Getting to know Kinihira
Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 10:27am

Kinihira is a small village in Rwanda’s Western Province and is home to the Gishwati Area Conservation Program field station. A rocky, dirt road is ‘main street’ with a very tiny grocery store and bar as the village’s two businesses. Several dozen homes extend downhill connected by footpaths that follow the washouts from heavy rains and erosion. The houses are of brick construction from the sandy soil of the area. The brick is then covered with a mud plaster. Corrugated tin or tiles serve as rooftops and the floors are dirt.

There is no electricity or running water. Water must be collected in large plastic jugs from a central pump near the center of the village. Only seven percent of Rwandan has electricity and this village likely won’t be connected for several more years.

Kinihira was created following the genocide in the mid 1990’s and settled by Rwandan refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo. These people are famers, trying to subsist – most often with large families – on a hectare (2 ½ acre) of land provided by the government. They grow a variety of groups for their own consumption corn (maize), beans, cabbages, carrots, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes and bananas. There is often little left to sell which means for most of these families there is hardly any income.

The establishment of the GACP field station has helped this community, offering a variety of employment opportunities that is clearly appreciated by those of Kinihira village.

This villager from Kinihira was proud to tell us he was 75 years old.		A Kinihira woman works a small plot planting vegetables near her house.
The Kinihira village was settled following the genocide of the mid-1990s by Rwandan refugees living in the DRC.