"Does Your Majesty fly coach?" asked Assistant Professor of Politics Pierre Englebert.

"Yes," replied the exiled king of Rwanda.

"And under what name should I buy your ticket?"

"King Kigeli V."

And later: "King, what an interesting first name," remarked the airline representative when Englebert called to buy the ticket.

"No, he really is a king!"

When Englebert described these phone conversations to his seminar class--Political Economy of Africa--the students laughed. After all, there was something a bit surreal about a living, breathing king visiting an undergraduate class to talk about his former kingdom. No one was sure how they should respond. "Should we call him King Kigeli or Your Majesty?" one of the students asked. "I don't know the protocol for talking to kings," answered Englebert.

It all began when sophomore Heidi Balch '03, while reporting on a research project about Rwanda, mentioned that the former king sometimes spoke at colleges. The "wouldn't-it-be-funny?" quickly became a "why-not?" and within a few weeks--with funding from the International Studies Program --the class found itself lunching with a real-life monarch.

As the students gathered nervously around the table, they felt a bit like children gathering around their father. At nearly seven feet in height, Kigeli dwarfed them all. But there was nothing intimidating about this gentle giant. As the students went around the table introducing themselves and telling him about their case studies for class, he wore a bemused grin. At each interesting point, he raised his eyebrows, which only showed up once raised, since they were usually hidden by his angular silver-rimmed glasses. His face spoke of a long, trying life.

In 1961, King Kigeli V Jean-Baptiste Ndahindurwa of Rwanda was in Kinshasa to meet with Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjold when the Belgian government exiled him. A subsequent UN resolution urging Belgium to allow the King to return fell on deaf ears. Since then, King Kigeli has been in exile--in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and eventually the United States, where he was granted political asylum. After his arrival in the U.S., he became increasingly vocal with the international community seeking change in Rwanda. He entered the public light most visibly with his prophetic 1993 warning of a possible genocide to come.

Since 1994, when nearly a million Tutsis were slaughtered by Hutus, the king has been appealing to Rwandans and the international community to support his return as a catalyst for national reconciliation. Although he is Tutsi, he's seen by some as being above ethnic distinctions of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa--especially since there was intermarriage of these groups within his dynasty.

Over lunch, the king spoke mainly Bantu dotted with French. He didn't seem to understand English, despite 40 years in anglophone countries. Except for a brief, enthusiastic exchange in Swahili with a student who had studied in Kenya, the entire conversation was conducted through a translator who sat at the King's side. Kigeli ate his modest salad slowly, his fork in his right hand pausing as he listened to questions.

"Under what conditions would you return to your country?" one student asked.

"If the Rwandan people want me back," came the translation.

"Do you have support from the international diplomats to return to the monarchy, or is it just a dream?" asked Englebert.

"The majority of Rwandans are in favor of my return, some of whom still don't have the courage to show themselves," came the guarded reply. In short, he is waiting to be invited--and even if that were to happen, he has a right to be careful. In Burundi, the president invited the old monarch back, only to kill him.

When asked why he thought his return would remedy the ills of the past 40 years, the King's repeated response was that his "children" would behave themselves when their "father" returned.

His listeners wanted to believe, but most weren't sure. As Englebert sadly remarked: "My children fight even when I'm there."

--Brigitte Buergler '02