First Day in Rwanda

Despite my fascination with airports, the 29 hour door-to-door journey from downtown Toronto to downtown Kigali could hardly be described as fun.  While I do have a unique fascination with airports, spending as much time as I did on uncomfortable airplane seats, eating food that would be rejected by high-security inmates, was an unpleasant experience to say the least.   Nonetheless, a small sacrifice to make for an opportunity like this.

Finally, after surviving some discomfort and enduring an unintentional fast, we touched down on African soil at 9:30 PM local time.  Stepping off the plane onto the runway, the temperature in the air felt amazing.  Having spent the last couple months partway through an unusually cold Canadian winter -- ok, it's usually cold but this one was colder than usual -- the 16 degree Celsius nighttime weather felt amazing.  Furthermore, the air had that crisp, tropical feel, that I've experienced only a couple times on trips to Cuba

After sorting out our customs forms and retrieving our bags, we were introduced to our driver, Emmy.  Emmy is more than just our driver - he has been a longtime friend of my mother's since she started making these annual trips 5 years ago.  My mother had spoken a great deal of Emmy before my arrival in Kigali, and their fondness for each other was confirmed when Emmy greeted my mother with a big hug and said "Hello Mum!!!"  It turns out that a lot of the young people in Rwanda know and recognize my mother by now and also think of her as their own mother.

As we drove from the airport towards our apartment, Emmy pointed out a lot of the important landmarks along the way: the area where everyone takes their wedding pictures on the weekends, the major supermarket, the hotel whose fitness centre I will be using as my gym, major bars and restaurants, etc.  The streets were vibrant and busy (it was Saturday night after all), and people were walking down the street in throngs, apparently most of them headed to watch the Manchester United game on TV.  While many of the bars and shops along the way were small huts or shacks, there were several fairly large modern buildings, often banks, hotels, or supermarkets.  Apparently there has been much progress in recent years, as the paved roads we were driving on were mostly dirt roads just 5 years ago.

We finally arrived at the apartment that will be my home for the next 18 days.  Situated in the Nyamirambo neighbourhood, the apartment is attended to by a guard 24/7, though the area (and the whole country from the sounds of things) is actually quite safe.  The apartment is of reasonable size, though many of the amenities one would take for granted in the Western world either don't exist or don't work perfectly.  The shower will sometimes run out of either hot or cold water, the fridge is not particularly cold, and the stove and oven don't appear to work at all.  Nonetheless, the apartment is quite nice, and the kitchen offers a beautiful view of a portion of Kigali.

After dropping my stuff off, I asked Emmy if he'd like to go for a beer at one of the local bars.  Despite not being a big drinker, he agreed, and we went for an 18 second walk to a bar across the street.  I was interested to see what my reception would be stepping into this bar.  I clearly stood out, as the only white person in a bar of 80 or 90 people.  In nearly all of my past experiences walking into an area where I noticeably stand out racially or culturally, I've noticed a fair amount of wandering eyes.  Heck, even a recent trip to a small town restaurant in rural Nova Scotia produced a plethora of confused onlookers, apparently not used to seeing anyone but their own townspeople populating their favourite eatery.  Surprisingly, nobody even seemed to notice I was there.  I wouldn't have even been too surprised by this reaction (or lack thereof) if I was in a touristy part of town, but Nyamirambo is a decidedly local neighbourhood.

I asked Emmy about it, and he explained to me that in Rwanda, everyone treats each other equally and with respect.  He further explained that, due to Rwanda's bad international image caused by the 1994 genocide (I'll get into this later), Rwandans are particularly respectful of foreigners.  Most of the people in the bar --including the bartenders-- spoke fairly poor English, so it was difficult to communicate with them, and I mostly just chatted with Emmy about the local culture.  Emmy continued to explain that Rwandans are very peaceful people and that there is almost no violent crime in the country.

In a somewhat dramatic bout of irony, about 5 minutes later, a bar brawl broke out, apparently between an upset WestHam United supporter and an overly celebratory Manchester supporter, shortly after Manchester tied the game at 2-2.  Myself, Emmy, and many others, backed away from the scene as the two guys duked it out.  Emmy explained to me that this was the only time he had seen such a thing happen in Rwanda, and assured me that the situation would dissipate quickly.  While I certainly believe this was the first time he'd seen something like that, Emmy also admitted he wasn't a big drinker.  In my eyes, occasional bar fights are inevitable almost anywhere in the world, and I certainly wasn't about to make any assumptions about Rwanda from a sample size of 1.

As Emmy expected, the fighting stopped fairly quickly, but what ensued for the next twenty minutes or so was a discussion between one of the culprits and the bar-owner, who apparently wanted to ban the guilty party from the bar for life.  I'm not sure exactly how the discussion ended, but I do know that the violence only lasted about 20 seconds.  

