7th Dec 2019 – Rwanda

Rwanda is probably not the first destination that springs to mind when it comes to planning a honeymoon – but what an incredible start to our adventures it has proven to be!

After two flights and an overnight stay near the airport in Nairobi, we arrived in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. On the way, we met a lovely American lady (Helen) on the plane who was visiting her son (a diplomat) and grandchildren in Nairobi. En route to Rwanda we also met an interesting trio of Texan pastors.

Kigali is an incredibly cosmopolitan, lusciously green, hilly, chilled out city. It is apparently a genuine contender as the safest city in Africa. It really is almost impossible to think that this city and country is the site of the horrific events of the 1994 genocide (separate blog post to come on this!).

In all we had 3 incredibly enriching and fun days in and around Kigali, staying in the “Discover Rwanda” hostel, situated in the very leafy, well to do Kimihurura area of town. You could easily be mistaken for thinking you were in California or some of the fanciest parts of Athens here with its tree lined, peaceful cobbled streets and deluge of high-end eateries and bars of all sorts of cuisines (French, Thai, Japanese etc.). There was even a “Hellenique Club” nearby… although we did not venture in!

On our first day we simply crashed. After an absolutely manic few weeks build up to our trip, both on the work and planning / packing front, it was somewhat inevitable. We just about managed a trip to the centre of town after a nap, where we enjoyed a banana smoothie and Belgian beer (Mutzig) at the Hotel des Milles Colines – a luxury hotel enshrined in the film, Hotel Rwanda, before enjoying a traditional Rwandese buffet at the shamelessly named “Fantastic Restaurant” (a fairly balanced and tasty mix of green banana, ougali – mash made from powsered maize, green beans, soya beans, goat, and of course, chips).

We met three superb people at the hostel – Sam from Bishop Auckland – the de facto “boss” who works for Aegis (a UK based conflict prevention organisation that also runs the National Genocide Memorial in Kigali, who have recently bought the hostel); Fergus – also from London and spending some time on R&R in Kigali in between stints in the field in DRC, where he is incredibly researching conservation in conflict zones; and Aly, an American girl who is researching food security and recently came over from Madagaskar. All incredible people who we ended up having great conversations about anything from the state of UK politics and Brexit, learning about the DRC and Madagaskar etc.

Day 2 was somewhat more productive where we managed to book ourselves onto a Millennium Village tour to see some of the country’s development and reconciliation efforts in action. We next visited the National Genocide Memorial – an incredibly harrowing and powerful experience laid out in a thoughtful and provocative way. The beginning and end videos focused on two victims who married after the genocide, and a room focused on stories of children who died in the genocide were particularly moving. It was nice to experience the memorial with a real diversity of local/ international visitors, including a group of African transgender women.

On day 3 we went on a “Millennium village” excursion alongside Aly, our guide Angel and driver Joseph. Both were Tutsis and had been impacted by ethnic violence / the genocide. Joseph emigrated to Uganda in 1959 to escape the violence, only to return after the genocide, while Angel was born after the genocide but lost numerous relatives. It was a great excursion where we got a better sense of rural life in Rwanda, albeit in one of the flagship / show villages that had been the beneficiary of vast amounts of international aid as part of the Milennium Development villages programme.

We visited an awesome 73 year old farmer-boss lady who fed us delicious bananas and mango from her crop and boasted (justifiably) about how young and healthy she looked for her age. We also visited a womens cooperative where we had a go at basket weaving and were given very cute “peace baskets” as gifts. Finally, we heard testimonies of both a victim and perpetrator who were now living as neighbours in the “reconciliation village” of Mayange in the Bugasera area. While the personal stories were both moving and shocking, their testimonies included what felt like well-rehearsed praises for the “good government” under the supervision of the village chief. There is no doubt that the atrocities committed in 1994 were beyond barbaric and abhorrent, or even that Rwanda has come a seriously long way since both in terms development and reconciliation. This was clearly only one side of the story though and there was certainly a sense of history being written by the victors (with the Tutsi RPF forces putting an end to the genocide and taking over government in 1994).