Nyakatsi (Rwandan Thatched House)

Nyakatsi is the Kinyarwanda term used for grass-thatched houses, the traditional dwellings of Rwanda, whose grass covering formed a dome or beehive shape. The form was used at every social level, up to the royal palace. From December 2009 the Rwandan government ran a national campaign, widely known as "Bye Bye Nyakatsi", to eliminate thatched houses and move families into homes with metal roofs.

The traditional house

Rwandan houses were roofed with grass. The royal residence was the grandest version. At the King's Palace Museum in Nyanza, a reconstruction of the 19th-century palace in traditional materials shows a beehive-shaped thatched dwelling formed of three huts, and visitor information notes that the huts of the old capital were built by the same methods. Similar beehive houses of poles and grass were built in neighbouring Burundi, where they are called rugo (see Mugamba rugo).

The Bye Bye Nyakatsi campaign

The Ministry of Local Government said the campaign began in December 2009, when about 120,000 Rwandan families lived in grass-thatched houses. By the end of March 2011, about 18,000 families remained to be rehoused; in Kigali, 1,093 replacement houses had been built for the 1,559 thatched houses recorded before the campaign. Officials gave as reasons the fire risk of thatch, especially as electricity spread, snakes and insects living in roofs, the recurring cost of repairing thatch through the rainy seasons, and the view that thatch was a symbol of poverty.

The government budgeted about US$10 million. The army distributed corrugated metal sheets and other materials, and many new houses of brick or stone were built through umuganda, Rwanda's community work days.

Criticism

The campaign was criticised by Batwa advocacy groups and international organisations. The Batwa organisation COPORWA reported that roofs, and in some cases whole homes, of 720 Batwa families were removed before replacement housing or sheets were supplied, leaving many in crowded temporary shelters; only about 100 of those families had new homes at the time. The local government minister acknowledged mistakes by some local leaders and said they had been ordered to find rented or shared housing for those affected. Commentators also suggested that national image was a motive alongside welfare.

Outcome

By the 2022 census, grass roofs had all but disappeared: in the public microdata file, grass accounted for about 0.01% of records, against 73.6% iron sheets and 26% local clay tiles (unweighted shares).

Sources and gaps

The final completion date of the campaign and the total number of houses rebuilt: published information is limited. The Kinyarwanda term for the traditional house type as a whole and details of traditional grass species and thatching technique were not found in published sources.