Final thoughts on Rwanda

One of my favorite travel websites doesn’t have a country summary of Rwanda. So here’s my version:

Intro: If you tell anyone you’re planning a trip to Rwanda, most people will think you’re absolutely mad. That goes to show the news hasn’t talked about what’s happened since the 1994 genocide. That is: it’s pulled itself together and actually put to good use the aid money that came in in the years following. For example, they have a goal to be completely internet-wired throughout the country by 2020. Yet there is still an undercurrent of paranoia, much like in Israel, thanks to the armed guards that wait on every corner of Kigali. There is peace right now, but my feeling is that it’s fragile. There are grenades that go off at the bus stations every few months, for example. And the anti-Tutsi movement is still alive and well just across the border in the DRC—the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Rwanda is a country full of surprises. It’s the cleanest, most orderly African country I’ve visited. You can eat its salads with no worries of future indigestion. It’s stunningly beautiful, and infrastructure is paved.

There are also more white people in Kigali than in Accra.

Nevertheless it’s the last country I would want to live in all of our travels. Because of its lack of healthcare—it’s strange to never hear ambulances—and for the unsettling feeling it gave me (for Jacob Morocco is the country that ranks dead last—Rwanda at least has basketball), but I’m very glad we visited it. It’s a heartbreaker. No other area of the world, as far as I can tell, has seen the sorrows that Rwanda, Burundi, the Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Uganda—where we are now—have seen.

Highlights: We only visited Kigali, the Hotel Des Milles Collines (Hotel Rwanda), and its genocide memorials and the gorillas, both of which are important to see. There’s a Mother Teresa orphanage with really adorable, very normal seeming young children.

Lowlights: In typical African fashion, there’s just not a whole lot to do. Rwandan service isn’t quite up to par, and they are notorious for taking your food before you’re finished if you’re not watching. Jacob had an Indian make mishti doi (sweet curd) as a gift for him. Jacob left it on the table, untouched, to go look at the scores on the TV in the same room for one minute. In the meantime, a waiter came and whisked it away! Just one example of many.

How to book the gorilla safari: Go with any tour company in town. We used Jamba Tours and Travel. They will arrange everything, including transport ($200 unless you can find someone to share with) and picking up the $500 permits. Doing it last minute like us, you will need to use a company anyway, because the official tour office will tell you they’re booked solid, but somehow tour companies can always find extra permits. Be sure to bring a rain coat, rain boots, and a change of clothes because you WILL get soaked. It’s a rainforest. And it’s not hiking. It is trekking—the roughest hiking I’ve ever done in my life. There are no footpaths at points, the mud can go up to your knees, there’s stinging nettle, and hail. There were 75 year old grandparents on our trek though, who run an NGO in Liberia. I want to be like them when I grow up

Visa strategy: No visa necessary for Americans for 3 months.

Getting around: Regular taxis can be so expensive ($20 for a simple roundtrip around town) that the moto taxis become the most logical answer. From 200-1000 francs per ride. They are actually quite safe and though you can’t tell because of the picture, passengers are legally required to have helmets.

The matatus (shared vans) are very cheap if you can find someone to direct you which one to take. Nyabugogo is the major bus stop, and from here you can reach Ntarama, one of the churches that was a scene to some of the most tragic episodes of the genocide. I did not see anywhere to rent a car or motorbike to self-drive, though I did see an ad to rent a bike.

Costs: Living in Kigali, Rwanda is unfortunately more expensive than Europe in some ways. Reasonable-standard accommodation comes with its price tag. Wifi is so slow that purchasing a ($100) internet stick at the MTN office in the mall is advised.

Money: The ATM at the aiport literally ate our Visa card upon arrival. We had to return the next day to retrieve it. It then ate it again. There is one international ATM machine at Ecobank at the back entrance up the hill past the mall. To get USD, which is needed to purchase gorilla visas, the bank in the mall takes Visa credit cards to do cash advances.

Guidebook: I read some of the Bradt in Google books.

People vibe: Solemn until you smile; then they’ll smile back. Pleasant, shy, and soft-spoken. We had several offers to hang out which often fell through. Not sure if it was flakiness or just the offers weren’t genuine?

