Kigali, Rwanda

I started this blog about one month ago, but I have just been too busy to complete it and post it, so here i go. Kigali, Rwanda was my first stop on my African vacation. Kigali is a beautiful hilly town which is by far cleaner than most cities in America. Here is the view of the city from the house where I crashed one night. The city sort of reminds me of San Francisco.

My first night I had a homemade pasta meal from Iyanna (a Kiva fellow from my class) and went to the Goete Institute where I saw traditional Rwandan dancing and saw Nasar Abadey & Supernova, a US based jazz band -- thanks to the United States Embassy.

The next day, President Paul Kagame was inaugurated for his 2nd term in Kigali. We (Sara, Jonas, Iyanna and I) woke up at 6:00 a.m. and took motos to the stadium. We hoped we would be able get an actual seat in the stadium, but we were too late. We had to sit on the lawn outside the stadium with the other locals and wait for the President. Although there were plenty of mzungus (whites) inside the stadium, we were the only mzungus in the area outside of the stadium. We made a lot of friends and got a lot of assistance from the Rwandan National Police. I chatted one up, well I attempted to communicate with him but he did not speak English. However, the policeman later pulled us out of a crowded area and let us sit in the front row of our section. It was interesting because Iyanna is African American and she stated that she never really gets to experience "white privilege," especially in Africa where they assume she is a local. I never really thought about it before, but I definitely noticed that we were getting special attention and consideration from the National Police. Below is a photo of Kagama during his inaugural address and a photo of two young boys who sort of hung around us. The little one with the camera was especially sweet offering me a drink of his water, which I couldn't drink because it came from their local tap.

Kigali, Rwanda is an interesting place. Another fellow and I went to the Genocide Museum where we learned about the events leading up to the genocide and the genocide itself. It was weird to walk around Kigali afterward knowing that such atrocities occurred probably right where we were walking. Rwandans are also pretty reserved but friendly, and it seem unreal that such an event could have taken place 16 years ago.

Kigali is also a very orderly place in an almost unnatural way. The local population definitely respect the police. Street hawking and begging have been outlawed. A few times I was sitting at a cafe and watched people running down the street with a police officer walking calmly behind them.

Another interesting thing about Rwanda - being identified as Hutu or Tutsi has been outlawed as well. Kagame is trying to create a society where people do not identify by their "tribes", but identify through a national identity of Rwandan. I am interested to see how it works out for them. In Tanzania, the first President Julius Nyere (I believe that is his name), has been credited for helping Tanzanians identified with a national identity and not a tribal identity.

Finally, there has been recent accusations of a double genocide where Tutsis have entered the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and killed off Hutus. Kagame addressed it briefly in his inaugural speech and obviously very critical of such allegations from the UN.

I also crossed the border into Burundi, which is the total opposite of Rwanda. In Rwanda, you feel relatively safe, and in Burundi you have to look over your shoulder to make sure someone isn't going to follow and mug you. However, I also found some fantastic people in Burundi, especially a fellow named Cedric.

I went with another fellow to Burundi and silly us did not change money at the border. We were armed with a Lonely Planet map of the capital city, but soon discovered that it was totally incorrect. Using my horrible French skills from high school, I approached Cedric for directions to change money. Cedric kindly offered to pay for our bus ride to the money exchange location and he never even asked from payment in return. We obviously paid him for our bus fare and a little extra because he really did not have to help us.

That's the thing about being here in sub-sahara Africa. You can have several really horrible experiences with some people, but there are also so many kind people who help you along the way. I always wonder if I was in America and I was stranded somewhere without any money - would someone stop to help me. Especially someone who doesn't have much?