King's Palace

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Our 4Runner finally made the long journey from DC to Kigali in 4.5 months. We decided to do a day trip on Saturday to Nyanza. We got an early start on the day by leaving Kigali around 1:00PM. Shortly into our drive, we realized that we had skipped lunch and should try to find a place to eat. Consulting our (apparently outdated) guide book, we stopped at a local eatery which turned out to be a bar and it was unclear if they actually served food. We ordered cokes to hold us over while we continued South to Nyanza and our quest for food. In the next town, we stopped at another restaurant which turned out to be a bar (only to find out some time later that the restaurant was in the alley behind the building) where we ordered the only two food items we know how to say in French: brochettes and pomme frites (aka kabobs and french fries). We sat out on the porch which resulted in us being stared at by all the local people while we waited over an hour for our food.

At some point, Jennifer had to use the bathroom, and there didn't appear to be one inside the bar. So, she started wondering around the outside of the building and located the actual restaurant filled with staring men (culturally it is acceptable for Rwandans to stare) and located the female chef who directed her to the most disgusting bathroom ever (I hope we're good on our Hepatitis shots). The floor was wet and their was a tube of soapy water to use to flush the toilets, but Jenn just ran out without participating in that cultural experience preferring instead to use her American Purell. In our experiences traveling around the country, public toilets are extremely rare (and the ones that are make Alaskan outhouses look like the Hilton), and there are people all over the country side, so using the wilderness is a public affair.

Ironically when we arrived in Nyanza we did not have time to visit the cheddar cheese factory since our quest for food had taken so long earlier. We drove past many restaurants to visit the King's palace. The most recent King in Rwanda ruled in the 1950s and his palace has been converted into a museum. Next door to the museum is a traditional replica of an ancient King's palace. Rwandan kings were allowed to have many wives at their various palaces throughout the kingdom. At one point in history, the kingdom of Rwanda encompassed modern day Rwanda, Burundi, and parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Uganda. The traditional palace was surrounded by multiple, smaller huts that housed goods like milk, banana beer, mead, and family members. Oddly, the King's mother determined which of his wives would stay in his hut each evening. As we were leaving, a wedding party showed up to take photographs in the museum's beautiful gardens.

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