Hungry from the scarce in-plane food options, I ordered several local delicacies - goat kebabs and a fried banana dessert dish.  Both were unbelievably tasty.  I can't recall ever eating goat meat before, but apparently it is a feature dish in Rwanda.  After a few more minutes of talking about Rwanda with Emmy, I started feeling tired, and decided it was time to pack it in for the night.  The total bill for 2 beers (one for each of us), 4 goat kebabs, and 4 slices of fried banana was 3,800 RWF (or about $6 CDN/USD).  Those are prices I can get used to.

I didn't get a great sleep, and ended up waking up at 4 AM the following morning.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that wireless internet was working in the apartment (although it did not last).  I surfed the web for a little bit until my mom woke up a couple of hours later.  We headed to the Serena Hotel for breakfast, where we would meet my mom's colleague Faye, and her husband Drew.  Upon arriving at the hotel, we went to the fitness centre, where I signed up for my monthly gym membership: a steep $200.  This puts me to a total of $350 in gym memberships for the month - as I also have concurrent memberships going in my current home city of Toronto and my backup home city of Halifax - slight overkill.  

Nonetheless the $200 is money well spent as the facilities are state of the art (the Serena is the best hotel in Kigali), and I will also be able to have proper showers here every day.  The Serena is also a good place to catch up on emails, blog, and surf the internet, as the internet in my apartment is proving to be dicey and unreliable.  Over the coming weeks, I plan on using the gym at the Serena almost every day, as I want to improve my cardio fitness and leg strength in anticipation of Kilimanjaro.

We met Faye and Drew, a very nice couple from Atlanta.  Faye, like my mother, is an anaesthesiologist, and Drew owns several business, and is heavily involved with options trading in the natural gas industry.  After a very pleasant brunch - complete with "tree tomato juice" - a delicious, but extremely strong, fruit juice offering - we did a few errands and then headed to the apartment to drop off Faye and my mother for a little bit.

Emmy and I  - Faye had rented Emmy as a driver for the day - headed to the orphanage where I will be starting my volunteer work in just a few hours.  Unfortunately, the head of the orphanage was not there, as it was Sunday, but I did get to meet many of the kids.  Some of them spoke some English but many appeared very shy.  However, when I said the word football (alluding to the soccer balls I was going to bring to the orphanage the next day), many of them perked up, and it was clear that they enjoyed their sports.  

After saying goodbye to the smiling kids, Emmy and I returned to the apartment to pick up Faye and Drew, and the four of us headed to the National Genocide memorial musem, in another part of Kigali.  I had been educated a little bit about the genocide before arriving in Rwanda - I knew that it took place in 1994 and that it was a horrendous racially sparked genocide that took the lives of 1 million people.  Emmy had also talked to me a little bit about the genocide, explaining that even talking about Hutus or Tutsis (the two competing tribes during the genocide) is a very serious offence in Rwanda, punishable by up to 5 years in prison.  He explained that these measures are necessary to keep peace in the region, and to ensure that going forward, Rwandans see each other only as fellow Rwandans.

The museum was an eye-opening, and somewhat chilling experience.  I learned that for many decades, the Tutsis were the ruling tribe, despite only being about 17% of the population.  They had most of the land and were dominant in the government of the country.  As time went on, the Hutus became more and more unhappy with the situation, and led by Juvenal Habyamarina, began using force in an attempt to overtake the Tutsi power.  By April of 1994, a full scale genocide had begun. 

One disturbing fact I learned was that several European countries played a role in the genocide - the Belgians, who were the original colonizers of Rwanda, and who stressed the differences between the two tribes, and the French, who were allies of the Hut, and provided them with much of the financial backing that was necessary to carry forth an attack of that scale.  In addition, both the United Nations and the United States Army were fairly unresponsive to calls for support, until about 3 months after the genocide began, and 1 million innocent lives had been taken.  One of the most horrifying things I learned was that even children were often mutilated and killed slowly.

There was one final section in the museum dedicated to other major genocides in the last century.  The most well known one is of course Nazi germany, which was also the longest and produced the most fatalities.  There have also been genocides of over 1 million people in Namibia, Cambodia, and Armenia.  While I'm glad I went to the museum, it was definitely a chilling reminder of how powerful evil forces can be.  Many of the people who participated in these genocides were only doing so because not participating would risk their own lives.

Upon exiting the genocide museum, we headed to a downtown hotel for lunch - the hotel that was apparently used in the filming of Hotel Rwanda.  Over a delicious buffet, I talked with Drew a bit about what he did for a living -- basically using calculus and other advanced math to predict patterns in stock options -- and explained to him what it means to be a professional poker player.  Sometimes I hesitate to talk much about poker because people either come in with a judgmental attitude and are unwilling to listen, or ask a bunch of stupid questions, but Drew asked good questions, and it was interesting to compare our different ways of life.

We did a little more grocery shopping, and then I ended up passing out early at 6PM, having woken up so early that day.  Today, I head to the orphanage for my first day fo volunteering.  I have very little idea what to expect, but I'm bringing with me two soccer balls, a basketball, two tennis rackets and tennis balls, and four chess sets.  We shall see what gets used!

Alex