So when I joined the team last month, I mentioned that I work in development. That means I move around to different countries, to work on various projects. And in two weeks, I will be moving to Rwanda, in Central Africa.

A couple of notes on this, for those who find such things interesting.

1)  Rwanda is not exactly a household name.  It’s a small country — about the size of Israel or Albania, a bit bigger than Wales — and right in the exact middle of Africa, just off the equator.  If the name strikes a bell, it’s most likely either for the horrific 1990s genocide; or for gorillas; or, more recently, for the British government’s dubious plan to ship asylum seekers there. 

This is a shame, because Rwanda is an extremely interesting country.  For starters, it has one of the fastest growing economies in the region.  A generation ago, it was one of the absolutely poorest countries in the world; today it’s near the top of the bottom decile, and by 2030 it will officially be “lower middle income”.  And if you spend some time in Kigali, you’ll understand why.  There’s not the frenetic energy you encounter in some other African capitals.  Instead there are clean streets, paved roads without potholes, people obeying traffic laws, and a general sense of determination and  — there’s no other word for it — discipline.  Rwandans are organized, and they plan ahead.  

A single minor example: Rwanda started with the usual African pattern of growing a few crops (coffee, tea), doing some mining, and exporting those primary products.  But they have no intention of keeping that pattern.  Rwanda has an industrial policy, and it is methodically implementing that policy.  They import palm oil from the DR Congo, and turn it into everything from paint to pharmaceuticals.  They import scrap metal from Tanzania and Kenya, run it through a couple of local smelters, and export it to Congo as rebar.  They’re working hard to climb the value chain on everything from potato chips to roof tiles.

As a development guy, this is extremely interesting, and I’m really looking forward to engaging with it.

2)  In case it’s not clear from the above, Rwanda is safe, clean, and has no significant security issues.  They’ve also done an amazing job of cutting back on tropical diseases.  (Which, for a Central African country, is no easy task.)  So, no need to say “keep safe!” or any such.  Kigali is literally safer than Seattle or Glasgow.

3)  On a personal note, I’ve been freelancing for the last year, and I’m really looking forward to full-time work again.  The nature of my job is that I run large development projects, usually for USAID.  This is both a career and a profession.  It requires a bunch of particular skills, some of which take a while to acquire.  So when I’m working, I’m paid pretty well.  But I have exactly zero job security and no assurance of continued employment after a project ends.  In fact, it’s finding another position immediately after a project ends is the weird exception: it’s much more typical to be thrown back into unemployment or freelancing.  So, as a career, it’s gig economy.  High end professional / white collar, but still gig economy.

To be clear, this is a description, not a complaint.  We don’t love the instability and insecurity, but it comes with the career, and we’ve learned to work around it.  That said, consider it another “who’s in the precariat” data point.

4)  Other than that, AMA.