Rwanda

Rwanda is folded into ridges and valleys so tightly that it is called the land of a thousand hills, and terraced fields climb almost every slope. Altitude keeps the air mild so near the equator. In the north-west the Virunga volcanoes shelter mountain gorillas in bamboo and cloud forest, and Lake Kivu fills a trough of the Albertine Rift. Chimpanzees live in the Nyungwe forest, while the east flattens into the savanna and lakes of Akagera.

For centuries a kingdom ruled by the mwami held these hills, and before colonial rule Kigeli IV Rwabugiri pushed its borders outward. Germany and then, from 1916, Belgium ruled through the monarchy; in the 1930s Belgian officials issued identity cards fixing each person as Hutu, Tutsi or Twa. Revolution from 1959 ended the monarchy, and independence followed in July 1962. The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, during which Hutu and others who opposed the genocide were also killed, lasted about a hundred days.

Cattle carry deep meaning: the long-horned Inyambo belonged to the royal court, and the gift of a cow seals a friendship. Intore dancers, crowned with long pale fibre, leap in the dance of heroes, and women in the east make imigongo, geometric panels moulded from cow dung. Meals lean on beans, plantains and isombe, pounded cassava leaves. Coffee and tea grown on the high slopes lead farm exports, tin and tantalum are mined, and visitors pay well to see the gorillas.