There was a time when Butare, in the south, was on track to become capital of a post-independence Rwanda. Home to the country’s first university, a busy center of intellectual life, it seemed as good a place as any to plant the roots of a new nation. It was, however, buried deep in the south, just a few miles from the border with Burundi, and in the end, Kigali was chosen because of its more favorable, geographically central location. Decades later, with development booming in Kigali, it’s easy to see how the two cities’ fortunes diverged. Butare is small, sluggish, provincial - a rough stretch of souvenir shops and guesthouses on the Kigali road, a handful of auto-part stores and dress shops scattered along a side road looping out toward the market. The drive into town
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