Travel Blog | About TravelBlog | World Facts | Travel Wallpaper | Travel Forum | Travel Insurance | Services | Cameras

Rwanda Travel Blogs

Background: In 1959, three years before independence from Belgium, the majority ethnic group, the Hutus, overthrew the ruling Tutsi king. Over the next several years, thousands of Tutsis were killed, and some 150,000 driven into exile in neighboring countries. The children of these exiles later formed a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and began a civil war in 1990. The war, along with several political and economic upheavals, exacerbated ethnic tensions, culminating in April 1994 in the genocide of roughly 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The Tutsi rebels defeated the Hutu regime and ended the killing in July 1994, but approximately 2 million Hutu refugees - many fearing Tutsi retribution - fled to neighboring Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and the former Zaire. Since then, most of the refugees have returned to Rwanda, but about 10,000 that remain in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo have formed an extremist insurgency bent on retaking Rwanda, much as the RPF tried in 1990. Despite substantial international assistance and political reforms - including Rwanda's first local elections in March 1999 and its first post-genocide presidential and legislative elections in August and September 2003, respectively - the country continues to struggle to boost investment and agricultural output, and ethnic reconciliation is complicated by the real and perceived Tutsi political dominance. Kigali's increasing centralization and intolerance of dissent, the nagging Hutu extremist insurgency across the border, and Rwandan involvement in two wars in recent years in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to hinder Rwanda's efforts to escape its bloody legacy.




Links: Rwanda Travel Blogs (all) | Rwanda Travel Photos | Rwanda Travel Forum | Hotels in Rwanda | Hostels in Rwanda | Cheap flights to Rwanda | Rwanda Facts | Map of Rwanda

Rwanda

Rwanda Location



Hostels in Rwanda
Latest Rwanda Blog Entries
Rwanda Photos











I’ve hooked up with an American staying at the auberge - a PhD student researching her dissertation on gender and post-genocide justice in Rwanda. Having put in time at the genocide tribunal in Arusha - and planning to spend the next month interviewing survivors around the country - Jenna proves to be good company for a few days around Kigali. She tells me about the Kagame government’s strict control of the genocide narrative, about the journalists and aid workers who have been unceremoniously booted from the country for asking the wrong people the wrong questions. There’s a [View Full Entry]

PostcardJunkie - Christopher Vourlias | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
1635 Words | 1 Comment(s) | 11 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: April 24th 2008 | 231 Views | [diary=269623]

Crucifix with rosary
Burnt poster
Ntamara

If you’ve come to Rwanda for anything other than gorillas, your first days are bewildering, full of contradiction. Western knowledge about this country begins and ends with the genocide, yet it’s been almost fourteen years since that terrible chapter in Rwanda’s past was written. President Kagame - despite certain authoritarian tendencies, or perhaps because of them - has helped this country rebuild in ways that most people would’ve considered unimaginable just five years ago. In the past decade, Rwanda’s boasted one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies. Ki [View Full Entry]

PostcardJunkie - Christopher Vourlias | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
1707 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 6 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: April 29th 2008 | 87 Views | [diary=271165]

Kigali.
Stained glass, Gisozi Memorial
Africa's a mess

Most of March was spent setting up my life in Rwanda - buying a cell phone, bed and mattress, kitchen stuff, putting up the bathroom curtains, and of course celebrating in style. I live with three other young women in a house at the top of one of the thousand hills of Kigali. We have a beautiful porch, which also doubles as my kitchen table, living room and dinning room (i.e. I sit on my behind at the top of the stairs to eat and hang with the gals!) This porch is also redeems the house! It has a fantastic view [View Full Entry]

tash wallace - Natasha | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
177 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 8 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: April 29th 2008 | 194 Views | [diary=271223]

Check out my cell phone!
Testing out our mattresses
shower curtain

It’s a short, easy crossing at the border - the guards, grinning and bashful, pump my hand and welcome me to Rwanda - and the drive to Kigali is long, cramped, scenic. The road winds along a lush valley carved by tea plantations and lined by eucalyptus trees. Villagers stoop in the afternoon heat, plucking tea leaves from the low branches. Women with colorful headscarves walk single-file down dirt paths, propping bright parasols against their shoulders. We pass through small, scruffy villages and fields being worked by bare-chested men with spades. The country is intensely cultivated; ev [View Full Entry]

PostcardJunkie - Christopher Vourlias | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
2764 Words | 3 Comment(s) | 8 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: April 16th 2008 | 339 Views | [diary=267005]