Tourist factor: If all you do is go see the gorillas (which is all many people do who visit the country) then 10/10. Otherwise, you’ll get plenty of attention as a mzungu (European or white person).

Accommodation: We stayed at the only hostel in town, which location was so inconvenient we switched to Hotel Okapi, run by an LDS woman and with excellent food made by a Calcutta chef.

Media: There are books for sale in Nakumatt, the Walmart-style store inside the Union Trade Center. I recommend Dian Fossey’s Gorillas in the Mist as well as any books you can get your hands on about the genocide.

Food: Lunch buffets at hotels run only 1500 francs, or about $3. Like most African food, the basis is starchy carbs in many varieties from potatoes to plantains to rice/noodles. But—salads here are safe. I can’t emphasize enough how wonderful that is in a 3rd world country when salads can be deadly to the digestive system.

Hassle and annoyance factor: 5/10 For the most part it’s avoidable, though there are a lot of beggars on the way to the mall. I was pickpocketed here for the first time in my life and people here associate “white” with “freebies” unfortunately. It’s illegal to give to beggars. My advice is, “Don’t do it.”

Rating: 7/10

“Hotel Rwanda” is all lies and other trivia

Gorgeous scenery

 

We went on a guided tour of Kigali today. Here are some facts:

1. Rwanda is the only country in the world with fewer males than females in Parliament.

2. Many Muslims helped to hide the (Catholic) Tutsis from the (Catholic) Hutus, quoting from the Koran: “To save one life is to save the whole world”

3. President Kagame has been president for 11 years. The tour guide says anyone can say they hate him, but no one wants to because he’s such a great president. Somehow I doubt that…not that he hasn’t done great things for the country, but that there aren’t people who don’t like him…The guy leading the tour was a Tutsi anyway.

4. It is easy to buy land and build a house here. You could get started in one day if you wanted to.

5. People harbor resentment towards the UN for leaving.

This is where the shootout occurred which killed the Belgium soldiers, causing the UN to leave

I think this is understandable for 2 reasons. One is that people stayed in Rwanda thinking they were safe because of the “blue hats”. Two is that the UN purposely avoided the word “genocide” in describing the events because international law says they have to intervene. President Clinton has said America’s response to this tragedy is the greatest regret of his presidency.

6. According to our guide, people here apparently hate Paul Ruessebagina. He’s never dared to come back to Rwanda after the movie Hotel Rwanda, which the tour guide says is 100% fiction. He told me to go and speak with the employees there, some of whom have worked there 20-30 years, and they would tell me the truth—that if Paul saved anyone, it was for money. He doesn’t seem to realize that the movie put Rwanda on the tourist map and without it, many people would never have even heard of the genocide.

The radio loudspeaker from which hate rhetoric used to spew

7. The 1994 genocide was not the first Rwandan genocide. People got along with each other just fine until the Belgians created divisions between them, made them carry identity cards, and introduced racism.

A mass grave at the genocide memorial

8. I don’t know how much I can trust what the tour guide said because he said that Rwandans did not have a propensity towards stealing. I told him the only time I have ever been stolen from personally was here in Kigali. He said it is because of the influx of other East Africans like Burundians and Kenyans. Malcolm X sure came across as Rwandan to me.

9. Tourism is Rwanda’s largest source of revenue.

10. I got my underground information about the government from a friend I made after volunteering at a Mother Teresa orphanage here. She has lived here for 4.5 years. If it weren’t for her suggestion, I would have no idea that there were any problems. Rwanda’s government is stable as far as African government’s go—it’s stable by force of the military.

 

It’s just not fully democratic yet. It feels safe—but one good thing about the US is, no one doubts that democracy is there to stay. Personally, I see great things for Rwanda on the horizon. I think it’s unlike any country in Africa. It’s clean, organized, and orderly. Education is now free. I’m grateful for how far they’ve come.

Nightmare

I had maybe the worst nightmare of my life shortly after arriving in Rwanda.

I don’t remember all of the details, but I remember that …

Jacob and I knew that we had to escape, now.

