Kigali Rwanda

So these are some pictures I am finally able to post! The one with the black barrel is the moonshine factory, which I talked about in the last entry. At the bottom, I am "helping" cut planks of wood from a large tree. It's a two person saw, so there is a guy under the log sawing as well. Mostly everyone just laughed at me. You can also see one of the widows we work with holding up one of her handmade baskets, as well as a shot of Kampala...what a crazy city that was. Also included is a shot of the Kings' Tomb in Kampala, the equator experiment, and a shot of Laura, Jovanice (the Ugandan) and I, just after working on the garden behind us. And, if everything posts as planned, there should also be a picture of the Rubingo landscape ( the green hills) as well as a shot of the popular method for gathering water. For those of you who don't know, you can click on the pictures to see a bigger version.




I'm currently back in Mbarara, after our trip down to Kigali, Rwanda. We left on Friday morning, and had planned on taking one of the large regional busses straight down to Kigali. When we arrived at the gas station where the bus would pick us up, we were immediately approached by a private taxi driver. A couple of the girls in our group asked their taxi how much it would cost to drive down privately, and he said he had a friend who had a 15 person taxi-van that could do it. The driver's name was Ben, and he came bouncing into the gas station in his van, the word "SENOR" spelled out in flaming blue decals across the top of the windshield. He jumped out of the car with a smile, and we began bargaining over a price. We eventually weighed out the positives and negatives, and realizing that we'd have to wait another four hours for the bus, decided to opt for the slightly more expensive taxi-van. It wasn't until long after hopping in that I received an email from the ACTS director advising against these little busses. Fortunately, our ride was fairly smooth, and Ben drove quite slowly.....frusturatingly so, actually. When we finally reached the border, we had to switch taxis, as Ben did not have the appropriate papers to get back into Uganda. After waiting about 25 in no man's land ( the area between the two borders) Ben negotiated a price with another taxi, then paid them himself and sent us on our way. At the Rwandan side, a man wearing normal street clothes approached our van and insisted we show him our passports, as he claimed to be the immigration officer. We were a little sketched out, but he just glanced to see we had the appropriate stamps and handed back our passports. Then, he took our new driver aside, and a pretty heavy argument ensued. We're not sure what happened, but after another 15 or 20 minutes, we started to drive away, and the "immigration officer" yelled angrily, until the driver stuck some bills out the window and into his hand. It was a little suspicious, but luckily no money was taken from us, and we were left out of the transaction completely.

On the other side of the border, we switched back to driving on the right hand side, and started winding around the mountain on a very curvy road, the outside of which usually bordered very steep cliffs. Rwanda's landscape was beautiful. It was much like Uganda's, but there were more hills ( they do call it land of a thousand hills), all of which were very tall and steep. Instead of ending slowly, the hills dropped off abruptly, forming many small, perfectly flat and intensely farmed valleys. At one point, we did see a rust covered carcass of a former taxi-van lying on the side of the cliff....not the most encouraging thing.

When we reached Kigali, we were driven to our hotel, and had a chance to explore the city and grab some food. The downtown itself was very clean, apparently the trash cans that lined the streets were just put up last week. Another difference from Uganda was that the boda-boda drivers drove big motorcycles instead of the scooter like things they driver here, and they were all required to wear helmets, and provide one for the rider. That law also was just put into effect a few weeks ago. The police just kicked all the boda drivers out until they got helmets.

At first, we were all a little intimidated by Rwanda. Maybe it was just the idea of being in a country with such a recently horrific past, but I was definitely on edge for the first few hours in town. Evidence of the genocide was still present, mostly in the form of a higher than usual presence of people missing limbs or appendages. Aside from that, however, we were all surprised to see what a modern city Kigali has become. It has lots of tall buildings, and there many under construction, with billboards offering a look at what the new projects will look like. This may be due to a large inflow of foreign aid after the genocide, but I'm not sure. It would be very interesting to find out how this country managed to rebound from the genocide so quickly, especially considering the deeply ingrained hatred that existed between the two groups.

We visited the genocide museum, where almost 300,000 of the 1.5 million people killed are buried. They are still collecting bodies from around the country as the killers begin talking about where they may be. There are many mass graves full of coffins, each holding about 50 bodies. We all assumed this meant they were very large coffins, but they are regular sized, but the remains are just bones, and many partial bodies, so 50 people are laid to rest in each coffin. The memorial itself just opened in 2004, and is very well done. We learned a lot about the events leading up to the genocide, as well as how it could have obviously been prevented. Even my man Kofi Annan screwed up. After visiting the main memorial, we drove out of town to a Nturama church (I'm not sure that was how it was spelled). During the genocide, 5000 people hiding there were slaughtered, and the site has been untouched since. It is now an official memorial as well. We walked into the main church, the stained glass smashed in and holes in the brick walls. Skulls lined shelves put up, and there were piles of bones throughout the church. Almost all of the skulls had evidence of injury, with large cracks and pieces missing. Some still had the sharp metal weapons imbedded in them. Needless to say, it was a pretty shocking experience.

After seeing all of that, it was crazy to think about how most of the people on the streets were involved in the genocide not so long ago. Some would have known victims, some would have been killers. A very strange feeling, for sure.

We also managed to get a room at the Hotel Milles Collines, which is the actual site of the Hotel Rwanda experience. Its actually a fancy hotel, and we papmered ourselves there for a day and a night, lounging by the pool sipping drinks and talking. We also treated ourselves to dinner there. The restaurant is on the top floor, and is acovered balcony, giving us a view of all of Kigali. It was pretty darn nice, and somewhat affordable considering the strength of the dollar. But still, a strange feeling considering the events that happened there 12 years ago.

On the last day in Kigali (yesterday), we woke up and had an amazing breakfast up at the restaurant, then zipped down to the craft market. After haggling over African goodies, we went back up to the hotel and had a couple hours before catching the bus. And it was those couple hours before boarding the bus that I finally was visited by the intense nausea and dia-dia fairy. I was in agony for two hours, and although I did not vomit, was sure I would if I boarded a bus that drives crazy fast on windy mountain roads smashed full of hot, sweaty people. I figured I would take some pills and pass out, and hopefully would last the 5 hours until Mbarara without throwing up. Of course, when we boarded the bus, we were surprised to find out we had no seats. Apparently, we had been "mislead" into thinking we were purchasing seats. Instead, we had purchased tickets to stand. I made myself as comfy as possible on the floor of the bus, and hoped for the best. The Gravol I took was kicking in, and my body started insisting I should go to sleep. It wouldn't have been impossible to fall asleep, except that my portion of the isle was
right above the engine, so I could not stay in one spot for more than a few minutes without being burnt. I eventually rigged up a water bottle seat, and tried to go to a happy place. After the border, I sat on the ground next to a super nice Burundi man, who at one point insisted I take his seat for a while. I rested there, and was very thankful for great people like him. I somehow made it back to Mbarara without incident, although I still can't believe I didn't puke everywhere. The wonders of modern medication, I suppose.

Now today, we head back to Rubgino, where once again I will be immersed in the poverty stricken rural people. Hopefully I'll have access to the internet this weekend. Happy Halloween!