Auberge la Caverne
Pan Afrique
View

After catching my connecting flight in Addis Abba, I finally arrived in Kigali just after noon. After breathing a sigh of relief at the arrival of my lugguage, I was greeted by two other interns, Marissa and Ally! I was able to eat, take a shower and settle down at the guest house, where I stayed until moving into my house. A few hours later I was zipping on the back of a "moto" heading to the UK embassy's weekly pub night and then having dinner out in a beautiful backyard of one the many restaurants. Less than 24 hours in [View Full Entry]

tash wallace - Natasha | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
367 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 6 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: April 29th 2008 | 76 Views | [diary=271212]

Mariss on the moto
First time on moto
posing on moto

De sidste 3 dage har jeg tilbragt i Rwanda med Jamal. Vi havde en super go tur, selvom jeg dog naesten ikke var kommet ind over graensen. Vi havde koert hele natten og blev forvildede smidt ud af bussen kl 7 om morgenen for at faa visum ved graensen. Naar man er fra Uganda gaar man bare lige ind over graensen (ligesom naar en dansker tager til fx Sverige) men naar man er dansker er det altsaa ikke saa nemt. En "graensemand" forklarede hvordan alle canadiere skulle have et saerligt papir, og da jeg fortalte at jeg altsaa kom fra danmark [View Full Entry]

Kimse - Kimie Sletved | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
713 Words | 1 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: February 20th 2008 | 50 Views | [diary=248314]


By Kimse
February 15th 2008
Kimie - nu i Rwanda Africa » Rwanda » Ville de Kigali » Kigali
Den forgangne uge har vi faktisk ikke lavet ret meget... Det har vaeret dejligt.. I sku proeve det derhjemme.. Vi har slikket sol og hoert musik og faaet en ny veninde (fra Kina, der bor i USA) der hedder Shelley. Og saa haenger vi fortsat ud med stjernerne.. Nogle af os mere end andre.. hmm.. Jamal har en masse familie i Rwanda, og en producer der arbejder gratis osv, saa han skulle et smut til Kigali (hovedstaden). Og der saa jeg saa mit snit til at tage med. Vi koerer kl 2 i nat og er saa fremme ved 10-12 tiden [View Full Entry]

Kimse - Kimie Sletved | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
227 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: February 15th 2008 | 66 Views | [diary=246594]


I came to Rwanda with relatively little knowledge and even less expectations about the place. I knew there had been a recent genocide, I knew there were some gorillas hanging about somewhere, and I knew very little else. But now I’m a little more educated. Rwanda is obviously synonymous with the 1994 genocide. Up to 1.5 million of their people were massacred during a few months of immense bloodshed. Since that tragic scar the nation has progressed at an unbelieveable rate. They do not pretend it never happened and openly face up to the stigma. In 1998, president Kigame took charge, [View Full Entry]

Toolman - Tim Taylor | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
2442 Words | 2 Comment(s) | 10 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: March 14th 2008 | 402 Views | [diary=245119]

Cutting our way through the jungle
Tracking the Susa gorillas
The Susa kids

Well, we have been back from Tanzania and Rwanda for little over a week now and are slowly assimilating everything we saw and did. I know I keep using words like amazing and stunning but that is what the whole trip was - an amazing experience - and I don’t think we will ever look at the world in quite the same way. Hopefully these memories will stay with us for a long time. It seems hard for us, in our society, to comprehend how people can have so little and yet be so happy, Children in Tanzania and Rwanda have [View Full Entry]

HitTheRoadJack - Diana and Don | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
747 Words | 1 Comment(s) | 7 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: February 25th 2008 | 131 Views | [diary=249390]

Just hanging out
I'm watching you
The only way to travel

Hiya, Have just got back to Kampala in Uganda. What an awesome last 3 days we've had. First the 12 hour drive to Rwanda. A crazy but beautiful place of french-speaking Africans, driving on the right side of the road and Francs. Went to Kigali )The capital and went to the Rwandan Genocide Museum, a very sobering experience. The next day we trekked the Gorillas - awesome 4-5m away from them (inc the Silverback) for 1 hour. Just got back to Uganda after 15 hours driving including a breakdown. Its 11.45pm and this place is closing so i better go. Whitewater [View Full Entry]

Brendan and Brooke - Brendan Bow | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
104 Words | 1 Comment(s) | 5 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: January 27th 2008 | 126 Views | [diary=240077]

our gorilla group
silverback
mum and baby