I've a feeling we're not in Kampala anymore...

Take a guess as to where I was last Sunday around one a.m.

In bed?

Nope, I was boarding a bus headed for Rwanda! We decided a night bus would be the best option so that it would be morning when we arrived in Rwanda and we’d have all day to explore the city. I went with two of my friends who are here with the German Red Cross; Britta and Sophia. I couldn’t have asked for better people to travel with, we had a blast! Britta and I got to the bus station around 12:15 and were expecting Sophia at 12:30.  Well, 12:30 came and went and there was still no Sophia. Turns out the boda driver who was supposed to bring her had gotten a flat tire so she had to find another. Britta and I were trying to convince the driver of our bus to wait because she was on her way just as she pulled up! Relieved, we all boarded the bus and headed out of the city we currently call home. We tried sleeping on the way but had varying levels of success. We got to the border sometime in the early morning, maybe six? I was sleeping when Sophia woke me up saying we had to go, hurry up, you need your passport, and a bunch of other things that are not so relaxing to wake up to! We laughed about it later but I was so confused at the time as to what was going on! I soon learned why she was rushing me though; the line at the border was long and wasn’t moving very quickly! We made it through just fine though and then it was time for “no man’s land”. There was a stretch of road between Uganda and Rwanda that we had to walk across, maybe a five minute walk, and it was a bit eerie. It was early so it wasn’t very light out and the road is sort of in a valley so it was very foggy. I was informed during our walk across that if someone kills someone in no man’s land and then stays there they can never get in trouble. Comforting.

On the other side we had to go through some more lines then we got back on the bus that would take us to Kigali. We got to the taxi park in Kigali and that’s when I thought, “I've a feeling we're not in Kampala anymore…” The taxis were all parked in lines and there was actually room to walk between them. Everything was so neat and organized, it was a different world from the taxi parks in Uganda! The next shock came when we went to the road for bodas. In Kampala you can have two passengers on a boda and you don’t have to wear a helmet but in Rwanda there can only be one passenger and they have to wear a helmet. It may not sound like a big difference but after two months of riding around Kampala it was a big change. Britta wasn’t a big fan of the helmets…the drivers all carry an extra so you just have to wear whatever they give you and most of the time they’re pretty big. After the first ride Sophia was saying that she thought Britta was talking to the driver the whole ride because her head was moving around so much but it turns out the helmet just wouldn’t stay still! As we spent time in Kigali we noticed more and more differences between Rwanda and Uganda. One of the hardest to get used to was the fact that in Rwanda pedestrians have the right of way. We would be waiting to cross the street and cars would actually stop and wave us across. One time the boda I was on stopped to let someone cross and for a second I thought there must be something wrong with the bike because why else would we stop!? In Rwanda there are also dust bins everywhere which means there’s almost no trash on the streets. The only things you see on the ground are bottle caps and airtime cards. It may seem like Rwanda is a lot nicer than Uganda but to be honest I would still choose Kampala over Kigali any day!

Our first stop after arriving was to exchange our Ugandan shillings. After that we headed to a cute little café in the mall. We sat outside and ordered coffee and breakfast. We all looked exhausted but somehow we felt pretty good! We had quite a time trying to figure out how much we had spent on breakfast in shillings…it had obviously been a while since any of us had done a simple math problem!  When we finally figured it out we were really surprised at how expensive it was. That became a common experience for the rest of the trip…Rwanda is just a very expensive country compared to Uganda. For a while it kind of put a damper on things because we were concerned about spending too much but finally we realized there was nothing we could do about it so we just relaxed!

We got a room at a guesthouse pretty near the center of the city and we all loved it! There was a little porch with a table and chairs, a very small living room with a couch, chairs, and a tv, a big bedroom, and then some stairs that led up to our bathroom. It was perfect for the three of us! We rested for a while and cleaned up then we went to the Genocide Memorial. It was something I really wasn’t prepared for. I can’t figure out why but the genocide in Rwanda is something I’ve never learned much about in school. The memorial took over an hour to go through and gave a lot of information about the history leading up to the genocide as well as what happened during and after. I found that I couldn’t wrap my mind around what had happened. One of the craziest things about it is that it wasn’t even that long ago. All of the people we pass on the street or talk to in the restaurants experienced it and have somehow managed to continue their lives. The people of Rwanda must have an incredible strength to be where they are today. 

            The mood was heavy after the memorial as we were all trying to process everything. We decided to go across the city for dinner at a place recommended in the guidebook Sophia had and I think the long boda ride was needed, we all needed time to think. We were able to lighten the mood at the restaurant but I know that I’ll never forget what the people of Rwanda had to go through. I don’t remember the name of the restaurant but each table had its own little bungalow/porch area and the food was great! The view of the city was amazing too and since we were there past dark we got to see what it looked like all lit up! Rwanda is even hillier than Uganda so we could see all these hills covered with lights that seemed to be dancing, it was so beautiful. Our plan was to go back to our room and watch a movie but while we were trying to decide which one to watch we realized none of us would be able to stay awake for it anyways so we just went to bed!

Tuesday morning we were all up before the alarm since we had gone to sleep so early. We had breakfast at the guesthouse then hired a taxi for the day. We wanted to see two commonly visited memorial sites outside of Kigali and taking bodas would have been too expensive. The first site we visited had been a church that over four thousand people hid in during the genocide. The people thought they would be safe in churches since churches had been safe places in earlier years during other attacks. Just looking at the building was upsetting; the brick building had obvious signs of an attack in places where bullets or grenades had hit. Inside the church the clothes of all the victims were piled on the seats. Not only were there four thousand people inside the church but there were over ten thousand in the area around the building who had wanted to get in but couldn’t find the space. I thought that seeing all the clothing was overwhelming but then the guide took us outside. Two mass graves had been constructed as a resting place for those who had lost their lives in and around the church. One of the graves has been left open so that the genocide could never be denied. There are stairs leading down into it with a narrow aisle lined on each side be more human skulls than I could count. I’m not even going to try to put into words the thoughts and feelings that came over me as I literally stood among the victims of the genocide.

