Berkley Center

Background: As part of the Education and Social Justice Fellowship Project, undergraduate student Mariam Diefallah interviewed Eric Ngangare, a poet, blogger, singer, and storyteller. In the interview, conducted in June 2016, Ngangare—known popularly by his stage name, Eric 1Key—discusses his work as a storyteller and how that form of narration and telling of history can be helpful in building a Rwandan identity.

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

My name is Eric, and 1Key is my stage name. I am a poet and a performer of spoken word, and I do a lot of storytelling. I was born in Goma in the [Democratic Republic of the] Congo, and then I came to Rwanda in 1997.

How did you get involved in performing?

My background has affected a lot what I do today. You know how people say Africa is a big country? I know it is a bad joke, but it is somehow true. I am especially speaking about the sub-Saharan part. Most of the places are the same; people do things pretty much the same way. Like my family’s school was in the DRC...I tweet a lot, I liked exchanging ideas and questions, and sometimes it becomes funny, because I found out that back in the day, my experiences would be exactly the same as someone from a completely different place. We share a lot, the games we play, the schools, even the poverty we had to live through, because in the 1980s Africa was very poor and full of conflicts. So in that sense, our experiences are pretty much the same.

All the things I have been through, all the things I have seen in different places have shaped my perspective, and personally, I came to accept the fact that I am not just Rwandese or African. We are lots of things, as we all have absorbed a lot of experiences that shape how we are and how we make our decisions. That acceptance is what made me interested in performing.

You define yourself as a storyteller. What exactly is storytelling for you? How do you see it?

Storytelling, alright! So I would tell you something. As a child, I used to listen to Radio Rwanda, and every Tuesday—at 8:00 p.m. I think—there were soap operas on the radio, and it was like a movie. Every Tuesday, we used to listen to those things, and sometime they would be references to places from different countries, and I would not get those references. But you could hear a story about different people from you, where they come from, what they are like, the things they do...all those little things. What I am saying is we come from a storytelling society; calligraphy and writing came with colonizers. So stories are part of us.

I will give you another example from when I was a kid. Like others my age, we did not have much. We were very poor, and we did not have anyone to read a book to us, you know what I mean. So we had to find other ways to entertain ourselves, so we used to create stories, freestyle stories. So every time it was someone's turn, and they would have to create a story and tell it to us. I would say that is how I started in terms of having an imagination and creativity.

So basically, today, we live in a world where things are easily forgotten—especially here in Rwanda. In other places people for example have buildings that tell a story of their history, but we do not have that as everything is new. For us, it became like everyday is a new day, which is not a bad thing, but at the same time you need to know and connect to your roots. The only thing that we had from the past is our stories, our storytelling and poetry. Poetry was big; you had king’s advisors who were poets. Poets decided many things and had a lot of power. Every king who came to power had his own piece of poetry that defined who he is and his ancestors.

Now, when you go to the museum and you read a piece, even if it is in Kinyarwanda, you cannot really find yourself. The Kinyarwanda we speak now sounds like a different language from that time in history. It is only a hundred years old, but it sounds so different as it was very raw, which makes you realize how big the gap really is. It is a big discovery, and that is the only connection we have with the past. We do not have anything else that can tell us our stories. When I write, I write in English or French most of the time because the people I want to know the stories speak these two languages. So basically you could say I speak to the elite...not the elite but the educated. We have a word in Kinyarwanda that means to raise or to take care of somebody. That is education: it is not only schools’ education, but it is when you have values. I still educate myself on a daily basis. You have to learn from the people around you, to be open to the criticism.

I want to go back to your point on language. Does that limit your storytelling to Kigali, or do other people outside of Kigali speak English and French along with Kinyarwanda?

Not everyone speak English or French in Kigali to begin with. It is only among the well-educated. I do write in Kinyarwanda sometimes, but there is always a fear in a way to write in your own language. I think this fear goes back to the education system, as you memorize everything without having an opinion in your own voice and your own language. That cause another problem, because there are things that cannot really be translated into English or French. There are feelings in Kinyarwanda that you cannot really say in other languages. This is actually how Kinyarwanda is: it is poetry.

You mentioned early the importance of learning history, especially in a young country like Rwanda, but do you think this sentiment is opposed by younger generations who have not been through the same past and could be more fixated on the future?

I understand what you mean, but we only learn from our mistakes. I think younger generations are not interested in the past because we are not really talking about it. All our stories begin either before 1994 or after 1994. We cannot avoid it, as all of our stories seem to have happened in the past two decades. What we have to understand is that history is not where the story begins. This is what some of my storytellings are about, about the history we do not know much about.

So which history should Rwandans go back to? Which history are you talking about?

The thing is history is almost written by the winners, and the history I talk about is about Rwanda through the eyes of the dynasty. That history would talk to you about the king, the beauty of the country, the surroundings, and some other Rwandan values. But that talks about a very small portion of the population, so the only stories we actually have, the ones we romanticize, are those stories. At the time, some poets were even commissioned by the court to recite poems for the king, so the history I am talking about has many problems, but it is all we have; it is all we can access.

Do you think it is possible to escape that narrative through storytelling?

