-
Advertorial
-
FOCUS
-
Guide
-
Lifestyle
-
Tech and Vogue
-
TechandScience
-
CHTF Special
-
Nanshan
-
Futian Today
-
Hit Bravo
-
Special Report
-
Junior Journalist Program
-
World Economy
-
Opinion
-
Diversions
-
Hotels
-
Movies
-
People
-
Person of the week
-
Weekend
-
Photo Highlights
-
Currency Focus
-
Kaleidoscope
-
Tech and Science
-
News Picks
-
Yes Teens
-
Budding Writers
-
Fun
-
Campus
-
Glamour
-
News
-
Digital Paper
-
Food drink
-
Majors_Forum
-
Speak Shenzhen
-
Shopping
-
Business_Markets
-
Restaurants
-
Travel
-
Investment
-
Hotels
-
Yearend Review
-
World
-
Sports
-
Entertainment
-
QINGDAO TODAY
-
In depth
-
Leisure Highlights
-
Markets
-
Business
-
Culture
-
China
-
Shenzhen
-
Important news
在线翻译:
szdaily -> Speak Shenzhen -> 
Remarkable Rwanda
    2018-07-16  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

James Baquet

When a Westerner hears of the central and east African country of Rwanda, the next word he thinks of might be “genocide.” Two of the country’s three groups have been locked in enmity for centuries, and in the 1990s civil war, one of them — the Hutu — gained the upper hand and in 1994 slaughtered an estimated 500,000 to 1.3 million of their Tutsi compatriots in just 100 days. It ended when the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) effected a military victory. The leader of the RPF became president in 2000.

Since then, the country has had little corruption (compared to its neighbors), though its human rights record has been criticized. The economy has recovered since the end of the civil war, with coffee and tea as export crops and tourism developing quickly. Rwanda charges high prices for visitors to view its mountain gorilla population. Otherwise, the economy is mainly based on subsistence agriculture.

The country lies in Africa’s “Great Lakes” region, with mountains in the west and savanna in the east. Like its southern neighbor Burundi (with which it was once jointly administered by Germany and Belgium), Rwanda is one of Africa’s smallest countries. The much larger Democratic Republic of the Congo lies to the west, and Tanzania to the east. Uganda is to the north.

Despite the Tutsi/Hutu violence, the people of Rwanda are actually of one linguistic and cultural group, along with the smaller group, the Twa, who are pygmies. They are all Banyarwanda, and speakers of Kinyarwanda. English, French, and Swahili — a widespread East African lingua franca — are also official languages. Scholars are uncertain how the Hutu and the Tutsi became divided. They may have once been the same people, who diverged as a result of class or other social differences; or they may have been different peoples who arrived separately and melded together into one socio-linguistic group, albeit with serious — and sometimes fatal — distinctions.

The country boasts traditional arts including drum music and highly choreographed dance. Arts and crafts include a unique style of visual art created with cow dung.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. small-statured people of Africa

2. hostility, hatred

3. caused, brought about

4. deadly

5. planned, as dance steps

6. manure, excrement

7. split, separated

8. countrymen

9. killed brutally, massacred

10. although, even if

深圳报业集团版权所有, 未经授权禁止复制; Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Shenzhen Daily E-mail:szdaily@szszd.com.cn