The second memorial site was also a church and was similar to the first in many ways. One of the things that this site highlighted was that the people really believed they would be ok. They had brought with them suitcases of belongings and enough food to last a week or so thinking that after hiding in the church for some time they would be able to return home. There were even school books that had been brought by the children since it was near to exam time when the genocide occurred. Our guide told us they brought them to study so they would be prepared for their exams. We had enough courage at the second site to ask our guide about his personal account of the genocide and he willingly told us his story. We sat in the memorial garden as he talked with us about where he had spent time hiding and what had happened to his family. He also talked about the need for forgiveness in order to move on. He said any retaliation would make him as bad as the people who killed his family. Hearing his story made everything even more personal and I’m so thankful he was willing to share. He ended up showing us pictures of his wife and his new son who is almost two years old, a beautiful example of the strength I mentioned earlier.

Once we were back in Kigali we visited the Hotel Des Milles Collines. It’s the hotel that was made famous by the movie Hotel Rwanda.

As we were unwinding from the memorial sites we decided to try and do some shopping around Kigali. We figured there must be somewhere that prices are lower so we set out in search of such a place. At one point we thought we’d hit gold when we entered an area that looked an awful lot like the Owino Market in Kampala (a huge secondhand market where the prices are super low) but soon enough we realized the venders still wanted way too much money for everything. Discouraged, we headed further down the street but found the same thing in every shop we went in. In the end we hit up a supermarket and bought some chocolate…success!

On Wednesday we got a taxi across Rwanda to a little town called Gisyeni. It’s right on Lake Kivu and it’s a beautiful little town. We were the first ones in the taxi so we sat in the back row. When we finally hit the road the driver turned some music on and to our pleasant surprise it was something we all knew and liked. We all started singing...quietly at first, but it was such a good song so eventually we were really singing and dancing to it and then we realized that nearly everyone in the taxi was turned around staring at us. We were just three mizungos having our own little party in the back, they must have thought we were crazy! We definitely had a blast though. =]

About an hour away from Gisyeni the taxi stopped and we decided to get off because someone had too much tea at breakfast and really needed to find a bathroom (oops!). We thought it would be easy to find another taxi or bus to take us the rest of the way but for the next half hour I felt like I was on The Amazing Race! We kept going from one bus or taxi to the next and they were either full or leaving in three hours or going to the wrong place. We wound up in a very full taxi but made it to Gisyeni soon enough.

Once in Gisyeni Sophia had a plan: Serena Hotel.

Enough said?

There are multiple Serena Hotels around East Africa and they are very fancy. There’s no way we could ever afford to spend the night at the Serena but that didn’t mean we couldn’t spend the day there! We got our swim suits and headed for the Serena. We spent the day lying on the beach, it was fantastic! We ordered lattes (it was getting to be evening so a hot drink was perfect) took lots of pictures, and had fun watching people on jet-skis out in the lake. Once it got to be dark out we headed for the pool. We swam for a bit but the water was pretty cold so we changed back to our normal clothes and got a table at the hotel restaurant. We took our time ordering because we wanted to spend as much time there as possible! Since they’re both from Germany and I’m obviously not our conversation was all about cultural differences between the two places. It was really interesting and pretty hilarious at times. We even talked about German and American names…apparently Michelle isn’t a very good name in Germany, who knew?! Another thing we talked about was how I kept calling our trip vacation and they kept calling it holiday. We were trying to figure out if there was a difference or not and eventually I decided it sounds a lot cooler to call it a holiday so I’ve been saying that instead! I really love that I’ve been able to learn so much about not only Ugandan culture but German culture as well!

That night once we finally stopped pretending we were guests at the Serena we went back to our guesthouse and watched Sometimes in April, a movie about the genocide. The next day was our last day in Rwanda. We made the trip across the country back to Kigali (no “Amazing Race” adventures this time!). We had planned on eating at a place some other AIM girls told us about called Heaven but when we got there it was closed. Imagine that, we couldn’t get into heaven! The gatekeeper told us about another place called The New Cactus so we went there instead. It was the last thing we were going to spend money on so we went all out. We each ordered a small pizza…I ordered one called the Africana; it had bacon, pineapple, and banana! I really wasn’t sure if I would like it or not but it turned out to be delicious! While we were eating our pizza we were looking over the menu and noticed frog legs. There was only a moment of hesitation before we called the waiter over and ordered them. Sophia and I had always wanted to try them…Britta not so much. When they came they looked so gross but thankfully they tasted great. They really do taste like chicken (maybe fishy chicken...) but there was a ton of garlic on them so that heped. Sophia and I really liked them but once Britta thought about the fact that she was eating a frog she couldn’t do it. I think the staff at the restaurant got quite a kick out of our excitement and disgust over the frog legs!

After lunch it was time to go to the taxi park to catch our bus home. Britta bought a bottle of water and soon realized it was leaking out the bottom. I swear she should be my dad’s daughter…instead of complaining about it she decided to make a game of it and squirt water on strangers without them knowing where it came from! She made me think she should be related to my dad again later when we were at the border and she started singing “I’m so excited….and I think I like it”!

We made it back to Kampala around four a.m.  We all really loved the “holiday” but we were so happy to be back in Kampala. There’s just something about this place…