Rwanda has hope

Read Havugimana Emmanuel's answer to How do Rwandans feel about Paul Kagame's vision of Rwanda as 'The Singapore of Africa'? on Quora

My experience with a post that confused some of friends

I updated my Facebook profile to indicate that I may attend MIT in 2016 September, simply 2016. But surprisingly, this brought confusion that I could not even have thought of, messages that I get on Facebook from Friends, are mostly about my experience at MIT, and I sometimes find a same person asking me this twice

Mostly I answer my Facebook friends that I am currently living In Butare, and then a series of Questions comes.

I am writing this post to really clarify that, I am in Butare and still here for around 6 months. Saying that I have an admission, I did not intend to mean that I am enrolled or I am enrolling in the next month after the post, and would apologize to anyone who may feel that I mislead him or her( I know some who told that they lied others)

There a bit difference in system of education around the Globe, Japanese start their academic year in April, Americans and many other start academic Year in September, and The same is for Rwanda’s tertiary  Education. Also the process of registering and admission vary a lot.

In Rwanda, We start to send in our admission applications some months after getting National Exam results out, approximately April-May, and proceed with loan application for admitted students based on Ubudehe categories, and scores.  Usually, There is little time between admission and enrolled which is in September.

For US, Student start to apply in October the year before their enrollment, and some getting their letter of admission in December or any day in the year before their Enrollment and most are still in the Senior year(still studying, as compare to ours who have graduated already), and Most student have their admission at least in April. All admitted student if they applied for semester which is standard starting Semester, Start at the same time whether admitted early Action Cycle or in Regular Decision.

I was admitted in Early Action and I am waiting for September if nothing strange happen.(die, who the probability is hardly 100% in nature)

Why didn’t I remove the message then?  It that it is not confusing and no one has suggested me to do that. It may also bring confusion or just messages that I deem unnecessary.

I lesson that I learned. I learned that most people, I included does not read all information in an updates, as in the update it was clear that it September, not January or February something.Next time, I will think twice or more before updating anything related to me.

Thank you for reading, If this did not concern you , not problem, but can also act as an example of how social media sometimes get people get a wrong message and may behave differently.

I hope that the messages about this will be reduced.

How to Know the own of phone number that called you? 

How do you get name of the phone number owner without asking them to tell you again their number? Here, I am with you how i did it with something come in Rwanda.

Here is what happened before i searched a person's name

Yesterday, I saw a missed called from a number that I did not have in my contacts, that means that I could not know the one who called me before calling him/her. I called him, and the voice seemed to be unfamiliar to me, as a person who never passes around houses when I want to know something, I asked immediately the name to verify if I really needed to call him for long. 

I needed to know name but didn't not get it

He resisted to tell me his name, and insisted on me telling him my name which I did not give him. I just believe that he really have to answer me before we continue our phone call. But my airtimes were over and could not really recharge my sim card for calling a strange who called me yesterday and missed me.

I did this to get his name and called him with his name in few seconds

I picked my Tigo sim card as he had called me with a tigo sim card and pretended that I was going to send him money with Tigo cash.I dialed *500# and followed with 1 ,  1, his number , Amount (the money I was pretending to send) and then his name was shown to me by Tigo before I can got to last step which is Entering my PIN(our Secret number, four numbers for Tigo). After this, I called him again asking if he is called a name x and he accepted and just end the call. In a few minutes, He called me back asking my name and saying that I really know him and that he wants to know my name, I just ended the call as I have found that he is not in my contacts, but I am going to reveal him the trick this week (He denied that he has called me but called me on the phone he called yesterday, which means he might be having me in his contacts. He called my Tigo SIM card while today I contacted him with MTN).

You can also do it (if you are in Rwanda)

This can be done on any SIM card provided that the carrier is the same, to mean TIGO-TIGO, MTN-MTN, and AIRTEL-AIRTEL. If you don’t have another sim card to use you can use any other sim card around provided you don’t try to Enter the PIN there is no problem around this approach.

