Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology

Explore the vibrant beauty and vitality of 21^st century Rwanda, Land of a Thousand Hills, through its unique culture, nature and history.

In honor of the inauguration of West Chester University’s new field station in Rwanda’s Gishwati National Park, the Museum dedicated its tenth student co-curated exhibit to exploring the beauty and vitality of the Land of a Thousand Hills.

Although Rwanda is commonly associated with its troubled colonial past and devastating genocide in the late 1990s, this exhibit focused on the county’s diversity in its natural and cultural forms, the vitality of its people, and its continued resilience as the nation increasingly opens up to the world stage. Inspired by the new, post-conflict national anthem, Rwanda Nziza (“Beautiful Rwanda”), which specifically talks of the country’s rich natural beauty, “invaluable heritage” and “common culture.” The exhibition presented Rwanda's broader global context: nature and the research that is conducted at WCU’s field station; genocide and post-genocide unity; and the effect of globalization on daily life—from laws dealing with second-hand clothing to the cultivation of coffee and tea for global markets, from the increasing embrace of Western-style medicine to the adoption of English (rather than French) as its national language, and its push for increased English literacy.