I cannot escape it, but I can only try to relate to some of it. Like I try to find some details that I can use to create new stories. I talked about that in my album, as I talked about the dichotomy of who I am, where I was born, and my conflicts as a person. For my next album, I do not want it to be about me. I want it to be about the people, about the culture itself, and what I want to do is to go down to some other places in Rwanda to talk to people and know their hopes. I want to listen to them and tell their stories in a different language to make it go further. Those stories are not the politically correct stories—they are not what many people want to hear—but I do not think there is anything wrong with trying to learn where we went wrong.

In one of your poems, you mention how conflicting a Rwandan identity is, and you use your own name—Eric—to describe that. Can you elaborate a little bit on what you meant by that?

I think we all have conflict with our identities. I guess only the brave will admit it. If you say your name is Abu Bakr and I say my name is Patrick, of course we will be able to already guess some things about each other's backgrounds. Sometimes you have to embrace some parts of your history; for me I have embraced it. I will give you an example. Here we used to have different ethnic groups: Tutsis, Hutus, and Twas. But for ethnic groups to be different, they have to have different languages, practices, or things like that. But here, it was really weird because we actually speak the same language.

Why is it important to go back to that history, especially if it is going to confuse the current stories and narratives told? Or, when is it important to go back to that untold part of history?

I will tell you the truth: the root cause of the evil is the superiority complex. The problem starts when you feel that since your grandfather is this or that, you are better than other people. When you think because of your light skin, you are better than others. This is the main problem. If we are educated enough to understand that what you were told is not necessarily the right thing, you will be more interested in going back in history and studying how this began. I will give you an example. Nowadays, we are doing well. We say we do not have any ethnic groups, but in fact, when April comes, you mention the same ethnic groups, and during testimonies people use the same words: Hutus and Tutsis. You basically go back to that history, to that same narrative you are trying to move on from. It is much more complex than what we think; it is not something we can easily solve.

We need to teach kids at schools their histories, instead of teaching them about the Cold War and world wars. They need to go back and know their own history. If we do not talk about it now, I will stick to my own narrative, and others will stick to theirs, but then one day those narratives will become the problem and a reason of conflict, because people are still not deeply convinced that we can be different and that our differences should be okay. We do not realize we are mixed up. For me I only know my grandparents; I cannot trace my ancestors. For example, my grandpa used to talk about his father and how glorious he was, but he never talked about his mother, never, so how much do I really know about my history? It is complex, but if people start talking about it, it becomes like football: we will pass it, because the more we keep inside, the more it becomes a big problem and a complex of superiority and inferiority.

Just like patriotism, it is good to love your country, but you first have to ask yourself how much you know about your country to love it. Loving your country should not mean you hate others or feel like you are better than other countries, because that becomes fanaticism that can bring hatred towards others.

Going back to your earlier point on education, can storytelling provide an alternative platform of education?

It depends on the format. I hate telling people what they should or should not be. It should be more about discussions and learning from each other. This is why I did not like going to school as a child. The process should be about imagination, about digging, exploring, and creating things. The problem is even teachers do not know that. Many of them are not educated enough to understand that, so as a child I did not know that either, but now I do. This is why I question those things through my storytelling. I see myself as an eye that looks around, but that also looks inside myself. At the end of the day, it is all about perspectives and opinions. I am not right or wrong, but I am sharing my ideas, and I want people to understand that.

You mentioned last time we met that you are working on a project of storytelling workshops at schools. How do you see the future of that project?

Alright, why am I doing this, first of all? It is something that I have been planning to do for about one year and a half, but I knew I could not just jump into it, as I needed to create a system. First of all, it is not just about me. It was only when I was 20 years old that I discovered I have a talent of storytelling; nobody has ever told me that before. When I was a child, I used to daydream a lot. I was just in my world, and people would say I am always distracted. But it was only recently when I realized that that was what made me creative; I could see worlds that no one else could see. So I thought, what if there is a kid who also has this talent and was told it is a bad thing? A kid who has the potential to make good work, who can make it earlier than I did? I always say poetry is about the truth, it is about being honest, it is having a picture that is bigger than yourself. So, I am thinking why cannot we have a group of 10 kids, and each kid gives me five or 10 words—it will become a poem. I have done that actually in previous workshops. I gave people the words, and you suddenly had 100 poems, 100 ideas written from the same words.

Another idea can be letting people write pieces, without putting their names on it, and shuffling them and read them out loud. Eventually after doing that, you will have a very rewarding result, as you will get genuine feedback without being afraid of sharing your pieces. Because you will first learn to create: you create worlds and people, you learn how to choose words and increase your vocabulary on a daily basis. You also get to learn about new things, references and new people and places, while doing research for your new writings. You find yourself learning about psychology, philosophy, and many other things. When kids start asking more questions in their houses and at schools, teachers and adults around them will eventually have to find answers for them, and with time, there might be a shift in the system.

My last question for you is how do you see your future as a Rwandan storyteller?

I do not know how to answer that question. I always think I will die soon. It gives me the urge to keep creating and writing, not to have the luxury of time. I have a lot of ideas that needs more money, and my society is still struggling with the basic needs, which is a real challenge. Art right now is still a luxury. If I have enough money, I can build theaters, creative spaces, and just allow people to be themselves.