Rwandan Culture and Traditions

1Let's work out what Uwase saw

Let's look at Uwase's day at the wedding, piece by piece. This is our worked example.

Put all five of those together and you get one big word.

Culture is the way a people live: how they talk, how they dress, what they eat, how they dance, and what they make with their hands. Rwandan culture is your way of living. Now let's meet each part.

21. Our language: Kinyarwanda

In Rwanda, a child in Rubavu and a child in Kirehe can meet and understand each other straight away. Why? Because almost every Rwandan speaks Kinyarwanda.

Try these:

• Mwaramutse — Good morning
• Muraho — Hello
• Murakoze — Thank you

At school you also learn English, and some Rwandans speak French or Swahili too. Those are useful. But Kinyarwanda is the language that all of us share. It is like a rope that ties every Rwandan together.

32. Our dress: umushanana

Look at a Rwandan wedding, a church celebration or a national holiday. You will see women and girls in a long wrapped skirt with a beautiful cloth draped over one shoulder. This dress is called umushanana.

Men wear a smart wrap over one shoulder too, and dancers wear a long white cloth. Nobody wears umushanana to dig in the field! It is a dress for special, proud days.

43. Our food

Rwandan kitchens smell wonderful. Here is what is often in the pot:

• Isombe — cassava leaves pounded and cooked slowly, often with groundnuts
• Ubugali (also called umutsima) — a thick, soft food made from cassava or maize flour
• Ibishyimbo — beans, the food that fills you up and keeps you strong
• Ibirayi and ibitoke — potatoes and cooking bananas
• Ikivuguto — the sour milk many families love to drink

Milk has always been special in Rwanda. Long ago, giving a visitor milk was the warmest way to say, "You are welcome in my home."

54. Our dance and music

Rwandan dance is famous all over the world.

• Intore are the dancers of heroes. They leap high, shake their long headdresses and stamp the ground.
• Women dance gently, lifting their arms and swaying them like the tall horns of our long-horned cows.
• The ingoma (drum) gives the beat. When many drums play together, you feel it in your chest.
• The inanga is a wooden instrument with strings. A singer plucks it softly and tells a story.

65. Our crafts

Rwandans make beautiful things with their hands.

• Agaseke — a woven basket with a pointed lid. We give it as a gift, so people also call it the peace basket.
• Imigongo — art made with cow dung, dried and painted in black, white and red patterns. It comes from the east of Rwanda and it hangs on walls all over the world now.
• Clay pots, woven mats and grass hats.

7Why are we proud?

Because it is ours. Nobody else in the world has exactly this. Visitors fly for many hours just to see our dancers and buy our baskets. When you speak Kinyarwanda, wear umushanana or dance like an Intore, you are saying: "I know who I am. I am Rwandan."

Try it yourself

Try first, then tap Show answer to check.