2018年9月29日、ロドリグさんが郁文館グローバル高等学校で行なわれたアフリカに関するセミナーに参加しました。きっかけとなったのは、ロドリグさんが日本へ来る前である8月に、同校の生徒たちが、彼が在籍するプロテスタント人文・社会科学大学（PIASS）にスタディツアーで訪れたことでした。そして、参加した生徒たちがルワンダでの経験について発表するセミナーを開催することとなり、ロドリグさんがゲストとして招待され日本人の参加者から寄せられた質問に答えるなどしました。
多くの日本人がまだまだアフリカについて知らないことを知ると同時に、ツアーに参加した生徒さんたちが誇りをもって自分たちの体験を語ってくれたこと、そして多くの人々がアフリカに興味を持ってくれていることに喜んでくれたようでした。以下、ロドリグさんによりレポートになります。
On September 29th, 2018, I attend a festival at Ikubunkan Global High School. Some students, the friends of mine, had organized a seminar on Africa.
In fact, those friends of mine came, last August, to Rwanda at my home university. They were in a study tour. At that time, a group of 4 students from Ikubunkan and 17 students from PIASS, my home University had discussions on the causes of conflicts and how conflicts can be handled peacefully. That's where I met students from Ikubunkan for the first.
One week after reaching Japan, I heard that the students would present their experience from Rwanda through a seminar on Africa. I attended the seminar and I was happy to meet them again.
The seminar was done in form of exhibition: the students arranged a room with materials brought from Africa. Furthermore, they wrote down on papers their experiences, the history of genocide in Rwanda and other interesting stories from Rwanda. Also, they printed out pictures taken from their study trips. In few words, they were too creative.
The exhibition was interesting and people could get to know how the study trip looked like by observing only. Moreover, the students were also stood by in order to guide and explain to people even a single detail of their trip.
I took part in the seminar by showing on the map where Rwanda is located. Also, I answered questions of people about Rwanda in general and especially about the genocide.
All in all, I got two elements from the seminar: First, I appreciated how the Japanese students were proud of explaining to their fellows about Africa. Second, within the two hours I stayed there, I realized that many people who came in the seminar were adults. It seems that Africa is still an unknown continent even among Japanese adults. However, the interest is obvious and that is wonderful for me.
