Discovering Kigali!

Kigali has been fantastic. We got settled in, although didn't think it through all the way. Putting up bednets without the staff's help proved to be quite difficult, but a really fun exercise in engineering and teamwork. Mine failed miserably the first day (there's apparently a picture of me wrapped up in it like a cocoon...) but now I've got it figured out.

Anyways, meals at the guesthouse are fantastic and got us started to head downtown. We wanted to see the city, so we decided to walk. We ended up going through what was formerly the most dangerous slum in Kigali (its ok now, but was still an interesting experience- we stopped right in the middle to ask about the bus system), but were glad we did it. The city is amazing. The Land of a Thousand Hills lives up to its names, really big hills that at the top you can see across the whole city. We finally made it town to buy cell phones (they had never seen my American one and didn't speak English, but we got it to work, $14 for the card and 55 minutes!) We ate at a restaurant with Sportscenter on (not because of that, I swear, but it was nice!) and later hung out at Hotel Rwanda, the subject of a popular American movie and famous story of bravey. We actually learned today that the manager of the hotel was not as humanitarian as he appeared, charging people outside of his family to come in, and that Rwandans don't consider him a hero. It was still an interesting landmark, although not quite as erie to me as my visit to the apartments in Munich where the Israelis were killed during the Olympics. Hotel Rwanda was a place of hope and safety, it's the rest of the landscape that meant terror and brutality for so many.

Thursday was very intense. We listened to the owner of the guesthoues tell his story of survival during the genocide. He was found twice, and was incredibly lucky both times, through personal connections and the interahamwe's miscommunication. It was an incredible backdrop for the genocide memorial that afternoon. The memorial is supported by lots of foreign governments, which is great but incredibly frustrating.  We've talked a lot about this here, but it's just another example of where we would rather build a memorial than take the risk to stop the atrocities. The number of troops needed to stop the genocide was less than the number Western countries sent to evacuate their embassies. Unbelievable.

There were two sections of the memorial that got to me the most. The first were testimonials from people who were about my age or younger in 1994, reliving the experience of being forced to watch their parents being tortured to death. I thought of my own family, and simply cannot imagine. The other section I remember most was about children, detailing their hobbies, interests, and dreams, and finally when and how they were murdered. The memorial was a great thing to do, with exhibits dedicated to genocide awareness from other places like Germany and Cambodia, memorial gardens, and graves of 250,000 victims to give them a dignified burial.

We woke up Friday morning and had our first class, on law in general. It's going to be really interesting, I think justice relates a lot to economics and development, so I really will benefit a lot from this. The shower was rough- water pressure for hot water varies wildly. We left for downtown, talked to the driver a lot about driving and the police in Kigali. They are just standing on the side of the street and wave if you need to pull over. Naturally I told him about the opposite, police chases, in America.

We took a tour of the city later in the day and that was fantastic. Our tour guides were very friendly, but I got the impression as government employees they have their required talking points for tourists. We stopped at the memorial where 10 UN peacekeeping troops were killed, which was a little odd. There was no Kinyarwandan, the local language, there, since it was paid for by Belgium. With almost a million people killed here in 1994, it felt weird going to a memorial for 22 people total, white or not. We saw tons of UN offices, the  "red light district", the soccer stadium that holds 25,000, the very nice golf course, the pottery shop in a slum that a Canadian firm buys from for exports, and the very developed area with incredible houses. With all the slums in the vallies and development on top of the hills, they overlook people living on less than a dollar a day. However, everyone I talk to here says the development since 2ooo is unbelievable. From what I can tell, its businesses coming. I talked to a guy at the bar last night who came here from Tanzania because the economy is so much better. 

We went out for dinner, which is usually very expensive unfortunately, but I think we've just been stuck in the tourist areas so far. We had heard about prostitution, but saw it firsthand when a German guy sitting next to us came up and whispered that the women are very nice here as he led his girl back to his room. I wish I had to told him to get the hell away from me, but I had no idea what to do with lots of people around and just said I didn't agree with it.

Clubbing was a lot of fun- basically our whole group went down the street to the most popular club in Kigali. It was predominantly male (just like the States), but we had a blast and will probably be back. 

When we first arrived in Arusha I was really on edge about hygiene, like water and food and mosquitos. While I still am taking all the necessary precautions, we've definitely relaxed our standards and been fine.

We've also been meeting tons of folks along the way, locals and fellow travelers. Even here, a lot of people have Facebook and having a local phone number helps us to connect as well.  We've only met one other American group, from Baylor here for two weeks studying microfinance; I wish more Americans would come to Kigali and Africa in general, but I also like being unique and interesting to the locals.