We got in the backseat of the car. My mom was driving. An armed guard pulled us over to look over Jacob’s papers. “Hey, these are fake—“ he started, so I yelled at my mom, “Go, go, go!” And we pealed out of there and drove to a hiding place where we hurriedly tried to pack, gather belongings, and escape. All my friends and family from home were there…

We got to an area where there was one checkpoint left and then we would be free. I was filled with relief because somehow I knew  there was going to be a happy ending to this story. Like all films should have. Even in my dream I was confident that we would survive…

As all my friends and family bustled about making the preparations, presumably to cross the border to freedom and safety, I walked into a deserted mobile home to use the restroom. Melissa, a neighbor from back home, came in as well. I was joking with her about how I almost forgot to zip up before leaving when she started screaming.

I turned to see countless soldiers running over the horizon. They began to slaughter everyone I knew. I didn’t watch. I urged Melissa to get down. My only thought was to pretend to be dead and wondered if there was ketchup around so that I could smear it on myself to fool them. I laid there, hoping they hadn’t seen Melissa screaming at the window, hoping she wouldn’t give us away now, hoping they would be fooled by my pretending if they opened the door. My mind was blank with fear. I wondered if it would hurt. My mind was not on my loved ones—there was no room for the thought. It was only consumed with fear of the immediate future.

Mercifully, I woke up, simultaneously chilled to the bone and sweating, and I thought: “I think I understand Rwandans a little better now.”

Only for them, of course, it was not a terrifying dream. It was reality.

I grew up learning about the Holocaust, “because it’s important to never let it happen again.” Little did I know, it had happened again, in Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia in the 70s, in Burundi, in the Congo, in Uganda, in places around the world…

and here in beautiful, misty, green, hilly Rwanda.

There’s an injustice there.

Let’s stop saying “never again” and instead acknowledge that it has happened again, and it will happen again, so long as there exists ignorance of commonalities and fear of differences in the human heart, and a government which exploits that ignorance and fear,  that mentality of Us versus Them.

Rwanda?!?!

Most people probably think we’re crazy for going to Rwanda. Anyone who has seen the movie “Hotel Rwanda” knows why. (The assassination of its president, the absolute breakdown of government, the exit of the UN, the mass genocide of 1 million people in 3 months.)

But that happened 17 years ago almost, a generation practically, and it’s one reason I was interested to visit.

The next is because Paul Rusesabagina gave a speech at BYU and I was very impressed by him.

We are also hoping that we will be able to do a gorilla safari, with Dian Fossey’s gorillas. (This depends if we can get the permit in time.)

Finally, it’s because my research showed it’s one of the safest countries in Africa. Safety in a country is actually of prime importance to me. Not only for obvious reasons, but also because as night owls we like to walk around when it’s late, and people in safe countries are generally much friendlier than those in crime-ridden ones.

Rwanda is the safest country in East Africa. I suppose it’s technically Central Africa here, but you hear about Kenya and South Africa as the countries most people visit—and these countries have extremely high rates of violent crime, muggings, and kidnappings. It baffles me; people wouldn’t hesitate to visit Buenos Aires, when I know of no person who has visited the city without being violently threatened, often with a weapon—yet, they wouldn’t dream of going to Rwanda because of its tragic history or Morocco because of fear of terrorism or China because it’s Communist. It’s all about what’s in vogue, I suppose—and Buenos Aires and South Africa are more comfortable/developed than Kigali, sure, but not safer.

Jacob and I base our choices on statistical likelihood of something happening. We’ve been very lucky so far, but honestly, America (outside of the suburbs) is a much more dangerous place than almost any place we travel because of its gun/drug/crime problems.

So, yes—Rwanda. It’s environmentally conscious: orderly, with clean streets, and plastic bags are illegal. It’s slightly boring, even. The downtown area consists of a few shops and one mall that’s nearly all foreign currency exchange booths (and one fantastic, huge, Walmart-style store where you will find every expat in town)

Basketball is Rwanda’s favorite sport, and Jacob has already trained their national team. Here he is getting phone numbers of some local players:

This is the extent of the tiny national gym.

 

That said, there are a few uncomfortable reminders of the past.

There are men with machine guns on every corner at night, and Hutus and Tutsis look so clearly different even I can differentiate between them. Hutus are shorter, squarer, darker. Tutsi women are thin and elegant, and Tutsi men are tall verging on gaunt.  And we see people constructing things with machetes, which gives a little shiver down my spine because that was the weapon of the genocide as well as the cause of Dian Fossey’s murder.