Limitations are that All SIM card are not registered in this money transfer system of TIGO, MTN or AIRTEL. But a large number of numbers are registered as there is no cost to register your SIM card in TIGO, MTN or AIRTEL here in Rwanda.

A lesson, I learn and want to share 

What I learned is more than getting what I wanted but learned that sometimes potential solutions to some problems ae around and the best but sometimes ignore them or just no thing they exist. Everyone who has sent money with mobile know that he is shown the name of receive before one confirm that the transaction occurs but I think few going to resort for this method in case of a need.

The potential solutions that this can provide to some people and may be you. In Rwanda, or just at Home, I see some times people who phone stranger and get to know each and even spend nights calling sometimes nonsense or lying to each other on phone. Some people lie and lie their names first, with this trick you can use another SIM card or yours and Ask him/her if the name, you got is his or hers. If no, ask the person to connect you to that person, or to send message for you to that person. Probably they know each other as you cannot use ID not Register with A stranger’s ID. But this case for sure he/she is going to accept that he is called that name and then know the real name.

I can now make a better use of this trick, and you can also

Surprise someone or advertise your stuff to people clearly well. If you are a random phone number picker, you hit a random number and want to have someone to kill time on phone with, ask if he/she is called that name and then get closer enough than starting more a stranger.

I can also see some potential misuse of this information but this is not a place I can share those stuff as I cannot trust you are not going to do harm, but you can exploit this for good but with no harm to others

Go Impress someone , if you like that, and tell your story

Today Is International day for Mother tongues and go inspiration to write this post from a show that I saw on Rwanda TV. I was surprise at how I did not even know it was day for mother tongue

On the Mother tongues, Rwanda is among few countries on this world that almost all its citizen speaking one first language, but our language need to be raised to a higher level than we give it now. 

It is so common to find people mixing languages to the level that a Rwandan to understand all conversations or announcements need to have a grasp of about basic Kiswahili, French, English and  Youth’s Kinyarwanda (slang) to get the idea. Sometimes as the old people who do not caught what we are saying while they should be able to. This should not happen with this gift that Rwandans and some other people who a mother tongue that connect them preserve and embrace

I also feel ashamed to have a low level of Kinyarwanda in writing as I do not write often in Kinyarwanda, and I am not encouraged to as most of Kinyarwanda use is for speaking and listening while most writing and reading is done either in French and English. This is a result of the official correspondence in country being mainly made by educated people in business and politics which renders Kinyarwanda not that necessary for written communication. Also this is also compounded by lack of formal training in the basic language use in classes. In classes, we are not to the essential Kinyarwanda but the Linguist Kinyarwanda. I think the curriculum is more cryptic to be helpful in using Kinyarwanda. I think we should be taught Kinyarwanda for using like writing well letters, punctuation than name classes that are clear to us even the one who has not studied it.

I school we are taught in English and write highly in English than in Kinyarwanda,. As I a supporter of changing the language of instruction in School, I think  that  Rwanda education board should  start migrating some courses especially ones that require intense writing like Entrepreneurship and general paper in A level as this can allow unhindered communication of one’s idea and support use of Kinyarwanda as this approach can encourage people to think and write or share ideas in Kinyarwanda than the approach that is used up to now of teaching us subtleties of Kinyarwanda language which create in some of student the fear and the mindset that Kinyarwanda is complex.

I am dedicating this week to Kinyarwanda, especially thinking and writing about Kinyarwanda and would like comment and discussion, and I am planning to strength my writing skills in Kinyarwanda and raise my use of Kinyarwanda in correspondence with fellow Rwandans in case that will not hinder my acquisition of other languages.

I wrote this post in English as this can seem to concern more those who harm more our mother language and mostly can get to this post.

We may reverse this with your ideas and support. Please try to use one language at time so that we first reduce this kind of mixing.