Samuel Nshutiyayesu may need a bigger suitcase.
He came to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in September to build his knowledge and skills in conservation agriculture and learn the latest in remote-sensing and GIS and GPS technologies. He plans to return to his home country of Rwanda with that knowledge and, possibly, equipment, but he has discovered something else he’d like to take home ... Nebraska nice.
"I want to take this culture back home," the 45-year-old doctoral student said after his first month in Nebraska.
Nebraskans have shown themselves to be "loving and welcoming people," offering in so many ways to help him, he said. Even the Nebraska way of holding a door open for the person following after you caused him to marvel about the goodness of residents in the Big Red state.
"Maybe you can see it as reasonable, but when someone goes in front of you and opens the door and keeps the door for you to come. Maybe for here, it's just normal, but for a newcomer like me these small gestures carry significant weight," Nshutiyayesu said.
Nshutiyayesu works as a conservation ecology lecturer at the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture. He plans to alternate work at the institute with studies at Nebraska over the next few years, traveling back and forth, and then return home to Rwanda as a professor at the institute.
Launched in 2019, the institute sits on 3,400 acres in eastern Rwanda and receives support from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the Government of Rwanda. Many Nebraska professors have partnered with the institute, and Daniel Uden, a professor in the School of Natural Resources and Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, is advising Nshutiyayesu in both fields.
Continue reading the full story at Nebraska Today.
