Blogs from Kigali, Ville de Kigali, Rwanda, Africa - page 10

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; even the steep hillsides are neatly terraced, and it’s hard to imagine how this crowded little country manages to sustain itself. There’s a congenial din in the back of the minibus, filled mostly with Ugandans visiting family across the border. ... read more

So... HOW IS RWANDA??!! That has been the most common question in our emails, and the answer is...AMAZING!! When we mentioned to a man in South Africa that this was where we were headed next, he said "Oh, well don't forget to bring your flak jackets!" - but nothing could be further from the truth! We knew enough to know that there wasn't a war going on, but still weren't too sure what to expect, and really, when we got off the plane, both of us were a little wierded out knowing what had happened here. We have both read Romeo Dallaire's "Shake Hands With The Devil", and had pretty vivid images of what it must have been like during the genocide. The reality however, is that the genocide happened 13 years ago ... and since ... read more

There are only two events likely to draw a bigger crowd than a Rwandan football match. The first, setting your house on fire, as observed recently should pull you in around 2 to 3,000, dependant on it’s location. Near the main road appears to be best. You’d think in a country where fetching and carrying water is the national pastime and where children are schooled in the art from birth, the chances of a experiencing a serious blaze would be small. Sadly not, as the merit of this event as a spectator sport seems to far outweigh that of neighbourly duty. In fact you’d be hard pushed to find anyone lifting a finger to help, even close family seem to have better things to do. I can only speculate that when you have to make so ... read more

Mzungu is the Swahili word for "white person" which East African urchins joyfully shout whenever they catch sight of a western traveller, hence I've felt like a minor celebrity ever since setting foot in the "Pearl of Africa", Winston Churchill's moniker for Uganda. Uganda is just how I'd invisaged 'Africa' since childhood: lush green vegetation everywhere, brown roads that disintegrate into quagmires after torrential downpours, people carrying a multitude of goods on their heads (no hands) and big toothy grins on the locals' faces. Ugandans and Rwandans are perhaps the friendliest people I've met in the last year - very refreshing after entountering swindlers at every street corner in Egypt - and distinctly polite in the pestering stakes; they tend to go about their business and leave you in peace, no hard sales techniques here.... After ... read more

After visiting Rwanda, it is almost impossible to believe that this is the very country which tore itself apart just 13 years ago. I arrived here with images of machetes, bullet-ridden corpses, intertribal warfare, and societal breakdown - instead, I arrived in an efficient and orderly country, where the people are quick with a smile and a greeting, and harmonious living is the order of the day. Now, forgive me for lapsing into teacher mode, but let me refresh you on the basics of Africa's worst genocide. Thanks to divisive rule by the Belgians, centuries of latent mistrust, various episodes of intertribal violence in the decades after independence, and a simmering civil war, by 1994 Rwanda was a country set to explode. Members of the majority Hutu tribe were just looking for an excuse to eliminate ... read more