Today you will learn the names of the things Mugisha can see — and why the rain changes everything.
A landform is simply a shape that the land makes. Here are the ones you can see from Mugisha's hilltop.
A hill (umusozi) is land that rises up above the land around it. You get tired climbing it. Rwanda is covered in them — that is why we are called the land of a thousand hills.
A mountain is a hill's big brother: much higher, much steeper, and often cold at the top. Rwanda's mountains are up in the north-west. The highest of all is Mount Karisimbi, one of the volcanoes. It is so high that its top is sometimes white and freezing, even though Rwanda is a warm country.
A valley (ikibaya) is the low land between two hills. When you walk from one hill to the next, the low bit in the middle where you stop climbing down and start climbing up again — that is the valley.
A plain is a big piece of flat land. There is not much of it in Rwanda, but there is more of it in the east, out towards Nyagatare.
Here is one small rule that explains almost everything about water. Water always runs downhill. It never, ever runs up.
So follow the rain. It falls on the top of Mugisha's hill. It runs down the slope. Where does it stop? At the lowest place it can find — the valley.
That is why, in Rwanda, you find the streams, the rivers and the muddy marshes (wet, soft ground) down at the bottom of the valleys, and never on the hilltops. The water simply cannot get up there.
Now the shapes of water:
Here is a fine thing to know. The water that falls on your roof runs into a stream, the stream joins the Nyabarongo, the Nyabarongo joins the Akagera, the Akagera flows on to Lake Victoria — and from there its water travels north for thousands of kilometres as the River Nile. A raindrop from your own hill can end up in Egypt.
Rwanda does not have summer and winter. It is warm all year round. What changes here is the rain.
We have two rainy seasons and two dry seasons — four seasons in all.
| Season | Roughly when | What it is like |
|---|---|---|
| Itumba — the long rainy season | Around March, April, May | Heavy rain most afternoons. Everything is green. |
| Icyi — the long dry season | Around June, July, August | Sunny, dusty, hardly any rain. |
| Umuhindo — the short rainy season | Around October to December | Rain again, but less than in Itumba. |
| Urugaryi — the short dry season | Around January and February | Hot and sunny, with only a little rain. |
When the rains come:
When the dry season comes:
Steep hill + heavy rain = soil washing down into the river. Farmers lose the very soil they grow food in.
So Rwandans cut wide steps across the slope, one below the other, like a giant staircase. These are terraces. When the rain runs down, each step catches it and holds it, and the soil stays on the hill where it belongs.
People also plant trees and grass on the slopes — the roots grip the soil and hold it tight — and on umuganda day neighbours come together to dig drainage ditches beside the paths, so the rain has somewhere to go besides your doorway.
Tip
Water always runs downhill. That one sentence gives you the answer to almost every question in this lesson.
Where are the rivers and the marshes? Down in the valleys — because the water ran down there and could not climb back up.
And an easy way to keep the seasons apart: rain = plant (soft wet soil for the seeds), sun = dry and store (hot sun for the harvested beans).
Answer out loud first, then tap Show answer to check.
Uwase walks down from one hill and then up the next one. What do we call the low land she crosses in the middle?
Answer: a valley. A valley is the low land between two hills.
Would you expect to find a river running along the very top of a hill? Why?
Answer: no. Water always runs downhill, so it cannot stay on a hilltop. Rivers and marshes are found in the valleys, at the bottom.
Ishimwe's father is planting bean seeds. Which season has just begun?
Answer: a rainy season. Seeds need soft, wet soil to grow, so farmers plant when the rains start. If he planted in the dry, dusty ground, the beans would not come up.
Keza sees maize spread out on mats in the sun outside every house. Rainy season or dry season?
Answer: dry season. After the harvest, people dry their maize and beans in the hot sun so they can be stored without going bad. You cannot do that in the rain.
Mugisha's hillside is steep and bare, and the rain is washing his family's soil down into the stream. What can they build to stop it?
Answer: terraces — wide steps cut across the slope, one below the other. Each step catches the running water and keeps the soil on the hill. Planting trees and grass helps too, because the roots hold the soil.
Which is the biggest lake in Rwanda, and in which part of the country is it?
Answer: Lake Kivu, in the west of Rwanda.
Note
What you learned today:
Quick check
Where do you find rivers and marshes in Rwanda?
